Bad Little Falls (20 page)

“That’s what he was just telling me.” I lowered my voice, although there was no one around to hear. “Do you know what the story is with their son? I keep hearing he had an accident, but no one will tell me what happened.”

Kendrick straightened up and gave me a piercing look. “Have you considered the possibility that the family is embarrassed that their son tried to kill himself?”

His intention had been to shock me into silence, and he achieved the effect he was after. “That’s tragic,” I said at last.

“And none of our business, wouldn’t you agree?”

I nodded, feeling genuinely ashamed at my own curiosity. “You haven’t spoken with Doc lately, have you?”

“No. Why?”

“I haven’t heard from him since that night at the Spragues’. I wondered how he was doing.”

“He falls into funks these days. Helen’s death hit him hard.”

“I expected he’d call me or something,” I said. “By the time I got back to the Sprague house, you two had taken off.”

He waited, unsure if this was supposed to be a question. “Doc caught a ride out with the ambulance. I had my dogs. There wasn’t any reason to stay.”

“Rivard was expecting you to direct help to our location.”

“There was no point. Ben told me you found the other man—Cates—buried inside a snowbank.”

“That’s right.”

“I also heard Sewall is under guard at the hospital. From that, I can infer that the police are regarding the death as suspicious.”

“Now you’re the one asking inappropriate questions.”

“I’ll take that as confirmation,” he said in the lofty tone that entered his voice every so often. “Has Sewall been talking to the police?”

“You seem to be pretty good at reading me,” I said. “I’ll let you figure it out.”

I could see his quick mind working in the little movements of his eyes. His nostrils flared suddenly. “Did you get sprayed by a skunk?”

There was no point in denying anything; Kendrick was too smart for me to fool. “You remember the prankster I told you about?”

“George Magoon.”

“He let a skunk loose in my trailer.”

Kendrick laughed so hard, he began to cough. “No wonder you’re spending your day off at the Laundromat.”

I nodded, my lips pressed together in imitation of a smile.

“You have to admit that was an inspired practical joke,” he said.

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, I think it’s pretty hilarious.” Without looking at his watch, he said, “I need to get to class. I’ll be curious to hear how the Prester Sewall case develops. Those two bastards deserved their miserable fates. If it had been up to me, I would have let them freeze to death out there.”

And with that, he walked away. No handshake, no good-bye. I watched him climb into a burgundy 4 X 4 pickup with a kennel setup in the bed, a stack of cages for his malamutes. He started the engine but didn’t pull into traffic immediately. I had the strong sensation he was studying me in his side mirror. For a man with a class to teach, he was in no particular hurry to get to campus.

After a minute of this ridiculousness—Kendrick watching me watching him—I returned to my vehicle. Next stop: the hardware store. I wondered how much it would cost to rent a carpet steamer. More money than I had in my checking account probably, but what choice did I have, short of moving out and forfeiting my security deposit?

I needed to call Rivard, too. It was obvious my sergeant was avoiding me, since he hadn’t contacted me yet on the Brogan matter.

When I glanced up the street again, I noticed that Kendrick had disappeared while I wasn’t paying attention.

21

I had the day off, which meant I could apply myself to the task of cleaning my trailer. How do you remove skunk spray from window curtains? I doubted that the guys at the local hardware store had encountered that particular problem before, but as a matter of fact, they had.

The kindly white-haired man behind the counter recommended I try a special “Skunk-Off” spray, a compound I never knew existed. I rented a carpet cleaner with an upholstery attachment and bought a gallon of the cleaning solution. My shopping list included bleach, agricultural lime, contractor-grade trash bags, and twelve rolls of paper towels. By the time I left Machias, I’d pretty well disposed of all my disposable income for the month.

Seven hours later, after I was done with my labors for the day, I wasn’t sure my trailer smelled a whole lot better. By then, my nose was useless; I could no longer discriminate between the actual skunk odor and my suspicion of its lingering presence. I’d worked up a sweat scrubbing the floors and walls, washing countless loads of laundry, and stuffing irrecoverable bedclothes into trash bags. I took a shower and changed into a T-shirt and jeans. Before I left, I decided to prop the windows open to air the place out overnight, which meant packing all my firearms and other valuables into the patrol truck. Fortunately, I owned almost nothing of value.

I found Lucas Sewall’s notebook lying open on the kitchen table. Like everything else, the paper had absorbed a musky aroma. I flipped through the lined pages, but the boy’s cramped handwriting discouraged me from actually reading any of the dated diary entries. I glanced at my watch. Jamie should be home from her AA meeting, I realized.

The thought of seeing her made me feel like a love-struck teenager. I laughed out loud in embarrassment.

*   *   *

There was an enormous pickup truck—an emerald-green Toyota Tundra—parked beside Jamie’s van in the the Sewalls’ driveway. I nosed my truck in behind its bumper and prayed that I wouldn’t get clipped by a passing car. I tucked Lucas’s notebook under my arm and started up the shoveled walk.

As I reached out to press the buzzer, the door sprang open. I found myself looking down at a remarkably small man. His features were fine-boned, and his eyes were overly large and heavily lashed. He had sandy blond hair parted in a heavy bang on one side. He stood no more than five feet two. He wore black snowmobile pants and boots and a T-shirt bearing the dragon logo of a karate school. My first thought was that he must be a boy, because he reminded me of those baby-faced kids in junior high school all the girls had crushes on. It took me a moment to realize that I was staring down at a man older than I was.

“What do you want?” His voice was adenoidal, as if he had ceased the aging process when he turned fourteen.

“Is Jamie here?”

“Who are you?”

Another realization came winging into my head. This man was Lucas’s father. The resemblance was uncanny.

“Mike Bowditch. Maine Warden Service.”

One small hand tightened into a fist. “Why do you want to see Jamie?”

“Mitch, who’s at the door?” It was Jamie’s smoke-strained voice.

“Some game warden.”

Looking over the man’s blond head, I saw her emerge from the kitchen. She had changed out of her zebra uniform and was wearing an apron over a chambray shirt and faded jeans. The overhead light brought out the golden strands in her hair. “Mike?”

“Hey, Jamie,” I said.

The boyish man flashed his eyes back and forth from her to me. “You know this guy?”

“He’s a friend.” She took a step to place her body between us. “Please come in, Mike.”

“Thanks,” I said.

The house smelled warmly of an apple pie baking in the oven.

“This is my ex-husband, Mitch Munro,” she said. “He dropped in
unexpectedly.
”

The emphasis she placed on the last word wasn’t lost on Munro. “Why shouldn’t I drop in?” he asked. “This is still my house.”

“This is my parents’ house. You only lived here once, a long time ago. We’re divorced, Mitch. Or have you forgotten?”

This statement seemed to be for my benefit, because she rolled her eyes at me when she was done. The look said, Can you believe this guy?

For his part, Munro looked dumbstruck. He started to open his mouth, then shut it fast when he caught me staring. “I haven’t forgotten,” he said under his breath.

“Are you joining us for dinner?” she asked me.

It was true that I had considered staying, but the appearance of her ex-husband seemed like an ill omen. “I’m afraid I can’t. I just wanted to drop off Lucas’s notebook.”

She frowned and took the dog-eared journal from my hand. “He’s been going crazy trying to find this thing. His notebook is like his security blanket. I told him I’d buy him another one, but he said this one has all sorts of important stuff in it.” She turned toward the living room, from which canned laughter and music from television advertisements was drifting at intervals. “Lucas! Get your butt out here and thank Warden Bowditch for finding your notebook!”

“I’m also hoping he has my binoculars,” I said.

“Oh, shoot,” she said. “I forgot all about them.”

“What binoculars?” Munro asked.

“Lucas took them from the backseat of Mike’s truck when he was giving us a ride home the other night.”

“My son isn’t a thief.”

“You don’t know the first thing about your son,” Jamie said.

The muscles twitched along Munro’s jawline. “I’m telling you, Lucas didn’t take his binoculars.”

I knew better than to get involved in a domestic dispute, but I didn’t like the lip this homunculus was giving Jamie. “I’m pretty sure he did,” I said.

“Prove it,” he said, puffing up his chest. His breath stank of cigarettes.

“Does he have a place in the house where he hides things?” I asked Jamie.

“I’ll go look under his bed.”

“I’ll do it,” said Munro.

Jamie rolled her eyes again. “Mitch,” she said.

“I’m his father, goddamn it!”

Before his ex-wife could stop him, the miniature man left the room.

“I’m really sorry about Mitch,” Jamie said, shaking her head in a way that suggested she’d apologized for him many times in the past. “Before I started dating Randall, he always took Lucas for granted, but as soon as there was another man in my life, he started acting like he was a loving father with all these legal rights.”

“Is that why Lucas has your last name?”

Instead of answering me she decided to change the subject. “This is the first time I’ve seen you out of uniform.”

“Disappointed?”

“Not at all.”

Neither of us knew where to take this conversation, so we both fell quiet again. I heard Munro stomping around upstairs.

“Were you able to see Prester?” I asked.

“Yes, but the cop there had to frisk me first. Can you believe that?”

“Was it Dunbar?”

“No, some bald guy with a red face.” She began to blink away tears. “Prester kept ranting about how they’re going to cut off his fingers and toes.”

Those were the least of his worries if the state pressed a murder charge against him. “The nurse said he’s going through alcohol and opiate withdrawal. He’ll be better once it’s out of his system.”

Her wet eyes glowed in the overhead light. “He keeps saying he wants to die. I’m afraid he’ll try to kill himself.”

“He’s safe in the hospital.”

Heavy footsteps came tumbling down the stairs, two sets. A moment later, Munro stepped into the room, tugging Lucas by one scrawny arm. Seeing father and son together, the resemblance was unmistakable: Both were undersize, delicate, and blond. But whereas Munro was as good-looking as a teen idol, Lucas looked like a poorly done caricature of his old man.

“Where’s my notebook?” he said.

“Forget about the notebook,” said his father. “Tell him what you just told me.”

“I didn’t steal no binoculars.”

“Come off it, Lucas,” said Jamie.

“I looked under his bed,” said her ex-husband. “All I found was a
Playboy
magazine and a lighter and some other crap.”

“What about the closet shelf? He has other places he hides things.”

“Who are you going to believe—this guy or your own son?”

At that moment, Tammi wheeled herself into the foyer from the television room. Something about her frailness reminded me of origami, as if she’d been folded like paper into that chair. “What’s going on?”

“It’s all right, Tammi,” Jamie said.

“Look, Mr. Munro, all I want is to get my binoculars back,” I said. “Then I’ll be on my way.”

“I know you’re lying, Lucas,” said his mother. “You know you can’t fool me.”

“Search anywhere!”

“That just means you have a new hiding place,” she said.

Lucas readjusted his glasses and bit his lip. The kid was as guilty as sin.

When Munro stepped close to Jamie, I realized they were nearly the same height. “Why are you taking this cop’s side? You’re his mother. Why don’t you start acting like it?”

She shoved him with both hands in the chest, hard enough that he took a stutter step backward. “Get away from me!”

Munro turned to me as if I were a referee. “Did you see what she just did?”

I had, and it had taken me by surprise, too. I kept forgetting that Jamie had a temper. “Everybody needs to calm down here.”

“Can I have my notebook?” Lucas asked.

Jamie ignored my advice. “You don’t care at all about your son,” she snarled at her ex-husband. “You were scared shitless of Randall. Now that he’s dead, you’ve decided you’re the man of the house again.”

“I
am
the man of the house.”

“You aren’t half the man Randall was. Literally.”

He snorted and shook his head. “After everything I did for you, that’s what you to have to say to me? You fucking slut.”

“Watch your language in front of the boy,” I said.

“What are you? The language police?”

He was so small, it was hard for me to feel threatened, but in my short career I’d learned not to dismiss threats of violence, even when they came from little men. Two of the most dangerous sucker punchers in my previous district were a father and son duo who could have weighed in as jockeys at the Kentucky Derby.

“If you don’t calm down, you and I are going to have a problem,” I said.

“We already have a problem.”

Part of me was wary and watchful. I knew how quickly a situation like this could veer out of control.

Jamie grabbed his biceps with both hands. “Stop it, Mitch. Please, just stop it.”