Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(35)

“I did before I retired. I’m still the president of the board, but my sons run the business.”

It was one of the state of Maine’s larger independent building suppliers and had several sawmills, lumberyards, and dozens of retail stores. My father had felled trees for the company before being fired for some offense or another.

I crossed my arms. “But how did you know who I was?”

“You underestimate your own notoriety, Warden. At least in this part of the state.”

Looking over his shoulder, I saw the ruddy British-looking chap waving me enthusiastically toward the table.

I had come up to Widowmaker promising not to call undue attention to myself. Clearly, these Night Watchmen jokers had me at a disadvantage. The whole sequence of events since I’d returned to the restaurant—Amber’s unexplained disappearance, the grilling I’d received from Russo, being “rescued” by Cabot—left me feeling uneasy.

“Please come join us at least for a coffee.” Cabot extended his scarecrow arm toward the back table. It was a grand, welcoming gesture that made me think of the ticket taker at a haunted house.

What other choice did I have?

I followed him.

The ruddy man in tweed pulled out a chair for me as I approached. “Welcome! Welcome!” he said in a posh accent.

“This is Johnny Partridge, late of Fleet Street,” said Cabot. “And this taciturn fellow is Chief Petty Officer Lane Torgerson, U.S. Navy, retired. Gentlemen, we were correct in our deductions. This is indeed Warden Mike Bowditch, the son of the notorious Jack Bowditch, whom we were discussing earlier.”

Torgerson I didn’t know. But he looked like someone who had seen combat in a handful of theaters—from Vietnam to Iraq—and who could still hold his own against you in a bar fight and might even help you pick up your teeth afterward.

Partridge, however, I recognized.

He was a British-born reporter who had worked at several Maine newspapers over the years. I had no idea what had brought him from London to our little backwater state, but he’d had a long and controversial career. Everyone who worked in state government knew him by reputation and few were willing to take his phone calls. I remembered one particularly cruel column he had written attacking two friends of mine after they had been involved in a tragic suicide-by-cop shooting. Partridge had called wardens Danielle Tate and Kathy Frost “frantic female fish cops.”

He had written about me, as well, following my father’s death. Or so my friends had told me. I had managed to avoid reading the column he had published questioning my worthiness to carry a badge and a gun.

“Have a seat, young man,” said Partridge boisterously. “Join us for a drink.”

Torgerson nodded respectfully.

“He says he’s drinking coffee,” said Cabot, pushed his sliding spectacles back up his nose again.

“You must have a beer at least!” said Partridge.

The thought of sharing a table with this vile man soured my stomach.

“I apologize, but I didn’t realize how late it is,” I said. “I need to get going.”

All three of them stopped moving at once and went completely quiet long enough for an old-time photographer to have made a daguerreotype of them.

“We noticed you talking to Amber Langstrom earlier,” Partridge said, showing off his British dental work. “How do you know her?”

“I don’t.”

“Didn’t she hug you?” the Brit asked. “I’m sure she did.”

“She mistook me for someone else,” I said. “She thought I looked like someone she knew.”

Cabot raised one of his bristling eyebrows. “Really? We were all sitting here envying you.”

I forced a smile. “I really made myself the center of attention, it seems.”

“You’ve got to excuse us for being nosy Parkers,” Cabot said. “We’re all retired—in Johnny’s case, partially retired. We have too much time on our hands, which makes us dangerous, of course. And we pay particular attention to Amber for obvious reasons.” If he had shaped the outlines of her breasts in the air, he couldn’t have been any more lewd.

“It’s a shame about the poor woman’s son,” said Partridge to me.

I didn’t have Officer Russo’s gift for maintaining a deadpan expression. “Her son?”

“Sex offender,” said Cabot. “Convicted child rapist. The kid was a promising skier, too. And now he’s run off.”

“He’s human garbage,” said Torgerson. I’d been wondering if he possessed vocal cords.

“That seems like too strong a word,” said Cabot.

Partridge followed a swallow of scotch with a sip of beer. “What would you prefer?”

“I’d say that young Adam has forsaken his personal savior.”

“Foss?” growled Torgerson. He really did sound as if he’d spent a lifetime breathing in napalm fumes and desert sand.

Partridge laughed uproariously. “That’s a new name for Don! Personal savior!”

Torgerson’s cell phone buzzed in his shirt pocket. He rose quickly to his feet and turned from the table, making sure I, at least, couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“Now tell us about you,” said Cabot.

“You already know that I am a game warden.” The conversation seemed to be careening in the wrong direction. “The bartender said you gentlemen are part of a club,” I said, trying to change the focus.