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165 pages

English

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Set in rural Maine's Baxter State Park, Katahdin Drowning is complete with murder, secrets, and love triangles. It is in the park that amateur sleuth and librarian Jessie Tyler - a curious, smart, and strong-willed heroine with a tragic past - finds a body floating in Katahdin Stream. To the dismay of the police, Jessie becomes involved - and eventually discloses the solution to the case.

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Publié par	First Edition Design Publishing
Date de parution	10 octobre 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781622874088
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0300€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Katahdin Drowning
Janet Morgan

First Edition Design Publishing, Inc.
Katahdin Drowning

A Killdeer Farm Mystery

Janet Morgan
Katandin Drowning
Copyright ©2013 Janet Morgan

ISBN 978-1622-874-08-8 EBOOK

September 2013

Published and Distributed by
First Edition Design Publishing, Inc.
P.O. Box 20217, Sarasota, FL 34276-3217
www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com

ALL R I G H T S R E S E R V E D. No p a r t o f t h i s b oo k pub li ca t i o n m a y b e r e p r o du ce d, s t o r e d i n a r e t r i e v a l s y s t e m , o r t r a n s mit t e d i n a ny f o r m o r by a ny m e a ns ─ e l e c t r o n i c , m e c h a n i c a l , p h o t o - c o p y , r ec o r d i n g, or a ny o t h e r ─ e x ce pt b r i e f qu ot a t i o n i n r e v i e w s , w i t h o ut t h e p r i o r p e r mi ss i on o f t h e a u t h o r or publisher .

PRINT EDITION

Goose River Press
W aldoboro, Maine
Copyright © 2013 Janet Morgan

All righ t s reserved. No p art of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publishe r ,
except by a reviewer who may quote brief p assages in a review to be printed in a news p aper or magazine.

Library of Congress Card Number: 2013936857
ISBN: 978-1-59713-139-1
First Printing, 2013

Published by
Goose River Press
3400 Friendship Road
W aldoboro ME 04572
e-mail: gooseriverpress@roadrunne r .com ww w .gooseriverpress.com
Acknowledgements
Several people are to be thanked for their assistance with my book. Ken Gilman traveled to Baxter State Park and to Millinocket’s park information center on more than one occasion for me to confirm my facts about the park.

Special thanks to Susan Connelly, Christine Poitras, and
Marjorie Pooler for their editorial and proofreading skills.

Wiscasset Public Library Director Pamela Dunning provided my photograph.

The Wiscasset Public Library Writing Group encouraged me to write and helped me along the way to deciding where to take this book. Group member Jackie Lowell was especially helpful in being the first one to read and give suggestions on how to make Katahdin Drowning a success.
1
What sights of ugly death within my eyes!
—Richard III, 1.4.23

A peaceful country road loomed ahead in an inky darkness that descends only after the sun has set and before the moon rises. The woman stood motionless in an attempt to get her bearings, but before she could acclimate herself to the pitch black, a set of headlights materialized. She was blinded as a vehicle burst straight towards her.
She had no time to react before the car sliced through her body, leaving her intact, yet cold, very cold. Her whole body ached with icy intensity—inside and out—as she realized she was still standing. She scarcely had time to wonder if she was still among the living before gravel bit into her bare feet, bringing a moment of clarity.
In the short second when the headlights had bounced off the nearby trees, she’d seen something terrifying. The image had made no sense, for it was dark within the car, yet she had seen the face of pure evil behind the driver’s wheel. The maniacal face of Alfonse Sweetzer sneered back at her. The eyes glowing through the windshield of the big blue Cadillac plunged into the very core of her being.
Chilling though all this was, her mind quickly flew to what she had seen before the car had finished its pass through her body. That vision had been worse, much worse: a long, deep dent in the hood ascended to a cracked windshield. Encrusted in the cracks, blood—so much blood—smeared its way across the top of the car.
She had no idea how long she stood frozen to the spot. Her body turned to stone as the moon finally lifted into the sky, illuminating the tree tops and creating a tranquility that slowly thawed her arctic body. It was then that her mind began to function once more. I must do something, she thought, as she propelled her feet forward. She staggered on, all the while wondering what the man had hit. Could it have been a deer? It had to have been something big, for whatever it was had been rolled over the hood, onto the windshield, and over the top of the large car. It wasn’t long before she found out. On the side of that serene-appearing country road was a mangled motorcycle. A blue and gold helmet—cracked and scraped raw—still spun on its top just yards from where the motorcycle had come to rest.
A blinding hail of memories suddenly invaded her soul. Her throat closed. She could not breathe. She knew what would come next. She knew the ragged heap of clothing in the ditch held her husband’s body, shrouded in death. She dare not look. She had to escape. As she turned to run, she screamed.
2
It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman, Which gives the stern’st good night.
—Macbeth, 2.2.3-4

Jessie Tyler gripped her face with ice-cold hands. It was too much to bear. Wild, uncontrollable sobs wracked her body as ugly thoughts thundered through her overtaxed mind. Would the horror never end? Would the man in the car never stop torturing her? After all, he was now dead and true justice had been meted out when Hades—in the form of a library statue—had struck Alfonse Sweetzer over the head. And yet he still haunted her.
The night’s silence was cut by a horrific screech. Startled, Jessie attempted to fly from her bed, but she couldn’t move. She was trapped! She struggled until she realized she was wrapped in a sleeping bag.
“What’s going on?” Dara Kane’s sleep-filled voice asked from nearby.
“What was that?” Jessie was breathless from exertion. “You’re the librarian. Haven’t you ever heard a screech owl? Go back to sleep and stop wiggling around.” Dara lifted her arm and noted the time on her glow-in-the-dark watch; it was only two-thirty. “We’ll be getting up before you know it. You’d better get some rest,” she whispered.
Jessie Tyler and her friend Dara Kane had motored up to Baxter State Park in northern Maine yesterday morning. In another day, they would be climbing Katahdin to stand atop Baxter Peak, the highest point in Maine.
Jessie tried to take her friend’s advice, but she couldn’t get back to sleep after her recurring nightmare. She was afraid she would just slip back into the awful dream that frequently visited her ever since her husband’s death.
In an attempt to relax, Jessie thought back on their arrival less than twenty-four hours earlier. This was Dara’s first trip north. It was funny how this was her friend’s first venture into the interior of the state. But, then again, maybe it wasn’t as unusual as Jessie thought. So many visitors believed that the state ended in Maine’s largest city of Portland. Little did they know that they had barely touched the surface of what the state had to offer. Even most Mainers rarely ventured inland, presumably because the largest part of the state’s population had settled near the coast. Yes, Maine’s coast was beautiful, but its interior held much charm as well.
Jessie rolled over and pulled her sleeping bag closer as she thought about how she, with Dara as her passenger, had driven her Jeep north towards the park with her son, Jonathan, following in his truck. His passengers had been Gina Day and Willa Royce. The group had long-standing reservation s fo r thre e lean-to s a t Katahdi n Stream Campground at the base of the Hunt Trail—also known as the final leg of the Appalachian Trail.
Dara had been hyped during the whole trip north. She had fairly bounced in her seat when they exited Interstate 95 in Newport in order to take a less-traveled route to the park. “Wow! Look at that!” she said every time she saw something new. And it was a scenic way to travel, which is why they pre ferre d t o trave l northeas t throug h th e smal l town s of Corinna, Dexter, Dover-Foxcroft, Milo, and Brownville before arriving in Millinocket. There they connected up with the Golden Road, which led to the park.
Soon afterwards, they were waiting to produce their passes at the park’s southern entrance. Togue Pond Gate had always held a special thrill for Jessie. It signaled the entry into the realm of another world, nestled into the interior of one of Maine’s most spectacular regions. One would think that the scenery would become repetitive after a while, but this was not the case. All two hundred thousand plus acres embraced nature at its best. The diversity of the land spoke for it. With forty-eight mountains, sixty-four ponds and streams, and a plethora of wildlife, no true nature lover ever tired of Baxter State Park.
Various trails led to the interior and made it possible to ascend many of the park’s mountains. Jessie wondered what it had been like to be one of the first to discover this beautiful part of her home state. American Indians had undoubtedly been the first to traverse the waterways in bateaus. Jessie reflected on how thrilling that must have been.
Yesterday, however, she’d been content to see the late morning sun shine on the bright green leaves of countless trees and the various shades of blue glistening from ponds and streams as they passed sight after beautiful sight on their way down the tote road towards Katahdin Stream Campground. In her mind’s eye, Jessie recalled her joy when they had finally arrived at the campground.
After Jessie had parked her car, she gazed around, noting how little it had changed since her last visit with her two Jonathans. That visit had been the fall before Alfonse Sweetzer had run down her husband. But she wouldn’t let that spoil this visit for her companions; she was determined to focus on more pleasant things. Shade trees hung down here and there, some over the shelters that campers would make their home during their stay. It was truly beautiful here. Jessie never tired of looking at it, and she knew her thoughts had been mirrored when she’d heard Dara exclaim, “Wow, this is great!”
Jessie couldn’t share Dara’s enthusiasm when s