The Edge

When Devine looked at Guillaume, she was giving him a tiny smile. He returned it.

I’ll take any support I can get right now, thought Devine.

It was like he was back in Afghanistan looking for a friendly face.

And I never found many. Let’s hope I do better on American soil.

Chapter 9

A light drizzle was falling as Devine followed the pair in the muddy cruiser with a bent front ram bar. Devine knew they would learn little at the crime scene in the darkness. But he needed to get a feel for its structures, its parameters and possibilities.

He had been right in telling Campbell that he was not a trained investigator, but the old general had also been correct in informing Devine not to sell himself short in that regard. He had solved the mystery in New York. But he’d had help, and he’d also allowed himself to get shot. With his own gun! That still hurt his pride.

In the Middle East he had done countless battlefield assessments. The Army documented everything. Battle assessment methodologies, collateral damage assessment, munitions effectiveness, reattack recommendation methodologies, post — campaign operations actions. In this regard they were looking for the smallest clues and telltale signs as to why a combat operation had not gone according to plan or why damage was above expectations. Or how an IED had been able to get close enough to kill its intended target. So his mind was trained to see certain things.

Sometimes things went sideways just due to shitty luck, Devine knew. When many people were gathered in close quarters trying their best to kill one another, there wasn’t a report or methodology in the world that could cover all the possible contingencies or outcomes. Humans under threat of death were just too unpredictable; some turned into cowards, and others into heroes, and still others into both.

Devine had, on numerous occasions, successfully interrogated people he thought were allies and those he knew to be enemies, and found out vital information in most of those cases. He had not done it with brute force, though on occasion he had wanted to as he stared into smug expressions projecting unearned superiority. They were the hardened countenances of people who would do absolutely nothing to help you and absolutely anything to do the opposite to you. He hoped whatever talent he possessed for this sort of work was enough for this case. Campbell seemed to have faith in him, justified or not.

He looked over, and there stood Jocelyn Point like a lighthouse on the coast, only with very little light to offer. Offshore a collection of blackened clouds was gathering and perhaps pondering whether to come onto land and pummel the puny scattering of humans who dwelled there.

A few minutes later the cruiser pulled off to the side of the road, rubber gripping mud, and stopped. Devine slipped his Tahoe in behind and got out.

So she died not that far from her old homestead.

The wind seemed fiercer at this point. He didn’t know if it was due to the approaching storm or some weird topographical feature at this spot. But as he walked up to join the two officers of the law, Devine thought this was a perfectly macabre backdrop for violent death. It was essentially Edgar Allan Poe — esque in its deep sense of potentially sinister intrigue.

He stood there for a few moments and gave a sweeping gaze across the landscape, taking in all points that seemed to him of interest. Fuss held one powerful light, and she produced another from the cruiser and handed it to Devine. He used it to illuminate a stand of scrub pines off to the left. There was also an open field of grass and wild plants that seemed to thrive even in the stark chill. Another stand of deciduous trees was off to the far right, their trunks and naked branches registering as shadows in the dark. Thick, burly bushes were everywhere, with many of them also bereft of leaves.

Devine had been to Maine before on training exercises with the Rangers. He knew it held the highest percentage of wooded land of any state, at nearly ninety percent. And he had become something of an amateur horticulturist, so as to determine the types of trees and bushes for suitable concealment while being shot at or attempting to sneak up on an enemy, as well as what one could safely eat when one’s own food ran out. And which bark and herbs and flowers were viable for treating wounds when there was no more medicine at hand. Thus, he knew the Maine state tree was the eastern white pine, several of which he could see here now. The state flower was the white pinecone.

He eyed his two companions, who were staring resolutely at him.

Time to turn from botany to homicide.

“Where was she found?” he asked.

They led him along a broad, rutted path through the trees and kept going until they reached the end of land.