by Doiron, Paul
Contrary to his claims of being busy, I saw only a single customer inside the showroom. A white-haired man in a plaid coat stood staring up at the ceiling where a riding mower hung on cables from the exposed beams. The old guy didn’t strike me as a buyer, but Rivard practically had his arm around him.
“December’s the best month to buy a mower,” I heard him say. “For snow-moving machines, people are willing to pay full retail. But anything lawn related—we’ve got it discounted so much we take a loss on every sale.”
Rivard had put on weight since he’d left the service: twenty pounds at least. His hair was still thick and dark, and he hadn’t shaved the skeezy mustache that had been his signature as a warden. He was dressed in a holiday-themed sweater—red with a jagged row of evergreens across the chest—chinos, and wheat-colored Timberlands.
He’d seen me come in; his intelligent dark eyes never missed much. But he didn’t interrupt his sales pitch to greet me.
“Best of all, we have a zero-interest payment plan.”
“How much that thing weigh?” the old man asked.
Rivard’s megawatt smile flickered. “Six hundred pounds, more or less.”
“How’d you get it up there? Use some kind of pulley system, did you?”
“We hooked a team of oxen to a block and tackle. Is there anything else I can show you today, bud?”
“Don’t get pissy with me, mister. Your uncle and I are both members of Le Club Calumet.”
I could see it took an act of will on the part of the junior tractor salesman to keep from pile-driving the old man into the concrete floor. “Help yourself to more free coffee and another cookie while you’re here.”
Then, with a tight smile on his face, he made his way down the aisle of snowmobiles toward me.
“I’ll get Gil to watch the floor,” he said. “We’ll talk in my office.”
Rivard’s office was the corner of the loading dock. But at least he had a desk, which he made a point of putting between us. He must have read somewhere that sitting behind a desk gives a person authority. The chair he offered me was a stool.
On the wall behind him were framed photos of his several families. Two ex-wives, one current wife. Three daughters, three sons, and judging from the photo of a pregnant blond I didn’t recognize, he had another baby on the way. Rivard was an expert at convincing women that he was marriage material, past proof to the contrary.
“You look older,” he said, a little enthusiastically.
“I am older.”
“Middle-aged, I mean. Don’t get in a huff. It happens to all of us, right? I could stand to lose five pounds. So you haven’t met the glamazon yet?”
He sipped from a coffee mug but whatever was in it was cold, and he made a face.
“I take it you’re referring to Mrs. Chamberlain?”
“Wait till you see her. I guarantee she could kick your ass. She was probably hot when she was young. She’s from South Africa originally.”
That explained the accent I couldn’t place.
“You don’t meet many of them in Maine.”
“That woman is the biggest ballbuster I’ve met—with the exception of that bitch Betty Morse.”
I knew Marc well enough not to respond to his slurs. If I defended the woman he blamed for his downfall, he would accuse me of being oversensitive and politically correct.
He leaned his elbows on the desk, probably to show off the gold Tag Heuer on his wrist. “Why are you meeting her? Mariëtte Chamberlain?”
“Because she sent me a letter.”
“A letter! You’ve always been a soft touch, Bowditch. It’s a good thing you had the sense to call me beforehand. You were walking into an ambush. I assume you’ve read the case file.”
“Skimmed it.”
He narrowed his eyes, suspicious I knew more about the Eben Chamberlain affair than I was letting on.
“I’ll give you the short version then. The professor was seventy-seven, overweight, diabetic. He had no business being out on the river alone in December. He fell out of his boat—probably retrieving his decoys—and drowned. He wasn’t wearing personal flotation, not that it would have mattered. The shock of the water would have likely killed him in minutes. His corpse got lodged downstream, snagged in the stuff piled up underwater at the base of the Gulf Island Dam. When we found him, Professor Chamberlain was in the process of becoming fish food.”
The stool on which I was balanced was tilt-y. “You sound certain it was an accident.”
“I know you’re prone to seeing mysteries and conspiracies everywhere, Mike, but sometimes reality is the way it appears.”
I reached into the inner pocket of my parka and withdrew a pad and pen. “What evidence did you find to lead you to this conclusion?”
He regarded the notebook with disdain. “Aside from the fact that he was alone in the boat, you mean?”
He didn’t let me respond.
“First, we found his boat, washed up against one of those little islands in the river. He’d had a good morning shooting. There were four geese and maybe ten mallards in the bottom.”
“OK.”
“Second, our divers found his shotgun at the bottom of the river where the last person to see him reported his location.”
“Tell me about the witness.”
He drummed his fingers on the desk. “What was his name? I remember it was kind of funny.” He squeezed his eyelids shut. “Burch. Arlo Burch.”
“Really?”
“You doubt my memory? In my head I picture a low-hanging birch tree on which someone has carved the letter R. R low birch. Get it?”
Rivard had once regaled me with the mnemonic practices he used to remember details for his reports.
“Who is this Arlo Burch?”
“Bartender down in Auburn—or at least he was at the time. A hipster hangout called the Brass Monkey. As in ‘cold enough to freeze the balls off of.’ He owns a mobile home up on Pill Hill. That’s not the place’s real name obviously. I don’t know if it has a name. It’s just what people started calling the ridge after they built the trailer park.”
I underlined the name in my pad. “Pills as in oxycodone?”
“Narcotics in general. Domestic violence. Your occasional drunken fracas. The sheriff’s department gets a call up there every weekend. I remember when it was just woods. Gil had a deer stand along that ridge he let me use when I was eighteen. Shot myself a ten-point buck.”
In reality it had probably been a four-point buck. Or a little spike. Or even a doe. Maybe Rivard hadn’t shot anything at all. One could never be sure.
“And you said this bartender claimed he saw Chamberlain alone on the river—”
“Yep.”
“That seems convenient, wouldn’t you say, having an eyewitness in a place so remote? How did you happen to find him?”
His dark eyebrows lowered. Not for the first time, he interpreted a question from me as a challenge.
“He came forward during the search. The glamazon had issued a reward of ten grand for whoever found the body.”
I vaguely remembered this. “That sounds like convenient timing on the part of Mr. Burch.”
“You’d think so, but he had no connection to the deceased and no criminal record. I warned her offering a reward would bring out the yahoos. By then, she had lost trust in the Warden Service. She wanted to embarrass us in the public eye. Some concerned citizens even took boats out with homemade dragging hooks. It’s a wonder we didn’t end up having to recover their corpses, too. How did you get out of working the search? I can’t recall.”
I shrugged off the implication that I had a dodged one of my official duties. “I was working that snowmobile crash in Baldwin. The teenage girl who ran into a guy wire and was decapitated.”
“Oh, shit. I remember now. It was, like, her first time on a sled.”
“Not exactly,” I said. “But the snowmobile was an early Christmas present from her father. Two weeks later, he hanged hims
elf in the woods. I was the one who found both bodies.”
His eyes began to well up. “If that happened to one of my kids, I probably would have.…” He massaged his forehead to keep me from seeing him wipe his tears with the heel of his hand. “Suicides are the worst.”
“Yeah, they are.”
“I don’t miss seeing shit like that, I have to say.”
Here was the riddle of Marc Rivard. Every time I became convinced he was a sociopath, he would pry open his hairy chest to reveal a beating human heart.
I rebalanced myself atop the stool. “Getting back to the day of Chamberlain’s death, why did you believe this Arlo Burch if he was just another Pill Hill redneck who showed up for the reward?”
“He didn’t strike me as a bad guy. I kind of liked the dude, in fact. His girlfriend, not so much. She was one of those fiery redheads. Anyway, Burch could describe in detail what Eben Chamberlain was wearing that day on the river. It was a distinctive item of clothing, a camouflage sweater his granddaughter had knitted for him.”
“But no life jacket.”
“Not that Burch saw. The glamazon said that was bullshit. The professor—that’s what she called him—never took off his personal flotation device, she said.”
“Was the PFD in the boat?”
“No.”
“It must have washed up along the river then.”
“If it did, someone picked it up and took it home. One of the guys hoping to find the body and collect the reward. That was our working theory.”
At that moment, Rivard’s uncle Gil appeared. He was bald and bespectacled and wore the same festive red-and-green sweater. “Break’s over, Marc.”
“We’re finishing up here,” Rivard said in the commanding tone I remembered from his days as a lieutenant.
But Uncle Gil was unphased. “Fifteen minutes. No exceptions.”
“I’ll be right out!”
After Gil left, I found Rivard eyeing me with open contempt. “You must be enjoying this. Seeing how far I’ve fallen.”
“Marc—”
“I’m doing fine, let me tell you. I’ve got a new wife who’s twenty-four. She’s pregnant with our baby. Plus, I’m making more money than I ever did as a warden. I’ve still got my self-storage business. And I make a good commission here. So you can wipe that superior look off your face.”
“I don’t feel superior to you, Marc. I’m sorry if I gave that impression.” I slipped off the stool. “I appreciate your time.”
“Don’t condescend to me.”
“I’m not,” I lied.
“You’ve always been an asshole, Bowditch.”
Rivard dogged my heels into the festive showroom. No new customers had come in since the old guy left. Gil was busy trying to deduce which dead bulb on a string of Christmas lights needed to be replaced before the strand would glow again.
Rivard managed to get ahead of me so that he stood in the door, literally blocking my way. The contrast between his hostile expression and his comic sweater couldn’t have been more pronounced.
“How much time do you spend looking over your shoulder?”
The question brought me up short. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve made a lot of enemies over your career.”
I shrugged. “Most of them are in prison—or dead.”
“But not all of them. And even the dead ones have brothers and sons eager for payback.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if he grouped himself into this category of enemies.
“Paranoia isn’t my style, Marc.”
“I always said your cockiness was going to get you killed.”
“It hasn’t yet.”
“Just wait.”
9
The shack lies on its side in the hard frozen snow.
Where do people even ice fish on this stretch of the river? Is there a pond upstream?
Even on the verge of freezing to death, I can’t stop my mind from posing questions.
Most Maine fishing shacks are the size of porta potties. By that standard, this structure is downright spacious. I eyeball its dimensions as eight feet by twelve feet. It was built of two-by-fours and sheets of particle board. The inner walls are insulated with pink fiberglass, chewed to shreds by hard-working members of the rodent community. The shanty lost its floor during its float trip down the Androscoggin. One of several opaque plastic windows remains intact. At first glance I see nothing I can use to build a fire.
Snow has blown in through the missing floor—now a missing wall, since the structure lies on its side—and has accumulated over the half-detached strips of Owens Corning’s finest.
As I crawl inside, my foot kicks something. It is a glass bottle of Michelob Ultra. There are crushed cans and empty bottles everywhere, I soon realize. Beers mostly but plastic nips, too. Allen’s Coffee Brandy, Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey, Popov Vodka. The teenagers who rescued this shack have turned it into a clubhouse for drinking and drugging. Sex, too, probably.
I sweep the floor with my hands, blindly searching for a blanket I hope one of the young lovers left behind.
All I find is a girl’s discarded puffer vest. I’m a beggar not a chooser. I stuff the dirty coat inside my parka as an extra layer.
My eyes are adjusting to the half-light. Wasps have built an oblong nest of paper in one corner of the “ceiling.” Everywhere lie cigarette butts and roaches. One is still attached to an alligator clip. Crushed packs of Marlboros and Newports. Ripped bags of Red Man chew.
Rivard used to use Red Man moist snuff, I remember.
Focus.
Matches. There have to be matches.
I continue to brush the floor with my gloved hands, scattering snow-dusted trash left and right.
And then there it is: a book of matches.
When I flip open the cover, I see stubs like dual rows of missing cardboard teeth.
For fuck’s sake.
What about a disposable lighter? It doesn’t even need to have butane in it. The metal wheel of an empty Bic can still throw a spark that can be caught in a nest of lint, sawdust, what have you. But I am out of luck.
I clear a circle of plywood. Then I empty my pockets again, not even bothering with the bandanna this time in my haste.
When I see the bullets, I experience a fleeting euphoria before reality clamps down.
Sure, I have a knife, but with my stiffening fingers, there’s no way I can pry open the cartridges for the tiny amount of primer inside. Forget about the gunpowder. The mix of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur is a surprisingly poor fire starter.
I don’t recognize the black rectangle at first. Another symptom of my worsening mental condition.
My cell phone is utterly useless to me now. I might as well—
The realization nearly knocks me over.
There might just be a way.
Crawling outside, I feel the wind like a slap to the face. My fingers are beyond arthritic with frostbite. Stumbling from tree to tree, I scavenge for fuel. I snap twigs from the bases of balsams; the resinous branches closest to the trunk are the driest. From a hoary old birch I peel strips of bark and stuff the curling paper into my pockets.
I duck inside the shed and begin building separate piles of fuel. I need to be ready for the moment of truth. I only have one shot at this, and I’ve never attempted it before.
I pull down the wasp nest.
I strip the cellophane from the discarded cigarette packs and pile up the twisting strips.
Birchbark. Twigs. Sticks. Paper.
I hate to lose my new insulation layer, but I have no choice but to remove the girl’s vest from inside my coat. I cut through the outer polyester to get to the feathers inside, and thank God, they’re real eiderdown, also flammable.
The shack’s fiberglass insulation is worthless, except as a base to keep the fire from burning through the “floor.”
With trembling hands, I use the point of the knife to pry open the phone to find the battery.
&nb
sp; I remove a wet glove. One by one, I put the fingers of my right hand into my mouth, trying to suck blood into the capillaries. I open and close my fist. The pain is excruciating. I try to put the glove back on, but it’s no use. I resign myself to the inevitable chemical burns.
I take a position on my knees above the battery. I close both hands around the handle of my knife.
Please, God. Let this work.
I bring the knife down fast and hard, the tip punctures the nickel-coated backing, and suddenly there is smoke and heat. Acrid fumes curl from around the blade.
Lithium ion batteries, once exposed to oxygen, combust. It’s why airlines won’t risk stowing cell phones in the luggage compartment. The intense cold of the upper atmosphere can cause their casings to crack.
I pull the knife free and begin tossing cellophane and wasp paper onto the ruptured battery. The treated plastic bursts into flame. I add strips of bark. The curling embers tumble onto the duck feathers which, in turn, begin to smoke. Now it’s a mad rush to arrange twigs around the fragile flame. I make a teepee of sticks over the crackling, snapping tinder. I watch the edges blacken, then glow, then spit fire. Soon the chemical smell of the battery is overwhelmed by the burning resins of the wood.
Heat warms my face. Light expands outward—yellow and orange—to fill the entire shack. On the wall, blurred graffiti sharpens into focus.
DONT DRINK THE WATER
FISH HAVE SEX IN IT
And I start to laugh. At the lame joke. At this miserable shelter. At myself.
I am the caveman who first struck flint against a chunk of iron pyrite.
I have made fire.
10
Stratford wasn’t much of a town; it was more like the memory of a town. Once it might’ve been a vibrant farming community, a commercial center near the juncture of the Androscoggin and the Nezinscot rivers, but the old homesteads had been abandoned over decades and left to collapse under the weight of winter, and the new places were just big exurban houses set on three-acre lots. Most of the cornfields planted in the rich loam of the floodplain had transitioned to second-growth forest. Even the mill at the mouth of the Nezinscot was gone; the only vestige of the dam was a broken wall along the far bank of the stream: a moss-covered ruin of a time people didn’t seem to feel merited honoring.