While I was up north, I had received a voice mail from the executive director of a local land trust, asking if I could swing by several preserves the organization managed around Sebago Lake. He said that the parking lots were being used by men engaged in certain clandestine sexual acts.
His message had a pleading, slightly embarrassed tone: “It’s really getting out of hand, Warden. We don’t want to get people arrested. But a mother was taking her kids for a hike at Standish Cove yesterday, and she came upon two half-naked men doing you-know-what behind a big oak tree. We’ve tried cutting back the bushes to give them fewer places to hide, but my stewardship director was there this morning, and he found used condoms all over the place. All we can figure is that the lot must be listed on some Internet site as a place for cruising. Can you just stop in every once in a while and chase off anyone who doesn’t seem to belong there?”
From Lewiston, I followed the back roads to the Lake Region. The weather had turned cooler, more autumnlike, and there were new patches of gold and red on the hillsides. Sebago looked as hard as a sapphire in the morning sunshine.
I found two pickups parked side by side in the Standish Cove lot: a newly washed and waxed Ford F-150 and a beat-up Toyota Tacoma patched together with Bondo. The Ford had a Fraternal Order of Eagles decal on one of its windows. The Toyota was plastered with bumper stickers with slogans like COEXIST and LOVE OUR MOTHER. I pulled in beside the mismatched vehicles and turned off the ignition.
In the distance, a red-breasted nuthatch tapped its bill against a tree. Shafts of dusty sunlight angled through the canopy onto the dead needles and fallen leaves. Small stumps, as wide around as broomsticks, showed where saplings had recently been. The land trust had spared only the towering evergreens and a few gnarled oaks. At the trailhead I saw a kiosk, similar to one at the entrance to the Hundred Mile Wilderness. I also noticed fainter paths winding away into the deeper woods. Each one, I suspected, led to a place of concealment.
As I summoned the energy to start beating the bushes, a Cadillac turned in behind me. Glancing in my mirror, I saw the driver’s face as he spotted the word POLICE painted on my truck. With a strained expression of nonchalance, he swung the Caddie around in a circle and accelerated back onto the road, never once making eye contact with me.
What a miserable task this was.
Fuck it, I thought. I’m just going to sit here and let these guys finish.
After five minutes, a skinny man with a brown goatee appeared from behind a tree trunk. His jeans were too big for him, and his flannel shirt was untucked on one side. He stopped when he caught sight of my patrol truck, fumbled for a pair of sunglasses, then proceeded confidently toward my half-opened window.
“Good morning!” he said.
“Nice day for a hike.”
“’Tis.”
“Have I seen you here before?” I asked, hoping he’d get the message.
He started pawing around for his keys. “Gee, I don’t think so. Not from around here, you know. Just passing through. Have a good day, Officer.”
His Toyota made a coughing sound when he started the engine. The rusted tailpipe scraped the ground as he drove away. The metal threw sparks when it struck the pavement at the edge of the lot.
Moments later, another man appeared out of the woods. He was middle-aged, overweight, wearing a navy blue suit but no necktie. When he saw me, his face went tomato red.
He took off like a frightened rabbit back into the shadows from which he’d come.
Some wardens—I was thinking of Tommy Volk—might have found the sight comical. All it did was make me feel like a bully. These men were wrong to have taken over the land trust’s parking lot for their secret hookups, but I took no pleasure in shaming them.
When I became a game warden, I imagined that my life would be one of nonstop derring-do. I pictured myself wrestling night hunters into handcuffs and going undercover to break up poaching rings. Not once did it occur to me that I would spend mornings policing parking lots for desperate, closeted men. I almost felt sorry for the naïve kid I had been.
* * *
I had just left Standish Cove when my cell phone rang. It was Warden Investigator Pinkham.
“We found Chad McDonough,” he said. “I thought you’d want to know.”
“Where is he?”
“Dead. A guy was picking up recyclables along Route 15 and found his body in a ditch. It looks like he was hit by a truck.”
I felt the skin tighten across my forehead. “When?”
“Days ago. Probably around the same time you were looking for him. He had on the clothes he was last reported as wearing at Hudson’s Lodge. We found his backpack at the scene—and that ridiculous sombrero. The impact threw him into a patch of ferns about fifteen feet from the road. I don’t think anyone would have seen him lying there until the vegetation had died back.”
My mouth had gone dry. “Don’t you think that’s suspicious?”
“Of course I do. But there’s no proof the hit-and-run had anything to do with what happened to Samantha and Missy.”
“The timing is pretty damn coincidental. McDonough was running from someone, Pinkham.”
“You also described him as a paranoid pothead. I know you won’t believe this, Bowditch, but I’m not a complete buffoon. I’ve been doing this job for twenty years without your expert assistance.” The words were harsh, but his voice had a merry ring in it, as if he were smiling. “Something else that might interest you,” he continued. “We’ve inventoried the items we found with the girls’ bodies—backpacks, clothes, et cetera. The scavengers had torn up a lot of it, looking for food. Guess what we didn’t find? Cell phones.”
“Coyotes don’t usually eat electronic devices.”
“Go on.”
“You think the person who killed them took their phones. They owned Samsung Galaxies, right?”
Pinkham chuckled. “Tim Malcomb was right about you.” He was referring to the Warden Service’s acting colonel.
“How so?”
“He said you’re smarter than you look. Don’t be offended. There are worse things for an investigator than being underestimated. I say that from personal experience. Missy’s mom told us that her phone has a Hello Kitty sticker on the back. I’ll let you know if something turns up.”
After Pinkham had hung up, I puzzled over his comments about the perks of being underestimated. Had he meant that he saw a future for me as a warden investigator? Considering all the black marks against me, I never thought I would get the chance to pursue my dream job.
Stacey needed to hear about McDonut and the missing cell phones. I called her cell twice but landed in voice mail both times. Even though she hadn’t answered my earlier e-mail, I decided to send a text: Just heard from Pinkham. Police found McDonut dead. Hit-and-run on Rt. 15. Looks like he died same day Dow dropped him in Greenville. Call me when u get this. XO M.
The state owed me comp days for having worked the search during my vacation. I could think of worse places to hang out than in the North Woods. I called Sergeant Ouellete and told him I was taking the weekend off. He could reach me at the Monson General Store, where I would be helping the regional biologist catalog dead coyotes.