Mrs. V served a lovely dinner. Scalloped mussels were more about scallops than mussels, which suited me fine. Mussels we could eat year-round, and did. But fresh scallops were a delicacy that made the winter months tolerable, I thought as I nearly licked my plate clean. I attempted during the meal to bring up the subject of Wally. He’d been in the back of my mind all day, and I needed to understand the options. But each time I started, one of the V’s would interrupt, changing the subject altogether. I recognized this as one of my tactics, and decided that my landlords had thought about it, and regretted verbalizing their invitation for Wally to move in here. I totally understood, and let it go. My schedule right now was mostly my own. So I would have plenty of time to research facilities in the area, or look into a rental that had two bedrooms. I would tackle that tomorrow, I thought as I thanked my landlords once again and bid them good night.
As I made my way to the door, the television set came back on. The landlords’ nightly routine was to tune into Wheel of Fortune primarily to discuss what Vanna was wearing. Other than the wardrobe, I’m not sure they liked the game itself. I was fairly sleepy, and knew it was a combination of things: long day, outside in freezing weather, boat rides, and Scotch. I dragged myself up over the stairs and happily dove into bed. I slept soundly and dreamlessly.
*
A sliver of sunlight sneaked between the slats of the venetian blinds, hitting me square in the face. Not one to linger in bed (alone or otherwise), my feet were on the floor and moving before my eyes could focus. I tugged the tiny yellow and blue lobster buoy at the end of the cord to raise the shade covering the bay window, exposing a colorful sunrise, and was relieved to see that no fresh snow had fallen last night. Other than sending pictures to Mr. Dubois, I looked forward to a day of nothing scheduled, allowing me the freedom to dig into options for my brother. Now that I had a good night’s sleep, I was very optimistically happy to consider the prospect of having Wally close by; sharing an apartment or finding an appropriate situation for him to live with a bit of assistance. I tucked my checkbook into the camera bag and headed out the door to the café. I knew I would find Cal there, and wanted to settle up with him for the boat ride yesterday.
The cowbells announced my entrance, where I found Cal perched on his usual stool at the counter. I plunked myself onto a stool beside him and said, “Good morning, Skipper.” I pulled my checkbook from the bag and slapped it down on the place mat in front of me while Cal slowly lowered the newspaper he seemed engrossed in. “Time to settle up. What do I owe you?” I asked while nodding to Audrey, who held up a glass coffeepot.
“You want to start a tab?” Cal asked as he looked at me over the edge of the paper. “Assuming you’ll be making a few more trips to Acadia to investigate, I’m available.”
“Investigate what?” I asked. Cal folded the newspaper in half and flattened it with the palm of his hand, then pushed it over for me to read. The front-page headline was so bizarre that I read it twice, and then aloud the third time: “Fatal Fire on Acadia Deemed Suspicious.”
FOUR
In a cloud of confusion, I read on. The article continued, explaining that although findings were preliminary, evidence had revealed the presence of a fuel accelerant at the scene and that authorities suspected that the house had been torched to cover up a murder.
Authorities? Accelerant found at the scene? Murder? Details were lacking. Wow, I thought, the local paper was nothing more than a tabloid. What a stretch! I would have to do some fast talking to convince Mr. and Mrs. V that I had not withheld information, and that the article had to be BS. “And this is what happens in a small town when news journalists have no news to report. They just make stuff up!” I said a bit louder than needed. Although I was well aware of how the media can twist things beyond spin, this was different. This was outright fabrication. I worried about the reactions of the residents of Acadia Island to the outlandish accusations of arson and murder.
“Thank God! Not to tread on your sacred ground, but I couldn’t stomach another story on bath salts or methadone clinics. There’s nothing new about that anymore,” Audrey interjected.
“You may not find news about cleaning up the neighborhood of drugs as sexy as charred corpses, but my intention is to find the root of the drug problem, and extract it like a bad tooth,” I defended what I regarded as my life’s purpose.
“So you did find a body yesterday, right?” Audrey asked as she poured steaming hot coffee into a chunky mug. “The usual?” she asked as she cleared Cal’s dirty plate and silverware into a sudsy plastic bin under the counter. I answered in the affirmative, knowing that I would be served a toasted English muffin or yesterday’s special, which I recalled was apricot-bran. I explained that I had a camera full of pictures that I would be delivering to my boss at the insurance consulting company this morning, documenting nothing that would indicate anything even remotely suspicious. “Come on, Janey. Dish.” Audrey pleaded with me to save her from her daily, repetitive conversations on the winter weather.
I had come to know Audrey as a girl who had been born in the wrong place. At nineteen, pierced, tattooed, and sassy, she ran the show at the café, working every hour of every day that the open sign was displayed. She had confided in me about her dreams of furthering her education and moving to New York, something I suspected even she didn’t believe was possible.
“Well, other than the fact that I knew you were headed to Acadia yesterday, my cousin is the captain of the ferry that brought you back to South Haven,” she stated matter-of-factly. Before she could finish, the door blew open and in came Clydie, sporting a fur trapper’s hat—full flaps down—giving his head the appearance of being much too big for the rest of him. The only thing that kept him from toppling over were the huge insulated boots that now anchored him to the linoleum.
“Ah ha!” He pointed a finger directly at me and headed toward the counter. “Now we can get the facts straight from the horse’s mouth.”
“Yeah, as opposed to the horse’s other end that just made an entrance…” muttered Audrey as she made her way around the end of the counter, meeting Clyde in mid–dining room. “Clyde Leeman,” she said sternly. “What did I tell you yesterday? You are banished this week. Get lost!”
“Come on, I’m harmless. I hear people saying that about me a lot.”
“Harmless to those who do not value their own sanity,” Audrey quipped. “Go on, shoo,” she said as she waved a hand as if whiffing away a pesky flying insect.
“But I figured under the circumstances, I could get a special pass for today. Please?” Clyde put on his best pitiful face and begged while Audrey stood with her arms crossed tightly at her chest, leaning on her left foot while tapping her right impatiently. She motioned toward the door with her head. “When I heard about the murder suicide, I wanted to offer Miss Bunker my services,” he said with what I understood as genuine concern and desire to help.
“See?” Audrey turned her attention back to the counter. “We already gained a dead person. By lunch, the body count will be at six.” She took Clyde’s arm and gently yet firmly twirled him around and led him back to the door. When he hesitated at the door mat, Audrey pointed at the dry-erase wall calendar under the clock on which she tracked Clyde’s banishment periods in red marker. “See you next week. The FBI special agents should be here soon. So Jane will not be needing your help,” she teased as she shoved him out and onto the sidewalk under great protest that could be heard through the closed door.
“I’d call him a halfwit, but that would be giving him too much credit,” Audrey said as she hustled back through tables that were just starting to fill up. She took orders from a table of four, cleared a table of two, and dropped a bill to a customer at the end of the counter as she rounded it and crashed through the swinging doors that led to the kitchen. The doors were still flapping when she reappeared; arms loaded with full plates of eggs and all the fixings. She served the meals like dealing cards from a deck, and was in front of me ag
ain in a flash. Bending at the waist, she placed her elbows on the counter and cradled her chin in both hands. “I’m all ears, girlfriend.”
“The newspaper’s and Clydie’s versions are far more interesting that mine,” I said with an artificial modesty. “Yes, I did discover a corpse. The fire was indeed fatal. And that’s the whole story. If there was more to it, which there is not, I couldn’t and wouldn’t tell you anyway. You know that, right?”
“Okay. That’s it then. I’m just here to dispense the truth,” she said and smiled. A shout came from the kitchen, calling Audrey to pick up. “Truth and breakfast.” She spun away from the counter and toward the kitchen, leaving me to turn my attention to Cal, who was still plowing through the paper contentedly. Audrey returned, slid a toasted and buttered English muffin onto my place mat, pulled the edge of the paper down from in front of Cal’s face and asked, “Top off your coffee?”
Cal carefully folded the paper, running his hand over to crease and flatten it as he indicated that he was all set on coffee, and needed only his check. As Audrey scribbled some numbers on the pad she kept in her apron, I suggested to Cal that we should settle up for the boat ride, and indicated my checkbook on my place mat. Audrey ripped the top sheet from the pad, handed it to Cal, and hustled off to the center of the dining area to clear tables just vacated. “How does one hundred bucks sound?” Cal asked.
“More than fair,” I answered.
“Do you have cash?”
“No, sorry. Can I get an invoice?” This was met with a twisted frown and scowl. “I’ll take that as a no,” I said and wrote the check. Although many people in Green Haven dealt in cash, I never had more than what was needed to buy breakfast and lunch. “I know, cash is king. But without an invoice, I can’t get reimbursed.”
“What if I invoice you?”
“I still don’t have enough cash on me.” I handed the check to Cal, who chuckled, shook his head, tucked the check into his wallet, and got up to leave.
“Thank you, dear. And let me know when you have to go back to Acadia. Looks like that might be sooner rather than later.” I agreed, and hoped that he was teasing about the “sooner” trip back to the island. I would know more about my schedule after meeting with Mr. Dubois this morning, and assumed that both he and the sheriff would be ticked off at the newspaper but that they would both agree that the case was closed from all perspectives of insurance claims and law enforcement. My work out there was done. I could soon get back to my first love: drug busting.
Fortunately, Audrey was hopping around doing her miraculous juggling act, allowing me to eat my breakfast without any further interrogation. I left some cash on the counter and slipped out the door while she had her back to me. Before I had my coat zipped, her voice came through the door as she held it ajar. “Janey, I hear that your brother is coming to Green Haven. Wonderful! I can’t wait to meet him!”
“Where did you hear that?” I asked with more than curiosity.
“That’s all there is. There ain’t no more,” she teased in a singsong voice. “And even if there was more, I wouldn’t and couldn’t tell you. You know that, right?” She mocked me playfully. I knew that Audrey would always get the last word, so I laughed and let her have it. I would be back for a late lunch, and would worm the origin of information out of her then, knowing that the root of the source had to be Mr. and Mrs. V. Not that it really mattered. Wally’s move needn’t be kept secret. But I did wonder how many people my landlords had blabbed to as Audrey disappeared when she pushed the door closed. I had planned to ask Audrey her opinion of housing opportunities for Wally, and knew that she had excellent insight and all of the local knowledge that I lacked. Audrey had a big heart under an exterior hardened by what I assumed had been a fairly tough upbringing. She was not a complainer or whiner. Just straightforward and brutally honest. I liked those attributes, I thought as I hustled to get behind the wheel of the Duster and out of a stiff breeze that pushed the hair on the back of my head around and into my face.
I was relieved to see that I had missed being questioned by the Old Maids as they pulled into the parking spot behind me as I pulled away. No need to go through the nonstory again, I thought as I made my way to the main road that would take me off The Peninsula and eventually to Ellsworth, where I assumed Mr. Dubois would be anxious to get my pictures and report.
As I ascended Caterpillar Hill, my cell phone gained service and came to life with a series of dings and beeps indicating that I had missed calls, texts, and voice messages. I pulled off and parked in a “scenic turnout” to better tend to my phone. I never used to be as cautious, but the roads in this area do not allow for any lapse in attention. Messages from both of my bosses to call them ASAP were not surprising, and I assumed they wanted to talk damage control in light of the bogus newspaper article. I clicked the phone closed and placed it in the seat beside me. No sense taking time to return calls. I always made a practice of not speaking to the press, so they need not worry about my being the source of misinformation. I would be in Mr. Dubois’s office in twenty minutes. And I would touch base with the sheriff from the office’s land line, saving my cell minutes for when I might need them.
As I pulled back onto the main road, I was nearly sideswiped by a vehicle heading off The Peninsula in a real hurry. I jumped on the brakes, watched the blur of the shiny black pickup swerve to avoid the Duster, and saw a fist curled in my direction through the passenger-side window. There was a blare of the truck’s horn, and a middle finger launched at me from the back window as the truck sped away. Wow, I thought, I must not have looked before pulling out. That was close. As my heart slowed, I got up to the speed limit behind the truck, and noticed that I was losing ground rapidly. They are going dangerously fast, I thought as I accelerated to catch up. I wouldn’t speed on this road in the best conditions. The Duster’s speedometer was at 75, and the truck was pulling away. I cranked my window down, clamped my blue light with magnetic base to the Duster’s roof, flipped on the flashers, and put chase to the truck. Although I had a regular weekly schedule for making rounds as deputy sheriff, I was never off-duty when something came up. I would pull these clowns over, and issue a verbal warning as I never carried anything with which to write a ticket. I had never been a traffic cop, and didn’t intend to be one this late in my career.
The blue flashers did the trick. The truck slowed and pulled off into a snowplow turnaround spot, stopping in a position that did not allow me to pull the Duster fully out of the road, which I assumed was done purposely. I got out and approached the driver’s window that he had lowered; he flicked out a cigarette butt that nearly hit me in the stomach. Loud rap music assaulted my ears. The two occupants were young men, I estimated in their mid-twenties. They were dressed in a way that told me they were making real efforts to look like thugs: baseball caps with visors askew and gold chains around their too-thin necks. They could use some time in the gym, I thought as I leaned toward the driver and took the license and registration he offered. A plastic two-liter soda bottle containing a bit of brownish sludge sat on the passenger-side floor. I had come to recognize this as evidence of “Shake and Bake,” a “one pot” method of manufacturing methamphetamine. These personal meth labs were not only mobile, but also circumvented laws restricting sale of the ingredients to make meth.
There was a coat draped over a box that sat between the guys, an obvious attempt to try to hide it from me. “What’s the rush, guys? You nearly plowed into me,” I said sternly. No answer was always a cue that there was something going on other than speeding. “What’s that under the coat?” More silence. “Step out of the truck, please.” Both men stared straight ahead and sat motionless. I realized that they were scared. “Don’t make me call for backup,” I said. “All I have to do is radio the station, and my team will be here to place you both under arrest,” I exaggerated. “And if you run, how far do you think you’ll get? There’s only one way off The Peninsula, and we are on it.”
The driver looked
at the passenger, sighed audibly, and slowly opened his door and climbed out of the truck. His jeans were slung low, showing more of his boxer shorts than most people would be comfortable with. I instructed him to stand at the tailgate, which he did. The passenger slid out and stood by the door, which remained open. I removed the coat from the box, revealing a sealed twelve-by-twelve cardboard carton upon which was printed some red and black Chinese characters. “Well, I don’t happen to read Chinese, so I’ll ask once more. What’s in the box?”
“It’s stuff we use to ship lobsters to China,” answered the passenger nervously.
“You don’t look like fishermen to me,” I said.
“We aren’t,” answered the driver from behind the truck. “We are … well, we are shippers.”
“Right. Well, I’ll have to open the box and take a look.” I tore open the top of the box and looked inside. The box contained several small plastic pouches that appeared to be vacuum-sealed, and bulged with an off-white powdery material. I picked up a pouch and turned it over in my hands looking for any markings. I had been making drug busts weekly, but nothing as substantial as this.
“It’s not what it looks like,” said the driver disgustedly. He spat tobacco juice into the snow, where it created a miniature black hole.
“Oh, I know what it looks like,” I answered. “And I will take it to the lab to confirm.” I lifted the box from the seat, tucked it under my arm, and picked up the soda bottle that had been rolling around on the truck’s floor with discarded food wrappers. I asked the passenger for his identification, which he pulled from a chain-drive wallet that held quite a bit of cash. I asked if the information on their IDs was current. They both nodded. Grabbing the keys from the ignition, I instructed the men to get back in and out of the cold while I checked out their credentials. I placed the box and the plastic bottle in the Duster’s trunk and slammed the lid closed. I climbed behind the steering wheel and copied both names, addresses, and license numbers into a page in a notebook I kept in my camera bag. I retuned their licenses and registration, and informed the men that in a few days they could call Hancock County Sheriff’s Department to retrieve their “shipping supplies,” if they weren’t arrested first. I had been taught, since working drug cases in Maine, that there was no sense of urgency in making arrests when locals were implicated. These were not the drug dealers of Miami who were in the States illegally and could easily hit the road and escape arrest. Most pushers and users of illicit drugs in Maine were indigenous. They had nowhere to run to, and wouldn’t if they did. The Mainers I had arrested for drug-related crimes were mostly addicts who knew that the jig was up, and didn’t do much to fight charges brought against them. These two guys could easily be users who were selling or transporting to support expensive and growing habits.
Shiver Hitch Page 7
