by Paul Doiron
Isn’t that what every stalker says?
“Tori, you’re being kind of rude to our guest,” said Arlo in a fatherly tone that didn’t suit him. “You should, maybe, apologize.”
“Everyone’s entitled to their opinions,” said Tiff.
“Damn right they are,” said Tori.
I tapped my pen against the spine of my notebook. “The case file is unclear about one last point. I’m hoping you can help me with that one too, Arlo. Did you mention seeing Professor Chamberlain alone in his boat to anyone else?”
“Lieutenant Rivard.”
“I mean the day he died.”
The question seemed to rattle Burch, based on his stuttering reply. “It wasn’t unusual to see him in his boat. He liked to hunt. He was out there a lot.”
Tori perked up. “Arlo, honey—”
But I ran right over her. “What about after you heard he was missing? Did you tell your ‘roommates’ that you’d seen him alone?”
Tiff covered a yawn with her hand. “We didn’t live here then.”
“Oh?”
Tori cast her sister a look to shut up. I wondered why she did that. What didn’t she want me to know?
Burch had recovered some of his natural mellowness. He was a concerned citizen with nothing to hide. He only wanted to help. “My last girlfriend had just moved out. There weren’t many homes here. Back then, it was me and old man Bazinet. It was my cousin who developed the hill. He sold me this lot at cost when he was putting in the loop road.”
“You’ve done well managing your money,” I said.
Tori sat forward. “Arlo—”
But Burch again missed the warning in her voice. He smiled with pride as if I’d congratulated him on his well-earned success. “I’ve done OK.”
“More than OK. The renovations you did on this place. That new Rubicon parked outside. All the cool toys you’ve got on the property. Bartending must pay well.”
“He thinks you deal drugs,” said Tiff.
“What?” He sounded more confused than insulted.
Tori bolted from the couch. “For fuck’s sake, Arlo! He thinks you bought all this with drug money.”
“No way,” he said, glancing from her to me. “I mean, in high school I sold some weed, which is legal now. But I’m no dealer, man. How could you think that?”
Poor Arlo; he had thought we were friends.
“When a place gets nicknamed Pill Hill, it’s not because someone is selling vitamins door to door.”
“Funny,” said Tiff.
“What about you two?” I asked the sisters. “What do you do for work?”
“We’re high-class escorts specializing in threesomes with older gentlemen,” said Tiff with characteristic flatness. “We draw the line at cops and guys with micropenises. So I guess you’re out of luck.”
“These two girls,” said Arlo, tossing his wooly head. “You never know what’s going to come out of their mouths. They’re just teasing you. They’re not hookers.”
“We’re home healthcare workers,” said Tori. “We look after old and sick people who can’t manage for themselves. But because we ride sleds and live in a trailer, we’re just white trash to you, right?”
“I’ve lived in plenty of trailers myself,” I said.
She made a miniature clapping motion with her two index fingers. “Good for you. Congratulations on pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.”
“Where do you work, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“We do mind,” said Tiff, flaring her pink nose.
“He’ll find out anyway,” said Tori. “We work at Aventa Home Health. Do you want to call our supervisor? I can give you her number.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Again I fastened my attention on Burch. “Getting back to Chamberlain, you said the first person you told about seeing him was Lieutenant Rivard?”
His eyes went blank. “I think so.”
“Three days after the professor was reported missing, it says in the report.”
“I didn’t put it together. That what I’d seen was important. I’d never been an eyewitness before.”
Burch could have been acting the idiot, but it’s hard to persuasively portray yourself as less intelligent than you are. Smart people have great difficulty playing dumb.
“What prompted you to come forward?”
Now he did something interesting; he cast a glance at Tori.
She nodded her head.
“I heard about the reward Mrs. Chamberlain was offering,” he said. “I didn’t care about the money. I wanted to help them find the old dude. No one should be buried in an empty coffin.”
It was going to take me a while to untangle that sentence. “But you accepted the reward anyway?”
“Why shouldn’t he?” said Tiff. “That’s why the woman offered it.”
One of the interview tactics I’d picked up over my career was to bob and weave. I never wanted the people I was interrogating to anticipate my next question. I didn’t want to give them time to plan their responses.
“What’s your opinion of Bruce Jewett?”
“My opinion?”
“Jewett was hunting with Chamberlain the morning he died. Other than you, he was the last to see the professor alive. The police were looking hard at him as a suspect—until you came forward. You saved Mr. Jewett more aggravation than you might realize. I’m curious how you would describe your relationship with him.”
Arlo smiled, open-mouthed. “Relationship! I’ve probably had, like, three conversations with the guy over the years. He was here before my cousin developed the hilltop. Bruce tried to stop it from happening. He hired lawyers to fight the permits, etc. He hates my cousin, but he’s always been friendly with me. Generally, I have a good rapport with people.”
“What do you know of his background?”
“Don’t answer him, Arlo,” said Tori.
“I can speak for myself, babe,” said Burch. “Jewett’s from New Hampshire originally. Served onboard nuclear submarines from what I hear. Top-secret stuff he can’t talk about. His mom moved in with him a few years ago. She has Alzheimer’s. She got out of the house once and wandered into the woods, and Bruce was racing around on his snowmobile trying to find her before she froze to death. He even came up here asking for my help—which was a first.”
“He didn’t alert the wardens?”
Burch’s reaction was a shrug. “I don’t remember seeing any of you guys around that night. We found her, in any case. It was below freezing, but she’d taken off half her clothes. It was one of the weirdest things I’d ever seen.”
Experiencing feverish heat is a symptom of moderate hypothermia. A person’s core gets so cold, they lose the ability to form rational thoughts. They engage in what is called “paradoxical undressing.” Sometimes they burrow into the snow or even hide from the people searching for them. The confusion would be worse in the case of a woman already suffering from dementia.
“I met Mrs. Jewett,” I said.
“You were inside his house?” asked Tiff with real surprise.
“I wondered if she was still alive,” said Burch. “She doesn’t make a lot of public appearances. Neither does Bruce, though. He stays holed up in his house, waiting for the end of the world with all his guns and books. He gave me a book once—it’s on the shelf behind you.”
I half turned, still cautious, and found a paperback under an ashtray. The title was Enemies Foreign and Domestic. The cover was yellow with a “don’t tread on me” snake, wrapped around an AR-15 rifle.
“Did he want you to join his book club?” I said.
“Ha! No,” said Burch. “It was kind of a thank-you for helping him find his mom. I figured he gave it to me because he knew I liked snakes.”
Arlo thought the militia manifesto was a book about the care and feeding of reptiles.
I had spoken with Jewett and Burch, and their stories matched. And even though I had nagging questions about Pill Hill and its residents, they were mostly un
related to the Chamberlain case. I had a wolf in my Jeep that might already be wide awake, mad as hell, and ready to devour a toddler.
“If you have no more questions—” began Tiff.
“Then you can leave,” finished Tori, rising to her bare feet. She was just a scrap of thing, as Charley might have said. Barely five feet and a hundred pounds.
“You want to see Lucifer eat a bunny?” Arlo leaned forward. His towel opened. And I got the peepshow I desperately hadn’t wanted. “He’s due for his weekly meal.”
“Thank you, but I think I’ll pass on that spectacle.”
“You’re sure you won’t stay?” said Tiff.
I paused with my hand on the doorknob. “I hope you don’t consider it rude of me.”
One of the cell phones rang from the table. Tori checked the number, her eyes widened, and she hurried from the room.
“Baby, you’re going to be late for work,” Tiff purred, pulling her man’s earlobe.
I checked my watch. It was after three. I’d already been in Stratford longer than I’d planned.
At that moment, Tori came charging into the room. “Gram wants to see you.”
“Grambo?” I said
“I wouldn’t call her that to her face,” said Tiff, dryly.
“I appreciate the invitation, but I need to get on the road.”
“She has information about Chamberlain’s death!”
Tori’s exclamation caused Tiff to catch her breath.
But the more interesting reaction came from Burch. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped. I could have sworn Tori’s words frightened the piss out of him.
I had to remind myself that expressions are notoriously easy to misread. When I was younger, I’d thought I had a rare gift for interpreting people’s emotions. Then I had discovered all the scientific studies proving how bad we are sizing each other up at a glance. I still fell into error more often than not—but I was trying to avoid making snap judgments.
Burch sure looked alarmed, though.
“Did your grandmother say what kind of information it is?” I asked.
“That’s for her to explain” said Tori. “Don’t expect her to rat out anyone, though. And mind your manners if you know what’s good for you.”
“I always do.”
“She lives at the cul de sac. Number nineteen.”
“I take it your niece texted her to tell her I was here.”
“Didn’t need to. Our grandmother can smell a game warden like a skunk, a mile away.”
“What’s her name? Her real name. If I can’t address her as Grambo.”
“Lynda,” said Tori with a smile. “Lynda Lynch.”
Tiff kept her poker face, but Burch turned to Tori with a look of childlike befuddlement.
I pretended not to notice.
25
Tori Dillon takes full advantage of my surprise.
She snatches up the snowmobile helmet and lets it fly at my head. Her accuracy is impressive. Out of reflex I bring up the shotgun to deflect the thrown object. The projectile knocks the barrel aside and before I can retrain the sights on Tori, she’s up and running. I have a shot, square between her shoulder blades as she vaults over a deadfall, but my finger doesn’t move. Maybe she judged my character and concluded that I was not the type of person who would shoot an unarmed person—even one who’s tried to murder me—in the back. She gambles with her life that I am a man of honor. And she wins her bet.
My finger is so stiff from frostbite I probably couldn’t have pulled the trigger even if I were feeling homicidal.
I have a harder time regaining my feet than she did, and by then, she’s disappeared into the balsams, leaving waving boughs and puffs of powdery snow like confectioner’s sugar in the flashlight beam.
“Come out, Tori! I know you’re wounded.”
My voice is so hoarse, from cold and general lack of use, I sound like I’m a hundred years old.
There is no answer, of course.
If I blasted wildly at the firs, a shotgun pellet might catch up with her. But even now, as mad as I am, I can’t bring myself to fire.
Besides, she has left a trail for me to follow: boot prints in the snow, some speckled red. She’s losing blood from the cut I made into the meat of her outer thigh.
As am I from the gunshot wound.
But I was shot by a rifle bullet, not a shotgun pellet or slug. It is unlikely to have been Tori. My money is on Tiff, using a scoped rifle.
Why the Dillon sisters want me dead manages to be simultaneously of great importance and not at all urgent.
In a crisis, Charley’s voice reminds me, you must focus on the urgent.
The heavy firearm in my hands is the urgent matter requiring my immediate attention.
As I expected, the shotgun is a black tactical model. But it’s neither of the makes I had expected; not a Remington, nor a Mossberg. It’s a Benelli M4 Super 90 which retails for close to two grand and is the standard-issue combat shotgun of the United States Military. It has a semi-automatic action, which means I don’t need to rack another shell into the action after I have fired. There is a pistol grip beneath the shoulder stock for me to close my right hand around and improve my aim. The rail mounted atop the receiver is fitted with after-market “green dot” night-sight inserts: glowing radioactive tritium to assist with target acquisition. The flashlight is side-mounted to the magazine tube.
The Benelli M4 wasn’t designed to shoot geese from a blind or to use stalking deer in the misty hours of dawn.
This gun is purpose-built to be a man killer.
And as blasphemous as the thought is, I can’t help feeling like the weapon is a gift to me from God.
I do a quick check of the action. Tori fired two shots at me. This model holds up to six shells, if I remember correctly: five in the magazine plus one in the chamber. So I should have four left.
But if there is one thing I have learned about firearms, it is never to assume anything.
I eject the shells to get an accurate count, and yes, there are four of them. The ammunition is the same Federal Law Enforcement Tactical 00 Buck I use in my Mossberg. Each plastic casing contains primer, a wad, and nine lead pellets. When fired at close range, a burst is capable of cutting a man—or a woman—in half.
I waste no time reloading.
I do not engage the safety.
I lift the butt to my shoulder, press my index finger against the trigger guard, and raise the barrel so I’m looking through the sights. The beam coming from the side-mounted light is dead-steady as I sweep the now motionless balsams.
“Tori?”
The wind has died, but it is snowing again, harder than before. The flakes fall straight down, sparkling in the cone of light. I hear nothing except the stomach-rumbling of the river.
It occurs to me that Tori might have a second firearm on her. A small pistol, for instance. Again, I can’t assume anything.
If I were her, what would I do?
Call for help.
Especially if her sister is nearby.
Tori Dillon is clever. She thinks things through. But she also struck me as being as tightly coiled as a mainspring. Waiting doesn’t come naturally to a person with that kind of jacked-up metabolism.
She’s going to run.
Where?
The answer arrives like a slap to the head. Back to her snowmobile, of course. She’s going to circle around to her sled and take off up the river to rendezvous with Tiff and whoever else she’s enlisted in the hunt for me.
And I’ve just given her a minute head start.
Unfortunately, the struggle has loosened the bandanna around my leg, and I have to take a moment to retie it. The continuous trickle of blood falls into the urgent category.
I turn and begin to lope toward the beaver lodge, using the flashlight to make a path through the darkness. The heaviness of the weapon in my arms is not a burden. Far from it. If anything, the weight is a comfort. No longer do I feel powerless. Armed agai
n, I might just survive the night. Provided I don’t bleed out first or freeze myself into a state of confusion.
I have almost reached the channel when I hear the whine of snowmobile engines.
There is more than one machine.
More than two machines.
More than three machines.
And all of them are approaching from upriver and at a high rate of speed.
It’s the fucking cavalry.
Tori must have called for reinforcements as soon as she found my tracks. I am about to be surrounded, outnumbered, and outgunned. All of those good feelings I experienced a moment before are extinguished as thoroughly as a campfire doused with water.
26
There was a note on my windshield, torn from a kitchen pad (“Groceries & Shit Shopping List”), and pinned beneath the wiper blade.
LEAVE NOW, PLEASE!
You find decent people everywhere, even in the worst of places, but I didn’t honestly believe that I had a friend on the hill.
This wasn’t a warning then, but a chess move.
Someone wants me to stick around.
I made a show of turning in a slow circle to scan the street and the nearest mobile homes. No cracked Venetian blinds or parted curtains revealed secret watchers. Even the kids I’d spoken with earlier had vanished from the playground. But that didn’t mean someone wasn’t staring at me through binoculars or even a telescopic rifle scope.
I folded the note and slid it into a pocket.
Then I opened the Jeep’s lift gate to check on Shadow. The wolf was awake but groggy. He growled and curled his black lip to show a fang that Lizzie Holman’s tech had brushed while he was KO’d on the steel table.
“I know you hate me,” I said. “If I were in your place, I’d hate me, too.”
The growl moved deeper into the throat. He gave a half-hearted snap.
Now there’s a threat, I thought.
“Look, I’ve got one more stop, and then we can hit the road. Seriously. We’ll be home in two hours, tops. I’ve got a treat for you, too, when we get there.”
It was a top round roast that had reached its expiration date and should have been yanked from the butcher’s case the day before. I’d been planning on saving it for his Christmas dinner. But I owed the wolf something for boxing him up all day.
