by Paul Doiron
“No.”
“You shouldn’t get behind the wheel, Mike.”
“All they gave me was Tylenol.”
“Still.”
“I’m driving myself, Captain. I screwed up today by getting careless. Don’t make it worse by making me look bad to the rest of the division, too.”
He nodded, shook his head, and smiled. “Whatever you do, Bowditch, just don’t get in another accident.”
* * *
When I got home, I stood in the darkened driveway, looking up at the stars. The night was moonless, and the stars and planets were as clear as the carefully drawn illustrations on a constellation map. I saw the faint wash of the Milky Way flowing across the sky from horizon to horizon. Orion, the hunter, was raising his club above the trees to the southeast. Across the heavens, Draco, the dragon, was uncoiling himself around the Little Dipper.
As a boy, I had yearned for my father to teach me about the stars and planets, but he never had. It was only after I had become an adult that I received instruction from Charley Stevens, who was scandalized when I’d informed him of my ignorance. Charley believed that a woodsman who didn’t know the stars was no woodsman at all.
Staring at the sky, I began to feel dizzy again. It was as if I were looking down into the void instead of up into it. For an instant, I had the sense that gravity was about to let go of me and I might go spiraling out into the cold vacuum of space. I tipped my head forward and focused on my boots until the sensation passed.
I went inside, threw my parka across the sofa, and poured myself a bourbon.
I knew that I should call Stacey in Ashland. She would want to know what had happened; she deserved to know. We weren’t engaged yet—maybe we never would be—but over the past year, she had become the closest person to me in the world, and I didn’t want to imagine a future without her. But I was too embarrassed to call, and I convinced myself I didn’t want to worry her when I was perfectly all right.
Instead, I sent her an e-mail:
Hey, Stace,
Crazy day today. Got into a scuffle with a tweaker when I tried to confiscate her illegal wolf dog. The poor thing’s probably going to be put down—the wolf dog, not the tweaker. It’s a story for another time. Anyway, I’m OK. Just tired and sore.
Love,
Mike
When I was a kid, my mother took me to Mass every week and made me go to confession once a month. I remembered a kindly priest telling me in the confessional that sins of omission were considered to be less grievous than sins of commission. It certainly didn’t feel that way at the moment.
I returned to the living room and switched on the overhead light. Everything looked so cheerless and lonely. I reached for my parka on the couch, and my father’s dog tags fell onto the floor. The poltergeist was having fun with me again.
I stuffed the bewitched tags into my pants pockets and sat down to finish my drink.
Adam Langstrom’s photograph was faceup on the coffee table, where I had left it. I tried to resist looking at the picture, but the pull was too strong. I threw back the rest of the bourbon and waited for the heat of the alcohol to spread outward from my stomach to my heart.
I held the snapshot by the edges, pinched it between my thumbs and index fingers, as if afraid to leave prints.
Did I want this man to be my brother? Did it matter what I wanted?
Adam and I were far from being twins. His hair was wavier than mine. His nose was longer. His brow was heavier. But there was something there. The word I would use is that I recognized this person I had never met.
And I resented him, too, I realized.
To have thought for years that I was the last of a bloodline and then to learn suddenly that I had a younger brother—a brother who just happened to be a statutory rapist, a convicted felon, a pariah forbidden to live in polite society, another irredeemable fugitive in need of my help—what kind of cruel joke had God decided to play on me?
I had made so much progress in repairing my reputation and rebuilding my life since my dad blew a hole in it. After years of wavering, I had committed myself at last to my vocation as an officer of the law. I had earned the respect of my peers and superiors (most of them, at least). I had a woman who loved me and whom I loved. The last thing I needed now was to be sucked into a thankless quest to find a missing person whom no one seemed to be missing.
Except his mother, of course.
I had begun to feel the alcohol in my head: It manifested itself as a softening of my thoughts.
I turned Adam’s photograph over and read aloud the telephone number that Amber had scrawled on the back. It almost felt as if I were speaking an incantation, uttering an irrevocable spell. Before I could change my mind, I reached for the phone.
* * *
Amber Langstrom picked up on the second ring.
“It’s Mike Bowditch,” I said.
“Oh, thank God.”
“I’ve thought about it, and I’m willing to make some phone calls—”
“It would be better if you came up here.” Her voice had its familiar rough smokiness.
“I’m willing to make some phone calls.”
“Don Foss won’t talk to you. I had to drive out to his gate because no one would give me his number, and even then he wouldn’t let me inside.”
“What makes you think he’ll talk to me, then?”
“Wear your uniform when you go see him.”
Her assertiveness shouldn’t have caught me off guard. Pulsifer had told me she could be manipulative. I had seen evidence of it myself.
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s one thing for me to make some informal inquiries about a fugitive I saw listed in the WatchGuard database. It’s another to do so in an official capacity, especially if Adam is my brother.”
“He is your brother!”
“I could get myself into serious trouble.”
“You still need to come up here.” She was as hard to shake off as a terrier.
“Amber—”
“Come to Widowmaker first,” she said. “You should talk to Adam’s friend Josh. He was the last to see Adam before he disappeared, but he wouldn’t tell me what happened. Josh works on the ski patrol. Stop at the Sluiceway when you get here. I’m working lunch.” She spoke so quickly, I couldn’t find a pause to break in. “I knew you would help me. You’re going to like Adam when you find him. You have so much in common. Thank you so much! You’re my hero, Mike.”
And then she hung up.
Being told I had a lot in common with a statutory rapist did not lift my spirits.
My father had had a thing for attractive, calculating women. If I was going to be honest with myself, I had to admit that even my mother had fit the pattern. She was young when they married and naive at first. She had tolerated his absences and heavy drinking, put up with the rumors about other women, bandaged his bloodied knuckles—she had endured these indignations until she no longer could. The divorce had been her idea, and she had laid the groundwork carefully, planning exactly how she and I would make our escape, before she delivered the news to him.
When she was free of my dad, she had immediately set out to improve her station. She had gotten a temporary job as a receptionist in a law office in Portland, and wouldn’t you know, six months later she was engaged to one of the partners.
I wouldn’t be manipulated by Amber Langstrom into driving three hours. In the morning, I would call Adam’s probation officer, and maybe follow up with the mysterious Don Foss, but that would be the extent of my efforts.
But as I finished my second drink, I found myself drawing a mental map about the specific roads I would drive to get to Widowmaker.
A fool for scheming women? Like father, like son.
After a while, I plugged the phone into the wall to recharge and went heavily up the stairs to bed.
9
The next morning, I was awakened by a throbbing in my arm. My head hurt, too, and the in
side of my mouth was parched from breathing out alcohol fumes all night long. I should have listened to the nurse.
I had to put a bread bag over my bandaged arm in the shower so it wouldn’t get wet. After I had toweled myself off, I stood with my back to the mirror, looking at the stab mark. Knives are supposed to slice right through Kevlar. How had that not happened?
The previous night hadn’t been my first brush with death. I had come closer to being killed many times in the past. And yet I felt shaken in a way I never had before. Maybe it was because, for the first time I could remember, I felt as if I had something to lose. As a rookie, I’d been willing to risk my life, as if it had no value; I had naive ideas about the nobility of self-sacrifice, which were premised on my own dispensability. I hadn’t considered the possibility of being mourned by people who loved me. People like Stacey and her parents. People like Kathy Frost. I hadn’t felt afraid of death because I had mistaken selfishness for selflessness.
I found myself shivering, even though the bathroom itself was still warm from the steam. I returned to my bedroom, put on jeans and a commando sweater, and went downstairs to have breakfast.
I had slept late. The day looked like it was going to be cold, with one of those milky skies you get during the winter in Maine, when it might snow at any minute.
Stacey had sent me an e-mail message before dawn.
Hey, Mike,
Glad you’re OK! I want to hear the details.
That sucks about the poor wolf dog. Can’t you find someone to take it?
It’s a helicopter day! We’re going up in the Forest Service chopper to spot moose, since the forecast looks good. I wish they’d let me fly the thing. How hard can it be? Maybe I’ll get my helo license next summer. When are you going to let me teach you how to fly, anyway?
Love,
S.
PS. Did you call Pulsifer? Have you decided what to do about your brother? He looks just like you.
I had plenty of reservations about my connection to Adam Langstrom, but clearly the photo I’d sent had convinced Stacey.
I replied:
Hey, Stace,
Your father says, “Friends don’t teach friends to fly.” I bet that goes double for girlfriends.
How’s your cold? I hope it’s better.
I spoke with Pulsifer and he apologized for sending that woman my way. I’m still deciding what I’m going to do about Adam Langstrom. I have mixed feelings.
So I have an unexpected day off today. If the weather is going to be good, maybe I’ll get my skis out. Stay safe!
Love,
Mike
The longer I went without telling her about being stabbed, the worse it would be. But I couldn’t reach her by phone if she was up in a helicopter; there was no cell signal for hundreds of miles in that part of the North Woods.
That problem would have to wait. In the meantime, I sat down with a cup of coffee to fulfill my promise to Amber. I found the number for Adam’s probation officer. She seemed to work out of the Franklin County courthouse in Farmington.
“Shaylene Hawken,” said a voice I might have mistaken for a man’s.
“This is Mike Bowditch with the Maine Warden Service.”
“What can I do for you, Warden?”
“Do you have a minute?”
“No.”
“I can call back, then.”
She seemed offended by my attempt at courtesy. “I won’t have any more time later. Just tell me what you want.”
“You have a client named Adam Langstrom. I saw on WatchGuard that he violated his probation and that you got a judge to put out a warrant for him.”
“That’s right. Failure to appear.”
“He’s been missing for two weeks?”
“Let me guess,” she said. “You found a dead body in the woods matching his description?”
It seemed significant that she had jumped to that conclusion. “You think Langstrom committed suicide?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if he had. He was always whining about how much his life sucked, and how unfair the system is, and how he wasn’t like the other skinners.”
“Skinners?”
“Sex offenders. Langstrom has been on a downward spiral for the past month. But I’m confused here, Warden. If you haven’t seen him, why are you calling me?”
“I’m wondering if you have any leads on his whereabouts.”
“No. Do you?”
“So you haven’t been actively searching for him?”
She had a laugh that was more a series of sharp expulsions of air from her lungs. “Do you know how many clients I have? I don’t have time to chase runaway ducklings, especially when most of them manage to deliver themselves into the hands of the police sooner rather than later. It’s not like these guys are criminal masterminds. And you still haven’t explained your interest in Langstrom.”
“He and I have some history, and I thought I might check a few of his haunts.”
I had told myself I wouldn’t lie, that no matter what, I would tell this woman the truth. So much for that pledge.
“Great,” she said. “If you see him, arrest him.”
You would have thought the fact that I wasn’t coming clean with Shaylene Hawken would have made me feel less insulted. “I’m offering you my help.”
“Really? Because I can count on one finger the number of times I’ve gotten a call like this. That includes this one.”
“I understand you were the one who placed him with Don Foss.”
For the first time in the conversation, she paused before she answered. “I place a lot of my clients with Foss, guys who have nowhere else to go and no other means of making money. He’s the last chance some of these men will ever have to get their lives straight. What are you implying?”
“I’m just trying to get my facts straight.”
I heard typing in the background. “You said you had history with Langstrom, but I don’t see any hunting or fishing violations in his record.”
“We never got past the warning stage,” I said, throwing another lie on the bonfire.
“That’s a shame. Maybe if he had been busted before, he wouldn’t have raped the Davidson girl. Langstrom is like most of the statutory cases I see here. Even after spending a year and a half behind bars, he still doesn’t think of himself as a criminal. I’m guessing that’s the reason he took off. He still can’t face the reality of his situation. I have to go now. I don’t know what your real interest in this guy is, Warden. But I’d recommend finding another hobby if this is your idea of recreation.”
Shaylene Hawken had seen right through me. But then, she listened to liars every day. Hopefully, she wouldn’t check up on anything I’d said with the Warden Service.
At this stage, I had nothing to lose by calling Don Foss. I was surprised to find that there was no contact information for his company anywhere online. What kind of commercial enterprise has an unlisted phone number? I figured I could always call Shaylene back and ask her for Foss’s number. Then I could be absolutely guaranteed she would be making a report to my superiors in Augusta.
Had Amber known this would happen? That curiosity would get the better of me once I’d started asking questions? At the very least, she must have understood that any conversation I had with stonewalling Shaylene Hawken was bound to leave me feeling angry and frustrated.
I glanced again out the window at the alabaster sky above the ragged treetops. I hadn’t been back up to my father’s old stomping grounds in ages, not since the manhunt. I could drive up to Widowmaker and be back home before the snow started to fall. As long as I understood where the lines were drawn and made certain not to cross them, I was at no risk of getting myself into trouble. No risk at all.
* * *
I kept my personal vehicle, an International Harvester Scout II, in the garage, out of the elements. I had always had an affinity for vintage four-wheel-drive vehicles. Maybe it was because I spent so much of my working life driving a state-of-t
he-art GMC Sierra that was loaded with more technology than I knew what to do with. My first antique had been a Jeep Willys that ran like a dream until rust ate it down to the bones. Then I had owned a cherry Ford Bronco, which I had watched being blown apart by shotgun rounds. Looking for a replacement, I had been torn between a Dodge Power Wagon and the International Harvester. I had gone with the hardtop Scout and had never had cause to regret my decision. The gas mileage was abysmal, but my trusted four-by-four took me everywhere I wanted to go.
In the winter, I packed the back with tire chains, a come-along, and a pull rope—as much to help motorists who might have slid off the road as to help myself. (I have always been an incorrigible Good Samaritan. My life would have been easier if I had been even remotely corrigible.) I kept a pair of snowshoes in there, too, as well as a wool blanket, a five-gallon jug of gasoline, and a first-aid kit.
As I backed out of the driveway, I reached into my glove compartment for a pair of sunglasses. I also carried one of my off-duty pieces in there: a Walther PPK/S that jammed on hollow-point bullets, no matter how well I cleaned the barrel. I kept it for softheaded, sentimental reasons. It was the first handgun I had ever owned.
I debated whether to call the shelter to check up on Shadow. Joanie Swette had mentioned doing a blood test. I supposed that it was probably more reliable in terms of determining genetics, especially when the stakes were so high for an animal. But they wouldn’t have the results for a while.
The GPS on my phone said it would take more than two hours to get to Widowmaker.
The resort was located north of Rangeley, a lake town not far from the New Hampshire border. I decided to take the cross-country route, following the frozen Androscoggin River through Lewiston, Maine’s second-largest city, and past the mill towns of Livermore Falls and Jay, where the air smelled like rotten eggs and every snowbank seemed to have a crust of asphalt grit.
I had lived briefly along the Androscoggin as a small boy when my dad had a job at the old Atlantic Pulp and Paper mill, and I could still remember my mother’s warnings. Below the dams, the plunging river was coffee-brown and frothy, but then it would slip beneath a sheet of seemingly solid ice for miles.