Massacre Pond

23

I didn’t bother stopping at my cabin to change into my uniform or swap the Bronco for my patrol truck. Instead, I drove in street clothes directly to the Sixth Machias gate and arrived as the afternoon was fading to evening. As I rolled to a stop on the soft pine needles, I saw a black SUV in the deepening shadows on the other side. A broad-chested man in dark glasses climbed out of the vehicle and moved with surprising speed toward my Bronco. The first thing I noticed about him was his shaved head, which was glistening with perspiration. He wore a loose black shirt with epaulets and black cargo pants over combat-style boots. The military bearing and the untucked shirt made me think he almost certainly had a handgun hidden inside the waistband of his pants.

I didn’t notice the radio receiver in his ear until he was standing beside my window. His breath smelled of wintergreen chewing gum.

“Can I help you, sir?” he asked.

“I’m Mike Bowditch, with the Maine Warden Service, here to see Sheriff Rhine.”

“Identification?”

I produced my warden ID from my wallet and handed it to Elizabeth’s new security guard. He took an exaggerated amount of time to compare my photograph to my face. Without another word, he passed the card back to me and unlocked the gate. He motioned me through impatiently, as if I were holding up a long line of vehicles.

As I continued on to the log mansion, I wondered where Morse had picked up the thug; he definitely wasn’t a local. It made me curious what other developments I’d missed over the past twenty-four hours. A bank of clouds hung above the western horizon like a distant gray wall. Two birds were soaring up high: my pair of ravens.

Moosehorn Lodge had been overrun with vehicles. Parked in the circular drive outside the double doors were three Washington County sheriff’s cruisers, an unmarked blue Ford Interceptor that almost certainly belonged to a state police detective, a silver GMC Sierra that was the property of the Maine Warden Service, an obsidian SUV that looked like it had been driven straight from a dealer’s showroom, and a mechanic’s van with the words STONECOAST SECURITY stenciled on the side. I noticed a man on a ladder installing a camera on a tree trunk, the lens focused on the entrance to the building. I nodded to him as I got out of the Bronco, but he ignored me and continued with his work.

Briar answered the door. “Oh, it’s you,” she said with a broad smile that showed off her perfect teeth.

She was wearing a purple Bennington T-shirt that was as tight as another layer of skin, denim cutoffs, and no shoes. Her dark hair was wet, as if she’d just come from the shower or swimming in the lake, and she was trying to knot it up so the long strands stayed out of her face.

“I heard someone shot up the place,” I said.

“The windows overlooking the lake are all shattered. There are bullet holes everywhere.”

I could hear a jumble of voices down the hall; it sounded like the Morses were having a dinner party.

“It’s a good thing you weren’t home at the time,” I said.

“I’m not sure why we even came back from New York. It’s pretty obvious we’re not wanted around here. But you know how stubborn my mom is. Nothing’s going to scare her off or change her mind. Hey, you’re out of uniform.”

“I had the day off.”

She pinched the fabric of my flannel shirt and gave me a playful look. “I think I prefer the uniform.”

She gave a girly laugh that reminded me how young she was, and then she turned and headed toward the sunlit rooms within. I followed her.

In the kitchen, we found Elizabeth Morse, Leaf Woodwind, and Dexter Albee. Another man, a stranger whose head was also shaved, stood in the doorway leading to the formal dining room. He had thin lips, a boxer’s flat nose, and cold gray eyes that had probably looked out across more than one Middle Eastern battlefield. A coil ran from his ear down his neck. He wore a tight black T-shirt over his muscular torso and snug blue jeans that made me wonder where he was hiding his pistol.

“Hello,” I said to the group.

“Briar, put on some shoes,” said Elizabeth Morse. “There’s broken glass everywhere.”

Her daughter let out an exasperated breath, as if it were a ridiculous request. The windows in this room were all intact. The light streaming through the curtains had softened with the gathering clouds, giving everyone’s face a sickly cast.

“You’re turning this place into a prison,” said Briar.

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” replied her mother. “Nice of you to join us, Warden. You seem to be in mufti today.”

“I was in southern Maine, visiting my mother.”

“She must appreciate having such a devoted son.” The jab seemed intended for Briar. “You missed all the excitement, in any case. Some nutcase decided to open fire on the lodge last night, as I’m sure you’ve heard. It seems we are now under siege. I decided to call for reinforcements. Warden Bowditch, this is Jack Spense. He’s my new security consultant.”

The name seemed vaguely familiar. Maybe I had seen it on a book jacket. He nearly crushed my metacarpals when we shook hands.

“Nice to meet you,” he said in a tough-guy tone that didn’t seem at all sincere.

“I met your new guard at the gate,” I said. “And I noticed you were installing cameras around the property.”

“How long have I been telling you to do that, Betty?” asked jug-eared Dexter Albee. “There are some real idiots in this part of the state.”

And talk like that is unlikely to persuade them to support your national park, I thought.

Leaf was moping by himself at the kitchen table; he scratched his beard and stared out at the lake. Having his house invaded by the police had thrown the old hippie into a funk. He seemed to be counting the minutes until he could get high again.

“Better late than never,” said Morse. “Mr. Spense is an expert in-what’s the term you used? Threat assessments? He specializes in providing security to multinational corporations and high-profile individuals.”

“Which celebrities have you worked for?” asked Briar.

His smile was so thin as to be almost imperceptible. “I can’t reveal the names of my other clients, Miss Morse.”

“But you’ve been a bodyguard to lots of famous singers and actors, right?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Briar, leave the poor man alone. It’s bad enough that we dragged him to the wilds of Maine.” She stepped around the granite island and took hold of my biceps in a familiar way, which surprised me. “We should let Warden Bowditch consult with his colleagues. He has better things to do than listen to my daughter prattle on about her celebrity crushes.”

She just about pushed me through the door.

* * *

The first thing I noticed was the smell of the lake, that pleasant fishy smell. It floated down the hall on a gust of tepid air.

The great room, where Albee had given me his national park spiel, looked like a hurricane had hit it. Except for a few knifelike shards projecting from the sills, the windows were almost completely gone. Broken glass lay everywhere underfoot, in jagged plates and sparkling fragments. The housekeeper would be finding bits of crushed glass embedded in the furniture and carpets for the next decade.

My entrance interrupted a conversation between Sheriff Rhine and a dark-eyed, dark-skinned man in a sharkskin suit. I’d first met Detective Lieutenant Zanadakis, of the Maine State Police, the previous winter, when he interviewed me about a drug dealer I’d found frozen to death in a peat bog. The detective had interrogated me for a couple of hours on the presumption that I’d omitted some crucial details in my written report. I’d just caught him in midsentence.

“I don’t think the shooter ever left his boat,” he told the sheriff.

“Why do you say that?” asked Rhine.

“The evidence techs haven’t found any brass on the shore.”

“Looks like they’ll need to do some diving, then.” Rhine flicked her coal-black eyes in my direction. She looked more professional than at our last encounter, outside KKK’s compound, having swapped her bathing suit for a neat khaki uniform. Her sheriff’s badge was clipped to her shining black belt. “Hello, Bowditch.”

“Sheriff,” I said. “Lieutenant.”

“The question is whether he knew the house was empty,” continued Zanadakis. I might have been a dog that had wandered into the room, as far as the detective was concerned. “It’s the difference between aggravated criminal mischief and attempted murder.”

“Either way, I’m fine with you running the show here,” said Rhine. “We’ll need to bring in Rivard, though, at least until we rule out a connection to those moose shootings.”

“Why isn’t he here?” The detective had some sort of paste or gel in his hair that made it look wet.

“He’s down in Augusta briefing the colonel and the commissioner on the investigation.” The sheriff swung her broad shoulders around so that she was facing me. “What do you think, Bowditch? Connection or no connection?”

“I’d just be guessing,” I said.

“You were the one who pointed us in the right direction with the Randall Cates murder. And you were the first warden on the scene of this moose massacre. What does your gut tell you?”

I studied the walls, which were pockmarked with dozens of bullet holes. The rounds had chipped both fireplaces and dug holes in the sofa and chairs. I couldn’t imagine how Morse could restore this room to its former glory. Nor could I imagine living here and looking at the scars of the shooting every day as a reminder that someone had tried to murder you.

“It’s a different rifle,” I said. “The moose were killed with twenty-twos, probably bolt-action. This was a semiauto.”

“We’ve determined that much,” said Zanadakis.

“I don’t think it’s the same shooters,” I said.

“Why?” he asked.

“There’s a carelessness about this.” I waved my hand at the bullet-riddled logs. “The person who shot up the house didn’t know if anyone was home or not. There might have been a child sleeping here-or someone with a gun who could have returned fire. This guy just wanted to cause mayhem and didn’t seem to contemplate the consequences. The men who shot the moose were very deliberate. They sneaked onto the property. They used twenty-twos because they’re quiet. They went about their business and slipped away into the night.”

“They left their brass behind,” said Zanadakis. “I’d say that qualifies as carelessness.”

“But there were no fingerprints-except for Billy Cronk’s-found on the shell casings. That means they wore gloves.”

The detective removed a notebook from his jacket pocket. “Who’s this Billy Cronk?”

“The former caretaker,” said Rhine.

A sharp pain knifed through my heart. The last thing I’d wanted was to incriminate my hapless friend.

Zanadakis scribbled something on his notepad. “We’re going to need to get a statement from this Cronk about where he was last night.”

“You don’t have a problem with that?” the sheriff asked me.

There was no accusation buried in the question; instead, it felt as if Rhine wanted me to examine my assumptions for bias.

“We need to follow the evidence wherever it leads us,” I said.

Roberta Rhine nodded and gestured toward the shattered windows. “Warden Investigator Bilodeau is out there somewhere. He said he wants a word with you.”