Bad Little Falls (15 page)

There was some sort of code on the cover:

DORT OSNZ CNAP IOZZ

Usually I enjoyed riddles and thought of myself as having an aptitude for solving all manner of puzzles, but I was too exhausted to play word games. I returned to the couch and unbuttoned the top buttons on my shirt. After a while, I closed my eyes.

*   *   *

The phone woke me. I snapped awake with a start, not knowing where I was. The room had grown almost completely black. How long had I been asleep?

“Hello?”

“Warden Bowditch?” It was a man’s voice.

“Yeah. Who’s this?”

“Detective Lieutenant Zanadakis of the state police’s Criminal Investigation Division. They’ve given me the Randall Cates mess to clean up. I read your report, and I wondered if you can come into Machias to talk with me about what happened. You’ve given us the play-by-play, but I’d like to hear the color commentary.”

I leaned forward and rubbed my eyes, trying to wake up fast. “Just tell me where and when.”

“We’re running this investigation out of the sheriff’s office. Can you be here at ten o’clock?”

It was nearly 7:00
P.M.
now. “Tomorrow?”

“Tonight.” He paused. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“No, sir.”

“I appreciate the cooperation,” he said, and hung up.

At least I had a few hours to take a shower and guzzle coffee. I yawned and stretched my arms above my head, experiencing once more all my exertions of the previous day in my aching joints and sore muscles.

The phone rang again.

I thought it might be the detective calling back, but this time it was a woman. “Mike? This is Jamie Sewall. You gave me and my son a ride home from the hospital.”

How had she found me? Had I given her my business card? I couldn’t recall.

“Hi, Jamie. How are you doing? Is everything OK?”

“This is going to sound funny, but you know how you offered to drive me back to the hospital? My friend said he can’t do it, and it would be like sixty bucks for a taxi from Machias, and I really need my car to go to work in the morning. I hate to ask and all, because you were so nice before, and I feel embarrassed for losing my keys, but can you possibly give me a lift?”

I glanced at my watch again, making quick calculations. If I left in ten minutes, that would give me fifteen minutes to get to her house, half an hour for us to ride into town, some time together at the hospital. Yes, it was totally doable.

“It’s no trouble,” I said. “I’ll be right over.”

“You’re my hero.”

I took the fastest shower of my life and put on the last clean uniform in my closet.

*   *   *

It was a crystal-clear night—the kind you only get far from the light pollution of the big cities. The sky was as hard as an obsidian desert. The Milky Way flowed across it like a river of light.

Someone had done a half-assed job of shoveling a parking spot in the Sewalls’ driveway. A narrow path wound through the snow to the house. Above the wheelchair ramp, a weak porch light glowed like a dying star. I stayed in the truck with the engine going until it became clear that Jamie wasn’t waiting in the window for me to arrive. I needed to knock, in other words.

The subzero air was bracing as I pulled it into my lungs. I never felt more alive than when I was outdoors on a Maine winter night. The cold made me hyperaware of my existence as a hot-blooded animal, part of and yet apart from the natural world. I pushed the glowing orange doorbell and waited with excitement for an answer.

There was no response.

I tried the bell again, this time with more persistence.

Finally the knob turned and I found myself looking down at a haggard woman in a wheelchair. She had shoulder-length brown hair that looked freshly washed, brown eyes that seemed to have trouble focusing, and a cleft chin I recognized as a Sewall family trait. She wore a faded gray-and-red flannel shirt, stonewashed jeans, and white tennis shoes.

“Hello,” I said.

“Wow,” she said, giving me a lopsided smile. “Jamie didn’t tell me you were a hunk. I’m Tammi. Come on inside.”

She wheeled herself in reverse away from the door. I stepped over the threshold.

I knew another woman who lived in a wheelchair; Ora Stevens, the wife of my friend Charley, had broken her spine in a plane crash, but although she could no longer walk, she radiated good health and good cheer. I didn’t know Tammi’s affliction—multiple sclerosis or cerebral palsy?—but she seemed broken in a way that went beyond malfunctioning nerves and muscles.

Outside, the house looked to be a wreck, but inside there wasn’t a hint of dust or disrepair to be seen. The hardwood floors gleamed beneath the overhead light fixture. The air had a pleasant floral smell, as of a scented candle flickering in some distant bathroom. Framed family photos hung neatly on the walls.

“You want a Moxie or something?” Tammi asked me. “We don’t have any beer in the house anymore.”

“I’m on duty anyway. But no, thank you.”

“Jamie says you’re the one who found Prester.” She twitched her nose like a rabbit. In her hollow lap was a clump of wadded tissues. She dabbed the corner of an eye with one.

“I just helped get him to the hospital,” I said.

“Jamie says Randall is dead, too.” She framed the sentence as a statement, but I sensed that she’d hung an invisible question mark at the end.

“Yes.”

“Good fucking riddance.”

Brain injury, I decided. It was the uncensored way Tammi had of speaking aloud every thought that came into her head.

There was a creak at the top of the stairs. I glanced up, expecting to see Jamie, but instead, I caught a glimpse of her son’s pasty face poking around a corner. I sensed that he had been watching me in secret since I’d arrived. As soon as we made eye contact, he pulled his head back, like a turtle disappearing into his shell.

“Lucas, what are you doing?” I heard his mother ask him.

His response was muffled, but her reply carried down the drafty staircase. “He’s taking me to the hospital to get the van. It has nothing to do with you,” she said. “How did you get to be so paranoid?”

I became aware that Tammi was still speaking.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What did you say?”

“I was asking how much you can bench. I used to work at Down East Fitness, and I could always tell whether a guy was really strong or whether he just had balloon muscles. I’m guessing you can bench three hundred pounds.”

“It’s been a while since I lifted. Mostly I just do push-ups and sit-ups.”

“Go to your room, Lucas!” A moment later, Jamie came hurriedly down the stairs, carried along by gravity. “I see you met my sister.”

“We were discussing bench presses,” I said.

“That’s one of Tammi’s favorite subjects.”

She had taken a shower, and her hair still shined wetly under the overhead light. She wore a pumpkin-toned fleece pullover and burnt ocher corduroys that flattered her legs. Her eyes were luminous. “I really, really, really appreciate this.”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Sir Galahad,” said Tammi, and then she gave a throaty laugh, which made her sister smile with closed lips.

“I’ll be home in about an hour,” Jamie said. “Don’t let Lucas eat any more of my Caramel deLites. I found an empty box under his bed yesterday.”

“You know he doesn’t listen to me.”

“Just try to keep an eye on him if he sneaks into the kitchen.”

“Nice meeting you,” I said to Tammi Sewall.

“Be good, you two,” she called after us.

“Sorry about Tammi,” Jamie said as I followed her down the narrow walk.

“Do you my mind my asking what’s wrong with her?”

Her breath in the cold air reminded me of a dialogue balloon emerging from the mouth of a cartoon character. “Oh, God. Did she proposition you?”

“No.”

“Because she does that all the the time with guys. She was in a car accident a few years ago with my folks and had a head injury. They were bringing her home from a basketball game in Jonesport.” She touched the side of her head gently. “If you put your hands under her hair, you can feel the scar from the brain surgery. My beautiful little sister became a completely different person. Most days, I don’t even recognize her.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too, but the one you should blame was my dad, who shouldn’t have been behind the wheel.”

She fell silent, and I could tell that my question had shoved her back into the past, where she was reliving dark days again. I didn’t dare ask about her parents, although her tone suggested that they—her father at least—might have died in that same crash.

“What are Caramel deLites?” I had no idea why I asked this.

“Girl Scout cookies. The neighbor kid sold me like twenty bucks’ worth of them last month. It’s no wonder I didn’t get my butt back after Lucas was born. Working at McDonald’s doesn’t help.”

I found myself at a loss for words, but Jamie didn’t seem to notice. Sitting beside me in the truck, she fastened her seat belt and resumed her commentary. “I guess hospital visiting hours are until eight, so if we go fast, maybe I can see Prester. Would you mind stopping at the Rite Aid first? I need to pick up some Nicorette. I’m going through serious withdrawal. You don’t smoke, do you?”

“No.”

“You don’t look like a smoker.”

“How do I look?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a grin. “Clean.”

In spite of myself, I found myself glancing out of the corner of my eye at her reflection in the passenger window. She caught me looking and smiled.

“I’ve never sat in the front seat of a cop car until today. Does this qualify as a cop car?”

“Technically.”

“Prester practically lived in them,” she said. “I worry sometimes that Lucas is going to end up like him. When Prester was a little boy, he was so sweet and loving. That was before he started drinking. Once he got to high school, the cops started bringing him home on Saturday nights, or he would call from the jail, and I would have to go bail him out. Lucas is way smarter than Prester is—he’s a genius, I swear—but they have that same mischievous streak. That reminds me—did he leave his notebook in your truck?”

“Yeah, he did,” I said. “It’s back at my house.”

“He was going crazy trying to find it.”

“I’ll drop it off tomorrow.”

The suggestion made her smile, as if a second visit would not be unwelcome. She leaned forward and braced her arms against the dash. “There’s the Rite Aid.”

I parked under a bright klieg light, which made Jamie’s face look bloodless. A Ford Thunderbird with a mismatched driver’s door, blue against red, was parked in the adjacent spot. Two teenage boys looked over at my patrol truck and then slunk down in their seats.

“You need anything?” she asked.

“I’m good.”

The boys in the T-Bird watched Jamie go inside the store with wolfish grins, which vanished as soon they caught me glaring in their direction.

I sat there in the idling truck, trying to determine whether Jamie was interested me in particular or whether flirtatiousness was just her natural behavior. I’d been in such a hurry to see her again that I’d lost track of the line I’d set for myself, the one separating professional detachment from here-we-go-again impulsiveness. Without meaning to, I’d drifted into oncoming traffic and was headed for another of my usual collisions.

I glanced at the dashboard clock. We’d be cutting it close at the hospital if Jamie hoped to visit her brother. But I should have plenty of time to make my appointment with Zanadakis at ten.

After a few minutes, Jamie returned, scowling. “That woman is such a bitch. I’m in there all the time, and she still cards me.” She tore open the cellophane and used a nail to pierce the cardboard. She removed two pieces of nicotine gum and popped them into her mouth.

A hidden cell phone chirped from somewhere on her person. She dug into her pocket and looked at the luminous screen. “I need to take this,” she said.

“That’s fine.”

She swung the door open and stepped out again. I watched her stand, shivering, under the klieg light. She spoke with animation into the phone and then began to pace back and forth, ranging farther and farther away from the door. She leaned against a white box advertising crushed ice and stared at nothing in particular. Finally she flipped the lid of the phone down and climbed back into the warm truck.

“That was my ex,” she explained.

“Your ex?” I thought she meant Randall.

“My ex-husband. Lucas’s dad. Suddenly he’s available to drive me to Machias to pick up the van. That’s Mitch in a nutshell, Mr. Dependable.”

I didn’t know how to respond. I’d understood that Lucas’s father wasn’t Randall Cates, but it hadn’t occurred to me that another man might still be important in her life. Not that it should concern me.

“You must think I’m a piece of work,” she said.

“Kind of. Yes.”

“I suppose I am, but I’m trying to be a better person. I’m really, really, really trying. I’ve made so many mistakes in my life. This whole thing seems like my fault, like it’s a punishment for everything bad I ever did.” Immediately she started to shake and sob. “Poor Prester. I am so scared to see his face again.”

She put her head down and cried into her hands.

I sat quietly, afraid to touch her.

16

We arrived at the hospital ten minutes before the end of visiting hours, which meant that Jamie felt obliged to venture into the medical-surgery unit to look upon her brother’s ghoulish face, and because she was in such a state of wild grief, I felt obliged to join her. I thought that she might refuse my offer of help. Instead, she looked up at me and said, “Please,” and I realized I was deeper into dangerous territory than I’d previously understood.

We found a sheriff’s deputy sitting inside the door to Prester’s room, reading a dog-eared copy of
American Snowmobiler
he must have pilfered from the waiting room. He was a fresh-faced guy with the neat mustache some rookie cops grow after joining the fraternity, finely boned hands that would be useless breaking up a bar brawl, and an officious tone that started down around his larynx.