Massacre Pond: A Novel (Mike Bowditch Mysteries) (36 page)

He sat motionless on a rock, his head bowed. His hair hung like a hood around his face, and the rifle rested on his knees.

“Billy?” My voice sounded wheezy from the injury to my ribs.

“Yeah?” he mumbled.

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for saving my life.”

He kept his blood-soaked head down. “I thought you were going to say something else.”

I stood over the headless body of Lewis Beam. My mouth went as dry as if I’d stuffed it full of cotton. “You came here for the reward,” I said. “You thought they might sell you one of the twenty-twos they used to kill those moose. Or maybe you figured you could trick them into admitting what they’d done. That was your plan, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t answer.

Every word made my ribs hurt. “But you didn’t know they’d already gotten rid of their guns. Last night, after they heard about Chubby LeClair, they dumped the rifles in a bag behind his camper. As long as the twenty-twos couldn’t be traced back to them, they knew they were in the clear.”

Billy raised his head and showed me his one good eye. The other was swollen and scratched, and he kept it clenched shut. I wondered how much lasting damage Beam had managed to do to it in that fight. “I guess I can forget about that reward,” he said.

I wasn’t sure if he’d meant it as a joke. “Why, Billy?”

“Why what?”

“From the moment we found those moose, you’ve acted like another person. I don’t know who the hell you are anymore.”

He brought his hand up to stroke his beard, as he often did, and found the hair matted. He stared at his bloodred fingers with his good eye. “I left the gate open.”

“What?”

“The night of the shootings, I left it open. It wasn’t the first time I forgot to lock it. I was thinking about the toy fishing rod I was going to buy Logan, how I needed to use the ATM in Machias to get cash first. I was worried about being late for his party. So this is all my fault for being stupid.”

I wanted to tell him that he shouldn’t blame himself, but I was in no position to offer him absolution. However this mess had begun—whatever Billy Cronk did or didn’t do on the night those animals were slaughtered—no longer mattered. What mattered were the corpses. Briar Morse, Chubby LeClair, Marky Parker, and now Todd Pelkey and Lewis Beam. The state would demand a reckoning for them all.

My gaze drifted to the body lying against the wall of the pit. Billy had taken out Pelkey with a well-placed shot to the head. Half-blind, clawed to pieces, with a chunk bitten out of his arm, he hadn’t hesitated to save my life. The recognition made what I had to do next that much harder.

“You didn’t have to kill Beam,” I said. “He wasn’t going anywhere after all the bones you’d broken.”

“I know,” he said.

“The state police are going to be here soon. They’re going to see what happened to his head. There’s no way you’re going to be able to claim self-defense.”

Lots of men would have played upon my emotions and asked me to lie. They would have pleaded with me to concoct some crazy story that explained how a man’s head had been reduced to raspberry Jell-O. But not Billy Cronk. My friend just nodded and rose to his feet with a sigh. He handed me the AR, and I slung it over my good shoulder. He removed the KA-BAR from its sheath and set it on the rock behind him. Then he held out his wrists. “You’d better cuff me,” he said.

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Yes, you are,” he said. “You know why? Because you’re a good cop.”

Wincing, I reached for the handcuffs I wore on my belt. The locks made a ratcheting sound as I adjusted them around his thick wrists.

“I’m going to testify on your behalf,” I said.

He kept his arms outstretched. “Take care of Aimee for me while I’m away,” he said.

“You know I will.”

I led him to the entrance of the gravel pit to await the arrival of the police. As we stood there, side by side, I noticed a metal object lying in the trampled weeds. It took me a few seconds to register that it was Todd Pelkey’s cell phone.

*   *   *

The next day, I paid a visit to the Crawford Lake Club at lunchtime. I’d swung by the mill first, and the helpful gatekeeper had told me that Matt Skillen was spending his day off with his fiancée. He even told me where to find them.

I would have preferred to speak my piece without Stacey present, but anger had kept me awake all night, despite the codeine the ER had prescribed for my broken ribs. I needed to drag the truth out into the light of day, even if I doubted it would make a difference.

As I drove east beneath low-hanging clouds, I looked out at a world that had seemingly grown old overnight. The hills had a grayish cast from the exposed trunks of the hardwoods, and the color was draining out of the fallen leaves at their feet. Where once there had been splashes of brightness along the forest floor—yellows and reds and oranges—now there were just varied shades of brown that would eventually darken into a uniform russet. Defoliation had swept across the land like a forest fire or a plague, stripping all but the oaks and beeches of their ragged leaves. In the hollows and along the riverbanks were dark islands of conifers, but even these seemed more black than green this morning. Soon it would be winter.

I had to remind myself that this was just a seasonal change and not a permanent transformation. The color and warmth would return in April, and the majesty of these woods would reannounce themselves to a doubting world. In the meantime, I needed to keep faith, knowing that this seeming wasteland was the same beautiful place Elizabeth Morse believed must be preserved at all costs—if she even believed that anymore. Would she return to Moosehorn Lodge now that Briar was dead, or would the regret be too much to endure? There were other wild places she could save: forests and lakes that were not stamped with bad memories. I wondered if I would ever speak with her again.

The parking lot of the Crawford Lake Club was largely empty. Between the end of foliage season and the arrival of the first snowmobilers was a quiet period for the shoreside restaurant. The speedboats and Jet Skis were all gone from the marina, and the ice-fishing cabins the owner rented by the hour were just waiting for the lake to freeze before they could be hauled out again. The club was the only establishment serving decent food for miles in either direction. I should have known this was where Skillen would take Stacey on a lunch date.

I pulled into the space beside his newly washed and waxed GMC and got out.

The owner of the club had decorated the front porch with tall plastic palms. The whimsical trees were almost famous in the vicinity. Travelers would snap photos of one another with them, laughing and holding tropical drinks with miniature umbrellas. If the earth continued its crazy weather, I wondered how funny the joke would be in ten years.

I passed through the lounge to get to the hostess station. Someone had started a fire in the big fieldstone fireplace. A young girl with a handful of laminated menus asked me if I wanted to be seated, but I told her I was meeting people and pointed at a table against the window overlooking the lake, where two men and a woman were silhouetted against the natural light streaming into the room.

“Good morning, Warden,” said Merritt Skillen. I hadn’t expected the father to be dining with them.

“Mike, what are you doing here?” Stacey asked with a bemused smile.

“Hi, Stacey.” I tried not to make eye contact with her. “I’m here to see Matt.”

Matt Skillen leaned back from the lacquered table. “Me? What’s this about, Mike?”

“Maybe we should talk outside.” I could feel the other diners in the place watching us.

“That sounds ominous,” Merritt said, pulling out an empty chair with his strong hand. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

“I’d prefer to stand, sir.”

Stacey knitted her brow. “Mike, you’re acting really weird.”

“How did you know where to find us?” Matt asked.

“Your gatekeeper told me. I really think it would be better if you and I continue this conversation in the parking lot.”

His expression had darkened, as if he was beginning to guess what was about to happen. “You sound like you’re asking me outside to have a fistfight.”

“I would if I could.”

“What is that supposed to mean, young man?” the father asked.

I kept my gaze locked on his son’s dark eyes. “I know you paid Todd Pelkey and Lewis Beam to kill those moose.”

“What?”

“Pelkey and Beam are dead, so we’ll never get them to admit why they did it. Right now investigators are calling it a random act of violence against a woman who makes enemies easily. But there was nothing random about it. Elizabeth Morse once told me, ‘In the end everything comes down to money.’ It was obvious from the beginning that the motive behind the shootings was to intimidate her into backing off her proposal. The mistake everyone made was in not seeing there was a bigger plan here. Lots of people don’t want Morse to create a park, but your family is the one with the most to lose financially.”

“That’s an outrageous accusation,” said Merritt, removing his napkin from his lap and resting it on the table.

I ignored him. “The first tip-off was that they worked for you. The second was their new trucks. I visited their property and saw what a dump it was. Those assholes didn’t have two nickels to rub together, and yet somehow they both came up with the money recently to buy two thirty-thousand-dollar pickups?”

“Maybe they took out loans,” said Matt in a neutral tone. His face was utterly empty of emotion, as if he was willing himself to remain calm.

I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Stacey was no longer looking at me; instead, she had her gaze fixed firmly on her fiancé.

“I’m sure the state police will determine that they bought those Nissans with cash,” I said. “I’m also sure they won’t be able to trace the money back to you—although I bet their mourning girlfriend, Tiffany Bard, might have a thing or two to say on the matter.”

Merritt rose to his feet. “I think you should leave, Warden. You’re causing a scene.”

“Yes, sir. That is my intention.”

“Hearsay doesn’t amount to anything in a court of law,” Matt said.

Stacey leaned across the table, reaching for her fiancé’s wrist. “Matt?”

“That’s true,” I said. “But physical evidence counts for a great deal, even if it’s only circumstantial.”

A tubby, bespectacled man came up beside me. “Is everything all right here, Mr. Skillen?”

I ignored the proprietor. “I don’t know if you heard everything that happened yesterday in that gravel pit,” I told Matt. “You might not have heard that Todd Pelkey shot me. Fortunately, I was wearing a ballistic vest, or the bullet would have gone through my heart. So you can see why I am not in the mood to be diplomatic this morning.”

“Warden, can you please keep your voice down?” the bespectacled man whispered.

Stacey’s eyes were wide and darting.

“A minute before Pelkey pulled the gun, he received a call on his cell,” I said. “Someone was alerting him to the fact that I’d been asking around after him and Beam. He realized Billy Cronk was trying to set him up. I picked up the phone and checked the number. The call came from your lumber mill.”

Matt Skillen had grown quiet. I noticed his hand had closed around the butter knife.

“Anyone at the mill could have made that call,” Merritt said, his resonant voice full of anger. “How do you know it didn’t come from me? I was the one you asked about their whereabouts.”

“You’re right, Mr. Skillen,” I said. “I don’t know it was Matt who called them. Maybe it was you. But I do know it was Matt who chased Briar Morse to her death.”

“What?” Stacey said, so softly that it was hard to hear.

Matt Skillen glared at me. “That’s bullshit.”

“Briar didn’t get a good look at the truck that chased her both times. It was too dark. The only thing she noticed about it was that it made a strange noise. She said it sounded like it had a whiny engine. It made me remember something Stacey told me when we were in my truck together. She said your pickup had a loose serpentine belt, too. But I expect you’ve had it fixed by now.”

Merritt Skillen sat back down heavily in his chair. Stacey, I saw, was twirling her engagement ring around on her finger.

“Where were you the night Briar Morse died?” I asked Matt.

“You know where I was—with Stacey at her parents’ house.”

She shook her head. “You went home. After dinner, you went home. You said you had to film a commercial in Bangor in the morning. You left right after Mike.”

“Stacey,” Matt said. There was an unmistakable warning in his tone.

“Oh my God,” she said, pushing herself back from the table so hard, she nearly toppled over.

“It might all be circumstantial evidence,” I said, finally letting the venom out. “And it might not be enough to convict you. But it’s enough to destroy your reputation in this state—and whatever else happens, I am going to make sure it does.”

“Fuck you.” He was still seated, gripping the knife tightly, but he didn’t have the guts to use it.

Stacey leaped to her feet. She was holding a hand over her mouth. Her entire body seemed to be quivering.

“Stacey,” Matt said again, this time pleading.

She shook her head no.

“It was me,” said the father.

The words caught us all off guard.

Matt Skillen whipped his head around, his mouth opening. “Dad?”

“I was the one who paid Pelkey and Beam to shoot those animals,” Merritt Skillen said, rising to his feet. “I was the one who called to warn them yesterday. I followed Briar Morse in my truck. I only meant to frighten her. I didn’t mean for her to die. I take complete responsibility for everything. If you’re going to arrest someone, arrest me.”

Matt Skillen reached for his father’s hand. “Dad, no! You don’t have to do this. There’s no proof.”

Merritt squeezed his son’s hand. His eyes gleamed with tears. “I’m not going to see your life destroyed, Matt.”

“But you didn’t do those things!”

“I love you, son.” Then he raised his eyes to mine and said with all the dignity he could muster, “Warden, I am prepared to make a formal confession.”