Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(26)

I hadn’t needed the excuse. The real reason I had avoided Widowmaker was that I hadn’t wanted to run into my father unexpectedly. I knew that he frequented the roadhouses and saloons between Rangeley and Solon: a drinking territory that he roamed the way a predator will mark as its own a certain chain of mountains, or expanse of forest. The prospect of my wandering into a barroom and seeing my dad on a stool, unshaven, with a shot and a beer in front of him, had scared me off. It was easier to stick to Sugarloaf, where I knew he had already been banned for life, and where I didn’t have to worry about being humiliated.

The bartender came over. She was an athletic-looking woman with short hair the color of squid ink. She was dressed in jeans and a black fleece sweater with a W on the breast. “Beer?”

“Coffee.”

“I’m making a new pot, if you can hold tight for a few minutes.” She pushed a basket of popcorn across the bar. I took a handful. It was almost inedibly salty.

Glancing at the wall of windows, I saw tiny flakes of snow beginning to fall—the innocent-seeming vanguard of the coming storm.

“Mike?”

I spun on the stool, directly into Amber Langstrom’s embrace. She hugged me hard, as if we were old friends and not people who had just met two nights earlier. I felt a pain on the bruised part of my back. I didn’t bring my own arms up, but waited for her to let go.

“I knew you’d come!” She looked better than she had at my house. The whites of her eyes were actually white, and her blond hair was done up in a tousled style that made her appear younger. She wore the same black fleece as the bartender, but her jeans were as formfitting as ski tights.

“I thought I should see the place,” I said. “I haven’t been here in a long time.”

“If I didn’t have to work, I’d show you around.” She leaned in close and lowered her voice. Her eyes were gorgeous, as blue as the bottom of a swimming pool. “Gerald—he’s my new boss—is such an *. He thinks he’s hot shit because he used to manage an Olive Garden. I am so glad you’re here!”

I had no idea how to respond, but it didn’t matter, because she kept on going.

“First, you need to talk with Josh,” she said. “I heard he’s working up on the summit today, which is kind of a bummer. Did you bring your skis?”

“My skis? No.”

“Then you can’t ride the chairlift. Well, you can ride to the top, but they won’t let you come down that way. Do you want me to ask Elderoy to drive you up in his snowcat?”

“Wait. Who’s Elderoy?

“The lift-maintenance manager. He’s been here forever.”

“And who’s Josh?”

“He’s Adam’s friend, the one I told you about. He works on the ski patrol. Josh Davidson.”

“Davidson, as in Alexa’s brother? The one Adam beat up? I thought they hated each other.”

Her painted mouth tightened. “Where did you hear that?”

“Pulsifer told me Alexa’s brother tried to put an end to the relationship. He said there was a fight, and the kid ended up in the clinic. That was how the parents found out about Adam’s relationship with Alexa.”

From her reaction, you would have thought I had insulted her. “Gary shouldn’t be spreading lies.”

“They didn’t get in a fight?”

“Those two were always hitting each other for fun. You know how boys are. It had nothing to do with Alexa. If they hated each other, why did Josh stay in touch with Adam while he was in prison? He was the only one of his academy friends who wrote to him. The rest of them treated Adam like a leper.”

A stern-faced man wearing the same black fleece as the other workers in the restaurant appeared behind her shoulder. “Amber, can I have a word with you?”

She rolled her eyes at me, mouthed a silent profanity, and then turned to her manager with a remarkably genuine-looking smile. “Of course, Gerald. I was just giving this gentleman some recommendations for lunch.” She returned her attention to me, as if finishing a conversation. “You should definitely try the Sluice burger. It comes with bacon and onion rings on top. Now, what is it you wanted, Gerald?”

“A word.”

“OK, but I have an order up for table four, so you need to be quick.”

Amber moved purposefully toward the kitchen. The scowling manager stayed one step behind her through the swinging door.

I swiveled back around on the stool and found myself looking into the hazel eyes of the bartender as she poured my cup of coffee from a steaming carafe. “Amber’s a piece of work, isn’t she?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“How well do you know her?”

I blew on the top of the mug. “Not very well.”

“You might want to keep it that way. Just my recommendation.”

She thought I had been flirting with Amber. I gathered that it must have been a regular occurrence at the Sluiceway.





11

As I waited for Amber to return, I tried to make sense of what she had told me about her son and Josh Davidson. Why would the brother of the girl Adam had raped remain friends with her rapist, especially if—as Pulsifer had suggested—a fight between the two boys had been the incident that started the investigation that led to Adam’s conviction? And what was I to make of Josh Davidson being the last person to see Adam before he vanished?