Dead to the World

by B. D. Smith

  Anne thanked Ximena for talking with them, asked her to keep their conversation private for the time being, and indicated that they would have some more questions for her as the investigation progressed. As they walked back to their car, Anne and Jack both admired Ximena’s new pickup. Having just bought a new truck herself, Anne wondered how Ximena could afford such an expensive vehicle on her real estate agent earnings.

  4.

  The next morning Jack and Anne drove out toward Sebec Village, turning left onto Sunset Ridge Road just before they reached the curve down into the town – if you could still call it that. In the 1800s Sebec Village had been a bustling town with lumber and woolen mills, carriage and cedar tub factories, and a variety of retail establishments. Today all that remained was a small hydro-electric generating plant, a few historic structures, including the Sebec Reading Room, and a few long-vacant stores, all clustered around the dam.

  Neither Anne nor Jack had been to Wes Fuller’s place before, and both were stunned to silence when it came into view a few minutes later. Shoreline zoning regulations ensured that a hundred-foot wide strip of vegetation, including mature birch and maple trees, remained intact along the lakeshore, but the remainder of his two-acre property had been entirely cleared of vegetation. Where mixed hardwood forest had once flourished, a vast expanse of gravel now covered the ground. A relatively new doublewide mobile home occupied the center of the lot, with a three-bay garage set back eighty feet or so from it toward the wooded lakeshore. A half dozen trucks and trailers of various sizes and states of repair, along with a well-used tree chipper, were scattered, seemingly at random, around the property. Several of them were covered with ratty and frayed canvas tarpaulins.

  The sound of an edge grinder drifted over from the garage as Anne and Jack stepped up onto the porch of the doublewide and knocked on the door. After a few minutes, and more knocking, they could hear movement inside and the door was opened by Gary Crites. Gary looked like he had slept in his clothes and his belly peeked out from under his sweatshirt. Gary’s expression went from belligerent to guarded as he recognized who his visitors were.

  “What?”

  “Good morning Gary,” Jack replied. “We’re looking for Wes Fuller. Can we come in?”

  “No way Jack. No can do.”

  “Well, can Wes come out and talk with us?”

  “Wes ain’t here. Don’t know where he is.”

  “Who’s out in the garage Gary?”

  “Not sure. I just got up.”

  Exchanging a glance, Anne and Jack turned away from Gary, stepped down off the porch, and started toward the garage. They heard Gary making a phone call behind them, and when they were about half-way to the garage, Wes Fuller burst out a side door, bellowing angrily.

  “You’re trespassing on my property. You need to leave. Now.”

  Noticing the hammer Wes was holding in his right hand, Anne extracted her 21” telescoping Monadnock baton from her coat pocket, extended it with an audible snap, and casually began tapping it against her leg. Next to her, Jack rested his hand on the butt of his holstered Glock as Anne responded to Fuller’s demand.

  “You plan on doing something with that hammer, Wes?”

  Fuller stopped his advance toward them, held the hammer out in front of him, and dropped it.

  “Sorry about that – I didn’t realize I still had it in my hand,” he sneered.

  Collapsing her baton and slipping it back into her coat pocket, Anne gestured toward the garage.

  “What are you cooking up in there Wes – a fresh batch of crank?”

  “No, nothing like that. None of your business.”

  Starting toward Wes, Jack pointed again at the garage.

  “Mind if we take a look-see?”

  Wes stepped in front of the much larger man.

  “Yes, I mind. Don’t you need a warrant or something?”

  Jack turned his head and glanced at Anne, who answered Fuller’s objection.

  “Without your permission, Wes, yes - we would need a search warrant. Jack can wait here with you while I go and request one. It might take a while. Or you can just let us take a quick look. That is, assuming it’s all kosher in there.”

  “OK, fine. You can check it out. But you have to promise not to blab about this around town.”

  Leading Anne and Jack to the garage, Wes opened the side door and with a deep bow, ushered them inside. Fuller’s trailered go-fast boat that Anne detested took up the first bay of the garage. Beyond it, the floor of the other two bays was covered with what appeared to be the disassembled parts of a patio boat. Its two large aluminum pontoons were sitting on sawhorses, and a variety of tools – wrenches, cutting torches, edge grinders, and drills, were scattered around on the floor.

  Anne looked around with a quizzical expression, while Jack immediately let out an audible snort as he turned to Wes, who was still standing in the doorway.

  “Is this is what you’re keeping secret Wes? Looks to me like you’ve stripped down your patio boat and are getting started on customizing it for the big race.”

  Jack glanced at several of the parts on the floor and then ran his hand along one of the highly polished pontoons.

  “Looks like a Bennington twenty-two-footer. The twenty-two feet and under class is shaping up to be tough this year, Wes – think you can compete? Not changing anything below the waterline, are you?”

  “Fuck you Jack. It’s all within the rules. I just don’t want anyone to get wind of what I have planned.”

  Still confused, Anne asked “What big race?”

  “It’s the third annual Sebec Pontoon Boat Challenge, Anne,” Jack replied. “It’s coming up in July. I’m not surprised it doesn’t loom large for you – it was really small the first two years – maybe a dozen or so local competitors. But it’s really taken off this year. Rumor is it could have maybe a hundred boats coming from all over New England.”

  Turning her attention to Fuller, Anne switched topics back to the reason for their visit.

  “Wes, we don’t care what you’re planning for your patio boat. Let’s go up to the house and have a conversation. Or we can go downtown and talk there. Either way’s OK with us. We have a few questions about Don Robertson and your confrontation with him at the Bear’s Den a few months ago.”

  It was Wes Fuller’s turn to look confused.

  “Sure. Come on up to the house. I got nothing to hide. Don Robertson? What about him? He offed himself, right?”

  Jack and Anne didn’t offer any reply to Wes until they were seated around a Formica table in the kitchen of his doublewide. Anne rested her hands on the table, only to fold them in her lap when she felt its sticky surface.

  “Wes, it turns out Don Robertson’s death was not accidental. He was murdered.” Anne said in a neutral voice. She paused to let that sink in, and then continued.

  “Back a few months ago a number of witnesses, including Jack here, heard you threaten Don Robertson at the Bear’s Den. Why the threat? Couldn’t you accept that Ximena dumped you - that she got a new man?”

  Still looking confused, Wes sat silent, then uttered a short, sharp laugh and replied.

  “You think Don was murdered? And that I killed him out of jealousy over Ximena? Now that’s a good one.”

  Fixing Anne with a serious stare, Wes continued. “You got the wrong guy. I could care less who Ximena is fucking. I admit to jerking her around whenever I run into her, but that’s just cause she’s such a bitch. And I’m certainly not grieving over little Donny Robertson. He was a slimy piece of work. But I didn’t kill him.”

  Anne tried to ignore the pile of dirty dishes in the sink and t
he smell of rancid grease that floated over from a cast iron skillet on the stove.

  “How well did you know Robertson?”

  “I knew him from high school. He was a prick even back then. Thought he was some sort of investment genius. I hadn’t seen him in maybe ten years, though, until the Bear’s Den.”

  “So why do you say he was a slimy piece of work if you hadn’t seen him in the last ten years?”

  Fuller pursed his lips, trying to decide how much to say. Reaching a decision, he seemed to relax, leaning back in his chair and answering Anne.

  “Robertson thought he was a big shot. He went down on the coast and made a lot of money. Then he decided to move back here and lord it over all of us. I heard from someone downtown that part of his grand return to Dover, in addition to Ximena, was going to involve winning the unlimited class, the main event, at the Sebec Pontoon Challenge this summer. But being a sneaky prick, he was planning on doing it with a fancy pontoon boat out of Indiana he was getting on loan – one of those rich man Manitou boats.”

  Anne turned to Jack for translation.

  “It’s a long story Anne. I can fill you in when we’re done here. The short answer is that the Sebec Challenge was initially set up to be mostly for regular people, not rich folks. It’s the antithesis of Lake Winnipesaukee and its Gentleman’s Racers. But an unlimited class has been added this year. It’s meant to attract the high-end crowd and their wallets.”

  Anne turned back to Fuller.

  “Let’s get back to karaoke night at the Bear’s Den. Can you fill in the timeline for us? Where were you earlier in the evening? Did you know Ximena and Robertson would be there? What did you do after you left the bar that night?”

  “I was at home, packing for a trip down to Portland. Gary called from the Bear’s Den to let me know Ximena and Don were there, and I figured I would stop by on my way out of town, just to jerk them around a little. Gary can confirm the phone call. Ask him.”

  “We will,” replied Anne. “And we will check on the phone records – was it a mobile phone or a land line?”

  “A land line.”

  Wes pointed to a vintage Trimline corded wall phone next to the refrigerator.

  “You were on your way to Portland?”

  “Yeah. I had to see a man about a used Vermeer chipper he had listed on craigslist.”

  “So you drove down that night?”

  “Ayup. Got to my friend Sylvia’s place about midnight. Checked out the chipper first thing in the morning – it was a piece of shit. I hung out with Sylvia for the rest of Friday, and then drove back up that night. You can check with Sylvia.”

  When they had finished up their questioning of Wes, Jack drifted off to look at the machinery scattered around the property, and Anne tracked down Gary, who had gone out to the garage. He confirmed his phone call from the Bear’s Den on karaoke night, but had little more to offer, and Anne walked back to the car to wait for Jack. As he returned from his casual wandering among the scattered equipment, Anne noticed that he had picked up several fragments of canvas, along with a red bungee cord, all of which looked to be a good potential match with the tarp and attached cord that had been used to cover the cabin chimney where Don Robertson had died.

  As they got into their SUV, Fuller suddenly burst out of the door of the doublewide, and Anne thought he was going to complain about Jack’s collecting activities. But Fuller had a different message.

  “It’s pretty funny you’re putting me in the picture for that prick’s killing. Ximena is the one you should be talking to. Maybe you should ask her where she got the cash for that fancy new truck.”

  Driving back into Dover, Anne and Jack discussed their next steps and divided up the loose ends to be pursued. Once back in the office, Jack arranged for the tarp and bungee cord he had collected to be sent down to the crime lab in Augusta for analysis, and then headed over to the Prouty Ford dealership in town to check if Ximena had purchased her new pickup from them. Meanwhile, Anne followed up on Wes Fuller’s alibi for karaoke night. Her check of phone records showed an incoming call from Gary to Fuller’s Trimline on karaoke night, and Fuller’s friend Sylvia confirmed his arrival in Portland about midnight that same night. So far at least, part of Wes Fuller’s alibi seemed solid. There was no way he could have removed the tarp from the cabin’s chimney in the early morning hours of Friday. But he had no alibi for earlier in the evening and could have put the tarp in place.

  Jack came up empty on the pickup purchase. The sales manager at the Prouty dealership had no record of selling a truck to Ximena Lapointe, saying that they were losing far too many sales to dealerships in Bangor and beyond. People were looking to save a few hundred dollars rather than supporting local businesses. It took Jack most of the rest of the morning to find the source of Ximena’s shiny new truck. She had purchased it from the Quirk Ford dealership down in Belfast and had paid cash – a little more than $43,000, which was a sizable sum for a real estate salesperson to have laying around.

  Her cash purchase of such an expensive truck certainly warranted another interview with Ximena, and Anne remembered that they hadn’t yet talked with her babysitter, Suzie Arter, to see if she could confirm Ximena’s account of karaoke night. Anne called the Foxcroft Academy, and a check of their records showed both that an SAT exam had been given on that Friday in March, and that Susan Arter had taken the test. They would still need to interview Suzie to see if her story matched Ximena’s account of karaoke night, but Anne expected that it would.

  It was almost noon, and Jack suggested that he could tell her all about the Sebec Pontoon Boat Challenge over lunch at the café located in the renovated woolen mill. It was a beautiful spring day, and they walked down Main Street to the restaurant. Once they had ordered at the counter, grabbed a couple of ginger beers from the cooler, and found a table that overlooked the Piscataquis River, Jack took a sip of his ginger beer and began.

  “It started three or four years ago on a sort of dare. A few guys with patio boats on Sebec Lake were boasting one night at Pat’s Pizza about how fast their boats were, and they decided to have a race. Maybe a half dozen boats took part that first year, and they had a barbeque afterward at the beach by Greeley’s Landing. Word got around, the local paper picked it up, and some local boosters, including the Chamber of Commerce and the Kiwanis Club, got behind sponsoring an annual patio boat race on Sebec Lake.”

  Jack paused as their lunches arrived, and then continued between bites of his sandwich.

  “Summers in Maine don’t last that long. There’s a short three-month window for small towns to draw in visitors, and starting in early June you can find a weekend festival of some sort somewhere in the state, as different localities try to attract people and their pocketbooks. About ten years ago Dover-Foxcroft hit the jackpot with the town’s creation of the Whoopie Pie Festival. Held in late June, the festival draws five thousand or so people every year, doubling the town’s population. It was hoped that the Sebec Pontoon Boat Challenge would give the town another big summer weekend.”

  Jack took a quick bite of his sandwich and continued.

  “Things started taking off the second year. With wider promotion the race drew maybe thirty boats from across Maine and several neighboring states. It became obvious, however, that the event needed more structure, more organization, if it was going to continue to grow. So last fall a set of overall rules were developed, and different classes of competition were established.”

  Jack pulled up a web site on his iPad, scrolled down briefly, and continued.

  “Let’s see – there are now four different categories or classes that entries fall into. The first two are for boats that are twenty-two feet or less in length, with motors having one hundred and fifty horsepower or less. One
of these classes is limited to women pilots – the “Powder Puff” class. The other twenty-two foot and under class is open to anyone. The third class is for boats over twenty-two feet in length, powered by three hundred horsepower or less, and the fourth class is unlimited – any length, any horsepower. This unlimited class is for the high-end competitors, the gentleman racers, who can afford $150,000 pontoon boats that can hit sixty mph or more. I think the current speed record for a pontoon boat is 114mph.”

  Anne interrupted.

  “What sort of rules are there for boat modification, like what we saw with Wes Fuller?”

  “Obviously, the unlimited class has no restrictions at all. For the other three classes, any and all modifications above the waterline are allowed. You will see some airfoils and other nonsense, and a few comedians have charcoal grills welded to their decks. But below the waterline the boats have to remain stock. No changes are allowed. Now that things are more formalized each boat will go through a pre-race inspection before they are launched – first to ensure that they won’t introduce any invasive plants – Sebec is one of the lakes in the state that does not yet have any exotic introductions. In addition, each boat will be inspected to make sure there are no enhancements below the waterline.”

  Anne was starting to see the rationale for the pontoon boat class structure and smiled.

  “I like this a lot Jack – let the rich kids fight it out in the unlimited class, and bring all their money to town, while at the same time preserving the other three classes for competitors of more modest means. If you want you can compete in your everyday patio boat that you use on the weekends for towing kids on tubes and for sunset cruises, both above and below the twenty-two-foot dividing line. Or, for all those more adventurous competitors with a heated garage, and facing Maine’s long winters, you can do what Wes Fuller is doing, and customize your own racing pontoon boat from the ground up. How can we check on Don Robertson’s entry in this year’s race, if there was one?”