Dead Down East (15 page)

I poured myself a glass of the white, went into the
living room and turned on the TV. Anderson Cooper 360
^o
was on CNN. “That guy not only gets around; apparently he goes all
the way around,” I thought. Nevertheless, he had no breaking news
on the Lavoilette murder.

I switched to MSNBC with Chris Hayes. He is a little
more cheery than Anderson, but Chris had nothing new to offer
either. I was just finishing my glass of wine when Cynthia came out
with two gorgeous plates of fettuccine Alfredo, each topped with a
sprig of parsley.

I could smell the java. “It must be 7:00 already,” I
thought.

I keep my coffeemaker in my bedroom, and I use it as
my alarm clock. I prefer fine aromas to buzzing alarms in the
morning. Besides, when you turn off the alarm, it’s off; the snooze
button drives me crazy. It works three times and then doesn’t. In
the mystifying haze of early morning, I have a hard time keeping
track of the number of times I’ve hit the bloody button. The java,
on the other hand, never quits. It keeps luring me up and out of my
slumber. Angele likes the java alarm too. She insists that, “It’s
good to the last whiff.”

I rolled out of bed, threw on sweats and poured my
first cup. I strolled into the kitchen for some half and half.

The sun was low in the eastern sky at just the
perfect angle to reflect its light off Leroux Pond directly through
my kitchen window. As we used to say in physics class, “The angle
of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection.” In other words,
the water acts like a mirror. The breeze over the water made the
pond light up like an arcade.

I noticed that Cynthia was sitting on the porch, so I
called to her and asked if she wanted some coffee. She got up and
quickly came inside.

“Have you heard?” she asked. “Travis was arrested
this morning at six o’clock. He’s being held as a material witness
in the murder.”

“Whoa!” I said. “No wonder he was so testy with me on
the phone yesterday afternoon. He probably saw it coming.”

“You talked to him yesterday?” Cynthia asked.

“I tried, but he hung up on me. I expected as much
though. We didn’t exactly have a history of being friends. The only
other time I had ever spoken with him, I threatened his job.

“What do you think?” I asked. “Could he be involved
in the murder? We know he didn’t pull the trigger.”

“I guess it’s possible, but it still is a total
shock. There is some logic to it though. He is my ex, and he knew
that I was secretly dating his boss, if you can call William his
boss. But murder? I never would have thought he’d go that far. We
were married for six years. Until the evening at the campaign party
when I met William, Travis had always been sweet to me. I don’t
know whether I should be angry or sad. I can’t avoid either emotion
right now.”

Just then my office phone rang. I hustled down the
hall, picked it up and noticed that the caller ID read “Kennebec
County Jail.”

“Hello,” I said. “This is Jesse Thorpe.”

“Jesse, this is Travis Perkins. I’ve been arrested,
and I’m being held as a material witness in the murder of Governor
Lavoilette. I think they intend to charge me with first-degree
murder. They have ballistic fingerprints on the bullet that killed
the governor, and they match those from my gun. They’ve determined
that my weapon was used to kill the governor. But I’m pretty sure
they don’t actually have the gun, otherwise they would have
confronted me with it.”

“How do they know the markings match your gun?” I
asked.

“It’s standard practice to keep a record of all law
enforcement weapons. They test-fire our guns and keep the ballistic
fingerprints on file. Someone stole my gun, Jesse. It was taken
from my home while I was away this past weekend. I didn’t kill the
governor. This is nuts. I’ve been set up. You’re already on the
case, I want to hire you.”

“Really?” I said. “Do you have a lawyer yet?”

“No. You are the first person I’ve called.”

Charles Dudley Warner was right once again; politics
does make strange bedfellows.

“All right. We’ll need to talk, but not over the
phone. Do you have any idea when you can have visitors?”

“Not yet. As soon as I secure a lawyer, I want the
two of you to work together. For now, I’ll just say that I’ve been
set up in an extraordinary way. It’s unbelievable, but it’s true. I
never saw it coming.”

“OK. I’ll keep following the leads that I’ve been
working on until I hear from you again,” I said.

“I have some money, not much, but enough to pay you.
Thanks. And I’m sorry for being gruff with you yesterday.
Everything’s different now. I have to go.”

“Bye,” I said. And we were disconnected.

“Whoa,” I said for the second time in five minutes,
“and it’s only 7:15 in the morning.”

Cynthia had come into the room as I was talking on
the phone. From what she heard of my conversation, she gathered it
was Travis and that he had joined my growing list of clients.

“So
Travis
is hiring you now,” she said. “If
this keeps up, you’ll be the most sought after PI in New
England.”

“Let’s hope the seeking doesn’t spill over to the FBI
and the Maine State Police. They probably would toss my billing
invoices in the trash anyway.”

“Did Travis tell you anything about his
situation?”

“He said he was framed.”

“Isn’t that what they all say?”

“That’s what I’ve heard,” I said. “It’s probably a
little early in the morning to get that information on the license
plate, but I’ll give it a try.”

I checked my email and found that the response had
come in from docusearch.com just a few minutes earlier. The message
read:

“Maine License plate - GOFURS

Registered to - Frank Hayden, 622 Lindlay Rd,
Brunswick, ME 04011

Phone - NA

Vehicle - 2008 Ford F-150, Red

VIN - 1FTLX17W78167396”

“Cynthia, look, the license plate you saw on the back
of the Honda CRV is registered to a 2008 red Ford F-150 truck.
Obviously the license plate was stolen. You told me that when the
driver left the murder scene, he rounded the corner, stopped and
then walked around to the back of his vehicle. You then heard a
couple of thuds. He may have tossed the license plate and even the
gun. He wouldn’t want to have those on or in his car if he were
pulled over on his way into Brunswick.

“While we are here at the computer, I’ll bring up a
map and survey the murder scene,” I said.

I pulled up Google Maps and typed in Brunswick,
Maine. The map came up, and I zoomed in on the intersection where
the FBI stopped my car.

“OK, here it is. Show me where the murder took place
and where the CRV stopped. Also, try to pinpoint where you think
the sound of those thuds came from.”

Cynthia pointed to the exact spot of the murder and
to the place on the highway where the CRV stopped around the
corner. Her best guess was that the thuds came from the far side of
Highway 24, to the west.

I dragged the icon of the “little orange man” onto
the highway for a roadside view. The series of photographs along
the highway was very clear. I rotated the image so that we were
looking west across the highway from the spot where the driver had
stopped. We had pretty much the same view that the murderer had,
except that he was in the dark. However, the headlights on the
governor’s car would have illuminated the road reasonably well.

There was a guardrail on the west side of the
highway. Beyond that, a wide swath of wild brush grew in front of a
stand of trees. There was a driveway to a home on that side of the
road, but the home was completely hidden from the road by trees. I
began thinking aloud to include Cynthia.

“I’m not sure if the FBI search ranged to the west
side of Highway 24. So if my guess is right about what had been
tossed, the FBI might not have found those items. There had been no
crime tape on that side of the highway, so there is a good chance
they didn’t look there. If they had located a gun, I’m sure they
would have roped that area off. And if the police had spotted a
license plate, they could easily have dismissed it as
unrelated.

“If the assailant tried to throw his beard, towel or
gloves separately, they probably wouldn’t have carried beyond the
highway. They might have been dropped on the east side of the road.
That was in the area that had been cordoned off. Then again, he
might have bundled them and pitched them to the west, or perhaps
even further down the road from his moving car.

“The towel was probably used to conceal the gun as
William approached, and it would have doubled as a silencer to keep
the blast as quiet as possible. So it probably has some powder
marks on it.

“There’s something else to consider. At first when
you told me that the assailant must have dragged Michael’s body
down the embankment, I wondered why he would do that. Now I think
that he did that to delay the discovery of the body, giving him
more time to flee the area.

“What do you think, Cynthia?” I asked. “Does any of
this sound plausible to you?”

“Yes. Everything you just said makes sense.”

“I’ll try and get Frank Hayden’s phone number and ask
him about his license plate.”

I called information and got his phone number. It was
still early, but I decided to call anyway.

“Mawnin’.”

“Hello, is this Frank Hayden?” I asked.

“Ah-yuh.”

“Mr. Hayden, my name is Jesse Thorpe. I am sorry to
call you this early in the morning, but I am investigating a minor
automobile accident. A vehicle with the license plate, ‘GOFURS,’
was seen leaving the accident. That plate belongs to you. Is that
plate on your 2008 Ford F-150?”

“Ah-yuh, that it tis, but there’s been no
accident.”

“I see,” I said. “It’s possible someone misread the
plate. Is your plate still on your truck?”

“Hahd tellin’, without lookin’.”

“Would you be kind enough to check?”

“Shuwah,” he said.

I heard his footsteps, so he must have carried his
phone with him. About a half minute later he bemoaned, “By thundah,
mah plate’s missin’. That’s damn wicked, it is. It didn’t fall off.
Some pissant mustah stole it.”

“Can you possibly recall the last time you actually
saw your license plate?” I asked.

“Ah-yuh. Washed mah truck Wednesday mawnin’ last,
after haulin’ a load of chicken dressing to the gahden. I remembah
washin’ off the plate. Coated with mud, it was. That’s the last I
saw it.”

“We figured the plate had been stolen, because it was
on a totally different vehicle. I’m sorry to disturb you about
this. I guess you’ll have to contact the Maine DMV and report that
your plate is missing.”

“I guess prob’ly.”

“Tell me something, Frank,” I said. “I was wondering
what ‘GOFURS’ stands for?”

“Gotta nephew plays football up to the University of
Minnesota.”

“Oh, yes. They are the Golden Gophers, aren’t they?”
I said.

“Ah-yuh.”

“I suppose the license plate ‘G-O-P-H-E-R-S’ was
already taken at the DMV.”

“Don’t know. Didn’t check that one.” Frank paused a
moment and then said, “Nevah been good at spellin’.”

That took me a little by surprise. I wondered how
long Frank had been down on the farm. I hemmed and hawed long
enough to create an uncomfortable pause in our conversation. Then
Frank added, “Gotchah!”

“That you did, Frank. That you did.”

“Nice talkin’ to yah, Mistah Thawpe.”

“The pleasure was all mine, Frank.”

City slickers are fair game for Mainers like Frank
Hayden.

• • •

“Have you had breakfast yet, Cynthia?” I asked.

“Not yet.”

“I want to check in on the surveillance of your house
first, and then let’s eat. We can talk about what is next on our
investigation agenda for today.”

I scanned the video feed from my cameras, but found
nothing significant on the motion log.

“Now that Travis has been arrested, your name might
surface; you are his ex wife. I guess we’ll have to wait and see
how that develops.”

We walked together to the kitchen. Cynthia offered to
cook some eggs and toast.

“The pasta was so good last night, I can’t wait to
see what’s next,” I said.

“How do you like your eggs?” she asked.

“Over easy.”

“Do you have any bacon?” she asked.

“Angele is a strict vegan and doesn’t allow bacon on
the premises. She says it comes from pigs.”

“She’s right about that.”

“She’ll never hear me say, ‘I bring it home.’ There’s
no need to rile her up, and besides, she makes more money than I
do.”

“Angele seems to wear the pants in the family,”
Cynthia said.