Page 31

Chapter 30

Jude

H ours into the road trip, we finally came to a sign that read End of the Road Farm and turned onto a winding country road. An old white farmhouse with peeling paint stood in the distance, and in the field behind it was an array of junked-out cars. It looked like the setting of a horror movie, and not the artsy type that won Oscars. Mila had been cagey, telling me we had to talk to a source and brushing off my concerns. But now I wished that I’d pushed harder for more information.

“No,” I said, stopping the car part way down the long dirt road.

“Keep driving,” she said, leaning forward in her seat. “Nothing to worry about.”

“No. I’m not letting you walk into a slasher movie set in Shitsville, New Hampshire.”

She patted my arm dismissively. “It’s fine. And this is not Shitsville. It’s actually Pittsburg, New Hampshire. Did you know Pittsburg is the northernmost town in the state? Canada is right over there.” She waved ahead of us, as if the proximity to the border was a comfort.

I stopped the car, put it in park, and glared at her. “I need information. Badly. Who is this guy and why are we here?”

She rolled her eyes. “He’s Dickie Perkins.”

It took me a second, but recognition dawned. Dickie had been our contact at the department of fish and wildlife for decades before his retirement. “We shouldn’t be here.”

“Drive the car, Jude. He’s a harmless civil servant, and we came all this way.”

Nothing good could come of this. If Dickie was clueless to the drug trafficking, we’d get nothing out of him. But if he was involved? That could lead to a lot of trouble for us.

She grasped my hand and squeezed. “He knew Hugo. He might have information, and I need to know.”

It was the shakiness of her voice that got me.

My stomach twisted with dread. “First sign of anything strange, and we’re out of here.”

“Deal.”

With a deep breath, I put the truck in gear and rolled up to the house. From this close, it looked even more decrepit.

Mila jumped out of the front seat and was halfway up the sagging porch before I could cut the ignition.

Her knock was greeted by a muffled response from inside, then a little shuffling. When the door opened, Dickie Perkins stood before us, wheeling an oxygen tank and wearing an old bathrobe.

“Dickie,” Mila said with false sincerity. “You look like shit. Can I come in?”

“Who are you and what do you want?” he asked, looking me up and down.

I’d seen this guy off and on for the last decade, but he looked a lot older and beaten down than the balding guy in a fleece vest who used to do forest walkthroughs with us.

“Just to chat.” Mila walked in, skirting around him. “Nice house.”

“It was my mother’s,” he replied dryly. “She died and left this crumbling shithole to me. But it’s home.”

He seemed unmoved by Mila’s brash entrance, and with his hunched posture, general look of dejection, and oxygen tank, I didn’t get the sense he was a threat.

“I know you,” he said as I stepped inside. “A Hebert.”

I nodded, keeping my shoulders back and my eyes narrowed on him.

“Oh fuck. I need a drink for this.” He shuffled into the living room, which was equipped with a massive fireplace, faded floral sofas and piles of old newspapers stacked along the back wall, and took a bottle off a side table. He yanked the top off with his teeth and poured a healthy amount into a red plastic cup.

After he’d taken a swig, he surveyed me, then Mila. Finally, he opened his mouth and said, “Who the fuck are you and why are you in my house?”

Without responding, Mila slowly wandered around the room, admiring the dust-covered porcelain figurines on the mantel.

Eventually, she turned to face the old man. “Dickie,” she said, her voice dripping with honey. “I need information, and I know you’re my guy.”

He took another gulp from his cup, attention narrowed on her over the rim. “Jude.” He shook a finger at me. “That’s your name. Known your old man for decades. Total asshole, but great poker player.” He laughed heartily, but it was cut off by a hacking cough. He lifted the mask that had been dangling around his neck and brought it to his face, breathing deeply. “Emphysema. It’s a bitch, but my fault for not giving up my vices.”

He took another hit and cleared his throat.

“How’s Gus doing? Always liked him. Total opposite of your dad. Guess that’s a good thing, given how things turned out.”

“Focus, Dickie,” Mila snapped. “We’re here for information about my brother, Hugo Barrett.”

“Good kid,” he mused. “Smart. I trained him. Such a terrible tragedy.” He shook his head. “But I took early retirement. Don’t know anything about the attack.”

Mila’s jaw ticked, and she fisted her hands at her sides. “I’m gonna need more than that, Dickie.”

With a shrug, he took another sip of liquor.

“Okay, then.” Mila pushed her hair behind her ears and straightened her shoulders. “You retire at fifty-four from a job with the state. Then move to… where was it again?” She tapped her chin. “Oh yes, Macau. Where you fucked around for almost a year before fleeing some very bad people to whom you owe a lot of money. Do I have that right?”

Dickie’s face paled.

“I know so much more than that. I’ve got the dirt on all your bad investments, the gambling debts, the multiple mortgages on this property. The identity theft and the social security fraud. Should I keep going?”

He stared at her, eyes wide and the cup in his hand trembling almost imperceptibly.

My mind was blown. Mila knew exactly what she was doing and how to get him to talk. It was impressive and also very hot. But the longer we stayed here, the more apparent it became that Dickie was involved in the trafficking ring. Which put Mila at risk.

“What happened?” she asked again.

He ducked his head and gave it a slow shake. “I was horrified by what happened.”

“Which was…?” Mila asked, steepling her fingers like some kind of supervillain. “Because I’ve spent more than a year trying to figure out how a guy who was only doing his job gets beaten within an inch of his life and left for dead. He’s not mixed up in your bullshit.” Those last words were spoken with total conviction.

“I don’t know,” Dickie replied. “Everything’s been destabilized since Mitch Hebert went to prison. People are bloodthirsty and running scared. There’s pressure on both sides of the border.”

Mila sauntered closer, only stopping when they were nose to nose, her face a mask of pure hatred. “I don’t want vague bullshit. What happened to my brother?”

He made a choking sound and followed it up with a wheezing cough. As he reached for his mask, clearly in need of oxygen, Mila grasped his wrist and tugged on the mask herself. Damn, she was strong. He was sick, sure, but he was still a decent-sized guy. He struggled, but she kept the mask away from him.

“I’ll let you fucking suffocate if you don’t tell me what I want to know, you piece of shit.”

He wheezed, his eyes narrowing, his face turning purple.

Just when I was sure he’d pass out from lack of oxygen, Mila dropped his hand.

He scrambled to fit the mask over his face and sucked in several deep breaths. “Okay,” he wheezed. “I’ll tell you everything I know. It’s not much, but since you’re threatening my life, I got no choice.” He shuffled to the old couch and sank onto the cushion heavily.

“I loved my job. Truly. I was raised right here with a whole lot of nothing. First person in my family to go to college.”

“Can it with the life story,” Mila snapped.

“Job was great, but the pay was shit. Didn’t matter that I got a fucking PhD while working full time for the taxpayer—”

Mila crossed her arms, being careful with her injured shoulder. “So you thought you’d become a criminal?”

“I am not a criminal,” he hissed, kicking off another coughing fit. He took a few more drags on the oxygen mask.

“Make it make sense.”

“I was approached by a few businesspeople. They asked if I could look the other way when it came to a few things.”

“Like drug trafficking and murder?” Mila interjected.

His eyes went wide. “No. God no.” He cleared his throat. “Things like ignoring signs that a closed road had been used. Moving boundaries a little to allow for access. The bats are either in caves or the tree canopy, so the roads are fine. It’s common knowledge that we overregulate.”

Mila only frowned.

“Then they needed me to write up a few reports.”

“False reports?”

“Yeah. They needed access to the old logging road up to Sainte-Louise.”

Mila darted a look my way, a flicker of triumph in her eyes.

Now we were getting somewhere.

“They’d let me know where they needed to travel, and I’d find a population of bats had shifted.”

“So,” Mila drawled, “you were able to shut down areas of privately owned forest to allow drug traffickers to operate with impunity?”

Dickie scoffed. “You make it sound terrible.”

“It is terrible, you piece of shit,” Mila corrected.

“I did my job,” he argued. “I protected the wildlife. I balanced the interests of the environment and industry. It’s not easy. This state was built on logging, but we can’t decimate the trees and the ecosystems.”

“No shit. But you could have done that job without taking kickbacks. Now start giving me names.”

His gaze drifted down and to one side. “I don’t know them.”

“Bullshit.”

“Deimos,” he mumbled, still avoiding Mila’s eye. “They paid consulting fees. Sometimes official payroll, sometimes unofficial. When I got into some trouble a few years ago, they stepped in and paid off some of my, uh, debts.”

Mila’s eyes lit up. “And who did you deal with there?”

“Couple of people. Wayne managed things for years, but he was pushed out, and then I had to talk to that little shit Denis. Fuck, he’s terrible, throwing his dad’s money around and making threats.”

Mila hummed. “To be clear, you’re referring to Denis Huxley?”

He nodded.

“Did you ever meet with his father, Charles Huxley?”

“No. But he was involved. The guy ran a construction empire and was a politician. It’s not a leap to think he has his hands in lots of shady business.”

“Did Denis attack Hugo?”

Dickie grimaced. “I have no idea. I doubt it. He’s a dumbass, and I can’t imagine he’d want to get his hands dirty. That whole mess was so terrible.” Head hung, he deflated. “Hugo was a sharp kid. He loved the work and had a bright future.”

Mila inhaled sharply, like she was fighting off tears.

“I trained him on the job,” Dickie explained. “Counseled him about landowners and how to work with them. In our line of work, we can’t be totally by the book all the time. Sometimes rules have to be bent.”

“Hugo would never have bent the rules,” Mila said with satisfaction.

“And that may be why he got hurt. When I had reservations, when I tried to go back to following the rules I’d been given, I was reminded of their political and economic power. They said Charles Huxley would be sure our department’s funding was cut. That he’d take down the whole forest and build condos.”

Mila pulled a folded map out of her bag and laid it out on the coffee table in front of Dickie, then handed him a Sharpie. “Show me,” she said. “Show me how it worked.”

He circled a small section. “We started here. Then I was tasked with extending some borders.” He made a bigger circle. “When they wanted the road to Sainte-Louise, I had to put together a fake tracking study. According to it, the bats had moved farther north. Once that was done, we shifted the protection area.”

“How did you do that?”

“Easy. Bureaucracy. I’d do my quarterly inspections, file my plans, apply for permission to find nesting areas, then fudge the data.”

“Then what?”

“Occasionally I’d meet with management to confirm that all was running the way it should be. But for the most part, it was easy money. I did my part and went about my business.”

Mila worried her bottom lip in thought. “Could Hugo have discovered this and tried to stop it?”

“Not sure. But my reports were good, and I filed them properly. It would take years to figure out how I’d fucked around with the data.”

“Then why take him out before he completed his survey and report for the year?”

With a shrug, Dickie took another hit of oxygen.

Mila sighed, dragging her focus to me. “Who is covering for Hugo? Who took over working with your company?”

“No one,” I replied. “It’s been months since we’ve had any communication with the department.”

“There’s a statewide hiring freeze. Budget cuts and all that,” Dickie explained.

She stood with her good hand propped on her hip and surveyed the map for a moment, then zeroed in on the older man again. “So what happens?”

“The prior year’s plan remains in effect until a new survey is completed. Since Hugo was attacked last year and never filed the plan, they’re likely using the last one I completed.”

“So they’re keeping their territory stable year after year.”

He dipped his chin. “That’s my guess.”

Head tilted thoughtfully, Mila looked at me.

I nodded silently. The longer we stayed here, the more anxious I got. What if they were watching? Dickie was in deeper than we’d thought.

“You good now?” Dickie asked. “I answered your questions. Now get the fuck off my property.”

“You’re not as useless as you look.” She gave him a dazzling smile. “Now, one last thing,” she added, her words terse. “You will not fuck me over. You will tell no one I was here and you will not take off again. You’ll stay here in case I need you.”

Dickie scoffed.

“I mean it. You mess with me and you’re dead. You see my handsome friend over there?” She pointed at me. “He may look like a lumberjack who dabbles in Instagram modeling, but if you so much as say one fucking word about this, you’ll be in a mountain of shit with him. He’s wearing a wire, recorded this entire conversation. If we take it to the feds, your former friends will find out. What do you want to bet you’d be dead in a couple of hours?”

I gave him a menacing smile, cracking my knuckles.

He practically jumped off the couch, his eyes wide and his skin pale.

As Mila turned to leave, Dickie reached for the bottle of liquor on the table. The move caused the sleeve of his robe to creep up, exposing a tattoo on his forearm. Spiny needles, a wide base. Some kind of tree or shrub. One I recognized.

I darted across the room and clutched his arm. “What is this?”

He looked up at me, lips turned down. “A tattoo.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s a yew.”

My brain spun with all the information about yews I possessed. Native to Maine. Poisonous if ingested. Also known as ground hemlock or the tree of the dead since they usually grew around cemeteries.

“Why?”

“All the guys involved have them. Helped us identify each other. Out in the woods, it’s the only way to be sure of who the syndicate guys were.”

A shiver ran down my spine. These tattoos had been popping up all over recently, and no one had figured out quite how they fit.

“Just this one?”

He nodded, smoothing his hand over it. “Yeah. On the right arm down to the wrist. Some guys have sleeves, and you gotta look for it, but this one’s easy.”

Mila took out her phone and snapped a photo of Dickie’s forearm. Then, without another word, she strode out of his house.

I followed silently, and when we were safely inside the car, she lowered her head, her hands trembling as she wrung them in her lap.

I covered them with one of mine and squeezed. “It’s okay,” I said. “You were amazing.”

She nodded, though weariness wafted off her and her shoulders remained slumped. “We make a good team.”

With a nod, I turned around and pulled out of the horror farm.

As we headed for the highway, she finally lifted her gaze. “Thank you for doing this for me.”

“Anytime, Trouble.”