Crimes by Moonlight

The Trespassers by Brendan Dubois

I was dreaming that something was chewing on my ankles when the phone thankfully rang, and I fumbled at the side of the bed and grabbed the cordless phone, and murmured something intelligible into the receiver. I looked at the bloodred numerals of the clock radio and saw that it was 2:34 a.m. A hellish time for about anything, especially a phone ringing in the dark.

The female voice on the other end said, “Sorry to wake you, Chief, but you’ve got a situation.”

I yawned, scratched at an intimate place or two, and swung around and put my feet on the carpet. Behind me my wife, Tracy, kept on slumbering. Sweet girl, she could sleep through most everything, including a Cat Five hurricane hammering at the windows.

“Go ahead. What’s going on?” I asked.

The voice-which I now recognized as one of the duty dispatchers for the county-said, “You’ve got an untimely death.”

Damn, I thought. It was Saturday morning. This meant that I probably had to kiss the weekend good-bye, even though I had earlier promised Tracy a nice drive south to visit her parents in Concord… but with an untimely death in town, that was all done.

“Go on. Where?”

“ Fourteen Mast Road. Officer Harris is there, securing the scene.”

“Fourteen? Did you say Fourteen Mast Road?”

“That’s right, Chief.”

Damn. The Logan place. Tracy shifted on the other side of the bed and then started gently snoring.

I yawned, scratched myself in another, somewhat less intimate place, and said, “All right. Tell Harris I’m rolling, should be there in about fifteen minutes. All right?”

“Absolutely,” the dispatcher said. “You want me to contact the state police?”

I hesitated. Protocol demanded that the state police be called in for something like this, especially in a small town like Salem Falls, New Hampshire, which had a three-man police department, one-third of which was on vacation, one-third of which was on the job, and one-third of which was sitting in a pair of pajama bottoms, talking to a young lady who probably wasn’t more than twenty-one years of age.

“No, that’s all right,” I said. “I’ll take care of it when I get to the scene.”

I sensed the uneasiness coming through the phone line, but she was a professional and said, “As you say, Chief.”

I hung up the phone and managed to get dressed and out the door without waking my wife or our two girls-ages eight and five-which I thought was a major accomplishment.

IN my cruiser the engine started on the third try, and I backed out to Rutland Road, where I live with my family. I flipped on the heater as I drove down Rutland, the headlights picking up the dead leaves scattered across the cracked asphalt. It was the middle of October, just a couple of weeks left before Halloween, but I didn’t see any trick-or-treaters about, just quiet homes with one or two displaying a flickering blue light in the window that either meant an insomniac or someone who had fallen asleep while watching The Tonight Show. There were also a couple of lighted displays of pumpkins or witches from those who really enjoyed celebrating this time of year, and I’m sure they were new arrivals to our fair town.

And speaking of lights, I didn’t bother switching on the overhead light bar. I knew Fourteen Mast Road quite well, knew I’d be there in less than ten minutes, and so what was the point of switching on the strobes and getting all gung ho? But I did switch on the Motorola police radio, slung underneath the dash, and contacted the same polite woman I had talked to earlier.

“County, this is Salem Falls Unit One, responding to Fourteen Mast Road.”

And her brisk voice replied, “Salem Falls Unit One, ten-four.”

And I resumed driving, shivering in the coldness of the cruiser’s interior, wondering what in hell I was about to step into, and also wondering if the fine townspeople of Salem Falls would finally purchase me a new police cruiser at the next town meeting.

FOURTEEN Mast Road was on the left side of a narrow country road, at the top of a hill that offered great views of the Montcalm Valley and the Green Mountains of Vermont, over on the other side of the border. The house was an old Victorian, three stories tall, painted yellow with white and black trim. It had a nicely trimmed lawn and a wraparound porch, and I saw a Salem Falls police cruiser parked in the driveway behind a white Ford van, which, in turn, was parked behind a light blue Volvo. It looked like most of the lights were on inside, and I was happy to see that the cruiser-operated by Officer Melanie Harris-had its strobe lights off. Nothing like flashing lights to get attention, and even in a small town like Salem Falls, it would take just under an hour for most of the adult population to know something was amiss at the Logan place.

I pulled over on the side of the road-the driveway being full-and called off one more time to dispatch, “Salem Falls Unit One, off at the scene,” heard a quick reply, and then switched off the engine. I got out and walked up a flagstone path to the porch and checked out the Ford van. It had Massachusetts plates-which got my attention-and on the side of the van was one of those magnetic signs that said N.E.G.H. with a 1-800 phone number underneath, and some odd logo with a broomstick and sheet.

I went up the porch steps, past a couple more Halloween decorations, the door opened up, and Officer Melanie Harris came out, shaking her head, a slight smile on her chubby face. “Chief, you’re really not going to believe this one-”

“Tell me what you got,” I interrupted. “Let’s start with that. County dispatch said untimely death. The fire department been called out?”

“I called them right after I had dispatch call you. They should be here in a few minutes.”

“Okay, go on.”

It was chilly out on the porch, and I looked through some transparent white lace curtains. I saw what looked to be three people, sitting in a living room. I rubbed my hands, and Harris looked through her notepad and said, “What we have here is Ralph Toland and his wife, Carrie. They’ve lived here just under a year. Ralph runs some sort of online financial service company, and his wife helps with the books and billing.”

“Where they originally from?”

“ Vermont.”

“Oh,” I said and saw the twinkle in Melanie’s eyes with the way I pronounced the word. Years ago, during my grandparents’ time, Vermont was a state not unlike New Hampshire: solid Republican, flinty Yankee, self-sufficient, low taxes, that sort of thing. But now Vermont was just a suburb for rich New Yorkers, just like the southern part of our state was a suburb for rich Massachusetts types.

“Right, oh,” she said, referring back to her notes.

“And who’s the other guy in there with them?”

She flipped a page in the notebook. “This is where it gets… interesting, Chief. The other fellow in the living room, that’s Josh Lincoln. He was one half of a team from the N.E.G.H.”

“The N.E. what?”

She cocked her head. “You don’t watch much cable TV, do you, Chief?”

I said, “Mostly it’s Nickelodeon or the Food Network. Look, don’t keep me guessing.”

“Sorry,” she said. “N.E.G.H. New England Ghost Hunters. Josh and his buddy Peter Grolin, they belong to this outfit that hunts ghosts, spirits, paranormal phenomena, that sort of thing. They go to haunted houses or other buildings, stake them out for the night, film their results, and it gets shown on one of those weird cable channels in the high numbers. They were spending the night here, and something happened, and Peter… well, Peter, he’s dead.”

“Oh, Christ,” I said. “Ghost hunters. Here. Did you find out whose bright idea that was?”

“The male half of the Vermont immigrants,” Melanie said. “I guess… well, he claims that he and his wife, ever since they moved into the place, there’s been, quote, events, unquote. And the wife, she’s thinking of turning the place into a bed-and-breakfast-”

“Like this county needs another Victorian bed-and-breakfast.”

Another smile from my young officer, who’s the daughter of the selectmen chairman, and who works twice as hard to prove she doesn’t get any favors. She said, “But that’s the deal, Chief. This one, they could say it was haunted. That, plus the view of Vermont and the buttered scones for breakfast, I guess they thought that was a selling point.”

I tried to peer through the window, just saw the three shapes, sitting there silently. “What happened to Peter?”

Melanie’s smile faded a bit. “You can see for yourself. Kinda gross. Looks like he took a fall from the third floor stairs, went down to the second floor landing, and… well, the railing for the landing. There was this lovely sculpted ear of corn or something on the railing, very kitschy and decorative, but it had a sharp point and went right through his throat. Bled right out, up there on the landing.”

I took my uniform hat off, rubbed at my head. “All right. You got statements from all three of them?”

“Yep,” she said.

“You got pictures and preliminary measurements?”

“Yep, again.”

“What’s your gut telling you?”

She looked at me with a calm, clear expression, and said, “Untimely death. That’s all. Nothing suspicious.”

I stared right back at her. “Okay. Not bad… but you screwed one thing up.”

“Oh?”

I motioned to the living room. “You left the three of them alone in there, while you were out talking with me. Those are all witnesses. They should be separated so they don’t get a chance to chat and compare stories, and come up with a nice little narrative.”

Melanie said, “Good point, Chief. Won’t do it again. But still… guy took a tumble.”

“Sure,” I said, going to the door. “But if we find out later that somebody in here pushed him, the attorney general will be all over our ass. Look, stay out here and keep the eager beavers from the fire department from coming in. You’ve done well.”

She smiled. “Thanks, Chief.”

And so I opened the door and entered what was technically a crime scene, but which I thought was something else as well.

IF I was concerned about a crime being committed, I suppose I should have checked out the body of the recently deceased, but I was more interested in talking to the witnesses, aka residents, who were in the house at the time the young man died. Sitting on a couch that looked overstuffed and upholstered, like it belonged to some Manhattan designer’s idea of what constituted Victorian style, were Ralph and Carrie Toland. Ralph had on a pair of gray sweatpants and a T-shirt that said COLBY, while his wife had a light blue terry cloth robe on, her white-knuckled hands tight about the top. Her blonde hair was mussed and her eyes were red-rimmed, like she had been silently crying for the past hour. Ralph was about ten years my junior, black hair cut nice and short, but his face was just a bit flabby and shocked, like he could not believe that his entire life had led up to this, a pleasant home in a pleasant town with a dead body on the next floor.

Slumped in an easy chair that was an uneasy match to the couch was Josh Lincoln, who looked to be about the same age as our county dispatcher. He had on black sneakers, blue jeans, and a black long-sleeved T-shirt that had the same logo displayed on the van outside. There were tattoos on the back of his hands, and he had earrings in both ears. His dark hair was in a ponytail, and he was just staring at his feet.

“Mr. Toland? Sir?”

Ralph looked up, like he just recognized that someone else was in the room, and said, “Yes?”

“Sir, I’m Chief Hoyt Graham, Salem Falls Police. Is there a place where we could talk, just for a few minutes? Just the two of us?”

“Um, sure,” he said, getting up from the couch, squeezing his wife’s free hand. “Sure, come with me,” and then Carrie looked up at him, her face pinched, and whispered, “Your fault, damn you, your fault.”

He sighed and ran a hand across the top of his head, and I followed him as he walked into a kitchen, flicking on a light. I took in all the stainless steel gear and thought my wife would drool at seeing such a display. He took a stool and so did I, and I said, “I know you’ve talked to Officer Harris, but I just want to hear it from you, what happened.”

He shook his head and sighed and said, “Damn… I mean, it seemed like a hoot at the time, you know? I was watching some TV last month, saw this program on the paranormal, and saw a bit on an outfit called the New England Ghost Hunters. And Carrie and I thought it would be great to have someone come here and investigate our house.”

Sure, I thought. Your idea and your wife’s idea. I wasn’t buying it, but I went on and said, “And what would be the purpose of this… investigation?”

He shrugged. “Some publicity. We’re thinking of converting this place into a bed-and-breakfast, and we thought a television program about what’s been going on here would be wonderful in getting our name out to the public.”

“Has the planning board approved your proposal?”

“Not yet, but our lawyer’s confident it will get approval.”

I flipped over a page in the notebook and thought, Then your lawyer doesn’t know Salem Falls that well, but poor Ralph was already having a terrible night, so I didn’t want to add to his misery. Aloud I said, “So tell me, sir, what’s been going on that you thought about bringing in ghost hunters?”

Ralph looked embarrassed and said, “Oh, stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Well… ever since we moved in, there’s been… incidents.”

I tried to keep the impatience out of my voice. “Like what? I don’t like games, Mr. Toland, so tell me what’s been going on here, what’s occurred so that you felt compelled to bring in two strangers from Massachusetts to spend the night here, one of whom is now dead in your house.”

That certainly got his attention, and he stared at a point about a foot above my left shoulder and said, “Little stuff at first. Carrie’s always on me for leaving the toilet seat up, and I swear, I always put the seat down… and she’d always find it up. And doors would open and shut by themselves… and you’d be walking down the stairs and man, you’d just get a blast of cold air… and at night… well, sometimes it got worse at night.”

I didn’t say a word. Just waited, and he added, “Just as you’d be drifting off to sleep, there’d be whispers out there, whispers that you could barely hear… and when you’d sit up, they’d go away. Or if you went around, thinking maybe the TV or a radio was left on, there’d be nothing. But back into bed… more whispers. And… shadows on the wall… odd lights that would just flicker at the corner of your eye…”

I sighed. “Mr. Toland… this house is more than a century old. Odd things happen to the foundation. The house can settle and either close or open doors, make creaking noises, or let in drafts that’ll freeze your fingers. Old pipes can rattle or gurgle water… make it sound like whispers. And lights… the eye can play tricks at night, especially… well, especially when you’re predisposed to think something’s going on.”

He stopped staring over my shoulder, now looked at my face. He said, “Two weeks ago, my wife woke up screaming, saying something cold had grabbed onto her foot. And before you ask, no, it wasn’t me. So don’t tell me it’s just an old house, all right?”

I went to my notebook. “All right, we’ll leave that be. Now, tell me about these two ghost hunters.”

Another shrug. “At the time… like I said, it was just a hoot. I called their one-eight-hundred number, they came up here, asked if they could spend the night, and we said, sure. They have all this gear, you know, cameras that can take pictures in the night, stuff that measures variations in temperature and electromagnetic radiation. I was going to stay up with them, but they said, no, they got better results with the homeowners not being present. So Carrie and I went to bed, and just before two a.m… I woke up, heard some screaming, and then a thumping sound, and then more yelling. That’s when I got out of bed.”

“Where did you go?”

“Up to where I heard Josh yelling, yelling about his bud Peter. His friend… it was awful. Blood everywhere. And that’s when I had Carrie call nine-one-one.”

“And what was Josh yelling about his friend Peter?”

“Upset talk… that’s all… that he had fallen, was bleeding hard, what was he going to tell his parents, stuff like that.”

“All right,” I said. “Is there anything else you can tell me that might help with our investigation?”

He shook his head. “To think something like this would happen in our house…”

And I don’t know, maybe I was feeling grumpy or something for being woken up and having my weekend ruined, but I said, “Oh, one thing, Mr. Toland. Just so you know.”

“What’s that?”

“Earlier you said this was your house. Not entirely accurate. This is the Logan house, named after the man who built it, back in 1882. It may be your house for a while, but it will always be the Logan house. Funny thing, I know, but that’s one of the funny things about small towns. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to your wife for a few minutes.”

I don’t think Mr. Toland liked being corrected like that, and truth be told, I didn’t particularly care.

NEXT I spoke to Carrie Toland in her fine kitchen, which was mostly a waste of time. She was at times weepy and other times angry, and she mostly repeated what her husband had said, with one notable exception, that the visit of the alleged paranormal experts was entirely her husband’s idea, and not hers.

And when Peter had died a couple of hours ago, she was fast asleep and heard a thump, and yelling, and that’s all she knew. She got up from bed with her husband, went upstairs to the second-floor landing, and when she saw the blood on the stairs and the crumpled form of Peter, she retreated back downstairs to the living room and called 911.

“All right,” I said, looking at my notebook. “But tell me this. Your husband claims that ever since you moved into the house, that there’s been… incidents. True?”

She tried to draw her bathrobe even closer about her neck. “I… I don’t know.”

“Could you be a bit more precise, Mrs. Toland?”

“Ralph… he’s really the one who thinks something’s been going on here. At first, it was a little joke, you know? That there was somebody else living here, somebody sharing our house. We even talked about charging rent or something… just a little joke.”

“Was you waking up a couple of weeks ago, screaming that something had grabbed your leg, was that a little joke?”

Her eyes were sharp, and I could just imagine what she’d be saying to her husband at the first opportunity, about telling family secrets, and she said, “No. That was just a nightmare. Nothing else.”

“Your husband believed otherwise.”

“Maybe so, but I never really believed. I just thought it was Ralph and his imagination…”

And then her mood and voice changed. “His damn imagination. And look what it’s brought us. A dead boy in the house. A dead boy.”

She shivered and said bitterly, “But maybe Ralph will be happy now. A real dead body in our house. Maybe that poor boy’s spirit will haunt us now…” Then the sniffling started, and I patted her on the shoulder and said we were done for now.

JOSH Lincoln, the surviving 50 percent of the New England Ghost Hunters field team, seemed kind of shaky, so we sat at a dining room table in the rear, adjacent to the kitchen. I took notes as we talked, and after getting his age, hometown, and that usual stuff, I said, “So. How long have you been doing this kind of work?”

“Just over a year,” he said glumly, looking down at his tattooed hands.

“What else do you do?”

“Huh?”

I said gently, “Oh, come on, Josh. This can’t be a paying gig, can it? What else do you do?”

He looked a bit embarrassed. “Tend bar. In Newburyport, Massachusetts.”

“And your buddy Josh?”

“Dishwasher. Same place as me.”

“So how did you end up doing this?”

Josh shrugged. “We love Goth stuff, the supernatural, that sort of thing. King, Poe, Lovecraft… and Newburyport ’s got a lot of haunted history. We read up on ghosts and ghost-hunting on the Web, seemed like fun, you know? Do stuff firsthand. Got some gear, made a connection with a cable station, and there you go…”

“And probably get to boast some to the young ladies, right?”

Just the hint of a smile. “Maybe.”

“And how did you end up here, in Salem Falls?”

“The guy that owns the house, he gave us a ring. And once we looked into the history of this house, man, of what happened here-”

I held up a hand. “I know. The Logan place. I’m a native. I know all about it.”

“Oh,” he said.

“So how many times have you done investigations like this?”

“About ten, fifteen times,” he said.

“Any ghosts? Spirits? Things that go bump in the night?”

Josh rubbed his hands together. “Indications… increased levels of electromagnetic radiation, some whispers caught on audiotape, flashes of light… stuff like that.”

“But no pirate ghosts, waving a sword, that sort of thing?”

He wiped at his eyes. “Look, maybe you’re having fun with this, you know? But my buddy’s dead out there.”

I felt properly chastened. “My apologies. You’re right. Look, Josh, what happened when Peter came down the stairs? Where were you?”

He took a breath. “I was in the living room. There was some indication in the far corner… just a sudden dip in the temperature. Peter was upstairs, on the third floor. Then I heard him moving fast, and a yell… and then he fell. I ran upstairs and just saw him there… bleeding… and… it was so quick, you know? It didn’t take long. The woman… Christ, I forget her name, she called nine-one-one and then that woman cop showed up. And that’s about that.”

“All right,” I said, making my last notes. “You said he yelled… did you hear him saying anything in particular?”

He wiped at his eyes again. “I… I don’t know. He said something.”

“And what was that? What did he say?”

Josh suddenly looked about thirty years older. “He said… he said… ‘It’s coming after me. It’s coming after me.’ ”

OUT in the living room, I saw the reflection of red strobe lights, bouncing off the wallpapered walls, and on the porch, there were a handful of Salem Falls volunteer firefighters, eager to do their job. I went out on the porch and nodded to my officer, and spotted Skip Durban, the chief of the volunteer fire department. He weighs about three hundred pounds and needs to have a specially tailored fire coat, but he’s been the chief for nearly a decade, and while his department may be volunteer, it is very professional.

“Looks like an untimely death, Skip, but you know the drill. Can’t move the body until the county medical examiner says he’s dead.”

Skip, being a good sort, just nodded and said, “State police coming?”

I said to Melanie, “Would you take care of that, then? Contact the State Police Major Crimes Unit and the medical examiner. Sort of slipped my mind.”

Melanie looked coolly at me and said, “Not a problem, Chief.”

Skip said, “Mind if I get a look?”

I said, “Give me a couple of minutes first, all right, Skip? I haven’t seen the poor bastard yet… just want to get first impressions by myself.”

Skip said, “Sure.”

And I was going to ask him to have his guys switch off the red strobe lights, but he was being so agreeable, I let it pass.

BACK in the house, I ignored my three interviewees and decided it was finally time to see the death scene for myself. I went up the first floor steps-nice wide oak steps-and then to the landing, where I detected the odor of blood and other bodily fluids. The poor guy was dead, all right. He was crumpled up on his side, facing the living room, and his throat was a bloody mess. Blood had sprayed out onto the banister and the wall, no doubt from a severed artery. I stepped a bit closer. Peter looked to be about the same age as his friend downstairs, had on jeans and black sneakers, and he had on the same kind of T-shirt, save his was short-sleeved, showing off tattoos on both bare arms. His eyes, thankfully, were closed. I looked up the stairs going up to the third floor, looked at the banister, an old, carved, ornate piece of work, matching the adjacent railings.

And my officer had been right. The railing here on the landing was low, much lower than any present-day building inspector would allow, and on either end of the railing, there were carved, decorative pieces that in fact looked like narrow corncobs. The one at the end facing the stairs going down was nice and plain. The one at the end facing the stairs going up was bloody, and it looked like the top three or so inches had been broken off.

I stepped around Peter and his pool of blood, looked upstairs to the third floor. This set of stairs was narrow and steeper, and the wood was highly polished. Easy to see what must have happened. The young guy was up on the third floor, got spooked, and tried to come downstairs quickly. Slipped on the steps, fell, and impaled his throat on that nice hundred-year-old bit of decorative railing work.

Untimely death. My officer had called it, I had confirmed it, and I was sure the medical examiner and whatever state police detective on duty tonight would sign off on it as well.

Still… one more thing to look at. I felt a hint of cold air on the back of my neck, a draft from somewhere, no doubt.

I looked down at Peter, saw a cassette recorder at his side, and about two feet away from his left hand, one of those miniature camcorders. I picked up the cassette recorder, reversed the tape a bit, and held it close to my ear, so I could hear what was on there. I listened for a minute, and then stopped the tape, and then played with the tape controls for a moment.

I put the cassette recorder down, picked up the camcorder, and repeated the process, looking through the narrow viewfinder, seeing what had been recorded. When I was done with that, I worked the controls one more time and then put everything back down on the floor, and then I felt that cold breeze upon the back of my neck again.

I stood up. Upstairs a door suddenly slammed shut, like the same errant breeze against my neck had caused it to close. And after that, I went downstairs, through the living room, and outside to the porch.

I smiled at the patient Skip. “Go take a look before the circus starts.”

AND the circus came and stayed for a few more hours, as the medical examiner looked at the body and confirmed that yes, indeed, the poor boy was dead, which allowed the patient volunteer firefighters of Salem Falls to remove the body and take it to the Pearson Funeral Home, next town over in Montcalm, but not before two polite and large state police detectives took their own photos, performed their own measurements, and interviewed the three witnesses. Eventually the Tolands were left in the living room with my officer Harris while Josh sat on the porch.

Then the two detectives and I huddled in the kitchen-as the morning sun started streaming through the windows-and we eventually came to the logical and only conclusion, that one Peter Grolin of Newburyport, Massachusetts, had in fact died accidentally, with no indication of foul play, and that the cassette recording and the camcorder recording showed no evidence that anything untoward had happened to the unfortunate young man.

With that we all wished that someone knew how to work the fancy coffee machine in the corner, because a hot cup of joe would sure taste good right about now, and then the taller of the two detectives said, “So, this is the Logan place. Funny, always heard about it, but never thought I’d be inside of it… especially looking at a dead body. Ironic, huh?”

His partner, who was trying to decipher the controls on the coffee machine, looked up and said, “What about the Logan house?”

The other detective said, “Read more than Sports Illustrated, maybe you’ll learn something. Chief, you’re a townie. Want to let my buddy here know about the Logan house?”

I smiled and said, “Breck Logan built this place back in 1882. Was the wealthiest man in the county. Built mills along the Connecticut River and got even wealthier. Never married, never had any close relatives… and died in 1903.”

The detective by the coffee machine said, “And that’s it?”

The other detective laughed. “Hell, no. The chief isn’t telling you the good stuff, the gory stuff. Right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, right. Story was… though never printed anywhere, that the good Mr. Logan was a devil worshipper. That he led a coven of devil worshippers. That his devil worship and the worship of the others allowed both him and the town to thrive… and that over the years, some French-Canadian girls who came down to work in his mills disappeared. That some of their fathers came down in 1903… to confront Mr. Logan about it… and before they could get any information out of him, he went upstairs to the attic of this house and blew his head off with a shotgun. And that some of the fathers from Quebec started digging on the property… and found bones and skulls. End of story.”

“Right,” the detective at the table said. “End of story, but not of lesson.”

“What lesson?” the other detective asked.

“That these nice little villages and towns, they can have the darkest and bloodiest secrets imaginable. Even a pretty little town like Salem Falls, with a fancy-schmancy downtown, nice little computer firms in the old mill buildings, still doing fine. Right, Chief?”

I smiled. “Right.”

THERE came a moment, then, when the Logan house was empty, and I went back upstairs, past the blood-stained floor, and then upstairs again. I opened up the door and felt a blast of cold air on my face, and then took a set of very narrow and creaking steps up to the attic. There were boxes up there, piles of junk, and even though it was now daylight, it was still dark, with very little light streaming in from slats at either side of the attic. I rubbed my hands and looked into the darkness, and then let my eyes adjust to the lack of light. There was something off to the right. I ignored it. Kept staring into the darkness, thinking about the night, thinking about what had happened, thinking of what I had learned.

Thought about the cassette recorder, and what I had heard, the shaky and frightened voice of Peter Grolin: “Something’s going on up here, I don’t know, I’m freezing Josh, I’m freezing, and oh Christ, something’s coming down the stairs… it’s coming near me… it’s coming after me… it’s coming after me!”

Then the sound of something falling, something gurgling, and then the whisper of static.

And what I had seen on the camcorder viewing screen, filmed in night vision: the same narrow steps leading up to the attic, the door opening, and an illuminated shape, oozing down, coming closer, closer…

An illuminated shape.

Like the one I could see from the corner of my eye, in the attic with me.

I took a breath. “You didn’t have to do that. I know you were provoked. But you didn’t have to do that.”

The shape flickered, moved. I took another breath. “I promise you, things won’t change. They won’t get a permit for the bed-and-breakfast. And there won’t be any more ghost hunters. No more trespassers. I promise. Okay?”

The shape flickered one more time and then disappeared, but not before I saw what was there, the slightly out-of-focus image of a man wearing a turn-of-the-last-century frock coat and pants, with a head that looked like a bloody, shattered pumpkin.

AS I went back out to the porch, I had a warm thought, that maybe the weekend could be salvaged after all. My wife and girls would be pleased. Outside, Josh was slowly loading some gear into his white van, the Toland couple was having a heated discussion at one end of the porch, and the two state police detectives were conferring over their notebooks. I came down the stairs, yawning, and then the younger state detective-the one who had finally got the coffee machine up and running-came over to me and shook my hand.

“Nice to have met you, Chief,” he said. “And I’m sure you hope you don’t see us again, any time soon.”

I gave his hand a firm shake, smiling, since he was right, since you only saw state police detectives in my line of work for serious matters. “If you don’t take offense, yeah, you’re absolutely right.”

He grinned and looked around at the Logan house, at its neighboring homes, and said, “First time I’ve ever been in Salem Falls. Nice little town. Hell, a great little town. I’ve been to a lot of towns in this part of the state that are barely hanging on by their fingernails… but you guys have been lucky.”

“That we have,” I said.

Then the younger detective gave a forced little laugh, like he was trying to make a joke and knew he wasn’t succeeding. “You know, somebody might say that those old devil worshippers, they’re still around, making sure the town still stays prosperous.”

I looked at him, kept my expression slightly amused, and finally said, “You’re right. Some might say.”