Bad Little Falls (34 page)

In my mind’s eye I saw the sled-dog racer coming across Randall in the storm—hypothermic, stumbling, unable to defend himself—then holding Randall’s face down in the snow until he could no longer breathe.

Doc Larrabee nodded his whiskered chin. “Kendrick said they deserved to die.” He began to shake, as if on the verge of tears. “But I kept dreaming about Helen. She wouldn’t have wanted me to lie. ‘You can’t let them convict the wrong man,’ she told me, ‘no matter what those men did to those young people.’”

The wind howled outside the house. It sounded like a living thing now, some sort of choral voice of animal spirits.

“So you told Kendrick you were going to the police?”

“I tried to convince him. I tried everything to reason with him, but he wouldn’t listen. It was poetic justice, he said. The police already had their suspect. Then he heard that you were asking questions.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That you showed me a picture of a snowmobile. I said you didn’t believe it was Prester who killed his friend. He got really worried. He knows about your history.”

I remembered running into Kendrick outside the Spragues’ Laundromat, how inquisitive he’d been. And later, during the search for Prester’s body, I’d thought I spotted his pickup parked near the Machias River.

“Did Kendrick have something to do with Prester’s disappearance from the hospital?”

He hung his head. “I don’t know.”

“Think!”

“He didn’t tell me. But I know what he did to Duchess!”

“Kendrick killed your dog?”

“I let her outside today, same as I always do, and she didn’t come back. Then I found her body in the road, like she’d been hit by a car. She
never
went in the road! Kendrick did it—as a warning to keep my mouth shut.” He started sobbing. “She was Helen’s dog—my last link to Helen.”

Thoughts were darting around my head like quick-moving birds. Doc was rambling and nearly incoherent, but his condition seemed to vouch for his troubled conscience. He sounded like a man haunted by a past misdeed. The problem was that I was missing a key piece of information, without which everything Larrabee had told me was just useless hearsay.

A dog was howling. At first I thought it was the wind again. Then I realized there was a mournful undertone that could only have come from a living creature. I stepped to the nearest window, parted the dusty curtains, and looked out. The light from inside the room made it impossible to see anything but my own troubled expression.

“What’s wrong?” Doc asked. “Is someone out there?”

Ever since I’d arrived in Washington County, people had been invoking the name of poor dead Trinity Raye. Even I had wondered if she’d been one of Kendrick’s favorite students, but the sheriff had said she wasn’t even in his class. Would the professor really have committed one murder, and attempted a second, to avenge the death of a girl he barely knew? It was possible, but as an explanation it seemed insufficient.

The phone rang. The sound—shrill and insistent—seemed to be coming from Doc himself. He turned his head, slowly and stupidly, and patted the cushions.

I bent down on one knee and reached beneath the couch. My blind hand found the cordless receiver embedded in an inch of dog fur and dust.

“Hello?”

“Warden Bowditch! What a surprise.”

“Kendrick?”

“Hell no. It’s your old buddy George Magoon.” The reception had that slightly overloud distortion that indicates the person on the other end is speaking from a cell phone. “Is Doc there?”

“You know he’s here, Kendrick.” Doc was staring at me with wide, glassy eyes, and I could see that he was genuinely afraid. “Where are you?”

“Here and there. I tend to move around a lot.” There was a rustling on the line that sounded like wind. “Doc has been telling you some of his crazy stories, I imagine.”

“He thinks you killed Duchess.”

“He must be drinking again. Why would I kill my good friend’s dog?”

“As a warning to keep quiet.”

“Keep quiet about what?”

“He says you’ve been lying about what happened the night of the blizzard. He says you killed Randall Cates out in the storm and wanted him to kill Prester Sewall before the EMTs arrived.”

“That’s quite a story! His imagination really runs wild when he’s hammered.”

“You’re saying it’s a lie?”

“I’ve never killed anyone in my life. Besides, the state police have already determined that Prester Sewall murdered Cates.”

“The police haven’t determined anything.”

“Sewall’s suicide suggests he had a guilty conscience.”

“I’m not so sure he committed suicide.”

“Now you’re the one with the hyperactive imagination. Tell me this: Why would I want to kill two men I’d never even met?”

“Because they were drug dealers.”

“So are a lot of people in this godforsaken country. I’d have my hands full if I decided to kill all of them.”

“Because Cates and Sewall sold contaminated heroin to a student named Trinity Raye, who died as a result.”

“Go check at the university. Trinity Raye wasn’t even my student. You’re just grasping at straws now—just like you’ve done in the past. Isn’t it enough that your career is in tatters?”

“Since when have you taken an interest in my career, Kendrick?”

“I’m a teacher,” he said. “I believe in doing my homework. Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re saying that while embarked on a selfless mission to rescue a lost man, I spontaneously decided to kill him?”

It did sound ridiculous when he put it that way. “You didn’t know it was Randall Cates lost out there until you came upon him in the snow and saw that crazy tattoo.”

“It might surprise you to learn that I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of drug dealers and their tattoos. Your entire story is absurd.”

“I’ll make a deal with you, Kendrick,” I said. “Why don’t the three of us pay a visit to the state police—you, me, and Doc—and we’ll let them decide whose story sounds the most absurd.”

“Sorry, I’ve got a prior commitment.”

“You should clear your calendar. Detective Zanadakis will want to talk with you after he hears what Doc and I have to say.”

“Now who’s the one issuing threats? We both know our mutual friend was intoxicated the night of the blizzard and that he’s been self-medicating ever since his lovely wife passed away.”

“What about the Spragues? They were there in the house.”

He gave a laugh. “They’re the last people who are going to say anything.”

“What does that mean?”

He took a long time to answer. “What is it going to take to make you drop this absurd inquiry? How can I persuade you that you’re making a terrible, terrible mistake?”

“It won’t be the first mistake I’ve made.”

“But it might be the last,” said Kendrick. “My crystal ball says you’re headed for a bad end, Warden.”

Just then a dog barked. I heard it over the telephone line but also through the window.

There was a click and then nothing.

I pressed *69 on the keypad. No one picked up, but eventually an automated voice answered. It was my own cell phone.

38

Maybe Kendrick had heard me give away my location over the police scanner and rushed over on his dogsled. Or maybe he’d arrived independently, planning to confront Doc again, and just happened to see me drive up in my patrol truck. In any case, he’d been watching the farmhouse.

He had seen me leave Lucas behind in the cold cab with his notebook and his headlamp glowing. As soon as I was inside, he had slid quietly up to my vehicle. What he’d said to the boy, I didn’t know, but it was hardly surprising that Lucas, of all kids, would be enchanted by a man driving a real-life dogsled. Had Kendrick simply asked to borrow the cell phone, which I had left in the cup holder? That was quite the ballsy move: threatening me on my own BlackBerry.

I rushed to the nearest light switch and plunged the room into darkness.

Doc rose unsteadily from the sofa. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to see my truck.”

“Kendrick’s outside the house?”

“Yes.” How could I have been so stupid as to leave Lucas alone? “Does he usually carry a gun?”

“He has a big Smith & Wesson revolver.”

I parted the curtains carefully. My eyes needed time to adjust, but slowly the snow-covered landscape sharpened into focus. I saw the periwinkle drifts piled against the stone wall and the gray trunks of the elms. Farther down the hill was the dark silhouette of my patrol truck. I squinted but couldn’t make out the glimmer of Lucas’s headlamp.

Stepping away from the window, I dialed the state police dispatcher in Augusta, gave my call numbers, and reported a possible ten thirty-two, which is the code for man with a gun. “Suspect is a white male, five eleven, one hundred and seventy pounds, approximately forty years of age. His name is Kevin Kendrick, of Township Nineteen. He may be accompanied by a twelve-year-old boy and driving a dogsled.”

It wouldn’t have surprised me if the dispatcher thought I was pulling her leg. Instead, she asked if I had any identifying information on the boy. I described Lucas to her as best I could.

I handed Doc his cordless phone. “Stay away from the windows,” I said. “If you hear gunfire, tell the dispatcher an officer is down.”

Through force of will, Doc Larrabee was trying to restore himself to sobriety. He worked the muscles around his mouth like a person trying to wake up from a deep sleep. “Mike, what the hell is happening?”

“Kendrick just called me on my own cell phone from the end of your driveway. A twelve-year-old boy is in my truck down there, and I believe he’s in danger.”

“Why would Kendrick?— He has no reason to harm a child.”

“If he really did murder Randall Cates, and he’s afraid of being caught, then he’s going to do what he needs to do to defend himself, even if it means holding Lucas Sewall as a hostage.”

I drew the heavy SIG from its holster and reached for the doorknob.

“I’m so sorry, Mike.”

“Now’s not the time for apologies,” I said. “Tell the dispatcher if something happens to me.”

Taking a deep breath, I swung the door open and sprang down the steps, throwing myself so hard against the base of the nearest elm, I bruised my shoulder.

I listened but heard nothing. No voices, no barking dogs, no gunshots. Just the sighing of the wind through the leafless branches over my head. I rose to my knees, pressed my hand against the scaly bark, and peered down the hill at the snowbank piled along the road. The night sky was a patchwork of stars and clouds. Every few minutes, the moon would appear, almost like a flare going off, lighting up the blueberry barrens that trailed down to Bog Pond.

I rose to a crouching position, getting ready to run in a zigzag pattern to the nearest snowbank, where I hoped to get a view of my truck, when I heard the sound of barking and saw a flash of light. It was the briefest wink, as if someone had turned on a flashlight and then quickly switched it off again. A shadow was moving across the white field behind the farmhouse.

The dogsled.

Kendrick was headed down to Bog Pond. Once he crossed the frozen expanse of ice, he would be at the edge of the Heath again. We would need a plane with a night-vision camera and thermal imaging system to find him in that maze of beaver ponds and tote roads.

The sled was moving rapidly. I heard the happy baying of the dogs as they gave their full effort. On foot, there was no way I could catch Kendrick.

I thrust my pistol into its holster and scrambled up the snowbank on hands and knees. When I saw the passenger door of the truck standing open, I realized that the flash of light I’d seen had been Lucas’s headlamp. Kendrick had taken the boy with him.

By the time I reached the truck, I was breathing heavily and sweating under the arms. I reached across the passenger seat and pulled the door shut. I pushed the gearshift on the steering column into reverse and stepped on the gas. It was only when I hit the plowed asphalt again that I realized something was wrong.

Kendrick had slashed one of my tires.

The
thump-thump-thump
of my rapidly flattening tire sounded like a drumbeat. At this rate, I’d be driving on the metal rim in no time. I’d be lucky to make it to the base of the hill. Below the slanting blueberry fields was a ramp the local ice fishermen used to drive their pickups and four-wheelers onto the frozen pond.

Somewhere in the darkness, a dogsled was racing along on a parallel course. If something were to happen to a child placed in my care … That was it, I realized. Kendrick knew that my desperation to rescue Lucas would compel me to take foolish risks. He was betting on my reputation for heedlessness, gambling I would make another stupid mistake.

Ahead, at the fuzzy edge of the beams, the sign for the boat launch parking lot came into view. If I turned, I could drive onto the ice and maybe cut him off before he crossed the lake. I grabbed the radio mic and hit the push-to-talk button. “Twenty-two fifty-eight, I have a ten-thirty-three on Route 277 and the Bog Road. Suspect is driving a dogsled across Bog Pond. He has a twelve-year-old boy with him, and he may be armed. Request immediate assistance at the Route 277 boat launch.”

Dispatch copied me. Units were on the way.

The turn approached. I braked hard, feeling a shudder go through me as the bad tire ripped loose, bounced in pieces against the undercarriage, and tumbled away in my brake lights. The shriek of the steel rim on the asphalt pierced me like a dentist’s drill.

I bumped into the empty parking lot and rolled down onto the snow-covered ice, forcing myself to go slowly. Hit it too hard, too fast, and no matter how thick the ice was, I could go through. My high beams fanned out across the pond, finding the rectangular shapes of vacant fishing shacks in the distance. I scanned for movement but saw nothing.

Had Kendrick pulled a U-turn and gone back up the hill?

No.

Instead of heading straight across the open expanse, Kendrick was moving parallel to the shore, following the ragged edge of trees and brush. I could catch him easily if I accelerated now.