Knife Creek

by Paul Doiron

  “Where’s my gun?” he snarled.

  “It’s right there. It’s right there.”

  “What the fuck, Bowditch? You were just going to let him—what the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “This isn’t the time,” I said harshly. “People are watching. It’s not what you want. It’s not the way you wanted this to happen. You need to let it go. For now. Just let it go.”

  Menario blinked and rubbed his forearm across his raw eyes. “You’re a fucking coward, Bowditch. Did you know that?”

  I ignored the insult. “Are you done, Detective?”

  “Done?” His muscles loosened in defeat. I allowed him to peel my fingers off his sandy biceps. “I’m not even close to done. When he’s finally rotting in a cell, that’s when I’ll be done.”

  22

  Every police officer knows a cop who becomes so obsessed with solving a case that he loses all perspective. Maybe he has a child or a relative that reminds him of the victim. Or he gets too close with their family and begins to feel a blood bond that obscures his objectivity. The danger is always there in violent crimes against women and, especially, children.

  Menario had accused me of having a savior complex. But he was something much more dangerous: an avenging angel.

  Which didn’t mean that Dakota Rowe was some put-upon innocent. The young river guide had played hard upon my sympathy while simultaneously provoking Menario to lose his temper. In my experience, the ease with which Rowe had manipulated us was rare among normal individuals but common among sociopaths.

  I took the smug hipster aside while Menario dusted the sand off his clothes. “That wasn’t helpful.”

  Grit was stuck in Rowe’s mustache wax. “It’s been four years, man. You seem like a solid guy. Imagine if you were me.”

  “He says you were the last person to see Casey Donaldson before she disappeared.”

  “Was I? How does he know? How do you know? I mean, who knows what happened to her after she dropped me off? She had her cell phone with her. She could have made it to the boat landing off the Denmark Road. Maybe the bitch called someone to pick her up.”

  “I don’t appreciate your calling her that.”

  “Fuck you, man.”

  Now that I was staring into his hate-filled eyes, a thought was beginning to take shape inside my head. “In your statement you claimed Casey had found the engagement ring.”

  “She told me she did! Look, I won’t lie and say I wasn’t attracted to her. But if she was freaked out and lied to me, it wasn’t my fault.”

  “You said you hitchhiked from the river back to your home. Who gave you a ride?”

  “A couple of French Canadians from Quebec. I didn’t get their names. What does it matter?”

  “And you didn’t see anyone until the next day when you went to work at the campground.”

  “I was tired. I slept.”

  “You grew up around here, didn’t you, Dakota?”

  “I went to school in Fryeburg. My family has a cottage on Kezar Lake. Does that qualify?”

  “So I suppose you know the area pretty well.”

  “Well enough.”

  “What about the Rankin Road?”

  “I already told you my buddy was at that fire. Why are you asking me these questions?”

  Menario was so preoccupied with the notion that Rowe had murdered Casey that he had distracted me from another possibility. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t considered the idea until the creep was staring me in the face. Now I was at risk of giving away the game.

  “I’m just nosy,” I said.

  “Then you’d better keep your nose out of my business.”

  Rowe walked off down the beach.

  I went to fetch Menario from the river’s edge.

  “So how did that go?” I asked as I handed him back his revolver. “Did it work out as you planned?”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  In my truck, driving back to Fryeburg, I took the opportunity to explore my new line of thinking. “How much research have you done on Rowe?”

  I didn’t have to glance at Menario to feel him sneering at me. “So now you’re having second thoughts about him?”

  “Did you ever get a DNA sample from him?”

  “On what grounds? There was no body, remember? No crime scene. Besides, it wasn’t like his high-powered attorneys would have allowed him to volunteer a saliva swab.”

  “Do you know where he lives currently?”

  “At his folks’ place over in Lovell. They travel most of the year.”

  “He said he had a girlfriend who rented from the Nasons. Do you know who she is?”

  “Why would I?”

  “I’m wondering about his local connections.”

  It said a lot about Menario’s lack of imagination that he couldn’t see the implications behind the questions I was asking him. Dakota Rowe hadn’t killed Casey Donaldson, obviously. But what if he had abducted her instead? A rich, handsome young man with sociopathic tendencies—Rowe had all the personality characteristics and financial resources to maintain a network of secret sex dungeons.

  If the retired detective had been less of a hothead, I might have shared my half-formed theory with him. But I had already come close to alerting Rowe to my suspicions. The only person I could confide in now was Ellen Pomerleau. But even with her, I felt that I needed more than a spitball thrown against a wall.

  We passed the fairgrounds and the academy and cruised back into town. Menario directed me to his car, a shiny new Mustang. It was an ex-cop’s idea of a mighty fine ride.

  “You need to stay away from Dakota Rowe,” I said. “Seriously, you’re going to screw things up big-time if you go looking for that guy again.”

  Menario slammed the door so hard my binoculars fell off the dashboard.

  * * *

  As I was driving east along Route 302, I spotted a state police cruiser parked across from the Jockey Cap. I slowed down until I could read the plate, then I hit the brakes. Dani Tate was waiting for speeders to come screaming out of New Hampshire.

  I pulled my Sierra in beside her sedan so that our driver’s windows lined up and we could chat. A warden I knew named Tommy Volk called this vehicular position 69.

  She rolled down her window as I rolled down mine. We both kept our shades on.

  “How’s it going?” I asked.

  “Living the dream.”

  “Boredom is what you get for joining the staties.”

  “For an extra fifteen grand a year, I can deal with it.”

  I had never before seen Dani Tate this relaxed. In the past, all of our attempts at conversations had been awkward at best, painful at worst.

  “I just spent the morning with one of your former colleagues, Tony Menario.”

  “He retired before I was assigned to the troop. But I’ve heard stories. Let me guess. He wanted to bend your ear about Casey Donaldson.”

  “He’s afraid that if word gets out that I saw her alive, he won’t be able to make a case against the guy he likes for killing her. I don’t suppose you’ve had a run-in yet with a raft guide named Dakota Rowe.”

  “Can’t say that I’ve had the pleasure.”

  “Menario is right about one thing. The guy is seriously bad news. Has anyone reported sightings of the Cobbs?”

  “Nope.”

  “Have you uncovered anything at all?”

  “They didn’t get mail or packages delivered to the house. None of the utilities paid the place a visit in over a year, either. Except for that one visit Becky made to Fales Variety, we can’t find anyone at local stores who claims to have seen her. So either she did her shopping far from Birnam or someone was bringing in supplies.”

  “It seems like Steve Nason was their only point of contact with the outside world. What do you know about the family? I’ve heard some damning things about them from a couple of sources, but nothing specific.”

  “All I know is what I’ve heard around the barracks. I’m new in tow
n, remember?”

  “Tell me.”

  “From what I hear, the mother—Deanna—used to be a home health-care worker. But she was hot in a skanky way, and she managed to get a job caring for this old rich guy who had an estate on Sebago Lake. You know the one, the ‘compound’ at the end of Cape Casco. So she took care of this old codger for a couple of years. He was a widower and estranged from his adult children. You can guess what happened next.”

  “She married him.”

  “Nope. But she did manage to get herself written into his will. She inherited something like ten million dollars, not including the lakeside estate. His kids sued, of course, but she had a good lawyer on her side, her son. There was nothing the dead guy’s family could do. She used the money to begin buying up rental properties. Her company owns dozens of buildings now, most of which are shitholes.”

  “So I have heard.”

  Dani reached across the space between us and offered me a copy of the morning newspaper. “Chris Nason is quoted in an article on the front page of this.”

  “Thanks.”

  She removed her sunglasses. Depending on her mood, her gray eyes could be as hard as flint or as soft as fog. At the moment they were the color of sea smoke. “So Kathy told me you applied for the warden investigator position.”

  “I’m still waiting to hear. When’s the last time you saw her?”

  “Kathy? We’ve talked on the phone, but it feels like I haven’t seen her in ages. I want to meet her new puppy.”

  “Well, she’s coming over this way tomorrow for a barbecue at my house.”

  Dani nodded. “Yeah?”

  “You’re welcome to stop by—if you’re not doing anything. I’m sure she’d be thrilled to see you. Stacey wouldn’t mind. She likes you.”

  “Sorry, but I have to work.” Dani put on her sunglasses again. “Have a good holiday, Mike.”

  “You, too, Dani,” I began, but she had already rolled up her window.

  Her tires kicked up a cloud of dust that settled on my truck like ash as she accelerated out of the lot. I flicked the wipers, then squirted some cleaning fluid up on the windshield. The dirt became mud.

  What the hell were you thinking, Bowditch?

  * * *

  The lead story in the Press Herald was the gas explosion on Rankin Road. The excellent photo of the burning crater and the smoldering trees brought back an emotion: the fear I’d felt when I’d realized the house was about to blow. The accompanying article held few surprises. The reporter hadn’t connected the blast to the discovery of Baby Jane Doe the day before, which meant his source wasn’t in the inner circle of the investigation. Pomerleau would be glad of that.

  The focus of the story, instead, was on the phantom renters: “Frank and Rebecca Cobb.” At the time the paper had gone to press, the fire marshal hadn’t yet announced if he’d located human remains in the ruin. The culpability of the landlord for the propane explosion was yet to be determined. There was no mention of the wigged sisters.

  The subtext, however, couldn’t have been clearer: a shady couple had rented a house and they or someone else had blown it to smithereens to hide some misdeed.

  I was mildly surprised that the reporter hadn’t connected the fire to the discovery of the child corpse less than a mile away. But my respect for the deductive powers of the local media had been low for a long time.

  The part of the article that interested me was the series of questions the writer had directed at Pequawket Properties. While it was legal to rent a house or apartment without a background check—including a criminal-records search and a credit-history report—other owners of rental properties were in disbelief that the Nasons had failed to do so in the case of Frank and Rebecca Cobb.

  The Nasons’ attorney was quoted in defense of his clients, who were also his mother and brother: “As a family who worked our way out of poverty ourselves, we are sensitive to the challenges facing people who have hit hard times through no fault of their own. Rather than engaging in intrusive inquiries into a prospective tenant’s personal history, we prefer to have an in-depth conversation with those wishing to rent from us. We have found that the best way to gauge the measure of a person’s character is to treat them as a fellow human being first.”

  Nicely done, Chris, I thought. The younger Nason had painted his family’s negligence as a kind of virtue. They had been too trusting. As a result, they were victims themselves of the Cobbs’ deception. It was good spin. I wondered how well it would hold up in the coming days.

  23

  After I left Dani, I took a detour back to Birnam. I had missed breakfast and I was starving. Fortunately, I happened to know of a store that sold decent molasses doughnuts and offered free coffee to cops.

  When I arrived, I noticed that Eddie Fales’s rusted Chevy C/K pickup wasn’t parked in its usual spot alongside the Dumpster. In its place was a little Ford Fiesta scarcely bigger than the go-karts Shriners drive in parades. Other vehicles, too, were at the gas pumps and in the spaces in front of the building. Midmorning seemed to be the rush hour at Fales Variety.

  The door gave its familiar chime as I stepped inside the store. I thought I spotted Fales behind the counter, ringing up a customer; all I could see was the top of his gray head. It was too hot for coffee, free or not. I decided to spring for a bottle of water to go with my doughnut. The Faleses hadn’t bothered to install air-conditioning, and as a result the beverage coolers were absolutely opaque with frost; you couldn’t see anything through the white walls of glass.

  I waited in line with my purchase, listening to the conversations ahead of me, and noticed something strange about Eddie Fales’s voice. It seemed pitched higher than normal.

  Only when I arrived at the counter did I realize I had mistaken the wife for the husband. I had heard of married couples coming to resemble each other, but Connie and Eddie Fales might have been fraternal twins. Her gray hair was just as unruly, her nose just as pinched, and her lips just as narrow. She even wore similar reading glasses to those worn by her husband.

  “Mrs. Fales?” I asked, as if I didn’t already know who she was.

  “You must be that warden.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Did you ever find yourself a pink Red Sox shirt?”

  “It wasn’t for me.”

  “I heard about the dead baby. So the police think that woman who was in here bought that shirt to wrap the infant in? I wish I’d known. I would have done something if I had.”

  She reached under the counter and lifted out a long Colt revolver that would have fit comfortably in the hand of Wyatt Earp.

  A woman behind me in line said, “Now, that is a gun, Connie!”

  “It’ll do the job.” Mrs. Fales returned the six-shooter to its place of concealment.

  “Have you remembered anything else about the woman who bought the shirt?”

  “The detectives already asked me that question. I don’t recall anything specific. But I could definitely pick her out of a police lineup. I’ve always had a memory for faces.” She batted her eyelashes at me. “Yours I would definitely remember.”

  I ignored her flirting. “What about the car she was driving?”

  “The cameras we got outside don’t work. They’re just for show. If we ever start making money, we’ll get them fixed. I can’t see anything out front unless I look out the window.”

  “Did you know she was living in that house on Rankin Road?”

  “I already sat through one interrogation, handsome. Now, are you going to buy those items or not?”

  I put down my money. “One last question.”

  “Here it comes,” Connie Fales said to her friend in line behind me.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know a man named Dakota Rowe, would you?”

  Connie’s face became as stony as if she’d gazed on a Gorgon. “What about him?”

  “Does he come in here?”

  “Sure he does. All the time.”

  Now, why wo
uld that be? I wondered. Fales Variety was miles from the Saco. And Menario claimed Rowe was living at his parents’ house on Kezar Lake, in the opposite direction of his place of employment at the campground.

  “It doesn’t sound like he’s your favorite person.”

  “He dated our daughter—if you want to call it dating.”

  “What does he usually buy?”

  “Aside from gas? The usual stuff: beer, chewing tobacco, protein bars for those muscles he’s so proud of.”

  I offered her a smile. “No baseball shirts?”

  My joke did nothing to soften her expression. “I can tell you what he bought the last time he was in here. Rubbers. He asked what was the largest size we sold, just to be cute. Wish he’d used them when he was ‘dating’ Alyssa. But don’t get me started on that Dakota Rowe.” Connie waved to the woman behind me. “Step right up, Norma!”

  * * *

  Next I went to see the burned-out shell of Casey’s former prison. Over the past few days I hadn’t done much warden’s work, but I excused the diversion by telling myself I was on the lookout for feral swine.

  The house had been well hidden when I’d first visited, but there was no missing the enormous clearing left by the fire. The surrounding trees that were still standing were as black as pipe cleaners, their branches having largely been burned off. The foundation at the center was a rectangle of ash-stained concrete. Unidentifiable bits of housing material lay scattered for acres about the place. Not to mention the damage done to the dirt road by the many emergency vehicles that had been squeezed onto the site. I could still see the marks of the fire hoses in the mud, like the slithering imprints of prehistoric snakes.

  I supposed the Nasons would be on the hook for cleaning up the land. At least they had plenty of room now to build that profitable multitenant property that Deanna had mentioned.

  As I stared around me at the disaster area, the same question kept running on a loop through my head.

  Where have they taken Casey?

  I wanted to believe she might still be nearby. The thought that she had been whisked far from here, beyond the ability of us to rescue, was too painful to bear. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt such a sense of urgency combined with such a sense of helplessness.