Dust On The Window

Chapter 2 REPORT

It was my first day in the department, and I didn't know anyone well enough to even feel unwelcome. Durham Maine was a place where policemen went to fish, not solve a triple homicide. One contact that I had lost until recently came to mind, a dear friend, who I shall not yet reveal for safety reasons, and also to maintain his privacy. He had become a journalist after four years as cops on the southern Maine beat, which is to say the smallest and most undeveloped police department in our side of North America. We saw some of the oddest, least prolific sort of folk, and the type of criminal mind that would make a deer stealing grain, an all points national bulletin. My partner took up a case in Boston, and spent several years at the mercy of darker, and more involved cases.

He retired to the journalism department of a fairly well-established newspaper in Los Angeles. That was the last I heard of him for the past ten years. I had never expected to see him again.

But today the most significant homicide case of my long and insignificant career has just cut a dark swath across New England. In a place where animals were more often the culprit for an unsolved murder, this was a calculated evil that this northern stake of the united states had never seen.

This was when I sent that email. The email that brought my old friend from his post at the newspaper in L.A., and the same email that will soon bring me before a congressional hearing. This was the first day I saw him, the first time I saw the Devil smile.

Log- Day 0:

Streams of pale blue light trickled through the thin slits in the drafty gray rafters.

"We're too late." He exclaimed, his form etched out in a halo of murky light. "Nothing we could have done if we had been here, it's not our fault."

"I know that," he growled, eyes piercing deep into the dark room before him. "But, why?"

"Why what?" he probed exhaustedly.

"Why this, why now? This man had a family, a home, a wife, this man had a full life."

"Maybe it was an accident. An animal maybe? You know, one of those rabid raccoons or ferrets. Or maybe he startled a black bear. The department of forestry sends us reports like that all the time. You know, just one of those random crazy things. One of those things that just can't be helped." Dust swirled and churned as he traced his fingertips along the rough grain of the barn floor.

"No, this is different, where is his license, where is his clothing? Bears mangle, maim, maybe a raccoon bites you and the infection kills you if you ignore it for a month. But neither do anything like this. Does a bear need a drivers license? A raccoon sneakers? This is twisted, purposeless...insane." He hunched lower gazing into the opened eyes of the frail corpse.

"A naked man beaten, stabbed, then thrown off an old stairwell?" he questioned as he slowly traced the grim scene in the air before them with his finger tip.

"Me, Ive danced around my house naked on occasion, maybe even spiced things up on occasion and gotten things a little rough between the wife and I if you know what Im saying. But there is no possible way that a sober me could find himself stripped bare naked in an abandoned house then bludgeoned to a pulp with an old oak banister, after being stabbed in the arm with a swiss army knife, then shot putted over the railing of an old Victorian stairwell 20 ft to the ground below and then dragged twenty or thirty more feet and then peacefully propped against a wall with a water bottle in my hand like I was at a goddamn tea party. Maybe in college after a drink or two, but this sort of thing just doesn't happen on its own.. especially not by some fucking rodent." He anxiously wiped the grime and hay from the sleeves of his jacket.

"I just don't get this, I don't get any of it." he admitted gazing distantly towards the back wall of the eerily hunched barn.

"At least animals kill for a purpose, to protect their young, for food, or protect their territory; but people, I've never really figured out why people kill; this just doesn't add up...." He paused abruptly awaiting his friends response.

"Could be another one of those sock-hops the kids are always going on about. You know, Rock and Roll, improvised Jazz, Ecstasy, bongos, strip poker and crossword puzzles?" Dobson sighed light heartedly, seeing the tension in his friends gaze.

"What year were you born?" his grim features relaxing slightly in the wake of a forced smile.

"Ill give you my pin if you promise you'll go steady with me," Dobson offered smiling.

"You give me your Jersey and I'm yours till the end honey." he mockingly swooned, his eyes subconsciously drifting back to the body.

Both men sat in silence for a moment and studied the blatant protest of the corpse which sat lazily before them. It sat comfortably holding an empty bottle in one hand, the other resting peacefully across his lap below. The head rested gently, sagging against the dry planks of the wall behind it, its eyes eerily fixed upon the frail white glow of their flashlights reflecting off the benevolent panes of ancient white glass which overlooked the attic loft above.

Dobson removed his glasses and deftly wiped the layers of grime that had settled on the lenses. Scanning the shadows for the outline of his friend, his eyes strained in the dreary light for a moment before returning the glasses back to his eyes.

"I'll tell the family." Dobson exclaimed. "Thanks."

A quiet and scratchy hum rang out from beyond the needle of the small black phonograph, enticing the lonely breezes through the cracks in the white-washed window frame . Along the corridors, sheets of white linen scattered themselves with great care over piles of forgotten antiquity. The dry oak floorboards moaned with the memories of a hundred untamed footsteps; occasionally it whimpered, as if to affirm the suffering abandonment had caused it.

The air was stale and soulless, but for a single mal-aligned mag light dangling from the ceiling there was no hint of life in the musty gallows. Like the surface of some uncharted moon it had been ages since last light had graced its vacuum. Yet despite its lost light the house had somehow found new keepers, it was worn, but its shelter had not yet been forgotten.