The Bone Orchard: A Novel

I became conscious of my own uninvited presence on the estate. If James glanced out the window and spotted the broken-down Cutlass I was driving, I fully expected him to summon the entire Camden police force, along with the state police SWAT team. My best course of action was to turn around as discreetly as possible. With luck, the Gammons were having a late breakfast in the back of the house and would never know I had been there.

My hopes were dashed before I’d even managed to throw the gearshift into reverse. The front door opened and James Gammon stepped onto the porch. He wasn’t toting a shotgun, but he was wearing an expensive-looking outfit straight out of the Orvis hunting catalog: whipcord trousers, a plaid tattersall shirt, and a matching a quilted vest. The clothes gave him the appearance of the squire of a manor in the Scottish Lowlands.

I put the Cutlass into park while he came striding across the driveway. His forehead was furrowed, his chest was thrust forward, and both hands were clenched into fists. The automatic window didn’t work when I pushed the button, so I had to open the door and poke my head up.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” His voice was a rasp, as if he’d recently shouted himself hoarse.

“Mr. Gammon?” I said, giving him the warmest smile I could manage. “It’s Mike Bowditch.”

“Who?”

“Jimmy’s friend. You had me over to hunt pheasants a few years ago, before he went to Afghanistan.”

“The game warden?”

“Not anymore,” I said.

“What do you want?” His dismissive tone suggested that my former occupation had tainted me and that I was not to be trusted.

“I wanted to extend my condolences.” The lie was the best I could do.

He pushed a hand through his thick auburn hair. “Are you insane?”

“Excuse me?”

“You didn’t anticipate that this would be awkward? One of your former colleagues just murdered our son. I’m trying to understand your thought process. You clearly lack a sense of propriety.”

I’d been told that before. “I didn’t mean to cause offense. I considered Jimmy to be a friend.”

“Well, fine, then,” he said. “Now you can take your junk car and clear off my property.”

“James?” Lyla Gammon had appeared on the porch. She was dressed in her habitual riding clothes. “Who is that you’re speaking with?”

“No one. A friend of Jimmy’s.”

“Please invite the young man inside.”

He turned his head. “Lyla?”

“Please, James.”

Like his son, the elder Gammon was a four-season runner, and he had the energy and stride of a man who regularly covered long distances. He approached his wife and whispered something to her, a harsh look on his face. She whispered something back and darted her eyes in my direction, causing her husband to give me the once-over again. Their discussion was heated and went back and forth for the better part of a minute.

“Come inside,” he said, his voice overloud for the distance.

I closed the door of the Cutlass and followed the Gammons into their haunted house.

* * *

Our footsteps echoed off the hard granite tiles.

The couple led me into a spacious room with walls of reclaimed barn wood, a black chandelier, and linen curtains that billowed across the floor every time a gust of wind found its way through the patio doors. With a thrust of his hand, James indicated I should seat myself in a leather club chair. Before me was a rough-hewn table on which were arranged an antique set of nine pins and a bowling ball I imagined Rip van Winkle might have used. Except for a vase of yellow forsythia, there wasn’t a single decorative touch I would have identified as feminine. I half-expected a uniformed servant to appear from the shadows to offer me a glass of scotch and my choice of Cuban cigars.

Lyla asked if I wanted tea.

“Only if you’re having some,” I said.

Her face was pale and drawn. She had unsuccessfully applied extra makeup to brighten her complexion and hide the bags beneath her eyes. “Do you have a preference?”

“Bring in a pot of Earl Grey,” James said before I could answer.

After his wife had disappeared into the kitchen, James Gammon placed his hands on his legs, gripping his kneecaps the way a king grips the arms of his throne. His eyes were almost the same auburn color as his recently trimmed hair. I could smell his sandalwood aftershave from across the room.

Compared to him, I must have looked like a down-on-his-luck hitchhiker. My hair was still wet along my neck. My commando sweater was fraying, there were oil spots on my tin-cloth pants, and my Bean boots were still dirty, despite my efforts to scrape away the layers of accumulated mud on the mat.

“I want you to know that I’m only humoring her,” he said. “She’s suffered a horrible shock, and it is my duty as her husband to offer her whatever support she needs.”

“I understand.”

One side of his mouth curled, suggesting he disbelieved me. “So I take it you were let go from the service since we last met.”

“No, sir. I left of my own free will.”

“You don’t seem the better for the decision. What happened to your face?”

Reflexively, I touched the small cuts along my cheekbone. “I was shot by the same person who attacked Sergeant Frost.”

He pressed his spine against the leather sofa and tilted his neck back as if to see me from a better vantage. “You were at her house that night?”

“Yes, sir. I returned fire on the assailant and then performed first aid on Sergeant Frost until the ambulance arrived.”

“You returned fire? You said you’d left the Warden Service.”

“I have a permit to carry a concealed weapon.”

His eyes narrowed. “I hope you’re not wearing a firearm in my house.”

The handle of the revolver jutted against my tailbone when I shifted my position in the chair. “No, sir.”

He rubbed away some moisture that had formed under his nose and around his thin lips. “Did you get a glimpse of the man who shot Sergeant Frost?”

“I’m working with state police to identify him.”

I had no idea why I was lying to the grieving man. I tried to recall that I had liked James Gammon once, but now I could see the way his nostrils flared every time I mentioned Kathy’s name. His hatred for my injured friend brought out an irrational meanness in me.

He lifted his chin toward the mantel above the fireplace. A framed portrait of Jimmy in his pixelated army combat uniform occupied a place of prominence. It was a different picture from the one in the newspaper. His grin had become a hard white grimace, and his dark eyes seemed empty of all emotion. I found it odd that his parents had chosen to remember their bighearted son this way.

“Did Sergeant Frost tell you about the night she and the other woman killed Jimmy?” Gammon asked.

“No, sir,” I said, trying not to rise to the bait. “She’s not permitted to talk about a use-of-force incident while an investigation is under way. She also knows that disclosing information would put me in line to give a deposition when you bring a civil suit against her.”

“I could still depose you.” He smiled without showing his teeth. “The assumption that I’m bringing a civil suit presupposes that she and the other one won’t be found criminally liable. That’s a fair assumption, unfortunately.”

I remained silent.

He returned his hands to his knees. “Do you want to hear the statistics? They’re really quite fascinating. Since 1990, Maine police have fired on one hundred and one people, many of them with mental-health, drug, or alcohol problems. And in every case, the attorney general found the use of force to be justified. Every case! What do you make of those numbers?”

My mouth had gone dry. “That Maine law-enforcement officers are well trained to deal with those situations.”

“Were you well trained in crisis intervention when you were a game warden?”

My answer didn’t matter, because Gammon kept on talking. “The Maine State Police deals with more of these incidents than any other agency. Do you know how many of their two hundred patrol officers they have sent to crisis-intervention training? Fourteen.”

“I’m sure the situation is being remedied,” I said with no great confidence.

“The irony is that Jimmy was a police officer himself. He was betrayed by the system he believed in. I’ve devoted my life to the law, and I’ve always been on the side of the good guys. Tell me who the good guys are here, because I’d very much like to know.”

I hadn’t noticed Lyla Gammon enter the dining room, but then her husband shifted his gaze from my face. You never would have noticed that she was shaking unless you heard the rattling of the teacups on the tray she was carrying. When she and I made eye contact, she forced her lips into a tight smile and continued into the living room. She set the tea tray down on the table and poured me a cup from the copper kettle.

“I didn’t ask what you liked with your tea, so I brought everything,” she said in a soft southern accent I’d forgotten that she had.

“Thank you.”

I accepted the cup and splashed some cream into it, then added two spoonfuls of sugar. I disliked tea, especially Earl Grey, but I smiled and took a sip. It tasted like a Turkish spice bazaar.