by B. D. Smith
Doug paused long enough to make sure the red shirted crowd had gotten the message, then he and Anne climbed back in the Otter and they continued their search for the Black Behemoth. They passed several other hard-charging race boats on their way home, and when they passed Newell Cove it was crowded with a large group of patio boats full of red shirts celebrating the weekend with happy laughter and loud music.
Thinking of the Water Rats, Anne leaned over and commented to Doug.
“Looks kinda like fish in a barrel.”
Anne’s augury would prove to be all too accurate in the coming days.
21.
By sundown on Sunday it was clear that a considerable number of race entrants had decided to arrive the weekend before the race and enjoy a week-long holiday with time for practice runs, informal racing, and general merrymaking. A total of about fifty race boats had arrived by sunset. Parties continued till almost one in the morning, with fireworks, loud music, racing outboard engines, and garishly lit patio boats disturbing the night’s silence. By three in the morning the last partier had turned in for the night and with the exception of a few loons and owls, silence returned to Sebec Lake.
Ted Height lived on the south shore, a few miles east of Greeley’s Landing, and it took him less than a half hour by kayak to reach Merrill’s Marina. There was no moon, which made it a little difficult for him to avoid rocky outcrops near the shore, but was perfect for what he was planning. Ted hid his kayak under some bushes near the marina, grabbed the pair of long handled branch cutters and the pole with a hook on the end he had brought along, pulled on his diving mask and flippers, and slipped into the dark waters of the lake. He swam cautiously, flippers moving silently under the surface, hook and snippers held firmly, to the first of a long line of race boats anchored in the marina. Slipping between the massive twin outboards on the stern of the boat, Ted reached up with the pole hook and pulled the fuel line for one of the engines down toward him. Once it was within reach he switched to the snippers and removed a two-foot length of the fuel line, slipping it into a mesh bag tied to his waist. Turning to the second engine, he cut its fuel line in the same manner before moving on to the next boat. Ted worked his way down the row of more than a dozen patio boats, continuing his outboard vasectomies in a deliberate, methodical manner. When he had completed snipping the entire row of boats, he spent another half hour searching out and incapacitating the other race boats scattered throughout the marina, easily identified by their distinctive red number placards.
Ted was looking forward with growing anticipation to the following morning, when he planned on getting an early front row seat to watch the patio boats power up and head out for practice runs, only to be stranded in the middle of the lake when the small amount of fuel in the engine’s internal fuel storage tank ran out and there was nothing coming in from the external tanks. Ted had come up with the pole hook and snipper strategy on his own and was pretty pleased with it. The fuel lines could be replaced easily and inexpensively, but it would take a while to obtain new hoses, and the effort and time needed definitely qualified as a considerable inconvenience. No real damage was done to the boats or the engines, and only a day or two would be lost before they were back up and running. Just what Mother Moth had called for.
Alex and Owen Diehl, two teenage brothers who lived quite close to the Newell Cove boat ramp, took a different approach to disabling the two dozen or so race boats anchored in the cove. Rather than snipping fuel lines, they swam from boat to boat, each teen armed with a pair of pliers, a crescent wrench, a clamp-shaped tool called a prop puller, and a bag to collect their trophies. Owen and Alex had both been practicing for a few days, and they now could, by feel alone, in total darkness, use pliers and wrench to first remove cotter pins and lock nuts, and then employ the prop puller to pop the prop off the drive shaft. They got quite good at it after a while, and both could remove a propeller in under a minute. On the boats with more than one engine they would sometimes remove the propellers from all the engines, and on others they would leave one intact. While Ted was looking forward to watching race boats at the marina run out of gas the following day, Alex and Owen would be sitting on their dock and taking videos with their phones of boats moving much slower than usual, or not moving at all.
A few race boats, moored down by Sebec village, suffered a more serious fate. Here, without any direct instructions, a Water Rat alum had settled a few scores at the same time he was targeting race boats. Using a compressed air powered bolt gun like the one portrayed in the movie ‘No Country for Old Men,’ he punched holes in the pontoons of several race boats as well as his neighbor’s patio boat, sending them to the bottom. In other scattered locations around the lake, younger Water Rats had simply untied boats and set them adrift.
Reactions to the events of Sunday night were quite varied. Water Rats of all ages, not surprisingly, were quietly upbeat that it had gone so well. Nobody had been caught or injured and sections of black hose which might or might not be from fuel hose snipping started showing up around town as informal neck wear. The owners of the disabled patio boats, who were understandably angry about the Sunday night attacks, none-the-less rallied in an impressive manner to the challenge. An anonymous phone call early Monday morning to race organizers alerted them to the return of the props the next day. As promised, all of the liberated props, lock screws, and cotter pins collected by Owen and Alex were found in a plastic bin left on the porch of the roller rink on Tuesday morning. By mid-afternoon most of the props had been reunited with their engines and the boats were back in action. Replacement fuel hoses for all the impacted boats were also tracked down by race organizers in various boat dealers across Maine, and by Wednesday morning many of them were also fully operational.
Reactions to Sunday night were not restricted to just the perpetrators and the victims. The story of the coordinated attacks on the race boats spread quickly on social media and by mid-week it had been picked up by national news outlets. ESPN thought it was excellent advertising for the race, while many people in the Sebec community seemed to support the Water Rats, particularly those who had witnessed high-speed practice runs by race participants.
By noon on the Monday of race week, as the full scale of Water Rat pranks of the night before came into focus, Sheriff Torben had taken the lead in coordinating with Nigel and the Kiwanis Club race committee, the Sebec Lake Association, the Town of Dover-Foxcroft, and the Maine State Warden Service to address the dramatic wave of attacks and protect the race participants from further vandalism. Torben also called Anne on Monday morning to ask her and Doug to focus on the Eastman killing and to not get tangled up in the pranking investigation. The sheriff had few expectations of actually discovering who planned the Sunday night attacks or who carried them out, as they looked to be the work of a very few individuals working independently of each other. No one had seen them, or at least no one was willing to come forward, and they had left no evidence behind. With the exception of the bolt gun sinkings, all of the pranks were also clearly misdemeanors, and juveniles were also likely involved. Not exactly a high priority for law enforcement.
After discussions between all of the stakeholders on Monday afternoon it was agreed that the easiest and most effective way to avoid additional pranking before the Friday time trials would be for race entrants to pull their boats from the lake before dark each night and park their trailers in well-lit locations. This recommendation was implemented, and many of the trailers carrying race boats ended up parked in the large lots at Greeley’s Landing and at the Peaks-Kenny State Park in the South Cove. This caused long waits at the boat ramps each morning and afternoon but did serve to protect the boats from nocturnal pranking.
The Water Rats had expected just such a mass exodus of race boats to the safety of dry land, and hadn’t scheduled any follow-up nocturnal forays after Sunday night. They did, however, ha
ve a mid-week second act planned. The parking lots at Greeley’s Landing and Peaks-Kenny, where the patio boats were gathered for protection from the eco-terrorists, lacked lighting, but race organizers had established overnight monitoring by volunteer Kiwanis Club guards. Race organizers didn’t anticipate any problems, and on Monday and Tuesday nights all was quiet. On Wednesday night, after guards had become a little less alert, it was pretty easy for Water Rats to evade detection in both locations. A half dozen of them flitted silently among the trailered race boats, disabling them using a simple tool.
Instead of targeting the boats, however, they focused on the trailers – specifically the trailer tires. Instead of puncturing the tires or simply letting the air out, they deployed tire valve core removal tools – small, inexpensive and easily discarded. Muffling the noise of escaping air with towels, the Water Rats removed the tire valve cores from all of the trailer tires. New valve cores would have to be installed before the tires could be inflated again. Valve cores could be obtained easily from auto parts stores in Dover-Foxcroft or adjacent communities. Most of the race boat owners opted to wait for new valve cores before trying to move their trailers. Moving the trailers even the short distance to the boat ramp on flat tires could cause damage that might not appear until they were on their way home after the races. As a result, very few race boats made it back on the lake for practice runs until Thursday afternoon.
Following Sheriff Torben’s instructions, Anne and Doug called to try to set up a time to talk again with the widow Eastman. After several of their calls went to voicemail, Anne tried the widow’s sister, Mary Payne. She indicated that her sister would be out of town until Friday but didn’t offer any explanation. She did, however, offer to meet with Doug and Anne and answer any questions they might have. They agreed to meet at two at the Spruce Mill Farm and Kitchen, just across from the hospital in Dover-Foxcroft.
Mary was sitting at a table by the window and waved them over as they walked in the front door at Spruce Mill. She was sipping a cup of coffee and had started in on a muffin. Anne sat with Mary while Doug went to the counter, soon returning with coffee and donuts for the two of them.
“Pretty exciting about last night’s pranking,” Mary commented with a wide smile as Doug sat down. “Those Water Rats did themselves proud.”
“So, you’re in support of the attacks on the patio boat race?” Anne asked.
Mary looked surprised.
“Of course I am. My sister and I were born and raised on Sebec. It’s a special place. We both love it. We don’t want anyone trashing it all up with cheesy shit like patio boat races. What’s next – a Sebec Six Flags theme park?”
Looking puzzled, Anne followed up with another question.
“But wasn’t your sister’s late husband John a big supporter of the race?”
“Sure, John had a boat entered and was involved in the planning. Once again, he got sucked in by Nigel. Their whole lives Nigel has been able to talk John into joining his schemes. John was always a hard-ass negotiator when it came to business, but somehow Nigel has drawn him into a number of fiascos over the years – always big plans and then eventually another failure. I always thought John must be indebted to Nigel for something Nigel did for him when they were kids.”
“Nigel Underwood and John Eastman were boyhood friends?” Doug asked with unconcealed surprise.
“Oh sure – they grew up a few blocks from each other in a small town in central New Jersey – I forget the name of it. John and Nigel were best friends all through high school and continued to keep in touch after. But their lives went in very different directions – John became more and more successful as a developer and Nigel slipped further and further into sketchy schemes.”
“Is the patio boat race another one of Nigel’s sketchy schemes?” Doug asked.
Totally at ease, clearly enjoying herself, Mary answered.
“Oh, I guess so. Actually it could be a lot of fun if it was organized properly. But the abomination they have put together is an affront to everyone who values the tranquility of the lake. All these yahoos roaring around close to shore, cutting off boats that have the right of way, scaring the wildlife. Unacceptable.”
“Did your sister Elizabeth share your views, or did she agree with her husband?” Anne asked.
“She strongly agreed with me but would never dare speak up too strongly to John. She loved the man, which I could never understand. You probably know already or will find out soon enough – the hospital here in town certainly has chapter and verse for you if you can get into their records. John was an abuser, almost from the start of their marriage. I could never understand why she didn’t leave him, but she didn’t. Mostly it was just slapping and an occasional body punch. He stayed away from her face, but he did break her foot a few years ago. He ‘accidentally’ dropped an outboard motor on it. Her foot never healed up properly. That’s the reason she uses that clunky beaver-chewed stick as a cane now.”
Doug smiled at that. Each year he would collect dozens of the sticks Mary had referred to along the shoreline of his place by Otter Point. Varying in size from sizable branches, like the one Elizabeth Eastman had used for her cane, to small twigs, such beaver-chewed sticks were easily identified by the distinctive teeth marks at one end, and the ubiquitous nibble marks where the bark had been stripped along its full length.
“She never reported the abuse?” Doug asked.
“No, she never did. I told her many times that she should leave him, but she wouldn’t think of it. He was her husband and she loved him.”
Glancing back and forth between Doug and Anne, Mary continued.
“I know what you’re thinking. My sister had a pretty good motive for getting rid of her husband. But she didn’t. I’m one hundred percent sure of that.”
“Why so sure?” Anne asked.
“Because I know her. She isn’t capable of such a thing. And for some reason, in spite of the abuse, she loved the man.”
“When did you learn about John Eastman’s death?” Doug asked.
“Liz called me right after she discovered his body. Our phone records should document when she called.”
“How did she seem? What did she say?” Anne asked.
“Liz was hysterical – she just kept screaming ‘he’s dead. He’s dead.’ Over and over.”
“You were at home when she called?” Doug asked, abruptly shifting the focus of the questions.
“Yes. The phone records will show that as well.” Mary replied, sitting straighter in her chair.
Doug and Anne both noticed Mary’s reaction to the question, and Anne quickly followed up.
“What was your relationship with John Eastman like? Did you get along with him? Did you two ever have words about him beating up on your sister?”
Mary leaned back in her chair and gazed past them out the window at the passing traffic. She took her time before answering.
“I despised the man. He was a puffed-up little fool, no matter what Liz tells you. I avoided him as much as I could and tried hard to fake it when we got together. But I much preferred it when he wasn’t around. He was absent a lot before he retired, and things weren’t as bad for Liz. But after they moved up here, and he had more time on his hands, Liz became more of a target.”
Setting down her coffee cup and picking up her purse from the seat next to her, Mary indicated that the friendly chat had ended. Anne thanked her for talking to them and they both shook hands with Mary as she got up from her chair. As Mary walked to the door, she reached back to free her long hair from her purse strap, briefly exposing the back of her neck. Anne noticed a design of two small fern-like filaments peeking up above Mary’s collar. The design looked vaguely familiar, but Anne couldn’t immediately
place it.
Doug’s phone rang as they were pulling out of the parking lot. It was Tom Richard.
“Hey Tom,” Doug answered. “Are you and the beautiful Rosemary engaged yet?”
“I’m going to ignore that Doug. But I will say that so far our relationship is developing nicely. And that’s part of why I’m calling. I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Here’s the bad news – Louise Binford was taken back to the hospital from jail last night and kept overnight for surgery on her larynx early this morning. But she disappeared from the hospital overnight. Made a clean getaway. The guard outside her room apparently went down to the cafeteria for coffee just after midnight and when he checked on her when he returned, she was gone. Her handcuff was still attached to the bed, but Lou wasn’t on the other end. No leads yet on where the hell she went.”
Doug muttered ‘fuck’ a few times in response before asking “What’s the good news?”
“Oh, the good news. You can thank Rosemary for this little nugget. We’re definitely coming up to Sebec for the races this weekend. But next week we are going in search of the elusive Arctic Char. Apparently it is still extant in some lakes up around Baxter. I know, it’s weird, but anyway… Oh yeah – so we pulled out our dog-eared copy of The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer to plan our trip, and Rose wanted to see what Sebec Lake looked like on the map. We found it on page thirty-two, in the upper left-hand corner. The lake extended over several of page thirty-two’s map squares, but the north side of the big lake, up by Buck’s Cove, was in the corner square – 1A.”
