“Burch claims Chamberlain wasn’t wearing a personal flotation device. But the professor was dressed head to toe in wetlands camouflage, and his life preserver was also camo-colored. There’s no way Burch could’ve seen definitively from that distance if he was wearing it or not. Why did Burch lie about it then? Why is he still lying about it?”

“Misremembering isn’t a lie. Can you recall what you had for lunch last Tuesday?”

“A roast beef sandwich with lettuce, tomato, and mustard. And a pickle.”

“Go to hell.”

“Mariëtte Chamberlain swore up and down that the professor never ever took off his PFD because he’d nearly drowned as a kid.”

“Maybe it came off when he fell overboard,” said Rivard. “That part doesn’t matter. What matters is Burch saw Chamberlain alone in the boat.”

“But if he lied about one thing—”

“I knew you were going to undermine me.”

“What?”

“It’s not enough that you sabotaged my career and helped get me fired, you want to strip me of my accomplishments, too. You’re going to go to DeFord and tell him that I fucked up the Chamberlain case. You don’t even need to prove anything. It’s enough for you to punch holes in my report. You’re a sadistic son of a bitch, Bowditch. Has anyone told you that?”

Rivard was the first boss I’d ever had whom I truly hated. The experience had been hellish, but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. Those miserable months had taught me an invaluable life lesson. They’d shown me how power can pervert a person.

All of Rivard’s many character defects—his pettiness, his personal vanity, his paranoia—became magnified with his new station. All of the motives he was accusing me of were projections of how he himself would have behaved in my place. I could waste time trying to persuade him that he was wrong about me, but he would hear every word as confirmation of my dishonesty and disloyalty to my fellow officers.

“I don’t suppose the name Lynda Lynch rings a bell? I didn’t see her mentioned in your report.”

“Should it?”

“She’s the matriarch up here on Pill Hill.”

“That development was under construction when Chamberlain died. Aside from Burch there was only one other person living up there, some old trucker. He and the professor weren’t friends, but they knew each other from around. Both were serious duck hunters.”

“Do you remember his name, this old trucker?”

“I remember it was French.” He paused to use one of his mnemonic devices to retrieve the half-forgotten name. “Bazinet. Vic Bazinet.”

“What do you remember about him?” I asked.