by Paul Doiron
“I’ve got to do it sometime.”
“Doesn’t have to be today, Grasshopper.”
I hefted the twelve-gauge. “What have you got in this? A slug or buckshot?”
“Buckshot.”
I fired directly at the poor suffering dog’s head. My hands didn’t flinch. It was, in fact, a fantastic shot. The dog’s brains flew out, and it dropped dead.
The sound of the explosion deafened me for a moment; I should have inserted the foam earplugs I carried in my chest pocket.
When my ears cleared, I heard clapping. I looked around and saw that several of the youngish adults—overweight girls pushing strollers; whip-thin men with pants falling down—putting their hands together. Then the children imitated them. I was receiving applause.
I slung the shotgun over my shoulder. Somehow, I kept my feet as I slid down the slick sides of the pool. The water wasn’t much more than a yard deep. I removed a pair of latex gloves from a pouch in my belt and snapped them on like a doctor preparing for surgery. Then I carefully lifted the dead animal in my arms—its bones might have been as hollow as a bird’s—and waded through the muck to the steps at the shallow end.
I heard the jangling of dog tags on its collar and saw one shaped something like a bone with the name GOOFUS stamped into the blue metal. There was a phone number and address on it. I would need to call the owners and tell them what I’d been forced to do their family pet. How did the dog contract rabies? I wondered. Any mammal could carry the virus.
“Hey, Sergeant, can you bring me a tarp?” I shouted.
But Kathy was already there with one of the same body bags the state provided us for human corpses. I placed Goofus atop the plastic liner and zipped it up.
“Hydrophobia,” I mumbled, shaking off my algae-green arms.
“That’s the Latin name for rabies,” Kathy said. “Fear of water.”
“So we both studied Latin,” I said. “Cave canem.”
“‘Beware of the dog.’ For whatever it’s worth, the first month I was a warden, I had to shoot a person.”
“What happened?”
She took a deep breath and looked me in the eyes. “This guy, Decoster, was beating his wife. She’d called the police about him a bunch of times before, but somehow he always talked himself out of being arrested. I guess he was drinking buddies with the local cops. But here I was, a rookie and a woman. I didn’t know this asshole, and I wasn’t going to give him another free pass on beating up his wife. He went apeshit when I tried to put him into cuffs. He grabbed a knife from the table and turned on me. I’d never been that scared in my life.”
I steadied myself against the Mossberg. “Jesus.”
“Afterward, the woman was a crying mess. She kept saying she didn’t mean for me to kill him. And there’s this fat little kid bawling his eyes out in the corner. Jason didn’t know what the hell was going on. I thought I’d fucked up big time. Sometimes I still wonder if I did.” Kathy reached down and touched the plastic bag, almost as if she was petting the dead dog inside of it. “I know you must be feeling like shit right now, Mike, but if this is as bad as it gets for a while, consider yourself fortunate.”
I appreciated the confession, but more because my new sergeant had opened up to me than because it soothed my guilt.
* * *
The alcohol dropped me down a well but didn’t keep me asleep very long. I awoke after a few hours, dry-mouthed and unsure where I was because the room was so dark. I flopped onto my back and lay with my eyes open until the blackness of the room faded and I could make out the fuzzy shapes of the big-screen TV and the head of the eight-point buck Kathy had shot the first morning she’d ever gone bow hunting.
After a while, I heard floorboards creaking overhead; Kurt was awake and roaming around. The footsteps continued down the hall until they came to the top of the stairs. I reached for the gun under my pillow and sat up. There was no lamp within easy reach of the sofa, or I would have turned on a light.
The footsteps stopped midway down the stairs, and I thought I heard an in-drawn breath. The next sound was heavier. I had the impression Kurt Eklund had just collapsed on the staircase.
The next thing I knew, he was sobbing.
I swung my legs off the sofa and rose to my feet, tucking the revolver into my pants at the small of my back. I padded across the thick carpet until I came to the foyer and poked my head around the corner.
Kurt was indeed seated on one of the steps. He was holding onto a baluster as if for support and staring down at the dark stain on the floor.
I snapped on the overhead light.
“Kurt?”
He blinked down at me, half-blinded by both the sudden illumination and his own streaming tears. His hair was the color of a golden retriever, I realized.
“That’s her blood?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Then it wasn’t just a nightmare.”
“No.”
“Is she going to be OK?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
He let loose of the baluster and buried his wet face in his hands. “It’s all my fault.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but it seemed the wrong moment to press him to clarify himself. “Do you remember who I am?”
“A warden?”
“You can call me Mike.” I was shocked that he had any memory of our conversation, given his off-the-charts blood-alcohol level. “Why don’t you go back to bed, Kurt. Get some sleep. In the morning, I’ll drive you down to Portland to see her.”
“I don’t think I can sleep.”
“Do you want me to make us some coffee?”
“What I want is a drink.”
“I don’t think that’s a great idea. Why don’t you come with me out to the kitchen and we’ll see what Kathy has in her refrigerator.”
He rubbed his one good eye and puffed out his cheeks before sucking them back in. He didn’t say another word but rose shakily and plodded down the narrow steps. The sour smell of alcohol drifted behind him.
There was a draft in the kitchen, coming from the direction of the mudroom. I made a fire in the woodstove, using newspaper flyers and fatwood from a pine box in the corner. Kurt settled himself at the antique table, which tilted in his direction when he rested a forearm on it. He bent down to look at the uneven legs.
“I need to fix this.”
Kathy had told me he was a carpenter. I wondered how he’d pursued his vocation when he’d been without a driver’s license for so long. According to Morrison, Eklund was a habitual motor vehicle offender. That hardly came as a surprise.
I made coffee in the fancy Bunn machine that had been Kathy’s big splurge a few years back. Then when the woodstove began to steam, I fried eggs in a cast-iron griddle. I’d hoped for some toast, too, but the bread in the bread box had acquired a bad case of the blue splotches.
Kurt watched me quietly, sipping black coffee. He removed his dusty Nordic sweater. His long underwear was wet and yellow under the arms and in a stained crescent above his sternum. When he rolled up his sleeves, I saw that he had patches of rough red skin on his elbows.
“Do you mind if I open a window?” he croaked. “It’s like a sauna in here.”
I found the room chilly myself. “Go ahead.”
He raised the window above the soapstone sink and stood there, his arms braced on the counter, staring down the hill. “Red sky at morning,” he said.
There was a glow like a distant wildfire burning beyond the hills to the east, but elsewhere the sky was still dark and dense with clouds.
“How much do you remember about last night?” I asked him.
“There was a woman with you. She said someone shot my sister.”
He still didn’t seem entirely sober to me, but he seemed coherent enough to attempt a conversation. I set two plates on the table and sat down to eat. After a moment, he took the chair across from me and lifted a fork.
“Do the cops know who did it?” he asked.
“Not yet. I was wondering if you had any ideas.”
“She’s a warden. She’s made a lot of enemies in twenty-eight years. Start at the beginning.”
“She never mentioned a name to you? Someone in particular who had threatened her?”
He cocked his shaggy head and studied me with his one working eye. The retina was the same shade of hazel as his sister’s, but the sclera was a sickly yellow. “Katarina and I don’t have that kind of relationship.”
Katarina? I’d always thought her first name was Katharine. “You know about the shooting she was involved with a few days ago?”
“Of course I know. I was here when she came home that night. She was very upset. She pretended not to be, but I could tell she was. This wasn’t the first time she had to kill someone in the line of duty, you know?”
“She told me about the Decoster shooting.”
“Then you know how it’s haunted her. Most cops never shoot one person in their career. What do you think it’s like killing two people?”
I had a good idea. “How long have you been living here, Kurt? Your driver’s license says you live in New Sweden. “
“A few weeks. What is this, an interrogation?”
I hadn’t intended the conversation to go in that direction, but Eklund was such an ornery character, it was hard not to treat him with hostility.
“I don’t think the detectives who are investigating your sister’s case even knew you were living here.”
“What does it matter to them?” He hadn’t touched his eggs.
“They need a complete picture.”
“Kathy’s been putting me up until I get some steady work. I asked her for asylum, and she gave it to me.”
My fork paused between the plate and my mouth. “That’s an interesting choice of words.”
“What? Asylum?” he said. “I’m an expert on the subject. Ask me anything. ‘Bedlam’ was originally slang for the Bethlehem Royal Hospital in London. Bellevue Hospital in New York treated Eugene O’Neill and Norman Mailer. The blues legend Lead Belly died there. Psych wards are my specialty.”
“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
“Since I have no clue who you are, Mike, or what you’re doing in my sister’s house, it seems like it should be me interrogating you.”
“I’m a friend of your sister. I used to be one of her district wardens.”
“Used to be?”
“I was here the night she got shot. I arrived a few minutes after it happened. The shooter was still here, though. Whoever he was, he blew out the windshield of my Bronco. You probably missed it on the way in. It’s the vehicle out there with all the holes in it.”
He placed his hands flat on the table and made a smacking noise with his lips. “I’m sorry if I seem like I’m being a dick. I’m hungover and not feeling particularly good about myself in general this morning. The shrinks at the VA say I have a major depressive disorder. I always tell them, ‘How happy would you be if you were a chronic alcoholic with one eye?’” He began to laugh in a way that reminded me of a comic book villain. He held up both hands, palms outward. “These mitts of mine are going to start shaking soon if I don’t get a drink.”
“Maybe you should eat some of your eggs.” The grease had already congealed around the whites.
“I have no stomach for it anymore.”
“Maybe you should check into rehab.”
“Interesting suggestion. Never heard that one before.”
Without another word, he wandered down the hall to the nearest bathroom, leaving me alone in the dimly lit kitchen. I eyed his untouched plate of fried eggs, knowing he wouldn’t eat them now. I decided to help myself.
When he came back, he headed straight for the pantry and emerged with a bottle of amaretto. He twisted the metal cap and kept pouring until his coffee mug was mostly booze. He raised the cup to his mouth, watched me the whole time like a kid deliberately hoping to provoke a scolding.
I remained quiet.
“I expected you to try to stop me,” he said.
“It’s not my house,” I said. “I can’t let you drive today, though. Where are your car keys?”
“Under the driver’s seat.”
Dawn was brightening the window above the sink, but the sun still hadn’t risen. I’d need to fetch those keys if I didn’t want him to sneak off while I was taking a shower. And I should check Kathy’s patrol truck, too.
“You never answered my question,” I said.
“Go ahead.”
“You weren’t here the night Kathy was shot, and you weren’t here the next day when the house was crawling with state police detectives and evidence technicians. Then you come back shit-faced in the middle of the night? Where were you, Kurt?”
He took another swig from the mug and set it down on the tabletop. “I see you ate my eggs.”
“Are you going to answer me?”
“I found a card game at the VFW in Sennebec.”
“You were playing poker for two days?”
“You don’t play, do you?”
“I learned a long time ago that I am a poor loser.”
“Two days at a table is nothing for me if they keep the drinks coming.” When he smiled, he showed stained teeth that looked unnaturally long, and I realized it was because the gums had pulled back from the roots.
I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. “Something’s puzzling me. If someone told me that my sister was on her deathbed in the hospital, you couldn’t stop me from rushing off to see her. I wouldn’t be sitting here getting drunk and making wisecracks.”
“You have a sister?” he asked.
“I have a stepsister.”
“And when was the last time you saw her?” He seemed to be playing a game with me—a game with rules only he understood.
“Last year, at the wake following my mother’s funeral.”
He’d expected a different reply from me, I could tell. “I don’t like hospitals,” he said.
“That’s your answer?”
“When I was eighteen years old, I remember waking up in the Twelfth Medical Evacuation Hospital in Cu Chi, Vietnam. It was across Highway One from a petroleum dump and artillery battery. I had no idea how I’d gotten there, but when I woke up, I discovered that I was missing an eye. They had to tie me down, I heard. I’ve never trusted doctors since they plucked my eye out.”
“Is that your all-purpose excuse?”
“For what?”
“For everything that’s gone wrong in your life.”
The smile vanished in an instant. If this had been a fencing match, I would have said that I’d scored a touch against him. He brought his fingers to his chin and ran the back sides of them along the stubbled hair beneath his jawline. The noise was loud and rasping, like sandpaper on a block of wood. “You’re ex-military, right?”
“What makes you say that?”
“You have anger issues.” The smile returned, more condescending than ever, and he pointed a finger at me. “And that is why you are no longer a warden. Am I right? Because of your anger-management problems?”
“I have reasons to be angry,” I said.
I stood up from the table with the two greasy plates and carried them to the soapstone sink. I squirted some dishwashing liquid on them and ran the water until it was scalding hot. Then I brushed the plates with a sponge until my hands were red. I cleaned the cast-iron griddle pan with a paper towel.
Kurt Eklund watched me with the patience of a cat. He’d managed to get under my skin with an ease that I found embarrassing. I was mad at him and mad at myself at being so easily provoked. I felt an urge to take his car for the day and leave him stranded here with his self-pity and his pantryful of booze.
As I was drying the inside of my coffee mug with a rag, I glanced out the window. The clouds had drifted to the eastern horizon, blotting out the newly risen sun. It was visible as a pale disk in the sky, shedding little in the way of heat or light. Below t
he blueberry barrens were a patchwork of hay fields with a river running through them and a distant pond that reflected the sun like a mirror.
A figure dressed in full camouflage was striding through the barrens less than a hundred feet from the house. He had a mesh bag filled with turkey decoys slung over his shoulder and was carrying a pump shotgun tucked under his arm. He was wearing a sheer green mask over his face, but when he looked up at the lighted window and saw me watching him from the house, I could have sworn that he gave me a smile.
“What the hell?” I said.
22
“Do you know who that is?” I asked Kurt.
He pushed himself up from the oval table, causing it to groan and tilt again beneath the weight of his outstretched arms. He peered over my shoulder, through the window.
“Son of a bitch!”
Before I could ask another question, he’d taken off through the mudroom, pushing the back door open with such force, I thought it might fly off its hinges. Despite his sixty-something years and ill health, Eklund was a strong guy with muscles hardened from a lifetime of physical labor. Through the cracked window, I saw him striding in his stocking feet across the dooryard in pursuit of the turkey hunter.
“Hey! Hey!” he shouted.
I followed him out of the kitchen and down the back steps.
The morning was gloomy, but drier than it had been for a long time, and a wave of warblers was moving through the treetops, singing as they flitted from branch to branch. I heard a whistle of wing beats and looked up to see a pair of wood ducks rocketing against the overcast sky.
The hunter paused and lifted the barrel of his shotgun slightly, not enough to be threatening but definitely as if he was preparing himself for trouble. “Ahoy, matey! If it isn’t Captain Kidd.”
“What do you think you’re doing, Littlefield?” Kurt said.
“Using my right of way.”
“Kathy told you to stay off her land.”
“She should post it, then.” The man, Littlefield, was dressed from cap to boots in camouflage, making it impossible to see anything except his rheumy eyes, which were visible above the leaf-patterned veil that covered the bottom of his face. He was a big guy under all those hunting clothes, but he had the cracked, high-pitched voice of a very old man.