40

Lyndon Station

John Bear sat at the bar in Del’s Place. He and Murphy were in civilian clothes, with half-consumed beers on the bar in front of them. “Do you realize that we’ve been working this case for over three weeks now?” Murphy commented.

“I’ve worked longer ones,” John replied. “But never one that frustrated me like this one. We know what the perp is, but we don’t know where it is.”

“Do you think someone out there is helping it?” Murphy asked.

John raised his glass to his lips, took a drink of beer, and said, “I don’t think it needs help. Like a male bear lived up there in Viverette Settlement alone and survived. It’s like the coyote in Indian folklore, it’s a trickster. We know it’s out there but it always seems to be one or two steps ahead of us.”

“Maybe,” Murphy said, “we should go after it like we would a coyote?”

John’s brow furled and he grew pensive. Maybe Murphy was on to something? How did one hunt the elusive coyote? You bait them, and I know just what to use.

When John finished off his beer and stood, Murphy said, “What I do—say something stupid?”

“No, Murph. The opposite, you just told me how we may be able to get him.”

“Really?”

“Yup. See you around, I got some things to do.”

John walked out into the night air. The ice on the parking lot surface crunched beneath his feet as he approached his truck. Suddenly the hair on the nape of his neck stood up and he felt as if he were being watched. He stood beside his truck, key poised before the lock, and slowly searched the area as much as he could without moving his head enough to be seen doing so. He paid particular interest to the trees across the road from the parking lot and thought he detected a form standing there. He unlocked the door, opened it, and reached across the seat for his service pistol. He felt an immediate feeling of relief as his hand tightened on the handle of the familiar weapon. He straightened up and turned to face the dark shape he’d seen. It was gone.

He heard a door open and spun toward it. Murphy stood in front of the door to Del’s Place, his hands raised to his shoulders. “Whoa, John! It’s me … Murphy.”

John lowered the handgun and said, “Someone or something was in the trees over there. I’m going to check it out.”

“Hold on, I’ll grab my piece and join you.”

John waited for several moments and when Murphy joined him holding his nine-millimeter service pistol in his right hand and a Maglite in the left, they crossed the road and headed toward the place where John believed he had seen the stalker.

They scaled the snowbank and slid into the four-foot-deep snow on the backside. Murphy took the lead and shined his flashlight into the trees as he broke trail. “Where did you see it?” he asked John.

“That fir to your right. It was under the branches.”

As they pushed their way beyond the deeper snow that had been piling up over the past three months, John felt his legs straining. “You know,” he said, “this is the second time today I’ve done this.”

“Really, where else did you do it?”

“Dowd Settlement.”

“Dwain acting up again? Hell, you just chased that kid halfway to Mount Katahdin.”

The snow depth decreased and was only eighteen to twenty-four inches deep and Murphy shined the light into the tree line. “Got something,” he said.

When John reached Murphy’s side, the senior warden was breathing hard from the effort required to wade across the twenty or so feet between the roadside snowbank and the woods. He looked at the area that Murphy was illuminating and saw the gigantic footprints. There was a smell of putrid meat in the air.

“Do you smell it?” Murphy asked.

“That seals it,” John said. “There’s not a doubt in my mind—the fucker’s back.”

Murphy used the flashlight’s beam to follow the tracks as they disappeared deeper into the trees and snow-laden bushes. “We going to follow him?”

John’s breath sent steam spiraling into the freezing night air when he said, “Be a waste of time and energy. It can travel one helluvalot faster than we can. It could be in Piscataquis County in a few hours.”

Murphy turned his head, studied John’s face for a second, and then said, “Why do I get this feeling that you aren’t joking?”

“I’ve tracked it through the woods. It ain’t human the way it can move through the snow.”

_____________

Larry Murphy switched off the television as soon as the late-night news finished. He didn’t like the weather forecast, which was snow for the next two days and then more snow for the days after that. February usually had the third-highest average snowfall in Lyndon, however there was only a three-inch difference between it and January, which was the snowiest month with an average 25.2 inches. Normally the local news from Presque Isle was of little interest to him, but the station’s meteorologist was more accurate than many Murphy had seen, especially when it came to forecasting winter storms. Of late, however, he’d developed a great deal of interest in the Aroostook County news.

Murphy adjusted the auger feed on the pellet stove that provided all the heat he needed in the two-room cabin and walked into his bedroom. He rolled into bed, read a book for a half hour, and then turned off the light. In minutes, he was asleep.

_____________

The smell of a decaying body was so strong that it woke Larry Murphy up. He glanced at the digital clock on his nightstand and then laid quiet, listening for whatever had aroused him. He heard the wind gust and he looked out the window. Murphy always slept with his blinds open, allowing ambient light to illuminate the room. He watched a gust of wind push snow across the hard crust layer that had formed after the brief warming period known as the January thaw. The building creaked as it stood firm against the wind. Snow was falling and it was evident that it was going to accumulate—he recalled the late-night weather forecast, which had called for eighteen to twenty inches of new powder.

He laid back and closed his eyes. Just as he was about to fall asleep there was a soft rattle at his front door, as if someone was trying the knob to see if it was locked. Murphy’s holster, containing his service pistol, was draped across the wooden chair that sat in the corner at the foot of his bed, and he got up and took out the pistol. He checked the load as he softly crept out of the bedroom. He stopped beside the door, holding the pistol in both hands and pointed toward the ceiling. Slowly, so he wouldn’t alarm whoever was on the other side, Murphy unlocked the door and waited for the intruder to try it again. The smell of rot was so strong that he thought his stomach would void.

The wind gusted, rattling the door, but there was no attempt to open it from the outside. Cautiously, Murphy turned the knob and another gust of wind blew the door inward. Murphy spun around, stepping into the threshold and aimed his nine-millimeter pistol outward. There was no one in sight. Murphy stepped to one side and visually searched the right side of the entrance—seeing no one, he stepped across the doorway so he could see the opposite side and repeated his search. He turned his attention to the ground and saw the giant footprints filling with wind-blown snow. He inhaled and realized that the rotted corpse smell had diminished to a mere trace, which the wind carried away.

Murphy closed the door and locked it again. He kept his pistol in hand as he walked around the interior of his home, looking out each of the windows for any sign of someone moving about. Other than the footprints he’d seen in the snow, there was no sign of the intruder. He looked at the wall clock over his sink and decided there was not much use in going back to bed as he would be getting up in an hour and a half—and, as hyped as he was, he doubted that he’d get back to sleep. He turned to the small gas stove in the kitchen and ignited the burner beneath the percolator of coffee he’d prepared before going to bed.

Murphy turned on the television and sat at the table oblivious to the all-news channel as he thought about the implication of the killer’s tracks being at his door. He heard the coffee begin to percolate and turned off the burner. As he poured a cup he looked at the clock again and wondered whether he should wake John up or wait until five. If this thing, whatever it was, was going on the offensive, John would want to know.