I was falling down a rabbit hole, I realized. My recent investigation of Captain Wheelwright had me focused on the sins of military men, but this mystery had all started with a game warden’s badge. I needed to concentrate on Charley’s life in Maine.
During the course of his long career as a law enforcement officer, he had never killed another human being. Of that I was close to certain.
Forget what you’ve read in novels and watched on television—in real life, cops don’t respect other cops who are quick to pull a trigger. In just seven years, I had already acquired a reputation for being a gunfighter. Charley had made it abundantly clear that having a high death count was not something of which I should be proud. Just the opposite, in fact.
I returned to the letter.
It means there’s a man out there who’s kept quiet all these years, waiting for me to wise up to my foolishness, a man of patience and guile. He’s been expecting me, I fear, and taken precautions. I can’t put Ora or the girls in danger of his retribution.
These sentences suggested that finding this badge had led Charley to conclude he might’ve been duped. The notion seemed outlandish to me. But even though I had yet to meet a criminal mastermind, it didn’t mean they didn’t exist. Obviously, Charley had his suspicions. He would be extra careful in confronting anyone he suspected might have gotten away with murder.
I know you well enough to reckon that you won’t heed my words of caution.
Damned right, there was nothing he could do to stop me.
Which is why I am leaving you in the dark, too. I will cover my trail to keep you from following, but I fear I may have taught you too well.
Charley needed my help, but he didn’t want to be responsible for placing me in danger. Why else leave a letter worded this way if he didn’t hope I would disobey his instructions? Why not give me the name of the man or men he suspected? Wouldn’t it be more dangerous for me to wander blindly into the crosshairs of a masterful killer?
Who are you, Charley?
What have you done?
What do you require me to do?
Lying atop the bedspread in the humid dark, smelling the lake alive with new life, I considered these questions. My younger self had believed fiercely in the idea that we can never truly know another human being, that we are solipsistic creatures doomed to brief, lonely existences. Experience had taught me that we can only escape our private prisons by trusting and giving ourselves to others. Now, for the first time in years, I found myself seeing the face of someone I loved in my mind’s eye and wondering about the stranger behind the mask.
13
I awakened after dawn to the singing of a mourning warbler outside my window. Millions of Americans have heard this species of woodland bird but will never see one. The warbler’s recorded song is used by television sound engineers when they need background effects suggestive of peaceful mornings and idyllic golf courses. Hear a bird singing in a commercial? Odds are it’s a mourning warbler.
The lonesome bird was still singing his heart out, weeks after he should have been settling down to nest. The poor little guy hadn’t found a mate.
I put on a Henley T-shirt and jeans, laced up my Bean boots, stripped the bed, and threw my duffel over my shoulder.
I stepped outside into another drowsy morning. The tree trunks were wet as if with perspiration. The earthy smell of leaf mold and crumbling stumps rose from the forest floor. Orange fungi erupted from the wounds in the bark of the rotten logs.
As I made my way up the ramp toward the house, I caught the scent of frying doughnuts coming from the kitchen. I began to salivate like my wolf back home.
I poured myself a mug of coffee and sat down at the table while Ora dusted the doughnuts with cinnamon and powdered sugar.
“Stacey called late last night,” she remarked with a casualness that sounded forced. “She said you skipped out on her without saying goodbye.”
“I was at her house—getting cleaned up—when you called me about Charley.”
“She thought you must have had a crisis of conscience about Dani.”
True enough. “Did you tell her I was here?”
“It would have meant telling her about her father, and she already sensed something was wrong. She said she was worried about him and didn’t know why. I lied and told her he was off on a camping trip, but I know she didn’t believe me.”
Despite having been raised in a Catholic household, I had always been a skeptic when it came to paranormal matters. Then I’d met Ora and Stacey Stevens. Their “feelings” about distant events had often turned out to be true, far more frequently than could have been predicted by random chance.
“Stacey shares her mother’s ESP.”
“You make it sound supernatural that we’re emotionally connected.”
“I’m not sure it isn’t.”
While she prepared the rest of our breakfast—strawberries and home-baked granola—I thought of the other envelope Charley had left me, the letter to his wife. I would keep it secret for the time being. He intended it to be shared only in the event of his death. I hated myself for not telling her about it.
“What is your plan?” she asked.
“I think I’ll pay a visit to John Smith and find out how he really got his injuries.”
“Are you sure that’s a wise idea?”
“Of course it isn’t.”
“Stop in to see Nick Francis on your way north. You’ll be passing through the reservation anyway. Maybe he knows more than he’s saying.”
“You told me you’d already spoken with Nick.”
“But I’m not Mike Bowditch.”
It was the first time since I’d arrived that I’d seen playfulness in those beautiful eyes. The good humor lasted only an instant.
Half an hour later, I was driving northeast along the Stud Mill Road, a gravel-strewn highway for logging
