The Vanishing Expert

by David Movsesian

  That revelation didn’t make the task before him any easier. Maine’s ragged coastline stretched for hundreds of miles and consisted of dozens—perhaps hundreds— of small towns and remote fishing villages. For someone looking to slip into the cracks and disappear, as Edward Moody clearly was, some of these places were the cracks within the cracks.

  What frustrated Joe Tibbits most was that he was trying to get inside the head of a man he barely knew, and up until then, it had yielded nothing. But this latest epiphany offered some reassurance that he was getting closer, some slim hope that his efforts would not be in vain. Given that he was searching for a man that didn’t exist, even the slimmest hope was still hope.

  He spent the next four months as he’d spent the previous four; he worked construction during the day, and any spare time he invested in his search. During the winter, he called hundreds of contractors and construction companies along the coast from Kittery to Yarmouth. On occasion, he called in sick in order to spend the day driving from site to site, hoping to see James Perkins or even his old red Jeep, but it never happened.

  As the winter began to recede on the Maine coast, begrudgingly yielding to spring, Joe Tibbits began to feel the urge to move on. He’d managed to stay out of trouble during his stay in Portland, in part because he understood that work would be difficult, if not impossible, to find before the spring thaw; a hasty and unplanned exit could easily leave him out of work until crews grew busy again in the spring. But mostly it was his single-minded devotion to his search that allowed him to ignore his more primal impulses. He simply didn’t want to be forced to move on until he felt he’d exhausted every possibility of finding the impressively elusive Edward Moody there in the towns just to the north and south of Portland.

  By April, however, he grew restless, and he left Portland and ventured further up the Maine coast, stopping first in Brunswick where he stayed for barely more than a month. While there, he continued his search throughout the surrounding towns— Freeport and Bath, Topsham and Lisbon Falls among them— always finding nothing, but bolstered by the feeling (based upon nothing at all) that he was getting closer.

  While living in Brunswick, he took up with a tall redheaded woman named Sheila who worked as a waitress at a local diner where he frequently stopped for pie and coffee. Mostly, he stopped in to see Sheila, who was just on the pretty side of plain, and who was always friendly to the point of being flirty. More importantly, he enjoyed the way her blouse was just barely able to contain her full breasts when she leaned forward— a little more than she needed to— to refill his coffee.

  Perhaps he’d grown more confident by then in the belief that his rape of Jill Ouellette in Lewiston— or of any of the women who came before her— was safely behind him. There had been no mention of it in the newspaper in the weeks that followed. Even that Augusta Detective, Beauchampe, who’d spoken to him following a similar incident there, had been silent. He drew the conclusion that Mike Cochrane’s fiancé had told no one of the incident, not even Mike, and by the time he left Portland he was reasonably certain no one was searching for him.

  He might also have been emboldened by the knowledge that his stay in Brunswick was intended from the beginning to be brief, and that with the warmer months just around the corner, work further up the coast would certainly be easier to find.

  Whatever the reason, he left Brunswick suddenly in early May, for reasons known only to him— and to Sheila— and he ventured further up the coast, stopping along the way in Wiscasset, Damariscotta, Newcastle and Waldoboro; not to work, but simply to inquire of the local crews and to show James Perkins’ picture to as many people as he could, hoping that just one of them might recognize the face. As had been the case in every town along the way, no one claimed to know the man in the photograph, and no one had heard of James Perkins.

  He spent the summer working in Rockland, and given his first impression of the town, he was surprised to find that he liked it there. The rank, fishy stench from the docks was nearly unbearable when he’d first arrived, so assaulting him on his drive into town that he almost continued driving, writing off Rockland as uninhabitable. But so powerful was his obsession with finding Edward Moody that he stopped despite the offense to his senses, certain that Rockland or one of the surrounding towns— Waldoboro, Thomaston, Rockport, or Camden— could easily lure a carpenter with a love of the sea. By the end of the summer, he was only aware of the smell on especially hot days when the tide was low and the breeze off the ocean was thick with it. Otherwise, he hardly noticed it at all. Either the stench had subsided during his stay or he’d simply grown accustomed to it.

  He even liked the crew, which surprised him, since he rarely did. They were less rigid than many of the crews he’d worked with, and often times they were as unruly as he was. Like him, they were hard drinkers, and since most of them were single, their evenings ended, as often as not, nurturing their tolerance for alcohol in one of the many pubs in town.

  He befriended the foreman, a grizzled ex-lobsterman named Hank Welch who’d given up his boat for the construction business more than sixteen years earlier. It was rumored that, during his lobstering days, Hank had a habit of drinking on his boat. After nearly falling overboard— more than once, some said— he decided to put his gear on the bank (as the lobsterman say) to try his hand at construction.

  Hank always insisted that he gave up lobstering because the bay was fished out. It wasn’t an opinion that was supported by the rest of the lobstermen who made their living in and around Rockland Harbor, but it was one to which Hank Welch was unyieldingly committed, and one which he was more than happy to share with Joe Tibbits and anyone else who was willing to indulge him, particularly after a few beers in a local tavern.

  “Got to where I was just goin’ out to change the water in my traps,” Hank explained. “Couldn’t make a livin’ at it anymore, so I sold my boat, gear and all, and tried to do somethin’ useful.”

  During his first month as a carpenter, he somehow managed to fall nearly twenty feet from a scaffold, landing, to his good fortune, in an arborvitae hedge which interrupted his descent just enough that he suffered only a few bruises and some minor scratches. While he sustained no lingering ill effects from his fall, the fact that he had beer on his breath—and that a few empty Budweiser cans had tumbled down with him— gave some credence to the generally held belief that it hadn’t been the shortage of lobster that led him to abandon his previous occupation but the abundance of alcohol.

  As Hank sat in the dirt that day, regaining his composure after his fall, a co-worker who’d heard his claims numerous times, leaned over him and offered a wry smile. “What happened, Hank?” he asked loudly, plucking an empty beer can from the hedge and tossing it on the dirt near Hank’s feet. “Was the roof fished out too?”

  Whenever Hank joined the others on their evening adventures in town, Joe Tibbits was often at his elbow, matching him drink for drink. Over beers and shots of Jack Daniels, they talked about life in Maine and elsewhere— although neither had ever lived elsewhere— as well as about carpentry and fishing and any other topic that crossed their minds. More than anything, they talked about women.

  During the summer Joe Tibbits spent in Rockland, Hank never noticed him in the company of a woman, other than those he met in the local taverns. Hank observed those brief interactions, watching as Joe spoke to them, occasionally buying them a drink or two, but Hank never once saw Joe leave with one of those women. Just as noteworthy in Hank’s mind was the fact that he never heard Joe speak of any woman, other than the casual passing remarks about some random local girl who happened to catch his eye. It occurred to Hank that while Joe Tibbits seemed to appreciate women, he had no discernable interest in pursuing any of them for anything more than a brief conversation over a beer.

  For Hank, who lived vicariously through the exploits of his companions, Joe’s apparent indifference toward the local women was the source of a good deal of disappointment. On o
ccasion, when a he noticed a girl catching Joe’s interest, Hank pressed him to go speak to her.

  “Go buy her a drink,” Hank would tell him, the suggestion often accompanied by an elbow to Joe’s ribs for encouragement.

  Usually Joe would oblige without any argument, crossing the room and striking up a brief conversation with the woman before buying her another round of whatever beer she was drinking. Then, as often as not, he’d abruptly excuse himself and return to his friend.

  “Happy now?” he’d say as he took his place at Hank’s elbow once again and swilled his beer.

  Invariably, Hank just shook his head.

  It was in late July when Hank was finally curious enough about Joe’s behavior to question him about it. “You aint one of them funny fellas from down in Ogunquit, are ya?”

  Joe laughed so hard he nearly choked on his beer. “Fuck, no!” he assured his friend.

  “Then why on God’s green earth are you not doing more to get in the pants of these fine, upstanding young ladies?” Hank asked.

  Joe considered the question for a good long time before he answered. “You never know,” he said thoughtfully. “I might just decide to put down roots here.”

  Even in Hank’s inebriated condition, it seemed an odd remark, but Joe had no intention of explaining it, and Hank soon forgot the question.

  For Joe it was simple. He found he rather liked Rockland, despite his initial impression, and he decided he was in no particular hurry to leave. As he knew all too well, even when entering into a relationship with a woman with the best of intentions, it all too often led to his hasty departure. It was a scenario he hoped to avoid in Rockland, particularly so soon after his final tumultuous encounter with Sheila, the buxom waitress in Brunswick, and his sudden and unexpected exit from there.

  During his months in Rockland, Joe continued his search for Edward Moody, always certain he was getting closer. He called many of the local construction companies and contractors asking if they were familiar with James Perkins, and as had been the case in every other town along the way, no one was. There were days when he considered giving up his search and settling in Rockland, but as much as it felt like home to him, he knew that one day he’d have to leave it. He knew, too, that when that time came, Edward Moody was the only person who could help him. He never worried that Moody might be unwilling; when the time came, Joe Tibbits would see to it that he would have no choice. Until then, he’d continue to inquire after James Perkins in every town along the Maine coast.

  In July, he was encouraged, albeit briefly, when he came across one in Thomaston. He went by Jim, and despite the fact that the woman on the phone described this particular Jim Perkins as being a twenty-three year old blond who’d lived his entire life in that town, Joe’s obsession was so all-consuming that he needed to see for himself. He called in sick to work the next day and drove to the site in Thomaston where the boy was working. Only after meeting him was he satisfied that this was not his James Perkins and he was able to get on with his search elsewhere.

  Even though he’d taken a leap of faith in assuming that James was still using the same name, Joe Tibbits knew that his method of searching for him— by name, using the telephone— could easily have allowed James to evade him. So he often drove around town searching for construction in progress so that he might stop to look over the men who happened to be working that day. Most times he never even got out of his car, choosing instead to observe from a distance, but occasionally he got out and talked to one of the men, showing him the picture from the newspaper.

  Without exception the men he spoke to were unfamiliar with the smiling face in the photograph. Occasionally, his manner aroused suspicion. One man in Thomaston had been reluctant to look at the photograph, choosing instead to study Joe Tibbits’ weathered face.

  “You seem awful desperate to find this guy,” the man remarked in a gravelly voice, ravaged from years of smoking unfiltered cigarettes.

  Joe smiled at him, continuing to hold the photograph in front of the man, who continued to ignore it. “Like I said, he’s an old friend.”

  “Seems like a friend woulda told you where he was headed,” the man remarked. With that, he turned and returned to his work without ever looking at the photograph.

  The Maine Lobster Festival was held each year in Rockland at Harbor Park during the first weekend in August. Joe Tibbits wasn’t inclined to visit the carnivals which are so common in Maine towns during the summer, but from his apartment he could hear the music swirling in the air, and the smell of the boiled lobster dinners was so strong that it actually managed to overpower the stench that usually drifted in from the docks. His curiosity and his appetite finally lured him to the festival.

  He bought himself a lobster dinner and a beer and sat at a picnic table which he shared with a family who had driven two hours from Portland for the event. The young boy seated next to him, no more than ten years old, noticed Joe fumbling with his lobster, and graciously demonstrated the proper method of cracking the claw to remove the meat.

  “First you grab the claw and twist it off,” he instructed as he did exactly that.

  Joe watched the boy’s small hands as he removed the claw and deftly used the nutcracker to crush the shell, breaking off the tip.

  “Then you do this,” the boy said, as he poked his index finger through the hole at the tip of the claw and pushed the meat out the other end. He proudly held up the large piece of meat for Joe to see before dipping it into the melted butter and biting into it. “Go ahead,” he encouraged Joe. “You try it.”

  Joe followed the boy’s instructions, cracking the claw and removing the meat.

  “See?” the boy said. “It’s easy.”

  Joe smiled. “You’re a pretty good teacher,” he told the boy. “How ‘bout I buy you a beer?” He laughed loudly at the horrified expressions of the boy’s parents. “Just kiddin’,” he said. “Maybe when you’re a little older.” He reached into his pocket and handed the boy two dollars. “That’s for helping me out. Get yourself some cotton candy or somethin’.”

  As the family left the table, the young boy turned to wave at Joe Tibbits, who waved and smiled back at him.

  Joe lingered at the festival for longer than he planned, watching the crowds and admiring the young girls in their shorts and tank tops. Most of them were jail bait, he knew, but there was no harm in looking.

  He was leaning against a fence, washing down a doughboy with a cold bottle of beer, when he heard a familiar voice. It had been weeks since he’d encountered its owner, but he instantly recognized it as the smoke-ravaged voice of the Thomaston carpenter who’d refused to look at the photograph of Edward Moody.

  His name was Ernie Pike, though Joe Tibbits had never learned his name. He might not have even recognized Ernie’s face had he not first heard that damaged voice, but now it was unmistakable. He pulled the brim of his baseball cap down and raised his beer to his lips as Ernie passed him, accompanied by a heavy woman, presumably his wife. Ernie never noticed Joe’s penetrating glare as they passed him. He was preoccupied with his fat wife’s incessant complaining about having been on her feet too long, and not wanting to walk the six blocks to the side street where Ernie had parked his pickup a few hours earlier.

  “If you can make it up to the street, I’ll go get the truck and come back for you,” Ernie croaked.

  His corpulent wife whined something in response, but by then the couple had passed him and Joe was unable to hear their conversation over the music blasting from the tilt-a-whirl. He fell into stride twenty feet behind them, following Ernie’s green John Deere hat which bobbed slightly above the crowd. As he passed a row of picnic tables, Joe picked up a nutcracker that someone had left behind and slipped it into the back pocket of his jeans.

  When they reached the street, Ernie’s wife lowered herself onto a bench with a loud groan while Ernie proceeded along the sidewalk at a much quicker pace than he’d kept when his large wife lu
mbered alongside him. It wasn’t long before the crowds were behind them.

  Ernie crossed the street, never noticing Joe Tibbits’ skulking presence on the opposite sidewalk almost a half-block back. For more than six blocks Joe followed him, turning down one side street and then another until finally he saw Ernie reach into his pocket and remove his keys. A white Ford pickup was parked at the curb just ahead, and when Joe peered ahead and then behind him, he saw the street was deserted except for the two of them.

  Without uttering a word, Joe Tibbits broke into a dead run. It wasn’t until Joe was upon him that Ernie heard the footsteps approaching from behind, but before he could turn around, Joe hurled himself at Ernie’s back, bringing the bottom of his empty beer bottle down hard upon Ernie Pike‘s head. Ernie crumbled to the ground, striking his forehead on the sidewalk. The last sound he heard as he slipped into unconsciousness was the loud crack of his collarbone as the full weight of his attacker landed upon him.

  Joe stood up and looked again down the street, first in one direction, then the other, prepared to run if necessary, but the street remained deserted. He reached into his back pocket and produced the nutcracker he’d lifted from the table at the festival, the light from the street lamp glinting off its chrome finish. He quickly dropped onto one knee on the sidewalk next to Ernie, who was lying face down, and pressing his knee hard into Ernie’s ribs, he grabbed the unconscious man’s limp left hand and pulled it closer. He wrapped the nutcracker around Ernie’s index and middle fingers at the second knuckles and firmly squeezed it, just as he had around the lobster claw just a few hours earlier, until he heard the bones crack. Ernie, still unconscious, flinched but made no sound.