Dead Down East

by Carl Schmidt

  Knowing how and why my father was murdered didn’t make it any easier. His death was sudden and senseless. The night Dad drove to the grocery store, he parked his car in the lot, got out and began walking toward the front door. He was about halfway there when he heard a young couple yelling at each other from the row of cars to his left. When the woman screamed, he did what any self-respecting man would do—he ran to help her. Jason Savage and Melissa Simpson were twenty-two and twenty-one years old, and high on cocaine. When Dad got within a car’s length of the couple, he saw Jason slap Melissa across the face, and she fell to the asphalt. According to the testimony at the trial, when Dad stepped between the two of them, face to face with Jason, he put up his hands and told him to stop. After they shoved each other back and forth a couple of times, Jason drew a gun from his coat pocket and pulled the trigger.

  25

  Lucid Dreaming

  It was one o’clock when we turned onto Violette Avenue and stopped in front of the Wyeth’s home. I hadn’t been here since I remodeled their bathroom two years before. The house and yard had changed very little in thirty years. The trees were taller, except for one large hemlock in front, which appeared to be dying.

  Kathleen rushed out to greet us before we reached the porch.

  “It’s wonderful to see you again, Sarah. How have you been?” she asked.

  “OK, I guess, but I’ve been feeling tired for several months. I had the flu in February, and I have not fully recovered. I should be fine once the weather warms up. It’s been a cold spring. But most of all, I’m worried about Jesse. Do you know about his latest case?”

  “Not really,” Kathleen said, with an inquisitive look. “He left Bear Spring unexpectedly on Sunday morning. Michael and I figured he has a new client. We found out only last weekend that he is a private investigator.”

  “He’s investigating the Lavoilette murder,” Mom replied.

  Kathleen stare at me in disbelief, but didn’t say a word.

  “If it’s all right, let’s go inside first,” I said while looking around to see if anyone was within earshot. “I’ll explain privately what I’ve been doing. It’s not for public consumption.”

  Michael hugged my mom as we stepped inside and said, “Nice to see you Sarah. It’s been too long.”

  “Good to see you, Michael,” she replied.

  “What’s all this about the Lavoilette murder? Jesse, are you involved?” he asked.

  “Just today my client, Cynthia Dumais, told me I could discuss this with you—but we can’t have any of this going public. Her safety is at risk. I asked her specifically for permission to talk with you because I would like your feedback. After you hear what’s been happening, you’ll understand her concerns,” I said. “But let’s talk about this after dinner, if that’s OK?”

  “Sure, Jesse,” Kathleen said.

  “Looks as if the hemlock is dying out front, Michael. What’s the problem?” I asked.

  “Hemlocks from Maine to Georgia have been infected by a pest known as the hemlock woolly adelgid, which feasts on the sap of hemlock and spruce trees. The one out front has been getting steadily worse for two years. Unfortunately, we’ll have to take it down.”

  “There was a feature about that recently on NPR,” Mom said. “It’s like the Dutch elm disease all over again, but now it’s the evergreens. Time just won’t stand still.”

  Michael chuckled and added, “Maine is probably the one state in the union most resistant to change, but it has a way of getting here all the same. What are you gonna do?”

  “We could emigrate to New Brunswick, or even Newfoundland,” I offered jokingly. “That would take us back a generation or so.”

  “Kathleen and I visited Newfoundland last summer. It’s not as backward as you might think. St. Johns is still quaint, to be sure, but it’s also a modern city. We were struck by how spectacular it is. Most of the older homes are very well kept. We have some pictures you will enjoy. Mainers could learn a lot from them, especially how to choose house paint. It’s ironic…we live on Violette Avenue, but almost every home here is white or beige. In St. Johns, street after street is lined with homes freshly painted in a wide variety of beautiful, even stunning, colors—purples, oranges, reds and golds—shades we would never think to use. They’ve turned their city into a gallery of architecture. It’s inspirational. Waterville is utterly drab by comparison. Where’s the imagination?” Michael asked with a touch of melancholy.

  Kathleen excused herself to finish with the dinner preparations. Michael and Mom sat down in the living room and continued chatting. I followed Kathleen to the kitchen; I wanted to have a word with her privately.

  “Do you need any help, Kathleen?” I asked.

  “No. I’m fine. But stay with me while I get the meal ready.”

  I waited a few moments and then posed a question, “Tell me, Kathleen, have you ever had a prophetic dream?”

  She turned to me with a quizzical and somewhat serious look on her face and said, “Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious,” I replied, but I’m sure she sensed that my interest was not just small talk.

  “My father has often appeared to me in dreams,” she said. “Most of them have been rather ordinary, of course, but a few have been striking. I guess you could call them ‘prophetic.’ ‘Lucid’ might be a more accurate word though. He often comes to reassure me that things will turn out fine. It’s not always important what he says or does in each dream; it’s enough that he remains close, but occasionally he describes something that is about to happen.

  “When he passed away, his doctor told me that my father died of a sudden, unexpected heart attack. But it was not really like that. A week before his death, he appeared to me in a vivid dream. He stood on a high ledge overlooking a dark valley, holding a fiery torch in his hand. He beckoned me to join him.

  “At first I was afraid, and I called out to him to come down. He just smiled and said, ‘It will be fine. Come on.’ I grew bolder with each step until I was standing next to him. Then he handed me the torch and said, ‘I’m moving on. Enjoy life, Kathleen; transform your work into play!’”

  “How nice,” I said warmly. “Have you had any lucid dreams lately?”

  “As a matter of fact, I had one last Sunday on our porch at the cabin. The news of the governor’s death put a damper on our activities in the morning, and it rained in the afternoon. The three of us sat around and didn’t do much all day. The rain stopped around seven o’clock, so Michael and Tyler went fishing. When they left, I lay down in the hammock and dozed off.

  “I don’t know how long I had been sleeping, but at some point I found myself flying above the clouds searching for William Lavoilette. Whenever I sensed he was near, I looked intently through the sky, but all I could see were women’s faces, one right after the other, people I’d never seen before. It was strange and absorbing. I kept feeling his presence, but seeing women. One by one the faces appeared and then evaporated. I was never able to find him.

  “Everything about the dream was crystal clear. I can see it all right now in my mind’s eye.”

  Dinner was ready. I didn’t want to hold things up by comparing her dream with mine. But I was definitely excited to hear that we had had our dreams on the same day, and quite possibly at the same time. We’d have a chance to talk later.

  Kathleen had anticipated that Angele might be coming for dinner, so she had prepared a vegan enchilada casserole including pasta made with no dairy products. Kathleen is a marvel of kindness and adaptability. For the rest of us, she broiled salmon. We started with a Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé, followed by a salad.

  The wine got my mother talking. Once she relaxed, it was like old times. I’d almost forgotten how wonderful she can be when she stops fretting and lets her hair down. She’s an avid reader. When she’s happy, she talks about novels.

  “I don’t know how I missed it when it first came out in the mid nineties,” Mom said, “but Snow Falling on Cedars is an extra
ordinary book. It’s so sensitive and genuine. David Guterson paints such a vivid picture of the San Juan Islands that I felt as if I were there. He mingles providence and justice in just the right proportions. It’s inspiring and sorrowful at the same time.”

  Michael was quick to agree. “I’ve used that novel in my creative writing classes for years. I never tire of it. It has many dazzling paragraphs to inspire young writers.”

  “I wish I had read that book before seeing the movie,” I said. “The movie was ho-hum for me. When I read the book, I had a hard time extracting the film from the writing.”

  Over the next half-hour, I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, but it didn’t matter. Kathleen and I sat back and let Michael and Mom evaluate literature until dinner was done. It was a pleasure watching my mother’s spirit come to life. The two of them poured a second glass of wine and retired to the living room. As they disappeared around the corner, I heard Michael say, “English is an amazing language. It’s more significant to us than our DNA.”

  “Why did you ask me about my dreams, Jesse?” Kathleen asked.

  “Because I had one too. A lucid one.”

  “Really? Tell me about it.”

  “It happened last Sunday a little before dusk, the same time as yours.”

  “That’s interesting,” Kathleen said.

  “You were in it,” I said. “I didn’t actually see you, but I heard your voice distinctly. You said, ‘Cherchez la femme’ in the dream, just as you had earlier in the day at breakfast, when we were considering possible suspects for the murder.”

  “Hmmm,” she said. “What do you make of it?”

  “What do you make of it?” I echoed.

  “Well, I don’t remember saying that in my dream. But there were a lot of women’s faces. This is mysterious, but not altogether baffling. I’ve often thought that our dreams are more than just our own personal mind games, at least the ones with extraordinary energy or significance attached to them. Perhaps they are out-of-body experiences. I really don’t know. I’m not sure if we can, or even need, to know. But this is the first time I have ever had any kind of—what should I call it?—validation from another person.”

  “It’s especially interesting from another perspective, Kathleen. William Lavoilette was having an affair. He had many affairs over the past five years.”

  “My goodness. How did he keep them quiet?” Kathleen asked.

  “He had a close friend who made arrangements for him. His friend, Richard Merrill, is one of my three clients. The others are Cynthia Dumais, the governor’s most recent mistress, and Travis Perkins, the Maine State Trooper whose gun was used to kill the governor.”

  “Whew! You are right in the middle of things,” she said. “No wonder your mother is so worried. How is it proceeding? The FBI hasn’t released any significant information, other than the arrest of Trooper Perkins and finding his gun.”

  Michael and Mom must have heard us talking about the case, because they came back into the dining room with inquisitive looks on their faces.

  “So tell us, Jesse,” Michael said, “who is Cynthia Dumais, and what does she have to do with the Lavoilette murder?”

  I proceeded to tell them how I got involved and what I had been doing for the past week. I left out the part about Dennis Jackson and his Colt .45. But I did mention the incident with the tire iron. That explained my mashed Forester.

  “I have provided two anonymous tips to the Maine State Police and the FBI,” I said. “First I directed them to the murder weapon, which they had not found during their initial search of the area. I told them exactly where to find the gun and other objects related to the murder. That tip demonstrated that I am a reliable informant. Later I sent them photographs of the man who stole Travis Perkins’ gun, which, incidentally, was used to kill the governor. It was stolen the day of the killing. If they can find this accomplice, they can interrogate him. I have his DNA too, but I don’t know how to locate him. He might not even live in Maine.”

  “Why don’t you just tell the FBI about Cynthia?” Michael asked.

  “There are several reasons. For one thing, she wouldn’t be much help to them. Cynthia was an eyewitness to the killing, but it happened very quickly at night, and the murderer was wearing a false beard. She told me there was no way she could positively identify him.

  “Furthermore, Cynthia’s name might surface in the press. The killer, or killers, may already know she was in the governor’s car when the murder took place, but we can’t be sure. She feels that it’s safer for her to stay hidden for now. She’ll come forward if she can help, but she doesn’t want to be known as ‘the other woman.’ She’d never have a normal life after that. It would be like The Scarlet Letter, or Monica Lewinsky.”

  “Who can forget?” Mom said derisively.

  “Exactly,” I replied. “The FBI has found two different strands of long hair in the governor’s summer home that do not belong to Rebecca or anyone else they can identify as of yet. They are having DNA tests done on them now, but even if they suspect a particular woman had been there secretly, they could not insist on DNA samples from her. It’s not a crime to have been in the governor’s home. The Supreme Court will be hearing a case related to this in the near future, but currently the police cannot demand a sample from any individual who is not a suspect in a crime.

  “On the other hand, as an ordinary citizen, I can collect DNA samples as long as I’m not invading anyone’s privacy. I have three samples now. Two are from women who had affairs with the governor, and one is from the accomplice who stole Travis Perkins’ gun. I am hoping to interview a few more women next week. I’ll see what I can manage to get from them. Including Cynthia, there are seven women on my list.”

  “The governor had affairs with seven women?” Michael asked incredulously.

  “According to Richard Merrill, he did,” I said. “They occurred over the past five years. I have definitely confirmed two of them, and a third one is likely.”

  “I voted for him,” Mom said. “If I’d have known about the affairs, I probably would have stayed home on Election Day.”

  “When I collect my samples and have them analyzed, I intend to turn them over to the FBI with the names of the women. It might prove helpful.”

  The room went silent for a while. Everyone processed the story.

  “Michael,” I said, “I’m curious as to what you and Kathleen think about my approach to the case. What do your instincts tell you?”

  “Well, you seem to be handling it appropriately. There is some danger involved, for sure. Proceed very carefully,” Michael said emphatically.

  “The next woman on my list hung up on me, just as Dennis Jackson did. Either she doesn’t want to be bothered, or she has something to hide. Dennis Jackson saw through my façade as an entrepreneurial homebuilder. I’ll be more cautious with Susan St. Claire.”

  “What do you know about her?” Kathleen asked.

  I related everything I knew, except for the part about the moose head. I didn’t want them to think I was relying too heavily on a psychic.

  “I’ll find out all I can about her before I set up an interview,” I said.

  “Her situation could be similar to Cynthia’s,” Michael said. “She’s running a business. It would be bad publicity to have her name connected to a murder investigation.”

  “That’s true,” I replied. “I’ll just follow through with her and see where it leads.”

  It was hugs all around when Mom and I got up to leave. As Kathleen embraced me, she whispered in my ear, “I’ll see you in my dreams, Jesse.”

  26

  Big Time Major League Trouble

  Monday morning I made some calls. The first one was to Richard Merrill.

  “Richard, I’m about to call Susan St. Claire, but I want some clarification on the notes you have on her.”

  “What do you need to know?” he asked.

  “On your spreadsheet, at the end of the third paragraph under her name y
ou wrote, ‘The Vamp’ in italics. What did you mean by that?”

  “Did you ever see the movie, Body Heat?” Richard asked.

  “Of course. It’s a classic. Kathleen Turner was amazing,” I replied with enthusiasm.

  “Richard Crenna never knew what hit him,” he said ominously.

  “William Hurt, too,” I added, “at least before it was too late.”

  “Right,” Richard said. “Oscar, the detective, cautioned Ned Racine about Mattie Walker, ‘She's trouble, Ned. The real thing. Big-time, major league trouble.’”

  “I remember that,” I said.

  “When you’re dealing with Susan St. Claire, think ‘Mattie Walker.’ I should have put a star by her name,” Richard added. “William’s affair with Susan St. Claire’s was brief and fiery. She made a sizable donation to his campaign and made a point of being very friendly. She’s quite an attractive woman.

  “After they had been seeing each other for about a month, she pressured him to change his position on natural gas drilling. William was reluctant to allow hydraulic fracturing in Maine. He was very concerned about the possible long-term contamination of drinking water. One night she became irate. After that, William stopped seeing her.”

  “Are you sure they were sleeping together?” I asked. “She said they weren’t even friends.”

  “I’m absolutely certain they were sleeping together. The first time it happened was in my home. I heard them in the next room. The walls were shaking.”

  “Big-time, major league trouble, eh?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’ll proceed with caution. Thanks, Richard,” I said. “Tell me something else. When you spoke with the FBI, which of the seven names on this list did you provide to them?”

  “Just two—Michelle Jackson and Lori Trumbull. I couldn’t avoid Michelle’s name. Lots of people saw Dennis Jackson get angry with William. The blowup was more or less public knowledge, but it is not widely known that William and Michelle were romantically involved. William’s affair with Lori flew well below the radar, but she was fairly visible as an associate around the office. If I failed to supply her name, it might look as if I were withholding evidence.