Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(86)

To me, this realization carried extra sadness. It meant that Adam Langstrom was almost certainly dead—likely the first of Dyer’s victims. The caginess with which Logan had evaded my questions about my missing brother suggested as much. Would we find Adam’s dead body inside the darkened farmhouse?

*

I returned to my truck to put on my ballistic vest and get a gun. I didn’t care that I hadn’t been cleared to return for duty. With officers spread across two counties, protecting sex offenders, Clegg needed every available man now.

For the sake of my truck, I moved Shadow back into his carrier. He whined and bristled his fur. He wasn’t some mythological creature, I had to remind myself. He was a living animal, and he was unhappy.

Then I called the IF&W office in Ashland again.

“Is Stacey back?” I asked the same woman I’d spoken with before.

“She stayed overnight in Clayton Lake. Do you want the number for McNally’s?”

It was a sporting camp outside the flyspeck village, not far from where the helicopter had gone down. Presumably, the owner was providing lodging to the investigation and recovery team.

I dialed the camp. A woman with a creaky old-sounding voice answered. “McNally’s.”

“I’m trying to reach someone who is staying with you. She’s a wildlife biologist with the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Her name is Stacey Stevens.”

“Is she the pretty one?”

“Yes.”

“She’s not here, dear. She left to go back to Ashland a couple of hours ago.”

I thanked her and tried to decide what to do. Stacey was speeding along on a snowmobile in the dark on the Reality Road, as out of touch as a person could be. I dialed her cell phone and waited to leave a message.

“It’s me,” I said. “I am in Kennebago again and about to go on a raid into the house of a man named Logan Dyer. You’re going to hear about him soon. He murdered eleven people up at Don Foss Logging. I think he killed Adam, too. He’s on a vigilante crusade to kill sex offenders. Anyway, he’s dangerous. Stacey, I am so sorry for having lied to you before. And I know you must be grieving for your friends in ways I can’t even imagine. But I just wanted you to know, in case something happens to me tonight, that I love you.”

I felt sick to my stomach when I hung up. But there was nothing more to do now except to get ready. I attached my service weapon, a SIG Sauer P226, to my belt. I unlocked my Mossberg 590A1 from its case and hung it from its sling over my shoulder. I took up my catch pole with the noose on one end. Then I removed my brand-new talonproof glove from behind the seat. I had thought I might need the bite sleeve for Shadow.

Strange the way things work out.

I found Clegg putting on his ballistic vest at his vehicle. He seemed to have gained weight since he had last adjusted the Velcro straps holding it in place. He was having trouble getting the fit right.

“Did you get the warrant?” I asked him.

“Got the warrant. Also put out a BOLO.” The acronym had replaced APB in police jargon. It stood for “Be on the lookout.”

“Can I help you with that?” I asked, meaning his vest.

“No, I’ve got it.”

“How well do you know Dyer?” I asked.

“Logan? I’ve know him his whole life. I started my career in law enforcement just like Russo, doing security up at Widowmaker. I knew Logan’s dad. Scott was a good man right up until the crash that killed his wife and daughter. Afterward, he was broken. He did his best, but you could see it in his eyes, hopelessness. The chairlift accident was what pushed him over the edge. He’d tried to get the owners to shut that lift down, but they’d refused. It didn’t matter. Everyone blamed him, and he blamed himself.”

Having finally secured his vest, the detective pulled his parka back on over it. His face had turned a shade of purple from the exertion.

“Logan wasn’t more than eighteen when Scott shot himself,” Clegg continued. “Eighteen or nineteen. And then suddenly his father was dead, and he was living alone in that big house. I hadn’t seen him in a while before the other day. But I noticed he’d let himself go. He used to be a handsome kid. Shy as hell, though. Scott told me once that if a girl ever winked at Logan, he’d probably faint dead away.”

“Detective!” someone called from the darkness.

But Clegg wasn’t finished saying what he needed to say. “I knocked on his door first thing this morning, before I found the carnage up at Foss’s, but there was no answer. I heard the dogs barking, though, and thought that seemed strange. Later, when we were searching outside his house, I didn’t want to admit to myself what I already knew. Sometimes I think the best part of this job is getting to know the people in your community. It’s also the worst thing.”

I knew what he meant.

“Let’s go get this over with,” the detective said, moving past me down the hill.

If Dyer was at large, hunting sex offenders, then it was unlikely we were going to be charging into a firefight. Some criminals had been known to booby-trap their properties—I knew so firsthand—but I suspected the biggest danger we would face, breaching the building, would be Dyer’s two hounds.

The dogs were baying even more loudly and aggressively. Their supersensory hearing had picked up the sound of approaching vehicles and voices. Back up the hill, in the bed of my truck, Shadow responded with occasional howls, which had officers looking at one another with startled expressions.