The Bone Orchard: A Novel (Mike Bowditch Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF Page A

was a game warden, I had traveled everywhere with a firearm. My SIG Sauer .357 was my constant companion in life. Even when I was off duty, I carried a Walther .380 in a holster hidden inside the waistband of my jeans. But when I’d resigned from the service, I’d decided that going around armed would just be a way of clinging to an identity I was desperate to shed. I’d kept my concealed carry license for future use, but at this particular place in my life, it didn’t feel right to pack a pistol everywhere I went.
    The naïveté of that decision announced itself as a pain in my spleen.
    The clean-shaven one pushed the last of his sandwich into his mouth and rubbed the crumbs from his hands. He smiled wide to show his teeth.
    “We don’t want any trouble,” Mason said, his voice cracking.
    Mr. Mustache let his shirt drape over his beer belly. “Then stop bothering us, assholes, and go find your own fucking island.”
    I was clenching my back molars so hard, I was surprised they didn’t crack. I pulled the cord on the engine and turned the tiller so that the spray arced upward in a rooster tail behind the stern. I wanted to get clear of the island as quickly as possible so that I could make the phone call to the local warden, Jeremy Bard.
    For the past few months, I’d told myself that giving up the powers that came with wearing a badge was a fair trade for not being responsible for the safety and welfare of every single human being I came into contact with. I was deep inside my head, trying to tamp down my doubts and anger. It took me a long time to realize that Maddie had turned in the boat to face me. She was repeating my name, trying to get my attention, concerned that something was wrong with me.

 
    4
    When I’d told Kathy Frost that I had decided to leave the Warden Service, she’d responded with silence. The phone had gone quiet for the better part of a minute. It was an unusually cold day in early March, with the sky spitting snow showers outside the windows of my rented cabin.
    “Kathy?”
    “I understand,” she said at last.
    I had expected her to try to talk me out of leaving. I had even prepared a point-by-point counterargument, assuming that she was actually going to argue with me.
    “I’ve done a lot of thinking, and I’m trying to be honest with myself,” I said. “I became a warden for the wrong reasons. I was young and wanted to show my father what a tough guy I was, which was stupid and pointless.”
    Silence.
    “The only reason I held on as long as I did was because of the faith you had in me,” I said. “But I was never a good fit for the service. I was always disregarding regulations because I thought I knew better, and then when I tried following the rules, that didn’t work for me, either.”
    More silence.
    “I know this must come as a shock,” I said. “You probably figured I’d finally turned a corner, and we’d been talking about me moving back down south again. But I’m tired of fighting against my own nature all the time. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”
    I waited a long time for her to speak. “Kathy?”
    “I understand,” she said again.
    In the time I had been a game warden, I had been investigated or disciplined for numerous infractions, from interfering in the homicide investigation of a young woman back in Sennebec to pursuing a sexual relationship with the sister of a murder suspect here in Washington County. I had been the subject of not one but two use-of-force inquiries. In both cases, the attorney general’s office had ruled that I had discharged my weapon in self-defense, but the fact remained that I had shot and killed two men.
    The warden colonel himself had called me an “embarrassment to the service,” and I had been hard-pressed to disagree. His plan, in exiling me to the wilds of eastern Maine, was to make my life so miserable that I was forced to quit. Instead, I had begun to transform myself into a semicompetent officer, which