by Paul Doiron
Whatever Charley might have said, he had placed me in harm’s way without my consent.
I shifted position amid the ferns. They were prehistoric plants, glad for the return of primordial heat. I tried to raise my left arm and could only lift it past my shoulder with considerable pain.
But nothing matched the agony of seeing the injuries done to my Scout. As it was perched on its side, I found it impossible to assess the full damage. The frame looked intact, and the tires were not hissing air, but the exterior was dented, scraped, mangled.
The oncoming vehicle turned out to be yet another pickup. For an instant, I wondered if the monster truck had returned, but this one was ghost white. I experienced a crazy vision of Joe Fixico, having driven two thousand miles from the Everglades to my rescue.
Instead of stopping along the shoulder, the pale vehicle drove straight across the ditch and out into the field with barely a bounce. It was a Dodge Laramie, recently washed and waxed; then rinsed clean again by the rain.
I raised a forearm to block its headlights. The diesel engine chugged as it idled. I heard a door open and slam shut.
“Bowditch?”
I squinted into the light. “Who’s that?”
“Jesus, man,” said Stan Kellam. “What happened to you?”
What were the odds of Kellam being the first person to come upon the crash scene?
“I hydroplaned off the road.”
“And tumbled all the way here? It’s a miracle you survived. I’m going to recommend to your colonel that you take a remedial driving class.”
“With all due respect, Stan, go fuck yourself.”
The retired warden wore a hooded olive-green raincoat, safari shorts, and leather sandals that reminded me of something Ernest Hemingway might have worn in his Key West days. “Did you just come from St. Ignace?”
“I was headed back into Fort Kent to assist in the interviews. Nico Zanadakis is running the investigation.”
“He’s the one who called me. You lied to me about what you were up to.”
“I withheld information.”
“Don’t get Jesuitical with me, you little shit.”
“Do you want me to apologize?”
When he opened his mouth to laugh, his breath smelled of beer. “Are you genuinely regretful?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then it would be another lie.”
He circled my side-swiped Scout. He crouched and ran a hand along the bumper. “It looks like you were rammed from behind.”
I tried lifting my left arm again with the same results. “The whole thing was a freak accident.”
“No one else was involved?”
“No.”
Maybe he believed me. Maybe he didn’t.
“I think I can winch you over onto your wheels. Whether this piteous deformity is still roadworthy is another story. But here comes the cavalry.”
Blue lights flashed in the darkness. Stan and I didn’t exchange another word until the cruiser arrived. The trooper turned his spotlight on us: a shaft of light across the field in which every raindrop became visible for a split second before it continued earthward.
“Is everybody OK there?” a voice shouted from the road.
“Peachy,” said Kellam.
The trooper waded through the curling ferns toward us. He was dressed in a long black raincoat and a covered campaign hat secured by a strap around his chin. He and Kellam shook hands as if they were old friends. Maybe they were. Stan didn’t need to worry about the alcohol on his breath—not from this chummy cop, at least.
The trooper asked me the same questions Kellam had, and I repeated my lies.
They discussed my predicament.
My skull was ringing like the inside of a church bell. The echoes made it hard to form a coherent thought.
Someone had just tried to kill me.
Roland Michaud had seen my Scout parked outside Angie’s house. But surely there were other people who knew of their relationship, and he must have realized I’d already spoken with the detective if I’d come from the crime scene. He had no reason to murder me.
Maybe he wasn’t that smart. Criminals rarely are.
Then again, Roland Michaud had kept quiet for fifteen years. He had held up to interrogations and resisted offers of leniency from prosecutors grasping at straws.
Another trooper appeared and focused his spotlight on the underside of my Scout. I watched Kellam stretch a cable from the front of his Ram. At the end was a hook, which he secured to the frame. Kellam engaged the winch, the steel hawser tightened, and my Scout began to tilt. I clenched my teeth as it teetered and then fell, hard, back onto its four wheels. It bounced once and came to rest.
In my time, I had visited plenty of automobile graveyards. Most of the junkers I had seen in those lots, being slowly scavenged for parts, looked like showroom models by comparison.
When I thought how much I’d spent restoring that vehicle—
But the insurance adjuster was the least of my worries.
Charley had told me not to trust anyone with the truth. But why should I trust him after the events of the past seventy-two hours?
Because, ultimately, he was my friend.
I shrugged off the assistance of the troopers and slid behind the wheel. The inside upholstery was slick and had acquired a vegetal smell. I put the transmission back into park and turned the key, still in the ignition. The engine purred as if it had just been tuned up.
“There’s a stroke of luck,” said Kellam through the shattered window.
“It’s my lucky day, all right.”
“You’re alive, aren’t you?”
For now.
35
The troopers followed me back to civilization. They were probably taking bets on how far my wrecked Scout could make it.
But twenty minutes later, I passed the sign welcoming me to the city of Fort Kent. The low clouds were lit from below by the radioactive glow of the international bridge. Border checkpoints are more brightly lighted than baseball stadiums.
I turned into the lot of the Fort Kent municipal center, drove around the brown building to the wing that housed the police station, and turned off the ignition, wondering if it would start again.
I had waited to arrive at my destination before making the call. I needed time to collect myself. Now I could feel the adrenaline dissipating in my bloodstream. I dreaded the inevitable moment when the damage my body had sustained would announce itself in pain.
“They’ve got her in the ICU,” said Kathy Frost on the other end.
“Do the docs know what’s wrong with her?” I asked in a voice that I hoped sounded normal.
“Not yet,” she said, sounding increasingly impatient. “What’s your ETA?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Don’t give me excuses.”
“Kathy, someone just tried to kill me.”
On the long, slow drive into town, I had concluded that the time had come to take Kathy into my confidence. She was my friend, as much as Charley, and she deserved my trust. It wasn’t just that I needed her to understand why I was being delayed. I also required input from one of the best law enforcement officers I had ever known.
When I’d finished my story, she had only one question.
“Are you sure you’re OK?”
“My Scout took the brunt of the attack.”
“I’m not kidding, Mike. You should get checked out by a doctor. You might have internal injuries.”
I don’t think I ever loved that woman more. “I’ll take it under advisement. Kathy, you told me you came up here after the raid with the other K-9 teams to search for Pellerin’s body. Did you ever meet Roland Michaud or Jon Egan?”
“I met them both,” she said. “Roland’s too smart to attempt that stunt. Smart’s the wrong word. He has this animal cunning.”
“That’s my sense of him as well. What about Egan?”
“Maybe. He struck me as the panicky type. I w
as surprised that he didn’t crack. With Pierre gone, who was left for him to be scared of?”
I finally spoke the name: “Kellam.”
“I can’t be objective about that man. Stan and I have too much history.”
“Dani told me.”
“The man has always been brilliant—and controlling. I’m sure that Pellerin didn’t make a move without his say-so. That’s why everyone came down so hard on Kellam. Because we knew it was his failure that led to that shit show.”
“Maybe he’s been covering something up all this time—some act of negligence that led to Scott Pellerin’s disappearance?”
“I can’t imagine what it could have been. Besides, you said it was impossible for him to have killed Emmeline Bouchard’s daughter. I want to get back to what Charley told you. It sounded as if he has someone helping him.”
“All the signs point to Nick Francis.”
“That makes sense, considering they were together the night Pierre Michaud drowned.”
“What?”
“Nick was there, on Beau Lac, with Charley when it happened.”
“He told me he was back in Indian Township dealing with tribal stuff.”
“Police from all over the state came up to the St. John Valley to assist. Both the Penobscots and the Passamaquoddy sent officers to help. Nick certainly wasn’t going to let Charley search alone. They were flying together in Charley’s old Super Cub when they saw a canoe trying to slip across Beau Lac. Anyway, they lit up the canoe, and there was Pierre Michaud. He opened fire on them, and Charley returned fire, hitting him in the collarbone and knocking him out of the boat. He tried to swim for it, but he went under before he reached the shore.”
“What was the official cause of death given by the medical examiner?”
“Drowning. Michaud’s lungs were full of water.”
“Is there any chance that was a lie?”
“Why would it be?”
“To quell some of the political fallout. I heard there were legislative hearings. The whole Valley was already in an uproar. If the ME gave the cause of death as drowning, as opposed to death by gunshot, it shifted the blame back on Pierre Michaud and off Charley and the Warden Service.”
“Except it didn’t shift the blame. And do you honestly believe Charley Stevens would have participated in a cover-up?”
“No.”
“I thought he was too old for this reckless shit.”
“Evidently not.”
“It sure sounds like he’s been using you to get information out of people he knows would never have talked to him. If I were you, I’d be pissed about it.”
“I am, but…”
“You love the old fart, I know.” She raised her voice to be heard over the hospital noises. “So when is Nico Zanadakis going to interview you?”
“Soon, I hope.”
“Does he still dress like a GQ model?”
“I’ve never read GQ.”
“My heart swells with pride to hear you say that, Grasshopper.”
“As soon as I finish my interview with Zanadakis, I am going to find a plane and get down to Portland.”
“No, you most certainly are not—not unless she takes a turn for the worse.”
“You just said I had to.”
“That was before you told me about being run off the road! How’s Dani going to feel when she wakes up and learns you left a murder investigation to sit by her bed? I expect you already know the answer to that question.”
“But what if she—?”
“I’m not superstitious, but I’d prefer you not finish that sentence. I’ll be here for the duration. She stood vigil for me after I’d been shot. It’s time for me to return the favor. Give me a call after Zanadakis is done raking you over the coals.”
“Deal.”
“And, Grasshopper? Watch your back. You might know more than you think you do—and that makes you a threat. Someone already believes you’re a danger to them. And one last thing. When you see Charley again, please pop him in the nose for me. That geezer had no business dragging you into this.”
* * *
Like many small-town police stations, this one had a locked vestibule that required someone behind the bulletproof glass to buzz you inside. A pudgy, bright-eyed patrolman by the name of MacLoon did the honors.
Beyond the door, there were a handful of offices, a kitchenette with a coffee maker, an interrogation room, a holding cell, and a garage, where the five officers on the force could maintain their black Ford Interceptor SUVs. If I had to guess, I would have said the Fort Kent cops dealt mostly with moving violations, property crimes, and drunk students from the college campus across town. Anything bigger and badder got kicked to the sheriff’s office or the state police.
MacLoon provided me with a first aid kit and escorted me to the bathroom so I could attend to my cuts and scrapes. For once in my life, my injuries looked worse than they were. A fistful of ibuprofen, a tube of antibiotic ointment, and a few Band-Aids and I was good to go. My host told me to have a seat in the conference room while he fetched coffee.
“This is Tim Horton’s,” he said with the pride of a barista offering me some shade-grown varietal from the island of East Timor. “Chief sends me twice a week to fuckin’ Edmundston for the stuff, but it’s good, aye?”
I nodded, but I had never been a connoisseur of the bean.
“Can I ask you a personal question, MacLoon?”
“Depends what it’s about.” He rhymed the last word with a boot.
“Where are you from originally?”
“Allagash! Scots Irish through and through. Why are you asking that question?”
“I couldn’t place your accent.”
I hadn’t realized that some English speakers on the Maine side of the border had picked up the pronunciations of their neighbors to the north. Given that the TV set in the break room was turned to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Harry and Meghan’s new digs), it made sense.
“So this strangulation?” MacLoon began. “Got to be the boyfriend. Don’t you think? Always is in these cases.”
“Not always.”
“You’ll change your tune when you meet Roland. They’re bringing him in now, the greasy fuck.”
A state trooper brought in Roland Michaud fifteen minutes later. There was a stir in the building when he arrived. I made sure to slip into the hallway to have a second look at the bear-faced man.
He wasn’t wearing cuffs, which meant he wasn’t under arrest, which meant he had agreed to undergo the interview voluntarily. That worried me. He was dressed in a corduroy trucker’s jacket over a black T-shirt and the reinforced canvas pants preferred by loggers. He looked like he’d showered for the occasion, the way his beard glistened under the overhead lights.
“Here you are again,” he said when he saw me in the hallway.
“I’m sorry about Angie.”
“No, you’re not.”
One thing I have learned about criminals is that a life of compulsive lying and manipulation makes it almost impossible for them to accept any expression of sympathy as genuine. They assume the rest of us are just as cold and self-centered as they are.
MacLoon seated Roland Michaud in an interrogation room about the size of a phone booth. It contained two chairs separated by a small table with a one-way mirror on the wall through which we could observe the conversation and listen via intercom.
The suspect asked for a Pepsi. When MacLoon returned with a Coke, Roland complained.
While we waited for Zanadakis, I watched Roland through the mirror with the state trooper who’d brought him in. Michaud extended his thickly muscled legs under the table. Every once in a while, he smiled at his bearded reflection, knowing we were hiding behind it.
“Where did you find him?” I asked the trooper.
“At his trailer. He keeps it on a lot on Falls Pond in Dickey. We’ve been over there more than once. He’s a fan of fireworks at all hours of the night. His neighbors lov
e him to death.”
I should have realized he had a local residence since he damn well wasn’t living in the rubble of his former home. “He came willingly, then?”
“Didn’t even argue.”
“Shit,” I said.
“Why?”
“What about a lawyer? Did he ask for one?”
“No.”
“Shit,” I said again.
Roland had an alibi. And the odds were that it was solid.
Zanadakis arrived, soaked to the skin. He removed his dripping trench coat and handed it to a trooper to hang somewhere to dry. Then he excused himself to use the bathroom to towel off. He returned five minutes later looking no less waterlogged, but having washed off the bug spray.
MacLoon brought him a mug of Tim Horton’s finest.
“Before you get started,” I said, “you need to know that Roland Michaud was positively the man I saw at Angie’s house two days ago.”
“Did they argue?”
“No.”
He ran a hand through his still-damp hair and went into the interrogation room.
Zanadakis introduced himself and took his seat. There were a few minutes of chitchat. We listened through the speaker that piped the conversation into the sweltering room.
“Do you know why we asked you to come in?” the detective asked.
“I’ll take a wild guess. It has something to do with a dead girl at the Valley View?”
His French accent seemed more pronounced than I’d remembered. Maybe it was being back in the Valley.
“Evangeline Bouchard was your girlfriend, I understand.”
“Your word, not mine. We drank and smoked together, and we had sex.”
“You don’t seem broken up over her death.”
“I’m grieving on the inside.”
“This is going to go faster if you don’t act cute.”
Roland winked at the mirror. “Gee, Detective, I think you’re cute, too.”
The door to our little room opened, and it was Stan Kellam. He said nothing as he squeezed in. We had already been standing shoulder to shoulder. Now we were packed together as if testing the approved load limit of an elevator.