Dunston Falls Read online

  “Then what?” Bender said, his eyes following Peck’s gaze.

  “Let’s find out what,” Peck said.

  They walked to the stairs and climbed to the top. Bender peered through a dark window, then shrugged at Peck. “Nothing,” Bender said. Peck looked at Bender, then knocked on the door and it slowly swung open.

  “Shit,” Bender whispered.

  Peck pulled the flashlight from his belt and Bender did the same. Peck stepped inside, followed by Bender.

  “It’s freezing in here,” Bender whispered, able to see his own breath.

  “Take the first floor,” Peck said. “Yell if you find anything.”

  Bender nodded and moved toward the kitchen. Peck walked to the stairs and climbed to the second floor. “Deb, it’s Dave. Are you in here?”

  Peck’s request went unanswered. He reached the second floor where he paused for a moment to scan the flashlight around the hallway. At the top of the landing, against the wall Peck remembered a small table where a second phone rested. The table was sideways on the floor. The phone was halfway across the hallway.

  Peck shifted the flashlight to his left hand and drew his revolver. He approached the master bedroom where the door was halfway open. “Deb, are you in there?”

  The silence was unsettling as Peck pushed the bedroom door completely open. Entering the bedroom, Peck swung the flashlight around the room, where end tables were overturned. A wood chair was broken and clothing littered the floor.

  Peck aimed the flashlight on the bed. He dropped the flashlight and revolver to the floor and grabbed his head in his hands. The room was suddenly spinning around him. “Oh God…..oh no…..oh God….oh no,” he screamed.

  Bender was suddenly in the bedroom, breathing hard from running. “Dave, what is….Jesus Mary, mother of God.”

  With the hum of the generator as background noise, Peck, Kranston, Bender and Father Regan sat at the kitchen table and drank coffee, while they waited for Doctor McCoy to complete his examination. McCoy had been at it for nearly thirty minutes and that span of time seemed an endless eternity. Every so often, they could hear a creak in a floorboard as McCoy walked around the master bedroom. The sound was unnerving.

  Peck lit a cigarette, his fourth in a row, and then took a sip of coffee.

  Kranston cleared his throat as he looked at Peck. “Dave, I…… don’t know what to say. You were right all along. I can’t believe this has happened. I’ve known Deb……I can’t believe this has happened.”

  Peck remained silent and took another sip of coffee. Above his head, the floorboard creaked.

  Regan removed rosary beads from a pocket and clutched them tightly between his fingers. Peck glanced at the priest and saw Regan’s lips move in silent prayer.

  Peck turned to Bender. “When you went for McCoy, did you try the state police like I asked you to?”

  “For a half hour,” Bender said. “All I could raise was static.”

  “Try again when we get back.”

  Bender nodded his head. “The roads are drivable. I could try making the trip.”

  “If we get no response,” Peck agreed.

  Kranston looked at Peck. “I take responsibility for this, Dave. If I hadn’t been so stubborn about making the news public, Deb would still be alive.”

  Peck shook his head. “You don’t know that. Nobody does. The man who killed her is responsible and only that man.”

  “If I listened to you, if we warned people of…...”

  McCoy’s footsteps drew their attention and all heads turned to the staircase. McCoy descended and walked to the kitchen table. His face was ashen, drained of any color and appeared to have aged ten years. He quietly sat down next to Peck.

  “Doctor?” Peck said when McCoy remained quiet.

  “You were right, Dave. I’m sorry,” McCoy said. “This should not have happened. It was preventable.” He looked at Peck. “We should have listened to you.”

  “It was the same man, wasn’t it?” Peck said.

  “I’m a country doctor, Dave.”

  “But you are a doctor.”

  “Yes, I am a doctor, which doesn’t qualify me as a forensics expert.”

  “But as a doctor,” Peck insisted.

  McCoy looked at Peck. “There is little doubt that both women were killed by the same man. The angle of the stab wounds, the knots in the ropes.”

  “Thank you,” Peck said. He looked at Father Regan. “If you’re ready, I’ll walk up with you, father.”

  The priest looked at Peck through red eyes filled with pain, and then stood up.

  Peck stood up and joined Regan. Together, they slowly ascended the stairs to the second floor. At the bedroom, Regan cautiously entered, then made a sound that could only be described as anguish at the sight of Deb Robertson’s body.

  In a fashion similar to Doris White, Deb Robertson was spread eagle on the bed, bound to the bedposts with rope. A dozen knife wounds were visible in her chest. Red impressions on her neck were so deep finger markings were visible. Dried blood stained the sheets and the floor near the bed and appeared quite black.

  Regan turned to Peck and tears filled the priest’s eyes. “How can people do this to other people? Why?”

  Peck did not respond and watched Regan at the priest moved to the bed where he began to recite the sacrament of last rites.

  Peck watched the priest for as long as he could stand it, then turned away and waited in the hallway. Regan began to pray, first in English and then in Latin. Peck closed his eyes and tried to drown out the priest’s voice.

  Seated on the sofa in the living room, Regan openly wept into his hands. Peck placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring, gentle squeeze before he went to the kitchen and looked at Jay. “Take everybody back, then put chains on the ambulance and return with the doctor.”

  “That could take a while,” Bender said. “A couple of hours.”

  Peck looked at Bender. “She isn’t going anywhere.”

  Alone on the sofa, the house was cold and silent. The generator had run out of gas and candles burned for light. For something to do, Peck went around back, filled the generator from a gas can and pulled the start cord. The generator fired to life. He stood there for several minutes, staring at the generator, listening to its deafening, gas powered engine, delaying the enviable of reentering the house.

  Finally returning to the living room, Peck clicked on the lights. On the sofa was a large, black carrying case. Picking up the case, Peck went upstairs to the master bedroom where he set the case aside and slipped on a pair of rubber gloves.

  Walking slowly, Peck did a visual inspection of every item in the room. An upturned, rocking chair was on the floor near the foot of the bed. The night before, when he stayed over, the rocker had been in the corner of the room against the wall. A Teddy Bear rested on its seat. Peck found it under the bed, soaked in blood.

  Someone, the killer, probably had moved the chair. With Deb tied up and helpless, the sick son of a bitch took a comfortable spot in the rocker where he had a bird’s eyes view of his demented handiwork.

  Women’s pajamas and Deb’s robe lay tossed across the dresser. Peck inspected them and could find no traces of blood. Not even a small tear. Had the killer made her strip for him like he probably made Doris White?”

  It was possible she knew him and even invited him unknowingly to her bedroom. Was her murderer another lover? It was a thought Peck did not want to face, though he knew that he had to as part of the investigation.

  Peck stopped at the bed and stared for many long minutes at the lifeless body. The killer used everyday, common rope which was available anywhere. Did he bring his own or find it in the house?

  The multiple stab wounds came from a kitchen, bread knife and were similar to the wounds in Doris White’s chest. Formed by a downward, striking motion, the wounds were deep, some penetrating the breastplate. The weapon was nowhere in the house. He probably took it with him and discarded it deep in the
woods or kept it as a trophy, a sick reminder to relive the experience.

  Peck noticed something on the fingertips of Deb’s right hand. Using a pocketknife, Peck cut the ropes and lifted the hand for a closer look. There were remnants of dried blood under the nails. He would bet the blood was not her own.

  Deb had fought her assailant and she died hard.

  From what little he knew of her, that seemed to fit her personality. She was not the type to lie down and go out without a fight. Maybe it was that fight which cost her, her life. Maybe Doris White, too. Maybe if they had been passive?

  Peck righted the rocking chair, sat it in and lit a cigarette. He stared at the lifeless body on the bed as he smoked. If this were Baltimore, a team of detectives would jump on the murders the moment they made a connection between the two women with the idea of a serial killer/rapist case as a ticket to bigger and better things. Nothing motivated homicide detectives like a juicy story above the fold. More often than not, that motivation led to a quick and satisfactory conclusion.

  If this were in Baltimore.

  In Dunston nowhere Falls, Maine, you sit in a rocking chair and wait for the state police to dig their cars out of the snow and hope they have chains on their tires. Or you get around by decade old snowmobiles and hope they don’t break down.

  In the meantime, three hundred innocent people were at the mercy of a very sick and violent man who murdered twice and probably won’t stop, not until he is either caught or killed.

  Peck stood up and put his cigarette out in the toilet in the bathroom. He picked up the black case, opened it and removed a box camera. He inserted a bulb and took a picture from the foot of the bed. He took another from the left side, then the right. There were three bulbs left in the case. As he removed a spent bulb and reached into the case for a fresh one, the pain in his head struck so unexpectedly and so viciously, he was on the floor without realizing he had fallen.

  Holding his head, Peck rolled onto his side into the fetal position. The pounding in his head grew even worse as the pressure behind his eyes amplified. Blood ran down his nose in tiny droplets. He could taste it as it touched his lips, sickly sweet and sticky.

  Pushing himself to all fours, Peck attempted to stand, but a fit of dizziness overtook him and he fell, face first to the rug with the floor spinning around him.

  He closed his eyes and attempted to steady his breathing to keep from passing out. Slowly the spinning sensation waned and his head began to steady. Then, in the darkness behind his eyes, a vision slowly began to form.

  A fire burned in yellow and red flames, so vivid in color he felt as if he could reach out and touch them. In the background of Peck’s mind, there was an anguished cry for help, shouted barely above a whisper in a child’s voice. A small hand, the hand of a child reached out for him, desperate for contact.

  On the floor, Peck felt himself reach out with his right hand to try to touch the child’s hand he saw in his mind’s image. Instinctively, Peck knew the child was in some kind of mortal danger.

  As their fingers met, the fire suddenly burst into an uncontrolled, wall of searing hot flames. Peck felt a stabbing sensation of pain in his head. An explosion echoed somewhere in the background and the chaotic vision vanished into darkness, leaving Peck breathless and drenched in a cold sweat. He lay still for a minute, trying to breathe and regain control of his muscles.

  Then, pushing himself to all fours, Peck slowly crawled toward the bathroom. Gasping for air, he reached the toilet where the bile in his stomach rose up and forced him to vomit until his stomach was empty and the muscles cramped.

  Rolling onto his back, Peck looked at the ceiling. “Ah, Jesus, Deb,” he said aloud, and then began to weep openly.

  Peck loaded the fireplace with wood and built a roaring fire to warm the house. He poured a drink of Deb’s expensive scotch at the corner bar, then took a seat on the sofa before the fire. As he smoked a cigarette, he replayed the episode from the bedroom in his mind. Whatever the hell that was, it was no headache and no amount of aspirin was going to fix it. After finishing the scotch, he stretched out on the sofa and exhaustion overtook him.

  Peck was asleep on the sofa in the living room when Bender and McCoy entered the house. McCoy touched Peck’s shoulder and gently shook him. Peck opened his eyes, sat up and looked at his watch.

  “It’s five in the morning,” Bender said.

  “The chains took a while,” McCoy explained. “Sorry we were so late getting back.”

  Bender handed Peck a mug of coffee from the kitchen. “I made it before we woke you up,” he said.

  “I must have dozed off.” Peck took the mug, blew on it a few times and cautiously sipped the steaming hot coffee.

  “The ambulance is outside,” McCoy said. “Jay and I will carry out the body, if you’d like?”

  Peck nodded and took another sip from the mug.

  McCoy and Bender went to the stairs where the doctor picked up a body bag.

  Peck lit a cigarette and watched them ascend the stairs to the bedroom. He could hear Jay and McCoy lift the body of Deb Robertson and place her into the bag. There was a moment of silence, followed by the loud zip of the body bag.

  As McCoy and Bender carried the lifeless body of Deb Robertson down the stairs and to the front door, Peck stared into the fire and choked back a tear.

  In the hospital lounge, McCoy listened carefully as Peck described his nightmarish attack on the floor of Deb Robertson’s bedroom. Every few seconds, McCoy scribbled a note on a pad and nodded his head.

  When Peck was finished, McCoy stood up. “Let’s go out back.”

  Peck followed McCoy to an examination room. “Take you shirt off and have a seat,” McCoy said.

  Peck removed his shirt and tee shirt and sat on the examination table. McCoy picked up a small flashlight. “Open your mouth, Dave.”

  For fifteen minutes, McCoy examined Peck. Blood pressure, heart, pulse rate, ears, nose and throat, reflexes, he checked it all and even felt for tumors.

  “Put your shirt on,” McCoy said when he was finished.

  Peck reached for his tee shirt. “Well?”

  “I don’t know,” McCoy confessed.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I’m a doctor, not a miracle worker, Dave.”

  “But something must have caused that? I didn’t wind up with my head in the toilet for no reason.”

  “There’s a reason,” McCoy confessed. “There always is. I just don’t know what it is at the moment.”

  Peck slipped his shirt on and tucked it into his pants.

  “Look,” McCoy said. “Other than your blood pressure being slightly elevated at the moment, and that’s understandable, you’re tip top. I see no cause for alarm, but I’m going to call Maine Medical Center and schedule an appointment with a neurologist.”

  “A neurologist? Why, what do you think is wrong with me?”

  “I don’t think anything is wrong with you,” McCoy said. “That’s the problem.”

  “What about those pills you gave me?” Peck said.

  “I’ve got something stronger, but I don’t want you to take it unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  Peck allowed himself a tiny smile. “Define necessary.”

  McCoy responded with a smile of his own. “Your head in the toilet qualifies.”

  Seated behind his desk, Peck looked at Kranston, who occupied the chair opposite him. Both men were silent, lost in thought. The only noise in the room it seamed was the sound of Kranston’s constant gum chewing.

  “You look tired, Ed,” Peck finally said.

  “I am, but not nearly as much as you.”

  Peck glanced at his watch. “It’s four in the afternoon and there’s nothing more we can do right now. Why don’t you go home?”

  “Why don’t you?”

  Peck stood up from behind the desk, walked to the woodstove and fueled the fire with several heavy logs. He stirred things around with a poker until the logs caught fire.


  Returning to his desk, Peck said, “This is home, for now. At least until the state police call us back.”

  Kranston sighed to himself. “I could use a drink.”

  Peck opened a desk drawer and produced the bottle of scotch. “One finger or two?”

  “Better make it three.”

  Peck opened the bottle and poured scotch into two plastic cups. “Three it is.”

  Kranston tossed the gum into the trashcan, picked up his cup and took a sip. “I feel rather guilty, sitting here by a warm fire, drinking scotch. Safe, while two women are dead.”

  “Feeling guilty won’t help,” Peck said. “It only gets in the way and makes matters worse by fogging your judgment. It is best to keep your mind free of guilt, anger or anything else until he’s caught. There’s plenty of time afterwards for that.”

  “That’s right,” Kranston said, respectfully. “I keep forgetting this isn’t your first murder case, is it?”

  Peck took a sip of his drink as he looked at Kranston. “A homicide cop always hopes each murder is his last. It never is, though. There’s always another just around the bend, waiting to be discovered, hoping to be solved.”

  Across the room, the short wave radio suddenly came to life. Static gave way to the voice of Sergeant Goodwin of the Maine State Police.

  “This is Sergeant Goodwin of the Maine State Police in Augusta. I am responding to a distress call. Over,” Goodwin said.

  Peck and Kranston looked at each other, and then ran to Bender’s desk where the short wave radio was located.

  Peck picked up the heavy transmitter. “This is Sheriff David Peck of Dunston Falls. We placed the call. Over.”

  “Sorry about the delay, sheriff. Power is out statewide and I’m on generator. What is the nature of your distress call? Over.”

  “Sergeant, I need a forensics team and homicide. I have two murders committed several days apart. Over.”

  There was a slight pause before Goodwin responded, incredulously. “Two? There was only thirteen in the entire state last year. Over.”