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

parents get off on their trip all right?”
    Charley was taking Ora on a flying vacation to Newfoundland to see the vast colonies of seabirds—gannets, puffins, and kittiwakes—that nested along the cliffs there. He was a retired warden pilot and a legend in the service. He had also been the closest thing I’d had in my life to a father figure.
    “That’s what you wanted to talk with me about? My parents’ vacation? How much have you had to drink?”
    Not enough, I thought. “I want to apologize.”
    “Apologize? For what?”
    “I know you blame me for what happened between you and Matt.”
    The suggestion seemed to annoy her. “I don’t blame you. Why would I blame you? I was the one who got engaged to a scumbag.”
    If she didn’t hold me responsible for ending her engagement, why did she always make herself scarce when I visited the home she shared with her parents on Little Wabassus Lake?
    “Jeff told me Matt is running for the state legislature,” I said.
    “He’ll probably win, too. Don’t criminals always win elections? Why are we having this urgent conversation again?”
    “I want our relationship to be better.”
    “We don’t have a relationship.”
    “That’s what I mean. I’m friends with your parents. I’d like it if you and I could be friends, too.”
    “What are you, sixteen?” She wiped her wet face with both hands. “Can I go back to my dinner now?”
    I rubbed the water from my own face. “The women you’re with don’t seem to like me, for some reason.”
    “Maybe they didn’t like having their dinner interrupted.”
    “The one with the short hair and the ring in her nose—”
    “Kendra.”
    “She’s been glaring at me for the past hour.”
    “Kendra never likes it when men look at me. It’s always pissed her off.”
    “Why would it piss her off?”
    “She and I used to date when I was in college. I’m surprised my dad never shared that juicy tidbit with you.”
    She’d intended the words to land like a punch, and they did. “I guess he didn’t think it was any of my business.”
    “It’s not any of your business. Are we finished, Matt? Because I’d like to go back inside.” She closed her eyes, shook her head, and took another stab at it. “I meant ‘Mike.’”
    After she had returned to the dining room, I stood in the rain, feeling more like a fool than I had before. I wouldn’t have imagined that was possible.

 
    6
    The rain began to fall more heavily as I drove west out of the village on my way home. I flipped the wipers into high-speed mode. The rhythmic clacking made my head hurt. Drinking half a pint of whiskey might have had something to do with it.
    Just as likely, I was suffering the side effects of my conversation with Stacey. When she’d first come to work for the department, I’d heard whispers about her sexual orientation, but I’d dismissed them as the self-serving stories men tell themselves to explain why attractive women show no interest in their crude advances. The gossip had ended after she’d gotten engaged to Matt Skillen. I expected the rumor mill would start churning again. Not that it was any of my business. Stacey had been right about that part.
    I rounded a corner, where someone had set up a memorial to a girl killed in a car crash the previous year. It was a simple wreath of white flowers nailed against the shattered stump of an oak tree. Local jerks kept taking down the display, but the unidentified mourner kept arranging for replacements. Just as soon as one memorial was stolen, another took its place. The back-and-forth contest struck me as symbolic: the eternal struggle we undergo, trying to hold on to a memory when others have a stake in forgetfulness.
    After a while, I turned down a darkened dirt road. The steady rain was carving new channels into the packed earth. I felt the emergent potholes through the worn shock absorbers of my Bronco.
    A steel gate loomed in my headlights. It was a simple metal bar that pivoted on