The Vanishing Expert

by David Movsesian

  "Hey," she said. "Do you know that guy who just left?"

  Hank Welch looked her up and down and smiled. She was pretty, or would be were it not for the slightly crooked nose. "You mean Joe?" he asked.

  "Yeah, Joe," she said, as if they were old acquaintances and she was just remembering his name.

  "You know Joe?" the man asked her.

  "I think so," she said. "What's his last name again?"

  Hank was about to blurt out Joe’s last name when it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps this girl had been the reason Joe had made such a hasty exit from the bar. Perhaps she was a former conquest Joe was trying to avoid. He didn’t want to betray his friend.

  "You know," he said. "I guess it slipped my mind." He smiled at the girl. "How do you know him again?"

  All four of the men who'd been drinking with her assailant were looking at her now, and she glanced from one face to the next, her stomach in knots. Then she shook her head. "Maybe I don't," she said. "The guy I was thinking about was a lot younger," she lied. Then she ushered her friends away to a far corner of the bar where they waited for the men to leave. She had no doubt that the man she'd seen, the one they called Joe, had been the one who'd approached her in the bar in Bangor and then attacked her in the parking lot. The expression on his face when their eyes met had only confirmed her suspicion. What she was uncertain about was what she should do about it.

  It would be two days before she summoned the courage to go to the police.

  Though Joe Tibbits had no way of knowing, the Rockland police now had a description of him, a first name, and a description of his drinking companions who, as it turned out, were Friday night regulars at the pub where the girl had confronted them. Even if they couldn't find Joe Tibbits, it wouldn’t be difficult to find one of his friends and get a last name, if not more.

  On Monday morning, when Joe arrived at the construction site, his co-workers told him about the girl who'd asked about him after he left the pub on Friday night. They prodded him for details, assuming she was one of Joe's conquests, while assuring him that they hadn't given her any information about him. Nothing, that is, except his first name.

  Joe claimed not to have known the girl, but privately, he decided at that moment that his life in Rockland, as it had in so many other towns before, had come to an abrupt end. This time, the police likely had a name, which meant he no longer had any use for it. While he was disappointed to leave his life in Rockland behind him, he was grateful that he’d found James Perkins a year earlier, and that he’d followed his instructions to the letter since receiving the obituary of Robert Michael Parks in the mail. He knew exactly what needed to be done; the time had come for Joe Tibbits to die.

  He finished out the day, giving no indication that anything had changed as he formulated his plan. That night, he packed his belongings into his pickup truck and headed north on Coastal Route One. He drove only as far as Belfast, less than an hour up the coast, and checked into a motel for the night under the name Robert Parks, having spent the last year establishing that identity. Following James’s instructions, he'd obtained a social security card, a driver’s license, and a bank account. Under the name Robert Parks, he’d rented a small studio apartment in Brewer, Maine, not far from the bars he frequented on his regular excursions to Bangor. He’d even purchased an old Ford pickup truck which was registered under Robert Parks, which he left parked behind the apartment building in Brewer. He rarely drove it, but he found comfort in knowing it was there should he ever need it.

  After spending that first night at the roadside motel in Belfast, he drove to Brewer to retrieve the truck and finally reap the benefits of his year of preparation; he would become Robert Parks once and for all, relieving himself of Joe Tibbits like a snake shedding its skin. Then he would drive to Bar Harbor to extract one more favor from the one person who had no choice but to help him. Together, they would make certain that no one would be searching for Joe Tibbits, just as no one had searched for Edward Moody beyond the futile search of Narragansett Bay.

  Even before Joe Tibbits arrived on Mount Desert Island, James sensed a storm approaching. He’d seen the sketch in Tuesday's Bangor Daily News, and although it was only a vague likeness, and the article provided only a first name, James instantly recognized it as being the face of Joe Tibbits.

  The accompanying article suggested the man was dangerous and was considered a suspect in multiple attacks and sexual assaults dating back several years. An Augusta detective, Martin Beauchampe, was quoted as saying that he believed this man to be the same suspect he’d been pursuing for nearly four years in association with more than a dozen attacks on women in central and coastal Maine. Most recently, he was a suspect in an attack of a young woman— the Rockland townie who'd mocked him and then suffered the consequences— outside a bar in Bangor, Maine. As James read the article, he became sick to his stomach, not just for the role he knew he’d played in helping Joe Tibbits to remain free to carry out his violence, but also because he knew that now that the police had published a picture— albeit a rough sketch— and a name, that Joe Tibbits would likely be coming to find him. He’d naively accepted the receipt of the scrapbook at Christmas as a sign that Joe Tibbits was out of his life for good, but he was now certain that even though he’d rid himself of that evidence, watching it turn to ash in the fireplace, that he would never truly be rid of Joe Tibbits.

  James wasn’t the only person who recognized the sketch in the newspaper, which also appeared in regional papers in Waterville, Lewiston, Portland, and Rockland. In Brunswick, the buxom red-haired waitress, who’d fallen victim to Joe Tibbits’ rage when he witnessed her flirting with another patron at the diner, recognized the face staring back at her. She could have provided the police with a last name but chose to say nothing, not wanting to do anything that might invite him back into her life again.

  Louise Pike, Ernie Pike’s wife, was certain she’d seen that face before, but it would be days before she would remember it as belonging to the friendly man who'd shared a bench and a brief conversation with her a year earlier on the night that her husband was attacked in Rockland after leaving the Lobster Festival. She showed the sketch to her husband, who had never seen his attacker and was certain he'd never seen the man in the sketch before.

  Mike Cochrane had no difficulty recognizing the face of the man he’d fired more than a year earlier, and he sat cursing at the sketch and the accompanying article for several minutes until his young wife came into the kitchen and peered over his shoulder to see what was upsetting him. When Jill Cochrane (the former Jill Ouellette) recognized the face of the man who’d raped her behind the dumpster at the bar in Lewiston, she gasped and then hurried into the bathroom where she vomited in the sink.

  In the Friday edition of the Bangor Daily News, a follow-up article appeared which included references to additional victims who had come forward after seeing the initial article and sketch in the paper on Monday. The second article once again displayed the sketch, but this time the article also included a last name (courtesy of Mike Cochrane) and a photograph, which appeared to be from Joe Tibbits' driver's license. In the photograph, as in the sketch, Joe Tibbits' wore a beard and moustache— dark considering his light complexion and sandy-colored hair— which Joe had shaved off while at the motel in Belfast. While those who knew him would surely recognize him, a stranger on the street was unlikely to make the connection between the serious images of the bearded Joe Tibbits in the newspaper article and the clean-shaven Robert Parks who was making his way toward Mount Desert Island.

  On Saturday morning, James was working in Ben’s garage. Having finally put Ben’s boat in the water for the season the previous weekend, he now had room in the garage to work on his own boat, getting it ready for the approaching summer season. He was kneeling in the stern of the boat preparing to change the oil when he heard a familiar voice.

  “Still into boats, eh, Moody?” Joe Tibbits said from the doorway.
<
br />   James didn’t look up. He’d been expecting Joe Tibbits to seek him out, though he hadn’t expected his tormentor to find him in Ben’s garage. Since they’d never spoken of it, he assumed he was safe there.

  “You’re a lot easier to find these days,” Joe finally offered, as if he knew what James was thinking. “I already knew where you live.” He smiled. “You got my little Christmas gift, right?”

  James nodded but said nothing.

  “I just figured it was better to conduct our business in private, so I followed you here.”

  James stood up, wiping his hands on a rag, and peered down at Joe. “What business?” he asked, though he already knew the answer. “I thought we were done with each other,” he said.

  Joe came closer. He walked alongside the boat, running his fingertips along the sleek hull as he moved slowly toward the bow. “Turns out I need another favor from you.”

  “I gave you everything you needed,” James said. “We had a deal.”

  “And you lived up to your end, Jimmy-boy. Everything worked just like you said it would.”

  James frowned. “So why are you here?”

  Near the bow of the boat, Joe Tibbits stopped at a table where a lukewarm cup of coffee rested beside the previous day’s edition of the Bangor Daily News. He opened the paper to page three where he knew he would find the police sketch and his photograph staring back at him.

  “Simple,” Joe said. He picked up the newspaper and held it up so James could see the likeness with which he’d grown all too familiar. “I need you to help me make this guy disappear.”

  Once again, James found himself faced with the decision to either help Joe Tibbits, setting him free upon the world once again to continue his violence under a new name, or to risk being exposed for his own deception three years earlier and losing everything. He’d believed— foolishly, he now realized— that when he’d reluctantly agreed to help Joe Tibbits to create his new identity a year earlier that Joe would be out of his life for good. Now he wondered if he ever would be.

  Even worse, when he helped him a year earlier he only suspected that Joe Tibbits was short-tempered and unscrupulous. Now that he’d read about Joe’s history of violence, it sickened him that some of the pain he’d inflicted on others in the last year could have been a direct result of his helping Joe to create his new identity. Even if having that new name hadn’t played a role in any of the attacks, it likely gave Joe Tibbits the confidence to act upon his impulses knowing he had a way to escape should something go wrong. Now that time had come, and he was once again forcing James to help him or lose everything.

  Realizing he had no option, he convinced Joe to meet him back at the garage that night. He needed time to consider a plan. He even suggested that Joe stay at the garage in order to remain out of sight. James was less concerned with Joe being recognized than he was worried about being spotted in his company.

  “I need to take care of some things and work out some details,” James said. “But I’ll meet you back here tonight. Eight o’clock.”

  Joe glared at him for a long time, trying to read James’s expression. “Don’t fuck with me, Moody,” Joe warned. “I’m gonna be watching you.”

  “I want you gone as much as you want to be gone,” James assured him. “You just need to give me some time to work it out.”

  James closed up the garage and drove to Bar Harbor to look in on Jean and the baby at the gallery. He walked in and picked up William, hugging and kissing him so vigorously that it appeared either as if he hadn’t seen the boy in weeks, or that he might never see him again. Jean was pleased to see him, but she immediately sensed that something was wrong.

  “I didn’t expect to see you to today,” she said. “I thought you were spending the day working on your boat.”

  “Change of plans,” James said, trying to sound unaffected. “I needed to pick up a few things in town and I figured I’d come in to give my boy a kiss.” He leaned forward and gave Jean a quick peck, followed by a firm, lingering kiss. “And you, too,” he said.

  Stepping out of the gallery, he happened to look across the street and into the Village Green where he saw Joe Tibbits sitting upon one of the park benches facing the gallery. His face displayed no emotion as he glared directly at James, and he made no effort to rise from the bench as their eyes met.

  Sitting next to Joe on the same bench was Georgie Peck, whose full attention was focused on an ice cream cone. As James observed the two men seated at opposite ends of the same bench, it occurred to him that all manner of men— from the decent to the flawed to the despicable— would somehow fit in that narrow space on that bench between Joe Tibbits and Georgie Peck; such was the distance between them.

  James turned and walked away without further acknowledging him. Though he never saw Joe again as he went about his business, he sensed Joe was always nearby, watching him.

  That night, James arrived at the garage at exactly eight o’clock to find Joe Tibbits already waiting for him in his pickup truck. James unlocked the door and walked inside, Joe following close behind. Once inside, James described the plan that he hoped would finally rid him of Joe Tibbits.

  On Sunday, Joe Tibbits was to wait until after noon to rent a kayak from the sport shop on the far end of Cottage Street. Since the shop would be closing early on Sunday, a full day’s rental wouldn’t be due back until noon the following day— something James had learned from Christina the previous summer. The rental would ensure that Joe would be missed, but even more importantly, that he wouldn’t be missed until the following afternoon when he failed to return the rented kayak.

  “That should give you time to get out of the state before the boat turns up,” James explained. James noted Joe Tibbits’ detached expression, and he became concerned. “You are planning to leave the state, aren’t you?”

  Joe offered a twisted grin that always made James’s skin prickle. “You sound like you want to get rid of me, James.”

  “More than you could possibly know.”

  That was when Joe Tibbits told James about the letters.

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you to hold up your end of the deal,” Joe tried to assure him. “I just like to make sure. After all, you know everything about me; who I was, what I did, and that I’m still… out there.”

  James frowned. “It sounds more like I should be worried about you.”

  Joe chuckled, a dry grating sound, and planted his hand firmly on James’s shoulder. “That’s the trouble with you, James. You worry too much. The bottom line is that you don’t have to worry about anything as long as you do what you’re supposed to. With any luck, this will be the last time we have to do this.”

  “This is the last time,” James insisted.

  Joe continued with his thought, ignoring James’s remark. “But if you decide to fuck with me, Jimbo, then your little secret is gonna be front page news.” He placed his hand on the wooden hull of the Chris Craft. “Before I came here,” Joe continued, “I wrote two letters. One to Gloria Moody, or should I say Gloria Kendall. By the way, how do you feel about that, James? I mean that she’s gotten on with her life? And doing damned good for herself, too.” Seeing James’s taught expression, Joe smiled. “I do my homework. In fact, I’ll bet I knew she was fucking her boss even before you did.”

  James took a deep breath, trying to contain his rage, but before he could say anything, Joe Tibbits continued.

  “The other letter is to a certain detective in Augusta— Beauchampe. I ran that fucker ragged for four years. I made him look like an idiot more than once. I figure I’ll throw him a bone. So, if for some reason this whole thing doesn’t go off smooth as fucking silk, he’ll be on your ass for a change.”

  James stopped and looked contemptuously at his companion. “If you already mailed the letters, why should I even bother helping you?”

  Joe turned to him and smiled. “That’s the beauty of this thing, Jimbo. There’s mailboxes all over
this island. Thousands of them! One out in front of every house and half the businesses from here to Ellsworth. If there happened to be a letter in one of them, or two of them, they wouldn’t get picked up until Monday morning sometime. Once I know you kept up your end of the deal, I’ll tell you where they are. That’ll give you plenty of time to go get them before they go anywhere. But if you fuck with me, or if I even get the feeling you’re thinking about fucking with me, then they go out with Monday’s mail and you’re nice little life here is over. And when Beauchampe locks you up, there won’t be a fuckin’ thing you can do to stop me from paying a friendly visit to your beautiful wife or that sweet piece of ass of a stepdaughter of yours.” He thought for a moment. “I might even stop in to see your sister and your ex-wife on my way south.”

  James glared at him, sickened by the thought of Joe Tibbits being free to exact his revenge while James sat in a jail cell, helpless to stop him. He was filled with hatred for the man and the control he had over his life, but he tried not to allow his expression to betray him. “I just want you gone,” he finally said. He wanted to sound unconcerned with Joe Tibbits’ threats, but he could hear the tremble in his own voice.

  “Then we want the same thing,” Joe said. “All you have to do is live up to your end of the deal, and I’m out of your life and everything goes back to normal for you.” He attempted to smile but the baring of his teeth appeared more aggressive than friendly. “This all gets really easy for you as soon as you figure out that you really only have one fucking choice.”

  After a long sleepless night, weighing his limited options and their repercussions, James arrived back at the same conclusion. If he wanted to protect those people he loved, Joe Tibbits was right; he had only one choice.