by Paul Doiron
“What?”
“Had some sort of seizure as a kid and bit part of it off. That’s what I heard. Lots of people think he’s stupid because of the way he talks. He’s not stupid.”
“Are you afraid of him?” I asked.
The question seemed to offend the small man. “If I was afraid of asshats like him, I’d never leave my freaking house.”
From his flattened nose, I should have guessed that Mink had been in his share of scraps.
“Can I see the picture?” he asked suddenly.
“What picture?”
“The one you showed Dyer.”
He brought the photograph very close to his myopic eyes. “This is that Adam guy, yeah? He kind of looks like you.”
“Ever see him around Bigelow? Maybe at the Snow Bowl?”
“I think I’d remember him.”
“Why?”
“Because he looks like trouble I’d want to avoid.”
Based on the past couple of days, I couldn’t argue with him on that point. What I was having trouble understanding was how Logan Dyer could work at Widowmaker and claim not to recognize Adam Langstrom: the most notorious student ever in the history of ASA.
Mink directed me another mile down the road and then told me to take a right into the woods. We passed a farm on one side and then a farm on the other side. The wind blew the snow from the white fields onto the road. It was banked in the shapes of waves, like a flash-frozen sea. We were in the flat bottomland of the Dead River, although we still hadn’t crossed the river.
“You walk all the way into town from here?” I asked.
“It’s good exercise.”
“Don’t you have a vehicle?”
“Cars are too much aggravation.”
The sky had gotten completely dark, but the falling snowflakes reflected the beams of my headlights, and it felt as though we were traveling through a shimmering tunnel of ice. Finally, we reentered the forest again. We crossed a rickety bridge that should have broken beneath the weight of the state plow truck. The windows of a few more farmhouses glowed as we climbed yet another hill.
A line of snowmobiles crossed the road in the distance, their headlights flashing one after the other. I knew that one of the state’s major sledding trails passed along the base of East Kennebago Mountain. We were nearing its northeastern slopes.
“Can you see the lights of the resort from here?” I asked.
“Wrong side of the mountain. This is my stop up here.”
A steep, unplowed driveway branched off from the farm road through a Christmas-card forest. The driving might have been hazardous, but the scenery was undeniably beautiful. I brought the Scout to a halt and pulled the emergency brake while Mink straightened his fur hat.
“Welcome to East Bumfuck,” he said. “Population: me.”
“Are you going to be OK hiking in there?” I asked.
“Christ! You sound like my freaking mother.”
He hopped out, slammed the door, and began trudging up into the dark woods without so much as a thank you. Mink was a piece of work, but the strange little man could clearly take of himself. The cloying smell of his cologne lingered inside the truck. I drove back out of the woods with the window down.
17
Even in good weather, the drive home would have taken me a solid three hours. But with roads like greased glass, and probably worse in the pass through the mountains, my estimated time of arrival would be well past midnight. Should I make the attempt or try to find a motel room between the mountain and Rangeley? I wondered.
My body voted for sleep.
Unfortunately for my body, my phone buzzed when I reached the bottom of the hill. I hadn’t noticed the lack of a cell signal when I had been higher up the mountainside, near Mink’s cabin. I grabbed the phone, hoping to see Stacey’s number on the screen, but it was Pulsifer, of all people.
“Don’t start with me,” I said, foreseeing what he would say.
“I had to hear you were stabbed from DeFord? I thought we were amigos, Mike. What else have you been hiding from me?” His voice sounded ragged, as if he was outdoors, trying to speak above blowing wind.
“I am not kidding, Gary. I’m too tired for one of our usual conversations.”
“Which are what, exactly?”
“Your giving me endless grief.”
His response was to cackle. “If you don’t want to hear my exciting news, then just say so.”
I pulled the Scout over and put the transmission into park. “What is your exciting news?”
“I was out on my sled today,” he said. “Snodeo is coming up this weekend, and I wanted to get a head start on the inevitable drunks.”
No matter how hard I tried, I was unable to keep Pulsifer from spinning his yarns at his usual spider’s pace.
“Please don’t tease this out. I really am beat.”
“Two hours ago, I got a call. It was a Rangeley cop I know. He was over in Dallas Plantation and wanted me to come look at something.”
It was a township located between Kennebago and Rangeley, with no population to speak of. The summit of Widowmaker stared down at the unpeopled patch of forest at the foot of Saddleback Mountain.
“What was a Rangeley cop doing in Dallas Plantation?” I asked.
“He just happened to be closest to the scene.”
“The scene of what?”
Pulsifer must have realized he was reaching the limit of my patience. “A couple of cross-country skiers from Saddleback found an abandoned truck this afternoon parked near the Navy Road. That’s not unusual. People abandon a lot of old beaters in the woods. It just so happened that these skiers were the curious type. They decided to poke around. The windows were all smashed. Again, nothing unusual there. What was unusual was the blood all over the inside seats.”
My heart tightened like a fist. “How much blood?”
“Enough for them to call the Rangeley PD. My buddy Steve drove out there to see for himself, and of course the truck had no plates. So he got on the horn with Dispatch and called in the VIN. Guess who the vehicle was registered to?”
I was afraid to say the name. “Adam Langstrom.”
“Close! Amber Langstrom.”
“Shit.”
“It gets worse. Steve and Amber used to be friends—if you know what I mean. He called me up and asked me what he should do, and I said, ‘Call the sheriff. Have them send a detective. But whatever you do, don’t tell Amber.’”
“But it was too late. He already had.”
Pulsifer reacted as if I had stepped on the punch line of one of his jokes. “How did you know that?”
“I’ll explain in a minute. Where’s the truck now?”
“In a clearing off the Navy Road, but it’s about to be towed back to Farmington. Jim Clegg is here from the sheriff’s department and he is going to have his forensics guy go through it from A to Z in the morning.”
Amber had neglected to tell me that the truck her missing son was driving was registered in her name. Had he been using it with her permission, or had he taken it without asking? Either way, Amber’s abrupt departure from work that afternoon suddenly made sense. What else had she neglected to tell me?
“I need specific directions.”
“Mike, it’s in Dallas Plantation.”
“And I’m just down the road in Kennebago.”
“What the fuck?” Now he was the one who sounded as if he’d been sucker punched.
“Just tell me how to get there, and I’ll explain everything when I see you. And don’t let them move the truck before I arrive.”
* * *
I drove at an unsafe speed down Moose Alley, past the turnoff to Widowmaker, until I crossed the line into Dallas Plantation.
On my GPS, the Navy Road showed as a thin brown line that curved up from the Dead River valley into the high peaks between Saddleback and Sugarloaf. I looked for a sign telling me where to turn, but the road, like so many in this area, seemed to be unmarked. Even s
o, I had no trouble finding the turnoff. Multiple tire treads showed that there had recently been heavy traffic into and out of the snowy woods.
The location of the abandoned truck only added to the mystery.
To the extent that Dallas Plantation was known for anything, it was known for its semisecret navy base. On maps, the facility appeared under the acronym SERE. The letters stood for survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. SERE school was a camp where the military trained U.S. Navy and Marine Corps pilots in what to do if they were shot down behind enemy lines.
A cloud of folklore surrounded the mountain base. Some conspiracy theorists claimed that the military trained black-ops contractors on the grounds; they said the instructors waterboarded pilots to train them how to resist torture. Defenders of SERE said those accounts were slanders cooked up to discredit the navy.
All I knew was that the road I was traveling ended at a gate guarded by men with automatic weapons. And for some unknown reason, Adam Langstrom’s bloody pickup had been left in the forest outside the perimeter.
I followed the main branch of the road a mile, past cutoffs to Redington Ridge and Saddleback Lake, until I could go no farther because there was a heavy military vehicle blocking the way. As I came to a stop, a man in a camouflage uniform and black gaiters and boots stepped forward to meet me.
“You’re going to have to turn around,” he said, coming around to my window. He wore a black watch cap and fingerless green gloves. “The road is closed.”
I produced my wallet and badge. “I’m a game warden. Gary Pulsifer called me.”
He motioned me forward. “Drive through, Warden.”
Glancing through the trees ahead, I saw an eerie glow, as if the haze itself had been electrified. As I drew near, I saw that the strange illumination was coming from a construction light mounted to a trailer. Its bright halide lamps were all focused on a blue Ford pickup with a smashed window. I did a quick scan of the scene and spotted a second Humvee, a sheriff’s police cruiser, and a flatbed tow truck.
Thankfully, I saw no sign of Amber.
Pulsifer was standing beside his bright yellow snowmobile, speaking with an older man in a brown uniform. When he saw my Scout drive up, he paused and shook his head in a theatrical show of vexation. His vulpine features seemed more pronounced in the weird light. His nose and chin seemed extra pointed.
“That was fast,” he said.
“I told you I was in the neighborhood.”
Pulsifer was wearing his black-and-gray snowmobile suit. He had set his helmet on the seat of his sled. “I have a few questions about that, but they can wait.” He waved his hand at the older cop he had been speaking with. “Mike, do you know Jim Clegg? He’s a detective with the sheriff’s department. Jim, this is the infamous Mike Bowditch.”
I pressed my teeth together behind my smile. Infamous was not how I wished to be known.
The detective had chalk white hair and a red roll of fat under his chin. We exchanged greetings and handshakes.
“What’s the story?” I asked.
“You know most of it already,” said Pulsifer. “The truck’s registered in Amber’s name.”
“She bought it last month in Farmington at a private sale,” said Clegg, who seemed to have a runny nose. “Paid two grand for it.”
She had been overcharged. The truck was a battered Ford Ranger, manufactured well before the millennium and poorly maintained in the intervening years, to judge from the missing bumper, rust spots, and assorted dents and scratches.
“It was her get-out-of-jail gift for Adam,” said Pulsifer.
“She told you that?” I asked.
“She told Steve. I mentioned that they were old acquaintances.”
I was aware of people moving in the shadows outside of the glare of the construction light. “Where is she now?” I asked.
Clegg’s double chin grew a little redder with frustration. “After I had a chance to interview her, I asked officer Haines to escort her home.”
There was a warrant out for Amber Langstrom’s son, and some lovesick cop had violated every rule in the book by inviting her to the scene of what might well have been the young man’s murder.
“Tell me about the blood.”
“Splatter on the dash and the seat,” said the detective. “Consistent with a gunshot wound to the head, but not necessarily.”
“But there’s no body?” I said.
Pulsifer dug his hands into his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. “The navy brought down one of their dog teams to do a sweep around the lot. But they haven’t found anything.”
“What about the glass?” I asked.
“What about it?”
“Is there any glass on the ground, under the snow? If not, it means the windows were broken someplace else and then the truck was moved here.”
“Get a load of Sherlock Junior!” Pulsifer almost sounded proud of me.
“Can I have a look?” I asked.
Clegg shrugged. “We’ve been waiting for you to arrive before covering the vehicle, so now would be the time.”
“I explained to Jim that Amber had come to you for help,” said Pulsifer. “I suggested you might have some useful information that was worth waiting for.”
“I’d like to hear more about your involvement with Ms. Langstrom later,” said Clegg.
“Involvement is the wrong word.”
“I hope you’re not going to tell me you’re screwing her, too,” said the detective.
“No!”
“So what is the story with you two?” said Pulsifer. He hadn’t forgotten how elusive I had been with him.
The cold skin of my face stung as blood rushed into it. “It might take some time to explain.”
“Can it wait for morning?” asked Clegg.
“I think so.”
“Good, because I’ve been standing in the snow for two hours already, and I’d like to wrap up what we can here and go get some sleep.”
Clegg meant that literally. The pickup would be covered tightly in plastic to protect it against the elements while it was hauled to the department’s garage. Pulsifer had done me a real favor in postponing that process until I arrived.
I made my way into the cold circle of light around the Ranger. The right side of the dashboard and the passenger seat had a dull maroon tint. Some of the blood had been smeared toward the passenger door, as if something—a body—had been pushed out. The right window had been almost entirely shattered; all that remained was a jagged fringe of spiderwebbed glass around the edges.
I circled around to the other side of the truck. There was no visible broken glass.
Clegg appeared at my shoulder. “Satisfied?”
“I thought it was the driver’s window that was broken.”
“No, this one was just rolled down,” he said. “It’s the other one that was smashed.”
I made my way around to the back of the truck. Snow had piled up in the bed, but it was thicker along the sides and near the cab, as if the pickup had been carrying something big recently. I glanced around the lot, gauging the heights of the snowbanks along the perimeter.
“I think there was a sled in the back of this truck,” I said.
“A snowmobile?” said Pulsifer.
“Look at the shape.”
In the winter, I would often go on patrol with a snowmobile in the back of my Sierra. When the banks got high enough, all you had to do was back up to one, throw open the tailgate, and drive your sled out. No need for a ramp.
Unfortunately, half a foot of snow had fallen that afternoon. Whatever snowmobile tracks might have been visible earlier had become soft, unreadable grooves.
I gazed around the clearing. “I expected to see Shaylene Hawken here.”
“Are you kidding?” said Pulsifer. “If Langstrom’s dead, it means less work for her.”
Standing beside the construction light were two men, one in camouflage utilities, the other in civilian clothes. The man in civvies
seemed totally focused on me. I was shocked to realize that I knew him.
“Is that Torgerson?”
“How do you know Lane?”
“I met him this afternoon at Widowmaker along with a couple of his drinking buddies. What the hell is he doing here?”
“So you met the Night Watchmen,” said Pulsifer with a toothy grin. “Someone from the school must have called him. Torgerson used to be a SERE instructor. He moved back to Rangeley after he retired from the navy.”
No wonder the old guy was such a badass; he’d worked at a survival school, teaching pilots how to resist abuse by abusing them.
Amber’s truck had been abandoned at a trailhead just outside an off-limits navy base. The proximity to the SERE school might have been coincidental or it might have been significant. The same could be said about Torgerson’s presence at the scene. The so-called Night Watchmen had a legitimate connection to the base. He and his friends had also voiced contempt for the local ex-cons whose names were on the sex offender registry.
“I’m going to go talk to him,” I told Pulsifer. “I want to know what he’s doing here.”
“Do I actually have to tell you what a bad idea that is?”
Torgerson watched me approach with the same welcoming expression with which he might have greeted a door-to-door salesman.
“Chief Torgerson,” I said. “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again so soon.”
You might have thought he was totally deaf.
“This must have been the call you got at the Sluiceway,” I said. “Someone from SERE wanted you to know Adam Langstrom’s truck had been found.”
The SEAL beside him said, “Do you know this guy Torgy?”
Torgerson’s eyes bored into mine. “I know exactly who he is.”
Without uttering another syllable, Torgerson turned his back on me. He dug his fists into the pockets of his peacoat as he tromped away through the snow toward a cluster of parked vehicles. The SEAL remained behind for a few seconds, his eyebrows knit together, his mouth twisted in confusion. After a while, he also left the halo of the construction lights for the darkness of the trees.
Torgerson was an expert at manipulation and intimidation. I had to hand it to him. He’d left me feeling as naked as if I’d just stepped out of the shower. And he’d done it without making a single explicit threat.