Dark Tiger (20 page)

“So,” said Calhoun, “I know I'm not the first person to ask you, but I got to do it again. Did you follow them and find them parked there in the woods, looked like they were sleeping, maybe, and shoot the both of them and leave it to look like a murder and suicide? Was that you who did that?”

“You're right,” said Gautier. “You ain't the first person to accuse me of that.”

“I wasn't accusing. I was just asking.”

“Same difference, ain't it?”

“You saying you didn't do it?” said Calhoun.

“That's right. I did not do that.”

“I bet you have an idea who did.”

He shook his head. “No, I don't. I figure it was about the man, McNulty, not about Millie. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Why is that?”

He shrugged. “Because Millie didn't have any enemies. She was just a kid. No reason to kill her. Everybody liked Millie.”

“Except you,” said Calhoun.

Edwin Gautier turned his head to look straight at Calhoun. “You're wrong about that,” he said. “I liked Millie a lot.” He swallowed and blinked, and Calhoun saw the man's eyes brimming. “I loved her, sir. She might've been a bitch sometimes, and she surely was a wild one, but she was always my little girl.”

 

After Edwin Gautier twisted his yellow hard hat back onto his head and shambled down the slope to the steel hangar where his forklift was waiting for him, Calhoun went back to the Loon Lake Range Rover and let Ralph out. While the dog snuffled around the sandy area, lifting his leg on certain bushes, selected for reasons known only to him, and ignoring others, Calhoun fished out his cell phone and checked it again for messages.

There were none.

He'd hoped Kate would change her mind and leave him a voice mail. “Hey, how you doing?” would have been fine. “I still love you” would have been excellent.

It was a little after four on this Saturday afternoon. She'd still be at the shop. He thought about calling again, and this
time not letting Adrian off the hook. He'd demand to talk to Kate, and when she came on the line, however reluctantly, he'd just tell her he missed her and loved her no matter what she might be thinking and feeling about him.

Still, he didn't do it. He figured if she hadn't called and left him a message, it meant she was still mad and would just refuse to talk to him. So he snapped the phone shut and stuck it in his pocket. Once he headed back to Loon Lake, he'd be out of cell phone service, and then there would be no chance of talking with Kate. It was frustrating.

He whistled to Ralph, and the two of them climbed into the Range Rover. He started it up, turned onto the dusty lumber company road, and headed north, back to the lodge.

As he drove slowly over the humpy dirt road, he tried to figure out what, if anything, he'd learned.

He'd learned that Edwin Gautier loved his daughter and was an unlikely suspect for shooting her and McNulty's already-dead bodies. Anyway, even if he had done that, it had nothing to do with McNulty's mission at Loon Lake.

McNulty and Millie had died of botulism poisoning, most likely contracted from eating the same food, but it didn't appear that they'd had that food at Tiny's Café. They'd eaten entirely different lunches that day, and besides, nobody else who'd eaten there had died from botulism. In fact, no one in St. Cecelia except for McNulty and Millie had died from botulism. That meant it had come from someplace else.

Millie Gautier had told her father that McNulty was headed for Augusta, the state capital. Assuming that was true, and that McNulty did not plan to return to Loon Lake, it meant that he'd found what he was looking for up there and was going to Augusta to submit a report. Whatever McNulty had uncovered
at Loon Lake—Mr. Brescia suggested it might have something to do with national security—he did not have the chance to report it. He died of botulism poisoning first. Then somebody, who apparently didn't realize they were already dead, shot him and Millie. The shooter, Calhoun guessed, aimed to prevent McNulty from submitting his report. The shooter was the man whose name McNulty would have turned in.

It was most likely somebody from the lodge. That narrowed it down considerably.

Calhoun remembered seeing the shadowy figure prowling around the float plane and then leaving with something in his hand. It looked like a small suitcase, and he hadn't had it with him when he arrived. Calhoun guessed the snooper was Curtis Swenson, the pilot, sneaking around in the darkness so he wouldn't be seen, collecting something illicit that he'd hidden on his plane.

Somebody—Calhoun guessed that shadowy figure was the same man, probably Swenson—had followed him and Robin when he'd walked her back to her room the night after Elaine Hoffman was killed.

The more he thought about it, the more Calhoun kept circling back to Swenson. The pilot, unlike the guides at the lodge, had the freedom and flexibility to go to St. Cecelia almost anytime. He could fly back and forth across the border to Canada, and he could go anywhere in Maine where there was a lake to deliver whatever he kept hidden on the plane.

Swenson could've followed McNulty to St. Cecelia and shot him and Millie in their car. He could've killed Elaine Hoffman with Calhoun's Colt Woodsman .22 pistol, too.

Now if he was following Calhoun and Robin around, it meant they weren't safe, either.

Calhoun needed to figure out what Swenson was up to. If he could discover what was in the suitcase he kept hidden on his float plane, he guessed he'd know what McNulty had known, and if he could then avoid getting himself killed, he'd be able to submit a report to Mr. Brescia.

Then he could go home.

 

 

 

 

Calhoun got back to the lodge in time to take a shower and relax for a few minutes before supper. He'd just finished toweling his hair and getting dressed when somebody knocked on the cabin door.

He said, “Come on in,” and the door opened, and Robin stepped into the cabin.

“Hey,” said Calhoun.

She smiled. “Hey, yourself.”

“Aren't you supposed to be serving dinner tonight?”

“It's Saturday,” she said. “My night off.”

“And you're still here?”

“Where would I go?”

“Home?”

She rolled her eyes. “I don't think so. And there's no place around here except St. Cece. Nothing for me there.”

He nodded. “I was down to St. Cecelia today. It's not much of a place. Want a Coke?”

“I wouldn't mind,” the girl said. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Her feet were bare, and her shaggy blond hair
was damp, as if she'd just gotten out of the shower, too. Calhoun thought she looked about twelve years old, except for her strong legs and her grown-up chest.

He fetched two cans of Coke. “Why don't we sit out on the porch,” he said. “There's a nice breeze comes off the lake this time of day.”

They went out to the screen porch and sat in the rockers. Ralph followed along and plopped down in front of the door.

“So what's up?” Calhoun said.

She turned and smiled at him. “Does something need to be up?”

“Huh? Oh. No, I guess not.” He shrugged. “So tell me something.”

“What?”

“Do they pay you really well here?”

Robin smiled. “You mean, what's a nice girl like me doing in a place like this?”

Calhoun shrugged. “Something like that, I guess.”

She nodded. “Yes, they pay very well. Way better than I could do back in Madrid.” She pronounced it MAD-rid, with the emphasis on the first syllable.

“Madrid,” Calhoun said, repeating her pronunciation, “being your hometown?”

“Ayuh,” she said, “and I can't wait to get away from there. I want to go to college, Stoney. I want to go far, far away. Arizona or Colorado sounds good to me. Someplace as different from Madrid, Maine, as I can find. My dad is dead, and my mother has no money, but I'm willing to work hard and make sacrifices to earn enough money to get where I want to go. Like serve food and make beds and vacuum floors and anything else June Dunlap tells me to do.”

Calhoun remembered Edwin Gautier telling him about
Millie's dream of going to Florida. He guessed it had to be hard, being a small-town Maine girl with big dreams.

“Half of my high school friends got pregnant before they graduated,” Robin said. “The other half are working at the supermarket and planning on getting married to their boyfriends who work at the mill.” She shook her head. “Not me, mister.”

Calhoun smiled. “Can't blame you.”

“I'm a good worker,” she said, “and I'm pretty smart. I deserve better.” She frowned. “Oh, the reason I came to see you, actually, was to tell you something. Mr. Redbird has been released. He's coming back. I know you're his friend. I thought you'd like to know.”

“Well, yes,” he said. “Thank you. I'm glad about that. Franklin was wrongly accused.”

“I guess they didn't have enough to hold him on,” Robin said. “So they had to let him go. I heard that Curtis Swenson is flying to Houlton tomorrow to pick him up.”

Calhoun nodded. An idea had occurred to him.

 

That Saturday evening, Robin's night off, it was June, Marty Dunlap's wife, who brought the food from the kitchen into the guides' dining room: a big bowl of baked kidney beans with salt pork, a platter of hot dogs, another of brown bread, baskets of fresh-baked corn muffins, a plate of sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, and a bowl of potato salad—beans and franks, the traditional New England Saturday night supper. After she'd put everything on the table, June touched Calhoun's shoulder.

He turned and looked up at her. She had wide-spaced green eyes with squint lines in the corners and a small, turned-up nose. Her brown hair was liberally sprinkled with gray. Calhoun thought June Dunlap was a very attractive woman.

“You've been here three days already, Mr. Calhoun, and we haven't been introduced,” she said. “I'm June.”

Calhoun smiled. “I'm Stoney.” He held up his hand to her. “Nice to meet you.”

She gave his hand a quick shake. “I hear you drove down to St. Cecelia today.”

“I did,” he said. “It's quite a town.”

June rolled her eyes. “It's a depraved and malignant town. Good for nothing except gambling and boozing and whoring.”

He nodded. “That's what I meant. Nothing of interest to me, but I'm glad I got to see it for myself.”

June patted his shoulder and went back to the kitchen, and the guides began passing around the bowls and platters of food.

“So'd you do some whoring and gambling and boozing today, Stoney?” said Ben, the lanky young college-aged guide.

“You bet,” Calhoun said. “Guess I had myself enough debauchery today to last me at least till my next day off.”

Ben grinned, and Peter, the other young guide, said, “Unless I'm mistaken, you've got tomorrow off. Heading right back to St. Cece, are you?”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Calhoun said. “I'm too old for two straight days of St. Cecelia.” He glanced at Curtis Swenson, who, as usual, was reading a magazine and ignoring everybody. “Hey, Curtis,” he said.

Swenson looked up. “What?” He was wearing his signature Hawaiian shirt. This one featured orange and red parrots in a green and purple jungle.

“I heard you're flying to Houlton tomorrow to fetch Franklin Redbird.”

Swenson nodded. “I heard the same damn thing. That must mean it's true.”

“Want some company?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Suppose I went along with you?”

“Why'd you want to do something like that?”

Calhoun shrugged. “Franklin's my friend. I just thought it would be a nice thing to do, to be there to greet him. Give you some company, too.”

“I don't care about company,” Swenson said.

“I'd like to go,” said Calhoun.

Swenson shrugged. “If you want to go, I guess I can't stop you. Meet me at the dock at eight thirty, and don't be late, because I ain't going to wait for you. Oh, and leave the dog home. I'll be taking the Cessna, and there ain't that much room in it.”

“There's got to be room for a dog.”

“Just leave him this time, okay?”

“Sure,” said Calhoun. “Ralph doesn't need to come. I'll explain it to him.”

“Good,” said Swenson. “You do that.” He took a bite out of a muffin, then turned a page in his magazine and resumed his reading.

 

When Calhoun walked out of the dining room, June Dunlap came up behind him and said, “Stoney? Got a minute?”

“Sure,” he said.

They walked outside and stood there on the deck. “It's about Robin,” June said. “My kitchen girl.”

“I know Robin,” he said.

“I know you do. That's what I wanted to mention to you.” She looked away for a minute, then swung her eyes back to his. “I think she's got a crush on you.”

Calhoun smiled. “Really.”

June nodded. “She's a vulnerable child. Her daddy was a
commercial fisherman, and he went overboard three winters ago. They never found his body.”

“I didn't know that,” he said. “That's rough.”

“Yes, it is,” June said. “I think Robin sees you as a father figure.”

“You saying there's some kind of Freudian thing going on with her?”

“I'm just saying watch out, that's all,” she said. “It wouldn't be hard to hurt her, and I don't think you want to do that.”

“I generally go for more grown-up women anyway,” Calhoun said, “but thank you for the warning.”

 

June brought out the breakfast food on Sunday, too. Calhoun guessed Robin's day off went from after breakfast on Saturday until Sunday evening dinner.