Sometimes the underprivileged took a more active role in their own nourishment. I knew of some penniless backwoods characters who sat around the cracker barrel listening to police scanners. If they heard about a deer/car accident, they would rush to the scene to beg for free venison. Half the time, the officer was just glad to be rid of the hassle. Other times, if no cop happened to be present yet, the game thieves would abscond with the roadkill. It was possible the man who’d reported the accident fell into this category of self-help opportunists.
I decided to collect blood and hair samples for DNA evidence. Pinching someone for stealing roadkill wasn’t at the top of my priority list, but the samples might come in handy if I needed to prove serial wildlife violations someday. Poaching convictions had been won on slimmer bits of thread.
I was squatting on the cold asphalt, tweezing hair into a paper bag, when I heard a diesel engine approaching. On cue, my radio squawked: “Twenty-one fifty-four, Midcoast Towing said they did receive a call.”
“Thanks, Lori. The wrecker’s here now.”
As the truck rumbled to a halt, the driver turned on his flashing amber lights and rolled down his window. I recognized the ruddy, blond-bearded face inside. We often sat at the same lunch counter at the Square Deal Diner in Sennebec, but I couldn’t remember his name. I’d been assigned to the area for only a year, and there were still plenty of days when everyone I met was a stranger.
“Warden Bowditch, whatcha got?” The inside of the truck cab smelled fragrantly of pipe tobacco.
“I was going to ask you that.”
“I heard a lady from Boston hit a deer. I’m supposed to haul off her car. Hey, you look like you’ve been mud wrestling.”
“Yeah, I took a spill. Did the woman say she needed a ride? Because she doesn’t seem to be around here anywhere.”
“Well, I didn’t talk to her myself, you know. That’s not the way it works. But I can find out for you.” He picked up a clipboard from the passenger seat and held it close to his eyes to read the chicken scratch. “Her name is Ashley Kim. What’s that-Korean?”
I shrugged.
“My old man fought in Korea,” he said. “He hated that show M*A*S*H, though.”
While the trucker got on the CB to his dispatcher, I ransacked my memory for the blond man’s name. I’d learned all sorts of mnemonic tricks at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy to help recall information for my police reports, but for some reason, I never applied these strategies to my personal life. As a result, I was constantly forgetting dentist’s appointments, high school classmates, et cetera. I had a vague recollection that the driver went by some odd nickname.
He swung open the truck door and hopped down: a misshapen man whose legs seemed too short for his torso, as if he’d been cobbled together out of two different bodies, a small and a tall. Just like that, his name came to me: Stump Murphy.
He wore canvas duck pants with the bottoms rolled up, a blaze orange hunting shirt, and a camouflage vest. Curly blond locks escaped from beneath his watch cap, only to be recaptured in a ponytail. On his belt, I noticed a small holster contraption holding a corncob pipe.
“Here’s the scoop,” said Murphy. “I guess Miss Kim said she didn’t need a ride. I don’t know if she was calling her husband or friend or what, but she said she already had a lift. She just wanted the car hauled off. She said she’d contact the rental company later.”
I followed him around to the passenger door. He reached under the flaccid air bag for the glove compartment and groped around until he found the rental agreement. “Here you go, Warden.”
Ashley Kim had reported her address as Cambridge, Massachusetts. Probably she’d been visiting someone on Parker Point.
“Did she leave a cell-phone number with your dispatcher or any way to contact her locally?”
“Nope.”
“Does your phone system have caller ID?”
“I have no clue.”
I worked my flashlight beam around the inside of the car, but there were no personal belongings to be seen. Same with the trunk. The situation seemed to be exactly what it appeared. “I need to fill out an accident report.”
“Guess Miss Kim didn’t know she was supposed to stick around,” he said.
“She’s not the first.”
“Maybe she was afraid of the Breathalyzer.”
I left Stump Murphy to refill his pipe and went to start the paperwork. My sergeant, Kathy Frost, jokingly referred to her own GMC pickup as her “office,” but mine was more of a dusty shed. Inside I kept a laptop computer, toolbox, rain gear, change of clothes, personal flotation device, ballistic vest, spotting scope, binoculars, Mossberg pump shotgun, shells and slugs, tire jack, come-along, assorted ropes, flashlights, body bag, fold-out desk, batteries, law books, maps, spare. 357 ammunition for my service weapon, a GPS mapping receiver, wool blankets, an official diary, and lots of bags to stuff animal parts in. If I was lucky, I might even find what I was looking for.
I had the interior dome light on and was readjusting the movable arm that held my computer in place above the passenger seat when a state trooper arrived. He pulled up behind my truck and paused awhile inside, as if making a phone call, before he finally got out. He cast a damned big shadow as he came toward me.
“What’s the story, gentlemen?” He was the size of an NFL offensive lineman: shoulders a yard wide. I’m a big guy-six-two, 180 plus-but he made me feel like one of the Seven Dwarfs. He had on a heavy raincoat and that wide-brimmed Smokey the Bear hat Maine state troopers wear. At first glance, I didn’t recognize him.
Murphy broke the news: “A woman hit a deer.”
“So I heard.” He stuck out his hand for me to shake. He could have palmed a basketball with that hand. “I’m Curt Hutchins,” he said by way of introduction.
“Mike Bowditch. You’re the new guy at Troop D.”
“New? I grew up in Thomaston. But, yeah, I transferred over from the turnpike.” His hair had been shaved so close to the scalp that he looked bald, but his face was handsome and boyish, with a big dimple in the middle of his chin. “Sorry, I couldn’t get here sooner. The engine wouldn’t start after I went home for supper.”
“Dead battery?”
“Bad spark plugs.” He pointed at the crash site. “So where’s our unlucky driver?”
I told him the entire sequence of events, from the initial call I’d received from Dispatch, to my belated appearance on the scene, to Murphy’s arrival shortly thereafter and our quick search of the vehicle. “I have this bad feeling I’m having trouble shaking,” I admitted.
“Because somebody stole the deer?”
“Not just that. I’m just wondering where she could have gone. This is an isolated stretch of road. I’d feel better if I knew where to find this Ashley Kim.”
“She caught a ride,” he said confidently. “She was probably shit-faced and called a friend before the cops showed. I ran the plates just now with the rental company, and her Mass. license says she’s twenty-three. Probably a party girl.”
His characterization of a woman he didn’t even know grated on me. “I’m thinking I’ll poke around in the woods.”
Hutchins didn’t respond.
His silence made me uncomfortable, so I rambled on: “I just want to make sure she didn’t wander off, injured.
He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. I could tell he’d just made a mental connection. “You’re Jack Bowditch’s son.”
Seven months had passed, but I still couldn’t escape the notoriety. No matter what else happened in my life, I would always be the son of Maine’s most notorious criminal. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing. I’d just heard a rumor that you’d left the Warden Service.”
“You heard wrong.”
Without meeting my eyes again, he said, “I’ll handle things here if you want to take off.”
“What about the missing woman?”
