He had written about me, as well, following my father’s death. Or so my friends had told me. I had managed to avoid reading the column he had published questioning my worthiness to carry a badge and a gun.
“Have a seat, young man,” said Partridge boisterously. “Join us for a drink.”
Torgerson nodded respectfully.
“He says he’s drinking coffee,” said Cabot, pushed his sliding spectacles back up his nose again.
“You must have a beer at least!” said Partridge.
The thought of sharing a table with this vile man soured my stomach.
“I apologize, but I didn’t realize how late it is,” I said. “I need to get going.”
All three of them stopped moving at once and went completely quiet long enough for an old-time photographer to have made a daguerreotype of them.
“We noticed you talking to Amber Langstrom earlier,” Partridge said, showing off his British dental work. “How do you know her?”
“I don’t.”
“Didn’t she hug you?” the Brit asked. “I’m sure she did.”
“She mistook me for someone else,” I said. “She thought I looked like someone she knew.”
Cabot raised one of his bristling eyebrows. “Really? We were all sitting here envying you.”
I forced a smile. “I really made myself the center of attention, it seems.”
“You’ve got to excuse us for being nosy Parkers,” Cabot said. “We’re all retired—in Johnny’s case, partially retired. We have too much time on our hands, which makes us dangerous, of course. And we pay particular attention to Amber for obvious reasons.” If he had shaped the outlines of her breasts in the air, he couldn’t have been any more lewd.
“It’s a shame about the poor woman’s son,” said Partridge to me.
I didn’t have Officer Russo’s gift for maintaining a deadpan expression. “Her son?”
“Sex offender,” said Cabot. “Convicted child rapist. The kid was a promising skier, too. And now he’s run off.”
“He’s human garbage,” said Torgerson. I’d been wondering if he possessed vocal cords.
“That seems like too strong a word,” said Cabot.
Partridge followed a swallow of scotch with a sip of beer. “What would you prefer?”
“I’d say that young Adam has forsaken his personal savior.”
“Foss?” growled Torgerson. He really did sound as if he’d spent a lifetime breathing in napalm fumes and desert sand.
Partridge laughed uproariously. “That’s a new name for Don! Personal savior!”
Torgerson’s cell phone buzzed in his shirt pocket. He rose quickly to his feet and turned from the table, making sure I, at least, couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“Now tell us about you,” said Cabot.
“You already know that I am a game warden.” The conversation seemed to be careening in the wrong direction. “The bartender said you gentlemen are part of a club,” I said, trying to change the focus.
Cabot fingered the beads of moisture on his beer glass absently. “We enjoy a pint together.”
“She said you call yourselves the Night Watchmen,” I said.
“In jest,” said Partridge.
“I don’t get the joke.”
“We all own homes on the mountain,” said John Cabot by way of explanation. “The irony in my case is that I don’t even ski. But my wife and her children can’t get enough of it. We have an interest in protecting our property values. That’s all there really is to it.”
“Protecting your property values from what?” I asked.
“Fugitive sex offenders!” said Partridge.
Cabot raised his pint glass. “Touché.”
Torgerson leaned over the table. “I have to go.”
He didn’t wait for a reply from them. Nor did he leave any money for the bill. Maybe the Night Watchmen ran a monthly tab.
“Are you sure you won’t sit down?” said Partridge. “I wrote about your father, you know. Horrible thing, and so embarrassing for you, as a warden. I am curious to hear what your life has been like over the past years.”
For another column? “Thanks for the invitation, but I need to get on the road. Nice meeting you gentlemen.”
Cabot and Partridge silently raised their glasses to me and didn’t speak a word to each other while I made my way to the door.
Well, that was a first, I thought. Usually when you are being threatened, you have some clue as to why.
14
The sky was as white as the slopes now. It was a cold, dry, nearly weightless snow, beyond the ability of the snowcats to shape. Skiers zoomed along the trail beside the lodge—momentary flashes of color—and then were swallowed up again by the silent storm.
The powder came off my truck with the faintest push of my gloved hand. I didn’t bother getting out the scraper. I started the engine and watched my breath, my life, unfurl into the cold before my eyes.