The Precipice: A Novel

by Paul Doiron

  Thousands of people walked this section of the AT each year, but you never would have known it from the path, which was almost a tunnel running through a thick stand of birches, hemlocks, and firs. Green branches pressed together overhead. The trail itself was crisscrossed with tangled roots, worn smooth of their bark beneath the boots of so many hikers. I followed Stacey down from the parking lot and into the cooler dark of the forest. A dank and decaying odor circulated in the shadows—seemed, in fact, to be the smell of the shadows.

  The sign where Samantha and Missy had taken their last picture was located in a sun-warmed clearing about fifty yards from the highway. It had been set in concrete to keep vandals from toppling it over. The women must have climbed onto the base to have posed the way they did. To our left was a denim-blue body of water, which the map said was one of the Spectacle Ponds.

  Someone had tacked the MISSING poster to the base of the brown sign. Stacey paused before it. She crossed her arms and shivered noticeably, despite having emerged from the murky wood into sunshine.

  “Baby Ruth and Naomi Walks,” she said. “God, they look so young.”

  “We’re not that much older than they are.”

  “Yeah, we are.”

  A dragonfly landed on her shoulder and fluttered its cellophane wings. Its thorax was light brown and it had white shoulder stripes and a black line down its abdomen—a chalk-fronted corporal. Another one landed beside it. Stacey paid no attention to them.

  “Tell me about Samantha and Missy,” she said.

  “They graduated early this spring from Pentecost University in South Carolina so they could hike the AT. After they finished the trail, they were headed to West Africa to do some sort of missionary work.”

  She blew air through her nose, loud enough for me to hear.

  “What?” I said.

  “Pentecost was the school in the news last year that expelled a lesbian student when one of the administrators saw her wedding photos on Facebook. They claimed she’d violated their ‘Lifestyle Covenant.’” Two more dragonflies landed, one on her bare arm, the other on the toe of her boot. “What else do you know about them?”

  “They went to high school together in Buckhead, Georgia, before Pentecost.”

  “Do they have brothers or sisters?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How are we going to find them if we don’t know anything about them?”

  It was a good question. “DeFord has been talking to the families. The parents are flying into Greenville this morning. He’s gone to the airport to meet them.”

  “God, I can’t even imagine what they’re going through.”

  She turned back toward the poster and started to shake.

  “Are you all right?” I thought she might be crying.

  She spun around, and all the insects took flight. Her jaw was firm, and her face was flushed with blood.

  “I’m mad,” she said. “And you should be, too. Someone killed those women, and it wasn’t a bunch of fucking coyotes. Do you know what I think about when I look at that poster?”

  “No.”

  “I think they look just like me when I was their age. The difference is that I survived.”

  14

  The woods, which had been so dense on either side of the road, began to give way to fields and house lots as we approached Greenville. When Thoreau had visited Moosehead Lake in 1853, lumberjacks were just beginning to range out into the surrounding forests, clearing miles of timber. Horse teams would haul the felled trees to the lake, where steamers would surround the floating logs with booms and pull them to the outlet of the Kennebec River. From there, they would be washed downstream to the sawmills. I often thought of his essay “Chesuncook” whenever I crested Indian Hill and found myself dumbstruck by the shimmering vista before me.

  Thoreau had called Moosehead “a suitably wild-looking sheet of water, sprinkled with small, low islands, which were covered with shaggy spruce and other wild wood—seen over the infant port of Greenville, with mountains on each side and far in the north, and a steamer’s smoke-pipe rising above a roof.” The description still held true, although the loggers were gone, and the last remaining steamship, the MV Katahdin, now ferried tourists to Mount Kineo, where they could snap pictures of the rhyolite cliffs rising above the hard blue chop. In Thoreau’s days, there was “no village, and no summer road in this direction.” Now there were magnificent lakefront estates with Cigarette boats docked out front, a nine-hole golf course, and even plans for a condominium development on the undisturbed shores of Lily Bay.

  We drove through Greenville’s tiny downtown—just a crossroads with a blinking red light and a string of restaurants and souvenir shops extending out to each point of the compass—and turned right, headed uphill and inland again toward the western border of the Hundred Mile Wilderness. As we neared the Greenville Airport, I caught sight of a familiar yellow Volkswagen Beetle at the side of the road. A gray-haired woman in a green uniform was kneeling beside the back right tire. I slowed down.

  Stacey sat up from her slouch and adjusted her sunglasses. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s Deb Davies.”

  The Warden Service chaplain was a Methodist minister who lived on a back-to-the-land farm, complete with Silkie chickens and Angora goats, down in central Maine. I had a closer relationship with her than most of my fellow officers. Over the years, the Reverend Davies had come to see herself as my personal spiritual adviser, thanks to the many opportunities my supervisors had given me to seek counseling after my puzzlingly frequent brushes with death.

  She had short hair, which she stiffened into spikes with some kind of gel or foam. Since I’d last seen her three months earlier, she’d swapped her blue-framed glasses for red-framed ones. This morning, she was wearing her dress uniform and her white clerical collar. I realized instantly where she had been headed when she got her flat tire.

  Stacey and I got out of the truck at the same time and met her on the sand shoulder.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” I said. “Did you call AAA?”

  “Hey there, stranger!”

  “It’s good to see you, Deb.”

  Davies turned to Stacey with a tentative smile. “How are you, Stacey?”

  The two women formally shook hands. “What’s wrong with the Love Bug?” Stacey asked.

  “There’s a nail in my tire, and I’m already running late.”

  “You must be headed to the airport,” I said.

  She blinked and made an exaggerated look of surprise. “I always forget about your deductive powers,” she said. “It’s not just me meeting the plane. The commissioner is also flying in to welcome Samantha’s and Missy’s families.” She meant Marianne Matthews, who directed the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

  “That’s quite a high-powered entourage,” I said.

  “I’m surprised the governor’s not coming, too.” Stacey made no secret of her dislike for the man and his love of all things asphalt and oil.

  Deb Davies pretended not to have heard the remark. “Lieutenant DeFord told me you were the one who found the point last seen, Mike.”

  “It looks that way,” I said. “The last record we have of them was at the Chairback Gap lean-to ten days ago.”

  “I didn’t realize they’d been missing that long.”

  We all fell quiet as she processed the information. Like me, Davies was a veteran of many searches. She knew that the odds of finding missing persons alive after the first two days were slim.

  “I can change your tire for you,” I said.

  But when I lifted up the trunk liner and removed the wing nut, I discovered that the spare was also flat.

  “Oh, cheese and crackers!” The chaplain glanced at her wristwatch, and I caught a glimpse of Mickey Mouse with his pinwheeling arms. “That plane is going to be here any minute, too.”

  “Why don’t we give you a lift to the airport,” said Stacey.

  I didn’t want to give Lie
utenant DeFord the impression that I was ignoring the assignment he’d given me in order to indulge my curiosity. Stacey clearly had no such qualms.

  Deb Davies looked back and forth between us. “Would you mind?”

  “Not at all,” said Stacey.

  The backseat of my pickup was cluttered with all the gear I might use in the course of a week: a sleeping bag, spotting scope, change of uniform, blaze orange safety vest, camouflage raincoat, come-along, hatchet, first-aid kit, wool blanket, my AR-15 rifle and Mossberg 590A1 shotgun, entrenching tool—all sorts of crap. I had to throw half of it into the truck bed to make room for Deb Davies. Her nose twitched as she squeezed inside. She peered around as if she were afraid that I might have a dead beaver hidden under the blanket.

  I rolled down my window and started off for the airport.

  Deb leaned forward against my seat, close enough for me to smell the spearmint chewing gum in her mouth. “How do you like your new district? It must be a change for you working in the suburbs.”

  “He misses the woods,” said Stacey.

  I’d never expressed that thought, but it was absolutely true. “I got to spend a lot of time on the water this summer, at least.”

  “You looked cute going on patrol on a Jet Ski,” said Stacey.

  I met Deb’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “She’s making fun of me for wearing a bathing suit.”

  “I’m sure all the drunk female boaters liked seeing your pretty legs,” said Stacey. “And some of the male ones, too.”

  She knew I’d been teased about my lake patrol “uniform.” It was true that I’d heard some catcalls. I hadn’t wanted to admit how much I’d enjoyed tooling around on my shiny Kawasaki STX-15F, playing waterborne traffic cop to the flotillas that plied Sebago Lake on hot summer days. It wasn’t why I’d become a game warden, but it had made for a novel experience.

  Glancing ahead, I saw a cleared area that I recognized as the end of the runway. I followed the perimeter of the airport property until I reached the entrance. It was more of an airstrip in the forest than a conventional passenger or commercial facility; there was no control tower, just a cluster of hangars on both sides of the landing strip, a firehouse, a fueling station, and a small trailerlike building where the pilots could get coffee. Most of the planes in view had propellers: Cessnas and Cirruses. There was even an antique biplane.

  We parked in the dirt lot beside a black warden’s truck, a Greenville police cruiser, and an unmarked Ford Interceptor that I recognized as the standard model given to state police detectives. I kept the engine running as Deb got out. Stacey unsnapped her seat belt and hopped to the ground.

  “Thank you for the ride,” said the Reverend Davies, straightening her uniform lapels.

  “It was no trouble,” I replied. “Stacey, we should probably get on the road.”

  “I’ve never flown into this airport before,” Stacey said. “I want to have a look around for future reference. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

  It was more than a pilot’s interest, I suspected.

  I parked the truck beside the others and followed the two women to the runway. There was no fence or gate to stop us. We saw a group of people gathered around the door of a gleaming Learjet. I spotted Lieutenant DeFord and Sergeant Fitzpatrick, both in their dress uniforms—green and blue, respectively—as well as the taciturn FBI agent, Genoways, in his navy suit. Standing in front of them was Commissioner Matthews; she was a small, sharp-nosed woman with a boy’s haircut, wearing a dress the color of a fire engine.

  “It looks like the families are already here,” I said.

  “Crab cakes!” said the Reverend Davies, and hurried off toward the runway.

  Stacey started to follow her, but I caught her arm. Her head swung around, lips pursed.

  “We need to get going,” I said.

  “You can pretend you’re not interested, Bowditch, but I know you are.”

  I let go of her arm.

  Deb Davies approached the group. We were too far away to hear their conversation, but even from a distance we could tell that she was apologizing for being late. We saw two middle-aged couples step forward to shake her hand.

  The fathers could almost have been twins. They both had short brown hair and golf-course tans, and they were both dressed in blue blazers over polo shirts, loose slacks, and loafers. Their bellies curved over their woven leather belts in exactly the same way.

  The mothers were opposites. One was as thin as a fence post. She had feathery blond hair that reminded me of pictures I’d seen of women in the 1970s, a long neck and long hands, and a mask of bright makeup. She wore a linen pantsuit and sandals. Based on the hair color, I took her to be Samantha’s mother.

  The other woman was a short-haired brunette, but the color looked as if it had come from a bottle. She wore a flowery blouse and a pleated green skirt that accentuated the width of her hips. Everything about her—from her pained, drooping face to her slouched shoulders and hanging breasts—seemed to be pulled by a greater gravity than the rest of us were experiencing. Missy’s mom struck me as one of the saddest people I’d ever seen.

  While we watched, a man I hadn’t noticed stepped forward and greeted Deb Davies. He appeared to be in his late thirties and had the build of someone who played a lot of tennis. He was dressed in new-looking jeans, a white dress shirt without a tie, and a gray sharkskin blazer. His hair, styled in a pompadour, was the color of spun gold, and his skin had an orange cast that was meant to look naturally tan but failed to do so. Never in my life had I encountered a person in Maine who looked like him.

  The golden man put his arm on Deb’s shoulders and leaned his smiling face close to hers, as if they were old friends.

  “Who the hell is that?” Stacey asked.

  “I think it might be their minister.”

  “He looks like he’s going to a disco later.”

  Behind us came the sound of an engine. We stepped aside and let an obsidian black Cadillac Escalade creep past. The SUV pulled up to the plane and a man in a black polo shirt and pants emerged. He conferred with the minister—if that was indeed who he was—and began collecting the luggage on the tarmac.

  The lieutenant glanced back again in our direction, but I couldn’t read his expression. Samantha’s and Missy’s parents went around the circle, shaking hands again with everyone, and then they all got into the Escalade. The minister lingered on the runway for a moment. When Commissioner Matthews tried to climb into the SUV, he politely waved her away. Then he got into the front seat beside the driver, and the vehicle swung around, heading out.

  Again, Stacey and I stepped onto the sunburned grass. As the Cadillac drove by, I noticed that the windows were darkened, but I could feel the eyes of the people inside.

  Deb Davies walked toward us. She was looking at the ground and playing with her Mickey Mouse wristwatch.

  “How’d it go?” Stacey asked.

  The chaplain seemed a bit dazed. “They thanked me for coming but said they didn’t need my services.”

  “So the guy with the hair was their personal minister?” I said.

  “He introduced himself as the Reverend Mott. He asked what denomination I belonged to. When I said Methodist, he said that was what he would have guessed.”

  “What church does he belong to?” Stacey asked. “The Church of Cheesy Hair?”

  “How did the parents seem?” I asked.

  “They were pretending to be all right,” Deb said. “All except Missy’s mom. The poor woman looked like she hadn’t slept in a week. They’re headed over to the Inn at Lily Bay. I’m going to get a ride back to Division C Headquarters with Lieutenant DeFord. He said he’d send someone to fix my car.”

  “The families don’t want your help at all?” I said. “What will you do?”

  “Go home, I guess.” She bit her lip as the thought overcame her. “This has never happened to me before.”

  Stacey stared over my shoulder. “Wow, the commissioner is really chewing
out the lieutenant.”

  “She wanted more wardens in uniform here,” said Deb. “She doesn’t think he understands how important these people are.”

  “Would she prefer he pull people off the search?” I asked.

  The question answered itself. Out on the airstrip, Matthews was making large hand gestures as she spoke with DeFord. Her face was hard and white beneath her helmet of black hair. Good political operator that he was, the lieutenant took every punch the commissioner dished out.

  15

  Stacey and I headed east on the rutted KI Road, back into the Hundred Mile Wilderness. Impenetrable thickets of raspberries had sprung up in the old clear-cuts. I kept my eyes open, hoping to see a feeding bear.

  “I’ve never known anyone who travels with a personal preacher,” she said. “My folks had a Unitarian minister to dinner once. Does that count?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What about you?”

  “My mom would sometimes have priests over to the house in Scarborough,” I said. “I remember one of them who got redder and redder the more wine he drank. He kept looking at me whenever he took a sip. Later, I heard a rumor about him and altar boys, but he was never arrested. The bishop just moved him to another diocese.”

  “Is that why you’re an atheist?” Stacey asked.

  I couldn’t keep myself from laughing. “Who said I was an atheist?”

  “You don’t go to church.”

  “Neither do you.”

  “My church is in the woods,” she said with an impish grin. “I worship in a sacred grove of oak trees and mistletoe. I’m studying to become a druid. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “I don’t think the Reverend Mott would approve.”

  “Definitely not!”

  “If we find Samantha and Missy, he won’t care what religions we are.”

  “No,” said Stacey. “He’d still say I’m going to hell.”

  “What about me?’

  “The jury’s still out on that one.”

  The truck hit an embedded rock in the road and bumped us into the air.