When I opened the door of my Scout, I could hear the rapids downstream. My muscles had grown even stiffer from the rollover. Like an arthritic old man, I limped through the woods along the river. I crushed wintergreen beneath my boots, loosing a minty, medicinal scent from the leaves. There was no moon, no light from the sky beyond a pale cast, but I could feel the towering pilings of the old bridge looming above me like the coldness of a shadow.
I squinted at where the island should be and saw a light flickering. Definitely a campfire.
There it was: the bait in Charley’s trap.
But had Egan taken it?
I cut the ropes I had used to tie the canoe to the top of the Scout and positioned myself to take the weight of the broad-beamed boat onto my sore shoulders. I walked the overturned canoe up the shoreline, my tendons burning, my boots slipping on the loose gravel.
The current was too strong for me to cut straight across. If I attempted the shortest route, I would find myself carried past the island before I could make three paddle strokes. I would need to launch from upstream, I realized. Fortunately, the hull was made of polyethylene, which is lighter than aluminum or white cedar.
The hill above me was steep, and I reached a drop-off that impeded my portage upriver. I had no choice but to flip over the canoe into the water and secure the painter to the branch of an overhanging birch while I went to fetch the paddle.
I strapped on a 500 Lumens headlamp, the most powerful light I had with me.
I took hold of the beavertail paddle and used it to steady myself as I sat down in the center of the canoe. When paddling solo, the middle is where you usually want to be. Then I leaned forward and gave a yank to the quick-release end of the rope. The knot, a highwayman’s hitch, slipped free of the branch, and I was torn adrift in the stream.
I turned the canoe with a series of sweep strokes so that my bow was facing downriver.
I thought I’d carried the canoe a fair ways up from the bridge, but it was only seconds before the foundations reared up dead ahead. I sideswiped the white-water eddy in front of the nearest pier and let the current pull me to the inner channel.
Musket Island was shaped like a football, narrow at the top and bottom, fat in the middle. I aimed for the pointed end. I needed to paddle hard to keep from being swept back into the deep water. My shoulder ached.
I have decent balance for a normal human, but not for a North Woods waterman like Charley. I didn’t dare stand up in the canoe. Instead I slid over the gunwale into the river, going in all the way to my waist. The early summer water was warm, but not so warm that I didn’t feel a stabbing pain in my groin. Once I had found my footing, I turned off the headlamp.
In the dark, I walked the canoe up the shallows, feeling that strange sensation you get in moving water of unseen hands tugging at your ankles, until I heard the bottom scrape gravel. Then I lifted the bow and did my best to muscle the thing onto dry land, all while remaining hunched over. I had seen the campfire at the bottom end of the football and wanted to approach with as much stealth as possible, given that the only cover on the low-slung island was a ridge of alders and willows running down the spine.
I kept low, then went lower, and finally began to crawl on hands and knees. Leopard frogs sprang up ahead of me from the wet weeds. Some of the grass blades had serrated edges and cut my hands.
“Come on up, young feller. You’ve been spotted.”
The son of a bitch.
I rose to my feet, swiped my palms on my pants legs to remove the muck, and waded through the sedges to the two men I now saw seated across a small woodfire from each other.
Jon Egan, wild-eyed in the firelight, sat upon a skinned log that could only have rolled into the river from the back of someone’s truck. His arms were bound behind him, and a kerchief was knotted in his open mouth.
Charley sat opposite him on a small boulder, resting his old service revolver, a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum, on one bouncing knee. His head was just as disconcertingly bald as I’d remembered, and he was dressed in the same faded coveralls. They appeared vintage, as if he’d scavenged them from Goodwill, but I could have sworn that the American flag sewn on the chest was new.
“What the fuck, Charley?”
“I’m sorry, Mike.”
“What are you doing? Why’s he tied up like this?”
“I felt bad about what you said—about me using you as bait. So I decided to switch to Mr. Egan here.”
“Bait for who?”
“Roland Michaud, of course. He killed Scott, and he killed that poor girl Angie when he found out she’d sold off that badge. She didn’t know that it linked her boyfriend back to what happened here fifteen years ago.”
Egan screamed into his cloth gag, shook his head violently, and rocked back and forth on his log. The redheaded man nearly toppled over backward.
Charley’s theory baffled me, it was so full of holes.
“Roland was in New Brunswick the night Angie was strangled, Charley. I was in the room for his interrogation. He has people who can vouch for him, including customs officials.”
“I’ve spoken to one of his so-called witnesses. I haven’t been as idle as you think. One of those impartial customs officials Roland mentioned just happens to be his Canadian cousin.”
“Charley, it wasn’t Roland.”
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
“If you’re convinced that you’re right, why are you holding a gun on Egan?”
“Because I intend
