59

“HOW THE HELL DID you wind up in that log cabin?” Mike asked the Portland Journal reporter. Incredibly, Melissa “the Maneater” Manheim had suffered nothing more than a concussion and some bumps and bruises from her run-in with the homicidal spirit. Mike knew she would be the prime source of information for the State Police investigators—along with him, of course—and he was curious as to what, exactly, she may have seen and how much of it she would be willing to admit to.

She looked up at him from her hospital bed, where she was propped up on three plump pillows, surrounded by laptops, telephones, and what looked like some sort of portable fax machine that was busy beeping and spitting out a more or less steady stream of documentation. Mike pictured Sharon lying in her own bed a few rooms down the hall, nearly immobile after her brush with death, and marveled at the unfairness of life.

“Well,” she sniffed, “you weren’t giving me anything I could print, so after you threw me aside at the Sprague bonfire, I marched right off toward the forest. I knew you had assigned your little girlfriend to patrol the bonfire, too, so I figured I would eventually run across her. When I did, I intended to find out if she felt differently than you obviously do regarding the freedom of the press.”

“You mean you intended to threaten her with public exposure for sleeping with me. You figured by blackmailing her, you would be able to get the information I wouldn’t give you.”

“I can’t stop you if you choose to look at it that way.”

“It’s not a matter of me looking at it that way, that’s how it is. But in any event, it’s obvious you never found her.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You’re still more or less in one piece. If you had tried to threaten Sharon Dupont, she would have kicked your ass. You’d have been begging for a serial killer to show up by the time she was done with you. She may look small, but let me tell you, she packs a punch.”

“I know why you’re here,” she told him, interrupting as was her custom and apparently choosing to ignore Mike’s comment. “You want to know if I’m going to tell the investigators about the broken-down body of that poor man floating rather than walking and about him doing things that no human being could possibly do, especially an old man—”

“So you saw quite a bit,” Mike interrupted. He wondered how she liked it.

“I was knocked silly when that thing flung me into a tree and remained woozy until after you rescued me, which, by the way, seemed to take a lot longer than it should have. Anyway,” she continued after a short pause when Mike refused to take her bait, “of course I saw quite a bit. I really wasn’t injured that badly.”

“I hope you’re prepared for the investigators to label you a nutcase,” he said.

“I’ve dealt with much tougher than the Maine State Police, believe me,” she said dismissively, waving her hand like a petulant princess. “But in any event, no one will be labeling me anything,” she continued. Her face was a mask of innocence. “As far as they’re going to know, I was unconscious the entire time. I didn’t see a thing.”

“Are you telling me you’re going to withhold evidence from the police in a murder investigation?”

Melissa Manheim snickered. “Come now, Chief,” she said. “This isn’t your first time around the block, is it? You know as well as I do that if the evidence points toward a supernatural element or any sort of connection to Native American mysticism, it will all be whitewashed away like Tom Sawyer painting the fence. I’m sorry, but poor old Chief Wally Court is going to be the fall guy here, there’s simply no way to avoid that.”

“And you’re comfortable with an innocent man being railroaded, even though he’s dead? You don’t want the truth to come out?”

“I didn’t say that,” she answered coyly. “There is definitely a bestseller in this, a book waiting to be written, and I hope you don’t think I’m bragging when I say that I feel pretty confident I’m the one to write it.”

Great, Mike thought. I wonder what Ken Dye would have to say about this? Then he decided the professor would probably applaud the idea, in spite of all that had happened to him and the beating his reputation had taken.

Mike shook his head at Melissa Manheim’s obstinacy. “Well, I’m glad you’re going to be all right,” he said, leaning on his crutches and turning toward the door. “Good luck to you—“

“Wait,” she said quietly. “Please.”

“What is it?”

“I know what that college professor—“

“His name was Ken Dye,” Mike interrupted.

“Yes, Ken Dye. I know what Professor Ken Dye did; how he was directly responsible for saving Officer Dupont and me, and I’ll never forget it.” Mike listened in amazement and wondered, not for the first time, where she got her information.

“He was quite a guy,” Mike agreed, not sure where she was going with this.

“Anyway, effective immediately, I am establishing a scholarship fund in Professor Dye’s name, to support research into the field of Native American folklore that was so close to his heart. My newspaper will be contributing big bucks too; you can mark my words on that one.”

“I sort of think the University would just as soon Ken Dye fade off into the sunset with as little fanfare as possible,” Mike answered.

At that, Melissa Manheim laughed, the sound echoing off the walls and out into the hospital hallway. “Really, Chief McMahon, I’m starting to believe you actually did just fall off the turnip truck.” Mike could feel his ears start to burn as his face turned red. “Once the money starts coming in, and I will personally ensure it flows in by the boatload, the school will do an about-face on the subject of Professor Ken Dye and his research quicker than you can say ‘ghosties and apparitions.’”

Mike stared at her in slack-jawed amazement. “You’re going to help rehabilitate the man’s legacy?”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” she answered with a smile. “Like I said, I’m well aware that I am alive right now solely because of his sacrifice. I consider it the least I can do, especially considering how much money I expect to make off the book I have already begun writing. It won’t hurt me to throw some of that cash the school’s way.”

“Wow,” Mike muttered as he turned back toward the door. “Strange bedfellows.”

“Indeed. Interested?” she asked, throwing open her bedcovers in invitation. Mike didn’t think he had spoken loudly enough to be heard across the hospital room.

“You know what I mean,” he said, shaking his head and limping out into the hallway again, dodging a couple of kids streaking down the hall as he pulled the door closed behind him. He leaned reluctantly on the crutches and made his way slowly toward the hospital’s parking garage, looking forward to getting back to his apartment. Mike McMahon was late for a hot date with a shower and about twenty hours of sleep.