Widowmaker (33 page)

“You are shitting me,” said Jeff White.

The sergeant rubbed his bare hands together and blew on them. “If this guy is going from house to house, using the registry to pick his targets, then we have a general idea where he might be headed next.”

“There are dozens of names on that list, just in this area,” I said.

“Shouldn't we be out on our sleds?” asked White. “If this guy is riding a snowmobile, then we should be out looking for him on the trails, not parked in front of some pedophile's driveway.”

“Major Carter says it's all hands on deck tonight, until he can get more of his own men up here. But I expect tomorrow you're going to get your wish. They'll have planes in the air first thing in the morning and we'll be setting up checkpoints all over Franklin and Somerset counties.”

“Crazy night,” said Pulsifer. “The safest people in these mountains are going to be convicted sex offenders.”

Gordon got on the phone again to confer with the state police. Then he huddled with Pulsifer and White to give them their assignments. Pulsifer was given a pedophile nearby in Coplin Plantation. White got a statutory rapist in Rangeley. Neither warden seemed delighted with his chosen blind date.

“What about me?” I asked the sergeant.

“You haven't even been cleared for duty, Bowditch. Isn't that what I heard?”

“Yeah, but I can help.”

He removed a key fob from his pocket. “Actually, Jim Clegg said he wanted to talk to you. He should be down in a few minutes.”

“Did he say what it's about?”

“Not to me,” he said.

I returned to my truck and used a towel to wipe up the urine. I tried letting Shadow out to see if he needed to shit, and sure enough, he did. It was the biggest pile I had ever seen come out of a canine.

How to get him back inside the truck now? I found a box of protein bars I kept in the glove compartment, ate one, and fed the rest to Shadow, who chomped them to pieces, Cookie Monster–style. In my Internet research, I had read something about wild wolves eating twenty pounds of meat a day.

I had no clue how to care for this animal. Maybe I should find a motel room for the night, then swing back to Fenris Unchained in the morning. Hopefully, Dale Probert would forgive my change of heart.

Every time headlights appeared, cutting a hazy arc through the darkness, I figured it must be Clegg, but I was always disappointed. I watched the first ambulance return to begin transporting the bodies to the medical examiner's office in Augusta. It was followed by a second and a third.

Another vehicle approached from the direction of Route 16, a Ford Explorer Interceptor. I recognized it at once by its midnight blue paint job. I scrambled out of my pickup and stepped into the road.

Russo rolled down his window. I got a whiff of the peppermint gum he had been chewing. “I didn't expect to see you here,” he said.

“I could say the same thing.”

“Thought I'd come over after my shift was done and see how I could help.” Russo's bland face reminded me of someone who'd been injected with Botox, so that every muscle was paralyzed.

“I don't suppose you've seen Logan Dyer today,” I said.

“No, I haven't. In fact, that's one of the reasons I'm here. Logan's been calling in sick a lot. He's been convinced he has a brain tumor.”

“Yeah, you told me.”

“This morning, he didn't even bother to call.”

“Really?”

“I'm worried about him. There was no answer at his door just now when I knocked.”

“Did Dyer's dogs start baying when you knocked at his door?”

Russo turned his head away from me to face the hill. “You know, they did, and I thought it was strange. Logan never goes anywhere without his Plotts.”

His face began to glow, and I realized it was from the lights of another vehicle coming down the hill, its beams shining inside his SUV. I turned to see who it was, and it was Clegg. Instead of moving his Explorer aside, Russo unbuckled his lap belt and stepped down into the snow beside me.

Detective Clegg kept his engine running as he emerged from his cruiser. He walked toward us with his hands deep in the pockets of his brown uniform parka. His nose and cheeks were rosy from a long day spent outdoors. His chalk white hair was standing up, as if he'd just removed a hat.

“Lieutenant,” said Russo, greeting Clegg by his official rank.

“Russo. Who's that with you?”

“Mike Bowditch,” I said.

“Just the man I was looking for.”

“Why is that?” asked Russo, as if it was any of his business.

“I spoke with Amber Langstrom yesterday and she mentioned that you came to her apartment.”

“I apologize. I'd been meaning to talk with you about it.”

Clegg shrugged. “Doesn't matter now. But she told me you found a box of her son's guns there.”

“That's right,” I said. “He took a Glock with him. His mom sensed he was afraid of someone in particular and wanted it for self-defense. Did you find any nine-millimeter shells up there?”

“Not yet.” He removed his bare hands from his pockets and rubbed them together for warmth. “Is it possible Langstrom also had an AR-15 rifle?”

“Possible, I guess. I found a Ruger American in a .30-06 and a Winchester 76 in .30-30. Both with boxes of ammo. I didn't see signs of an AR-15, and Amber didn't mention his having any other rifles.”

Clegg raised his face to the falling snow. I could tell he was trying to work through a puzzle in his head.

“I heard that you found .300 Blackout rounds up there,” I said.

Clegg lowered his eyes. “That's right.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing except some casings from Foss's revolver.”

I got a look at Russo in my peripheral vision. He was standing stock-still. “Detective, I'd like to talk with you about Logan Dyer,” I said.

“We don't know where he is,” said Clegg.

“Dyer didn't show up at work today,” interjected Russo. “Usually he calls if he's sick, but he didn't this morning. I just knocked at his door, and his dogs are inside. That's very unusual for Logan, to leave his dogs alone.”

My jaw nearly dropped. Russo had just laid out all of my suspicions as if they were his own.

“We did a check on his house,” said Clegg. “Made a sweep around the exterior, looked in the windows, but we didn't have cause or authorization to go inside. We saw the dogs. They look mean as hell. What breed are they?”

“Plott hounds,” I said before Russo could jump in. “Detective, when Gary Pulsifer and I last talked with Dyer, he mentioned going coyote hunting with a Smith & Wesson AR-15.”

“What caliber?” asked Clegg.

“He didn't say.”

“Do you remember the model?”

I tried to transport myself back to that conversation. Tried to visualize Dyer standing outside the window of Pulsifer's idling truck.

“Smith & Wesson M&P 15 Whisper,” I said.

For the first time since we'd met, Russo showed a real expression. He was astonished, whether at the specificity of my memory or about the implications of what I had just said, I couldn't be certain. But his mask had finally fallen.

“I know that gun,” he said. “Dyer showed it to me. It's chambered in only one caliber: .300 AAC Blackout.”

Clegg removed his phone from his pocket and began tapping in numbers. I didn't have to guess who he was calling or why. The detective was going to ask a judge to sign off immediately on a no-knock warrant. Russo had just provided a cause for the police to break down Logan Dyer's door.

 

33

In real life, suspicious deaths are rarely mysteries. A wife dies in what looks like a botched robbery; her husband probably did it. A child falls down the stairs and breaks her spine; look first to the baby-sitter. Most criminals are morons. They don't have the mental capacity to plan elaborate schemes worthy of Professor Moriarty or Hannibal Lecter. With few exceptions, the simplest explanation for a crime is the correct explanation. The butler almost always did it.

Police officers are human. Sometimes, because we want our work to be more exciting, or because we have a need to demonstrate our brilliance to the public and colleagues (and especially our superiors), we reach too far in our theories. Catching the guy who robbed the bank without a mask probably won't get you promoted. Catching the Night Stalker or the Green River Killer will turn you into a living legend.

Dyer was a loner who loved guns. He had recently been showing signs of instability, according to Russo. He had a legitimate grievance against his neighbor, Foss, for making it impossible to sell his family house and begin life anew somewhere else, where people didn't associate his name with a fatal chairlift accident. Motive, means, and opportunity—what more did you need? Nothing, in the eyes of the law.

To me, this realization carried extra sadness. It meant that Adam Langstrom was almost certainly dead—likely the first of Dyer's victims. The caginess with which Logan had evaded my questions about my missing brother suggested as much. Would we find Adam's dead body inside the darkened farmhouse?

*   *   *

I returned to my truck to put on my ballistic vest and get a gun. I didn't care that I hadn't been cleared to return for duty. With officers spread across two counties, protecting sex offenders, Clegg needed every available man now.

For the sake of my truck, I moved Shadow back into his carrier. He whined and bristled his fur. He wasn't some mythological creature, I had to remind myself. He was a living animal, and he was unhappy.

Then I called the IF&W office in Ashland again.

“Is Stacey back?” I asked the same woman I'd spoken with before.

“She stayed overnight in Clayton Lake. Do you want the number for McNally's?”

It was a sporting camp outside the flyspeck village, not far from where the helicopter had gone down. Presumably, the owner was providing lodging to the investigation and recovery team.

I dialed the camp. A woman with a creaky old-sounding voice answered. “McNally's.”

“I'm trying to reach someone who is staying with you. She's a wildlife biologist with the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Her name is Stacey Stevens.”

“Is she the pretty one?”

“Yes.”

“She's not here, dear. She left to go back to Ashland a couple of hours ago.”

I thanked her and tried to decide what to do. Stacey was speeding along on a snowmobile in the dark on the Reality Road, as out of touch as a person could be. I dialed her cell phone and waited to leave a message.

“It's me,” I said. “I am in Kennebago again and about to go on a raid into the house of a man named Logan Dyer. You're going to hear about him soon. He murdered eleven people up at Don Foss Logging. I think he killed Adam, too. He's on a vigilante crusade to kill sex offenders. Anyway, he's dangerous. Stacey, I am so sorry for having lied to you before. And I know you must be grieving for your friends in ways I can't even imagine. But I just wanted you to know, in case something happens to me tonight, that I love you.”

I felt sick to my stomach when I hung up. But there was nothing more to do now except to get ready. I attached my service weapon, a SIG Sauer P226, to my belt. I unlocked my Mossberg 590A1 from its case and hung it from its sling over my shoulder. I took up my catch pole with the noose on one end. Then I removed my brand-new talonproof glove from behind the seat. I had thought I might need the bite sleeve for Shadow.

Strange the way things work out.

I found Clegg putting on his ballistic vest at his vehicle. He seemed to have gained weight since he had last adjusted the Velcro straps holding it in place. He was having trouble getting the fit right.

“Did you get the warrant?” I asked him.

“Got the warrant. Also put out a BOLO.” The acronym had replaced APB in police jargon. It stood for “Be on the lookout.”

“Can I help you with that?” I asked, meaning his vest.

“No, I've got it.”

“How well do you know Dyer?” I asked.

“Logan? I've know him his whole life. I started my career in law enforcement just like Russo, doing security up at Widowmaker. I knew Logan's dad. Scott was a good man right up until the crash that killed his wife and daughter. Afterward, he was broken. He did his best, but you could see it in his eyes, hopelessness. The chairlift accident was what pushed him over the edge. He'd tried to get the owners to shut that lift down, but they'd refused. It didn't matter. Everyone blamed him, and he blamed himself.”

Having finally secured his vest, the detective pulled his parka back on over it. His face had turned a shade of purple from the exertion.

“Logan wasn't more than eighteen when Scott shot himself,” Clegg continued. “Eighteen or nineteen. And then suddenly his father was dead, and he was living alone in that big house. I hadn't seen him in a while before the other day. But I noticed he'd let himself go. He used to be a handsome kid. Shy as hell, though. Scott told me once that if a girl ever winked at Logan, he'd probably faint dead away.”

“Detective!” someone called from the darkness.

But Clegg wasn't finished saying what he needed to say. “I knocked on his door first thing this morning, before I found the carnage up at Foss's, but there was no answer. I heard the dogs barking, though, and thought that seemed strange. Later, when we were searching outside his house, I didn't want to admit to myself what I already knew. Sometimes I think the best part of this job is getting to know the people in your community. It's also the worst thing.”

I knew what he meant.

“Let's go get this over with,” the detective said, moving past me down the hill.

If Dyer was at large, hunting sex offenders, then it was unlikely we were going to be charging into a firefight. Some criminals had been known to booby-trap their properties—I knew so firsthand—but I suspected the biggest danger we would face, breaching the building, would be Dyer's two hounds.