Bad Little Falls

by Paul Doiron

  “The police haven’t determined anything.”

  “Sewall’s suicide suggests he had a guilty conscience.”

  “I’m not so sure he committed suicide.”

  “Now you’re the one with the hyperactive imagination. Tell me this: Why would I want to kill two men I’d never even met?”

  “Because they were drug dealers.”

  “So are a lot of people in this godforsaken country. I’d have my hands full if I decided to kill all of them.”

  “Because Cates and Sewall sold contaminated heroin to a student named Trinity Raye, who died as a result.”

  “Go check at the university. Trinity Raye wasn’t even my student. You’re just grasping at straws now—just like you’ve done in the past. Isn’t it enough that your career is in tatters?”

  “Since when have you taken an interest in my career, Kendrick?”

  “I’m a teacher,” he said. “I believe in doing my homework. Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re saying that while embarked on a selfless mission to rescue a lost man, I spontaneously decided to kill him?”

  It did sound ridiculous when he put it that way. “You didn’t know it was Randall Cates lost out there until you came upon him in the snow and saw that crazy tattoo.”

  “It might surprise you to learn that I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of drug dealers and their tattoos. Your entire story is absurd.”

  “I’ll make a deal with you, Kendrick,” I said. “Why don’t the three of us pay a visit to the state police—you, me, and Doc—and we’ll let them decide whose story sounds the most absurd.”

  “Sorry, I’ve got a prior commitment.”

  “You should clear your calendar. Detective Zanadakis will want to talk with you after he hears what Doc and I have to say.”

  “Now who’s the one issuing threats? We both know our mutual friend was intoxicated the night of the blizzard and that he’s been self-medicating ever since his lovely wife passed away.”

  “What about the Spragues? They were there in the house.”

  He gave a laugh. “They’re the last people who are going to say anything.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He took a long time to answer. “What is it going to take to make you drop this absurd inquiry? How can I persuade you that you’re making a terrible, terrible mistake?”

  “It won’t be the first mistake I’ve made.”

  “But it might be the last,” said Kendrick. “My crystal ball says you’re headed for a bad end, Warden.”

  Just then a dog barked. I heard it over the telephone line but also through the window.

  There was a click and then nothing.

  I pressed *69 on the keypad. No one picked up, but eventually an automated voice answered. It was my own cell phone.

  38

  Maybe Kendrick had heard me give away my location over the police scanner and rushed over on his dogsled. Or maybe he’d arrived independently, planning to confront Doc again, and just happened to see me drive up in my patrol truck. In any case, he’d been watching the farmhouse.

  He had seen me leave Lucas behind in the cold cab with his notebook and his headlamp glowing. As soon as I was inside, he had slid quietly up to my vehicle. What he’d said to the boy, I didn’t know, but it was hardly surprising that Lucas, of all kids, would be enchanted by a man driving a real-life dogsled. Had Kendrick simply asked to borrow the cell phone, which I had left in the cup holder? That was quite the ballsy move: threatening me on my own BlackBerry.

  I rushed to the nearest light switch and plunged the room into darkness.

  Doc rose unsteadily from the sofa. “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to see my truck.”

  “Kendrick’s outside the house?”

  “Yes.” How could I have been so stupid as to leave Lucas alone? “Does he usually carry a gun?”

  “He has a big Smith & Wesson revolver.”

  I parted the curtains carefully. My eyes needed time to adjust, but slowly the snow-covered landscape sharpened into focus. I saw the periwinkle drifts piled against the stone wall and the gray trunks of the elms. Farther down the hill was the dark silhouette of my patrol truck. I squinted but couldn’t make out the glimmer of Lucas’s headlamp.

  Stepping away from the window, I dialed the state police dispatcher in Augusta, gave my call numbers, and reported a possible ten thirty-two, which is the code for man with a gun. “Suspect is a white male, five eleven, one hundred and seventy pounds, approximately forty years of age. His name is Kevin Kendrick, of Township Nineteen. He may be accompanied by a twelve-year-old boy and driving a dogsled.”

  It wouldn’t have surprised me if the dispatcher thought I was pulling her leg. Instead, she asked if I had any identifying information on the boy. I described Lucas to her as best I could.

  I handed Doc his cordless phone. “Stay away from the windows,” I said. “If you hear gunfire, tell the dispatcher an officer is down.”

  Through force of will, Doc Larrabee was trying to restore himself to sobriety. He worked the muscles around his mouth like a person trying to wake up from a deep sleep. “Mike, what the hell is happening?”

  “Kendrick just called me on my own cell phone from the end of your driveway. A twelve-year-old boy is in my truck down there, and I believe he’s in danger.”

  “Why would Kendrick?— He has no reason to harm a child.”

  “If he really did murder Randall Cates, and he’s afraid of being caught, then he’s going to do what he needs to do to defend himself, even if it means holding Lucas Sewall as a hostage.”

  I drew the heavy SIG from its holster and reached for the doorknob.

  “I’m so sorry, Mike.”

  “Now’s not the time for apologies,” I said. “Tell the dispatcher if something happens to me.”

  Taking a deep breath, I swung the door open and sprang down the steps, throwing myself so hard against the base of the nearest elm, I bruised my shoulder.

  I listened but heard nothing. No voices, no barking dogs, no gunshots. Just the sighing of the wind through the leafless branches over my head. I rose to my knees, pressed my hand against the scaly bark, and peered down the hill at the snowbank piled along the road. The night sky was a patchwork of stars and clouds. Every few minutes, the moon would appear, almost like a flare going off, lighting up the blueberry barrens that trailed down to Bog Pond.

  I rose to a crouching position, getting ready to run in a zigzag pattern to the nearest snowbank, where I hoped to get a view of my truck, when I heard the sound of barking and saw a flash of light. It was the briefest wink, as if someone had turned on a flashlight and then quickly switched it off again. A shadow was moving across the white field behind the farmhouse.

  The dogsled.

  Kendrick was headed down to Bog Pond. Once he crossed the frozen expanse of ice, he would be at the edge of the Heath again. We would need a plane with a night-vision camera and thermal imaging system to find him in that maze of beaver ponds and tote roads.

  The sled was moving rapidly. I heard the happy baying of the dogs as they gave their full effort. On foot, there was no way I could catch Kendrick.

  I thrust my pistol into its holster and scrambled up the snowbank on hands and knees. When I saw the passenger door of the truck standing open, I realized that the flash of light I’d seen had been Lucas’s headlamp. Kendrick had taken the boy with him.

  By the time I reached the truck, I was breathing heavily and sweating under the arms. I reached across the passenger seat and pulled the door shut. I pushed the gearshift on the steering column into reverse and stepped on the gas. It was only when I hit the plowed asphalt again that I realized something was wrong.

  Kendrick had slashed one of my tires.

  The thump-thump-thump of my rapidly flattening tire sounded like a drumbeat. At this rate, I’d be driving on the metal rim in no time. I’d be lucky to make it to the base of the hill. Below the slanting blueberry fields was a ram
p the local ice fishermen used to drive their pickups and four-wheelers onto the frozen pond.

  Somewhere in the darkness, a dogsled was racing along on a parallel course. If something were to happen to a child placed in my care … That was it, I realized. Kendrick knew that my desperation to rescue Lucas would compel me to take foolish risks. He was betting on my reputation for heedlessness, gambling I would make another stupid mistake.

  Ahead, at the fuzzy edge of the beams, the sign for the boat launch parking lot came into view. If I turned, I could drive onto the ice and maybe cut him off before he crossed the lake. I grabbed the radio mic and hit the push-to-talk button. “Twenty-two fifty-eight, I have a ten-thirty-three on Route 277 and the Bog Road. Suspect is driving a dogsled across Bog Pond. He has a twelve-year-old boy with him, and he may be armed. Request immediate assistance at the Route 277 boat launch.”

  Dispatch copied me. Units were on the way.

  The turn approached. I braked hard, feeling a shudder go through me as the bad tire ripped loose, bounced in pieces against the undercarriage, and tumbled away in my brake lights. The shriek of the steel rim on the asphalt pierced me like a dentist’s drill.

  I bumped into the empty parking lot and rolled down onto the snow-covered ice, forcing myself to go slowly. Hit it too hard, too fast, and no matter how thick the ice was, I could go through. My high beams fanned out across the pond, finding the rectangular shapes of vacant fishing shacks in the distance. I scanned for movement but saw nothing.

  Had Kendrick pulled a U-turn and gone back up the hill?

  No.

  Instead of heading straight across the open expanse, Kendrick was moving parallel to the shore, following the ragged edge of trees and brush. I could catch him easily if I accelerated now.

  I was turning the wheel to follow his trail when a warning went off in my brain. Rivard had cautioned me there were glacial boulders in the shallows of this lake, some as big as boxcars. In places, the tops of the huge rocks bulged through the snowpack, looking like pressure ridges in the ice or harmless mounds of snow that a vehicle could easily plow through. The edge of the pond was studded with those hidden traps, and if I struck one, even at thirty miles an hour, I would crash headlong across—and probably through—the lake ice.

  Kendrick was deliberately leading me through an obstacle course. He was “the best woodsman left in America,” according to the New York Times. He knew this country so much better than I did; he had every advantage. What could I remember about Bog Pond? What knowledge could I possibly use against my brilliant and experienced adversary without endangering Lucas?

  Kendrick’s goal was to lose himself in the maze of alder thickets and beaver bogs on the western side of the lake. If he kept following the shoreline, he would skirt a cliff that would be impossible for his dogs to climb. Beyond that cliff was the outlet to Bog Stream, the creek that spilled out of the pond and fell in a series of gradual waterfalls down into the Heath.

  Moving water, I thought. Thin ice.

  If I cut across the lake sharply, I could pin Kendrick against that cliff, forcing him to make a choice: either turn back in the direction of the boat landing, where police cruisers would soon be assembling (I hoped) or skate across the questionable ice near the Bog Stream outlet. With my truck blocking escape to the center of the pond, he would have no other options.

  The problem was that he would easily guess my intentions the moment he saw my headlights turn toward the cliff. I realized I had only a single plan of attack. I pointed the nose of the truck toward the center of the lake, filled my lungs with air, and switched off my headlights.

  The world went instantly dark.

  I was as blind as if I had fallen into a deep cave. The intermittent moonlight that had seemed so bright outside Doc’s farmhouse barely registered on my optic nerves.

  Please, God, I prayed. Let there be none of those boulders in this part of the lake.

  Leaning forward over the wheel, I stepped on the gas pedal and shot on an intercept course for the cliff. Within a matter of seconds, my front wheels hit a pressure ridge that jolted me against my seat belt. When I came back down, my teeth smashed together on the edge of my tongue. I tasted blood.

  My eyes strained to adjust to the black-and-white universe into which I suddenly found myself. I saw a blurry line form far ahead: gray above, black below. I floored the gas and watched the line sharpen until I knew I was getting close to the cliff.

  Between the engine and the wrecked wheel, my truck was making enough of a racket that he could hear me coming. But I could still throw some surprises his way. I hit everything I had in succession: blue lights, high beams, spotlight, and siren.

  Bingo.

  The sled was a hundred yards ahead, moving from right to left against the cliff face. I saw the dogs break stride, startled by the cacophonous noise and illumination. I saw Kendrick, standing on the runners, snap his head in my direction. And I saw Lucas seated on the sled: his pale white face the only part visible.

  Be smart, Kendrick. Stop now.

  Instead, he shook the leads and shouted at his dogs to leap forward. The sled shot off again, straight for the Bog Stream outlet. He had to know it was an act of madness.

  The sled broke through the ice from back to front.

  The weight of Kendrick and Lucas dragged the dogs in scrambling pairs backward into the collapsing hole. Over the siren, I couldn’t hear their howls, but I saw the animals clawing desperately against the harness that was pulling them inexorably to their deaths. Kendrick had loaded the sled with bricks, he’d told me, to build his dogs’ endurance.

  I slammed on my brakes, but the truck kept sliding. The end fishtailed as I pulled the parking brake in a last-ditch attempt to avoid the thin ice. My truck spun completely around, once, twice, before it came to a halt. When it did, I found myself facing the center of the lake.

  My God, I thought. Lucas.

  Dazed, head spinning, my mouth bloody from the bite I’d taken out of my tongue, I fumbled with the seat-belt latch and pushed open the door. When I hit the ice, my boots slipped out from under me, and I fell face-first onto my chest in the snow. I pushed myself up onto my knees and then, slipping and sliding, onto my feet.

  My vehicle had come to rest with the lights pointed in the wrong direction. In the near dark, I had trouble making out what was happening. I saw heads floating, limbs thrashing; heard animal wails and a boy’s cry for help.

  “Lucas!”

  I slid around to the open door and began madly groping at the junk in the backseat. Where was my rope? In a coil in the pack basket. My personal flotation devices? Wedged under the seat. Where the hell was my float coat? I coudn’t find it anywhere. Keep calm, said a voice in my head. Don’t panic.

  I tied a bowline around the trailer hitch and ran the rope forward toward the hole in the ice, trying to secure another knot to the PFD while I did so.

  The dogs were all gone now, pulled down by the brick-laden weight of the sled. But I saw Lucas’s head bobbing: glasses gone, a look of utter terror on his stricken white face. And farther out, Kendrick was calmly treading water.

  “Kendrick!”

  The musher didn’t answer me.

  Lucas disappeared beneath the surface before I could throw him the PFD.

  “Kendrick! Help him, for God’s sake!”

  Deliberately, he turned away and began paddling for the edge of the ice on the other side of the hole.

  I dropped my gun belt on the ice and, without even removing my boots, ran toward the open water. I heard an explosive crack and felt myself dropping as if through a trapdoor. With the PFD tucked under my arm, I didn’t go completely under, but the sudden, almost total immersion in freezing water blew the air entirely out of my lungs, as if I’d been hit by a two-by-four between the ribs.

  My voice came out as a gasp. “Lucas!”

  The shock of going into the water was worse than I’d expected. I could feel my muscles tightening and heard my pulse beating faster
and faster in my water-filled ears. I gulped down a breath, let go of the PFD, and let myself sink beneath the surface. I thrust my arms around me like a blind man trying to feel his way out of an unfamiliar room.

  My fingers touched something. At first, I thought it might be the boy’s hair, and then I realized it was fur—one of Kendrick’s lifeless malamutes passing in the dark current.

  I shot back up to the surface for another breath.

  I’d drifted several yards from the floating life jacket. If I went under again, would I even have the strength to grab it?

  Keep calm, keep calm, keep calm.

  Again, I filled my lungs with air, and again, I dived down into the gelid waters of the lake.

  We collided with each other, literally knocked heads.

  I was so startled, I recoiled at first, then understood what had happened. My fingers were so frozen, they could barely close around his arm.

  I gave a strong kick and pulled with all my might.

  My face broke the surface just long enough to see that the moon was out. Then I went under again. Unless I could summon strength from some unknown reserve, the boy and I would sink to the bottom. Tomorrow the Warden Service divers will retrieve our bodies, I thought.

  An image flashed into my head of myself underwater, two years earlier. I’d thought I was going to die when my canoe overturned at Rum Pond. Instead, I had fought for my life. Now I needed to fight for Lucas Sewall’s life as well.

  I scissored my legs and felt the cold air hit my face. I blinked and thrashed, tugging Lucas along after me, flexing my biceps to pull his head above the surface. Where was the PFD? My eyes were half blind from the lake water.

  I kicked hard toward the jagged edge of the ice and saw something orange ahead. It seemed so far away. I could barely breathe. Even if I reached the life jacket, how was I going to pull myself out?

  I heard coughing behind me. Lucas was flailing about with his arms. Amazingly, he was back from the dead. I tried to yank him toward the PFD.

  “Lucas,” I sputtered. “The life jacket.”

  I didn’t think he’d heard me, let alone understood what I’d meant, but the next thing I knew, I felt us surge forward. He was kicking his legs. I gave one last push and reached out with my stiff arm. I brought it down on the PFD. I squeezed the flotation device against my side and felt its buoyancy lift me from the current. I nearly dislocated Lucas’s shoulder as I pulled him up beside me.