Janice frowned. “I’ve read enough about Eleanor’s disappearance to know that something’s not right,” she said, stubbornness creeping into her voice. “And Annie White knew it, too. Clip, it needs to be looked into.”
Clipper sighed. “Looking into a forty year old disappearance takes a lot of time and resources,” he said. “Time and resources I don’t have to spare right now. Maybe I’ll take a look when things slow down a little, ok?”
Janice meekly nodded her acceptance, already planning the next move in her own investigation.
Clipper spent an hour with Janice and then a couple hours on the street, cruising branch banks and downtown streets, listening to radio calls and trying to come up with a plan to thwart the next robbery, which he could feel, waiting in the wings. He finally returned to his office to deal with the ever-present paperwork while the city was quiet.
Clipper was reviewing incident reports when Ed Angelo stuck his head in to announce the closure of two burglaries he had been investigating. “Carl Simmons copped to both of them,” Angelo said with a grin. “And I think maybe he’s good for a couple more.”
“Good,” said Clipper. “We can use the closures. Any recovery?”
“Naw, it all went into his nose,” Angelo said, starting out of the office.
“Hold on, I need you to do something for me.” Clipper got up to stretch. “See what you can dig up on that Infidel Army group that’s been hanging around. They’ve got some kind of a camp or compound somewhere off 1-A in South Brewer or Orrington, and I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be seeing a lot more of them. The head ‘n horns is a guy called Kempton Dautry, forties, ex-Army, survivalist type. Find out names, numbers, layout…whatever you can.”
With Dautry off his mind, Clipper spent the rest of the afternoon immersed in the unending administrative demands of his office.
Chapter 11
Clipper arrived at his office at 7 am Tuesday to find Ken Thomas already waiting for him.
“We may have a hit on the Bangor Savings Bank pics,” Thomas said “I talked to the Bangor High tennis coach last night, and he thinks one of the guys might be a kid he coached a couple of years ago named Pauli Ennis. I found a yearbook picture, and he looks good; Randy’s looking for an address now.”
“Come and get me when you’ve got it,” Clipper said opening his closet and reaching for the Remington 870 12-gauge that stood within. “Vests for everybody.”
When Thomas and Bissonette returned with the Ennis address, Clipper went down to dispatch and studied the patrol map with the day shift commander and the dispatch supervisor. The Ennis residence was in a newer subdivision, a loop bounded on all sides by a thin wooded tract, with only one road in and out. Positioned at the far end of the neighborhood, the house would be easy to isolate. Twenty minutes later, a patrol car sealed the subdivision entrance behind the two unmarked cars containing Clipper, Thomas, Bissonette and Ellen Davis, and they drove slowly to the end of the street, turning and making a second pass by the house.
“Looks deserted,” said Bissonette.
Clipper pulled to the curb just out of sight of the house, and they huddled on the sidewalk.
“Ellen, you and Randy take the back. We’ll give you five minutes and then try the front,” Clipper said. “Be careful, but keep it low key. Remember, all we got is a photo likeness and no warrant.”
After five minutes had passed, Clipper and Thomas moved cautiously to the front door, and stood to either side of it. At a nod from Clipper, Thomas leaned on the doorbell. After several attempts with no response, Clipper left Thomas on the front step and circled the house, taking furtive peeks into any windows he could reach and testing the lock on the back door. When he was satisfied that the house was empty, Clipper tried the doors of the detached garage and peered through the single side window. “Looks like a Mazda,” he said, “but I can’t see the reg.” A DMV check had shown a 2007 Mazda registered to a Jennifer Ennis at the address.
Clipper called his troops back to the cars, and arranged for a soft stakeout on the residence. Randy Bissonette would stay behind in one of the unmarked cars to take the first shift.
At the same time Clipper was peeking into the Ennis’ windows, Probationary Constable Deputy Justin Monk was grinning widely with the satisfaction that comes in the achievement of a lifelong dream. In his crisp new uniform, (except for the pants which were used, and a little short, because his 32x36’s hadn’t come in yet) and shiny badge, he was at last a patrol deputy. A brand new graduate of the Maine Criminal Justice Academy hired by the Waldo County Sheriff’s Department, Justin was assigned to his hometown of Winterport, where he had started his first solo shift at 8 a.m. this morning. He was walking back to his cruiser from his first traffic stop, a speeder to whom he had issued a stern but fair warning, when the muddy Jeep Wrangler rolled by at a sedate speed. Proud that his very presence could have a positive impact on the often fast-paced traffic of Route 1, Justin turned his head and smiled as a reward to the law-abiding motorist. Faint warning bells sounded as Justin looked directly into the hard, staring gaze of Pauli Ennis in the front passenger seat. His eyes widened as he remembered the briefing about a female driver with two male passengers and he whirled, clawing for his pistol.
Kashif and the Ennis sibs were changing their routine. Pauli had stolen the Jeep before sunup, and their intention was to drive down the coast to Camden, boost another car, and then hit whatever small branch bank they could find and continue south for a little change of scenery. “Only a matter of time before they make us if we stick around here,” Kashif had said the night before. “We’ll get ‘em looking down south and come back in a couple of days when its quieted down.”
When Jennifer spotted the cruiser’s electric blue strobes up ahead, her first instinct was to stop, but Kashif urged her on from the back seat. “Go on by slow,” he said. “He’s not looking for us.”
“Pig,” muttered Pauli easing his Sig Sauer P229 automatic from under his shirt. He glared at the deputy as they passed and saw recognition flair into the man’s eyes. Pauli swiveled in his seat and fired first, three rapid shots that all struck the parked cruiser behind Justin. Fresh from the Police Academy ranges, Justin dropped into a crouch and put two shots into Pauli’s chest before Kashif cut him down with the AK-47. Pauli sank back into his seat, and the Jeep sped away, leaving twenty-one year old Justin Monk bleeding out at the side of the road, his dream law enforcement career having lasted just one hour and fifty-one minutes.
Clipper returned to the station and noticed a stir as he passed dispatch. “Waldo S.O.’s got an officer down in Winterport,” called dispatch supervisor Sergeant Coombs, reading from a teletype. “Apparently found shot after a traffic stop on Route 1A, no witnesses, B.O.L.O., white 2013 Ford Escape, Maine reg. ‘377 - DDF’, registered to David Weeks, 127 Privet Drive, Bangor.” Clipper heard the same message going out over the radio as he sprinted for the parking lot.
When he arrived at 127 Privet Drive, three marked units were already there, and several officers were escorting a scared looking man wearing a business suit and handcuffs towards one of them. When he saw Clipper get out of his truck, the man struggled in the officers’ grasps. “Clip, Clip,” he yelled. “Help, these guys think I killed someone.”
Clipper held up a hand and approached the group. “Calm down, Dave,” he said. “We’ll get it straightened out.” He addressed to senior officer, “Take him to my office. I’ll meet you there,” and turned back to his truck at the man’s hard-eyed nod.
Pauli Ennis was dying. He had been semi-conscious, moaning softly, during the ten minute drive to the Waldo Mountain quarry. The quarry, which had produced fine quality granite from the early nineteenth century to its closure in 1914 sat high up on the mountain and was a favorite gathering place for area teens seeking a private place to hang out. Its blue-green watery depths concealed a fortune in forbidden beer and wine bottles, and more than one stolen bicycle. It was the first place Jennifer had thought of in
her headlong rush to get away from the shooting scene. She pushed the stolen Jeep hard through the undergrowth at the end of the gravel access road and traversed the faint pathway to within thirty feet of the rim of the quarry. When she finally wrenched the Jeep to a skidding stop, Pauli slumped forward against the dash, and his moans turned to bubbly gasps as a freshet of blood gushed down his shirt front.
“Help me,” cried Jennifer as she tried to pull him upright in the seat. Kashif leaned over the seat back and grasped Pauli’s shoulders. He pulled him back and then held him as he awkwardly clambered out of the Jeep. Jennifer jumped out, and the two of them eased Pauli’s unconscious form out of the vehicle and laid him on his back. When bright red, frothy bubbles appeared at his lips and the gasping resumed, Kashif turned him up on his left side, and tore his shirt front open. There was a small, red-rimmed hole just to the right of his right nipple, and a second one three inches up and to the left at the base of his throat. Kashif could also feel blood pulsing weakly under the shirt’s sodden back.
Jennifer dropped to her knees and reached to touch Pauli’s bloody cheek. Tears streamed down her face as she sobbed convulsively, eyes flashing a silent plea to Kashif. Eyes wide, he shook his head slowly. There was nothing to do.
Pauli’s breathing slowed with the slowing of the blood flow. His eyes flickered open momentarily in an unseeing final spasm, then he relaxed and the smell of his voided bowels suddenly overwhelmed the coppery small of hot blood as death took him.
Disgust etched on his face, Kashif lurched to his feet and sprinted, gagging, towards some bushes. When he had regained control of his stomach, he returned to where Jennifer still knelt beside Pauli. She rose, and they stood wordlessly over Pauli’s body for a moment, and then Kashif bent to grasp its sneaker clad feet. “Get his arms,” he said. “We’ve got to get him out of sight.” He managed to drag Pauli two steps towards the quarry’s edge, before he realized that Jennifer had not moved. Looking up, he froze at the sight of Pauli’s nine millimeter pointed at his head from a distance of two yards.
“Not there,” growled Jennifer flatly.
“But…” Kashif’s protest died at the chilling sound to the big pistol being cocked. He looked into Jennifer’s eyes and saw bleak determination…and death.
“Not there,” she repeated. “We’ll put him back in the shade,” Jennifer nodded at the woods surrounding the quarry, and when Kashif nodded his agreement, she carefully lowered the hammer and stuck the pistol in her waistband. Together, they wrestled Pauli’s cooling corpse back into the trees and propped him respectfully against the trunk of a sturdy oak. It never occurred to Kashif to try to get the gun away from Jennifer as she bent her head in a silent goodbye to her brother.
Back at the Jeep, Jennifer surveyed its blood-spattered interior with a grimace. “We’ve got to get rid of this,” she said, staring hard at Kashif, “and then you’re going to teach me how to shoot that damn machine gun.”
Clipper was waiting with John Peters when two officers brought David Weeks to his office. He asked them to remove the man’s handcuffs and stand by as he dug the recorder out of his desk drawer.
With the handcuffs off, Weeks, a man Clipper had known since childhood, found his indignation. “Jesus, Clip,” he squealed. “What’s going on here? These guys can’t just lock me up for no reason. You bastards…”
Clipper pointed a finger at the man. “Dave, shut up,” he said mildly. “A police officer was murdered this morning, and you were apparently the last person he talked to. I’m going to read you your rights, which start with ‘You have the absolute right to remain silent,’, and until you’ve heard me out, I suggest you do just that.”
David Weeks seemed to shrink in his chair and he listened, wide-eyed and mute as Clipper tested his recorder,then named all of the people present and read the entire Miranda warning from a laminated card.
“Do you understand these rights as I’ve explained them?” asked Clipper. At Weeks’ nearly inaudible “Yes,” Clipper asked, “And having them in mind, do you wish to discuss this matter without an attorney present?”
Weeks sighed deeply. “Of course I will, Clip,” he said, subdued. “You know I didn’t kill anybody.”
Prodded by questions from Clipper and Peters, and later by a Waldo County investigator who had driven up from Belfast, Weeks described his meeting with Justin Monk again and again. “He chewed me out good for speeding,” he said, “but then he let me go. I drove away, and the last I saw of him, he was walking back to his cruiser.”
Weeks readily consented to a search of his vehicle, which had been towed to the station, and of his home. While those searches were being conducted by several detectives, paired with a couple of patrol officers, Weeks was taken to an interview room where Dave Adams took samples from Weeks’ hands and clothing which would be analyzed for gunshot residue at the State Lab Additional information came from investigators on the scene, including the fact that Deputy Monk’s dash cam had not been activated. He had apparently gotten off a couple of shots, had been shot multiple times, probably with a high power rifle, and most importantly, a small spatter of blood in the roadway thirty feet from his body suggested that he had wounded his assailant.
By two o’clock, Clipper had heard enough. “Let’s cut him loose,” he said to Peters. “There’s nothing there.”
Clipper accompanied Weeks to the elevator, spending a few moments on community relations, before returning to his office to find Ed Angelo and Cameron Shibles talking with John Peters.
“Found some info on the Infidel Army, LT,” said Angelo, looking toward Shibles.
The dapper F.B.I. agent nodded. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about them,” he said. “Kempton Dautry and his partner, Neville Fuller, have been on our watch list for a couple of years. Dautry was an Army Captain who resigned his commission in the face of some black marketing allegations in Afghanistan. Fuller was a sergeant who was also implicated, but his enlistment ended, and he was never prosecuted. He left the Army at about the same time as Dautry, and the two of them showed up in Bangor shortly thereafter. Dautry was originally from the Augusta area. He bought some land around an old family hunting camp he had inherited out in East Orrington, and they started a survivalist camp. They attracted some followers, probably thirty or thirty-five by now, and started calling themselves the Infidel Army.”
“Why are they on the watch list?”
“Dautry and Fuller were both combat infantry, but the allegations of misconduct involved possible smuggling and illegal weapons.” Shibles hesitated. “There have been rumors of gun-running and terrorist training in this part of the country for quite some time,” he said carefully.
Clipper nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “I’ve read about the Clarion Project. I thought you guys pretty much decided that domestic terrorist training camps in the U.S. were just urban legend.”
“Investigations into the camps operated by the Muslims of America and similar groups have not yet uncovered proof of criminal activity,” Shibles said, “but we know there is a steady supply of illegal weapons coming from somewhere in the northeast and, of course, we like to keep an eye on any self-proclaimed militia.”
“What does Dautry’s camp look like?”
Ed Angelo spoke up. “I’ve got it spotted on this Google Earth map,” he said passing a sheet of paper to Clipper. “But all you can see are woods and a couple of buildings. There’s only one neighbor, an old guy that lives about a half-mile from the entrance, and he says that there’s some fairly steady traffic in and out, especially on weekends; says he hears gunfire just about every day.”
Clipper studied the print-out. “Looks like only one way in or out,” he said. “I wonder if we should try to get a little better look.”
Angelo grinned. “Sneak up on ‘em?” he asked.
“I was thinking of Lamont Diggs,” Clipper replied. He looked at Shibles. “Lamont’s got a little Cessna,” he explained. “We’ve used him before for aerial surveillance.”
To Angelo: “Why don’t you give him a call and see if he’ll take you on a little recon flight. Also, call the neighbor and see if we can set up in his place to get plate numbers of the vehicles in and out. Let’s find out what we’re dealing with.”
Angelo’s grin widened. “The old guy’s been writing down license plates for the past couple months. Say’s he figured we’d be along sooner or later.” He produced a grubby spiral notebook from his pocket. “I’ll get started on the ten twenty-eights.”
After the meeting broke up, Clipper and Peters spent a half hour reviewing case assignments and then called it quits. When they left for the day, they stopped at Pop’s, a small neighborhood bar, and drank a couple of beers to the memory of a young deputy sheriff they’d never met.
Chapter 12
It was eight forty-five when Janice pulled up to Sebastian Gaylord’s residence on Wednesday morning. Her only previous meeting with him had been at the mansion when they had both attended the reading of Montgomery Gaylord’s will. Her impression had been that he was impatient to get through it and get back to his own business. He had wished the Historical Society and the City well with the project of turning the mansion into a museum, and made a perfunctory offer of assistance before leaving the details in the hands of his lawyers.
Janice had been a little taken aback by Sebastian’s seeming indifference to the disposition of the opulent estate, but now it made more sense as she stood in the drive of one of the most beautiful houses she had ever seen. Sitting on a low, five-acre bluff overlooking the broad Penobscot, Sebastian’s home had a three-story traditional Georgian center, staid and meticulously balanced, from which steel and glass wings soared out over the river in an exuberant denial of tradition. The circular drive of gleaming crushed white stone was flanked by beautifully manicured lawns and hedges, with tasteful plantings hiding the utilitarian foundations of the house. Looking around, Janice could make out another one-story building and some cars about a hundred feet away through a thin screen of willow trees.
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