Dead by Dawn

by Paul Doiron

  Gasoline fumes rise around me in a choking cloud.

  I fall side-saddle onto the seat. I use my hand to pull my left knee up and over the center console to the opposite footboard.

  The sound of a gunshot snaps me alert.

  I release the brake and squeeze the thumb tab to give it gas. The machine practically takes off out from under me. Hardcore sledders would call this a jack-rabbit start.

  There are more shots. One hits the snow flap which hangs over the track and the rear suspension. But it doesn’t seem to damage anything important.

  I sneak a peek into the side mirror. Tori limps from behind the beaver den, into the approaching headlights, waving frantically. A rider slows to pick her up.

  The channel ice may be smoother than the broken surface of the river, but there are still pressure ridges that lift me into the air every time I hit one.

  I have to focus because I’ve reached the tip of the island and see the river ahead again, pale where it is frozen and scarred with jagged dark spaces where the water is open. I turn toward shore but can’t make out a path through the trees. There haven’t been any more shots since the first ones. It could mean they’re conserving their ammo for my firing squad.

  The question returns.

  Why though?

  I understand why Jewett would want me dead. But why are the Dillons after me?

  Meanwhile, open water looms ahead. I am almost out of ice.

  28

  As much as I craved caffeine, I did not drink the black coffee Tina offered me.

  The music coming through the speakers was fast with lots of busy strings. Lynda kept time, tapping her fingers on the armrest. I would have wagered she played piano.

  “So you’re looking into that professor’s death,” she said. “And that’s what brought you up here to our little Shangri-la-dee-da.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Ma’am! Ain’t you the charmer.” Again she dropped the r. “You know we didn’t live up here when it happened?”

  “We?”

  “My family and me. Tina and the twins you met and my brother, diabetes took his leg, and his boy, and his family, that girl of his is pregnant again, she’s like a cat, and, well, fuck, I don’t know how many of us there are anymore. I don’t keep count. We started moving in three years ago this past October, the twins first. The girls met Arlo and couldn’t decide which should have him. But they’ve always been good at sharing. Ain’t that right, Tina?”

  The brawny woman stood by the window, smoking. From time to time she peered through the heavy drapes as if expecting a visitor. “I wouldn’t call what those three are doing ‘sharing.’”

  “Tina’s always been the family prude,” said Lynda, who then cackled. “Family prude! Rhymes with Family Feud.”

  In a few short hours I’d gone from the salon of a Rhodesian doyenne to a firing range housed in a nutcase’s barn to an overheated serpentarium to the chambers of a hillbilly queen.

  Just another day in Mike Bowditch’s Maine.

  “And yet you seem to know things about Eben Chamberlain despite never having met him. His sexual orientation, for one thing.”

  Her cell chimed. She glanced at the screen. Her lips didn’t move as she read the text, but it seemed to take effort to stop them.

  “That’s just small-town gossip,” she said, flipping the phone over, hiding its light. She took a sip of greenish wine cooler. In addition to the cup-holder, the chair had a storage compartment for the television remote control. For all, I knew, Lynda kept a snub-nosed thirty-eight inside.

  When I leaned in the rocker, I brushed some fir needles loose from the garland on the mantle.

  “What about Bruce Jewett? What do the local gossips have to say about him?”

  The phone chimed, and again, she checked it before replying.

  I was detecting a pattern.

  “He’s one of those end-of-the-worlders,” she said. “Not a Jesus freak waiting for the Rapture. He’s looking forward to the Boogaloo when it’s open season on darkies. Now me, I don’t see color, but for Bruce everything is racial. The man stays up all night stroking his gun.”

  “In fairness, he owns some expensive guns.”

  “Huh?”

  “He’s making fun of you, Gram,” said Tina from the window. But there was a hint of a smile on her face, as if she didn’t mind.

  The ballet continued to play from concealed speakers about the room. The piece had moved into a section full of harps and horns.

  I knocked a few more dead needles onto the rug. “I was under the impression that Jewett’s family used to own all this land. He seemed to take pride in the fact that his ancestors were the original settlers. But as I was driving up here, I talked to some guys who were logging his upper woodlot. They wouldn’t be relations of yours?”

  “They would.”

  “It seemed puzzling to me that he’d given permission for them to rape that nice forest.”

  For the first time her smug expression gave way to something else: anger. “Have you ever been raped, Warden?”

  The question—and the fierceness with which she asked it—made me blush with embarrassment.

  “Because if you had,” she said, “you wouldn’t use that word to describe cutting down a few fucking trees.”

  The phone chimed—seemingly with irritation—and again Lynda checked the screen. This time, she felt compelled to answer. Her quick thumbs typed in a long sentence. Within a second of sending it, the phone chimed with an immediate response.

  “Your granddaughter told me you had information that might help me,” I said.

  “Did she?”

  “But since you and your family didn’t know the professor and weren’t living in Stratford at the time—”

  “Do you have a family, Warden? A wife?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I saw you weren’t wearing a ring, but lots of men don’t wear them, especially the tomcats. What about children?”

  “None that I know about.”

  The laughter came out of her so hard she had to pat her chest.

  “He’s funny! Cute, too! What do you think, Tina? I could see you as a warden’s wife.”

  The woman at the window coughed into her arm.

  Lynda regarded me from her reclining throne. “I knew you didn’t have a family—I can tell that about a man. There’s a certain lostness to a man drifting through life alone. I can read your isolation in your aura. Yours is red, by the way, dark red. Just like that Jeep of yours. But it’s been damaged, your aura. There are broken sections. You have suffered deep and grievous wounds to your spirit, I can see.”

  “I don’t know about my spirit, but my body’s taken a few knocks.”

  She didn’t appreciate my mocking disregard. “Have you ever had your tarot read? I’m not talking about some dumb college girl who burns candles and calls herself a Wiccan. I’m talking about the real thing.”

  I had once dated a woman with an interest in the tarot. She fit the stereotype Lynda had described in some respects; except this woman had been a teenage mom, a high school dropout, and worked in a McDonald’s. Most tragically, her romance with opioids was even more passionate than the fling she’d had with me.

  “This doesn’t sound like new information about Professor Chamberlain, Mrs. Lynch.”

  “I’ll explain the connection after I finish your reading.”

  I arose from the rocker, shedding needles from the shoulders of my parka. “Maybe some other time.”

  “He’s afraid, Tina.”

  “Let him go, Gram.”

  The phone chimed once more. This time, Lynda opened the storage compartment in the arm of the chair and threw the cell inside without even glancing at the screen. There was no revolver that I could see, but there was a box of tarot cards. The deck was old school: Rider-Waite. The woman I’d dated—if that was the right word for a relationship that had taken place almost entirely in bed—had used the same cards.

  “G
ram,” said Tina leaving her spot by the drapes. “Stop fucking around.”

  “Don’t curse in my house.”

  “Your house?”

  Lynda shook the cards from their box and then, with a dexterity that would have shamed the best blackjack dealer in Vegas, she shuffled them. She held the deck out in one of her small hands and said, “Cut them.”

  I pulled the top third off the deck and handed it to her. With a practiced flourish, she created a perfect fan for me to choose my card.

  “Pick one.”

  “Mrs. Lynch, I don’t know much about tarot,” I said, “but I’m pretty sure this isn’t how you do a reading.”

  “Don’t be a pussy! Pick!”

  When she raised her voice, I could smell the cloying wine cooler on her breath.

  I selected a card.

  She hid the face from me as she studied it. Her eyes grew merry. Then she flipped it around for me to see. The card showed a man lying facedown on the ground, in front of what looked like a blue snowscape. Ten swords protruded from his lifeless back.

  “I’m guessing this is bad.”

  “Only if you take it literally,” she said.

  I didn’t believe for a second that I had “picked” the ten of swords myself. Lynda Lynch had talent; she’d pulled off this sleight of hand perfectly.

  “Nice trick. Where did you learn it?”

  Tina was the one who answered. “The Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, when she was dealing blackjack there a million years ago.”

  The outburst surprised me, but it enraged Lynda. The squat woman leaped off the recliner with more energy than I would have expected and tossed the deck into the face of the much taller Tina.

  “Show some goddamned respect!”

  One of the cards must have hit Tina’s eye. She now clamped a hand over it. “You hurt me!”

  “Boo-hoo.”

  Tina glared at a closed door, leading to the rest of the house. I wondered who might be on the other side of it, eavesdropping on our conversation. It was the person, no doubt, who had been sending texts to Lynda Lynch.

  The real Grambo?

  Lynda pointed a finger at the threadbare rug. “Now, pick up my cards!”

  Tina flared her nostrils. For a moment, I wondered if she might drive a fist into the older woman’s imperious face. Instead she dropped to her knees and began gathering cards.

  “You promised me information, Mrs. Lynch,” I said.

  “So I did,” she said. “Someone who I won’t name found that missing life jacket. He was helping with the search and found the vest by the river and took it for a souvenir instead of turning it into the wardens. I’ve seen it. The buckle was snapped, like it was torn off.”

  “Not Burch.”

  “You’ve met Arlo. Does that sound like him?”

  “Where can I find this unnamed person?”

  “Maybe you already have.”

  “Are you talking about Jewett?”

  “Here’s the thing you law enforcement guys never understand. You come into a place, asking your prying questions, stirring up trouble between neighbors. And then you get to go home to your families. Not in your case. I mean in general. But we’ve got to continue living with each other. If you want to know the man I’m talking about, figure it out yourself, smarty-pants.”

  “Why tell me about it then?”

  “Because I promised I would. I’ll give you one clue. He has a red aura, too.”

  “In that case it should be a piece of cake.”

  Despite her feigned outrage at my intrusion on Pill Hill, she seemed to want me to stick around and continue asking questions.

  But why?

  Another realization hit me on my way out the door.

  Sometime during Lynda Lynch’s magic trick, the phone in the recliner had gone quiet. I wondered how worried I should be.

  29

  I have no choice but to leave the ice. I let up on the gas, looking for an escape route.

  Off to my left, I catch the stuttering flashes of headlights through the trees—a vehicle moving parallel to me, only faster. There must be a road up there, running along this branch of the Androscoggin. A road means cars, houses, people. A road means help.

  I just need to find a way to get there.

  The answer appears so suddenly, it’s like wish fulfillment: a boat launch.

  It’s no municipal lot with a paved parking area and a ridged concrete ramp plunging into the water. It’s more of a Jeep trail that sneaks out of the woods and peters out at the river’s edge. I can’t imagine someone backing a trailer down that narrow cut, but boaters must manage it in the summer.

  I wrench the handlebars to the left and hit the gas again. My side mirrors are reflecting so much light from the machines chasing me, it’s amazing I’m not blinded. The Dillons have stopped shooting which can only mean they have something worse planned for me.

  One of the riders tries to slip past on the left, but I veer toward him—or her—and they ricochet off an upright ice floe to avoid a collision. The crunch of metal resonates in my teeth.

  I reach the launch seconds before the rider can regain control of their dented sled.

  Branches and boughs crowd together over the uphill trail, and there is less snow here than in the open. There is just as much as ice, however. A stream of meltwater, following the steep path, has frozen hard, forming a natural bobsled chute.

  The night roars. The forest flickers and flashes with artificial lights.

  I stand up straight and pull hard on the bars. The skegs on the sled don’t appreciate the slickness of this path.

  I have in my mind the annual Snodeo in Rangeley where the organizers stage contests called hill drags in which two riders race up an incline. I’ve never competed in one, but I’ve stood in the crowd along the racecourse. I’ve seen sleds tip over and crash. I’ve helped evacuate a racer whose machine landed on top of him. I have no illusions about the odds of my making it to the road—Tori and the others are that much up my ass.

  Now I am past the ice patch and on firmer ground.

  The rider behind me is less fortunate. I hear a shout, glance into the mirror, and see the nearest sled sliding away as if on a greased sheet. Its picks, if it has them, can’t find anything to grasp. I can’t hear above the sound of my own engine the metal-on-metal screech of the runaway snowmobile colliding with the machine behind it, but I can imagine it.

  Two down.

  For an instant, I congratulate myself on having caught a break.

  Then I see vaporous cones of light through the trees beside me. A blue Ski Doo has swerved around the pile-up and is slaloming uphill through the oaks and pines. It’s got to be the Backcountry model, built for busting a trail through deep powder. These mountain sleds aren’t built to carry two people, but this one is. It helps that Tori weighs so little, but still it’s a precarious position, and the engine is laboring under the added stress.

  The driver is skilled and experienced, though. Past the slippery stretch, he or she returns to the boat launch trail. The powder being kicked up by my track forces them to hang back or be blinded. It’s not like a car chase where they can accelerate and ram me from behind. They can only hang as close as they dare to my tail and wait for me to mess up.

  Fortunately for me, Tori literally has her hands full, holding tight to the driver’s waist. Otherwise, she could easily shoot me, assuming (as I have to) that she has access to a firearm.

  The driver keeps pressing, then falling back the moment airborne ice pellets begin striking his windshield.

  I touch the brakes, hoping that’ll back them off, but they’re not fooled.

  That’s when I see the chain ahead. In the snow-blown beams, a sagging silver line stretches across the trail. When the town closed the launch for the winter, someone must have locked off the entrance. As powerful as the engine is of my stolen Arctic Cat, it can’t snap chain links made of zinc-plated steel. If I don’t stop or turn aside, the impact will send me somersaulti
ng onto the road beyond. I wouldn’t survive even if I were wearing a helmet.

  I don’t think my situation can get any worse. Then I spot the snowmobile waiting for me beyond the chain. Those stuttering lights I’d seen along the hillside—they belonged to a sled shooting along the road to cut me off at the literal pass.

  Nearing the chain, my headlights illuminate a dismounted figure dressed in black coveralls and a black helmet. The size and shape of the rider suggest it might be Tori’s sister, Tiff. She points a scoped rifle down the trail. A red light flickers atop the rail of the AR-15. A laser sight.

  My concealed vest is rated Level IIIA, heavy-duty, but not specced to stop a .223 round fired from twenty yards.

  There’s only one crazy thing I can think to do.

  I accelerate as if preparing to ram the chain.

  Tiff hesitates, the red light jerks upward as she dives for cover.

  Seconds before impact I bring my good leg over the center of the machine and leap to the side into a cluster of baby pines. The steel chain scrapes the hood of the sled, pulls the windscreen off, catches the handlebars, and causes the Arctic Cat to complete a somersault.

  I land on my right arm and shoulder in the saplings. Fortunately there are no big stones or stumps lurking beneath them.

  The smashed sled provides a spectacular diversion. From my back, in the flattened conifers, I squeeze the shotgun trigger and blast a random hole in the night. I am not aiming at anything or anyone. I just want them all to duck and cover.

  Panicked, Tiff lets off her own unaimed burst of semi-automatic fire.

  Behind me on the hillside, Tori shouts at her sister to stop.

  I push myself to my knees and grab a sapling with my gloved left hand to regain my footing. I expect to be shot before I can take a step toward the broken chain, the smoking, demolished sled.

  But there are no more shots—not from above at least. Someone, behind me, down the hill, is trying to send bullets my way in vain. It sounds like a handgun. Pop, pop, pop.