McCaskill frowns and opens the door wider, a heartwarming, welcoming gesture if ever I have seen one. I motion After you to Charlie. He does go first, but seems less than thrilled about it.
We walk into what I guess serves as the den. The room is a mess: clothing and papers strewn all over, on the floor and furniture. He is either a slob or he’s in the middle of spring dirtying. McCaskill sits on the couch, but both Charlie and I independently decide to stand.
“So?”
I don’t think McCaskill’s asking whether we’d like something to drink. As far as being a welcoming host, he makes Tina Welker’s neighbor Roy Bennett look positively gracious.
“Peter Charkin was an associate of yours?” I ask.
He groans; an actual, audible groan. “Is that what this is about? Charkin? I thought they caught the guy.”
“We’re just doing background work, filling in the holes in the case. Someone has, in fact, been charged with the crime and is awaiting trial.”
“Good. I hope they fry the bastard. So what do you want with me?”
I notice Charlie walk a few steps to the right and take a seat on a couch. I’m surprised that he does that; he literally has to move papers and wrappings to the side.
“We’re examining Mr. Charkin’s involvement in the group known as the Liberators. We believe you can help us with that.”
“Yeah? Well, I can’t help you with that.”
Charlie interjects; he’s now gotten up from a short stay on the sofa. “How long have you been a member?”
“I got nothing to say about that.” McCaskill then immediately contradicts himself. “You got a problem with people who care about this country?”
“No one said anything about a problem,” I say. “We are just trying to determine what Charkin’s role was.”
“His role?”
I nod. “Right. In the Liberators. Commanding officer, chief cook and bottle washer, social secretary … that kind of thing. What was his job?”
“He was a patriot.”
“Is that time-consuming work?”
“You a wiseass?”
I nod. “Yes. Pretty much.”
McCaskill stands up. If there’s a way to stand up slowly, but aggressively, he pulls it off. “You two get out of my house now. You got ten seconds, or you’re going to get carried out.”
This is not feeling like an empty threat; I can tell by the shaking of my legs. I nod to Charlie and start for the door.
“Thanks for your time,” Charlie says.
McCaskill doesn’t follow us; we are apparently meant to let ourselves out.
We don’t talk until we’re in the car. Then Charlie says, “You make a lot of friends, do you?”
“I’m usually more charming than I was in there.”
“Osama bin Laden was usually more charming than you were in there.”
“I wasn’t trying to cajole him into a confession. I was trying to see if he had a temper, a short fuse, if he was capable of violence.”
“I would go with ‘D, all of the above.’”
“So now we add him to our suspect list.”
“We have a suspect list?”
“We do. And it’s getting bigger all the time.”
Charlie reaches into his pocket and pulls out what looks like a plastic piece of packaging. “Your friend Sam might want this.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the packaging for a burner phone. I’ve got a feeling our boy McCaskill doesn’t use phones in his name.”
“How did you know what that was?”
Charlie shrugs. “Not all of my clients have been completely reputable.”
I call Sam and read him the numbers off the packaging; it’s all he will need to trace calls from that phone. “I’m on it,” Sam says unnecessarily.
I hang up and turn to Charlie. “So that’s why you sat down on that disgusting couch? So you could steal that wrapping?”
“I see it as taking one for the team.”
“Charlie, you are my kind of lawyer.”
“Can I have a raise?”
“Not a chance.”
Dr. Robert Charkin is an optician in Thomaston, about twenty minutes from Damariscotta.
If you tied me down and threatened me with death, I couldn’t tell you the difference between an optician, an optometrist, and an ophthalmologist. There might not even be a difference; now that I think of it, I’ve never seen them in the same room. Maybe the whole thing is an opti-scam.
I had called Charkin and told him that I wanted to talk to him about his murdered brother, Peter. I also said that while I was there, he could examine my eyes, since I’ve been finding myself squinting when I read.
Thomaston, like most Maine communities, is steeped in history and filled with old buildings. But Charkin’s place of business, a storefront on the town’s main street, is bright and white and incongruously modern.
I have a five-minute wait while Dr. Charkin is with a patient, so I look through a brochure on laser surgery. I have friends who have had it done and rave about it, but the idea that I will voluntarily allow someone to operate on my eyes with something that could cut through metal is a complete nonstarter.
When I get into his examining room, we shake hands.
“Did you really want an examination, or did you think that was the only way I would talk to you?”
“Examine away. We can talk afterwards, if that’s okay.”
He tells me to put my chin on a chin rest, which seems to be a logical place to put it. Then he looks at my eyes with a bright light and starts asking me which of two lenses allows me to see clearer.
He does it so many times that by the time he’s finished I’m just guessing.
“Do I need glasses?”
“I would say that they would help you, at least for reading, yes.”
“That wasn’t the answer I was looking for. What’s my problem?”
“You don’t have a problem; it’s a normal, age-related deterioration of vision. You’re not getting any younger.”
“How do you know that? Did you see me last year? You have nothing to compare it to. Maybe I am getting younger.”
He smiles. “I’ll write you a prescription, and as you get even younger, you can make your decision.”
“You’re not doing laser surgery on me.”
“Very true. I don’t do laser surgery. I’m an optometrist.”
“Yeah, sure.”
We head into his private office.
“So you want to talk about my brother?”
“I do. I am trying to understand who might have wanted to kill him.”
“Other than your client.”
“My client didn’t know him. But if my client is guilty, then I’ll come up empty in my search.”
Charkin nods. “Okay. Ask away.”
“Your brother was using opioids and was probably addicted. You were aware of that?”
“I was. I confronted him a number of times. Those confrontations accomplished nothing other than destroying, or at least badly damaging, our relationship.”
“How long was he using?”
“Not sure. But at least a year, maybe longer.”
“Do you know where he was getting them?”
Charkin shakes his head. “I do not. If I did, I would have already told the police.”
“Do you know where he got the money to pay for them?”
“No; that’s another mystery. I lent him money about a year before he died; that’s why I said he was using drugs at least that long. He made up a story to get the money; it was all bull.”
“The police found five thousand dollars in cash in his house.”
Charkin nods. “I know; I wound up with it, because his will left everything to me. That was pretty much the extent of his possessions, other than his car.”
“Any idea why he had it in cash like that? Or where he got it?”
“No idea. But needing money became a consuming theme for the last months
of his life.”
“He worked for his friend Mike Mitchell at the brewery.”
“Yes. Mike kept him on longer than he probably should have, because of their friendship. With his addiction, Peter was something less than a reliable employee.”
“You spoke to Mitchell about it at the time?”
“I did. He told me that he also confronted Peter about the drug use, with a similar lack of effectiveness.”
“But it’s possible your brother acquired drugs and was unable to pay for them?”
Charkin smiles. “Is that your theory? That he was murdered by a drug dealer over nonpayment?”
“I am on an endless quest to develop a theory.”
“If that was the case, I would have thought that Peter would give up the five thousand dollars in cash rather than face death.”
The guy makes sense, which is rather annoying. “Are you aware that your brother had a connection to a militia group?”
Charkin laughs, which surprises me. Then, “I know. It’s completely bizarre.”
“Why?”
“Those people have an ideology, a mission. I, and I assume you, think most of it is misguided, but it’s real to them. That wasn’t Peter. I loved him, he was my brother, but Peter did not want to change the world. Peter wanted to make the world more comfortable for Peter.”
“But the connection was real. I’ve talked to them.”
Charkin nods. “No question about it. But he wasn’t interested in their cause. He was running some kind of scam, and it had to involve money. Whatever he might have been doing with them, he thought he had a way to profit from it. That was Peter.”
“Did you know Tina Welker?”
“No, never met her. You think she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person?”
“Certainly possible. I’m working on a whole bunch of theories, hoping I’ll hit on one that is right. You really think I need glasses?”
“Not urgently, but you’re getting there. Youth is creeping up on you.”
Laurie and I are settling into a routine.
During the day we are each working on the case; she has been interviewing more of Tina Welker’s friends, while I have started on the Peter Charkin side.
Each morning we take the dogs for a walk and discuss what we’ll be doing that day. Of course, we can’t just leave the room; Laurie has to make the bed first.
The whole bed-making concept has always struck me as borderline bizarre. It is entirely unproductive. Once the bed is made, the next thing that will happen to it is that it will become unmade that night.
The entire unmaking process could be avoided by just not making it in the first place. It would be a win-win for lazy people everywhere.
But Laurie takes it to a bizarre level. The hotel employs people whose main function is to come in and make the bed every day. Yet since Laurie has already done it before they arrive, that person must think we sleep on the floor. Making a hotel bed is like washing a rental car; no one does it … besides Laurie.
To make matters even more ridiculous, Hunter considers it his solemn duty to burrow into the bedspread until he completely messes it up, making the bed unmade. He’s trying to create a place he weirdly considers comfortable, but the net effect is that Laurie probably remakes the bed four times a day. I have to assume it pisses Hunter off each time.
Neither Tara nor I understand any of these behaviors, but since it doesn’t affect our lives, we don’t attempt to intervene. Instead, I go downstairs with the dogs while Laurie is making the bed. Tara, Sebastian, and Hunter have become favorites of both the guests and staff, so they hold court while we wait, accepting petting and biscuits.
I’m trying to incorporate writing letters to Ricky at camp into my day. I miss him terribly; it feels like I haven’t seen him in years. I expect that he must have gray hair and a beard by now. But I’m not a great letter writer, so I have to discipline myself to keep up.
At night, Laurie and I either go to King Eider’s for dinner or get takeout from there. Marcus hasn’t wanted to join us, though he has a standing invitation. I know he’s watching Stokan, but I would hope he takes time to eat.
Last night we were at King Eider’s, and Laurie got something of a thrill. She noticed one of her favorite novelists, a guy named David Rosenfelt, having dinner in the next booth. He apparently lives near here.
She considered asking him for his autograph, but decided it would be too pushy to interrupt his meal. I don’t get it, anyway. I tried reading one of his books and could barely get through fifty pages.
Tonight Laurie has gone there to pick up dinner; maybe she’s hoping he’ll be there again. I take the opportunity to walk Tara, Sebastian, and Hunter in the small park near the hotel. Laurie won’t be happy about it because she wants to be with me on the nighttime walks in case I run into Stokan.
Or more accurately, in case he runs into me.
I’m feeling guilty that I haven’t taken the dogs to any of the great dog-walking areas in town that people have told me about. I’ve just been too busy, but I need to carve out time. They will love it, and for some inexplicable reason, dog walking clears my head and helps me think.
There’s no such thing as a quick walk with this crew because of Sebastian’s plodding pace. Tara’s used to it by now, but I think it annoys Hunter.
Tonight we walk for about five minutes into the park and then turn around. Getting Sebastian to reverse direction is akin to turning the Queen Mary, but I get it done.
Sebastian furthers delays us by pausing to do his business, and I lean over with my trusty plastic bag to remove all evidence of it. As I’m doing so, I hear a voice say, “Well, the piece of shit is picking up a piece of shit.”
I can tell by the panic in my gut that I recognize the voice; it’s Henry Stokan. That it’s a surprisingly clever opening line doesn’t quell my fear any.
I look up and see Stokan and the other large guy that was with him that night in the parking lot. It’s dark and silent in this park, and if Marcus is around, he has not yet made his presence known. I sure hope he is.
Running is not an option, not with the dogs. And I sure as hell can’t leave them behind with these two assholes; they might hurt them to send a message. Or worse.
“What is it you want? I gave the police your license plate number. If anything happens to me, they will come right for you.”
“We sent you a message and you didn’t listen,” Stokan says. The two start moving toward me. Then, “Who the hell are you?”
I hadn’t even realized it; he moves so quickly. But Marcus is standing between them and me. I don’t know how Tara, Sebastian, and Hunter feel about it, but I am extraordinarily relieved.
Marcus doesn’t answer the question because, if he doesn’t speak to me, why should he speak to them? He just stands there, waiting.
“You got ten seconds to move out of the way, friend,” Stokan says, even though I don’t think he really considers Marcus his friend.
Marcus neither moves nor speaks, and the guy with Stokan, who will hereafter be referred to as “the idiot,” says, “Let me take care of this.” He says it with the confidence of someone who doesn’t have a clue as to what the actual balance of power is.
He moves toward Marcus. In the dark it’s hard to make out exactly what happens, but it doesn’t take more than three or four seconds for the idiot to be prone in the grass, unconscious.
Stokan, clearly not a Rhodes scholar himself, is undaunted. He moves toward Marcus and starts punching. Strangely, all Marcus does is block the punches; he doesn’t hit back. It’s as if they are fencing with their arms, but Marcus has chosen to only parry, not thrust.
Stokan is getting nowhere and getting frustrated. Marcus is like Ali, playing rope-a-dope. There is no rope, but Stokan is clearly playing the part of dope.
Finally, with Stokan exhausted and at a loss for what to do, Marcus knocks his lights out with one quick right hand, followed by a left cross. It is beautiful t
o behold. Stokan lands on top of the idiot, and neither of them moves.
“I guess we showed them.”
This does not prompt a response from Marcus.
Now all I have to do is figure out what to do. I want to question Stokan to try to find out why he has made it his mission to stalk me. That is not going to happen in the next few minutes, since he is currently unconscious.
“Marcus, I want to talk to him when he wakes up. I’m going to take the dogs to the hotel and come right back. If they wake up before I get back, which does not seem likely, please keep them here, okay?”
“Yunhh.”
I take that as a yes and move toward the hotel as fast as Sebastian’s fat little legs are willing to carry him, which is not very fast. When I get to the room, I quickly tell Laurie what has happened, and she heads back to the park with me.
Marcus is more prone to listening to Laurie than me. If he decides that he wants to do something to Stokan and the idiot, like crush their skulls, she would be able to dissuade him in a way that I could not.
Without Sebastian holding us back, we get out to the park and reach the scene quickly. The only problem is that no one is there. Marcus, Stokan, the idiot … they’re all gone.
“Are you sure this is where you were?”
“I think so; I’m pretty sure. It’s obviously dark, but … yes, I’m sure. Where the hell could they have gone?”
“There has to be a road near here. Stokan must have driven here, and Marcus must have as well. Maybe he took them somewhere.”
We walk farther, and sure enough, Laurie is right. There’s a road just behind the trees, and Stokan’s truck is parked there. Marcus’s car is nowhere to be found.
“You don’t think he’ll kill them, do you?”
“Not unless he has to defend himself. You think they’ll attack him again?”
I shake my head. “They’re stupid, but they can’t be that stupid. I just hope they weren’t already dead. They were just lying there; I didn’t check to see if they were breathing.”
“I guess we’ll know when we know.”
“What are we going to do now?”
“Go back, have dinner, and try to reach Marcus,” she says. “But he’ll show up whenever he’s done doing what he’s doing.”
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