by Paul Doiron
“Can I have a word with him?” I asked the trooper.
“Sure,” said Belanger. “I need to call in anyway.”
I waited for him to get out of earshot before I laid into Billy. “You stupid son of a bitch. Rhine is arresting you on a criminal trespass charge. You’re going to jail, Billy.”
His mouth fell open. “Why? All I did was knock on his gate.”
“And refuse to leave when he ordered you to. That’s trespassing. I don’t think the DA will actually prosecute you for it, but you’re going to spend the night behind bars.”
“But Khristian is the one who shot the moose!”
“Rhine doesn’t care about that,” I said. “All she cares about is getting a message through your thick Scandinavian skull.”
“I’m Dutch, not Scandinavian.”
“Whatever. The point is that I can’t help you here. I tried, but she’s not going to budge.” I wanted to throw up my arms. “Jesus, Billy, what am I supposed to tell Aimee?”
His eyes glistened. “Tell her I’m sorry. She’s used to me fucking up. It won’t come as no surprise.”
“Do you want me to talk to Elizabeth Morse for you?”
“Would you?”
I hadn’t expected him to say yes. I had no idea what I might say to the rich woman. “Of course.”
At that moment, the sheriff returned. “That was a pleasant experience. Wilbur was as cooperative as I’d expected. And I think the man must eat onion sandwiches for dinner. Are we ready to go here?”
“Almost.” I turned to Billy. “Give me your truck keys. The least I can do is save you the cost of having the wrecker tow it away.”
He reached into his jeans pockets and produced the keys. They were attached to the actual foot of a rabbit that I was certain he had shot one winter while hunting with his former employer’s beagles.
“You’re a good friend, Mike,” he said.
I watched Trooper Belanger fasten the handcuffs on him, wondering what I would tell Elizabeth Morse, and thinking that Billy Cronk might be the unluckiest person I had ever met.
12
I took a deep breath before knocking on Aimee Cronk’s door. She had turned on the porch light in preparation of her husband’s return home, and a gauzy cloud of insects was swirling about the sconce. People think moths are attracted to man-made sources of illumination because they mistake them for the moon, but the truth is, scientists have no clue why they hurl themselves against white-hot lightbulbs. Their senseless suicidal behavior is an unsolved mystery.
Through the thin clapboard walls of the house came the clamor of children fighting, and a television was turned up way too loud in some back room, playing a Disney song. I had to knock hard to make my presence known.
There was a crispness in the night air, but it was nothing like the usual cold that comes to Maine in late October, and this mass of self-immolating insects was yet another reminder of how crazy this Indian summer had been. I’d grabbed a wool jacket from behind my seat, but now I found myself too warm. With these wide swings in temperature, it was impossible to ever feel comfortable.
At last, a small, platinum-blond boy answered the door. There was a smear of tomato sauce on his chin and dribbles down the front of his Red Sox T-shirt. He looked up at me with ice-blue eyes that announced to the world who his biological father was.
“Hello, Ethan,” I said, “is your mommy here?”
“I’m Logan.”
“Can you get your mommy for me, Logan?”
When the Cronklet slammed the door in my face, I nearly lost my nose. I heard the scrabbling sound of children’s feet and then a woman’s commanding voice issuing orders. The door opened carefully, and Aimee peeked out. She was a soft, pale woman with pink skin that burned easily in the sun and ginger-colored hair held in place by a purple scrunchie. Without a single prompt from me, she asked, “What has he done now?”
“The sheriff arrested him for trespassing on Karl Khristian’s property.”
“Billy must have thought he killed those moose,” she stated.
“How did you know that?”
“Why else would he go to that freak’s house?” She glanced over her shoulder into the bright, warm, spaghetti-smelling house and then back again into the dark evening with a look of resignation. “Hang on for a minute while I call the neighbor girl to look after the kids. I want to get a sweater, too.”
* * *
Sitting side by side with Aimee in my patrol truck, I explained the situation to her, omitting the detail about her husband nearly getting his head blown to pieces. The dashboard gave off a faint greenish glow. Aimee had her arms crossed above her heavy breasts, but not because she was cold.
“You won’t be able to bail Billy out,” I said. “The sheriff wants to keep him overnight to send him a message.”
“Good luck with that,” she said. “She could hit him over the head with a log, and she still wouldn’t get what she was after. He’s like a dog that way.”
The words sounded bitter, but her tone was matter-of-fact, as if she understood her husband’s natural cluelessness and accepted it as part of who he was. I knew that Billy loved her, heart and soul, and this moment helped me see why.
“How much do you think the bail will be?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. Five hundred dollars. Maybe more.”
“Shoot.”
I tried to remember the bottom line on my last bank statement. Unlike a lot of Maine wardens who worked other jobs in their free time or owned their own small businesses to make ends meet, I subsisted entirely off my government paycheck. Given my problems with the top brass, it seemed wise not to divert my focus. “I could loan you a little money if you need it.”
“We’ll see,” she said. “But thank you for the offer. He’s going to be out of work again, so we’ve got that to consider, too.”
“You don’t know Morse will fire him.”
She gave me a look down the length of her freckled nose: Now I was the one being stupid.
“Thanks for coming to get me, Mike,” she said as we neared Khristian’s darkened compound. “I don’t know that we could have paid the impound fee on top of the bail.”
“Billy says you’re a saint, Aimee.”
She rolled her eyes. “I ain’t no saint. I’m just used to him is all.”
* * *
Driving home alone, I thought about the women I had dated in my life: the giggly girls in high school; Jill, my freshman-year crush at Colby, who broke my heart when she slept with my roommate; and then Sarah, long-suffering Sarah. The dynamics of that relationship had resembled those of the Cronks’ marriage—I was reckless, remote, never giving a thought to the future, or to her emotional needs—but unlike Sarah, Aimee had somehow come to terms with her husband’s incurable maleness. I didn’t blame Sarah for leaving me; she wanted and deserved better. But I still wondered what it was about me that failed to inspire the kind of unconditional love that I saw between Billy and Aimee, or Charley and Ora Stevens. I hadn’t even been able to rescue Jamie Sewall from herself.
This self-pitying line of thought led, inevitably, to Stacey. Aimee hadn’t commented on the swamp smell lingering inside my truck, but I was acutely aware of it as proof that the woman I loved had recently sat only inches away from me. And she had barely acknowledged my presence the entire time. What was the fundamental flaw in my makeup that kept her at a distance? What did Matt Skillen have that I didn’t? Besides ambition, dark good looks, a seven-figure trust fund, and a seemingly carefree love of life?
I pulled the truck up in front of my cabin, expecting, as I always did, to find it vandalized in some imaginative new way. When I’d first been transferred to Washington County, I’d been an object of mirth and derision. Once, I had found a coyote skin nailed to my door. I’d had the tires of my old Jeep slashed, as well as those of the vintage Ford Bronco I was hoping to restore. Crank calls still woke me up at night.
In Down East Maine, game wardens had been revi
led for more than a century, and I couldn’t tell whether the hatred that was directed at me was part of a generalized phenomenon or something more personal. I had started my stint in the district as a hard-ass in the mode of Marc Rivard or his protégé, Bard, but over the past months I had changed course. Since vinegar wasn’t working, I decided to try honey instead. I presented myself as a figure of trust. I hoped the word would get out that Mike Bowditch was no fool but that he wasn’t an asshole, either.
And yet still the crank calls continued.
When I saw I had three messages on my home voice mail, I automatically assumed one would be a hang-up call. But none of them was.
The first call was from McQuarrie. “Where are ya, kid? I tried your cell, but you must have it off. I was expecting a report by now. The L.T.’s wondering where you are and what you’ve been up to, and that ain’t good. He’s scheduled a regional strategy meeting at the field office in Whitneyville for tomorrow at seven A.M.”
The second call was from my stepfather. “Mike, it’s Neil. I’m not sure if this is the best number to reach you at. I’m afraid I misplaced the one for your cell. You probably don’t have the greatest coverage up there in the sticks anyway. Look, when you get a few minutes, can you give me a call back at my office? Hope you’re well, son.”
Son? Neil never called me that.
The third call was the most surprising. “Warden Bowditch, this is Betty Morse. I have a question for you about this man, Lieutenant Rivard. Here is the number for my direct line.”
I pulled the pen from my uniform pocket as fast as I could.
As much as I wanted to call Elizabeth Morse back, I knew McQuarrie would have my hide if I didn’t report in first. I was about to return his call, when my stomach made a plaintive moan. Except for a couple of crushed granola bars that I had found in the console of my truck, I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. When I was investigating a case, I often got so wrapped up in my thoughts that I forgot to feed myself.
I sat down at the plank table in my kitchen with a ham sandwich and a glass of milk that was right on the edge of going sour. As I ate, I looked around at my new digs with an unfamiliar sense of contentment.
Ever since I was a boy, I had always wanted to live in an actual log cabin. It wasn’t the lap of luxury by any means, but I was doing my best to make it comfortable. The cast-iron woodstove threw out a lot of heat. I kept a pailful of well water on the rust-ringed top to keep the air from baking everything I owned. It would steam when I got a good fire going.
I’d even tried my hand at decoration. I’d hung deer antlers on the wall. At the antiques store in Ellsworth, I’d found some framed maps of Washington County from the days when river drivers still drove logs down the flooded Machias River to the sea. And I’d spread an actual bearskin rug that I had won in a Warden Service fund-raising raffle in front of the stove in case I ever found a woman who wanted to get naked on it.
I wasn’t sure if my efforts at interior design made the place look like an underfunded logging museum or a Bugaboo Creek steakhouse. In either case, it was home, and I liked it.
The phone rang before I could finish three bites. It was Sergeant McQuarrie again. “Where the hell were ya, kid?”
“I was just about to call you.”
He made a horsey snorting sound that suggested he wasn’t convinced. “So what’s this about Billy Cronk and KKK?”
“I’m sorry, Mack, but I just got back from taking Billy’s wife to retrieve his pickup. I knew the Cronks couldn’t afford the impound fee on top of the bail. I was trying to do a good deed.”
“Just give me the lowdown, Saint Michael.”
My sergeant listened without interruption while I recounted the events of the tedious afternoon and the explosive evening. Every once in a while, I heard him spit tobacco juice into a metal cup. I ended my narration with a third apology for not reporting in to him faster, although I knew plenty of wardens who spoke to their sergeants once a week at best. They weren’t investigating the worst wildlife crime in Maine history, however.
“Khristian was already on the L.T.’s list of suspects,” McQuarrie said.
“I have my doubts about him as the perp here.”
He spat again into his cup. “Of course you do.”
“There were at least two shooters. And Karl Khristian seems like a lone-wolf type to me.”
“Don’t fall in love with your theories. Besides, it’s Bilodeau’s job to crack this case, not yours. All we need from you is to gather evidence—and report in. Understood?”
I took a sip of my half-curdled milk. “So what else did you guys find today? Were there other kill sites?”
McQuarrie laughed until he started coughing. “Frost was right. You really are a Nosey Parker. You’ll hear about it at the briefing tomorrow morning. I suggest you arrive early—and bring doughnuts.”
It would take more than a box of crullers to win my way into the lieutenant’s good graces.
Rivard had always resented my ambition. “If you want to play detective,” he’d once told me, “you should join the state police.” But what was this case if not a criminal investigation? By all rights, it should have been mine to solve, not Bilodeau’s. As the district warden who’d found the bodies, I should at least have been partnered with the investigator. The fact that I was determined to apprehend the shooters—that I was driven by a sense of duty—shouldn’t have been scorned by my lieutenant or laughed off by my sergeant. I might have meddled in cases outside my jurisdiction in the past, but that wasn’t the situation here, not by a long shot. Rivard could take the investigation out of my hands, but he couldn’t stop me from giving a damn.
I realized that I’d forgotten to tell Mack about the call from Elizabeth Morse. Until I spoke with her and learned what she wanted, it was probably just as well. I could imagine Rivard hitting the roof when he heard that the queen had reached out to me.
I tried the number she’d given me and got one of those automated female voices that instruct you to leave a message at the tone.
“Ms. Morse,” I said. “This is Warden Bowditch returning your call. I’m in for the night if you’d like to try me again, or you can reach me anytime on my cell phone.” I recited the ten-digit number. “I’m sure Lieutenant Rivard can answer any questions you might have about the investigation into the shooting. But I would like to talk with you about another matter, concerning Billy Cronk, when you have a chance. I look forward to speaking with you.”
That night, I lay awake, waiting for the phone to ring and wondering how to explain Billy’s reckless confrontation with Karl Khristian, or the irrational fear of losing his job that had motivated him to take such reckless actions. I needn’t have worried, because Betty Morse never called me back.
13
The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife kept a field office on Route 1A outside Machias. It was little more than a farmhouse with an attached garage and barn. All of the structures were painted green, like just about everything else the department owned, and this morning the buildings were surrounded by a fleet of pickups, many of them green. Rivard had commandeered the place to serve as the headquarters of his moose-massacre investigation.
At McQuarrie’s suggestion, I had stopped at the Dunkin’ Donuts in East Machias and purchased three dozen doughnuts at my own expense. I entered the already-packed house, expecting to be greeted as a hero. Instead, I found my colleagues chewing on Dunkin’ Munchkins and pouring cups of coffee from a Box O’ Joe. It seemed that Warden Bard had been a step ahead of me this morning.
In normal times, the field office was used by fisheries biologists who were trying, in vain, to bring Atlantic salmon back to the Down East rivers from which they had mysteriously vanished over the course of my lifetime. There were a hundred explanations why the salmon had gone away—global warming, acid rain, overfishing. All anyone could say for sure was that the effort to restore them had been fruitless. I couldn’t imagine spending my life devoted to a lost cause, b
ut the department biologists and biotechs must not have thought in those bleak terms. I saw two of the “fish heads” laughing and eagerly eating doughnuts in the back of the room.
As I set the surplus pastries on a table, someone clapped me on the shoulder. “Hello there!” came a familiar voice.
I turned, to find myself looking down at an old man with a lantern jaw and bright green eyes.
“Charley!” I said, shaking his strong hand.
“I looked across the room just now and said, ‘Who’s that stranger over there with the chocolate éclairs?’”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve been meaning to stop by, but one thing keeps leading to another. The moose hunt this year ran me ragged.”
“A warden’s work is never done.”
“I thought that saying referred to women.”
“Them, too.” He clapped me on the shoulder again, hard enough to leave a red mark.
Charley Stevens kept himself in great shape for a man of his advanced years. He had a farmer’s build: flat stomach, muscled forearms, and an unbreakable back. Women I knew, even young women, considered him unconventionally handsome. He had eyes the color of sea ice, and his big face was creased with laugh lines around the eyes and mouth. Every two weeks, his wife, Ora, barbered his stiff white hair with big scissors out in the yard. She was in a wheelchair, so Charley would sit on the ground, his legs folded like a yogi’s. This morning, he was wearing a crisp white T-shirt tucked into green Dickies.
“I know Ora would love to cook you dinner some evening,” he said. “The mushrooms haven’t been great this fall, but we have lots dried, and I’ve shot a fair number of black ducks. The door’s always open, as they say, and Nimrod and I are at your disposal should you ever want to send a few woodcock to their eternal rest.”
Listening to him, I couldn’t remember why I had been dodging his invitations. “I’d like that.”