Trespasser (28 page)

As I crossed the lawn to the front door, I noticed the shadow of a big barn behind the house. Was that where Dane did his wood carving? The temperature had dipped below freezing; I knew because the grass crackled under my boots.

On the door, there was an ancient cast-iron knocker that should have had Jacob Marley’s face carved into it. With my good hand, I used it to announce my presence. The sound echoed off into the darkness.

I waited a long time for someone to answer.

Eventually, I heard a faint shuffling, as if someone was descending a flight of stairs. Then a light snapped on above my head. The door opened a crack but was impeded from further progress by a chain. Looking through the illuminated slit, I found myself facing an old man wearing a drab bathrobe.

I could see only one side of him, but I recognized at once that he had Parkinson’s disease. The single eye that examined me was nearly all pupil, and his entire body was shaking like a streaker at the North Pole. He had a shiny dome for a head and a set of oversized yellow teeth that might have been dentures.

“Mr. Guffey? Is Dane at home?” I saw my breath shimmering in the cold air.

“No-o-o-o.”

“Do you know where he is?”

The man made a gurgling noise.

I tried another question: “Do you know when Dane will be back?”

“No-o-o-o.”

“I’m Mike Bowditch, the district game warden.” I fumbled in my pocket for one of my business cards. It was a white rectangle that bore the seal of the State of Maine. “When your son gets home, can you have him call me at the bottom number? That’s my cell phone.” Why am I speaking to this man as if he were a child? I wondered. Parkinson’s doesn’t affect the brain. “Please tell him it’s important.”

I tried to hand the card to Mr. Guffey, but it slipped through his quivering fingers and drifted like a leaf to the floor. It was still lying there when he closed the door on me. In the silence that followed, I heard a bolt shoot home.

*   *   *

The pain in my fingers and wrist was excruciating. The temptation to pop another Vicodin whispered to me from the back of my skull.
What’s the purpose of needless suffering?
it hissed.

I turned on the ignition and reached across my body to shift gears while bracing the wheel with my splint. As I pulled onto the paved road, my headlights lit up the dirt drive that led to the home of Dave and Donnie Drisko. Since my journey to the Guffey house had been such a bust, I felt a sudden urge to check in with my two game thieves.

If I hadn’t recognized it before, I should have realized then that my thinking was seriously impaired.

During my convalescence, I figured, the Driskos needed to know they were being watched. Already I was certain that word had gotten around that the local warden was out of commission. A surprise visit, I reasoned, might give them a healthful shock.

Stupidly, I headed up the rocky road, past the homes of a couple unfortunate neighbors who probably lived in fear of the local hell-raisers. If I had a house near the Driskos, every window would be barred, and I’d keep a bazooka in the umbrella stand. I crept quietly forward until my lights just touched the edge of their property line.

I unlocked my glove compartment and found the pistol I kept there. It was a Walther PPKS .380 that I’d purchased on my eighteenth birthday because—hilariously, in retrospect—I’d wanted to be like James Bond. Today, it served as my off-duty carry weapon. Every so often, Sarah and I would be traveling somewhere, and she’d want something from the glove compartment—tissues, maybe, or a mint. When she’d see the pistol, she’d give a shriek, as if it were a big spider.

I ejected the magazine and checked the chamber. With a set of five butter fingers encased in a bulky splint, even this simple task became a difficult and painful act. There was no way I could accurately discharge the weapon with my right hand, and as a lefty, I’d never been able to hit the broad side of an aircraft carrier. With the Driskos, though, you could never be too careful.

The moon was nearly full, but the pale disk was shrouded by clouds and it cast a pellucid light on the road. I’d taken only two steps or so before the Driskos’ pit bull began growling from the other side of the fence. Some dogs bark viciously, as if they very much wish to bite you. Vicky sounded like she wanted to dismember me limb from limb. I half-imagined her breaking through the fence, leaving a dog-shaped opening like you see in old cartoons.

A heavy padlock hung on a chain wrapped around the handles. Because the gate was locked from the outside, it meant that my friends, the Driskos, were not at home. I had a feeling the swinging singles might be out on the town.

It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce where Dave and Donnie might be at this hour. The Harpoon Bar was a quick jaunt down the road.

*   *   *

When I got back to the Jeep, there was a new message on my cell phone. The unfamiliar voice belonged to a man, and from his first words I could tell he was apopleptic: “This is a message for Warden Bowditch. This is Nick Donnatelli—Nikki’s father. I’ve heard you’re one of the bastards trying to set Erland Jefferts free. The man is a psychopath! He raped and murdered my baby in cold blood. It’s bad enough for my family to be subjected to seven years of harassment by lunatics. But you’re a law-enforcement officer, for God’s sake! Who the hell do you think you are?”

I pushed the erase button. Someone must have contacted him. Maybe Danica Marshall thought a phone call from the grieving father would appeal to my conscience and dissuade me from my quixotic quest.

I should have returned Mr. Donnatelli’s phone call, if only to explain my intentions: I was on a mission to discover the truth, not just for Ashley Kim’s sake but for his own daughter’s, too. It was the only way for justice to be served and for both women to rest in peace. He needed to know my heart was just.

I should have called Nikki’s father back, but I didn’t.

31

The houses in the fishing village of Seal Cove clung like barnacles around a perfect vase-shaped harbor. Mariners knew it as a hurricane hole: a safe haven where they could tie up their boats if ever a monster storm came crashing down the coast. In August the cove would be a watery parking lot where sloops and lobsterboats angled for every available mooring, but in March the only boats were a few lonely commercial vessels glowing white in the moonlight. You could fish for lobsters year-round along the Maine coast if you didn’t mind scraping ice off every hawser and venturing out on subzero mornings through breath-stopping clouds of sea smoke.

But now with spring officially here—on the calendar, if not in fact—more lobsterboats would begin to emerge from beneath their shrink-wrapped skins. Soon the harbormaster would motor out to set the summer moorings. One morning the cove would be placid and empty; the next it would be dotted with floating volleyballs.

The Harpoon Bar occupied an entire wharf on the waterfront. It was a sprawling dead whale of a place that looked like it might someday slide back into the brink. When I got there that night, the parking lot was full, and the joint was jumping. During mud season, there wasn’t much to do in this ghost town but drink.

Close to the water, the air felt raw, but the smell of the ocean was stronger than I remembered: another seasonal sign of change. That pleasant briny odor was caused by breeding plankton. In July you could breathe in the sea from miles away, but in the winter it was just a faint scent that drifted like a windblown memory of some long-forgotten summer.

Even before I opened the door, I could hear loud rock music and shouted conversations. I stepped into the bar and paused on the threshold to absorb the maritime spectacle.

The Harpoon took its nautical theme seriously—fishing nets were hung decoratively from the ceiling, and the walls were made of weathered panels that might have been salvaged from wrecked pirate ships. It was the kind of place where the bathroom doors were labeled
BUOYS
and
GULLS
. The signature harpoon itself hung above the fully stocked bar, which was where I seated myself.

Despite all the packed bodies inside the bar, the air was as cold as a fish locker; it smelled of fried seafood, spilled beer, and various strong perfumes and colognes.

The bartender took a while to find his way to me. He was engrossed in a spirited conversation with a middle-aged woman wearing a UConn sweatshirt. The TV above their heads showed a fast-paced basketball game. I was so caught up in my own obsessions that I’d forgotten about the other March madness.

I spun around on my stool. All the tables seemed to be full. I recognized many of the faces—men and women I’d arrested for growing pot or driving drunk—but there were just as many people unfamiliar to me. I spotted the mustachioed Driskos in the far corner. They were seated with a balding man who sat with his back to the room.

“What’ll you have?”

The bartender leaned across the damp bar. Despite the cloistered chill of the room, he wore a T-shirt that exposed his massive biceps, one of which was emblazoned with a United States Marines tattoo. I guessed him to be in his late thirties, maybe early forties, a veteran of the first Gulf War. He might have been handsome if not for the flattened nose and thinning sandy hair.

“A beer and a menu,” I said.

“What?” He needed to shout to be heard above the thudding bass of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

“Allagash White!” I shouted back. “And a menu!”

He poured me a pint and returned with a grease-slicked menu. “What happened to your hand?”

I wriggled my black fingers for him. “Crashed my ATV!”

He bobbed his eyebrows at me. “You’re that game warden!”

I should have figured the town bartender would be a link in the local gossip chain. “Folsom, right?”

“Yeah!” he said, displaying enough suspicion to tell me that he was no dope. “What do you want to eat?”

“Hamburger!”

He stared at me for a moment as if he hadn’t heard what I’d said, then wandered down to the end of the bar, past the row of beer taps and ice sinks, to punch my order into a computer.

After a while, Folsom drifted down to me again. There was a mirror behind the shelf of liquor bottles, and it showed a hairless spot on the crown of his head.

“Can we talk somewhere?” I was tired of shouting.

“Why?”

“I just need a minute!”

He motioned down to the end of the bar, where a set of swinging doors led into a brightly lit kitchen. I grabbed my beer and followed. The jukebox was still loud in the kitchen, and there was the added clatter of plates and the wet hum of the dishwasher. But you could at least converse at a near normal volume.

Folsom grabbed a pretty waitress by the shoulder. “Watch the bar for me.”

She sighed and disappeared back into pandemonium.

The bartender bobbed his head at me as if he’d already reached the limit of his patience. “So what can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for Dane Guffey.”

“Guffey? He only comes in for lunch sometimes.” He played with a few strands of his wispy forelock. “What do you want with him?”

“Police business.” The words sounded ridiculous as soon as they left my mouth. “I need to talk with him about Erland Jefferts.”

“Jefferts? What the hell is this about?”

“I think you know.”

Folsom crossed his Popeye forearms. “If this is about that Asian chick, I have nothing to say. Besides, I thought they found the guy who killed her. It’s been all over the news tonight.”

“I wouldn’t believe everything you hear. The case continues to be under active investigation.”

“Are you saying I’m still some kind of suspect?”

“There’s evidence linking you to the death of two young women.”

The bartender leaned close enough that I could smell liquor on his breath. Folsom was one of those barkeeps who helped himself to his own spirits. “So I used Smitty’s pay phone a few times? So what? I wasn’t anywhere near Parker Point that night.”

“The J-Team doesn’t care. As far as they’re concerned, these new killings just prove Nikki’s murderer is still on the loose. And your name is on their list.”

“I never committed a crime in my life.” Folsom’s muscled chest had begun to heave, and he seemed on the verge of tears. “Do you know what it’s like being called a sex killer? It nearly killed my mom to read that shit in the papers.” One of the waitresses dropped a plate, which shattered on the floor. We both watched as the cook scolded her for her clumsiness. When Folsom looked at me again, his eyes were dry. “What does it matter to you anyway?”

“I was the one who found Ashley Kim. I think there’s some connection between her death and what happened to Nikki Donnatelli.” I framed my next words with care. “Jefferts and Nikki had a sexual relationship, didn’t they?”

“That’s a lie,” Folsom sneered. “Nikki was a good girl from a good family. She wouldn’t have been interested in a scumbag like that.”

I sensed that he wasn’t being entirely truthful. “How can you be so sure?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Because I knew her, and you didn’t. I resent your talking about Nikki like she was some kind of slut.”

Interesting choice of words, I thought. But I didn’t want to provoke a fistfight with a former Marine, especially with one hand tied behind my back, so to speak. “What do you think happened to Nikki after she left work that night?”

“For seven years, I’ve been asking myself that question. Jefferts must have surprised her or something.” He pinched his nostrils as if to keep them from running and looked down at the greasy kitchen floor. “You don’t know what it’s like having people think you’re a murderer.”

“Actually, I do.”

Folsom shook his head as if I was just being agreeable and not stating an essential truth of my life. “I was having a good night tonight,” he said. “Why’d you have to come in here and fuck it all up?”

I suspected the bartender was withholding information about Erland and Nikki. But whatever Bell thought of him, Mark Folsom didn’t strike me as a man capable of raping and murdering a young woman. If anything, he seemed like a man carrying a heavy grief. I wondered if he blamed himself for Nikki’s death.