The Precipice Read online

  Lieutenant DeFord took me aside and rested a hand on my shoulder. It felt as heavy as lead.

  “You look exhausted, Mike. We’ve booked rooms at Ross’s. Go get yourself a good night’s sleep, and we’ll see you back here in the morning.”

  It was the same boardinghouse where Samantha Boggs, Missy Montgomery, and Chad McDonough had spent their last night in Monson. All I knew about the place was that it catered to thru-hikers this time of year. As long as the beds were free of bugs, I’d happily accept whatever was offered.

  “Hope you don’t mind having a bunk mate,” said Kathy with a shit-eating grin I didn’t understand. I’d lived in a dormitory at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy and shared cabin bunkhouses with wardens over the years. I had no expectations of privacy in my job.

  She followed me out into the humid night, closing the door of the RV quickly behind her to keep the bugs out. There was a bright halogen spotlight on the back of the fire station, but otherwise the parking area was pitch-black except for the glowing tents set up by the searchers along the perimeter of the lot. In the dark I couldn’t read her expressions at all.

  “What was that about?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “The comment about the bunk mate.”

  “Oh, you’ll see.”

  I decided to let the matter slide. Whatever her private joke was, she could tease me about it in the morning. A mosquito landed on the meaty part of my hand, but I squished it before it bit me.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here,” I said. “You should be at home recovering.”

  “There are two young women out there who seem to be lost,” she said, but she was unable to disguise her weariness. “I’m pretty good at finding people. And DeFord could use my help.”

  I couldn’t deny that the search would benefit from her expertise. Kathy had headed up the Warden Service’s K-9 team almost since its inception; for years she’d tracked down missing persons with her coonhound, Pluto, and schooled other wardens in the mysteries of dog handling. But Pluto had died earlier that spring, shot by the same psycho who’d wounded Kathy, and she hadn’t yet adopted a puppy to train. Kathy claimed she was waiting until she had returned to full health, since teaching a young dog to follow a human scent across all kinds of terrain is physically demanding, but secretly I suspected she was still mourning the loss of her longtime companion.

  “So the lieutenant has you supervising the K-9 teams?” I asked.

  Kathy slapped at a mosquito on her neck. “I’m coordinating with Maine Search and Rescue Dogs, too.”

  She was referring to a volunteer group of experienced handlers whose personal pets had been trained as rescue dogs, taught to sniff out living people who might be trapped or injured, and cadaver dogs, whose gory job was tracking the scent of corpses, including those buried under six feet of dirt or submerged at the bottom of a lake. The mention of the search-and-rescue organization made me remember a question I’d been meaning to ask someone all night.

  “Any idea why DeFord partnered me with Nissen?” My eyes were beginning to adjust to the dark.

  “He’s the fastest hiker here. I’m surprised your aging legs were able to keep up with him. The man’s a freak of nature.”

  “Or just a freak.”

  Her mouth curled on one side in either a smirk or a grimace. “You’re wondering what his story is,” she said. “The guy’s an ex-con. He did ten years in prison down south for cooking meth. The folks at Moosehead Search and Rescue tell me he found salvation in the slammer. As soon as they let him out, he took off up the AT like the devil was hot on his trail. I guess he’s quite the Bible-thumper now.”

  I summoned an image of Nissen. His scarred shoulder blades came into focus. “He used to have a tattoo on his back.”

  “I’ve never seen the man without a shirt, and I never want to.”

  “He must have had the tat removed—and not by a plastic surgeon.” I had to keep shifting my weight to keep my hamstrings from tightening up. “I’m surprised they let a felon join Moosehead Search and Rescue.”

  “You of all people don’t believe in second chances?”

  “The guy just creeps me out. Caleb Maxwell told me Nissen’s writing a book about the ways people have died on the AT. The two of them seem to have sort of a history.”

  “Caleb has a lot of history—most of it sad.” She scratched her forearm where another bug had bitten her. “I’m getting eaten alive out here. Can we pick this up tomorrow?”

  “One more thing,” I said. “Who was that guy with a tie in the corner?”

  “Special Agent Genoways with the FBI. He doesn’t say much.”

  “Why is the FBI interested in missing hikers?”

  Kathy grinned from ear to ear. “You and your curiosity! Enjoy your stay at Ross’s, Grasshopper.”

  That was her pet name for me when I was her young pupil. “Where are you sleeping?”

  “The Indian Hill Motel in Greenville. One of the perks of being a sergeant is that I get a private room. Tell your bunk mate I said hi!”

  * * *

  When a search operation is under way in a remote location, the Warden Service stashes searchers wherever it can—in fleabag motels, bed-and-breakfasts, the homes of other wardens, wherever. I parked on the wet lawn outside Ross’s Rooming House, grabbed the duffel bag from the backseat, and jumped out of the truck with all the grace of the Tin Woodman after a rainstorm. My joints might actually have creaked.

  The inn wasn’t a single building, but three: the original white clapboard structure, a newer annex sided with white vinyl, and a separate two-story bunkhouse so ungainly, I had to assume the carpenters had been drunk when they’d raised its roof.

  I made my way to the front door of the old inn and, taking note of the sign posted beside it—OUR DOOR IS ALWAYS OPEN—dragged myself inside. Hiking boots were piled in pairs in the big entryway, and raincoats and ponchos hung from hooks along the walls. I did my best to scrape the mud from the bottoms of my boots, then passed through the dimly lit foyer into a spacious front room. Mismatched furniture had been tossed carelessly about the place. In one corner, a woman with long gray braids was snoring in a recliner, an open book (by Barbara Kingsolver) on her lap. Otherwise no one was about, including at the front desk. But I found a piece of paper with my name on it, as well as instructions to make myself at home. Breakfast, it said, would be served at seven. That was past the hour DeFord expected me back at the command post, so I’d likely be eating oatmeal from the Salvation Army chuck wagon. There didn’t seem to be a room key.

  Nor was there a map to direct me through the rat maze of hallways to my room. I couldn’t imagine who my bunk mate could be. Knowing Kathy’s wicked sense of humor, I had to expect the worst. Christ, I thought, what if it’s Danielle Tate? Was Kathy perverse enough to force Dani and me to share the same twin bedroom? My gut knew the answer to that question. I hesitated before turning the doorknob.

  The room was dark, but a shaft of light from the hall showed two beds. One was neatly made. The other contained a half-naked old man. He had a prominent chin, a formidable nose, and a full head of stiff white hair. He seemed to have been asleep but had snapped fully awake when he’d heard the door. Now he turned on the table lamp and squinted up at me.

  “Well, aren’t you the most mournful-looking object of pity.”

  “Charley?”

  “Who were you expecting?” Stacey’s father said. “Queequeg the Cannibal?”

  Charley Stevens had grown up around lumber camps. To hear him speak in that thick Maine accent, using lingo he’d picked up from illiterate trappers and Québécois lumberjacks, you might have concluded that he had never cracked a book in his life. But over the years of our friendship, I had learned how deceptively intelligent he was, and I had come to suspect that the old autodidact was better read than some of my English professors from Colby.

  “I didn’t know you were staying here,” I said.

  “Figured
it didn’t make much sense to fly all the way home just to turn around again at first light.”

  Charley and his wife, Ora, lived a hundred-odd miles to the east, in a lakeside camp, near the village of Grand Lake Stream. Stacey still lived in a guest cottage on their property, ostensibly saving up to build her own house. Given her graduate school debt and how little she made as an assistant wildlife biologist, it was going to take a while.

  Charley was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt that showed off his Popeye forearms and the scars he’d gotten as a POW in North Vietnam. He grinned and held out one of his big paws. I tried not to wince when we shook hands. The skinny geezer had a grip like a bench vise.

  “Good to see you, young feller.”

  “Same here.” I slung my rucksack on the floor and sat down on the rock-hard bed. The box springs might have bounced half an inch at most. “I take it your daughter called you.”

  “Stacey thought you might need a little help. She’s wicked worried about those two girls.”

  “Did you talk to her tonight?” I asked.

  “Not since I took off. Why?”

  “She tried calling me, but I was out in the boonies. When I had a signal again, I figured it was too late to call her back, so I e-mailed her instead.”

  The old pilot chuckled. “You don’t know much about the female sex, do you?”

  Charley Stevens had been one of my first mentors: someone who’d believed in me as a warden and a man when I’d done nothing but shown bad judgment. In just four years, he had taught me more about the woods than I could have learned on my own in three lifetimes. He and his wife were, in just about every meaningful way, the parents I’d always wished I had, which made my new relationship with their daughter both fitting and awkward.

  I put my head in my hands. “So you mean I should have woken her?”

  “All women, in my experience, appreciate hearing that their men haven’t fallen off a cliff.”

  “Should I call her now?”

  “I’m not sure if you should be asking your sweetheart’s dad for romantic advice,” he said with a chuckle. “And I definitely shouldn’t be giving it to you. So what’s the latest on the search?”

  “Samantha and Missy signed into the logbook at Chairback Gap, but there’s no trace of them after that. It looks like they disappeared in the valley between Gulf Hagas and the Katahdin Iron Works.”

  “The KI Road runs through that stretch,” he said. “Those girls could have hitched a ride out.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Charley had a craggy face that spoke of a long life of outdoor adventure. He was the only person I knew who tugged on his chin while he contemplated a problem. “Searching that section of the trail is going to be the devil’s own job.”

  “Do you want me to fill you in on my meeting with DeFord?”

  “I’d rather you took a shower,” he said. “If we’re going to be bedfellows for the night, I’d prefer you didn’t skunk up the place.”

  And with that, he turned off the light.

  10

  When I opened my eyes, the window shade was a pale rectangle in a wall of black. I listened for the sound of Charley’s breathing but heard only distant noises elsewhere in the building—footsteps, vague creaks, the sound of water running through pipes. I tried to make out the time on my wristwatch, but the luminous numbers had lost their glow. After a minute, I ventured to turn on the lamp. Charley and his trapper’s pack were gone. Somehow he had managed to make the bed without waking me. The sheets were as tight as those on an army cot.

  I saw that it was just after five o’clock. My joints were so stiff, I had a hard time bending my knees. My forearm was itching, and I realized it was from the horsefly bite I’d gotten the previous morning at Popham Beach. The memory of the cottage seemed clouded already. I put on the clean uniform pants I had brought with me and then went into the hall bathroom to shave. The porcelain sink had an orange rust stain under the tap and an ancient mirror, cracked and flecked from age. I did my best to avoid glancing into the toilet bowl. It didn’t pay to look too closely at anything in this hikers’ hostel.

  I found Charley in the dining room, sitting across a long table from an old man, drinking coffee.

  “Good morning!” said Charley.

  “G’morning.”

  “This is Ross. He’s the proprietor of this establishment.” He pointed at me as if I were surrounded by people and needed to be picked out. “Ross, this is the young warden I was telling you about.”

  Mr. Ross wore steel-rimmed glasses, sported a neatly trimmed mustache, and had the sleeves of a crisp white shirt rolled up to his elbows. He looked more like a barber than the owner of an inn for free-spirited adventurers. His rugged features suggested he had once been as handsome as a matinee idol—some women would have said he still was.

  “You must be starved,” he said, rising to his feet. “How many, and how do you like them?”

  In my sleepy state, it took me a moment to realize he was referring to eggs or possibly pancakes. “Just some coffee, please.”

  Mr. Ross appeared heartbroken.

  “You should eat something,” Charley said. “The food’s a helluva lot better than those store-boughten doughnuts you’re going to get back at the fire station.”

  I noticed that my friend had a yolk-streaked plate in front of him.

  “I guess I’d have some of whatever you’re making, if it’s not too much trouble,” I said.

  Ross laughed and disappeared into the kitchen.

  I poured myself a mug of coffee from the carafe and sat down in one of the mismatched chairs across from Charley. “Are we the first ones up?”

  “So far, but Ross said that most of the thru-hikers are early risers. They’re all eager to get back on the trail. They’ve been hearing about the Hundred Mile Wilderness for months. Ross had twenty-one people staying here last night, including a couple of other wardens. I don’t know how he and Steffi manage this place, just the two of them.”

  I rubbed my eyes and took a sip of the strong, hot coffee. “I was out cold last night.”

  “Has anyone ever told you you snore like a bear?”

  “Did I keep you up?”

  “My mind was active anyway,” he said. “I was preoccupied with those two girls. Ross told me they spent the night here before they set off into the wilderness. He said that the young men were all eager to make their acquaintance.”

  “I met one of those young men at Hudson’s Lodge last night.”

  “I’ve been waiting for you to be conscious enough for conversation,” Charley said.

  While Ross clattered about in the kitchen, I told him about everything I’d discovered at the lean-to and the lodge, as well as the information I’d learned about Chad McDonough’s sexual assault charge.

  “I feel like I should have brought him back with me,” I said.

  “It doesn’t sound like he would have come willingly,” Charley said. “It’s too early in the search to assume someone attacked those girls. The first order of business is to keep looking for them until we know for a fact that they’re beyond help.”

  Ross returned with a leaning tower of pancakes.

  “I can’t eat all this,” I said.

  “I’m used to cooking for hikers,” he said. “The rule of thumb around here is that you figure what a normal person would eat and at least triple it.”

  Charley kicked the leg of the chair beside me so it slid out from the table. “Have a seat, Ross! Tell Mike here what you told me about Samantha and Missy.”

  The old man glanced toward the kitchen door. “I should be getting the bacon started. It’s going to be chaos here in half an hour.”

  “Just for a minute,” Charley said.

  Ross sat down on the edge of the chair, his long legs knocking the bottom of the table. “I only served them meals, and I’m usually too busy for small talk,” he said. “Steffi was the one who checked them in. I remember that they were from Georgia and
very polite. You don’t often see two young women thru-hiking the AT alone. People think it’s not safe, and maybe they’re right. All I know is that ninety-nine percent of the hikers who come through our doors are good human beings—better than most you meet in the world. Something about the trail seems to weed out the bad ones. I can’t explain it.”

  The condiments were bunched together on a lazy Susan in the center of the table. I grabbed a glass jar of what I thought was maple syrup, only to discover it was dark, rich-looking honey. The name on the label was Breakneck Ridge Apiary: Nissen’s brand.

  “Have you ever hiked the AT?” I asked.

  “Me?” Ross flashed his handsome grin. “Heck no. Where would I find the time? Besides, I’m too old now, although we had a thru-hiker in here last year who was seventy and fit as a fiddle. All I know about the trail is what I hear from my guests—and Steffi.”

  “That’s right,” Charley said. “Steffi hiked the AT herself, didn’t she?”

  “It’s how she ended up in Monson. She stayed here a couple of years ago when Carol—my first wife—was sick.” He removed his glasses and wiped the lenses on his sleeve before returning them to his nose. “She came back later, when she heard I was alone and thinking of closing the place. Offered to help out. That was how Steffi fell into my life. I said her trail name should have been Trail Magic, because she bewitched me.”

  “What do you remember about this McDonut feller?” Charley asked.

  Ross raised his eyes to the ceiling in thought and then nodded. “The one with the sombrero.”

  “That’s him,” I said between bites.

  “He was quite the character! Before dinner, he dumped everything out of his pack and went into town. He came back from the general store with a case of Budweiser inside. I remember him handing out cans of beer like Santa Claus on Christmas and everyone laughing and clapping.”

  “Did the girls drink any?” Charley asked.

  “They did. I remember everyone making a big deal about it because the girls had never tasted alcohol before they started hiking the trail.”

  “Did this McDonut seem especially fixated on them?”