Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(47)

“No!”

“So what is the story with you two?” said Pulsifer. He hadn’t forgotten how elusive I had been with him.

The cold skin of my face stung as blood rushed into it. “It might take some time to explain.”

“Can it wait for morning?” asked Clegg.

“I think so.”

“Good, because I’ve been standing in the snow for two hours already, and I’d like to wrap up what we can here and go get some sleep.”

Clegg meant that literally. The pickup would be covered tightly in plastic to protect it against the elements while it was hauled to the department’s garage. Pulsifer had done me a real favor in postponing that process until I arrived.

I made my way into the cold circle of light around the Ranger. The right side of the dashboard and the passenger seat had a dull maroon tint. Some of the blood had been smeared toward the passenger door, as if something—a body—had been pushed out. The right window had been almost entirely shattered; all that remained was a jagged fringe of spiderwebbed glass around the edges.

I circled around to the other side of the truck. There was no visible broken glass.

Clegg appeared at my shoulder. “Satisfied?”

“I thought it was the driver’s window that was broken.”

“No, this one was just rolled down,” he said. “It’s the other one that was smashed.”

I made my way around to the back of the truck. Snow had piled up in the bed, but it was thicker along the sides and near the cab, as if the pickup had been carrying something big recently. I glanced around the lot, gauging the heights of the snowbanks along the perimeter.

“I think there was a sled in the back of this truck,” I said.

“A snowmobile?” said Pulsifer.

“Look at the shape.”

In the winter, I would often go on patrol with a snowmobile in the back of my Sierra. When the banks got high enough, all you had to do was back up to one, throw open the tailgate, and drive your sled out. No need for a ramp.

Unfortunately, half a foot of snow had fallen that afternoon. Whatever snowmobile tracks might have been visible earlier had become soft, unreadable grooves.

I gazed around the clearing. “I expected to see Shaylene Hawken here.”

“Are you kidding?” said Pulsifer. “If Langstrom’s dead, it means less work for her.”

Standing beside the construction light were two men, one in camouflage utilities, the other in civilian clothes. The man in civvies seemed totally focused on me. I was shocked to realize that I knew him.

“Is that Torgerson?”

“How do you know Lane?”

“I met him this afternoon at Widowmaker along with a couple of his drinking buddies. What the hell is he doing here?”

“So you met the Night Watchmen,” said Pulsifer with a toothy grin. “Someone from the school must have called him. Torgerson used to be a SERE instructor. He moved back to Rangeley after he retired from the navy.”

No wonder the old guy was such a badass; he’d worked at a survival school, teaching pilots how to resist abuse by abusing them.

Amber’s truck had been abandoned at a trailhead just outside an off-limits navy base. The proximity to the SERE school might have been coincidental or it might have been significant. The same could be said about Torgerson’s presence at the scene. The so-called Night Watchmen had a legitimate connection to the base. He and his friends had also voiced contempt for the local ex-cons whose names were on the sex offender registry.

“I’m going to go talk to him,” I told Pulsifer. “I want to know what he’s doing here.”

“Do I actually have to tell you what a bad idea that is?”

Torgerson watched me approach with the same welcoming expression with which he might have greeted a door-to-door salesman.

“Chief Torgerson,” I said. “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again so soon.”

You might have thought he was totally deaf.

“This must have been the call you got at the Sluiceway,” I said. “Someone from SERE wanted you to know Adam Langstrom’s truck had been found.”

The SEAL beside him said, “Do you know this guy Torgy?”

Torgerson’s eyes bored into mine. “I know exactly who he is.”

Without uttering another syllable, Torgerson turned his back on me. He dug his fists into the pockets of his peacoat as he tromped away through the snow toward a cluster of parked vehicles. The SEAL remained behind for a few seconds, his eyebrows knit together, his mouth twisted in confusion. After a while, he also left the halo of the construction lights for the darkness of the trees.

Torgerson was an expert at manipulation and intimidation. I had to hand it to him. He’d left me feeling as naked as if I’d just stepped out of the shower. And he’d done it without making a single explicit threat.

Pulsifer had been standing five paces behind me the whole time. His snowmobile helmet hung from his hand. “You and I need to talk about a few things.”

“I know.”

Car doors slammed around us. Engines roared to life. The tow truck driver went to work wrapping the bloody pickup for its trip to the forensics garage in Farmington.

Pulsifer bounced the helmet against his thigh. “You got a room somewhere for the night?”