The Siege (14 page)

Her heart was pounding in her chest as she searched her pocketbook for the front door key. Holding the screen door open with one hand, she slipped the key into the lock and gave it a turn. The rusted tumblers gave with a little effort, and the door clicked and slowly swung open.

The stale, stuffy smell of a house long closed assailed her when she stuck her head into the entryway. She closed her eyes for a moment, to let the aroma carry her memories back, but beneath the familiar smell was the deeper, pungent smell of decay. She figured, most likely, a rat or mouse or something had gotten caught behind the walls and died there. With that in mind, she left the front door open as she walked from the entryway into the dining room. She walked from room to room, soaking up the atmosphere as she circled the house from the dining room to the kitchen to the mud room to the living room and back to the entryway.

Although the house had been empty for three years, there were still several pieces of furniture in each of the rooms. She and Barbara had agreed that each of them could take whatever they wanted, but there were some pieces neither of them wanted; but neither had had the heart to throw them away yet, either. The only problem had arisen when each of them had insisted on taking their mother’s favorite table lamp.

Donna couldn’t shake the confusion of memories that flooded her mind as she made the circuit again, pausing in each room to look around. Dingy trim work in need of paint and yellowed wallpaper peeling from the walls added to her sense of loss. In the living room, she screwed up her courage enough to look into the closet under the stairway, the place where she used to huddle while her sister told her ghost stories. As for the cellar, well… she never played down there much as a child, so she didn’t bother looking down there. At last, she climbed the stairs to the second floor, pausing momentarily to glance into both her parents’ and sister’s bedrooms before going down the hallway to her own bedroom. The doorknob felt cold in her hand as she stood there rigidly, neither daring to open it nor wanting to leave without looking inside.

“One last time,” she whispered. Sucking in a shallow breath, she turned the doorknob and pushed the door in.

She expected to see the room as it had been years ago: walls festooned with posters of rock stars, her dresser cluttered with jewelry and makeup, her big double bed covered with white ruffle bedspread and piled high with stuffed animals. She also expected to see one of the ghosts she knew was still there in the house: the ghost of the little girl she once was.

She found it difficult to realize, that she had once been the little girl who had played and slept in this room. In her imagination, she thought that little girl had grown up, gotten married, had two or three beautiful children, and now lived in a beautiful house in Portland or outside of Boston, living a life with no problems or complications. She thought, sometimes, she wasn’t the person that little girl grew up to become; she couldn’t be because her life had too damned many complications! What she wouldn’t give to be that little girl, all grown up!

Moving slowly, so as not to disturb the dust that covered the floor like a glaze of ice, she went over to the window and pressed her face close to the glass to look out over the back yard. To the right, she could see just a small corner of the barn, its boards weathered the color of storm clouds. She wondered how some houses, in a few years could deteriorate so fast while some barns stayed the same for decades. No matter how weathered or rotten, barns stood up to the unmerciful Maine winters. She found herself wondering if her own life was more like a house or a barn.

Next to the barn, in the seed-choked back yard, the old chicken coop roof had finally caved in. The two peaks at each end pointed upward, like useless wings, and the whole structure looked like an airplane crash. Next to the chicken coop, dangling from a limb of the old apple tree, was the rope that had once been part of her swing. Its frayed end swayed gently in the wind, and Donna shivered when it reminded her of a hangman’s noose.

Beyond the barn, over the gently rising hills, stretched acre after acre of potato fields right up to the horizon. A lone tractor crept along in the distance, the sound of it passing no more than a dull buzz. Toward the south she could see the thin screen of trees that separated their land from the Larsen’s. Through those woods, less than a mile away, was Beaver Brook Pond, where she had spent girlhood summers, swimming and sunning herself.

Donna withdrew from the window and looked at the two ovals of mist that had formed where she had breathed onto the glass. She pulled her shirt cuff to the heel of her hand to wipe the spots away. When she was young, she always got into trouble for messing the windows, but she loved looking out her bedroom over the fields, even on the bleakest winter day. Of course, back then, her life had no complications.

But the little girl who once lived in this room had grown up to a life full of complications. As Donna looked around, breathing deeply, she wept quietly as she wondered if she could ever return to where she once had been. She ran quickly down the stairs and out the door to her car.

Driving into town, tears blurring her vision, her mind a jumble of confusion, she was sure of one thing: if she was ever going to get her life back the way it should be, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be in that house or in this God-forsaken town!

IV

W
infield didn’t get back to Dale until after three o’clock. He was alone in the station for the afternoon and had used the time to catch up on his paperwork. Hunched over the typewriter at his desk, he was pecking his way through one of the dozens of forms he needed to fill out about Larry’s fatal accident. His concentration broke, though, when the teletype in the front office unexpectedly chattered to life.

“Goddamn!” he hissed, glancing up at his open office door, wishing Pam was there to take care of the report. He swirled the last gulp of cold coffee in his cup, and grimaced as he poured it down his throat.
What the hell!
he thought as he pushed himself away from the typewriter.
It’s a good chance to get a fresh cup
.

He moved out by the front desk, refilled his cup, and then checked the telex. The printer stopped as suddenly as it had started, and the page rolled up with a grinding of gears. He tore along the perforation and glanced at the sheet. He froze in place when his mind registered what he read.

Then he walked as fast as he could back to his office, being careful not to spill hot coffee on his hand. After scanning the report a second time, he started digging through his files until he found what he was looking for. Quickly, he dialed the police station in Holden.

“Hello. Holden Police,” a woman’s voice, all business, said.

“Hello, this is Officer Winfield, up in Dyer. I was wondering if Sergeant McCormick was in today.”

“I’m sorry,” the woman said, actually sounding as if she could barely care. “You can either leave a message or speak with the duty officer.”

Winfield considered for a moment. Granted, it wouldn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out that the report he had just received from Haynesville, concerning a red Ford pickup truck that had been torched and dumped into the Mattawamkeag River some time during the night, was in all likelihood the same red Ford that had been boosted in Holden on Saturday morning. It probably wouldn’t even be necessary to check the plates. If Sergeant McCormick didn’t know this already, he’d sure as hell put it together when he came to the station on Monday.

Actually, Winfield was thinking his first phone call should have been to Detective Maloney in Westbrook. McCormick would easily recognize his stolen truck, but Maloney might not even hear about it. Winfield was sure that the torched truck was the work of the pyromaniac who, apparently, was heading north. Winfield had learned through years of police work, not to put too much faith in “hunches”: a hunch and a quarter would always get him a cup of coffee at Kellerman’s, but that was about all.

Still, it all seemed so right.

“No, I’ll give him a call tomorrow,” Winfield said. He still held the bulletin, but now he put it down on his desk and smoothed it with the flat of his hand. “Just leave a message for him to get a make on the truck they found in Haynesville this morning, all right?”

“Yes, fine. Thank you for your help,” the woman said, and before Winfield could say good-bye, the phone clicked in his ear and went dead. Winfield propped his feet on his desk as he sipped his coffee and thought. The best he could do for now, he figured, was be on the alert for this pyromaniac. Of course, it all depended on why the person, or persons, was heading north, burning buildings as he went. If it was just a lark or a spree, he could just as easily pass by or through Dyer without being noticed, especially at this time of year with so many migrant workers coming into the area to work the potato fields. The person he was looking for could be anyone.

Hell
, Winfield thought,
it could even be this guy Dale Harmon!

He chuckled out loud at the idea, but one thing about police work he knew for certain: never ignore anything! Ever! Any kind of mindset or tracked thinking could blind you from seeing what’s really happening.

Thinking of Dale reminded Winfield that he hadn’t yet called Franklin Rodgers. He looked the number up in the phone book and dialed the funeral home. After a quick word or two with Maggie Sprague, Rodgers’ receptionist, Franklin himself came on the line.

What Rodgers told him, after this Harmon fella had got him started thinking, didn’t satisfy him at all.

Winfield asked, as politely and friendly as he could if Dale and he could view the body. He didn’t want Rodgers to think this was in any way “official.” Without a second’s pause to consider the request, Rodgers refused. He told Winfield that the family had insisted the funeral service be “closed casket.” In as few words as possible, Rodgers stated that his skills as a mortician were limited and, in Larry’s case, completely insufficient.

Winfield thanked Rodgers, trying to make light of his polite refusal. But something didn’t “feel” right to him.

Dear God, help me! Not another hunch!
Winfield thought. Maybe it was that Dale had been so damned intense about wanting to see the body, or maybe it was because he, quite frankly, was still shaken up by what he had found at the crash site. Whatever it was, it left a bad taste in his mouth. As soon as he hung up with Rodgers, he dialed Dale at Mrs. Appleby’s and said he’d pick him up in half an hour. Then they’d both go to the funeral home in person.

Winfield finished his coffee and the report he was working on before leaving the station. He drove down Main Street, toward Appleby’s, when he saw a young girl walk out of the Mill Store with a bag of groceries under her arm. Now usually it wouldn’t have been too unusual, even the fact that Winfield didn’t recognize the girl. He had never noticed her around town before, but there was something about this particular girl that drew his attention. It might have been her pale face, framed by long, dark hair, or maybe it was the backpack she had slung over her shoulders, even though she didn’t look at all like your typical hiker. Or maybe it was because she wore a jacket entirely too thin for this time of year. Whatever the reason, Winfield slowed and pulled up to the curb in front of the store.

Sitting over the pumps, Sparky looked up and touched the bill of his baseball cap in greeting. Winfield waved without taking his eyes off the girl for an instant. What he didn’t expect was that, as soon as she looked up and saw him, she bolted and ran across the street.

V

E
ven after she had selected the food and paid for it, Tasha was still fuming that Hocker had made her go into town for supplies. Again she thought about taking off without him, leaving him in the dust, but although she hated to admit it to herself—she had actually come to depend on Hocker. At least it was nice that he never tried to screw her. It was almost refreshing compared to the guys she knew in Port Charlotte! And travelling alone, this far north, leaving Hocker was simply out of the question!

Her anger flashed into panic though, when she saw a cop pull up to the curb in front of the store just as she as leaving. All she could think was that somehow, they had found her! The cops had gotten a description of both Hocker and her, and now it was all over!

With no time to think, she reacted instinctively. She turned and ran down the sidewalk away from the cop’s cruiser. If he had to screw around turning, if might give her enough of an edge to get away.

She ran in a blind panic, occasionally daring to glance over her shoulder to see how close the police car was to her. But before long she heard the long wail of the siren and, looking back, saw the flashing blue lights.

This wasn’t her town. She had no idea which way to run. Her only clear thought was to lead the chase away from where Hocker was waiting. If she was bagged, she’d wait and see how bad it was going to be first. She wouldn’t hesitate to turn Hocker in if she thought it would help, but it didn’t make sense to tip her cards by leading the cops right to him.

Her feet went
slap-slap
on the sidewalk as she dashed past a rundown shoe store. Up ahead she saw a narrow road leading behind a church, and beyond that, thick woods. If she could just get to those woods, she’d be free, she thought.