Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(81)

“Good boy,” I said, as he hopped up into the Sierra.

He stared hard at me until I dumped the rest of the jerky at his feet.

A man I hadn’t noticed before came over from the next gas pump, holding a quart cup of fountain soda. “What kind of dog is that?”

“Have you ever read Jack London’s White Fang?” I asked.

“My wife reads. I don’t have time for it.” He sipped loudly through the straw from the ice at the bottom of his cup.

“It’s a good book.”

“Look, mister,” he said, “if you don’t want to tell me what your dog is, that’s your business. But you don’t have to be a dink about it.” Then he wandered off.

I got back behind the wheel and looked over at the hundred-pound wolf sitting beside me, steaming up the windshield.





31

Dusk was creeping up fast as I crossed the state line into Maine. I turned up the police radio. Multiple officers, identifiable by their call numbers, were arriving on the scene in Kennebago. An ambulance from the Northstar base in Rangeley was en route. Two other wardens I knew in Division B—Bill Gordon and Jeff White—radioed in. And I had miles yet to go.

My father’s dog tags swung back and forth before my eyes like a hypnotist’s watch. Shadow seemed mesmerized by them, as well.

“What do you think?” I asked the wolf.

He paid me no attention.

“Is Adam still alive? He can’t be, right? With all that blood in the truck?”

Shadow sighed through his nose and then began licking one of his sooty paws.

“You’re not going to help me, are you?”

The wolf raised its eyes back to the white road.

Even with lights and sirens clearing the way through downtown Rangeley, it took me another hour to arrive in Kennebago.

The side road up to Foss’s compound was blockaded by two police cruisers. Their drivers—sheriff’s deputies in brown parkas and reflective safety vests—stood on Moose Alley, directing traffic past the scene. Despite the best efforts of the dispatchers, the radio chatter had brought out the inevitable rubberneckers.

As I came up on the first shivering deputy, I rolled down my window. He had red cheeks from the cold, which made me think of a father who had let his little daughter put makeup on his face.

“What’s the situation?” I asked.

“They’re still counting bodies up there.”

I had feared as much. “Any of our guys?”

“No.”

That was a relief. “And the shooter?”

“Gone with the wind.”

“Any idea who we’re looking for?”

“Man, I’m just directing traffic. What kind of dog is that?”

“Belgian Malinois,” I said, not wanting to start a conversation.

“Big fellow! Hang on a second and I’ll let you through. A bunch of wardens are already up there.”

I had beat the television news vans at least. But the media would soon be descending on this spot like ravens on a dead moose. The mass murder of sex offenders at a remote camp in the Maine woods was a national story—an international story, in fact. The information officer for the Department of Public Safety was soon going to be the most sought-after interview in the state.

The deputy backed his car up to let me through. Within a hundred yards, I began encountering emergency vehicles of all sorts parked along the road. I passed Logan Dyer’s house and noticed that the windows were dark and the garage door was closed. Dyer was the nearest thing Don Foss had to a neighbor, which made him both a potential witness and a suspect, since there had been no love lost between them.

Suddenly, Shadow let out a howl, and I nearly hit my head on the ceiling. This was the first time I’d heard the wolf in full throat, and I began to understand why medieval villagers had cowered inside their huts after dark.

In response, Dyer’s hounds began baying loudly from inside the house. Logan had mentioned using his Plott hounds to hunt coyotes. Shadow snarled—an even more ferocious sound. He had good reason to be on edge. Those big dogs were his natural enemies. Where was Dyer? He didn’t seem the sort to leave his prize hunting dogs home alone.

An ambulance approached slowly from the opposite direction. Its emergency lights were off, which could mean only one thing: There was no one left to be saved in Pariahville.

I pulled against the right snowbank to make room.

The emergency medical technician at the wheel rolled down his window so we could have a chat. He was a big woodsy guy with flushed cheeks and a white beard. His partner, beside him, looked ashen.

“Have you been up there yet?” the driver asked in a deep baritone.

“No, I just arrived.”

“Imagine the worst death scene you’ve ever worked and then multiply it by ten. Most of them were killed in their bunks or trying to get out of them.”

“What about Foss?”

“The shooter gave him special attention.” The EMT’s tired eyes grew wide as he spotted Shadow beside me. “Holy hell! What in the world is that beast with you? Is that a wolf dog?”

“I had to confiscate him from some drug addicts,” I said. “He’s a sweetheart, though.”

“I’ll take your word for it!”

I was eager to return to the subject at hand. “So the state police think it was just one guy?”