Paul Doiron - Massacre Pond

“You’re right, Mr. Skillen,” I said. “I don’t know it was Matt who called them. Maybe it was you. But I do know it was Matt who chased Briar Morse to her death.”

“What?” Stacey said, so softly that it was hard to hear.

Matt Skillen glared at me. “That’s bullshit.”

“Briar didn’t get a good look at the truck that chased her both times. It was too dark. The only thing she noticed about it was that it made a strange noise. She said it sounded like it had a whiny engine. It made me remember something Stacey told me when we were in my truck together. She said your pickup had a loose serpentine belt, too. But I expect you’ve had it fixed by now.”

Merritt Skillen sat back down heavily in his chair. Stacey, I saw, was twirling her engagement ring around on her finger.

“Where were you the night Briar Morse died?” I asked Matt.

“You know where I was-with Stacey at her parents’ house.”

She shook her head. “You went home. After dinner, you went home. You said you had to film a commercial in Bangor in the morning. You left right after Mike.”

“Stacey,” Matt said. There was an unmistakable warning in his tone.

“Oh my God,” she said, pushing herself back from the table so hard, she nearly toppled over.

“It might all be circumstantial evidence,” I said, finally letting the venom out. “And it might not be enough to convict you. But it’s enough to destroy your reputation in this state-and whatever else happens, I am going to make sure it does.”

“Fuck you.” He was still seated, gripping the knife tightly, but he didn’t have the guts to use it.

Stacey leaped to her feet. She was holding a hand over her mouth. Her entire body seemed to be quivering.

“Stacey,” Matt said again, this time pleading.

She shook her head no.

“It was me,” said the father.

The words caught us all off guard.

Matt Skillen whipped his head around, his mouth opening. “Dad?”

“I was the one who paid Pelkey and Beam to shoot those animals,” Merritt Skillen said, rising to his feet. “I was the one who called to warn them yesterday. I followed Briar Morse in my truck. I only meant to frighten her. I didn’t mean for her to die. I take complete responsibility for everything. If you’re going to arrest someone, arrest me.”

Matt Skillen reached for his father’s hand. “Dad, no! You don’t have to do this. There’s no proof.”

Merritt squeezed his son’s hand. His eyes gleamed with tears. “I’m not going to see your life destroyed, Matt.”

“But you didn’t do those things!”

“I love you, son.” Then he raised his eyes to mine and said with all the dignity he could muster, “Warden, I am prepared to make a formal confession.”

This was wrong. This wasn’t what I wanted. Matt Skillen was the guilty one.

Merritt held his wrists out for me to cuff. I knew it was unnecessary; the old man posed no danger to me. But I wanted his son to see the consequences of his actions. I reached for the handcuffs on my belt, the ones I had used to restrain my good friend the day before.

As I did, I caught sight of Stacey disappearing through the door of the lounge. I didn’t know where she was intending to go on foot, out here in the middle of nowhere. But I saw that she’d left her diamond engagement ring on the table.

The old man didn’t speak to me on the long drive to the jail. He sat with his big cuffed hands folded in his lap, staring out at the miles of timber that had once been his family’s feudal kingdom. I fancied he was asking himself again how he had managed to lose his birthright, just as he was now about to lose his reputation and, maybe, his freedom. There was only one thing of value remaining in Merritt Skillen’s life, and whatever else happened, he had made the decision not to lose that, as well. Despite my general dislike of the man, I couldn’t help but admire his willingness to sacrifice himself for his son. My only worry was that he would be successful in his deception.

Matt Skillen followed us into Machias in his gleaming GMC, his newly repaired truck as silent as a shark.

The sheriff came down from her office in the courthouse to the ill-smelling booking area. A white-nosed golden retriever padded along behind her. “Can you explain to me what’s going on here?” Roberta Rhine asked as she pulled me aside.

“He wants to confess,” I said.

“To what?”

“To everything.”

I laid out the whole story to her, including my certainty that the old man was taking the rap for his murderous son. “Merritt wasn’t driving his son’s truck the night Briar died,” I said. “But I can’t prove that he wasn’t the one who chased her, either.”

She turned her head to watch one of her deputies taking the mill owner’s fingerprints. “Do you think Zanadakis can persuade him to give up his boy?”

“No.”

“Me, neither,” she said.

The Washington County Jail was lit by cold fluorescent bulbs and smelled of the chlorine the inmates used to swab the floors. Somewhere behind the locked door that led deeper into the ancient prison, another door swung shut with a loud metallic clang. The sound seemed to echo in my heart. “Is Billy Cronk still here, or has he been transferred?”

“He’s still here,” she said, pulling on her long black braid. “The AG made the decision that we’d be the ones to hold him until his trial. He’s asking the judge not to set bail, and after seeing what was left of Beam’s melon, I expect the judge will agree. Billy’s going down for manslaughter.” She studied my eyes as if they were one-way mirrors she couldn’t see through. “Would you like to see him?”

I reached down to scratch the neck of the old dog. My hand came away with a fistful of hair from the shedding animal.

“I have to go,” I said, rising to my feet.

* * *

When I got back to the cabin, I found Kathy Frost waiting in the dooryard in her unmarked patrol truck. It was a new GMC with the same teal paint job as McQuarrie’s. It made me wonder whether all the division sergeants were getting the same new Sierras.

“You don’t call, you don’t write,” she said.

She was a fortysomething woman with a tall, athletic body that she kept in shape by running triathlons and playing smash-mouth basketball with a men’s team at the YMCA in Camden. She wore her hair in a sandy bob beneath her black baseball cap, and she was holding two large cups of coffee, one of which she offered me. Her grizzled coonhound, Pluto, lay asleep on the pine needles beneath her feet.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. She lived three hours away to the south, along the Maine midcoast.

“I heard about your showdown at the gravel pit. I want to see your bruise.”

I thought she was joking, but she actually made me unbutton my shirt and remove my vest. My chest was wrapped with bandages to hold the broken bones steady, but my ribs ached every time I took a deep breath. Goose pimples rose along my neck and arms from the damp autumn breeze. Rain was coming.

She pressed the purple flesh above the bandage with two fingers. “That is truly disgusting, Grasshopper.”

“Ow.”

“What are you doing on duty? Shouldn’t you be in bed, resting?”

McQuarrie had told me to place myself on sick leave, but I had decided to postpone my time off until I had it out with Matt Skillen. “I had one last thing to do today.”

“I want to hear all about it.” She peered up at a red squirrel that was perched at the apex of my cabin roof, watching us. “How about you let me inside so I can use the little girls’ room. I’ve had three cups of coffee today, and I didn’t want to pee in your yard.”