by Paul Doiron
“They won’t come over. They know I’d shoot their whole fucking family.”
She removed the tray from my lap and set it on the bedside table. Her eyes seemed a different color from what I remembered—I felt like I’d never truly seen them before.
“How many of those pills did you take?”
“Just what the bottle said.”
“Your voice is slurred. I don’t think you should take any more.”
“OK.”
She put a hand on my forehead and then ran her fingers through my crew cut. “I’m worried about you, honey.”
Her concern struck me as misplaced but very sweet. I felt a sudden desire to share some of the insights I’d recently experienced. “Do you remember your First Communion? There was all this big buildup to it in the Catholic Church. We had these CCD classes—I don’t know what CCD stands for—it was like Sunday school, except it wasn’t on Sundays. The idea of eating the body of Christ—what’s a kid supposed to make of that?”
“Mike…”
“The wafer was just this dusty round piece of paper. I don’t know what I thought would happen—maybe that I’d see a vision of God with beams of sunlight and angels. But instead, there was nothing. So which church should we raise our kids in? Catholic or Episcopal? I guess you’d be the one to take them, so you should decide.”
She got up from the bed and lifted the tray. She seemed to be swaying dreamily herself, uncertain on her feet. “Get some rest.”
After she’d left the room, I stared at the shimmering light beneath the bedroom door. It seemed to ripple like waves of heat rising off hot desert sands. Sarah hadn’t understood what I was getting at. These revelations were peculiar to me. No one else could understand them.
24
On Monday morning, after Sarah had left for school, I awoke to a sensation in my right hand. It might best be compared to an elephant sitting on all five of my fingers. I stumbled into the bathroom and began rummaging through the medicine cabinet. The little orange vial of Vicodin had disappeared without a trace.
I telephoned Sarah’s school and left a message. I told the receptionist it was an emergency. Then I waited in my pajama bottoms on the edge of the unmade bed, cradling my bad hand in my good one.
After an eternity, the phone rang. “Mike, what is it? Did you hear something about Travis?”
“I can’t find my pills.”
In my mind’s eye, I saw Sarah easing the receiver away from her ear until she could decide how to respond. “Did you look in the medicine cabinet?”
“Of course I looked in the medicine cabinet.”
“Maybe you got up in the night and misplaced the bottle. You might have dropped it on the floor. Did you check behind the toilet?”
“No.”
A paranoid idea popped into my head: I wondered if she had hidden my pills during the night. Her voice had risen to a higher pitch over the course of our brief conversation. At the police academy, I had learned that was one of the telltale clues to dishonesty.
“I’m sure they’ll show up eventually.” Sarah sounded like the patient schoolteacher she was. “Why don’t you take a shower and get dressed? You need something to occupy your attention. You could read that book Kathy gave you.” She seemed to be making a conscious effort to humor me. “The principal told me she’s transferring the Barter twins from my class as a precaution. Everyone here knows about you and their father.”
“He attacked me.”
“It’s unfair, but people blame you for what happened to Travis. You’re the district game warden.”
“Great,” I said. “That’s just what I need.”
“Mike, you didn’t do anything wrong. You were just doing your job. If you find your Vicodin, please just take half a dose, OK?”
“OK.”
After we signed off, I set to work rooting through her underwear drawers and closet shelves in search of my painkillers. I had the thought she might have stashed the vial in a coat pocket or the toe of a boot. But no matter where I looked, I found nothing.
I was still rummaging around the bedroom when there was a knock at the door. It was the mailman with an express package from my mother in Naples, Florida. Inside was a get-well card, signed “With Love,” telling me she hoped the enclosed present would help occupy me while I healed. She’d sent me a video game, Cabela’s Big Game Hunter for PlayStation 2. I didn’t own a PlayStation machine. I didn’t even own a television.
I dropped the video game in the trash. Ora was right that my mother and I would eventually need to have a serious talk about my dad. But I had a gut feeling that discussion would be a long time coming.
Why had I been such a jerk to Sarah? A broken hand was no excuse. She’d never made a habit of lying to me. And yet she had been behaving so strangely lately. I had been so quick to believe Ora’s suspicion that Sarah might be pregnant. I needed to get past my self-pity and paranoia.
I downed a handful of ibuprofen with a glass of tap water. Then I pulled a bread bag from a kitchen drawer and, after stripping naked, wrapped the plastic around my splint and awkwardly fastened it into place with a rubber band. Even with the bag secured this way, moisture from the shower found a way of seeping in and dampening the brace.
I put on a flannel shirt and some oil-flecked Carhartt pants and then made myself the simplest breakfast imaginable—dry toast and orange juice. I ate it at the kitchen table. Looking out at the tidal marsh, I saw a red-winged blackbird, another early migrant, alight briefly atop a swaying stalk of phragmites before winging down the river.
Fishing season kicked off next week, and I wondered who would cover my district. The first day of open-water fishing was one of my favorite days of the year to be a warden. For a moment again, I felt oppressed by my infirmity.
There was another knock at the door.
In my irritable convalescent state, I wasn’t sure who I was expecting, but it surely wasn’t the Knox County sheriff, Dudley Baker.
When I opened the door, I felt a mild brush of wind on my face. Much of the snow and ice had already dropped from the frozen branches. Our little patch of forest was loud with the staccato drip-drip of gravity pulling water down out of the trees.
The sheriff looked, as always, like a man whose entire appearance was sealed neatly into place; he seemed to begin each morning by coating himself from head to toe in immobilizing hair spray. His jowly cheeks bore a flush of color from the morning air. As we spoke, his tinted eyeglass lenses misted over, so that he had to wipe them with the corner of a pressed handkerchief.
“I hope I haven’t disturbed you,” he said, knowing full well that he had.
“I just finished breakfast.”
“How’s your hand?”
“Could be worse.”
He nodded his two chins. “Do you mind if I come in?”
We sat across from each other beside the expiring woodstove. I didn’t offer him coffee, tea, or even a glass of water. The sheriff had driven to my house for a specific reason, and I wanted to hear what it was.
“I thought I should give you an update about the Barter boy myself,” he said. “The doctors decided to fly him down to Boston. He’s in a drug-induced coma. There was extensive damage to the anterior frontal lobes of his brain. It’s too early to predict his prognosis.”
I didn’t know how to respond to this news. “So what are you doing with Calvin?”
“We’re holding him on some bench warrants, in addition to his ATV offenses. Unpaid traffic violations, failure to appear—that sort of thing. He’s going to be my guest for a while unless he can muster bail.”
“Morrison told me Barter’s been dealing pills to teenagers,” I said.
“Roofies are his specialty.”
“I guess it makes sense that a registered sex offender would traffic in date-rape drugs.”
“It’s all just hearsay. A kid we busted said he bought the pills off Barter. We can’t pin anything on Calvin.”
I had the distinct impre
ssion the sheriff was beating around some kind of bush. “So, I heard Hans Westergaard’s car might have been spotted in Massachusetts?”
“I can’t comment on that.”
If I kept pressing, I wondered if I could tease some information out of him. “A man just doesn’t disappear into thin air. Whoever killed Ashley left that house in a hurry. If Westergaard was panicked and on the run, he would have used one of his credit cards by now.”
“You know I can’t go into any of the investigative details.” He readjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “Mrs. Westergaard told Detective Menario that she spoke with you outside the jail.”
I gave a mirthless laugh. “I figured she would.”
“You should expect that AAG Marshall is going to come after you for tampering with a witness.”
“I’d say Jill Westergaard tampered with me.”
The sheriff licked his lips. “May I have a glass of water?”
“Help yourself. The glasses are to the right of the sink.”
Even in my altered state, I understood that Baker was behaving oddly.
He returned from the kitchen with a jelly glass full of water and a look of resolve in his moist eyes. The conversation seemed to have taken a wrong turn in Baker’s mind, and now he was determined to get it moving in the right direction. “You know I worked at the Maine State Prison for many years before I ran for county sheriff.”
“I don’t mean to insult you, but that’s one reason I didn’t vote for you,” I said. “Your opponent had real community policing experience. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”
For the first time, the tidy little man seemed to bristle. “I’ve heard that criticism before. You’d be surprised how many people at my own church have apologized for not voting for me. But it doesn’t matter. I won the election.”
“Where’s your church?”
“First Pentecostal.” He set down the glass and put a small pink hand on each knee. “Do you worship locally?”
“No, but I was raised Catholic.”
My answer seemed to deflate him, causing his shoulders to shrink. “I learned a lot about human nature working in the prison,” he said out of nowhere. “In my experience, most corrections officers are literal-minded individuals. That’s as it should be. It’s not a prison guard’s responsibility to second-guess judges or juries. Our job is to execute the law without prejudice or preference.”
“Sheriff, I’m really not equipped to have a philosophical conversation at the moment.” I displayed my black fingertips to bring the point home. “Could you please tell me what you want?”
His eyes darted around behind their amber lenses, but they didn’t leave mine. “I know Ozzie Bell and Lou Bates left certain documents with you. Have you had a chance to read them yet?”
The question spun my head around 360 degrees. “Don’t tell me you’re a member of the J-Team.”
He made a not very convincing show of clearing his throat. “As the sheriff of Knox County, I can’t engage in public crusades on behalf of convicted criminals.”
“I don’t believe it—you actually think Erland Jefferts is innocent.”
He sipped his water so lightly, I wasn’t even certain he had consumed any. “When you work at the prison, you get to know certain prisoners. I found Jefferts to be a remarkable young man. He’s a painter, a gardener, and a mentor to the other prisoners. He’s helped inmates learn to read, and he’s organized Bible-study groups.”
“He also raped and murdered a young woman, I seem to remember.”
Baker shook his head with such vigor, I feared his glasses might fly off. “You’re jumping to conclusions.”
“The man was convicted by a jury of his peers!”
“Anyone who researches the prosecution of Erland Jefferts will have their faith shaken in Maine’s legal system.”
I was losing patience now. “But what does this have to do with me?”
“You found Ashley Kim.”
“I found her mutilated corpse.”
The sheriff, sensing my growing irritation, attempted yet another fresh approach. “Unlike Trooper Hutchins, you recognized that Ashley Kim was in danger, and you took action to find her, even though it wasn’t your responsibility as a game warden to do so.”
“That’s a flattering way of saying I’m not a very good law officer.”
“I think you have the aptitude to become an outstanding law officer. That’s why we’d like your assistance.”
“By ‘we,’ you mean the J-Team?”
He refused to bite. “There’s a chance that if you looked through Bell’s files, you might spot a detail we’ve overlooked.”
“Look, Sheriff,” I said. “If you think Jefferts was wrongfully accused and Nikki Donnatelli’s killer also murdered Ashley Kim, then you prove it. That’s your job, not mine.”
He smiled benevolently. “You’re not as cynical as you pretend to be.”
“Is that so? What am I, then?”
“You’re a brave young man who believes in the cause of justice.”
I stood up unsteadily. “I need to take a piss.”
What had Kathy Frost called me? The patron saint of hopeless criminal prosecutions? From Jill Westergaard to Dudley Baker, I was suddenly attracting gullible saps like a picnic basket attracts wasps. I stood over the toilet and marveled how my life had taken this bizarre twist.
This murder investigation was no longer any of my business. My only involvement would be as a witness at Professor Westergaard’s trial. And yet the spectral image of that murdered girl just wouldn’t leave me be. I’d begun to fear it never would. I didn’t trust Menario to find Ashley Kim’s killer, whether it was Hans Westergaard or not. The idea of adding her name to Maine’s list of unsolved homicides filled me with a red rage. I owed it to that poor woman to do something on her behalf.
By the time I returned to the living room, I’d decided on a course of action. “I’ll look through Bell’s files,” I said with a theatrical sigh. “On one condition, though. You have to promise to share information with me about the Ashley Kim investigation.”
Baker’s fat neck flushed scarlet. “I won’t share anything that might compromise the case.”
“Does Westergaard have access to a private plane? I know he’s rich. Is there any way he could have slipped out of the country? Back to Europe or something?”
“I’m not at liberty to reveal those particular details.”
I pressed my splint against my chest. “Just tell me who Menario has interviewed, then.”
He puffed out his cheeks. “Mark Folsom, the owner of the Harpoon Bar in Seal Cove. We pulled one of his fingerprints off the pay phone outside Smitty’s Garage.”
Charley Stevens had called me with that news. “Folsom was Nikki Donnatelli’s employer.”
“And a suspect in her murder. But he claims that he’s used that phone on several occasions, and there’s nothing to place him at the scene of the accident on the night of Ashley Kim’s disappearance.”
“What about the Driskos?”
“So far, they’ve refused to talk. The state police are expediting the DNA tests on that blood and hair you collected, but it seems certain that the Driskos stole the deer from the road. Menario can’t arrest them until he has proof of it, though.”
“How about the Westergaards’ caretaker—Stanley Snow?”
“He has alibis for the entire day Ashley was missing—people who swore they’d seen him at the Square Deal and around Seal Cove. He’s also offered to take a polygraph.”
I remembered what Jill Westergaard had said about Snow—that he was the gentlest man she’d ever met. The caretaker was either supremely confident or supremely stupid if he had volunteered to take a lie-detector test to prove his innocence. But polygraphs were not infallible, and they could be beaten. There were sites all over the Internet that taught you techniques on becoming an artful liar.
“Who else are you looking at?” I asked.
“Menario’s t
eam has been going down the list of sex predators for Seal Cove, although it’s possible it’s someone who’s never been registered. If it was just some random person passing by at the wrong time, it’s going to be very hard to solve.”
“Is that why you came to me—because you’re grasping at straws?”
“You might say that.”
The admission squeezed some sympathy from me. “I’ll take a look at Ozzie Bell’s files,” I said, rising and motioning my good hand toward the door. “If I notice anything noteworthy, I’ll give you a call.”
“As sheriff, I can’t have a public connection to this.”
“You mean I should call Lou Bates instead?”
His rabbit nose crinkled when he smiled. “Lou is—how should I put it?—a very zealous person. I’d recommend that you speak with Bell.”
I escorted him to the door. “I’m curious what changed your mind about Jefferts’s innocence.”
Very carefully, he buttoned the front of his jacket with his short fingers. “Read the evidence, and you’ll see.”
“You made it sound like your own conversion was personal,” I said. “Like Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus.”
He perked up at my New Testament allusion. “Even before I read Bell’s report, I had doubts,” he admitted. “The junior staff at the prison—they assume everyone is guilty because a jury convicted them. But the older guards, they develop their own views, based on personal interactions over time. These guys have a list of inmates they’d personally set free if they could. At the top of that list is Erland Jefferts.”
25
It took some doing, but I managed to manhandle Bell’s box of files out of my truck and lug them as far as the mudroom. I pried open the dented cardboard cover and extracted the first document: “Rush to Judgment: The State of Maine’s Rigged Case Against Erland Jefferts.”
This is going to be good, I thought.
Ozzie Bell’s box included the complete trial transcript (1,334 pages) of the State of Maine v. Erland R. Jefferts; the report of Knox County sheriff’s deputy Dane Guffey on finding Jefferts and his truck on the night of July 12, 2004; the handwritten notes of Detective Joseph Winchenback, recounting the circumstances and exact wording of Jefferts’s “confession,” which disagreed with the investigator’s sworn testimony at trial; a printout from the Maine Sex Offender Registry listing every convicted predator within a ten-mile radius of the crime scene (Calvin Barter’s name was circled, for some reason); a photocopied map showing the location of Jefferts’s truck in relation to both the Harpoon Bar and the swampy spot where Nikki Donnatelli’s body was later located; an inventory of items recovered from his pickup; the report of Warden Katherine Frost concerning the search and discovery of the dead girl’s body; the final report of the state psychologist on the sanity of Erland R. Jefferts; the autopsy report of the state medical examiner, Dr. Walter Kitteridge; snapshots of Jefferts with his J-Team supporters in prison on the occasion of his thirtieth birthday; a letter from Louise Bates to the presiding judge, pleading for mercy for her nephew; and a statement by Maine’s attorney general denying an investigation into prosecutorial misconduct. And that was just half of it.