Massacre Pond

39

The old man didn’t speak to me on the long drive to the jail. He sat with his big cuffed hands folded in his lap, staring out at the miles of timber that had once been his family’s feudal kingdom. I fancied he was asking himself again how he had managed to lose his birthright, just as he was now about to lose his reputation and, maybe, his freedom. There was only one thing of value remaining in Merritt Skillen’s life, and whatever else happened, he had made the decision not to lose that, as well. Despite my general dislike of the man, I couldn’t help but admire his willingness to sacrifice himself for his son. My only worry was that he would be successful in his deception.

Matt Skillen followed us into Machias in his gleaming GMC, his newly repaired truck as silent as a shark.

The sheriff came down from her office in the courthouse to the ill-smelling booking area. A white-nosed golden retriever padded along behind her. “Can you explain to me what’s going on here?” Roberta Rhine asked as she pulled me aside.

“He wants to confess,” I said.

“To what?”

“To everything.”

I laid out the whole story to her, including my certainty that the old man was taking the rap for his murderous son. “Merritt wasn’t driving his son’s truck the night Briar died,” I said. “But I can’t prove that he wasn’t the one who chased her, either.”

She turned her head to watch one of her deputies taking the mill owner’s fingerprints. “Do you think Zanadakis can persuade him to give up his boy?”

“No.”

“Me, neither,” she said.

The Washington County Jail was lit by cold fluorescent bulbs and smelled of the chlorine the inmates used to swab the floors. Somewhere behind the locked door that led deeper into the ancient prison, another door swung shut with a loud metallic clang. The sound seemed to echo in my heart. “Is Billy Cronk still here, or has he been transferred?”

“He’s still here,” she said, pulling on her long black braid. “The AG made the decision that we’d be the ones to hold him until his trial. He’s asking the judge not to set bail, and after seeing what was left of Beam’s melon, I expect the judge will agree. Billy’s going down for manslaughter.” She studied my eyes as if they were one-way mirrors she couldn’t see through. “Would you like to see him?”

I reached down to scratch the neck of the old dog. My hand came away with a fistful of hair from the shedding animal.

“I have to go,” I said, rising to my feet.

* * *

When I got back to the cabin, I found Kathy Frost waiting in the dooryard in her unmarked patrol truck. It was a new GMC with the same teal paint job as McQuarrie’s. It made me wonder whether all the division sergeants were getting the same new Sierras.

“You don’t call, you don’t write,” she said.

She was a fortysomething woman with a tall, athletic body that she kept in shape by running triathlons and playing smash-mouth basketball with a men’s team at the YMCA in Camden. She wore her hair in a sandy bob beneath her black baseball cap, and she was holding two large cups of coffee, one of which she offered me. Her grizzled coonhound, Pluto, lay asleep on the pine needles beneath her feet.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. She lived three hours away to the south, along the Maine midcoast.

“I heard about your showdown at the gravel pit. I want to see your bruise.”

I thought she was joking, but she actually made me unbutton my shirt and remove my vest. My chest was wrapped with bandages to hold the broken bones steady, but my ribs ached every time I took a deep breath. Goose pimples rose along my neck and arms from the damp autumn breeze. Rain was coming.

She pressed the purple flesh above the bandage with two fingers. “That is truly disgusting, Grasshopper.”

“Ow.”

“What are you doing on duty? Shouldn’t you be in bed, resting?”

McQuarrie had told me to place myself on sick leave, but I had decided to postpone my time off until I had it out with Matt Skillen. “I had one last thing to do today.”

“I want to hear all about it.” She peered up at a red squirrel that was perched at the apex of my cabin roof, watching us. “How about you let me inside so I can use the little girls’ room. I’ve had three cups of coffee today, and I didn’t want to pee in your yard.”

“I appreciate it.”

Kathy was one of only a handful of female wardens in the state and the lone sergeant. She had been a trailblazer in the service, resented at first by the old-school chauvinists like McQuarrie, but she had demonstrated her mental and physical toughness over the course of two decades. She’d dedicated her life to arresting scumbag poachers who boosted their incomes selling oxycodone to middle schoolers. She’d located the dead bodies of more raped and murdered women than anyone should ever be forced to see. And she’d shot a three-hundred-pound wife beater to death in self-defense. I had decided long ago that if I ever heard one of my colleagues make a sexist crack about female wardens, I would pop him in the nose on Kathy’s behalf.

Inside, I started a fire in the woodstove, and we sat down across from each other at the kitchen table. Pluto plopped his tired old body next to the heat and fell back asleep in seconds. Kathy and I looked at the dog as he started snoring, and then we smiled at each other. She picked up a squirrel pellet and made a comment about how at least I wasn’t living alone anymore. She took a sip of coffee and put the cup down, and suddenly she was all business.

“So this Cronk guy saved your life?” she said.

“Yes, he did.”

“That will count for something at sentencing. You must have had a few tense moments in that pit. I would have wet my undies.”

“No, you wouldn’t, Kathy.”

She leaned forward and rested her forearms on the table. “You did good, Mike. While everyone else was patting each other on the back, you went out and found the guys we were looking for. Don’t think that will go unnoticed.”

I hadn’t told her yet about Matt and Merritt Skillen. As glad as I was to see Kathy, I didn’t seem to be in a talking mood. I kept picturing the diamond ring Stacey had left on that table. It seemed like the one hopeful thing I could cling to at the moment.

“Rivard is going to be demoted,” she said. “Word around Augusta is that the colonel is hanging him out to dry for everything that went wrong with the investigation. Queen Elizabeth has too much money and too many powerful friends. If Rivard had done his fucking job and not zeroed in so fast on Khristian and LeClair, there’s a good chance her daughter would still be alive.”

“It’s nice to think so.”

“You’re having doubts about the Warden Service.” She scratched her freckled nose. “I know you, Grasshopper. This whole fiasco has left you wondering whether you made the right choice. I fought hard for you those first two years when you were hell-bent on getting yourself fired, and I’m not going to watch you quit now.”

“I don’t know, Kathy,” I said. “I just don’t know.”

“What if I try to pull some strings and get you reassigned?”

My cell phone rang on my belt. I reached for it and saw that the number belonged to Neil. His silence had been another blade hanging over my head.

“Excuse me a minute,” I said.

I got up and walked into the bathroom and stood over the sink, looking at my gaunt reflection in the mirror. “Hi, Neil,” I said. “How is she doing?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you back, it’s just that-”

“What’s wrong?”

“Your mom has a fever and a low white blood cell count. Febrile neutropenia is the term the doctor used. They think she has an infection from the chemo. We’re in the hospital in Portland. Is there any way you could come down here?” His voice cracked. “It would mean a lot to us.”

“I’m on my way,” I said.

Rain was pattering on the roof as I returned to the kitchen table.

“I need to go to Portland,” I said. “My mom’s in the hospital.”

Kathy stood up. Her knee knocked the edge of the table, causing it to shake. “What’s the matter?”

“She has ovarian cancer. Now they think she has an infection from the chemo.”

“Jesus, Mike,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I didn’t know. My mother had told me that I’d shut her out of my life, and I’d heard the same thing from my girlfriend Sarah. It seemed to be a pattern I was doomed to repeat forever. “I’ve got to go.”

She grabbed her coat from the back of the chair. “I’ll go with you.”

“It’s a four-and-a-half-hour drive,” I said. “Maybe five.”

“So what?”

“You really don’t have to do that, Kathy.”

“I’m your friend.” She reached out and touched my arm with an uncharacteristic gentleness. “Now stop being a stupid idiot and let me help you.”

I felt something break inside me. I’d struggled so long to keep the cracks from showing, but suddenly the wall just gave way.

“Can you drive?” I said.