by Paul Doiron
“I’d cite the Fifth Amendment if I were defending him.” As a young woman, Danica Marshall had been crowned Miss Maine, and she was still striking in her forties, but she had exercised herself to gauntness since last I’d seen her.
“You should’ve had a veteran officer in there with you,” said DeFord.
If you could see that Marshall had been a teenage beauty queen, you could also see that John DeFord had been a high school athlete who excelled at every sport. He had a handsome, unwrinkled face, and the flat stomach I hoped to have when I hit my fifties. Not for nothing was he nicknamed Jock.
“Hiram is going to sign a statement,” I said. “The only thing that matters to him now is protecting Jenny and Nat.”
The prosecutor remained unappeased. “Even if he does sign, you most likely lost me any chance of bringing an indictment against the woman or her husband.”
“Klesko said she confessed to him,” said DeFord.
The news caught Marshall off guard. “When?”
“He called me a few minutes ago from her house. He said she confessed to having obstructed the investigation. Mike seems to have put the fear of God into her.”
Marshall refused to show any satisfaction. She seemed more interested in seeing me stumble than in seeing her case come together. She’d been unhappy for as long as I’d known her.
“Any word from the Marine Patrol?” I asked.
“They haven’t recovered the body yet,” said DeFord. “But they’ve got another vessel on the way. The Coast Guard is sending a Response Boat down from Southwest Harbor and another one over from Rockland. Nat Pillsbury and nearly all of the island fishermen have gone out looking, as well. Kenneth Crowley was well liked. It’s a good thing you’re leaving, Mike. I don’t think the locals believe your version of what happened. Islanders may hate one another, but it’s always them against the world when outsiders show up.”
“What about Ariel Evans?” asked AAG Marshall. “Is she going back with us, too? I don’t want to have to deal with another hunting homicide tomorrow.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t make her leave,” said the captain.
This time, I was the one caught off guard. “You mean she’s staying?”
DeFord shrugged. “She says that if she could handle neo-Nazis, she can handle a few pissed-off Maine lobstermen.”
“She’s never dealt with lobstermen before.” I reached into my pocket for the keys to the Datsun. “I’m going to talk with her.”
“Try not to run over any reporters,” Marshall said. “The island is teeming with them.”
DeFord called after me, “Tomorrow in my office, Mike. We have a lot to discuss about the quality of your decision making over the past few days. And your ‘issues’ with procedure and communication.”
I paused in midstride. “Won’t we be riding back together to the mainland?”
“You’re getting a private flight. Charley Stevens is flying out here to pick you up. I told him there was no need, but you know how incorrigible that old man is.”
“Yes, I do.”
It was the best news I’d gotten on this otherwise horrible day.
* * *
The last time I saw Harmon Reed, he was sitting behind the wheel of his fifty-thousand-dollar truck with his windows rolled up. He had parked down the street from Hiram’s house to watch the troopers bring his son in chains to the boat. I didn’t get the best look at the old man, but he seemed to have aged ten years in a single morning.
One son dead, the other headed to prison. His only daughter estranged. Reed was like one of those monarchs who lives too long and spends his final days watching his dynasty dribble away like sand through his grasping fingers.
I drove the banged-up Datsun for the last time through the village. Bishop’s Wharf seemed to be the center of the action. Trucks were parked in the lot, with clusters of islanders talking among themselves, dogs running around.
I spotted a woman taking photographs with a camera that had a lens longer than my forearm. A man dressed as if for an arctic expedition, taking notes. A television reporter interviewing Graffam outside his store while a cameraman recorded the conversation.
Sam must have run back to his house to put on his Sunday best: new cargo shorts and a T-shirt with the slogan HUG DEALER. As I drove past, Graffam scowled at me, causing the camera guy to spin around to film the source of the shopkeeper’s displeasure.
I won’t be sorry to leave Maquoit.
Then a squadron of hooded mergansers took off from one of the unseen ponds in the marsh, their wings catching the afternoon light. I had spent three days on the island and seen almost none of it, not the trails along the east-side cliffs, not the shipwrecks on the southern beaches, not even the grand summer cottages of Marsh Harbor. The human violence that had occurred on Maquoit had obscured the natural beauty of the place as much as the fog had. I felt as if I were seeing the island now for the first time.
* * *
Despite it being the first sunny day since Ariel had arrived on Maquoit, she had closed all her curtains. She had also posted a sign on the door:
I AM GRIEVING FOR MY SISTER
PLEASE GIVE ME THE PRIVACY TO DO SO
The words struck me as disingenuous. Miranda’s murder had been a real blow to Ariel, but I also knew that it was a death foretold. How many years had the older sister waited for a call from some hospital saying her sister had overdosed or crashed her car or been strangled by one of the dangerous men she had loved?
This plea for sympathy was no more than the DO NOT DISTURB sign you hang outside your hotel room.
I rapped at the door. “Ariel? It’s Mike!”
She peeled back a curtain and then released the lock and let me in. I had caught her in the middle of a conversation on her cell phone. She held up a finger to indicate that I needed to give her a minute.
Her luggage was packed and waiting. I wondered if she had reconsidered her decision to remain on Maquoit.
“I don’t want it to be a conventional memoir,” she told the person on the other end. “Obviously my relationship with Miranda will be the through line. But I need to work in the island, too. Blake Markman will play a major role—he says he’s ready for his story to be told—and it plays so well off Miranda’s own compulsion for concealment. These islands are where people come who wish to hide from humanity. It’s like some tragic retreat for those who can’t handle the modern world.”
She pretended to listen to the man droning on the other end.
She had showered and washed and dried her hair and put on makeup and clothes I hadn’t seen before—a silk shirt in ivory, black pants, and flats—that made her look less like a field correspondent and more like a bestselling author from Manhattan.
“The focus will definitely be on Miranda and me,” she broke in. “Don’t worry about that. Someone tried to kill me this morning. I’m not going to leave that part out. I haven’t had a chance to sit down yet and begin mapping out the structure, but you can pitch it as ‘a story written in heart’s blood.’”
She paused to listen to the drone again.
“Great! I think we’re both on the same page, then. I’ll work up some notes and send them to you.… No, I have email here. There’s even this hunky game-warden investigator who plays a role in the story.… No, he’s not my love interest! Believe me, Miranda had sex enough for the two of us. Listen, someone’s at the door. I’ll send you my notes and we can talk later.”
She ended the call with a roll of her eyes. “My agent.”
“You plan on writing about me?”
“How could I not? You saved my life out there this morning.”
“My work requires that I don’t seek out the spotlight, Ariel. As it is, I doubt I’ll ever be able to go undercover in the state of Maine. Too many bad guys have heard of me.”
“Maybe you should learn to enjoy the fame. The stuff I found online about your life—”
“I’m still going to pass.”
“
I’m going to have to include you, though. There’s no avoiding it. I’d prefer to do it with your cooperation.”
“You’re a brilliant writer. You’ll find a work-around.” Every muscle in my body was sore from shivering so hard earlier. “I’m here to tell you that Hiram Reed confessed to killing Miranda. I got it all on tape.”
“How? Why?”
“Maybe you should have a seat.”
“I don’t need to have a seat,” she snapped. “Tell me what happened.”
“Well, I’m going to have a seat because I’m exhausted and probably still a little hypothermic.” I collapsed in the armchair. “I noticed your luggage is packed. Does that mean you’re going home?”
She perched herself on the couch. “Just trading spaces. Jenny Pillsbury doesn’t want me here so I’ve taken a room at the Wight House. How is that place?”
“Quiet.”
“Enough stalling. Tell me everything.”
Ariel interrupted me constantly as I told her about Hiram and Jenny. Midway through my story, she went to fetch the Scotch bottle from the kitchen, but I refused her offer of a drink. Eventually, I couldn’t take any more questions. I used the armchair to climb to my feet. Every joint in my body had ossified.
“Where are you going? We’re not done here.”
“A plane is coming to pick me up. I’m glad to see that you’re holding up all right, Ariel. I worry about you.”
Her eyes hardened. “I’ve reported from combat zones. I’ve been interrogated by Aryan extremists. I’ve been in tougher spots.”
“I just meant that I care how you’re doing.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so used to men patronizing me and depreciating my accomplishments. You never did that. I hope your girlfriend appreciates how lucky she is. You’re a keeper, Mike Bowditch.”
I let that one go. “What did Blake Markman come all the way over here to give you? It must have been something big if he was willing to set foot on Maquoit for the first time in ages.”
She laughed that musical laugh. “So it was insatiable curiosity that really brought you here to see me! I should have known. Hang on a minute, and I’ll go get it.”
A moment later she returned with a leatherbound journal and the ghost of a smile. “The hermit’s diary. Miranda asked to read it, but she never got the chance.”
“I was hoping it was going to be your sister’s missing phone. Maybe Hiram threw it into the sea along with his hunting rifle. It could be we’ll never know what happened to it.”
She opened a bookmarked page to show me a drawing that Miranda had done of Markman in the journal, an exquisite portrait. With a few pencil strokes, she had captured not just the man’s likeness but something of his soul. In its brilliance it reminded me of sketches I’d seen by Rembrandt in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston when my college girlfriend had dragged me there.
“Mike, this is more than an account of Blake Markman’s life on Stormalong,” Ariel said in a hushed voice. “It’s his confession. He really was criminally responsible for the death of his wife.”
“Why did he choose to entrust this with you?”
“He confused me for my sister, I think. He doesn’t realize how much more mercenary and self-promoting I am than Miranda ever was. She always had the kinder, more generous spirit. In a way, it’s fitting that people still can’t recognize the differences between us.”
48
Joy Juno wanted to punch me in the face. “Go fuck yourself.”
I had met her in Blackington’s yard to return the totaled Datsun. The muscular woman stood with her legs braced and her fists clenched. I had nabbed some badass poachers in my career—dangerous men who had done time in prison—but few of them had projected such an attitude of outright hostility toward me.
“The state will pay to replace Mr. Blackington’s truck,” I said in the same voice I might have used to soothe a vicious dog. “I’ll make sure he gets top dollar. He’s going to come out of this ahead.”
I held out the keys to the Datsun.
She slapped them to the ground. “I don’t give a shit about the truck. You killed Kenneth Crowley.”
“That’s not technically true. He died trying to kill Ariel and me.”
“So you say, but I’m hearing different things.”
Joy’s own truck was parked along the road, and Beryl McCloud was again in the passenger seat. The schoolteacher hadn’t come out to speak with me. Through the grimy windshield her face appeared wan, her eyes vacant, her hair limp. She looked like a person whose spirit had been shattered, and I remembered that she had considered Hiram Reed a friend.
“Are you OK, Beryl?” I asked.
“She’s grieving, asshole,” Joy said. “And so am I. We were in AA together, Hiram and me. Do you even know how many lives you’ve destroyed out here? Jenny and Nat. Harmon and Martha. Not to mention everyone who cared for Kenneth. Meanwhile the Washburns are laughing their asses off. In a week those fascists are going to be running this island. You wait and see.”
“You could try standing up to them, all of you together.”
She rolled her eyes halfway into her skull. “I can’t believe I ever thought you were a cool guy.”
“Well, I’m leaving now, and the only way I’ll be back is if something happens to Ariel Evans. You don’t want to see what happens if I get word that she’s been hurt—or worse.”
Joy raised a fist to the ready position. “Are you threatening me?”
“I’m not singling you out, Joy. I’m threatening everyone on Maquoit.”
“I hope your plane crashes.”
She stormed over to her truck, got in, and slammed the door. She began declaiming to Beryl. The sound was muffled but most police officers are experts at reading lips, especially with regard to certain single-syllable Anglo-Saxon words.
After a minute, I hitched my rucksack over my shoulder and continued on toward the airstrip. Dead leaves were caught in the thorns of the barberry bushes along the road. I passed a boarded-up cottage. In their hunger, the deer had devoured an ornamental rhododendron in its front yard. The plant wouldn’t kill the animals, but nor would it nourish them. It was like a person trying to subsist on a diet of copy paper.
A blue pickup came barreling up the road behind me. I didn’t recognize it at first, Then I realized it was Hiram Reed’s truck. Steve Klesko was behind the wheel.
“I was afraid I missed you,” he said through the open window. His face seemed friendly, but he was wearing sunglasses so I couldn’t be entirely certain of his intentions.
“Did you commandeer this?”
“More like borrowed. Hiram won’t miss it, I figured. Not in his current condition and circumstances. Do you want a lift up to the airfield?”
With a laugh, I threw my gear into the truck bed and climbed in beside him.
“You did good, Mike.” Klesko shifted into first gear. “The brass will give you shit because you didn’t follow all the procedures, but you got a confession. Marshall’s worried it won’t stand up, but my gut tells me Hiram is done fighting. I wouldn’t recommend you do any of this again, though.”
“No lone wolves, right?”
“No lone wolves.”
“Listen, Steve, something’s been weighing on me. I owe you an apology. You were right that I should have trusted you from the start. You were a good partner, but I was so afraid of screwing up the case that I wouldn’t let you help me. I’m sorry about that.”
He lifted his sunglasses so that they rested on the top of his thick dark hair. He stared hard into my eyes. “Apologies are just words.”
“True.”
“When we’re both back in Bangor, I need you to do something if you want to make this right.”
“OK?”
“Buy me a beer at Paddy Murphy’s.”
“It’s a deal.”
He stopped the pickup at the edge of the airstrip and let the engine idle. We shook hands, then I watched the truck disappear down the hill. It had been a long t
ime since I’d made a friend.
Two planes were parked along the gravel runway. One was the Beechcraft I had seen earlier. The second was an elegant little Cirrus. The two charter pilots were hanging out in the windbreak of the Beechcraft’s fuselage. They glanced at me as if unsure whether I was one of their passengers. Then they decided they didn’t recognize me and returned to their conversation. I checked my watch and saw that it was 3:57 p.m. Charley Stevens was never late.
Exactly three minutes later, I noticed the charter pilots glancing skyward. I peered to the north and saw a speck that I might have mistaken for a seabird until the whine of the engine distinguished itself above the breeze.
As always, Charley landed the Cessna into the wind. He engaged his flaps to assist in braking. The single propeller chopped the air as he turned the red-and-white aircraft around so that it could take off into the wind as well.
The pilot’s door popped open and the old man swung like a gibbon from the strut. He advanced toward me with his strong hand outstretched. After we shook, he clapped me hard between the shoulder blades.
“I heard you nearly drowned, young feller.”
“I just got a little wet is all.”
He laughed at that. “So I just got off the horn with the colonel. Congratulations on a job well done.”
“I don’t think Captain DeFord agrees that I did so well.”
“You caught the killer, didn’t you?”
“It would have been better if Crowley hadn’t died. He was a stupid kid, trying to protect his friend.”
“You can’t blame yourself for another man’s boneheadedness.”
“Tell that to the islanders. All I know is I’m ready to leave Maquoit. I hope I never come back here.”
Charley chuckled deep in his throat as if recalling a favorite joke.
“What’s so funny?”
“The only people worse at predicting the future than the elderly are the young.”
The takeoff was so smooth I couldn’t identify the exact instant we left the ground. Above the treetops the northeast wind began fighting us, but Charley seemed to know how to deal with every atmospheric condition. The summits of Mount Desert Island glowed in the distance as if cast in gold.
