Jennifer lingered, and Harvey was able to walk out with her. He wanted to put his arms around her, but there were too many photographers in the vicinity. As a married man, Mike was able to leave city hall holding Sharon’s hand. No doubt a picture of them hurrying down the steps in the rain together would appear in the Press Herald the next day, and reporters would pester Mike for interviews so they could write profiles of the new chief. Harvey hoped his own new position was still lowly enough for him to avoid that.
Jennifer said hurriedly, “I need to talk to you.”
“What is it?” People were walking past, and she glanced around and leaned in so only Eddie and Harvey would hear.
“I looked at that suicide report again. The investigating officer was Arthur Corson.”
“Right. He retired a long time ago.”
“A very long time ago,” she said. “Three months after Whitney shot himself, to be exact.”
“And?”
“He’s still alive. Lives out in Rosemont.” She handed Harvey a piece of paper with an address.
He smiled. “I definitely need to reward you this time.”
“Jewelry’s good,” said Eddie.
Harvey laughed. Jennifer scurried off to join Beth. He and Eddie drove back to the police station with the wipers squelching back and forth on the windshield. Upstairs, Paula met them with a concerned look.
“Mrs. Dixon called—the woman who was here Thursday with her husband.”
Harvey looked blankly at Eddie.
“Arnie’s interview,” Eddie said. “The couple that was at Fort Point and had been camping.”
“Oh, right. What did she want?”
Paula said, “They think their son may have seen something. I told her she could bring him in this afternoon. Is that all right?”
“Yes, that’s fine.”
In the locker room, they hung up their damp jackets.
“Are you going to use Mike’s desk?” Eddie asked.
“Give up my desk?” That idea was abhorrent. Harvey had the corner with windows on two sides, and all his electronics laid out the way he wanted them. “Why would I want Mike’s desk?”
“Middle of the room is all.”
“I like being out of traffic. I think better. The new guy can have Mike’s desk.”
“Who’s the new guy?”
“I asked for Nate.”
“All right.” Eddie sounded pleased.
“Pete’s leaving. You heard him say it this morning.”
“Yup. Who you getting to replace him?”
“Don’t know. Any ideas?”
“Joey Bolduc.”
Joey was one of the detectives downstairs. Harvey wondered if he was one Mike had short-listed. Joey was a little impulsive, but as far as Harvey knew, he had a good record.
“I’ll think about it. You’re not just hoping to get another francophone up here, are you?”
Eddie laughed. “Mais non.”
Pete, Arnie, Nate, and Tony were waiting when they went back into the main room. Harvey realized it was up to him to call the shots, so he parceled out assignments quickly. They had enough calls to return to keep them busy right up until lunch. He put Nate at Mike’s desk. A few people came in for interviews, and Arnie went around to the courthouse.
Harvey found a minute to take Nate aside in the late morning, between phone calls.
“I mentioned your name to Mike this morning for a possible assignment in this unit.”
“You mean permanently?”
“Yes. What do you think?”
“I’d sure like that.”
“No more uniforms,” Harvey said. “You’d get a small clothing allowance.”
Nate smiled. “My wife would like that.”
“I don’t have the final word, but you’re my first pick.”
“Thanks. Would I have a partner?”
“Eddie, I guess. He’s agreeable.”
“Suits me.”
Harvey was beginning to understand why Mike and Arnie stayed so close, and why Arnie had always seemed more like Mike’s partner than Pete’s. It would be strange to send Eddie out on the street every day with somebody else. Would the other men be jealous if he and Eddie continued to carpool? It was too complicated.
Jennifer was his usual antidote for worry. The rain had paused, and they ate lunch together at the café. Police officers kept coming over to congratulate Harvey, but none of them sat down until Eddie plopped down in a chair. Then Arnie came, fresh from court, then Sarah, then Terry Lemieux and Joe Clifford.
When Harvey walked back into the office, Pete was on the phone, and an 11-year-old kid was sitting at Harvey’s desk, playing solitaire on his computer. No one else was in the room. Harvey went over held out his hand as he would to an adult. “Hi, I’m Captain Larson.”
“Joel Dixon.” The boy shook his hand gravely. “Am I in the way?”
“No, but this is my desk.”
“My parents are talking to another cop.”
Pete got off the phone, and Harvey excused himself and went over to speak to him.
“Sorry about that, Harvey. I should have put him on Mike’s computer. Arnie’s got the parents in the interview room.”
“Has he talked to the boy?”
“Not yet. The parents wanted to talk to Arnie first.”
Harvey went back to the boy and sat in an extra chair. “So, Joel, you went camping with your folks?”
“Yup.”
“Did you have fun?”
“It was okay.”
“You visited Fort Point a couple of weeks ago?”
Joel let go of the mouse and looked at him. “I guess. We didn’t stay there long. The fort is all wrecked.”
“I’ve seen it.” Harvey took a pack of gum out of his pocket. “Want some?”
Joel looked at him warily. “I’m not supposed to take stuff from strangers.”
“That’s right. But I’m a policeman, Joel. I think it’s okay.”
He reached out hesitantly for the gum.
Harvey asked, “Did you ring the bell?”
Joel smiled then. “Yeah. My dad got mad.”
Harvey chuckled. “My partner Eddie rang it, too. It was really loud, and everybody looked at us.”
Joel laughed. “Are cops allowed to ring it?”
“I think anyone is allowed to ring it. There wasn’t any sign that said not to.”
“That’s what I said, but my dad was still mad at me.”
They chewed their gum companionably.
“Did you go down to the beach?” Harvey asked.
Joe’s eyelids lowered. “No, my dad wouldn’t let me. We were going to have a picnic, but all these old people were at the park, so we left and went somewhere else to eat.”
“So you didn’t get to go near the water?”
“I was going to, but …” He was suddenly quiet, looking at Harvey from under his eyelashes.
“What, Joel?”
“Can I see your badge?”
It was clipped to Harvey’s belt, and he pulled it off and handed it to him.
“Awesome.”
“Did you see anything on the beach?” Harvey asked quietly.
“Some guys.” It was said nonchalantly. He turned the badge over and examined the pin.
“Guys? Boys?”
“Men.”
“How many?”
“Three guys.”
Harvey swiveled around to look at Pete. “The time was right,” Pete said.
“Joel, excuse me just a minute. I want to hear more about this, but I want to check with your parents first, and make sure they don’t mind.”
Joel turned back to the solitaire game. Harvey motioned toward the boy, and Pete nodded.
At the door to the interview room, Harvey knocked, then stuck his head in. Arnie looked up. “Harvey, you’re back.”
“Yes. And this is Mr. and Mrs. Dixon?”
Arnie completed the introductions, rolling ‘Captain Larson’ off easily, and th
ey shook hands.
“The family was at Fort Point on the day of the reunion,” Arnie said. “They looked around for twenty minutes or half an hour and left.”
“My wife told me she saw Martin Blake, but I didn’t believe it,” said Mr. Dixon, adjusting his glasses. “Then we found out it really was him, and he was murdered twelve hours later. What a letdown.”
“Well, I think it’s exciting,” said his wife. “At least I recognized him.”
Arnie said, “After they were here Thursday, their son, Joel, told his mother he saw some men on the shore at Fort Point. They thought it might be important, so they brought him in.”
“I’ve been having a few words with Joel,” Harvey said. “I’d like to question him in an official capacity, if that’s all right with you folks.”
“We didn’t actually go to the shore, except by the bell tower,” said Mr. Dixon, “but Joel started down a path. I called him back. We’d decided to leave because it was so crowded.”
“Do I have your permission to ask Joel about what he saw?”
They looked at each other.
“Can we be in the room?” Mrs. Dixon asked.
“It would be better if you weren’t. I think he’d open up more.”
“Well, I don’t know,” she said.
“They could watch in Observation,” Arnie said softly.
Harvey nodded and waved a hand toward the large mirror on the side wall. “That mirror is one-way glass. It’s clear on the other side. Detective Fowler can take you in the observation room next door, and you can watch the interview.”
“Just like on TV,” said Mrs. Dixon with a smile.
“Well, sort of. And I’d like to record what Joel says. If you’d like to speak to him first and tell him he has permission to talk to me, it might be good. I think we’ve made friends, but you’ve wisely taught him to be wary of strangers.”
They went out into the main office, and Mrs. Dixon told Joel he could go with the nice captain and talk to him for a few minutes. Joel looked at him gravely and went with him to the interview room. Harvey started the recorder.
“You want a soda?” he asked, sitting down at the end of the table, with Joel next to him on the side facing the mirror.
“No thanks.”
Harvey asked him his name and said the date and time clearly.
“So, Joel, you told me that when you were at Fort Point on June twentieth, you saw some men on the beach.”
“Well, yeah.”
“So where were you when you saw the men?” Harvey asked.
“On the path.”
“By the picnic tables?”
“Well, down in the woods past the tables.”
“That’s a really steep path,” Harvey said.
“Yeah. I wanted to go down there.”
“What happened?”
“I got part way down and my dad yelled at me.”
“And you went back up?”
“Yes.”
“But you saw the men when you were on the path?”
“Yes.”
“Were they standing on gravel?”
“No, they were on a big rock.”
“Is this the place?” Harvey had transferred Eddie and Jennifer’s pictures to his phone. He pulled them up and held out the photo of himself and Eddie on the rounded boulder.
“Maybe. I was a long ways away. That wasn’t the guys, though.”
“No, that’s me and my partner, Eddie.”
“The one that rang the bell?”
Harvey smiled. “You got it.”
“He got to go swimming?”
“Yup.”
“My dad wouldn’t let me.”
“The water was pretty cold.” Harvey flipped to another photo. “How about this place?” He showed Joel the picture of him and Eddie on the flat rock.
“No, it was the other one.”
Harvey flipped back to the first picture.
Joel nodded. “There were lots of big rocks where they were.”
“How many men did you see?” Harvey asked.
“Three.”
“What were they doing?”
“Two of them were talking, like that.” He nodded toward the photo.
“Could you hear them?”
“No, I was too far away, and the water made noise.”
“Where was the third man?”
“At first, he was walking toward them, on the ground.” Joel pointed to the edge of the picture, on the side nearest the point separating the beach from the lighthouse. “About here, I think. When he got over here,” his finger stopped in front of the rock where Eddie and Harvey stood looking at the bay, “he stopped for a minute. Then he bent over.”
Harvey’s adrenaline surged. He swiped through the other photos and showed Joel the one with Eddie up on the rock and himself below, stooping to pick up a weapon.
“Like this?”
“Yeah, but the other two men were both up there.”
“Okay. Did the third man pick up something?”
“I think so.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know.” Joel looked at him anxiously, like he wanted to please him.
“That’s okay, Joel. What happened next?”
“My dad yelled at me.”
“What did he say?”
“Get up here! I told you not to go down there!”
Harvey wondered what Mr. and Mrs. Dixon were thinking in the observation room.
“So what did you do?”
“I went up.”
“Did you look back at the men anymore?”
Joel’s gaze dropped. “Yes.”
“What did you see?” Harvey asked.
“One man, the one that bent over—”
He looked at Harvey, then away.
“What, Joel?”
“He got up on the rock, too,” he whispered.
“What did he do?”
“He—he—”
Harvey put a hand on his shoulder. “You can tell me. It’s all right.”
“It looked like he hit him.”
“Which man?”
“He hit the one in the white shirt.”
“Okay. And what happened to the man in the white shirt?”
“He fell off the rock. Just kind of—” he gestured with one hand, making it dive.
“What did the man who hit him look like?”
“I—I—” his glance met Harvey’s, then darted around the room.
“Take it easy, Joel. Just tell me what you remember.”
“I can’t remember.”
“How about his clothes? What color was his shirt?”
He shook his head, becoming more agitated.
“That’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” Harvey flipped to the last picture. “Did the two men that were left look down over the edge of the rock, like this?” The photo showed him crouching at the edge of the rock, looking down at Eddie, but Eddie wasn’t in the picture.
“Yeah, they looked down there like that, the other two. I thought the guy was maybe hurt down there. Do you think he hit him? Maybe it was an accident. I thought he hit the guy.” Joel’s eyes pleaded.
“Then what happened?”
“My dad yelled again, and I went up.”
“Did you look back again?”
“No, I didn’t see them after that. Do you think he really hit the guy?”
Harvey sighed. “Yes, Joel, I do. I’m sorry that you saw that, but I’m glad, too. It will help us catch the man who did it.”
“My mom said a man died that day. Was that the man? The one in the white shirt?”
“Yes. I need to tell the state police what you saw, and later they may need you to tell a judge. Can you do that, Joel?”
The boy’s eyes were huge. “I … guess so. If my dad will let me.”
“I think he’ll let you. It’s very important, Joel.”
“He was really mad at me that day.” Tears flooded the boy’s eyes, and he dashed one away wit
h the back of his hand.
Harvey wasn’t sure whether to ask, with the parents in the observation room, but he did anyway. “Did he punish you?”
“No, just made me get in the car.”
“Did you tell him about the men?”
“No, I was scared.”
“Scared of who?”
“Just scared that the man was hurt.”
“Your dad will be proud of you today, Joel.”
Joel looked at him skeptically.
“Is there anything else you remember from the park?”
He shook his head, then said, “My mom thought she saw a famous writer, but my dad said it wasn’t him. They had a big fight about it in the car.” Harvey tried not to smile.
“Can you tell me any more about what the three men on the shore looked like?”
“They were really far away. One had a white shirt. The one that fell.”
“Right. Did any of them have a beard?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Glasses?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure.”
“It’s okay.”
“One man had a blue shirt, I think.”
“Which man was that?”
He frowned. “I’m not sure.”
“Was it the one who hit the man in the white shirt?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” His tears spilled over.
“Okay. We’re done, Joel,” Harvey said gently and turned off the recorder. He put his hand on Joel’s shoulder as they went out into the office, and Arnie and the Dixons emerged from Observation. Mrs. Dixon put her arms around Joel, and he pulled away, boylike, in front of the other men.
Mr. Dixon stuck out his hand to his son. “Joel, I’m sorry I yelled at you that day.”
Joel looked at him, and slowly took his hand.
“We had no idea,” said his mother. “Honey, you should have told us.”
Joel ducked his head.
Harvey said, “We have your address and telephone number?”
Arnie nodded.
“If Joel remembers anything else, especially what the men looked like, or even what they were wearing, please call us. The state police may be the next to contact you. I’ll send them a copy of the recording. This really bears on their case, not ours. The Frederick case.”
“You think the same person killed him and Martin Blake?” Dixon asked.
“At this point, we don’t know. But I’d like to ask you folks to keep quiet about this, please. It’s imperative that the press doesn’t get wind of it before we confront our suspects with this new information. Don’t talk about it to your friends or relatives, or anyone, unless we call you or the state police contact you. And please, don’t make your son feel guilty. He’s doing a good thing today.”
Fort Point (Maine Justice Book 2) Page 26