by Paul Doiron
“Where are you going?” asked Zanadakis.
His statuesque head was unprotected from the elements. The rain just slid down his nose and cheeks. “I knew Angie, too. I thought I could be helpful.”
“Did you see her in the past day?”
“No.”
“Then you can leave. Get back to checking fishing licenses or whatever. I’ll call you when I require your expert assistance.”
Chasse nodded. “I’ll keep my phone on.”
“You do that.”
As the warden walked off, he patted his pockets until he found his cell. I kept an eye on him. Soon he was arguing with a person on the other end again. I wondered who could have made him so mad.
33
She was slumped forward against the steering wheel, her hair a loose mess, arms straight down at her sides. I had found drunks sleeping that way in their cars, with their heads on the horns. Sometimes you needed to jab their shoulders for them to wake up. But none of them had had purple bruises around their throats.
“Can I see her face?”
With gloved hands, Zanadakis reached forward and gently took a handful of hair and lifted her head. The neck didn’t want to bend. Her shoulders came up, too.
“That’s her,” I said. “That’s Angie.”
“Evangeline, actually. Her full name is Evangeline Bouchard.”
“Who found her?”
“A guy who used to plow the lot for the mother. He lives down the road in Allagash and still looks in on the place. He’s worried kids might be breaking in and doing drugs, as if they don’t have their pick of empty buildings around here.”
“Was the window rolled down like this?”
“Yes.”
“Keys in the ignition?”
“On the floor, as if she’d dropped them. Is this what she was wearing when you saw her in Presque Isle?”
I peered down at the mat, sprinkled with cookie crumbs and the clear plastic film used these days instead of cellophane to wrap cigarette packs. “It’s the same outfit. She must have come up right after I left her house.”
“Rigor was still present when Mr. Plow tried to shake her awake. He said it was like trying to move a mannequin. Rigor mortis passes off quickly in the heat so she had to have died during the night.”
“What’s Mr. Plow’s real name?”
“Egan.”
I met his eyes. “You’re shitting me.”
“No, why?” He waved at the fog of blackflies around his head. Maybe they liked his cologne more than they disliked the bug repellent.
“Jon Egan was part of Michaud’s poaching ring. He was a suspect in Pellerin’s disappearance. The cops pinched him when they stormed St. Ignace.”
“One of the local guys should have filled me in on that,” he said, glancing around for someone to blame.
“Is Egan still here?”
“We sent him home. I figured we’d reinterview him later. Now I’m thinking I’ll pull him in this afternoon. This raid you mentioned—”
“You saw the burned buildings a mile back at the intersection.”
“That’s right. Half the village burned to the ground, I heard.”
“You need to bring Stan Kellam in. He was the lieutenant who headed up the undercover operation and the rescue operation that followed. He’s retired now but lives an hour from here in the middle of nowhere. I can give you his number.”
He let out a sigh. “You weren’t listening when I said you should avoid telling me what to do.”
A trooper came up to tell him that the medical examiner had arrived.
“Don’t leave town,” Zanadakis told me. “You and I need to have a long discussion about how you came to be involved here. It wouldn’t hurt if you chased down Stevens for me while you’re at it.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
* * *
I retreated to the safety of my Scout and chucked my soaked cap into the backseat. The windows steamed up within seconds of my climbing inside the vehicle.
It didn’t necessarily mean anything that Egan had been the one to report finding Angie’s body. On the other hand, killers were sometimes the ones who called the cops—if they were confident that they hadn’t left behind physical evidence.
I sat there in the dim light that seeped in through the rain-streaked windows. A hazy curtain hung between me and the past. I could glimpse movement and color through it. But details remained opaque.
The abandoned motel was a dark shape through the fogged glass. The Valley View was just a ghost of its old self. At least it had survived the conflagration that consumed the village center.
Emmeline Bouchard had escaped prosecution as an accessory to her boyfriend’s crimes and continued her career as an innkeeper. She had died without facing judgment for her role in Pellerin’s demise. Instead it had been her luckless daughter who had suffered for her mother’s misdeeds.
I checked my watch. By now, Kathy had to have arrived at Dani’s house. I tried her number.
“I was just about to call you,” she said.
“Is Dani OK?”
“I’m taking her to the ER.”
My back stiffened. “What?”
“She’s delirious and pugnacious. She barely let me take her temperature. It’s 103 degrees, Mike.”
“She was bitten by a tick the other day.”
“Was there a rash?”
“She said no. Can you look for one?”
“I’m getting her dressed now. I’m taking her to Maine Med. Can I call you back after I’ve gotten her to the hospital? Maybe you can catch a flight from Presque Isle to Portland. I know Charley would be happy to come fetch you.”
I hadn’t told her about the old man’s disappearance, and that lack of trust had come back to hurt me, but I couldn’t fill her in now. She had a crisis on her hands.
“I’m in St. Ignace, Kathy.”
“What the hell are you doing there?” She knew full well the dark history of the place.
“A woman has been murdered.”
“I heard the news, but how does it involve you?”
“I can’t explain over the phone; it’s too long of a story. But I think there’s a chance that the person who killed Scott Pellerin is still alive and has been hiding in plain sight for the past fifteen years. And I think he knows we’re after him.”
“‘We’? You’re talking about Charley, right? The two of you are up to some stunt.”
“It’s not a stunt.”
“For fuck’s sake, Mike.” Then I thought I heard a thump in the background. “I think Dani’s fallen in the bathroom. I need to check she’s OK. I don’t care that you’re in the middle of an investigation. Get your ass down here. What’s happening to your girlfriend is scaring the shit out of me. She needs you. I need you, too.”
Kathy had been my sergeant once. She used to give me commands. But this was an appeal to my conscience. It was a reminder that I would need to live with the consequences of whatever I decided to do next.
Dani needed me.
I pushed down the brake and the clutch and turned the key in the ignition.
* * *
I sped back through the rain toward Fort Kent.
To the best of my knowledge, there were only two commercial flights a day out of Presque Isle’s vest-pocket airport, and they both went to Newark, of all places. I would need to hit up a friend with a plane to take me south. Otherwise, I was facing a six-hour drive to Maine Medical Center. Portland is closer to New York City than it is to Fort Kent.
I slowed as I passed through the charred crossroads of St. Ignace.
After the conflagration, investigators from the fire marshal’s office had picked through the rubble looking for any sign of Pellerin. One theory was that Pierre Michaud had cut up his corpse and burned the pieces in the forge he kept in his blacksmith shop. Forensics technicians around the world had recovered DNA from the most hellish of fires, but the Maine investigators never found a trace
of Scott Pellerin in the remains of Pierre’s smithy.
In the hamlet of St. John, the road drew close to the river again. There was just a steel guardrail and some sapling birches as wide around as broomsticks, and then there was thin air. The cliff wasn’t sheer—although it looked precipitous through my wet windshield—but the drop must have been considerable.
A logging truck passed me in the westbound lane, heading into the woods for a fresh load of timber. It splashed my Scout with enough water to fill a bathtub. For fifteen seconds, I was driving blind. Then the wipers cleared just enough glass for me to swerve back into my lane. I had nearly careened into the guardrail. I blew out a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding.
My mind was busy searching for a friend with a plane. I had always depended on Charley for impromptu flights.
Who else, then?
Maybe one of the fishing guides I knew in Grand Lake Stream? A lot of them owned Cessnas and Cherokees. I thought of Stacey, on her way here from Florida. Ora had told me she was borrowing her dad’s floatplane for the last leg. Wouldn’t that have been ironic.
The rain had become a downpour. I focused on the road ahead. I failed to glance in the rearview mirror. If I had looked behind me, I would have seen the truck racing up in pursuit.
The impact and the sound—a horrible metal-on-metal crunch—were simultaneous. The jolt pushed my chest forward against my seat belt. My chin bounced off my chest. One hand lost its grip on the steering wheel.
Then came the shriek of the guardrail scraping paint off my left fender as I crossed the westbound lane. I reflexively jerked the wheel in the opposite direction. I might have ended up in the field of ferns that served as a buffer between the road and the forest, but my pursuer had come up beside me now. I caught a quick glimpse of him in my side mirror.
It was a pickup. A big one. Probably riding atop a raised suspension and oversized tires.
Then he dropped back a few feet.
Hiding in my blind spot, he bumped the tail of my Scout to send me toward the cliff. He was forcing me into the opposite lane, keeping me pinned there. My muscles had tensed from the prior contact. My hands now gripped the wheel as if they’d been superglued to it.
My left headlight exploded into shards as the front end sideswiped the steel rail again. Once again, I jerked the wheel away from the precipice.
And once again, my pursuer rammed me back toward the river. He was a hell of a driver, whoever he was. He’d practiced these sorts of maneuvers at speeds that would have left most people vomiting all over their pants.
But I had practiced, too. My reflexes reacted before my brain could transmit signals through my neural network. I pressed the gas pedal to the floor, trying to outrace him, but his engine was more powerful than mine.
Another crunch and another groan as the side of my poor Scout caused the rail to crumple. If I had struck it at another angle, I would have been shooting through space toward the river far below.
There was a bend in the road up ahead. I recognized I was on a collision course with the guardrail. I understood that I was out of chances.
I couldn’t see my pursuer in my side mirror. I gambled that he was still speeding alongside me on a parallel course, three feet off my right fender. I swerved deliberately into the westbound lane and stamped on the brake.
The monster truck shot past. I felt his wake shake the battered chassis of my Scout. I might’ve experienced a split second of relief.
But my tires couldn’t catch hold of the pavement. The pooled water lifted me up and carried me in an arc that seemed slow instead of fast. The front end turned until I was facing the way I’d just come, looking back with one headlight at the shredded remains of the guardrail. Instead of stopping, the Scout continued to hydroplane. The brakes were useless.
Now I was facing the field across the road from the river. I might have been all right. I might have slid off the sandy shoulder and come to rest in the softness of hay-scented ferns. I might have been fine if not for the damned ditch.
When the Scout encountered the flooded trench beyond the asphalt, the sudden loss of balance caused the vehicle to tilt and tumble. First I found myself looking down at the ceiling. Then I was jogged upright again. And then I was rolling sideways like a man on fire who’s thrown himself to the ground.
The truck came to rest on the passenger side. I was suspended in midair, secured only by the seat belt, while gravity pulled me into the next seat. I looked to my right and saw curling green fronds where the window should have been.
Those first seconds of hanging in midair motionless were excruciating. My hands shook as I raised them before my face. My mouth tasted bitter from the iron in my bloody mouth.
Dumbly, I examined my body—my waxed canvas jacket shimmered with broken glass—expecting to find myself missing limbs or impaled upon the stick shift. One tingling hand reached upward for the door handle, but I lacked the strength to pop it open. I tried rolling down the window and got it three-quarters of the way before the handle came loose.
I reached to unbuckle my seat belt. Bad move. The second the strap slid back, I dropped across the passenger seat, plummeted down to earth.
Now I was upside down with my face in the ferns. I brought my knees to my chin in an attempt to rearrange myself, but my ligaments had hardened to steel cables.
Just then, the driver door above me opened. It swung upward, and then a leathery arm was reaching in and, behind it, the rest of the old man. He was crouched atop the side-resting vehicle. He had a bald head, lighter than his deeply tanned face. His eyes were as clear blue as the sky when you climb above the highest clouds.
“Mike?”
“Charley?”
“I thought you were dead for sure.”
My larynx had a catch in it. “Almost.”
“I never would have forgiven myself if something happened to you, son.”
He took my wrists with his two callused hands and pulled with the strength of a man half his age. And just like that, I was free.
34
Breathing hard, I stretched out in the crushed ferns, the sweetness of them overpowering, while Charley crouched beside me. With his knobby fingers, he checked my body for injuries. He was dressed in a mechanic’s faded blue coveralls and combat boots, neither of which I’d ever seen him wear. Rain streamed down his pale shaved skull. From this angle, I never would have recognized him.
“You’re going to have a honey of a bruise from the seat belt, and I expect you’ll wake up with a crick in your neck, but I don’t see any serious injuries. That’s as close to proof of God’s grace as you’re likely to experience today.”
Panting, I said, “How about you tell me where you’ve been?”
“Following you,” he said, lifting his head. There was that warm, wide grin, those deep-etched laugh lines, that comically oversized chin. “I should have been closer, but I knew you were onto the Jeep.”
He made a hitchhiking motion with his thumb toward the idling silver Wrangler fifty feet down the road. Rain spun in its headlights.
“Is Nick Francis driving your truck? Why did he tell Kellam I was coming? What are you two up to?”
I sensed he was struggling not to answer. “I can’t explain, Mike. I need to leave before anyone else arrives.”
“Why?”
“Certain people can’t know where I am.”
“Which people? Kellam?”
“I told you not to follow me, son.”
I had regained my breath. “You knew I would try to track you. You counted on it. And today was the second time it nearly got me killed. You’ve been using me as bait, Charley. Because you can’t ask certain questions, you’ve let me do it for you, and it’s put me in harm’s way.”
“I’ve always been nearby,” he said, trying to reassure me with a fatherly tone. “I’ve always been watching.”
“Like at Moccasin Pond? You were the man in the hat.”
“It’s one of Nick’s.”
&nb
sp; “And it was you who called Chasse Lamontaine and tricked him into visiting Kellam.”
“I did.”
“And now you’re just going to disappear again? Without any explanation? You owe me answers, Charley. Starting with who was behind the wheel of that truck.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Does that mean you don’t know, or you know but refuse to say?”
“I understand how frustrated you are. Trust me when I say we’re getting close.” The old pilot rose to his full height. At five and a half feet, it would be a mistake to say he loomed over me. With his shaved head, he was nearly unrecognizable. “We owe it all to you, Mike. You’ve flushed them for us.”
“I’ve been your bird dog, you mean? And by ‘us,’ you mean you and Nick Francis? Why do you trust him, but not me?”
He glanced up and down the darkened road without answering.
I was tired of his game. “Stacey’s on her way here.”
Now it was his turn to go gray. “When?”
“She has a flight from Florida tonight, and then she’s flying your Cessna up here.”
“You told her about me?”
“I didn’t have to. She sensed something was wrong when she reached out to you and got no answer. Ora wasn’t going to lie when Stacey asked her what was happening.”
“You can’t let her come here. They’re not going to stop now—not after what just happened. All we need is another day. We’re so close to the truth, and they’re getting sloppy.”
“Who’s ‘they’? At least tell me that.”
Two pinpoints of light appeared in the darkness: a vehicle following the river road from Fort Kent. Charley took a step toward the Jeep.
“You can’t tell anyone you saw me,” he said over his shoulder. “You have to trust me, son. I’ll find you again soon.”
Before I could say another word, he sprinted off toward the idling Wrangler.
Seconds later, it roared by, passing the oncoming vehicle. I watched the taillights grow smaller and smaller in the rain. Part of me felt relieved, even thrilled, to see the old man. Another part burned with resentment as if I’d swallowed acid.