Widowmaker by Paul Doiron

Author:Paul Doiron
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Thrillers & Suspense, Crime, United States, Thrillers, Thriller & Suspense, Literature & Fiction
ISBN: 9781466868670
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 2016-06-14T05:00:00+00:00

20

Gary Pulsifer lived on a hardscrabble farm outside the little town of Flagstaff, in the shadow of the Bigelow Range.

Back in the 1940s, Flagstaff had been the epicenter of a political fight between the Central Maine Power Company, which had wanted to build a dam at Long Falls to generate electricity downstream in Moscow, and conservationists, who had opposed flooding most of the valley. The dam would have meant the demise of Flagstaff and the neighboring village of Dead River, the residents would have been displaced through eminent domain, and both communities would have vanished beneath the rising waters of Maine’s newest lake.

But in the end, the opponents had managed to mobilize a public outcry, and the project was abandoned. In recent years, the developers had quietly returned. They had revoked the leases of dozens of camp owners on Flagstaff Pond, including my friends the Stevenses, and clear-cut massive tracts of timberland. They had pushed forward schemes to build wind farms atop the scenic mountains. Such is life in remote, unpeopled places. Every victory is inevitably short-lived.

I knew I had found Pulsifer’s farm when I saw his patrol truck in the dooryard. The blowing snow had pushed a drift clear over the hood and halfway up the windshield. I parked beside his pickup in the lee of the wind.

Someone must have seen me coming. The front door opened and two curly-haired little dogs came bounding out at me through the snow, yipping and yapping.

“Don’t mind them!” a woman called through the open door.

They were English cockers. Pulsifer had told me they were the best upland hunting dogs in the world—also the most headstrong and mischievous. It sounded like the perfect breed for him. I leaned down to pet the spaniels, but they sprang away with tails wagging, as if inviting me to give chase back into the house.

Lauren Pulsifer stood in the doorway, surrounded by a light that made her look like a movie angel. She had short blond hair, wide-set gray eyes, and a figure that suggested she had borne multiple children. I remembered Pulsifer saying that she used to be a teacher until the demands of the family and the farm had forced her to quit. She still did some substituting for extra cash, he’d said.

She stepped aside to let me into the mudroom. “Thank you for putting me up,” I said.

Her eyes told me I should remove my boots.

“Gary’s taking a shower.” She hung my wet coat from a deer-foot rack on the wall. I hadn’t met a game warden yet whose house wasn’t a showcase of taxidermy. “Here, let me show you where you’ll be sleeping.”

The house had a pleasantly earthy smell, a combination of apples, wood smoke, dried flowers, and wet dogs. Children’s finger paintings hung on the walls.

“How many kids do you have?” I asked out of politeness, already knowing the answer.

“Four. But Glen is away at college, and Jodi is staying at a friend’s in Kingfield. You’ll meet the others in the morning. We don’t need an alarm clock in this house.

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