The plow driver-I assumed it was Ben Sprague-was a short but solid guy. He had a hooked, beaklike nose and small, rapidly blinking eyes set close together. He wore a blue snowmobile suit covered with iron-on patches from various clubs, and a New England Patriots cap with a fuzzy pom-pom on top.
“So what’s going on?” Rivard asked.
“We’ve got a lost man out here,” I said. “It’s Randall Cates.”
“That’s what Kendrick told me. I didn’t believe it until I saw Prester Sewall lying in that bed.”
“I thought his name was John.”
“Everyone calls him Prester.”
“I think Cates and Sewall were out here on a drug deal.”
“Is that a hunch, or do you have more specific reasons for saying that?”
I showed them the gym bag full of money, and the gun. I told them about the map inside the car with our location marked in pencil. My lips were so numb, I sounded like I had a speech impediment. “I think Cates is lost out here somewhere, wandering around in the dark or collapsed in a snowbank.”
“I’m not sure how we’re going to find him in this storm,” Rivard said.
“I’d like to try running a track.” Devoe squatted down beside his dog and adjusted the little orange vest she was wearing. “Tomahawk’s pretty good in the snow. We did some avalanche training last winter up at Baxter State Park.”
“Christ, it’s cold out here.” Rivard rubbed his gloved hands together and stamped his feet, first one and then the other. The Grand Am had almost disappeared again inside the white mound of snow.
“How’s Sewall doing?” I asked.
“The paramedics were putting him in the ambulance when Devoe and I showed up,” said Rivard. “He looked pretty bad to me, but maybe he’ll pull through. They won’t be able to get him to Bangor in the storm, so they’re taking him to Machias to stabilize his condition.”
“Where’s Kendrick?” I asked.
“I left him at the house,” said Rivard. “I told him to direct assistance to our location, and I thought someone should stay with Mrs. Sprague.”
Ben Sprague stared hard at me with a trembling lip and a knitted brow, as if I’d just insulted his mother. “My wife’s had a terrible shock!”
What was up with this guy? Maybe he was just mad that his pleasant evening at home with the missus had been ruined by this freak occurrence. I couldn’t blame him-Doris Sprague had seemed genuinely upset.
“What about Larrabee?” I asked.
“Doc went to the hospital with the EMTs.”
“So who else is coming?”
“I wanted to scope things out before calling in the cavalry,” said Rivard. “I woke up Bill Day over in Aurora, but he’s going to be all night getting here. The Passamaquoddies are sending a dog handler from Princeton, along with one of their tribal wardens.” He stomped his feet again in that same methodical manner he’d used before, first the right, then the left. “We might as well let Tomahawk give it a try, but who knows if that dirtbag Cates is even out here.”
I understood Rivard’s skepticism. Pitch-dark, in the middle of a snowstorm, at a temperature where even the nose of the best-trained SAR dog in the world might as well have been wrapped in a burlap-these were hardly optimal conditions for a search. And yet I couldn’t help but feel that my sergeant’s lack of confidence was also personal. We hadn’t worked together long enough for him to appreciate my abilities, so all he had to go on was my reputation in the service: impulsive, hotheaded, too impressed with my own intelligence, book-smart rather than woods-smart, a discipline problem, not a team player. In other words, a very, very bad bet.
Devoe found a dime-store bandanna in the Grand Am and let his dog have a good whiff of it. Then he let her begin pulling him around on a leash through the snow. Tomahawk made a circle around the car and began working her way outward in a fan-shaped pattern.
Over the past two years, while on stakeouts and patrols, Kathy Frost had given me endless tutorials on the training and use of canines in search and rescue and human-remains recovery. I knew that Tomahawk was searching for a “pool” of human scent wafting through the snowpack. If she found one, she would begin to dig. And maybe, just maybe, she would discover the frozen-solid corpse of Randall Cates. I also knew that Rivard was right when he said the chances of her finding him in these conditions were slim to none.
Rivard wanted to do his own search of the Grand Am.
Ben Sprague said he was returning to his truck to warm up and wait. I decided to be neighborly and join Sprague.
I opened the passenger door and peered up at him. “Do you mind if I get out of the cold for a few minutes?”
“Be my guest.”
I slammed the door behind me and instantly felt embraced in warmth. My night in the blizzard had frozen my bones to the marrow. “The snow seems to be letting up.”
“Does it?”
He fiddled with the radio and brought up a fuzzy station playing rock and roll from across the New Brunswick border. So much for conversation.
I removed my gloves and warmed my hands over the air vents. At first my fingers were numb; then they began to throb. I rubbed the palms against my cheeks and nose. I made funny faces to loosen the tight skin.
“Hotel California” was playing on the radio. Sprague tapped a beat to the music with his hands on the steering wheel, but more out of impatience than from a sense of rhythm.
“How long have you and Doris lived out here?” I asked.
“What do you mean-in the sticks?”
“In Township Nineteen.”
“Too long.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but he didn’t seem inclined to clarify the statement. “You two saved that man’s life.”
He made a snorting sound. “I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“Had you ever seen him before?”
His face had a lime-green cast from the dashboard lights. “Which one?”
“Either one.”
“No.”
“Do you know what they were doing out here?”
“Selling drugs. You saw that bag of money.”
“But why were they out here in the Heath, of all places?” I asked.
“I’m not a drug dealer. I don’t know why they do anything.”
Devoe and Tomahawk moved past our vehicles, heading down the logging road. We turned our heads to follow them. I couldn’t tell if the dog had found a scent trail or was just ecstatic to be doing what she’d been bred and trained to do.
“A dog can’t find someone in weather like this,” Sprague said confidently. “You won’t find his body until springtime.”
“They find people buried by avalanches.”
“Not in weather like this.”
We heard a garbled shout outside. I saw Rivard stick his head up from the car. He began walking quickly through the snow toward Devoe’s position. I grabbed the door handle and hopped out.
At the edge of Rivard’s dancing flashlight beam, Cody Devoe crouched in front of a roadside tree. He was down on his knees, holding Tomahawk around the neck. The German shepherd was straining toward a snowdrift piled against a leafless hardwood.
“What have you got?” Rivard asked.
“Something dead.”
Rivard knelt over the drift and began sweeping snow away with his gloved hands. Soon we saw matted brown hair, a human head nodding forward, as if a man had fallen asleep against the ash trunk. Rivard brushed the impacted snow off the forehead and shoulders. He gripped the head by the forelock and tilted the tattooed face up at us. The young man’s mouth was open and a blue tongue was thrust between the teeth. The eyes were glassy, sightless.
Ben Sprague came huffing and puffing along behind us. “Is he dead?” the plow driver asked.