The Precipice by Paul Doiron Read Free Book Online Page B

past me at Nissen.
    “You two know each other, too?” I said, wondering how I’d lived this long without hearing Nissen’s name.
    “Everyone on the trail knows who Nonstop is. The guy’s like a living legend. Good to see you again, sir.” He gave a military salute.
    Nissen grunted and glared off in another direction.
    “This is Warden Bowditch,” said Caleb Maxwell.
    I put on my Officer Friendly face and crossed the stone floor until I was standing across the table from the soft-bodied hiker. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
    “Um, that depends, I guess. Am I in trouble? I didn’t mean to leave the lights on.”
    “The light police is another department.”
    His openmouthed expression told me he didn’t understand that I was joking. I indicated that he should sit down again. I settled into a chair opposite him. The dining room still smelled of roasted turkey.
    “I’m hoping you can help me with some information,” I said.
    “Sure thing, bro.” His blue eyes appeared glassy, and the blood vessels around the irises were engorged. Even having just showered, his body gave off the skunky aroma of marijuana.
    “Let’s start with your name.”
    The smile returned, bigger than before, and he tapped two fingers against the brim of the sombrero on the table. “They call me McDonut.”
    “He means your real name,” said Caleb Maxwell.
    “Oh!” the young man said. “It’s McDonough. Chad McDonough.”
    I held out my palm to him. “Can I see some identification, Chad?”
    He looked at my open hand, as if not quite grasping the request, then began fishing around in the many pockets of his cargo shorts until, after several false attempts, he located a battered wallet stuffed with receipts. He opened a flap and held out a driver’s license, which gave his address as North Adams, Massachusetts. In the photograph, he was clean-shaven and his wavy brown hair was cut short in frat-boy style. His height was listed at five-eleven, his weight at 240 pounds. Was it possible to gain weight hiking the Appalachian Trail?
    I set the license on the table and got out my point-and-shoot.
    “Do you guys want some coffee?” Caleb asked.
    “Thanks.”
    The lodge manager disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later, I heard the sound of water running from a tap into a pot.
    McDonough watched me closely from across the table. “Is everything cool here, sir?”
    “Caleb says you’ve been here eight nights. Where are you coming from?”
    “Um, Monson.”
    “Are you a thru-hiker?”
    “No, man, I’m a section hiker.”
    “That means he’s doing the trail in pieces,” Nissen offered from across the room. He said this in the way someone might refer to a habitual drunk driver.
    McDonough seemed oblivious to the other man’s contempt.
    “Easy does it, right? I’m not hard-core like that dude.” He waggled a thumb in Nissen’s direction, as if they were old friends. “So what’s going on? Is there some sort of emergency?”
    “We’re looking for two missing hikers,” I said. “They would also have been heading north from Monson.” I removed the well-wrinkled copy of the MISSING poster from my pocket and unfolded it so he could have a look. “Have you seen them?”
    He squinted at the piece of paper. “Oh shit.”
    “You recognize them?”
    I could feel my heart swell with blood. Based on everything I’d learned so far, Chad McDonough might have been the last person to see the women alive.
    “They never told me their real names.” McDonough returned the flyer to me, grease-smudged from the GORP he’d been eating. “Did something happen to them?”
    “Well, they’re missing,” said Nissen from behind me.
    I removed my notebook from my pocket. “When was the last time you saw them?”
    His bleary eyes drifted away from mine, and he raised a hand to count with his chubby fingers. “Nine—no, ten days ago.”
    “Where?”
    “Back at Cloud Pond. We stayed together in the shelter there. Drank