by Paul Doiron
“Then it’s a date.”
“Once these killings are solved,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“Stacey told me Rivard was planning a powwow, so I decided to invite myself over and see if I could make myself useful.”
I didn’t see his daughter in the crowd. “Is she here?”
“She’s got the day off. Matt’s taking her out on Passamaquoddy Bay on his dad’s picnic boat.”
“Oh.”
Someone whistled. It was McQuarrie, calling the room to order. “All right, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover this morning, so let’s stop with the yapping.”
Rivard stepped forward. Despite the long day and night in the woods, he had seemingly found time to get his hair cut and his mustache trimmed. He looked like a man who expected to be interviewed on television. “Good morning,” he said. “I have some news before we begin. This morning, Ms. Morse informed me that she is offering a reward of ten thousand dollars for information that leads to the arrest and successful prosecution of anyone involved in the shootings.”
A warden behind me—it might have been Bayley—whistled when the lieutenant announced the dollar figure and said, “If I catch the bastards, do I get to keep the reward?”
“Settle down!” said McQuarrie, quieting the laughs.
“The purpose of this meeting is to plot strategy,” said Rivard. “So far, we have managed to collect very little in the way of hard evidence from the kill sites. Mack, can you run down the list of what we’ve found?”
“Yes, sir.”
There was almost nothing new in the inventory beyond the items I had personally discovered: ten shell casings from a .22 Magnum, three from a .22 long rifle; four .22 bullets and one fragment recovered from the bodies; three cigarette butts (Salems); two candy wrappers (Starburst and Tastetations); one empty sixteen-ounce can of Budweiser located outside the Morse property; one empty bottle of Miller Genuine Draft, found in the same vicinity. That was it.
“Last night, we transported all these items to the Maine State Crime Lab in Augusta,” said McQuarrie. “The techs are dusting what they can for prints. We should get those results soon. It’s going to take longer to see what DNA evidence we can pull off those cigarettes.”
So they hadn’t found additional kill sites. Had they even looked? I fought down the desire to raise my hand and ask.
“We also collected insect samples,” said Warden Investigator Bilodeau in a near whisper. He had a toothpick tucked in the corner of his mouth again.
“That’s right,” said McQuarrie. “We collected some bugs to help us determine the time of death for each animal. There’s a professor over at UNH who’s a specialist in that stuff, and he agreed to take a look.”
The whip-thin investigator continued, so softly that we all leaned toward him to hear. “The evidence so far points to all the moose being killed the night before last—based on rate of decomposition and residual core body temperatures.”
“What this means,” said Rivard, “is that we haven’t caught any breaks so far. We might get lucky with the prints or the DNA, but we can’t bank on it. The crime lab ballistics guys should be able to narrow down the firearms we’re looking for.” He took a sip of coffee to smooth his throat. “Continue, Sergeant.”
“Last night,” said Mack, “I put Sullivan and Bard on a detail on the road outside Morse’s Sixth Machias gate, figuring the shooters might come back for sloppy seconds. Bard, you want to tell everyone what you found?”
My muscle-bound rival took the opportunity to puff out his already-thick chest. “We stopped three vehicles on the public road,” he said, reading from a Rite in the Rain notebook. “A 2001 Subaru Outback registered to a Peter Wyman of Baileyville, who was the driver. He consented to a search of the car, but there was no evidence he had been engaged in hunting activities. The second vehicle was a 2005 Ford Ranger registered to Alice Dade of Grand Lake Stream. It contained two juveniles, a boy and girl. The boy produced a driver’s license identifying him as Scott Dade. He said he was the owner’s son, which we confirmed. The girl had no identification in her purse.”
“She had a packet of rubbers, though,” said Warden Sullivan with a leering grin.
Half the room laughed; the rest of us fidgeted and looked at the walls. Beside me, Charley voiced his displeasure with a grunt.
“There was no evidence of hunting activities,” continued Bard when the laughter had died down. “The third vehicle was a 2008 Toyota Tacoma driven by Chubby LeClair.”
I heard murmurs from those around me.
Chubby LeClair was a fleshy fellow who lived in an Airstream camper in the woods. For years, he had passed himself off as a Passamaquoddy, claiming he was one-quarter Indian on his dead father’s side, until the tribal elders managed to pick enough holes in his story to determine that he was just another white opportunist who liked to wear his hair long and collect checks from the Feds. The tribal manager had him evicted from his rent-free brick house overlooking Big Lake and drove him off the reservation and into the wilds of Plantation No. 21. Despite the counterweighing genetic evidence (Chub had reddish hair and gray eyes), he continued to proclaim his Passamaquoddy heritage. He remained popular with the teenagers in the area, who knew him as a dealer in choice weed. It was said he traded blow jobs—from girls and boys—for blunts.
The Warden Service knew him as an incorrigible poacher who would be caught jacking a deer one season, lose his hunting license for a while, and then be caught again the moment he got his license back. Chubby seemed constitutionally incapable of obeying a law or taking a hint. I had busted him in August when I saw him drive down the road with a doe’s foot sticking out of his passenger window. He had responded to the summons I’d written with big smiles and “No hard feelings,” and the next thing I knew, he had decided I was now his friend. It wasn’t unusual for him to call me to ask where the bass were biting.
“I don’t suppose Chub had a twenty-two on him?” someone asked.
“Just a twenty-gauge Remington,” said Bard, “and enough grouse feathers inside the cab of his truck to stuff a pillow. I confiscated the firearm and wrote him up for hunting without a license. The fat fuck was smiling the whole time, like I was giving him an ice-cream cone.”
“That’s just Chub,” said a warden across the room.
“We would have dragged his fat ass to jail,” continued Bard, “but we didn’t want to leave our position beside the road.”
“Let’s get back on track here,” said Rivard. “One of my goals for this meeting is to develop a list of potential suspects that Bilodeau can pursue while we continue our search of the Morse property. LeClair is one name.” He lifted his chin in my direction. “Karl Khristian and Billy Cronk are two more. Warden Bowditch, I understand that you had an interesting evening at Mr. Khristian’s house. We’d all like to hear your account of the events.”
I felt like a daydreaming kid who had just been called upon in class. “Sure, Lieutenant.” I set down my coffee cup on a bookcase. “I was the first officer on the scene of that ten-thirty-two.”
Rivard couldn’t resist the dig. “You seem to be the first officer at the scene a lot these days.”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
It wasn’t meant to be a joke, but I heard chuckles.
With all ears in the room turned in my direction, I told the story of collecting evidence at the gravel pits when I heard the call come over the police radio. I described in detail what had happened when I arrived at the armed compound: KKK shooting into the dirt at Billy’s feet, the words I’d used to persuade the sovereign citizen to emerge from inside his castle walls, how my friend had quickly disarmed the little man, and the arrival of the sheriff and other officers on the scene.
“As far as I know, they’re both still in jail,” I said. “But I don’t see the point in adding Billy Cronk’s name to the list of suspects.”
Warden Investigator Bilodeau made his presence known again. He had a habit of slithering o
ut of sight for minutes at a time and reemerging only when you’d forgotten about him. “He is a convicted poacher, and he knows the combination to the gates,” he said in his papery whisper. “You said he touched at least one of the casings, as if to deliberately leave his prints on it. That suggests he was worried about being linked to the shells and was looking to have an explanation.”
“I think he was just being careless,” I said. “Billy’s like that.”
“We have testimony from Morse’s other employees that Cronk regularly complains about his job,” said Bilodeau. “And his eagerness to focus attention away from himself and onto Khristian might be considered suspicious.”
“You’re drawing the wrong conclusions,” I said. “Billy is desperate to keep his job. He’s worried that Morse will fire him for negligence.”
“He can stop worrying,” said Rivard.
My heart dropped down around my liver. “She fired him?”
“I suggested it was unwise to keep him around under a cloud of suspicion.”
“There was no reason for you to do that, Lieutenant,” I said.
The crowd parted as the L.T. moved toward me. “What did you just say?”
“Billy Cronk’s a good guy.”
“That’s your opinion.”
“Yes, sir. It is.”
The room itself was already sweltering, with all the bodies packed inside, and now the temperature had seemingly risen ten degrees higher. “I want names,” barked the lieutenant. “Who else is on our shit list? Who else do we know with a beef against Elizabeth Morse? I’ve asked McQuarrie to cross-check our MOSES database against the people who wrote letters to the newspapers complaining about her national park. Later today, I’m meeting with Zanadakis of the Maine State Police. He’s investigating the death threats she has received.”
Beside me, Charley cleared his throat. “May I make a suggestion?”
“Stevens,” said Rivard. “I didn’t see you there in the back. How nice of you to join us this morning.”
My pilot friend offered a friendly smile. “I figured you might need my airplane to look for other kill sites and such.”
“We have our own pilot,” the lieutenant said.
“Yes, sir. But their salaries and gas money come out of the division budget. I’m just an unpaid old geezer who’s happy to help.”
Mack leaned close to Rivard and said something into his ear. “All right,” said the lieutenant to the old pilot. “Talk to Sergeant McQuarrie and me after the meeting, and we’ll discuss it.”
I raised my hand. “I’d like to volunteer to go up with Charley, Lieutenant.”
“That’s good of you to volunteer, Bowditch,” said Rivard. “But we have something else we’d like you to work on today.”
14
The sun burned through my windshield as if through a magnifying glass and made the steering wheel too hot to touch. I tried flipping down the visor, but it did no good. When I rolled down the windows to let cooler air inside, a logging truck rumbled past, and the cab filled with choking dust. I didn’t have enough gas to run the air conditioning all morning and afternoon while I waited for hunters to appear.
Rivard had stationed me at a checkpoint on a private logging road still owned by the Skillen family, in the heavily cut timber to the northeast of Morse’s vast property. My assignment was to inspect rifles and collect bullets. The hope was that the men who’d killed the moose were still skulking around in the backwoods. Maybe they were camped somewhere on the nearby Public Reserved Lands, or maybe they were locals who spent their Saturdays prowling the forest, taking potshots at squirrels. I did a quick calculation and factored the odds of the shooters actually appearing at my checkpoint as somewhere less than zero. Whenever a vehicle approached (which was seldom), I was tempted to cry out, “Halt! Who goes there?”
The first vehicle I stopped held a party of upland bird hunters being led by a guide I knew from Weatherby’s Sporting Lodge in Grand Lake Stream. Jeff Jordan was an athletic, middle-aged guy driving a rugged white SUV. His passengers—two men and a woman—were dressed in khaki and orange clothing. A Brittany spaniel was riding in a dog crate in the back of the vehicle.
The guide rolled down the window as I approached. “What’s going on, Mike?”
“Hey, Jeff,” I said. “Had any luck this morning?”
He had a copper-wire beard and was wearing a blaze orange ball cap. “We’re just heading out.”
“How’s the season been for you so far?”
“Better than last year. The birds like this warm weather.”
“What’s going on here?” asked the man in the passenger seat. He was an older gentleman with a thick head of silver hair. He was wearing yellow shooting glasses, which disguised his identity. It took me a moment to realize that he was Merritt Skillen, the father of Stacey’s fiancé and the owner of the local lumber mill.
I addressed Jeff Jordan. “I don’t suppose you or your passengers have a twenty-two in the vehicle.”
“Who shoots woodcock with a twenty-two?” asked the man in the backseat. He had heavy thighs and a thick Texas accent, and was seated beside a handsome older woman with frosted hair.
“I’ve got a twenty-two pistol in the glove compartment,” said Jordan.
“I know this might sound strange,” I said, “but would you mind giving me one of your bullets?”
Merritt Skillen lowered his voice. It was an impressive baritone that matched his aristocratic demeanor. “I’d like to know what this is about, Warden.”
Jordan studied my deadpan expression. “This has something to do with those moose shootings, doesn’t it?”
“What moose shootings?” asked the wife in a twangy accent. She leaned between the front seat, so I could see her heavily made-up face.
I ignored her. “We’re collecting twenty-two rounds, looking for a match. It’s nothing personal.”
Jordan chewed on his lower lip for a while. Then he reached across Merritt’s broad chest and opened the glove compartment. He ejected the magazine of a .22 Ruger and handed it to me so I could remove a cartridge. “Be my guest.”
I put on a pair of latex gloves from the case on my belt. “Thanks.”
“I’m doing this because I appreciate your honesty,” he said, “but I kind of resent the request.”
I kept my mouth shut and thumbed a cartridge from the magazine and tucked it into my shirt pocket, being careful not to smear whatever fingerprints might be on the brass. The forensics lab would dust it and then fire it into a synthetic target so they could compare the lead to the bullets we had dug out of the bodies of the moose.
“Whatever in the world is this about?” asked the wife.
“We’re investigating a wildlife crime in the area,” I said.
“Well, that’s no explanation at all!”
“You’re not being particularly courteous, Warden,” said Merritt Skillen.
“I apologize for the inconvenience, Mr. Skillen. As I said, we’re checking every vehicle that comes through here.”
The old man turned in his seat to address the couple behind him. I wondered if they were friends or business associates of his from down south. “I’ve never been stopped like this in all my years living in this area.”
“So everyone around here with a gun is a suspect?” asked Jeff Jordan as I handed him back his pistol magazine.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said, but the words felt like a lie when I heard them aloud. “If you’re after woodcock, there’s an alder thicket about two miles south of here where I flushed a bunch of birds last week. You’ll see the covert after you cross that new bridge over Sandy Stream.” I tapped the brim of my black hat. “Good luck on your hunt, folks. Nice seeing you, Jeff, and thanks again.”
I watched them drive off, trailing a glittery cloud of dust behind their wheels.
Jeff Jordan was one of the most ethical outdoorsmen I knew. Now his name would be added to Rivard’s “shit list” merely because he owned a .22 and had
been good enough to give me a bullet. The interchange had left me feeling vaguely sick to my stomach. I debated tossing the bullet into the weeds but decided against it.
My BlackBerry chimed as I returned to my truck. It was yet another bizarre e-mail from my mom:
“It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.”
—François de La Rochefoucauld
I was certain that my mother had no clue who François de La Rochefoucauld even was. What the hell was going on with her?
It was then that I remembered my stepfather’s voice mail from the night before. Neil Turner and I had never been particularly close. He was a careful, emotionally reserved man: a rare specimen of WASP that seemed to have gone extinct everywhere during the 1960s except at select yachting clubs, upscale boarding schools, and certain northeastern Episcopal congregations. My hero worship of my estranged father hadn’t made it any easier for us to create a bond during my teenage years, and once I’d gone away to college at Colby, Neil had given up trying. But I had come to see my stepfather as a fundamentally decent man who deserved some sort of medal for bringing my perpetually unsatisfied mother as much happiness as he could.
I didn’t want to call him now, not when a pickup full of hunters might come roaring past at any moment, but these weird messages from my mom, coupled with Neil’s out-of-the-blue voice mail, were beginning to make me worry.
* * *
By the end of the afternoon, I had collected exactly three more .22 cartridges and been told to go to hell twice.
The day wasn’t a total loss: I had written up a summons for a hunter who had too many woodcock in his possession and another to a kid who had mistaken a protected spruce grouse for the more common ruffed grouse. When I told him the fine for shooting a “fool hen” was five hundred dollars, he looked like he might drive off a bridge. Part of me wanted to confiscate the bird and let him off with a warning, but I had resolved to begin living my life according to the Warden Service manual. And so I wrote the kid up.
Out of boredom, I phoned McQuarrie, and he informed me that Charley Stevens had located another kill site, a cow moose shot to death along the southern edge of Morse’s property. The animal had been found a hundred yards from the road, hidden behind a swale of young birches and poplars. Like moose A, it had staggered into the underbrush before the blood had drained from its enormous heart. Wardens were on the scene now, examining it for evidence.
