Widowmaker (11 page)

“Coffee.”

“I'm making a new pot, if you can hold tight for a few minutes.” She pushed a basket of popcorn across the bar. I took a handful. It was almost inedibly salty.

Glancing at the wall of windows, I saw tiny flakes of snow beginning to fall—the innocent-seeming vanguard of the coming storm.

“Mike?”

I spun on the stool, directly into Amber Langstrom's embrace. She hugged me hard, as if we were old friends and not people who had just met two nights earlier. I felt a pain on the bruised part of my back. I didn't bring my own arms up, but waited for her to let go.

“I knew you'd come!” She looked better than she had at my house. The whites of her eyes were actually white, and her blond hair was done up in a tousled style that made her appear younger. She wore the same black fleece as the bartender, but her jeans were as formfitting as ski tights.

“I thought I should see the place,” I said. “I haven't been here in a long time.”

“If I didn't have to work, I'd show you around.” She leaned in close and lowered her voice. Her eyes were gorgeous, as blue as the bottom of a swimming pool. “Gerald—he's my new boss—is such an asshole. He thinks he's hot shit because he used to manage an Olive Garden. I am so glad you're here!”

I had no idea how to respond, but it didn't matter, because she kept on going.

“First, you need to talk with Josh,” she said. “I heard he's working up on the summit today, which is kind of a bummer. Did you bring your skis?”

“My skis? No.”

“Then you can't ride the chairlift. Well, you can ride to the top, but they won't let you come down that way. Do you want me to ask Elderoy to drive you up in his snowcat?”

“Wait. Who's Elderoy?

“The lift-maintenance manager. He's been here forever.”

“And who's Josh?”

“He's Adam's friend, the one I told you about. He works on the ski patrol. Josh Davidson.”

“Davidson, as in Alexa's brother? The one Adam beat up? I thought they hated each other.”

Her painted mouth tightened. “Where did you hear that?”

“Pulsifer told me Alexa's brother tried to put an end to the relationship. He said there was a fight, and the kid ended up in the clinic. That was how the parents found out about Adam's relationship with Alexa.”

From her reaction, you would have thought I had insulted her. “Gary shouldn't be spreading lies.”

“They didn't get in a fight?”

“Those two were always hitting each other for fun. You know how boys are. It had nothing to do with Alexa. If they hated each other, why did Josh stay in touch with Adam while he was in prison? He was the only one of his academy friends who wrote to him. The rest of them treated Adam like a leper.”

A stern-faced man wearing the same black fleece as the other workers in the restaurant appeared behind her shoulder. “Amber, can I have a word with you?”

She rolled her eyes at me, mouthed a silent profanity, and then turned to her manager with a remarkably genuine-looking smile. “Of course, Gerald. I was just giving this gentleman some recommendations for lunch.” She returned her attention to me, as if finishing a conversation. “You should definitely try the Sluice burger. It comes with bacon and onion rings on top. Now, what is it you wanted, Gerald?”

“A word.”

“OK, but I have an order up for table four, so you need to be quick.”

Amber moved purposefully toward the kitchen. The scowling manager stayed one step behind her through the swinging door.

I swiveled back around on the stool and found myself looking into the hazel eyes of the bartender as she poured my cup of coffee from a steaming carafe. “Amber's a piece of work, isn't she?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“How well do you know her?”

I blew on the top of the mug. “Not very well.”

“You might want to keep it that way. Just my recommendation.”

She thought I had been flirting with Amber. I gathered that it must have been a regular occurrence at the Sluiceway.

 

11

As I waited for Amber to return, I tried to make sense of what she had told me about her son and Josh Davidson. Why would the brother of the girl Adam had raped remain friends with her rapist, especially if—as Pulsifer had suggested—a fight between the two boys had been the incident that started the investigation that led to Adam's conviction? And what was I to make of Josh Davidson being the last person to see Adam before he vanished?

Curiosity had gotten the better of me so many times in the past. And here I was back in its thrall again. I was such a sucker for unanswered questions.

Across the room, one of the loud snowboarders stood up suddenly and knocked over his mug. Beer spilled all over the table and onto the floor. His friends pushed back in their chairs to avoid being dripped on—a hard scraping sound that drew the attention of everyone present—and started laughing and shouting.

“Dude! No!”

“Ugh, it's on my pants!”

“You are
so
wasted!”

“You bumped the fucking table!”

“I didn't bump it! You bumped it!”

I glanced at the teenage hostess and saw her shrinking behind her podium, as if she hoped it would shield her from the mayhem. The manager, meanwhile, was still scolding Amber in the kitchen.

I slid off my stool.

I zigzagged my way through the tables until I was standing behind the boarder who'd spilled his beer. “Guys,” I said. “You need to keep it down.”

The snowboarder—a big brawny kid—turned around and exhaled a heavy dose of alcohol into my face. “Lighten up, dude.”

“There are families here. You need to watch your language.”

I figured he'd give me some guff but then relent. It was early in the day for barroom brawls. Instead, he said, “Why don't you step back?”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” And he shoved me in the chest.

I caught one of his hands and twisted. A wrist lock is one of the first self-defense maneuvers I had learned at the Criminal Justice Academy. A simple turn of the radioulnar joints in the hand is enough to make an aggressor's knees buckle, and that was what happened with my drunk snowboarder.

“Ow! Jeez! Let go!”

“I think you guys need to leave.”

“Fuck you!”

I gave his hand another twist. “What was that?”

I turned my attention to his friends, who were still seated at the table. They were either less drunk or less bellicose, because they all reached for their wallets. They began scattering bills on the wet table.

I let go of the shredder's hand.

He rose from his knees, shaking his wrist, his windburned face growing even redder with humiliation. “Ow! Jeez! What's your problem?”

I removed my wallet with my badge and flipped it open. “I hope you guys aren't driving anywhere.”

“No, sir!” one of his more sober friends said.

“We're staying at my mom's condo,” added another.

“I hope that's true.”

One by one, they slunk out of the pub like so many kicked dogs.

I sat back down at the bar.

“Thanks,” said the bartender. “Are you a cop?”

“A game warden.”

“Is that like a forest ranger?”

“Not exactly.”

I had lost count of the number of times people had asked me that question. Even some native Mainers didn't understand that wardens are essentially off-road police officers. They associated us with checking hunting and fishing licenses—an important part of our job—and not with all of the other laws we enforced.

The teenage hostess tapped me on the shoulder. “Those gentlemen would like to buy you a drink.”

“Who?”

“Them.” She pointed to an eccentric-looking trio of older men seated in the corner.

One of them was obviously ex-military. He had a straight spine, like someone who had stood at attention for a long time, and a physique that suggested he still pumped iron every morning. He was neatly shaved, and his gray hair had been trimmed almost down to the skull, probably cut that very morning.

The second man in the group was ruddy-faced, with a snow-white mane and a prominent gut. He was wearing a tweed jacket over a fisherman's sweater, wool pants, brogues, and a herringbone driver's cap. He looked liked he'd stepped off the label of a bottle of Scotch whisky.

The third man, dressed in canvas shirt and corduroys, had the gangling appearance of someone who might be very tall when he stood up. Everything about him—head, limbs, and hands—seemed to have been stretched. He had a yellowish complexion, gold-rimmed spectacles, and a blond mustache going white.

My first thought was, What are those characters doing drinking in a skiers' bar?

They all raised their glasses to me in a toast.

I whispered to the bartender, “Who are those guys?”

“The Night Watchmen.”

“Huh?”

She leaned across the bar. “That's what they call themselves, but if you ask me, the only thing they watch at night is porn. They come in here for the free popcorn and to pretend they're not gawking at snow bunnies half their age. I made the mistake of debating drug legalization with them once. After five minutes, they were ready to send me to Siberia.”

I gave the trio a subtle wave of recognition and said to the hostess, “Thank them for the offer, but tell them I'm not drinking.”

I turned back to the bartender.

“You should come back tonight when things get really wild,” she said.

“No thanks.” I smiled and sipped my lukewarm coffee.

After a few minutes, Amber emerged from the kitchen with a tray balanced on her shoulder. Gerald, the manager, was still shadowing her. He stood watch over Amber as she passed out plates of hamburgers and nachos to a table of skiers. When he was finally satisfied, he left her alone and disappeared again through the swinging door.

Amber came over at once. “Meet me downstairs in the Black Diamond Room in five minutes.”

She was gone before I could reply.

The bartender raised an eyebrow at me.

I shrugged and paid for my coffee.

*   *   *

I followed the signs downstairs, past a laundry room that smelled of detergent and dryer exhaust, and an old-time video arcade where a few kids were zapping aliens and steering furious hot rods. The Black Diamond Room seemed to be some sort of banquet hall. The lights were off and the room was vacant, but the spirits of past wedding receptions seemed near. I waited inside the door, in the dark, amid the round tables and stackable chairs, feeling ridiculous at being made an accessory to Amber's act of subterfuge.

Fifteen minutes later, a burly little man in a black snowmobile suit stuck his head into the room and flicked on the fluorescent lights.

“Are you my passenger?” he asked.

“I'm not sure.”

He had the crow's-feet and weathered skin of someone who had never worked a desk job in his life. There was snow mounded on his fur-lined hat and snow melting in his grizzled brown muttonchops. He removed his deerskin mitten to shake my hand. “I'm Elderoy.”

“Mike Bowditch.”

“Bowditch? Jack's son? Well, isn't that something! I worked with your old man before he got the heave-ho. Wasn't he a ticket, though. Anyone ever tell you you're the spitting image?”

“Not today, but it's still early.”

He flashed one of the wider smiles I'd seen. His teeth looked as strong as the rest of him. “Where's Amber?” he asked.

“Trying to get away from her manager, I think.”

“Gerald may be the first het'rosexual man Amber hasn't been able to snake-charm.”

On cue, as if summoned, she appeared, out of breath and flushed in the face. “Elderoy, I need you to take Mike up to the top for me. Josh is working the ski patrol, and Mike needs to talk with him. It's really important.”

The old man scratched one of his impressive sideburns. “Let me get this straight. You expect me to stop the important work that I am doing and chauffeur this young man to the summit just because you asked?”

“It's really, really, really important.”

“Goddamn it, Amber,” he said, trying but failing to suppress another smile. “You know how to play me like a fiddle.”

“You'll do it, then?”

He pursed his lips and tapped his furry cheek for her to kiss.

She obliged, leaving lipstick marks.

Elderoy turned to me, beaming. “I'll meet you over at the Shady Lane Lift. This pretty lady can tell you how to get there.”

I couldn't remember having agreed to interrogate Josh Davidson. Those lines I thought I knew? They seemed to be getting wavier by the minute.

“Are you sure Josh Davidson is going to talk to me?” I asked Amber after Elderoy had left the room.

“He's worried about Adam. Josh is his only friend left in the world.”

“You said that before.”

“Did I? Adam used to be so popular, too. He was such a great skier, and all the girls thought he was so handsome.” She winced, as if the admission had caused her physical pain. Then she gazed directly into my eyes. “You really do look like him, you know.”

She seemed so convinced—and so convincing. I had made a lifelong practice of building walls against my emotions. Now I felt something begin to crumble inside of me. Bricks coming loose.

The question was out before I could stop it. “Does Adam know?”

“Know what?”

“Who his real father is.”

Her expression became soft as she studied my face. “Not yet. But I want him to know—especially now.”

I cleared my throat, zipped up my coat, and made to leave.

She touched me lightly on the arm. “Mike? If you don't mind, there's a question I've been meaning to ask you, too.”

“Go ahead.”

“Where is your father buried? I want to go see his grave with Adam.”