Unusual Suspect

UNUSUAL SUSPECT

by Geoffrey A. Feller

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 by Geoffrey A. Feller

CHAPTER ONE

WEDNESDAY

The forest was full of life in the darkness. Insects and animals alike moved or waited in the dimness. Humans, born to be diurnal creatures, find the notion of walking through dense woods in the dead of night to be fearful. The primary information-gathering sense for the human being is vision and too much is hidden in the dark. In an urban area, man-made structures limit the opportunities for predators to lurk and hide; at night, electric lighting illuminates sidewalks and roadways so that people who venture outside can visually draw in what they need to assess degrees of safety.

But here in the forest vegetation obscures the view of even the most acute eyesight and the darkness conceals potential danger. While the nocturnal creatures rely on highly developed senses of smell and hearing to track or evade other active wildlife, the human is impaired and the same brain that provides at least a potential for reason and logic can also imagine fanciful sources for the noises and odors encountered in the dark. Imagination, linked to the powerful fear emotion, compels the wandering human to flee from what threatens his existence.

Paul W. Neeley had once felt the fear during the early stages of his research. But that had been years ago by now. His pulse rate would quicken from time to time during expeditions like this yet it was more a matter of anticipatory excitement, the chance that perhaps this time out would bring the moment Paul had yearned for.

Imagination.

Paul was constantly accused of being ruled by imagination rather than the rigors of the scientific method. Other biologists and anthropologists dismissed Paul’s research as some sort of quixotic attempt at wish-fulfillment. There was no respect for crypto-zoology in the mainstream scientific community, nor in Paul’s own family.

But there were others who shared Paul’s faith and interest. Some, like Paul himself, had been convinced by the Patterson-Gimlin footage shot at Bluff Creek in California almost fifteen years earlier. To Paul and his compatriots, dismissing the figure in the film as a man in an ape suit was the real wishful thinking. Wishful thinking of those afraid to believe the truth.

Paul himself had seen direct evidence after joining forces with other crypto-zoologists rather than pursue a doctorate. Over a decade of exploring forest lands in North America, Paul had seen many huge footprints by day and heard the howling by night. Yes, there had been fear in the beginning. To look for a monster in the dark ran against the grain of childhood anxieties about things living under the bed or in the closet. It was eerie to think of a gigantic primate no doubt watching your fumbling attempts to track it in the creature’s own habitat. It was known to be powerfully strong and could surely kill a man with little effort.

No matter what the more experienced researchers told Paul about how benign and harmless – how shy – the Sasquatch was, the younger version of himself couldn’t help wondering if that was really true. But as Paul began to experience what he’d been told over time, the fright faded.

The great moment in Paul’s life had come three years earlier when he finally saw one of the species. It had happened in the Cascades and Gloria had been at his side. She was a tall, auburn-haired beauty, a twenty-three year old graduate student at the time. Gloria and Paul had separated from the main group and were hiking through a clearing on a warm, late-spring evening as dusk arrived. Gloria had seen the motion first; her eyesight was better than his.

Paul! Gloria had said in an excited whisper. There: up on the ridge!

Paul had followed where her slender index finger pointed but did not seen anything at once. Instantly, he picked up his binoculars and Gloria followed his example. Through the magnification, Paul saw a dark shape moving up the rocky ridge a thousand feet away. Its motion was neither humanlike nor bearlike; it stood upright, details of its shaggy fur hard to discern in the setting sunlight.

Paul and Gloria had stood still and silent until the dark, distant shape went behind a screen of trees. Paul kept on staring through the binoculars, hoping it would come back or another would follow the first one.

Although he was to be disappointed by no further activity on the ridge, Paul was thrilled when Gloria’s hand pushed its way into his. This was her first sighting, as well.

It was unfortunate to consider how Gloria had been part of the sighting. At first, that aspect of the event had been something wonderful. It had bonded them, led to romance, to a wedding. It had been miraculous that the tall, skinny, geeky Paul Neeley should ever have been able to get together with the stunning Gloria – Glorious Gloria, they called her.

But it hadn’t lasted. By now, Paul and Gloria were divorced. That had been painful enough in itself but Gloria had also turned against the cause. She had gone so far as to give media interviews in which she’d ridiculed the bigfoot hunters in general and Paul in particular. The interviews had been followed by a book published under her name (Paul assumed a ghost writer had been involved) which repeated the same charges and made Paul seem ridiculous.

All he could do was press on, just as he was doing now. Paul hoped for a more fulfilling encounter with a Sasquatch that would render the Cascades sighting almost pointless. Perhaps it would be such a colossal breakthrough that it would expose Gloria as the heartless opportunist that she really was. A side benefit, of course, but a sweet one.

And so Paul trudged his way among the trees in Edgemoor State Park, hoping to at least corroborate a tantalizing report of a New England Sasquatch. It seemed entirely plausible that such creatures could exist anyplace where the population density of humans was much lower than that of the trees. Some laymen or casual skeptics didn’t seem to think this was possible. Maybe – just maybe – some weird cryptid might be limited to the Pacific Northwest but Missouri? Ohio? Florida?

All three of those states had documented sightings, however. And so did Vermont.

Paul had already found broken tree branches to lead his way in a particular direction. It was believed that bigfoots arranged crossed branches as a way to mark trails in forests; this had to be the direction to take for his exploration.

Paul tried to shake loose the critics’ comments. Perhaps he was getting too used to woodland hikes like this one. Not only was the fear gone but distraction was now possible which was worse than being scared of the wild man of the woods.

Paul stopped and decided to make a vocalization to get his mind back on track. Holding his hands up around his mouth, he called out to the hidden contingent of Sasquatch, making a whoop sound, like the ones he’d heard before in Alaska, where Paul had come close enough to smell one of them. At one conference just a year earlier, Paul had delivered a lecture in which he speculated whether Sasquatches could relay messages over long distances one-to-another, warning perhaps of human encroachment or blazing wildfires.

Unfortunately, Gloria had been in the audience with a press badge. Paul hadn’t noticed her but she soon filed a sarcastic article in a national humor magazine under the title: Collect Call from Bigfoot: Paul Neeley Accepts the Charges. He was now more famous as his own caricature than as a serious scientist working the field.

Paul listened for a response. Nothing; just the usual crickets and odd little leaf rustlings. He whooped again. A moment passed and then, seemingly directly ahead yet several yards away came the reply.

It was lower, more drawn-out than Paul’s own vocalization, but he had no doubt as to what had made the sound. Ecstatic, Paul pushed his way through branches and brush in the direction from which the answering vocalization had come. Awkwardly, he reached for his camera at the same time. It was inside a leather pouch dangling from his belt.

The whooping sounding persisted and Paul knew he was getting closer to it. He hoped the Sasquatch was waiting for him – could it be? If the creature was moving away, Paul thought he was close enough to hear the thrashing of its walking away through the trees…

Paul staggered into a clearing. Pale moonlight showed him the high grass of the meadow. He squinted ahead, gripping the camera tightly in his hands, trying to make out any vast and tall figure in front of him. It was a small clearing, just a few paces ahead to the next tree line.

It suddenly seemed obvious that Paul was being watched from the trees. It was there! He couldn’t see the Sasquatch yet but he could just feel its presence.

Then Paul heard a thump and then a whooshing sound in the air. It was the last thing he’d ever hear.

CHAPTER TWO

THURSDAY

Natalie Dvorak was eager to get home from work so that she could pack more of her stuff, things that she wouldn’t need for a few months. She and her boyfriend Dan Moritz wouldn’t be moving into the house in Holbrook for another six weeks but Natalie liked to keep things organized and orderly. It would make things easier when the time came.

There was no rush but the idea of undone work made Natalie uncomfortable. Her desk was in the detectives’ squad room at the Rutland barracks for Troop C of the Vermont State Police. Natalie was a sergeant in the Bureau of Criminal Investigation and had been for close to two years now. Among the first women recruited to the State Police in 1977, Sergeant Dvorak was pushing forty yet was small and lean with thick, shoulder-length dark brown hair and deep blue eyes. Some of Natalie’s colleagues had once doubted that a pretty and petite woman could be an effective cop yet she could be tough when necessary; she’d recently fractured the ribs and wrist of one armed and dangerous suspect with the help of her advanced skills in taekwondo.

The phone rang just as Natalie was putting away a couple of folders she’d ordered from the file room for review. She looked up and noticed that Detectives Sweeney and Eustis were both away from their desks.

Great, Natalie muttered, reaching for her desk