Knife Creek

by Paul Doiron

  “Thank you.” She opened the top button of her blouse to release some steam. “I would like to start with a timeline of the initial investigation that began with Casey Donaldson’s disappearance on the Saco River on July twentieth four years ago. As I did not work that case, I am going to call on some of the people in the room to provide supplemental information. In the assessment of the Major Crimes unit, recent events show with near certainty that Casey is still alive, is probably being held against her will in an unknown location, and recently gave birth to a baby girl whose cadaver Warden Bowditch discovered along Knife Creek in the town of Birnam.”

  Several heads turned in my direction when Pomerleau mentioned my name. I felt a desperate twitching in my stomach, as if I had swallowed a garter snake.

  The detective continued, “From there, we’ll move on to a discussion of our tactical plan, identify the officers in charge, delegate responsibilities to all of the participating agencies, and establish communication protocols between our teams. Lastly, we’ll discuss how to control the dissemination of information to the public. Since we have a lot of ground to cover, I’m going to leap into the history so that we’re all on the same page.”

  Casey Donaldson had been a good, if not exceptional, student; popular and fun loving, but not known to be a party girl. A drinker but smart enough not to get blackout drunk around boys.

  “What about drugs?” asked the attorney general.

  Menario leaped in before Pomerleau could answer. Retired he might be, but in his mind this was still his case. “The usual. Pot, of course. Molly sometimes, when she was going out. She tried Adderall but didn’t like the way it made her feel, her friend Angie Gifford told me.”

  “This is the same girl who accompanied Casey on the float trip?” someone asked.

  “That’s correct. It was Casey, Gifford, and three male friends, all from UNH. Marcus Solomon, Noah Marks, Carlos Diaz.”

  “Would you describe any one of them as Casey’s ‘boyfriend’?” asked the attorney general.

  “Diaz,” said Pomerleau. “Although it was more of a ‘friends with benefits’ situation, based on his statement.”

  “Ah, millennials,” said the attorney general with a knowing smile.

  “So there were no arguments between them before she disappeared?” asked the state police head of detectives.

  “No,” said Menario. “And they were all together when she took the canoe that afternoon. Their alibis for each other were rock solid.”

  “What about at home?” asked the same officer. “Any problems with her stepfather?”

  Menario seemed offended by the question. “Absolutely not!”

  Hildreth’s deputy, the female assistant attorney general, was scribbling furiously on a yellow legal pad. Without looking up she said, “Nevertheless, I’m assuming you explored the possibility that his daughter had run off intentionally?”

  Menario’s tone was like ice cracking. “She didn’t run off.”

  The prosecutor paused in her note taking. “A day ago, you were telling everyone who’d listen that Casey Donaldson was dead. I don’t think your certainties are worth a whole lot, Detective.”

  Everyone fell silent. Menario drummed his fingers on the table.

  “Let’s move on to the original search,” said Attorney General Hildreth. “Captain DeFord, I believe you supervised the Overhead Team. Can you fill us in on the details of your operations? It would be helpful to see maps of the area.”

  DeFord lifted a laptop bag onto the tabletop. “I need a few minutes to hook up my computer.”

  “In that case, let’s take a five-minute break,” said the attorney general.

  “Thank you!” said the elderly Fryeburg police chief, who seemed intent on being first at the nearest urinal.

  I found myself fourth in line at the coffeepot, right behind Dani, who was filling a carafe from the tap.

  “What do you think so far?” I asked.

  “I think we should be spending less time on how she disappeared four years ago and more time on where she might be now.”

  “What if the two are connected?”

  “We should be circulating that sketch of the other woman—Becky. Someone’s bound to have seen her buying groceries or whatever.”

  I felt the blood leave my face. “But people will want to know why we’re looking for her.”

  “Because she blew up a house!”

  “The story about Casey being alive is bound to get out. Pomerleau can’t keep it from her stepfather. Major Crimes needs a plan if he goes running to the press with it.”

  Dani had spilled water on the burner and it was sizzling under the coffee pot. “She should have brought in Steve Nason and raked him over the coals. Obviously, the guy is lying through his teeth. He knows something about who was living in that house.”

  “His brother also happens to be a lawyer. I doubt Chris Nason would have let his brother answer a single one of Pomerleau’s questions.”

  Dani poured coffee into a mug for me. “I hate it when the system protects scumbags.”

  “The system is designed to protect scumbags, Dani. You were a game warden and now you’re a state trooper. How have you not managed to learn that yet?”

  “Maybe I’m just an idiot.”

  “I know that’s not true. I think what you are is an idealist.”

  In the other room the meeting was being called back to order.

  * * *

  I’d sat through dozens of search-and-rescue mapping presentations, so little of what DeFord had to say or demonstrate surprised me. I was gratified, however, by the response of the other cops in the room to the highly detailed maps the wardens had developed during the initial investigation into Casey’s disappearance. Any suggestion that the wardens had conducted a half-assed operation and missed swaths of territory was belied by the thoroughness of the captain’s presentation.

  I paid particular attention to the channel Charley and I had followed earlier that morning. A team of wardens had tracked it to its source and conducted grid searches along its banks, closer to Oxbow Island, where Casey had last been seen.

  The attorney general gave another of the explosive coughs he used to call attention to himself. “Who was the warden investigator assigned to this case? And why isn’t he here?”

  “The investigator was Wesley Pinkham,” said DeFord.

  The room went silent. Every law officer in Maine knew that Wes Pinkham had died horribly in the line of duty two years earlier.

  Hildreth adjusted the knot of his power tie while he collected his thoughts. “I’d like to ask Captain DeFord how and when the decision was made to abandon the search for Ms. Donaldson.”

  “We made the decision—in consultation with the state police—to suspend the search that fall,” said DeFord.

  “Suspend?”

  “It is my understanding that Casey Donaldson has continued to be listed in the FBI database as a missing person.”

  The federal agent confirmed that was indeed the truth.

  “So in summary, Ms. Donaldson disappeared and was presumed dead,” said the attorney general. “An active criminal investigation has remained open, headed by Detective Menario until his retirement. His working theory of the case was that the girl was murdered and her body hidden, presumably far from the river based on the lack of evidence found by the wardens.”

  Menario chose that moment to sit upright in his chair. “I’d like a chance to speak.”

  Hildreth shook his leonine head. “It seems to me that your conclusion that Ms. Donaldson was the victim of a homicide has been rendered moot, Detective.”

  “Just because Rowe didn’t kill Casey doesn’t mean he’s innocent. For all we know he’s the one who kidnapped her. He might be holding her now!”

  I rarely agreed with Antonio Menario, but for once we were on the same page.

  “We’ll get to that hypothesis shortly, Detective. At the moment I’d like to bring in Warden Bowditch.”

  But
the neurons in my brain had chosen that moment to misfire. Charley had mentioned something I should bring up about our outing on the river. For the life of me, I couldn’t recall what it was.

  “Bowditch?” Pomerleau said.

  Everyone in the room was now staring expectantly at me.

  “You have our attention, Warden, even if we don’t have yours,” the attorney general said. “Let’s hear what you found at Knife Creek.”

  * * *

  I faced fewer questions than I had anticipated. The DNA results fully supported my story, said their forensic analyst. Casey Donaldson was the newborn’s mother. Of that, there could be no doubt.

  After the forensic technician had finished giving his testimony, the medical examiner was asked to present his findings on the cause of the baby’s death. He said that the half-eaten body of the infant had been too mangled, the small bones broken in too many places. It was impossible to determine whether the child had died by human hands before it was interred. He ended his presentation by noting that in the judgment of the state anthropologist, her bone development suggested the girl hadn’t been more than a few weeks old.

  “Can you bring up the photograph again of the initials in the tree?” Lieutenant Barrett asked.

  There was the inevitable technological delay. Then the picture came up of the carving Dani had discovered on the beech tree, beside the shallow grave.

  “KC,” said the attorney general. “I’d like to hear ideas on what those letters might stand for.”

  “Maybe they’re a kind of homonym for Casey?” said the medical examiner, who seemed to have a mind for puzzles. “Maybe it was a playful way she signed her name?”

  “Why would she carve her own name in a tree?”

  “As a signal to us? A cry for help?”

  Attorney General Hildreth turned in his chair to Menario. “Detective, I assume you have an opinion.”

  “I found no evidence that Casey ever referred to herself by those initials or that her friends ever did.”

  “It’s on my list of questions to ask her stepfather,” Pomerleau said.

  “Her stepfather.” The attorney general groaned. “We need to discuss how we reach out to Mr. Donaldson with this news. We can’t predict how he’ll react. Most of us in the room are parents.”

  I didn’t catch what was said next because at that moment my brain finally rebooted and Charley’s parting words came back to me:

  Don’t forget to mention that cellar hole. That cabin burned down two or three years back. Now, it might be coincidence that it went up in flames like the house over on Rankin Road. Or it might not. Either way, Pomerleau needs to check out this John Blood person who says he owns the land and find out why he’s so willing to let campers dump their garbage there.

  I actually raised my hand like a know-it-all kid eager to answer his teacher’s question. “Can we pull up the map of the search area again?”

  The attorney general looked at me with bemusement. “Warden Bowditch?”

  “That peninsula of land to the east of the Oxbow. Charley Stevens and I were in there earlier this morning. We met some homeless people camping near the cellar hole of a hunting cabin. They said they were living there with the permission of the owner.” From the expressions around the room, I could tell that no one, with the possible exception of Kathy, was following me. “This couple, Prudence and Jackson Smith, said the owner of the land introduced himself as John Blood. It sounded like a made-up name.”

  The Fryeburg police chief perked up. “Did you say John Blood?”

  “Why?” I asked. “Do you know him?”

  “Sure, I know him. He’s a Korean War vet from East Fryeburg. Friend of my old man. But he wasn’t driving around Birnam anytime recently, that’s for sure. John Blood has terminal dementia. He’s been in a nursing home in Portland for the past six years.”

  33

  The FBI agent asked the question everyone in the room must have been thinking, judging by the blank faces around the tables. “What makes you think this is relevant to Casey Donaldson? Someone pretending to be the owner of a random woodlot?”

  “Casey had to have come off the river somewhere that night,” I said. “Either she found her way onto land or was taken onto land. The hunting cabin on that point burned down in the past few years, just like the house on Rankin Road.”

  The attorney general cleared his throat. “I think I understand where you are going with this.”

  Menario scowled. “You do?”

  “You’re suggesting the possibility that our supposed kidnapper has used a similar method. He holds Casey—and perhaps this Becky woman—prisoner in one isolated house for a time under an assumed name, and then when he fears he might have been discovered, he burns the place down to destroy evidence and moves somewhere else.”

  In fact I hadn’t gotten that far in my thought process, but I was quick to answer, “Yes.”

  The AG addressed the Fryeburg police chief. “Do you know if this John Blood is the actual owner of that property?”

  The chief turned to his female detective, who said, “I believe his family is waiting for him to die to put it up for sale.”

  “Was it being rented out four years ago—after Mr. Blood went into the nursing home?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Well, can we find out?” asked the AG.

  “I can look into it,” said Detective Finch.

  “Where do we stand on distributing the sketch of Becky Cobb that Warden Bowditch created?” asked Lieutenant Barrett.

  “We should wait until after we meet with Mr. Donaldson,” said the FBI agent.

  “I’d also like to take another crack at Steven Nason,” said Pomerleau.

  “Does anyone know of any connections he might have with Dakota Rowe?” I asked.

  This time, AG Hildreth ignored me. “Ellen, you need to get Nason in for an interview first thing tomorrow. I’d prefer to act quickly. If he is complicit in Casey’s kidnapping and can lead us to her whereabouts, we have a chance to get out ahead of this.”

  In Maine, the attorney general is appointed by the state legislature, but that didn’t make Hildreth any less of a politician. He knew that there would be nuclear fallout from the admission that state investigators had mistakenly given Casey up for dead. He also recognized that the damage would be mitigated if the announcement was accompanied by news of her rescue.

  Menario couldn’t contain himself. “So you’re going to write off Dakota Rowe as a suspect?”

  “Not at all,” said Hildreth.

  “Don’t patronize me,” said the retired detective. “Casey is still alive because I fucked up. That’s going to be the official line. You’re going to make me the scapegoat.”

  The attorney general rose ceremoniously to his feet. “I’m going to suggest we take another five-minute break.”

  It was hard not to interpret Hildreth’s response as confirmation of Menario’s suspicions.

  Within a minute, the room began to clear. Menario continued to brood over his papers—representing years of work—with a look of shock, as if he’d failed the biggest test of his life. Which, I supposed, he had.

  When he caught me staring, the muscles in his neck twitched as if he was readying himself to vault across the table and grab me by the throat.

  “Congratulations,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For making me look like a fool.”

  “I thought you’d be glad to learn that Casey Donaldson is alive.”

  “Is she? Or did her captor kill her when he realized the police might be onto him? Your theory is bullshit, by the way.”

  “I don’t have a theory.”

  He laughed through his nostrils. “I’ve known Stevie Nason for ten years. The man is borderline retarded. There’s a reason he still lives with his mother. He’s not mentally capable of masterminding a scheme like the one you’ve described.”

  “You’re giving me too much credit.”

  “You’re the
one who’s secretly congratulating himself on having reopened the case of the century. I bet you think you’re a shoo-in for the investigator position now. Yeah, I heard you applied for the job. I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Menario began collecting his documents with no care for their condition, shoving the papers into his portfolio. “You make a lot of assumptions, you little punk. Someday they’re going to catch up with you.”

  As he left the room, his dossier wedged under his arm, I knew that he would not be returning. I never got to tell him that I had begun to share his suspicions about Dakota Rowe.

  A voice behind me said, “He’s right about that, Mike.” Dani, seated quietly in the corner, had heard every word.

  “Right about me being a punk?”

  “You make too many assumptions. Not just at work, either.”

  “I’ve been in trouble my entire career, Dani.”

  She gave me a look that bordered on pity. “That’s not the kind of trouble I was talking about.”

  * * *

  I stepped outside to get some air, but the night was as humid as ever. It felt as if I were trying to breathe through a wet towel draped over my face.

  I checked my cell, but there were no messages from Stacey. Why had I expected one? What would she have told me—that the party had been a huge success despite my absence?

  Under the bug-fuzzed glow of the parking-lot lights, I saw Kathy checking on Maple in her crate.

  I wandered over. “How’s the pup?”

  “Sleeping like the baby she is. You and Stacey should get a dog.”

  “I almost did.”

  “That’s right. Your wolf dog. Whatever happened to him?”

  “He’s found a lady wolf according to Pulsifer. Some woman up in Chain of Ponds has gotten pictures of the two of them at a bait pile.”

  “No shit.” Kathy smiled for the first time in hours. “It’s a good thing that animal was neutered. I’m not sure how the public would react if they heard that a Maine game warden had accidentally reintroduced wolves to the state.”

  “Kath, I am really sorry about not telling you earlier about Casey.”

  “It’s not that.” She corrected herself: “It’s not entirely that.”