AHMM, September 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The train had stopped a ways down the line, and men with moving flashlights were coming toward us. Beyond them, beyond flatbeds stacked high with timber, I barely made out the maroon and yellow Montreal, Maine & Atlantic locomotive and, beyond it, illuminated by headlamps, twin streaks of shiny steel disappearing into darkness down a canyon of pines.

  "We're a quarter of a mile from the bend. Didn't the engineer see his truck?"

  "Trains aren't like automobiles,” the trooper said. “Takes a lot of skidding afore they can stop. Probably got themselves some flat wheels."

  "How fast do they go through here?"

  "This is class three track ... limited to forty miles an hour."

  "Think he'd have seen it coming, or heard it."

  The trooper and I lamented with the people from the train for a while, then walked back to the crossing. In a city there'd be a dozen cops at a crash like this. But in the wilds of northern Maine there was only him. Took a lot of steel to patrol territory like this, alone at night, night after night. Not one car an hour passed along these roads, especially after dark.

  "Must be a quarter mile of slope coming down here,” he said, aiming his light up the hill. “Maybe he ran out of gas and coasted down, couldn't make it across the tracks."

  "And maybe stayed in the car to keep warm. Must be ten above out here,” I said, squeezing ice off my nostrils.

  We got into his cruiser, which he had left running, headlights shining on the front of my Jeep, illuminating tracks and railroad ties imbedded in peastone.

  I took off my mittens and rubbed warmth into my hands while he sat behind the wheel writing in a notebook. Blue eyes in a weathered face concentrating.

  "Now just to get this straight,” he said, “your name is Kerrigan?"

  "Duff Kerrigan,” I said.

  "And you work for an insurance company?"

  He knew all of that. I had given him my National Assurance card, which he had clipped to the notebook, but he had a routine and wanted to follow it.

  "And you met this...” He consulted his notes. “Paul Morin..."

  "Back there a ways in Masardis,” I said.

  "He was this Gordon Mayfield's agent? Mayfield's the artist?"

  "He also represented Mayfield's wife, who writes children's books."

  "Heard about them,” he said, pausing, thinking about it. “And this Paul Morin showed you the trail that goes to their lodge?"

  "Explained where it was. Couldn't get in there. Didn't have chains. That's why I lost sight of him."

  He stopped writing. “How's that?"

  "It was down a short, unplowed road. I told him I could find it and walked in there a ways to get my bearings. He took off. I never caught up with him."

  He did some writing while I rubbed my arms, getting warmth into them, moving my feet around some cables he'd pushed onto the floor when I got in, feeling warmth on my knees from his heater.

  "And you're up here to talk to him?"

  "That's right,” I said. “I'll be going there tomorrow."

  "Easy to get lost in there. Have to get yourself a snowmobile or snowshoes. Three or four sports shops in Houlton. That's where you're staying?"

  "At the Stardust Motel on North Street,” I said.

  * * * *

  Close to midnight I was in my underwear in the motel room on the side of a bed, phoning the residence of my client, Ned Gronig, an attorney in Portland.

  "I think I told you Gordon's in a wheelchair,” Ned said. “Automobile accident a year ago. He and his wife are all right, may be a little jitterish of somebody dropping in on them. Don't know much about his brother Dickey. All I got was that he's recently divorced and's been living with Gordon. At least Gordon should know where he is."

  "And you need both signatures,” I said.

  "Unless one of them has power of attorney, which isn't likely."

  "So if Dickey is not with his brother, you want me to chase around to find him."

  "I want you to call me."

  "What are you holding back?"

  "Nothing. His ex-wife got a restraining order against him. I suppose there's some meanness in him. But you can handle that."

  "And you saved this until you got me up here."

  "Didn't think it was important."

  Ned paid my rates only when he expected trouble. Otherwise he used his sister to run errands like this.

  "I'll check with you in the morning,” I said, then cradled the phone.

  * * * *

  Early morning editions of the newspaper carried nothing about the crash, but over scrambled eggs and coffee in a restaurant in the town square I watched a telecast of the crumpled truck in the ditch. They showed Paul Morin's body being placed in a black bag and slid into the back of a panel truck.

  * * * *

  I found snowshoes I believed I could manage—oval racquets with two crossbars and lots of lacing, a Native American invention, I was told.

  Two hours later, a few miles northwest of where Paul Morin was killed, I nudged my Jeep off the road into a banking of snow, took my Beretta from under the driver's seat, fastened the snowshoes, and headed down a narrow unplowed road to a trail into the woods. I stumbled a few times; it was hard to keep from stepping on myself, but I soon got the hang of it.

  In the comforting fragrance of evergreens I felt icy air steal into my lungs as I puffed through the woods—pines and hardwoods, bright sunlight sparkling on patches of windblown glaze on the clearings, pillows of snow nestled in the pine boughs, nothing moving out here but me and a couple of crows.

  I caught the scent of burning firewood and heard a generator long before I saw the lodge. It had a low roof and was perched on a hill overlooking a quarter mile of frozen pond. Half the front porch sheltered a stack of cordwood. Light smoke rose straight up from a stone chimney.

  The front door opened and a large Alsatian bounded off the porch. It didn't bark, didn't make a sound, as it leapt over the snow like a gazelle. It stopped a few feet in front of me. I reached out a mittened hand and took a step. The dog raised its lip in a snarl. It was apparently well trained and probably wouldn't attack unless ordered to.

  A woman wearing a shawl came onto the porch. She was tall and thin with a bony face and short hair. She studied me a few seconds before calling the dog in. He made a little complaining whimper but did as he was told. She patted his shoulder as he came onto the porch and put him inside.

  As I moved toward her, she asked, “You here about Paul Morin?” Her voice sounded flat in all that open country.

  "No, but I know what happened. I'm here to see your husband and his brother Dickey."

  "Yeah,” as though saying I thought so, a kind of nervous sadness coming into her eyes. “Dickey's not here,” she said.

  "Mind if I come in? I'd like to get out of these things. Legs are killing me."

  I sensed she didn't want me inside, but after frowning at something across the pond for a while, she shrugged. “Guess it won't hurt,” she said, sounding nervous, I supposed, because she didn't like dealing with strangers. Anywhere but in this wilderness she'd probably have sent me away.

  * * * *

  I wouldn't say cozy—too rough hewn for that—but the room looked comfortable, stretched across the front of the house—knotty pine walls, impressionist paintings, large braided rugs, old furniture, and a black Norwegian woodstove. It smelled of dog and turpentine and wood smoke. There was something magical about the sweet fragrance and crackling sound of burning firewood.

  I had my coat off and was rubbing warmth into my face with callous hands when the woman invited me to sit down, pointing at a heavy overstuffed chair.

  "Amigo,” she said to the dog, “lie down."

  He dropped onto a braided rug near the stove, hind legs under him, front paws extended, jaw on his forelegs, watching the two of us.

  I handed her a business card that identified me as an associate claims adjuster for the National Assurance Company, the same card I had given the trooper.
I never carried one that said I was a private eye.

  A curtain on drawstrings opened, and a man in a battery-powered wheelchair glided into the room.

  "My husband, Gordon,” the woman said. She had given me her name—Rachel Pratt. It was the name on the books Ned had shown me. Keeping her own name upon marriage was not strange, I suppose, especially among professional people, but maybe it was a statement. Sylvia, my onetime girlfriend, would say this woman wasn't fully committed to the marriage, if indeed they were actually married. It didn't matter to me.

  "So what you here for?” the man asked, gruff and impatient. He clearly didn't want me there.

  His thick beard and bushy brows that hovered over frowning eyes made me think of D. H. Lawrence, who also painted. This man looked nothing like my idea of an artist, more like a woodsman with sun-damaged skin on face and hands.

  I got a big envelope out of my hind pocket and handed it to him. “Your cousin Maude Stickney left you and your brother some four hundred thousand dollars,” I said.

  The news stunned him. He stared openmouthed at the envelope, then at me.

  "Didn't know the woman,” he said, taking the envelope in a trembling hand and giving it to Rachel who opened it and handed it back to him.

  "She died intestate,” I said. “You and Dickey are her only living relatives, so you inherit her estate by what lawyers call “descent and distribution.” All I need is your signature on that form and Dickey's."

  I was perched on the arm of the big chair, wondering why he held the papers with only one hand and kept the other under the coverlet. I'd been told only his lower body had been affected by the accident.

  And Rachel's behavior didn't seem right. You'd think when a husband was experiencing an emotional jolt like that, the wife would show some warmth. But she stood apart from him, even while reading over his shoulder.

  I took another look at Gordon's shoes. They rested motionless on the foot plates of the wheelchair, but the soles were worn. Shoes he'd had before the accident?

  Maybe.

  And over his head, above the doorway, was an empty rack that had likely held a rifle or shotgun.

  I began to wonder, Was the man in the wheelchair Dickey? Maybe Gordon was in the room behind the curtain, bound and gagged. And maybe I'd watched too many bad television shows. I knew they looked alike, both sported beards.

  I was about to ask for a picture ID when he said, “Seen her only once that I remember,” handing papers to Rachel. “Was just before we moved out of Cincinnati ... forty, just about forty years ago."

  "What happens if you can't find Dickey?” Rachel asked. She didn't seem affected by her husband's having come into a pile of money. She stood there tall and severe like a prison nurse.

  All this stiffness and hesitancy wasn't natural. But what did I know? “You'd have to talk with the lawyer. His name's in there, and a phone number."

  The hand didn't move under the coverlet. Rachel was looking through the papers. The man was frowning. I was becoming sensitive to the weight of the Beretta under my arm.

  The dog leapt to his feet, startled. I was knocked to the floor. I heard a shot. The man in the wheelchair sat bolt upright, both hands on the blanket on his knees, one of them in a cast. He couldn't have held a gun. The dog was jumping up and down, yapping nervously. Rachel was looking at me in shock. I was on the floor, holding my shirt open, seeing from the edge of my vision blood oozing from an entrance wound. My blood!

  I rolled onto my knees, gripped the arm of the chair, fumbled the Beretta out of the shoulder holster. I grabbed it in my left hand and pushed myself to my feet. The woman was holding the dog's collar, both of them watching me as I charged into the back room, saw a partially opened doorway. Outside in freezing air I found footprints in the snow leading to a garage.

  The big doors flew open, a red snowmobile burst into the clearing. The driver took a shot at me. I aimed my Beretta, but he scooted around the end of the lodge before I could fire. I ran back into the lodge and stood at the front door with Rachel Pratt and watched the snowmobile zip down the hill and cut across the pond.

  "What's wrong with him!” Rachel said, demanding an answer from Gordon, looking at me with feelings I hadn't thought her capable of. Her face, like Gordon's, was pale with guilt.

  "I told you not to take him in,” Gordon said.

  Rachel closed the door and I walked to the chair, feeling faint. I noticed blood on the cushions.

  "Looks like the bullet went straight through that muscle.” She had gone to another room and returned with a roll of gauze. “I am so sorry.” I was leaning forward, forearms on my knees. She was dabbing at the blood, tears in her eyes, hands shaking.

  "How big is that gun?” I asked Gordon.

  "It's an old Colt .45. Was my father's."

  "Even a crazy man has reasons,” I said. “Why'd he shoot me?"

  All the gruffness with which he had earlier greeted me was gone. “I don't know. He's been acting crazy. Came in here last night off his medicine, drunk, ranting about something—"

  "The divorce,” Rachel said. “All he ever talked about was the divorce."

  "What kind of medicine?"

  "Depression. Goes off his head sometimes. Alice kicked him out of her house. Had to get a restraining order against him."

  And Ned, my lawyer, probably knew every inch of that. It's why he hired me instead of using his sister.

  "I told you Dickey wasn't here because I didn't want any trouble,” Rachel said. “I thought he'd stay in the back room. I never thought he'd shoot you. What reason did he have? We'd best radio the police."

  "No,” I said. “I don't want to be stuck out here answering questions. I'll notify them if this thing festers. But right now I just want to get back to Houlton."

  "That's a ways,” Rachel said. “We got a spare bed you're welcome to."

  "I appreciate it, but...” Not with a man out there gunning for me.

  "Got some pea soup out in a snowbank I can heat up,” Rachel said, obviously eager to do something for me, make amends or something.

  That made me laugh. Burying jars of soup in the snow is how a childhood friend's mother used to preserve her pea soup. Canadian idea, I think.

  While sitting there nursing my wound, I was told a few things about Dickey. After his divorce he had moved out of the small border town up north. Paul Morin had come down a few times to talk to him, smooth things over, but Dickey had refused to see him.

  "Smooth things over?"

  "We don't know anything about that,” Gordon said, glancing sharply at Rachel to silence her.

  Rachel's face had gone white. She exchanged some secret understanding with her husband, who turned his chair around and went back through the curtain.

  "We don't know anything about that,” Rachel said.

  About what? I was tempted to say, but to hell with it. None of my business. I just wanted to get out of there.

  Rachel left the room and came back with a tray of crackers and a bowl of soup—little cubes of ham floating in it. Smelled good.

  My shoulder was taking on a throbbing agony, and I was tired of talking. The loss of blood or something had weakened me, but I knew I could make it out to my Jeep. I finished the soup and crackers and thanked her and, over protests and a storm of apologies, went outside and fitted on the snowshoes and headed down the slope. They had given me a lot to think about, but I reminded myself I'd been hired to obtain signatures, not solve crimes. I was already experiencing post-traumatic something or other, and I was scared I wouldn't make it to my Jeep.

  * * * *

  I didn't report the shooting. A nurse friend of mine in Portland patched me up and gave me antibiotics. Ned said he'd have to get instructions from the court about how to proceed, said it would take a while. After a couple of days hanging around my loft feeling sorry for myself, I did a little skip-chasing for a furniture store, spent a week hunting a husband who had run off with his wife's Doberman pinscher. She didn't want him, just
wanted the dog back.

  Then late one morning while I was going over some papers, a heavy hand hit my kitchen door.

  "Just a minute!” I yelled, putting pants and shoes on.

  I let two men into the kitchen I knew were cops before they showed ID. The tall one did the talking. He was Lieutenant Ralph Bryce of the State Police.

  "How's the shoulder?” he asked, going with me into my office, originally a bedroom. He sat on my La-Z-Boy, his partner sat behind him on a cot.

  "Healing nicely,” I said, lifting a shirt off the back of a chair, putting it on. I sat wide legged at my desk, saved what I had been working on, and shut down the computer.

  "A reason you didn't report that?"

  "Didn't want to get tied up answering questions. It's nothing.” Not what I really felt. As days had gone by and the pain in my shoulder had deepened, I more and more resented what Dickey had done to me. My shoulder was scarred forever. Nobody has a right to do that. I don't consider myself vain. No reason to. But I'm damned if I'll let anyone disfigure me. The rest of my life I'll hate standing at the mirror.

  "If you were up there just to inform Gordon Mayfield and his brother that they had come into some money, why did one of them shoot you?"

  "Probably an accident,” I said. “I don't know. The brother took off."

  He thought about that in silence, studying my face.

  They had obviously talked to Gordon and knew the answers to most of their questions, slipping something else in every once in a while the way cops do. It was about fifteen minutes before they got down to what they really wanted.

  "How'd you make arrangements to meet Paul Morin in Marsardis?"

  "Ned Gronig made the appointment."

  "He's the attorney?"

  Of course he knew that. I nodded.

  "Morin say he had another appointment?"

  "Not to me."

  "And you followed him to the trail that leads to Mayfield's lodge?"

  "That's the last I saw of him."

  "So you said,” looking at some notes he had taken from a shirt pocket. “How much time would you say went by before you met the trooper?"

  "Maybe forty minutes. Something like that."

  "And you drove the same road he was on?"