Ruckman Road: An Alex Penfield Novel Read online

  Ruckman Road

  An Alex Penfield Novel

  By

  Robert W. Stephens

  Copyright 2016 Robert W. Stephens

  All rights reserved.

  For

  Felicia Dames

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 - The Box

  Chapter 2 - Black Plastic

  Chapter 3 - The Body by the Bridge

  Chapter 4 - The Interview - Part 1

  Chapter 5 - The House on Ruckman Road

  Chapter 6 - Happy Birthday

  Chapter 7 - The Garage

  Chapter 8 - Hannah Talbot

  Chapter 9 - The Windows

  Chapter 10 - The Chair in the Attic

  Chapter 11 - Footsteps

  Chapter 12 - Sarah

  Chapter 13 - The Basement

  Chapter 14 - The Third Voice

  Chapter 15 - A Face in the Storm

  Chapter 16 - Henry Atwater

  Chapter 17 - The Reflection

  Chapter 18 - The Windows – Part 2

  Chapter 19 - The Rope

  Chapter 20 - Doubts

  Chapter 21 - Discoveries

  Chapter 22 - William Shackleford

  Chapter 23 - The Skull

  Chapter 24 - The Interview – Part 2

  Chapter 25 - Before

  Did you like this book? You can make a difference.

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Robert W. Stephens

  Chapter 1

  The Box

  Chesapeake, Virginia. 1986.

  At first, the boy assumed he was blind. The last thing he remembered seeing was the man walking toward him with the long, thin metal rod in his hand. It was thicker than a needle, but not quite as large as a knife. Still, the boy knew what it was meant for – pain.

  Now all the boy saw was darkness, complete and total darkness. There was nothing covering his eyes, and he’d rubbed them several times. He hoped that whatever was causing his lack of sight would be pushed away by his hands. He didn’t feel like his eyes had been injured, but his head felt like he’d been struck with a sledgehammer, and he was dizzy. The pain was a relentless thumping on the side of his head, like someone banging a cymbal over and over again just outside the corner of his right eye. The throbbing seemed to make its way through his body, all the way to his churning stomach. He thought he might vomit all over himself.

  It took a few moments before he realized he’d simply been moved into a new room. This one was even smaller than the one the man had kept him in before. The boy couldn’t believe he was still alive. He’d long given up hope the man would let him go.

  Then there was his father. He was certain his father would find him. If anyone could, it was him. Days had passed, however, and no one came for him. He had to admit to himself that he really had no idea how much time had gone by since he’d been taken. The room the man had kept him in had no clock or windows or anything else to judge the passing of time.

  He hadn’t been allowed to sleep very long, either, before the man would wake him up by banging a small black cooking pot on the side of the cage he’d kept him inside. The lack of sleep had left him delirious, and he was no longer sure what was reality and what was a dream. The word “nightmare” was a more accurate description. He was living in a relentless and horrifying hell.

  The man never even talked to him. He would just sit beside the cage and stare at him for what felt like hours. The boy couldn’t tell how old the man was. He was still too young to accurately estimate ages. Everyone over a teenager seemed old to him. The two main features the boy noticed, though, were the man’s long dark hair and his eyes. They were black, and they seemed to have a way to stare inside the boy and see his terror. He’d begun to believe the man could read his innermost thoughts. He tried to push his fear away when the man would come into the room and watch him. He didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing the horror the man inflicted on him. He knew it was a useless gesture, though. The man could tell.

  The man’s face had been expressionless during those long sessions when he would stare at the boy. The boy had begged the man to let him leave. The man never even replied or displayed any type of emotional response to the boy’s pleading. He would just watch him, never once breaking eye contact, and then he would leave. He would simply stand, walk out of the room, and close the door behind him. The boy would try to glimpse what lay beyond the door in that fleeting moment, as if he were plotting his improbable escape. All he could see, though, was a dark hallway, and he had no idea where it led.

  The boy knew he wasn’t the only child in the house or wherever it was he’d been kept. He could hear other children, especially when the door opened as the man came and went. It was impossible for him to tell if they were boys or girls or perhaps both whom he’d been hearing. He could hear their cries and pleading, but the voices had begun to blend into one background noise of anguish and misery.

  For what felt like the millionth time, he thought back to the moment he’d been taken. He’d heard what sounded like heavy footsteps behind him as he walked home from school. He’d turned around a few times, but there was never anyone there. The boy had turned right and headed into the small patch of woods. There was a thin, worn dirt path that went through the center of the woods. The path away from the safety of the sidewalk shaved a full five minutes off his journey home. He hadn’t heard anyone behind him then, but he’d suddenly felt strong hands grab his shoulders from behind. Then he’d smelled something sweet. The next thing he remembered was seeing the treetops above him spin and blur as he fell to the path.

  Despite the darkness now, the boy could tell he was on his back. He rubbed the surface underneath him. It felt like wood. He rubbed his hands back and forth across the surface several times before a thin splinter went into one of his fingertips. He yanked his hand back instinctively from the pain and felt his elbow bang into the side of wherever he was. He pressed his hands outward and felt the rough surface on his sides as well. Then he extended his hands forward and felt the same surface over top of him. He was in a wooden box. The thought occurred to him at that moment that he might be inside a coffin. He began to wonder if he was, in fact, dead. He only had a vague concept of death. Was this what it was like, darkness and pain? He banged his hands against the sides and bottom of the wooden box and screamed as loud as he could. His head throbbed even more from the echoes of his screams, and he stopped struggling to push the rising bile back down his throat.

  He thought of his father again. If he hadn’t been able to find him in that house, he knew there would be no way he would find him inside this box, wherever this box had been placed. The boy would be dead soon, if he wasn’t already.

  Forty-three-year-old Noah Penfield dipped his hand over the edge of the small motor boat. His fingers disappeared in the black water even though they were just a few inches below the surface. Penfield was a large man, standing just under six feet four inches tall and weighing close to two hundred and thirty pounds. His body was well muscled, and he looked like he could easily overpower just about any man.

  The two motor boats had been slowly making their way down the Intracoastal Waterway for almost half an hour, and Henry Atwater had said nothing. He hadn’t even shown the slightest hint of emotion or recognition. He just stared ahead like he was bored out of his mind on some damned bird-watching cruise. Penfield had the urge to toss Atwater overboard and order the boats turned around, but there was too much at stake to lose his temper now. There was something about Atwater that disturbed Penfield. There was nothing about his physical appearance that seemed unusual. He was of average height and weight
. Penfield guessed his age to be in his mid-forties like him. Atwater had short hair that was a mixture of light brown and gray at the temples. Atwater had a way of not looking at people, though, that set off alarms in Penfield. He always seemed lost in thought as he stared off in one direction or another. Penfield could never see what unique or interesting thing the man was looking at either. His eyes just seemed empty and lifeless.

  Atwater had come to Penfield and offered to help with the case. Penfield’s immediate response, at least the response he’d wanted to give, was to tell Atwater to get lost. The last thing he needed was some self-proclaimed psychic, but Atwater knew things about the case, so Penfield couldn’t easily dismiss him.

  From Penfield’s perspective, there were three possibilities. Atwater was a nutcase, someone who just craved the attention, and this entire trip was a giant waste of time, emotion, and manpower. Possibility number two: Atwater was the one who had taken Penfield’s boy. Criminals often were the ones to report their own crimes. They thought it was a surefire way to throw police off their trail, and it afforded them the opportunity to find out what the police knew. Penfield had seen this happen many times. It had even occurred on some of his own investigations. The third and final possibility was that Atwater was the real deal. Penfield had to admit to himself that this was the least likely possibility, but he had gone well beyond the point of desperation. He was willing to try anything now to find his son.

  Penfield asked for a second time if Atwater recognized anything. He got the same response as before. Nothing. They continued down the waterway. Penfield closed his eyes for a moment and prayed. He hadn’t prayed in years, but now it was something he did several times an hour. He didn’t want to admit to himself that he still thought it was a waste of time and effort. He’d seen too much evil to ever think there was a higher power protecting the world.

  Penfield listened to the gears of the boat motors turn. The engines were loud, but they still didn’t drown out the deafening sounds of the cicadas from the woods that ran alongside the waterway. He could smell the strong fumes of the gasoline. They made his eyes burn and water. He opened his eyes and looked down at his hand in the water. He saw his exhausted expression in the reflection of the murky water. He pulled his hand out and dried it on his pants. He looked ahead. There was nothing but black water and woods as far as he could see. Occasionally, they would pass a fallen tree branch or a turtle breaking the surface of the water, but those were the only things that broke the smoothness of the sea of black.

  “There,” Atwater said.

  Penfield turned to the psychic and saw him pointing straight ahead.

  “That tree branch. Do you see it?” Atwater asked.

  Penfield didn’t respond, but he saw it a second later. There was a thin brown cord wrapped around a branch that extended partially over the waterway. It was frayed and faded, and it blended in so well that he’d miss the inconspicuous rope every time, even if he passed this way on a thousand trips.

  Atwater pointed to a small break in the brush that lined the water.

  “Pull over there. This is it.”

  The two boats throttled down and coasted over to the shore. One of the three other police officers hopped onto the shore with Penfield and held the bows of the small boats while the others climbed out.

  “Where now?” Penfield asked.

  Atwater didn’t look at him.

  Instead, he just said, “He’s close. I know it.”

  Penfield watched Atwater push his way through the thick brush and walk deeper into the woods that ran the length of the waterway. Penfield paused a moment to look around. He saw nothing out of the ordinary except the old cord that was wrapped around the branch. It looked as if someone hadn’t set foot in this area for years. The cicadas seemed to have gotten even louder now that they were just a few feet into the woods. The sound was deafening. Penfield thought he would scream from frustration, fear, and the sound of those damn insects.

  He turned and saw that Atwater was almost out of view.

  “Let’s go,” Penfield said to the other officers.

  They stepped to the side and let Penfield go first. They followed Atwater for forty or fifty yards. The woods grew thicker with each passing step, and the branches of the small brush tore at their clothing and exposed skin.

  Penfield grew more and more convinced Atwater was a nut case. There was no way his son was out here. He knew it would take all of his energy not to strangle Atwater when he finally admitted he’d been taking them along for a ride.

  Penfield turned around to see if he could still spot the waterway from this distance, but it had been swallowed up by the thick woods. He turned back to Atwater and saw he’d stopped in front of a tree. Penfield walked up beside him and followed his gaze. There was another thin cord. This one was also old and frayed, and it was wrapped around the bottom of the tree trunk.

  “He’s here, swallowed in a sea of black, just like in my dream” Atwater said.

  Penfield looked around.

  “Where? There’s nothing here. The only damn sea of black is back there,” Penfield said, and he pointed back toward the waterway.

  “Not there. Here.”

  Atwater pointed to a small clearing a few feet from the group. Penfield walked over to the clearing, kneeled down, and brushed some of the pine straw away. He saw the ground had been disturbed under it. He tore at the earth with his bare hands.

  “Alex! Alex!” Penfield yelled.

  Two of the other officers joined him, while the third instinctively stayed by Atwater and kept his eyes on him.

  They struck something hard after digging down just a foot. Penfield pushed the dirt away and saw a few inches of wood. Despite having been covered with dirt, the wood appeared new, as if it had just been purchased at a local hardware store. Penfield sped up his pace and cleared enough of an area to find the edge of the wood. He tried to pry it open, but there was still too much dirt on top. The three men spent several more minutes digging until they had the entire surface of the wood cleared. They tried to open it again, but it was nailed shut.

  Penfield reached into his jacket and removed a pocketknife. He opened the blade and shoved it into the crack between the wooden lid and the side of the box. He pried the knife back, but the board wouldn’t move. Instead, the blade snapped in two as Penfield strained at the knife with all of his strength. One of the police officers removed a larger knife and placed it where Penfield’s had been. He pried it back, and the board finally started to move. Penfield shoved three of his fingers under the lid. He pulled and yanked hard several times. The wooden lid partially opened.

  “Help me,” Penfield said, but they were already moving.

  Two of the officers grabbed the lid with Penfield, and it tore open under their combined strength. Penfield saw his son lying in the box. His eyes were closed, and he wasn’t moving. Penfield reached inside the box and felt for a pulse in the boy’s neck. He paused a moment, and a flood of relief washed over his eyes.

  “It’s all right, Alex. I have you,” Penfield said.

  Penfield looked at his son for several long seconds. He couldn’t believe he’d found him alive. Finally, he turned to the officer standing beside Atwater.

  “Arrest him,” Penfield said.

  He turned back to his son, who was still unconscious. Penfield reached inside the box and placed his hand on the side of his son’s face.

  “Alex, it’s me. Wake up, Alex.”

  Chapter 2

  Black Plastic

  Hampton, Virginia. 2011.

  “Alex,” the woman whispered.

  Detective Alexander Penfield turned and saw his partner, Maria Torres, walk up the wooden stairs. She tried her best to remain as silent as possible, but the old stairs creaked and groaned under each of her steps. Penfield marveled that even in the middle of the night, Torres looked alert and ready for anything. She always seemed to have boundless energy. Maybe it was the fact that she ran five miles every day, Penfield t
hought. It certainly gave her an impressive figure. Her long black hair was pulled back in her typical ponytail. Her jacket was open, and Penfield could see her service weapon on her side. Torres was in her early-thirties, but she looked a good ten years younger. Penfield enjoyed teasing her whenever some idiot referred to her as a rookie. She might look young, but she was a veteran at this point and quite possibly the best officer he’d ever served beside.

  “Try one more time,” Penfield said.

  Torres reached into her pocket and removed her cell phone. She pulled up her call log and pressed the last number called. They heard a phone ring inside the apartment a moment later.

  Penfield nodded, and Torres stepped beside him. She stuck a key into the doorknob and unlocked the door. Then she stood to the side and pushed the door open. Penfield already had his weapon drawn. He entered the apartment but stopped almost immediately. The lights were out inside the apartment, but a street light from the parking lot partially illuminated the living room. It bathed the grisly scene in a sickening, red glow.

  Penfield looked down at a large, black, plastic tarp. A woman was on her back on the middle of the tarp. Her t-shirt was torn, exposing one of her breasts, and she was nude from the bottom down. Penfield took a quick glance around the room and down the hallway that connected the bedrooms to the living room. He saw no one else. He kneeled down beside the woman with the intention of checking for an unlikely pulse. Then he saw the pooling blood on the tarp and the large gash across the woman’s throat. The dark blood had been difficult to spot against the black plastic, but his new angle of view showed the liquid glistening in the red light of the sodium vapor street lamp.

  He looked up at Torres and shook his head. Torres nodded and proceeded over to the sliding glass door that opened to a narrow, covered balcony that overlooked the parking lot. She and Penfield had been to this apartment a few days ago, and she remembered the basic layout. The vertical beige blinds were turned open, and she was able to quickly scan the balcony. There was no one there. Torres turned back to Penfield, and he motioned to the hallway.