Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(90)

As I crossed the bridge over the frozen Dead River, I put in a call to Pulsifer. I wanted someone to know where I was going and why. The phone rang for half a minute before it kicked me to voice mail.

“Gary, it’s Mike. I don’t know if you’ve heard yet, but Logan Dyer is the shooter. He left a confession inside his house. The guy’s a vigilante on a suicide mission to assassinate sex offenders. I’m heading up to Mink’s house in Kennebago Settlement. No one was assigned—”

The call dropped.

I remembered how I hadn’t been able to get a signal until I had reached Route 16. Would Pulsifer even receive my voice mail? I could turn back and try again from the highway or take my chances and keep going.

I kept going.

The forest fell away as I climbed above the river floodplain, and I found myself passing through a vast white pasture. The windows of a farmhouse glowed, soft and warm. Wood smoke corkscrewed from the chimney. I was turning my attention back to the road when I caught sight of a light moving fast along the tree line. It was a snowmobile. I braked so hard that Shadow let out another yelp. The rider turned sharply in my direction. Then another bobbing light appeared: a second sled following in the tracks of the first.

I kept my foot on the brake as two kids on pint-size sleds went zipping across the road behind me, their engines roaring like chain saws. The snow machines left an echo in my head long after they had disappeared into the far woods.

I nearly missed the driveway up to Mink’s house. The last plow to come by had piled a particularly steep bank at the entrance, nearly as high as the top of my truck. I shut off my headlights and idled a hundred feet up the road before I turned a corner. Then I pulled over and parked in the shadows of the pines. I wanted to hide my truck from sight in case Dyer came up the road behind me.

I lifted my shotgun from the backseat and stepped out into the cold, pulling the shotgun sling over my right shoulder. I tried to close the truck door as quietly as I could, but the night was so still, the sound of the latch catching was as loud as a rifle bolt being shoved forward.

I whispered to the caged wolf, “No howling. Agreed?”

I waited for my eyes to adjust to the low light. Then I began moving slowly forward, hugging the shadowy side of the road.

When I came to the snowbank heaped in front of Mink’s drive, I had no choice but to scramble up it. The surface was hard with chunks of ice, but there were slick spots where my boots had trouble gaining traction. I dug my fingers into the frozen pile and pulled myself up and over the obstacle.

The snow was deep on the other side, nearly up to my crotch. Did Mink not own a shovel?

I labored forward up the steep drive, feeling sweat begin to soak my long underwear. I had no clue how far the cabin was from the road, but I could smell the tangy aroma of smoke from a woodstove. I found the odor reassuring. So far, I had seen no signs that Dyer—or anyone else on a snowmobile—had ridden this far up the mountainside. Maybe I had been mistaken about the next name on the vigilante’s kill list.

The drive twisted and turned for another fifty yards before the cabin finally came into view through the trees. Mink had said something about it having been his father’s old hunting camp, and that was exactly what it looked like: a small peak-roofed structure constructed of hemlock logs and mortar. I couldn’t imagine that the inside was insulated, and I had no idea what Mink did for water. But there was a formidable pile of chopped wood not far from the porch, and a stump with an ax driven into the top.

The windows were aglow behind faded curtains that looked like repurposed bedsheets. I paused at the edge of the little clearing and listened. I heard music playing, a recorded voice and instruments performing an old song I didn’t recognize. A man’s deep voice belted out the same tune karaoke-style. Mink had a bona fide set of pipes.

I exhaled and watched the steam that had been building up inside me shimmer and dissipate into the air.

I doubted the little man received many friendly visitors, especially on midwinter evenings—or on any evenings, for that matter. I had to assume he owned a gun, since everyone in this part of Maine seemed to, including ex-cons like Adam Langstrom, who were forbidden to possess firearms.

“Mink!”

He continued to sing at the tops of his lungs.

“Mink!”

His voice ceased. But the radio continued to play.

“It’s Mike Bowditch!”

One of the curtains was peeled back from the windowsill, and I saw half of his face peek out. Mink seemed to be wearing a white mask.

“I’ve got a gun!” he shouted in his deepest voice. “You’d better not come up here!”

“Mink, it’s Mike Bowditch. The game warden!”

I stepped forward into the clearing with my arms raised over my head, my shotgun swaying by my side. There was no way Mink could see me clearly if he was looking out from a lighted room. But I hoped he could make out my silhouette and recognize the gesture as one of someone coming in peace.

He stepped away from the parted curtain. The radio went silent. A moment later, the front door cracked open. He had changed from a 1970s blonde to a Jazz Age redhead.

“What the freak are you doing here?” he demanded.

“Can I come in? It’s going to take a while to explain.”

“How do I know it’s really you?”

“Go jump in a lake!” I said.