bonuses would increase. He was a man who was only truly happy when he was in the forest, a man profoundly in tune with nature but lost in cities and towns. Away from the woods, he found solace in alcohol and women, but during hunting season he was sober and celibate, and happier than at any other time.
As soon as his son was old enough, Andy began taking him into the woods with him, trying to pass on what he knew and develop the instincts for the forest that he was sure lay in the boy. He was right, to a degree: Jackie had his father’s understanding of, and empathy with, the natural world, but he was softer than his father, and cared little for hunting.
‘You’ll never make money from nature walks,’ his father would tell him. ‘It’s hunting that will put bread on your table.’
Jackie Garner found other ways to put bread on his table, some legal and some illegal, but he still returned to the woods whenever he could, sometimes just to escape his mother, who had always been a very demanding woman. He had that in common with his buddies, the Fulcis. It was probably part of the reason why the three of them got on so well together.
Jackie didn’t have a camp of his own in the woods, but relied on the generosity of friends. When that was not forthcoming, he was happy to pitch a tent. When I called him from my car and asked him to join us in Falls End, he jumped at the chance. I did not tell him what we were looking for, not yet. That could wait.
‘How’s your mom doing?’ I asked. We still had not yet had the chance to talk properly about her illness.
‘Not so good. I ought to have told you about her before but, you know, I think I was in denial.’
‘About what exactly, Jackie?’
‘I can’t even pronounce it, and I’ve heard it often enough in the last month: Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Does that sound right to you?’
I told him that I didn’t know. I’d heard of the illness, but I wasn’t familiar with its symptoms, or its prognosis. Unfortunately, Jackie now was.
‘She’d been acting strange,’ he explained. ‘Well, stranger than normal. She was getting angry for no reason, and then she’d forget that she’d been angry to start with. I thought it might be Alzheimer’s, but the doctors came back to us a couple of weeks ago with a diagnosis of this Creutzfeldt-Jakob thing.’
‘How bad is it?’
‘She has a year, maybe a little longer. The dementia is progressive, and her vision is starting to suffer. Her legs and arms are spasming. She has to go into a home, and we’ve started looking at places. Look, Charlie, there’s money for this job, right? I need to get some cash together. I have to make sure that she’s cared for right.’
Epstein had agreed to cover all expenses. I’d make sure that he paid well for Jackie’s guide skills.
‘You’ll have no complaints, Jackie.’
‘And it’s a short job?’
‘Two days at most, once I get the information that we need. We’ll have to be ready to spend a night in the woods if we have to, but I’m hoping it won’t come to that.’
‘Then I’m good to go,’ said Jackie. ‘Some time out in the woods will help me to clear my head.’
I told him where to meet us, and the call came to an end. I felt a deep pity for Jackie. He might have been a little screwed up, and with an excessive fondness for homemade munitions, but he was unswervingly loyal to his friends. While he had complained about his mother more than any man I’ve ever met, he loved her too. Her illness and eventual death would hit him hard.
Angel and Louis were following me to Falls End in their own car. I informed them of my conversation with Jackie when we stopped for coffee along the way. Both of them immediately told me to keep whatever Epstein was paying for their time and expertise, and pass it on to Jackie. I planned to do the same.
It was clear that something was wrong in Falls End as soon as we reached the town. There were patrol cars from the Aroostook County Sheriff’s Department parked on the street, along with state police cruisers and the MSP’s mobile crime scene unit. Parked on a side road to the east, just at the edge of the forest, I saw a