Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(56)
21
When I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth, I was surprised to find that the mirror over the sink had been shattered. Cracks spread out in a spiderweb pattern from one smashed spot. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but it appeared someone might have driven a fist into the glass.
Accidents happen, I told myself. Especially in a house full of rowdy children.
I spit into the bowl and rinsed my mouth under the tap. The Pulsifers’ well water tasted faintly of sulfur.
After having sat for an hour in the heat of the kitchen, the guest room felt frigid. I touched the radiator and found it cold. I crawled fully dressed under the covers. The quilt was too thin, the blanket inadequate. When I exhaled, I could see my breath dissipate on the drafts moving about the half-dark room.
I hadn’t felt so alone in a long time. I reached for my phone on the nightstand, not expecting to find a note from Stacey. But when I tapped the screen, there was a text message:
I’m sick as a dog. Sinuses packed with snot. My ears felt like they were going to explode on the chopper ride. But I’m going up again tomorrow, even if it kills me.
I am having trouble forgiving you.
S.
It was something at least: a reason not to give up hope. Tomorrow I would reach out to her again. I would make amends.
I had just fallen asleep when the door nosed open and the two spaniels, Flotsam and Jetsam, came bounding onto the bed. I got up to let them out, but they refused to budge. I crawled back under the covers.
It had been a long time since I had slept with dogs. My mother had been allergic, and so I had grown up with a series of cats, each more neurotic than the next. Nearly every warden I knew owned at least one dog, usually a hunting breed. Labrador retrievers were popular, as were Brittanies and English springer spaniels. Some of the wardens assigned to the K-9 search-and-rescue teams had German shepherds or Belgian Malinois.
Why didn’t I own a dog? The reasoning I used, when anyone asked, was that I moved around too much. I lived alone, and my hours were erratic, and I couldn’t put myself in a position to have to hurry home from a stakeout to feed a pet. But these same excuses applied to other single wardens, and most of them had canine companions. What was I waiting for?
When I closed my eyes again, I pictured that wolf dog, Shadow, caged in a pen at the animal shelter. His intelligent yellow eyes seemed fixed on me with the predatory intensity you associate with large carnivores. Had the test results come back, proving his wild bloodline? Was his fate now sealed? Joanie Swette had said that the shelter would make every effort to place him with a licensed caregiver, or even arrange transport to some distant sanctuary, and yet I had heard the lack of optimism in her voice.
I scratched the nerve bundle at the base of the cockers’ spines and listened to the contented thumping of their tails.
No bed with a dog in it is ever cold or lonely.
*
The staccato pounding of children’s feet on the stairs woke me. It was still dark. The skin of my face had tightened from being exposed to the cold air. And the dogs had disappeared from my side in the night.
I reached for my cell phone on the bedside table and saw that it was six o’clock. No new messages.
I shuffled into the bathroom and studied my fractured reflection in the mirror. I splashed some cold water on my eyes to remove the crust. I rubbed a wet hand towel under my arms and applied a fresh coat of antiperspirant. Then I brushed my teeth.
The kitchen was so raucous, I had trouble picking out individual voices as I made my way down the hall.
Lauren Pulsifer stood at the woodstove, pouring pancake batter on a greased griddle. Her hair was wet, but she was fully dressed and ready for the day, as were the two small children seated at the table. The room felt as hot as a sauna.
“Good morning! I hope the kids didn’t wake you.”
“This is when I get up anyway.”
“Kids, this is Warden Bowditch. He works with Daddy. Mike, this is Jacob and this is Isabella.”
The boy looked to be about seven. The girl might have been four. They both had their father’s fox-colored hair. They grunted hellos and returned to their project of getting maple syrup all over their faces.
“Gary’s out feeding the animals,” she said. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Thank you.”
She seemed in better spirits than she had the night before. I had expected her to be angry with me for smuggling booze into the house, where it was obviously not welcome.
The windows had begun to fill with an indigo light as the sun crept closer to the eastern horizon. Lauren put a plate of pancakes in front of me. “The syrup’s from our sugar house. We try to grow what we eat here. It’s a lot of work, but Gary says it helps him with his recovery.”
Pulsifer had never told me he attended Alcoholics Anonymous. If he had, I definitely wouldn’t have offered him bourbon. Even worse, I realized, Lauren’s cheerful manner meant that she didn’t know Gary had gotten drunk the night before. Somehow he had managed to hide it from her. I felt assailed by guilt—for tempting Pulsifer into breaking his pledge, and for my silent complicity in concealing his slip from his wife.
“Gary says you’re dating one of the Stevens girls,” she said.
“Stacey,” I said.
Her eyes crinkled at the corners. “The pretty one.”
It should have registered with me that Lauren would have known Charley and Ora Stevens and their daughters. For years, the Stevenses had owned a camp just across Flagstaff Pond. And Charley and Gary must have worked plenty of cases together before my old mentor retired from the Warden Service.