The Bone Orchard: A Novel (Mike Bowditch Mysteries) by Paul Doiron Page A
Authors: Paul Doiron
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pretty crappy week.”
“The crappiest.”
“You know I’ve been getting hate mail? Not just the usual anonymous stuff. I’ve gotten signed letters from guys who served in the Guard with Gammon, and from other vets, too. My e-mail address must have gotten posted to some military bulletin board. Do you know what that’s like, having people you admire hate your guts? My own brother Kurt is a Vietnam vet.”
“It must be hard.”
“Don’t patronize me, Mike. It was a rhetorical question. I just keep thinking…”
I waited. “What?”
“Dani Tate is a good kid. She’s going to make a decent warden when she grows up. I’ve never had a rookie who’s as gung ho about the job as she is.”
I felt that she was making an unflattering comparison. “What about me?”
“You thought about everything too much. It wasn’t enough for you just to enforce a fucking rule; you had to second-guess the people who wrote it. Tate does what she’s told. I think she’s memorized every regulation in the book.”
I had met Dani Tate on only a handful of occasions, and she hadn’t left me with a strong impression, other than that she seemed a lot younger than me despite there being only four years between us in age.
“How is she doing?” I asked.
“The union lawyer says we’re not supposed to communicate. They don’t want us getting our stories straight. She’s not the most talkative person in the world anyway. Being in a truck with her on patrol is like being with my dog, conversationally speaking.”
That had been my experience with Tate as well. When I’d tried to make small talk, I’d gotten a blank stare, which made me think she disapproved of me. At the time, I figured she’d heard about my misadventures and been brainwashed by the higher-ups into seeing me as unworthy to wear the red dress jacket of a Maine warden. Now I wondered if she’d just had nothing to say.
“The thing is, it should never have happened,” Kathy said.
“You can’t think that way.”
“No,” she said. “I mean it wouldn’t have gone down the way it did if you had been there. Not just because you knew Gammon. It just wouldn’t have happened at all. That’s why I’m so pissed at you right now. I needed you that night, and where the fuck were you?”
House-sitting for a multimillionaire, studying for a law school exam I’d never take, nursing a bottle of cheap whiskey—none of the answers I had to offer was worth a damn. I was trying to collect a few sentences that didn’t sound pathetic, when somewhere in the background, Pluto let loose with both lungs.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Probably a raccoon outside. Give me a minute, and I’ll call you back.”
I sat in the Bronco, listening to the engine belts whir while traffic passed in both directions along the country road. A few minutes passed without the phone ringing, and I glanced at my watch. I turned off the engine to save gas. The mosquito made its presence known again around my ears. I decided to give Kathy another two minutes.
The headlights from the passing cars would light up the inside of the cab for several seconds and then everything would fade again into darkness.
The cell phone rested in my open hand. I brought up her number from the favorites menu and tapped the button. The phone rang for half a minute and then went to voice mail.
“Kathy? It’s Mike again. Give me a ring.”
The mosquito finally landed on my neck. I didn’t feel it at first, then reflexively I brought my hand up fast, dropping the phone to the floor. When I looked at my palm, there was a black stain on my life line that I knew was blood.
I had seen lights in the orchard above Kathy’s house and had assumed it was just teenagers parking. What if it wasn’t?
“You know I’ve been getting hate mail?” Kathy had said. “I’ve gotten signed letters from guys who served in the Guard with Gammon, and from other veterans, too.”
I had to unbuckle my shoulder belt to
“The crappiest.”
“You know I’ve been getting hate mail? Not just the usual anonymous stuff. I’ve gotten signed letters from guys who served in the Guard with Gammon, and from other vets, too. My e-mail address must have gotten posted to some military bulletin board. Do you know what that’s like, having people you admire hate your guts? My own brother Kurt is a Vietnam vet.”
“It must be hard.”
“Don’t patronize me, Mike. It was a rhetorical question. I just keep thinking…”
I waited. “What?”
“Dani Tate is a good kid. She’s going to make a decent warden when she grows up. I’ve never had a rookie who’s as gung ho about the job as she is.”
I felt that she was making an unflattering comparison. “What about me?”
“You thought about everything too much. It wasn’t enough for you just to enforce a fucking rule; you had to second-guess the people who wrote it. Tate does what she’s told. I think she’s memorized every regulation in the book.”
I had met Dani Tate on only a handful of occasions, and she hadn’t left me with a strong impression, other than that she seemed a lot younger than me despite there being only four years between us in age.
“How is she doing?” I asked.
“The union lawyer says we’re not supposed to communicate. They don’t want us getting our stories straight. She’s not the most talkative person in the world anyway. Being in a truck with her on patrol is like being with my dog, conversationally speaking.”
That had been my experience with Tate as well. When I’d tried to make small talk, I’d gotten a blank stare, which made me think she disapproved of me. At the time, I figured she’d heard about my misadventures and been brainwashed by the higher-ups into seeing me as unworthy to wear the red dress jacket of a Maine warden. Now I wondered if she’d just had nothing to say.
“The thing is, it should never have happened,” Kathy said.
“You can’t think that way.”
“No,” she said. “I mean it wouldn’t have gone down the way it did if you had been there. Not just because you knew Gammon. It just wouldn’t have happened at all. That’s why I’m so pissed at you right now. I needed you that night, and where the fuck were you?”
House-sitting for a multimillionaire, studying for a law school exam I’d never take, nursing a bottle of cheap whiskey—none of the answers I had to offer was worth a damn. I was trying to collect a few sentences that didn’t sound pathetic, when somewhere in the background, Pluto let loose with both lungs.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Probably a raccoon outside. Give me a minute, and I’ll call you back.”
I sat in the Bronco, listening to the engine belts whir while traffic passed in both directions along the country road. A few minutes passed without the phone ringing, and I glanced at my watch. I turned off the engine to save gas. The mosquito made its presence known again around my ears. I decided to give Kathy another two minutes.
The headlights from the passing cars would light up the inside of the cab for several seconds and then everything would fade again into darkness.
The cell phone rested in my open hand. I brought up her number from the favorites menu and tapped the button. The phone rang for half a minute and then went to voice mail.
“Kathy? It’s Mike again. Give me a ring.”
The mosquito finally landed on my neck. I didn’t feel it at first, then reflexively I brought my hand up fast, dropping the phone to the floor. When I looked at my palm, there was a black stain on my life line that I knew was blood.
I had seen lights in the orchard above Kathy’s house and had assumed it was just teenagers parking. What if it wasn’t?
“You know I’ve been getting hate mail?” Kathy had said. “I’ve gotten signed letters from guys who served in the Guard with Gammon, and from other veterans, too.”
I had to unbuckle my shoulder belt to
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