thirteen

Saturday, March 15, near the Canadian border, 8 a.m.

She hadn’t slept well. She woke once from a dream about a ship in a storm. Aleksei and Michael were sleeping in the center of the ship as waves crashed over the sides. The men aboard the ship stood at the sides of the deck watching the waves. Now she was on the back of the Arctic Cat while Tommy drove them down the trail.

“Not too fast, Tommy,” she said, trying to sound relaxed.

He laughed.

The speedometer was bouncing near forty.

“Okay,” she said, “turn up here. Let’s head back toward town.”

Tourist season in Aroostook County, Maine, fell during the winter, when the region’s 2,300 miles of snowmobile trails were used. It wasn’t uncommon to find the parking lots at the Hampton Inn and the Reeds Inn and Convention Center full of out-of-state licence plates.

Tommy turned and passed a sign that read McCluskey’s Potato Processing. Snowmobile at your own risk. Kyle McCluskey, she thought, what a guy—use my land, but if you get hurt on it, I don’t want to know.

“Mom, can we stop?”

“Sure. You okay?”

“Too much hot chocolate,” he said.

“Find a straightaway,” she said, “and pull off the trail.”

He did. They were a mile or so from McCluskey’s Processing Plant.

“Never stop on the trail,” she said. “Too many people go too fast and can’t stop or turn.”

She’d seen enough accidents where someone traveling sixty miles an hour had hit something on a trail—a snowmobile or even a moose. The worst accident scene she’d been to had involved two snowmobiles colliding head-on.

“Pick a tree,” she said.

She watched him walk around in the snow, glad they had the day together. She couldn’t help but think about Davey Bolstridge—seven years older than Tommy and already at the end of his life. She’d interviewed hundreds, maybe even thousands of people over the years. But his interview would stay with her a long, long time.

“Someone might see me,” he said. “Can we walk deeper into the woods?”

“Okay, Mr. Modest. Follow me.”

“What’s that sound?” Tommy said.

It wasn’t a snowmobile; she knew that much. She knew where they were.

“Hold on,” she said, thinking of her conversation with Davey Bolstridge. “Wait a minute. Tommy, follow me.”

“Where are we going?”

“There’s a hidden building out here. The generator was supposed to be off. And I just had a thought.”

“What do you mean?” Tommy struggled to walk through the snow. “What’s it hidden for? What’s in it?”

“Nothing that would interest you. But maybe something else.”

“What are you talking about?” Tommy said.

Peyton looked down at a large track that packed the snow. It looked like a toboggan track but was much wider. It stopped at the door of the shack.

“I think we just—” She didn’t finish her sentence.

She heard the generator running inside. Tommy walked to the back of the structure. She followed him.

“Privacy, Mom.”

“I changed your diapers.”

“That was a long time ago.”

She reached up and tugged the rope, releasing the front door.

“What’s that?”

“Just do your business,” she said, and walked to the front door.

Inside, she saw the generator running and tracks on the plywood floor where someone had entered. She saw a chair with dried footprints on it. Then she spotted the dried tracks crossing the floor, and stopping at the edge of the ceiling loft. Someone had stood on the chair.

“Holy shit,” she said aloud.

“Mom, I heard that!”

“Sorry, Tommy.”

She pulled the chair to the edge of the loft, thinking about her visit to Davey Bolstridge’s house.

Is there any place he might go?

Not really, just the shack in the woods. But you know all about that.

“What are you doing on that chair?” Tommy asked. “What’s up there?”

“You’re not going to believe it,” she said and took out her cell phone to call Hewitt and Hammond.