Paul Doiron - Bad Little Falls

There were three small bedrooms and a single bath on the second floor. The first room was Jamie’s. It had a queen-size mattress beneath a quilt that looked like a family heirloom. The walls had been freshly painted-a soothing lavender-and there was a vase of grocery-store flowers on the bureau, but there were telltale signs of disarrangement if you looked closely. The carnations were beginning to wilt, and the bed was unmade. I hung in the doorway for a moment, breathing in the familiar smell of her perfume and feeling a pang at the thought that I would never share this bed with her.

I found Corbett in the next room, sitting on Prester’s Sewall’s narrow bed. In his hands he was holding a quart-size Ziploc bag filled with dried herbs. His high, scarlet forehead was furrowed, but the turn of his lips suggested amusement.

“What have you got there?” I asked.

“It ain’t oregano,” said Corbett.

Unlike Jamie’s, this room was a mess. It seemed more like the sanctuary of a hormone-crazed teenager than that of a man in his mid-twenties. Posters showing women in bikinis, cupping their heavy naked breasts in their hands, beckoned from the walls. Empty cans of Milwaukee’s Best, a plate with congealed grease in the shape of a pizza slice, a pile of dirty jeans and undershirts on a chair-these were the dead man’s personal effects, all that he had left behind.

“So you just found that lying in the open?” I asked, half wondering if he’d planted the pot for reasons I couldn’t guess at the moment.

“Exigent circumstances,” he said. “I was looking for the boy.”

“In Prester’s bureau?”

“Kid could have been hiding anywhere.”

“Jesus, Corbett. The guy’s already dead. What do you plan on doing, busting his corpse for intent to distribute?”

“No, but I’m sure the sheriff is going to have some pointed questions for the sister.”

“This is her brother’s room!”

“But it’s her house.”

I couldn’t bring myself to argue with him. The entire situation was more than I could wrap my head around. “I take it you didn’t find Lucas.”

Corbett tilted his razor-burned chin toward the window. “His footprints lead off into the trees. Unless the snow picks up, you shouldn’t have any trouble following them.”

I exhaled loudly, trying to dispel the depression from my soul. “I need to look in his room first.”

“Why? What for?”

I didn’t answer. Lucas’s room was at the end of the hall. It was nearly as dirty as his uncle’s, although not quite, thanks to the ministrations of his mother, no doubt. The poster on his wall showed Bruce Lee flexing every muscle in his fat-free body. Books were scattered everywhere: detective novels and comics, science fiction and strange histories of Stonehenge and the Loch Ness monster.

I lifted the bedspread from the floor and discovered the stash of notebooks his mother had mentioned. There were at least a dozen of various colors and styles: Some were big and spiral-bound; others reminded me of old college exam booklets. I recognized the most recent notebook immediately, with its lemon cover and violent illustrations.

Corbett stood in the doorway. “What are you looking for?”

I didn’t feel like explaining myself. Jamie had mentioned that her son wrote constantly in his notebooks and that if he had a secret hideout, I might find evidence inside. Standing over his bed, I read the kid’s most recent entry. It was dated that morning:

Mom never came home for the second night in a row! It’s all my fault. I can’t believe Uncle Prester is DEAD. What if they never find his body? What if Ma never comes home AT ALL? What if the social lady takes Tammi to some mental home and Dad decides he don’t want me to come live with hiim? I will be all ALONE!

I hadn’t realized that the notebook contained Lucas’s diary. When I had looked at it before, I’d focused only on the disturbing drawings and assumed the rest were imaginary stories or schoolwork. Now I understood that the odd little boy had been keeping a journal, and I wondered if some of the answers I was seeking-about Jamie and Mitch, Randall and Prester-might be found inside. I’d had this notebook in my possession for days without realizing what it was.

“What is that?” Corbett asked, showing more interest than usual.

“The kid’s diary,” I said. “I am hoping it will lead me to him.”

I leafed through the pages and happened on a map that showed what looked like the forest behind the house. It was stylishly rendered-Lucas had a talent for drawing-and showed a few of landmarks linked by a single dotted line that must have been a trail. The path crossed a stream labeled “Injun Brook” and detoured around a tangle of fallen trees besides which he’d scrawled “Widowmakers.” It ended at a cartoonish-looking building he called “Fort Knox.”

I wasn’t certain if the map was purely fanciful or whether it would be of help locating the boy, but I decided to take the notebook with me in case I wanted to refer to it again during the search. I spent a moment inspecting the strange images inked on the cover-the demonic owl, the feathered woman-and shook my head sadly. Lucas, I decided, was a deeply troubled kid, and why shouldn’t he be, an intelligent and imaginative child growing up in a rancid drug den?

“What kind of diary does a twelve-year-old keep? Is it like a record of how many times he jerks off in a day?” Corbett’s tone was light, but I could sense that he wanted to have a look for himself.

I unbuttoned my shirt and tucked the notebook against my ballistic vest. It seemed the only way to carry it securely.

I clicked off the light and went downstairs. Corbett took the hint and followed.

In the entryway, I nearly had a heart attack when the social worker stepped through the front door.

“I take it you haven’t found him yet,” she said.

“I thought you were going to wait outside.”

“I got tired of sitting in the car.”

“It would be better if you did,” said Corbett.

Snow had accumulated atop her hair, as if someone had sprinkled her with powdered sugar. “Do you think the boy is dangerous?”

“If he’s scared, he might be dangerous,” I said.

“Look,” she said. “I can’t keep the engine running, or I’m going to run out of gas. I’m going to take Tammi over to Lubec to that foster home I mentioned. I can’t just wait around all evening for you to find the boy. Why are you looking in the house? I thought the kid ran off into the woods.”

“I want to have a look in the basement,” I said.

“Can’t you just follow his tracks? I thought you game wardens were supposed to be expert trackers.”

“I’m just gathering some information.” I didn’t feel like explaining my search techniques to this woman, or to Corbett, for that matter. “When I find Lucas, what would you like me to do?”

“If he’s been outside this whole time, take him to the hospital. The poor kid could have frostbite or hypothermia. Isn’t a lost kid supposed to be like a super high-level priority?”

“There’s a difference between lost and hiding,” I said.

“Hiding from what?” Corbett asked.

I focused on the social worker. “If you give me your phone number, I’ll call you when I find him. To be on the safe side, I’ll take him to the hospital. Please just take care of Tammi.”

Mueller gave me her cell number. Muttering to herself, she wandered outside.

Standing at the mudroom door, I took a look at the backyard. In the twilight, the snow outside appeared a luminous blue. I could just make out the footprints staggering away into a hedgelike row of small pines that were about the size of Christmas trees. Beyond it were taller evergreens and birches. I would need my snowshoes, I decided.