Paul Doiron - Massacre Pond

“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 reviled 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 protege, 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.”