Almost Midnight

by Paul Doiron

  “Careful not to shoot yourself with that thing” were his parting words to me.

  * * *

  Pulsifer thought it best for us to drive down the road a ways. Whatever he had to tell me required real secrecy.

  I followed his patrol truck to the empty parking lot of a church and then around back, where haze was rising from a small, melting graveyard. We pulled our vehicles together facing in opposite directions, as cops do, so we could converse through our driver’s-side windows.

  “What’s happened?”

  “Another state prison guard died last night.”

  “What? How?”

  “Carbon monoxide poisoning. He and his mother and sister—they all died in their sleep. The news hasn’t been released to the public yet, but the staties are saying it was a faulty furnace.”

  “Did you happen to catch the name of the guard?”

  “Clegg maybe.”

  “Pegg?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  I slumped back against the seat. I am sure I must have looked to Pulsifer as if I’d been poleaxed.

  “You knew him, I take it.”

  “Not really,” I said. “But he struck me as a decent guy. He was young and naïve, but he had a good heart. And they killed his mother and sister, too?”

  Pulsifer pricked up his ears. “Who’s the they in that sentence?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Rancic was the name in my head. But however much Gary Pulsifer might have changed in sobriety, he was still a rumormonger at heart. I couldn’t trust him with my unconfirmed hunch.

  “So I take it from the crossbow and arrows you just bought that you’re pursuing a theory about who shot your wolf.”

  “It doesn’t seem as important as it did a while ago.”

  “If it keeps you from meddling in active homicide investigations, I’m all for it. As your union rep, I recommend that you continue chasing your mystery archer. Which brings me to the other thing I want to talk to you about. I got a call from Kent Mears last night. He was drunk and pissed off. He’s no Socrates, but he figured out how you came to knock on his door yesterday. The fact that we’re both game wardens. It wasn’t cool of you to do that, Mike. The program is supposed to be anonymous.”

  “I apologize.”

  He stuck his hand into the cold air between us for me to shake. “Just don’t do it again.”

  “Do you really think people can change, Gary?” I wasn’t sure who I had in mind with this question.

  “I’m betting my life on it.”

  35

  After Pulsifer had driven off, I placed a call to Steve Klesko.

  To my surprise, the detective picked up immediately. I had assumed he would be too busy for me.

  “You must have heard about Pegg,” he said.

  A crow descended out of the mist to perch on a branch in the tree beside the graveyard. The wet black bird had a look of eager, deserving expectation, as if I might be inclined to toss it some food.

  “All I’ve heard so far has been third-hand,” I said, trying to ignore the beggar. “What’s this about a faulty furnace?”

  “I can’t comment. You know that.”

  “If you’re not going to talk to me, then why did you take my call?”

  I could hear him breathing on the other end as he considered his response.

  “What do you know about Pegg’s connection to your friend Billy Cronk?” Klesko said at last.

  “I know he tried to visit Billy at the Farm a couple nights ago, but got cold feet. I suspect he had information about the prison stabbings, who was really behind it, maybe.”

  “Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. All I can tell you is he got up the nerve to visit Cronk at Bolduc last night. It was the last time Tyler Pegg was seen alive.”

  “Why don’t you ask Billy what they talked about?”

  “I would, except he’s not here.”

  I assumed it was a joke. “What do you mean he’s not there?”

  “I mean that sometime last night Cronk walked out of the Bolduc Correctional Facility and disappeared.”

  “What?”

  “With all the talk of a pardon he must have figured he was free to go. The warden begs to differ, needless to say.”

  “Shit!”

  Leave it to Billy Cronk to jeopardize his pardon by escaping from a facility from which he was due to be released any minute.

  “Any idea why he jackrabbited?” Klesko asked.

  “Pegg must have told him something.”

  “Like what?”

  “That his family was in danger.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know where they are, by the way? Aimee and the Cronklets as you call them.”

  The crow stared at me through my windshield, which was growing mistier by the minute from my rapid breathing. “They may be staying at my house.”

  “May be staying?”

  “I offered the place to them while I’m up in the Sandy River Valley. Whether or not they took me up on the invitation, I have no idea.”

  Klesko paused half a minute to process my statement.

  Then he said, “We know that Cronk called his wife last night after he met with Pegg. So he knows his family is shacked up at your house. My impression of Mrs. Cronk is that she’s not going to be inclined to share information with me. Would you call that a fair assessment?”

  “More than fair. Look, Steve, the only reason Billy would have walked away from the Farm is that he is deeply worried for Aimee and the kids’ safety. And given what happened to the Pegg family, I’d say his concerns are legitimate. Is there any way—?”

  “I can’t assign a trooper to watch them if that’s what you’re about to ask. I can, however, stake out your place since it’s the most logical place we’re going to find Cronk.”

  “So you’re going to use his family as bait?”

  “The man escaped, Mike. That’s a felony. Maybe the governor will pardon him for that one, too, but in the meantime, we’re going to put out a BOLO with his name on it.”

  “I get it.”

  “There are a few more questions I need to ask you. You’re not going to like them, but I don’t have a choice. From Billy’s folder I know he worked as a caretaker at a mansion outside Grand Lake Stream. There’s good reason to think he’s familiar with the operation of furnaces—”

  “You think Billy might have killed Pegg and his mother and sister?”

  “His whereabouts are unaccounted for. And Pegg’s Honda is missing.”

  “No fucking way.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  “Because Billy Cronk is incapable of harming an innocent person.”

  “It’s nice that you believe that, but I don’t have the luxury. And since I can’t ask Tyler Pegg what he told your friend, I have to pursue all possible theories about how those three people died. Which means my chief priority right now is locating Billy Cronk and taking him back into custody.”

  The crow had taken wing while my attention was elsewhere.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Steve, but go to hell.”

  “I told you you’d be pissed at me. And, buddy, I hate to have to say this, but as mad as you are at the moment, please don’t call Aimee Cronk. There are prosecutors in the AG’s Office who would like nothing better than to rope you in for aiding and abetting a fugitive.”

  The first thing I did after I hung up was try Aimee’s cell.

  I expected to get her voice mail at least. Instead I received an automated intercept message: “We’re sorry. We are unable to complete your call as dialed. Please check the number and dial again, or call your operator to help you.”

  That clever, clever woman. Knowing her phone could be used to triangulate her location, she had removed the battery. Chances were, she had packed up the kids, left my house, and driven to meet Billy. Where did that leave them to run? The cops would be waiting at the apartment in Lubec.

  What had Pegg told Billy?

  Whe
n I talked with the young CO back at the hospital on the day of the stabbings, he had clearly been scared, confused, and full of doubt.

  Dawn Richie’s husband had supposedly committed suicide by poisoning himself with carbon monoxide. That the Peggs had died under similar—allegedly accidental—circumstances couldn’t be a coincidence. The similarities were either the work of a killer using a tried-and-true method to kill again or a deliberate attempt to incriminate Richie by making the connection almost comically obvious.

  I couldn’t think of a damned thing to do except wait. With luck, Aimee would reach out to me on a prepaid phone she’d bought at one of the bargain stores she frequented.

  In the meantime there wasn’t another soul who could help me.

  No sooner had that thought passed through my mind than I realized what a dunce I was being.

  She picked up on the second ring.

  “It’s about frigging time,” said Dani Tate.

  * * *

  She had been finishing up her patrol when she heard about the horrific death of Tyler Pegg and his family. After clocking out, she had spent the past couple of hours on the phone and at a computer at the Troop A Barracks, bringing herself up to speed. She’d even learned about Billy Cronk going AWOL.

  “They’re keeping his escape quiet so far,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Bad press. It raises questions about the governor’s judgment, pardoning him.”

  “Klesko told me they were going to issue a BOLO.” The acronym, which stood for “be on the lookout,” had replaced the old all-points bulletin everywhere except on television cop shows. “Something is seriously wrong with this, Dani.”

  “Gee. You think?”

  “I tried to call Aimee, and it’s pretty obvious she destroyed her phone to keep from being tracked. I guarantee when the cops get to my house, they won’t find anyone home.”

  “You must have some idea where they’d go.”

  “They’ve both got relatives Down East, but Aimee’s too smart to go where they’d be looking for them.”

  “You think she and Billy are together?”

  “It makes sense that he called her from a pay phone asking to be picked up.”

  “The special statement I’ve seen says she’s driving a blue 2006 Tahoe. Maine Purple Heart recipient plates. License number BB544.”

  “Billy would have swapped out the plates with something he pried off an unattended vehicle. I’m finding it hard to focus on the most important question here—who murdered Pegg and his family?”

  “Maybe no one. People die of carbon monoxide poisoning.”

  “Pegg knew something about what really happened at the prison—the actual reason Richie and Mears were ambushed. And now the conspirators think Pegg shared his suspicions with Billy before he died.”

  “Is that your working hypothesis?”

  “For the time being, until I can learn more and come up with another one.”

  “What are you scheming, Mike? I hope you’re not planning on driving down to the Pegg house in Thomaston.”

  “It occurred to me.”

  “You have to realize the more you try to help Billy, the less anyone will trust you when the time comes for you to vouch for him again. The facts won’t matter. You’ll be viewed as unreliable and probably an accomplice to his escape.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “You could go visit your wolf. Lizzie Holman told me his fever’s down and he’s fully conscious. He ate an entire Smithfield ham.”

  “When did you speak with Holman?”

  My tone must have transmitted some of the unease I was feeling at Dani’s involving herself so deeply in Shadow’s convalescence.

  “I’m not butting into your life, Mike. She actually texted me because she couldn’t get hold of you, and you’d mentioned we were friends. Check your messages, and you’ll see I’m telling the truth.”

  I did, and she was.

  “I heard the she-wolf last night,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “One hundred percent. She is still alive, Dani. I don’t know for how long. She seemed to be up on one of the Mount Blue spurs. I’m still not sure if I should try to live-trap her or let her go, hoping she heads back into the Boundary Mountains.”

  “Trying to trap her would be an adventure.”

  “A futile adventure.”

  “Fun, though.” Her tone was both excited and wistful. She missed being a game warden, I could tell.

  At precisely this moment in the conversation I realized how much I wished we were having this conversation in person.

  “You’d love the cabin where I’m staying. It’s on the shore of Tantrattle Pond. Do you know where that is?”

  “You keep forgetting I grew up over the gap in Pennacook. We used to ride our sleds over that way in the winter. There’s an ITS trail that goes right past Tantrattle.”

  “Do you want to come up?”

  “I have to work again in less than nine hours, Mike. I’m exhausted and not going to drive up for a quickie. It would make me feel cheap, for one thing.”

  She had wounded me with the accusation. “That’s not what I had in mind. I want you to see the cabin because it’s so peaceful and perfect. I know you’d love being there.”

  “That’s sweet. But it doesn’t make up for the fact that you were never going to ask me for help.”

  “I made the call, didn’t I?”

  “Finally.”

  “Better late than never.”

  “Not always.” She went away for a while. “I’ve got to get some sleep. You weren’t the only one who had a dramatic night. I busted a guy who’d been beating his girlfriend’s son with a belt. And for once, the woman didn’t even make excuses for the scumbag. Domestic violence cases are always so frustrating. This one feels different. I actually have hope.”

  “It sounds like you made a difference.”

  “Time will tell, I guess. If I were you, that’s what I’d focus on today, making a difference. You can’t help the Cronks, but maybe there’s someone else you can help. We all need a friend in our corner.”

  She meant the rogue wolf, but she meant more than that.

  36

  As I drove north up the valley, I reflected on what my uncle had told me about my mother. I had so many things to occupy my mind, between the Peggs, the Cronks, and Dani. Yet it was Denis’s words that echoed inside my skull: “Your mom was a selfish, spoiled person when she was a baby, and she was a selfish, spoiled person the day she died.”

  That assessment was false in all kinds of ways.

  But I couldn’t dismiss it.

  Denis had been right about me, as well. Six years earlier, I might well have beaten him up for insulting me, just as my father would have done. But I liked to believe that I was a different person now.

  Not until I had met Dani—a sane, stable woman who wanted a normal life—had I finally made the connection between the fucked-up example that my parents had set for me in childhood and my subsequent romantic failures. I hadn’t believed men and women were destined to live happily ever after. Marriage in my mind was like sharing a cell with someone who started out as your best friend but who, over time, transformed into your mortal enemy. Was it any wonder I had sought a life of self-sufficiency despite knowing that such an existence would be lonely and miserable?

  All of the counterexamples I had seen of loving, long-term partnerships—Ora and Charley Stevens, Aimee and Billy Cronk—had failed to disabuse me of my self-damaging beliefs. And my own misadventures with Stacey couldn’t have helped.

  When I reached Avon, I turned down the dirt road to the grassy strip of the Lindbergh Airport. There were no hangars, no landing lights, no control tower, just an open field with a couple of dripping wind socks and no one watching. With all the fog, I felt it was a safe place for me to conduct my scientific experiment.

  I had noticed a stack of wet, moldering hay bales there on my prior visit: a poor backstop f
or a sliding plane. I removed an L.L. Bean fishing catalog I’d tossed in my back seat and brought it with me across the wet field. I slid the catalog under the baling wire to create an improvised target.

  Then I screwed the broadheads onto the three Spider-Bite X2 bolts and snapped two of the arrows into the quiver on the underside of the mechanical bow. I slid my boot toe into the cocking stirrup, gripped the bowstring with both hands, and straightened up, pulling the length of waxed polyester until I heard a catch. The draw didn’t take much strength—most crossbows and bows I had drawn strained muscles I didn’t know I possessed. I fitted a bolt into the slight groove until the fletching was secured beneath the retention spring.

  Then I paced off ten yards. I aimed, fired, and nailed the center of the catalog. The bolt penetrated the paper and the hay all the way to the fletching.

  I paced off another ten yards and repeated the process. This time the bolt caught the upper corner of my target.

  Ten more yards and the broadhead missed the catalog by a foot.

  I’d been winging it thus far, trying to get a feel for the weapon. I hadn’t been steadying myself and bracing my elbow as I might have in a genuine hunting situation where I was attempting to kill a big animal from a place of ambush.

  I retrieved my three bolts—all fortunately intact—and paced out to fifty yards. While the Blood Eagle Tactical wasn’t a toy by any means, I estimated its effective range to be as abbreviated as that of a BB gun.

  I knelt on my right knee in the grass and braced my left elbow on my left kneecap. Without a log or branch to steady my aim, it was the best I could do. I breathed in and let out half a breath. Then I fired at my target. I reloaded and fired again. A minute later, I repeated the action for the third and final time.

  I was a fair shot—not the best in the Warden Service, but not the worst either—and I had missed the hay bale, not to mention the target, by a country mile with every volley.

  My experiment had proven two things. The first was that this particular bow was capable of being drawn and fired by a person lacking upper-body strength. The second was that, unless the shooter was a world-class bowman, he or she had to have been quite close to Shadow when firing the fateful bolt.