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

was why I had expected Kathy to insist that I stay.
    On the other hand, she knew better than anyone what kind of a year I’d just endured. I had recently buried my mother after a short, devastating illness. The suddenness of her death had left me feeling punch-drunk. Every time the phone rang, I expected to hear my mom’s voice calling from the great beyond.
    Over the winter, I’d also testified for the prosecution in a trial against one of my best friends, who had killed two men who had deserved killing, in my opinion, and I had watched him go to prison for manslaughter. Out of guilt, I had taken to doing chores around Billy Cronk’s house: chopping firewood, replacing the short-circuited bathroom fan, changing the oil in the family Tahoe. But my penance seemed incommensurate with the problems I had brought on his wife and children. If Billy managed to stay out of trouble in the joint, which was unlikely given his violent temper, he would return to them in seven or eight years.
    So maybe Kathy just looked at me and saw a person who needed to become someone else for a while, and that was why she understood.
    *   *   *
    After we got back to the ramp and I had winched the boat onto its trailer and returned my clients to the lodge, I walked down to the Pine Tree Store for a bottle of something. I didn’t drink wine normally. Bourbon and beer were my particular vices. But if Mason and Maddie were paying for my lobster dinner, it seemed the polite thing to take them. I stood in front of the wine display for several minutes with what must have been a dazed look in my eyes, because the kindly white-bearded owner finally came out from behind the counter, plucked a bottle from the cooler, and handed it to me with a sigh.
    “Does this go with lobster?” I asked him.
    “Rosé goes with anything.”
    There was no price sticker. “Can I afford it?”
    “I’m not sure there’s anything in here you can afford, based on the size of your tab.” He was a jolly old elf of a man.
    “I’m going to pay it off this month.”
    “That’s what you said last month. Fortunately for you, I am an incurable optimist.”
    “In that case, can you give me a pint of Jim Beam, too?”
    On the way back to the lodge, I made a stop at my Ford Bronco, parked in the wet grass behind the kitchen, and found a wrinkled but clean flannel shirt in the duffel bag I kept behind the passenger seat. I took it into the bathroom and used a bar of Lava soap to wash the fish smell from my heavily calloused hands. Having had a crew cut for years, I wasn’t used to having shaggy hair or a beard. Not having a comb, I did the best I could with my fingers.
    Looking at myself in a mirror had become an uncanny experience. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t recognize the reflected image. The blue eyes and scar on my forehead were still markers of my identity. But when I saw my bearded face now, I was reminded of someone else. I just couldn’t tell you who it was.
    I took a swig of the whiskey and felt the warm liquid slide down my throat all the way to my heart. My pulse was still thumping from the confrontation I’d had with the men on Bump Island. I tucked the bottle in my back pocket.
    Mason and Maddie were waiting for me on the screen porch. They had both showered and changed. Mason was reading a dog-eared copy of Fortune magazine with a raised eyebrow.
    “I wonder how many people lost their shirts buying that stock last year,” he said.
    “Hindsight is always twenty-twenty,” Maddie said.
    “Is it?” I asked.
    Maddie glanced up with a chemically brightened smile. With her blond hair pinned back, I could finally recognize her as Sarah’s former prep school roommate. It was like seeing a familiar portrait that had been heavily retouched.
    She must have been experiencing a similar sensation looking at me.
    “I still can’t believe it’s you,” she said. “You were always so clean-cut at Colby.”
    I felt self-conscious in my grease-stained jeans