“Was any of this confirmed by Angie Bouchard?”
“No, but the fact that she had it in her possession suggests a connection.”
“How did she react when you confronted her with this theory of yours?”
“I didn’t confront her with anything. I just asked where she’d gotten the badge. She lied and said it belonged to her roommate, but I am pretty sure she found it among her late mother’s belongings and didn’t know what it was.”
“Did she say anything about coming back up here?”
“No.”
“So you might have spooked her?”
The possibility had occurred to me. “Yes.”
Zanadakis didn’t have to state the obvious: that if I had never shown up on her doorstep, she might still be alive.
“Do you have the badge?”
Rain pattered off the brim of my cap. “No.”
He seemed taken aback by this. “Where is it?”
“Charley has it.”
“And where’s Charley?”
“That’s the million-dollar question.” Before he could press me on the point, I decided the time had come to shift the discussion. “You need to bring in the state police detectives who worked the Pellerin case. I think Angie’s death is connected to what happened to Scott. I think you’re looking for the same killer or killers. At the very least, the Pellerin case needs to be reassigned to the Unsolved Homicide Unit.”
Zanadakis raised a gloved finger under my nose. “Bowditch, you might think I don’t recall the circumstances of how we met, but I do. Those drug dealers whose car got stuck in the woods during a snowstorm? You had a theory then, I remember. It was wrong, wasn’t it?”
“Not entirely.”
“Right now, I need to focus on the physical evidence. Conspiracy theories can wait.”
“It’s not a conspiracy theory,” I said. “Not in the paranoid sense, I mean. There are actual conspiracies.”
“Do you practice being such a—?”
“Bring in Roland Michaud, at least,” I said.
“Why?”
“I saw Angie and him together at her house. He was half-dressed. Strangulation is an intimate way to kill someone. And he has connections to Pellerin’s disappearance.”
The detective took a moment to chew on this. “Maybe she cheated on him. Or he cheated on her. Things got violent. It makes more sense than her being murdered over some old badge.”
“I’d like to see her,” I said.
“I’m sure you would.”
“I saw her alive less than twenty-four hours ago. I don’t know how many witnesses you have who can speak to that period of time. I might notice some detail that helps your investigation. What does it hurt to let me look?”
Arrogant he might be, but Nico Zanadakis was no fool. As long as he got credit for clearing the case, he would exploit anyone and anything that might serve his purpose.
He brushed water off his greased hair. “All right, but you’d better not vomit on my crime scene.”
We started in the direction of the Volkswagen, but the detective came to a quick stop and spun around. Chasse Lamontaine was following us. How long had he been standing within earshot?
“Where are you going?” asked Zanadakis.
His statuesque head was unprotected from the elements. The rain just slid down his nose and cheeks. “I knew Angie, too. I thought I could be helpful.”
“Did you see her in the past day?”
“No.”
“Then you can leave. Get back to checking fishing licenses or whatever. I’ll call you when I require your expert assistance.”
Chasse nodded. “I’ll keep my phone on.”
“You do that.”
As the warden walked off, he patted his pockets until he found his cell. I kept an eye on him. Soon he was arguing with a person on the other end again. I wondered who could have made him so mad.
33
She was slumped forward against the steering wheel, her hair a loose mess, arms straight down at her sides. I had found drunks sleeping that way in their cars, with their heads on the horns. Sometimes you needed to jab their shoulders for them to wake up. But none of them had had purple bruises around their throats.
“Can I see her face?”
With gloved hands, Zanadakis reached forward and gently took a handful of hair and lifted her head. The neck didn’t want to bend. Her shoulders came up, too.
“That’s her,” I said. “That’s Angie.”
“Evangeline, actually. Her full name is Evangeline Bouchard.”
“Who found her?”
“A guy who used to plow the lot for the mother. He lives down the road in Allagash and still looks in on the place. He’s worried kids might be breaking in and doing drugs, as if they don’t have their pick of empty buildings around here.”
“Was the window rolled down like this?”
“Yes.”
“Keys in the ignition?”
“On the floor, as if she’d dropped them. Is this what she was wearing when you saw her in Presque Isle?”
I peered down at the mat, sprinkled with cookie crumbs and the clear plastic film used these days instead of cellophane to wrap cigarette packs. “It’s the same outfit. She must have come up right after I left her house.”
“Rigor was still present when Mr. Plow tried to shake her awake. He said it was like trying to move a mannequin. Rigor mortis passes off quickly in the heat so she had to have died during the night.”
“What’s Mr. Plow’s real name?”
“Egan.”
I met his eyes. “You’re shitting me.”
“No, why?” He waved at the fog of blackflies around his head. Maybe they liked his cologne more than they disliked the bug repellent.
“Jon Egan was part of Michaud’s poaching ring. He was a suspect in Pellerin’s disappearance. The cops pinched him when they stormed St. Ignace.”
“One of the local guys should have filled me in on that,” he said, glancing around for someone to blame.
“Is Egan still here?”
“We sent him home. I figured we’d reinterview him later. Now I’m thinking I’ll pull him in this afternoon. This raid you mentioned—”
“You saw the burned buildings a mile back at the
