One Last Lie

by Paul Doiron

  “I fell down in the parking lot.”

  “What?”

  “It was just dizziness. If I were a man, they wouldn’t have made a big deal about it, but a woman trips and the guys get all protective and condescending. They wanted to drive me back to the house because they were ‘concerned.’ It’s fucking bullshit.”

  The sentiments were familiar—Dani had legitimate grievances against the men with whom she worked—but her voice sounded weird, almost as if she were stoned.

  “How do you feel now?” I asked cautiously.

  “Tired.”

  “Maybe I should drive down there.”

  “Do you ever listen? I just said how pissed off I was about how those men treated me. I’m not some helpless girl, Mike.”

  Who is this person?

  “I never said you were, Dani.”

  “But you’re acting like I am.” There was, no doubt, a slight slur in her voice. “I don’t mean to be a bitch, but can we change the subject, please? Have you found Charley?”

  “No, I haven’t. I’m sorry, but I need to know you’re all right. Have you taken your temperature?”

  “This is pointless.”

  And with that, she hung up.

  I sat on the bed looking blankly at the phone. Earlier that day, she had fainted or nearly fainted. She was irritable and combative in a way I had never observed before. Anxiety began to bubble in my stomach.

  It would take me close to six hours to drive from Kellam’s place to her rented house in the town of New Gloucester. It would be dark soon, and I’d have to dodge moose for the first hours. John Smith had run his motorcycle into one near here. But I felt the tug of conscience telling me to go.

  I was still deciding when Kellam shouted up the stairs that cocktail hour had begun.

  27

  Knowing his perverse sense of humor, I thought Kellam might serve me lake trout. Instead Vaneese had prepared another Haitian-inspired dish. My plate was piled high with what looked like spanish rice, sautéed onions, and some unidentifiable deep-fried disks.

  “They’re lobster mushrooms,” Kellam explained as he cracked open another Corona. Except for a rosy flush that pushed upward along his neck and blossomed in his cheeks, he displayed no outward signs of intoxication. “Edouard picked them last fall and dried them in the cellar.”

  Vaneese took a seat beside her fiancé. “My manman would die if she heard me call this diri ak adjon djon.”

  “The real thing has wild rice, but Vee indulges me with the boxed stuff. The funny thing is I have to twist her arm to make this dish for me. She prefers American food.”

  “Is pasta American?” she asked.

  I had noticed there were only three place settings. “Edouard’s not joining us?”

  “He prefers to eat in his room. He watches soccer on the computer. The man’s a fanatic for the game.”

  “He was a good player when he was young,” Vaneese said.

  “What position?”

  “Striker!”

  “You’re not having a beer, Mike?” Kellam asked.

  I had already refused one during his so-called cocktail hour in favor of an iced coffee. “It’ll just knock me out. And I’d like to have a look at those files you mentioned. Pellerin’s reports.”

  “I’ll dig them up after we eat,” he said. “Not to change the subject, but I’m hoping you can answer a question that’s been on my mind.”

  “If I can.”

  “How do the wardens talk about me these days, now that I’m gone?”

  “You’re a living legend.”

  His frown told me he didn’t appreciate my attempt at humor. “What about St. Ignace? I know it cast a pall over my career. They must have taught you about it in warden school—how undercover operations can go bad.”

  “Not really,” I said.

  “Swept it under the rug, did they?”

  “You yourself said that law enforcement isn’t given to self-criticism.”

  He pointed the tines of his fork at my chest. “For the record, there’s not a single day that goes by that I don’t blame myself for what happened to Scott Pellerin. My intuition was screaming at me, but I wanted Michaud’s head on my wall. I sent that poor kid to his death.”

  “Cher,” Vaneese said, reaching for his brawny hand.

  He shook her off. “Don’t cher me. Well, I can’t say I didn’t pay a price for it. I was on track to be the next colonel. I was the heir apparent. Not after St. Ignace, though. I would have been a hell of a colonel, too! I would’ve dragged the Warden Service kicking and screaming into the modern age. I would’ve purged the malcontents.”

  “People like me, you mean?”

  In the quiet room, the tapping of rain on the porch roof became suddenly loud.

  “What is this really about?” Kellam asked at last. He had barely touched his plate but had wrenched the cap off yet another beer. “Why are you sniffing around this case? Who sent you? It sure as hell wasn’t Charley.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “If there’s anyone who has more of an interest in putting what happened in the past, it’s Stevens.”

  I took a breath. “How so?”

  “Ask him yourself. I thought you were his handpicked protégé. Don’t tell me the Legendary Game Warden is keeping secrets from you.”

  Stan was referring to an honor, presented by the Maine Warden Service, which he himself had never received and probably never would.

  “Stan,” said Vaneese with a sternness I hadn’t heard from her before.

  “What? We’re all being honest here. Cards on the table.” He shoved his plate away, spilling rice onto the place mat. “There’s something off with these mushrooms. They taste funny. Your brother’s probably poisoned us all, picking death caps.”

  He lurched up from the table. His roseate face gleamed with perspiration.

  “I need to take a piss.”

  Five minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen, and Kellam didn’t return. After a few awkward attempts at conversation—how I conducted a background check, what she had learned about potato cultivation in Aroostook County, our shared concerns about climate change—Vaneese and I finished our meals in mutually agreed upon silence.

  “I’ll help you clean up,” I offered.

  “Thank you, but that wouldn’t be so wise, I think.”

  “Will you be all right?”

  I will never forget the look she gave me—as if I were a teenage boy whose ignorance was painful to her.

  * * *

  Someone had been in my room. I had left my cell on the bureau when I’d gone to dinner, and as always, I had left it screen side up. Now it was facedown. Who else could it have been but Kellam? The phone was pass code protected, but the thought of the man rifling through my things angered me. I was glad I had kept my Beretta under my shirt through dinner. I was beginning to worry I might yet need it.

  Still nothing from Dani.

  What to do?

  She had sounded resolute in not wanting me to leave on her account. I began to wonder again if I should ignore her wishes.

  There was a knock at my door. I opened it to find Edouard in the hall with an expression that gave away nothing of his inner state. He carried two cardboard bankers boxes that were heavy enough to reveal the corded muscles in his arms.

  “Stan told me to bring you these,” he said.

  “Thank you. Here, I’ll take them.”

  He ignored my offer and set his burden down on the floorboards beside the bed. He seemed angry with me; his body seemed to be giving off an electric charge. I felt as if I should say something more, but he avoided eye contact. When he left, he closed the door with such force a painting of palm trees tilted on the wall.

  The absence of dust on the boxes told me they hadn’t been sitting in some back room for the past fifteen years. Stan Kellam had dragged them out from time to time. He had lied to me about wanting the Pellerin case to fade from memory.

  The very first do
cument had a green cover sheet bearing the watermark of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, the Special Investigations Unit case number, the surname of the target (MICHAUD), as well at the undercover officer (PELLERIN), both in big capital letters, and the initial dates of contact between the two.

  The next page began with the usual predisposition probe information. The nature of the investigation: “Illegal Night Hunting / Possession of Deer, Moose, and Bear. Illegal Sale of Game.” It gave the specific address of the subjects targeted.

  PIERRE P. MICHAUD

  D.O.B.__________

  223 Allagash Road

  St. Ignace, ME 04778

  ROLAND J. MICHAUD

  D.O.B.__________

  225 Allagash Road

  St. Ignace, ME 04778

  Seeing two names there surprised me. My understanding was that Pierre Michaud had been the sole focus of Pellerin’s investigation. I hadn’t realized that his son Roland had been viewed as anything more than an accessory.

  Angie Bouchard’s boyfriend had been one of the prime targets.

  Not only that, but father and son had been next-door neighbors. The way I understood it, the fire that had consumed several buildings in St. Ignace had started because Pierre had rigged his house to explode when the state police tossed flash-bang grenades through the windows. It was a planned diversion to facilitate his escape into the woods.

  The grenades, used by police to startle and scare, were not meant to be incendiary devices, but they had somehow ignited a ferocious blaze. Roland’s house, being adjacent to his father’s, must also have burned to the ground in the conflagration.

  The father might be dead, but the son was very much alive, and that was good news for my investigation. I had no information about where Roland Michaud was currently living, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d returned to the St. Ignace area. His father had been the poacher king of the St. John Valley, and he was the heir apparent. Bullies, in my experience, almost never left the safety of their home turfs.

  I wondered if Charley had found Roland yet. So far, my friend hadn’t followed the pattern I might have predicted. He hadn’t sought out Angie Bouchard. Nor had he been in touch with Kellam. What was the old man even doing?

  I pictured the figure I’d spotted along the lakeshore. If it had been Charley, what purpose could he have had in spying on us? Let alone in revealing himself to me.

  I searched deeper into my memories and recalled the silver Jeep as it had passed me on the Rocky Brook Road. The license plate had been so muddy it was unreadable. It had been far dirtier than the rear bumper itself.

  The realization took hold: The plate had been deliberately obscured.

  Someone was following me.

  Again, my thoughts ran to Charley. I had been on the lookout for a green Ford Ranger. Where might he have obtained the Jeep?

  I picked up my cell and typed a text to Molly Francis.

  Her phone must have been cybernetically attached to her body because her response was instantaneous:

  How did u no my gramp drives a silvr jeep?

  Either Nick Francis had tailed me into the woods from Presque Isle or he had loaned Charley his vehicle so my friend could pass unnoticed through the County.

  To my knowledge, Nick Francis hadn’t been involved in the raid on St. Ignace. He had been the Passamaquoddy police chief at the time, focused on tribal problems in distant Washington County.

  And yet he had withheld information from me about lending his Jeep to Charley. He had alerted Kellam to my arrival for reasons I still didn’t understand. No doubt he had fed me lies back at the truck stop, too. Nick Francis might well be a friend of Charley’s, but I would be a fool to trust the man.

  * * *

  I sat up past midnight, reading the files.

  Kellam had let Ferox out to guard the house. From time to time, I would hear the clicking of the Cane Corso’s nails in the hall. The massive dog would approach my door and sniff at the crack. Having it roaming the sleeping house made me wish my room included a bedpan.

  I performed an internet search to satisfy my curiosity.

  Ferox was Latin for savage. And the basis for the English word ferocious. Why was I not surprised?

  The lengthy document began with a synopsis written by Scott Pellerin. Law enforcement officers are taught to write in a blunt style devoid of personality or affectation, but Pellerin had managed to smuggle some of himself into the summary.

  SYNOPSIS:

  In August 20__, I, Inv. SCOTT M. PELLERIN, was assigned to conduct a Special Investigation Probe on a father and son, PIERRE P. MICHAUD and ROLAND J. MICHAUD, both of St. Ignace, ME. The men have significant criminal histories and are suspected of currently engaging in serious class D illegal hunting crimes (SEE CRIMINAL HISTORY AND WCID REQUEST SUBMITTED BY DEP. WDN CHASSE LAMONTAINE). Another son, ZACHARIE P. MICHAUD, is a convicted felon and is suspected, in addition to illegally hunting, of committing the class C felony of possessing a firearm. Family and associates of the MICHAUDS are also suspected of violating serious wildlife hunting laws and nonhunting crimes, including class B felonies related to the import and sale of drugs, as well as multiple violations of the federal Lacey Act for transportation of illegally killed wildlife across international boundaries. Under the direct order of LT. STANLEY GALE KELLAM, I was instructed to contact the MICHAUDS as an operative in a covert capacity to determine if the suspected illegal activity was presently occurring and ongoing.

  On 08/28/20__ through 09/01/20__, I met and spent time with PIERRE P. MICHAUD DOB ___, ROLAND J. MICHAUD DOB___, ZACHERIE P. MICHAUD DOB___, EMMELINE T. BOUCHARD DOB___, and JON J. EGAN DOB ___, and other associates. During these interactions, the MICHAUDS told me several stories regarding their having committed serious class D illegal hunting crimes. These crimes included acts of night hunting deer, illegally killing bear, killing moose in closed season, hunting under the influence of intoxicating liquors. Discussions regarding other non–fish and wildlife crimes included growing large amounts of marijuana, smuggling marijuana across the international border into New Brunswick, Province of Canada. On the evening of 08/31/20__, ROLAND J. MICHAUD invited me to shoot a ruffed grouse (illegal to hunt except from Oct. 1st through Dec. 31st). The MICHAUDS thereby indicated to this investigator that their illegal hunting behavior is current and ongoing and that they are indubitably predisposed to commit many crimes.

  I could see Pellerin grinning as he had typed these words. He had referred to the local warden, Chasse Lamontaine, as “DEP(UTY) WDN”: a playful jab at the status of the latter. “Under the direct order of LT. STANLEY GALE KELLAM” was a commentary on Kellam’s authoritarian style and an excuse to use his full name in print. Everyone knew how much Kellam hated his middle name.

  For the first time, I began to see Scott Pellerin as a kindred spirit rather than as a ghostly rival for Charley’s fatherly affections.

  But there was more in these two paragraphs than the investigator’s private jokes, starting with the inclusion of Angie Bouchard’s mother in the official synopsis. Pellerin had named her as an accessory to the crimes he was charged with investigating. I had begun to theorize—admittedly without evidence—that Angie had found Duke Dupree’s badge in her deceased mother’s personal effects. Suddenly, Emmeline Bouchard’s possession of an item that had belonged to the dead investigator went from curious to noteworthy.

  Two other individuals were named in the synopsis. The first was Pierre’s other son, Zacherie, who had killed himself in jail. The other notable person mentioned was this Jon Egan, whom Kellam had described as a “red squirrel.” He was older than the others, more likely a friend of Pierre’s than of his sons. Everything I’d heard about Egan so far made me envision him as the archetypal sidekick. Gangsters of all kinds have a predilection for yes-men.

  As I settled down to read, I had a notion of sneaking downstairs to brew myself a cup of coffee. Then I heard the click, click, click of sharp claws outside my door, and I recon
sidered.

  28

  Even before he’d disappeared without a trace in the wilds of the Allagash, Pellerin had one hell of a story to tell.

  As Rhode Island fisherman and insurance fraudster Scott Paradis, he had taken a room at the Valley View Motel. Emmeline Bouchard’s establishment in St. Ignace consisted of six separate cabins, each no bigger than a shipping cargo container. It overlooked a broad, braided expanse of the St. John River and the hardscrabble hills of New Brunswick beyond.

  Pellerin’s official report didn’t include photographs, but he had sent Kellam a bunch of candids for his case file. I was struck by Emmeline’s appearance. She was as curvy and coal-eyed as her daughter, but her hair was tinted magenta and chopped short. There was a hardness to the woman that came through in pictures: the constant presence of a cigarette in her sensuous lips, the tattooed tiger that sometimes peeked above her open-throated blouse, the almost masculine way she stood: booted feet apart.

  There was something about the photo—taken with the subject’s consent—that made me believe Pellerin had found Emmeline sexually desirable. She had certainly been flirting with the man behind the camera.

  Was that how the investigator had given himself away? By letting his guard down in her bed? It would explain why the keepsake badge had fallen into Emmeline’s possession. What it didn’t explain was why she’d retained the incriminating item for all these years, knowing that its reappearance might precipitate a felony murder charge against her.

  The fact that Emmeline was dating (or at least sleeping with) Pierre Michaud, a man old enough to be her father, must have complicated Pellerin’s sexual aspirations.

  Evidently, her daughter shared the same taste in older men.

  Once, I would have found the idea of mother and daughter sleeping with father and son shocking, but it wasn’t the first instance of pseudo-incestuous behavior I’d come across in my career in the Maine woods—nor even the most extreme. Remote places attract people with forbidden desires.