The nickname was a term of affection no younger man could get away with calling his partner in this day and age.
“Did you hear his plane leave the dock?”
“That’s another thing. He didn’t take the Skyhawk. He took his old Ford.”
“Wait, he didn’t fly?”
“No.”
The old pilot was famous for never driving anywhere he could fly even if it was just down to Calais to pick up a chain saw blade from the hardware store. He’d park his Cessna floatplane in the St. Croix River while he ran errands. If Charley had taken his truck, a sap-green Ranger, he’d done so for one reason: because his ultimate destination was inaccessible by air.
“Ora, this next question is difficult. But have you noticed anything unusual about Charley’s state of mind?”
“He’s not showing signs of dementia.”
“I only ask because—”
“He’s getting older. We both are. But the answer to your question is no.”
“Have you reached out to anyone else?”
“You’re the closest thing he has to a son, Mike. If he didn’t tell you, I don’t know who he would have. Nick Francis, maybe.”
Nick was the retired chief of the Passamaquoddy Nation. Before that, he’d been the tribal police chief. And before that, he’d been a game warden who’d worked alongside Charley when they were both young officers, in an era when Native Americans in Down East Maine faced harassment and violence unthinkable to modern Americans.
“Can you call Nick and ask if he’s heard from Charley lately?”
“Yes, but I will have to tell him the truth, given the things they’ve been through together.”
“Hopefully, he’ll have some useful information. Let me backtrack a little. Did anything unusual happen the day before Charley left home?”
“We took the van down to Machias to catch some of the sea breeze and have pie at Helen’s. We ran into lots of people we know at the Dike—you know how social Charley is, how he always makes the rounds among the booths—and then we drove home. Come to think of it, he was awfully quiet on the drive back.”
The Dike was the local name for the wide Route 1 causeway that ran parallel to the Machias River and served as an embankment dam, keeping the Little River from undercutting the road. On pleasant days, antiques dealers and craftspeople set out tables along the side of the road, turning the causeway into a pop-up bazaar.
“Who did he talk to there?”
“I didn’t see. My chapter of Planned Parenthood was gathering signatures, and I covered a shift at the booth while Charley made his rounds.”
“But his change in mood happened after you left the Dike and were headed back to the lake?”
“I think that would be accurate.”
So he either spoke with someone in Machias or saw something there that rattled him. And that event was likely the cause of his decision to drive off without telling his wife where he was going.
“Did you see him talking with anyone in particular—someone who might have set him off?”
“When we parked, he pointed out a table neither of us remembered seeing before. It looked like the dealer had some taxidermy and rusted old junk from the logging camps. You know how interested Charley is in North Woods history.”
“And he didn’t mention this dealer to you later? Maybe he made an offhand comment that struck you as strange.”
“No, but…”
“Go ahead.”
“I had the oddest sense he might have bought something from the man. He kept putting his hand in the pocket of his jacket.”
“Could it have been a gift for you?”
“That was what I’d suspected, but he was awfully quiet and serious when we got home. After supper, he asked my permission to go out to the boathouse to tinker on his plane. I was asleep when he finally came to bed. And then, as I said, he woke me at four o’clock, putting on his clothes in the dark. That’s early even for that bantam rooster.”
By now, I was deeply worried about my old friend. I was also conscious that I couldn’t disclose my fears to Ora when I was so far from home and in no position to take action.
“My flight to Portland leaves in five hours,” I had said. “If you hear anything from Charley or he comes home before I take off, call me. I’m pretty sure the plane doesn’t have Wi-Fi, but you can send me emails to read during my layover or when I return to Maine. In the meantime, I need you to make some calls and see if you can find the name of the junk dealer Charley spoke with at the Dike. I’ll need to stop at my house on the way north, but with luck, I can be at your place by midafternoon.”
“I’ll call around town. And, Mike,” she’d said. “Please don’t tell Stacey about her father being missing.”
7
When I landed in Maine, the flight attendant gave us the local time and temperature over the intercom. Somehow, it was hotter in Portland than it had been in Miami.
While we taxied, I turned my phone back on to receive cell signals and to submit the report I’d written on Wheelwright.
Dani had called to say she couldn’t wait to hear about my encounter with the python. She asked if Stacey had seemed happy. She added that she was going to be spending the day at the firearms qualification course at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy with the rest of her troop. Dani had always been a crack shot.
Stacey had sent me a text:
You bum! I was looking forward to catching up over breakfast. I was hoping to hear about you and Dani. She seems good for you. You seem good.
Ora had left me an email. While I had been en route, she’d been busy querying the other vendors who sold their wares along the Dike and had learned that the stranger hadn’t given his name. The City of Machias didn’t require sellers
