by Paul Doiron
“I want you to tell me what’s going on with your investigation,” she said.
“I haven’t been privy to all aspects of the case,” I said. “I’ve kind of been on the periphery.”
“That’s undoubtedly why the lieutenant agreed to station you here. You don’t know enough to spill any of the important beans. So in that case, what can you tell me?”
I braced myself against the granite counter. “We’re operating under the theory that there were at least two shooters, based upon the different-caliber bullet cartridges we recovered. We also found some cigarette butts and candy wrappers at the kill sites. The state police forensic lab in Augusta is testing everything for fingerprints and DNA. The fingerprint matches should come back soon—if there are any matches—but the DNA tests can take weeks.”
“Was the lieutenant being straight with me when he said you had a list of suspects?”
“There is a list,” I said.
She leaned an elbow on the table and brought her hand to her face in contemplation. “And what have you been doing since I last saw you?”
“I have been searching the local gravel pits, looking for spent cartridges that might match the ones we found on your property. If we knew where the killers practiced, we’d have another potential clue in identifying them. I also spent some time checking the rifles of local hunters, trying to find a match with the bullets used to slaughter the moose.”
“And did you?”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “That remains to be seen.”
“What’s your confidence level in the investigation?”
“My confidence level?”
“How much faith do you have in the men overseeing the case? Rivard and that weaselly one?”
“The Warden Service has an exemplary track record in solving shootings like these.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I know, ma’am.”
Her mouth dropped open. She looked at Albee with her jaw hanging loose, and then she let out a belly laugh. “Very diplomatic! Dexter, you should recruit this young man to come work for you. We could use someone with his silver tongue in Augusta.”
“My guess is that the warden isn’t a Moosehorn supporter, Betty,” said Dexter Albee.
“That’s because he hasn’t heard your sales pitch.” She stood up from the table. “Why don’t you take him into the great room while Leaf and I do the dishes. I’ll be in to join you in a few minutes.”
Elizabeth Morse had a way of framing all her suggestions as commands. Is her forcefulness a result of being rich, I wondered, or is it an innate quality that enabled her to rise from a hardscrabble farm to the corporate boardrooms she now frequents?
Whatever the answer was, I found myself blindly following Albee through a formal dining room that could have comfortably seated the New England Patriots fifty-three-man roster and into an immense open area where the ceiling shot up past second- and third-floor walkways to distant dark rafters. The great room held not one fireplace, but two, and was walled entirely with glass overlooking Sixth Machias Lake. Looking out the windows, I saw far green mountains and bottle-blue waves rippling across miles of open water. The light inside the room had a shifting, aqueous quality from the reflection of the lake below.
In front of one of the fieldstone hearths, an easel was set up with a chart showing eastern Maine; a red line delineated Morse’s extensive property holdings. She really did own the northern halves of Hancock and Washington counties, I realized. There were folding chairs arranged in front of the easel, as if Morse had recently compelled a dozen of her unwitting houseguests to listen to Dexter Albee’s promotional pitch.
He tugged on one of his puppet ears and said, “You don’t really want to hear this.”
“Actually, I’m kind of curious.”
From reading the Bangor paper, I was familiar with the broad-brush description of the proposal, but I hadn’t spent hours immersing myself in the details. Maybe boning up on the specifics would give me some insight into the twisted mind-set of the men who had slaughtered the moose. I was also trapped in the house for the rest of the day, so what else did I have to do?
He motioned for me to take a seat, but I shook my head no and remained standing.
Albee spread out his arms, as if pantomiming a welcome to a sizable crowd. His voice projected across the room. “‘Primeval, untamed, and forever untamable Nature.’ Those were the words Henry David Thoreau used to describe the Maine woods after his 1846 expedition to the summit of Katahdin. At the time of Thoreau’s three visits to Maine, most of the North Woods was public, a resource owned entirely by the people of the state. But by the time of his death, in 1862, this ‘collective commons’ had been destroyed. Shortsighted Maine politicians had sold off all the land or granted deeds to private interests. And so began the taming of nature, and the loss of one of America’s crown jewels.
“Thoreau believed that wild places such as the ones he found in northern Maine should be set aside as national preserves, and over the decades efforts were made to secure large-scale protection for the North Woods. In 1933, Maine’s then governor, Louis Brann, put forward the idea of establishing a million-acre ‘Roosevelt National Park’ in northern Maine. Four years later, Congressman Ralph Brewster proposed the creation of a four-hundred-thousand-acre ‘Katahdin National Park,’ with the backing of both the Appalachian Trail Conference and the Millinocket Chamber of Commerce. Alas, both these efforts failed, and it was only through the personal vision, determination, and philanthropy of a former governor, Percival Baxter, that Katahdin itself was spared. Today the ‘forever wild’ preserve Baxter created out of his own funds and which he donated in its entirety to the citizens of Maine—two-hundred-thousand-acre Baxter State Park—stands as a testament to what one brave individual can accomplish in the face of well-financed corporate opposition.
“Now, after decades during which the surrounding woods have been clear-cut and despoiled, developed without regard to the natural movement of wildlife across the landscape, or without any effort to maintain the scenic beauty of one of the nation’s last unpeopled places, there finally comes a successor. Maine entrepreneur, philanthropist, and mother Elizabeth Morse has accepted the challenge thrown down by Percival Baxter to take personal action to protect the North Woods. She stands ready to donate one hundred thousand acres of her own land to the citizens of the United States to create its newest national park, Moosehorn, here on the eastern edge of our great nation.”
I found my eyes drifting toward the sparkling lake and imagined the spell his words must cast on the powerful people Morse invited to sit by her fires.
Albee continued his well-practiced speech. “Moosehorn National Park will be a place of verdant pine and spruce forests, multicolor hardwoods that blaze with foliage in the autumn, boreal bogs brightened by lady slippers and swamp loosestrife, crystalline lakes, and rolling mountains unbroken by cell towers or other man-made structures. It will be a safe haven for fish and animals, not just the salmon and moose and eagles that already live here but also the cougars, timber wolves, and woodland caribou that were cruelly extirpated from these remote forests. People weary of twenty-first-century noise and overpopulation—the artificial condition we call ‘civilization’—will find solitude here and experience the spiritual rebirth that comes from meeting nature in its primeval state. Moosehorn will be a time capsule containing the hopes and dreams of—”
Above my head, someone began to clap. “Preach it, Pastor Albee!”
Dexter frowned at the second-floor walkway. “Hello, Briar.”
I craned my neck and found myself looking straight up the oversize T-shirt she wore as a nightie. Out of reflex, I turned my eyes to the floor.
“I never get tired of hearing your sermons,” she said. “Who are you trying to convert to the cause this morning?”
I heard a creaking noise that sounded as if she was leaning over the polished log bannister for a look at the top of my head. I
raised my face so she could see it.
“Hi, Briar.”
She had her mother’s superwhite smile. Her loose hair was hanging down. “Mike! I didn’t realize it was you. What are you doing here?”
“Your mother has asked Warden Bowditch to be her contact with the investigation,” said Albee.
“Really? That’s so awesome.”
I heard the slapping of bare feet on the floor above and then quick steps as she came prancing down the stairs. She entered the room with her luxuriant brown hair all a mess and her eyes still a little unfocused, as if she’d just awakened from an enchanted slumber that had lasted for years. Her T-shirt was pink and had a slogan on it: SAVE DARFUR: DON’T JUST LOOK AWAY. STOP GENOCIDE NOW. It barely covered the tops of her suntanned thighs. Briar Morse was clearly not self-conscious about showing off her body.
“So, has Dexter persuaded you to join the cult?”
Albee gave a polite smile. “Briar has been forced to hear my presentation on more than a few occasions.”
“Have you gotten to the part about how it’s never going to happen in a million years?”
“I was curious about the process,” I said. “Everything I’ve heard suggests you need to get votes from politicians who are opposed to removing so much timberland from the tax rolls.”
“I usually save that part for the end,” he said. “The first thing you need to keep in mind is that this is almost always a long road. It took twenty-six years to create the Grand Canyon National Park. Today, we can’t imagine anyone not wanting to protect the Grand Canyon, but a hundred years ago there was still a contentious debate around setting that land aside. It’s the same dynamic here at Moosehorn. Our task is to persuade people that these lands are investments and that the returns will be accumulated not just by future generations but by those in the existing communities surrounding this area. Tourists spend eleven billion dollars a year in park gateway towns like Bar Harbor and West Yellowstone. Critics of our plan cite the loss of hundreds of woods-products jobs, but they don’t mention the three thousand jobs Acadia National Park has created seventy miles from here on the coast.”
“You still haven’t explained the process,” I said.
He grinned as if I had caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. “There are two ways that a parcel of land can become a national park. The first is when Congress asks the Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, to conduct a special resource study to evaluate the site’s boundaries and budget. The NPS then sends a report back to Congress, which can choose to accept or ignore its recommendations.”
“My understanding is that the state’s entire delegation is on record opposing your plan,” I said.
“A teensy problem,” said Briar.
“There’s also another way to do this,” said Albee. “Under the 1906 Antiquities Act, the President can confer national-monument status on an area by executive order. That’s how Teddy Roosevelt created Grand Canyon National Monument. In the past two decades, six new national parks have been designated, and most of them were national monuments first. The exception—which is closer to the model we’re following here—is Voyageurs, in Minnesota, which was also created through the acquisition of private land.”
“In either case, it seems to me you need to win over public opinion,” I said. “I can’t imagine the President is just going to ride roughshod over local politicians and voter sentiment.”
“That’s not necessarily the case,” said Albee. “Most presidents wait until the lame-duck period of their presidencies to designate national monuments. They have their eyes on their place in history at that stage and not on the next election, and thus are more willing to assert their privileges. But you’re right: It absolutely helps to have a groundswell of support from the populace. That’s why this moose massacre might ultimately be a good thing.”
I could feel my face flushing with blood. “Excuse me?”
Albee held up his hands to show his peaceful intentions. “It’s horrific, inexcusable—don’t get me wrong,” he said. “The perpetrators need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But a violent incident like this can create a backlash of sympathy. I’m not sure if you’ve been following the news, Warden, but because of Betty’s celebrity, this is now a national story. The shootings have cast the opponents of our proposal in a highly negative light. The Maine papers have all come out with editorials reconsidering the opposition to Moosehorn, and Betty has been invited to New York tomorrow to appear on three of the morning TV shows. From a public-relations standpoint, the slaughter of those ten animals might actually be—”
“Dexter, that’s enough.” Elizabeth Morse stood in the door leading to the kitchen.
Political animal that he was, Albee instantly sensed the waves of anger coming off his patron. “Betty, I’m just trying to point out the silver lining to this horrible event.”
She ignored him and looked straight into my eyes. “Mr. Albee’s passion is his most endearing quality, but sometimes he lets it get the better of him.”
“My apologies,” said Albee.
Elizabeth pivoted toward her daughter. “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. It’s so nice of you to join us.”
“You didn’t tell me you were having Mike assigned to the case.”
“How could I tell you when you were passed out with an empty wine bottle?”
“Someone tried to kill me, Mom!”
“So you said.” It sounded like Elizabeth wasn’t as quick to believe her daughter as Leaf or I had been. “How about putting on a robe? I’m sure Warden Bowditch doesn’t mind the peep show, but I would prefer it if you acted with more maturity around my guests.”
Briar pinched the top of her nightgown closed. “Leaf says you used to be like this cool free spirit when you were my age. What happened to you?”
“I became a mother,” Elizabeth said. “Warden, I’d like to speak with you alone out on the patio if you have a few minutes.”
Again, the suggestion was a command. “Yes, ma’am.”
Briar leaned over and kissed my cheek for no apparent reason. My face grew warm again.
“Knock it off, Briar,” her mother said.
Briar made a harrumphing noise that didn’t exactly demonstrate the maturity her mother wished for her, and then she turned on her bare heels and scurried upstairs.
“Betty, I really didn’t mean anything,” said Albee with a flutter in his voice and an expression that seemed to be growing more and more nervous by the second.
“Yes, you did,” she said, exiting the room.
I gave the jug-eared man a curt nod by way of a farewell, thinking that I needed to phone Rivard and tell him to check out Dexter Albee’s whereabouts on the night of the moose massacre.
18
We stopped briefly in the kitchen to pick up two mugs containing EarthMother herbal tea and then proceeded through a sliding door onto the immense flagstone patio beside the lake. The air was heavy and muggy, and a translucent haze hung along the distant hills. It could have been the dog days of summer. The morning was already too hot for tea.
Elizabeth Morse didn’t speak until she had settled herself into one of the two Adirondack chairs flanking the extinguished fire pit. She waved a hand at me to indicate I should do the same. It felt awkward. I was a law-enforcement officer, in uniform and on duty, and not some vacationer here to enjoy the view.
“When I die, I intend to donate this house to serve as the park’s welcome center,” she said. “I had it designed with that purpose in mind.”
“It’s certainly spectacular.”
“Albee didn’t shoot those animals,” she said.
I didn’t inform Elizabeth Morse that she had an uncanny habit of reading my mind. “That’s good to hear.”
“He was giving a presentation at a house party in Cumberland Foreside, near Portland. You can ask the hosts.”
Greater Portland was approximately five hours away by car. Since I doubted that Albee
had spent the night at the home of Morse’s potential backers, he might easily have driven to Washington County after the party had ended. Given that the moose might well have been shot between midnight and dawn, his alibi didn’t amount to much.
“So what was your reaction to the proposal?” Morse asked me after a long pause.
“It’s ambitious,” I said.
“That’s true, but you don’t support the idea. I can always tell a skeptic.”
“I know a lot of good people who work in the forest industry,” I said. “You’re not going to retrain them to run bed-and-breakfasts and souvenir shops. Maybe someday all the good economic benefits you talk about will happen, but a generation is going to struggle in the meantime.”
“What else?”
“I’m a game warden, Ms. Morse. I know it’s not politically correct. But hunting and trapping and fishing mean something to me. They’re part of our heritage here in Maine and important activities in my own life.”
She leaned forward in her chair. “Last week was the moose hunt, wasn’t it?”
“In this zone, it was. The moose hunt happens during different weeks in September and October around the state.”
“How many dead moose did you see?”
I thought back to my patrols during that long, hot week; the many times the agent at the tagging station had called to tell me a big bull had just come in on a trailer; the occasions when I had happened on a party of hunters field-dressing an animal in the woods.
“I’m not sure,” I said, “but I know they tagged twenty-three at Day’s General Store.”
“Yes, I saw several being weighed as we drove by. They were lifted on a chain by their hind legs over that pole contraption they have set up there. All of them had been gutted beforehand, and there was a pool of blood on the ground. People were taking pictures. It was a grotesque spectacle.” She set her mug down on the arm of the chair. “The question I have for you is, how was that any different from what happened on my property?”
