The trooper emerged from his vehicle. Looking in my side mirror, I watched him approach closely along the side of my Jeep. He rested his right hand on his holster.
I rolled down my window.
“Can you step out of the car, please?” said Curt Hutchins.
32
I’d known it was Hutchins all along. He regularly patrolled this peninsula. The question was, had someone called him from the bar? A conviction for operating under the influence-or even its lesser cousin, driving to endanger-would mean the end of my law-enforcement career.
His voice was a monotone. “I need you to step out of the car.”
I climbed awkwardly out of the Jeep. “Jesus, Curt, is this necessary?”
“I need to see your license, registration, and proof of insurance.”
Never once making eye contact with me, he examined the papers I gave him as if he expected them to be riddled with errors. I’d forgotten how large a man he was. “How much have you been drinking, Warden?”
“Just a beer.”
The trooper was exuding anger from every pore. “What are you taking for the broken hand?”
“Ibuprofen.” At that moment, I remembered the loaded Walther in my pocket and my heart skipped a few beats. As a game warden, I had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, but I was obliged to disclose that I was carrying. More important, I was prohibited from packing a gun while consuming alcohol or certain prescription medications.
I decided to keep mum.
In the process of handing the papers back to me, Hutchins deliberately dropped them in the mud. It’s a trick we all use. Lack of coordination is another marker of intoxication. To secure a conviction, you needed probable cause to do a Breathalyzer or blood test. I bent down awkwardly and gathered them.
“So what do you want to do first, the nystagmus test?” I asked, figuring my only way out of this mess was to be bolder than he expected.
He stared out from beneath the crisp brim of his trooper’s hat. He appeared drawn and tired. There was a patch of stubble on his throat that he’d missed when shaving. He didn’t respond.
“Or do you want me to recite the alphabet,” I continued. “Which way-forward or backward?”
A white pickup sped past, the driver slowing down to see what we were doing. I glanced at Hutchins’s cruiser and figured he had the video camera on his dashboard rolling. To a prosecutor, a tape showing a drunk trying, and failing, to walk a straight line was like money in the bank.
“I’d cut the wiseass shit if I were you,” he said in a flat tone.
“I know what’s going down here. You’re hounding me because you’re pissed about that night at the Westergaard house.”
“You think so, huh?”
“Your career is in the shitter because of Ashley Kim, and you’re guessing this is your chance to flush me down with you.”
“You really don’t know when to shut up, do you?”
“People tell me that.”
He peered into the front and back of my Jeep, looking for God only knew what. I wondered if he would search the vehicle; he would be within his rights to do so. He circled the Jeep, and then without a word, he returned to his cruiser, leaving me standing there along the side of the road to wait and worry.
My mind was racing. So what would happen after he busted me? He’d take me to the Knox County Jail for a blood test. Then would come the mug shots and fingerprinting. I’d have to call Sarah to bail me out. The union might be able to protect me until a guilty verdict came in-if it came in-but how long would that take? In the meantime, Colonel Harkavy would find some excuse to fire me. It wasn’t like I was the beloved mascot of the Maine Warden Service.
I was fucked, in other words. Maybe Sarah was right about self-destructiveness being hardwired into the Bowditch genes. And now, for all I knew, she might be bringing another generation of us boneheads into the world.
Hutchins climbed back out of his Ford, fastened the chin strap on his hat again, and came striding in my direction.
“Go home,” he said.
“What?”
“Get the fuck out of here.” His mouth became a sneer. “I think you’re probably impaired, and I could give you some field sobriety tests. Maybe you’d fail the blood test for real. But if you didn’t, it would look like I’m harassing you. And you’re right: My career is in the shitter anyhow. Busting you isn’t going to help me with Internal Affairs. So get in your car and drive home… slowly.”
I was speechless.
“Get in your car, Bowditch. Go home.”
Before he could change his mind, I slid back behind the wheel of my Jeep. And then, driving five miles under the speed limit and wondering the whole time if he was toying with me, I steered a course for home.
Hutchins followed me the entire way, stopping finally beneath the copse of white pines at the top of my muddy driveway. Sarah’s car was parked in the dooryard. Beside it was a bright yellow Volkswagen. What is Reverend Davies doing here? I wondered. I fastened my splint back on, gritting my teeth against the pain, then pulled the sling out of the glove compartment and arranged it around my right shoulder. I glanced in the rearview mirror. The blue Ford was still parked at the edge of the drive. Stiffly, I climbed out of my Jeep.
I opened the door, to find my girlfriend seated on the sofa beside Deb Davies. Sarah was in her pajamas. Her eyes were wet when they fastened on me.
She jumped to her feet. “Mike! Where the hell were you?”
“I got held up.”
“Hello, Michael,” said Davies. She wasn’t sporting her uniform or clerical collar. She was wearing jeans, a fuzzy purple sweater, and her signature eyeglasses. She rose more slowly.
“Reverend,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“She came to see you,” said Sarah.
Davies’s forehead was creased with worry. “Sergeant Frost told me about Professor Westergaard.”
I wriggled free of my coat and hung it on a peg beside the door. The coat was heavy from the Walther pistol still hidden in the pocket. “Did Kathy and Pluto find that lost girl?” I asked with affected casualness.
“Yes,” Davies said. “The little girl is all right.”
“Kathy’s been trying to call you,” said Sarah. “We all have.”
“I didn’t receive any messages.” I stuck my hand in my pants pocket, but the cell phone wasn’t there. Nor was it in my wool coat when I checked. “I must have left it out in the Jeep.”
“I can’t believe you’ve been driving with a broken hand,” Sarah said.
“I managed all right.” Then I sat down on the bench and began to tug ineffectually at my boots.
Sarah watched me struggling for a while and then came over to help pull them off. As she leaned close to me, her nose twitched. “Have you been drinking?”
“I had a beer with dinner.”
She covered her eyes with her small hand. “Are you crazy? Mike, you’re taking Vicodin. What the hell is happening to you?”
“I’m fine,” I insisted.
“You’re not fine!”
I went to the front window and parted the curtains. Hutchins’s cruiser was still parked there. What was he waiting for?
Sarah peeked over my shoulder. “What are you looking at?”
I turned to block her view. “I should have told you I was going to see Erland Jefferts,” I said. “I shouldn’t have been driving with a broken hand. I shouldn’t have stopped for a beer.”
“That’s it? That’s your apology?”
“Perhaps I should go,” said Davies. “Please feel free to call me-either of you.”
“Thank you, Reverend.” Sarah opened the door for her.
I peered outside at the top of the hill. It was hard to see from the light spilling out into the dark trees. Hutchins’s cruiser was no longer there.