Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(7)

It listed his age: twenty-one, as Amber had stated.

It listed his height as six feet two inches—my height.

It listed his weight as two hundred pounds—ten pounds heavier than me. Adam Langstrom was a big kid.

I then pulled up the public sex offender registry and typed in his name. The same photo came up, along with his “town of domicile,” which was Kennebago Settlement, east of Rangeley on Route 16. It listed his place of employment, too: Don Foss Logging, also located in Kennebago. The site identified him as a ten-year registrant and said he had been convicted of one count of unlawful sexual contact and one count of unlawful sexual touching. No additional details were given about his crimes.

I had to continue my search elsewhere.

The Maine newspapers had barely covered his arrest and trial, in deference to the sensitivities of the Alpine Sports Academy, no doubt. It wouldn’t have been in ASA’s interest to trumpet the news that one of its scholarship students had raped the daughter of some captain of industry. The school tended to enroll kids who had spent their formative years on the ski slopes of Vail, Park City, and Jackson Hole. It had produced a handful of Olympians, but its greatest achievement was building its endowment, which some sources said rivaled that of some Little Ivies, including my own alma mater, Colby College.

There was no mention in any of the articles of a prior romantic relationship between Langstrom and the unnamed girl. To read the stories, you would have thought the case came down to a single assault. Langstrom had claimed the sex was consensual, but under examination, the girl had said she had been coerced.

Even though the papers hadn’t identified her by name, I remembered that Amber had called her Alexa Davidson. From there, it was easy enough to search the academy’s archived press releases and discover that a Seattle couple named Ari and Elizabeth Davidson had given a million-dollar gift to the school five years earlier. Now I could see why the headmaster had been so eager to turn the investigation over to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department.

The only other photograph of Adam Langstrom predated the picture on the registry. It had been taken at his sentencing. He was dressed in an ill-fitting suit, and his tie was askew, as if it were a noose he had managed to loosen. I couldn’t see his right ear to see if it was missing its lobe. What struck me most about the picture was the expression on his face. So often defendants in court appear ashamed and already defeated; either that or emotionless and temporarily brain-dead. But Langstrom was glaring straight into the lens, as if he wanted to vault across the room and strangle the photographer with his own camera strap.

Langstrom’s anger was as familiar as the color of his eyes. I had seen it too many times in my father’s face and, sometimes, in my own bathroom mirror.

The cell phone buzzed on the desk. I took another sip of bourbon before I answered.

“Stacey?” I said.

“Graham told me you’d called.” Her voice sounded nasal, her sinuses clogged, as if she was suffering from a bad cold. “What’s going on, Mike? I’m too frostbitten for phone sex, if that’s what you want.”

“I was worried about you.”

“What? Why?”

“You were late getting back to the office. And I saw from the weather radar that it’s snowing even harder up there than it is down here.”

She paused. “Your voice sounds funny.”

I couldn’t lie to her. “I’ve had a couple of shots.”

“What happened?”

“I had a visitor earlier. This woman named Amber Langstrom tracked me down at the house. She says she knew my dad.” My voice sounded like someone else’s in my ears. “She says I have a brother, Stacey.”

I pressed the phone against my ear. I heard nothing for a long time.

She spoke slowly. “You have a brother?”

“She says his name is Adam. And he just got out of prison for statutory rape, and now he’s missing.”

“You need to back up,” Stacey said “Start from the beginning.”

I remembered how Amber had taken yoga breaths. I closed my eyes, breathed in and then out, and began my tale. I am sure I rambled. Bourbon on an empty stomach hadn’t been the best idea. But Stacey was good at keeping me on point.

When I had finished, she said, “Can you e-mail me his picture? I want to see if he looks like you.”

“It might be fuzzy, since it’ll be a picture of a picture.”

“That’s all right. Do you believe this Amber woman is telling the truth?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. It’s possible. My dad slept with plenty of women. And Amber seems like his type.”

“What type is that?”

“Ready, willing, and able.”

Not to mention hot as hell, I thought. But that detail didn’t seem like one I should share with my girlfriend.

“Then you’ve got to help her find this Adam guy,” Stacey said. “Aren’t you curious to meet him?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“My life was perfectly fine before I knew he existed.”

“Perfectly fine? Who are you kidding?” she said with a laugh. She really did sound stuffed up. “You might have a half brother, Mike. You’ll never forgive yourself if something ends up happening and you never get to meet him.”