Widowmaker (37 page)

 

36

My conservative estimate was that a dozen officers responded to my call. The road up to Mink's place looked like rush hour with all the emergency vehicles lined up one after the other. With so many people bustling around the scene, asking me questions, offering thanks, I found it hard to focus.

Dyer was unlocked from the birch and taken to the back of Clegg's cruiser and left there until the detective could finish his work.

I walked Clegg and a couple of state police detectives around the cabin, giving them the minute-by-minute replay. Another trooper escorted Mink inside to get an independent statement from him on what had happened. Even though I was receiving congratulations from deputies and EMTs whom I had never met—the hero of the hour—I knew that our accounts would be compared and contrasted, and that I might be called upon to explain any inconsistencies in our stories.

A deputy found my shotgun buried in the snow and returned it to me.

Shadow had disappeared into the woods. I kept looking for him at the edges of the trees, but he was gone.

Maybe, in the future, he would be glimpsed by backcountry skiers up on Widowmaker or caught in the headlights of sledders racing at night along one of the trails to Quebec. I could imagine the department getting occasional calls from people who were insistent that they had seen a wolf—not a coyote or a dog, but a wolf. Wardens and wildlife biologists would politely take the statements of these eyewitnesses, and then they would write off the reports as cases of mistaken identity. Wolves were not secretly returning to Maine to reclaim their ancient hunting grounds. That was just a myth.

With all the vehicles lined up along the road, I didn't notice the midnight-blue Ford Explorer Interceptor at first. I looked around for Russo but didn't see him in any of the clusters of cops. Eventually, my gaze drifted to Clegg's cruiser.

There was Russo, standing beside the open back door, talking privately with Dyer. No one else was within twenty feet of them. I glanced around, looking for Clegg, but the detective must have gone up to Mink's cabin.

I was seized by a sudden panic. I had the image in my head of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald in the gut. As quickly as I could on my injured leg, I limped over to the cruiser.

“Russo!”

“Bowditch,” he said, his face as blank as usual. “Congratulations.”

“Get away from him.”

“What? Why?”

“Did Clegg give you permission to talk to him alone? You shouldn't be talking to him before the detective does.”

Russo nonchalantly closed the cruiser door. “I think you've jumped to the wrong conclusion, buddy.”

“Where did you go before?”

“Where did I go when?”

“You dropped this bombshell about Dyer having a rifle that fired the same-caliber bullets as those found at Foss's, and then when the time comes to break down his door, you're nowhere to be found.”

“I had a call back at the mountain,” he said mildly.

“That can be checked, you know. Whether you actually received a call.”

I stepped forward until we were nearly chest-to-chest. The man's body gave off no smell or heat.

“Are you all right, Warden?” he said. “You seem confused. You might want to have an EMT check you out for a concussion.”

“So what were you saying to Dyer just now? What were you telling him?”

Russo paused. His expression was as unreadable as always, but I thought I saw a flicker of amusement behind his eyes.

“I told him that he was fired,” he said. “What else would I be telling him?”

And then he stepped past me and returned to his vehicle. His headlights came on. I watched him do a perfect three-point turn and then drive away.

When I looked in on Dyer myself, he gave me a smile that showed off his discolored teeth.

“What did Russo say to you just now?” I asked. “Tell me what he said.”

“He said I'm going to be famous.” I found myself wanting to slap him again across his smug, triumphant face. Whatever else Logan Dyer was, he was no patsy. He had killed twelve men that I knew of, starting with Adam, and nearly including Mink and me. But I still couldn't believe he had written that so-called manifesto, couldn't believe he had planned and executed his vigilante campaign alone. I had to sit down on a snowbank to cool off.

Pulsifer was the last warden to arrive, and he pretended to give me holy hell for my ruined truck. “I am no insurance adjuster, but I would file this one under ‘totaled.' Don't be surprised if your rates go through the roof, Bowditch.”

Gary helped me transfer my gear from my truck to his—the stuff that hadn't been shot full of holes, that is.

“What about these?” he said when we were almost done. He held out my father's dog tags. In the artificial light of the emergency vehicles I read the stamped words again, as if for the first time:

BOWDITCH

JOHN, M.

004-00-8120

O NEG

NO PREF.

I sucked in my breath.

“What?” asked Pulsifer, narrowing his eyes and sticking out his chin in that foxlike way of his.

“Have you ever heard the expression ‘Blood doesn't lie'?”

“Yeah. Why?”

I put the dog tags around my neck and tucked them under my T-shirt. I didn't pause to think about what I was doing or why. The metal felt cold against my chest.

“Maybe I'll tell you someday.”

*   *   *

I stayed with Lauren and Gary Pulsifer again that night. I'd asked Clegg to call me if he got any information out of Dyer, thinking I'd hear from him in the morning. But the detective called even before we'd finished the hot chocolates Lauren had made to warm us both up.

I took the phone into the Pulsifer's guest room, which was as drafty as ever.

“He confessed to everything,” Clegg said. “As soon as I started back to Farmington, he started talking. He said, ‘Yeah, I killed them all. Langstrom, too. I'm guilty, and that's all I'm going to say. If you want to know why I did it, read my letter.'”

“His letter?” I said.

“That word struck me as odd, too. I said, ‘Are you referring to your manifesto?' And he said, ‘Yeah, my manifesto. That letter I wrote. All my reasons for doing it are in there. Read it and you'll understand why. I'm guilty, and that's all I'm going to say.'”

“So what were the reasons he supposedly gave in his ‘letter'?”

Clegg answered as if he might have had the document in front of him. “It starts with him having a revelation that he has only a short time to live, and that he decided the best way for him to spend his final days was in dramatic action, taking extreme measures to protect the children of Maine, since the criminal justice system has failed so mightily. He claims this country was founded on vigilantism and the only way ‘to take it back' is by adopting the methods of our Founding Fathers. It's quite a lengthy document.”

“That sounds a lot more like Johnny Partridge than it does Logan Dyer. Don't you think?”

“Speaking for myself, I would say yes. Speaking for the state of Maine, I am not sure it matters.”

“How can it not matter?”

“Because you caught him in the act of trying to kill Nathan Minkowski and yourself. Because every bit of physical evidence we have found so far connects him to the massacre of those men. Because he had means, motive, and opportunity. And because his ‘letter' tells us exactly why he chose to leave Langstrom's truck near the SERE school.”

“What reason did he give?

“So that its discovery would gain international attention for his crusade. The navy base is already the preoccupation of conspiracy theorists. He sees himself as the inspirational leader of a vigilante insurrection that will sweep the nation.”

“There's more to this, Clegg. There has to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what if Dyer was put up to this? What if he was goaded along by someone else? He's already unstable, and he thinks he's dying of a brain tumor, and so he's going to be easy to manipulate. Someone tells him he'll be a world-famous hero if he wipes out all those sex offenders.”

“Who do you think is manipulating him?”

“Russo.”

Clegg's tone turned sour. “What reason would Russo have had to mastermind something like this?”

“He wouldn't, which is why he would make such a good middleman. People think those Night Watchmen are just a bunch of tough-talking old drunks. I did, too. But they hated what Foss was doing—bringing ‘human garbage' to their mountain resort—and his business was in direct competition with Cabot Lumber. When I met Russo at the Sluiceway, he didn't act like the head of security at Widowmaker. He acted like he worked for Cabot.”

“Mike—”

“I know it sounds crazy, but at every stage of this thing, there's been one of those Night Watchmen involved. First it was Torgerson showing up outside the SERE school. Then it was Partridge publishing an incendiary column the day before the massacre. I don't know how Adam Langstrom fits into it all. Maybe Russo told Dyer to kill him as a dry run, to see if he could go through with killing the others. But I think Foss was the real target all along.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

“I think you should get some sleep, Mike,” Clegg said at last in a patient, fatherly voice. “Those aren't accusations you should be making in public without any proof. You're starting to sound like those conspiracy theorists we were just talking about.”

“If I was one of the Night Watchmen, that's exactly what I'd hope you'd say.”

“Or it could be that it's all coincidence, and Dyer is a better letter writer than you think he is.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, we'll know more in the morning.”

“Why's that?”

“Because Dyer's manifesto also spells out exactly how he disposed of Langstrom's body. He says he lashed it to a tire wheel and then pushed it off a bridge over the Dead River. In the morning, the state police are sending a dive team to check out the water under that bridge. You're welcome to watch them if you'd like.”

“I wouldn't miss it,” I said.

I had barely hung up the phone when the door opened and Flotsam and Jetsam rushed into the guest room and began sniffing around my legs. As I scratched their heads, I found myself thinking of Shadow again. Would he be able to survive alone in the wild, after having spent so much time with humans? Yes, he would, I thought. There was something about that animal that made me regret all the times I had scoffed at New Agers for worshiping wolves as magical creatures possessed of special powers. Shadow might not be a deity, but that big brute was a survivor.

The phone buzzed again. This time it was Stacey. I stretched out atop the still-made bed. The dogs jumped up to join me.

“I got your message,” she said. “Are you all right?”

“I am now.”

“What happened tonight?”

“I promise to tell you the whole story,” I said, “but first I need to hear how you're doing.”

“Shitty. You were right. I shouldn't have gone out there. I saw things—I wish I could unsee them.”

“You need to come home.”

“I'm worried it won't help.”

“I'm not.”

“You promised to tell me the whole story of what happened to you. Begin at the beginning.”

And that was what I did.

*   *   *

The next morning, I awoke early to go watch the state police divers begin their search for Adam's corpse. Pulsifer was waiting in the kitchen with two cups of coffee. “You're not going to get far without a vehicle.”

“I figured I'd steal one of yours.”

“Another charge for the disciplinary committee.”

As I had expected, the temperature had plummeted after the snow moved out, and it took us so long to scrape the frost from the windows of Gary's patrol truck that I needed to pry my fingers loose from the scraper. I never knew the living could also suffer from rigor mortis.

“Do you know what the state does with unclaimed bodies?” I asked Pulsifer.

“I've always assumed the ashes end up in the back room of some funeral home. Why do you ask?”

“It's just something that's been on my mind.”

We drove in silence back toward Kennebago Settlement, both of us agreeing without saying so that it was too cold for further conversation.

A deputy had blocked the road to the bridge with his car to prevent nosy people from approaching the scene. It was my friend from the other night, the one who had pointed me in the direction of the wounded dog.

“I heard it was hit by a car,” he told me.

I had hoped the injured animal might still survive. I certainly didn't blame it for the actions of its vile owner.

Pulsifer and I walked to the bridge.

On too many occasions I had watched the Warden Service dive team retrieve bodies from the water: swimmers who underestimated the currents in a river, snowmobilers who overestimated the thickness of lake ice. Most of the corpses I had seen brought up from the depths had belonged to young people. Younger than thirty. Younger than me. The young and the reckless.

Adam had been only twenty-one.

The river wasn't particularly deep, and the dark water, when the divers opened a hole, didn't seem to be moving particularly fast, but I knew that diving is always dangerous, especially under ice.

Mist rose from the moving water—it was so much warmer than the air. It almost seemed as if we were staring into hot springs.

I had expected a long wait, but the divers found Adam on their first descent. He was exactly where Logan Dyer's manifesto had said he would be. Everything Dyer had told the detectives turned out to be true.

And for reasons I couldn't explain, it made me all the more certain that he hadn't acted alone. But what could I do about it? I hadn't even been able to convince Clegg. I would have to be content in knowing that the man who had pulled the trigger twelve times would spend the rest of his life—however long it was—behind bars. Not all of the wicked are punished in this life; many bad men die peacefully in their sleep. The injustices of this world are why we so desperately dream of a better one yet to come.