by B. D. Smith
“How did the killer make sure to get a direct hit on the victim’s head? Simple really. They positioned Eastman’s head directly under the pontoon, close to this support, and then took the support away. To accomplish this, they first placed a rod or pole of wood vertically right next to the support. Then, holding the newly placed rod in position, they cranked the support lower until the new rod, and not the support, held up the weight of the pontoon. Then it was a simple matter to slide the support out from under the hull, place it on the floor, tipped on its side as you see it, and proceed to pull the supporting rod out, dropping the hull straight down onto Eastman’s skull.”
Kneeling and pointing to a barely visible scrape mark on the floor, Martell smiled up at Anne and Doug.
“Judging from the mark the wooden pole left on the floor here when the killer pulled it away, you are looking for something maybe three inches in diameter and between thirty-seven and forty inches long.”
Anticipating their question, Peter answered it first.
“There are two indicators of the killer’s scheme to drop the hull directly on the victim’s head, ensuring both the obliteration of his skull and, they hoped, the disappearance of any evidence of the blow he received outside the garage. The first of these indicators is the killer’s failure to erase the mark the supporting pole left on the floor here when it was pulled away. The second is the length of the different boat supports. The support that’s lying on the floor here by the victim measures 37 inches in length. The other three are all 40 inches long. This difference in length is because after positioning the wooden rod in place, right next to the boat stand, the killer cranked the support he wanted to remove down from its original forty inches to thirty-seven inches, and then slid it out and tipped it over. But the killer forgot to subsequently return the removed support back to its original forty inches or thereabouts. Pretty careless. All in all, it’s a pretty poor attempt to cover up a homicide.”
“Is there any evidence that might point to the identity of the killer?” Doug asked.
“Not so far,” replied Martell. “We might get lucky with some prints we pulled from the boat support next to the body, but I doubt it. And the wooden support pole might give us something if we can locate it. I’m hoping the killer discarded it somewhere nearby.”
A lengthy search of the area surrounding the garage, however, failed to turn up any likely candidates for the wooden pole used to temporarily hold up the patio boat hull. Doug’s dog Jack was even enlisted in the search, and when let out of the car, he did show some interest in a location where the killer may have hidden waiting for his victim. He sniffed and scratched behind a bushy hemlock where the ground was flattened. No footprints were evident, but a raking of the leaf litter turned up a candy wrapper. Not exactly a case-breaking clue, but it was none-the-less bagged for further study at the lab in Augusta. Jack was no bloodhound, but he was a food hound, and Doug thought that the killer might have snacked on something the previous night while he waited in the darkness and the rain, and that Jack had homed in on the lingering molecules of something edible.
Peter Martell and the evidence recovery team stopped in Dover-Foxcroft on their way back to Augusta and joined Doug, Anne, and Jack Walker for a late lunch at Allie Oops Sport Bar. They avoided discussion of the Eastman killing, but the conversation was still understandably subdued. Katie waited on them and bustled around the table refilling drinks and sparring good-naturedly with the ERT members. She and Peter Martell clearly hit it off, and when Katie had disappeared into the kitchen with a stack of plates, Peter, clearly smitten, asked Anne about the redhead waitress. Anne smiled and patted his hand as she responded.
“She’s a good woman Peter, and I get your interest. But I don’t think you’ll get very far with her. She’s just survived two relationships that turned sour, one after the other, and has come home to Dover to get back on her feet. And anyway, she prefers women, not men.”
Working on his third beer, an Alagash White, Peter looked puzzled, and then shook his head.
“Naw, I disagree. She’s crazy about me. I can tell.”
Just then Katie emerged from the kitchen and came over to the table in response to Peter’s wave.
Motioning her closer, Peter, looking very serious, murmured something in her ear. Leaning back, Katie looked at him cautiously, then leaned in and gave him a single syllable response before turning on her heel and walking back behind the bar. Anne asked Peter what he and Katie had said to each other.
“Well, I am not usually so direct, but I’ve had a few beers. I asked if she was exclusively interested in women, and she answered ‘Bye.’ I’m not sure if she was telling me she’s bisexual, or if she was telling me goodbye – basically blowing me off. What do you think Anne?”
Anne was pretty sure that Katie was not blowing him off but was surprised to learn that she was apparently bisexual.
“I’m not sure Peter. Maybe ask her out – that would clear up what she was telling you.”
When Anne and Doug left Allie Oops a few minutes later, already late for an afternoon meeting with Sheriff Torben and Jack Walker, Peter Martell was still waiting for Katie to reappear from the kitchen so he could ask her for clarification, and maybe a date.
Sheriff Torben and Jack Walker were both looking at their iPhones when Anne and Doug entered Torben’s office.
“Anything promising from the Eastman place?” the sheriff asked as Doug and Anne sat down and their dog Jack settled at Doug’s feet.
Doug looked at Anne, who replied to the sheriff’s query.
“Some good news and some not-so-good news. The ERT recovered enough evidence for us to be confident that it wasn’t an accident. Someone waited for Eastman outside his garage, knocked him out, and then staged an accidental death, crushing his skull under the hull of his patio boat. We know it was a premeditated killing, but don’t have any leads yet regarding who the killer is or what their motive was.”
Jack Walker joined in.
“I just checked with the hospital and Elizabeth Eastman left a while ago with her sister. Elizabeth’s not ready to go back home yet, so they’re heading back over to her sister’s place in Monson. But she’s feeling somewhat better now and is willing to talk to us later this afternoon at her sister’s.”
“That’s great Jack,” Doug replied. “Anne and I can drive over to Monson right after we’re finished here.”
Sheriff Torben leaned forward in his chair and took a sip of coffee while opening the lid of a box sitting on the edge of the repurposed library table that served as his desk. He frowned at the few scattered crumbs - all that remained of the morning’s dozen donuts from Elaine’s Bakery over in Milo.
“Doug, I got a call from your boss Stan Shetler over in Bangor early this morning. He had already heard from several influential politicians and business leaders about the Eastman death, and he has decided that you should focus full time on solving his murder, assuming it was not an accident. He talked to your partner Tom Richard and directed him to take the lead on the Don Robertson case so you can be freed up for the Eastman investigation. I said I would let you know. Shetler and I agreed that you and Anne can continue looking into any leads on the Robertson case here in Piscataquis County, and your partner Tom Richard will handle the Portland end of the investigation.”
“That sounds like a plan,” Doug answered. “I hope Tom comes up with something, because we have no good leads so far. Maybe his follow-up with the widow, Rosemary Tremblay, will give us something to go on. And we might get lucky with Robertson’s files – maybe a record of some disgruntled or scammed investors looking for a payback.”
Jack Walker jumped in with a question.
“Is there any possibility the two killings – Robertson and Eastman, are linked?”
Torben looked skeptical.
“Why would you think they’re linked?”
“Well, I’m just saying it’s a possibility. Both deaths were set up to look like accidents and both victims had entries in the patio boat race. I checked with Bob Lutz this morning, and Eastman’s fancy pontoon boat – the one that crushed his skull, was entered in the unlimited category, just like the boat that Robertson had entered along with his race partner, Nigel Underwood. Maybe someone is knocking off the competition.”
“Good points,” Anne agreed. “We need to ask Eastman’s widow what she knows – was there any connection between Eastman and Robertson? We also need to take a much closer look at the Patio Boat race in general. Who’s involved in organizing it? Is it all local people or are there outsiders running the show? Who’s competing in the unlimited category? Is ESPN shelling out big bucks for the broadcasting rights? I find it hard to believe that someone is killing off the competition in a patio boat race just so they can win. But maybe there’s more going on that we don’t know about.”
Doug replied.
“Anne and I will go over to Monson this afternoon to talk to the widow Eastman. Maybe Jack can look into this mystery man Nigel Underwood here in Dover, and I will get Tom to see what he can find out about him down on the coast.”
Sheriff Torben looked up from his note taking.
“This all sounds good. I’ll contact Bob Lutz and let him know that we will be meeting with the race committee. We need to be in the loop on this, and not just because of the Robertson and Eastman killings. The sheriff’s office and the Dover-Foxcroft police need to be integrally involved in this undertaking. We should have been included from the get-go. There’s sure to be traffic, parking, and crowd control issues, and all the other challenges that accompany an influx of visitors into our community.”
Jack Walker had the final comment before the meeting broke up.
“I’ll ask Bob Lutz, as well as a few other people, about Nigel Underwood, and I also want to get a better handle on the timeline for Ximena’s Lapointe’s movements on the night and next morning of the Robertson killing. The big payout she received from his life insurance policy still looms as a strong motive for murder.”
Doug and Anne headed west out of town on route 6 toward Monson. Jack with his head out the window, gums flapping. As they drove over the Piscataquis River bridge, they noticed Katie and Peter Martell leaning on the bridge railing, deep in conversation. “Well,” Anne thought to herself, “looks like it was ‘bi,’ not ‘bye,’ that Katie whispered in his ear at lunch.”
9.
Following Route 6 to Guilford and then north toward Greenville and the Moosehead Lake region, it took Doug and Anne about half an hour to reach the small town of Monson. Marking the southern end of the Hundred-Mile Wilderness, Monson was an important waypoint on the Appalachian Trail, and Doug and Anne overtook half a dozen northbound hikers ambling down the hill at the southern edge of town. At the bottom of the hill, where Route 6 turns west into downtown Monson, a long defunct gas station stacked with pallets of slate for sale harkened back to when the town was a major center of slate quarrying in the late 1800s.
Turning right at the gas station onto the north Guilford Road, Doug continued for a half-mile before finding the house where Elizabeth Eastman’s sister lived – a well-kept Victorian home with a wrap-around front porch and abundant gingerbread trim. Jack was sound asleep in the back seat, so they cranked the windows down a bit and left him in the jeep. The interview wouldn’t take long.
Elizabeth Eastman, who looked to be in her mid-sixties, was tall and thin, with short gray hair and a resting frown face. She opened the front door of her sister’s house, leaning for support on her cane, a clunky tree branch topped with a silver cap in the shape of what looked to be a loon’s head. Liz surprised Doug and Anne with her greeting.
“You must be the police. Would you care for a glass of whiskey?”
As they followed Elizabeth into the front parlor, her sister Mary emerged from the back of the house. She was carrying a tray holding a coffee pot and mugs and hurried to explain her clearly tipsy sibling.
“Please excuse Liz officers, she’s had quite a shock.”
Mary’s comment elicited a sad smile from Elizabeth as she wiped at her eyes with her free hand and settled in an overstuffed armchair. Anne and Doug took the sofa across from her and Mary sat in a second armchair. Doug was waiting for Mary to finish pouring the coffee before beginning the interview when Elizabeth started a quite candid but rambling monologue, pausing only occasionally to sip from her glass of amber liquid.
“We were married for forty-two years this past October. John was mostly a good husband to me. He had other women over the years, of course – part of his insecurity, but he never flaunted them, and I never brought them up. We had a solid marriage but weren’t ever blessed with children.”
“John built things,” Elizabeth continued. “We first met in the mid-seventies down on the coast when he came north to Maine from New Jersey to work construction one summer. I was working as a waitress in a seafood restaurant in Belfast. We had it hard the first few years after we got married, but then John got involved in the real estate development side of things and managed to line up some bank loans to build small projects around town– apartments and retail space.”
Liz paused, took a slow sip of whiskey and smiled wistfully.
“The projects got bigger, his company grew, and by the nineties they were building malls in Texas and town house developments in northern Virginia. Later, after we became really well-off, with more money than we could ever spend, John got bored with strip malls and started focusing on what he called “classy” projects - boutique hotels and luxury condos in destination cities – Charleston, Santa Fe, San Francisco.”
Shaking her head, the widow continued.
“I never could understand why he kept striving, kept pushing. John couldn’t seem to just enjoy his success. He always had to do more, accomplish more, and build something new, something different. I don’t think he ever recovered from the abuse his father used to rain down on him – telling him how he would never amount to anything.”
Elizabeth paused and glanced from Doug to Anne, seeing if they had any questions. Anne smiled back at her, Doug stayed silent, and Elizabeth returned to her narrative.
“After his second heart attack, six years ago now, John finally started to pay attention to what I had been telling him for years. He sold his company and seemed committed to enjoying our retirement, or at least trying to. We spent our winters in California and summers here on Sebec Lake. My family had a summer cottage here when I was growing up, and John went along with my interest in spending summers here again. He seemed to like the remoteness – it was so different from the coast of Maine. He often told anyone who would listen that Sebec Lake was undiscovered and undervalued.”
Doug set his coffee cup down and took advantage of a pause in Elizabeth’s narrative to ask a question.
“What interests did your husband take up in retirement? Did he stay involved at all in his former development projects?”
“No. Not really. John turned his back on all that and seemed to enjoy the planning and construction of our new summer place here. I wanted to look for a cabin closer to Greeley’s Landing – something on the south shore, closer to Dover. But John for some reason decided that the remote northwest corner of Sebec Lake, way up by Bucks Cove, was where we needed to be. I didn’t object too much – I was just thrilled he was willing to commit to spending our summers here. He spent endless hours on the internet looking for design ideas and high-end stuff for the house – a sauna and ofuro for the master bath, a top of the line Italian espresso machine and Smeg appliances in the kitchen – that sort of thing.”
“But that couldn’t have kept him engaged for long.” Anne suggested.
“No. His interest in stuff for the house flagged pretty quickly. Fortunately, he discovered something new when we spent a weekend down on Lake Winnipesaukee visiting some friends. John fell in love with vintage wooden boats – old Chris Craft and Gar Wood gentleman racers. He searched all the web sites offering classic woodies and flew to Lake Tahoe and other places looking at runabouts for sale. He renovated the dilapidated boathouse here and ended up buying three boats. He added a second floor to the structure for his office, along with fancy boat lifts and a garage for working on them.”
Doug interrupted again with another question.
“You had some vandalism of the boat house last summer. What happened? Were those responsible for the damage ever identified?”
“Oh, it wasn’t much. Some spray paint cuss words on the boats and broken windshields. And they tried to set fire to the boathouse – stuck a rag into the gas tank of the Chris Craft and lit it. But it fell out into the water before anything caught fire. So there really wasn’t all that much damage. John had a few guys from Hi Gloss Boat Restoration down at Lake Winnipesaukee drive up for a few days to make the repairs. The county sheriff’s office looked into it for us, but never did figure out who did it.”
Elizabeth paused for a moment, looking pensive, before continuing.
“It’s funny in a way, I guess, that my husband managed to accidently kill himself with that stupid patio boat of his. He used to make fun of them all the time. He called them floating family rooms. Then all of a sudden he just had to have one. And it had to be big and fancy. And expensive.”
Doug and Anne exchanged a glance, and Doug interrupted.
“Mrs. Eastman, we don’t think your husband’s death was an accident. It appears to have been a premeditated murder that was staged to look like an accident.”