The Bear Trap

by Paul Doiron

  It should have been a peaceful wait; I should have been able to listen to the birds and smell the pines. But commuters were roaring past on their way into Portland. All I heard was engines. All I smelled were fumes.

  It was just past sunup, and I was already sweating through my uniform. In the summer the Warden Service allows us to wear short sleeves, but it’s small comfort, since we are required to wear a Type III ballistic vest at all times. The vest is made of Kevlar covered by an olive-colored fabric to match our field uniform, and it will stop most bullets, except those fired from high-caliber guns at short range. It will not stop shrapnel. Nor will it stop a piercing or slashing weapon such as a knife. I’d learned that lesson the hard way five months earlier. The brush with death had left me with a curious star-shaped bruise on my back—burst blood vessels that never healed—and a scar, like a red worm, on my forearm.

  Ever since the stabbing, I had found myself taking protective measures I would never have considered before. I had started carrying a Benchmade dagger in my boot that I could use if an assailant took me to the ground. I had sewed a pocket inside the pocket of my pants to stash a second, hidden handcuff key in case my manacles were used against me. I had begun wearing additional trauma plates that inserted into concealed pockets on the vest: two in the front and one in the center of the back. These plates were made of unbreakable ceramic and added fifteen pounds to the already significant weight of the vest. Factor in my duty belt—which supported my SIG .357 sidearm, two magazines, two sets of handcuffs, a flashlight, a multitool, and a canister of pepper spray—and I was loaded up with close to fifty pounds of gear, over and above my uniform and boots. No wonder I was perspiring like a racehorse.

  At six sharp I saw a hand appear in the door, flipping the sign from CLOSED to OPEN.

  An electronic bell chimed when I stepped inside the door, and Fales glanced up from behind the register. His thick gray hair was matted in a wedged shape as if he hadn’t combed it since rising from his pillow. He still hadn’t shaved, and his grizzled beard made him resemble a miner from the Gold Rush era. He removed his reading glasses and set them on the counter.

  “You don’t waste any time, do you?” he said in his sandpaper voice.

  “What do you mean?”

  A grin split his face in half like a puppet. “I invite you in for free coffee and here you are eight hours later!”

  “I was in the neighborhood.”

  “So I guess you didn’t find anything interesting last night.”

  “Actually, I did. Do you remember that rental house you told me was unoccupied? I checked it out, and there were two women living there. They said they were sisters.”

  His untrimmed eyebrows lowered until they were overhanging his eye sockets. “Really? That’s odd.”

  “I figured you would have heard.”

  “Me, too! Stevie Nason—that’s one of his family’s properties—was just in here and I’m sure he would have said something if he’d rented the house. I remember him bitching last year about how he couldn’t find a tenant. Sisters, did you say?”

  “One of them said her name was Becky,” I said. “I didn’t get the other’s name. But they were wearing identical red wigs.”

  Now both of his eyebrows shot upward on his forehead. “Really!”

  “You sure they haven’t stopped in your store before?”

  “I think I would have remembered two young ladies of that description, Warden.”

  “Becky is about five-seven, bony-looking, and she had an unusual chin—very pointed.” I made a gesture as if stroking an invisible Vandyke beard. “The younger one is dark and pretty with a mole on her cheek you can’t miss. Are you sure they haven’t come in? I would think that someone who lived so close would stop for gas or groceries occasionally.”

  Fales had eyes as black as anthracite and nearly as impenetrable. “I’m not trying to be argumentative, but it feels like you’re accusing me of something. I hope you’re not suggesting I’d protect a couple of criminals.”

  My curiosity was so intense it could sometimes verge on rudeness—as it had just now.

  “I apologize, Mr. Fales. I was just surprised to find someone living there.”

  “My wife covers for me some days. She might have seen them. The coffee’s in back, by the way. Help yourself.”

  He returned the reading glasses to the bridge of his narrow nose and set to taking stock of his cigarette supply.

  I made my way to the coffee machine and filled the largest cup available. I took a day-old molasses doughnut out from under a bell-shaped lid and wrapped it in a napkin, then began making my way to the front of the store.

  I passed a tower of beer. It was a special Fourth of July display with cases arranged in a pyramid with a life-size cardboard cutout of the Red Sox’s ace pitcher at the center. Across his chest was an advertising slogan:

  NATIONAL HOLIDAY

  NATIONAL PASTIME

  NATIONAL BEER

  Boston baseball caps hung from a rack attached to the display, and souvenir T-shirts were draped over the boxes in different colors and sizes.

  I nearly dropped my coffee.

  I reached for the closest shirt, a blue one, and turned the collar over to look at the label: PRODUCT OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL. I hurried to the counter. “Do you have any of these in pink?”

  Fales looked at me as if I’d just fallen on my head. “You want to buy a pink Red Sox shirt?”

  “I’m asking, have you sold any in pink?”

  “Beats me. It’s part of a holiday promotion our distributor is doing. I know we have pink hats.”

  “So you don’t remember selling a pink Red Sox shirt to a woman?”

  “Are we talking about the ones in the red wigs again? No, I don’t remember selling a pink shirt to a woman in a wig.”

  “You said your wife covers for you some days. Can you call her for me and ask if she recently sold one of the shirts in pink?”

  His unshaven jaw dropped. “You want me to wake Connie?”

  “Blame it on me.”

  “Oh, I will.”

  I returned the blue shirt to the display while Fales made his call. Even from across the store, I could hear that the conversation was not amicable.

  “No, I don’t know what it’s about!” He covered the speaker with his hand. “She said she sold a couple—all to girls.”

  “Can I speak with her?”

  “Better you than me.” He handed me the phone.

  “Mrs. Fales,” I began.

  “Do you know what time it is?”

  “My name is Mike Bowditch. I’m a Maine game warden. I know this is going to sound bizarre—”

  “Bizarre? How about crazy?”

  “Please, ma’am.”

  “Yeah, I sold a couple of pink shirts and hats.”

  “Do you remember if any of the women who bought them was wearing a crimson wig?”

  “Is this one of Eddie’s pranks? Because if it is, you can tell him—”

  “One of them might’ve had a mole on her cheek like Marilyn Monroe or Cindy Crawford.”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “What about a skinny woman with sun-damaged skin and a really pointy chin?”

  There was silence on the other end of the line. “Maybe.”

  “So she sounds familiar?”

  “If she’s the bitch I am thinking of, I think she stole a couple of packs of gum when my back was turned.”

  “Do you remember what kind of gum?”

  “Huh?”

  “Was it Big Red?”

  “How did you know that?”

  The screen of the phone had become slick from the perspiration on my face. “If it’s all right, I’m going to have a detective with the state police call you. Her name is Ellen Pomerleau.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “Detective Pomerleau will explain.”

  Or at least, I hoped she would. I handed Fales his phone back and tossed a five-dollar bill on
the counter. He’d told me the coffee was free, but I had to assume that the aggravation cost extra.

  * * *

  Excited as I was, I almost called Pomerleau from the road, but since I was meeting Tate in minutes, I decided to hold off. My theory—about Becky’s buying a pink Red Sox shirt to use as a winding sheet for a dead baby—was going to sound harebrained enough as it was.

  I arrived at the hidden house before the sun had cleared the tops of the pines. I had expected Tate to call me before the appointed hour, assuming that she would be eager to hear what I’d found. But it was nearly six thirty, and the phone had not yet rung.

  I wanted nothing more than to go kick down the door, so sure was I that I had found the people who had abandoned that baby. But I knew I needed to wait.

  Five minutes passed. Then ten.

  Tate was one of the more punctual people of my acquaintance, or at least, she had been once.

  I gave up and dialed her number. “I’ve been waiting for you to call.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m writing a speeding ticket.”

  I heard the sound of cars zipping past her. “A speeding ticket?” I said in disbelief.

  “Guy was going fifty in a school zone. I pulled him over. He gave me lip. Now he’s getting a citation.”

  She was doing her job. I understood that. She was right to make stopping a dangerous driver her priority over answering my cryptic text message. But it irked me nonetheless.

  “I need you to meet me at an address when you’re finished. Twenty-seven Rankin Road in Birnam. I’ll be waiting in my truck so you can’t miss it.”

  “Do you want to explain to me what’s gotten you all worked up about this place?”

  “This is the house, Tate. The mother of that girl lives at this address.”

  “How do you know for sure it’s the right house?”

  “I just do.”

  “Well, in that case…”

  “The baby was buried in a pink Red Sox T-shirt. Fales Variety down at the corner sold one of those shirts recently. There’s more to it, but I’ll explain everything when you get here.”

  “I can’t promise I won’t be delayed, again.” Tate ended the call.

  I had never had a warm relationship with rank-and-file state police troopers. Too many of them looked down their noses at game wardens in general and (given my reputation for being a maverick) me in particular. It hadn’t taken Tate long to adopt an elitist attitude. But unlike her new colleagues, she knew me well enough to have legitimate grievances.

  I had glimpsed the other “sister” from a distance and for only seconds, but I could see her face clearly in my mind’s eye. Among the wardens I knew, I had an average memory for faces: neither hopeless nor photographic. But there had been something about the younger girl in the house. I recognized her from some place. If I could only remember where.

  I gulped down the last of my coffee and climbed out of the truck. I closed the door firmly but softly. No need to announce my arrival.

  I crouched down behind the roadside lupines to avoid detection and scanned the tire treads in the mud. I saw my own tracks immediately, one set heading in, the other set heading out. But there was a new set as well that had been made by a truck or an SUV. This other vehicle had come out heavier than it had gone in, considerably heavier. Overnight, someone had driven in to the house, picked up some seriously weighty items—and then hightailed it out of there. It couldn’t have been coincidence that this activity had happened after a law enforcement officer had showed up unexpectedly on the doorstep.

  I knew I should wait for Tate. But I had a sneaking suspicion that we would find the home unoccupied when we knocked on the door. The two women had called someone with a truck, gathered up their stuff, and fled in the night.

  Without thinking, I rose to my feet and began walking in plain view up the drive. I focused my concentration, made myself sensitive to the slightest movement, the faintest sound.

  Stacey’s father, Charley, had given me a master class in bush craft when I was a rookie. He had suggested using a mental checklist when approaching a potentially dangerous situation. As a professional pilot, he was a firm believer in taking a strict inventory before embarking on any adventure.

  What do I see? I asked myself.

  A single light is burning in the upstairs window. The others are dark. And all of them are closed tight. A patch of new cedar shingles on the back side of the house don’t match the older ones.

  What do I hear?

  No mechanical sounds coming from inside.

  What do I smell?

  Just the faintly sulfurous odor of a nearby swamp.

  What do I taste?

  The chemical sourness of the swamp gas—or whatever it is.

  What do I feel?

  Utter stillness in the air.

  I advanced to the kitchen door for a closer look. As I did, the smell of the swamp grew stronger. That made no sense; I hadn’t detected a foul odor last night. Why should the place suddenly be giving off a reek like a henhouse full of rotten eggs?

  A vehicle came rumbling down the road. I turned my head and recognized the smoky-blue shape of Tate’s Ford Interceptor. I heard the door slam. Even heard her swear aloud. She knew I hadn’t waited. She knew I had made my way alone up to the house.

  I opened the storm door, but the inner door was locked tight. I pressed my ear to the inset window.

  What do I hear?

  Hissing.

  All at once, I understood. The noxious odor, the shut windows, the hissing coming from the kitchen.

  I leaped down the stairs and sprinted toward the drive. Tate was striding squarely toward me with a scowl. “You couldn’t have waited?”

  “Get back, Dani!” I waved my arms above my head like a mad-man. “We need to get back!”

  She raised her hands in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  “Run!”

  Seconds later the house exploded in a giant fireball behind us.

  About the Author

  A native of Maine, bestselling author PAUL DOIRON attended Yale University, where he graduated with a degree in English. The Poacher’s Son, the first book in the Mike Bowditch series, won the Barry award, the Strand award for best first novel, and has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Macavity awards in the same category. He is a Registered Maine Guide specializing in fly fishing and lives on a trout stream in coastal Maine with his wife, Kristen Lindquist. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Begin Reading

  Knife Creek Teaser

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE BEAR TRAP. Copyright © 2017 by Paul Doiron. All rights reserved. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.stmartins.com

  Cover design: David Baldeosingh Rotstein

  Cover photograph: Brian Lasenby/Shutterstock.com

  Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

  e-ISBN 9781250174918

  Previously published by CriminalElement.com..

  First Minotaur Edition: June 2017

  First eBook edition: June 2017

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  Paul Doiron, The Bear Trap