“He nearly killed a man. So, yeah, I’m sure.”
The sergeant, stooped and gray-haired, was so close to a Florida retirement you could practically smell the suntan lotion on his skin. “You said he was Amish, this fellow who drove off the road?”
“He didn’t drive off the road. Peaslee forced him through a rail fence.”
“You probably don’t have any Amish where you live, Warden, so you wouldn’t realize what a menace those horses and buggies are on the road. We handle multiple complaints about them.”
The time-consuming intake process, as it is called, includes the taking of mug shots, the scanning of fingerprints, the logging of personal possessions and clothing, the invasive prodding of a strip search, the furnishing of the signature orange jumpsuit, and many other indignities.
“Do I need to bring this to the sheriff?” I said. “Or are you going to begin Peaslee’s intake?”
“How about you stop telling me what to do?” The sergeant removed his granny glasses to ensure I had gotten his warning, then started in wheedling again. “Look, Warden, this Amish fellow, he probably won’t even press charges. Those people don’t think the way we do. They have their own laws and such. And Gorman is a respected member of the community around here. He donated a lot of money to the sheriff’s last campaign. Have you spoken to the district attorney yet? It would be a shame for you to waste your time on this only to have the DA kick him loose.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I’m willing to risk it.”
The gray guard tried one last appeal. “He may not look it, but Gorman Peaslee is not someone you want to have as an enemy.”
“So he told me.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
PART 3The Wild, Cruel Beast
33
When I left the jail, I remembered to check my phone after having forgotten it inside the Scout while I’d been dealing with Gorman Peaslee.
I’d missed three calls. I listened to them as I drove back toward the cabin. The sun had slipped behind the summits to the south and west. The northern peaks—Crocker Mountain, Sugarloaf, and Mount Abraham—remained in light, but a tide of darkness was moving down the valley.
The first message had been left by Paul Panagore at the Maine State Crime Lab. I’d asked him for test results before the end of the day, and the fingerprint wizard had delivered with an hour to spare.
“First things first. No matches. I lifted some partials from between the fletching but couldn’t match them against anything in the AFIS database. There was an overlay of blood, plus smearing and extensive scratches. The size makes me think it was left by a kid. Maybe a small woman. I’m not sure if you noticed this or not, but there was a spot of glue residue on one of the fletches, as if someone had peeled off a sticker. It had picked up dirt and blood, so I’m guessing you didn’t recognize it as an adhesive. It’s acrylic glue, not rubber-based, if that makes any difference. The location of the sticker seemed potentially interesting to me, suggesting your arrow was sold as a single retail item. I made a call to Spider-Bite, and the person I spoke to said their arrows, including the X2s, are sold in multipacks. He suggested that a retailer might have made a bulk purchase of warehouse seconds—arrows that came in damaged packaging—and then sold them individually at a markup. The big-box stores and larger online dealers don’t do that. I hope this information helps. I’m making a note to myself so the next time you try to sweet-talk me—”
The second message was from my self-appointed operative, Charley Stevens. “I’ve hit a dead end, young feller. The widow Richie was the only guard transferred from Machiasport to the state prison at the time of the closing. One of my informed sources tells me Sergeant Richie has hired a white-shoe lawyer from Portland to sue the state for negligence, and this attorney only takes cases he knows he can win.”
The third message was from Dani. “I got your text. Why didn’t you just call me? I didn’t know Kent Mears but heard about him growing up. He and his friends used to hang out in the graveyard, and there was a story about a girl who made a shortcut through there and something happened. She was pretty screwed up afterward and got into drugs when she was older. Pennacook is my hometown. I might even be useful if you share your suspicions instead of sending me cryptic text messages.”
Shadow, Billy, Dani—untangling the threads of my life was daunting. Too daunting to be done while driving along a shadow-draped road. What I needed was a chair beside a fire.
Not that long ago cell phones had played a small part in my day-to-day life. Maine seemed to be one giant dead zone. (Sometimes it still did.) Back then, I hadn’t appreciated what it meant to be inaccessible. I mourned that lost epoch now. It had been easier to think, and think clearly, in those long lost silences.
The gate was bolted when I came to the end of the Tantrattle Road. I found Ronette’s spare keys where I had tossed them in the center console, got out, knelt in mud becoming gritty with ice crystals, and unsnapped the padlock. The steel arm swung open with the faintest creak. Peter Landry had even greased the pivot for me.
On the final stretch, my high beams lit up the eyes of some fast-moving critter as it disappeared into the trees. It was too large to be a mink, too upright to be an otter, too dark to be a fox. Most likely it was a fisher, which many people thought was a kind of cat when really it was a supersized weasel. The fearsome hunter was on the prowl for sleeping porcupines.
The dooryard of the cabin was so heavily matted with sawdust and wood shavings it seemed
