Paul Doiron - Bad Little Falls

I heard a door open and slam shut down the hall. “Is Kendrick here?”

Corbett offered me a quizzical look. “You mean Professor Kendrick from the university?”

“Rivard told him to wait here and direct search units to our location in the Heath.”

“He wasn’t here when I arrived, and Doris never mentioned him.”

That seemed strange. Why would Kendrick have taken off before the first police cruiser arrived? “How’s Mrs. Sprague doing? She seemed in a bad way before.”

“She’s had a rough time of things since their son’s accident. The Spragues are good people-Ben and I are in Rotary-but what happened to Joey has really tested their faith. Is Ben on his way back here?”

“He’s plowing the road again. Rivard wants to keep it clear so the medical examiner can get down into the Heath.” I was curious to learn more about the Spragues’ son and his obscure accident, but my brain felt as numb as the rest of me. “So let me get this straight: You weren’t here when the EMTs left?”

“No, but I passed them on the road. I asked if they needed an escort to Machias, but they said no.” He glanced at his watch, which he wore with the face on the inside of his wrist. “They should be at Down East Community Hospital by now. I haven’t heard how Prester’s doing.”

“I hope he wakes up, just so we can get the story of what really happened.”

“I’m not sure it’s such a mystery,” said Corbett. “Ben and Doris were always reporting seeing suspicious vehicles going by here, heading into the woods. Ben would get really worked up. I even did some of my own patrols down there, but I only scared up a young couple having sex.”

“So you think maybe Cates had a regular place he was doing deals out in the Heath?”

Corbett shrugged his wide shoulders. “It’s certainly off the beaten track. I go deer hunting down there every November and always get turned around a few times before I find my way out. It’s a scary place. I’m surprised you guys found the body at all.”

“We figured he wouldn’t be far from the car. And we had a well-trained dog helping us.” I described the scene to him-the car, the bag of money, the loaded Glock, and then the startled expression on the corpse’s rimed face. “Cates didn’t look to me like a guy who had passed out in a snowbank. I’ll be curious to hear the coroner’s report.”

“The sheriff will want to speak with you about it. Randall Cates was on her personal most-wanted list.”

The longtime Washington County sheriff was a woman, one of only handful of female sheriffs in the state of Maine. Her name was Roberta Rhine. My professional experience working with sheriffs had thus far been hit-and-miss. The chief law-enforcement officer of Somerset County, where my father had committed his crimes, hated my guts, but back on the midcoast, I’d established a cordial relationship with Dudley Baker, the Knox County sheriff.

“Well, she can cross him off her list now,” I said, rubbing my tired eyes. “What about the other one-Sewall?”

“Prester?” Corbett grinned and shook his head. “He’s one of our favorite people over to the jail. We’ve had him in for just about everything-drunk and disorderly, B and E, check kiting, receiving stolen property. Nothing violent, though. A lot of these guys like Cates enjoy having a sidekick to tell them what big-time gangsters they are. Prester’s actually a nice guy when he sobers up, which is almost never. It’s probably all the antifreeze in his system that kept him alive out there.”

I remembered how Sewall had skulked around the McDonald’s, a small guy trying not to draw attention to himself. “Does his sister work at the McDonald’s in Machias?”

“Jamie? Yeah.”

“I was actually in there this morning and noticed her.”

“She’s easy to notice,” Corbett said with the sort of smile that didn’t belong on the face of a married man.

“Prester and Randall were there, too. They were giving her some grief, and she ended up taking food out to their car.”

“You’ll want to put that in your report.”

Standing in the Spragues’ entryway, I found myself leaning against a wall for support. I had been awake for nearly twenty-four hours, and I still had to shovel out my Jeep and drive back to my trailer.

“I should say something to Mrs. Sprague,” I said.

“You’re probably better off just hitting the road,” said Corbett. “The poor woman seems pretty shaken up. When I told her I needed to get an official statement from her, she asked if she could clean Joey’s room first.”

“I need to give her back her snowmobile keys.”

“You can leave them with me.”

I shrugged and handed him the keys.

Ben Sprague had plowed a lane past my Jeep, pushing snow up against the tops of the windows. I had to use my cupped hand to scoop out a hole deep enough to get the tailgate open. From there, it was all shovel work. Beneath my layers of polypro, wool, and Gore-Tex, I began to perspire heavily.

Every once in a while, I took a break from my labors, leaned on the shovel, and looked around me at the dawning world. The last clouds that made up the rear guard of the storm were marching away to the northeast. The blizzard was off to punish Nova Scotia next. The wind came up and rustled the loose strips of paper hanging from the birches. Two silent crows bounced along on gusts overhead.

I’d wondered if my tires had sharp-enough studs to claw their way up that hill, but I had no problem getting back on the road.

As I crested the hill, I thought about the snowmobiler who’d played chicken with my Jeep the night before. Who was he? A neighbor of the Spragues out for a midnight ride? Or the man Cates and Sewall had met down in the swamp? I’d need to make a mention of his phosphorescent green sled and snowsuit in my report. I wondered what make and model of snowmobile Barney Beal rode. According to Rivard, the big kid was a drug addict who frequented this area.

I never knew you could sprain muscles shivering, but I was sore in places I rarely had cause to contemplate. As my cheeks and extremities began to warm, they started to throb rhythmically. I touched the tip of my nose. There was a trace of frostbite, but at least I wasn’t going to lose it. If Prester Sewall survived the week, he was going to have a mug like the Phantom of the Opera’s.

God, what a couple of days: from a frozen zebra to two frozen drug dealers.

If you ask police officers what they like best about the job, nine out of ten will probably tell you it’s the surprises. Going on patrol, you honestly never know what you’re going to encounter next: despicable crimes; bloody accidents; cries of despair and rage; displays of the most jaw-dropping perversity; lies so bald-faced, you don’t know whether to laugh or vomit; self-destroying bouts of intoxication; every form of abuse and neglect known to man; but also acts of heroism from the most unexpected quarters; generosity, too; and those simple good deeds that are so important and yet so undervalued in this fucked-up world.

Everywhere, every night: the human comedy showing for your viewing pleasure.

By the time I got home, dawn had broken and patches of blue showed between the clouds. A titmouse was calling emphatically from the big beech behind the trailer. Peer! Peer! The swaying treetops made moving blue shadows on the snow.

The electric heater had failed again, and no amount of messing with the fuse box was enough to restart it. I’d need to call my landlord in Lubec. In the meantime, I boiled some water on the propane stove and used a hand towel to clean the sweat from my body. It was the least satisfying bath of my life. I’d considered taking a nap before driving into Machias, but with the temperature inside the trailer hovering around the freezing mark, I worried I might never awaken. I shaved, put on my olive-drab uniform, and resigned myself to the fact that this was going to be one of those thirty-six-hour days all wardens experience from time to time.