Dead Down East

by Carl Schmidt

  “Hello,” came a pleasant sounding voice.

  “Hello, is this Lori Trumbull?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Jesse Thorpe, I’m a private investigator. I have been hired by Richard Merrill to investigate the murder of Governor Lavoilette. Richard tells me you were a close friend of the governor.”

  “Yes. We were very close. His murder is very disturbing.” There was no hesitation or hint of deception in her voice.

  “If you don’t mind, I would like to meet with you. We are interested in anything you can share that might shed some light on the situation. We are looking for personal or political enemies that the governor may have had.”

  “I’m not sure I can be of much help, but I’ll be happy to meet with you, Mr. Thorpe.”

  “Are you free this afternoon?” I asked.

  “Yes. You are welcome to come over.”

  “The address I have is on Weston Street. Is that current?”

  “Yes. I’ve been here for years.”

  “That’s very near my mother’s home. I can be there in twenty minutes. Will that work?”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Great. I won’t take much of your time, and afterwards I can drop in and see how Mom is doing.”

  I thought the motherly touch might relax her a bit. My instincts were telling me she was too caring to be involved in murder. But I am a man. A sweet-talking woman always has the edge.

  Twenty minutes later I knocked at her door.

  Lori was as congenial in person as she’d been on the phone. I estimated her age to be close to forty. She was short, with long brown hair, brown eyes, and cute as a button. When I entered the house, I detected the smell of cigarettes. Good DNA potential, I thought. I don’t smoke, but I had a pack of Marlboros with me on the off chance that she was a smoker.

  “Hi, Lori. Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” I said.

  We chatted for a half-hour or more. She was open and relaxed. She didn’t tell me outright that they had had an affair, but she made it pretty clear.

  “Do you mind if I smoke?” I asked.

  “That’s fine. I am a smoker too. I’ll join you. I never smoke in front of non-smokers when I can avoid it.”

  We both lit up. I tried my best not to gag.

  After we had each finished our cigarettes, I asked her for some water. While she was in the kitchen, I removed her butt from the ashtray and replaced it with a fresh one that I had stashed in my shirt pocket. I felt like a wayward Boy Scout—a smoker who’s always prepared.

  I didn’t get any real leads from our chat. Lori seemed harmless enough, and she couldn’t provide me with any promising suspects. After an hour, I had little to show for my time except for a single cigarette butt laced with saliva.

  I thanked her for her time. We shook hands, and she wished me well. She was either a real catch or a snake in the grass.

  I drove over to Paternal Affairs and dropped off my second sample in two days. I told the lady in the office that I would submit a few more items over the next week or so, and asked her to hold all the DNA results until I requested them.

  I was back home by three o’clock. Ocean Noises would have a long practice session in the evening, so I decided a nap was in order. Once my head hit the pillow, I was out in less time than it takes to mention it.

  19

  Spare Ribs

  “Alonso, come here boy. I’ve got something for you,” I said enthusiastically.

  Unless he could detect the smell of ribs radiating through my refrigerator door, around the corner and into the living room, Alonso couldn’t know exactly what I was talking about. On the other hand, I’m sure he knew something good was about to come his way because he wagged his tail and followed me to the kitchen with his tongue hanging out.

  I gave him the scraps from the ribs, but not the bones. They’re a little risky for dogs; the bones can splinter into small pieces. The meat was gone in about four seconds.

  “Be careful, Jesse,” Billy cautioned. “When he finds someone who gives him real food, his M.O. is to move in. That’s how I got him in the first place.”

  “Really?” I replied. “I thought you adopted him.”

  “Oh, no,” said Billy. “He adopted me.

  “Four months ago, Bob Kaprowski was taking Alonso for his evening constitutional. When they reached my house, Bob stopped in for a few minutes to tell me about his break up with Francine. Actually, it was less of a ‘break up’ and more of a ‘Drop dead, Bob.’ She had split town with the car, the cash and the pot, and headed for Nashville. The only thing she left behind was the dog.

  “I happened to be on my way to the garbage can to dump some sirloin trimmings. Alonso blocked my exit and stared at me with his ‘I haven’t eaten in weeks’ look. So I said, ‘fetch’ and tossed the fat and gristle into the backyard.

  “While Alonso was dining, I offered Bob some tequila. Two hours later we were both hammered. Bob left sometime that night. I woke the next morning to find Alonso whining out back like a lost dog.

  “I kept my doors shut all day. By evening he was gone. That was a Wednesday. Friday morning I found him camped on my porch. I called Bob, but he was halfway to Tennessee.”

  Just then, Eric let himself in through the front door, “Do I smell ribs?”

  I pointed at Alonso, “You’re a couple minutes late, Eric.”

  “The band’s all here,” Billy announced, and the five of us made our way to the barn.

  Ocean Noises has five musicians. Besides Eric, Billy and me, there’s Willie Franklin on drums and Amanda Cavenaugh, who sings and plays flute. She rounds out the band very nicely. Truth is, she’s the best musician in the group, and we are lucky to have her. She sings leads and backup like a dream. Deadly Finds, a band out of Portland, has tried to steal her away from us for over a year. Fortunately, she’s been hooked up with Willie for quite some time. If they ever break up, we’ll be an all male band without a following. She’s the real attraction.

  While we were tuning, Billy announced that we would be playing in the Raincloud on Friday, and Sea Breeze Brewing Company on Saturday. We tried our opening number. It was obvious from the get go that we were rusty, especially me. The long stressful week was hard to shake. It took me an hour to get a groove. Eric and Billy cut me some slack. They both knew I was on a case. Willie was not so forgiving.

  “If it weren’t for the barn, we’d start looking for a new bass man,” he said with a glare.

  “Sorry, Willie, I’ve had a tough week. I’ll be alright by tomorrow night.”

  Amanda sang like an angel, and that lifted me up. By ten o’clock I was high on the music, and my playing came alive. The anchor rope cut loose from my brain; my fingers started dancing.

  “Sounds good, Jesse,” Willie said finally.

  We practiced till midnight and called it quits.

  Amanda planted a kiss on Billy’s cheek and another on Eric’s. She never lingers with either of them anymore. They read too much into it and tend to lose touch with reality. Her routine with me is different.

  She moved in slowly and took her time. When I was out of breath, she broke away and smiled like Mae West. Her eyes said, “Come up and see me sometime.”

  “See you tomorrow night, Amanda,” I said, with barely enough air to finish the sentence.

  She was still smiling as she turned to her official partner and said, “Let’s go, Willie.” The whole band knew what that meant.

  “Amanda,” I said, as she was making her way to the door, “bring him back in one piece. We need him tomorrow night.”

  Without turning around, Amanda raised her index finger shoulder high to acknowledge my request.

  “Good luck, Willie,” I said, but he probably didn’t hear me.

  Billy tried to sneak out without Alonso, but I caught him at his car and said, “You forgot something.”

  “You can keep him if you like, Jesse. You feed him better than I do.”

  “Mayb
e, but you two were made for each other. Besides, he looks more like you than he does me.”

  “I resemble that remark,” he said meekly. Billy uses that phrase about once a month.

  I opened the door for Alonso to jump in, handed Billy a twenty-dollar bill and said, “Thanks for the photographic work and the business cards, Billy. This should cover the lobster dinner.”

  “Twenty is only enough for one,” he pleaded.

  “Eat half, and bring the rest home to Alonso,” I said.

  Billy pressed his lips together, stared ahead and drove off into the night.

  20

  The Business End of a Colt .45

  It was nine-forty five Friday morning when I pulled into the parking lot of Jackson Alliance Construction Company. For moral support, I slipped Rhonda into my shoulder holster underneath my loose fitting sport coat and walked through the front door. I thought to myself, “Let the games begin.”

  A receptionist greeted me the moment I entered, “Mr. Treadwell?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Jackson is ready to see you. You can go right in,” she said, pointing to a door on her left.

  Dennis stood up from his desk as I walked into the room. He offered his hand.

  “Mr. Treadwell,” he said, “how was your drive from Boston this morning?”

  “Call me Noah,” I said.

  “Call me Dennis,” he reciprocated.

  “Traffic was heavy on the turnpike. It’s June. Lot’s of people drive to Maine this time of the year.”

  “Have a seat beside me so we can view the screen together.”

  I sidled up to him and sat down. Dennis looked dashing in a rugged sort of way. He had on an “I’ve just come into an inheritance,” cognac colored, suede bomber jacket. Everything else in his trousseau was perfectly coordinated.

  “So you have some property next to the Pine Ridge Golf Course. Sounds like an exciting project. On the phone you didn’t indicate the total acreage of your parcel.”

  “We have forty acres. For the first phase we plan to build on the ten acres that border the first four holes of the back nine.”

  “We?” he asked. “Do you have partners?”

  “Only one. His name is Justin Cook.”

  I watched him very carefully as I pronounced the name. He didn’t flinch in even the slightest way. He was either completely innocent of the Lavoilette murder, or he had ice water in his veins.

  Without missing a beat, he brought up an aerial view of the golf course and zoomed in on the area I had described.

  “I’m familiar with the back nine. I’ve played there many times,” he said.

  I used my finger to outline our parcel and said, “As you can see, there’s a considerable amount of work to be done before we can begin construction. We’ll need some roads and utilities, of course. My partner and I want to get an estimate for the full project to secure financing.”

  For the next thirty minutes, Dennis supplied me with a number of building options, floor plans, landscaping ideas and a variety of amenities. He took me on a virtual tour of his extensive portfolio. While facing several challenging construction and financing related inquiries, I did my best not to sound foolish. Fortunately, I knew how to swing a hammer.

  I bided my time on a tightrope of questions and answers, waiting for a chance to shift gears. When the moment seemed right, I said, “A number of times over the years my dad has mentioned his experience with the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr. To this day, he remembers exactly where he was when he heard the news for each one. I suppose I’ll always remember where I was when I heard about the murder of Governor Lavoilette.”

  A curious look crept over his face as I said that, but I proceeded anyway, “I was on the porch of the dining hall at Bear Spring Camps, on my way to breakfast. What a shock.”

  I gave him a few heartbeats to compare stories with me, but he didn’t take his cue.

  “How about you?” I asked, as innocently as possible.

  “Oh. I was with my wife at a party on Saturday night. There were thirty-five or forty of us at the Cavendish Club. Around eleven o’clock a news bulletin came on the television in the bar. Word spread quickly through our crowd. We stood around for about fifteen minutes catching the story, and then the party broke up. My wife and I drove home,” he said. Then he added, “I suppose I’ll remember that moment for a spell.”

  He said it all as a matter of fact. His face did not display any emotion. He asked me to take a seat opposite him at the table so he could run a few numbers for me on the condo project.

  For the next minute, he scrolled through some screens on his computer, and on two occasions glanced up at me with a studied look on his face. He then opened a drawer at the side of his desk, reached in and pulled out a Colt .45. He didn’t point the gun directly at me, but he kept his finger on the trigger and did a fine Michael Douglas impersonation, “Mr. Thorpe, do you have any idea who you are fucking with?”

  “Apparently not,” I replied, which happened to be the first honest thing I’d said all morning.

  “I’ll be blunt, and you’ll keep you mouth shut. Comprende?”

  I nodded, indicating I understood Spanish and resisted the urge to reply, “Si Señor.”

  “I had one brief moment with the scumbag, William Lavoilette. That was that. I made a generous donation to his campaign and voted for the asshole. Then he moved on my wife. I don’t give a shit who put the bullet in his chest, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was some guy with a pretty wife or girlfriend, who stumbled her way to his bed.”

  He glared at me and continued. “You called me once before, and I hung up. Today you’ve taken up almost an hour of my time pretending to be Sherlock Holmes. If you bother me again, I’ll let my finger do the talking. Is that clear, pal?”

  I wasn’t sure if his question freed me from his original instruction to keep my mouth shut. I split the difference and gave an affirmative nod while I squeaked out a humming sound corroborating my gesture. My lips never moved.

  “Now, get out of my office,” he said firmly.

  I was more than happy to oblige. Rhonda was breathing heavily under my jacket, but she knew enough to stay put. It was only eleven o’clock at the O.K. Corral. High noon was an hour away.

  I backed to the door with my hands half raised, turned slowly and made my exit like a dog with his tail between his legs. It was the first time I’d ever been threatened with a loaded gun. Like my dad’s memory of the three assassinations in the 60’s, I was sure I’d remember that Colt .45 in the years to come.

  • • •

  I had one more chore, and I needed to complete it as quickly as possible. I wanted to check out Dennis’ story of the Saturday night party with his wife. There was clearly some risk involved, and now I wished I had interviewed her before I had met with Dennis.

  I decided to drive halfway to Michelle’s home and then call. This would give Dennis time to call her first, if he was going to do that. I figured I could judge from her response whether they had discussed me or not.

  It was a ten-minute drive from Dennis’ office to their home. After five minutes, I pulled over and called.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello, is this Michelle Jackson?”

  “Yes it is,” came the sweet reply. So far so good.

  “My name is Jesse Thorpe. I have been hired by Richard Merrill to investigate the murder of Governor Lavoilette. Do you think I could have a few minutes of your time?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “It’s just awful.”

  “Would you mind if I came over? I’d rather discuss this in person.”

  “That’s fine. I’m off work today. Do you need my address?” she asked.

  “No, I believe I have it. Woodfield Terrace Drive?”

  “That’s it.”

  “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  21

  No Bunting, Mr. Jackson

  Woodfield Terrace Drive curved
to the right at the end of the road as I reached the elegant Jackson home. They must own several acres of land. From their front porch there wasn’t any other house or building in sight.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Mrs. Jackson,” I said, once I was inside.

  “I don’t know how much help I can be,” she replied. “I assume Mr. Merrill told you about my husband and Governor Lavoilette. Dennis and I have worked through our issues. We want to put the whole episode behind us.”

  “I’m just trying my best to get up to speed with the governor’s personal life. I’m not here to cause you any embarrassment.”

  I paused for a moment to consider how to proceed. I decided to get right to it.

  “Could you tell me where you were when you heard the governor had been murdered?”

  “Yes. Dennis and I were at a party at the Cavendish Club on Saturday night. Once the story hit the news, the party broke up and we went home.”

  She reached into her purse and pulled out her iPhone. She asked me to sit down next to her as she scrolled through pictures of the festivities. One photograph showed several people standing around watching a TV screen displaying a picture of William Lavoilette.

  “Why did you take that picture?” I asked.

  “It seemed like a photograph for a scrapbook. My father told me that he and all his friends knew exactly where they were when they first heard that JFK had been assassinated. Now I’d have an actual photograph to record where I was when the governor was murdered. I knew William. He was a wonderful man.”

  “How well did you know him?” I asked. I assumed that my inflection would convey the full intent of my question.

  “I’m ashamed to say this, but we slept together a few times. It was totally my fault. During the first meeting of his second campaign, William was unusually attentive to me. Eventually, he took me aside and asked if I would stay after the others left. He said he had a specific assignment for me, but I knew it was more than that. I was so attracted to him that I didn’t want to leave. I certainly did not intend for it to happen, but it did.