Bunker 01 - Slipknot

by Linda Greenlaw

  A porch, probably elegant in its day, wrapped around the front of the house, the center of which was divided by a set of rickety steps. A shallow trough had been worn in the middle of each of the three steps, and the remains of a handrail teetered precariously. The house’s clapboards retained only a trace of white paint, light flakes of which appeared to be so tenuously attached to wood, I thought they could be dusted away with the wave of a hand. The window left of the door was missing a couple of panes of glass, allowing shreds of a white curtain to ghost out and flutter in the slight breeze. A hollow whistling of the same breeze through the necks of twin propane bottles yoked by patinaed copper tubing inspired a tingle between my shoulder blades.

  What had to be decades of garbage stuffed into green plastic bags formed mountainous heaps that consumed most of the porch. I pulled a penlight from my bag, and the beam

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  confirmed the contents of the heaps as garbage. Raccoons had strewn their discarded dinner packaging, and flies were now enjoying what remained in pizza boxes, Twinkie wrap-pers, and tin cans alive with ants. Beyond the end of the porch and outside the window was the largest collection of empty soda cans I had ever seen. It looked as though Dow had simply thrown his empties through the broken window—the height of laziness, I thought. Now my impression of Nick Dow was as low as all I had heard around town.

  Slovenly white trash, I thought, realizing that Dow had lived in this dung pile up until three days ago.

  I quickly ascended the steps and steeled myself for the squalor I imagined I would find inside. The screen door, which had been patched several times with pieces of duct tape, opened easily. I was not surprised to find the inner door unlocked. As I pushed it open and stepped over the thresh-old, I held my breath, knowing that when I had to inhale, it would not be pleasant. Easing the door closed behind me, I strained to see my surroundings in relative blackness.

  Frisking the wall adjacent to the entrance with my left hand, I found a light switch and flipped it on. To my astonish-ment, there were no scurrying vermin. In fact, the kitchen was, as my mother would say, as neat as a pin. The appliances were outdated, and the hardwood floors needed refinishing. But things were orderly and clean. There was absolutely nothing in the air that resembled the stench I had anticipated—only a faint musky smell that reminded me of tidal South Carolina. A lot can be learned about a person from the contents of his s l i p k n o t

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  kitchen, I knew. So I began the search for clues to unlock the mysteries of Nick Dow.

  By the time I had shuffled through all the contents of the cupboards and refrigerator, I understood that the disparity between the house’s outward appearance and the reality of what was inside mirrored the dichotomy of its dead owner.

  Signs of neglect in the home’s exterior would indicate to a reasoning intruder—which I was—even worse conditions inside. Were the ramshackle dwelling and surrounding pigsty an intentional facade used by Dow to enhance his reputation as a bum? Or did Dow simply suffer from some psychosis?

  The food in the refrigerator and freezer—including organic veggies, yogurt, and fancy cheeses—was a far cry from the mess scattered about the porch and yard. Dow’s dump at-tested that he was a microwaver and junk-food addict, while within the kitchen were only delicacies of a healthy gourmet.

  And as the toxicology had indicated, not a single can of beer or jug of rum did I find.

  Perplexed, I wandered into the next room and found a light switch. In all of my years of investigative work, I’ve found bedrooms and baths of murder victims always rubber-glove time. The gloves were for my protection. The characters I had investigated had been lowlife slime. Men and women who smuggled drugs and human beings and prosti-tuted their own children for their next fix did not make beds or scrub toilets. Dow did. Murderers, druggies, and rapists did not read Popular Mechanics or Scientific American. Dow did. Criminals who had no regard for life except their own,

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  who ended up dead at the hands of someone a bit more desperate than they, often slept on a filthy mattress on a floor riddled with drug paraphernalia and charred things that were not offerings to the multitude of religious symbols adorning bedroom walls.

  I had moved to Maine in part to escape these things. And right now it looked as though I had. Dow’s bedside table held no sex toys or X-rated videos. There was no giant flat-screen television, or even a television, for that matter. There were no personal photographs. There was not a single whimsical item to be found: no art, no games, not even a snow globe. When I looked in a closet, I found a set of golf clubs, much to my surprise. The woods had head covers monogrammed with nd, so there was little chance that they belonged to anyone other than Nick Dow. Rifling through the bag’s pockets, I found scorecards from several courses in Florida and Arizona but none from any place in Maine. Pulling out a pitching wedge, I gripped and swung for no other reason than I could never resist doing so. A little stiff, I thought as I replaced the club. I hadn’t played in weeks. Before moving through the next doorway, I noted the absence in the magazine rack of National Fisherman and wondered why Dow would write a letter to the editor of a publication to which he did not subscribe. It seemed I had a lot to learn.

  A tidy and well-organized office did not surprise me at this point. But who would have believed that a fisherman and low-level bookie would keep such a neat desk and two three-drawer file cabinets? I thumbed through a stack of bills, all marked “paid,” with dates and check numbers. Except for s l i p k n o t

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  the absence of a phone bill, there was nothing unusual. No phone, no computer, nothing I could use to track down any contacts Dow might have had. Stacks of pads of white lined paper and an abundance of ballpoint pens indicated that all correspondence to and from this office was handwritten.

  The leader of a gambling ring must keep a list or book of bets and debts, I thought. But where? I opened the desk drawers one at a time and scanned their contents, all of which contained typical office supplies. A plastic cup held paper clips, all standard silver save one. A multicolored clip similar to those used by Ginny Turner sat on top of the others. Coincidence? I doubted it.

  As I moved around the side of the desk to the file cabinets, my heart raced like it had when I made my very first arrest so many years ago. Beside the far cabinet, on the floor, lay a large rusty tire iron. Dents and missing paint on the file drawers were evidence that they had been pried open and the locks broken. Could the tire iron also have been used as the murder weapon? There was no blood splattered anywhere and no blood or hair on the iron. Although it was not impossible, it was, in my opinion, unlikely that Dow had been killed here and thrown into the harbor afterward. In my experience, killers who used instruments as crude as a rusty tire iron were not meticulous about cleaning up after themselves.

  The iron must have been used only to jimmy open the drawers. I hoped that who and why would be revealed by the contents of the drawers.

  Slowly, as if expecting something to jump out, I opened the top drawer. It was stuffed tight with file folders. I opened

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  the others and found the same to be true of all. The tabs on each folder were labeled with a name, last then first, in alpha-betical order. The front file in the top drawer was labeled abbott, andrew. I slid the folder from the drawer and opened it to find the official and notarized birth certificate of Andrew Abbott, signed by Martha Dow. Alice had said that Dow’s mother was a midwife who had delivered many Green Haveners, so I assumed that her name was Martha and these files were her records.

  Peeking into several of the folders, I found similar certificates and a few obituaries and other clippings in which the name on the birthing records also appeared. Midway into the top drawer were oodles of Bunkers; I had learned since moving here that it was quite a common family name. Walking my inde
x and middle fingers through the tabs, I stopped at my name and pulled out the folder. I knew I must be running out of time, but I had to look. Although I was disappointed not to find the answers to any of the questions I had grown up and lived with, I was satisfied to see that I had indeed been born and that my mother was indeed my mother.

  Tucking the folder back into its appropriate spot, I pulled bunker, wallace from the end of the Bunkers. A content and productive Down’s syndrome child, Wally lived as an adult in an assisted living space in Florida; he would never have a need for his birth certificate. I knew his thirty-eighth was right around the corner, and I planned to send him some cool superhero stuff. Suddenly, a muted thunk jarred me from fond thoughts of Wally.

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  The sound came from behind the only closed door in the house. I strained to hear. Thunk. There it was again. Feeling naked without my gun, I picked up the tire iron from the floor and approached the closed door. I listened closely against the door. I detected a slight and constant whirring. A small electric fan, I thought. No, that wasn’t it. Now I could hear a rapid, muffled bloop, bloop. I hesitated while deciding how best to enter the room. Should I throw open the door and stand back, or barge right in? Thunk, louder this time, sounding like a footstep. With the tire iron high over my head, I threw open the door and jumped into the middle of the room. It was dark except for an eerie square luminescence. The smell of southern salt marshes that I had detected in the kitchen was now overwhelming. Backing away from the strange, dim glowing box shape, I found the light switch on the wall.

  An aquarium the size of a Volkswagen took up most of the space in the room. I was so exhilarated, I could barely breathe. The tank’s aeration system bubbled and whirred.

  The glass sides appeared to be completely covered with green algae. The algae seemed to be in motion, and something was making its way out of the top of the tank. Thunk: It hit the floor. I moved in to see what had crawled out of the aquarium. A small green crab scuttled a few inches across the linoleum floor, like a cockroach. There were several other crabs on the floor, a few of which appeared to be dried out and dead. With my face nearly against the glass, I gasped in horror. The sides of the tank were not coated with growth; the tank was plumb full of crabs. There must have

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  been thousands of them crawling around. Disgusting. I felt the sensation of something going up my pant leg. Crabs as pets? What kind of sicko was Dow?

  Just when I had the urge to scream and run from the house, lights flashed through the trees on the road and against the far wall of the crab room. Phew, I thought as my goose bumps melted like butter thrown onto a hot griddle.

  Thank God, Cal’s back. I took a deep breath, turned out the light, closed the door, and went to the window of the kitchen to signal to Cal that I would be right out. As the truck pulled around the loop, the headlights flooded the kitchen, filling it with my shadow. Opening the door, I yelled, “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  The icy realization that the vehicle was not Cal’s hit me like gallons of Gatorade on a victorious football coach. The headlights flashed to high beams. Stunned, I stood, not knowing whether to retreat back inside or make a run for it. If I stepped back into the kitchen, I would be trapped in the house with nothing but a tire iron and golf clubs for protection. No phone meant no emergency call. If I bolted outside, I would be moving through open fields, where I could easily be run down by the truck. I froze in the doorway, unable to move in any direction. Blinded by the headlights, I knew the driver of the truck was getting a crystal-clear picture of me. If I ran I would be giving the vehicle’s occupant reason to chase me, as if I had something worthy of taking the risk. I had nothing. So, scared stiff, I remained in the entryway in a stare-down that I knew could cost me my life.

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  the unmistakable high-pitched chattering and screeching of a belt out of adjustment grew fainter as the mysterious truck negotiated the turns returning it to the main road. I nearly collapsed in relief. When the noise had faded into the darkness, I let the screen door close me back inside Dow’s house. I already knew I wouldn’t tell Cal that I had been caught like the proverbial deer in the headlights by an unseen stranger. I returned the tire iron back to the floor where I had found it, and I wished that I had at least dropped it prior to exposing myself as a trespasser.

  As I completed my final walk-through of the house, including the grotesque aquarium room, I picked up a dead crab from the linoleum and zipped it into the plastic sandwich bag that held my lunch on days that I packed one. As I tucked the Zip-locked crab into the pocket of my messenger bag alongside my cell phone, I was reminded of the need for a battery charger. As I retraced my steps through the house to ensure that everything was exactly the way I had found it, I did the usual mental gymnastics of figuring out which would

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  be less expensive: shopping at the Old Maids’ or driving to Ellsworth. Eventually, I would need to do one or the other.

  Satisfied that I had not missed anything that might be an explanation of Dow’s Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde routine, I knew I would leave the house with more unanswered questions than I had entered with. I hoped that Alice and Henry would have overserved themselves with medicinal nightcaps and stumbled happily off to bed before my return so that I might avoid the inevitable grilling.

  I left behind the garbage heaps on the porch, and I thought about how strange it was that in cities, where millions of dollars were spent on the high-speed and high-tech investigation and prosecution of heinous crime, secrecy to any degree was a myth of ancient lore. Full disclosure of every last detail of any search or research or interrogation or confession was given without question or thought of holding back even a single puzzle piece for future use. Years of bribes and leaks to the press had led to a policy and practice of leaving investigation open to the public. Law enforcement and the judicial system as a whole were cleaner that way—at least in theory.

  And yet here in Green Haven, Maine, something very odd was going on. Something that had culminated in murder.

  And it was unlikely that there would be any investigation other than mine, which at this point could be considered a mere dabbling, as I was absolutely unofficial. I was in the en-viable position, I thought as I stood in the field at the end of the loop waiting for Cal in the dark, of not having to tell anyone anything. I needn’t share the crab, the paper clip, the trespassing truck, the tire iron, or the contents of the file cab-s l i p k n o t

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  inets. My move north had been like stepping back in time to the era of Sherlock Holmes.

  Cal’s headlights appeared at nine on the dot. We shared neither greetings nor small talk. I didn’t ask about his wife’s bingo game. He didn’t ask about the success of my mission. I didn’t promise not to drag him into similar situations in the future. The night was warm. We rode with our windows down. My hair washed across my face and caused me to close my eyes. My exterior calm hid the turmoil within. Anyone could hide the truth, I thought. That was the easy part.

  When my hair fell limp upon my shoulders, I realized that we had stopped in the visitor’s parking spot at the Lobster Trappe. I was relieved when I opened my eyes to see the Vickersons’ windows totally black. The only light in the vicinity was shining from my apartment at thirty-two cents per kilowatt-hour; I knew my goodbye would be hasty. Cal had already placed the gearshift in reverse when I opened the truck door and swung my right leg out. The small light on the roof of the cab was soft and kind to Cal’s heavily weathered face. His eyes were on the rearview mirror, indicating to me that he did not intend to linger. Cal appeared to be more than ready to be done with his part in my caper. Stepping out of the truck and easing the door closed to avoid waking the landlords, I was uncomfortable leaving without a word. As usual, I had no idea what to say, though “good night” and

  “thank you” w
ould have sufficed. “See you tomorrow” may have worked. Instead, I poked my head through the open window and whispered, “Talk is cheap.”

  The dashboard lights dimly lit Cal’s easy smile and nod.

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  His eyes never left the rearview mirror as he replied, “Yes, that’s true. Supply and demand.”

  I hesitated before releasing the side of the truck. I took Cal’s implication that the supply of conversation exceeded the demand as permission for me to remain silent. I left without even “good night” and was heartened to see Cal’s headlights remain in my apartment windows until I stood inside and waved. They don’t make men like that anymore, I thought. Perhaps I had been born a couple of decades too late.

  The stench of burned popcorn permeated my living space. I wondered how I would ever fall asleep while breathing this air. I brushed my hair and teeth, slipped a cotton nightgown over my head, flipped off the light, and felt my way to the side of the bed. I fumbled and found the switch for the small lamp on my bedside table and turned it on. Beside the lamp stood a bottle of single-malt Scotch whiskey, a glass, and a handwritten note: “We trust that this will help you sleep. Your sheets are in the wash. Linens on your bed are on loan. Can’t wait to hear about your night! Mr. and Mrs.

  V.” Delighted with the twenty-five-year-old Highland Park yet dismayed with another affirmation of my total lack of privacy in a place where I paid rent, I was torn between appreci-ation and annoyance. Wasn’t this the same contradiction of emotions explained time and again by friends with normal parents? Although I had never been abused in any way, I basically had raised myself with the help of my mentor, who had been my friend for over thirty years now. My mother called it making me strong and independent. The social s l i p k n o t