“Christ! I should have made the connection,” he said. “Amber came to see me first, asked if I could go looking for her kid. She flirted like hell, trying to get me to say yes. But I’m not going to risk what I’ve got for a piece of ass, not anymore. She was pissed when I turned her down. I can’t believe I didn’t make the connection.”
Pulsifer was one of the smartest, savviest wardens I knew. The possibility that this hadn’t occurred to him defied belief. “What can you tell me about Adam?”
“He fucked the wrong girl, first of all. I’m pretty sure it was consensual, but he should have realized that there’s a different standard for eighteen-year-olds. Not that I feel sorry for him. Adam Langstrom was no angel. He beat up the Davidson girl’s brother pretty bad when he tried to put an end to it. Did Amber tell you that part?”
“No.”
“I think that’s what set their father off, hearing his son had been busted up in a fight and then finding out why.”
“Who’s his PO?” I asked, meaning his probation officer.
“Shaylene Hawken in Farmington. Talk about a hacksaw! That woman could stare down a grizzly. I feel sorry for the guy in that respect.”
“Amber said he was living at some sort of halfway house, but it shows up on his registry page as a logging outfit.”
“It’s a company owned by a guy named Don Foss,” Pulsifer said. “He’s got some sort of arrangement with the state where he takes in sex offenders who can’t find a place to live. Gives them beds and jobs working on his crew. I can’t decide whether he’s a secular saint or a modern-day plantation boss.”
It sounded like an unconventional operation, to say the least.
“Have you seen Adam since he got out?”
He took another sip of whatever he was drinking. “A couple times at the tagging station in Bigelow last month. I think he was hanging around just to torture himself. As a felon, he can’t own a gun, and he can’t hunt ever again. I’ll tell you, before he went to prison, that kid was a wicked deer killer. Bagged two-hundred-pound bucks three years in a row, and we don’t have as many of those up here as we used to.”
As a convicted sex offender, Adam had to observe a crushingly long list of prohibitions: no owning guns, no drinking alcohol, no using a computer, no searching the Internet, no looking at pornography, no living where he wanted without approval, no unsanctioned travel out of state. While he was on probation, the slightest slipup—even just a speeding ticket—might be enough to send him back to jail. I tried to imagine how I would feel living with those restrictions, and I kept ending up at the same place.
“Do you think he might have killed himself?” I asked.
“You know, it won’t surprise me if they find him hiding out with some skank and a gallon of Allen’s coffee brandy in a motel in Machias, and it won’t surprise me if they find him hanging from a redbud tree.”
I had never heard of a redbud tree, but Pulsifer was full of obscure references to books and movies.
“I’ve got to go,” I said. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
The truth was, I had about a thousand more questions about Adam Langstrom, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answers.
“What are you up to today?” Pulsifer asked.
“A woman in Pondicherry swears she saw a wolf chase a deer through her backyard.”
“Good luck with that!” The mischievous lilt returned to his voice. “So you’re not going to tell me why Amber came knocking on your door? You said you didn’t know her, so why did she pick you to be her knight in shining armor? You’ve got me intrigued.”
“Good-bye, Pulsifer.”
“I’ve missed seeing you at Loudermill hearings. You were always my favorite shit magnet, Bowditch.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“It’s a little funny,” he said. “Seriously, I’ve been hearing good things about you lately. It made me wonder if there might be two Mike Bowditches. If you are ever up this way, give me a call and we’ll grab a coffee.”
After I’d hung up, I sat in my cold truck, watching frost form on my windshield. On the one hand, Pulsifer had confirmed my suspicion that Amber shouldn’t be trusted. On the other hand, everything he’d told me about Adam’s character—his cockiness, his fighting temper, his marksmanship with a deer rifle—made me think the missing man really might be my father’s second son.
6
The driveway of the next house hadn’t been plowed, and there were no lights in the windows or smoke coming from the chimney. I gave it a pass. The same with the one after. The homes along Pondicherry Pond seemed to be mostly seasonal cottages.
Toward the end of the camp road, I came upon an old guy in a green bathrobe, sweatpants, and pack boots. He was pushing a snowblower that was throwing an arc of glistening powder high into the air. When he spotted my warden truck at the end of his drive, he turned off the gas and leaned his weight against the handles in lieu of a walker. He studied me as I came around the front of the vehicle.
“Morning!” I said.
“Morning, Warden,” he said in an accent that eschewed all r’s.