by D. A. Keeley
“Background only?” Hewitt said.
Peyton nodded, then to Pete: “Tell us more about the boy.”
“Good kid. Hard working. Gets picked on because he’s small.”
“If teachers know a kid is being bullied,” she said, “why don’t they stop it? I’ll never understand that.”
He looked at her, surprised. “I … I haven’t witnessed it firsthand. If I had …”
“Is that relevant?” Hewitt said.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Everything alright, Peyton?” Hewitt asked.
“Fine,” she said.
Hewitt was still looking at her. “What we need from you, Pete”—he turned back to Pete—“is confirmation of this kid’s character.”
“We think he witnessed a crime,” Peyton said. “He may be asked to testify.”
“Peyton,” Hewitt said. “Let’s play this closer to the vest, please.”
“We can trust Pete,” she said. “This conversation never leaves this room.”
Pete nodded.
“Matt Kingston has no criminal record,” Peyton said, “nothing that shows up anywhere. But we don’t want to get blindsided by information about him that comes out down the line.”
“You won’t get blindsided,” Pete said. “He’s a good kid.”
“Who just happens to poach deer. See the problem?”
“Peyton, he poaches so his family can eat.”
“The attorneys won’t care about his family’s financial woes,” she said.
“Is that true about the deer jacking?” Hewitt said. “If so, I don’t know if we can use him.”
“I’m not sure you realize how far your government salaries go up here,” Pete said.
“I don’t follow you,” Hewitt said.
Peyton did—and she knew what was coming.
“I hear some agents get transferred here, sell their homes in other parts of the country, and buy beautiful, big places up here. You know what the local economy is like—hell, what it always has been like, Peyton. Not everyone has a government salary.”
She nodded. She knew she lived better in this region—where she’d bought her three-bedroom, two-bath Cape on ten acres for under $200,000—than she could on just about any other assignment in the US.
“I’ve got news for you guys,” Pete went on, “Matt Kingston isn’t the only kid poaching. And a lot of these families can’t afford not to.”
Peyton looked at Hewitt. She knew Pete spoke the sentiment of many residents. It might have been the first Hewitt was hearing about it, though. Jimenez was at his desk and looked up from his plate of fajitas. He looked ready to protest, but chewed and said nothing. Peyton knew Jimenez had a right to protest. He’d grown up in California, the son of two migrant workers, and had seen a Customs and Border Protection career as a way out.
“Federal salaries aren’t making anyone rich,” Hewitt said, “but your point is well taken. Is Matt Kingston articulate?”
“I guess. He works most evenings at Tip of the Hat, bussing tables, stocking the kitchen, washing dishes—that stuff. And he’s an honor-roll student. I saw him carrying an SAT-practice book into work the other night.”
“So he wants to go to college?” Peyton said. Her legs were crossed, and the black laces of her boots slapped against the leather as she bobbed her foot. “And he’s going to pay his own way.”
Pete Dye nodded. “No doubt. He’ll probably go to the Reeds branch of U-Maine, live at home, and work. You know the story.”
“Yeah,” she said. “And you trust this kid a lot.”
“I do. What exactly did Matt see? Why would he have to take the stand?” Pete said, leaning to retrieve his Nalgene bottle off the floor. His coffee was gone.
“Thanks for stopping by.” Hewitt handed him his business card. “May we call you if we have further questions?”
“Is this about the Freddy St. Pierre thing? Serving as a key witness in a murder trial is asking a lot of a seventeen-year-old. You don’t have any other witnesses, do you?”
Hewitt smiled. “Peyton said you were smart.”
“Pete,” Peyton said, “obviously, this is a delicate matter that must be handled with great discretion.”
“Of course. Mum’s the word.” He stood and looked at them.
Hewitt nodded. Then Pete Dye turned and left the building.
Nineteen
“Am I correct in assuming Matt Kingston witnessed the guy—I think the newspaper said his name was Simon Pink—get shot?” Pete Dye lifted his glass of Bud Light and sipped.
The glass was chilled, and Peyton watched a bead of condensation drip to the table.
They were in Keddy’s, as planned, at 7 p.m. Friday. Pete had just arrived, and unlike Peyton, apparently wasn’t ready to compartmentalize. She had no problem leaving work at the office this day. In fact, the last thing she wanted to talk about with Pete was the Simon Pink murder. Mostly because she couldn’t.
“My mother’s staying with Tommy,” Peyton said. “She’s had a long day. Arrived at my house this morning at seven, and she’ll sleep in the guest room tonight.”
“Babysitting?”
“She calls it ‘grandmothering,’” she said and smiled at him, relieved he was letting go of their previous discussion regarding Matt Kingston. She smiled a lot when she looked at Pete Dye. That crooked smile. Too cute for his own good. Or maybe for her own good.
She sipped her beer and made sure her phone was set to vibrate. No calls or texts from Lois.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “Did Matty see the guy get shot?”
The one question she hoped he wouldn’t ask.
The one she couldn’t answer.
They’d begun the day on a different (but equally-as-difficult) topic: sex and commitment. She was holding out, and she knew it was killing him, but she needed to be sure. Now she had to withhold something else, something that to one not employed in a criminal-justice field, might seem inconsequential.
“Pete, I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation.”
She waited and watched. Would he be insulted? He wanted to be part of her life, but she wasn’t letting him in—not in her bed (yet) and not in this aspect of her professional life.
A live band played in the adjoining bar. A loud, low rumble, was punctuated occasionally by a voice that sounded like porcelain shattering.
“Besides,” she went on, “if Matt Kingston witnessed a homicide, you’re better off not knowing about it.”
He set his beer down. “You can’t tell me because I might be in danger if you do?”
“It’s more than that.”
She met lots of people who found her job interesting. What’s it like? Do you get scared chasing people at night all alone in the desert? And the one only a handful have the guts to ask: Have you ever shot anyone?
“It’s just that”—she tried to read his expression; was he angry or desperate?—“you need to understand I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation. That’s protocol.”
“When you were married, did you tell Jeff about your work?”
“No.”
“That bother him?”
“At the start. Then he grew disinterested in things that he wasn’t at the center of.”
“I can understand that,” he said and smiled, “on both fronts.”
“Does it bother you?” she said.
“Yes.”
The waitress appeared. He ordered a steak, rare, a salad, and a baked potato. She asked for the cobb salad.
“What are your plans for the weekend?” he said, when his salad arrived.
“Nothing much,” she said. “Tommy’s soccer season just ended, so we’ll probably lay low.”
“I’ve been wanting to have you to my place for dinner,” he said. He set his sa
lad fork down and looked thoughtfully at her, choosing his words carefully, suddenly a shy seventeen-year-old asking a girl to the prom. “You’ve cooked for me several times,” he said, “and you’ll probably find this hard to believe, but I’m actually an excellent cook. How’s tomorrow sound?”
“Love to,” she said, “and I’m not surprised that you can cook, Pete. But my mother committed me to dinner with her friends.”
“I don’t understand. She promised her friend you’d be there?”
“That’s my mom.” She tried to laugh it off, but the laugh was forced, and she knew he picked up on her tension immediately. For one who made her living with her poker face, she found social situations—especially those with men—different. It wasn’t easy to be evasive to one she cared about.
“I’m confused.” He pushed his salad away.
“My mother does a lot for me, Pete. I’m trying to appease her.”
“She wants you to meet someone, is that it?”
“Her friend’s son is coming to see his mother. My mother invited them for dinner. My mom watches Tommy every day after school and is sleeping in my guest room tonight so I can be here with you.”
“So you’re going on a blind date?”
“No. I’m not looking at it like that. A nice elderly woman offered to cook a meal with my mother. Her son is also in town. That’s the long and the short of it, Pete.”
But she knew it wasn’t. Both her mother and Rhonda Gibson viewed the dinner exactly the way Pete Dye did.
“My mom likes you a lot. You know that, right?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Look, I’m appeasing my mother because she helps me out so much. That’s all.”
He nodded. But when the main course arrived, he spoke little, ate quickly, and spent most of his time avoiding eye contact, staring, almost longingly, she thought, at the bead curtain behind which was the bar and the live music.
When the bill came, she offered to split it.
And he let her.
Twenty
“You guys trying to keep me busy?” Stephanie DuBois said, entering Peyton’s kitchen the way she entered every room—like her hair was on fire.
And it could have been. A flaming redhead, Stephanie had a personality to match. She wore bright colors, short skirts, and, much to Peyton’s admiration, had been held in Contempt of Court twice recently.
She swung her briefcase onto the island like it were a rucksack.
“I mean, I like billable hours as much as the next lawyer, but it’s almost nine o’clock.”
Hewitt said, “Got to pay for that BMW somehow.”
“No,” Stephanie said, “that’s my ex-husband’s problem. I made sure of that.”
“First or second ex?” Peyton said.
“Second. First covered my ski house at Sugarloaf.”
“If I didn’t know better,” Hewitt said, “I’d think you represented my ex-wife.”
“If I had”—Stephanie grinned—“you’d be living in a cardboard box, agent.”
“You’re a real princess,” Hewitt said. “Want a beer?”
“Coffee. But don’t brew a pot on my account.”
“It’s a Keurig,” Peyton said. “Want Starbucks?”
“Why can’t all law-enforcement officials be like you, Peyton?”
“I ask myself that every time I attend a boring meeting.” She moved to the coffee maker.
“Excuse me,” Hewitt said.
“Except, of course, your meetings, Mike. They’re never boring.” Stephanie laughed, and Peyton smiled.
“Hey,” Hewitt said, “I thought you were having dinner with Pete Dye.”
“Already did,” she said.
Peyton put a coffee cup beneath the dispenser. She saw Hewitt look at the wall clock. Yes, the dinner had ended with the main course. Yes, Pete had declined dessert. And, yes, neither she nor Pete had wanted to chat over coffee.
“This must be important if you left your date early,” Stephanie said.
“The date was over,” Peyton said curtly.
“Ouch,” Stephanie said. “Sorry.”
Peyton shook her head. Coffee made, she added a splash of cream and set the Red Sox mug in front of Stephanie. All three sat at the kitchen island.
Briefcase open, Stephanie’s iPad was before her. “Tommy in bed?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Lois had departed since she got home early.
“Tell Stephanie what we have,” Hewitt said. He had not asked where Tommy was.
Peyton explained her recent visit to Garrett High School.
When Peyton had finished, Stephanie looked up from her notes. “This kid, Matt Kingston, is seventeen?”
Peyton nodded.
“That’s confirmed? He can’t be tried as an adult?”
“We just met with a teacher,” Hewitt said, “but we’ll get his birth record.”
Stephanie nodded. “So Matt Kingston goes out to jack deer on the St. Pierre property, but before he sees a deer, he hears voices and a gunshot. And all of this is on the night Simon Pink is murdered with Freddy St. Pierre’s gun?”
“Yeah,” Hewitt said, “and the timeline matches up.”
Peyton sprayed the granite counter top with glass cleaner and wiped it down with a paper towel. She’d splurged on the granite, and her mother, God love her, left crumbs everywhere.
“Deer-jacking won’t look very good,” Peyton said and threw the paper towel away.
Stephanie leaned forward, elbows resting on the island, holding her coffee cup with both hands. An Alex and Ani bracelet dangled from her wrist. “If we go forward with the prosecution of St. Pierre,” she said, “this kid will have to take the stand. And, no, confessing to attempted deer-jacking will not serve him well. And if I were cross-examining him, I’d make a big stink about him being at the murder scene with a weapon of his own.”
“But Simon Pink was shot with a handgun,” Hewitt said.
“That isn’t the point. The kid was there. He had a gun. Half the time, criminal prosecution is about muddying the waters, and the deer rifle is a great distraction. If he can shoot a rifle, he could’ve fired a handgun. That might be enough to plant reasonable doubt.”
“Jesus,” Hewitt said, “you really did work for my wife, didn’t you?”
“Something else,” Stephanie said, “will certainly be brought up: Why didn’t the kid call the cops that night? He waited almost a week, until he happened to see Peyton.”
“He said all he knows is he heard a gunshot,” Peyton said. “Then he saw the story of the murder on the TV news. Thought about it for several days. Then I was walking by …” She shrugged. “That’s what he told me this afternoon. He’s scared and confused.”
“Sure. All of that’s fine and good. But you see where I’m going with this. He hears what he hears, then just slips off? Went back to his truck and drove home? That isn’t exactly helping his credibility.”
“Said he read about the fire in the morning,” Peyton said. “Mentioned it to some kids who, at first, told him not to say a thing since deer-jacking is illegal. But then, after news of the murder broke, he had second thoughts.”
“And you were in the right place at the right time?”
“You don’t believe it?” Peyton said. “This kid sat in my truck and told me all of this. He’s sincere.”
“I get paid to play devil’s advocate,” Stephanie said. “Here’s the bottom line: I don’t think this is enough to put Freddy St. Pierre away. Maybe we’d use Matt Kingston to corroborate witness testimony. But I think if we face a good defense team, this kid could eyewitness himself right into a juvenile center for at least a few months.”
When Hewitt and Stephanie left, Peyton sat alone in her den with a sealed envelope Tommy brought from school.
The windows were blackened
mirrors now. The light cast from her desk lamp turned her glass of merlot a shade of magenta. She rolled up the long sleeves of her University of Maine sweatshirt and skimmed the report once, quickly. Then, slowly, she reread the results.
“Mom, what does it say?”
She looked up. Tommy was in the doorway.
“It’s almost eleven o’clock, sweetie. You shouldn’t still be awake.”
“Does it say why it takes me longer than everyone else?”
There was a desperate, pleading look in his eyes that she’d not seen there before. He wanted—needed—an answer to this question.
The report was nearly twenty pages long, had been completed by Dr. Michael Thompson, an educational consultant, and deemed Tommy to have above-average intelligence. The final diagnosis explained a lot.
“Come here, sweetie.”
He came closer, and she lifted her ten-year-old onto her lap like he was three again.
“Do you know what dyslexia is?”
Twenty-One
Saturday at 5:30 p.m., Peyton climbed out of her Jeep Wrangler and walked with Tommy toward her mother’s home, toting a bottle of merlot.
The sun was still high overhead. Summer was a reprieve for those living in a region where winters began in October and ended in mid-April, and darkness during winter months often fell before 4 p.m. For those who loved the outdoors, Aroostook County summers—when the sun rose before 4 a.m. and temps rarely cracked eighty-five—made the winters worth it.
She paused at the front door and exhaled.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” Tommy said. “Don’t you want to see Gram?”
“Of course, sweetie.” But her mind was elsewhere, and she wished she were as well: she hadn’t heard from Pete Dye since the previous night’s dinner date, she was tired from the events of the week, and a night at home would’ve been nice. But sometimes you do things for family.
She didn’t knock. She turned the doorknob, and they entered.
Seated at the kitchen table, smiling at something Lois had just said, was the detective she’d seen for the first time in the conference room at Garrett Station during the meeting between Sherry St. Pierre-Duvall and Stephanie DuBois.