Soon the plow turned west toward Eustis, and I turned east into Bigelow. I followed Pulsifer’s directions south of town. Amber lived in an unnamed apartment complex built in the backwoods style you see in Maine. It was as if the builder had visited some suburban cul-de-sac in Massachusetts or Ohio and come back to the North Woods and tried to reproduce the architecture in the least appropriate setting imaginable. There seemed to be a dozen or so units, scattered over three identical buildings. I spotted Amber’s Grand Cherokee—covered by only the thinnest scrim of snow, which told me she hadn’t been home long—and pulled in behind it.
Light leaked around the edges of the curtains in the living room. I heard sorrowful music playing on a stereo inside. Amber hadn’t bothered to shovel the walk leading to the front door when she’d gotten home. I kicked my way through the snow.
I didn’t hear the bell chime over the music, but after a minute or so, the door opened a crack, and I got a faceful of marijuana smoke. Amber stared up at me with eyes like cherry tomatoes. She was still wearing her waitress outfit, but her hair looked as if she’d been caught in a sudden tempest.
“Can I come in?” I asked.
“Are you gonna bust me for the pot?”
“What pot?” I deadpanned.
But her mind had been dulled by whatever drugs she had taken.
“I’m not going to bust you,” I said. “But you need to put it out.”
She stood aside. I stomped as much snow as I could off my boot treads and stepped through the door. The apartment was neat enough. All the furniture matched, but it had seen better days. She seemed to have a taste for silk flowers, posters of exotic locales, and framed photographs of herself with male skiers, whom I guessed to be visiting Olympians. The only sign of neglect was the profusion of ash burns in the wall-to-wall carpet. No amount of cleaning would get those out.
I remained standing on the doormat while she flung herself down on a futon sofa. “Have a seat.”
“Do you want me to take my boots off?”
She laughed through her nose.
“I’ve just come from where your truck was found,” I said. “Why didn’t you call me when you heard what happened?”
“I wasn’t thinking straight.” The marijuana had slowed her usually rapid-fire way of speaking down to half speed. “Can you fucking blame me?”
On the stereo, Reba McEntire was singing about a woman who got AIDS from a one-night stand.
“Can you turn down the music?” I asked.
She tossed the remote control at me. I pushed the off button.
“You don’t have to keep standing there,” she said. “I really don’t give a shit about the rug.”
Meltwater had formed around my boots. I tried to shake some of it off before I crossed the carpet to an armchair.
“I didn’t know where you’d gone,” I said. “All the bartender told me was that you’d gotten a phone call and run off.”
She let her head loll in my direction. “Steve—he’s a cop I know—he called me when he found Adam’s truck. It’s funny, you know? I rushed all the way out there, but when I got there, all I could do was wait. Wait to give a statement. ‘Yeah, Officer, that’s my truck.’ Wait for the dogs to search the area. Wait for the CSI people to show up. Now I get to wait to hear if the blood they found matches my son’s.”
I had no idea if the police had Adam’s DNA on file; it isn’t always the case with prisoners, despite what many people think. The investigators would only be able to cross-reference the blood type in Adam’s medical records. A true DNA test would likely take weeks, unless Clegg pushed to expedite. I had no idea where Adam Langstrom ranked on his to-do list.
“You weren’t honest with me, Amber,” I said. “You never told me you’d bought Adam a truck. Don’t you think that was information I could have used to look for him?”
“I guess.” She picked at a full ashtray on the table beside her until she found a roach with something left in it. She pinched the stub to her mouth and flicked the lighter.
“No more pot,” I said.
“You’re such a fucking Boy Scout, aren’t you? Colby graduate. Game warden. The perfect son.”
Hardly, I thought.
She sighed and lit a cigarette instead. “Or maybe you’re just a tight-assed prick.”
“Tell me about the truck.”
“I knew he’d need a vehicle when he got out,” she said, “so I paid cash for it over in Farmington. I drained my checking account to buy it. After he disappeared, I didn’t want the cops to know he was driving it. I didn’t want them to put out an APB—or wherever you call it—on the license plate. I was hoping you would find him or he would turn himself in and not have to go back to prison.”
“I thought you’d want to hear what Josh Davidson told me,” I said.
“What’s the point?” she said. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It might matter.” I massaged my kneecaps. “Josh told me he loaned Adam some money the night he disappeared.”
She leaned her head back and exhaled a cloud at the ceiling tiles. “So?”
“What did he need the money for?”
“I don’t know.”