by Paul Doiron
I stopped at the Datsun to grab a change of clothing. I had to remove everything from my pockets. My wet wallet. My knife. And a flimsy piece of paper that took me a moment to recognize as the list Radcliffe had given me.
The constable tagged along behind us in full puppy-dog mode all the way to the store. I believe he was torn between wanting to remain at the dock in case the Protector returned with Crowley’s drowned body and thinking he should call his wife to boast of his heroics. In the end curiosity got the best of him and he followed us to Graffam’s.
Sam was sitting at the picnic table with a can of Moxie, talking with the store’s perennial fixture Chum McNulty. They hadn’t heard the news about the Sea Hag yet. I decided not to tell them.
Graffam rose from the bench. “There you are! Your colleagues are looking high and low for you, Warden.”
“I’m sure they are.”
“They seemed none too happy that you weren’t at the dock to meet them.”
“Where’s my dinghy?” the old man asked.
“I’ll reimburse you for that boat, Chum. Can I use your office to change my clothes, Sam?”
His smile mingled friendliness and mild ridicule. “Did you fall into the drink?”
“You could say that.” I crossed to the coffee machine and filled two twenty-ounce cups. “Any idea where my colleagues went?”
“Gull Cottage, I heard,” said Graffam.
Ariel frowned. She didn’t seem to relish the idea of law enforcement officers ransacking her rented house. “Did Jenny Pillsbury go with them?”
“She and Nat went over to Hiram’s,” said Graffam.
Chum said again, “What happened to my dinghy?”
Ariel was leaning on the counter, examining the shelves of liquor bottles behind the register. “How much for one of these pints of Allen’s coffee brandy?”
Graffam rose to make the sale. “Six forty-nine.”
Chum McNulty roused himself from thoughts of his dinghy. “In my day we called it ‘liquid panty remover’!”
“Ignore that fossil,” Graffam said.
The VHF radio crackled in the back room just after I’d changed into my dry clothing. It was my cue to leave.
Radcliffe remained inside the store while Ariel and I stepped outside to enjoy the warmth of the sun. I downed one entire cup of coffee in five gulps and tossed the cup into the waste barrel beside the door.
“Do you want to drive down to the cottage?” asked Ariel.
“I should go give the death notification to Martha. She and her sister are Crowley’s closest next of kin on the island. I would guess she’s still at Hiram’s house.”
Ariel let out a groan. “I can’t deal with Jenny Pillsbury again. Or her husband.” Ariel took a nip from the liquor bottle. “God, this is disgusting.”
Nevertheless she took another drink.
I remembered the wet piece of paper in my pocket. Carefully, because I feared it would shred, I unfolded the list of hunters that Radcliffe had given me. I had thought the names matched those Harmon had provided, but now I spotted one significant discrepancy.
“How did I not see it?”
“What?”
“I just realized who killed Miranda, and I think I even know why.”
She waited for me to say more, but not for long. “Are you going to tell me?”
“I need a confession. There’s not enough evidence to convict without one. I’m going to need to find a phone first. Maybe I can borrow Radcliffe’s.”
“A confession from who?” Her voice was sharp with anger and frustration.
“Someone with an ironclad alibi.”
46
Jenny Pillsbury answered the door. The tall, dark-eyed woman flinched visibly when she saw me standing alone on Hiram Reed’s porch. She had changed out of the ill-fitting clothes she had been wearing behind the counter of the store that morning. She was now dressed in a silver turtleneck under a gray denim jacket and tight jeans that showed off the length of her legs.
“Are you here about Kenneth?” she said with genuine alarm. “We heard about the Sea Hag over the VHF. Nat ran off to join the search. Do you know what happened? We heard Kenneth was taking that Evans woman out in the Hag with him. What did that bitch make him do?”
I kept my tone level. “Is Martha here?”
“I sent her home to get some sleep. Why are you asking for her?” She kept her arm locked like a gate across the doorway. “You didn’t answer my question about Kenneth.”
Withholding the news violated just about every principle I stood for. Yet keeping Jenny in the dark until I’d talked with Hiram was my only chance to hear the truth spoken out loud. Stacey had warned me that the job would compromise me in ways I wouldn’t like.
“I need to speak to Hiram, Jenny. It’s important.”
“Why won’t you tell me what you know about Kenneth? He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“I’m going upstairs.” I moved forward thinking she would remove her arm.
But the gate remained locked. “Like hell you are! Hiram’s in no shape to answer your questions. Why are you even bothering him when Kenneth is missing?”
“Here’s the thing. We both know that this isn’t your house and you have no right to keep me out.”
She’d closed her mouth so tight I couldn’t see her lips. Then she said, “I’m going to call Harmon.”
“This house isn’t his either. It belongs to his son. As the homeowner, Hiram can tell me to leave. But that would require us talking.”
Her obstructive arm didn’t budge.
I tried again, “An assistant attorney general arrived on the island this morning, and I’m pretty sure she can help me obtain a warrant to search this place for more drugs, if that’s the route you prefer we pursue. If we find more than six grams of heroin, we can charge him with trafficking. That’s a Class A crime punishable by up to thirty years in prison.”
Jenny Pillsbury flashed some of the hatred she’d shown Ariel. “You are such an asshole.”
I stepped past her into the cluttered first floor of Hiram’s house.
Someone had been busy cleaning up since my last visit. The dishes had been washed and set to dry in a rack. The open windows had aired out some of the stench. But once again, it was the impressive deer mount that drew my attention.
“Please don’t say anything about Kenneth or the Hag to Hiram,” she said. “I’m worried he’ll slash his wrists.”
Exhausted and sore, I trudged up the stairs.
Jenny followed close behind. “You smell like you took a swim in your clothes.”
In the hallway, she slipped past me. This time, she used her whole body to keep me from entering the bedroom.
“Hiram, that warden is here to see you. I told him you were sleeping—”
“I wish I could sleep.”
“Do you want me to tell him to come back later? I said you’re really not up to seeing visitors.”
I raised my voice to be heard in the next room. “I saved your life, Reed. You owe me an audience.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“It won’t take long,” I said loudly. “I’m leaving the island in a few hours.”
“Let him in, Jenny.”
She pressed her back to the cracked drywall to allow me passage. The bedroom had that familiar odor of vomit and urine. Hiram’s caretakers had changed his bedclothes and gotten him into a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt.
His complexion was sallow beneath his whiskers. His muscle tone had seemingly vanished overnight. He looked less like a wolverine now than a luckless ape that some mad scientist had used to test electroshock therapy.
Jenny took up a protective position beside the bed. “You can’t make me leave unless Hiram says so.”
“Why would I want you to leave? What I have to say concerns the both of you.”
I pulled out the wooden chair his mother had used and had a seat. I rested my left hand on my knee. I kept my right hand hidden in my coat pocket and pr
essed record on Radcliffe’s smartphone. Assistant Attorney General Marshall would need to be satisfied with a voice recording for the confession.
“This has been a hell of a few days,” I began.
Reed scratched his hairy knuckles. “You think?”
“Miranda Evans really set this island on its head when she arrived. It’s amazing to think one woman could cause so much chaos, but she seemed to have a rare gift for upsetting the lives of others.”
“My husband told me he was fucking her,” said Jenny, crossing her arms. “I’ve forgiven him.”
“Thank you for that, Jenny, but I’m talking to Hiram at the moment.”
The poor man closed his eyes as if in extreme pain. “Can you say whatever you need to say and leave me alone?”
“I need to establish a few facts first. Correct me if I am wrong. Miranda Evans showed up on Maquoit, pretending to be her rich and famous sister, Ariel, and she started throwing wild parties at her rental cottage. She had cases of expensive wine. Maybe she had something even more exotic. Cocaine by the bagful.”
“When I found out about the coke, I was going to evict her from the cottage,” said Jenny.
“But you didn’t evict her. Maybe your husband dissuaded you.”
“My marriage is none of your business.”
“In this case it is. And the death of Miranda Evans is definitely my business. I came to Maquoit because I got a call from your constable that Miranda was shot by a hunter who mistook her for a deer. Radcliffe called it a ‘horrible, horrible accident.’ Is that what you’d call it, Hiram—an accident?”
“I suppose.”
“You don’t think someone shot her deliberately?”
“How would I know? Why are you asking me?”
“I wanted to give you the chance to state what happened for the record.”
“I was in town all morning. Ask Jenny. She saw me. Lots of folks did.”
“That’s right,” added Jenny Pillsbury. “Hiram and I both have alibis.”
“But your husband doesn’t.”
“Nat didn’t kill that bitch! He says he fucking loved her. The idiot thought she wanted to run away with him.”
I’d had the hardest time getting Ariel to go back to her cottage. I could only imagine what she would have given to be one of the many flies buzzing about the room. In time the recording would become public, and the journalist could hear it all for herself.
“Miranda Evans was the one who supplied you with cocaine, Hiram. Isn’t that correct?”
“So what if she did?”
“Because you’d been sober for years, ever since your brother overdosed. Beryl McCloud told me that. She didn’t mean to violate your anonymity, so don’t be mad at her. For a long time you’ve been afraid that if you started using anything again—alcohol, pot, pills—you’d be back to heroin in no time.”
He struggled to lift himself from the sweat-stained pillows. “Are you saying I killed the girl who was giving me free drugs?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Why?
“He couldn’t have done it,” Jenny said. “Hiram was in town when that woman was killed. Ask anyone.”
I leaned back in the chair. “You two have known each other since you were kids. You went to school together.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” she said.
“It’s a fucking one-room schoolhouse,” he said.
“Beryl said something else I found interesting,” I said calmly. “We were talking about the feud between the Reeds and the Washburns, and she said, ‘It’s not like the Montagues and the Capulets.’ And I thought, ‘Why would she mention Romeo and Juliet? But that’s who you two were when you were teenagers, I think. You were star-crossed lovers whose families were fighting and who could never be together.”
“She’s married to my best friend!” Hiram protested.
But Jenny was smarter than he was. “He’s trying to trap you, Hiram. Don’t say anything more.”
I was counting on Reed’s belligerence to assist me, and he didn’t disappoint. “If what you’re saying is true, then why the fuck would I want Miranda Evans dead?”
Jenny reached for his hand but he wouldn’t give it to her. “Hiram, please…”
“If Nat had run off with Miranda, then Jenny and I could have—”
Her voice broke. “Please don’t say anything else! Not without a lawyer.”
Hiram managed a smug grin. “When Miranda died, it guaranteed that Nat would stay here with Jenny and Ava.”
“Exactly,” I said.
A tear slid down her cheek.
I leaned forward again. “I suspect you weren’t entirely in your right mind when you did it, Hiram. You were probably drunk and coked up. Still, it was a romantic gesture—if you can call murdering a woman in cold blood a romantic gesture.”
A vehicle pulled up outside. Was it Klesko? DeFord? Both?
“You sacrificed your own happiness to save the woman you loved from losing the man she loved. Because you do love him, don’t you, Jenny? You love Nat with all your heart and soul, and you were terrified that he was going to abandon you and your baby.”
Her eyes had begun to twitch. She was desperately trying to think her way out of this predicament.
Hiram tried to swing his legs off the bed to come to her defense, but he was too weak to stand. “Leave her alone! She had nothing to do with it!”
“Stop,” she said with a whimper. “Please stop.”
“I believe you, Hiram. I believe that Jenny had no idea that you’d shot Miranda Evans, not until you rolled onto the scene outside Gull Cottage and she saw your face. It was then she realized what you’d done for her. And to protect you, she gave you an alibi. She volunteered that you’d been in the village at the time Miranda was shot. She swore up and down to it until other people began questioning their recollections. ‘Maybe Hiram had been at Graffam’s after all.’”
“You have no proof,” Jenny said, “you have no proof of any of this.”
“No, but I can always interview the breakfast club and everyone else who was at the store that morning. I can ask them specifics about what time Hiram came in. Chum McNulty already mentioned that he hadn’t seen Hiram there for ages. I don’t expect your alibi will hold up very long.”
Hiram collapsed against the pillows.
“The thing is,” I said, “I think you could have gotten away with this if you’d just pretended you’d shot Miranda while you were hunting. That it was an act of negligence. You might have paid a fine and done time in jail. Maybe you would have confessed if Crowley hadn’t confused everything.”
“Don’t say a word, Hiram!”
“Nat, Jenny, and Kenneth have been protecting you since I got to the island. Your father, too, although I don’t think he knew at first. He had his suspicions, but he wasn’t sure. Not until you overdosed. And now that stupid kid is dead because your family and friends tried to protect you.”
“What are you talking about?” said Hiram. “Jenny, what’s he saying?”
She hissed at me, “You fucking asshole. You son of a bitch.”
Hiram pressed his hands flat against his temples as if his skull had begun to shrink. “I don’t understand what’s going on here.”
“Not another word, Hiram. If you ever cared for me, not another word.”
“I think you should go outside now, Jenny,” I said. “There are some men out there waiting to take your statement. For the sake of your family, I would recommend being honest this time. And I would tell Nat to come clean, too.”
“Is this another of your tricks?”
“Look out the window.”
She stormed past me and yanked aside one of the dusty curtains. “Why won’t people leave us alone out here?”
“Because you’re part of the world,” I said.
“I don’t even know what that means.”
But I had finally managed to instill fear in her hardened heart. Fear of
losing her husband. Fear of losing her freedom. Fear of losing her child. And I despised myself for having had to do it. Her footsteps on the stairs were hammer blows driving nails into my flesh.
Hiram began to blink rapidly. “Did something bad happen to Kenneth?”
“He’s dead, Hiram. He died trying to kill Ariel Evans and me. He crashed Nat’s boat against Calderwood Ledge and drowned.”
“How? Why?”
“Crowley thought it was the only way to protect you. It was desperate and childish. He didn’t really have a plan when he took Ariel out. Maybe he thought he could push her overboard and somehow explain it away as an accident. He hadn’t thought ahead to how he was going to get rid of me.”
Hiram sobbed into his hands. “What have I done?”
“You know what you did, Hiram. But you have to admit it.”
He kept sobbing.
“Confessing is the only way you can protect Nat and Jenny now.”
He raised his hairy face. “OK.”
I removed Radcliffe’s phone from my pocket. Then I took a card from my wallet and read the sentences on it word for word, apprising him of his rights. I spoke into the microphone, establishing the time, date, who I was, where I was, and who I was interviewing.
Finally, I asked, “Hiram Reed, did you shoot Miranda Evans on the morning of November second outside Gull Cottage?”
“Yes.”
“Did you shoot Miranda Evans with the intent to kill her?”
“Yes.”
I felt empty inside. There was no sense of completion. No relief. I paused to take a breath while Hiram Reed, sobbing uncontrollably, was set upon by flesh-tearing harpies only he could see.
47
Half an hour later, we were standing on Hiram’s porch, Captain DeFord, Assistant Attorney General Marshall, and me. I had just played them the recording of Reed’s confession—for the third time.
“Well?”
“His defense attorney is going to say you coerced him,” said the prosecutor, cutting me with her blue eyes. “He’s going to say Reed’s statement was made under duress.”
“Because he was going through withdrawal?”
