“Well, where do you want me to start?”
When she asked him, “Why did you become a game warden? I did some research and it seems that the requirements are almost identical to those of being a state policeman,” she knew it sounded more like a professional interview than a social conversation.
“For the most part they are, both wardens and state police have to complete the Maine Criminal Justice Academy, and after that each organization has some special training and requirements.”
“Okay, all that aside, what attracted you to the warden service and not the state police?”
“I’m not too good with people. Being a warden, especially here in the north, allows me to work outside and alone most of the time.”
“But, you’re not just a district warden are you? Truthfully, I had no idea that the warden service had its own investigators. What is different about … what did you call it?”
John smiled; he had been asked this very question on many occasions. “WCID is the Wildlife Crimes Investigation Division. There are a number of investigators stationed throughout the state. I report to a lieutenant who in turn reports to the major in Augusta. As I said the other night, we investigate accidents involving serious personal injury and fatal hunting-related incidents as well as ATV, snowmobile, and boat crashes.”
“What you didn’t say was that you are basically the Inland Fisheries and Waterways version of the State Police Major Crimes Unit.”
John became pensive. “Sometimes I think we’re too much so.”
“How’s your investigation going?”
“Laura, I’d rather not discuss that. Besides, we haven’t learned all that much.”
“Okay, I understand about ongoing investigations and that stuff. What about John Bear, the man—who’s he?”
“I grew up in Canada, at the Madawaska Maliseet First Nation.”
He saw her brow furrow.
“It’s between Edmundston and St. Basile. In fact, you pass through the Nation without knowing it when you drive between the two.”
“What about your parents, are they still alive?”
“My father is.”
“Any siblings?”
“I have a brother who lives here in Lyndon Station and a sister who we haven’t heard from in years.”
Laura glanced at him through the flickering dim light of the candle that was on the table. “I’m starting to get the impression that you don’t like to talk about your family.”
“Truthfully,” John replied, “there ain’t a lot to talk about….”
For the first time since they had met, John Bear lied to her—they hadn’t known each other long enough for him to feel comfortable answering her questions about his family. Before she could probe any deeper, McBrietty brought their meals and John sighed in relief.
13
Del’s Place
John Bear pushed his plate away and sat back. He raised his coffee mug to his lips and, over the rim, saw Bob Pelky enter the diner. When Pelky slid into the booth across from his friend, John immediately recognized the conspiratorial smirk on his face. “You look like a raccoon caught raiding a garbage can,” John commented.
“So,” Pelky said, “how’d it go last night?”
John grinned, knowing how fast Lyndon Station’s grapevine was. “How’d you know about last night, you a cop or something?”
“C’mon tell me what happened. Elaine will be grilling me as soon as I get home.”
“Great, we had dinner and a couple of drinks and then I dropped her off at her cabin.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it—just two people out for dinner.”
“Well,” Pelky said, “that is gonna be a big letdown for Elaine.”
John chuckled. “Besides, even if it did go further than that, I’m not about to say anything. This town is so small that when you smile your cheeks rub the borders. I’m certain that more than one set of eyes saw me leave her at her door.”
“Makes you wonder doesn’t it?”
“What makes me wonder?”
“In a town where everyone knows everyone else and nothing goes unobserved, no one has so much as a clue about who our murderer is.”
John placed his mug on the table. “I know who—or what—our killer is. It’s a Wendigo.”
“Well, until we have it in custody, I’m going on the assumption that we’re looking for a psychopath who believes he’s a Wendigo.”
John glanced over Pelky’s shoulder and saw Del’s only server, his daughter Nellie Corrigan, striding toward them carrying a carafe of coffee in one hand and a mug in the other. “Hold that thought,” he said.
She poured Pelky a cup, refilled John’s, and stepped back, waiting for Pelky to order. While Pelky perused the menu, even though everyone knew he would order the same thing he always did, Nellie said, “You boys didn’t have to stop talking just because I’m here.”
John laughed. “Sure, we didn’t. This place is the central clearinghouse for all the gossip in Lyndon Station—not that you would say anything, but things have a way of getting out.”
She leaned back, emphasizing her rotund figure and smiled. “Well, in a town with no newspaper or radio and TV stations, the news has to get out somehow.”
Pelky returned the menu to its slot on the rack that held the salt, pepper, and sweeteners and said, “The usual, Nelly.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” She retreated to the kitchen.
Once she was out of hearing, John said, “Bob, I need you to check something for me.”
“Okay …”
“Can you find out if there are any unsolved killings or disappearances over the last, let’s say twenty years? I don’t think there’s any sense going back over twenty years—go back to 1996. Check both Aroostook County and New Brunswick and Quebec.”
“Jesus, John, twenty years? You’re talking about a lot of paper-trailing. I hope you’re on to something.”
“I don’t believe that this thing has just arrived in the area—it’s been here for a while.”
“Okay, I’ll get on it. Oh, Elaine would like for you and Laura to come over for supper tonight.”
“I could use some of her cooking. What time?”
_____________
Pelky Residence
Laura was already at the Pelky house when John arrived. He knocked on the door and she opened it. “Elaine’s in the kitchen,” she said and then stepped aside to allow him to enter.
They sat on the couch and John relaxed as his body absorbed the heat from the fireplace. John realized he was ravenously hungry.
“How about a cup of coffee,” Laura offered.
“That would be great.”
“I’ll let Elaine know you’re here.” She opened the kitchen door, poked her head in and said, “John arrived, better bring a third coffee,” and then returned to her perch on the couch.
He noticed that Laura sat mute, obviously taking time to organize what she wanted to say. Finally, in what she hoped was a soothing, encouraging tone of voice she asked, “Do you want to tell me about yesterday? At dinner last night you made a concerted effort to avoid the subject.”
He suddenly became suspicious. “Again, I can’t help but ask: do you want to know as a reporter, or as a concerned friend?”
“To cut through the bullshit and not play silly children’s games, both. Does it make a difference to you?”
He mulled over her words for a few seconds and said, “I guess not. But I appreciate your honesty.”
Elaine entered the room carrying a tray on which was their coffee. She placed it on the coffee table and noticed that her guests seemed to be in a very serious mood. “Am I interrupting anything?”
“No,” Laura said. “John was about to tell me about his adventures while investigating the murder.”
Elaine placed a cup of coffee in front of each of them and then settled into a loveseat that was perpendicular to the couch. “I’d like to hear this, too. Do you mind if I
sit in?”
John shook his head. “Sooner or later Bob will tell you anyhow. To start off we’re dealing with a Wendigo. It’s a cannibal and may appear as a monster with some characteristics of a human, or as a spirit who has possessed a human being and made them become monstrous….” John went on to relate his confrontation with the Wendigo.
When John finished his tale he felt strangely uplifted. He decided whoever had said confession is good for the soul knew what they were talking about.
Laura said, “It sounds like some type of Frankenstein’s monster … a being that is, or was, human, but somehow isn’t anymore—utterly alone and isolated from his kind for the rest of his life.”
“Its existence is not what one would expect of a supernatural spirit. The Wendigo is in a constant state of need. The more he eats, the more he grows and the more he grows, the more he needs to eat. It’s a vicious cycle.”
Elaine interjected, “I can think of some corporate examples of that, for instance the lumber companies.”
“So,” Laura asked, “how do you stop it?”
“That’s an entirely different story.” John related what he‘d learned from Charley Bear.
14
Pelky Residence
Bob Pelky walked in, stomping snow from his boots as he arrived home after a long, hard day of driving on icy, snow-covered roads. “There had better be something in those reports,” he warned John. “I had to drive all the way to Houlton on these shitty roads to get them. It’s so damned icy out there it’s like driving on a rolling bottle.”
John thanked him and immediately snatched up the handful of large manila envelopes that Pelky held in his hands. John looked as if he were holding on to a life-support system as he walked to the couch and took a seat. He perused the files for almost three hours, oblivious to the presence of the others, pausing only to join them for a meal of Yankee pot roast. His three companions began to think he had temporarily lost control of his faculties.
“Here it is!” John shouted. “I got the bastard!” His shout brought the others running into the room. “Laura,” John said, as excited as a child on Christmas, “how would you like to break a story about a series of killings going back thirteen years?”
“What are you talking about?” Laura asked.
“Here, look!” John said. His enthusiasm was beginning to infect the rest of them. “From 1996 to 2003 there’s nothing that appears to be out of the ordinary. At least nothing other than what might be overlooked as being anything more than a normal level of activity. A couple of disappearances, one which turned out to be a suicide—hung himself in the woods—the other guy turned up in Chicago a year and a half later. He told his wife he was going hunting for a week and then took off.
“Then we come to the winter of 2003. A drunk, who was also half-Indian, I might add, gets murdered and mutilated in Oslo … and the body was in similar shape to ours.”
“Shit,” Pelky said, “Oslo is virtually a ghost town.”
“Now it is. But back then there was a plywood mill there, as well as a fair-sized population. It became a ghost town after this guy was killed in a way that scared the bejesus out of everyone. The guy’s name was Condor, Walter Condor.
“Now,” John continued, “here’s a missing-persons report for a fifteen-year-old kid; height between 6’ 8” and 6’ 10”; three-quarter-Indian. His name was Paul Condor, his mother was Nancy Condor, deceased 1988.
“The kid must have done in his old man and then took off for parts unknown. Then again those parts may not be so unknown. If we arrange the remaining missing persons reports in chronological order we have a definite trail that leads through New Brunswick from Grand Falls to Saint Leonard, then Edmundston, and over the line into Quebec. Notice the trail is leading away from populated areas and moving west along the border toward here. Taking into consideration the fact that every one of these missing persons was last seen entering the woods alone, and we can see a definite pattern.
“How can you be sure?” Pelky responded. “This is all conjecture. Besides, even if this thing was Condor, how does knowing this help us?”
“Maybe not a hell of a lot,” John said. “But at least now we have someone we can tell the higher-ups about; I don’t feel we have enough to call him our perp—yet. No way in hell are they gonna go along with giving us resources to chase a monster. We have a place to start looking.”
“So what’s our next step?”
“I think that we should take a trip to Oslo tomorrow.”
_____________
State Route 129, near Oslo, Maine
John stared into the painfully bright glare of the midmorning sun reflecting off the new snow and blinked his eyes. “Should have brought my sunglasses,” he commented to Pelky. “How much farther is it to Oslo anyhow?”
“About fifteen minutes.”
“Are you sure the store there is still in business?”
“Yup, has been since 1939. Just relax, okay? I talked to Olaf Swenson on the phone this morning. He’s expecting us, and yes, he does remember Paul Condor. So relax and enjoy the ride.”
John took a careful sip of his coffee and muttered. “If anybody else tells me to relax I’m going to bust them one right in the mouth.” He took another drink, then placed the lid back on the empty takeout container, and rubbed his temples. I’d give anything if this damned headache would just go away for a while. I’ve had it since I met that bastard in the clearing.”
“Maybe its stress. You’ve been under quite a bit of it lately.”
“I don’t think its stress. I think it’s the Wendigo and he’s trying to mess with my mind….”
Pelky cast John a skeptical look and said, “I think you’re blowing things all out of proportion. You’ve become obsessed with this thing. Hell, you blame everything that’s gone wrong in your life lately on it.”
John looked away and stared at the snow-covered trees as they sped by the side window. He wiped his hand across his face and shuddered. He knew he was going to have to face the Wendigo again and it was going to be just the two of them, one on one. He had given it a lot of thought and decided there was no other way.
Oslo was exactly what John had been expecting. A town that was, when viewed from the hill overlooking it, nothing more than a crossroads in the middle of nowhere. As Pelky’s cruiser drove down the icy, winding road John could make out the remnants of an old mill of some kind. He asked Pelky if he knew what it had been. “I believe that’s the foundation of the old plywood mill. At one time, back in the seventies, it employed most of the town’s inhabitants. When the mill moved down to Presque Isle—over on the old air base—the town just started to die.” Bob ceased his soliloquy when they pulled up in front of a small store strategically located at the junction of the two roads that formed the crossroads. It was reminiscent of the town where he had grown up, and John was overwhelmed with childhood memories, most of them unpleasant.
The nostalgic feeling intensified when John followed Pelky into the old building. The store’s interior was heated by a single woodstove which created a virtual wall from the blasting waves of dry heat radiating from the dull-black finish of its metal hull. John found himself enmeshed in a distinct feeling akin to that of déjà vu. He grappled with his childhood memories in a vain attempt to identify the memory the store had triggered and after several moments gave it up as a lost cause. John looked around the building and saw it was typical of many small stores throughout the area. A single counter occupied the eastern wall and behind it an elderly, balding man was earnestly retrieving a red-colored hot dog from the depths of a steamer. He deftly dropped the wiener into a resting place within the confines of a bun, layered a coating of mustard and chopped onions on it and then wrapped it in wax paper. He nodded to John and Pelky, and then started to write on the side of a paper sack with a pencil. He turned his attention to the two men standing before the counter and said, “That’ll be … $6.55.” He quickly grabbed the ten-dollar bill one of the men held and c
ounted out the change before he filled the sack with the hot dogs, chips, and four beers the men had purchased. The men picked up their purchase and gave Pelky’s state uniform a nervous look as they made for the door. “Now don’t you boys go drinking that beer while you’re driving,” Pelky said, his face stern. The two men mumbled an answer and were close to running as they left the store.
Pelky watched the two woodsmen jump into a rusting and dented Ford pickup and drive out of the lot. They took extra care not to do anything that would give the officer cause to follow them.
Pelky turned to John and with a mischievous smile said, “Sometimes I just love this job.”
John turned to the counter and the old man said, “Can I … help … you boys?” He spoke in a dry monotone and so slowly that John thought it had taken a full two minutes for the old Swede to speak the five words. John decided that when it came to talking, Olaf Swenson would most certainly lose a footrace to constipation.
“Yes,” Pelky answered, “we’re looking for Olaf.”
“You found … him.”
“I’m state trooper Bob Pelky. I phoned you this morning.”
“Oh … yes … about the Condor boy.” Swenson remarked.
“Yes.” Pelky said. He turned to John and added, “This is John Bear. He’s a game warden and good friend of mine, from up in Lyndon Station. He also has an interest in hearing about the Condor boy.”
Swenson nodded to John and then retrieved a coffee pot from the burner near the hot dog steamer. “You boys … want coffee? It’s free … ya know? The story of Paul Condor takes … a while. You can’t talk about Paul … without talking about his … folks.”
He poured coffee for his guests and led them to several straight-backed chairs that formed a ring around the woodstove. When John and Pelky had taken seats, Swenson walked to the door, placed a CLOSED sign in the glass, and locked the door. “Been … a mite slow … today,” he said. “T’won’t hurt a bit … to be closed … for an hour … or two.”
Swenson took a chair opposite the two men and reached into his pocket for a cigarette. He slowly placed the cigarette in his mouth and then, with what appeared to be great effort, leaned forward and touched a wooden match to the hot surface of the woodstove, igniting it. He lit the cigarette and sat back in the chair. He took a sip of coffee and then inhaled the smoke with a slowness John found agonizing. Swenson looked at the two men and said, “There now. A man … needs to prepare … for a long … story.”
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