by Paul Doiron
She didn’t give me a choice.
* * *
There were close to twenty wardens, half in uniform, the rest in street clothes, gathered outside surgery. The guys in jeans and T-shirts had been off duty, at home with their families, maybe even on vacation. But from the first day at the Academy, you pledge yourself to an unwritten, unspoken oath: When a fellow warden is in trouble, you put aside whatever you are doing and you go.
Deb Davies pulled me into their midst, as if I were a shy child. Major Malcomb was in the center of the group. The wardens fell silent at their chaplain’s arrival.
“Anything?” she asked.
“She’s in surgery now,” Malcomb said.
The chaplain addressed the group. “I’m going to say a silent prayer for her, if anyone would like to join me.”
She could have spoken the words out loud and no one would have objected, but Deb Davies was a politically correct twenty-first-century minister. She was sensitive about her role as a religious officer in a secular governmental institution. Overly sensitive, some said. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, and we all did the same. In the silence that followed—not really silence, because the hospital was very noisy—I tried to conjure up something like a coherent prayer.
“Please, God, let her live” was the best I could do.
The sentiment seemed inarticulate, the exercise ineffectual. I felt no stirring of the supernatural in my heart. Kathy would live because her body was strong enough to resist the damage caused by losing so much blood, or she would die because help hadn’t come in time to save her.
I opened my eyes and saw other wardens still praying, a few moving their lips.
“Amen,” said Deb Davies.
“Amen,” replied the wardens.
There was an awkward minute where no one seemed ready to talk. Then Deb Davies broke the silence. “Do the state police have any suspects?” she asked the group.
“It’s got to be one of Gammon’s buddies,” Tommy Volk said. He was a big, blunt guy who never had a problem sharing his opinions. “Or just some crazy vet pissed off about the shooting, looking for revenge.”
“Let’s not make assumptions,” said his sergeant, a man named Ouelette.
“I’m a Marine.” Volk tapped his own sternum hard. “If a buddy of mine got shot, I wouldn’t care if they called it ‘suicide by cop.’ I would go looking for payback. Whoever shot Kathy was trained to take out targets from a distance. What does that tell you?”
“Come on, Volk,” someone behind me said.
“You don’t think it’s a vet?”
“I just hope I’m there when they corner the fucking son of a bitch,” John Taylor said.
He was one of the six district wardens whom Kathy supervised. When he spoke those angry words, it felt like a spark jumped from him and ignited something inside me, the way a wildfire moves from treetop to treetop. Until that moment, I had been so preoccupied by guilt and fear that I hadn’t acknowledged the rage I was feeling. I also wanted to find the person who had shot Kathy—and I wanted to kill him.
“Enough,” said Malcomb, raising his hands. “Enough.”
“Keep your shit together,” said Sergeant Ouelette.
“It’s not helping Kathy,” added Deb Davies.
Volk turned his back, mumbling, and the crowd spontaneously seemed to fall apart into smaller groups.
“Hey, Bowditch,” DiPietro whispered, waving me away from the major and the sergeant. A few other wardens joined us in a corner. “What happened out there? What did you see?”
I was no longer a warden and didn’t feel bound to obey the major’s order to refrain from voicing my opinions. “The guy was in the blueberry barrens above the house. I think he’d been waiting in that pine grove along the ridgetop, waiting for dark, and then he went down the hill. I don’t know if he was planning on setting up there, or if Pluto’s barking made him stop, but he had a clear shot at the steps when Kathy came out. And then when Kathy came out onto the steps, he shot her in the side. I don’t know how she managed to crawl back inside, but she did. That’s when I pulled up, and he took a couple of shots at my truck.”
“What happened?”
“Shattered the windshield. I had my Walther in the glove compartment and managed to squeeze off a few rounds.”
“You didn’t hit anything?” DiPietro asked.
“I never even saw muzzle flashes. But my shots must have been enough to spook him, because he took off. There was blood on the steps. I followed the trail into the house, and that’s when I found her.”
“How did she look? Tell the truth.”
The image of Kathy lying in the hallway with blood pooling away from her like spreading red wings flashed through my mind. “Not good.”
“Hey, Bowditch, I have a question.”
I turned around at the sound of the coarse female voice and found myself looking down into the fierce gray eyes of Danielle Tate.
17
Warden Dani Tate was wearing carpenter’s pants and a loose flannel shirt that made her body look like that of a short, stocky man. She hadn’t bothered to comb her straw-colored hair. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her in civilian clothes before.
Kathy Frost had been a trailblazer in the Maine Warden Service back when it was arguably the most chauvinistic agency in state government. Yet she still showed moments of vulnerability that I associated, rightly or wrongly, with being a woman. The same could not be said of Danielle Tate. She had a gruff voice, and she always stood with her legs braced as if to steady herself against a heavy wind. Maybe she was insecure about her gender and felt a need to overcompensate for it by projecting an outsized machismo. The other alternative was that Danielle Tate was a genuine hard-ass.
There were spots of red on her cheeks that looked like they’d be hot to the touch. “I want to know what you were doing at the sergeant’s house. Why were you even there in the first place?”
“I’d gone over there to apologize,” I said.
“For what?”
“For not being there the night of the Gammon shooting.”
“Because he wouldn’t have pulled a shotgun if you had been there instead of me?” she said. “You think I fucked up somehow.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You’re not even a warden anymore, so I don’t know who you are to judge me.”
Kathy herself had said Jimmy Gammon would still be alive if I had been present that night. But just because Dani Tate wanted to throw a haymaker at me didn’t mean I needed to throw one back.
“I’m not judging you, Tate.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
She turned her square shoulders and pushed past David DiPietro. She crossed the room, until she was standing toe-to-toe with Major Malcomb, interrogating him about Kathy’s condition. I had to hand it to Dani Tate. She might be five-four and a rookie, I thought but she doesn’t seem intimidated by anyone.
“So, Bowditch,” DiPietro said, “how’s civilian life treating you?”
Earlier, he and the others had been chummy, but as I looked around the little circle, I sensed a sudden chill. With everything that had happened, my former colleagues had momentarily forgotten that I had left their fraternity. Dani Tate had reminded them of that fact.
I tried to break the tension with a joke. “If I’m still getting shot at, it doesn’t feel any different from when I was a warden.”
None of them laughed. After a minute, they all wandered off, leaving me alone in the corner. I decided to go to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee.
* * *
I was dreaming about Stacey. We were picking blueberries in a field on a glorious summer day. She was wearing tight jeans and a sleeveless white T-shirt that clung to her breasts and abdomen, and she was laughing as I had never seen her laugh before. She would pick a blueberry and pop it in her mouth or send it flying playfully at my head. There were blue stains on her lips and fingers.
This isn’t real. This is just a dream, I thought.
&n
bsp; At first I didn’t mind because it was such a happy, sexy dream, but after a while I found myself growing nervous. There were trees at the edges of the blueberry barrens. The thought came to me that someone dangerous might be watching us. I was afraid to look away from her in case I turned back and she was gone.
Somewhere in the distance behind me, I heard an echoing gunshot. Reflexively, I turned my head.
A hand was shaking me by the shoulder. “Michael?”
The Reverend Deb Davies was bending over the booth in the cafeteria where I’d fallen asleep.
“What time is it?”
“Three o’clock.”
I sat upright. “A.M. or P.M.?”
“P.M.”
I couldn’t remember falling asleep. I had gotten coffee and a plastic-wrapped sandwich, then wandered around for a while before checking in on Kathy’s condition with the wardens. The last I’d heard, she’d still been in surgery. I must have returned for another cup of coffee.
I barely dared to ask the question. “Kathy?”
“The doctors are calling her condition serious but stable. They’ve put her in the SCU.”
“Can I see her?”
“Not yet.” The chair opposite me was empty, and she sat down in it. Behind those blue-framed glasses her eyes looked puffy. “The major has sent the others home. He left Ouelette as the family liaison officer and to organize a series of rotating vigils, so there will always be wardens outside her door. Malcomb told me you got a ride down here in an ambulance. I thought I might give you a lift somewhere. Where would you like me to take you?”
My duffel bag of clean clothes was on the bed at the Square Deal Motel. My shot-up Bronco was, presumably, still in the dooryard outside Kathy’s farmhouse. Everything else I owned was stashed in cardboard boxes in Elizabeth Morse’s guest cabin.
“I’m going to wait here to see Kathy,” I said.
“She hasn’t regained consciousness. It might be days before she does.”
“Thanks, but I’d prefer to wait.”
“I think some people in this room might appreciate it if you took a shower.”
I couldn’t resist turning my nose to my armpit. The experience was not pleasant. “Are you sure you want me in your car?”
“God calls upon all of us to make sacrifices.”
“I don’t want to leave Kathy again.”
“That’s understandable, but you need to take care of yourself, too.”
I followed Deb Davies to the hospital garage, a cold, cavernous space that made me button up Soctomah’s windbreaker. It felt weird walking around in public with POLICE emblazoned on my back, looking as battered as I did. It must have seemed to the people we passed that a homeless man had beaten up a cop and stolen his jacket.
Portland is an ocean city, and there was a fog hanging in the air that carried with it the briny smell of the sea. The hospital complex sits atop a steep hill called the Western Promenade. On clear days, you can see the summit of Mount Washington, ninety miles away in New Hampshire. But on this afternoon, all I could see were the smeared lights of cars moving along the misty streets below.
Davies drove a lemon yellow Volkswagen Beetle with a vanity license plate reading REVDD. There was a flower vase inset in the dashboard. She had placed a cutting from a lilac bush in it, and the vehicle was filled with the blossom’s rich perfume.
She exited the garage and turned in the direction of the expressway. We passed a series of fast-food restaurants and tire dealerships whose neon signs were blurry and hard to read in the fog. She pressed the gas pedal hard to accelerate into the speeding northbound traffic. For a second, I worried that the Beetle would be flattened like a bug against the grille of the eighteen-wheeler that came racing up behind us. The trucker let us know what he thought of her driving by blasting his air horn.
“So where am I taking you?” Davies asked, as if she hadn’t nearly killed us both.
I needed a shower and a hot meal, but without a vehicle, I was effectively stranded. At the very least, I knew the Bronco required a new windshield. I hadn’t checked to see what other damage the shotgun pellets had inflicted on my prized possession.
“Kathy Frost’s house,” I said. “My truck is there.”
“So, I’m curious about your decision to leave the Warden Service,” Davies said, “but I don’t want to pry.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Why did you leave the Warden Service?”
I hadn’t had a real conversation with the chaplain in a couple of years. I’d forgotten she didn’t have the same boundaries as other people. My mother had raised me as a Catholic, and the priests I’d known had been characterized by their aloof disinterest in my spiritual condition. They had waited, sometimes with visible boredom, to hear my acts of contrition. Deb Davies’s pastoral approach seemed to be to aggressively pull confessions out of you.
“Politics,” I said.
Her eyes flicked in my direction. “That’s it?”
“I think it sums everything up.”
“I’ve heard you’re a hunting and fishing guide now. I suppose that job doesn’t have a political element at all?”
“Not particularly.”
“You’re not in competition with other guides, in terms of fighting for business?”
An SUV went speeding past, its taillights vanishing into the fog. “I understand what you’re getting at,” I said. “Every job is political. But it’s not like being a warden. Sometimes I used to think the first job requirement was kissing ass.”
“You sound angrier than I remember.”
“Why shouldn’t I be? My friend was just shot. Her dog was killed. I think sometimes anger is justified.”
She was quiet for a few minutes. “I can’t disagree with you. I’m struggling with angry feelings myself.” I saw the muscles beneath her jawbone working. “I’m not sure I should say anything. I want to, but I’m not sure I should.”
“So now you’re teasing me? Come on.”
“The colonel is resigning.”
“Harkavy?” I said. “Why?”
“There was an incident at his home between his wife and another woman who claimed to be a friend of the colonel. The police were called.”
“Jesus.”
Duane Harkavy had been the service’s chief commanding officer for as long as I could remember and was one of the last of the old-school wardens. He had been with the department for close to thirty years. He’d served alongside Charley Stevens, who’d once described him to me as “a cocksure son of a Montreal courtesan.” Not that I’d needed confirmation of this fact.
“How has this not been in the paper?” I asked.
“It will be soon,” Davies said. “The Bangor Daily News has two reporters on the story. I’ve heard it could happen any day. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have told you.”
I wasn’t sure what shocked me more: the prospect of Harkavy resigning in a public scandal or the idea of the self-righteous old bastard having a secret mistress.
“I didn’t see him at the hospital.”
“He wasn’t there,” she said, tightening her hands on the wheel. “I was appalled that he let Malcomb stand in for him last night. He’s still the colonel until he resigns. He knew the story was going around today, and he was too embarrassed to show his face.”
I couldn’t imagine a greater violation of the warden code.
“I appreciate your telling me the news.”
“Anger is sometimes justified,” she said. “It’s only wrath that’s a sin.”
“I’m not sure I know the difference.”
“You’ll know it when you feel it.”
If the colonel resigned, Major Malcomb would likely be named the acting commander until the commissioner hired a permanent replacement. “Now what’s going to happen?” I asked.
“I don’t have the faintest clue.”
Darkness had arrived prematurely with the fog.
18
We stopped at a gas station so that sh
e could use the ladies’ room and I could grab a snack. I bought a canned energy drink and two slices of undercooked pizza, which she asked me to eat outside the car, given how much they reeked of garlic. The puddles in the asphalt reflected the moving lights of the passing traffic.
When I’d thrown away my greasy paper plate and buckled myself back in the car, I found Davies staring at me intently. “It was wrong of me to tell you about the colonel,” she said. “It’s been a long two days, and I’m very tired. That’s no excuse.”
“I was bound to hear it anyway.”
“Not from me, though. Minsters are supposed to keep secrets.”
“Are you apologizing to me for being human?” I said. “Because I’m the last person who should hear anyone’s confession on that score.”
She gave a sudden laugh, as if she’d just now remembered the funniest joke that she’d ever heard. There was no doubt in my mind that, deep down, Davies was truly a bit of a kook. But if your job is getting people to drop their guard and open up to you, it might help to come across as a charming weirdo. It had worked on me.
“That pizza was disgusting,” she said. “I hope you usually eat better than that.”
“You don’t want to know,” I said.
* * *
As we turned past Kathy’s dented mailbox and climbed the switchback up the ridge, the horror of the previous evening returned, and I found the muscles in my back and shoulders knotting up. There was yellow crime-scene tape strung between the maples. The mist was turning once again to rain. Up ahead on the hillside, the house seemed to be dissolving into the fog. From a distance, I could see the boxy green-and-white shape of my damaged Bronco.
“The police must have left a light on,” Deb Davies said.
She pointed, and I saw a faint glow in a second-floor window—one of the upstairs bedrooms.
“Wait,” I said. “Stop.”
There was a car parked on the other side my Bronco. It was a sedan of some kind, painted a dark color. The outline didn’t resemble that of any vehicle driven by law-enforcement officers. My first impression was that it was a very old and angular car.
“What’s going on?” Davies asked.
