“I won’t be crying in my pillow tonight,” White said. “I’ll admit that much.”
Jeff White reminded me of Tommy Volk and some of the other wardens I knew who believed in a code of rough justice they’d picked up from watching Westerns. I had been a history major, and I had read once that the Old West depicted on-screen bore no resemblance to the reality of that era, when men voluntarily surrendered their six-shooters before going into saloons and when bank heists were rare enough to count on two hands. Men like White and Volk preferred the myths, since they validated their own violent preconceptions.
“They didn’t deserve to be gunned down in their sleep, Jeff,” I said.
“Fuck you, Bowditch,” he said by way of a counterargument.
To clear my head, I decided to check on Shadow.
The wolf whined when he caught my scent in the air. I shined my flashlight inside the truck and saw a pool of urine on my passenger seat. I knew I should have let him out sooner.
“Is that him? Is that your wolf dog?” Pulsifer appeared at my shoulder as if from a puff of smoke.
“He’s not mine.”
“Then why are you driving around with him?”
“Because I am trying to find him a home,” I said. “I was in New Hampshire visiting a refuge for wolf hybrids. The people there would have taken him, and they seemed nice enough. I just didn’t like the vibe of the place.”
“You’re too softhearted for this job,” said Pulsifer.
“I’m getting kind of sick of hearing that.”
“I hate to tell you, but Jeff is right,” he said. “Lots of people are going to cheer when they hear a bunch of sexual predators got put down. Whoever did this will end up being a folk hero.”
What if it really had been Adam? Might he have seen executing the other sex offenders as some sort of act of redemption? Hadn’t he told his mother that Pariahville deserved to be burned to the ground?
Pulsifer seemed intrigued by Shadow. “What do you think would happen if you let him out?”
“I’m afraid he’d run off.”
“Or eat some little girl in a red cape,” he said.
“Doesn’t the wolf eat the grandmother?”
We heard a sharp whistle. I turned and saw Sergeant Gordon waving us back up the hill. I would have to mop up the piss later.
“Listen to this,” Gordon said. “Someone shot up a house over in Eustis this afternoon. An old guy was inside watching television. Suddenly, glass started exploding everywhere and he hit the deck. Bullets were tearing up the walls, but he managed to crawl into the bathroom and hide inside the tub. The only thing that saved him was that his son and a bunch of his drinking buddies came riding up on their snowmobiles. By the time they could get the old guy to explain what had happened, the shooter was gone.”
“Who is the guy?” Pulsifer asked. “What’s his name?”
“Ducharme.”
White and Pulsifer grunted simultaneously.
“Let me guess,” I said. “He’s listed on the public registry.”
“Ducharme fondled his seven-year-old niece,” said Pulsifer. “He inserted various objects into her, if I remember correctly. When he got out of prison a few years back, Joe at the Bigelow General Store got a bunch of business owners together, and they banned him from entering their establishments. The only reason Ducharme probably didn’t end up here with Foss is that his born-again son took him in.”
“It looks like our vigilante is just getting started,” Pulsifer said.
“He probably figured what the hell,” said White. “‘I already mowed down ten of them. Why stop now?’”
“So here’s what’s happening,” said Gordon. “We’re all getting our own personal predator to protect.”
“You are shitting me,” said Jeff White.
The sergeant rubbed his bare hands together and blew on them. “If this guy is going from house to house, using the registry to pick his targets, then we have a general idea where he might be headed next.”
“There are dozens of names on that list, just in this area,” I said.
“Shouldn’t we be out on our sleds?” asked White. “If this guy is riding a snowmobile, then we should be out looking for him on the trails, not parked in front of some pedophile’s driveway.”
“Major Carter says it’s all hands on deck tonight, until he can get more of his own men up here. But I expect tomorrow you’re going to get your wish. They’ll have planes in the air first thing in the morning and we’ll be setting up checkpoints all over Franklin and Somerset counties.”
“Crazy night,” said Pulsifer. “The safest people in these mountains are going to be convicted sex offenders.”
Gordon got on the phone again to confer with the state police. Then he huddled with Pulsifer and White to give them their assignments. Pulsifer was given a pedophile nearby in Coplin Plantation. White got a statutory rapist in Rangeley. Neither warden seemed delighted with his chosen blind date.
“What about me?” I asked the sergeant.
“You haven’t even been cleared for duty, Bowditch. Isn’t that what I heard?”