Kendrick, the article said, had collected an almost cultlike following among young people who came to the University of Machias to study with him or attend his Primitive Ways survival school. I wondered if Trinity Raye had been one of these youthful devotees, but when I searched her name, all I found were some brief news stories in the Bangor Daily News and the Ellsworth American and an obituary that claimed she had “died unexpectedly” in her dorm room.
I bought a Snickers bar from the vending machine to gnaw on while I folded my clothes. My diet, never great to begin with except when I’d been living with Sarah, had deteriorated in recent weeks. Thinking about her made me melancholy. I wondered what man she’d woken up with this morning while I was stuck in a suffocating Laundromat washing the skunk smell out of my T-shirts.
On my way out the door, I stopped at the counter and was startled to find the teen blabbermouth gone and Ben Sprague, of all people, standing in her place. He wore a starched white shirt, which showed the undershirt beneath it, blue Dickies held up by red suspenders, and an expression of inexplicable hostility.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
I tried to project good fellowship. “Laundry. I was in town and had an emergency load to do. Is this your Laundromat?”
“We own one in Machias and another in Calais.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Why would you?”
I continued the charm offensive. “That was quite a night we had, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“How’s Doris doing?”
“The same. We heard the other one survived.”
“He’s still in the medical-surgery ward at the Down East Community Hospital, but the doctors expect him to pull through.”
Sprague blinked at me a few more times. “What can I do for you?”
“I have a lot of laundry to do, and I was wondering about wash, dry, and fold service.”
“We don’t offer that.”
Glancing at the wall behind him, I noticed a sign advertising the prices for laundering shirts, dry cleaning, stain removal, and basic tailoring repairs. “The sign says you do.”
“We’re not currently offering that service. We can’t afford the staff.”
There were also framed photographs on the wall: pictures of Rotary Club members selling Christmas trees, a studio portrait of Doris and Ben. Several of the pictures included a young man with a beaklike nose wearing a UMaine sweatshirt.
“Is that Joey?” I asked.
Sprague blinked rapidly, started to turn his head, then stopped. “Yes, that’s my son.”
“He goes to UMaine?”
“No, he’s down in Boston now. Is there anything else I can do for you? Because I’m fairly busy here.”
The two of us were the only ones in the Laundromat.
I was pushing my duffel bag into the backseat of my patrol truck when I spotted a familiar figure heading in the direction of the Wash-O-Mat. He was wearing a wool sports jacket instead of a buckskin parka, and he was carrying a battered leather briefcase instead of a shovel. But the dashing bearded man was unmistakably someone I knew.
“Hey, Kendrick!”
The dog racer stopped in mid-stride and peered down the street, shading his eyes with his hand. It seemed strange to see him suddenly, having just read at length about his adventures; it was as if I had conjured him up somehow. In his tweedy professorial garb, he looked like a person wearing a costume. He didn’t seem to belong in the outfit he had on; he reminded me of one of those old paintings of a Carib Indian, who,
having been snatched from the New World, was being presented in pantaloons and a doublet at the court of Queen Elizabeth I.
I slammed the truck door and slid the keys into my still-damp pants pocket. I needed to find a bathroom where I could change into my newly dried clothes. The cold, wet fabric made me shiver now that I was out in the polar air again.
“Laundry day?” Kendrick asked as he came toward me.
“I didn’t realize the Spragues own this place.”
“Ben and Doris have another one in Calais,” he said.
“That’s what he was just telling me.” I lowered my voice, although there was no one around to hear. “Do you know what the story is with their son? I keep hearing he had an accident, but no one will tell me what happened.”
Kendrick straightened up and gave me a piercing look. “Have you considered the possibility that the family is embarrassed that their son tried to kill himself?”
His intention had been to shock me into silence, and he achieved the effect he was after. “That’s tragic,” I said at last.
“And none of our business, wouldn’t you agree?”
I nodded, feeling genuinely ashamed at my own curiosity. “You haven’t spoken with Doc lately, have you?”
“No. Why?”
“I haven’t heard from him since that night at the Spragues’. I wondered how he was doing.”
“He falls into funks these days. Helen’s death hit him hard.”
“I expected he’d call me or something,” I said. “By the time I got back to the Sprague house, you two had taken off.”
He waited, unsure if this was supposed to be a question. “Doc caught a ride out with the ambulance. I had my dogs. There wasn’t any reason to stay.”
“Rivard was expecting you to direct help to our location.”
“There was no point. Ben told me you found the other man-Cates-buried inside a snowbank.”
“That’s right.”
“I also heard Sewall is under guard at the hospital. From that, I can infer that the police are regarding the death as suspicious.”
“Now you’re the one asking inappropriate questions.”
“I’ll take that as confirmation,” he said in the lofty tone that entered his voice every so often. “Has Sewall been talking to the police?”
“You seem to be pretty good at reading me,” I said. “I’ll let you figure it out.”
I could see his quick mind working in the little movements of his eyes. His nostrils flared suddenly. “Did you get sprayed by a skunk?”
There was no point in denying anything; Kendrick was too smart for me to fool. “You remember the prankster I told you about?”
“George Magoon.”
“He let a skunk loose in my trailer.”
Kendrick laughed so hard, he began to cough. “No wonder you’re spending your day off at the Laundromat.”
I nodded, my lips pressed together in imitation of a smile.
“You have to admit that was an inspired practical joke,” he said.
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, I think it’s pretty hilarious.” Without looking at his watch, he said, “I need to get to class. I’ll be curious to hear how the Prester Sewall case develops. Those two bastards deserved their miserable fates. If it had been up to me, I would have let them freeze to death out there.”
And with that, he walked away. No handshake, no good-bye. I watched him climb into a burgundy 4 X 4 pickup with a kennel setup in the bed, a stack of cages for his malamutes. He started the engine but didn’t pull into traffic immediately. I had the strong sensation he was studying me in his side mirror. For a man with a class to
