“They’re lobster mushrooms,” Kellam explained as he cracked open another Corona. Except for a rosy flush that pushed upward along his neck and blossomed in his cheeks, he displayed no outward signs of intoxication. “Edouard picked them last fall and dried them in the cellar.”
Vaneese took a seat beside her fiancé. “My manman would die if she heard me call this diri ak adjon djon.”
“The real thing has wild rice, but Vee indulges me with the boxed stuff. The funny thing is I have to twist her arm to make this dish for me. She prefers American food.”
“Is pasta American?” she asked.
I had noticed there were only three place settings. “Edouard’s not joining us?”
“He prefers to eat in his room. He watches soccer on the computer. The man’s a fanatic for the game.”
“He was a good player when he was young,” Vaneese said.
“What position?”
“Striker!”
“You’re not having a beer, Mike?” Kellam asked.
I had already refused one during his so-called cocktail hour in favor of an iced coffee. “It’ll just knock me out. And I’d like to have a look at those files you mentioned. Pellerin’s reports.”
“I’ll dig them up after we eat,” he said. “Not to change the subject, but I’m hoping you can answer a question that’s been on my mind.”
“If I can.”
“How do the wardens talk about me these days, now that I’m gone?”
“You’re a living legend.”
His frown told me he didn’t appreciate my attempt at humor. “What about St. Ignace? I know it cast a pall over my career. They must have taught you about it in warden school—how undercover operations can go bad.”
“Not really,” I said.
“Swept it under the rug, did they?”
“You yourself said that law enforcement isn’t given to self-criticism.”
He pointed the tines of his fork at my chest. “For the record, there’s not a single day that goes by that I don’t blame myself for what happened to Scott Pellerin. My intuition was screaming at me, but I wanted Michaud’s head on my wall. I sent that poor kid to his death.”
“Cher,” Vaneese said, reaching for his brawny hand.
He shook her off. “Don’t cher me. Well, I can’t say I didn’t pay a price for it. I was on track to be the next colonel. I was the heir apparent. Not after St. Ignace, though. I would have been a hell of a colonel, too! I would’ve dragged the Warden Service kicking and screaming into the modern age. I would’ve purged the malcontents.”
“People like me, you mean?”
In the quiet room, the tapping of rain on the porch roof became suddenly loud.
“What is this really about?” Kellam asked at last. He had barely touched his plate but had wrenched the cap off yet another beer. “Why are you sniffing around this case? Who sent you? It sure as hell wasn’t Charley.”
“Why do you say that?”
“If there’s anyone who has more of an interest in putting what happened in the past, it’s Stevens.”
I took a breath. “How so?”
“Ask him yourself. I thought you were his handpicked protégé. Don’t tell me the Legendary Game Warden is keeping secrets from you.”
Stan was referring to an honor, presented by the Maine Warden Service, which he himself had never received and probably never would.
“Stan,” said Vaneese with a sternness I hadn’t heard from her before.
“What? We’re all being honest here. Cards on the table.” He shoved his plate away, spilling rice onto the place mat. “There’s something off with these mushrooms. They taste funny. Your brother’s probably poisoned us all, picking death caps.”
He lurched up from the table. His roseate face gleamed with perspiration.
“I need to take a piss.”
Five minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen, and Kellam didn’t return. After a few awkward attempts at conversation—how I conducted a background check, what she had learned about potato cultivation in Aroostook County, our shared concerns about climate change—Vaneese and I finished our meals in mutually agreed upon silence.
“I’ll help you clean up,” I offered.
“Thank you, but that wouldn’t be so wise, I think.”
“Will you be all right?”
I will never forget the look she gave me—as if I were a teenage boy whose ignorance was painful to her.
Someone had been in my room. I had left my cell on the bureau when I’d gone to dinner, and as always, I had left it screen side up. Now it was facedown. Who else could it have been but Kellam? The phone was pass code protected, but the thought of the man rifling through my things angered me. I was glad I had kept my Beretta under my shirt through dinner. I was beginning to worry I might yet need it.
Still nothing from Dani.
What to do?
She had sounded resolute in not wanting me to leave on her account. I began to wonder again if I should ignore her wishes.
There was a knock at my door. I opened it to find Edouard in the hall with an expression that gave away nothing of his inner state. He carried two cardboard bankers boxes that were heavy enough to reveal the corded muscles in his arms.
“Stan told me to bring you these,” he said.
“Thank you. Here, I’ll take them.”
He ignored my offer and set his burden down on the floorboards beside the bed. He seemed angry with me; his body seemed to be giving off an electric charge. I felt as if I should say something more, but he avoided eye contact. When he left, he closed the door with such force a painting of palm trees tilted on the wall.
The absence of dust on the boxes told me they hadn’t been sitting in some back room for the past fifteen years. Stan Kellam had dragged them out from time to time. He had lied to me about wanting the Pellerin case to fade from memory.
The very first document had a green cover sheet bearing the watermark of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, the Special Investigations Unit case number, the surname of the target (MICHAUD), as well at the undercover officer (PELLERIN),
