I sat alone in the lobby outside the dispatch office waiting for my division commander, Lieutenant Timothy Malcomb, to come through the door. The sheriff had gone off to supervise the manhunt. I felt like a kid waiting for his mom to pick him up outside the vice principal’s office.
The enormity of what was happening was more than I could wrap my mind around. At this moment state troopers, deputies, and game wardens were hunting for my father in the woods along the Dead River. The FBI had been called in from Boston. TV news crews were probably rushing to the scene. By tomorrow morning the entire State of Maine would know the name of Jack Bowditch.
When I applied to join the Warden Service, I worried a lot about my father’s criminal record and how it might affect my application. I remembered sitting in a room with leaded windows and flaking green brick walls while two interviewers peppered me with questions about my past. It was wintertime, but the room was as hot as a greenhouse thanks to an old steam radiator that hissed at us throughout the interview. I was a sweating mess waiting for the moment when they would produce a folder with my father’s rap sheet-his mug shots taken over the years, his inked fingerprints, his list of drunk driving offenses and simple assaults and night hunting citations-but that moment never came.
I left that interview believing I’d shaken off the past. But the moment had only been postponed. From this day forward I would be remembered as the son of a cop killer.
So why was I more convinced than ever of his innocence? Whoever ambushed Jonathan Shipman and Bill Brodeur hoped to scare off Wendigo Timber by making a statement in blood. I knew my dad was capable of violence. But the cold-blooded murder of two men, including a police officer, for quasi-political reasons? He was a bar brawler, not a terrorist.
If that was the case, then why had he fled? And how had he managed to overpower Deputy Twombley and crash the cruiser? The message on my answering machine seemed central to the mystery. Why had he called me last night and who was the woman with him?
My greatest fear was that the searchers would corner my father in the woods and there would be a standoff ending in gunfire. In a few hours the case might be closed forever and I would live the rest of my life knowing I did nothing to save him.
Screw it, I thought, rising to my feet. Let them bust me for insubordination.
Heat was curling off the car tops when I crossed the parking lot, and the inside of my truck was like a Dutch oven. I started the engine, glanced in the rearview mirror, and my heart just about stopped. Lieutenant Malcomb was striding toward me across the asphalt. I rolled down my window.
“What’s going on, Bowditch?”
I knew bullshitting was useless at this point. “I was on my way to the incident scene.”
“My instructions were for you to wait here.” As always, he sounded like he had gravel in his voice box.
“I know that. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want an apology, Warden.”
“I couldn’t just sit here, Lieutenant-not knowing what’s going on up there.”
“The state has rules. They exist for a reason. You can’t be involved in this investigation, and you know it.”
“I’m already involved,” I said. “Please, Lieutenant. It’s my father they’re looking for. I’ve got to be part of this. If something happens-maybe I can talk to him, get him to surrender. He’ll listen to me.”
He was wearing mirrored sunglasses that made reading his expression just about impossible, and he was already one of the stoniest-faced guys I’d ever met, like a walking granite statue in a green uniform. But when he spoke again I got the sense of something softening in him. “This isn’t a situation you can control, Bowditch.”
“I know.”
“He’s the one making all the bad choices.”
“I understand that.”
“He’ll be given every opportunity, but it’s up to him what happens next.”
“Sir, all I’m asking is a chance to be present. I want to be able to tell my mother that I did everything I could.”
After a moment of silence, he said, “Get out of the truck, Bowditch.”
My heart sank, but I did as I was told. The lieutenant waited for me to lock the door and then he started off across the lot. At first, I thought we were headed back into the sheriff’s office, but he kept walking toward the street, and that was when I saw his truck parked around the corner.
“Lieutenant?”
“You’re right. It’s better that you’re there. But only as an observer.”
Maybe it was because my father was accused of killing a cop, and he wanted me there as a warning to all the other cops that revenge was not an option. Or maybe he was bringing me along as a witness who could testify that every attempt at a peaceful resolution was made and the use of deadly force was warranted. Maybe he just understood a son’s anguish. I didn’t know why Lieutenant Malcomb brought me along with him, but the truth was, I didn’t care, either.
On the road we didn’t speak for the longest time, both of us listening intently to the police radio. Troopers, deputies, and wardens called in their locations. K-9 units were en route. The Northern Maine Violent Crimes Task Force had taken over a local fish hatchery as its command post. There hadn’t been a manhunt like this in Maine in years.
Lieutenant Malcomb scarcely acknowledged me as we drove. He smelled strongly of cigarettes. Kathy Frost had told me he’d started smoking again after his wife died last fall.
“I got a phone call this morning you should know about,” he said. “A man says you harassed him and his son this morning on Indian Pond.”
“Anthony DeSalle,” I said.
“Tell me what happened.”
I straightened up in my seat. “He was putting in a boat at the public landing with his son. I checked his license and registration. I cited him for not having adequate PFDs. He didn’t appreciate being cited. That’s about it.”
“He claims you were verbally threatening.”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant, but that’s bullshit.” I tried unsuccessfully to keep the resentment out of my voice. “I think I displayed considerable restraint with Mr. DeSalle. He swore at me repeatedly in front of his little boy. I thought he might take a swing at me at one point. It doesn’t surprise me he made a complaint. I think Mr. DeSalle has problems with anger management.”
I waited for the lieutenant to speak.
“That’s my assessment, too,” he said at last. “The guy’s choice of language didn’t win any points with me, either. Maybe that kind of talk works down in Massachusetts.”
“So what happens now?”
“I’m not inclined to do anything for the moment, but if this DeSalle makes a complaint in writing, we’ll have to do some sort of investigation. The colonel wants us to make internal affairs a priority these days. We can’t appear to be covering anything up.”
The day was increasingly become surreal. In the context of what was going on, this thing with DeSalle was almost comical-almost. Unfounded or not, a citizen complaint could dog me for months. I didn’t need any more distractions.
“Do you know anything about Deputy Twombley’s condition?” I asked.
“Just some cuts and bruises,” he said.
“The sheriff didn’t tell me what happened.”
“A trooper found the cruiser off the road. It had gone off into a pretty deep ditch. That fool Twombley was handcuffed with his arms around a tree. He said your father attacked him, forced them off the road.”
“Wasn’t my dad handcuffed? How did he get loose?”
“Good question.”
“He can’t have gone far on foot,” I said.
“The trooper who found the crash saw a blood trail. Twombley says your dad was injured. He says your dad stole his shotgun and sidearm.”
So my father was armed, bleeding, and on the run. Was there an outcome to this situation that wasn’t bad?
The lieutenant’s cell phone rang. The person on the other end was the colonel of the Maine Warden Service-that much I could figure out. But the lieutenant was so monosyllabic, I couldn’t follow the rest of the conversation at all. Not until my name came up. “I’ve got Mike Bowditch with me,” he said There was a long pause. “Yes, sir. I will.”
Will what? I thought. Will take responsibility for him? Will keep him out of trouble?
After he finished with the colonel, the lieutenant checked in with the state police and Division B. I watched our speed increase with each new conversation. But we were still too far away from the scene-a solid half hour, at least-for blue lights and sirens.
“They’re calling in the reinforcements,” he said at last. “I guess they’ve got Charley Stevens up there in his plane already. You know Charley?”
“Yes, sir,” I said uneasily.
Charley Stevens was the retired warden pilot who showed up at the Dead River Inn on the night of my father’s arrest two years earlier. He was something of a legendary character in the history of the Maine Warden Service-one of those people who is always smaller in person than you expect, given the size of his reputation. I knew he’d retired up around Flagstaff Pond and still helped out the department with his Super Cub, searching for missing hikers, doing overflight moose surveys, that sort of thing. So it was no surprise he was assisting with the manhunt.
What I didn’t tell the lieutenant was the Charley Stevens and my dad had a long history together, or that the retired pilot, more than anyone, was probably responsible for my joining the Warden Service. It was a long story and a bad memory, especially under the circumstances.
Lieutenant Malcomb reached into his breast pocket for a piece of gum but didn’t offer me any. I watched him pop it out of its foil packet and stuff it in his cheek.
My mouth was very dry. “You don’t have an extra stick of that, do you?”
He smiled at me, the first time that day. “It’s nicotine.”
“I don’t care,” I said.