“I don’t see any harm in him taking it,” the old pilot said to his wife.
I nearly kicked over my chair, I rose so quickly. “Excuse me for just a minute.”
“Please, Mike,” Sarah said, her voice rising.
But I was already gone.
The caller was MaryBeth Fickett. In the darkened bedroom, I glanced at the luminous green numbers on the alarm clock.
“I hope you’re not still working at this hour,” I said.
“If I am, it’s your own fault.” The Seal Cove town clerk was a very large woman who had the helium-pitched voice of a little girl. “Did you honestly expect to leave that message and not pique my curiosity? The answer to your question is, I don’t have a record for anyone named Kim owning property on the point. But you said this woman lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, didn’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, there’s a Hans Westergaard from Cambridge who has a summer place out on the point. It’s that big new house at the end of Schooner Lane. I know because Bill was the stonemason on the project. He says Mr. Westergaard is a professor at the Harvard Business School.”
“It can’t be a coincidence.”
“No, I wouldn’t think so,” said MaryBeth. “I have his home phone number in Massachusetts. His wife gave it to Bill because she kept changing her mind about the design of the fieldstone chimney. Mrs. Westergaard is a… perfectionist.”
“I thought you were going to use another word.”
She tittered in that girlish voice of hers. “I was.”
The overhead light snapped on. Sarah stepped through the doorway of the bedroom and closed the door behind her.
“What did you say his telephone number was again?” I reached for the notepad beside the bed and scribbled the number down on a piece of paper.
“You’d better let me know what you find out!” said MaryBeth.
“I will,” I promised.
Sarah waited until I’d hung up before she spoke. Then it all came out in a torrent. “I can’t believe you just got up from the table like that. I don’t mind you working. I’ve come to terms with your job. But when you’re off duty, I expect you to make an effort at being emotionally present.”
“The call was about that missing woman from last night. I think I know where she is.”
“But you already said it was a state police matter. You swore you’d stop this cowboy shit if I moved back here, remember?”
“I remember.”
What else could I do except follow her? But first I tore off the note with the Westergaards’ phone number on it.
Charley and Ora were waiting silently at the table. From the set of her chin and his own cowed expression, I wondered whether my friend had just gotten a scolding, too.
“Sorry about the interruption,” I said.
“I hope it wasn’t an emergency,” Ora said.
Sarah neatened her napkin, spreading it flat across her knees again. “No, it wasn’t anything important.”
The room was roasting. On my way to the table, I made a detour at the woodstove. “Does anyone mind if I turn down the heat?”
“Not at all!” said Charley.
I was dying to call Professor Westergaard and ask him about Ashley Kim; I just needed to concoct an excuse to leave the room again.
Ora put her hands on the place mat and began twiddling her thumbs. “So, Sarah was telling us she was approached about a fellowship down in Washington, D.C.”
Before she moved back in with me, Sarah had applied for a yearlong position with the national office of the Head Start program. To her surprise, she was offered the job, which she rejected. I hadn’t asked her to turn down the fellowship, but I hadn’t encouraged her to accept it, either. When she informed me of her decision to stay in Maine, I was secretly overjoyed.
“Is it something you’re going to pursue?” Charley asked Sarah.
“No, not right now.”
Ora touched Sarah’s sleeve. “Why not, dear?”
“I couldn’t possibly move to Washington,” replied Sarah. “It would be a fantastic opportunity, but after what happened, I just can’t-” She wouldn’t look at me, but I could see that her eyes were watery. “Well, you know. After what happened, I just can’t leave Mike here alone.”
I went to take a sip from my beer bottle but found it empty. “I’m going to get another beer. Would anyone like anything?”
Charley rose stiffly to his feet. “Let me help you with some of these dishes.”
He followed me into the kitchen with a stack of bowls and plates.
“So what’s the scoop with that phone call?” he whispered.
“It’s a long story.”
He wagged his thumb at the door leading out to the back porch. “Well then, let’s step outside. It’s hotter than the devil’s armpit in here.”
The temperature had plunged after darkness fell, and there was a crispness in the air that harkened back to the depths of winter. Overhead, the constellations were as clear as illustrations in a textbook. It took no imagination at all to connect the dots and see Orion, the hunter, with his lethal club and broad belt.
As concisely as I could, I told him about Ashley Kim’s disappearance and my tense encounter with the Driskos. He listened carefully, rubbing his lantern chin the whole time, the very model of thoughtful attention. “So you suspect the young woman was headed out to this fellow Westergaard’s house?”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“And these Drisko fellers showed up to snatch the deer?”
“I don’t know if they arrived before or after she left-but yes.”
“Do you have Westergaard’s phone number?”
“I have his number in Massachusetts.” I reached into my pocket for the note I’d scribbled in the bedroom. I heard the door creak open behind me and felt warmth from the kitchen rushing out into the night like a hot breath upon my neck.
“What mischief are you men up to out here?” asked Ora. She had to lean forward in her wheelchair to hold the door ajar.
“Just getting some fresh air,” her husband said.
“Could you come inside for a moment, Mike?”
“Sure, Ora.”
“Don’t stay out too long,” she told her husband.
Charley snatched the note from my hand and gave me a wink. “You’d think I spent my life as an accountant and not a game warden.”
In the bright light of the kitchen, I towered over Ora. I’m not sure how she stayed active, paralyzed as she was, but she radiated the vitality of a woman who swam a mile each morning. The house was strangely quiet.
“Where’s Sarah?” I asked.
“Oh, she’s in the powder room. I think she needed a moment to herself.” She paused deliberately. “Is she feeling… all right?”
“She’s had some stomach issues.”
Whatever Ora was fishing for, she hadn’t hooked it. “I wanted to ask you about your mother.”
“My mom?” The request took me by surprise. During the hunt for my father, it seemed the whole world believed he was guilty-everyone except his son and ex-wife. I’d realized that my mom still loved my dad in a twisted way that defied understanding. “I haven’t seen much of her,” I explained. “We didn’t have a service for my father.
