by Paul Doiron
“But you ruled out Kenneth Crowley?”
“We’re not currently looking at him as a prime suspect, but it would be wrong to say that we’ve ruled anyone out. Not even you, Andrew.”
For a split second, Radcliffe looked absolutely panicked. “I was in my shop all morning, if that helps. My wife, Penny, and boys can attest to that.”
I relaxed my face. “I don’t suspect you of having shot Ariel Evans, Andrew.”
He managed a nervous laugh. “That’s a relief.”
The drive took all of three minutes.
Radcliffe had said that Ariel had chosen to rent Gull Cottage because of its proximity to the Gut, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when the evergreens parted and we emerged onto a steep bluff. The hill below us was covered with spartina grass and rosebushes, with a path descending to a pebble beach. Beyond the shore was a surging channel of seawater where hundreds of eider ducks bobbed in a great raft. On the far side of the Gut was a ridge-backed island that seemed to have been carved from a single enormous stone.
There was a similar rock off Monhegan Island, fifty miles to the southwest. It was called Manana, and it had also once been home to a sheep-keeping hermit. Perhaps that other, earlier anchorite had inspired Blake Markman to make his own unconventional life choice. But Stormalong was smaller, steeper, and less inviting than Monhegan’s satellite. Except for a few grassy shelves and expanses of creeping juniper, most of the islet seemed to consist of exposed granite. If not for a rickety old dock with a dory floating beside it, one might have been forgiven for believing it was uninhabitable and uninhabited—which, no doubt, was exactly the message its sole resident wished to communicate.
“I still can’t imagine that little wisp of a girl rowing back and forth over there,” the constable said.
“She was a woman, not a girl.”
Just looking at the current charging like white horses through the Gut produced a knot in my stomach. Whatever else Ariel Evans had been, she’d also been a fearless mariner.
I had always considered myself to be a good man in a boat. As a teenager, growing up in the seaside town of Scarborough, I had briefly been sternman on a lobsterboat out of Pine Point. A sternman is the lowly deckhand who dumps out the rotten-bait bags and refills them with slightly less decayed herring. The man I worked for was the father of a friend, an elder of his church, and a harsh taskmaster. But he had taught me to pilot his twin-engine Mako in even the fiercest of gales, and for that I was grateful. Later, I had learned to steer everything from Sunfish sailboats to small schooners. I could row a dory for miles, paddle and pole a canoe, and do Eskimo rolls in sea kayaks. If I was ever called upon, I could have lashed together a raft to float down the Mississippi.
But the Gut worried me as a boatman. Certain waters demand the utmost respect.
“Of course the tide’s rising now,” said Radcliffe. “The time to go across is dead low or when it’s slack. The ebb and flood are when it’s the most dangerous.”
Under normal circumstances I would have wanted to interview Markman immediately, but I would need to wait for the tide to turn. If it was going to be high shortly, it wouldn’t be low for another six hours, which would be close to midnight. I decided that I would attempt the crossing the following day. The tide would be low around noon.
“You said that Markman rarely comes to Maquoit,” I said.
“Once in a blue moon.”
“He must need supplies on occasion.”
“A private boat from the mainland—a gorgeous Hinckley runabout—brings him things every month without ever stopping in Marsh Harbor. Evidently, our hermit still has some of his millions left if he can get his groceries delivered way the heck out here.”
Now I was more interested than ever in meeting the reclusive Markman.
“How’s your cell phone reception been today?” Radcliffe asked.
“Mine’s been spotty. But Klesko hasn’t had any problems. He must be using a different carrier.”
“You might try here. After the Coast Guard decommissioned Maquoit Island Light, my mother gave the town money to install an antenna on the lighthouse. I don’t understand the science, but I always get calls and texts down on Shipwreck Beach.”
When I removed my mobile from my pocket, I saw that Radcliffe was right. The signal was strong, and I no longer had an excuse to put off telling DeFord about my multiplying mysteries. I was paranoid the captain would instruct me to hand the investigation over to the state police.
“You can get going, Andrew. I’ll walk back to the cottage after I finish making some calls.”
After the constable left, I seated myself on a driftwood log and stared at the sea. I could smell rain in the air. Leaden clouds had closed in overhead, but there was still light in the west: a pinkish-gray band that extended along the horizon. Beyond Stormalong, not a single other island was visible.
It had been a mistake to sit down. I hadn’t realized how tired I was. My head was pounding. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping for a brief rest.
At last, I dialed DeFord.
“I wondered when I’d hear from you, Mike.” His voice was as clear as if he were standing beside me. “What’s going on out there? I was talking to Glover over at the MSP. Klesko told him that your shooter has recanted.”
“Not exactly.”
In as few words as possible I did my best to explain what I had learned.
Years earlier, Jock DeFord had been an investigator himself, and he had done such a bang-up job he’d been promoted to sergeant. Not much later, he was made a lieutenant responsible for policing hundreds of miles of commercial timberland around Moosehead Lake and west of Baxter State Park. Now he was a captain on the fast track to yet another promotion. Everyone expected him to leapfrog over his immediate supervisor, the major, and become the next head of the Maine Warden Service when the acting colonel stepped aside, probably after the upcoming gubernatorial election.
In other words, Captain DeFord was too smart and too experienced to be bullshitted.
“Sounds like you have a fistful of nothing,” he said.
“There’s the boot prints.”
“Which might or might not be from your shooter. What about the slug?”
“Give us time.”
“You should plan on being there indefinitely. I hope you brought a change of Skivvies. I took the initiative and booked you a room.”
“I didn’t realize there were any inns open this time of year.”
“It’s not an inn. It’s more like a housekeeping apartment. You’ll have a fridge and a microwave. The place is called the White House.”
“The White House?”
“It’s on the north side of the village, up near the church. I’m told you can’t miss it. The woman who runs the place knows you’re coming. I told her you might be late so she’s putting food out for you.”
Across the Gut, sheep had appeared along the hillside of Stormalong. I could make out the daubs of white against the red of the hackberry. I reached for my binoculars, then realized I’d left them back at the cottage in my rucksack.
“Has the media picked up the story yet?”
“We’ve withheld the name of the victim, pending notification of the next of kin, but it’s bound to leak.”
“So I should brace myself for reporters.”
“Lucky for you the ferry only runs once a week, and the next one is early tomorrow morning. You should be safe. Hopefully, you and Klesko will have wrapped things up before the story breaks wide-open.”
“You’ve heard Steve has court tomorrow?”
“But he’ll be back afterward. Don’t underestimate Klesko as a washed-up jock. Steve might look like he took too many pucks to the head, but he’s one of the best detectives in the state. Him catching the case was a lucky break for us.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anything else you need?”
“Can you give me an update on the situation in Berwick?”
“The little boy is out
of surgery, and the docs think he’ll pull through. It’ll be a long time before they know what kind of brain damage he sustained, though. In some ways, it’s probably a blessing that his grandfather died at the scene. The old man was taking beta-blockers, which cause dizziness and fainting. He had no business tromping through those woods with a loaded rifle.”
My concentration had been broken by what I was seeing on Stormalong. Among the sheep I could now discern a stick figure. I thought it might be a dead tree until it moved sideways. Blake Markman had emerged from his place of concealment. I had the distinct impression that he was watching me.
11
It took another two hours to process the death scene, by which time it was fully dark.
Using the laser surveying device and her expertise in forensic mapping, Ronette established the approximate location from which the fatal shot was fired. The killer had seemingly been standing behind the same bushes Charley and I had identified as the place of ambush.
By flashlight, we reenacted the shooting to prove it was possible for the shooter to have fired and hit Ariel Evans from that spot.
Charley walked the shooter’s tracks back into the orchard and found decent-enough boot prints in a patch of mud that Ronette was able to make a cast of them. The bad news was that the prints had been made by someone wearing size 10 XtraTuf Legacy insulated steel-toe boots, the brand favored by Maquoit’s fishermen. Size 10 is also the most common shoe size among American males.
Klesko was leaving with bags of evidence destined for the crime lab in Augusta. But he hadn’t found a laptop or a cell phone in the cottage.
Finally, the five of us carried the body bag to the bed of Radcliffe’s truck.
Klesko and I decided to leave yellow tape up around the property to discourage curiosity seekers, even though it was no longer an official crime scene. Then I locked the door with the key Jenny Pillsbury had given me. We were done, for the moment, with Gull Cottage.
I decided that Radcliffe would drive the body down to the wharf. Klesko would ride in the passenger seat, and Ronette volunteered to sit in the bed of the truck with Ariel. The proposed arrangement seemed to leave Charley and me without a ride.
“I’ll call Joy Juno and have her pick you up,” said the constable. “She runs Maquoit Trucking. You’ll like her. She’s a hoot.”
“I’m going to need that list of deer hunters you promised me, Andrew.”
“I’ll have it for you first thing in the morning. Scout’s honor.” He actually made the Boy Scout hand sign.
“Where will I find you?”
“Graffam’s Store. I’m there every morning the ferry comes in.”
The decrepit Toyota belched out a cloud of oily smoke, and then they were off.
Now that Charley and I were alone again, the silence flooded back in between us like a rising tide. The old man sat down on the stone wall along the road with the trapper basket at his feet and checked his legs for ticks with a flashlight. Watching him, I couldn’t keep quiet any longer about the subject that had shadowed my thoughts all day.
“I want you and Ora to know that I’m sorry for the way things ended with Stacey,” I blurted out.
Charley let his shoulders sag and his head fall. He hadn’t wanted this conversation. But he seemed resigned that he could no longer avoid it.
“No need to apologize.”
“To be honest, I’m not even sure they have ended. I feel like we’re in limbo.”
Purgatory might have been the better word.
He raised his large head. “You’re no longer living together, though.”
“But that was her choice, not mine. She told me she needed to get away from Maine for a few weeks. She said she wanted to see the Everglades before the sea swallows them up. I was distracted with my new job, but I assumed she’d come back when she ran out of money. Then the phone rang and it was her saying she’d been hired to run the Panther Protection Program.”
It was a coalition of conservation organizations dedicated to safeguarding the last two hundred or so cougars in the cypress swamps of southwest Florida. She’d glimpsed one of the endangered cats in her headlights as she was speeding along the Tamiami Trail, and the sight of the magnificent predator had caused her to burst into tears. Stacey had found a new mission: saving a beautiful creature from extinction.
Her father kicked the dirt at his feet, raised a small cloud of dust the way an idle boy might. “Stacey’s always been a righteous person. Even when she was a little girl, she needed a cause to fight for. Those Florida developers are going to find out what a ferocious opponent my daughter can be.”
“I never wanted her to go, Charley.”
But no sooner had the words left my mouth than I recognized them as a falsehood. What I had wanted was for Stacey to be stable, at peace, and happy in our relationship. In short, I had wanted her to become a different person. I doubted whether she would—or even could—undergo that transformation. Living with me hadn’t made it happen.
“It’s killing me not to have you and Ora in my life anymore,” I said.
The statement seemed to catch the old man off guard. “What?”
“I can’t stand you being mad at me. Whatever ultimately happens between Stacey and me—”
He sprang to his feet. “We’re not mad at you, son.”
I was tongue-tied. I’d been under the impression that he and his wife blamed me for driving their daughter away. Why else hadn’t Charley spoken to me in months?
“You’re not?”
“We’re heartbroken Stacey has run off again. We’d stopped worrying about her, knowing you were at her side. But now Ora wakes up every night in a panic. It’s like we’re both back in the past again.”
“I’d thought you were angry with me.”
He set his hand on my shoulder. “I’m the one who owes you the apology, letting you think we blamed you. Ora even said we should have you out to the lake, but I couldn’t get around to extending the invitation. I was afraid that seeing you would make me feel sad about Stacey. Will you forgive me?”
“I still feel like I should be the one asking for forgiveness.”
“That’s because you are who you are, Mike Bowditch.”
* * *
A truck engine announced itself in the distance. Half a minute later, a green Dodge Ram appeared around the bend.
Joy Juno turned out to be a big and beefy woman. She had box-dyed henna hair, a metal stud in her nose, a red bandanna knotted around her forehead, and a tattoo of Tweety Bird on one of her impressive biceps.
“Your chariot has arrived,” she said in a voice that matched her appearance.
Charley removed his cap. “Much appreciated, milady.”
“Ooh, you’re a charmer,” she cooed. “I’d better watch out for you, handsome.”
He didn’t blush, but I could see her compliment had left him mute. My friend had one of those polarizing faces that some women considered ugly and others thought was the epitome of rugged manliness.
The backseat was cluttered with several folded tarps, a rolled-up deer fence, an artist’s easel and paint box. I also noticed an empty rifle rack mounted to the back of the cab. We ended up all scrunched together on the front bench.
She drove with the dome light on since the dash lights didn’t seem to work. “Where to, gentlemen?”
“Bishop’s Wharf.”
Joy Juno had a car freshener dangling from her mirror that smelled vaguely of honey and was shaped like a bee with the word BEE-OTCH on it.
She wasted no time peppering us with questions. “We haven’t had this much excitement on the island since Harmon’s trial. So you’re probably sworn to secrecy, but Sam Graffam—he runs the store in town—told me to pry what I could out of you.”
“How about we trade questions?” I said. “I ask you one, then you ask me one.”
“You’ll just give me nonresponsive responses. I’ve known a few cops in my day.”
“What can you tell us about A
riel Evans?”
“I only talked with her a few times. I brought her fancy luggage from the ferry up to the cottage when she arrived. She was dressed all in black, the way they do in cities, but the next time I saw her, she’d found some tattered jeans and a T-shirt and looked like a native islander. You could tell she really wanted to be here, which is not what you expect from people in November. Hell, even I don’t like to be on Maquoit this time of year, and I’ve spent half my life here.”
“Did she say she was writing a book?”
“It’s my turn to ask a question. That’s what we agreed, ace.”
“Go ahead.”
“So the rumor going around is that the hermit is your prime suspect.”
“I can’t comment on that.”
She looked sideways at us. “That’s your answer? Jesus, you guys are tighter than clams.”
“You said you only talked with her a few times. When was the next time, and what did you talk about?”
“That’s two questions, but I’ll let it slide. It was at Graffam’s. She was buying provisions and hired me to cart everything back to Gull Cottage. She asked if I could find a skiff for her to row over to Stormalong. I told her our hermit doesn’t welcome visitors, but she laughed and said, ‘He’ll welcome me.’ I guess she was right because, after I found a skiff, I watched her cross the Gut. That tiny, city girl knew how to row a boat! And she must have charmed old Blake. Now it’s my turn to ask a question. Do you have any suspects so far and who are they?”
“Those are two questions,” I said.
“I answered two of yours. Come on, man. Don’t be a dick.”
“We’re still getting our bearings here. There’s a lot about Ariel Evans that we still don’t know, specifically what she did since arriving on Maquoit. Who she met, what kinds of interactions she had with people here—”
“So you do think she was murdered!”
“I didn’t say that. But maybe you have some suggestions about who we should talk to.”
Juno frowned. “There are people who knew her better than me.”
“Like who?”
“The guys at the Trap House. They were falling over themselves to screw her, from what I heard. A girl who’s single, sexy, and likes to party…”
