The Pattern

By Geoffrey A. Feller

Natalie Dvorak #16:

Detective-Sergeant Natalie Dvorak of the Vermont State Police is confronted with a series of homicides in which the victims are people she might have arrested had she known what they were doing. Has someone decided they deserved to die? The circumstances surrounding the killings bring back memories for Natalie of a time when she was a victim. Can she uncover the plot and prevent more extra-legal executions in a state that doesn’t have the death penalty? When there is no sympathy for the targets of vigilantes can there be justice?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Geoffrey A. Feller
• Release date: Feb 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005600532

Geoffrey A. Feller

I was born fifty-seven years ago in the Bible belt but grew up in a Massachusetts college town. I am married and my wife and I have moved frequently since we met. We've lived in Minnesota, Massachusetts, and New Mexico, as well as a brief residency in Berlin, Germany. I have worked peripherally in health care, banking, and insurance. In addition to writing, I have done a bit of amateur acting and comedy performances. I am afraid of heights but public speaking doesn't scare me. My wife and I live in Albuquerque with our chihuahua.

Book preview

The

PATTERN

by Geoffrey A. Feller

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2021 by Geoffrey A. Feller

CHAPTER ONE:

WITNESS TO VIOLENCE

Autumn was the best season in New England. And New England was the best region in the United States for autumn. The crisp, cool evenings of October, now past the moist, thick, summer atmosphere; before the harsh, chilly, winter. The lush springtime rivaled autumn as the other temperate season. Yet October had something April lacked: fall foliage.

Leaves burst into vivid hues of red, orange, and yellow before withering away as the days grew shorter. Among the six New England states, Vermont had the lowest population and was the most rural. Thus, there were more trees per capita here and fewer obstructions for viewing the early-October color bursts from the branches.

Just how spectacular the foliage happened to be could vary year to year, like vintage wine. But leaf-peeping was an aspect of Vermont tourism; people drove in from other states for the first-hand experience.

For those who could not make the journey, there was no shortage of photographs to be found in magazines or coffee-table books. But not all the photographs were published.

I’m not a professional, the woman told Natalie Dvorak at the Rutland State Police barracks. Just a hobby. I’m a school teacher.

Natalie nodded. She glanced down at the notepad on her desk, peering through black-framed reading glasses at what was already written there. Natalie had just turned forty-five. Her dark blue eyes had needed text magnification for the past several years.

Nell Barton, Natalie had noted, along with the woman’s address and phone number. Also 45+ as an estimate for the woman’s age. Nell was dark-haired like Natalie, was of average height, and just slightly chubby. She wore bifocals with a blue tint in the lenses.

Where do you teach?

At the Academie Fontainebleau. It’s a French immersion school in Vergennes.

"Ah, oui?"

"Êtes-vous francophone?"

"Je ne parle pas couramment."

"Mais cet accent est bien."

"Merci. I was just showing off. Let’s keep this en anglais before I embarrass myself."

Yes, well, I witnessed the assault at Davison State Park.

While you were out doing your amateur photography?

Yes. I was shooting some foliage on an elm tree when I overheard voices from the other side of a hedge.

Date and time, Mrs. Barton?

Just yesterday, Detective, Nell said as Natalie jotted down the date, must have been about five in the afternoon. I developed the pictures myself.

She started to reach into her purse but Natalie held up her hand.

Wait. Just describe what happened, Mrs. Barton.

As I said, I overheard voices from the other side of the hedge. Arguing. A man and a woman.

So you eavesdropped?

I… I wanted to make sure the woman was going to be all right.

Don’t be embarrassed. I eavesdrop a lot.

But you’re a policewoman.

Natalie smiled.

So you could do something about it if a woman was in trouble.

Sorry about the comment. Please continue.

Nell nodded.

I went closer to the hedge. I can’t quote verbatim but the argument was over the woman having spoken to someone, another man, and this was against the rules.

So what the man was saying to her made it clear that he’s a control freak.

Yes. The woman denied that she was interested in this third person, this other man, or anyone else except him. She didn’t say it angrily; her voice was pleading, begging him to believe her. Says a lot, doesn’t it?

Natalie nodded.

"Then I heard him hit her. Not a slap, either. So I went around the hedge and I saw them. She was lying on her side in the grass and he was standing over her. He saw me and told me to get lost.

I said, ‘I am a witness to your violence.’

And?

Then I shot a couple of pictures of them.

Did the woman say anything to you?

No. She seemed bewildered if anything. The man grabbed her arm and pulled her up to stand by him.

How did he pull her? Roughly?

Yes.

Did she look at you at all; try to speak with her eyes?

She seemed too scared to do anything but stare.

Did the man object to you taking pictures of them?

Not specifically. He told me to go away; I mean he said that a second time.

He didn’t have anything to say about your comment that you were a witness?

In a way.

In what way, Mrs. Barton?

He gave me this smirk. A shit-eating grin, if you’ll pardon the vulgarity.

Natalie smiled indulgently.

But I got away from there before that man decided to do anything to me.

All right. Now let me see the photos.

I have four; the two that I took and enlargements I made from each of them. Enlargements of their faces. I was almost out of film by the time I heard the argument.

She pulled the photo prints out of the envelope and placed them in front of Natalie. The first she looked at was an image of the man standing over the woman. He seemed tall and lithe; he was wearing a red short-sleeved shirt and dark slacks, perhaps navy blue. The woman’s back was to the camera as she was lying on her side, propped up on the left elbow. She seemed slim and was wearing a white blouse with green Capri pants.

The next picture was of the couple standing side by side, the man holding onto the woman’s forearm. The first enlargement was of the woman’s face. Wheat blond hair, green eyes, high cheekbones, full lips, and a small, upturned nose. There was a bruise on the left side of her face.

The man’s face was in the second enlargement. He had dark hair, a strong jaw, and high cheekbones of his own along with a prominent nose.

The facial expressions on each matched the way Nell had described them. Their age seemed to be in the early to mid-thirties.

You never saw these two before yesterday? Natalie asked.

No. I have no idea of who they are.

Natalie nodded.

That’s a problem.

It is?

Yes, Mrs. Barton, Natalie said, taking her glasses off. Unless this woman, this victim, comes forward to file a complaint, we can’t do anything. Perhaps if you had a photographic record of the actual violent act…

But I had to tell someone! I figured the State Police would have jurisdiction.

Yes, that’s right. Now, I’d like to hold onto these pictures in case the victim does want to report what he did to her.

Please do! I have the negatives.

Sorry to be a wet blanket, Natalie said, putting the photos into a manila folder, but I do appreciate what you’re trying to do.

Natalie gave Nell eye contact.

Appreciate it more than you could know.

Nell stared into the deep blue eyes and then nodded. She correctly guessed that Natalie had been a victim of domestic violence herself.

CHAPTER TWO:

WROUGHT-IRON CHALLENGE

The black, cast-iron anvil sat on a brick post in Holbrook Village behind Town Hall. It had been sitting there since no one living really knew. Scott Benson, the Town Manager, was a little past seventy years old and the anvil had been there since before he was born.

Best guess, he told the interviewer, is that someone placed the anvil there between the Spanish-American War and the First World War.

Not there for a hundred years?

Possibly, but that would take it back to the late eighteen-eighties, Benson said. We think it came from Adenson’s Blacksmith shop which didn’t close until sometime later.

But why would anyone drop it on the post?

Benson, tall and gaunt in his black suit, shrugged.

A prank, perhaps, he suggested. No one was bothered enough by the anvil to have it removed. By the time I was a boy, people were used to seeing the thing and most of us found it amusing.

And it became a test of strength for the young men in the town?

Benson smiled.

The Excalibur of Holbrook, Vermont? Well, many young men have tried to lift the anvil over the years.

Did you?

Benson chuckled.

Not me! I’ve always been thin. No, only the biggest and strongest lads have ever been able to budge the thing.

How much does the anvil weigh?

Benson shrugged again.

I suppose more than three hundred pounds.

No one’s ever weighed it?

Not that I know of.

Well, Mr. Benson, we have a portable commercial scale on the back of that pickup truck over by the side of the road, the interviewer beamed. Now if someone could lift and carry that anvil over to the cargo bed, your town can officially report its weight.

A small group of people standing on the lawn between the brick post and the roadside clapped their applause. One camera operator had been pointing his lens at Benson and the interviewer; another was covering the bystanders.

Who is the strongest man in Holbrook today? the interviewer asked.

Officer Dan! a woman from among the onlookers shouted.

A short cheer came up from a few more women standing with her. Across the road, leaning against the rails of a fence outside camera range, Natalie Dvorak rolled her eyes. She was married to Officer Dan; her second husband.

They mean Dan Moritz, Benson explained to the interviewer. He is our town constable.

The big man in the police uniform? the interviewer asked, looking towards Town Hall.

Yes, Benson said.

The first camera operator turned his lens towards the man standing and watching the interview. The bald, middle-aged Dan Moritz was just over six feet tall with massive shoulders straining against the light blue tunic; the sleeves were tight over his thick arms.

Come help us out here, Dan! Benson called out.

There was more applause from the sidelines as Dan walked over, his black shoes crunching over a few dead leaves on the lawn. He approached the mounted anvil from the other side of the