The Sound of a Scream

by John Manning

Genres: Suspense

Synopsis

A serial killer stalks a young governess as she uncovers the deadly history of a coastal New England village in this “brilliantly executed” thriller (Kevin O'Brien, New York Times bestselling author on All the Pretty Dead Girls)

Point Woebegone. From the moment Daphne May steps off the train, it's clear that this small Maine town is aptly named. Even before she reaches Swallowtail, the windswept house where she'll be working as a governess, Daphne's sense of foreboding is justified.

A waitress's gruesome death sets the whole town on edge--especially the wealthy, eccentric Witherspoon family. There are rumors, hostile whispers. Daphne tries to adjust to her strange surroundings and difficult pupil, finding a friend in local property developer Gregory Winston. Then a killer strikes again--and again.

A psychopath is culling his victims with brutal precision, and Daphne's arrival is far from random. But knowledge may come too late to save her from the secrets in her past, with a killer hiding in plain sight. . .

"If you like Dean Koontz, you'll love John Manning!" —Wendy Corsi Staub, New York Times bestselling author

Release date: October 24, 2011

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 384

Sample

As Daphne stepped off the train, the howl of a distant animal briefly obscured the sound of the wind. But still the wind was there, tossing her long auburn hair in front of her face and whistling through the wooden slats of the platform. Daphne shivered as she looked from one end of the station to the other. There was no one to greet her. There was only the heavy orange October moon hanging in the purple-black sky.

She wasn’t sure what to do. A shade was pulled down at the ticket booth across the way with a sign that read CLOSED. Only one other person had gotten off the train with her at this windswept, godforsaken station, a man whose footsteps now echoed ahead of her as he quickly crossed the platform toward the parking lot.

Daphne shivered again and looked up at the sky. It had been raining when they left Boston, but here it was only damp and cold. Still, she knew the rain was coming, racing along the coast as if trying to catch her, a mad, determined stalker. As the train had pulled into the village, Daphne had looked down from the craggy cliffs at the roiling Atlantic crashing far below her and shivered in her seat. Mother Angela had warned her it would be this way: “Why else do you think they call it Point Woebegone?”

Taking a deep breath, Daphne stepped across the platform and down the wooden steps to the parking lot, carrying her small suitcase at her side. Despite the fact that they had promised a car would meet her here, no one was waiting in the lot for her either. Perhaps the car was just late; perhaps the train had been a few moments early and all she needed to do was wait and someone would come. After all, the people who had summoned her here from Boston, who had been so eager for her arrival, couldn’t have forgotten about her. Still, as the shadows flickered in the windy moonlight, Daphne couldn’t shake a sense of foreboding. There was something about this place that she didn’t like, didn’t trust. She should never have come. She should have listened to her instincts and said no when Mother Angela had brought her the letter.

“Excuse me,” came a voice, startling her out of her thoughts.

Daphne looked around. It was the man who had gotten off the train ahead of her. He was standing next to a car in the deep shadows of the parking lot.

“Are you in need of a ride?” he asked.

“I was supposed to be met here,” Daphne told him.

The man smiled. He looked to be in his early thirties, tall and handsome and red-haired. “Well, I can’t imagine a more inhospitable place to be stood up. There’s a reason they call this Point Woebegone, you know.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“I’d be happy to give you a ride into town,” the man said.

Daphne hesitated. “I—well, I should probably just wait... .”

“It’s going to rain soon.”

Daphne wasn’t used to strange men offering her rides in their cars. In fact, not once in her twenty-two years had she ever been in a car with a man—except for old Father O’Donnell, and then there were always two or three of the other girls as well, plus Mother Angela, who, despite being relatively young (Daphne thought she was probably mid-forties) proved a stern chaperone. Daphne wasn’t so naïve that she didn’t realize she’d grown up extremely sheltered. She knew there was a big, wide world out there she had yet to experience. Part of her reason for accepting this job was so that she could finally leave the safe confines of Our Lady’s School for Girls and enter the real world. Not that the “real world” was something Daphne particularly wanted; she had been quite happy at Our Lady, and would gladly have remained there even though she had graduated. She had no calling to become a nun herself, but she would have been glad to help the sisters and teach the younger girls. But one day Mother Angela had brought her a letter from a man who lived on the rocky northern Maine coast, in a place called Point Woebegone, and who was offering her a job as live-in governess to his young son.

It was crazy, Daphne thought. She’d never heard of this man, this Peter Witherspoon. But one of the school’s benefactors had recommended her for the position, Mother Angela explained, and she urged Daphne to take it. “It’s time for you leave us, my dear,” the nun had said. “There is more for you to see and know in this world.”

And so Daphne had come. It hadn’t taken the real world long to rush up and meet her. Just minutes after she stepped off the train, here was a strange, handsome man beckoning her to his car, and despite her hesitation, there was a stirring somewhere down deep inside Daphne that she didn’t want to admit.

“I should wait,” she said finally.

“All right, whatever you say,” the man said, smiling, giving her a little bow, then turning around to unlock his car door.

Just then, as if in a movie, the black skies opened up and pelted the ground with a cold, hard rain. The raindrops felt like ice pellets as they slapped against Daphne’s face.

The man, about to enter his car, looked back at her over his shoulder.

Daphne ran toward him.

“I guess—I guess I should take you up on your offer!” she called, and he smiled—kindly, she thought. She hoped.

He hurried around to open the passenger side door. She thanked him and slid into the warm, dry, leather-fragranced interior. She’d managed to see the word BOXSTER on the back of the car as she passed. She thought that meant the car was a Porsche—she’d seen pictures on the Internet— and she was pretty sure Porsches were expensive cars.

“Thank you,” she said as the man settled into the driver’s seat and closed his door.

“Not a problem.” He smiled over at her, his teeth very white in the dark. The rain pounded hard against the roof of the car. “And you needn’t fear accepting rides from strange men here in Point Woebegone. We might be a little cold and raw in these parts, but our hearts are pretty warm.”

Daphne gave him a small, tight smile. The man’s words were reassuring, but she still wasn’t comfortable accepting a ride from a man whose name she didn’t even know.

Almost as if reading her mind, her savior from the rain remedied that problem. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Gregory Winston.” He smiled, flashing that white smile again. “The third, if you’re keeping count.”

“Daphne May,” she told him.

“Now that’s a pretty name. Your full name? Or is that just one of those sweet-sounding first-and-middle-name confections?”

She laughed. “No, it’s my full name. May is my ... last name.”

As Gregory started the ignition, Daphne didn’t add that it wasn’t a real last name. At least not for her. It was simply the name given to her by the nuns, since they’d found her on their doorstep on a bright sunny morning in the month of May. The note pinned to her bassinet read: Her name is Daphne. Please care for her well. The nuns had done so, despite urgings from the local bishop to put her up for adoption. They’d raised her, taught her, loved her. Especially Mother Angela, who’d pulled Daphne to her small bosom before she’d gotten on that train and held her so tight that Daphne thought they might fuse that way, and nothing or no one would ever be able to part them.

As the Porsche glided smoothly out of the parking lot and onto the dark road, Daphne missed Mother Angela with a sudden and terrible fierceness. Here she was, in a strange man’s car, heading to a strange house, all by herself, in a place she’d never been before. She’d never done anything on her own in her life. Mother Angela—born Angela Mastroianni, the only child of devout Italian immigrants—had always been with her. Mother had been like a real mother, there when Daphne took her first baby steps to the proud moment when she received her diploma, a graduate of Our Lady’s Teacher’s College. Mother had loved all the girls, but always seemed to make Daphne feel as if she mattered most. She guessed that’s how all the girls felt.

Daphne looked out through the watery car windows and blinked back tears.

The other sisters had been disappointed that she didn’t want to become a nun herself. But Mother Angela had supported her. “It is not your destiny, my dear,” she said. “As much as we would love to have you here with us always, God has other plans for you. You will see.”

“Are you staying at the inn?” Gregory asked her, interrupting her memories. “It’s in the center of town.”

“No,” Daphne replied, removing a piece of paper from the pocket of her coat. “The address is ... well, all it says is Witherswood, Cliff Road.”

The man looked over at her, without a smile this time.

“You’re going to Witherswood?”

“Yes. That’s the address I have here.”

“Whatever for?” He immediately lifted his hand in apology. “That’s none of my business, I’m sorry. It’s just that—”

“Just that what?”

The car hit a hole in the road and rainwater splashed against Daphne’s window. She pulled back slightly in surprise.

“Well, I just didn’t expect a pretty young girl just off the train to be heading to Witherswood. But now I understand why there was no car as they promised you. Poor old Pete seems to be forgetting more and more these days.”

“Pete? You mean Mr. Witherspoon?”

Gregory nodded. “Good old Pete owns half this town.” The smile had returned as he looked over at Daphne and winked. “I own the other half.”

“Oh,” Daphne said in a small voice. She had expected from the car that Gregory was a wealthy man. “Well, all I know is Mr. Witherspoon has hired me as a governess for his eight-year-old son, Christopher.”

Gregory made a short, whistling sound. “Governess to young Christopher! Well, you do have your work cut out for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever met any of the residents of Witherswood?”

“No.”

“Then it’s not my place to say.” He looked over at her with sympathetic eyes, then returned his gaze to the road. “And as much as I’d like to be gallant and drive you right up to the front door of Witherswood, I’m afraid it would harm your new employer’s opinion of you if they saw you get out of Gregory Winston’s car.”

“Why is that?”

“Nothing to trouble your pretty mind over. Up ahead is the Woebegone Inn. I was planning on stopping there for a little dinner myself. You can get a cab there—which I hope you’ll allow me to pay for, since I’m being such a cad and not driving you the whole way.”

“Oh, no, I have money,” Daphne said. Mr. Witherspoon had sent not only the train ticket but also two hundred dollars for traveling expenses. He seemed to be a very generous man.

But also a rather ... well, peculiar one, if Gregory Winston could be trusted.

The question was, how much could Gregory be trusted? As they pulled up in front of the inn, Daphne was eager to get out of the car. No doubt there were reasons why the Witherspoons wouldn’t approve of her being seen with this man—reasons Daphne didn’t much care to speculate about. She should have braved the rain and waited at the station. Surely the car would have shown up eventually.

After switching off the ignition, Gregory quickly jumped out and ran around to open Daphne’s door, opening an umbrella over her head. They hurried into the inn, splashing through puddles and mud.

The place was dark, paneled in deep brown, hung with fishing nets and buoys and life preservers. The floorboards were uneven, warped from decades of sea air. A grizzled old man with skin like leather greeted them and, recognizing Gregory, waved them inside.

“I have my own table,” Gregory told her with a grin, his cheeks dimpling. “Will you join me for a quick drink?”

“No, thank you. Where do I get the cab?”

Gregory pointed to a sign on the wall reading TONY’S TAXI. “There’s the number,” he said.

“I’m sorry” Daphne said, “but I don’t own a cell phone.”

He looked at her with some surprise. Daphne understood why. It wasn’t often these days that a twenty-two-year-old didn’t have a cell phone. But such things were not regulation at Our Lady.

The grizzled old man had overheard her. “I can call the cab for ya, sweetheart. But it’s prob’ly gonna be about forty minutes or so. With the rain, Tony’s bound to be kind of busy tonight.”

Gregory gave her a look of understanding. “You see, there’s only one cab driver in Point Woebegone. You must remember this is a seasonal town. During the summer Tony has a couple of helpers. But after Labor Day, it’s just him and his rebuilt 1980 Mercedes Diesel.”

“Oh,” Daphne said, in another small voice. “Then I should call Mr. Witherspoon. I’m sure he will send a car.”

“Witherspoon?” The old man lifted bushy white eyebrows. “You’re not going out to Witherswood, are ya?”

“I am indeed.”

He laughed, and Gregory joined. “There’s no phone at Witherswood. Never has been. I suspect the new misses has a cell, but there’s never been a phone line out to that house, not as far back as I can remember, and that’s a long time.”

“I’m afraid you’ll just have to join me after all,” Gregory said, gesturing to his table, “and wait for Tony to arrive.”

Daphne sighed and followed him past a blazing fireplace, which lit the room with an orange glow. At a small, round, oaken table off to the side, Gregory held out a chair for Daphne to sit down. She took her seat, setting her suitcase alongside her.

“I’ll be right back,” Gregory said. “I’ll save Maggie the chore of coming by to take our order. What would you like, Daphne?”

“Nothing, thank you,” she said.

“Nothing at all?”

She suppressed a shiver. Even with the fire, Daphne hadn’t been able to shake off the chill of the damp, cold night.

“A cup of tea would be nice,” she said.

Gregory smiled and headed toward the kitchen.

She would pay for the tea herself. She did not want to be in this man’s debt. More than ever, she wished she had waited at the station. This was not a good way to start her new life here in Point Woebegone, to be sitting in a dark inn with a man her new employers didn’t like, didn’t trust. The “new misses”—Daphne assumed that was Mr. Witherspoon’s wife—was probably sitting at the station right now, wondering where she was, and when Daphne failed to show up, she’d report back to her husband that their new governess must have missed the train. Oh, this wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.

She glanced around the room. There were only a few other diners. A man and a woman, probably in their sixties, eating what looked like fried fish and mashed potatoes, not speaking, not even looking at each other. A large man in rolled-up shirtsleeves, his arms adorned with tattoos of anchors and swordfish, hulking over a very frosty mug of beer. And, way in back, in the shadows, another man that Daphne strained to see—

She made a small gasp.

It wasn’t a man.

It was ... a clown.

How very odd. Who would come to a place like this, dressed like a clown, with big orange hair and a bulbous red nose and a polka-dotted shirt, and sit all by himself in the very last booth? He didn’t seem to be eating or drinking anything either, just sitting there, the glow of the fire picking out his hair and nose and clammy white face from the shadows. His mouth was painted in a crazy blue grin.

And he was looking at her.

Daphne shuddered, dropping her eyes to the table. She’d always been scared of clowns, ever since Mother Angela had thrown a birthday party for her when she turned five, marking the day not of her birth, of course, but the day her bassinet had been left at the sisters’ door. In had trundled a man with hair as bright as this clown’s, and feet as big and floppy as she was sure rested under that table. The little five-year-old Daphne had screamed when the clown’s unearthly white face had come toward her. The poor man hadn’t meant to frighten her, but he had, nonetheless—and she’d spent the rest of her party on Mother Angela’s lap, her face buried in the brown cloth of the nun’s habit.

“Here you go,” came Gregory’s voice as he set a teacup steaming with hot water down on the table in front of her. With his other hand he set down a basket of tea bags. “You can have your choice.”

She smiled and chose chamomile, tearing open the paper wrapping and pressing the tea bag down into the water with her spoon.

Gregory took his seat. “I don’t know where Maggie is. The cook said she took a quick break for a cigarette and hasn’t come back.”

The tea tasted good, warming her as she drank it.

“Will he let me know when the cab is here?” Daphne asked.

“Oh, sure. But in the meantime, if I can give you just a bit of advice, just relax a bit.” Gregory smiled. “You might as well, because you won’t have much chance to relax once you get to Witherswood. I can tell you that much.”

Daphne kept her eyes on Gregory. She didn’t want to have to look at the clown sitting in the booth again.

“You keep talking as if I’m headed to Castle Dracula or something.”

He laughed, showing those dimples again. “The comparison isn’t so far off.”

It was Daphne’s turn to laugh. “Ever since I’ve arrived, it’s seemed like there was some big mystery to this town. I must admit, it’s quite the place.”

“Point Woebegone? If you mean the weather, you haven’t seen anything yet, Daphne. Wait until the winter rolls in.”

She held Gregory’s gaze and lowered her voice. “Well, is it common for clowns to walk around and come in here and sit in the booths?”

He looked at her strangely. “Clowns?”

“Look behind you.”

As she said it, she moved her eyes back to the booth. But the booth was empty. The clown was gone.

“I don’t see any clowns,” Gregory remarked.

“He was there just a moment ago. He must have left—”

Gregory was looking at her with a strange look on his face. “You mean a clown with makeup and—”

“Yes! He had orange hair and a red nose—”

Gregory shook his head. “Can’t see how somebody looking like that could come in and out of here without being noticed.”

Daphne stood and took a few steps so she could see the booth more clearly. It was definitely empty.

“I swear I saw a clown sitting there,” she said, retaking her seat.

“Maybe you did. Or maybe ...” Gregory’s voice trailed off. “This place—this town—sometimes does things to a person’s imagination.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s so isolated and all. Popular in the tourist season. But off-season ... it can be pretty lonely.”

“Why do you live here then?”

His eyes turned to fix on her. “My father was born here, and his before him. I went away for a while, but I came back. My father was a groundskeeper. Now I own half the town.”

“You’ve mentioned that,” Daphne said, wondering why it was a fact that seemed so important to him.

He was still looking at her. “Are you sure you know nothing about Witherswood or the people who live there?”

“Nothing.”

“So what brings you here? If I’m being too nosy, tell me to butt out.”

“It’s all right.” Daphne took another sip of tea. “One of the benefactors of my school recommended me for the governess position, and Mr. Witherspoon wrote offering me the job.”

Gregory’s brow wrinkled. “He offered you the job without even meeting you?”

“That’s right.”

“And you accepted it without meeting him?”

Daphne set down her teacup. She was warm all of a sudden. She felt uneasy, frightened. She wished she were back at Our Lady. She wished she and Katie and Ann Marie were sitting around, watching television, or playing Ping-Pong, or preparing Sunday’s liturgy with Mother Angela.

“Excuse me,” she said suddenly. “The ladies’ room?”

Gregory gave her that sympathetic smile again. “Right over there, through those doors.”

Daphne stood and hurried across the wide, warped floorboards. She passed the couple eating their fish and potatoes. Neither looked up at her.

Her heart was beating in her ears. Gregory’s questions had disturbed her. They pointed out just how crazy she was for coming here. Accepting a job from a man she’d never met? Moving hundreds of miles away from everyone she knew and loved? If Mother Angela hadn’t advised her to do it, she would never have done so. She wanted to believe that Mother was right, wiser than she—but right now, as she heard the rain start beating on the roof of the inn again, she couldn’t shake her doubts.

She headed down a short hallway that led to two doors. The sign on the first read BUOYS. The second read GULLS. She pushed open the latter.

She could see someone’s feet in the lavatory’s only stall. The feet were wearing white shoes. Waitress shoes, maybe? What was her name ... Maggie? Taking her cigarette break in the lav? She appeared to be sitting on the toilet.

Daphne steadied herself at the sink, splashing some cold water on her face. Why was she so suddenly so frightened? It was more than just Gregory’s questions. Was it that clown? Daphne just felt so odd, so peculiar. She felt out of time and place. Her reflection in the mirror told her that she looked the same as she had that morning. Her hair was still long, auburn, and parted in the middle. Her eyes were still green. But she was different somehow. She felt as if the moment she had stepped off that train, she had become a different person.

A sound from the stall made her turn.

A thud.

The woman sitting on the toilet had leaned—fallen?—against the side of the stall.

Daphne’s eyes dropped to the floor.

A small stream of dark blood was running across the tiles from under the stall, and had nearly reached Daphne’s feet.

“Dear God,” she gasped.

She rushed around to the front of the stall. The door was not locked. She quickly pushed it open.

There, on the toilet, fully dressed in a white waitress uniform, slumped a woman who must have been Maggie.

This was why she hadn’t been around to take their order.

Someone had slit her throat.

Maggie’s eyes stared at Daphne with the glassy sheen of death.

Daphne screamed.

The police were asking Daphne all sorts of questions. What was her name? What was she doing here? How long had she been in the bathroom? Had she seen anyone leave? Had she ever seen Maggie before in her life?

Daphne’s mind was reeling. She answered the questions as best she could, then suddenly felt faint. She struggled to hold on to consciousness but lost the battle. If not for Gregory catching her, she would have fallen flat onto the wooden floor.

When she came to, she was in a booth. The same one, she was certain, where she’d seen the clown.

“The clown,” she said suddenly.

“Take it easy, Daphne,” Gregory was telling her. “It’s okay. Damn, what a terrible way for you to start your life here in Point Woebegone.”

“No, please,” she said. “Please, you must tell the police officers I need to talk to them again. The clown I saw ...”

“The clown you thought you saw ...”

“I did see him!” Daphne stood, thankful that her knees didn’t buckle again. “I saw a clown! He was here, in this booth, and then he was gone. Slipped out without anyone noticing! Right before I found the body!”

A police officer had overheard her, and strolled over to the booth. “Evenin’, Greg,” he said, and Gregory nodded to him. The officer looked about seventy, with a craggy face and a thick white walrus moustache. “Miss May, do you want to add something to your statement?”

“Yes,” she said. “I do.”

She told him about the clown. As she spoke, she noticed the cold, hard stare he gave her. The policeman didn’t say anything. He wrote nothing down. But his mustache twitched several times.

“What has Mr. Winston been telling you about Point Woebegone, Miss May?” the policeman finally asked her.

“I told her nothing about any of that,” Gregory said, impatient at the implication.

“About any of what?” Daphne asked.

“She’s tired,” Gregory said. “She had a very long train ride here from Boston, and then Pete stands her up at the station.”

“I saw that clown!” Daphne insisted.

“I didn’t say I disbelieved you, Miss May.” The policeman handed her his card. “I’m Sheriff Joseph Patterson. I’ve been sheriff here in this town for a very long time. I’ve seen an awful lot, so I’m not apt to disbelieve anything. Do me a favor, however. When you get up to Witherswood tonight, you tell Pete what you saw here. Everything you saw here. And you call me later and tell me what he says.”

“Joe,” Gregory said. “What are you trying to do? Get the kid fired on her first day on the job?”

“I just find it interesting that a girl hired to work at Witherswood starts talking about clowns after finding Maggie with her throat cut open.”

“I don’t understand,” Daphne said.

“You just go on and get up to Witherswood, little girl,” the sheriff said. “In fact, I think Tony’s waiting for you out in his cab right now.”

She picked up her suitcase. Gregory placed a hand on her forearm.

“Are you all right?”

“The sisters taught me never to lie,” she replied, managing a small smile. “So I’ll tell you the truth. No, I’m not all right. But give me some time, and I’ll be fine.”

“I wish I could drive you... .”

Daphne shook her head. “I think my arrival is going to be stressful enough. I don’t know what Mr. Witherspoon has against you, Mr. Winston, but I shouldn’t stir things up any more than they already are.” She smiled at him. “Thank you. You’ve been very kind.” She took a few steps toward the door. “Oh, I didn’t pay you for the tea—”

“Please,” he said. “Don’t worry about that.”

She sighed. “Thank you.” She turned the sheriff. “I hope you find whoever did that to that poor girl. It’s horrible. My heart aches for her fam. . .