“What did Russo say to you just now?” I asked. “Tell me what he said.”
“He said I’m going to be famous.” I found myself wanting to slap him again across his smug, triumphant face. Whatever else Logan Dyer was, he was no patsy. He had killed twelve men that I knew of, starting with Adam, and nearly including Mink and me. But I still couldn’t believe he had written that so-called manifesto, couldn’t believe he had planned and executed his vigilante campaign alone. I had to sit down on a snowbank to cool off.
Pulsifer was the last warden to arrive, and he pretended to give me holy hell for my ruined truck. “I am no insurance adjuster, but I would file this one under ‘totaled.’ Don’t be surprised if your rates go through the roof, Bowditch.”
Gary helped me transfer my gear from my truck to his—the stuff that hadn’t been shot full of holes, that is.
“What about these?” he said when we were almost done. He held out my father’s dog tags. In the artificial light of the emergency vehicles I read the stamped words again, as if for the first time:
BOWDITCH
JOHN, M.
004-00-8120
O NEG
NO PREF.
I sucked in my breath.
“What?” asked Pulsifer, narrowing his eyes and sticking out his chin in that foxlike way of his.
“Have you ever heard the expression ‘Blood doesn’t lie’?”
“Yeah. Why?”
I put the dog tags around my neck and tucked them under my T-shirt. I didn’t pause to think about what I was doing or why. The metal felt cold against my chest.
“Maybe I’ll tell you someday.”
*
I stayed with Lauren and Gary Pulsifer again that night. I’d asked Clegg to call me if he got any information out of Dyer, thinking I’d hear from him in the morning. But the detective called even before we’d finished the hot chocolates Lauren had made to warm us both up.
I took the phone into the Pulsifer’s guest room, which was as drafty as ever.
“He confessed to everything,” Clegg said. “As soon as I started back to Farmington, he started talking. He said, ‘Yeah, I killed them all. Langstrom, too. I’m guilty, and that’s all I’m going to say. If you want to know why I did it, read my letter.’”
“His letter?” I said.
“That word struck me as odd, too. I said, ‘Are you referring to your manifesto?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, my manifesto. That letter I wrote. All my reasons for doing it are in there. Read it and you’ll understand why. I’m guilty, and that’s all I’m going to say.’”
“So what were the reasons he supposedly gave in his ‘letter’?”
Clegg answered as if he might have had the document in front of him. “It starts with him having a revelation that he has only a short time to live, and that he decided the best way for him to spend his final days was in dramatic action, taking extreme measures to protect the children of Maine, since the criminal justice system has failed so mightily. He claims this country was founded on vigilantism and the only way ‘to take it back’ is by adopting the methods of our Founding Fathers. It’s quite a lengthy document.”
“That sounds a lot more like Johnny Partridge than it does Logan Dyer. Don’t you think?”
“Speaking for myself, I would say yes. Speaking for the state of Maine, I am not sure it matters.”
“How can it not matter?”
“Because you caught him in the act of trying to kill Nathan Minkowski and yourself. Because every bit of physical evidence we have found so far connects him to the massacre of those men. Because he had means, motive, and opportunity. And because his ‘letter’ tells us exactly why he chose to leave Langstrom’s truck near the SERE school.”
“What reason did he give?
“So that its discovery would gain international attention for his crusade. The navy base is already the preoccupation of conspiracy theorists. He sees himself as the inspirational leader of a vigilante insurrection that will sweep the nation.”
“There’s more to this, Clegg. There has to be.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if Dyer was put up to this? What if he was goaded along by someone else? He’s already unstable, and he thinks he’s dying of a brain tumor, and so he’s going to be easy to manipulate. Someone tells him he’ll be a world-famous hero if he wipes out all those sex offenders.”
“Who do you think is manipulating him?”
“Russo.”
Clegg’s tone turned sour. “What reason would Russo have had to mastermind something like this?”
“He wouldn’t, which is why he would make such a good middleman. People think those Night Watchmen are just a bunch of tough-talking old drunks. I did, too. But they hated what Foss was doing—bringing ‘human garbage’ to their mountain resort—and his business was in direct competition with Cabot Lumber. When I met Russo at the Sluiceway, he didn’t act like the head of security at Widowmaker. He acted like he worked for Cabot.”