Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(58)

Pulsifer put an apple in his pocket for later. “I’ll show you around the farm before you go.”

“I just need to grab my duffel.”

The dogs followed me into the chilly guest room and then decided it was too cold for them, leaving me alone to strip the bed. I piled the sheets, blanket, and quilt at the bottom of the bed and sat down on the bare mattress.

I suspected that Pulsifer’s “tour of the farm” would be an excuse to talk about the previous evening. I dreaded the conversation on all sorts of levels. Would he be contrite, or would he make excuses? Did he blame me for leading him into temptation, or had he decided I was going to be his secret new drinking buddy?

I braced myself for the possibilities and started for the door.

Pulsifer was waiting for me in the mudroom with a displeased expression that confirmed my forebodings.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I just got off the phone with Jim Clegg.”

“Did they find any new evidence in the truck?”

“Too soon for that. Clegg and Shaylene Hawken are headed out to Pariahville this morning. In light of recent events, they want to have a chat with Foss and his flock of deviants. Clegg also reminded me that he still has a shitload of questions for you. I made the mistake of saying you were here. My head’s a little fuzzy this morning.”

“Should I follow you?”

“We’ll take my truck. You and I need to talk.”





22

In the mountains, in the winter, dawn comes late and dusk comes early. The sun hadn’t yet made its way above the Bigelow Range, but the sky had turned the color of rose gold: a promise of light and warmth to come.

Pulsifer didn’t speak as we brushed the snow off the hood and windows of his patrol truck with our gloved hands. When we were finished, I pried open the passenger door of my Scout. I unlocked the glove compartment, removed my Walther .380, and tucked the weapon inside the waistband of my jeans. An image of Carrie Michaud wielding a knife flashed through my mind. I dropped a couple of extra magazines in my pockets.

Pulsifer was behind the wheel with the engine running by the time I returned. He had turned up the police radio, as if to forestall our inevitable conversation. I had no intention of being the first to speak.

The plows had done expert work clearing the road into Bigelow, not that the locals were ever slowed down by a little snow. Just about everyone in the mountains seemed to own a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Those who didn’t soon discovered how long the wait could be for AAA to come and pull you out of a ditch.

“I want to show you something,” Pulsifer said suddenly.

I had expected he meant that he wanted to take me somewhere nearby.

Instead, he reached into his pocket and removed what looked like a foreign coin. He held it flat on his palm for me to look at. It seemed to be made out of bronze and was stamped with a triangle with the Roman numeral III at the center. There was a different word on each side of the triangle—Unity, Service, and Recovery—and around the perimeter there was a motto: To Thine Own Self Be True.

“Three years, four months, and twenty-seven days sober,” he said. “Before last night.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. You’re not to blame. It’s all on me.”

From the tone of his voice, it certainly sounded like he was blaming me.

“Gary, I had no idea.”

“That’s why they call it Alcoholics Anonymous. Oh, well.” He pushed the window button on the door so that it went all the way down. Then he threw the coin out onto the icy road. “Just a piece of metal.”

I wasn’t sure what response would be appropriate under the circumstances.

Eventually, we emerged from beneath the shadow of Bigelow Mountain. We passed a snow-covered field edged by white birches and red pines, in the center of which stood the burned-out remains of a mobile home. I almost exclaimed aloud for Pulsifer to stop but managed to catch myself in time.

My vagabond family had lived in that trailer briefly when I was a child, before my father lost whatever job he’d had at the time. He’d come in half-drunk or mouthed off to the boss or slugged some coworker whose face he didn’t like. Maybe all three. Suffice it to say, Jack Bowditch had never been the employee of the month at any place he’d ever worked. It was no wonder I had grown up in those early years eating day-old bread from the food pantry and venison burgers from deer my dad has secretly shot out of season.

I hadn’t noticed the torched building on my drive in, but now I found myself overwhelmed by nostalgia. Most of my memories of my early childhood were bittersweet at best, chilling at worst. But what I was feeling now, I realized, was sadness and loss. Someone had burned down my old house.

Pulsifer didn’t notice that I’d bolted upright in my seat. He was probably thinking about what he was going to tell his AA sponsor.

As we turned onto Moose Alley, he leaned over the wheel, peering at the road ahead. “What’s going on up there?”

Four or five vehicles were parked in a line along one side of Route 16. A group of men and women were gathered together atop the snowbank. They were all bundled up against the cold and staring through binoculars at a dead tree.

“Birders,” I said.

Pulsifer hit his blues and swung in behind the last car. He jumped out of the truck before I could ask him what he was doing.