Paul Doiron - Trespasser

The unanswerable question was what had incited this killing spree. Snow had already gotten away with murder seven years earlier. There seemed to be something about sexually active young women-Nikki Donnatelli, Ashley Kim-that brought out the demon inside his shriveled little heart. Kathy was assuming that the only murders Snow had committed were the ones in Seal Cove, but who was to say that investigators wouldn’t link him to the slayings of luckless women elsewhere?

“Maybe Snow secretly wanted to be caught,” I said. I’d read that some serial killers crave the celebrity that comes from being caught; they secretly want to be as famous as John Wayne Gacy or Ted Bundy, and so they begin to sabotage themselves.

“Do you believe that?” Kathy asked.

“He was a lot more careless this time around.” I ran my fingers lightly across my bandaged skull and felt the bump on my head. “He knew he’d fucked up Westergaard’s fake suicide. He was boasting to me about his phony alibis and how dumb cops are. But he knew it was only a matter of time until Menario caught up with him. He was desperate, or he wouldn’t have come after Sarah and me.”

“What do you guess Westergaard’s wife’s role was in this?”

“Snow seems to have had a crush on her, but I don’t think she put him up to it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

We drove along without speaking, listening to the rhythmic back-and-forth swish of the windshield wipers. “How’s Sarah doing?” she asked.

“How do you think she’s doing? A madman broke into our house and tried to kill her.”

I didn’t mention the baby. Sarah had been sobbing uncontrollably for two days, and I couldn’t make her stop. Neither of us could bear to return to our house. Instead, Kathy and Sarah’s sister Amy had packed a week’s worth of clothes for us, and we’d moved into the motel behind the Square Deal. Eventually, Sarah and I would need to talk about our trauma, but neither of us had the heart to yet. I’d begun to wonder if we ever would. Maybe the Reverend Davies could help us. I had a counseling appointment with her to discuss the shooting.

“I heard the Barter boy came out of his coma,” Kathy said.

This was news to me. “What’s the prognosis?”

“He spoke to his mother.”

The St. George River came into view through the fog, a rushing wide brown expanse carrying tons of mud out to sea. I turned my head to face the window.

“Tomorrow’s the first day of open-water fishing season,” she said. “You’re welcome to ride along with me if you want.”

I felt a jolt of pain travel from my shoulder down to my fingers when I changed position. “Do you know what else tomorrow is?”

Kathy looked at me with her peripheral vision. “April Fool’s Day.”

“Tell me about it,” I said.

The blackbirds were singing and the spring peepers were calling in the cattail marsh behind the Square Deal as I stepped out of my Jeep. I still hadn’t returned to active duty-the hard plaster cast on my right wrist had delayed that prospect indefinitely-but my bruises had begun to heal, and I could stand up in the morning without a lead weight pressing against the backs of my eyes. It seemed like a long time since Sarah and I had moved home from the motel, but I was surprised to realize it had been only two weeks. If nothing else, the leaves bursting from the trees and the bright violets sprouting underfoot suggested that we had finally turned the page on mud season, even if it was only a lie we told ourselves to reawaken our dormant hopes.

“Hey, Mike,” Dot Libby said as I came through the door.

She wore a bright orange wig to cover what the chemotherapy had done to her head, but there was a hint of color in her cheeks that hadn’t been there the last time I’d come in. From her energy level, you’d never have known she was battling breast cancer.

“How are you, Dot?” I asked.

“Right as rain.” The tangerine color of her wig made me think of the Barters, but Calvin was still in jail, his son was on the mend, and for the moment I could relax about those worries. “Your handsome gentleman friend is waiting for you.”

I was always surprised to hear a woman call Charley Stevens attractive, but maybe they saw his inner glow-like the candle inside a jack-o’-lantern.

Charley rose to his feet as I approached our regular booth. “Don’t you look an awful mess,” he said by way of a greeting.

“Thanks for coming down, Charley.” There was already a cup of coffee waiting for me. My body still ached every time I had to bend down to a sitting posture.

He sipped from the steaming mug. “I reckoned I’d visit the transportation museum while I’m here and take a look at those old biplanes. Maybe I can bamboozle them into letting me take one for a spin.”

“How’s Ora doing?”

“We’ve got Stacey living with us again. She’s helping us clean out the Flagstaff place, but she and the Boss don’t see eye-to-eye on most things, so it makes for some awkwardness. Stacey’s not quite domesticated in some respects. She’s hoping I can finagle a job for her as an assistant wildlife biologist, but that’s a tall order. At least that Colorado district attorney declined to press charges.”

“I’d like to meet Stacey one of these days.”

“I’m not sure that would be wise,” he said cryptically. “How are things back on the home front?”

“Better,” I said. “At first, Sarah was crying all the time. She didn’t want to move back into the house after everything that happened.” I took a sip of coffee to loosen my stubborn tongue. “But she’s been doing better this past week.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Charley said, but his expression remained concerned. “Do you know if it was a boy or a girl?”

He was the one person I’d told about the miscarriage. “It wasn’t anything yet.”

He stroked his large chin, waiting for me to say more, but I was done with that topic.

I found myself staring at the place mat. “I’ve been thinking about something Jill Westergaard told me. She said, ‘You never really know someone until your relationship with them is over.’ Do you believe that?”

He considered the question a while. “Ora and I are still together, and I think I know her fairly well,” he said. “She certainly knows all my sorrowful imperfections.”

“I never really knew my father,” I said.

He warmed his hands on the coffee cup. “Your old man was more of an enigma than most, but he wasn’t quite as mysterious as you make him out to be. If you search your memories, I bet you’ll find a trail of bread crumbs.”

A revelation landed hard on my head. “You knew he killed Brodeur and Shipman-you knew it the whole time we were searching for him. So why didn’t you just come out and tell me?”

His entire face wrinkled when he smiled. “An old philosopher once remarked, ‘You can’t teach a man anything. You can only help him find it within himself.’ Or something like that.”

“When did you ever read philosophy, Charley?”

“Oh, I never did, but Ora likes to quote that line to me when I’m lurching from one mishap to the next.” He raised his long index finger to catch Dot’s attention. “What’s this I hear about the J-Team suddenly getting cold feet?”

In the days following the shooting, Ozzie Bell and his cohorts had come out with full-throated calls that Jefferts be pardoned. The big newspapers issued editorials arguing that Maine’s most famous inmate should receive a new trial. It all seemed to be building to a scandal that would shake the foundations of power and bring the attorney general’s office crashing down. And then, like a balloon with a slow leak, the air seemed to go out of the story. I’d just heard on the radio that the J-Team had dropped its motion for a new trial. In fact, the group-with the notable exception of Lou Bates-was giving up the ghost.