Mears let out a mild belch, for which he didn’t apologize. “I don’t know who you are, Warden, or why you’re here or what you’re really after. But I will tell you this. My son got what he deserved.”
28
I followed the same road over the mountains that Pulsifer and I had taken the day before. As I passed the turnoff to Alcohol Mary’s distillery, I weighed stopping. I had an idea of backtracking Shadow’s blood spoor myself—or trying to—but the blanket of new snow would have hidden whatever prints the wounded animal had left behind.
I wasn’t sure how to feel about Mr. Mears. Unlike Gary Pulsifer, he hadn’t managed to stay sober, and I pitied him for that. On the other hand, he had raised a son who was, by all accounts, a sadistic bully. I had never believed that a son should be punished for his father’s sins, but I was less sure about the other side of the coin.
Mears hadn’t exactly been forthcoming, but he had disclosed more than he intended. It sounded as if Richie had come to the prison to continue a drug-smuggling operation she had probably begun at the Downeast Correctional Facility. She had tried to use sex and money to recruit Billy into her operation, but when he’d rejected her proposal, she had settled for Kent Mears as her bodyguard. Billy had mentioned a spike in inmate overdoses that corresponded with the months since she’d arrived from Machiasport. The attack in the laundry room could have been retribution for disrupting some rival smuggler’s operations.
Only as I was turning down the Tantrattle Road did I realize I had left my topographical map at home.
What was Pulsifer’s new mantra? Let it go?
It wasn’t the worst advice.
Over the winter, the top few inches of the road had melted into mud during thaws and refrozen into ice during cold snaps. But underneath remained several feet of permafrost. As long as the rock-solid substrate remained, the road would be passable. Once we got the first warm spell of the season, all bets would be off. The mire would start swallowing vehicles whole, never to be seen again.
For now, the Scout’s raised suspension and oversize tires made easy work of the potholes and exposed rocks. I found the bouncy, jostling ride exhilarating.
Fresh nicks were on some of the roots that snaked across the road, caused by the underside of a low-riding vehicle, perhaps a heavily laden truck. Someone else had been into the camp this morning.
I was within a mile of my destination when my phone began to buzz and vibrate in my inner pocket. It was Charley Stevens. I was surprised that I had any kind of signal in the shadow of the mountains.
“Hello?”
“Yeah, Charley, I’m here.”
I hit the brakes and turned off the vehicle. The hot engine continued to tick beneath the hood, but the quiet made it easier to hear the old pilot’s voice.
“There’s some wicked static on my end.”
“I’m up near Tantrattle Pond in Intervale. I’m headed in to the warden cabin there.”
“I know it well!”
That came as no surprise. Having spent three decades in the service, including as a patrol warden in the same district now assigned to Gary Pulsifer, he knew every owl’s nest and bear’s den in the forest. Charley was the best woodsman I had ever known.
“We’d better talk fast before the call drops,” I said.
“So I checked into this Dawn Richie for you. Don’t start whining about it. You wouldn’t have asked me about her if you didn’t want me nosing into her past.”
The old geezer understood me too well.
“Not many people around Machias knew her. She wasn’t much of a social butterfly, it seems. Nor active in the community. Her ex-husband, though…”
“She’s divorced?”
“Widowed. Her husband committed suicide a year ago. Carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage after getting liquored up and stuffing wet socks in the tailpipes of his BMW M4.”
“How come I didn’t find a mention of this online?”
“Newspapers still believe suicide is a private tragedy.”
“She should have shown up in his obituary, though.”
“She did—under her first name, Janice. Dawn is her middle name.”
Why hadn’t it occurred to me to widen my search? “A BMW M4 is a fancy car. What did this husband of hers do?”
“Owned and operating a trucking company. People who worked for him were shocked he killed himself. They said he was an upbeat, high-energy businessman. Always talking, always on the go. Maybe too much so.”
“As in he used cocaine?”
“How’d you get so cynical at such a young age? But yes, that’s what I reckon. Freight transport being an industry that—”
There were two beeps and the call dropped.
I tried redialing but couldn’t connect.
Instead I restarted the Scout and backed down the rocky, root-crossed road until I could turn around. Then I barreled back to the paved way.
When I tried again, Charley picked up. “There you are.”
“I’m not sure how long we’ll have a signal. The coverage in this valley seems spotty even by Maine standards. So you’re always warning me against making assumptions, but it seems like you’re having a hard time following your own advice here. What are you thinking? That someone murdered the husband and made his death look like suicide?”
“The state police considered that possibility, but there was no evidence and no suspects they could identify.”
“What about Dawn?”
“She was on duty at the Downeast Correctional Facility when her husband took his life. Hard to beat being in prison when it comes to an ironclad alibi.”
“Maybe she had an accomplice.”
“The detective who investigated Mr. Richie’s suicide came up dry when he looked into that theory.
