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After finishing my breakfast and chatting with half the town about the weather, the state of my research, and Remy’s training regimen for nationals, I headed to the Gagnon Lumber headquarters. I’d been inside the building a handful of times in my life, but today I had work to do.
After diving into the files Henri had shared with me, I had found some helpful bits and gotten sidetracked by the history of the Golden Road, which was the main logging road that stretched from Northern Maine to Canada. It had been built through a private partnership of logging families to open up the northernmost forests and provide timber and jobs for the region, replacing a network of roads and trails and streams that had been used for hundreds of years prior.
Henri had invited me to chat with employees and check records, and I wasn’t going to pass it up. I was veering off track, satisfying my fascination with the logging roads and drug trafficking, but I couldn’t stop myself. The records I’d scoured hinted to so much more, and I intended to figure out all the secrets hidden along the Golden Road.
My work analyzing the data from state programs to treat and prevent opioid abuse was chugging along, especially since Henri had connected me with a clerk at the state police, who had helped me with an official records request. But the secrets of the lumber business, and the ugly underbelly of these lonely roads, kept pulling me in.
Remy was in a meeting with his brothers, so I chatted with several members of the administrative team and the late Mr. Gagnon’s secretary, who helped me scan a slew of documents we had unearthed from an old filing cabinet.
I pored over old logging maps, obsession tightening its grip on me. There were several antique ones framed around the office, and others I found in various old files. They revealed a network of old roads and trails and camps that followed the rivers through the vast wilderness. A way of life completely abandoned once technology changed the industry.
Needing a break from the documents I’d been compiling, I wandered out to the machine shop. It was bigger than the office building, with a massive parking lot filled with parts, scrap, and dozens of intimidating-looking machines.
I found Adele inside the shop under the hood of something massive. Music that I could only identify as heavy metal was blaring, and when my shadow fell over her, she popped her head up quickly, then ducked back down and continued working, ignoring me for several long minutes while I stood near a worktable and waited.
“Hazel,” she said coolly. Adele was intimidating. Both in stature and attitude. She had been cultivating an air ofdon’t fuck with mesince grade school. She wore dark blue coveralls tied at the waist and a black tank top, which showed off her impressive shoulder muscles. She was tall, probably almost six feet, and her long dirty blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail.
Her cheekbones were high and her eyes were big and round and her mouth was set in a hard line.
“Here to talk about my brother?” she asked, taking a sip from a stainless-steel water bottle and wiping her hands on a rag. “I agree. You can do better.”
I respected her attempt at diversion. Henri had asked her to answer some of my questions about the truck and machinery and how things worked, but he’d warned me that she may not be receptive.
“I’d rather not talk about my marriage,” I said primly, clasping my hands in front of me and instantly regretting it.
She stood to her full height and sauntered closer, glaring at me. “Fun. And I’d rather not relive the trauma of my father’s death and my brother’s accident, but here we are.”
I closed my eyes, searching for the right words. Usually, I was skilled at interviewing subjects, but unsurprisingly, my experience was failing me with Adele. I had known her since we were kids, and in all that time, she’d been known to take exactly zero shit. Growing up, I had stayed far away. She had always been one of the boys—playing sports, climbing trees, and beating everyone along the way.
And She was smart. Everyone knew that. Most of all, her. And while Remy had cautioned me, there were just too many questions. I couldn’t stop the curiosity that simmered inside me.
“Why are you even here?” she asked, opening up her laptop and typing. “Shouldn’t you be making excel spreadsheets or something?”
Her tone said it all. She did real work, and I was nothing more than a desk jockey. Not an uncommon attitude up here, where so many worked with their hands, so I was ready for her.
“I’m conducting research about the opioid crisis. Specifically its impact in rural communities here in Maine. How the drugs get in, how social factors make certain populations more susceptible, and how local and state governments and NGOs can help.”
She didn’t bother looking up from her computer, so I went on, though I wasn’t sure she was even listening.
“What is actually efficacious and what is a waste of time and resources. But the big question is always how are they getting here? So I wanted to ask you a few questions about the trucks and the roads.”
“You’re not a cop,” she interrupted.
“I am not.”
“So why do you care?”
I took her sneer and raised her a smug smile. “Hmm.” I crossed my arms and stepped closer. “Maybe because I’ve devoted my professional life to this? Or maybe because I lost my mom to addiction. Dylan and I lost her long before she lost her life. This is personal for me.”
At that admission, she looked up, and her face softened faintly. It wasn’t often I talked about my mom, but she needed to understand that I wouldn’t let her shitty attitude stop me from getting the information I came here for.
“So no, I’m not a cop, and I’m not a mechanic, or a lumberjack, I have one skill set. I understand data. I collect and synthesize huge volumes of information. So you do your job and let me do mine.”
She straightened, scanning me from head to toe, squinting as if she were debating with herself. “I really don’t want to talk.”
“Do you have something to hide?” I asked gently.
She scowled. “Of course not.”
