Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(19)

“He’s magnificent! But I have no idea how we’re going to get near him.”

I had no idea, either. Secretly, I was hoping that he would just turn tail and run, thus relieving me of the responsibility of capturing him, at least for now.

“Hey, handsome,” Swette called in that singsong voice certain people use with animals. “Aren’t you handsome?”

Shadow remained motionless, his dark ears up, wisps of steam rising from his nostrils into the cold air.

She reached into her pocket and brought out a handful of kibble. “Do you want a treat?”

The wolf dog didn’t so much as flick his tail.

“Shadow!” I shouted.

To our mutual surprise, the wolf dog took a step forward.

“I thought that was a name those two losers just gave him,” I said. “Give me that kibble.”

I extended my open hand as I called his name again, and the animal came closer. Halfway across the yard, he sat down in the snow and looked at us.

“Come here, boy!” Swette called.

I squatted down to his level. “Come here, Shadow!”

He came right over.

He was even larger up close than I had imagined. I remained absolutely still, with my arm out as he hopped over the snowbank. I had a momentary bout of anxiety as the enormous animal opened his mouth and began to gobble dog food from my palm. He could have taken off my hand at the wrist with a single bite of those jaws.

Swette stepped back to loop the snare around the wolf dog’s head.

“Wait,” I said. “Maybe we don’t need that. Put some kibble inside the carrier.”

She opened the gate and scattered pellets inside. The wolf dog looked at me, as if seeking my assurance.

“It’s all right, boy,” I said.

And he trotted right in.

Swette was quick closing the gate behind his tail. Through the holes in the side, I saw his muscles flinch beneath his coat of black fur, but he didn’t snarl or bite. He simply acquiesced to being caged.

Swette backed off and rubbed her chin.

“What?” I asked.

“I’ve never seen a dog like this. He’s a little too calm. It’s weirding me out.”

I knew what she meant. I could understand a trusting family dog—one that had never had cause to live by its wits—being lured inside a cage with dog food, but Shadow was obviously intelligent. As a rule, I do not believe in mythologizing animals, especially charismatic species like bears and wolves, but there was something about this one that unsettled me.

I helped Swette lift the carrier with Shadow inside into the back of her truck. He easily weighed more than a hundred pounds. And when he shifted from the front to the back, we both staggered to keep our balance.

“How old do you think he is?” I asked her before she closed the tailgate.

“He’s not a puppy,” she said, out of breath. “But he doesn’t look old, either. The teeth will give Dr. Carbone some idea.”

“Is there a chance that he’s a hundred percent wolf?”

“You can’t judge by looking at them,” she said. “A lab test is the only way to be sure.”

“Can you give me a call when you get the results back?”

“Absolutely.” She peered through the grille of the carrier. “It’s sad, though, isn’t it?”

At first, I had no idea what she meant. Then I had this panicked realization that we were sending this healthy, intelligent, obedient creature to his inevitable death. Kathy was right that no one would adopt a wolf dog that had killed a deer. I had been so taken with him that I had lost sight of the endgame. If he tested positive as a wolf, as was bound to happen, he would be given a shot of barbiturates and put down.

One of my duties as a warden was to kill injured, sick, and nuisance animals. In the course of my career I had shot moose, bear, deer, raccoons, opossums, foxes, woodchucks, geese, ducks, and even, once, a rabid dog that the residents of a trailer park had managed to corner in a waterless swimming pool. None of them had affected me as deeply as this.

Maybe it was because I had almost been killed myself and the thought of mortality was hanging over me like a half-fallen tree.

Maybe I was punch-drunk from the loss of blood.

Or maybe it was my upbringing. I was raised Catholic. Guilt is my resting state.





8

At the hospital in Bridgton, I was treated by a nurse practitioner. It look ten stitches to close the gash on my left forearm. She checked my back and found a bull’s-eye: a small puncture in the skin surrounded by a contusion from the force of the blow. She applied a bandage to the wound and asked if I wanted the doctor to write a scrip for pain medication. I told her I had what I needed in a bottle back home.

“I’d advise against drinking any alcohol tonight,” she said.

“I’ll be good,” I said.

“I don’t want you to be good,” the nurse said. “I want you to get well.”

The thought of what had almost happened—how close I’d come to being killed for no good reason—had left me feeling ashamed and angry at myself. I’d gotten careless, just like the dead cops in that video. I felt a shameful urge to slink back to my house and hide behind the curtains until springtime.

But there was no hiding from my visitors. A state police detective I knew named Pomerleau arrived at the hospital to take a statement from me; she was accompanied by both an assistant attorney general and an assistant district attorney for Cumberland County. The state of Maine takes the attempted murder of a law-enforcement officer seriously even when the attack only results in ten stitches.