Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(79)

It’s the word sanctuary that’s tripping me up, I told myself. I was drawing a false equivalency between the two operations. What mattered was finding the best home for Shadow, and if this was it, then so be it.

Meanwhile, overhead, the ravens wheeled.





30

Probert continued his lecture as we tramped from pen to pen. He told me horror stories of animals that had lived their lives in dark cellars before coming to him or had arrived with gruesome wounds he had been forced to stitch himself. (“I am an autodidact and a veterinarian self-taught,” he declared.) The wolf dogs looked healthy enough, and clearly the old man had devoted his life to this makeshift shelter.

“This is our transitional pen,” Probert said as we finished our circle. “This is where I’ll introduce our newcomer to his new pack members.”

A longhaired dog rushed up to the fence as we drew near, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn it was a purebred collie. Its tail was swaying and its mouth was open, but there was a desperate look in its eyes, as if it had been falsely imprisoned. Couldn’t I see that it was here by mistake?

“Luna is low content, but we love her just the same,” Probert said.

Suddenly, the pager on my belt began to flash and beep. There was a reason the Warden Service still used those antiquated messaging devices: They worked even when you were well out of range of a cell tower. I recognized the number as Gary Pulsifer’s.

“Can I use your telephone?” I asked.

“As long as you’re not planning on calling Timbuktu.”

“No, just Maine.”

“We’re practically standing on the Maine border here,” Probert said. “The state line isn’t even a mile to the east.”

Probert lit another cigarette, using the smoldering butt of one to ignite the next.

I made my way into the nearby trailer. The smell of smoke had penetrated every swatch of fabric: curtains, carpets, and furniture. The walls were paneled with fake wood and decorated with snapshots of assorted wolf dogs, along with a disorienting number of pages torn from past Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues. An old rotary telephone sat on a desk beside an overflowing ashtray.

“Gary, it’s Mike.”

“Where are you?”

“New Hampshire.”

“Where?”

“I’m over in the Mahoosucs. There’s this sanctuary for wolf dogs.”

“I’m not even going to ask,” he said. “You need to get over here. Something’s happened at Foss’s place.”

“What do you mean?”

“Clegg was heading up to the compound again, but no one answered at the gate, so he decided to walk in. A hundred yards up the road, he found one of the sex offenders shot dead. Clegg hightailed it back to his car and called for backup. I’m heading out there.”

“Wow.”

“I know. You need to get over here.”

I calculated the distance in my head. “Gary, I’m more than an hour away.”

“You spent the past few days poking around Pariahville, trying to find out what happened to Adam Langstrom, and now there’s been at least one murder there. Do you have other plans or something?”

“By the time I get there—”

“Who knows what will be happening. But we might just need you.”

This was Pulsifer at his most devilish. The man knew exactly how to tempt me.

“It’s your choice,” he said, and hung up.

Ever since I’d learned the blood in Adam’s truck matched his rare blood type, I had been positive he’d been murdered. I’d let my suspicions harden into certainties. But what if he had survived whatever had happened inside his pickup? I could easily picture him returning to Foss’s place to exact some kind of vengeance.

My father’s face appeared when I shut my eyes. His face, my face, Adam’s face.

Not again, I thought. It can’t be possible.

I stepped out into the cold air to the excited howls of wolves. While I had been on the phone, a pickup had descended into the refuge and parked beside me. The driver was a woman, early thirties, on the heavy side, and even from a distance I could tell she was no beauty. But Probert was beaming at her as if she had stepped straight from one of his bikini posters. They were both leaning over the bed of my truck, cooing to Shadow.

The old man straightened up. “Warden, this is my apprentice, Kara. Kara, this is Warden Bowdoin.”

“Bowditch. Nice to meet you.” The blood was rushing so quickly to my head, it was making my brain ache.

“Your wolf is gorgeous!” She was wearing heavy rubber gloves that I associated with dirty jobs done in dirty places.

“He’s not mine,” I said. “Listen, I’m afraid I have to go. Something important has come up.”

“And miss feeding time?” said Probert.

He stepped to the other pickup and, with all the theatricality of a birthday party magician, pulled loose a blue tarp that had been covering the contents of the bed. Kara’s truck was filled with severed pig heads.

“Disgusting, I know,” he said, “but the wolves consider them to be delicacies.”

“I had pig cheeks once,” said Kara. “Kind of rubbery, but not bad.”

“I really have to get going,” I said again.