“That’s right. Half the village burned to the ground, I heard.”
“You need to bring Stan Kellam in. He was the lieutenant who headed up the undercover operation and the rescue operation that followed. He’s retired now but lives an hour from here in the middle of nowhere. I can give you his number.”
He let out a sigh. “You weren’t listening when I said you should avoid telling me what to do.”
A trooper came up to tell him that the medical examiner had arrived.
“Don’t leave town,” Zanadakis told me. “You and I need to have a long discussion about how you came to be involved here. It wouldn’t hurt if you chased down Stevens for me while you’re at it.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
I retreated to the safety of my Scout and chucked my soaked cap into the backseat. The windows steamed up within seconds of my climbing inside the vehicle.
It didn’t necessarily mean anything that Egan had been the one to report finding Angie’s body. On the other hand, killers were sometimes the ones who called the cops—if they were confident that they hadn’t left behind physical evidence.
I sat there in the dim light that seeped in through the rain-streaked windows. A hazy curtain hung between me and the past. I could glimpse movement and color through it. But details remained opaque.
The abandoned motel was a dark shape through the fogged glass. The Valley View was just a ghost of its old self. At least it had survived the conflagration that consumed the village center.
Emmeline Bouchard had escaped prosecution as an accessory to her boyfriend’s crimes and continued her career as an innkeeper. She had died without facing judgment for her role in Pellerin’s demise. Instead it had been her luckless daughter who had suffered for her mother’s misdeeds.
I checked my watch. By now, Kathy had to have arrived at Dani’s house. I tried her number.
“I was just about to call you,” she said.
“Is Dani OK?”
“I’m taking her to the ER.”
My back stiffened. “What?”
“She’s delirious and pugnacious. She barely let me take her temperature. It’s 103 degrees, Mike.”
“She was bitten by a tick the other day.”
“Was there a rash?”
“She said no. Can you look for one?”
“I’m getting her dressed now. I’m taking her to Maine Med. Can I call you back after I’ve gotten her to the hospital? Maybe you can catch a flight from Presque Isle to Portland. I know Charley would be happy to come fetch you.”
I hadn’t told her about the old man’s disappearance, and that lack of trust had come back to hurt me, but I couldn’t fill her in now. She had a crisis on her hands.
“I’m in St. Ignace, Kathy.”
“What the hell are you doing there?” She knew full well the dark history of the place.
“A woman has been murdered.”
“I heard the news, but how does it involve you?”
“I can’t explain over the phone; it’s too long of a story. But I think there’s a chance that the person who killed Scott Pellerin is still alive and has been hiding in plain sight for the past fifteen years. And I think he knows we’re after him.”
“‘We’? You’re talking about Charley, right? The two of you are up to some stunt.”
“It’s not a stunt.”
“For fuck’s sake, Mike.” Then I thought I heard a thump in the background. “I think Dani’s fallen in the bathroom. I need to check she’s OK. I don’t care that you’re in the middle of an investigation. Get your ass down here. What’s happening to your girlfriend is scaring the shit out of me. She needs you. I need you, too.”
Kathy had been my sergeant once. She used to give me commands. But this was an appeal to my conscience. It was a reminder that I would need to live with the consequences of whatever I decided to do next.
Dani needed me.
I pushed down the brake and the clutch and turned the key in the ignition.
I sped back through the rain toward Fort Kent.
To the best of my knowledge, there were only two commercial flights a day out of Presque Isle’s vest-pocket airport, and they both went to Newark, of all places. I would need to hit up a friend with a plane to take me south. Otherwise, I was facing a six-hour drive to Maine Medical Center. Portland is closer to New York City than it is to Fort Kent.
I slowed as I passed through the charred crossroads of St. Ignace.
After the conflagration, investigators from the fire marshal’s office had picked through the rubble looking for any sign of Pellerin. One theory was that Pierre Michaud had cut up his corpse and burned the pieces in the forge he kept in his blacksmith shop. Forensics technicians around the world had recovered DNA from the most hellish of fires, but the Maine investigators never found a trace of Scott Pellerin in the remains of Pierre’s smithy.
In the hamlet of St. John, the road drew close to the river again. There was just a steel guardrail and some sapling birches as wide around as broomsticks, and then there was thin air. The cliff wasn’t sheer—although it looked precipitous through my wet windshield—but the drop must have been considerable.
A logging truck passed me in the westbound lane, heading into the woods for a fresh load of timber. It splashed my Scout with enough water to fill a bathtub. For fifteen seconds, I was driving blind. Then the wipers cleared just enough glass for me to swerve back into my lane. I had nearly careened into the guardrail. I blew out a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding.
My mind was busy searching for a friend with a plane. I had always depended on Charley for impromptu flights.
Who else, then?
Maybe one of the fishing guides I knew in Grand Lake Stream? A lot of them owned Cessnas and Cherokees. I thought of Stacey, on her way here from Florida. Ora had told me she was borrowing her dad’s floatplane for the last leg.
