“Kevin Pace, right?” he said as the technician stood at his approach.
Pace nodded.
“Have you been waiting long?”
“About half an hour.” The man passed a hand through his rumpled, mouse-colored hair. “I’m sorry to bother you. I remembered your saying you were in the Thomas Cole cabin, and I wandered the grounds until I found it.” He seemed agitated, his eyes darting here and there even though the two of them were standing at the path’s end, invisible to anyone. “I’m sorry, but do you think I could speak to you for a minute?”
“Of course.” Careful to keep the puzzlement from his face, Logan unlocked the door, ushered the man in, then picked up the lunch tray and followed.
“Sit anywhere,” he said as he carried the tray to the kitchen, then came back out into the living room. Pace sat down on the wraparound couch and Logan chose a chair opposite him. The technician licked his lips, wiped his hands on his jeans. It did not take an empath to see that he was upset about something, perhaps even frightened.
“Why don’t you tell me what I can do for you,” Logan said, leaning forward, interlacing his fingers and resting them on his knees.
But even though he’d driven all the way from the research station, even though he’d waited on Logan’s step for thirty minutes, the technician seemed unwilling to talk — or, perhaps more likely, didn’t know how to begin. He cleared his throat, looked at Logan with his timid eyes, took a deep breath.
“It’s okay,” Logan said. “Whatever it is, I’m sure I’ve heard stranger.”
Pace took another deep breath. “How much did Dr. Feverbridge tell you about our work?”
“She said you’ve been studying the influence of the lunar effect on small mammals.”
Pace nodded slowly. “Yes. It’s been taking longer than expected — everything slowed down, of course, after her father died. Anyway, my own observations have dealt mainly with Peromyscus maniculatus and Blarina brevicauda.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh. Sorry.” And for the first time in Logan’s brief experience, Pace smiled. “The deer mouse and the northern short-tailed shrew. I was assigned the shrew specifically because of the morphological changes they go through during torpor — their teeth, skulls, even internal organs undergo significant shrinkage. Among other things, I’ve been tasked with determining if those changes can be stimulated in ways other than weather.”
“Go on,” Logan said.
“Well, as you might imagine, because I study the rodents — well, technically, a shrew isn’t a rodent — at various phases of the moon, my work involves observations both inside the laboratory and out, at night as well as day.”
Logan nodded. It was as if Pace was dancing around the issue, unwilling to get to the point.
“I do most of my nightly observations in ‘A Pen’—that’s a small blind we attached to the rear of the main lab. The fact is… well, I’ve started to hear things.”
“Things?”
“Strange noises in the night. Mutterings, whisperings, the occasional muffled bang. I don’t much like being so deep out in the woods — unlike Mark Artowsky, who took to it like a fish to water — and at first I just chalked it up to an overactive imagination. But then I saw the lights.”
“Where?”
“Hard to tell, with all the trees. But they seemed to come from the direction of an old outbuilding.”
“An outbuilding of the fire station?”
Pace nodded. “We’ve never used it. It’s situated too deep in the woods, out south behind the lab.”
“When did you first notice this?” Logan asked.
The technician thought a moment. “Hard to be sure. I think it was around the time that second backpacker’s body was discovered. But it may have been earlier.” He hesitated. “I tried not to think about it, tried to blame it on cabin fever. And maybe that’s what it is. But after what happened to Mark… I just needed to tell somebody about it. I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer.”
“Why didn’t you mention this to the police?” Logan asked. It was a fair enough question: the cops had already been out to interview the lab personnel after the discovery of Artowsky’s body.
“I wanted to, believe me. But a story as thin as this? I figured they’d think I was crazy. And if they didn’t, then they’d be swarming all over the lab, interfering with our work more than they already have, and… and asking more questions.” At the thought, Pace seemed to grow more agitated. “And that’s the last thing I want. I don’t want to get any more involved.”
All of a sudden, he looked directly at Logan. “But then you stopped by the lab. Scientific curiosity, you said — and a wish to express your condolences. Those were the reasons for your visit. But I know who you are. I saw you interviewed in that PBS documentary about Bigfoot. I guessed the real reason you stopped by our lab… and after thinking about it, I realized you were the perfect person to tell.”
Logan didn’t respond. Serves me right, he thought ruefully.
Pace glanced down at his hands. “It’s just that I know bad stuff has been happening, out there in the western wilderness. And since I’d been hearing some strange things, seeing things… and since I know a little about your work — well, I figured you’d be more receptive than a cop, or a ranger. That’s all.”
For a moment, Logan didn’t reply. Then he nodded. “Okay.”
“So what are you going to do?” Pace asked.
“Do? Well, right now, I’m going to take a long nap.” And he stood up. “Thanks for coming by. I know this doesn’t come naturally to you, getting something like this off your chest. But I hope you’ll feel better for having done so.” He smiled and offered the technician his hand.
Pace blinked for a moment, not comprehending. Then, all of a sudden, he scrambled to his feet, shook the proffered hand.
“Thanks,” he said. Then a fresh look of anxiety swept over his face as a new thought came to him. “You won’t tell the police you heard anything from me?”
“Heard what? This conversation never took place.”
Pace nodded as Logan led him to the door.
“Drive carefully. And good luck with your research.”
Pace blinked, nodded again. Then he turned and began hurrying back down the path to the parking lot.
18
All the next day, and the day following, Logan worked assiduously on his monograph. Except that, try as he might, he was not able to make much headway. He wasted hours verifying sources he’d already confirmed to his satisfaction; he reread passages he had previously polished and left for done. He spent altogether too much time staring out the window at the surrounding trees, wondering how much progress was being made in the cottages around him: Diane Kearns, the conceptual artist, toiling at “Works in Progress Nos. 74 & 75”; Rudolph Zeiss writing his single-movement concerto for piano and string orchestra.
Gradually, he became aware of the cause of this distractedness: it was Kevin Pace, and his talk of lights and strange noises in the woods behind the fire station. As much as Logan had told himself — and Jessup — that he was finished inquiring into the murders, and as much as he wanted to believe it, he realized that he’d already put so much time and thought into the investigation that he wouldn’t be able to rest until he had looked into this, too. It might be nothing, it was almost certainly nothing… and yet the coincidence — unexplained goings-on near the lab where the most recent victim had worked, not far from Desolation Mountain — was something his sixth sense told him simply could not be ignored.
And so, after dinner that second day, he got into his rented Jeep and left Cloudwater, heading west on Route 3 toward Pike Hollow. As unattractive as the prospect of driving into the deep woods after dark was, Pace had said he’d heard the noises only at night. Besides, Logan had had little enough reason to visit the fire station the first time — he could think of no excuse to show up by daylight a second time and go poking about. He wouldn’t be trespassing, exactly; no doubt the Feverbridges had leased or rented the building from the state. He’d take a look around, satisfy himself that nothing was amiss, and leave. And maybe then he’d be able to get on with his work.