Trespasser (32 page)

The firemen pulled this immense canvas object out of the pumper truck and then unfolded it next to the vehicle. It looked like a kid’s swimming pool, only on a giant scale. The tanker truck arrived and began dumping water into the pool. The engine inside the pumper truck functioned basically like an enormous squirt gun, sucking water from the canvas pool through one set of hoses and then blasting it out again at high pressure through others. The firemen used this second set of hoses to fight the fire.

Whenever the tanker truck became empty, the driver would rush away down the road to the nearest stream or pond to replenish the water supply and then would come racing back to refill the canvas pool. In a land without fire hydrants, this is how you fight a fire, and if you are skilled or lucky, it’s how you keep buildings from burning down.

The Cellar Savers were neither skilled nor lucky.

The Driskos’ trailer was made of aluminum, so it didn’t collapse. But the fire gutted the structure completely. And it took the state fire investigator a long time to collect the remains of the other Drisko.

Was it Donnie or Dave? Even at the end, no one could tell them apart.

35

I spent the afternoon at the scene of the fire, waiting and hoping that the cause of the blaze would be quickly ascertained. An investigator from the state fire marshal’s office had been summoned from Augusta, but determining the origin and cause of the fire would likely be laborious. Figuring out whether it was an accident or arson might take days. But I was hopeful for a quick answer.

Passing out drunk with a lighted cigarette seemed like something one of the Driskos might do. Father and son had both seemed destined for fiery ends. So I decided to stick around the smoldering trailer because I was curious. And I wanted to meet the mysterious Dane Guffey, who had materialized out of the past to haunt my recent conversations. I needed to ask him why he had resigned from the sheriff’s department. What had he been doing in the seven years since he’d arrested Erland Jefferts?

To keep myself occupied, I made a wide circle around the Driskos’ wooded property, looking for their pit bull. I figured Vicky must have broken free of her rope. Maybe the fire and smoke had given her that extra energy to escape. Having a vicious dog running loose through these woods would be dangerous to the local wildlife, not to mention the local children. For all their small-man bravado, I think the Driskos had been secretly scared of her, too.

The forest floor was sopped. I found no dog prints anywhere. At the very least, I could conclude that Dave and Donnie hadn’t been in the habit of letting their watchdog free to chase deer. The hollows between the oaks held pools of water that would soon fill with mating wood frogs and spotted salamanders. So far, the amphibians had failed to emerge from their hibernating places. To me, spring never truly arrived until I heard my first frog.

Eventually, I returned to the commotion. I leaned against the side of my Jeep, watching the volunteers scurry about in coats and boots that seemed too big for them, like boys playing firemen. Dirty smoke drifted through the treetops. The air carried the sour odor of wet ashes. I reflected on my last visit to this trailer and my subsequent confrontation with Dave and Donnie at the Harpoon Bar. I’d been struck by how gleeful they’d seemed on both occasions. How had Dave responded when I told him he seemed exceptionally happy? “You have no idea.”

What had he meant by that? The Driskos must have understood they were still murder suspects. There was evidence, in the form of deer hair and blood, tying them directly to Ashley’s last known whereabouts. So why had they been strutting around the Harpoon like little red roosters?

Was it possible they’d known the identity of Ashley Kim’s abductor? If they’d been on the scene that night, grabbing that deer, had they witnessed something they only later understood as significant? Rather than going to the police—since no reward had yet been offered—I could imagine them trying to extort money from the murderer. Had the Driskos made a fatal error in threatening the wrong man with exposure?

They’d been drinking with someone that night at the bar, a bald man who’d kept his back to the darkened room. Stanley Snow was bald, and I’d run into him in the rest room. I’d also just passed his speeding truck hours earlier on my way home from Parker Point.

Snow had keys to the Westergaard house. But what motive would he have had to kill his employer and rape and murder an innocent young woman? As a local boy, he would have known the particulars of Nikki Donnatelli’s death well enough to copy it. In all the reading I’d done about Erland Jefferts, I realized, the caretaker’s name had never come up. He was just about the only guy in Seal Cove whom the J-Team hadn’t added to its list of potential predators. That seemed odd in and of itself.

God, I was driving myself crazy with questions, especially when the likelihood was that Dave or Donnie had just passed out with a smoldering cigarette.

My friend Deputy Skip Morrison had shown up in his Dodge Charger to direct traffic away from the fire. But there was no traffic to direct on the dead-end road, so instead he had wandered up the hill to watch the firemen hose down the burned-out shell of the trailer.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I heard the call on the radio.”

“I thought you were on leave.”

“I am.”

He shook his head at me and chuckled. “So much for the Driskos.”

“Did you hear if anyone found any trace of their dog? They owned a pretty vicious pit bull.”

“Guffey said he saw a crispy critter inside.”

“That’s weird. Dave told me she never went indoors.

“Maybe he made an exception occasionally.”

“I think they were afraid of her.
I
was afraid of her.”

“Well, it sounds like she perished in the fire. Wherever Dave and Donnie are at the moment, I’m guessing it’s just as hot as where they left.”

I spotted Hank Varnum standing in a circle of volunteer firemen, some of whom I recognized and some of whom I didn’t. They were rolling up their heavy hoses, but they didn’t seem in any rush. “Excuse me for a second, Skip,” I said. “Hey, Hank!”

The tall grocer had ashes in his whiskers. He stuck a long finger out in the direction of my splint. “I heard you crashed your ATV chasing Barter. How’s your hand doing?”

“It’s all right.”

“If that kid dies, that son of a bitch should be tried for manslaughter.”

“He’s already facing a slew of charges, including child endangerment and felony OUI.”

“What about the damage he did to my trees? How is he going to make restitution for cutting down those oaks?”

“Calvin Barter is going to jail, Hank,” I said, beginning to feel exasperated with his abiding anger. “And his son suffered a potentially fatal head injury.”

“I was sorry to hear about the boy,” he said, not sounding particularly sorry to my ears. “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

“I wondered if you could point out Dane Guffey to me.”

“Over there.” He indicated a man sitting on a stump, apart from the others. Guffey had removed his helmet but was having trouble tugging off one of his boots. Even from a distance, I knew I’d never seen the man before. He was a chunky guy with a weak chin and a forehead that extended beyond the peak of his skull. He was the spitting image of his old man.

I left Hank and walked through the black streams flowing from the charred mobile home down the hill. “Guffey?”

His cheeks were sooty and a strong smell of smoke came floating off his body. He was panting as if he’d just run a marathon. “Yeah?”

“I’m Mike Bowditch.”

He narrowed his eyes and spat on the ground. The spittle was black. “You’re the warden who came to my house last night. My dad gave me your card. He said you wanted to talk with me. What for?”

I chose not to answer his question. “I admire what you did back there. Going inside that burning building alone like that.”

“Tell the chief,” he said in a smoke-parched voice. “Milton says the internal attack team can’t go into the structure until he’s on the scene. So now I’m in the doghouse.”

“Why did you do it?”

He finally got his boot loose. He tossed it on the wet ground and pulled a rubber gardening shoe onto his stockinged foot. “I knew Dave and Donnie were inside. Their vehicles were out front. And those guys never walked anywhere they could ride.”

I tried to make my next question sound natural. “How did you know so much about them?”

“As you know, I live just down the hill. Are you ever going to tell me why you came to my house last night?”

“I met Erland Jefferts yesterday,” I said point-blank.

He didn’t roll his eyes, but his expression revealed the depths of his annoyance. “That’s one subject I’m done talking about.”

“I just have a few questions.”

“Well, I’m not going to answer them.”

“It has to do with that so-called murder-suicide on Parker Point. You must have heard about it.”

“I heard about it,” he said. “What does it have to do with me?”

“There were similarities to the Donnatelli killing.”

“So?”

His indifference to the death of two people shocked me. “You used to be a deputy, Guffey. The state police are trying to catch a murderer.”

“Yeah, I used to be a deputy. For about eight months.” He stood up from the stump he’d been sitting on, and I realized that I’d underestimated his size. He was much taller and a hell of a lot heavier than I was.

“It doesn’t bother you to think a man might get away with murder?” I said.

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“What does that mean?”

“Ask your friends on the J-Team. While you’re at it, tell them to stop slandering me in the newspapers.”

“They’re not my friends. And maybe if you stopped lying about Jefferts, they’d get off your back.”

My jujitsu must have worked, because he poked me hard in the ribs. “Everything I put in my report was the truth. I can’t be held responsible for what Winchenback said.”

“What did he say?”

He ran his tongue across his teeth and spit again, but nothing much came out.

I repeated the question. “What did Winchenback say?”

Guffey began gathering his turnout gear and stuffed it into its oversize bag. Over his shoulder he muttered, “I told you I’m done talking about it.”

“Where can I find Detective Winchenback, then? I’ll ask him myself.”

He gave a snorty laugh. It reminded me of the sound a neighing mule makes. “Sennebec Cemetery. Six feet under. Cancer of the tongue, ironically.”

“So Winchenback lied in his testimony,” I said.

“I never said that.”

“But it’s why you quit the sheriff’s department.” It was a wild guess, but I knew instantly from the way his back muscles tensed that I was correct.

Guffey threw his turnout bag on top of a pile of planks in the bed of his pickup. “I quit for a bunch of reasons, and they’re none of your fucking business. What do you care about my life anyway?”

“I care because I was the one who found that dead girl, and I want to nail the bastard who raped and smothered her.”

“Good luck with that.”

“I don’t think you’re as cynical as you pretend to be.” Hadn’t Sheriff Baker said almost those exact words to me a few days ago?

“I’m going home now.” Evidently, Guffey was as jaundiced as he seemed. He reached for the truck door handle.

I felt my opportunity to learn something from him slipping away. Anger and desperation caused me to grab the top of the door as he slid behind the wheel. “I don’t know what happened to make you curl up inside a shell. But if this psychopath kills another person, you’ll have blood on your hands.”

He yanked the door closed so hard, I had to snatch my hand away to avoid having my fingers amputated. “Go fuck yourself,” he said through the window.

I had to shout to be heard above his revving engine. “You think Winchenback and Marshall railroaded Erland Jefferts, don’t you? You think someone else might have killed Nikki Donnatelli and planted evidence to incriminate Jefferts.”

He glanced in the rearview mirror to see if the coast was clear to back up. “Read my report.”

“If Jefferts didn’t do it, who did?”

“I’m sure your buddy Hutchins has some ideas.”

“Curt Hutchins? The state police trooper?”

To my surprise, he rammed the gearshift into park. The truck sat where it was, idling. Whatever dark secret Guffey was keeping wanted to come out. “Ask him why the J-Team hasn’t dragged his name through the mud like they did mine.”

I thought I understood what the ex-deputy was getting at, but I wasn’t certain. “Do you mean Curt Hutchins was living around here seven years ago?”

“Living around here?” Guffey snorted again. “He and his buddies were drinking at the Harpoon the night Nikki vanished.”

36

I’m not sure I staggered, but I definitely felt the mud slide beneath my feet. “Did the police ever look at Hutchins as a suspect?”

“Why should they?” said Guffey. “Winchenback had a ‘confession’ from Jefferts.”

I was stunned. “Well, what do you think?”

“It doesn’t
matter
what I think.” The ex-deputy threw the truck into reverse again. “That’s a lesson I learned seven years ago.”

I watched the former deputy swing his pickup around and then rumble down the wet hill and out of view.

Now what? I wondered. Should I call Menario and tell him what Guffey told me? But why would the detective listen to me about Hutchins or anything else? Sheriff Baker might believe me. I reached inside my jacket for my phone and instead encountered the grip of my pistol. I kept forgetting that I’d lost my cell.

I saw Morrison ambling down the hill toward his police cruiser. “Skip!”

He turned to wait for me. “Can I borrow your phone?”

Grinning, he offered me his cell. “You’re not going to call one of those phone-sex numbers, are you?”

It occurred to me that if I called the sheriff and mentioned Hutchins’s name as a suspect, I’d be incriminating him without any evidence—exactly what Ozzie Bell and the J-Team did to half the men in Seal Cove. For whatever reason, the trooper had allowed me to drive home the previous night. It seemed pretty low to repay his leniency by making him the subject of a homicide investigation based on nothing but Guffey’s hearsay.