by B. D. Smith
The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully, with Dover-Foxcroft racking up another record attendance at the Whoopie Pie Festival. There were no further fights, no more puking at the pie eating contest, and with the exception of a few fender benders out at the fairgrounds where out-of-towners parked, no more disruptions to an otherwise beautiful summer day.
20.
Sunday morning. The day after the Whoopie Pie Festival, and only five days away from the Friday time trials for next weekend’s patio boat race. It was shaping up to be a beautiful sunny day, although the weather for race weekend was looking more and more iffy. Anne had headed out for an early morning paddle and Doug was sitting on the dock, watching her kayak disappear behind Pine Island and sipping from his third cup of coffee. Their dog Jack was snuffling around in the underbrush by the lakeshore, trying to ignore the red squirrel scolding him from an overhead branch.
After running into his ex-wife at the festival the day before, Doug was pretty confident that he had managed to convince Anne last night that the only real reaction he had to Beth’s emotional meltdown at the festival was one of relief that he no longer had a role to play in her ongoing drama. He was also quite relieved to have Lou Binford in custody and charged with the killing of Don Robertson, along with two additional charges of attempted murder - for running over Ximena Lapointe with a powerboat and the shooting of Jack Walker. A search of Binford’s house in Bangor had turned up canvas tarp scraps in a basement trash can that perfectly matched the piece recovered from the Sebec River that had been used to cover the cabin chimney where Robertson died. And Walker had identified her as the person who shot him at close range. Given the compelling evidence recovered in two of the crimes – the tarp fragments and the footprint on the boat used to run down Ximena, as well as the first-person account from Walker, Binford was facing multiple convictions and a likely life sentence.
Binford’s arrest and the resolution of those three cases left just the John Eastman murder on Doug’s plate, and he and Anne would be focusing on it this week – circling back to interview the widow Eastman and her sister again, and also tracking down and talking to Ted Height and other Water Rat alumni who might be behind the more serious incidents, including the Eastman boat house fire and maybe even his killing. Things were definitely looking up.
Finishing his coffee, Doug remembered he needed to check the solar powered battery charger that kept the battery on his seventy-year-old wooden boat charged. The boat still leaked a bit, and without the charger the bilge pump cycling on and off would eventually drain the battery. The charger was working well, but as was often the case, Doug found several other things that needed his attention. He was on his back, scrunched up under the dashboard of his Chris-Craft, trying to figure out why the oil pressure gauge refused to work, when he heard a loud noise coming closer. Assuming it must be a low-flying float plane, probably Babs from down by Turtle Cove, he kept tracing wires and softly swearing to himself until his boat started rocking violently and he could hear waves washing up on the shoreline.
Pivoting out from under the dashboard, Doug looked up just in time to see a patio boat disappear around Otter Point. Solid black, with three large outboards on the back, the boat was traveling at a high rate of speed and passed within fifty feet or so of Doug’s dock. At first Doug couldn’t quite believe what he had seen. It wasn’t so much the size of the boat, or its three huge outboard motors, or even the high speed – it was the total and apparently deliberate disregard for a basic shared tenet of lake communities everywhere –boats should slow down close to shore. It was common sense and common courtesy.
The black patio boat continued west at a fast clip and encountered Anne returning home in her kayak a few minutes later. Anne watched the boat approach, expecting it to slow down and steer away from her, but it did neither, passing close enough that even though she turned and paddled directly into the boat’s wake, her kayak was almost swamped. Two middle-aged men wearing the bright red T-shirts handed out to patio boat racers waved at her as the boat passed. Anne flipped them the bird and turned her kayak to watch the patio boat fade into the distance. She hoped they might not see the warning buoys west of Pine Island and end up in the rocky shallows that had claimed many boats over the years. The boat’s windshield had carried a red placard with its assigned race number, which Anne hoped would help the Water Rats target it for attention.
Both Anne and Doug were disturbed enough by the behemoth patio boat that they decided to track it down. Anne’s phone chirped as they pulled away from the dock in the Otter, Doug’s Chris-Craft.
“Anne, it’s Jim Torben. Not sure what you and Doug are up to on this beautiful Sunday, but I’m hoping since you’re close you could check out the boat ramp at Newell Cove. Apparently there’s some sort of disagreement that’s escalating. I know it’s weird for a Sunday morning, but we received several irate calls already this morning.”
“OK Jim,” Anne replied. “We’re in the boat – looking to track down a crazed patio boat that flew by Doug’s place a little while ago. We’ll go right by Newell Cove. I’ll call and let you know what the situation is after we sort it out.”
Soon after they rounded Ram Island and skirted around the rocky shallows at the edge of Newell Cove, the boat ramp came into view. A patio boat, still on its trailer, which in turn was still attached to a large RV, had somehow flipped sideways off the boat ramp and was now firmly wedged in among rocks on the lake bottom. Several men were struggling to try to disentangle the RV, the trailer, and the boat from each other- without much luck. Behind them a small crowd had gathered and was not in a friendly mood. Personal insults and vulgar language were beginning to enter the ongoing conversations around the ramp as Doug pulled his boat up on a small patch of sandy beach and he and Anne approached the angry boaters. Doug heard a familiar voice call to him from the crowd and recognized Dave Williams, whose lakefront lot was adjacent to the boat ramp.
“Hey Doug. Hey Bateman,” Dave called out, waving his hands in the air. “Tell these people they can’t just leave their trailers anywhere they want. They can’t be trashing up my property and parking on my land.”
Dave’s complaint was immediately joined by a chorus of other cries from the crowd as soon as they realized that Doug and Anne might have some authority to address their anger. A large man sporting a red race-entrant T-shirt boomed out his complaint over the other competing voices.
“Get this piece of shit out of the way. I’ve been stuck in line for over an hour. There’re at least a dozen race boats in front of me waiting to launch, and I don’t know how long the line stretches behind me, but this is fucked up. I can’t turn around, and this fool has blocked the ramp.”
Doug raised his hands to quiet the crowd and offered a solution that seemed pretty obvious to him.
“OK, here’s what we’ll do.” Pointing to the big man, he continued. “Would you walk back up the road until you reach the last person in line. Tell him the same thing you tell everyone else as you work back up the line toward the boat ramp. Turn around, last in line first, then continuing up the line. Drive back down Bowerbank Road the way you came, turn right at the intersection in Sebec Village, and then right again at the boat ramp sign just before the dam. The ramp there is wider than the one here and launching should be no problem. And there is more room for trailers to park there too.”
While Doug was calming the crowd, Anne pulled Dave Williams aside and assured him that she would get some sheriff’s deputies out that morning to remove the parked trailers from his property. Anne and Doug continued west in the Otter, stopping to check the Merrill’s Marina boat ramp at Greeley’s Landing, which was active but not backed up. Nigel Underwood was sitting at one of the picnic tables holding forth with a group of men in red T-shirts, his green leg cast stretched out in front of him. Doug went over to ask him how preparations for
the race were progressing, and Anne headed for the roller rink to look for Becky Hull and see if she was still involved with the drone coverage of the race.
“Detective Bateman. Just the man I was looking for.” Underwood boomed out as Doug approached the table. Turning to his red-shirted audience, Nigel continued.
“This is the man I was telling you about. Douglas Bateman here is the person in charge of making sure nothing and nobody interferes with the race this weekend or with our practice runs the rest of this week. No more pranks. Right detective?”
Doug paused before answering, and stepping closer to the picnic table, took a long look at Nigel, who seemed to have aged considerably since his accident. His face was drawn, his hair dull gray, and his hands shook slightly. Nigel’s pupils looked dilated and his gaze shifted nervously back and forth between Doug and the group crowded around the table.
“Sorry to disappoint you Mr. Underwood, but I don’t have any responsibility or authority to ensure that things go smoothly this week. I can certainly be called on if any state laws or regulations are violated, and that includes, I should emphasize, boating safety and speed limit laws. Which leads me to ask if any of you know the whereabouts of a large black patio boat that was doing a high speed run this morning. It should have come by here in the last hour or so.”
Several of the men crowded around smiled knowingly to each other, but no one responded to Doug’s question, which didn’t surprise him. Probably the status of the patio boat in question, and its captain, had just increased among the red shirts. Once they realized that Doug was not very supportive of their concerns the men clustered around the table all decided they had other things to do and drifted away, leaving Doug and Nigel alone at the table.
“Is everything OK Nigel?” Doug asked. “Is all going smoothly with the race preparations?”
“As if you give a shit,” Nigel replied angrily, dropping the friendly veneer he had presented in front of his small audience.
“Arresting my drone director, ignoring the eco-terrorist attacks on law-abiding boaters, not catching the people who tried to kill me. What are you doing, Bateman, to make sure Sebec gets the patio boat race that will transform it into a first-class vacation destination?”
Doug was a little puzzled by Nigel’s comment about Sebec being transformed into a vacation destination by the patio boat race but decided to get right to the questions he wanted to ask.
“We still need to talk to you Mr. Underwood about your relationship with John Eastman. Were you two in business together?”
Underwood reached for his crutches, struggled to stand, and motioned to his two bodyguards who were standing over by the boat ramp, dividing their attention between Nigel and the patio boats lined up on trailers waiting to be launched. They started walking over.
“Not this week,” Nigel replied. “Contact my lawyers and set something up for next week. Can’t you see I’m pretty fucking busy here.”
On full alert now, Doug realized that underneath Underhill’s hostility and arrogance, the man was on edge. He could almost smell the man’s fear. He wasn’t going to get anything from Nigel. But the man might open up if he became frightened enough.
“I’m going to leave you alone Nigel, for now. But keep in mind that I’m here to help if you need it. I’m guessing you’re in way over your head and will need to find some way out of your predicament pretty soon – sometime this week I figure. Give me a call.”
Underwood was walking away now, flanked by his goons. He turned his head slightly and called a goodbye to Doug.
“Fuck you Bateman.”
Anne walked in the front door of the roller rink and found Becky Hull ensconced in front of a cluster of three video screens, guiding a drone on the central screen over what Anne could recognize as the Bear Point Marina, down toward the east end of the lake. Becky turned and saw Anne. A few taps on the controls and she turned to smile up at Anne.
“I put it into hover mode so we can talk. Great to see you Anne. And kudos on your fencing gig.”
Anne smiled at the compliment and replied.
“How are you doing Becky? Are you still going to be part of the race drone team?”
“Part of the team, Anne? I’m running the team. I contacted my professor at U. of Maine and she’s sending over another two students to work with me. They arrive tomorrow. I’m a fucking star Anne, and I pilot these drones like I was born to it. It’s a blast.”
“That’s brilliant Becky. Sounds like you might have a future in drones. Nigel’s not giving you a hard time?”
“No. He barely asked if I was doing OK and hasn’t really looked over my shoulder at all. I’ve been back and forth with ESPN folks a lot though, since you sidelined Binford, and we are pretty much set now on how we will be covering the race. They seem happy with my performance so far, so I guess that’s good enough for Nigel.”
“And how’s Nigel doing Becky? Anything worth our interest?”
“He’s been acting really weird since he got back from the hospital, Anne. He talks on the phone a lot, some overseas calls I think, sometimes the conversations get pretty hot – I can’t hear what they’re saying, but there’s screaming involved, and I can pick out foul language now and then. And he’s in constant motion, thumping around on his crutches and muttering to himself. It’s getting pretty tense.”
Anne asked a few more questions, trying to elicit more specifics about Underwood’s behavior from Becky, but didn’t get anything additional - just that he was tense and skittish. Anne and Doug climbed back in the Otter and continued west through the narrows to the big lake. They cruised around South Cove, Tim’s Cove, and the rest of the west end of the lake but saw no sign of the black behemoth. They did, however, discover another race related kerfuffle, this time at the entrance to Bucks Cove. Half a dozen patio boats, all boasting the red signs with race numbers identifying them as entries in the upcoming competition, were crowded around a small ancient patio boat that was anchored directly in front of the narrow channel that provided the only access to the cove.
The race boat occupants, many wearing signature red shirts, were taking turns insulting the single occupant of the patio boat that blocked their way.
“They all want to try their luck at threading the needle where Nigel crashed,” Anne commented to Doug. “That coverage on ESPN of his spectacular flip probably did more to publicize the race than anything else they did.”
“That’s George Olsen,” Doug replied, pointing toward the ancient patio boat. “He’s gotta be in his middle eighties at least and has lived on Buck’s Cove his whole life.”
Doug slowly edged up next to the vintage patio boat. Smiling now, the old man lounging in the boat got up, stepped over, and dropping several bumpers, took the line offered by Anne and moored the Otter to his craft. Reaching out to take his hand, Doug stepped onto the patio boat and then helped Anne aboard. The surrounding patio boats all erupted in a new round of insults hurled toward the occupants of the boat blocking their way, prompting Anne and then Doug to hold up their badges, which silenced the insults and lifted the spirits of the assembled daredevils. They mistakenly assumed Doug and Anne would soon be clearing the way for them. But neither Anne nor Doug knew exactly what the jurisdictional complexity of the situation required. Technically, Doug thought, the waters of the inland freshwater lakes of Maine were the responsibility of the Warden Service, which was part of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. But while the warden service could enforce fishing laws and general boat safety regulations, Doug wasn’t sure they had the authority to make anyone move the location of their boat. And he wasn’t aware of any state or local regulations that gave either he or Anne any powers to enforce a “must move your boat” statute, if it even existed.
“Mornin Doug,” the old man said. “And I assume this is Anne - the fencer I have heard so much about.”
He was courteous enough to not to cover his throat with his hands.
“Morning George,” Doug replied. “This is indeed Anne Lapointe – the woman you have no doubt watched on YouTube. I see you have a couple of lines in the water. I would have thought you’d be in your usual spot over closer to Wilson Stream at Willimantic – nobody fishes here.”
“Well,” the old man replied. “I know that. I got lines in the water but there’s no bait. I’m just taking my turn blocking the cove entrance. We got some legal advice that indicated that it’s a gray area of the law. See, I’m not actually blocking the entrance. They can squeeze around me here if they go really slow and are careful. But they don’t have the room to try any high-speed attempts to run the entrance. We got together, those of us who live in Buck’s Cove, and set up a filibuster schedule. I drew today, but all week long and through the weekend there’ll be somebody right here with some lines in the water. They might not be really fishing, but if the wardens come around we will have all the required safety equipment, fishing licenses, and boat registrations they have jurisdiction over. And just in case, we checked with Bowerbank – we’re just within the Bowerbank boundary line. They confirmed that they wouldn’t think of trying to tell anyone where they can or can’t go fishing. Not gonna happen.”
Doug turned to the crowd of irate race entrants.
“OK, listen up. George and his boat can stay right where they are for as long as he wants. Over there, by that cottage, there’s a Sebec Lake website CCTV camera, which is recording us right now and will record any attempts to push George off his fishing spot. Lots of criminal charges could result from any such effort. And the Maine Warden Service is on its way to make sure everyone here, including George, have all the proper registrations, licenses, and safety equipment – fire extinguishers, personal flotation devices, whistles, distress flags, operational navigation lights, tow ropes, all that stuff. And also of course, to check for alcoholic beverages. Lakes are public places, I don’t have to remind any of you, and drinking in public is illegal in Maine.”