Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(40)

Now who is the one asking invasive questions? I thought.

“I just can’t do it,” I said firmly.

He moved his tongue around his mouth so that one cheek bulged, then the other. “All right. You can drop me at my house first. The road to Foss’s is just past that. I’ll point you where you need to go.”

He snapped his seat belt back into the latch and made himself comfortable for the ride.





15

Mink hummed to himself as we drove back down Moose Alley. I didn’t recognize the tune, but he carried it well.

“Do you know Charley Stevens?” he asked out of nowhere.

“He’s a friend of mine.”

“I figured, since you are both wardens.”

“He’s retired now.”

“That makes sense. Charley and his wife, Ora, used to have a place on Flagstaff Pond before Wendigo bought up all that land. Good people.”

It shouldn’t have been so surprising. Flagstaff Pond was just down the road from Bigelow, and Charley had been a familiar and friendly presence in the woods around here for decades. I had plenty of misgivings about this character Mink, but if he liked and respected the Stevenses, he couldn’t be too bad.

“Do you know their daughter Stacey?” I asked.

“Which one is she? The blonde or the brunette?”

“The brunette.”

“Yeah, I remember her. She’s got great eyebrows.”

Those were not the features I personally would have identified as her best, but I supposed her eyebrows might have warranted the compliment.

Now that we had gotten over our initial misunderstanding, Mink seemed eager to chat again. “What did you say your last name was again?”

“Bowditch.”

“Oh yeah, I know who you are now. Your dad was a scary guy. He used to come into the Bear’s Den when I was washing dishes, and the whole place would go quiet. Even from inside the kitchen, I could hear the dining room go dead.”

It had been a long time since I had felt so defined by my father’s reputation. But what had I expected, returning to his old hunting grounds? Jack Bowditch had been infamous, never more than in his last days.

“How did you end up in Kennebago?” I asked. “You said you were from Jersey?”

“South Orange. My dad had a hunting camp in Kennebago. He sent me up here to stay for a while. Wanted to make a man out of me. That was a long time ago. He’s dead now. Heart attack. My mom moved up a few years ago. She hates it here, the old bird. Says there’s no culture. Personally, I think she’s lonely because she’s too high-and-mighty to make friends.”

“Do you still work at the Bear’s Den?”

He let out a laugh. “That dump? No way. Don’t ever eat there. You’ll get intestinal parasites.”

I had a bad habit of always asking one question too many. “Does the name Adam Langstrom mean anything to you?”

“The kid who raped the girl at ASA?” He swung his head around, dark eyes opening wide. “Is he the creep you’re looking for at Foss’s? I’d heard he was living with that freaking crackpot since he got out.”

We drove on for another five minutes without seeing a single vehicle. At no time did my speedometer top thirty miles per hour.

“Do they call you Mink because of the hat?” I asked.

“Nah. My real name is Minkowski. Nathan Minkowski.” He leaned against the dash suddenly. “Take a left here.”

I turned down a wooded camp road, unnamed and unmarked except for two signs at the corner. One was a HOME FOR SALE notice with an arrow pointing into the forest. The other said DEAD END. My tires made a crunching noise as we left the highway and crept into the woods.

“You actually live up here?” I said.

“Yeah.”

Fortunately, the plow had recently come through. It had scattered a gritty carpet of sand across the woods road to make the going easier.

“Who plows this road for you?” I asked.

“There’s a guy who does it,” my passenger said.

Sparsely populated townships like Kennebago, which were part of Maine’s Unorganized Territories, did not have public works departments. The handful of people who lived within its boundaries relied on the state to provide municipal services. Most of the North Woods consisted of remote plantations and townships whose residents were effectively serfs under the rule of distant czars.

A hundred yards in, we passed a homestead made up of a single farmhouse and assorted sheds and barns. It had seen better days—half a century earlier. There was a sign out front announcing that this was the property for sale and that the price had been reduced. But no one seemed to be at home.

“Who’s your neighbor?” I asked, slowing down.

“Just some mook.”

Densely branched evergreens closed in around us. Snow pillowed the dark boughs and clung tightly to the electric line that stretched from pole to pole overhead: the only indication that anyone else might actually be living farther up in these woods. Little by little, we made our way up a hill, heading east. So far, we had passed only that single house.

I noticed that some of the higher branches had been broken by big trucks coming through. That should have been the tip-off.

We came around a corner and saw the gate with the sign. I read the notice in the glow of my headlights.