by Paul Doiron
* * *
I sat on the hermit’s crooked dock taking stock of my situation.
Fortunately, my badge and gun were still safely attached to my belt. My waterlogged wallet was still in my pocket, as was my Gerber automatic knife. My incarcerated friend, Billy Cronk, had carried this push-buttoned blade with him through the Iraqi deserts and the Afghanistan mountains when he was a soldier. I would have been crushed to have lost my prized memento.
Relieved at my good luck, I reached for my iPhone and found that it was gone. I carried it in a protective waterproof case clipped to my belt. But somehow the cell had popped loose of its holster.
I swore out loud.
I didn’t mind being soaked and freezing. My gun could be cleaned and oiled. The items in my wallet could be dried. I could reimburse the Philadelphia cardiologist for his wayward kayak. But the loss of my cell phone was a grievous blow. Fortunately I had uploaded most of the photographs and videos I had taken since arriving on the island. But I had lost my prime means of contacting my supervisor—or anyone.
I understood there was no point sitting around and beating myself up. I pulled off my boots and dumped them out, wrung as much water as I could from my wool socks, then laced everything back up.
Markman had posted a NO TRESPASSING on a sort of lintel at the end of the dock. I passed beneath it without a pause, thinking, Abandon all hope.
From the opposite shore, Stormalong had appeared to be a single humpbacked rock devoid of notable landmarks. Now that I was trekking up its spine, I saw how wrong that impression had been. There were indeed a great many individual rocks, most covered with the ocher lichen that you see so regularly on Maine’s coastal cliffs. But there were hidden dells, too: small pockets where cranberry, hackberry, and bayberry bushes clustered around rainwater ponds.
Blake Markman had chosen a perfect hiding place from whatever demons had chased him out of Los Angeles.
The hike helped warm me up, but my crotch felt as if someone had applied a cold compress to it.
The sun was just a paleness in the fog above the western horizon.
Rags of mist floated across the uneven landscape. A raven rose from a wind-deformed pine, its call a gurgling croak, and flapped away on black wings before me. The crashing of the waves grew louder as I neared the southern end. Soon sheep began to appear around me, dozens of them. They were sturdy and off-white, and the lone ram I saw had magnificent curled horns. I felt as if I were wandering over a Scottish isle adrift in time and space from the modern world.
Suddenly I heard a man shout, “Put your hands up!”
I couldn’t see him in the mist. Couldn’t see if he was armed. But the menace in his voice was real.
I kept my hands at my side. “Markman?”
“Never mind who I am. Turn around, and get the hell off my island.”
“My name is Mike Bowditch. I’m a game warden investigator with the State of Maine. I can show you my badge.”
“I don’t care who you are. There’s no trespassing on Stormalong.”
“I’m a law enforcement officer. That gives me the right to enter posted property. Can you please step forward so that I can see you?”
The hermit emerged from the fog thirty feet from where I was standing. He had a double-barreled shotgun leveled at my midsection. He wore a wool scarf knotted around his throat. He wore a poncho of tanned leather over an oilskin coat. He wore dungarees so dirty they could have stood upright on their own. Most of all, he wore the look of a man who had suffered unimaginable hardships.
All wardens practice drawing and firing their service weapon from their holster. I was a faster shot than most, especially with my new pistol, but probably not fast enough to get off a round without taking one in return.
“Put the gun down, Blake.” It was Ariel.
She materialized out of the haze behind him like her namesake sprite from The Tempest.
Markman remained belligerent. “He’s an intruder.”
“No, he’s not. This is the man I’ve been telling you about. He’s the one who’s going to solve Miranda’s murder.”
29
Like everything else about Stormalong, the hermit’s cabin was not what I’d imagined. Instead of a hovel built of driftwood planks with a thatched roof, it was an angular, tiered structure with multiple eaves. The design seemed faintly Japanese. There was a grid of solar panels arrayed nearby for the few weeks a year when the island saw the sun. The tall windmill with scimitar-shaped blades must have a been more reliable generator of electricity. A greenhouse had been built parallel to the island’s southern shore to maximize its exposure to the faithless sun.
Blake Markman had been an extremely wealthy man once, and perhaps he still was. How else to explain his impressive eco-sanctuary?
I studied his back as he entered the nimbus of light surrounding the door. His grizzled hair hung about his shoulders, and his shoulders seemed stooped as if by more than age. He paused before the door to remove his metal cleats and scrape the mud off his boots. Ariel and I followed his example. When he opened the door, I felt the embrace of warm air.
“I’m not used to visitors.” Markman’s speaking voice was soft and gentle. It wasn’t at all what I had expected after his first threatening words. “I don’t even remember the last time I had two people in here with me.”
The interior was as eccentric in its design as the exterior. The floors were a mosaic of reddish wood tiles that had to have been harvested in a distant jungle. The walls had been constructed with integrated shelves that were overflowing with books and bronze and iron sculptures. At the far end of the great room was an enormous cobblestone fireplace in which flames danced.
The hermit disappeared down a hall.
“What are you doing here, Mike?” Ariel said as she removed her parka.
“I was concerned about you.”
“That would be cute if it weren’t insulting. Where did you find a boat to make the crossing?”
“You remember that kayak chained to the tree outside your cottage? The last time I saw it, it was bound for the Gulf Stream.”
A twinkle appeared in her teal-blue eyes. “That would explain why you’re dripping water all over Blake’s tigerwood floor.”
“How did Markman know I was on the island?” Like every warden, I prided myself on my ability to move stealthily across any landscape.
“There’s a motion sensor on the dock.”
No doubt plenty of others were elsewhere on the island, I now realized.
“Take off your pants,” said Ariel as I stood in a puddle of my own making. “Not here. In the bathroom.”
Markman reappeared carrying a pair of shearling-lined slippers and pants made from yarn he’d probably spun himself. He offered them to me.
I undressed in the bathroom. Markman had a solar shower and used a composting toilet. His house was an environmentalist’s dream. I rinsed the salt water off my pistol and magazines, knowing I’d have to oil them within the next few hours or risk the blued steel’s becoming rusty.
I took the opportunity to remove three more ticks from my skin.
The pants were so short on me they wore like culottes. I returned to the great room. Markman took my sodden corduroys to dry on a rack beside the fire. My socks were already dangling there, and my boots were steaming on the hearthstones nearby.
“Stand here and get warm,” he said. “I have water heating for tea.”
He left us again.
The logs in the fireplace were hardwood, I realized. Where had Markman found them? No oaks or birches grew on Stormalong. Did his mysterious courier bring firewood, too? I turned to inspect my surroundings. Immediately my gaze fell upon an unframed painting of Blake Markman on an easel in a nearby nook. Even without a signature, I could recognize the work as that of Miranda Evans.
“She told him,” said Ariel from across the room. “Miranda told him who she really was.”
“That’s not exactly true,” said the hermit, return
ing with a steaming teakettle and tray of cups. He’d shed his sheepskins and his dirty jeans for a baggy sweater and drawstring pants similar to the ones he’d given me. “When she came over the first time, I didn’t let her land. She’d introduced herself as you.” He gestured at Ariel with his long hands. “I’ve chased off reporters before—some at gunpoint. But your sister kept trying, and one morning she slipped onto the island without me seeing. I was so impressed with her determination I let her into my world.”
Not into his house, but into his world.
While I remained standing with my back to the crackling fire, Ariel and Markman sat on couches across from each other. The hermit poured us all rose-hip tea. The flavor was not to my taste, but it was hot, which was all that mattered.
“The thing that struck me about Miranda,” said Markman, “was that she didn’t ask me a single question about myself. She had lots of questions about the house and the greenhouse and the sheep. But she didn’t ask me a thing about my past. I showed her my bedroom, and there is a picture there of my late wife. It’s the only one I kept. Miranda picked it up and began to sob so hard I had to catch her before she collapsed on the floor. That was when I knew she was also an impostor.”
“An impostor?” I asked.
“I spent the first part of my life pretending to be someone I wasn’t. I lived in a Bel Air mansion, drove a Ferrari, partied constantly, and considered myself an artist when really I was only bankrolling men with creative vision. My self-deceit resulted in the death of my wife. It should have killed me. But I was saved to suffer. And in suffering I have found myself.”
“‘Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars,’” said Ariel with the solemn carefulness of someone repeating a famous quotation.
Markman was evidently better read than I was. “Khalil Gibran,” he said.
The unreality of the setting and the situation had caused me to lose focus. I’d forgotten my mission. I had a hundred questions for the hermit, but the only ones that mattered were those that could direct me to Miranda Evans’s killer.
“Mr. Markman,” I began.
“You can call me Blake.”
“On the occasions when Miranda came over here to sketch you, did she mention anyone who might wish to cause her harm?”
“We didn’t speak of Maquoit at all.”
“What about someone from her life before she came to Maine?”
“You don’t understand. We made a pact with each other that we wouldn’t talk about anything except ideas. I told her I’d shaken off the rest of the world when I came to Stormalong, or as much of it as was possible. If she wanted to share my reality, she needed to do the same in my presence.”
I let his pseudophilosophy slide. “Would you mind showing that shotgun to me again? Preferably with the barrel pointed somewhere besides my vital organs.”
His smile was indulgent as he rose to his bare feet. “You are a single-minded man.”
“That’s what I’m paid to be.”
“Money, I suspect, has nothing to do with it.”
While he was out of the room, Ariel scowled. “You don’t honestly think he killed my sister? What motive would he have had?”
I could have answered her in several ways: because Blake Markman wanted to protect his privacy and didn’t trust that Miranda would be true to her promise; because Blake Markman’s self-imposed solitude wasn’t a quest for enlightenment but a sly maneuver to avoid facing questions about his role in his wife’s death; because Blake Markman was likely mentally unbalanced.
Instead I said nothing.
After a minute, he returned with a leather case. He stood before me and opened the clasps. Inside was the now-disassembled shotgun. It was made of engraved steel and polished wood set atop a lining of bloodred velvet.
“Is this a Fabbri?” I asked, dazzled by the light reflecting off the two barrels.
“You know your shotguns.”
“These cost more than most houses.”
“It was my father’s bequest to me.”
“And you use it to chase off trespassers?”
“When I have to.” He closed the case and set it on the couch. “It’s the only firearm I own. Is there anything else here you’d like to see?”
“You should take the tour,” Ariel said. “The island is magical.”
I glanced at the nearest window and saw the fire reflected in the glass. In November, darkness descends quickly, and I didn’t want to navigate the Gut half-blind.
“We should get back, Ariel.”
For an instant, I thought she might tell me she wasn’t coming. Having charmed Miranda, had Blake Markman now charmed her sister? Then she stretched her arms above her head and let out a yawn.
I gathered up my steaming pants, socks, and boots and returned to the bathroom.
So Markman claimed not to own a hunting rifle. There was no way to verify his statement without tearing his home apart, which I had no justification for doing. Borrowing and losing a kayak was as much lawbreaking as I had in me for the day. Counting Blackington’s totaled truck, I was running up quite a bill I would need to pay the people of Maquoit.
“Would you like me to guide you back to the dock?” asked the hermit as he opened the door for us. The twilight had thickened around the house. Condensed fog dripped steadily from the eaves.
“I can find the way,” I said.
The bearded man once again showed me his smug superior smile. “There’s no shame in needing a guide.”
“I can find it.”
Both Blake and Ariel probably assumed this was bravado on my part. But I’d made a career out of tracking people and animals in foul weather. I could see Ariel’s footprints in the path as clearly as if they were illuminated by an infrared light.
Markman didn’t shake hands or wish us well. He simply bowed like a Shaolin monk and closed the door.
Shadows closed in around us like a swift-rising tide.
I set off down the path. Out in the cold, I could feel the lingering dampness of my corduroys. Several sheep watched us from a rise. The whiteness of their wool gave the silent animals a phosphorescence that bordered on ghostliness.
“Blake said those are Icelandic sheep,” Ariel said. “I hope you really know where you’re going.”
I pretended I hadn’t heard her. “What’s your take on Markman? He looks like John the Baptist but lives in a state-of-the-art eco-home.”
“The man is a shepherd, Mike.”
“He isn’t the crazy, unwashed hermit he wants people to think he is. He’s adopted a disguise to put off visitors. He said he was living a lie in his previous life, but his current persona is also fake.”
She considered this statement. “He showed me that photo in his bedroom. Miranda was a dead ringer for his late wife.”
“You didn’t find that creepy?”
“Of course, I did!”
We began a steep descent down the north side of the island. I heard a steady knocking that could only have been waves pushing Ariel’s skiff against the dock. She had grown quiet after her revelation about Miranda’s resemblance to the late Mrs. Markman.
Finally, we arrived at the teetering dock. I looked for the motion sensor and spotted it right away behind the NO TRESPASSING sign. The tide had slackened. I crouched down to loosen the rope from the cleat, then began pulling the boat close enough for us to climb aboard.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she said.
“I was planning on rowing.”
“I rowed myself over here without capsizing. I don’t need your manly assistance.”
“It’s called chivalry.”
“No, it’s called chauvinism.”
I stood aside as she settled into the bow and fitted the oars into their locks.
She was, in truth, a skilled rower.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said about Blake’s hermit thing being an act,” she said. “I don’t think that’s ent
irely fair. The man is living alone out there in severe conditions. Clearly, he has chosen to cut himself off from the rest of humanity.”
The foghorn sounded nearby.
“Why do you think Miranda was so determined to meet him?”
“To further fuck with me. She probably wanted to mess up my chance to write a book about him. She figured to antagonize him.”
“Did he seem surprised to see you when you pulled up at his dock?”
“I think Miranda must have said to expect me. It was bizarre, though. His expression didn’t change at all when I told him she was dead. He didn’t ask how. He just said, ‘I am sorry for your loss.’”
The bow scraped a submerged rock and then wedged against the cobbles.
“Will you at least let me drag the boat up onto the beach?” I asked.
“That I will let you do.”
I hopped out into the knee-deep water and nearly twisted an ankle on a lurking clump of Irish moss. I took the painter over my shoulder and began hauling the skiff, with Ariel aboard, up onto dryish land. She tossed the oars back into the boat, and the wooden echo seemed overly loud in the quiet between the foghorn moans.
“There’s something else I’ve realized,” she said. “Do you remember that weird text from Miranda I mentioned?”
“Yes.”
“The devil she fell in love with wasn’t that Pillsbury guy. The devil was Blake Markman.”
30
“How do you know your sister was in love with Blake?”
“Crazy attracts crazy. But it’s not only that. When I first saw him at the dock, I thought he was dirty and disgusting. But the more time I spent with him, the handsomer he got. His eyes are so dark and intense, and he has those beautiful long lashes. Then when he showed me around his amazing house, I had to remind myself that the man is bad news. Basically, Blake Markman is the kind of guy I used to fall for when I was young and stupid myself.”
We walked up the darkening beach in the direction of my Datsun and her bicycle.
“It sounds like you might want to write about him after all,” I said.
“Maybe in the context of my sister. I don’t know. It takes me a while to find a book in a person.”
