by Paul Doiron
“Yeah, but—”
“Just drive, Tanner.”
“It’s not like he can do anything, Tina.”
“I don’t want him getting his hopes up.”
38
Darkness had come to Pill Hill, but despite the hour, I wasn’t ready to leave. I pulled a U-turn in what had been Jamal Marquess’s dooryard and drove clockwise around the loop.
Light peered from Felice’s front windows. A silvery thread of smoke swirled from the chimney pipe. Her father still hadn’t returned home.
The next householder had crowded their small lot with inflatables. A waving Santa Claus, ten feet tall. A giant snow globe that contained a nuclear family of geographically confused penguins. I continued on, past glowing reindeer on rooftops, one lonely crêche. The grotesque figurines and Technicolor lights gave the neighborhood all the class of a carnival row.
Despite her fondness for Sugar Plum Fairies, Lynda Lynch had forgone all decoration.
As I idled past, I saw a curtain part and a wrinkled face peek out of the frosted window. My fleeting impression, before the drapes closed, was of pale hair and skin like an apple dried in the sun.
Maybe this was the real Grambo, the woman who had hidden in another room while her friend pretended to be Tina Dillon’s grandmother.
As I continued around the circle, more blinds parted and curtains opened. Maybe they were all on the phone with each other, passing word along. The warden was finally leaving.
The last house belonged to Arlo Burch. Red candles glowed in its windows, but they looked less like Christmas decorations than lamps in a brothel. The Rubicon was gone—maybe the mixologist really had left for work—but the two Monte Carlos remained.
As my headlights lit up the trailer, the door opened, and the twins stepped onto the porch. Someone had called or texted to them I was coming. Tiff gave me both middle fingers. Tori did something more disconcerting: She blew a kiss.
Now that I’d seen the entire development, a question loomed in my mind.
Why was Burch’s place the biggest, grandest place on the hill?
The reward Arlo had collected wouldn’t have paid for this architectural showplace or the motor toys displayed in its yard. From the outset, I had assumed that drug money must have funded this monstrosity. Lots of bartenders had a sideline selling narcotics.
But Arlo was too dumb to run a successful criminal enterprise. The Dillon twins definitely had the smarts for that line of work, and it was possible they were setting Burch up as a potential fall guy if the DEA ever paid a midnight visit to Pill Hill.
The theory held up—but it felt incomplete.
Then, as I was nearing the end of the loop road, I passed the trail where Felice had led me to the overlook. And I remembered the lonely figure of Bruce Jewett standing in the dusk. And I saw clearly what I had missed all day. I stopped short and put the Jeep into park.
Shadow whined in his crate. He must have believed me when I said we were heading home. Here I was delaying again.
I grabbed my phone and brought up my list of recent calls. I hit the top name.
“Mike?” said Stacey.
There was no missing the surprise in her voice, or the delight.
My words came out in a cascade. “I got your message about Christmas, but that’s not why I’m calling. I’m working on a case and need to bounce something off you.”
“Off me?”
“If you had dirt on someone and wanted to squeeze money out of them, what would you do?”
She’d always had a musical laugh. “You have a question about committing extortion, and I’m the first person who came to mind?”
“I know this must sound strange.”
“No, it sounds like you. But wouldn’t Dani be the better person to ask? She’s the state trooper.”
“But you understand how my mind works, Stace.”
“Oh.”
She paused, probably fighting the urge to ask why I’d doubted Dani’s ability to understand my thought process. But part of knowing how my mind worked was knowing not to ask me that question.
“After I squeezed the cash out of them, I guess I’d make them give me things,” Stacey said at last. “But I’d draw up fake bills of sale because I’d want a paper trail. Everything would need to look legitimate from a legal perspective. But really they’d just be handing over whatever I demanded. Now you’ve got me thinking like a gangster. I guess the trick would be doing it gradually, so as not to kill the golden goose. Squeeze somebody too hard, and they’ll say, ‘fuck it,’ and go to the cops. Or they’ll show up at my house with a gun because they no longer care if they die, as long as they take me with them.”
The liquidated rooms inside Jewett’s ancestral house made sense now.
“What if you owned a woodlot?”
“Easy,” Stacey said. “I’d cut the hell out of it and sell off the wood. Eventually I might get them to transfer the property to me for development or resale, but only after there was nothing else left.”
When I’d told her she understood my thought process, I hadn’t expected this tour de force of criminal thinking.
“How do you know this stuff?” I asked.
“The same way you do. My dad always says a good warden needs to have some poacher’s blood in his veins.”
“That describes me. I’m not sure it describes you.”
“Because I don’t have a dark side? You must have different memories of our years together than I do. What’s this about anyway? What have you gotten yourself into? Because it doesn’t sound like a typical warden investigation.”
“Bruce Jewett.”
“What?”
“Remember that name, OK?”
She brought her phone closer to her mouth. “Are you in some kind of danger?”
“I was in danger a few minutes ago. I’ll be all right when I’m back on the road.”
Her end of the line went very quiet. I thought I had lost the signal. But then she spoke again.
“No, you’re not all right.”
Stacey and Ora both had powerful intuitions. Charley and I joked about the mother and daughter being clairvoyant. But their perceptions were often uncanny in their accuracy.
“I’m going down a hill, and there’s black ice. Maybe that’s what you’re picking up with your ESP.”
“It’s not ESP. It’s me knowing you and sensing you’re afraid.”
That was why I hadn’t called Dani, I realized. I hadn’t wanted to show that side of myself to her. Even after everything she and I had been through, I hadn’t been able to share my fears with my girlfriend.
“I’ll call you to explain when I’m safely home.”
If I had predicted what she would say next, it might’ve been something about taking care. Instead she blew my doors off.
“Mike, I love you.”
One of my wheels hit a slick spot. When I’d regained traction I said, “I’ll call you back, Stacey. I promise.”
And with that, I hung up.
Her unsolicited declaration had filled me with so much excitement every nerve in my body was tingling.
But I needed to focus. The road was steep, and there was a sharp curve ahead.
39
They never searched me.
Because they’d only seen me using the shotgun I’d taken from Tori, they assumed I was unarmed. And because she’d beaten the snot out of me, they assumed I was too exhausted to fight. But no one thought to rummage through my pockets.
None of them know about Billy’s knife.
There is no room for error in this. I will only get one chance.
I roll onto my left side, putting as much weight as I can onto my shoulder, and lifting my knees as if trying to touch my chest with them. Even if I were uninjured and had spent half an hour stretching, this contortion would hurt. As it is, I have to crunch my molars together to keep from making a noise.
I move my conjoined wrists around my lower back, feeling the edged cobra cuffs cutting
into the skin under my wristwatch. I am trying to reach around my torso to slide my fingers into my front pocket. I hold briefly onto my belt, but as soon as I release my grip, my hands slide back again.
“Those lights up there,” Tina says from the front seat. “That’s them.”
“I see it.”
The SUV slows and the engine groans as Tanner downshifts. Then the vehicle begins to really bounce. We’re going off road again, and it’s almost more than the shocks and struts can bear. Whatever our destination, it’s well off the beaten path. Tempest Dow wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of bringing me to her alive if she was worried about some luckless deputy spoiling her long-awaited revenge.
I’m almost out of time. It’s not enough to get hold of the blade. I also need an opening that’ll allow me to use it.
Again I contort my arms behind my pelvis. My right hand inches along the still-wet pants fabric until I feel the copper rivet at the seam. Making an extra effort, I hook my index finger in the coin pocket.
I roll onto my back again, keeping my finger snagged, pulling the whole pocket open. The Suburban jostles as it goes up and over a rock or frost heave. The movement causes the knife to slide out an inch. I feel metal touch my finger.
Better not to hesitate. I make one final effort to pry open the pocket. The pain is excruciating.
When the knife falls onto the blanket beneath me, I almost can’t believe it. The sound it makes, this big block of metal, seems so loud I can’t believe Tina and Tanner don’t hear it. As a distraction, I knock my head against the gas can again.
“That must have hurt,” says Tanner.
He has no idea.
I close my right hand around the grip of the automatic knife. I can feel the raised button that will release the lock and free the blade. All I have to do is push it, and the spring inside will do the work for me. But cutting myself loose now is the dumb play, I realize. When they haul me out of the Suburban, they’re sure to have multiple guns pointed at me. Even if I surprise Tanner with a stab in the stomach, someone will put a bullet in my head.
I have to be patient. And my luck has to hold.
I slide the knife up under my shirt sleeve, bending my wrist and cupping my hand to hold it in place.
I’m going to drop this when they lift me.
But it’s too late to change plans because we’ve come to a halt.
The lights outside the frosted window have the quality of cheap strobes. I hear high-pitched snowmobile engines and voices raised to be heard above the whining machines. Someone knocks a fist against Tanner’s window. He rolls it down.
It’s Tori. “He better be alive,” she says. “After what he did to my sister—”
“Have a look for yourself.”
A moment later, the power gate opens seemingly of its own accord. I am blinded by a white sunburst. Even with my eyes shut, I know it’s the light mounted on the barrel of her Benelli shotgun.
“I want you to know,” Tori says. “After we’re done with you, I’m going hunting, and I’m going to find that big black dog of yours, and I’m going to make a rug from his skin.”
“He’s not a dog.”
Frankly, I’m surprised I am able to speak, given how swollen my tongue is.
The light wavers. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“He’s a wild wolf I was transporting. You’ll never catch him. He’s already twenty miles from here.”
“My cousin saw it by the river half an hour ago.”
God damn it, Shadow. Why haven’t you run?
The next thing I know I feel strong hands close around my ankles. Tanner pulls me across the steel gate with no regard for my head. I fall and hit the ground hard. There’s not enough snow to cushion the impact.
Miraculously, I don’t lose hold of the knife. It’s still there, pinned under the sleeve by my bent wrist.
Blurred faces surround me, their heads glow as if with halos from the lights of the vehicles. I hear another trigger being cocked. In the background an idling diesel engine rumbles.
Then a thin voice speaks to me from a half-remembered past. “Never thought I’d see you again.”
It’s an old woman, her face red from the tail-lights of the idling Suburban. Even bent over me, Tempest Dow seems as small as a child. Maybe she has shrunk as she’s aged, as people tend to do. More likely, the matriarch of that criminal clan had grown in my imagination over time. Seeing her again in the flesh has reduced the woman to her proper size.
She’s wearing the same man’s leather jacket I remember from our last encounter, but she’s added a scarf against the night chill. Underneath, she has on a pair of denim overalls she must have found in the kid’s section of Walmart. The hems are tucked into a pair of snow boots likely purchased in the shoe department of the same store.
“Mrs. Dow,” I manage.
“Missus! I ain’t never been married. Besides, I’m Dillon now. All of us are, legally.”
“I preferred Dow.”
Her curls are the bone-yellow of someone who was once a red-head. Her skin is extraordinarily wrinkled.
“You and your warden friends put a stain on our good name,” she says. “We couldn’t use it no more without someone Googling us. My lawyer in Dover-Foxcroft did the paperwork for us. Cost me three thousand dollars. But what else am I going to spend money on at my age? There ain’t nothing more important in life than family. And there ain’t nothing worse than being alone.” Then she adds, “Like you are right now.”
There has always been something at once terrifying and ridiculous about Tempest Dow. The people around Monson called her a witch, and it wasn’t entirely a joke. She’d actively conjured an aura of supernatural menace by placing the head of a steer on a pike at the edge of her property. Those tarot cards Lynda Lynch had used for a parlor trick were hers, no doubt.
I make an effort to speak clearly, despite my swollen tongue. “It doesn’t matter what your legal name is. I told the dispatcher who you are. Where to find you.”
“Except we ain’t there. We’re here.”
Through the legs of the people around me I expect to see a gravel pit. Isn’t that where Tina said they were taking me?
Instead I see a long weathered building with a saddle-backed roof, and walls scaled with wooden shingles. Decades ago, this low-slung barn must have housed thousands upon thousands of chickens.
Tina’s mention of a gravel pit over an open radio channel had been another act of misdirection.
Tempest has another subject on her mind. “So you say that was a wolf with you before? I thought I felt an unusual vibration coming from your vehicle. Every species of creature gives off a different one. Speaking of vibrators—” She casts a glance over her shoulder. “Where’s Lynda? Get up here, you walking dildo.”
The dozen Dows around me—I don’t care that they’re calling themselves Dillons now—make way for the stout, dark-haired woman. Someone has beaten her bloody since last we met. Both eyes are ringed with bruises. She wears a bandage taped over her broken nose.
“Hey, Tempie,” she says, sounding congested.
Tempest Dow bends over me again.
“You really thought this stupid cow was me? I knew you were dumb, but—”
“If you’re going to shoot me,” I say, “can you just get on with it?”
She straightens. “Oh, I am not going to shoot you, although I considered it before. When my granddaughter said it was you at her house, I got out my Smith and Wesson. I told her to send you over to my place with some tale. I was going to plink you the second you walked through the door. Then, I figured let’s see if I can have some fun with him.”
“I knew she wasn’t you,” I say. “I knew she wasn’t Tori and Tiff’s grandmother.”
Tempest nods. “You might just be saying that, but I guess you’re telling the truth.”
“It was the way she kept checking her phone.”
She turns her head toward Lynda, and it’s enough to make the othe
r woman shiver.
“And here I thought it was that dumb card trick she pulled,” says Tempest. “I was sure you were onto us after that stupid stunt. Hell! I almost shot you through the drywall.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I couldn’t believe you didn’t recognize us—Tina and the twins I mean. In your place, I would have seen the resemblance in a minute. I wanted to make sure you were a fool and not faking being ignorant.”
“And you needed time to plan a better revenge.”
She squats down so I can gaze into her evil eyes. My fingers feel for the automatic knife. She’s less than three feet from me, but I’m being watched by her armed relatives. I won’t have time to cut my bonds, let alone drive the blade into her neck. I have no choice but to keep waiting for a moment that might never come.
“People think I’m dumb because I never went to school above eighth grade,” she says. “I can still hear their voices, all these years later. ‘Tempest Dow is so little. Tempest Dow is just a stupid girl. Tempest Dow is nothing but trash.’ I made them pay later, oh, yes, I did. Most of them never even knew it was Tempest Dow who turned their lives to shit.”
She extends her small hand and pinches my ear like one of her misbehaving offspring.
“I’ve always been patient. That’s what’s got me where I am in life.”
“You’ve done well for yourself, all right.”
“Don’t embarrass yourself trying to act tough. I told you I was patient. Your insults won’t hurry me to shoot you and be done. We’re going to take our time here. Especially after what you did to my grandbabies Tiffany and Todd, we’re going to make your worst nightmare come true.”
“It’ll give the police more time to find this place.”
For the first time, I seem to get under her skin. “That ain’t going to happen. I already know I won’t be arrested tonight.”
“And how’s that?”
“Because I have intimations of the future. I always knew you’d cross my path eventually—maybe in a parking lot, maybe at a rest stop along some country road—and you wouldn’t see me coming. All I would have to do is push this into your side and squeeze.”
