“So what, exactly, was your father researching?” Logan asked. “I know he was a naturalist, but beyond that very little.”
A look of defensiveness came immediately over the woman’s face.
“Don’t worry,” Logan said. “You’ll find that I’m the last person who would ever ridicule another scholar’s theories.”
“Because of your looking into things ‘beyond the scope of the normal,’ you mean?”
“Exactly. My professional title—outside of Yale historian, that is—is enigmalogist.”
She sighed. “Very well. I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t go into detail. It had to do with something called the lunar effect.”
“You mean, the correlation between the various stages of earth’s lunar cycle and animal behavior?”
She looked at him in astonishment. “You’ve heard of it?”
“Given my avocation, are you surprised? Yes: it’s the supposed connection between the full moon and the increased symptomology of epileptics, schizophrenics, and so forth.”
“That’s the simplistic view of it, anyway—and partly what gave my father such difficulties within the scientific community. And it is true there had been published studies on the ‘lunar-lunacy connection’: spikes in erratic behavior, suicides, psychiatric admissions, even increased traffic accidents and dog bites during certain phases of the moon. But I’m afraid our work here was much less sensational. I can’t tell you everything. But part of my father’s work involved mapping, very carefully and fully, the correlation of the lunar effect between nocturnal and diurnal animals. Small animals: shrews, bats. And as it turned out, this remote spot in the Adirondacks was ideal for both experimentation and observation. Now I’m determined to finish up the work he never got a chance to complete.”
It was ironic, Logan thought, that Jessup’s theories and Dr. Feverbridge’s research both dealt, in very different ways, with the same thing: the moon. He wondered what Jessup knew, if anything, about Feverbridge’s work. “How did he happen to die, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“He was out hiking about six months ago. He liked the outdoors so—I think that’s where Mark got his own taste for tramping around the forest. He was at the top of Madder’s Gorge, a high point of land not two miles from here. He must have slipped, because he fell to the base of a waterfall, a few hundred feet below.”
“How awful.”
“I had to identify what was left of my poor father. It was…it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do….” And here she fell silent.
Logan let the silence lengthen. He admired the courage of this woman, her evident determination, and her willingness to open up to a stranger about such a painful subject. The dogs returned, one with the stick in its mouth. It dropped it at Laura Feverbridge’s feet, panting eagerly, and she picked it up and tossed it toward the woods once again.
“Anyway, continuing Father’s research seemed the best way to honor his memory.” She stood up. “And now, Dr. Logan, I think I’d better get back to it.”
Logan stood up as well. “Of course. And I think you’re brave to do so. Believe me, I know what it’s like to have to work, knowing the entire world might be laughing at you. You’ve been very patient in answering my questions. I hope you’ll forgive me if I ask just one more—and believe me when I say I don’t mean to cause you any pain by it. You said you brought your father out to this remote place because you feared the academic scorn he’d been unrelentingly subjected to might make him…well, deeply depressed, at the very least. Can you be sure that his fall from the cliff wasn’t intentional on his part?”
At this, the woman’s hazel eyes clouded over. “No,” she said after a long moment. “I’ve asked myself that, and there’s no way I can ever be sure. I can only tell you that the seclusion brought him relief from the outside world—a place where the quiet could marshal his thoughts. He seemed happier to me here, more at peace with himself, than he had in years.”
“Thank you, Dr. Feverbridge. I appreciate your candor. And I wish you the best of luck in completing your research.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Dr. Logan.”
They shook hands. Laura Feverbridge turned and disappeared into the laboratory, and Logan walked back to his Jeep.
He drove the hour-long trip back to Cloudwater deep in thought.
15
The following day began sunny and crisp, but by afternoon clouds had gathered and a fine mist was falling. After lunch, Logan bundled his laptop and notepad into his duffel, slung it over his shoulder, and made his way out of his cabin, along the network of paths, across the lawn, and into the great lodge. The receptionist nodded as he passed. All was quiet; he could almost imagine a great creative hive around him, busily working as—in countless private rooms—theses were being proposed, novels narrated, abstruse geometric theorems proven.
As was his nature, he had already explored the lodge and even some of its extensive grounds: he always felt more comfortable having a working knowledge of his surroundings. Now he made his way to the third floor and down its plushly carpeted hall to the heart of the building, where a half-open door revealed a narrow wooden stairway leading upward. He climbed it to a tiny room, nestled beneath the very eaves. This room, he’d learned, was known as “Forsythe’s aerie.” Back in the late nineteenth century, when Cloudwater had still been known as Rainshadow Lodge, the “Great Camp” had been the summer home of Willis J. Forsythe, a shipping magnate. He had, the story went, fancied himself something of an essayist and writer of belles lettres, and it had been his wont to come up to this tiny, uppermost room, where he could be certain of no distractions, in order to concentrate on writing. If the tactic had worked, Logan found no evidence of it: there were no books by Forsythe in Cloudwater’s library.
The room was plain to the point of monasticism, containing only a single table and straight-backed wooden chair. It was empty, as he’d expected it would be. A single double-sashed window looked over the lawn and down to the mist-shrouded lake, and it was precisely this expansive view that he had come for: sitting in the Thomas Cole cabin that morning, he’d begun to feel hemmed in by trees, and he wanted a larger view in which to make the decision he realized now had to be made.
He took his laptop and notebook from the duffel and placed them on the table, though he doubted he’d need to refer to either one. Then he walked past the table and, hands behind his back, gazed out the window at the view below.
“Okay, Kit,” he murmured to his dead wife. “Let’s run it all up the flagpole, shall we?”
It was time to make a final effort to reevaluate everything he’d heard, read, and observed—if for no other reason than to fulfill his promise to his friend Randall Jessup.
First and foremost, there were the three murders. Each had occurred during a full moon; each had been perpetrated with extreme violence; and in each case it was uncertain who or what had done the killing. The third body, that of Artowsky, had been found some distance from the other two, but that in itself meant nothing except an extension of the kill zone. It was reasonable to assume the same being was responsible for all three deaths. A rogue bear had been the first opinion; most recently, the official theory was a wolf, although Captain Krenshaw leaned more toward a human killer, despite the remarkable strength required to tear bodies apart so violently.
The inhabitants of Pike Hollow, the closest hamlet to the murder sites, held the Blakeney clan responsible. The local belief—a belief of long standing—was that the Blakeneys were lycanthropes. Werewolves. He hadn’t heard this from their own lips; he’d heard it from Jessup.
In the Saranac Lake library, he’d combed through the local newspapers going back fifty years. True, he’d come across a number of intriguing articles, sometimes splashed across the front pages, other times buried deep within: stories of strange sightings, maulings by animals, even the rare disappearance of a hunter or fisherman—not to mention the four young children who had vanished over the last two decades. No
ne of these disappearances had been successfully accounted for, and no mention of the Blakeneys was made in the articles.
It was understandable that Jessup might suspect something unusual at work here, and Logan would be remiss not to keep in mind that his friend knew the locale far better than he did. On the other hand, he’d undertaken a dozen similar investigations, all over the world, and on every occasion he’d heard strange rumors, often sinister, always dark. Very rarely, they turned out to be true. And then, there was the other thing—despite his job as an enigmalogist, where keeping an open mind was essential to the game, something about the very notion of lycanthropy stuck in his craw. Not only that, but the Blakeneys—although he’d been personally threatened by them—seemed too much of an obvious scapegoat.
The readings of the air ion counter, EM detector, and other equipment he’d tested at a variety of sites were all inconclusive. That left only one item to consider: the unsettling feelings that, as a sensitive, he’d been aware of every time he drove down the forest-haunted 3A into deeper and deeper wilderness…wilderness he’d never experienced, or even known to exist, on his weekend trips to the High Peaks as a younger man. He could come to only one conclusion: the Adirondacks itself was full of an unplumbed, untamable force of nature that was—while not malignant, exactly—at best indifferent to man and, at worst, inimical. It was an irresistibly strong force that overwhelmed his ability as an empath to make specific observations or to absorb particular feelings, beyond the general sense that something was amiss; alien.
And that, he realized, made him useless to his friend the ranger.
Still looking out the window, he pulled out his cell phone, checked to make sure it had reception—a habit he’d developed since arriving—and made a call.
“Jessup here,” the voice on the other end answered.
“It’s Jeremy.”
“Jeremy, hi. Anything new to report?”
“Nothing. Except that I’ve done a lot of thinking, and…well, I’ve decided to throw in the towel.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Look, Randall. I’ve done all I can to help. I’ve talked to the locals, investigated the deaths, even viewed the third one with my own eyes. I’ve tried for your sake to keep an open mind. I’ve spent ten times as many hours on this as I’d originally agreed to. But I’ve run up against a brick wall.”
“What about the Blakeneys?”
“Krenshaw is already keeping a close eye on them, as you know. The plain fact is, I’m not finding any leads. I simply haven’t come across a shred of evidence, hard or soft, to justify my looking into things further. I hate to say it, but the time has come to let law enforcement—you included—do its job. And the fact is I’m losing precious ground on the project I came here to complete. I also think that Hartshorn, the resident director, is getting suspicious of my comings and goings. He gave me a look as I went into dinner last night that I didn’t care for. I don’t want to be summarily given the heave-ho from Cloudwater.” He paused. “I’m sorry. I know you feel strongly about this, and I wish I had something more positive to say. But without any measurable progress, I just can’t afford to give it any more time.”
It took Jessup a moment to answer. “I understand. And I appreciate it—I really do. You’ve gone out of your way to help, which was more than I had reason to expect, appearing on your doorstep like I did after being out of touch for so long.”
“Don’t think twice about that.”
Another pause. “But Jeremy…before you abandon this and go back to your research full-time, would you do me one last favor?”
“What is it?” Logan asked guardedly.
“Would you take a trip out with me tomorrow morning to speak with Saul Woden?”
“Saul Woden?” Logan repeated. The name sounded familiar—and then he remembered where he’d heard it: from Krenshaw, during the briefing at the ranger station. This wasn’t the work of an animal, and it sure as hell wasn’t the work of a monster. In fact, I’ve got a pretty good idea who’s responsible.
“I’ve had a chance to look into this Woden,” Jessup said. “Turns out he savagely murdered two people twenty-five years before—down in the Catskills, not around here—was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and was sentenced to the mental institution outside Schoharie. He was paroled a year ago. The state declared him rehabilitated. Now he lives alone outside Big Moose, a hamlet about forty miles away from you, on the edge of the Raven Lake Wilderness.”
“What good would my talking to him do?” Logan said, but even as he asked the question he guessed the answer.
“Because…I want to know your take on the man. Could he possibly be our killer? Can I get behind Krenshaw and his official suspicion? I just need to know I can put this gut feeling of mine aside, once and for all.”
Logan sighed. He’d done so much already—he might as well do this one last thing. “Very well. But you understand that, after this, I’m done. I’ve got a date with the Middle Ages.”
“Fair enough.”
“Can you meet me out at the main entrance again? And can you make it early, say before breakfast? The last thing I need is to have Hartshorn see me heading out with you.”
“I’ll be there at six thirty.”
“Okay. And Randall? Whether this fellow Woden is rehabilitated or not, you will be bringing your sidearm with you—right?”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way. See you in the morning.” And with that, the phone went dead.
16
“So what have you learned about this Saul Woden, exactly?” Logan asked at last. They had been driving for the past hour, and conversation had been sporadic. Jessup seemed on edge, and Logan could well understand: he, too, felt a sense of agitation, as if they were heading toward something best left alone, and already more than once he’d regretted agreeing to this visit.
“I reread the file last night,” the ranger replied. “It’s there between the seats if you want to take a look.”
“I’d rather hear it from you.”
“Woden grew up in a remote section of the Catskills. To say he was imperfectly socialized is putting it mildly. He was brutalized by his parents, especially his father, who left when Woden was about seven. The child had emotional problems that were mistaken for a learning disability—his mother apparently hated him for it and, once he reached puberty, no longer bothered trying to see to his education and, in fact, basically kicked him out of the house. He spent most of his time alone in the woods, where his condition worsened. Finally, when he was twenty, he killed two people with an ax—chopped them almost to bits. One was a young man, a backpacker, who happened across the little lean-to Woden had fashioned for himself. This happened during a full moon. The other was a girl of seventeen, who had a job at a Laundromat in a nearby village and was biking home after work. This was four days later, in the early evening, when the moon was waning. When caught—he didn’t try to resist arrest—Woden raved about being persecuted, about the voices that whispered to him in the night, about the two he’d killed being ‘dark saints’ come to steal his soul.”
“Delusions of persecution,” Logan said. “Auditory hallucinations. Sounds like a paranoid schizophrenic.”
“That was the conclusion of the state. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a downstate institution. As I already told you, he was released on parole about a year ago. He was monitored carefully during the parole period and adjudged to be rehabilitated. That was when he moved out into the wilderness—six months ago.”
And wilderness it was, Logan thought. From Tupper Lake, they had struck out southwest and, eventually, entered a kind of forest he had never experienced before. The trunks of the trees grew remarkably thick and gnarled, twisted and bent as if arthritic; what leaves remained on the skeletal branches were almost black in color. They were primarily deciduous, with only a few of the tall, stately, pleasantly scented pines that were so common around Cloudwater. Every now
and then, a bog or lake could be seen between the trunks: brackish and sullen-looking, dark as the lowering trees that surrounded it. He saw no signs of habitation, and they passed only one vehicle—a decrepit Ford pickup, vintage 1950. The road was worse than even the ones he’d traveled over on the way to Pike Hollow, and Jessup’s truck rattled and shook as if any moment it might fly apart.
“Where exactly are we?” Logan asked.
“Raven Lake Wilderness.”
The cab of the truck fell into another extended silence.
“How is it that you didn’t know of this man’s coming into the region?” Logan asked at length. “I’d have thought that would come under the category of news.”
“His prison time, his parole, all took place far to the south of here. When his parole term was up, he came north—quietly. It was as if he wanted to get as far away from people, and civilization, as possible. But as a felon, he had to register his current address with the parole board. I guess Krenshaw’s downstate cronies must have alerted him. The state police knew, but we didn’t. Don’t forget—us rangers are spread pretty thin. There are only about a hundred of us to cover the entire state. We can’t know everything, be everywhere.”
“Speaking of being everywhere, how’s the search coming?”
Jessup grimaced. “Terrible. We’ve called in rangers from four separate zones. And we’ve found nothing—no bears, no wolves, no clues. We’ll be calling it off in a day or two—otherwise, I think we’d have a mutiny on our hands.”
“I assume Krenshaw has spoken to Woden himself?”
“A couple of times. Apparently the interviews didn’t go very well. He’s still suspect number one. At this point, Krenshaw’s just waiting him out, hoping he’ll try something again.”
Up ahead, in the distance, a state police vehicle became visible in the woven tangle of trees. “We must be close,” Jessup said. “Get down onto the floor.”