“So you spoke with Warden Stevens?”
“I didn’t need to because I know his character. Your sheriff does, too. I can’t believe he dignified the accusation by sending you all the way out here, Young.” I affected an air of indignation that I didn’t entirely feel. “Charley Stevens is a war hero and decorated career warden. If anyone deserves the benefit of the doubt, it’s him.”
“Mr. Smith hired a lawyer. He’s pushing us to bring charges.”
“I see.”
“The sheriff wanted to get Warden Stevens’s side of the story before he talks to the district attorney, but Mrs. Stevens says she doesn’t know where her husband is.”
“He’s out of cell phone range is all.”
“Where?”
“Pick a spot on the map of the North Woods. Your guess is as good as mine.”
He hitched his thumbs in his ballistic vest to relieve some of the weight. “So he’s camping, then?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ora fidgeting. She disapproved of these falsehoods.
“Are you asking me to find him for you?” I said.
Young might have been a rookie, but he was no fool. “No, sir. I am not asking you to do anything. But if we can’t locate Warden Stevens, it’s a problem for us and for him. If I may speak freely, sir, no one wants to request a warrant for Warden Stevens. You really need to convince him to come forward.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’d appreciate that, sir. I know you by reputation. People still talk about what a badass you were. I’m wondering if you can answer a question for me—unrelated to what we’ve been discussing?”
“If I can.”
“The police academy—is it really as tough as the guys say it is?”
“Not as tough as when I was there, I’ve heard.”
“Too bad. I was looking to test myself.”
“The job will do that. It will test you every day and twice on Saturday nights. Tell the sheriff I’ll find Charley Stevens. He just needs to stall the DA.”
The deputy tipped his hat to Ora and shook hands with me. He was a respectful kid. I liked him, mustache and all.
But after the red taillights of his cruiser disappeared into the trees, I turned to Ora. “The way he kept calling me sir made me feel like someone’s great-uncle.”
“Aging is one of those things you can’t explain to people,” she said, “no matter how hard you try. They need to go through it themselves. Please, come into the living room, Mike.”
The house was clean but cluttered in the fashion of many North Woods camps. Charley’s three decades as a game warden meant there was an abundance of taxidermy. Deer mounts on the walls, a moose head over the fireplace, several bearskin rugs. The room resembled the Maine wing of a natural history museum. The smell of the lake drifted in through the window screens, although I couldn’t see the water in the darkness.
Across the pond, a barred owl called, “Who cooks for you?” It made me remember the night I’d met Ora at their old camp. Charley had called in owls with his expert imitations.
“I’m scared, Mike.”
I took her cold hands in mine. “That jackass Smith is just looking for a quick and easy payout. I am pretty sure he’s been selling stolen merchandise at these pop-up flea markets. The DA is just going through the motions. Charley never laid a hand on the man.”
She made a faint noise in the back of her throat. Her green gaze drifted from me. Then she removed her hands from mine and tucked them beneath the blanket.
From this reaction, I was fairly certain that Ora Stevens believed her husband had committed the violent act of which he stood accused.
11
Despite my protests, she insisted on making me dinner: grilled salmon with asparagus.
Ora and Charley were as far from hippies as I could imagine—I doubt that either of them could have named a song by the Grateful Dead—but they had always lived off the land. The Stevenses kept a kitchen garden and had foraged together for mushrooms, berries, and wild greens before her accident. These days, it was Charley’s job to gather the free-growing groceries and pack their freezers with the moose, deer, and ducks he shot.
While Ora prepared our meal—the kitchen had been built to accommodate her wheelchair—I sampled Charley’s homemade beer. Brewing was his newest hobby, and the so-called IPA was so bitter it was barely drinkable.
“Because we can’t grow hops here, Charley used yarrow,” Ora explained. “Or maybe mugwort. The funny thing is, he doesn’t even drink beer.”
It showed.
“Before we start,” she said. “How is Stacey?”
“Did she tell you about what happened last night?”
“No, I haven’t heard from her today.”
“We had an adventure in the Everglades—a Burmese python was involved.”
“Tell me.”
“Right now, I think we should talk about Charley,” I said. “I stopped at the Dike on my way here. Carol Boyce told me she overheard what Charley and Smith were arguing about. She said it was a badge. He took it from the table without paying. It had numbers on the bottom, Carol said.”
I’d hoped the news would provoke a response, but she gazed at me with expectation, waiting for more.
“Is there any warden from Charley’s past whom he had a special connection with—either a friend or a mentor—whose badge this could have been?”
“Not if it was an antique. I suppose it might have belonged to one of the old-timers who were with the bureau when he started. Charley might have recognized the number, but unless he had reason to believe it was stolen, I can’t imagine why he would have reacted that way.”
Everything about Charley’s actions seemed out of character. The public blowup, the mysterious disappearance, the accusation leveled by Smith—I felt like we were talking about a violent stranger and not the wise, even-tempered man I considered a surrogate father.
“What about his cell phone?” I said.
“I’ve called the number and sent him texts and emails, but I haven’t gotten a response.”
“So he took it with him?”
“He always does. Why?”
“The sense
