by John Philpin
He was right. It was my problem.
I thanked Beckerman, who slipped back through his door and locked it.
I climbed another flight, found apartment four, and knocked. A tall, blond young woman with brilliant blue eyes, dressed in jeans and a Bowdoin College sweatshirt, answered my knock. I explained who I was and why I was there. She said her name was Gretchen Nash and invited me in.
The place was a loft, an area with a kitchenette in one corner, a metal closet in the opposite corner. She had five windows, a partial view of the harbor, no curtains, and a bed in front of the windows. A small red, green, and gold octagonal mirror hung at the foot of the bed between two of the windows.
“It’s feng shui,” Nash said, following my gaze. “It’s not a paranoid thing. I like to wake with the sun on my face, but I should be able to see the door behind me.”
She pointed at the mirror. “That’s an important eighth of the room… fame and reputation. I placed all the mirrors to help with the chi flow.”
Mr. Beckerman and Ms. Nash were quickly making me appreciate not being able to pee over my Jeep. I had forgotten how strange youth could be. Was I ever this young? Doubtful.
Nash had hung half a dozen mirrors in the rectangular room, probably creating a chi flow like a pinball game.
The morning sun illuminated a large easel and canvas.
“The light is perfect until early afternoon,” she said. “After that…” Nash shrugged, allowing the sentence to dangle.
“I usually work until noon. I might eat something then, but I’m not an eating fan. It’s such a face thing.”
She’d covered one wall with her artwork. Most of her paintings and sketches were of people, in various states of dress and undress, alone or involved as couples or trios locked in physical postures that appeared vaguely sexual.
None of them had heads.
“Heads are the least attractive part of the anatomy,” Nash said, seeing me stare.
Despite the tangles of limbs, the breasts that emerged between elbows and buttocks, Nash’s work possessed a symmetry. She consistently set her chaotic collisions of people at center and contained their silent groping, reaching, or flailing within perfect squares or circles. The technique paradoxically added to the sense of tumult, while it controlled the disorder.
One of her headless people was a slender male, dressed in gray chinos and work shirt. “Harper Dorman?” I asked.
“I heard what happened,” she said. “I mean, I heard about it. I didn’t, like, hear the shots or anything. The cops were here. I don’t know who’d want to kill him. He could be hard to get along with, but he was dying anyway. Cancer. Nobody had to kill him. He figured he had six months. That’s what he said two months ago. It’s strange. Nothing like this ever happened to me before… knowing someone who got murdered. I nearly moved out. I mean, there was a killer right in this building. Then—I know this sounds callous—but fear fades.”
She gazed at the drawing. “I sketched him when he first moved into the building.”
“How was he hard to get along with?” I asked.
“Tea? I was just gonna fix some.”
“Please.”
She filled a kettle and set it on the small electric range. “Mr. Dorman has a nasty temper,” she said. “Had, I guess. He’d blow up over nothing. A burnt-out lightbulb in the stairwell. A doorbell that didn’t work. He drank all the time. That was most of it. He didn’t pose for me or anything. I remember people. Their bodies. You can’t see it in the painting, but the reason he’s on his toes is that he was standing on a stepladder, reaching up.”
She demonstrated. I got the idea.
“I’ve got most of the Zingers and Cranberry Cove,” Nash said. “Celestial Seasonings. I don’t like caffeine. There’s enough stimulation going around. No. Wait a minute. I’ve got some Earl Grey decaf, too.”
“Earl Grey sounds good,” I said. “When was the last time you saw Mr. Dorman?”
She placed two mugs and two tea bags on the table, then sat across from me. “Let’s see. I came in late that Wednesday night,” she said. “A friend of mine who’s a sculptor had an installation here in the city. His show is called ‘The Surge to the Electric Dot.’ He called the final piece ‘The Electric Dot,’ so all the other stuff surges toward it.”
She extended her arms and stood on one foot, leaning. “Well, he thought it did. It’s a black-and-gold Styrofoam ball with an extension cord hanging out of it. There was supposed to be a straight section of coat hanger stuck in it, too, but that kept falling out. He nearly called it ‘Bad Sex’ because of that, but he didn’t. One guy wanted to plug it into a wall socket to see what it would do. Jesus. He could’ve shorted out the room, or worse. We went to the Old Port afterwards, drank champagne. Mr. Dorman was sitting on the steps outside when I got back. I was tipsy, maybe. He was wobbly. Seemed like he always was. He didn’t say anything. He never talked to the tenants unless he had to. I said hi, but…”
Again she shrugged, and left the sentence hanging.
“Did he have his dog with him?”
She raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know he had a dog. I wouldn’t think he’d want to take care of an animal. I mean, I’m sorry he’s dead, but he wasn’t a very nice person.”
“Did you ever see him with anyone?”
“Just the rental agent, Mr. Crandall. He came twice a month or so. They talked. Mr. Crandall took the rent checks, paid Mr. Dorman. I saw them a couple of times in the downstairs hall. That’s Mr. Crandall over there.”
The kettle whistled. On her way to the stove, Gretchen Nash pointed to one of the sketches. Again I was struck by a sense of recognition; the short, stocky, headless figure looked vaguely familiar.
“That one’s a caricature,” she said, pouring hot water into the mugs. “He isn’t really that obese. I felt like he should be, or maybe would be one of these days.”
“Crandall?”
She nodded. “Twitchy guy in his early forties maybe. All tics and fidgets.”
Aha. Finally. Gretchen Nash had drawn and described a bloated version of Stu Gilman.
“You’re not from Maine, are you?” she asked.
“I live in Michigan.”
“Really? That’s one of those places… like Iowa. I’m pretty sure it’s there, but it’s hard to believe. I’d believe in a caring god a lot sooner than I’d believe in Iowa or Michigan or… cyberspace.”
She shuddered. “I can get a handle on the god concept, but miles of flat nowhere and electronic wizardry leave me barren.”
What is going on with America’s youth?
“Do you have any idea who owns this building?”
She shook her head. “It’s a company, not a person. That’s all I know. Mr. Dorman was murdered, huh? Like I said, I didn’t hear anything that night. Not shots or anything. It’s usually pretty quiet around here. The guy downstairs, Wendell Beckerman, cranks his stereo sometimes, but you get used to it. He’s into grumbly music. Tom Waits. Beck. Randy Newman. Steady diet of that bums you out. It does him, anyway. So, you’re not interested in the woman, huh?”
“Woman?” I asked, sipping my Earl Grey.
“Maybe you already investigated about her. The one who was in the building a month ago. She said she was looking for Mr. Dorman,”
I looked up. “I don’t know about her.”
“Money,” Nash said. “She was dressed like she’d just left a Paris fashion show. She wore dark wraparounds, a kerchief over her head. It was as if she didn’t want to be recognized, like a Jackie Onassis thing. Slender. Pale skin. Stretch limo parked at the curb. It was weird. I was going out. She was standing there in the hall looking lost. I asked if I could help her, you know? She said she was looking for Harper Dorman. No way she was after an apartment to rent. That’s her up there.”
I walked over and stared at the painting of a headless woman dressed in a black sheath, a strand of pearls across the neckline. She wore black spike heels and a ring on her left hand.
“Hair color?”
Nash shrugged. “Like I said, her head was covered. That was nice of her. With the sunglasses, too, I couldn’t see much of her face except the shape of it. I told her that Mr. Dorman had the basement apartment. Then she turned and walked out. Her driver opened the limo door for her, and off they went.”
“Did you say anything to Dorman about her?”
“It was bad enough wading through his fumes to tell him when the stove shit the bed, then listening to him rant about how I must’ve left the burner on for ten days like Beckerman does. I figured if she wanted him bad enough, she’d find him.”
“Can you describe her driver?”
“African-American,” Nash said. “Big, like a football player. No. Basketball is the tall guys, right? He was more tall than big. Shaved head. Lots of neck. White shirt, black pants. Maybe thirty-five.”
“He’s not up here,” I said, surveying the paintings and sketches.
“I don’t do everybody I see. He wasn’t that interesting. Watch TV. You see guys like that all the time selling sneakers.”
Another of her paintings was populated only by a headless, waifish child—a girl, I thought—reflected in a cracked mirror at the center of what appeared to be an amusement park. A chaotic arrangement of lines and arcs and circles created the sense of Whips and Roundups, Coasters and Flying Scooters, that wound wildly toward space with no hope of return.
I asked Nash if she had any objection to my having photographs taken of her paintings of Dorman, Crandall, and the woman.
“You can borrow them,” she said. “You have an honest body.”
I gave her a quizzical look.
“I know. People always say ‘honest face.’ I don’t read faces. I read bodies and their movement. You’re a Leo, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“See?”
I CARRIED GRETCHEN NASH’S PENCIL SKETCHES OF Dorman and Crandall, and her acrylic painting of the mystery woman, and headed down a flight.
Jaworski stood in the hall. “You make a purchase?” he asked, cracking a grin.
“They’re on loan from the artist, Gretchen Nash, on the third floor. I’ll explain later.”
“First floor rear is a Vietnamese family,” Jaworski said. “The kid’s the only one who speaks English, and not real well. They don’t know anything. Thought I was there to collect rent. Kept trying to force money on me. Front apartment is an old guy, pretty close to deaf. He hadn’t seen Dorman since he paid his rent last month.”
“Does the name Wendell Beckerman ring any bells with you?”
He shook his head.
“Beckerman has the apartment on the second floor. I’ve seen him somewhere, but I can’t place him.”
Jaworski and I caught up with Norma Jacobs on the front steps.
“We found some court papers with Dorman’s stuff,” Jacobs said. “He was married. Lived with the woman in South Portland for sixteen years. Fifteen years ago, the woman filed a child abuse complaint against Dorman, then got a permanent restraining order. Prosecutor dropped the charges against him. Doesn’t say why.”
“You got names?” Jaworski asked.
“Names are blacked out. Court records should have them. Social Services would. You guys came down here because of the ballistics match. You want connections to your murders, and I want to clear this one. Think I’ve got something here. Five years ago, Dorman worked in maintenance at Harbor College.”
HERB JAWORSKI TOLD ME ABOUT HIS FAVORITE PORTLAND.
An enlightened city government and an active citizens’ group had reclaimed and gradually restored the city’s Old Port district, he said. Utne Reader had named the city one of the top ten most enlightened cities in the U.S.
“I was born on Sheridan Street, over by Standpine Park,” Jaworski said. “Lived there with my folks and my little brother Henry until I went into the service. I was an M.P., spent a year in Korea. When I came home, Portland P.D. didn’t have any openings, but Ragged Harbor needed somebody to wear a uniform and walk up and down Main Street. Been there ever since.”
We parked on Commercial, at the bottom of Dana Street, then hiked over the cobblestones to Big Mama’s. I’d heard of the restaurant, christened when its pregnant owner bought the place. The small eatery was famous for its breakfast special: any style eggs and chorizo, a Mexican sausage.
“Took the select board a few years to realize that crime was drifting up from Portland and down from Augusta,” Jaworski said, breathing heavily from our walk up the slight grade. “Then we had the sixties. We seized drugs and couldn’t identify them. Had to drop a whole lot of cases because we didn’t know what the stuff was.”
Big Mama’s offered old wooden tables in odd shapes and sizes. There were equally varied helpyourself chairs all over the crowded room. We walked across the scuffed linoleum floors to a vacant table, consulted our menus, and ordered.
Over lunch, we attempted to puzzle through what little we knew.
Someone had fired eight shots into Harper Dorman’s head, then torn at him with a frenzy usually reserved for lions ripping apart wildebeests on the African plains. Thirty-six hours later, the same gun was used in the triple murder on Crescent Street in Ragged Harbor.
But that scene was controlled. There was evidence of rage, not of frenzy. The killer patiently designed a stage set, then ate an orange.
Five years earlier, Dorman had worked at the college.
“I don’t remember the guy,” Jaworski said. “Must be we didn’t have any dealings with him.”
“Why did he leave his job at Harbor?” I asked.
“Dismissed,” Jacobs said. “He grieved it through his union. Didn’t do any good. Administration had a paper trail of reprimands on his alcohol abuse.”
“Who owns the building on Mellen Street?”
“Rental agent is Paul Crandall. He handles Mellen and eighteen other properties in the city for Martin International. They’ve got a big spread out by the highway, but they ain’t exactly in real estate.”
Martin International again. Curiouser and curiouser.
“Have you met Paul Crandall?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Herb, maybe we should stop at MI on our way out of town.”
“Doubt you’ll find Crandall there,” Jacobs said through a mouthful of burger. “He collects rent. MI is millions of dirty dollars. Crandall’s a percentage gofer on a bunch of rentals.”
“You know about the company,” I said.
“They smell worse than low tide, but nobody can touch them. Couple of months ago an informant called, young gal who works out there. She saw a TV news thing about money laundering in South Florida and thought maybe that’s what she was doing here. She handles deposits and withdrawals for a dozen MI client corporations. We checked a couple of names she gave us and they were dummies, bank accounts and post office boxes. Last time she called was ten days ago to set up a meeting for this week. She didn’t show, and we haven’t heard from her.”
“Think she got spooked?” Jaworski asked.
Jacobs nodded. “Martin is major league. We’ve had undercover people at the airport when some of their guests came through. First I thought it was drugs. Then I thought it was guns. Now I figure it’s the money from all of the above. Colombians, Dominicans, Libyans, Mexicans… we even saw a few Iraqis last year. Papers were always in order. A honcho at MI, guy named Weatherly, complained to politicians in Augusta and Washington. We can’t check papers anymore. Have to stay a hundred feet away from the pricks and prickettes. All that diplomatic shit.”
“What about Stuart Gilman?” I asked.
“Never met him. I know the name, though. He’s MI’s all-purpose ‘hands-on’ man.”
“What does that mean?”
“He does everything but plunge the toilets. Maybe he does that, too.”
“The owner and CEO seems to be something of a mystery,” I said.
“Melanie Martin,” Jacobs nodded. “Never laid
eyes on her. She has to be smart. She was in business only a year when they broke ground on that fortress they call corporate headquarters. She’s done a lot for the city, restoring old buildings, funding a women’s health center, writing big checks for the arts. I can’t say anything critical of her, except that her company sucks.”
Jacobs stabbed french fries with her fork and soaked them with ketchup. “You getting the Markham updates, Herb?”
“Last I knew was the sighting in Connecticut.”
“Plenty of time to get up this way.”
“Karen Jasper’s convinced.”
Jacobs nearly choked and then burst into laughter. “You got the frustrated feebie on it, huh? Jesus, Herb. You got more trouble than I thought.”
“She seems smart enough,” Jaworski protested. “She doesn’t care for Lucas working the case, but she’s helped on a lot of tough ones around the state.”
“All she knows how to do is play computer games, organize her file folders, and call in the feds. She’s suckin’ up because she wants to graduate from here to there. No fuckin’ help from that one, pardon my French. Oughta spend more time on her red hair and less on red herrings. Had her down here twice last year. She types shit into that laptop and says the butler did it. Trouble is, there ain’t no butler.”
Oh, yes. I imagine I was looking quite smug.
Jacobs inhaled the last of her fries and yelled for the check.
“The select board on your back?”
Jaworski snorted. “Nothing new there. They wanted me to retire five years ago. Hubble Saymes chairs the board. He says that new crimes require new cops.”
“Hubble’s full of shit. Couple of years ago, I popped his kid on a possession charge. Hubble called in every chit he had. His pothead kid still got court diversion, same as all the others.”
“You follow up on Dorman at this end,” Jaworski said. “We’ll take a look at his history up our way.”
She nodded, then looked at me. “So, Doc, when do you do your magic?”
I laughed. “Wish I could.”
“Bullshit,” she snapped as she stood and yanked up her jeans. “I read your profile on the Markham murders first time around. You wrote it a long time before the bastard got nailed. I still think murder profiling’s a little shit and a lot of hocus-pocus, but you had him pegged. You think it’s him again?”