Murder on High

by Stefanie Matteson

  “Names?” asked Tracey.

  Jeanne gave him the names, and he wrote them down in his notebook.

  “Then, of course, there was Mack,” she went on once Tracey had finished taking notes.

  “Who’s Mack?”

  “Mack Scott. He was a—” She groped for the right word. “I guess you’d say he was a disciple of Iris’. He was on the mountain that day, too.”

  “On the day she was murdered!”

  “Or he was supposed to be. He was going to take the route that Thoreau had followed—that’s the Abol Trail; it comes up from the south—and meet Iris at Thoreau Spring. I don’t know if he actually did. He said he’d climbed the mountain enough times from the north, and wanted to try it from the other way.”

  “We should talk to him,” said Tracey. “Where does he live?”

  She paused for a moment, and then said, “He doesn’t have a formal address. He lives in a trailer down by the railroad tracks. On South Water Street. You go down South Main and turn left on Sawyer. It’s at the foot of Sawyer Street, on your left. Gray with maroon stripes. You can’t miss it.”

  Tracey wrote down the directions, and then asked, “Can you tell us anything more about him?”

  “He’s about forty, I’d say. Blond and stocky, with a beard. The beard is red. If you’re going to meet him, I’d better leave it at that. He’s … he’s a hard person to describe, kind of an eccentric.”

  “I have a question,” interjected Charlotte. “You said that Iris didn’t have a funeral because she didn’t believe in them.”

  Jeanne nodded. “She was cremated. She didn’t want a fuss made over her.” She cast a glance at the gabled farmhouse. “I have her ashes inside. I’m planning to scatter them in the woods sometime. That’s what she would have wanted.”

  “If she had had a funeral, who would have come?” Charlotte asked.

  “Her favorite people, you mean?”

  Charlotte nodded.

  Jeanne thought for a moment, then said, “Her lawyer, Ellsworth Partridge. He handled all of her affairs. She was very fond of him.”

  “I know Ellsworth,” said Tracey.

  “Everybody knows Ellsworth,” she replied. “He was president of the state Senate. Another would be Dave Stadtler, the publisher of the local newspaper, The Penobscot Times. That’s where she got The Pumpkin Paper printed. Also, various people from the New England chapter of the Thoreau Association.”

  “What about this guy Mack Scott?” asked Tracey.

  “Mack, of course. There were only two people whom she would regularly walk with, and he was one of them. She walked with me too, of course, but only sometimes. I wasn’t a regular the way they were.”

  She spoke with some bitterness, obviously offended that Iris didn’t treasure her company enough to consider her worthy of walking with.

  “Who was the other person?” Charlotte asked.

  “Keith Samusit.”

  She seemed almost to spit the name out, as if it pained her to voice the sounds. It was clear she didn’t like this fellow.

  “The Penobscot Indian?” asked Tracey.

  She nodded. “He manages Hamlin’s Woods. That’s the woods out back.” She nodded at a red pickup truck that was parked behind one of the sheds. “He happens to be here right now if you want to talk with him.”

  “We would indeed,” said Tracey.

  She nodded at the carriage path. “Just follow the path into the woods, and give a holler. It curves around in the shape of a W and comes out on the other side of the house, so you’re not likely to miss him.”

  “Thanks,” said Tracey.

  At the end of the string of sheds, the carriage path abruptly entered the woods, which were like few Charlotte had ever seen. They had a fairy-tale quality, as if elves and giants dwelt there. Also, an incredible tranquility. The clear, straight trunks of the old trees soared to the sky like the pillars of an ancient cathedral, and the forest floor, clear of underbrush, was padded with a thick russet carpet of old pine needles. The cool air had the invigorating smell of pine resin, and the feathery plumes of the green pine needles seemed to charge the air with an invisible current.

  They found Samusit a short distance down the carriage path. He was limbing up the small pines that had sprung up under the old growth, using a hatchet to trim away the dead branches that encircled the trunks like the spokes of layer upon layer of wheels. As he struck them, the limbs fell away with a crack in a tangled web of silvery gray. A pruner attached to a long handle for reaching the higher branches lay on the ground at his feet, and several piles of the slash that had already been pruned away stood nearby, indicating that he had been at his work for some time.

  Seeing Charlotte and Tracey, he stopped what he was doing, and waited.

  Keith Samusit did not fit Charlotte’s idea of what an American Indian looked like. In fact, had she not known he was a Penobscot, she would have thought he was Japanese. He was a slight man, with thick black hair, and eyeglasses with narrow tortoise-shell frames. His eyes were slightly slanted, and his black eyebrows flared upwards. The color of his skin was not so much red as yellow. If evidence were ever needed that the Indians had crossed to the Americas via the Bering Strait, it could be found in the Asian features of Keith Samusit’s angled face.

  He was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, over which he wore a blue denim jacket. The only hints of the Indian in his attire were his simple leather moccasins, and a heavy silver ring with a turquoise stone.

  “I heard about Iris on the news,” Samusit said after Tracey had introduced himself and explained the purpose of his visit. (Tracey had also introduced Charlotte, but Samusit showed no signs of recognizing who she was.)

  Tracey looked around. “Pretty nice stand of timber.” Then, flinching suddenly, he swatted at a black fly, the small biting insect that was Maine’s springtime scourge. “Jeezum,” he said, “the flies are wicked in here.”

  Charlotte was swatting away as well. The flies suddenly seemed to be biting every inch of exposed flesh, and some that was unexposed as well, like that on her ankles. The viciousness of the attack made her want to cut and run. It was like walking into a hornets’ nest.

  “They launch their attack the minute you stop moving,” said Samusit. Reaching into the pocket of his jacket, he pulled out a small container and offered it to Tracey. “Here’s some fly dope,” he said.

  Taking the container, Tracey spread a coating of the liquid, which smelled like citronella, on his hands and neck and along his hairline, and then offered it to Charlotte.

  She read the label aloud. “‘BUG AMMO. If you’ve got the bugs, we’ve got the ammo.’ Well,” she said, “we certainly have the bugs.”

  “If you don’t get them, they’ll get you,” said Samusit. “It’s war.”

  Charlotte followed Tracey’s example, and then handed the container back. “Thanks,” she said. The effect was almost instantaneous. Already, there were fewer of the awful flies.

  Tracey was looking up into the tops of the trees. “I’ve heard that this is one of the few remaining stands of virgin forest in New England,” he said, choosing the indirect approach as usual.

  “That’s what people say, but it’s not true,” Samusit replied. “There wasn’t much in this area that escaped being cut, and that would be especially true of a stand so close to the river. But I estimate this land hasn’t been logged since the eighteen twenties, which would still make it one of the oldest around.”

  Charlotte could see why Pyle thought he would have made a good priest. He had an air of gravity that men of the cloth often exhibited, as if they navigated the difficult passages of life in a ship with a deeper keel than that of ordinary men.

  “That means that some of these trees are a hundred and seventy years old,” said Tracey, looking up at a giant white pine with deeply fissured bark.

  “At least. There are some, like the one you’re looking at, that were skipped over when this stand was logged, and are probably two
hundred years old. They logged differently then: it was one man, one horse, one ax; everything didn’t get cut the way it does today.”

  “How long will a tree like this live?” asked Tracey.

  “Eastern white pine will live to three hundred years or more, so that tree still has a century or more to go.” He nodded at a nearby hemlock. “That hemlock is probably over two hundred years old. You can tell an old hemlock because the bark turns that cinnamon color.”

  “I understand that you manage this woodlot,” said Tracey.

  “Yeah,” Samusit said. “Not that a woodlot this old requires much management.” He looked around at the big old trees. “Occasionally a tree dies, and I cut it down. That’s about it, except for thinning out the underbrush from time to time to give the new growth a chance.”

  “What about the limbing up?” said Tracey, nodding at the hatchet Samusit still held in his hand.

  The Indian looked down at the hatchet as if he had forgotten it was there. “The limbing up really isn’t necessary. I do it because I find it relaxing. I came here today because of Iris.” Setting the hatchet down, he took a seat on a fallen log and rubbed his temples with his fingers. “What a shock,” he said.

  “How long had you known Mrs. Richards?” asked Tracey.

  “Six or seven years. I first came here when I was a forestry student. She used to let the forestry professors bring the students here to see what an old-growth forest looked like. I noticed that the woodlot needed some work, and asked her for the job.”

  “And she hired you just like that?”

  “Well, not just like that. She only hired me after she found out I was descended from the Indian guide who accompanied Thoreau on his trip to Chesuncook. He was my great-great-granduncle. I thought it was a dumb reason for hiring someone, but she liked the idea of the connection.”

  “And you became friends,” prompted Tracey.

  Samusit nodded. “I’m the tribe forester now, so I don’t really need this job. But I’ve kept on doing it as a favor to Iris, and also because I like it in here.” He looked again at the tall trees around him.

  “I have to ask this next question of everyone who was close to her,” said Tracey. “Where were you on the day she was killed?”

  “I understand,” Samusit said. “Though I had no reason to kill Iris. She was … well, I guess you could say she was like a mother to me.” He fixed Tracey with a level gaze. “In answer to your question, I was cruising.”

  “On the coast somewhere?” asked Tracey.

  “No,” he said with a smile. “On fee land up by Katahdin. I should have said timber cruising, as opposed to sailboat cruising.”

  Charlotte had always been struck by the fact that inland Maine and coastal Maine were like two different states, one drawing its identity from the woods, the other from the sea. In this case, the same word had different meanings in the two cultures.

  Samusit explained. “Surveying the timberland for prospective cuts. Inventorying sample stands. I’d been away for a week. When I came back, I found out that Iris was dead.”

  “Were you by yourself?” asked Tracey.

  He nodded. “But my girlfriend could confirm when I left and when I returned. Her name is Didias Thomas, and she lives with me on Indian Island.” He gave Tracey the address and telephone number.

  “I heard that you’re associated with a retreat center on fee land up by Katahdin,” said Tracey, leading up to the Pamola issue.

  “I’m associated with the Katahdin Retreat Center,” he replied. “Everybody thinks it’s on fee land, but it’s not. It abuts fee land, but the land is actually privately owned by a foundation, the Katahdin Foundation.”

  “Who controls the foundation?”

  “That question would be better put in the past tense,” said Samusit. “The answer is, or was, Iris Richards. She was the founder and the chairman of the board, and it was her money that paid for the land and the building.”

  Then it was also her foundation that made the money, Charlotte thought.

  Tracey looked as astonished as the fisherman whose aimless trolling has netted him a big one. Charlotte could almost see his brain analyzing the question of what this meant to the case.

  For one thing, she reflected, it opened up the possibility that the Pamola business wasn’t just malicious mischief perpetrated by some disaffected tribesman, but part of a deliberate campaign to harass, and possibly even kill, Iris.

  “Now, why would Mrs. Richards have founded a retreat center for the Penobscot Indians?” Tracey asked.

  “I had an uncle who always said, ‘You can take the woods away from a Penobscot, but you can’t take it out of him.’ The woods are a part of our collective soul; we need the woods, we need Katahdin, and we need the Penobscot River. That’s what the retreat center’s for. But in answer to your question, the retreat center isn’t just for the Indians. Though it’s been the Indians who’ve used it the most. It’s for anyone who’s interested in the vision quest: Native Americans, whites, Thoreauvians.”

  “I’m listening,” said Tracey.

  “Do you know what a vision quest is?” he asked.

  “I have a rough idea,” said Tracey.

  “Iris had a theory that the vision quest is expressive of a basic human need to reconnect with the wilderness, and through that connection to explore the wilderness that lies within our souls. She believed that this need expresses itself in various ways in every culture.”

  “I’m not sure I follow you,” said Tracey, who was writing it all down.

  “For instance, Iris saw Thoreau’s stay at Walden Pond in terms of a vision quest: a time of living simply, away from the demands of daily life in order to get in touch with one’s deeper self. Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness was a vision quest; Iris’ own annual pilgrimage to Katahdin …”

  “I see,” said Tracey, nodding.

  “She even wrote an article about it for The Pumpkin Paper, in which she talked about how the erosion of the wilderness is affecting this need. That’s why she founded the Center.”

  “‘In wildness is the preservation of the world,’” said Charlotte, quoting a well-known line from Thoreau.

  “Exactly,” said Keith. “In fact, that’s the Center’s motto.”

  “Speaking of vision questers …” said Tracey.

  At last, Charlotte thought.

  Tracey continued. “One of the park rangers told us that a man dressed up as Pamola appeared to a vision quester at the retreat center earlier this month. It was his theory that the man was an Indian who was trying to scare off the white vision questers. I’m interested in what you think.”

  “He may be right,” Samusit replied. “There’s a lot of opposition to the Center from Penobscots who don’t want to see whites participating in Indian rituals, but there’s a lot of sentiment the other way too. Many of our people realize that if we don’t share our medicine, we’ll lose it.”

  “Do you think it might be someone who’s angry about what they perceive as the exploitation of Indian culture?” asked Tracey.

  Samusit’s dark brown eyes suddenly turned fiery. “Exploitation!” he spat. “If you’re talking about exploitation, let’s talk about opening up tribal lands to gambling. If high stakes Bingo in what’s supposed to be the tribe’s recreational facility isn’t exploitation, I don’t know what is.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” said Tracey softly.

  “Right,” said Samusit. “You wouldn’t. Sorry.”

  “Do you have any idea who might be doing this?” Tracey asked again.

  He shook his head, and looked down at the unfurled ferns that were pushing up through the mat of pine needles at his feet.

  Charlotte had the feeling that he was lying.

  “Did you know that this person dressed up as Pamola appeared to Iris at the Chimney Pond campsite on the night before she was murdered?” Tracey said.

  Samusit’s head jerked up in surprise.

  Tracey went on. “If wha
t you say about tribal resentment is true, she would have been a natural target. It’s because of her that a lot of people—white people, that is—have been drawn to the retreat center, right?”

  Samusit nodded. “Do you think there’s a connection?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It could have been a coincidence. But it also could have been a personal vendetta. All I know is that the Pamola prankster is our only suspect at the moment.” Tracey pulled out a card and handed it to Samusit. “If you hear anything more, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know.”

  Samusit tucked the card into his breast pocket, but Charlotte doubted that Tracey would be hearing from him. Despite his apparent openness to whites, he was still an Indian, and every Indian she had ever known (which was a fair number, given the Westerns she had done), had no use for white police.

  The tall trunks of the trees were casting long shadows on the forest floor, and the stray shafts of sun that pierced the forest canopy were turning the hairs on the moss a golden yellow. It was getting late.

  Tracey checked his watch. “Well, I guess we’d better get going,” he said. They said goodbye, and turned back toward the house.

  7

  It at first seemed odd to Charlotte that of the half dozen people to whom Iris had been close, three of them—Jeanne Ouellette, Keith Samusit, and Mack Scott—had been on or in the vicinity of the mountain on the day she was killed. Thinking about it again, however, as she and Tracey headed back out of the woods, she decided that it wasn’t so odd after all. Iris had apparently been something of a mentor to both Keith and Mack, and Charlotte supposed that their interest in the mountain had grown out of Iris’ own. This was confirmed, at least as far as Keith was concerned, in further conversation with Jeanne, who was still labeling the trilliums when they emerged from the woods. She talked readily about Keith’s relationship with Iris, but with the same tinge of hostility that Charlotte had noticed earlier. Because of Iris’ deep interest in Indian culture—one of the offshoots of her devotion to Thoreau—she had served as cheerleader, sounding board, and ultimately financial backer in Keith’s mission to revive Penobscot culture, and in particular, the tribe’s spiritual heritage. Under Keith’s leadership, the tribe had formed a men’s drumming circle, one of whose goals was to revive forgotten Penobscot sacred music, a lot of which had been written down by nineteenth-century ethnologists; had revived a lapsed tradition of holding an annual Indian pageant for the performance of traditional Penobscot dances; and had launched the tradition of the annual Sacred Run to Katahdin. A retreat center for the practice of Native American religion at Katahdin, and in particular for the enactment of the pan-Indian vision quest ceremony, had been Keith’s dream, and he had worked for years to bring it to fruition.