Massacre Pond

25

That night it rained. I lay awake listening to the drops pattering on the roof. The wind in the pines made a moaning sound that made me think of an injured animal.

Insomnia hadn’t been a problem for me since I’d become a game warden. There’s nothing like spending long hours in extreme weather conditions to help you sleep. Sarah used to say that I would start snoring before my head even hit the pillow. That night, though, I tossed and turned. It felt like I was trying to sleep on a bed of surgical needles.

An hour before dawn, I gave up trying to sleep and took a hot shower. There were rust stains around the drain and a layer of yellowish film coating the plastic walls. I wrapped a towel around myself and went looking for some Comet. No matter how much I scrubbed, the stains wouldn’t come out. I perspired so much, I had to take another shower.

McQuarrie called as I was making coffee. “How was your day off?”

“It was fine.” I couldn’t bring myself to broach the subject of my mother’s cancer.

“Have you been reading the papers?”

“No. Why?”

“Our dead moose have made the front page three days running. Rivard is spending most of his time talking to reporters. It doesn’t help that Queen Elizabeth is on national TV.”

“Bilodeau didn’t tell me anything about his investigation,” I said. “That guy’s about as talkative as a potted plant. Have there been any breaks?”

“Nothing to write home about-although Bilodeau seems to think those AR shells he found are a big deal. Rivard wants us to put the screws to the guys on his shit list today. He’s sick of tap-dancing for reporters.”

“Great,” I said. “What do you need me to do?”

“Head back over to Morse’s place and hold her hand for a while.”

“Come on, Mack!”

“The best thing you can do right now is stay out of the limelight,” he said. “The less the L.T. hears your name, the better. After this thing is over, all he’ll remember is that you followed his orders.”

“Will he authorize a new patrol truck for me?”

“In your dreams, kiddo.”

In the night, the wind had ripped many of the last leaves from the treetops and flung them, almost contemptuously, to the ground, where they continued to glow-red and yellow-like embers from a drowning campfire. The air had a fresh, clean smell, as if newly washed. Water pooled in the hoofprints of a moose that had passed silently in the night.

The best chance I had of catching Pelkey and Beam at home, I figured, was to get there before they left for work at the mill. The address I’d found for them was on an unpaved road in the blink-and-you-miss-it town of Talmadge, just north of Indian Township. The warden there was my classmate from the academy and Chubby LeClair’s archnemesis, Jeremy Bard.

Wardens routinely patrol one another’s districts; we take our colleagues’ calls on their days off and sometimes team up to work deer decoys together or prowl around the woods looking for night hunters. Bard and I had joined forces only half a dozen times. Most recently, we’d done a boat patrol together on Big Lake and had barely exchanged five words. Afterward, he must have said something to the lieutenant, because I hadn’t been asked to cover for him again. The message couldn’t have been clearer: Bard didn’t want me messing around his district.

I hadn’t been lying to Bilodeau about my motives in wanting to meet Pelkey and Beam, not entirely. If they were the four-season sportsmen everyone said they were, then it was worth my while to make their acquaintance, since the essence of my job consisted of persuading neighbors to rat one another out over various Title 12 infractions. The more people you knew, the more potential snitches you had calling you up to report that their hated neighbors had just bagged a doe out of season. Grudges, gossip, and backwoods feuds were the currencies of the game warden’s trade.

In Talmadge, I left the paved surface of Route 1 and turned onto a branching series of dirt roads that got narrower and narrower the farther into the woods I drove. The experience was like following a river upstream until you found the tiny tributary at its head. The forest here was mostly deciduous: maples clutching their last handfuls of red and gold leaves, bonelike birches already stripped of their color, and gnarled old oaks with tattered brown foliage.

The GPS on my dash guided me into the dooryard of an ancient mobile home that had the appearance of having been tossed there, like Dorothy’s house from The Wizard of Oz, by a passing tornado. It had flesh-colored metal walls and a flat roof on which snow must have accumulated fast in the winter. There were three vehicles parked out front: two brand-new pickups-identical jet-black Nissan Titans with cardboard dealer’s plates-and a little red Chevy Cavalier that was overdue for its appointment at the junkyard.

How had these rednecks managed to buy snazzy new pickups when half the men they worked with were losing their jobs? What kind of spendthrifts were these guys? And where did they get their money?

Even before I could get out of my truck, I saw one of the blankets hanging over the windows being peeled back, and I got a quick glimpse of a human face before the improvised curtain dropped down again. A moment later, the door swung open and a man stepped onto the porch. He had loose brown hair that feathered down the back of his neck and one of those stubble beards guys in their twenties sometimes sport. He looked fit and flat-stomached and was wearing a canvas shirt, blue jeans cinched tightly around his waist with a big-buckled belt, and camel-colored work boots. In his hand was an aluminum coffee mug with a Big Bucks of Maine emblem.

“Good morning,” he said.

I put on my friendliest face. “Good morning.”

“What’s going on?” He had a thick Maine accent.

“Are you Todd Pelkey?” I knew he had to be one or the other, and he looked like a Pelkey.

“Yessuh.”

“I’m Mike Bowditch, the warden down in District Fifty-eight. I sometimes patrol this area, and I wanted to introduce myself.”

He eyed me as he took a sip of coffee. “I thought Jeremy Bard was covering this territory. Did something happen to him?” He pronounced Jeremy as germy.

“Sometimes we cover each other’s districts, and I figured I should get the lay of the land up here.”

Another man stepped onto the porch. He was even taller than his friend and had close-cropped platinum hair that looked white in the weak sunlight. From the back, you might have mistaken him for a much older man. There was a pink scar across his chin that looked painful. He was dressed in the very same outfit as his buddy. “Ain’t we the popular ones suddenly?” he said.

“You must be Beam.”

“That’s right,” he said. “So you’re not here about them moose? We already spoke to that investigator about them.”

“This is just a social call. I’m making the rounds before the deer season gets under way.”

“What did you say your name was again?” Beam asked.

“Bowditch.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Pelkey. “We heard about you.”

That was no surprise. My name had been in the newspapers enough over the past few years, although Pelkey and Beam didn’t strike me as the sort of guys who spent their Sunday mornings doing the New York Times crossword puzzle. More likely, they’d heard about me through the back channel of information that flows from one hunter to another when a new warden is transferred to the area.

A tiny young woman appeared in the doorway behind the two men, clutching a flannel robe tightly around her throat. She had mousy brown hair and wore oversize glasses, but with enough makeup that she could pass for pretty in this neck of the woods. “They already talked to a warden about them moose!”

“Go inside, Tiffany,” said Beam with a growl.

“Why are they coming around here all of a sudden?” she asked. I had a feeling that the nervous girl might be my best source of information if I could get her alone. It might just be a matter of circling back to the trailer after her two boyfriends left for work.

“They’re just talking to everyone with a hunting license,” said Pelkey. “Ain’t that what’s going on, Warden Bowditch?”

“I’m not even here about that,” I said.

“That’s right,” said Pelkey, who seemed to be the wilier of the two. “This is a social call.”

“I heard you guys were quite the deer slayers,” I said. “Where do you hunt?”

“All over,” said Beam. His expression was the dictionary definition of deadpan.

“Have you gotten any deer with your bows yet this fall?” I asked.

“A few,” said Beam.

“You’re welcome to have a look at the freezer,” said Pelkey, cocking one eyebrow.

“I don’t want him tearing up my house,” said Tiffany. “I just vacuumed in there.”

“Shut up, Tiffany,” said Beam.

No one seemed to be buying the bullshit I was selling this morning. “You should have Jeremy take you around,” said Pelkey. “He can show you all the stomping grounds.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Bard’s from this area, isn’t he?”

“Woodland High School,” said Pelkey with a handsome smile. “Class of ’03. Go, Dragons.”

It was unusual, but not unprecedented, for a warden to be stationed in the district where he’d grown up. The plus side was that you knew the territory and the players; the downside was that you were frequently in the awkward position of having to give tickets to your friends and family members.

“The three of us go way back,” said Beam with a smirk. I wasn’t sure if it was an insinuation or a threat.

Pelkey finished off the coffee in his mug. “How’s things down in your district? I heard you got a lot of poachers running wild down that way.”

“Everyone says your district is totally polluted,” said Beam. He and his buddy seemed to have a Mutt and Jeff act going.

“The poaching hasn’t been bad so far this fall,” I said. “Except for what happened to those moose on Elizabeth Morse’s land.”

“We heard all about that from that investigator,” said Pelkey. “Sounds wicked cold-blooded if you ask me. You wardens got any suspects?”

“A few.”

“But you ain’t here to talk to us about that, right?” Pelkey dumped the dregs of his coffee on the ground. “Hey, Lew, we’d better get to work. Don’t want to be late, or old man Skillen will have our hides.”

Beam gave a grunt that signaled he agreed.

Pelkey turned to Tiffany. “Give me some sugar, baby.”

He held her by both shoulders and kissed her hard on the lips. I watched with fascination and disgust as, a moment later, Lew Beam did the same thing. Anyone who thinks that country people are the salt of the earth needs to go on patrol with a game warden.

“Bye, baby,” the pale-haired man said to her.

“Bye.”

“Come on, Warden,” said Pelkey, offering me another of his dashing smiles. “We’ll ride out with you.”

I glanced at the dense, wet mass of alders and sumac that surrounded the property. “Maybe I’ll poke around a bit farther up the road.”

Pelkey set the mug down on the porch railing and came down the steps, jingling his keys in his hand. “There’s nothing up there ’cept an old pit.”

McQuarrie had ordered me to inspect the area gravel pits for spent.22 shells. Reason suggested I should check it out. If I caught any flak for driving up to Talmadge, I could argue that I’d merely been following my sergeant’s instructions to leave no pit unsearched.

“You have a good day, Warden,” said Pelkey, climbing into one of the Nissans.

Beam merely scowled at me as he started up his own vehicle. He pushed the gas pedal to make it growl.

I had to move my patrol truck for the men to get out. I waited for them to drive off down the muddy road, but instead they idled their engines. I turned the wheel and began creeping farther up the rutted lane in the direction of the gravel pit they had so helpfully mentioned. I gazed in the rearview mirror, wondering if they might come after me: a sure sign they were afraid of what I might find in the pit. Both trucks headed, however, in the opposite direction.

The road beyond the trailer was a mess. It was like driving up a streambed. Rocks the size of footballs scraped the undercarriage of my pickup, and the ruts from the freshets were deep enough that I worried my wheels would get stuck. There is nothing more embarrassing to a Maine game warden than having to call for roadside assistance in the back of beyond. I decided to walk the rest of the way.

There were a pair of ATV tracks in the wet sand. I hadn’t spotted four-wheelers in the dooryard of the trailer, but just about everyone in Washington County seemed to own one of those machines, and I was willing to bet money that these prints belonged to my two new friends. I had a feeling they would lead me where I wanted to go, and they did.

The gravel pit hadn’t been used in a long time; you could tell from the spiky weeds and bushes pushing up from the bottom. It was shaped like a large amphitheater, with sloping walls that were fringed at the top with a row of young pines. Someone had decided the place would make a convenient dump. There were a few of those big wooden spools that power companies use for electrical wire, along with an assortment of junked appliances, a wheel-less and burned-out Monte Carlo that was now rusting into the landscape (it looked almost sculptural), and numerous bags of trash that had been well plundered by the resident raccoons, coyotes, and foxes.

Near the back of the pit was an improvised shooting range. Someone had propped up a piece of plywood against the gravel wall and stapled various paper targets, which had largely rotted away or been shredded into bits by gunfire. But you could tell from the groupings of the holes that this was a destination for shooters.

I probably spent the better part of an hour scouting for shell casings beneath the fog-shrouded sky. Just as in the previous pits I had inspected, I found rounds from a wide variety of firearms-everything from little.32 ACP handguns to big.30-30s that could have taken down a charging bull moose with one shot. What puzzled me was what I didn’t find. Although there were.22 shells aplenty, there were no.22 long rifle or.22 Magnum shells. The odds alone should have dictated that I would find a few.

So intent was I on my work that I didn’t hear Jeremy Bard creep up behind me. One minute I was bent over, picking up casings from a pile of pebbles; the next a shadow appeared beside me, and I straightened up with a start.

“What are you doing here?” He had the flattened face of a bulldog and a barrel chest that could probably have benched four hundred pounds with ease.

“I didn’t hear you,” I said.

“You weren’t supposed to. What’s going on? I got a call you were poking around up here.”

“I wanted to meet Pelkey and Beam before opening day. Billy Cronk told me they were worth getting to know.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“Hey,” I said. “I’m not trying to step on your toes here.”

“Too fucking late for that.” He crossed his powerful forearms. “I know what you’re doing, Bowditch. You’re bored with the job Rivard gave you, and now you’re trying to get in on the investigation by interrogating Pelkey and Beam. You just can’t follow an order, can you?”

“One of my ‘jobs’ has been hanging out in gravel pits, looking for shell casings.”

A muscle in his thick neck twitched. “That’s not why you’re here, and we both know it.”

“I already cleared this with Bilodeau,” I said. “He didn’t have a problem with me coming out here.”

“Yeah, well, I have a problem with it. This is my district, and I don’t want you harassing people here.”

“I wouldn’t call the conversation I had with Pelkey and Beam harassment.”

“That’s not what my cousin says.”

“Your cousin?”

“Tiffany.”

So that was how Bard knew I was here. Tiffany hadn’t wasted any time getting on the phone with her warden cousin. “It doesn’t bother you, her shacking up with those two lowlifes?”

He took another step closer. One more and he could have thrown a punch. “That’s my family you’re talking about now.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll get out of your hair. But maybe you can do me a favor.”

The request seemed to amuse him. “Why should I do you a favor?”

“I’m getting calls from Chubby LeClair,” I said. “He says you’re basically stalking him.”

“The fat ass is at the top of our shit list.”

“I’m not defending him. I just don’t like getting his phone calls every day. He seems to be having a nervous breakdown. If you’re going to make a case, you’d better do it fast, because he’s going to have a heart attack before you can bring charges.”

“Is that all?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s all.”

Bard followed me back to our trucks, and we drove out together. He rode my bumper, as if to literally push me out of his district. I thought he might tailgate me all the way to Route 1, but instead he stopped at his cousin’s trailer, while I continued south down the branching roads. I wasn’t sure what I’d just learned in Talmadge, but the experience wasn’t sitting well in my stomach.