punishment doesn’t fit the crime here.”
Unlike some of the officers I worked with, I’d never enjoyed the power trip that came with being a cop. Billy Cronk seemed like a good guide who’d had a bad night. I reconsidered letting him go with a warning and was on the verge of doing so, in fact.
Before I could open my mouth, however, the driver’s door swung violently open and Joe Brogan hopped out. I didn’t know how much he’d heard of the conversation-his truck engine was loud-but he’d come to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to cut his guide any slack. His thick brown beard bristled as he said, “So you’re just going to be an asshole?”
“Stay out of this, Brogan. You’re not persuading me of anything by invading my property this way.”
“Billy has a wife and four little kids to feed. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“This conversation is over.”
I opened my passenger door and grabbed the plastic bag of overpriced groceries I’d purchased at the variety store. On the floor mat in the backseat, a yellow notebook was peeking out. I leaned in to retrieve Lucas Sewall’s forgotten journal.
When I tried to walk to my door, Brogan stepped in front of me and crossed his arms. “We know all about you,” he said. “Your superiors think you’re a fuckup, which is why they transferred you here. Everyone in Augusta is just waiting for you to make a mistake so they can fire your ass.”
Brogan spoke as if he were sharing a secret he’d learned from an informant deep inside the Warden Service. My reputation was fairly public, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if the ranch owner had had a few buddies in the department, as well. I realized he was trying to goad me into doing something stupid. A voice spoke to me from my days at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy: If you lose control of yourself, you lose control of the situation.
“Get out of my way,” I said.
“You’re going to wish you had a few friends real soon.”
“What does that mean?”
Brogan’s eyes smoldered like hot black coals. “You’ll find out.”
The temptation to pop him on the nose was nearly uncontrollable. Instead, I clenched my molars and made a wide circle around his position. Over my shoulder, I said, “Don’t come to my house again, or I’m going to bust you for trespassing and threatening a law-enforcement officer.”
Loud enough for me to hear, Brogan muttered, “Asshole.”
As I fiddled with the keys, I noticed the hole left by the nail in my door. My vandal’s identity no longer seemed much of a mystery. It had to have been Brogan or one of his men.
The trailer was cold and dim. I parted the curtains and looked out at my snowy dooryard. I watched as Brogan snarled something and then spat his entire wad of tobacco against the side of my patrol truck. He raised his collar and climbed behind the wheel of the Avalanche.
Cronk remained where he’d been standing, his blond head in his hands.
15
After I heard Brogan and Cronk drive away, I put in another call to Sergeant Rivard. “Were you ever going to call me back?” I asked him.
“What are you all worked up about?”
“Nothing.” I sat down hard on the sofa and released all the air from my lungs. “I just had a run-in with Joe Brogan and Billy Cronk. They were waiting for me at my trailer.”
Rivard paused, waiting for me to continue. “So what happened?”
“Never mind.”
Kathy Frost would have kept nagging me for more details, but my new sergeant seemed relieved to let difficult matters drop.
“How’s our buddy Prester doing?” he asked.
“He won’t be getting many dates in the future. The doctor says he could still have a heart attack, but the more time that passes, the better chance he has of pulling through. Were you there when the ME examined Cates’s body?”
“I took off after the state police evidence technicians showed up. It was too cold out there to hang around drinking coffee and shooting the shit with the troopers. I had to take Gail to her doctor, anyway. This new baby is going to bankrupt me. My advice to you is, never have kids.”
“At the moment, that’s not an issue. Who’s handling the case for the CID?”
“Zanadakis is the primary. He’s going to want to talk with you in person. Do yourself a favor, though, and write up your report ASAP.”
It was yet another task to finish before I could get some shut-eye. “So what do you really think happened out there between Sewall and Cates?” I asked.
“They got stuck in the snow and had a fight.”
“So Prester smothers his buddy, then wanders off to find shelter from the storm? When he arrives at the Spragues’ house, he’s almost half dead, but the first thing he does is tell them to go help the man he just killed. That makes no sense.”
There was a silence on the other end.
“Even if he had the presence of mind to concoct some kind of story-”
“Enough, Mike.”
“I’m just trying to piece this together.”
“It’s not your job to conduct homicide investigations. It’s Zanadakis’s. If you want to play detective, you should join the state police.”
“I’m not playing anything.”
“Curiosity killed the cat. Did you ever hear that before?”
The message had been delivered, loud and clear. If I’d ever doubted that Sergeant Rivard had been instructed by the brass in Augusta to keep his new cat on a tight leash, I finally had my answer.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve heard it.”
After I got off the phone, I reclined on the sofa and rehashed the various threats I’d experienced since I’d returned home. First, Brogan had showed up to strong-arm me into dropping criminal charges against Cronk, and then Rivard had all but come out and said that he was going to make my life miserable if I didn’t stop thinking about the Sewall case. I looked at my BlackBerry, feeling a desire to call Kathy Frost or Charley Stevens, but what did I really have to say to my friends, except that I was feeling lonely and frustrated? There was no point in whining about the situation.
I screwed the new fuses into the box and was relieved when the heater begin making a reassuring ticking sound. After a few minutes, the odor of the electric baseboards-the earthy smell of warming dust-emanated from the four corners of the room. I removed my parka and sat down at my laptop with a glass of milk.
I wrote up my report in the short sentences and strict chronology that the criminal justice system demands:
On 2/13 I attended an off-duty social event at the residence of JAMES LARRABEE on Route 277 in NO 19 TWP. I left the residence at approximately 2215. At approximately 2230, I was driving west on Route 277, when I received a call on my personal cell phone from LARRABEE, asking me to return to his residence. He advised me that his neighbors, BEN and DORIS SPRAGUE, of Bog Road, had called him, requesting his emergency medical assistance. (LARRABEE is a veterinarian.) He said that a man, whom I later identified as JOHN SEWALL, of Whitney, had appeared at their door in a state of extreme hypothermia and frostbite. LARRABEE asked that I accompany him to the SPRAGUES’ house and assist him in assessing SEWALL’S condition and performing medical assistance as needed.
I debated whether our game of chicken with the unknown snowmobiler merited inclusion but decided to make note of everything. Detective Zanadakis could decide which incidents warranted further discussion and which did not.
It took me half an hour to finish the report. I reread it twice for omissions, but the words kept blurring on the
