Fallen Sparrow

by D. A. Keeley

  Leo Lafleur, garbed in nylon athletic shorts and a Boston Celtics T-shirt, was in his office, leaning back in his leather chair, feet on his desk, a paperback copy of Hamlet in his hands, when Peyton entered and stood near the window, looking out at the mat below.

  She pointed at the paperback. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a nerd?”

  “Not without me kicking their ass.” He looked at the gauze on her leg. “What happened?”

  She was wearing shorts and a sleeveless blouse. “A few stitches. Nothing big. Anything in the fridge?”

  “You know exactly what’s in the fridge. You’ve been raiding it since you were a teenager.”

  “I bet there’s a six-pack of Heineken, a gallon of chocolate milk, a couple bottles of some kind of sports drink, and some orange juice.”

  “Help yourself.”

  She took a Heineken from the fridge.

  “You used to go for the chocolate milk,” he said.

  “A long time ago.”

  “You say that like it’s been a hard day.”

  She didn’t reply. But when she blinked, the backs of her eyelids were painted red—and the image of a leather boot with blood-stained tendons dangling from it flashed into her mind.

  She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Peyton, you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Fine. Just a little tired.”

  He got up and stood beside her. “You ought to read this.”

  “I do read,” she said.

  “Not Hamlet. Here, listen.” He flipped to a page. “There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. It’s my favorite line in the play.”

  She sipped some beer. “Will you read that again?”

  He re-read the passage.

  “It reminds me of someone,” she said. “I was thinking about her as I drove over here.”

  “It reminds me of a lot of people,” he said, his eyes on her.

  She looked away.

  “That line reminds me of our talk,” he said, “the last time you were here.”

  They were quiet for a time, each thinking.

  Then he said, “Your career isn’t easy, especially for a mom. It’s a tough way to live.”

  “It’s what I do. Who I am.”

  Leo motioned to the window, to Tommy below. “He complicates things, huh?”

  “For sure,” she said, “but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Speaking your feelings can crystallize your thoughts. And she smiled. She’d been striving for normalcy. Had come here because the lesson was on her to-do list: Tommy had an appointment. Work, no matter how traumatic, wouldn’t get in the way of Tommy’s life.

  Stone Gibson looked up from the mat. She raised her bottle, saluting him. The gesture made him smile.

  She was smiling back at him when her phone vibrated in her hip pocket. She looked at the number.

  “Peyton,” Hewitt said over the line, “have you heard from Matt Kingston today? He never went home last night. He went to work, but he never went home afterward.”

  “I haven’t heard from him, no,” she said. The phone felt heavy in her hand.

  “Matt Kingston’s father says he went to Tom Mann’s garage after school. Mann confirmed that. He says Matt worked for him until six and then went to Tip of the Hat. We’ve confirmed that he got to the bar around six fifteen, ate dinner, and worked until ten.”

  On the mat below, Tommy was kicking Stone Gibson’s padded hand.

  “Some nights,” Hewitt was saying, “Matt Kingston sleeps at a friend’s house—a kid named Curt Paterson—and goes to school from there in the morning. The Paterson kid never saw Matt Kingston last night. The Tip of the Hat manager, Paul Kelley, says Matt left at ten. No one’s seen him since he got his paycheck and walked out the front door.”

  “Did he cash the check?”

  “It was late. We’re checking ATM records.”

  Leo, sensing the importance of the call, pulled a chair to her, and she sat.

  “He never went to school?” she said.

  “No. The school called his home, but his father didn’t pick up and didn’t get the message until five tonight.”

  “Matt is a serious student. He wouldn’t skip school.”

  “State police and two of our guys are interviewing people at Tip of the Hat,” Hewitt said.

  “Have the state police sent reinforcements?”

  “Not for this. Augusta sent three troopers to help the four guys up here because the explosion and Pete McPherson’s death were on CNN.”

  “Where does all that stand?”

  “Got a call after we left the sheriff’s. The bomb techs found other explosives in the area. I’m glad you’re okay, Peyton.”

  “I might interview some people, Mike.”

  “Do what you think you need to do.”

  She was watching Tommy punch, moving slowly, emulating Stone’s movements. What would have happened if she’d not stopped to drink from her Nalgene bottle? What if she’d have been a few feet closer to Pete McPherson? What if the boot she couldn’t get out of her mind had been her own?

  Where would that leave Tommy?

  “They found another IED,” Hewitt said. “The reports I’m getting say these weren’t high-tech explosives.”

  “You’re thinking they could’ve been made in the cabin?”

  “I’ll see what the bomb techs say, but it seems possible.”

  “Are the FBI and CIA letting you play?” she asked.

  “I think so. Wally Rowe has his ties, and he says we’re useful.”

  “How flattering. Did you talk to Kvido?”

  “We haven’t found him yet. He seems to have gone for cigarettes and not returned yet. Learn any more about who spoke to Matt Kingston at the school after you did?”

  “No,” she said; then: “Mike, Matt Kingston can place Freddy St. Pierre at the cabin with a guy with an Eastern bloc accent, who could be Simon Pink or Kvido Bezdek, at the time of the murder.”

  “I know. I read your report. His disappearance smells bad, Peyton.”

  She knew it did.

  Wednesday at 9:20 p.m., Tommy was in bed, and State Police Detective Karen Smythe sat on Peyton’s living room sofa, her bare feet tucked beneath her. In khaki short-shorts and a sleeveless blouse, she looked much more like the University of Maine cheerleader she’d been than a detective.

  Peyton added more Pinot to Karen’s glass and set the bottle between them. “Who does your hair?” she asked.

  The bottle of Pinot was their second.

  “Millie Davis in Houlton.”

  “She add the highlights?”

  Karen nodded.

  The windows were open, and a large moth tapped against the screen. Peyton looked up at the darkened window.

  “Tommy’s a sweet kid, Peyton. You’re lucky.”

  “I know.”

  “You ever miss being married?”

  “Not to Jeff.”

  “What, then?”

  “I miss aspects of marriage.”

  Karen giggled and drank more wine. “I bet I know what those aspects are.”

  “Again, I don’t miss Jeff.”

  Both women laughed.

  “Get your mind out of the gutter,” Peyton said.

  “You, too. So these aspects you miss … is that where Stone Gibson comes in? I hear you had lunch with him.”

  “Your sister talks too much.”

  Karen grinned. “Stone is cute.”

  “He is.”

  “You seeing him?”

  Peyton shrugged. “I was seeing Pete Dye for the past six months. I think that just ended.”

  “You think it ended?”

  “It ended.” Although, Peyton had to admit she hadn’t given it much thought ov
er the past few days. She looked at the white gauze on her leg. In fact, her relationship with Pete Dye seemed a long time ago.

  “Everyone is looking for Kvido Bezdek,” Karen said.

  “He’ll turn up. I’m more concerned with finding Matt Kingston.”

  “How well do you know Sherry St. Pierre-Duvall?”

  “Not very. I knew her well when we were kids. We had coffee a couple times this week. I’m trying to figure her out.”

  “She seemed—I don’t know what—during the discovery session.”

  “Neurotic? Desperate for something?” Peyton shrugged. “All of the above? Her father was terrible to her, verbally abusive.”

  “Not hard to believe, given what you and I witnessed.”

  Peyton poured herself another half-glass of wine. “Karen, she’s not like we are.”

  “Drunk?”

  “I’m not drunk. Sherry seems to be looking for something. Searching is probably a better word. And she’s been that way, I would imagine, her whole life. She left here to attend Harvard, to show her father what she could do. But it wasn’t enough.”

  “For him?” Karen asked.

  “For her, I think. That’s why she’s still searching. I’m not sure exactly for what. But I know it goes back to her childhood, to her father.”

  “She seems to have it all—career, kids, and she’s married to a doctor. Well, a dentist, technically, but still.”

  “That’s a stereotype,” Peyton said. “Defining women by their relationship to men.”

  “True. And her relationship to men is unstable. I hated the way her husband treated her during that meeting.”

  “If he patted me like that, I’d have broken his hand,” Peyton said. “But Sherry was more concerned with what Stephanie DuBois thought of her. She was trying to prove something to Stephanie, trying to show her that they were equals.”

  Karen drank some wine. “Problem is, you need to believe it yourself, first, before you can prove it to someone else.”

  “Yes.”

  They were quiet. The refrigerator hummed in the kitchen. A window fan pulled cool night air into the room.

  “What do you think she’s searching for, Peyton?”

  “I’ve thought about that a lot. And I don’t know for sure. But it might be something you and I take for granted.”

  “What do you mean?” Karen asked.

  “I’m not sure. Just thinking aloud.”

  Karen finished her glass of wine. “If I have another,” she said, “I’ll need to sleep here.”

  “That’s what the guest room is for.”

  Thirty-Five

  Thursday, at 7:35 a.m., traveling north on Route 1, Peyton saw KINGSTON spray painted in jagged letters on plywood and tacked to a white birch tree. She turned onto a dirt road four miles from the center of Garrett. Spring’s “mud season” had come and gone, and it was clear that the Kingston’s road hadn’t been graded as her Ford Expedition traversed the six-inch ruts that had hardened following the spring thaw. Her work backpack, on the passenger’s seat, contained her photo ID, her iPad, maps, water, a med kit, and Clif bars.

  The rising sun cast shafts of light through the canopied tree cover as the SUV, its windshield dotted with dead flies, bounced along the rutted road.

  She knew the state police and possibly other Border Patrol agents had interviewed Matt Kingston’s parents already. But she was the first law-enforcement officer to interview Matt. There was a chance that she might piece information provided by Matt’s parents with previous knowledge acquired during two conversations with their son to lead to his whereabouts.

  The sides of the trailer were rust-streaked, the color of a faded blood stain. The screen door hung by one hinge. Peyton pulled next to a 1980s GMC Jimmy that, like a toothless smile, was missing its front grille. A man had the hood up and was pouring water into the radiator.

  “Mr. Kingston?” she said, climbing out of the truck.

  He straightened, holding a wrench. He was no taller than the door of the SUV, and he looked like he weighed less than she did. His face was pale, the skin around his eyes puffy, as if he’d been crying, and his nose and cheeks were mapped with red capillary lines. She knew what those were from.

  “It’s Dalton. Who are you?”

  She told him.

  Using a rag, he wiped his hands. “You gave Matthew your card. It’s still on his dresser.”

  “I did. Does Matt’s mother live here? If so, could we all talk?”

  “She don’t live here. She walked out when Matty was seven. She told him he was too much for her, that she couldn’t handle him. Last thing she ever said to him. He remembers it, too. Talks about it once in a while.”

  She thought it might be tough to get him talking—he lived in near-seclusion, after all—but apparently he wanted to get some things off his chest, or to vent about his ex-wife.

  Dalton Kingston put the wrench down on the rag, left the hood up, and led her inside the trailer. The gray walls had once been white, but a smoker’s habit left them the color of an overcast sky. An SAT prep book lay the kitchen table.

  “Do you have other children, Mr. Kingston?”

  “No. Just Matthew. He’s a good boy. Have a seat.”

  She did. There were crumbs on the table, the sink stacked high with dishes.

  “I want to make sure Matthew doesn’t get in trouble for poaching. He didn’t shoot nothing. Never has. Not poaching, anyway. I sent him out a couple times. He always came back empty-handed. I don’t think he has the stomach for it.”

  “Some people think it’s cruel.”

  “I can tell you do.”

  She said nothing. There was a ketchup spot near the SAT prep book.

  “It ain’t easy making ends meet up here,” he said. “I worked at the potato-processing plant. But not now. Matthew worked the harvest last year for Freddy St. Pierre. I was thinking maybe he could work for him again, since his father’s gone.”

  A bottle of Wild Turkey stood on the counter. The coffee maker next to it offered no signs of life, just a half-filled pot with what looked like day-old coffee.

  “What happened to your job at the potato-processing plant?”

  He was leaning against the counter. He looked at his fingernails and shrugged. “Just didn’t work out,” he said.

  “You like Wild Turkey?”

  “It does the trick. Want a drink?”

  She shook her head. “Matthew drink?”

  “No. He studies.”

  And works to support you, she felt like saying, but didn’t. “Any idea where he might be?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “He say anything strange recently? Act differently?”

  “He told me he talked to you. I told him that was a mistake and to not get mixed up in anything. If Freddy shot some guy, stay the hell out of it.”

  “He knew he may have witnessed a murder, Mr. Kingston. Your son is very brave.”

  “This wasn’t brave. It’s looking like it was something else.”

  “What?”

  “Dumb.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he’s gone. Either on the run, hiding, or worse. I ain’t a fool.” He wiped his nose on the back of his hand. He reached into the sink, dishes clattering, and came up with a water glass. “You want a drink?” he asked again, hand shaking as he doled out a shot of Wild Turkey.

  She declined.

  He drank quickly and wiped a tear from his cheek.

  “Mr. Kingston, what have you told the other officers who came here?”

  “Nothing. I ain’t saying nothing.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I told my son to keep quiet, and he didn’t, and what did it get him?”

  “Mr. Kingston, we can’t find Matth
ew unless you help us.”

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  “Do you think he’s hiding, or something happened to him?”

  “I got no idea.”

  She believed him. “Do you think he knows who shot Simon Pink?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The man Freddy St. Pierre is accused of killing.”

  He looked at her. “I already told the cops.”

  “Would you tell me?”

  “He saw them. It was dark, but he saw a gunshot. And he heard them talking before.”

  “Do you think he knows who shot Simon Pink?”

  “It’s what I told the others: he don’t think Freddy did it.”

  “Who then?”

  “Couldn’t see. Too dark.”

  “Who did you tell this to?”

  “The state cop, Miller, and that female cop that was here after him.”

  “Was she a state trooper?”

  He shrugged, and something moved in the pit of her stomach.

  “Was she in uniform?”

  “No,” he said. “Just wearing a windbreaker. She showed up last night at nine thirty.”

  “And a hat and dark glasses?” Peyton said.

  “Yeah. How did you know that?”

  Mike Hewitt wasn’t in the office when Peyton arrived.

  “Where’s Mike?” Peyton asked.

  “You know I can’t disclose an agent’s location,” the silver-haired receptionist Linda Cyr said.

  “I bet he’s in Houlton, meeting with the FBI,” Peyton said.

  Linda winked at her, and Peyton smiled.

  Agent Stan Jackman was at his desk, reading a document that was several pages long. He’d underlined some words and had written notes in the margins.

  “Peyton, you’re going to want to see this.”

  She pulled a chair close to Jackman’s desk in the bullpen. The fabric of her uniform pants rubbed against the gauze covering her stitches.

  Jackman slid his reading glasses to the edge of his nose and looked over them at her. He handed her his printout.

  As she looked at it, he said, “I hear five hundred CBP agents from all over the country are coming to Pete McPherson’s funeral, not to mention the game wardens and cops.”