“Why don’t they stay at the camp?” Ronette Landry suggested.
I had returned to the cordon at the base of the road after having walked the state police detectives through the crime scene. The clouds above the mountains were swirled red and gold from the rising sun.
“Stay here?” I said.
“Unless it would be too traumatic after what happened.”
“One thing I can say about the Cronks is that they are a resilient family. I’m sure they’d be delighted to accept. I honestly can’t think of a better place for Billy to reenter the outside world. Are you sure the colonel will go along with this, though?”
“I think it will depend on who asks him.”
Meaning not me.
However happy I might be, I still hadn’t clawed my way out of the hole I’d dug on Maquoit Island and probably wouldn’t find myself back in the good graces of my superiors until that case went to trial and we secured a conviction. Nor would Billy’s brave actions redound to my benefit. If anything, my presence at this homicide scene would serve as yet another reminder to my enemies in the department that I had an unerring instinct for finding the nearest tar pit.
“I keep wondering how Peaslee got pulled into this,” I said.
“After he was released from jail, he went around cursing your name to anyone who would listen. He wanted to know everything about you so he could destroy your life. Word must have gotten back to Donato or one of his men that Gorman knew where you were. From there it was just a matter of making a phone call.”
I could imagine a choleric Gorman Peaslee arranging to meet with the deputy warden of the Maine State Prison who shared his hatred for me and had made a pact over the phone to collaborate with him in taking me down. Gorman must have left his house expecting to exact his revenge. Instead the bullying blowhard had gone to his death.
Another state police cruiser rolled up, a Ford Interceptor SUV. I recognized the driver.
Despite the predawn hour, Dani emerged from her cruiser wearing her shades and broad-brimmed campaign hat.
“I’ll give you two a minute,” whispered Ronette.
I dug my hands into my pockets and affected a loose posture so it would look as if Dani and I were having a casual conversation. “You made record time.”
“It’s the advantage of driving a vehicle that scares people into slowing down and moving over. What’s under that bandage?” Her tone was businesslike, a little brusque.
“A scratch.”
“Any other injuries?”
“My pride took a blow.”
“It needed one.”
“Ouch.”
“Can I speak with you a minute, Warden Bowditch?”
Lots of people were around. It was hard finding a private niche, but we did behind the Intervale Volunteer Fire Department’s pumper.
She removed her sunglasses. Her ever-changing gray eyes had gone as soft as the lifting fog. “Thank you for not dying tonight.”
“I did my best.” I resisted the urge to embrace her. “Listen, I’m sorry I’ve been so preoccupied.”
“No, I get it. Maybe I’ve been pushing things too fast. We both have busy, complicated careers.”
“Dangerous, too.”
“Dangerous, too.”
Furtively I took hold of her hand. It was as much contact as I dared. It wouldn’t be good for either of us if rumors of our romance started making the rounds.
“Last night, back at the cabin, hanging out with Aimee and the kids, I kept thinking how lucky Billy is. In spite of everything, I was envious of my friend, the fugitive.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I wondered if you wanted to follow me back over the mountains to Pennacook.”
She seemed startled. “You want to meet my family?”
“That didn’t come out the way I meant. Sure, I’d like to meet your family. But maybe not today—”
“So what did you mean, Mike?”
“I wondered if you wanted to meet Shadow. He’s doing really well, Dr. Holman says. I need to figure out what happens next with him.”
And with you.
She offered me a suspicious smile. “You want me to meet your wolf?”
I raised her small, strong hand to my lips and kissed it. “It’s probably not what you were expecting.”
“No. But it’s a start.”
44
Eleven days had passed, and back on the Midcoast, you had to squint to see that spring was actually happening.
Sometimes I think the only way to understand the season would be to point a time-lapse camera at a frozen bog and watch the ice melt; then a purple-green spear would begin poking through the mud, growing to resemble one of those face-eating alien pods until it finally exploded into full luminescent leafiness. The skunk cabbage: Maine’s unsung herald of springtime.
In truth there were other indications that the hemisphere was beginning to tilt toward the sun again. A heretofore unknown to me bed of crocuses and daffodils turned the sunny side of my house purple and yellow. The first palm warbler of the year alighted on my porch, bobbed his tail three times, and continued on his migration north.
Charley and Ora flew down for the big day. I picked them up at the boat launch over on Pitcher Pond, where the old pilot had managed to set down his Cessna with the precision of a duck landing in a swimming pool. Now we were watching Billy finish the last touches on the acre-and-a-half pen he’d built in the woods on my property. The sea air coming up the river was cool, but the sun was strong, and Billy had his shirt off. His golden hair and beard shone as if forged from precious metal, and he’d built up a serious sweat.
“I know how jealous you can get, Charley,” said Ora Stevens from her wheelchair. “But if I were fifty years younger, I would be all aquiver watching that beautiful man.”
“What’s the word I’m searching for?” said her husband. “Harumph?”
The wiry, wizened man was wearing his usual uniform of green Dickies, green button-down shirt, and green ball cap with the insignia of the Maine Warden Service Association.
His beautiful snowy-haired wife had
