with my right hand, and as a lefty, I’d never been able to hit the broad side of an aircraft carrier. With the Driskos, though, you could never be too careful.
The moon was nearly full, but the pale disk was shrouded by clouds and it cast a pellucid light on the road. I’d taken only two steps or so before the Driskos’ pit bull began growling from the other side of the fence. Some dogs bark viciously, as if they very much wish to bite you. Vicky sounded like she wanted to dismember me limb from limb. I half-imagined her breaking through the fence, leaving a dog-shaped opening like you see in old cartoons.
A heavy padlock hung on a chain wrapped around the handles. Because the gate was locked from the outside, it meant that my friends, the Driskos, were not at home. I had a feeling the swinging singles might be out on the town.
It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce where Dave and Donnie might be at this hour. The Harpoon Bar was a quick jaunt down the road.
When I got back to the Jeep, there was a new message on my cell phone. The unfamiliar voice belonged to a man, and from his first words I could tell he was apopleptic: “This is a message for Warden Bowditch. This is Nick Donnatelli-Nikki’s father. I’ve heard you’re one of the bastards trying to set Erland Jefferts free. The man is a psychopath! He raped and murdered my baby in cold blood. It’s bad enough for my family to be subjected to seven years of harassment by lunatics. But you’re a law-enforcement officer, for God’s sake! Who the hell do you think you are?”
I pushed the erase button. Someone must have contacted him. Maybe Danica Marshall thought a phone call from the grieving father would appeal to my conscience and dissuade me from my quixotic quest.
I should have returned Mr. Donnatelli’s phone call, if only to explain my intentions: I was on a mission to discover the truth, not just for Ashley Kim’s sake but for his own daughter’s, too. It was the only way for justice to be served and for both women to rest in peace. He needed to know my heart was just.
I should have called Nikki’s father back, but I didn’t.
31
The houses in the fishing village of Seal Cove clung like barnacles around a perfect vase-shaped harbor. Mariners knew it as a hurricane hole: a safe haven where they could tie up their boats if ever a monster storm came crashing down the coast. In August the cove would be a watery parking lot where sloops and lobsterboats angled for every available mooring, but in March the only boats were a few lonely commercial vessels glowing white in the moonlight. You could fish for lobsters year-round along the Maine coast if you didn’t mind scraping ice off every hawser and venturing out on subzero mornings through breath-stopping clouds of sea smoke.
But now with spring officially here-on the calendar, if not in fact-more lobsterboats would begin to emerge from beneath their shrink-wrapped skins. Soon the harbormaster would motor out to set the summer moorings. One morning the cove would be placid and empty; the next it would be dotted with floating volleyballs.
The Harpoon Bar occupied an entire wharf on the waterfront. It was a sprawling dead whale of a place that looked like it might someday slide back into the brink. When I got there that night, the parking lot was full, and the joint was jumping. During mud season, there wasn’t much to do in this ghost town but drink.
Close to the water, the air felt raw, but the smell of the ocean was stronger than I remembered: another seasonal sign of change. That pleasant briny odor was caused by breeding plankton. In July you could breathe in the sea from miles away, but in the winter it was just a faint scent that drifted like a windblown memory of some long- forgotten summer.
Even before I opened the door, I could hear loud rock music and shouted conversations. I stepped into the bar and paused on the threshold to absorb the maritime spectacle.
The Harpoon took its nautical theme seriously-fishing nets were hung decoratively from the ceiling, and the walls were made of weathered panels that might have been salvaged from wrecked pirate ships. It was the kind of place where the bathroom doors were labeled BUOYS and GULLS. The signature harpoon itself hung above the fully stocked bar, which was where I seated myself.
Despite all the packed bodies inside the bar, the air was as cold as a fish locker; it smelled of fried seafood, spilled beer, and various strong perfumes and colognes.
The bartender took a while to find his way to me. He was engrossed in a spirited conversation with a middle-aged woman wearing a UConn sweatshirt. The TV above their heads showed a fast-paced basketball game. I was so caught up in my own obsessions that I’d forgotten about the other March madness.
I spun around on my stool. All the tables seemed to be full. I recognized many of the faces-men and women I’d arrested for growing pot or driving drunk-but there were just as many people unfamiliar to me. I spotted the mustachioed Driskos in the far corner. They were seated with a balding man who sat with his back to the room.
“What’ll you have?”
The bartender leaned across the damp bar. Despite the cloistered chill of the room, he wore a T-shirt that exposed his massive biceps, one of which was emblazoned with a United States Marines tattoo. I guessed him to be in his late thirties, maybe early forties, a veteran of the first Gulf War. He might have been handsome if not for the flattened nose and thinning sandy hair.
“A beer and a menu,” I said.
“What?” He needed to shout to be heard above the thudding bass of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
“Allagash White!” I shouted back. “And a menu!”
He poured me a pint and returned with a grease-slicked menu. “What happened to your hand?”
I wriggled my black fingers for him. “Crashed my ATV!”
He bobbed his eyebrows at me. “You’re that game warden!”
I should have figured the town bartender would be a link in the local gossip chain. “Folsom, right?”
“Yeah!” he said, displaying enough suspicion to tell me that he was no dope. “What do you want to eat?”
“Hamburger!”
He stared at me for a moment as if he hadn’t heard what I’d said, then wandered down to the end of the bar, past the row of beer taps and ice sinks, to punch my order into a computer.
After a while, Folsom drifted down to me again. There was a mirror behind the shelf of liquor bottles, and it showed a hairless spot on the crown of his head.
“Can we talk somewhere?” I was tired of shouting.
“Why?”
“I just need a minute!”
He motioned down to the end of the bar, where a set of swinging doors led into a brightly lit kitchen. I grabbed my beer and followed. The jukebox was still loud in the kitchen, and there was the added clatter of plates and the wet hum of the dishwasher. But you could at least converse at a near normal volume.
Folsom grabbed a pretty waitress by the shoulder. “Watch the bar for me.”
She sighed and disappeared back into pandemonium.
The bartender bobbed his head at me as if he’d already reached the limit of his patience. “So what can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for Dane Guffey.”
“Guffey? He only comes in for lunch sometimes.” He played with a few strands of his wispy forelock. “What do you want with him?”
“Police business.” The words sounded ridiculous as soon as they left my mouth. “I need to talk with him about Erland Jefferts.”
“Jefferts? What the hell is this about?”
“I think you know.”
