Trespasser Read Online Free PDF Page B

immediately. This is a law-enforcement investigation, and she is required by Maine law to provide a statement.” I left my cell number, feeling doubtful she’d return my call.
    By all rights, Hank Varnum’s ATV vandals should have topped my to-do list. But instead, I found myself driving in the direction of Parker Point. It was a blustery, overcast day, and the wind was blowing a chop in the coves. Overhead, the tops of the spruces swayed in unison like churchgoers at an old-time tent revival.
    The deer blood in the road had darkened overnight, turning a rusty red. The tire tracks from Ashley Kim’s wrecked Focus were sculpted into the frozen mud. I buttoned up my parka as I roamed through the huddled evergreens and wondered again why this incident was biting so persistently at the back of my brain. What exactly had happened here after all? There was no evidence to be found amid the trees. I closed my eyes and tried to envision the sequence of events.
    Sometime around dusk, a woman had been driving too fast in a thick fog on the road to Parker Point. Suddenly, a deer sprang out of the trees and smashed into her hood. The deer died on impact, the air bags inflated, but the woman emerged from the collision uninjured. She had the presence of mind to call a tow company, which sent Stump Murphy to retrieve the wrecked car.
    What happened next? She told Stump’s dispatcher that she already had a lift. Did she hitch a ride or call her friend on Parker Point to pick her up? How about a taxi? The nearest cab company was in Rockland, half an hour away, so probably not. Maybe she just decided to walk to whichever house she was headed.
    Meanwhile, an anonymous driver arrived on the scene to offer assistance, but she refused his help. Our Good Samaritan did, however, stop at Smitty’s Garage, two miles down the road, to call the Knox County dispatcher. He reported the accident and told the sheriff’s department to send an officer. Unfortunately, the state trooper on duty (Hutchins) had inopportune car trouble. As a result, there was an hour delay before the responding officer (me) arrived on the scene. Sometime during the interim, an unknown person stole the dead deer. Or maybe the Good Samaritan was the game thief. Was Ashley Kim still present when the deer got snatched? Or had she already left by that time?
    The logical conclusion was the one Hutchins had suggested: Ashley Kim had been drinking, she was worried about her blood-alcohol content, and so she skedaddled before the cops showed. She was probably sleeping it off in one of the swank cottages along the point. There were more than fifty properties out there. I could poke down every private drive, looking for a lighted window. That was assuming she was actually staying somewhere on the point.
    My phone vibrated in my pocket.
    “Hello?”
    I’d been hoping it was Ashley Kim, but it was Sarah. “I wanted to remind you that we’re having dinner with Charley and Ora tonight,” she said. “Make sure you’re home by six, OK? I don’t want you showing up late, smelling like roadkill.”
    “Will do.”
    She paused awhile on her end of the phone. “I’m sorry about being cranky last night.”
    “I thought I was the cranky one.”
    “I’ve just got cabin fever. This weather is driving me nuts.”
    “Spring is on the way.”
    “I’ll believe it when I see it,” she said. “You know I love you, Mike.”
    “I love you, too,” I said. “I’ll see you tonight.”
    “Don’t be late!”
    I was genuinely looking forward to our dinner with the Stevenses. The retired warden pilot and his wife were visiting the midcoast area for a gathering of Vietnam War veterans. The last time we’d spoken, he said his knee was still in a brace but his physical therapy was proceeding well for “an old geezer.” Over the phone, his spirits sounded sky-high, as usual: “Ora thinks I’m one hundred percent cured but just faking it to get rubdowns from the pretty young