by Paul Doiron
* * *
With the low cloud cover, I had begun to worry that Klesko’s fears were not entirely unfounded. Charley was arguably the finest bush pilot in Maine, but you’d be hard-pressed to find an aviation expert who would recommend taking off from an unlit airstrip in pitch-black conditions, especially with twenty-knot winds buffeting the hilltop.
“How are you going to do this, Charley?” I asked.
“With Ms. Juno’s kind assistance.”
I should have realized that my friend had more tricks up his sleeve than a vaudeville magician.
Klesko removed his black duffel from the back of the pickup and dropped it at his feet. It landed like a bag of hammers.
“I’ll aim to get back here as soon as I can tomorrow,” he said. “Marshall has me scheduled as her first witness. She’s putting me on the stand after opening statements. So early afternoon at the latest. I’ll try to get one of our state police pilots to fly me out of Bangor to save time.”
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my peacoat. “Do you mind my doing interviews without you?”
“Not as long as you record your conversations.”
Charley wandered over, humming one of the folk songs he’d picked up as a child in the logging camps, “The Ballad of Roaring Bert.”
“How are you going to see well enough to take off?” Klesko asked the pilot.
“Don’t you worry, Steve. I’ve flown on nights that were as dark as two yards up a bear’s behind.”
I wondered if the state police detective realized that these lumber-camp expressions were part of Charley Stevens’s act. My friend could turn the folksiness on or off when the situation called for it. As a warden, he had secured dozens of convictions against people who had underestimated his intelligence.
“What about those trees at the end?” I said.
“That’s where Joy comes in, provided she’s game for it.”
The muscular woman laughed. “For a cutie like you, I’ll do anything.”
Charley directed her to drive along the runway and park perpendicular to the end. “Shine your headlights across the gravel if you will. Now if you all will excuse us, the investigator and I have something we need to talk about.”
“Have you done this before?” I asked him when we were alone.
“Stacey did, and she lived to tell to the tale. That’s good enough for me.”
“Your daughter’s always been a resourceful woman.”
He fell silent in the darkness.
“Any last pieces of advice?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.
“Just because Harmon is the big cheese out here doesn’t mean he knows who shot Ariel. He might have his suspicions, but he doesn’t know for sure. That’s why he wanted to shadow us all day.”
“I thought it was to keep tabs on the investigation.”
“It was that, too. But I can tell when someone’s nervous. In Vietnam I used to play poker against Green Berets, and those bastards gave me a crash course in spotting bluffs. Pay attention the next time Harmon starts fiddling with his corncob pipe.”
“Will do.”
Charley sighed and glanced toward the cockpit of the Cessna. “Take care, young feller. The people here seem friendly enough, but never forget that someone is hiding a deadly secret. And he’s already killed once. Keep your pistol under your pillow and a round in your chamber when you go to sleep tonight.”
I held out my hand for him to shake as was our custom, but for the first time in my memory, he embraced me. After a moment, he let go and made his way to the plane without a backward glance.
I waited in the darkness as he went down the items on his checklist. Then the engine sputtered to life, the propeller began to turn, and the aircraft started creeping forward. The next thing I knew, it was speeding and hopping along the uneven ground. Seconds before it crossed the shining, ethereal fence made by Joy Juno’s headlights, I saw the wheels leave the ground.
I was marooned on Maquoit Island.
14
Joy Juno turned the truck toward the village. “Now where?”
“Is there a restaurant—?”
“Oh, sure. We have restaurants on the island. Good ones, too. If you don’t mind waiting till Memorial Day for them to open.”
I should have known that most businesses would be closed for the season.
“What about this famous Trap House where Ariel was said to hang out?”
“You seem like a rugged guy. But cop or no cop, you don’t want to go in there without some backup. There are plenty of men on this island who have no fear of the police—or anything else. You’ve got to be crazy to fish in the dead of winter when your boat is caked with ice, and your fingers are too numb to even run the pot puller. Besides, the only food you’re likely to find at the Trap are circus peanuts and stale popcorn.”
I had no doubt she was right about the Trap House, but I had entered more rooms full of dangerous drunkards than she would ever know. Thus far, I had emerged intact except for a lone scar along my hairline: a reminder of a bad night long ago at the Dead River Inn.
“You might as well take me to the place I’m staying,” I said. “It’s called the White House. Is that the color or did a president sleep there?”
She nearly swerved into the bushes from laughing so hard. “It’s not the White House. It’s the Wight House! W-I-G-H-T. Sweet Jesus. That is the funniest thing I heard all day.”
“I was beginning to wonder.”
“Don’t get your hopes up. It’s still a shithole.”
* * *
Her tires scattered pebbles like birdshot as she drove the truck up a steep hill to the north of the village. We passed a handful of old, mostly dignified dwellings, some with their date of construction on them. The oldest I spotted was 1803.
“People say the Wight House has a ghost,” Joy said. “But you probably don’t believe in paranormal stuff.”
“I definitely know what it’s like to be haunted.”
“I know what you mean. The worst ghosts in my life aren’t even dead.”
The steeple of the church beckoned from ahead: a pale beacon in the dark.
The Wight House appeared to be a fairly typical fisherman’s house. It had started as a modest Cape. Then the owner had decided to add a second story. Then another addition. Somewhere along the line, the amateur architect had decided his guests might enjoy cantilevered porches and decks and had affixed these to the exterior, along with a haphazard system of external stairways: a sop to the state fire marshal, who had, no doubt, received a complaint from a lodger who recognized what a firetrap that gray clapboard monstrosity was.
A single light flickered in the front hall. Every other window was a black mirror.
“Cheery place,” I said.
“Ellen Wight is a character. She’s become even more eccentric since Elmore died. He was her husband.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
Joy lowered her voice to make it sound spooky. “That’s what the last guest said.”
I reached for the door handle. “Thanks for the ride.”
With my rucksack on my back and carrying my computer case, I ascended the splintered, unlit porch. A weathered sign hung suspended above the door. It swung back and forth, creaking in the wind. A brass knocker was situated at eye level, but DeFord had said I could let myself in.
The hall smelled of mildew, rising from air vents, only slightly masked by oil soap recently used to clean the varnished floorboards. The décor leaned heavily in the direction of antiques that were scuffed and unloved enough to be genuine island artifacts, as opposed to tables and chairs transported from the mainland to lend the inn phony ambience.
“Hello?”
There was no answer.
I poked my head into a darkened parlor. Portraits of dead ship captains eyeballed me from the walls.
“Mrs. Wight?”
At the far end of the hall I found a small cherrywood desk with a note and a motel key on it.
A desk lamp spilled light on the stationery page:
Welcome, Warden Investigator Bowdoin.
We hope you had a safe and smooth trip to our precious island. May your stay on Maquoit be a pleasure and a font of fond memories in the years to come.
Your employer has arranged payment for your accommodations and requested we provide you with provender. We have put you in “Eight Bells,” one of our finest rooms. You should not want for anything, but if you find yourself in need, please use this pad to leave a note and we shall attend to it at our earliest opportunity.
The wifi is anchorchain.
Your hosts,
Elmore and Ellen Wight
The tone of the letter was beyond bizarre. The language was the same as if I’d been a tourist visiting in August. And hadn’t Joy mentioned that Mrs. Wight was a widow? Had her husband’s ghost coauthored the note?
Eight bells was an old maritime term that pertained to the measurement of time at sea. At noon and midnight, the ship’s bell would ring eight times. Given its association with the witching hour, the term had inevitably come to be associated with death.
I expected Eight Bells to be room number eight, but instead it was number twelve. The cramped space had a twin bed, a humming dorm-size refrigerator, and a microwave with a blinking clock. The shared bathroom was down the hall. There was no telephone; nor was there a television. There was, however, a grocery bag on the counter filled with assorted canned goods: sardines, baked beans, clam chowder. A jar of dollar-store peanut butter. A loaf of Wonder bread. A box of pilot crackers. And a quart of milk in the fridge.
I hadn’t detected evidence of other occupants. Aside from the usual creaks and rattles of an aging house, the building was utterly silent. I peeled back the gauzy curtains and, once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, found myself looking down into the burial ground of the adjacent church. The rows of gravestones, when glimpsed from above, reminded me of teeth. Rain began pelting the glass.
In the bathroom I peeled nine ticks off my person. Two had embedded themselves in the skin of my abdomen. One was fairly well engorged.
I didn’t bother to unpack my rucksack but did hang up my peacoat in the mothball-perfumed closet, draped my pants and sweater over the frayed chair back, and set my boots in front of the door, should anyone try to enter the room while I was asleep.
I sat down on the bed with my laptop while I ate a supper of peanut butter sandwiches and milk. DeFord had copied me with the relevant files he’d unearthed in his online searches.
There were news reports from the day’s other hunting fatality, but nothing about Maquoit.
Charley had texted me from the Hancock County Airport that they’d arrived safely without Klesko having had to use the “upchuck bag.”
Stacey had sent me a link to an album of photos of the Everglades—manatees basked in the warm outflow of an electrical power plant, a mangrove was adorned with egrets like white flowers, a Burmese python lay coiled under a palmetto. There was no note except WYWH. After years together, our communication had been reduced to this: scenic pictures and abbreviations.
Unexpected was an email from the state trooper whom Ronette Landry had mentioned to me earlier. Former game warden Dani Tate and I were not pen pals, and I couldn’t remember the last time we’d spoken. This message, too, was just a photo with a short note below. The picture was of a cute-faced black cat with white paws.
Hi Mike
Thought you might recognize this pretty little lady. I stopped by the shelter and was told that no one wanted her. I broke down and adopted the poor thing. She’s no longer Puddin’ though! I’m calling her Xanthe after the Amazon warrior. Good luck out there on the island.
Dani
The abandoned cat had played a small but crucial part in the last case Dani and I had worked together. I’d wondered if the animal had ever found a home.
Hi Dani:
That’s awesome! I remember Xanthe as a sweetheart. But I’ve always thought of you as a dog person, not a cat person.
Mike
The response came less than a minute later:
I go both ways.
Then before I could even laugh:
That didn’t come out the way I meant!
How had Dani known I was on Maquoit? Had Ronette noticed my reaction when she’d mentioned Tate’s name and taken it upon herself to text her? Something was definitely up.
I spent a solid hour and a half typing up my notes on my laptop. I hoped that the sheer volume of words would convince DeFord that I hadn’t wasted my time and could be trusted to pursue the investigation to its conclusion. I attached my photos and video recordings. My finger hesitated a long time over the trackpad before I pushed send.
Next, I started reading up on the victim. Ariel Evans had been thirty-seven, Manhattan-born, attended the Dalton School, then Columbia, where she edited the daily newspaper and received a graduate degree in journalism. Her parents, Thomas and Maisey, and brother, Giacamo, had died in a car crash in Rome. She had one surviving sister, Miranda, location unknown.
In photographs, Ariel seemed to have two faces. One was fierce-eyed, wary, almost hostile. The other was strikingly open and attractive.
Make that three faces. There was also the rictus of her waxen corpse. Ariel Evans’s final expression was a death mask that didn’t resemble the woman it had been made to memorialize.
She’d led a life worth memorializing. In college the budding writer had spent a semester in Johannesburg, but had forsaken her studies to sneak off into the bush to record certain atrocities she’d heard about. This piece, titled “The Last Rhino,” was an account of the bloody fight to save wild rhinos from extinction. What impressed me was that the twenty-year-old Evans had not only embedded herself with the South African game wardens charged with protecting the imperiled animals; she had also won the confidence of the heavily armed, khat-chewing poachers. The article had appeared in GQ and been nominated for a National Magazine Award.
Even exhausted as I was, I recognized how gifted and fearless a reporter she had been. Her death seemed all the more tragic for having occurred here, on an insignificant island in the North Atlantic, after a lifetime of journalistic bravery. What was Blake Markman compared to the last rhinos on earth?
15
It rained that night, and the wind wailed like all the island’s banshees had risen from their graves. Occasionally, a gust would bend around the corner of the house and slam a loose shutter against the clapboards. Or a creaking in the hall would startle me upright. But after the third such occurrence, I barely batted my eyes before lapsing back into unconsciousness.
During “the season,” as wardens referred to the thirty days when hunters were permitted to take deer with conventional firearms in Maine, I always awakened before dawn. Many nights I didn’t sleep at all.
It was five-thirty sharp. After years of being a game warden, my biological clock was nothing if not precise.
I took a cold shower to shock myself into alertness. I hung my father’s dog tags around my neck as I always did and dressed in the same clothes as the day before. I decided to forgo another peanut butter sandwich in the hope that I could find a better option at the village store.
I sat on the thin mattress and made a plan for my day. First: coffee. Then I would visit Beryl McCloud at the schoolhouse, assuming she was feeling better. Next I needed to take a run at Harmon Reed. The harbormaster almost certainly knew which islanders I should consider suspects. I would meet the ferry from Bass Harbor in case DeFord had changed his mind and sent me reinforcements. By then the tide would be right for me to row over to Stormalong and have a friendly chat with its lone resident.
Downstairs I found a note from my invisible innkeeper.
Good morning, Warden Investigator Bowdoin.
We hope you slept soundly.
You should not want for anything, but if you find yourself in need, please use this pad to leave a note and we shall attend to it at our earliest opportunity.
Elmore and Ellen Wight
Maybe the footsteps I thought I’d imagined hearing had been real after all. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or shiver.
When I opened the front door, I stepped face-first into a wall of fog. I tried shining my flashlight into it, but the beam dissolved within yards. The grass was gray with dew. I focused the light on the ground to keep from stumbling over some lurking rock.
My cell phone was being willful again, and I had to wander around the hilltop in the fog and the dark before I could find a spot with decent reception. It turned out to be the adjacent graveyard. The rain had left coffin-shaped puddles where the caskets of the dead had sunk into the ground.
“Captain?”
“Good morning, Mike.” If DeFord sounded as if he’d been awake for hours, it was because he no doubt had been. “How was your room?”
I didn’t know if he would believe me if I told him. I said it was fine.
“Did that Wight woman provide you with food? She’d better have served up filet mignon, given the price she’s charging us to put you up.”
“No filet mignon, but the peanut butter was tasty. You actually talked with Ellen Wight?”
“Of course, why?”
I left the question unanswered. “Any news on your end?”
“Ariel made it to Augusta last night. Landry, sick as a dog, drove all the way there herself, following the coach. Kitteridge has the autopsy scheduled first thing this morning.”
Ideally, I would have been present as well, along with Klesko. I had never attended an autopsy before and felt that it was a rite of passage I still needed to go through as an investigator.
“Can you tell Kitteridge to call me as soon as he’s finished?”
“I will.”
Off to the northwest, I could hear the clanging of the channel marker at the entrance to Maquoit Harbor. I’d only been outside for ten minutes and already my peacoat was as damp as if I’d left it hanging in the shower stall. The sea air wasn’t cold by Fahrenheit, but the mist passed so easily through my clothing, I was covered in goose bumps.