“Just browsing again. Don’t mind me.”
“I have always minded you.”
I made my way down the aisle with the bucket of arrows and the plastic containers of broadheads. The same model arrowhead Ronette had found in Peaslee’s truck was on sale. I removed a three-pack for purchase. I did the same with three Spider-Bite X2s. Each of the carbon fiber bolts had price tags on the fletching. The stickers said the arrows retailed for five dollars apiece.
I called to my uncle from across the store. “Do you ever get the Amish in here?”
“Sometimes.”
“What do they purchase?”
“Oh, you know, GPS receivers, fish finders, night-vision scopes—they’re into all those high-tech electronic devices.”
I brought my purchases to the counter and laid them down beside the register.
Denis was too sharp not to understand that my shopping trip was bad news for him. He wandered over, still clutching the skimmer, which now had a coating of slime on the netting.
“You’re not going to let this go?” he said with a sigh.
I motioned to the bows and crossbows strung together on a bike chain, hanging off a rack. “I’d like one of those crossbows, too.”
Without a word he unlocked the cable. I reached for the crossbow I’d handled on my prior visit. It had a black synthetic stock, an aluminum frame, cheap sights, and no mounting rail for a scope. The tag identified the piece of junk as a Blood Eagle Tactical.
“So what makes this a tactical model?”
“It’s painted black. And it costs ten bucks more than the nontactical version.”
“Ring me up.”
The total bill came to less than a hundred dollars.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to sign up for our rewards program?”
“Only if you tell me who you sold these items to recently.”
“I already told you I don’t rat on my customers. I’m not sure why you thought buying this shit would entice me to open my mouth.”
“I took that bolt to the Maine State Crime Lab to have it tested, Uncle Denis. I know it came from your store.”
“Is that what passes for CSI work with you wardens?”
I felt the skin beneath my collar grow warm. “Look, I know you resent me—”
“Don’t think that makes you special. There are lots of people in the world I hate.”
“Including my mom?”
I expected a cruel remark, but he let out a gasp instead. “I never hated your mother.”
“Right.”
“Don’t scoff at me. Marie was my baby sister. I would have done anything for her. That’s God’s honest truth. We were raised by my parents to believe there was nothing—nothing—more important than family.” He pushed his shooting glasses up his nose. Smoothed the corners of his mustache. “Your mother broke our hearts. Not just mine but all of ours. You might not remember the little VW I fixed up for her when things were going to hell with your old man. But I bet you remember going to stay with your aunt Michelle in Portland when your parents split. How long did you two live in that apartment? Six months? Eight months? And your mom never paid her sister a dime for room or board. Instead, after she married your asshat stepfather, she treated us like dog shit she couldn’t wipe off her shoe fast enough. Your mom was a selfish, spoiled person when she was a baby, and she was a selfish, spoiled person the day she died. If you have a problem with me saying that, we can go outside so you can kick my ass, like your dad used to do.”
Whatever I had expected coming through the door, it hadn’t been a cri de coeur. Now I was the one unable to sustain eye contact.
“Gorman Peaslee said he came in here yesterday,” I mumbled.
“That’s how you’re going to respond? Have it your way. Yeah, Gorman is one of my best customers. He knows you’re my nephew. Gave me no end of shit about it, too. He called me last night about the Amish guy crashing his buggy and your blaming Gorman for it. He said you nearly broke his wrist arresting him.”
“News travels fast.”
“Gorman Peaslee has a lot of friends around here, me included. Some of them are cops. Another is the commissioner who granted him bail.”
So the sociopath is on the loose again to terrorize his neighbors or even come looking for me.
I felt that I should warn the Stolls until I realized that they would have seen and heard him as he returned home.
The buzzer sounded as the door opened.
“I hope I’m not interrupting a family reunion,” said a familiar voice.
Gary Pulsifer stood inside the door in his usual posture: thumbs tucked under his heavy ballistic vest.
“Two wardens in one day,” said Denis. “What did I do to deserve this?”
“I was passing by and happened to notice Mike’s ride outside. There aren’t too many rebuilt 1970 Scouts cruising around Maine.”
I suspect that both my uncle and I were grateful for the interruption.
Pulsifer gestured toward the crossbow in my hand. “Are you taking up a new hobby?”
“Something like that.”
“Ronette told me you’re staying at the cabin on Tantrattle Pond,” said Pulsifer.
“I spent the night there.”
“It’s a pretty spot. Hard to get a signal, if I recall. You probably haven’t been keeping up with current events.”
His unspoken message couldn’t have been clearer. Something had happened. Something he didn’t want to talk about in front of my uncle.
“I was just leaving.” I turned to the small man behind the register. The sad self-pity was gone from his expression, replaced by the familiar dyspepsia. “Goodbye, Denis.”
“Careful not to shoot yourself with that thing” were his parting words to me.
Pulsifer thought it best for us to drive down the road a ways. Whatever he had to tell me required real secrecy.
I followed his patrol truck to the empty parking lot of a church and then around back, where haze was rising from a small, melting graveyard. We pulled our vehicles together facing in opposite directions, as cops do, so we could converse through our driver’s-side windows.
“What’s happened?”
“Another
