by Paul Doiron
“Either way, I’m fine with you running the show here,” said Rhine. “We’ll need to bring in Rivard, though, at least until we rule out a connection to those moose shootings.”
“Why isn’t he here?” The detective had some sort of paste or gel in his hair that made it look wet.
“He’s down in Augusta briefing the colonel and the commissioner on the investigation.” The sheriff swung her broad shoulders around so that she was facing me. “What do you think, Bowditch? Connection or no connection?”
“I’d just be guessing,” I said.
“You were the one who pointed us in the right direction with the Randall Cates murder. And you were the first warden on the scene of this moose massacre. What does your gut tell you?”
I studied the walls, which were pockmarked with dozens of bullet holes. The rounds had chipped both fireplaces and dug holes in the sofa and chairs. I couldn’t imagine how Morse could restore this room to its former glory. Nor could I imagine living here and looking at the scars of the shooting every day as a reminder that someone had tried to murder you.
“It’s a different rifle,” I said. “The moose were killed with twenty-twos, probably bolt-action. This was a semiauto.”
“We’ve determined that much,” said Zanadakis.
“I don’t think it’s the same shooters,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
“There’s a carelessness about this.” I waved my hand at the bullet-riddled logs. “The person who shot up the house didn’t know if anyone was home or not. There might have been a child sleeping here—or someone with a gun who could have returned fire. This guy just wanted to cause mayhem and didn’t seem to contemplate the consequences. The men who shot the moose were very deliberate. They sneaked onto the property. They used twenty-twos because they’re quiet. They went about their business and slipped away into the night.”
“They left their brass behind,” said Zanadakis. “I’d say that qualifies as carelessness.”
“But there were no fingerprints—except for Billy Cronk’s—found on the shell casings. That means they wore gloves.”
The detective removed a notebook from his jacket pocket. “Who’s this Billy Cronk?”
“The former caretaker,” said Rhine.
A sharp pain knifed through my heart. The last thing I’d wanted was to incriminate my hapless friend.
Zanadakis scribbled something on his notepad. “We’re going to need to get a statement from this Cronk about where he was last night.”
“You don’t have a problem with that?” the sheriff asked me.
There was no accusation buried in the question; instead, it felt as if Rhine wanted me to examine my assumptions for bias.
“We need to follow the evidence wherever it leads us,” I said.
Roberta Rhine nodded and gestured toward the shattered windows. “Warden Investigator Bilodeau is out there somewhere. He said he wants a word with you.”
24
Outside, I found two of Rhine’s evidence technicians digging bullets out of the log walls. One of them trained a flashlight on the side of the building while the other extracted the lead fragments with pliers and dropped them into a bag.
The space beneath the pine was webbed with shadows, and my eyes had trouble focusing as I left the flagstone porch and walked down to the water. The sun had sunk inside the clouds along the horizon, turning them navy blue and leaving streaks of orange and gold in the western sky. The light would be gone very soon.
I walked to the end of the dock and gazed back up at the house. All of the windows were lighted, and there were no signs of anything being wrong. From the outside at least, Moosehorn Lodge appeared, as it probably did most evenings, as a bright and happy place, untouched by violence.
I tilted my head back and spotted a star. I was pretty sure it was Vega. Charley had been teaching me the constellations before I’d realized I was infatuated with his daughter. It hadn’t struck me how much I missed my old friend until today.
My mother’s diagnosis ached in my head like a hangover. Even when I’d been speaking with Rhine and Zanadakis, I’d been aware of the dull, throbbing pain. I needed to see Charley. I needed to talk through these feelings of dread and regret.
Behind me, there was a sudden loud splash in the water, which nearly caused me to jump out of my boots. I peered at the inky surface and saw a dark shape moving toward the dock. Was it a loon? A beaver?
It was Warden Investigator Bilodeau.
He reached a bare arm up at me and said in that soft, papery voice of his, “Can you give me a hand?”
I grabbed his slick wrist and pulled. The skinny investigator emerged from the lake wearing nothing but a soaked pair of white briefs.
“What were you doing out there?” I asked.
Bilodeau stood, dripping, on the planks and pushed his wet bangs back off his forehead. His rib cage reminded me of a starving child’s. “Take a look at this,” he said, opening his palm. He seemed to have nothing but a handful of mud until he pushed the dirt away to reveal two metal shell casings. “Found these about fifty feet out,” he said.
“Do you think that’s where the shooter anchored his boat?”
“Not sure he anchored. Probably just floated while he shot at the house. But yeah, that’s where he was.”
I reached into my pocket for the small flashlight I kept on my key ring. I shined the beam into his open hand. “Those are two-thirty-threes,” I said. “They came from an AR-15.”
“Looks like it.” He began to shiver. He clenched his fist shut around the cartridges and rubbed his free hand along his wet chest to warm himself. Half-naked, he reminded me even more of a weasel than he did fully dressed.
“What did you do with your clothes?”
“They’re down there at the base of the dock.”
I’d walked right past his neatly folded uniform and gun belt without even noticing them.
While Bilodeau pulled on his pants, I tried to engage him in conversation. “Have you had any breaks in the case?”
“Aside from these shells, you mean?”
“You think they’re connected, then—the moose killings and this shooting?”
He poked his head through the neck of his T-shirt. “What do you think?”
Bilodeau had been a warden for two decades and an investigator for half that time. He had a reputation as a man who pushed hard—sometimes too hard—for a conviction. I knew he’d been reprimanded for going undercover to entrap a well-liked local fishing guide for taking a single undersize salmon.
A half-forgotten memory came back to me. “Did McQuarrie talk with you about two guys named Pelkey and Beam?”
“They didn’t do it.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“Neither’s got a record. They’re good guys. Nonpolitical. Don’t even hunt on Morse’s land, so there’s no motive. I went up to see them, just to be sure. I was there last night at ten, when this happened.”
“How do you know it happened at ten o’clock?”
“Some kids were camping illegally down the lake,” he said. “They heard the rifle. Thought it might be fireworks. Then they heard about the shooting today down at the Pine Tree Store. Told the owner. He called me.”
“Shouldn’t you tell Rhine and Zanadakis?”
He fastened on his bullet-resistant vest over his T-shirt and secured it with Velcro straps. “Already did.”
“Would it bother you if I talked with Pelkey and Beam?”
“Why?” He paused as he was buttoning his shirt.
“If they’re such hotshot deer hunters, it seems like I should make their acquaintance before the season opens. I’m still new around here, and I’m trying to meet everyone who might be able to give me information. Maybe they see stuff in the woods I should know about.”
“They live in Bard’s district.” His voice was so soft, I sometimes wondered if his larynx was damaged.
“They still seem like guys I should meet.�
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He shrugged his bony shoulders and continued tucking his olive shirt into his olive pants.
“If the lieutenant asks, you’ll tell him I got your permission?” I said. “I don’t want to be accused of interfering with your investigation.”
The warden investigator stared at me with his closely set eyes, but he didn’t say another word as he strapped on his gun belt.
* * *
Jack Spense’s thuggish associate let me out through the gate. I couldn’t blame Elizabeth Morse for bringing in muscle, but my thoughts ran along the same grooved track as Briar’s. The Morses’ continuing presence at Moosehorn Lodge seemed like an unnecessary provocation. Elizabeth might have viewed a retreat as a show of weakness, but discretion often looks that way to proud and stubborn people.
I removed the cell phone from my pocket and hit the speed dial for Charley Stevens. His wife, Ora, answered.
“Mike, it’s so nice to hear your voice,” she said.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been around. I was busy with the moose hunt, and then there were these shootings on the Morse property.”
“I was a game warden’s wife for thirty years. You don’t need to tell me what the falls are like.”
“How are you, Ora?”
“I’m well. Thank you for asking. Charley’s been building me a new porch, one that’s easier to navigate.”
“I’ll have to come see it,” I said.
“Would you like to have dinner with us tomorrow? Charley would be so happy to see you.”
“I can’t make any promises,” I said. “I never know when I might be called away.”
“We understand. Perhaps you can let us know in the afternoon.”
“Is Charley there?”
“He’s over to the stream, fishing. You know how that man hates to be indoors. He’s like a barn cat that way.”
I told her that I would do my best to get there for dinner. When I asked if I could bring anything, she laughed at the ridiculousness of my offer. I couldn’t imagine spending my life in a wheelchair and maintaining my optimism and high spirits. Joy was already an elusive enough emotion for me as it was.
* * *
The squirrels had thrown a party in my cabin. They had knocked over a lamp and chewed holes in a granola bar I’d forgotten to put in the bread box. There were pellets of squirrel shit on the counters and table and in the sink, where one of them had nibbled the rotting food scraps in the strainer. Most people don’t realize that squirrels will eat anything, even baby birds. Those adorable fluffy-tailed rodents can be ferocious little killers.
I sat down at my Toughbook computer and sent a short message to McQuarrie, updating him on my off-duty visit with the Morses and requesting new instructions. Bilodeau would be filing a formal report on the shooting incident. I wondered how his interviews were going, which suspects might have risen to the top of his shit list. Being excluded from my own case burned me more than I cared to admit.
I should have been fired for insubordination and incompetence on numerous occasions in the past, and only the protection of Sgt. Kathy Frost and Lt. Timothy Malcomb had saved my skin. What virtues my previous supervisors had seen in me was a mystery—not just to Rivard but also, increasingly, to myself. At what point do you admit that maybe you’re not the right man for the job?
I thought about that surprising newspaper clipping I discovered on my mom’s refrigerator. She had reacted to my decision to become a warden with such bafflement. I’d always believed that her confusion came from not understanding the essence of my being. Maybe I hadn’t given her enough credit. It was possible she’d seen the mismatch between my rule-bending personality and the duties of a law-enforcement officer and had worried that I was only fooling myself. Mothers see things like that in their children. Whatever her reservations, though, she’d still been proud of me. I couldn’t get my head around that concept. My trip to Scarborough had pulled the rug out from under me in so many ways.
Neil answered the phone when I called. “Your mother’s asleep,” he said. “She told me that you spent the day here.”
“I’m sorry I missed you.”
He paused, as if measuring his response. “I don’t think you realize how much your absence from her life has hurt her. You are her only child. There’s a bond between you I can’t begin to understand. Love isn’t something to be pushed aside, Mike.”
“I thought she had plenty of other things going on—you, her friends, tennis.”
“All she ever talks about is you.”
The words caught in my throat. “How bad is her cancer?”
“Inoperable. The doctors are going to use Taxotere and carboplatin to try to shrink the tumors. Basically, they are going into control mode.”
“Isn’t there anything they can do for her?”
“We’ve already gotten three opinions.” He lowered his voice, as if he feared waking her. “What are the chances you can take a leave of absence in order to spend more time with her right now?”
“I need to check the union handbook,” I said. “I think I can take some of my sick time.”
“I suggest you do so.”
“There’s this case I’m on, though. I can’t leave until we’ve caught the guys.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” said my stepfather.
25
That night it rained. I lay awake listening to the drops pattering on the roof. The wind in the pines made a moaning sound that made me think of an injured animal.
Insomnia hadn’t been a problem for me since I’d become a game warden. There’s nothing like spending long hours in extreme weather conditions to help you sleep. Sarah used to say that I would start snoring before my head even hit the pillow. That night, though, I tossed and turned. It felt like I was trying to sleep on a bed of surgical needles.
An hour before dawn, I gave up trying to sleep and took a hot shower. There were rust stains around the drain and a layer of yellowish film coating the plastic walls. I wrapped a towel around myself and went looking for some Comet. No matter how much I scrubbed, the stains wouldn’t come out. I perspired so much, I had to take another shower.
McQuarrie called as I was making coffee. “How was your day off?”
“It was fine.” I couldn’t bring myself to broach the subject of my mother’s cancer.
“Have you been reading the papers?”
“No. Why?”
“Our dead moose have made the front page three days running. Rivard is spending most of his time talking to reporters. It doesn’t help that Queen Elizabeth is on national TV.”
“Bilodeau didn’t tell me anything about his investigation,” I said. “That guy’s about as talkative as a potted plant. Have there been any breaks?”
“Nothing to write home about—although Bilodeau seems to think those AR shells he found are a big deal. Rivard wants us to put the screws to the guys on his shit list today. He’s sick of tap-dancing for reporters.”
“Great,” I said. “What do you need me to do?”
“Head back over to Morse’s place and hold her hand for a while.”
“Come on, Mack!”
“The best thing you can do right now is stay out of the limelight,” he said. “The less the L.T. hears your name, the better. After this thing is over, all he’ll remember is that you followed his orders.”
“Will he authorize a new patrol truck for me?”
“In your dreams, kiddo.”
* * *
In the night, the wind had ripped many of the last leaves from the treetops and flung them, almost contemptuously, to the ground, where they continued to glow—red and yellow—like embers from a drowning campfire. The air had a fresh, clean smell, as if newly washed. Water pooled in the hoofprints of a moose that had passed silently in the night.
The best chance I had of catching Pelkey and Beam at home, I figured, was to get there before they left for work at the mill. The address I’d found for them was on an unpaved road in the blink-and-yo
u-miss-it town of Talmadge, just north of Indian Township. The warden there was my classmate from the academy and Chubby LeClair’s archnemesis, Jeremy Bard.
Wardens routinely patrol one another’s districts; we take our colleagues’ calls on their days off and sometimes team up to work deer decoys together or prowl around the woods looking for night hunters. Bard and I had joined forces only half a dozen times. Most recently, we’d done a boat patrol together on Big Lake and had barely exchanged five words. Afterward, he must have said something to the lieutenant, because I hadn’t been asked to cover for him again. The message couldn’t have been clearer: Bard didn’t want me messing around his district.
I hadn’t been lying to Bilodeau about my motives in wanting to meet Pelkey and Beam, not entirely. If they were the four-season sportsmen everyone said they were, then it was worth my while to make their acquaintance, since the essence of my job consisted of persuading neighbors to rat one another out over various Title 12 infractions. The more people you knew, the more potential snitches you had calling you up to report that their hated neighbors had just bagged a doe out of season. Grudges, gossip, and backwoods feuds were the currencies of the game warden’s trade.
In Talmadge, I left the paved surface of Route 1 and turned onto a branching series of dirt roads that got narrower and narrower the farther into the woods I drove. The experience was like following a river upstream until you found the tiny tributary at its head. The forest here was mostly deciduous: maples clutching their last handfuls of red and gold leaves, bonelike birches already stripped of their color, and gnarled old oaks with tattered brown foliage.
The GPS on my dash guided me into the dooryard of an ancient mobile home that had the appearance of having been tossed there, like Dorothy’s house from The Wizard of Oz, by a passing tornado. It had flesh-colored metal walls and a flat roof on which snow must have accumulated fast in the winter. There were three vehicles parked out front: two brand-new pickups—identical jet-black Nissan Titans with cardboard dealer’s plates—and a little red Chevy Cavalier that was overdue for its appointment at the junkyard.
