the line. And then you went and quit. The colonel and the commissioner said to us, ‘We knew this guy couldn’t hack it.’ You made us look like fools, Mike.”
“Would it help if I said I was sorry?”
“What would help is explaining why you screwed me over like that. I was pulling strings to get you transferred back to Division B. The next thing I know, you’re calling to tell me you’re quitting.”
“I didn’t quit. I resigned.”
“Call it what you want. The fact remains it was a cowardly thing to do.”
“It wasn’t cowardly,” I said. “It was just the opposite.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” She brought two fingers to her mouth and whistled sharply.
Pluto spun around and trotted back to her. She turned her broad back to me and climbed the stairs to the door and opened it without ever looking in my direction.
“That’s it, then?” I called after her.
She paused without facing me and said, “Do you know who you look like with the beard and the long hair? Your old man. I’m sure he would be proud.”
She stepped inside the house and closed the door.
13
Kathy’s parting shot about my looking like my father hurt as much as she’d intended it to. My father had been a notorious poacher of deer, a wrecker of barrooms, and a seducer of other men’s women. Then, in the last weeks of his life, he’d become something worse. Even before the bitter end, he’d been the kind of violent and self-dealing man I’d pledged never to become.
It’s just a beard, I wanted to yell at the closed door. But what would be the point?
Even though we were approaching the longest days of the year, the low-hanging clouds made it seem later than it was. I stood beside the open door of my Bronco, staring at the house and trying to decide if I should knock. But the conversation was going to continue only when—and if—Kathy decided it should continue.
I climbed behind the wheel and restarted the engine. I reached my right arm across the passenger seat headrest so I could back out of the dooryard without hitting one of Kathy’s sugar maples. Then I headed back to the motel.
As I passed the dented mailbox at the end of the drive, I glanced into the rearview mirror and saw headlights in the pine grove at the top of the ridge. There was a road that entered the orchard from the other side, and Kathy had told me that she occasionally chased teenagers out of the parking lot after dark. Most of the local kids knew that there were better spots to toke up and get laid than in the backyard of a law-enforcement officer, but word must not have reached the dumbbells in that vehicle. Given the foul mood Kathy was in, I feared for the teens’ safety if she spotted those lights out her bedroom window.
An invisible mosquito had found its way inside the vehicle when I’d opened the door; I could hear it buzzing around my head. I waved my hand ineffectually in the air and waited for the mosquito to land and draw blood. It used to be that insect bites were just annoyances, the price you paid in Maine for the salt air and blooming lilacs, but that was before the creeping tropics unleashed their pestilences upon us: West Nile virus and eastern equine encephalitis. I knew wardens who’d never used bug dope in their lives—seasoned woodsmen who’d endured thousands of bites over their careers—who now slathered themselves in Deet. These days, you never knew what little thing might get you.
I’d been on the road for ten minutes when my cell phone vibrated in my pants pocket. Once again I had a momentary illusion that it was my mother calling from the afterlife. I reached into my jeans, trying not to swerve into a telephone pole, and looked at the lighted screen. It was Kathy’s number.
I pulled over to the side of the road and put the truck into park.
“I shouldn’t have called you a coward,” she said.
“It’s all right. I understand.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not still mad at you. But this has been a
“Would it help if I said I was sorry?”
“What would help is explaining why you screwed me over like that. I was pulling strings to get you transferred back to Division B. The next thing I know, you’re calling to tell me you’re quitting.”
“I didn’t quit. I resigned.”
“Call it what you want. The fact remains it was a cowardly thing to do.”
“It wasn’t cowardly,” I said. “It was just the opposite.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” She brought two fingers to her mouth and whistled sharply.
Pluto spun around and trotted back to her. She turned her broad back to me and climbed the stairs to the door and opened it without ever looking in my direction.
“That’s it, then?” I called after her.
She paused without facing me and said, “Do you know who you look like with the beard and the long hair? Your old man. I’m sure he would be proud.”
She stepped inside the house and closed the door.
13
Kathy’s parting shot about my looking like my father hurt as much as she’d intended it to. My father had been a notorious poacher of deer, a wrecker of barrooms, and a seducer of other men’s women. Then, in the last weeks of his life, he’d become something worse. Even before the bitter end, he’d been the kind of violent and self-dealing man I’d pledged never to become.
It’s just a beard, I wanted to yell at the closed door. But what would be the point?
Even though we were approaching the longest days of the year, the low-hanging clouds made it seem later than it was. I stood beside the open door of my Bronco, staring at the house and trying to decide if I should knock. But the conversation was going to continue only when—and if—Kathy decided it should continue.
I climbed behind the wheel and restarted the engine. I reached my right arm across the passenger seat headrest so I could back out of the dooryard without hitting one of Kathy’s sugar maples. Then I headed back to the motel.
As I passed the dented mailbox at the end of the drive, I glanced into the rearview mirror and saw headlights in the pine grove at the top of the ridge. There was a road that entered the orchard from the other side, and Kathy had told me that she occasionally chased teenagers out of the parking lot after dark. Most of the local kids knew that there were better spots to toke up and get laid than in the backyard of a law-enforcement officer, but word must not have reached the dumbbells in that vehicle. Given the foul mood Kathy was in, I feared for the teens’ safety if she spotted those lights out her bedroom window.
An invisible mosquito had found its way inside the vehicle when I’d opened the door; I could hear it buzzing around my head. I waved my hand ineffectually in the air and waited for the mosquito to land and draw blood. It used to be that insect bites were just annoyances, the price you paid in Maine for the salt air and blooming lilacs, but that was before the creeping tropics unleashed their pestilences upon us: West Nile virus and eastern equine encephalitis. I knew wardens who’d never used bug dope in their lives—seasoned woodsmen who’d endured thousands of bites over their careers—who now slathered themselves in Deet. These days, you never knew what little thing might get you.
I’d been on the road for ten minutes when my cell phone vibrated in my pants pocket. Once again I had a momentary illusion that it was my mother calling from the afterlife. I reached into my jeans, trying not to swerve into a telephone pole, and looked at the lighted screen. It was Kathy’s number.
I pulled over to the side of the road and put the truck into park.
“I shouldn’t have called you a coward,” she said.
“It’s all right. I understand.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not still mad at you. But this has been a
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