Thirty-Five

Thursday, at 7:35 a.m., traveling north on Route 1, Peyton saw KINGSTON spray painted in jagged letters on plywood and tacked to a white birch tree. She turned onto a dirt road four miles from the center of Garrett. Spring’s “mud season” had come and gone, and it was clear that the Kingston’s road hadn’t been graded as her Ford Expedition traversed the six-inch ruts that had hardened following the spring thaw. Her work backpack, on the passenger’s seat, contained her photo ID, her iPad, maps, water, a med kit, and Clif bars.

The rising sun cast shafts of light through the canopied tree cover as the SUV, its windshield dotted with dead flies, bounced along the rutted road.

She knew the state police and possibly other Border Patrol agents had interviewed Matt Kingston’s parents already. But she was the first law-enforcement officer to interview Matt. There was a chance that she might piece information provided by Matt’s parents with previous knowledge acquired during two conversations with their son to lead to his whereabouts.

The sides of the trailer were rust-streaked, the color of a faded blood stain. The screen door hung by one hinge. Peyton pulled next to a 1980s GMC Jimmy that, like a toothless smile, was missing its front grille. A man had the hood up and was pouring water into the radiator.

“Mr. Kingston?” she said, climbing out of the truck.

He straightened, holding a wrench. He was no taller than the door of the SUV, and he looked like he weighed less than she did. His face was pale, the skin around his eyes puffy, as if he’d been crying, and his nose and cheeks were mapped with red capillary lines. She knew what those were from.

“It’s Dalton. Who are you?”

She told him.

Using a rag, he wiped his hands. “You gave Matthew your card. It’s still on his dresser.”

“I did. Does Matt’s mother live here? If so, could we all talk?”

“She don’t live here. She walked out when Matty was seven. She told him he was too much for her, that she couldn’t handle him. Last thing she ever said to him. He remembers it, too. Talks about it once in a while.”

She thought it might be tough to get him talking—he lived in near-seclusion, after all—but apparently he wanted to get some things off his chest, or to vent about his ex-wife.

Dalton Kingston put the wrench down on the rag, left the hood up, and led her inside the trailer. The gray walls had once been white, but a smoker’s habit left them the color of an overcast sky. An SAT prep book lay the kitchen table.

“Do you have other children, Mr. Kingston?”

“No. Just Matthew. He’s a good boy. Have a seat.”

She did. There were crumbs on the table, the sink stacked high with dishes.

“I want to make sure Matthew doesn’t get in trouble for poaching. He didn’t shoot nothing. Never has. Not poaching, anyway. I sent him out a couple times. He always came back empty-handed. I don’t think he has the stomach for it.”

“Some people think it’s cruel.”

“I can tell you do.”

She said nothing. There was a ketchup spot near the SAT prep book.

“It ain’t easy making ends meet up here,” he said. “I worked at the potato-processing plant. But not now. Matthew worked the harvest last year for Freddy St. Pierre. I was thinking maybe he could work for him again, since his father’s gone.”

A bottle of Wild Turkey stood on the counter. The coffee maker next to it offered no signs of life, just a half-filled pot with what looked like day-old coffee.

“What happened to your job at the potato-processing plant?”

He was leaning against the counter. He looked at his fingernails and shrugged. “Just didn’t work out,” he said.

“You like Wild Turkey?”

“It does the trick. Want a drink?”

She shook her head. “Matthew drink?”

“No. He studies.”

And works to support you, she felt like saying, but didn’t. “Any idea where he might be?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“He say anything strange recently? Act differently?”

“He told me he talked to you. I told him that was a mistake and to not get mixed up in anything. If Freddy shot some guy, stay the hell out of it.”

“He knew he may have witnessed a murder, Mr. Kingston. Your son is very brave.”

“This wasn’t brave. It’s looking like it was something else.”

“What?”

“Dumb.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he’s gone. Either on the run, hiding, or worse. I ain’t a fool.” He wiped his nose on the back of his hand. He reached into the sink, dishes clattering, and came up with a water glass. “You want a drink?” he asked again, hand shaking as he doled out a shot of Wild Turkey.

She declined.

He drank quickly and wiped a tear from his cheek.

“Mr. Kingston, what have you told the other officers who came here?”

“Nothing. I ain’t saying nothing.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I told my son to keep quiet, and he didn’t, and what did it get him?”

“Mr. Kingston, we can’t find Matthew unless you help us.”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“Do you think he’s hiding, or something happened to him?”

“I got no idea.”

She believed him. “Do you think he knows who shot Simon Pink?”

“Who’s that?”

“The man Freddy St. Pierre is accused of killing.”

He looked at her. “I already told the cops.”

“Would you tell me?”

“He saw them. It was dark, but he saw a gunshot. And he heard them talking before.”

“Do you think he knows who shot Simon Pink?”

“It’s what I told the others: he don’t think Freddy did it.”

“Who then?”

“Couldn’t see. Too dark.”

“Who did you tell this to?”

“The state cop, Miller, and that female cop that was here after him.”

“Was she a state trooper?”

He shrugged, and something moved in the pit of her stomach.

“Was she in uniform?”

“No,” he said. “Just wearing a windbreaker. She showed up last night at nine thirty.”

“And a hat and dark glasses?” Peyton said.

“Yeah. How did you know that?”

Mike Hewitt wasn’t in the office when Peyton arrived.

“Where’s Mike?” Peyton asked.

“You know I can’t disclose an agent’s location,” the silver-haired receptionist Linda Cyr said.

“I bet he’s in Houlton, meeting with the FBI,” Peyton said.

Linda winked at her, and Peyton smiled.

Agent Stan Jackman was at his desk, reading a document that was several pages long. He’d underlined some words and had written notes in the margins.

“Peyton, you’re going to want to see this.”

She pulled a chair close to Jackman’s desk in the bullpen. The fabric of her uniform pants rubbed against the gauze covering her stitches.

Jackman slid his reading glasses to the edge of his nose and looked over them at her. He handed her his printout.

As she looked at it, he said, “I hear five hundred CBP agents from all over the country are coming to Pete McPherson’s funeral, not to mention the game wardens and cops.”

“He died trying to protect the president,” she said, “and if he didn’t step on that bomb, I would have.”

And, she thought, Tommy would be motherless in a rapid-fire world.

“I hear he’s up for a Congressional Medal of Honor.”

“He’ll get something,” she said. “He earned it.”

“They found six more bombs in all.”

“What?”

“Six more. They were all near the first one. You were lucky.”

She sat staring at him.

“Peyton, you okay?”

“Fine.”

“You sure? I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Fine,” she said again. “So we know Simon Pink was from Prague.”

“And that he studied chemistry there.”

She looked at page two. “And he was part of Andela when Kvido Bezdek was in the group.”

“Yeah. And the group evolved significantly after nine-eleven, but then fell off the radar.”

“The material coming out of Washington has nothing new on Simon Pink,” Jackman said, “nothing you don’t know. Bezdek, though, is becoming a person of interest. He was arrested in Moscow once and failed a psychological evaluation.”

“Clinicians don’t say anyone failed an examination, Stan. What did it say?”

“He wanted to represent himself after being arrested during a protest. He was deemed unstable and to have anger issues.”

“By Russian authorities?” she said. “That makes him a person of interest in the US?”

“He arranged anti-US protests as a teen, then eventually started visiting Moscow, and then the Khost Province in Afghanistan.”

“That’s quite a jump,” she said. “How did he go from being pro-union to anti-US and then to hanging out in the Taliban’s back yard?”

“Not much on that,” Jackman said. “As information rolls in, I’ll keep you posted.”

“Sherry St. Pierre-Duvall said she met him at a workshop she gave related to her books. He loved her work.”

“What’s the focus of her work?” he asked.

“She told me it was the political landscape of the Czech Republic. She says what they have between them is ‘special.’ The way she talks, he’s her intellectual soul mate.”

“He might just be another asshole.”

“You really are a clinician when it comes to psychoanalysis,” she said.

Her cell phone vibrated against her leg. She took it from her cargo-pant pocket.

It was Hewitt.“You’re looking for me?”

Peyton glanced at Linda Cyr. “I want to do something that might be a little, ah, unorthodox, Mike.”

“Uh oh. That sounds bad.”

“Not bad, just unorthodox. And I thought I should run it by you first.”

And she did.

“That’s your plan?” he said. “You think any lawyer would let you do that?”

“I was going to try to get around the lawyer.”

“You march to the beat of your own drum. I’ll give you that. Go for it.”

She smiled. Mike Hewitt, for all his regulations, had a wild side after all.