The Stevenses might have relocated somewhere even more isolated if not for Ora’s health problems, some of which were lingering aftereffects of the plane crash that had paralyzed her; others of which were part of the normal process of aging. Her husband seemed impervious to physical decline. For Ora’s sake, they had been forced to build a gated road into the lake so they could drive her wheelchair-accessible van to hospitals and pharmacies.
Charley couldn’t have been more pleased with his puddle. He wanted to spend his last years living somewhere off the edge of the map. He had a floatplane and an ATV and a snowmobile—what more did he need?
It was near dark when I finally left the logging road and turned onto the unmarked jeep trail that led to their hidden pond. A mile into the uncut forest, I reached the steel gate. I had memorized the combination of the padlock but had no need of it. The gate was ajar.
In my headlights, I saw tire prints, like the tracks of two rough-bellied snakes. They belonged to a heavy vehicle: a pickup, possibly an SUV. It had entered the property but not yet exited.
The gate made a terrific bang as I swung it shut behind me, loud enough to frighten off a woodcock that had been hiding in the alders nearby. It rocketed into the shadows with a flurry of wingbeats.
The house came into view slowly, not as a structure in itself but as a row of illuminated rectangles where the first-floor windows were. As I emerged from the dense conifers surrounding the main building, I saw a black Ford Interceptor parked in the dooryard. The insignia of the Washington County Sheriff’s Department reflected my high beams.
When I was the local warden, I used to know all the police vehicles by their plate numbers, but that was years ago now. The longtime sheriff had lost her bid for reelection and had been replaced by her chief deputy, and there were many new faces in the department, all of them male.
As I stepped down from the Scout, the front door opened, throwing light down the ramp Charley had built for Ora’s wheelchair. The silhouette of a slight, almost delicate man appeared within the frame. He wore a chocolate-brown uniform and a duty belt laden with a gun, Taser, and all the other tools of the law enforcement trade.
I removed the badge from my belt and held it out as I advanced on the house. “Mike Bowditch. Warden Service investigator. What’s going on here?”
“That’s what I’m trying to ascertain, sir.”
He was slender even wearing a bulky ballistic vest. He had a wisp of a mustache, like a teenager trying to grow one for the first time, and a hairline that started two inches above his eyebrows. The name on his chest was Young, which seemed so appropriate that part of me wondered if I was being pranked.
Ora wheeled her chair into the lighted room behind the cop. “Oh, Mike! The deputy says Charley assaulted a man in Houlton!”
“That’s insane.”
“There’s a man in the hospital who swears it was Mr. Stevens,” said Deputy Young.
He had a way of pushing his voice lower into his diaphragm. Rookies are so quick to play at being tough guys. I knew this from hard, personal experience.
“How long have you been on the force, Young?”
“Four months.”
“Been to the academy yet?”
“I’m going next term. How are these questions relevant, sir?”
“Clearly you haven’t met Warden Stevens. If you had, you’d know this man’s accusations are bullshit.”
“I’d prefer to hear that from the warden himself. You wouldn’t happen to know where he is, would you?”
“Can you close the door please, dears?” said Ora. “The bugs are coming in.”
Ora Stevens’s green eyes were somehow even paler than those of her daughter. She had the high cheekbones of a professional model, smooth skin that might have belonged to a woman half her age, and snow-white hair pushed back from her face. She wore a mint-green blouse and a hand-knitted blanket over her legs. White tennis shoes peeked out on the footrests of her wheelchair.
“What’s the name of the man who’s accusing Warden Stevens of assault?” I asked.
“John Smith.”
“You’re sure it’s not John Doe?” But the deputy didn’t catch the sarcasm in my voice. “What does he say happened?”
Young removed a mobile phone from his pocket and brought up a photograph of a bruised and bandaged man. He had a shaved skull, a scraggly beard, and deeply set eyes. He looked like he’d stepped face-first into a bus.
“Mr. Smith says Warden Stevens threatened him three days ago at his booth at the Machias Dike. Then yesterday morning, he says, he opened the door of his residence in Island Falls to find Warden Stevens waiting. In Mr. Smith’s statement, he says the warden proceeded to assault him.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Mrs. Stevens has verified that her husband and Mr. Smith quarreled. I don’t suppose you have any idea what could have provoked their argument, ma’am?”
Ora had already been too candid with the deputy, but her nature was to trust people until they proved undeserving of it.
I needed to intervene. “He was selling taxidermy mounts in violation of the U.S. Migratory Bird Treaty Act.”
It was a lie, but a plausible one.
The deputy had gentle eyes for a law enforcement officer, but they were not unintelligent eyes. “Why did he pursue Mr. Smith all the way to his home in Island Falls?”
“He wanted to be certain before he called the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He wanted to give the guy a chance to avoid being charged with a felony.”
How easily lies
