This appalling episode of machine gunfire had followed closelybehind several isolated gunshots although it had all happened so rapidly, Jack questioned his memory. A few minutes after the automatic weapon had silenced, he then heard someone cry out seemingly in anguish, but what was said was unintelligible.
Jack had been hunched down in the utter darkness for several minutes following the automatic weapon fire and was just thinking about rising up and returning to the landing, when there had been another isolated single shot, making him duck down again. There he remained for up to another half hour until he started shivering again. At that point he’d cautiously returned to the landing where it was distinctly warmer. He’d even put his ear back against the door for a few minutes in hopes of learning something, but all was quiet.
It had now been about three hours since Jack had heard any noise whatsoever from beyond his hiding place door, which made him wonder what the hell was going on. By eight thirty the light around the door had begun to fade, which Jack assumed was due to the sun setting. But then he noticed that the light did not go away completely even by nine o’clock. This suggested to him that there were some lights on in the kitchen beyond the storeroom, but there’d been no accompanying sounds of anyone moving around nor any sounds of conversation.
As the time had crept ahead, Jack had had lots of opportunity to try to make some guesses about what had most likely happened. The only thing he could imagine was that there had been a firefight between Netherlanders. With nothing else to do but think about it and to keep his sanity under enormously stressful conditions, he’d found himself wondering, if he was correct, who and how many of the four might have prevailed. Obviously, at least in his imagination, it would have been most likely whoever had had the automatic rifle.
Jack looked back at his watch yet again and saw that another five minutes had passed. Maybe, just maybe, the reason he’d heard absolutely nothing for three hours was because there were no Netherlanders left in the house or even Essex Falls…
With this optimistic idea in mind, Jack returned carefully by feel to the door and again put his ear to it. Once again he was absolutely certain: There were no sounds on the other side. All he could hear was a slight ringing in his own ears. Leaning back, he looked at the narrow line of dim light that was seeping in from around the door frame. That hadn’t changed one iota over the last hours. Putting it all together, he made a difficult decision. Although it was hardly the wee hours of the morning, he was going to venture out, but do it very slowly and carefully, deciding ahead of time that he’d return to his hiding place in a flash if he heard anything at all.
To prepare, Jack fanned his arms for a few minutes even though he wasn’t shivering at the moment. He also did a series of deep knee bends and then bent over at the waist to touch his toes to stretch his back, which he found was disorienting in the dark. All his muscles were tight from the cold and disuse. When he felt somewhat prepared, he slowly turned the door handle until it stopped. He then cracked the door, all the time listening intently.
When he still heard nothing, he very slowly pulled the door open about two inches, affording him a narrow view of a small portion of the storeroom. He could just make out the shelving on the other side, but the light in the room was dim now. He waited for a minute, but when he still heard nothing, he pulled the door open far enough to allow him room to pass through, but he still held back. Instead, he looked at the storeroom side of the door he was holding open and could see that it was paneled as he assumed the wall was on that side of the storeroom. There was also no doorknobbut rather a clever, camouflaged release mechanism. It was certainly a hidden door.
After several minutes passed without sound, Jack held his breath and stepped out into the storeroom. As he did so he kept hold of the hidden door’s frame in case he wanted to quickly disappear back inside. With his pulse racing, he rapidly glanced around the room, which was rectangular about ten feet wide and twenty-five feet long. To his right were two Gothic-style open archways, one at the very end of the room, which led into what he guessed was a mudroom-cum-foyer. Although the room was dark, he could just make out what appeared to be a very welcome door to the outside.
The second open archway was on the opposite wall but at the same end of the room. It was through this archway that all the storeroom’s ambient light came, and Jack could immediately tell it led into the kitchen. Even from where he was standing he could see the corner of an old wood-fired stove similar to the one in the huge Hiram House kitchen. The problem was that for Jack to get to the beckoning outside door, he would have to pass the open passageway into the kitchen and be exposed to whomever happened to be in there.
A quick glance in the opposite direction and seeing a closed door at that end of the storeroom strongly suggested to Jack that the Bennet House floor plan was remarkably similar to the Hiram House’s. If that was the case, then the closed door led into what had been the servants’ quarters with no exit to the outside.
All these thoughts flashed through Jack’s mind in milliseconds, and he rapidly returned his attention to the open archway into the kitchen. It was from there that danger threatened. Unsure of exactly what to do, he stayed where he was. He was straining to listen for the slightest sound coming from the kitchen or from the rest ofthe house for several more tense minutes when one of the kitchen refrigerators’ compressor kicked on, emitting a sudden, loud stuttering sound. Jack reacted more by reflex than thought and was halfway back into his hiding place before his mind identified what had broken the heavy silence.
With a sense of relief and a roll of his eyes at his own behavior, he backed out of the hidden doorway and resumed listening to the sounds of the house but now over the noise of the refrigerator’s compressor. After about four or five minutes, the motor turned off, replunging Jack and the rest of the house back into total silence.
After another five minutes of listening and hesitation, Jack finally let go of the hidden door frame and began to take slow, baby steps toward the archway into the kitchen. Several times he stopped to listen, but then when he heard nothing he would recommence his progress. He approached by first crossing the storeroom to the side with the shelving. As he moved closer to the passageway, he got more and more tense. Finally, he got to a point where, by just leaning progressively forward, he would be able to see if there was anyone present. If the layout was the same as the Hiram House, he expected there’d be a large kitchen prep island.
Holding his breath, he started to bend forward but stopped when he saw a body. It was lying stretched out in a pool of blood on the wide planked floor with its shirt opened to reveal a bare chest. An AR-15 was lying nearby. Leaning out a bit farther he could then see the whole kitchen including its prep island, which was brightly illuminated by a bank of overhead lights. On the right-hand side of the island, he saw two more prone bodies pressed up against the island’s cabinetry.
At that point Jack was about to sprint as quickly and silently as possible past the open archway, through the mudroom-foyer, andout the door. But then he caught sight of yet another body. It was on the other side of the island in a slumped, sitting position against the far wall. Even from where Jack was, he could see that there was what appeared to be a large exit wound in the back of the individual’s head.
Suddenly comprehending that he was looking at four bodies and that there were only four supposed Netherlander militiamen, he understood full well why there had been no sounds after the final gunshot. Guessing that he was the only survivor in the house, he stepped out into the kitchen, where he could appreciate the extensive damage caused by the machine gun fire. Particularly the near wall, including a lot of the glass-fronted cabinetry, was in total ruin, completely shattered and splintered.
Instead of fleeing, Jack advanced into the room, first checking the body that was stretched out. Clearly the individual was dead and had been so for some time. Jack saw two circular chest wounds, meaning they had impacted perpendicularly, and immediately suspected that both shots had penetrated the thorax and undoubtedly the heart, particularly the one directly over the sternum. Moving next to the bodies pressed up against the kitchen island, he was able to see both had been shot in the face with exit wounds in the back of the head. They too were clearly dead.
On the top of the island, he noticed the .44 Magnum revolver and thought briefly about arming himself with it. But after a moment’s consideration, he decided against it, thinking it best not to touch anything in the kitchen as the whole mess was going to launch a major investigation to determine not only what had happened during this shootout, but also exactly what these people had been doing in Essex Falls. Now more than ever, he questioned their origins. Walking around the island, Jack bent down to look at thefourth body slumped with his back against the kitchen wall and his legs splayed out in front of him. Jack immediately recognized Alexei. About three feet away from his palm-up right hand was a Glock pistol.
As an experienced forensic pathologist Jack could tell with near certainty that Alexei had committed suicide by putting the Glock’s blunt muzzle into his mouth, angling it upward, and firing. “You poor, misguided microbiologist,” Jack said with a shake of his head, wondering how in the hell Alexei had managed to kill his three militiamen compatriots, especially when one was wielding an AR-15. Thinking back to their two brief interactions after basketball, Jack remembered sensing there was something amiss about this youthful man. Jack just couldn’t have imagined it was quite as bad as it seemingly was, especially if it turned out that he was ultimately correct about their purpose in coming to Essex Falls.
With a final shake of his head, Jack straightened up, turned around, and with great care not to disturb anything made his way out of the kitchen. Once in the mudroom, he hesitated and considered briefly returning back to the kitchen to try to locate a phone to call 911 but decided against disturbing any of the bodies, so he gave up on the idea. He also thought briefly of searching for a pair of shoes and a shirt, but he nixed the idea, too. He truly wanted to get away from the psychological stench of violent death and how close he’d come to being a victim. Besides, after overhearing two of the men talking about packing a truck that was ready to leave at a moment’s notice with keys in the ignition, he thought that would be a far quicker and better way for him to get to safety than navigating the woods in the dark, and he didn’t need footwear to drive.
As he exited onto the wraparound porch, he immediately spotted the black pickup truck he’d seen that afternoon when he’d firstarrived. In its cargo bed was a tarpaulin covered mound, presumably the cartons of fluid, most likely water, he’d heard being hefted from behind the hidden door. With adequate light emanating out of the kitchen windows, Jack descended the stairs on tender feet and walked up alongside the truck to its driver-side door. Hoping for the best, he pulled it open, and to his great relief, as the interior light came on, he saw there was a key in the ignition.
Without wasting another moment, Jack swung up into the cab and started the engine, which was music to his ears. Switching on the headlights, he drove straight ahead into the long, serpentine driveway that was even longer than the one at the Hiram House. When he reached the main road, he finally began to relax. He hadn’t even realized how tense he’d been and for so long. As he accelerated toward town, it occurred to him that he had to make a decision of whether he should he go directly to Hiram House and relieve Laurie, whom he assumed would be beside herself with fear by then, or should he go directly to the police to inform them of a horrendous, multiple murders–suicide. Almost the moment the question arose, he knew the answer. He’d go to Hiram House. Laurie was his concern. The authorities could wait.
By the time he got to the Hiram House driveway, he was considerably warmer than he’d felt since he’d been locked in the Bennet icehouse, thanks to his having turned on the truck’s heat full blast. Navigating the twisting road at a significant speed, he heard the bottles in the cargo bed forcibly hit up against each other on multiple occasions, hard enough to possibly cause breakage, but he didn’t slow down.
When he finally came skidding around the final bend, he was surprised to see the house brightly illuminated as if a huge partywas in progress. Every window on the first floor was ablaze. Adding to the effect, the parking area was literally jammed full of trucks, many with empty boat trailers but also cars including Warren’s refurbished Cadillac and several police cruisers. To his chagrin, there were so many vehicles that he had to park some fifty yards away from the house. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t have minded, but at the moment with no shoes and being in a hurry, he did. As he expected, the sharp gravel made each step painful, causing him to grit his teeth.
As Jack neared the porch, one of the uniformed Essex Falls policemen came out of the house and clambered down the stairs. Jack recognized the man as the duty officer he’d seen the day before when he’d stopped into the police station to chat with Bill Hargrove.
“Excuse me,” Jack said as they came abreast of each other. “What’s happening here?”
“We’re dragging the eastern part of the lake for a missing doctor,” the policeman said. He was obviously preoccupied while apparently hurrying out to his cruiser.
Although Jack was seriously tempted to identify himself as the missing doctor, he decided not to take the time. Instead, as they passed, he simply asked if Chief Bill Hargrove was there at the moment.
“Yes, he’s out on the dock,” the policeman called out over his shoulder.
