Free The Precipice by Paul Doiron

van. A giant honeybee was painted on the side, along with the name of his business—Breakneck Ridge Apiary.
    “You’re welcome,” I said aloud.
    My sore legs had stiffened from sitting in the truck for an hour. The ground was swampy from the thunderstorm and squished beneath my boots. I rapped on the side door of the mobile command post. Then the door opened, and I found myself looking up at Sergeant Kathy Frost.
    “Speak of the devil,” she said.
    Kathy had been my field training officer and was still my best friend in the Warden Service. She was in her fifties and had bobbed hair the color of butterscotch and a spray of freckles on her nose and cheeks. Instead of wearing a regulation uniform, she was dressed tonight in flannel and denim.
    Five months earlier, she had been shot by a sniper outside her farmhouse in Appleton and had lingered in a coma for days, fighting for her life. She’d lost her spleen during surgery and probably pieces of other organs. The last time we’d spoken, she had still been on forced convalescent leave. The purple rings around her eyes told me she was far from healed.
    “What are you doing here?” I asked, practically stuttering out the words.
    She gave me a wink. “I’m in charge of the K-9 team, remember?”
    “There’s no way they’ve let you return to duty.”
    “Come in already. You’re letting in all the bugs.”
    I had so many questions for her, but there were half a dozen officers seated around the gray plastic table in the center of the RV. It was the wrong moment for us to catch up.
    The confined space glowed with computer screens and smelled of fresh-brewed coffee. A projector threw a topographical map against one of the beige walls, showing the Appalachian Trail between Chairback Gap and Whitecap Mountain. Icons indicated the locations of the lean-tos, and a dotted line traced the meandering trail.
    Lieutenant DeFord turned from a conversation he was having with a state police detective and glanced up at me from his chair. He had a boyishly handsome face, dark blond hair cut close to the scalp, and a physique that verified the stories of his having almost made the Olympic biathlon team but for an ACL tear.
    “Bowditch,” he said. “Glad you made it back in one piece.”
    “We had a little rain up on Chairback, sir.”
    “There was lightning popping everywhere down here. I wondered whether you and Nissen would even be able to get off the mountain tonight.”
    “Nissen doesn’t seem easily fazed.”
    A few subtle smiles from the assembled officers told me that Nissen’s reputation preceded him.
    “The same could be said for you.” DeFord indicated a chair at the table. “Do you know everyone here?”
    There were four other wardens, including Kathy, all of whom I knew, plus the state trooper, a detective sergeant, who was dressed in a blue T-shirt and blue tactical pants tucked into black boots, and whose name, I was told, was Brian Fitzpatrick. Another man—lean, black-haired, wearing a dress shirt and tie, suit pants, and shiny shoes—sat quietly in the corner. The lieutenant passed over him without introduction.
    DeFord fetched a bottle of Poland Spring water from the refrigerator for me. “So, we’ve been going over the photos you sent. Why don’t you fill in the details for us.”
    It took me fifteen minutes to describe what I’d found at the shelter and recount the conversation I’d had with Chad McDonough. Midway through my monologue, one of the overhead fluorescents began to flicker, throwing a jumpy light on the assembled faces. Both Fitzpatrick and the warden investigator assigned to the case—an affable gray-haired guy named Wesley Pinkham—interrupted me frequently.
    “What was your take on McDonough’s state of mind?” Sergeant Fitzpatrick asked. He worked out of the Maine Information and Analysis Center. “You said he seemed stoned?”
    “He had a strong odor of marijuana on him.”
    Fitzpatrick crushed a piece of hard candy between