by Paul Doiron
“That’s bullshit.”
“Mrs. Stevens has verified that her husband and Mr. Smith quarreled. I don’t suppose you have any idea what could have provoked their argument, ma’am?”
Ora had already been too candid with the deputy, but her nature was to trust people until they proved undeserving of it.
I needed to intervene. “He was selling taxidermy mounts in violation of the U.S. Migratory Bird Treaty Act.”
It was a lie, but a plausible one.
The deputy had gentle eyes for a law enforcement officer, but they were not unintelligent eyes. “Why did he pursue Mr. Smith all the way to his home in Island Falls?”
“He wanted to be certain before he called the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He wanted to give the guy a chance to avoid being charged with a felony.”
How easily lies came to me now.
“So you spoke with Warden Stevens?”
“I didn’t need to because I know his character. Your sheriff does, too. I can’t believe he dignified the accusation by sending you all the way out here, Young.” I affected an air of indignation that I didn’t entirely feel. “Charley Stevens is a war hero and decorated career warden. If anyone deserves the benefit of the doubt, it’s him.”
“Mr. Smith hired a lawyer. He’s pushing us to bring charges.”
“I see.”
“The sheriff wanted to get Warden Stevens’s side of the story before he talks to the district attorney, but Mrs. Stevens says she doesn’t know where her husband is.”
“He’s out of cell phone range is all.”
“Where?”
“Pick a spot on the map of the North Woods. Your guess is as good as mine.”
He hitched his thumbs in his ballistic vest to relieve some of the weight. “So he’s camping, then?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ora fidgeting. She disapproved of these falsehoods.
“Are you asking me to find him for you?” I said.
Young might have been a rookie, but he was no fool. “No, sir. I am not asking you to do anything. But if we can’t locate Warden Stevens, it’s a problem for us and for him. If I may speak freely, sir, no one wants to request a warrant for Warden Stevens. You really need to convince him to come forward.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’d appreciate that, sir. I know you by reputation. People still talk about what a badass you were. I’m wondering if you can answer a question for me—unrelated to what we’ve been discussing?”
“If I can.”
“The police academy—is it really as tough as the guys say it is?”
“Not as tough as when I was there, I’ve heard.”
“Too bad. I was looking to test myself.”
“The job will do that. It will test you every day and twice on Saturday nights. Tell the sheriff I’ll find Charley Stevens. He just needs to stall the DA.”
The deputy tipped his hat to Ora and shook hands with me. He was a respectful kid. I liked him, mustache and all.
But after the red taillights of his cruiser disappeared into the trees, I turned to Ora. “The way he kept calling me sir made me feel like someone’s great-uncle.”
“Aging is one of those things you can’t explain to people,” she said, “no matter how hard you try. They need to go through it themselves. Please, come into the living room, Mike.”
The house was clean but cluttered in the fashion of many North Woods camps. Charley’s three decades as a game warden meant there was an abundance of taxidermy. Deer mounts on the walls, a moose head over the fireplace, several bearskin rugs. The room resembled the Maine wing of a natural history museum. The smell of the lake drifted in through the window screens, although I couldn’t see the water in the darkness.
Across the pond, a barred owl called, “Who cooks for you?” It made me remember the night I’d met Ora at their old camp. Charley had called in owls with his expert imitations.
“I’m scared, Mike.”
I took her cold hands in mine. “That jackass Smith is just looking for a quick and easy payout. I am pretty sure he’s been selling stolen merchandise at these pop-up flea markets. The DA is just going through the motions. Charley never laid a hand on the man.”
She made a faint noise in the back of her throat. Her green gaze drifted from me. Then she removed her hands from mine and tucked them beneath the blanket.
From this reaction, I was fairly certain that Ora Stevens believed her husband had committed the violent act of which he stood accused.
11
Despite my protests, she insisted on making me dinner: grilled salmon with asparagus.
Ora and Charley were as far from hippies as I could imagine—I doubt that either of them could have named a song by the Grateful Dead—but they had always lived off the land. The Stevenses kept a kitchen garden and had foraged together for mushrooms, berries, and wild greens before her accident. These days, it was Charley’s job to gather the free-growing groceries and pack their freezers with the moose, deer, and ducks he shot.
While Ora prepared our meal—the kitchen had been built to accommodate her wheelchair—I sampled Charley’s homemade beer. Brewing was his newest hobby, and the so-called IPA was so bitter it was barely drinkable.
“Because we can’t grow hops here, Charley used yarrow,” Ora explained. “Or maybe mugwort. The funny thing is, he doesn’t even drink beer.”
It showed.
“Before we start,” she said. “How is Stacey?”
“Did she tell you about what happened last night?”
“No, I haven’t heard from her today.”
“We had an adventure in the Everglades—a Burmese python was involved.”
“Tell me.”
“Right now, I think we should talk about Charley,” I said. “I stopped at the Dike on my way here. Carol Boyce told me she overheard what Charley and Smith were arguing about. She said it was a badge. He took it from the table without paying. It had numbers on the bottom, Carol said.”
I’d hoped the news would provoke a response, but she gazed at me with expectation, waiting for more.
“Is there any warden from Charley’s past whom he had a special connection with—either a friend or a mentor—whose badge this could have been?”
“Not if it was an antique. I suppose it might have belonged to one of the old-timers who were with the bureau when he started. Charley might have recognized the number, but unless he had reason to believe it was stolen, I can’t imagine why he would have reacted that way.”
Everything about Charley’s actions seemed out of character. The public blowup, the mysterious disappearance, the accusation leveled by Smith—I felt like we were talking about a violent stranger and not the wise, even-tempered man I considered a surrogate father.
“What about his cell phone?” I said.
“I’ve called the number and sent him texts and emails, but I haven’t gotten a response.”
“So he took it with him?”
“He always does. Why?”
“The sense I am getting is that, wherever Charley is going, he doesn’t want to be tracked.”
“If he left his mobile phone here, I haven’t come across it. Can I pour you some more coffee, dear?”
“I’d appreciate that,” I said. “I also wonder if I might use your computer.”
“Charley cleared the browser search history. I already checked.” More than most people their ages, the Stevenses were determined not to be left behind by new technology.
“Does he do that often?”
“Never.”
* * *
Ora told me that Charley’s password was O-1BirdDog, after the light aircraft he had flown during the Vietnam War.
Bird Dogs were small surveillance planes that often skipped just above the treetops within easy range of enemy fire. The North Vietnamese Army didn’t need a shoulder-fired missile to take down a Bird Dog. The weapon that had downed Charley’s plane was an AK-47.
Ora wa
s in the kitchen, cleaning up. She had sensed that I didn’t want her watching over my shoulder. The locator app probably wouldn’t even function. The phone might be out of power. It might be beyond the reach of a cellular signal. Or Charley might have removed the SIM card that could be used to trace the phone’s physical location.
A map of Sixth Machias Lake appeared instantly on the screen. An icon indicated the location of Charley’s phone. At first, it seemed to be inside the house. Only when I zoomed in did I see that the phone was pictured at the edge of the lake.
Charley’s floatplane.
In her wheelchair, Ora would have been unable to check the Cessna herself. I shut down the machine and returned to the kitchen, where she was drying the last plate with a rag. I didn’t want to tell her about my discovery until I could assess the situation firsthand.
“I’m going to take a walk to clear my head.”
“You’ll be eaten alive. The blackflies and mosquitoes are especially bad this year on account of the wet spring we had.”
“Not as bad as the Everglades, I expect.”
“That’s just what Stacey says!”
The mention of her daughter caused a moment of awkwardness. She asked if I needed a flashlight. I showed her the SureFire I carried in my pocket.
I hadn’t taken more than two steps outside before the first mosquito jabbed her needle into my neck, but at least I could safely assume this one wasn’t carrying malaria. The haze of clouds concealed the precise location of the waxing moon, but the night wasn’t entirely dark. I slid my flashlight into my pocket and let my night vision guide me down the boardwalk to the lake.
Trout were rising to hatching insects. The fish made circles that rippled outward across the smooth surface. The newly emerged mayflies were Hexagenia limbata, and they were three inches long with greenish wings. I had worked as a fishing guide and had loved taking clients out at night for the Hex hatch.
Charley kept his floatplane—a red-and-white Skyhawk—tied to the dock beside the boathouse.
I pulled myself up by one of the struts and ducked to keep from knocking my head against the wing. I was correct in my assumption that he had left the door of the aircraft unlocked. As I entered the familiar cabin, the locus of so many of our adventures together, the plane rocked gently on the surface of the lake.
I shined the flashlight around the cockpit and found the phone sitting atop the pilot’s seat. Beneath it was a sealed envelope with my name on it. And another, addressed to Ora.
I tore mine open.
Dear Mike,
I expect this makes no sense to you, my going off like a thief in the night. You think I’m cruel for leaving Ora to wonder and worry. Trust me, I had no choice. For one, I may be a fool about my suspicions. I won’t know for certain until I talk to some folks I hoped never to meet again.
My fear is that I made the worst mistake a man can make in this life. If so, it means there’s someone out there who’s kept quiet all these years, waiting for me to wise up to my foolishness, a man of patience and guile. He’s been expecting me, I fear, and taken precautions. I can’t put Ora or the girls in danger of his retribution.
Chances are, I’ll be back before I’m missed, in which case you won’t have to give Ora the other letter I’ve left.
But if I’m not back, it’ll mean I’m beyond anyone’s ability to find, and your searching may only deliver you into the grasp of the same man who killed me. Instead I hope you will forsake revenge and destroy these notes. Let my family remember me as the man I tried to be after my moment of weakness.
I know you well enough to reckon that you won’t heed my words of caution. Which is why I am leaving you in the dark, too. I will cover my trail to keep you from following, but I fear I may have taught you too well.
I love you, son. Don’t come after me.
Charley
When I’d finished, I felt an inner heaviness—like a weight upon my soul—because I understood that this document might effectively be my friend’s last testament.
12
When I returned to the house, I found Ora parked under a standing lamp. A glass filled with amber liquid and ice cubes rested within reach on a small table. A whiskey and soda was her nightly indulgence. She looked up from the book she was reading, a biography of the photographer Margaret Bourke-White.
“You look positively bloodless,” she said, peering at me above her reading glasses. “Did the mosquitoes drink you dry?”
My voice didn’t want to leave my throat. “They were pretty bad.”
“What did you find out there?”
“Nothing that tells me where he went.”
I was using the truth to mislead her. I hoped my shame didn’t show in my expression and give away the secret.
If it did, she was too polite to press the matter. Instead she smiled that incandescent smile of hers. “I hope you are staying the night.”
“It’s been a long day.”
“I keep forgetting that you woke up this morning in Florida. It’s no wonder you look exhausted. Well, your room’s all made up.”
My room.
She was referring to the guest cabin that Stacey had lived in years earlier, when she was newly returned to Maine and working as a wildlife biologist, back before she and I had started dating. I probably stayed there more than anyone else now, but I still felt uncomfortable when Ora called the place mine.
“There’s something I want to show you before you go,” she said.
I hadn’t noticed the cigar box on the table beside her until she lifted it with both hands. Long ago, maybe on the occasion of the birth of one of their two daughters, someone had presented Charley with a box of White Owls. I raised the lid.
Inside was a rattling collection of medals.
I counted three Purple Hearts, two Legions of Merit, a Silver Star, a Distinguished Flying Cross, a Prisoner of War Medal, and a Distinguished Service Cross, which he had somehow never mentioned having received. It was only the second-highest award given out by the U.S. military.
“He never told me he’d won all of these!”
Ora lowered her glass of whiskey. “Won isn’t the word Charley would have used. He keeps that box in the closet with his shoeshine kit. I can’t remember the last time he took it out. While you were outside, after you’d asked me about his past, I went to fetch it. I found this inside with the medals.”
From the pocket of her sweater, she produced a yellow Polaroid photograph. It showed a man who looked to be half-bear. His hair was long and black, and his beard grew high up on his cheeks. His dark eyes were narrowed, and his chapped lip was curled. The expression could only be described as murderous.
“Who is this?”
“I have no idea.”
“A friend from the army?”
“No friend of Charley’s could look that hateful.”
“Why would he keep this picture with his military decorations?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But my husband has always had conflicted feelings on the accolades he’s received. I’m not sure he cares about medals and honors. But they’re part of his story, and Charley doesn’t believe in airbrushing history. Look on the back.”
I flipped over the snapshot and saw, in Charley’s familiar bold hand, these words:
In battle, in the forest, at the precipice in the mountains, on the dark great sea, in the midst of javelins and arrows, In sleep, in confusion, in the depths of shame, The good deeds a man has done before defend him.
“I looked it up online,” Ora said. “It’s from the Bhagavad Gita.”
Despite having only a junior high education, the old pilot was a secret autodidact who read widely, especially history, and liked to conceal his learning beneath his folksy affect. Nevertheless, I couldn’t imagine the man quoting Sanskrit scripture.
“What do you think it means?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Can I take this photo with me?”
“Of course.” Whe
n I leaned down to kiss her cheek, she whispered, “You’ll find him, won’t you?”
“I will.”
Afterward, I made my way down the boardwalk between the main building and the guesthouse. The entire property was connected by these raised ramps so that Ora could wheel herself to the woodshed to get kindling for the stove or even to the dock to cast White Wulff flies to those trout I had seen rising.
The cabin had electricity, provided by solar panels on the south-facing roof, but I lighted the propane lanterns mounted on the walls, in part because I preferred the smell and the white-hot intensity of their illumination.
I tossed my duffel on the bed and set the snapshot of the were-bear on the bureau.
In all likelihood, the monstrous man had nothing to do with the current crisis, but I would keep this photograph anyway in the hope of finding someone who could identify him. If nothing else, I needed to satisfy my curiosity about who he was.
It hadn’t escaped my notice that, in his letter, Charley hadn’t mentioned the badge that had precipitated his disappearance. The omission had been deliberate, because he knew it was a clue that I would follow. The Warden Service had stopped stamping identification numbers on its badges long before Charley had even joined the bureau.
Whose could it have been?
Charley had never mentioned a fellow officer from that era who had been a mentor to him.
The letter, then. What could it tell me?
I turned up the gas fueling the lamp beside the bed. In the hissing white glow, I examined the text for hidden meanings.
I may be a fool about my suspicions. I won’t know for certain until I talk to some folks I hoped never to meet again.
As I’d suspected, whatever this was about had happened years earlier, before Charley and I had become friends.
My fear is that I made the worst mistake a man can make in this life.
The “worst mistake a man can make” could mean only one thing to the Charley Stevens I knew: killing another human being.