“Is everybody OK there?” a voice shouted from the road.
“Peachy,” said Kellam.
The trooper waded through the curling ferns toward us. He was dressed in a long black raincoat and a covered campaign hat secured by a strap around his chin. He and Kellam shook hands as if they were old friends. Maybe they were. Stan didn’t need to worry about the alcohol on his breath—not from this chummy cop, at least.
The trooper asked me the same questions Kellam had, and I repeated my lies.
They discussed my predicament.
My skull was ringing like the inside of a church bell. The echoes made it hard to form a coherent thought.
Someone had just tried to kill me.
Roland Michaud had seen my Scout parked outside Angie’s house. But surely there were other people who knew of their relationship, and he must have realized I’d already spoken with the detective if I’d come from the crime scene. He had no reason to murder me.
Maybe he wasn’t that smart. Criminals rarely are.
Then again, Roland Michaud had kept quiet for fifteen years. He had held up to interrogations and resisted offers of leniency from prosecutors grasping at straws.
Another trooper appeared and focused his spotlight on the underside of my Scout. I watched Kellam stretch a cable from the front of his Ram. At the end was a hook, which he secured to the frame. Kellam engaged the winch, the steel hawser tightened, and my Scout began to tilt. I clenched my teeth as it teetered and then fell, hard, back onto its four wheels. It bounced once and came to rest.
In my time, I had visited plenty of automobile graveyards. Most of the junkers I had seen in those lots, being slowly scavenged for parts, looked like showroom models by comparison.
When I thought how much I’d spent restoring that vehicle—
But the insurance adjuster was the least of my worries.
Charley had told me not to trust anyone with the truth. But why should I trust him after the events of the past seventy-two hours?
Because, ultimately, he was my friend.
I shrugged off the assistance of the troopers and slid behind the wheel. The inside upholstery was slick and had acquired a vegetal smell. I put the transmission back into park and turned the key, still in the ignition. The engine purred as if it had just been tuned up.
“There’s a stroke of luck,” said Kellam through the shattered window.
“It’s my lucky day, all right.”
“You’re alive, aren’t you?”
For now.
35
The troopers followed me back to civilization. They were probably taking bets on how far my wrecked Scout could make it.
But twenty minutes later, I passed the sign welcoming me to the city of Fort Kent. The low clouds were lit from below by the radioactive glow of the international bridge. Border checkpoints are more brightly lighted than baseball stadiums.
I turned into the lot of the Fort Kent municipal center, drove around the brown building to the wing that housed the police station, and turned off the ignition, wondering if it would start again.
I had waited to arrive at my destination before making the call. I needed time to collect myself. Now I could feel the adrenaline dissipating in my bloodstream. I dreaded the inevitable moment when the damage my body had sustained would announce itself in pain.
“They’ve got her in the ICU,” said Kathy Frost on the other end.
“Do the docs know what’s wrong with her?” I asked in a voice that I hoped sounded normal.
“Not yet,” she said, sounding increasingly impatient. “What’s your ETA?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Don’t give me excuses.”
“Kathy, someone just tried to kill me.”
On the long, slow drive into town, I had concluded that the time had come to take Kathy into my confidence. She was my friend, as much as Charley, and she deserved my trust. It wasn’t just that I needed her to understand why I was being delayed. I also required input from one of the best law enforcement officers I had ever known.
When I’d finished my story, she had only one question.
“Are you sure you’re OK?”
“My Scout took the brunt of the attack.”
“I’m not kidding, Mike. You should get checked out by a doctor. You might have internal injuries.”
I don’t think I ever loved that woman more. “I’ll take it under advisement. Kathy, you told me you came up here after the raid with the other K-9 teams to search for Pellerin’s body. Did you ever meet Roland Michaud or Jon Egan?”
“I met them both,” she said. “Roland’s too smart to attempt that stunt. Smart’s the wrong word. He has this animal cunning.”
“That’s my sense of him as well. What about Egan?”
“Maybe. He struck me as the panicky type. I was surprised that he didn’t crack. With Pierre gone, who was left for him to be scared of?”
I finally spoke the name: “Kellam.”
“I can’t be objective about that man. Stan and I have too much history.”
“Dani told me.”
“The man has always been brilliant—and controlling. I’m sure that Pellerin didn’t make a move without his say-so. That’s why everyone came down so hard on Kellam. Because we knew it was his failure that led to that shit show.”
“Maybe he’s been covering something up all this time—some act of negligence that led to Scott Pellerin’s disappearance?”
“I can’t imagine what it could have been. Besides, you said it was impossible for him to have killed Emmeline Bouchard’s daughter. I want to get back to what Charley told you. It sounded as if he has someone helping him.”
“All the signs point to Nick Francis.”
“That makes sense, considering they were together the night Pierre Michaud drowned.”
“What?”
“Nick was there, on Beau Lac, with Charley when it happened.”
“He told me he was back in Indian Township dealing with tribal stuff.”
“Police from all over the state came up to the St. John Valley to assist. Both the Penobscots and the Passamaquoddy sent
