Beneath the Depths

by Bruce Robert Coffin

  Byron slid in against the back wall, intentionally taking up a position behind and well out of view of the television cameras. Stanton was waxing poetic about teamwork, CID, and the number of man-hours that went into solving the Ramsey murder. Byron wondered if the chief knew or even cared how many woman-hours had gone into the investigation. Stanton singled out LeRoyer and Diane for their efforts in solving the case. For Diane’s sake, Byron hoped the chief was right about Branch.

  “It’s always a shock when a distinguished member of our own community is alleged to have committed murder,” Stanton said. “Devon Branch has been a friend and benefactor to many in this community, including the police department. But no amount of benevolence can outweigh taking the life of another.”

  Byron didn’t know how much more of Stanton’s scripture he could stand. Mercifully, he didn’t have to. Stanton completed his oratory and opened it up to questions.

  “Chief, Chief,” several reporters shouted in unison.

  Stanton pointed out a petite blonde reporter from WGME, the local CBS affiliate. Byron thought he caught a mischievous twinkle in the chief’s eyes. He wondered what Mrs. Chief would think.

  “Chief Stanton, can you tell us the motive behind the Ramsey murder? Why would Attorney Branch kill one of his own lawyers?”

  Stanton stepped away from the microphones as LeRoyer leaned over and whispered in his ear. The chief reapproached the podium and cleared his throat. “I believe we know the motive, but as the investigation is still ongoing, I’d rather not share certain aspects of the case at this time.”

  Byron was glad he didn’t have a chair as he would’ve been tempted to hurl it at the chief.

  “Chief,” a dark-haired reporter called out.

  The young man’s shabby clothing and acne-scarred face betrayed his origin as either radio or one of the local papers. No self-respecting television news channel would’ve stuck him in front of a camera, Byron thought. Professionally speaking, he had a face for radio.

  Radio Face continued. “We know that your agency is currently investigating several other suspicious deaths. Can you tell us if the murder of Paul Ramsey is related? Do you expect that Branch will be charged with additional crimes?”

  Stanton paused a moment before answering. “As I said, we are still investigating, but at this time we have no reason to believe that any of the deaths are connected.”

  Byron, who believed they were, and had heard enough, made his exit.

  Byron took the back stairwell out to the PD’s rear garage. He grabbed his car and headed for Deering, Portland’s version of the suburbs. He jumped on the interstate heading north and took the Veranda Street off-ramp. He turned into 331 Veranda Street and drove through the lot, up the hill, and around to the rear of the old school administration building. From his vantage point he could see straight through the Martin’s Point Bridge across the channel and into Falmouth. He exited the car and stood leaning against the fender.

  Ramsey’s SUV had been abandoned right below where he now stood, but why? He couldn’t see why Branch would even go to the trouble of bringing the vehicle to this location. There were plenty of other places where he could have driven Ramsey if he wanted to shoot him and dump him in the ocean. Why here? And why would Branch go to all this trouble just to leave the .380 in his car? It didn’t make sense. Branch was much smarter than that. This felt like a setup, like someone had framed Branch for the murder. But who? Who would have something to gain from Ramsey’s death and Branch going to prison? The obvious choice was Davies. She’d had an affair with Ramsey, which meant she didn’t care enough about her husband to stay monogamous. She said she’d broken it off with Ramsey, which meant she no longer cared about him. But she had an airtight alibi. She was in her condo when Ramsey was killed. The security video showed her car entering the garage while Ramsey was still at the Fox. She never left the building. The only one who didn’t have an alibi was Branch. Davies could have hired someone to do her bidding. But then why go through the trouble of staging the break-in?

  Byron looked around. The spot was certainly remote. Too remote. Whether it was Branch or not, someone could have driven Ramsey out to this spot, killed him, dumped the body in the ocean, and abandoned the SUV. But then what? How had the accomplice left the scene? They’d have needed transportation. Did they call for a ride? It wouldn’t have made sense for the killer to use a cell, unless it was a TracFone, because there would be a record of the call and possible location history. And they wouldn’t have risked calling someone to the murder scene for fear of getting caught. He walked around to the front of the building and looked back down the length of Veranda toward Portland. Quattrucci’s Variety was only a quarter mile away. A variety store with a public pay phone out in front. If Byron had needed a ride away from this spot and didn’t want to chance connecting himself with the SUV location, Quattrucci’s is the phone he would have used.

  As he was walking back to the car his cell rang. The caller ID wasn’t a number he recognized. “Byron.”

  “Sergeant Byron, this is Attorney Gerry DeWitt calling.”

  “What can I do for you, Mr. DeWitt?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Okay. Are you at your office? I can be there in—”

  “I’m not in the office. Can you meet me?”

  “Where?”

  “South Portland. Bug Light Park.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Wednesday, 12:55 p.m., May 4, 2016

  Byron stopped at Quattrucci’s pay phone long enough to make sure it worked and record the number. The phonebook was missing but the phone was in working order. He copied the number into his notebook then drove to South Portland.

  DeWitt was seated on a concrete bench overlooking the Portland Breakwater Lighthouse, nicknamed Bug Light due to its diminutive size.

  “Didn’t take you for a smoker, Mr. DeWitt,” Byron said as he approached the attorney.

  DeWitt looked up. “I quit once before.”

  “When was that?”

  “Fifteen years ago.”

  “The job that stressful?” Byron asked, sitting down beside him.

  “Not the job. The stakes.”

  “What did you want to see me about?”

  “Devon didn’t kill Paul Ramsey.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I know what I know.” He tapped out a fresh cigarette from the pack and offered one to Byron. “Smoke?”

  “No thanks. One habit I never took up.”

  “That’s good. These things will kill you,” DeWitt said as he lit another. “How long have you been a cop?”

  “Long time. Over twenty.”

  “Probably worked closely with some of those other cops a long time as well, huh?”

  “Some of them.”

  “Ever surprised by what they’re capable of?”

  Byron thought for a moment before answering. “Not anymore.”

  “I’ve worked with Devon a long time, Sergeant Byron. And it’s like that. I know him better than I know myself some days. He didn’t kill Paul.”

  “What if I told you that Lorraine was having an affair with Ramsey?”

  DeWitt turned his head toward Byron. “Paul wasn’t the only one she was fucking.”

  “You say that like it’s a fact? How do you know?”

  He looked away. “Because I was one of them.”

  Byron hadn’t known why Devon had wanted to see him. He’d expected the attorney to make some revelation, but sleeping with Davies wasn’t one of them. “You had an affair with her too?”

  “I was drunk the first time. She came on to me. It just happened. It only lasted a couple of months. But she’s been fucking me ever since.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “Fucking me. Using the affair to blackmail me into doing whatever she wanted.”

  “She threatened to tell Branch?”

  DeWitt shook his head. “No, not Devon. My wife. Devon already knew what she was like. Lorraine e
njoys sex, Sergeant. But not just the sex, the power that comes with it. She uses it like a weapon. She’s a very resourceful woman.”

  “Is that why you were backing her for full partnership?”

  “I had to. She threatened to go to my wife and tell her that we’d been having sex regularly. I’ve been married for twenty-five years. I have three children. Lorraine threatened to take all of that away from me if I didn’t back her play.”

  “Why not deny it?”

  “She said she kept a soiled item of clothing that would prove we’d been together.” DeWitt inhaled deeply. Byron watched as the cigarette burned away like some trick of time lapse photography.

  “What does any of this have to do with Ramsey?” Byron asked. “She was sleeping with him, too. You think she was also blackmailing him?”

  “I don’t know if she was or she wasn’t, but I do know that she wouldn’t have been with him if there wasn’t something in it for her. Lorraine doesn’t do anything without a reason.”

  “Are you telling me that you think she killed Ramsey?”

  “If she didn’t, she had someone else do it.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe to get Devon out of the way.”

  “Of her partnership?”

  “Of everything. There’s a prenup in place between Devon and Lorraine. Devon had me put it together. If she divorces him, she gets nothing. But if he dies—”

  “She’s the sole beneficiary,” Byron said, completing his thought.

  DeWitt nodded.

  “How much is he worth?” Byron asked.

  “Plenty.”

  “Who called and told you to bail out Darius Tomlinson?”

  DeWitt exhaled a plume of smoke through his nose before answering. “Who do you think?”

  Byron drove away from the meeting with DeWitt, armed with something he’d previously been missing, a solid motive for setting Branch up. He still didn’t have a solid motive for why Davies would want to kill Ramsey. Although given what DeWitt had said and knowing what kind of creep Ramsey had been, blackmail wasn’t out of the question. He was trying to decide his next move when his cell rang. It was Dispatch.

  “Byron,” he answered.

  “Sarge, it’s Lisa from Dispatch.”

  “Hey, Lisa. What’s up?”

  “We just had a shift change and I found a note saying that there was someone to see you at the IO desk.”

  “How old is the note?”

  “A half hour.”

  “Does it say who or want they want?”

  “Nope, just somebody asking to see you.”

  “Be right in.”

  Byron stepped out of the first-floor stairwell into the hall. He passed the IO desk, where a young officer was talking on the phone, and opened the door to the lobby. Empty. Whoever had wanted to speak with him had evidently left. He returned to the information desk and waited.

  “Hey, Sarge,” the officer said, replacing the phone to its cradle.

  Byron glanced at the name tag. Timmons. “Where’s the person who was looking for me, Officer Timmons?” Byron asked.

  “Got rid of him, Sarge. He was just a homeless bum, stinking up the lobby.”

  Glantz. Byron could feel himself getting hot. “What did this homeless bum look like?”

  “Ratty, forties, long gray hair.”

  “Shopping cart?”

  “Yeah, he parked it down on the Middle Street sidewalk.”

  Byron was struggling to maintain control. “I don’t suppose you asked him what it was he wanted to talk to me about?”

  “Nah, he’s just a stew bum. Figured you had more important stuff to do.”

  Byron contacted the watch commander, got a replacement for Timmons, then ordered Officer Impetuous to bring a cruiser around to the front of the station.

  “Where are we going?” Timmons asked as Byron climbed in on the passenger’s side of the black-and-white.

  Byron glared at him. “To find a bum.”

  Timmons had been cruising the Old Port looking for either the bum or the bum’s carriage for the better part of ten minutes when Byron yelled stop.

  “What? I didn’t see anything,” Timmons said.

  Byron wondered if the kid was really cut out to be a beat cop. “Back there. In the alley,” he said, motioning with his thumb over his right shoulder.

  Timmons pulled to the curb and parked. He sat there looking at Byron as if he thought Byron was going to go look for the guy himself.

  “Come on, Officer. Time for your lesson in real policing.”

  Byron and his new uniformed and uninformed partner cut through the pungent alley running between Exchange and the Fore Street Parking Garage. They found Timmons’s bum rummaging through a Dumpster at the rear of 10 Exchange Street.

  “Winn,” Byron said, startling the homeless man.

  “Sarge!” Glantz said, his excitement obvious. He climbed down from the pallet he’d propped up against the trash container.

  “Officer Timmons, I’d like you to meet Erwin Glantz.”

  Glantz eyed Timmons with suspicion. “You’re not gonna bust me for collecting cans, are ya?”

  Timmons looked at Byron. “You can’t be serious, Sarge.”

  Byron leaned in close to the young beat cop. “Either you shake this man’s hand or I’ll see to it that you work the IO desk for the next year.”

  Timmons begrudgingly complied. “Officer Timmons.”

  Byron fixed Timmons with a scowl as he watched the officer wipe his hand on his uniform pants.

  Timmons continued. “Sorry about giving you the bum’s—ah, about throwing you out of the station.”

  Glantz looked to Byron.

  Byron nodded.

  “No problem, Officer,” Glantz said, addressing Timmons. “Water under the bridge.”

  “Have you eaten?” Byron asked Glantz.

  “Not since yesterday. I hate waitin’ in line at the soup kitchen.”

  “Come on,” Byron said.

  “What about my stuff?” Glantz asked, looking back at his shopping cart.

  Byron grinned. “Pretty sure that cart doesn’t belong to you. I’m guessing Hannaford or Shaw’s.”

  Glantz gave him a sheepish look. “The stuff inside’s mine.”

  Byron looked at Timmons. “Give him a hand with his bags. You can put ’em in the trunk.”

  Timmons stood there without moving, like a puppy testing his master’s will.

  Byron walked closer to him. “An entire year, Officer. With extra days added on for every vacation or sick day you take.”

  The three men walked back through the alley. Timmons and Glantz struggled with the trash bags of refuse. The bags were stuffed into the trunk, then all three men got into the car. Byron caught a glimpse of the grimace on Timmons’s face as Glantz climbed into the back seat.

  “Might wanna put the windows down,” Glantz said. “I’m a little ripe.”

  “Where to?” Timmons asked Byron.

  “Commercial and India. The food cart.”

  Glantz dug into the sausage sub like it was the first real food he’d had in weeks. Maybe it was. Byron handed a large Styrofoam cup of coffee to Glantz, popped the lid on his own coffee, then turned to the sound of Timmons clearing his throat. “Pay the man, Officer Timmons. Lessons like this aren’t free.”

  Byron waited until Glantz had polished off the first sandwich before asking where he’d been. “I’ve been looking for you, Winn. Beginning to think maybe you were dodging me.”

  Glantz looked down as if he’d been punished. He toyed with the plastic tab on his coffee lid.

  “Have you been avoiding me?”

  “Yup.”

  “Why?”

  Glantz shrugged his burly shoulders. “Scared, I guess.”

  Byron caught Glantz’s nervous look at Timmons. It was time for kid gloves. First rule of a good interview: remove all obstacles.

  “Officer Timmons, why don’t you give us a minute,” Byron said.

  T
immons shuffled back toward the cruiser, sulking.

  “What are you scared of, Winn?”

  Glantz looked up at Byron. The fear in his bloodshot eyes was unmistakable. “Somethin’ I saw.”

  “What did you see?”

  Glantz looked over nervously to see if Timmons was coming back. He wasn’t.

  Byron reached out and gently placed his hand on Glantz’s shoulder. “What did you see, Winn?”

  “I saw someone dump that dead lawyer’s truck.”

  Byron waited. Not saying a word. He’d gotten Glantz this far but the rest was up to Glantz himself.

  “Can I ask you a question, Sarge?” Glantz said finally.

  “Of course.”

  “How did you know to look for me?”

  “Your hat,” Byron said. “You left it behind when you broke camp.”

  Glantz nodded. “Didn’t want to get involved. I was camping there in the bushes near the water. It was late. Dark and foggy. I saw a truck pull up. One of those fancy utility jobs.”

  “Did you see who was driving?” Byron asked.

  Glantz nodded again. “A light-haired lady.”

  “Was she alone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You get a good look at her?”

  Glantz shook his head. “Couldn’t see much, just the shape of a woman and blond hair.”

  “You said she dumped the vehicle. Did you see how she left the area?”

  “No. I assume she just walked away. I listened for a while thinking someone might come pick her up but no one else came.”

  “You see anything else?”

  “Nope. She drove it down there and left it.”