Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(59)

“Folks, you can’t park here!” I heard him say.

A man in a hat with earflaps said excitedly, “We’re looking at a Great Gray Owl.”

I squinted up at the snag and saw an enormous bird, as big as an eagle, perched on the twisted topmost branch. Its feathers were the same color as the bark of the leafless spruce. It was the first Great Gray I had ever seen. I reached for the binoculars on Pulsifer’s dash to get a better look at the massive owl.

“I don’t care what you’re looking at,” said Pulsifer. “You can’t be blocking the road.”

“You don’t understand,” the man in the hat said. “This is an extremely rare bird.”

“We’re not blocking the road,” someone else said.

“People can still get by.”

Pulsifer stood with his hands on his hips. “You need to move, folks. It’s not open for discussion.”

The birders mumbled at one another. Steam from their open mouths created a single cloud among them in the early-morning air. For their sake, I hoped they wouldn’t put up a fight, but they must have agreed that discretion was the better part of valor when dealing with a pissed-off law-enforcement officer. One by one, the Priuses and Outbacks pulled away from the snowbank and started off toward Rangeley.

Pulsifer remained standing like a statue until the last one had driven off. I don’t think he so much as glanced at the owl.

“Some people don’t have a f*cking clue,” he said as he climbed back inside in the truck.

“Great Gray Owls are pretty rare sightings,” I said. “They don’t usually show up in Maine. I’m sure this one was reported on some bird Listserv. Birders are going to be coming from all over to see it.”

“As if I don’t have enough to do but play meter maid to a bunch of bird-watchers.” He sneered in the direction of the dead tree. “I’m tempted to scare that bird off.”

I was torn between keeping quiet and speaking my piece. Being me, I inevitably chose the latter. “It’s not exactly rush hour out here. You didn’t have to be such a hard-ass.”

“Don’t tell me how to do my job, Mike. I’m not the one with the folder full of reprimands.”

I stared straight ahead. “Fine.”

“I thought I was doing you a favor bringing you along. But if you don’t appreciate it—”

I put on my sunglasses because I didn’t want him to see the annoyance in my eyes.

When it became obvious that I wasn’t going to continue the argument, he put the transmission back into drive and we lurched forward again. We went a full mile before he remembered to turn off his pursuit lights.

*

Now that the sun had risen above the mountaintops, the world had become too bright to look at. The new snow, piled high along the roadsides and clinging like cotton to every tree, didn’t just reflect the light; it intensified it a hundredfold. Soon Pulsifer was also reaching for his shades.

We didn’t speak again until we had turned off Route 16 onto the camp road that led up to Foss’s gate. Tire marks in the snow indicated that the detective—I assumed it must be the detective—had arrived ahead of us.

Smoke from Logan Dyer’s chimney was visible even before we saw his house. It drifted straight up above the treetops, a perfect tight spiral. As we approached his property, I could smell and taste the wood burning in the stove.

Dyer must have parked his truck inside the garage, but there was a Ford Explorer in the driveway. The SUV was the Interceptor model, issued exclusively to law enforcement and other first responders, but it was painted in the same black and silver tones as the Widowmaker company vehicles I had seen on the mountain. It was equipped with pursuit lights, too.

“Do you know who that is?” I asked.

“Widowmaker security.”

“Russo?”

“Maybe,” Pulsifer said. “The mountain has a half dozen guys who work security. A couple of them are deputized by the sheriff in case shit breaks out requiring a real police presence. Don’t tell me you met Rob Russo, too?”

“What’s he doing there?”

“I don’t know. Having breakfast?”

“Ease up, Pulsifer.”

“Maybe Clegg asked someone from Widowmaker to talk to Logan about what he’s seen recently. The guy does have a bird’s-eye view of the only road in and out of Pariahville.”

The newly fallen snow gave the house and yard a cheerier aspect, although it couldn’t help the flaking clapboards, and the dark, wet shingles showed how much heat was escaping through the underinsulated attic.

“Poor Logan,” said Pulsifer. “He’s never going to find a sucker willing to buy his house. I told you he’s even unluckier than you.”

As we passed by, Dyer’s hounds began to bay inside: a loud and mournful noise that was nearly a kind of howl. The Plotts must have heard our vehicle with their supersensitive ears. If nothing else, they were effective watchdogs.

The road up the hill was slick, but the studs in Pulsifer’s tires bit through the surface ice. When we got to the steel gate, we found it standing open. Two sets of tire tracks led in, but none led out.

“Have you ever been up in here before?” I asked.

“Not since before Foss started running his home for wayward creeps.”