Crimes by Moonlight

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. Fu

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 Co

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.”