One Last Lie

by Paul Doiron

Zanadakis’s voice came over the speaker: “For the record, I want to state that you have waived your rights to have an attorney present. Is that correct?”

  “Oui.”

  “When was the last time you saw Angie Bouchard?”

  “Yesterday in Presque Isle. We had plans to go to Edmundston. Guy I know just opened a bar there. Le Cyclope. Angie told me she couldn’t come. She wanted to check on the motel. She thought someone might buy it someday. What a joke that was!”

  “And you didn’t offer to go with her?”

  “No.”

  “And you got back home when?”

  “Two hours ago. More or less.”

  “Where did you stay when you were in Edmundston?”

  “I didn’t get her name.”

  “That might be a problem for you.”

  “Fuck no, it won’t.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Because I was in Canada. Get it? I went through customs two nights ago in Edmundston. And I came back through Fort Kent today. Talk to the agents. Check their video. I’m not your killer, Detective.”

  “Thank you for clearing that up.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Roland removed his jacket to reveal that his black T-shirt was sleeveless. I could see his bare arms all the way to the shoulders. Once again, I saw the raised scar that reminded me of a cattle brand.

  “How does it feel being back in this room?” Zanadakis asked.

  “This is actually my first time here. If you’re referring to the shit that went down when my old man was murdered, those interviews took place in Houlton. You weren’t there then, or I would have remembered you, as handsome as you are.”

  “You’re quite the charmer, Roland.”

  “I have a gift.”

  “Did Angie mention being scared of anyone or anything when you last saw her?”

  “There was a creep who showed up at her place. Stupid-looking son of a bitch. He claimed to be a game warden, but he wasn’t dressed like one. I think he might have been an impostor. You should check on him.”

  “We’ll do that. Anyone else bothering her?”

  “Nope.”

  “The Valley View has been closed for two years and is in rough shape. What made Angie decide she needed to cancel her plans in Edmundston and rush back there?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “And you didn’t ask?”

  “We had an agreement. She didn’t butt into my life, and I didn’t butt into hers.”

  I pressed a button on the intercom so that I could be heard in the interrogation room. “Ask him about the brand on his arm.”

  Zanadakis glared into the mirror with obvious disapproval.

  “This thing,” Roland said, fingering the circle of raised scar tissue below the shoulder bone. “I got this when I was a kid. It was kind of an initiation ritual. Everyone had to get one if you wanted to be in the club.”

  I pushed the button again. “What club was that?”

  He had recognized my voice. “The Fuck You Club.”

  “Calm down, Mr. Michaud,” said the detective.

  When Roland rose to his feet, it was like a bear rearing up on his hind legs. In spite of himself, Zanadakis gave a start and pushed himself from the table.

  “That’s him, isn’t it? The warden investigator?”

  “Never mind that.”

  “I want to leave now,” the big man said. “Is that OK, or do you need permission from the man in the mirror?”

  36

  Zanadakis had no grounds to hold Roland Michaud, not even as a material witness. The border had hardened in the past decade with the arrival of surveillance drones and undetectable sensors. On occasion, people still managed to slip back and forth over “the slash”—the cleared strip in the woods between the United States and Canada—but most of them triggered an alarm in the process that brought hard-assed Border Patrol agents swarming.

  In other words, it was just about impossible that Roland Michaud could have strangled Angie Bouchard if his Canadian alibi checked out.

  The next interviewee came in with none of the same cocky confidence.

  Jon Egan had been another member of Pierre Michaud’s poaching crew. Unlike Roland, though, he hadn’t escaped a term in prison. Pellerin had observed him selling drugs to teenagers. It was his second stay in the joint. He’d only gotten out, Kellam told me, three years ago.

  “He never talked, though,” said Stan as we stood together behind the mirror. “You’ve got to admire that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he didn’t break and give up his friends.”

  “That isn’t a code of honor,” I said. “It’s a code of stupidity.”

  Before Kellam could respond, Zanadakis ushered Egan into the interrogation room.

  The first thing that struck me about Jon Egan, aside from his diminutive height and the shock of red hair, was how many layers of clothing he was wearing. In this heat, he wore a green chamois shirt over a hooded sweatshirt over a tee. His baggy work pants hinted at long johns underneath. And his boots were tall neoprene LaCrosses. For all the padding, his stomach remained perfectly flat. Jon Egan had a lower body fat percentage than a marathon champion from the Horn of Africa.

  “How is he not sweating?” I said to no one in particular.

  The little man didn’t sprawl in his seat, as Roland had done, but perched on the edge, his hands on his knees under the table. Almost at once, he began rocking back and forth.

  “Can I get you something to drink, Jon?” asked Zanadakis.

  “Milk maybe.” His voice was deeper than I had expected.

  The request amused Kellam. “Milk! That’s a new one.”

  The detective said that there was, alas, no milk to be had, at which point he launched directly into his interview.

  “Why did you decide to stop at the Valley View?”

  “I used to plow the lot for Emmeline and do odd jobs and stuff. I have to pass the motel to go anywhere since I live at the end of the road in Allagash. I got in the habit of checking on the place even after Emmeline died.”

  “Why?”

  “I knew it was Angie’s legacy. That’s the wrong word. I knew it was her inheritance. She hoped to sell it, and I didn’t want kids accidentally burning it down.”

  “That’s very generous of you.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  With his rust-red hair, his small stature, and his restlessness, I understood why he reminded Kellam of a red squirrel, but I had expected him to be feistier, more combative. This nervous man seemed one harsh word away from breaking into tears.

  “Maybe you had a crush on Angie?” said the detective.

  “She’s just a kid!”

  “She was past the age of consent.”

  “I’ve got a new family. I’ve got a baby boy.”

  Zanadakis opened a folder on the desk between them. “I’d like to believe you, Jon. I really would. Unfortunately, I have your criminal records. I have the transcript from your first trial—the one that sent you to prison when you were twenty.”

  “I was drunk,” said the jittery man. “It was an accident.”

  “You accidentally removed your erect penis from your jeans in Riverside Park while a troop of Girl Scouts just happened to be there picking up trash.”

  “I had to piss. I get hard if I hold it too long.”

  “You couldn’t have waited to use the port-o-potty?”

  “That’s all ancient history,” he said.

  “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. That’s a quote from Santayana.”

  “I don’t listen to that kind of music. I prefer country.”

  “Getting back to this morning. Who knows that you have a habit of checking the motel parking lot?”

  “My wife. Maybe some of the guys at Two Rivers.”

  “That’s the diner in Allagash?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does Roland Michaud eat there?”

  �
��Sometimes. When he’s around. Lots of people do. The food is good.” He brought a hand out from under the table to gnaw at his cuticles. “Why would I have reported the body if I’d been the one who’d strangled her? Especially when people know my history with the motel.”

  “That’s an excellent point,” said the detective. “One answer might be that you were counting on your connection to the Valley View to exculpate you. You counted on the police saying, ‘Who could possibly be so dumb as to do that? It couldn’t have been Egan.’”

  “I ain’t dumb,” he said.

  “So we should consider you as a suspect, you mean?”

  “Now you’re just trying to confuse me.” He lifted the other hand from under the table and began to rub his shoulder as if he had a knot in the muscle.

  “Where were you last night, Jon?”

  “I went into Fort Kent to pick up a prescription and some Cadbury eggs for Dorothy, my wife. I got the receipts somewhere in my truck. I can prove I ain’t lying.”

  “So you passed the motel on your way back home?”

  He hadn’t stopped massaging his shoulder. People under stress engage in what are known as self-soothing behaviors. We stroke the backs of our necks. We absently knead our legs.

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you check the parking lot?”

  A light came into his eyes. He looked like a drowning man being thrown a life ring. “I did!”

  “And Angie’s car wasn’t there?”

  “No.”

  “What time was this?” asked Zanadakis.

  “Eight o’clock, thereabouts. Not quite dark but close enough that I watched for deer and moose the whole way. They come out of the woods this time of year to get away from the bugs.”

  I pressed the intercom. “What kind of truck do you drive, Mr. Egan?”

  The man nearly leaped out of his skin. He seemed to have been utterly unaware of being watched through the mirror. He actually pivoted both ways in his seat, not knowing where the voice had come from.

  “Toyota Tacoma.”

  Too small to have been my monster.

  The detective paused before forging ahead again. “Did Angie call you yesterday to tell you she was coming back to St. Ignace?”

  “Why would she?”

  “So you were surprised this morning to find her car there. Did you recognize it as hers?”

  “I never seen it before. Last time I seen her, she was driving a Honda Civic.”

  “Tell us what you did next.”

  “I parked and got out and came around to the driver’s side. I saw the window was down and there was a girl inside, and I figured she was passed out, because a normal sleeping person would have reclined in her seat, you know? She had to be drunk or high was what I thought. Because the rain had come in through the window, too.”

  “Did you touch her?”

  “Not at first. I tried speaking. Then shouting. But she didn’t budge. I thought, too, maybe I recognized her—the back of her head. Angie has her mom’s hair. So I touched her and nothing happened, and then I saw the marks on her neck.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Ran back to my truck and called 911.”

  “Did you approach her car again?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So the only thing you touched in the vehicle was Angie herself?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Think carefully.”

  “My memory ain’t great to begin with. Dorothy can vouch for that. My wife.”

  He turned to the mirror then. It must have finally dawned on him that he had audience.

  “I been in prison twice in my life,” he said. “When I got out the last time, I told Dorothy I’d die before I went back inside again. I ain’t the man I was. She’s got me reading the Bible. I never should have been in that park with that bottle of whiskey when those girls were there. And I never should have gotten tangled up with the Michauds. I can see as how you wouldn’t believe an individual with my past history, but I wouldn’t have harmed that girl even if I’d been tempted. I’m a coward is the reason. If I see blue lights in my rearview mirror, I just about shit my pants. I’m that afraid of going back to prison. I’ve done things I ain’t proud of—wicked things. But the Bible says all who seek for redemption will find it. Even the thief on the cross was forgiven.”

  * * *

  It was proof of Egan’s timidity that he sat there another twenty minutes, enduring Zanadakis’s questions, without once asking for a lawyer. As a felon, he had gone through this drill many times before. He knew his rights. With Roland, the refusal to ask for counsel had been an act of bravado. But Egan seemed afraid of provoking the ire of the police.

  I found myself pitying him until I remembered the role he had surely played in the death of Warden Investigator Scott Pellerin.

  When the redheaded man was finally told he was free to leave, I mumbled something about needing to use the bathroom. Instead I snuck out the front door of the station and waited for Egan to emerge.

  The rain had eased up while I’d been inside, but the air was so saturated with moisture it felt like a downpour could occur at any moment. A rusty blackbird landed on the asphalt, almost at my feet, to gobble a drowned earthworm.

  I made a point of inspecting the only Toyota Tacoma in the lot. It had a Meyer plow mount on the front and a rack of amber lights on the roof. There were rust holes around the wheel wells wide enough to stick a finger through. But it wasn’t the truck that had tried to force me off the cliff into the St. John River. I peeked into the bed and saw the usual items: empty beer and soda cans, cable ties, candy bar wrappers, and a single shotgun shell casing.

  It was the last item that engaged my interest. I found a discarded pen on the ground and slid the tip inside the shotshell.

  Finding Egan’s fingerprints on the crimped plastic might not be enough to gain a warrant to search the felon’s house for another firearm, but the hull alone was sufficient for my purposes.

  I hid it behind my back until Egan stepped out into the weak, wet light.

  He came to a startled stop when he saw me. The badge on my belt announced my identity as a law enforcement officer. He approached warily.

  “You must be happy to be out of there,” I said.

  He fumbled for a pack of Gold Crests in one of his many pockets. “I’ll be happier to get home.”

  “I was one of the guys watching you through the mirror. I’m a warden investigator. My name is Mike Bowditch.”

  “Yeah?”

  I removed the shell, balanced on the pen, from behind my back. “I found this in your truck bed, Mr. Egan. It suggests you might have a shotgun at home in violation of the law.”

  He couldn’t have spit out the words any faster. “It ain’t mine.”

  “So if I have it dusted for prints—?”

  “If you heard me, you know I ain’t stupid enough to risk going back to prison. I got a new life now.”

  “I’m not looking to put the squeeze on you, Egan. I’m just hoping you’ll do me a favor.”

  He shook a cigarette from the pack, stuck it on his lip, and now endeavored to locate a lighter. “What favor?”

  “Show me your upper left arm?”

  “What for?”

  “I’ll explain after you indulge me.”

  His hand trembled as he clicked the lighter. “And if I don’t, what happens?”

  I raised the pen with the shotgun hull on it.

  “You want me to take off my shirts, right now, in the rain and the cold.”

  “It’s not currently raining,” I said. “And the temperature, the last I looked, was close to eighty degrees.”

  “I won’t do it.”

  “Your choice. But I’m taking this with me.” I opened a pocket on my rain jacket and maneuvered the shotshell so it dropped inside. “I’ll give you the afternoon to change your mind. Here’s my number.”

  I handed him a business card.

&nbs
p; For an instant, I thought he would rip it up, but instead he slid it into his back pocket.

  I watched him drive off, knowing that I’d found the weak link in the chain.

  But if I knew Egan could break, others did, too. What was his life expectancy under these dangerous circumstances?

  37

  As I returned to the station, I met Kellam coming out. With him was the local chief of police: a stocky man with olive skin, silver hair, and luxuriant black eyebrows. He was resplendent in a bright blue shirt with epaulettes, ribbons, and medals. His navy pants had satin stripes down the sides.

  “Mike,” said Kellam. “Do you know Chief Plourde?”

  “No, but I have heard of the investigator,” said the police chief in heavily accented English. I’d met more than a few Francophones since I’d arrived in the Valley, but Chief Plourde was the first who struck me as someone who’d clung to his accent as a point of cultural pride. “Your exploits have made the news, even up here.”

  “We’re headed over to the Swamp Buck,” said Kellam with disconcerting friendliness. “How’d you like to tag along, Mike?”

  The only thing I’d had to eat all day was a granola bar. I kept a box of them in my truck because I so often found myself in the woods, miles from the nearest store or restaurant.

  “Why not?”

  “Do you need a ride?” Kellam asked. “Mike flipped his vehicle out on Route 161.”

  “I was driving too fast in the rain.” For the time being, I had decided to stick with my cover story.

  “That’s a treacherous road,” agreed the chief.

  “The Scout ran fine all the way here. Even if it looks like I stole it from a junkyard.”

  Kellam insisted on showing Plourde my vehicle up close. “Chief, you’d better give your boys a heads-up about Mike’s truck so they don’t pull him over for a busted taillight.”

  Plourde chuckled, but his good humor didn’t seem to be at my expense.

  The sight of my battered Scout hurt in more ways than one. It made me remember the physical aches and pains I’d managed to forget during the interrogations. The agony of knowing my trusty ride was likely headed for the scrap heap hurt worse.

  At least the engine turned over. I might need to tape up the passenger window with some plastic sheeting to keep out the rain, but I was still mobile for the time being.