Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(45)

“Welcome to East Bumf*ck,” he said. “Population: me.”

“Are you going to be OK hiking in there?” I asked.

“Christ! You sound like my freaking mother.”

He hopped out, slammed the door, and began trudging up into the dark woods without so much as a thank you. Mink was a piece of work, but the strange little man could clearly take of himself. The cloying smell of his cologne lingered inside the truck. I drove back out of the woods with the window down.





17

Even in good weather, the drive home would have taken me a solid three hours. But with roads like greased glass, and probably worse in the pass through the mountains, my estimated time of arrival would be well past midnight. Should I make the attempt or try to find a motel room between the mountain and Rangeley? I wondered.

My body voted for sleep.

Unfortunately for my body, my phone buzzed when I reached the bottom of the hill. I hadn’t noticed the lack of a cell signal when I had been higher up the mountainside, near Mink’s cabin. I grabbed the phone, hoping to see Stacey’s number on the screen, but it was Pulsifer, of all people.

“Don’t start with me,” I said, foreseeing what he would say.

“I had to hear you were stabbed from DeFord? I thought we were amigos, Mike. What else have you been hiding from me?” His voice sounded ragged, as if he was outdoors, trying to speak above blowing wind.

“I am not kidding, Gary. I’m too tired for one of our usual conversations.”

“Which are what, exactly?”

“Your giving me endless grief.”

His response was to cackle. “If you don’t want to hear my exciting news, then just say so.”

I pulled the Scout over and put the transmission into park. “What is your exciting news?”

“I was out on my sled today,” he said. “Snodeo is coming up this weekend, and I wanted to get a head start on the inevitable drunks.”

No matter how hard I tried, I was unable to keep Pulsifer from spinning his yarns at his usual spider’s pace.

“Please don’t tease this out. I really am beat.”

“Two hours ago, I got a call. It was a Rangeley cop I know. He was over in Dallas Plantation and wanted me to come look at something.”

It was a township located between Kennebago and Rangeley, with no population to speak of. The summit of Widowmaker stared down at the unpeopled patch of forest at the foot of Saddleback Mountain.

“What was a Rangeley cop doing in Dallas Plantation?” I asked.

“He just happened to be closest to the scene.”

“The scene of what?”

Pulsifer must have realized he was reaching the limit of my patience. “A couple of cross-country skiers from Saddleback found an abandoned truck this afternoon parked near the Navy Road. That’s not unusual. People abandon a lot of old beaters in the woods. It just so happened that these skiers were the curious type. They decided to poke around. The windows were all smashed. Again, nothing unusual there. What was unusual was the blood all over the inside seats.”

My heart tightened like a fist. “How much blood?”

“Enough for them to call the Rangeley PD. My buddy Steve drove out there to see for himself, and of course the truck had no plates. So he got on the horn with Dispatch and called in the VIN. Guess who the vehicle was registered to?”

I was afraid to say the name. “Adam Langstrom.”

“Close! Amber Langstrom.”

“Shit.”

“It gets worse. Steve and Amber used to be friends—if you know what I mean. He called me up and asked me what he should do, and I said, ‘Call the sheriff. Have them send a detective. But whatever you do, don’t tell Amber.’”

“But it was too late. He already had.”

Pulsifer reacted as if I had stepped on the punch line of one of his jokes. “How did you know that?”

“I’ll explain in a minute. Where’s the truck now?”

“In a clearing off the Navy Road, but it’s about to be towed back to Farmington. Jim Clegg is here from the sheriff’s department and he is going to have his forensics guy go through it from A to Z in the morning.”

Amber had neglected to tell me that the truck her missing son was driving was registered in her name. Had he been using it with her permission, or had he taken it without asking? Either way, Amber’s abrupt departure from work that afternoon suddenly made sense. What else had she neglected to tell me?

“I need specific directions.”

“Mike, it’s in Dallas Plantation.”

“And I’m just down the road in Kennebago.”

“What the f*ck?” Now he was the one who sounded as if he’d been sucker punched.

“Just tell me how to get there, and I’ll explain everything when I see you. And don’t let them move the truck before I arrive.”

*

I drove at an unsafe speed down Moose Alley, past the turnoff to Widowmaker, until I crossed the line into Dallas Plantation.

On my GPS, the Navy Road showed as a thin brown line that curved up from the Dead River valley into the high peaks between Saddleback and Sugarloaf. I looked for a sign telling me where to turn, but the road, like so many in this area, seemed to be unmarked. Even so, I had no trouble finding the turnoff. Multiple tire treads showed that there had recently been heavy traffic into and out of the snowy woods.