Sealed Off

by Barbara Ross

  I parked the wheelbarrow at the woodpile. The stack was fairly low at the end where I was. As I grabbed an armful, I noticed the other end of the pile had collapsed backward onto the ground. It hadn’t been visible from where I left the wheelbarrow.

  “Darn it.” I went to investigate. We wouldn’t want the wood on the ground where it would get damp, especially at this time of year when the weather was iffy and it was six days between clambakes. When I bent to retrieve a log I saw it. The edge of a heavy boot sticking out under the collapsed portion of the pile.

  “Sonny, come here right now!”

  I thought he might protest, but my voice must have conveyed my urgency. He was by my side in seconds. Silently, I pointed to the boot.

  “It’s Jason!” As soon as Sonny said the name, I recognized the boot. We both scrambled to remove logs, Sonny frantically digging his way toward Jason. When the logs were cleared, Sonny bent over him. “Jason, buddy, Jason!”

  It was clear to me, and seconds later clear to Sonny, that Jason was dead. He lay on his back with his eyes wide open, and the top of his head bashed in.

  Chapter Six

  Sonny stayed with Jason’s body while I ran to the little house by the dock. There was no cell service on the island, but we did have a radio. I connected with Melanie Truitt, the college student who worked in our ticket kiosk.

  “Melanie! Listen carefully. I need you to do several things for me.”

  “Ready.” Melanie was a good kid, efficient and not inclined to freak-outs. I was grateful she was on the job.

  “I need you to call the Busman’s Harbor Police Department on the 911 line. Tell them there’s been a body found on Morrow Island and we need someone out here right away.”

  “A body. Is it someone—”

  I used my firmest voice. “Let’s not get into that over the radio. Please do as I ask. Then, I need you to call the director of excursions at the cruise line in Jacksonville, Florida, and cancel today’s tour. She’ll be easier to reach than the ship and she can inform them.” I read the director’s number off my phone. “Tell her an emergency came up on the island; don’t say you’ve called the police. Then, offer the passengers a tour of the harbor on the Jacquie II and a ride back to town for lunch. Call around to restaurants that are still open. I doubt anyone can take them all, so you’ll have to split them up.

  “Call Mom to help you. She has Livvie’s kids with her, but she can probably come down to the booth with them. She’ll know who to call about lunch. The woman from the cruise line may have ideas, too, when you call her.” I waited, giving Melanie time to absorb what I’d said. “Have you got that? Police first.”

  “Yes, Julia. Are you sure you don’t want the Coast Guard?”

  If someone had been badly hurt or gravely ill, the Coast Guard would have arrived with the needed know-how most quickly. But Jason was beyond their help. “I’m sure. Just the police,” I answered.

  I went up to the kitchen off the dining pavilion to tell Livvie and Kathy what had happened. After I finished, they were shaken and nearly speechless. I told them to wait there. The police wouldn’t want people tramping all over the place. Then I returned to the woodpile to wait with Sonny.

  Sonny had adjourned to a tree stump where he sat, studiously not looking at Jason. I joined him there.

  “Do you think Jason came out to work early and the woodpile fell on him?” I asked. My mind raced from the downright awful—Pru and Jason’s young teenagers getting the news—to the practical—accident on the island, insurance, liability, mess—and then back again.

  Sonny cracked the huge knuckles on his right hand. “No way for us to know, right? Did his head get bashed in when the wood fell on him or before? Anyway, if he came out to work early, how’d he get here? Where’s his boat?”

  Where indeed. That would be something for the cops to figure out.

  We didn’t have to wait long. In the way of small towns, we knew the first two officers to arrive. Jamie Dawes was a neighbor and childhood friend of Livvie’s and mine. His partner Pete Howland was a buddy of Sonny’s. They arrived in the harbormaster’s boat in less than twenty minutes. While the tourists took a lovely, long boat ride that included islands, lighthouses, seals, and eagles, if you skipped all that you could reach the island quickly.

  “We’re over here!” I called to the officers as they got off the boat. By that time, Livvie and Kathy had come out of the kitchen. They stood on the deck of the dining pavilion, watching everything going on below.

  “Where is this body?” Jamie wasn’t the skinny, long-blond-haired, dark-eyelashed boy I’d grown up with anymore. His body and voice exuded authority.

  Sonny and I walked to the woodpile with them. Sonny pointed to the body. “There.”

  “Do you know who it is?” Jamie asked.

  “Jason Caraway,” Sonny and Officer Howland answered simultaneously.

  “You know him?” Jamie turned to Howland.

  “Yup.” Howland was short and round, his brown hair buzzed so close his scalp showed through. He and tall, slim Jamie were a study in contrasts.

  Jamie felt for a pulse, an action I guessed was a formality. He straightened up. “We called the state police Major Crime Unit before we left the harbor to put them on notice. I need to use your radio to confirm we need them. Who’s on the island now?”

  “Us, Livvie and Kathy Cippoli up at the kitchen. And the demo crew working up at Windsholme.”

  “I want you all to wait in the little house by the dock,” Jamie said to us. Then he turned to Howland. “Tell Livvie and Kathy to go to the house and then go up to Windsholme and collect the demo crew.”

  Jamie, Sonny, and I trod back along the path toward the little house. Jamie made his radio call and left us. Livvie and Kathy arrived, breathless, moments later.

  “They told us to wait here. What do you think happened to Jason?”

  Sonny laid it out, telling them we weren’t sure if Jason’s death was accidental, the local police were bringing in Major Crime, and so on. By the time he was done, the demo crew arrived, five men strong and all speaking Russian, one over the other.

  The thin young man I’d noticed the day before approached our group. “Can you tell us what is happening?” The boss stood next to him. The others hung back.

  “This morning Sonny and I”—I pointed to my brother-in-law—“found a dead man under the woodpile.”

  The young Russian translated what I’d said for the men behind him. The group fired questions back at our translator at a rapid pace.

  “Did you know this man who died?” he asked. He didn’t have the same command of the language as the handsome man we’d spoken to the day before, who was clearly a native English speaker. I couldn’t tell if the young man’s hesitations were due to lack of knowledge of the language or lack of confidence.

  “He was a worker here at the clambake,” I said. “What time did you get to the island?”

  “We got here at about eight. I am Alex, by the way.”

  “Was there anyone on the island when you arrived?” I asked. “Was there a boat at the dock?”

  He shook his head. “No one.”

  “Did you see anyone after that?”

  He translated. The men shook their heads.

  I had a million more questions, but I held back. The state police probably wouldn’t be happy I’d asked the ones I had. But there was one I couldn’t hold off on. “There was another man with you yesterday. Brown hair, very tan, American accent.” The one I’d seen exchange a look with Jason as the crew passed by.

  “Dmitri,” Alex said. “He wasn’t at our place when I woke up this morning. He didn’t show up at our boat. We waited. He did not come, so we left without him. That’s why we were a little bit late getting here.”

  They’d waited at their boat for Dmitri. We’d waited at our Boston Whaler for Jason, Pru, and Terry. Like the demo crew, we’d given up and come to the island.

  Tragically, Jason was here. Where were the o
thers?

  * * *

  The little house had been closed up for the season, so there was no food or drink inside except for the liquor in the pile of boxes Sonny had left there the night before. Serving that seemed like a terrible idea, so when Officer Howland reappeared Livvie persuaded him to accompany her up to the clambake kitchen where they grabbed a coffee urn, coffee, milk, sugar, and a pan of the blueberry grunt that had just finished baking when the police arrived.

  By the time the coffee was made and distributed, a Maine Marine Patrol boat pulled up to the dock. A group of official-looking people disembarked, a medical examiner and crime scene techs, I guessed. Jamie, who’d been keeping watch by the woodpile, strode down to the dock to meet them. Through a window I scanned the crowd looking for two familiar faces.

  Finally I saw them, almost the last ones off the boat, Lieutenant Jerry Binder and Sergeant Tom Flynn, detectives with the Major Crime Unit that covered the middle part of Maine. I had known both of them for a couple of years, ever since a body was found hanging from the grand staircase at Windsholme. Over time, they’d grown to trust me and I’d grown to trust them. I was glad they were on the case.

  The group from the boat, along with Jamie, clustered around Lieutenant Binder, leaning in to listen to whatever he was saying, nodding their heads in comprehension. When the group broke up, most of them headed in the direction of the woodpile. Jamie came toward us.

  “The lieutenant has asked me to set up a place for interviews,” he said when he entered. “Where can we do this?” He looked around.

  We were gathered in the single room on the main floor of the house. The Russians sat around the dining table in front of the picture window that framed a view of the Atlantic Ocean that went to the horizon. Sonny, Livvie, Kathy, and I were in the living area, Livvie and Sonny on the couch, Kathy and I in the armchairs facing them.

  “They should use the dining pavilion,” I said. “There’s more room. We can go up for our interviews as we’re called.”

  “I agree.” Jamie pulled a small notebook from his pocket. “I need everyone’s names.” He knew the four of us. Alex, the young translator, helped him spell the Russian names.

  I followed Jamie out the door and pulled him aside. “Do you know if they’re looking for any more bodies?”

  Jamie’s dark eyebrows rose. “Should they be?”

  “This morning, four people who were expected on this island never showed up. Jason, Terry Durand, Pru Caraway, and a member of the demo crew named Dmitri.”

  Jamie closed the cottage door behind us. “Slow down . . . Who is missing?”

  “They’re not missing,” I clarified. “They’re just not here.”

  “And you think they’re dead.”

  “No! I don’t think they’re dead. But Jason didn’t show up for work this morning and he’s dead, so I think you need to check on the others.”

  Jamie pulled out his notebook and pen again. “Okay, so a Dmitri.”

  “He was with the demo crew yesterday. Alex, the kid who helped you with the names, told me he wasn’t at the place where they’re staying this morning.”

  “All right. I’m sure Lieutenant Binder and Sergeant Flynn will follow up with him. Who was the next one?”

  “Pru Caraway.”

  “Jason’s wife?”

  “Ex-wife. The mother of his kids, Ione and Kirk. They’re young teenagers. I assume they’re next of kin.”

  “Ms. Caraway was supposed to be here this morning?”

  “She works in the kitchen with Livvie and Kathy. We waited for her at the town pier. She never showed up.”

  “Did you call her?”

  “Livvie did. No answer.” He wrote that down. “The next one is Terry Durand, Chris’s brother.”

  “He was to work here today as well,” Jamie confirmed.

  “Yes and no.”

  Jamie was impatient. “What does that mean?”

  “I was supposed to fire Terry this morning. I went by the Dark Lady where he’s been living but he wasn’t there.” The boat wasn’t there either, but I’d leave that detail for my interview with the state police. “So I went along to the town pier to stop him when he showed up for his ride out to the island, but he never showed.”

  “Wait, this is Chris’s brother who just got out of prison? You were going to fire your boyfriend’s brother?” Jamie was struggling to understand. “For what?”

  I looked down at the line of flagstones that formed the path away from the cottage. I knew I’d have to tell this part, but I hadn’t figured I’d be telling it so soon. “For fighting with Jason Caraway,” I said. “That’s why Terry was being fired.”

  * * *

  I was the first one called up to the pavilion to be interviewed, as I expected since I’d found the body. Lieutenant Binder and Sergeant Flynn sat across a weathered picnic table from me. Flynn had a spiral pad in front of him and held a black ballpoint pen in his left hand.

  We’d become friends over the last couple of years, but there was no small talk beyond a greeting. Binder led me step-by-step through the events of the morning. He was in his midforties, had a distinctive ski-slope nose, and a light brown fringe around his bald head. As I also expected, he stopped me when I got to the part about Terry not being at the marina when I went to fire him.

  “Officer Dawes informs us that Mr. Durand was recently released from prison,” Flynn said. He was younger than Lieutenant Binder, just a few years older than me. His brown hair was short and stood up straight, just like he did, as if it might be required to say the Pledge of Allegiance at any moment. His body testified to a highly disciplined diet and hours in the gym.

  “That’s correct,” I answered.

  “We’ll look it up as soon as we get back to the mainland,” Binder said, “but you might as well tell us, was he imprisoned for a violent crime?”

  “He held up Hudson’s, a gas station and mini-mart on the highway. A clerk was shot.”

  Flynn nodded. “We’ve been by that place loads of times. The clerk wasn’t killed I assume, or Durand would still be inside.”

  “Injured,” I confirmed. “Terry was released in late August.”

  “And you hired him?” Binder’s mouth was set in a grim line under that distinctive nose.

  “He’s my boyfriend’s brother. Besides, he’s done his time.”

  Binder grunted. Neither he nor Flynn had thought much of Chris when they’d met. In fact, they’d nearly arrested him for a crime he hadn’t committed. But over the time since then, a grudging respect had grown on each side.

  “You say you planned to fire Mr. Durand because he fought with the victim.” Flynn took us back to my description of events.

  “Yes.”

  “Physically?” Flynn clarified.

  “Yes.”

  “What was the fight about?” he pressed.

  “You’d have to ask Terry.” I had my own beliefs, but I didn’t want to share my guesses with the police. Let Terry explain himself.

  “We will.” Flynn wrote it down.

  Then Binder walked me through the rest of the morning from finding the body pretty much right up to the present moment. Flynn continued taking notes.

  “Officer Dawes tells us you believe a member of the demolition team is absent today,” Binder said.

  I cleared my throat. “I met him yesterday. He translated for his boss.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “Midthirties, brown hair, tan-skinned, broad-shouldered, but not as big as some of the guys on the crew. About five ten. He spoke English without a Russian accent.”

  “Why did you speak with him?” Binder asked.

  Another can of worms. “A hidden room was uncovered during the demolition at Windsholme. Mark Cochran, the general contractor; Wyatt Jayne, the architect; and I asked about it. The missing man, who I think is called Dmitri, spoke to us. His boss was with him, but Dmitri did most of the talking.”

  Binder and Flynn had been inside Windsholme befo
re and after the fire and knew it well.

  “A hidden room?” Binder said. “That place is like a labyrinth. What made it remarkable?”

  “It wasn’t just hidden. It was sealed off, closed up. And unlike every other room in the mansion, it wasn’t empty. The original furnishings were there, the bedding, as well as personal belongings, presumably of a woman who stayed there in the late eighteen-nineties.”

  They looked at one another. “It’s weird,” I said. “But I don’t think it has anything to do with this.”

  Binder gave me a look I had long ago learned to interpret as “we’ll see,” and went on with the interview.

  When they were done they thanked me. “We’ll talk again,” Binder said.

  “I have no doubt.” I stood up and climbed back over the picnic bench. “Is there any chance it was a terrible accident?” It was strange, given the liability potentially involved, that this was, in my view, the best possible scenario.

  Binder shut my hopes down quickly. “Highly unlikely. The ME currently believes Mr. Caraway suffered a fatal blow to the head and was dead before his body was moved and placed under the woodpile. He couldn’t have hidden his own dead body.”

  Chapter Seven

  It was late afternoon by the time Sonny, Livvie, Kathy, and I pulled up to the town pier in the Whaler. Jason’s body had been removed from the island and the medical examiner had gone with it. The demo team was still being interviewed when Jamie told the rest of us we could go home. The Russians’ interviews would be quick, with Alex translating. More in-depth questioning would have to wait until they were back on the mainland and an official state translator could be found.

  Chris was waiting and swept me into his arms the minute I stepped onto the concrete pier. I’d called him as soon as I had cell service on the way home and asked him to meet me.

  “What’s going on?” He looked from one face to the other.

  “Not here,” I said. The poor communication from the island, along with the fact that the police activity was taking place out there, away from town eyes, had kept the news about Jason Caraway’s murder quiet. That wouldn’t last for long.