Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(23)
“Do you have a minute?”
“No.”
“I can call back, then.”
She seemed offended by my attempt at courtesy. “I won’t have any more time later. Just tell me what you want.”
“You have a client named Adam Langstrom. I saw on WatchGuard that he violated his probation and that you got a judge to put out a warrant for him.”
“That’s right. Failure to appear.”
“He’s been missing for two weeks?”
“Let me guess,” she said. “You found a dead body in the woods matching his description?”
It seemed significant that she had jumped to that conclusion. “You think Langstrom committed suicide?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if he had. He was always whining about how much his life sucked, and how unfair the system is, and how he wasn’t like the other skinners.”
“Skinners?”
“Sex offenders. Langstrom has been on a downward spiral for the past month. But I’m confused here, Warden. If you haven’t seen him, why are you calling me?”
“I’m wondering if you have any leads on his whereabouts.”
“No. Do you?”
“So you haven’t been actively searching for him?”
She had a laugh that was more a series of sharp expulsions of air from her lungs. “Do you know how many clients I have? I don’t have time to chase runaway ducklings, especially when most of them manage to deliver themselves into the hands of the police sooner rather than later. It’s not like these guys are criminal masterminds. And you still haven’t explained your interest in Langstrom.”
“He and I have some history, and I thought I might check a few of his haunts.”
I had told myself I wouldn’t lie, that no matter what, I would tell this woman the truth. So much for that pledge.
“Great,” she said. “If you see him, arrest him.”
You would have thought the fact that I wasn’t coming clean with Shaylene Hawken would have made me feel less insulted. “I’m offering you my help.”
“Really? Because I can count on one finger the number of times I’ve gotten a call like this. That includes this one.”
“I understand you were the one who placed him with Don Foss.”
For the first time in the conversation, she paused before she answered. “I place a lot of my clients with Foss, guys who have nowhere else to go and no other means of making money. He’s the last chance some of these men will ever have to get their lives straight. What are you implying?”
“I’m just trying to get my facts straight.”
I heard typing in the background. “You said you had history with Langstrom, but I don’t see any hunting or fishing violations in his record.”
“We never got past the warning stage,” I said, throwing another lie on the bonfire.
“That’s a shame. Maybe if he had been busted before, he wouldn’t have raped the Davidson girl. Langstrom is like most of the statutory cases I see here. Even after spending a year and a half behind bars, he still doesn’t think of himself as a criminal. I’m guessing that’s the reason he took off. He still can’t face the reality of his situation. I have to go now. I don’t know what your real interest in this guy is, Warden. But I’d recommend finding another hobby if this is your idea of recreation.”
Shaylene Hawken had seen right through me. But then, she listened to liars every day. Hopefully, she wouldn’t check up on anything I’d said with the Warden Service.
At this stage, I had nothing to lose by calling Don Foss. I was surprised to find that there was no contact information for his company anywhere online. What kind of commercial enterprise has an unlisted phone number? I figured I could always call Shaylene back and ask her for Foss’s number. Then I could be absolutely guaranteed she would be making a report to my superiors in Augusta.
Had Amber known this would happen? That curiosity would get the better of me once I’d started asking questions? At the very least, she must have understood that any conversation I had with stonewalling Shaylene Hawken was bound to leave me feeling angry and frustrated.
I glanced again out the window at the alabaster sky above the ragged treetops. I hadn’t been back up to my father’s old stomping grounds in ages, not since the manhunt. I could drive up to Widowmaker and be back home before the snow started to fall. As long as I understood where the lines were drawn and made certain not to cross them, I was at no risk of getting myself into trouble. No risk at all.
*
I kept my personal vehicle, an International Harvester Scout II, in the garage, out of the elements. I had always had an affinity for vintage four-wheel-drive vehicles. Maybe it was because I spent so much of my working life driving a state-of-the-art GMC Sierra that was loaded with more technology than I knew what to do with. My first antique had been a Jeep Willys that ran like a dream until rust ate it down to the bones. Then I had owned a cherry Ford Bronco, which I had watched being blown apart by shotgun rounds. Looking for a replacement, I had been torn between a Dodge Power Wagon and the International Harvester. I had gone with the hardtop Scout and had never had cause to regret my decision. The gas mileage was abysmal, but my trusted four-by-four took me everywhere I wanted to go.
In the winter, I packed the back with tire chains, a come-along, and a pull rope—as much to help motorists who might have slid off the road as to help myself. (I have always been an incorrigible Good Samaritan. My life would have been easier if I had been even remotely corrigible.) I kept a pair of snowshoes in there, too, as well as a wool blanket, a five-gallon jug of gasoline, and a first-aid kit.