Dead to the World

by B. D. Smith

  “Well,” Jack responded, let’s go talk to Bob Lutz, he’s involved in the organization and running of this year’s race.”

  They found Lutz sitting at his desk at Dave’s World, Dover’s local appliance store, surrounded by displays of heat pumps, refrigerators, stoves, flooring, and more. Lutz was just finishing up his brown bag lunch. Jack introduced Anne, and when they asked about the Sebec Pontoon Challenge, Bob reached over and opened his personal laptop. Calling up his list of registered entries for the race, he scrolled down until he found Don Robertson’s name.

  “Yeah, Don’s still on the list, even though he obviously won’t be competing, being dead and all. But the other person listed with him is still intending to participate. His name is Nigel Underwood. He’s one of the race organizers this year. He and Don entered a Manitou in the unlimited class, and he is still intending to race. He’s already paid the $500 non-refundable entry fee. We thought the rich folks with expensive boats wouldn’t mind a nice hefty fee up front to experience our beautiful lake.”

  “I know that name,” Jack murmured. “He’s the potential buyer that Ximena had dinner with on karaoke night. We need to talk to him.”

  Anne nodded in agreement and turned back to Lutz with more questions about the race.

  “How many people have registered for the race, Bob?”

  “Maybe sixty so far, but we expect that to surge from now until race day, particularly given the recent media deal that’s been signed.”

  “What deal’s that?” Jack asked.

  “ESPN is going to carry the race. They’ve been getting involved in lots of quirky competitions – apparently there’s a growing viewing audience for offbeat events, and they’ve contracted to cover the race. We’re keeping that quiet until the big reveal, but the race could eventually be bigger than the Whoopee Pie Festival.”

  5.

  “ESPN?” Doug exclaimed, setting down his glass of sauvignon blanc and looking with incredulity across the table at Anne. “You have got to be kidding.”

  They were having dinner at Allie Oops, the sports bar in Dover-Foxcroft. Sitting at a corner table, waiting for their pizza to arrive, Anne was filling him in on the unfolding plans for the Sebec Pontoon Boat Challenge.

  “I know,” Anne responded. “I’m not sure if I should be pleased or horrified. I’m not ready for Sebec to be discovered, to be showcased on ESPN as a center for patio boat racing. What will exposure like that do to the community?”

  Doug was still stunned.

  “No way to know right now Anne. Sounds like it could be a nice boost to the local economy, and it would only be for a few days each summer. I haven’t seen too many down sides to the Whoopie Pie festival. Maybe it will be the same sort of thing.”

  Their pizza arrived before Anne could respond, and both Anne and Doug were surprised by who brought it to the table.

  “Katie, what are you doing back in Dover?” Anne asked. “I thought you and Lou Binford were exploring urban adventures down on the coast.”

  Brushing back her long red hair, Katie hugged them both before sitting down at their table.

  “I’m back for good, I think. It took me a while to get past my initial crush on Louise, but when I did it got pretty boring, and sort of scary now and then. She works a lot, and when she’s not working, she wants to party hard and to impress people. Me, I’m more of a stay-at-home gal – quiet dinners and snuggling up in front of the TV.”

  “Well, we’re glad to have you back Katie,” Anne responded. “Was the breakup mutual?”

  “Ayup,” Katie responded. “Lou was happy to see me go and I was relieved to escape in one piece. She left the state police. I’m not sure if it was voluntary. She started a consulting business – drones for hire. She does real estate flyovers along with some crime scene stuff, natural disasters, and sporting events for media outlets. She’s not too successful yet, but she’s staying afloat.”

  Dropping her voice and glancing over her shoulder, Katie continued. “I don’t know how well you got to know her when she was up here working on your serial murder case, but Lou has lots of issues, maybe left over from her time in the military.”

  “Like what?” Anne asked.

  “Lou Binford makes shit up all the time – and it’s not clear if she actually can tell the difference between her fantasies and reality. At first I challenged her on her stories, thinking she was doing it for fun, but she was dead serious. And Lou’s quite volatile - she can fly off the handle pretty easily. With all her marital arts experience, I was never sure what she might do. I got nervous just being around her toward the end.”

  Katie jumped as her name was yelled out from behind the bar. Getting up and moving away, she called back over her shoulder. “Sorry, gotta get back to work. Talk to you guys soon.”

  Doug slid a slice of pizza onto Anne’s plate and added to Katie’s breakup tale.

  “The story I heard was that Lou was allowed to resign – she apparently was caught up in some sort of sexual harassment complaints. Sounds like Katie is well rid of her.”

  A rerun of one of the Patriot’s games was playing on the TV above the bar, and Doug glanced at it as Anne unfolded a printout from her coat pocket.

  “Look at this Doug. I got it from Bob Lutz. It’s the draft schedule for the pontoon boat race. It’s a two-day event – Friday and Saturday. Friday is preliminary time trials, with individual boats starting at intervals and covering a course that goes from a start/finish line by Greeley’s Landing, east around Pine Island, and then back. Then on Saturday there are one-on-one match races between the top four finishers in each of the four classes of competition. They’ll start by Greeley’s Landing again, but go west through the narrows, into and out of Buck’s Cove, down toward the Peaks Kenny State Park beach in the South Cove, then back through the narrows to the finish line.”

  Doug responded before sliding a pizza slice onto his plate.

  “How is ESPN going to make a show out of patio boats racing around? Sounds pretty boring to me.”

  “Oh, I think it will be great on TV,” Anne countered. “The Friday prelims will probably be boring, but the Saturday match races will be anything but – they have a bunch of corners built into the course that the boats will have to maneuver around, trying to get the inside track, and the channel into Buck’s Cove is only wide enough for one boat at a time. And don’t forget, there’s always the weather – if we get any sort of waves on the big part of lake, west of the narrows, it could get ugly.”

  “Maybe,” Doug replied. “But how are they going to get cameras on the action?”

  “Lutz said ESPN is planning on stationary cameras on Pine Island, and most importantly, at the Buck’s Cove channel, and then cameras on boats that will follow the competitors, like the motorcycle cameras they use for the Tour de France. Each of the competitor boats will also have cameras, and they plan on wall to wall drone coverage.”

  “I hope they also get wall-to-wall insurance coverage. If a couple of guys who have been building their boats back in the woods and dreaming of victory all winter end up running neck in neck as they approach the Buck’s Cove channel, there could be some epic crashes.”

  “Great TV,” replied Anne, reaching for another slice of pizza.

  “So, do you think the patio boat race has anything to do with our murder investigation?” Doug asked with a puzzled expression.

  “Maybe.” Anne responded. “It turns out Don Robertson and a guy named Nigel Underwood had a high-end entry in the unlimited class of the race. Underwood apparently is still planning on competing. Underwood is also the rich prospective buyer who had dinner with Ximena on karaoke night to discuss a property here on Sebec Lake. But he’s dropped off the map since
the killing. I think you can include him in the people you and Tom Richard need to talk to down on the coast.”

  “I will add him to the list,” Doug replied. “I wonder what his other business dealings with Robertson were. We haven’t gotten very far with our interviews yet. Tom Richard has been cleared to work the case, and we’ll be talking to the widow Robertson tomorrow. Lee Lamen, the dentist character who is her spiritual mentor, is at a convention in Atlanta, and we’re not clear yet when he’ll be back.”

  “How about Robertson’s estate?” Anne asked, “anything there?”

  “It went through informal probate, with his wife Rosemary filing with the court as the personal representative or executor. In the absence of a will the entire estate went to her. I hope we can go over what was in the estate with her tomorrow and see if it represented much of a motive for Rosemary to knock off her husband. We also need to see if there was a life insurance policy and ask if there are any disgruntled or suspicious investors. If we’re really lucky his computer files and investor records will still be intact, but who knows what his widow has done with them.”

  Catching Katie’s eye behind the bar, Doug held his empty wine glass in the air and held up two fingers, then asked Anne how the interviews with Ximena and Wes Fuller had turned out.

  “Well, we still have some aspects of their alibis to nail down – Ximena’s story about leaving the cabin at midnight because of the babysitter’s test the next day seems to check out, but I need to confirm it with the babysitter, Suzie Arter. And once you talk to Nigel Underwood we can see if the account of their dinner meeting that night holds up - a time-stamped receipt would be nice, or a statement from their waiter. Maybe they were out putting a tarp over the chimney of Don Robertson’s cabin.”

  Anne took a sip of wine and continued.

  “It’s pretty much the same situation with Wes Fuller. He has a good alibi for after the confrontation with Robertson and Ximena at the Bear’s Den – his trip down to Portland checks out, and he doesn’t have a clear motive unless it’s the fact that Robertson was entering a fancy pontoon boat in the upcoming race. But that doesn’t seem like enough of a motive for murder – particularly since their boats would not have been competing against each other – Fuller is in the under twenty-two-foot class and Robertson was in the unlimited category.

  “How about his buddy Gary Crites?” Doug countered. “Maybe Fuller placed the tarp before heading to the Bear’s Den that night, and then George went over and pulled it off in the early morning hours.”

  “That could play,” Anne agreed. “We collected some tarp samples and a red bungee cord out at Fuller’s camp – maybe the lab results will link them to the killing. And Jack and I can have a talk with Gary. He’s not exactly Mensa material, and it should be easy to get a read on him. Actually, neither he nor Wes seem too sharp – I doubt they could pull off such a carefully planned scheme.”

  Allie Oops was filling up and the noise level had increased considerably. Doug went to the bar to pay their tab, and Anne, remembering something, came up beside him.

  “I have another loose end Doug – Ximena recently bought a new truck from the Quirk Ford dealership down in Belfast and paid cash. Jack and I are both curious about where she got the money, and Wes Fuller pointed the finger at her for Robertson’s death, suggesting that we look into the truck purchase.”

  Doug glanced up from signing the bill and was about to respond when he saw the look of surprise on Anne’s face and turned to see what had spooked her. Announcing their entrance with loud laughter, Louise Binford and two sketchy looking men came in the front door of Allie Oops. Both men made a beeline for the bathroom at the back of the bar, but Lou, noticing Anne and Doug, drifted over and greeted them enthusiastically. She was still a striking individual, a little over six feet tall, with short purple hair, black boots, tights, and jacket, and an aggressive personality.

  “Hey guys – how’s it goin up here in the boonies? Rogue moose keeping you busy?”

  Doug smiled and shook Lou’s outstretched hand. Anne managed to avoid Binford’s clumsy attempt at a hug, while also watching Katie, reflected in the mirror behind the bar, as she grabbed her coat and slipped out the back door. Anne wondered if Lou was in town because of Katie, but wasn’t going to ask, when Doug asked in a more general way.

  “What brings you back to Dover, Lou?”

  “Never thought I would be back up here in the middle of nowhere, but it looks like I have a shot at getting the contract for drone coverage of the big patio boat race on Sebec. I still have to make a pitch to this Nigel Underwood guy, but it’s looking pretty good.”

  After a few minutes of awkward chit-chat about the race, Anne and Doug managed to escape Lou Binford and the noise and growing intensity of the bar. They walked back to where Doug’s Jeep Cherokee was parked in the large lot behind Allie Oops. It was a short twenty-minute drive to Anne’s cabin on the south shore of Sebec Lake, and they were planning on spending the night there.

  Anne and Doug had been together for more than a year now, but they still each owned their own lakeside cabins, Anne on the south shore and Doug on the north. They spent about an equal number of nights at both camps without paying much attention to which place they stayed. The important thing was they rarely spent a night apart. Anne had left her truck in the parking lot at the courthouse, and Doug would drop her off there in the morning before he headed into work at the state police barracks in Bangor.

  As they approached Doug’s jeep Anne heard something and turned to see a dark shape maybe twenty feet behind them – some sort of animal dimly visible in the darkness. She grabbed Doug by the arm and they both stopped and turned to watch a large stray dog approach them. It walked slowly, with its head down, and reaching them, leaned against Doug’s legs and looked up at him. It didn’t have a collar or tags and had been living on the street for a while, judging from the absence of a collar, one tattered ear, ribs showing, and matted fur. It looked like a German Shepard but with a tawny-colored coat. Doug reached down and scratched the dog behind the ears, murmuring “what a sweet dog,” and Anne could tell it was love at first sight. Crouching down, Anne put an arm around the dog’s neck and looked up at Doug with a smile.

  “We need to take this dog home. Let’s go to your place tonight – we can stop at Will’s and buy some food, and maybe some dog shampoo, and then tomorrow we’ll take it to vet to get him checked out – see if it has a chip, get it dewormed and vaccinated, and take it from there.”

  Doug nodded, reached down, and cradling the dog, placed it on the back seat of the jeep. Stretching out, the dog slapped its tail a few times on the seat and closed his eyes.

  “I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t have a chip,” Doug remarked as they pulled into the parking lot at Will’s Stop ‘n Save Market. “He’s neutered, maybe a year or two old, and unless I’m mistaken, he looks to be part or all Chinook. They’re still pretty rare – sled dogs that were first bred in New Hampshire in the early twentieth century. He’s maybe fifty pounds now but will probably reach seventy-five or eighty pounds when fully grown. Melinda Blood – the professor you met at the University of Maine last year – her Chinook, Jack, died just last year. They’re wonderful dogs.”

  Will’s had everything they were looking for, and Anne smiled as they passed the post office on the way out of town with a big bag of dog food, dog shampoo, several squeaky toys, and a new collar in the back of the jeep – she knew that chip or not, this dog had a new home. After a full bowl of food and a bath he didn’t particularly enjoy, the dog sniffed around the living room before picking up a squeaky toy and curling up in front of the fire. He was soon snoring contentedly.

  Later that night Anne woke up, surprised that Doug was hogging the bed, which he rarely did, only to realize that it wasn’t Doug pressing up agains
t her. There was a large freshly bathed dog stretched out between them, chasing something, no doubt a red squirrel, in his dreams.

  6.

  Doug Bateman and his partner Tom Richard paused at the corner of Pearl and Middle Street in Portland and waited for several cars to pass before crossing. Tom had driven down from Bangor, and Doug from Dover-Foxcroft. They were on their way to interview Rosemary Tremblay, Don Robertson’s widow, whose office was a half block farther up on Middle Street. She was lawyer in one of Portland’s largest law firms and had somewhat reluctantly agreed to give them a half hour of her valuable time. Doug checked his watch to make sure they were on time, causing Tom to snicker next to him.

  “Jesus Doug, we’re not on our way to the principal’s office. She might say she’s very busy and only has a half hour for us, but once we sit down, we can take all the time we want. Plus, judging from her last name her family has roots in Quebec, and I can snow her with my Québécois patter. She’ll end up inviting us to lunch.”

  Doug barely listened to what his partner was saying – he was wondering when Anne would call him with an update from the vet. They had dropped the stray dog that had found them the previous night off at the Foxcroft Veterinary clinic for an assessment first thing that morning and Doug was anxious to hear what they had found. Checking the addresses on the buildings they were passing, Doug sarcastically replied to his partner.

  “Tom, I’m counting on your smooth chitty-chat and fancy duds to get her to spill everything she knows and to solve the case for us today. Don’t let me down.”