love and hate among my neighbors in Sennebec.
“And your registration for the boat, too, please,” I said.
“You gotta be kidding.”
“No, sir. I’m not. You have no registration stickers on your boat.”
“I just got them yesterday.”
“You need to put them on.”
“I haven’t even gone out onto the fucking water yet!”
The little boy was watching us with wide eyes.
“Watch your language, please,” I said.
“My language? Jesus Christ.” He rummaged in his pocket for his registration. Then, realizing he didn’t have it on him, he dropped the spinning rods at my feet and turned and stormed off toward the Suburban.
“Mr. DeSalle?” I called after him.
“It’s in the car!”
I watched him throw open the door and begin rummaging around inside the vehicle.
I glanced over at the boy, who was now standing ankle-deep in the water, tightly clutching the boat line. His whole body seemed as taut as the rope.
A moment later DeSalle came walking back. He waved a piece of paper at me. “Here it is, OK? My goddamned registration.”
He thrust the paper with the attached validation stickers into my face.
“Sir,” I said, “your son is watching us. You might think about the example you’re setting for him here.”
“How I raise my son is my own fucking business, buddy.”
“You need to cool down, Mr. DeSalle.”
A sheen of sweat glistened along his forehead. “I’m renting a house on this lake, you know. Fifteen hundred bucks a week!”
I glanced down at the registration. Then I handed him his papers back. “I hope you have an enjoyable vacation.”
He jammed both documents into the front pocket of his shorts. “Yeah, I bet you do.” He brushed past me and waded out toward the floating boat, grabbing the rope away from the boy. “Pick up those fishing poles.”
The boy approached me cautiously, with one eye on the gun at my side. I bent down and picked up the rods and handed them one by one to him. “Here you go. I hope you catch a big one.”
“Come on, let’s go!” DeSalle stuck the new registration stickers onto the bow of the boat.
The boy hurried out into the water. His father grabbed the rods away and threw them into the powerboat. The boy tried to scramble over the gunwale, but he lost his footing and fell back with a splash into the water. DeSalle glowered. The boy stood up quickly, his rear end soaking wet. He grabbed the gunwale and pulled himself into the boat. I could see him blinking back tears.
“Don’t you cry,” said his father.
I took a step toward them. “May I see your flotation devices, please?”
DeSalle spun around. “My what?”
“Your flotation devices.”
“This is harassment!” He glared at me fiercely, and then, when I didn’t budge, he reached over the gunnel and held up an orange life jacket. “Here it is, OK?”
“You’re required to have two personal flotation devices, Mr. DeSalle. Do you have another one?”
He searched the boat with his eyes. The boy followed his gaze, as if wanting to help him find what he was looking for, but his father paid no attention to him.
Finally, DeSalle turned back to me. “No. That’s it. So write your fucking ticket and get it over with.”
“I need to see your driver’s license, Mr. DeSalle.”
For a second, I think he expected me to wade out to get it, but when I didn’t budge, he splashed back to the boat ramp. I summonsed him for having insufficient personal flotation devices, wrote down the date he would need to appear at the District Court in Rockland if he wanted to contest the fine, and handed him the ticket to sign. Throughout it all, he managed to keep his mouth shut, and I began to think he had smartened up, but as he thrust my pen back at me, he said, “So what happened? Did you wash out of real cop school or something?”
“Mr. DeSalle, you better think carefully before you say another word.”
I tore off the summons and handed it to him, and he crumpled it into his fist. For an instant I thought he might toss the paper into the pond, but instead he shoved it deep into his pocket.
“You’re going to have to find another PFD before I can let you onto the water,” I said.
“You’re fucking kidding.”
“No, sir. And I asked you to watch your language.”
We stared at each other a long moment, his eyes looking redder and redder, and then he snapped his head around to face the boy. “Get out of the boat.”
“Dad?” the boy said.
“Get out of the boat! Ranger Rick says we can’t go fishing.” De-Salle swung back around on me. “Thanks for ruining my kid’s day.”
“Don’t push your luck, sir.”
I expected him to have a smart-mouthed answer for that, but instead he just strode off toward the parked SUV.
The boy was standing knee-deep in the water, holding the boat line again in his fists. His mouth was clenched and his eyes were fierce. Whether his anger was directed at me, at his father, or at himself, I couldn’t say. Probably it was all three. Then the Suburban came roaring in reverse down the ramp, pushing the trailer expertly into the water.
DeSalle hopped out of the cab of the vehicle, leaving the door open and the engine running. “Stay out of the way,” he told his son, snatching the nylon line from the boy’s hands.
From the top of the ramp I watched while DeSalle winched the powerboat onto the trailer. It took him a few minutes to secure it in place. As he worked, he kept his eyes from drifting in my direction. He had made a decision to pretend I was no longer there. Maybe he realized how close he was dancing to the edge.
My last look at the boy was through the window of the SUV as they pulled onto the road. DeSalle was talking to him-I could see his mouth moving, a flash of teeth. The boy was pressed down in his seat, chin tucked close to his chest, shoulders hunched against the barrage of his father’s words. It wasn’t hard for me to imagine what the rest of the day was going to be like for that kid.
5
Half an hour later I was parked along an ATV trail in the woods near Bud Thompson’s farm. I was waiting for Kathy Frost to show up with the culvert trap, but all I could think about was that asshole DeSalle. Every time I pictured his kid’s frightened face, I just got madder.
My cell phone rang. It was the state police dispatch in Augusta.
The dispatcher told me a woman had just reported a nuisance bear, this time on the Bog Road, on the far side of the Catawamkeg Bog from where I was parked. “She sounded pretty worked up about it,” said the dispatcher. “She wanted me to call in the National Guard.”
Kathy was 10-76, or en route, when I caught up with her by phone. I told her to meet me at the address the dispatcher had just given me. She didn’t apologize for being late.
The Catawamkeg Bog was a nearly trackless expanse of woods and wetlands, maybe ten miles in diameter, surrounded by some of the most prime real estate on the midcoast. Most people I met didn’t even know this little postage stamp of wilderness existed-which was just fine by me if discovery meant trees being cut down and new subdivisions going up. There was no direct route across the bog, except by ATV or snowmobile, so it took me longer than I’d hoped to circle around to the far side and find the address.
It was a neat and tidy little place that reminded me of a bluebird house. White trim and shutters, bright flower beds of chrysanthemums and geraniums kept alive in the heat by the regular application of generous amounts of tap
