Dead Down East (21 page)

“We have a few options. You can stay here, and we can
keep your car in the garage where it is now. At least it is out of
sight. Or you could move to another location. I can ask my mother
to let you stay with her. She has a two-bedroom home in town, and
she has a garage to hide your car from view. The third option is
for you to go to the FBI.”

“For the time being I’d rather stay here. Will that
be OK?”

“Sure. We’ll keep a close eye on our surveillance
cameras. I think they would try looking for you at your home first.
If we see any suspicious activity there, we can rethink our
plan.”

“I’m OK with that,” Cynthia said.

A Beach Boys’ tune started running through my
mind…“Help me Rhonda, help, help me Rhonda. Help me Rhonda, help,
help me Rhonda …”

Once a tune like that gets into your head, it’s damn
near impossible to get it out. It was time to dust off my .38
Special and get her loaded. I’d be sleeping with Rhonda
tonight.

Cynthia decided to make something for us to eat. I
watched the news and checked my email periodically. The pictures of
Justin and Travis arrived just after we finished supper.

There were fifteen pictures in all, taken from
several different angles. Most of them showed only the back of
Justin’s head, but there were three very good side shots, and two
excellent full-face views. I was also pleased to see that in some
of the pictures Justin’s right hand was normal, but in two of them
it was bandaged. That helped to corroborate Travis’ story. Now I
needed to decide what to do with the photographs.

What I wanted to do was to give them to the Maine
State Police and the FBI, and tell them about the bloodstain on the
shirt. They were a lot better equipped to find this guy than I was.
But that would almost certainly violate the ‘Joint Defense
Privilege’ statute. The information about the fishing trip came
from Travis, and he had the right to not share that information
with the authorities.

I was trapped somewhere between a rock and a hard
place. I decided to sit on the rock for the time being.

I gave Angele a call.

“What’s up, sweetie,” she said, picking up the phone
on the first ring.

“That was quick,” I said. “Tell me, Angele, are you
sitting down?”

“What position do you want me in, Jesse?” she asked.
I could have sworn I heard her wink as she spoke.

“You’re putting me on the spot, honey,” I said.

“That’s where I want you, honey,” she replied.

My attention was beginning to wander. I was no longer
between a rock and a hard place. The rock had rolled out of the
picture, and the hard place was asserting its dominance.

“OK, let me rephrase that,” I said, catching my
breath. “
Please
sit down, Angele, I don’t want you to fall
over when I tell you what’s been happening here.”

“I’m all ears.”

“When I called you yesterday, I told you I had a new
client, Cynthia Dumais.”

“Yes, I remember that.”

“I also told you that the case was about a Peeping
Tom.”

“Yes,” she said. Her voice rose as she replied, in a
way that indicated she was now anticipating a new version of my
story to come cascading out of my mouth. Either she’s psychic, or
I’m transparent. Of course, it could be both.

“Well, that’s not the whole story,” I said, pausing
to find a way to tell her gently.

“Out with it, big boy. The suspense is killing
me.”

I proceeded to bring her up to date with the whole
truth and nothing but the truth regarding the assassination of our
governor, my involvement in the case and with Cynthia Dumais. The
whole truth included the part about the envelope containing a piece
of bloodstained sleeve.

“Whoa,” she said when I was through. “Are you in over
your head, Jesse?”

“Not quite yet, but the water is rising. I need a
favor. I need you to call Danielle Bacon and arrange to pick up
that envelope, and bring it to me on Thursday when you come.
Danielle already knows your name and has agreed to give it to you.
Would you do that?”

“Of course.”

I gave her Danielle’s phone number and said, “You’re
the best.”

“Jesse, have you started sleeping with Rhonda
again?”

“Tonight’s the night,” I replied.

“Thursday will be my first night with the three of us
in bed together. We’ll have to see how that works out,” she
said.

“See you on Thursday.”

“Bye, Jesse,” she said, and hung up.

• • •

From eleven o’clock on, I tried counting sheep, but
the Beach Boys kept interfering with my arithmetic. Eventually I
gave up on the wooly mammals and started counting choruses of “Help
Me, Rhonda.” Around midnight I heard “get her out of my heart” for
the last time, and I dozed off to sleep.

Some time during that night, I felt the mattress
shift and a pair of lips kissed me on the back of my neck.

“Are you asleep, Jesse?” she asked.

“
Peaches
!” I cried out, softly.

“Jesse, darling, it’s time for a Peach Sundae. Do you
have any whipped cream?”

“Coming right up!” I announced. But she already knew
that. Angele had a hold on me…in just the right place.

She had snuggled up from behind while I was sleeping
and wrapped her arms around me. We lay like spoons, with all our
appendages intertwined.

“Angele, I’m so happy to see you. Well, I haven’t
seen you yet,” I said, “but I can
feel you
.”

With that, I turned over to have a look. She eased
her thigh over my hip and drew me inside.

“Can you see me now?” she cooed.

“You sure know how to treat a guy,” I replied.

Angele stopped chatting. Like a nightingale with a
baritone voice she sang her signature song—that deep, otherworldly
Fugue
. I held on tight as the bed swayed back and forth. It
felt like a Nor’easter fixin’ to blow wild and unpredictable, so I
surrendered myself, determined to go down with the ship if it came
to that.

First I was on top. Then I was on the bottom. I lost
my bearings for a time, but found them again as she rolled over me.
When I surfaced for air, Angele was hanging halfway off the bed. I
pulled her back into the middle, and we rode out the storm
together.

In the end, we moaned in two-part harmony and wound
up lying side by side on the
Island of the Floating Spirits
.
We were drenched and exhausted, but still breathing.

Sleep drifted over us like a down comforter in
December.

The smell of java did its best to rouse me in the
morning, but was no match for my creative imagination. I just let
it filter into my dream. There were exactly six days remaining in
the semester. I hadn’t been to class in months.

I had a schedule of courses in my notebook, which I
couldn’t find. There was just enough time left to do my term papers
and cram for exams, but I’d get no sleep for a week. “Where
are
my classrooms?” I thought.

I heard Angele’s voice from somewhere beyond, “Vegan
pancakes and orange juice, Jesse.” It was nice to hear a familiar
voice, but I couldn’t see how that was going to help me pass my
exams.

“
Pancakes and orange juice
!” The voice was
louder and more insistent. Then I felt a kiss on my neck and a hand
on my thigh.

“Thank God I’m out of school,” I said, as I opened my
eyes to face the other side of reality. “Angele, that was quite a
midnight surprise
.”

“I figured you and Rhonda were pulling an
all-nighter, so I decided to drive up and put you to sleep. We’ve
got a big day ahead.”

“You’d make a wonderful secretary, Angele,” I said,
“keeping me on schedule and all.”

“That ‘and all’ covers a lot of ground, Jesse. You’ll
need to make a lot more money to pay for that portion of my
workload,” she said with a wink.

“I’ll work nights,” I offered.

“I’ll quit if I have to sleep alone,” she
countered.

“It’s too early in the morning for paradoxes, Angele.
Let’s have pancakes. I’ll be right out after a shower.”

I rolled out of bed, stood up and looked Angele in
the eyes. She, on the other hand, surveyed me from top to bottom. I
did a slow pirouette to show her the whole enchilada.

“Maybe we should get back into bed and reconsider our
morning schedule,” she said, smiling.

“I’d love to, but one brush with extinction every
twelve hours is all I can handle.”

“Just a thought,” she sighed, while taking one last
look at my remains.

I made my way to the bathroom, showered and shaved. I
donned a clean pair of jeans and a sport shirt and strolled down
the hall like a new man.

The women were sipping coffee and getting acquainted.
I was just thankful that maple syrup is vegan. Angele not only has
her way with me in bed, she has her way with me in the kitchen as
well. When she’s in town, I’m a temporary vegan. It’s a small price
to pay to keep her happy. If it means I’ll survive to be a hundred,
that’s a bonus. It’ll give me plenty of time to reinvent myself in
the decades to come.

“We’ve got an appointment with Misty at nine o’clock
sharp,” Angele said.

“With whom?” I queried.

“Allison ‘Misty’ Starbird. She’s the psychic I visit
now and again when I’m in the neighborhood. She’s going to help us
solve our murder.”

“Oh. That Misty,” I replied. “And since when is it
our
murder?”

“Since I picked up that envelope.”

“This is dangerous business, Angele.”

“You bet it is. That’s why I’m here…to keep you safe
and sound. And happy!”

Allison Starbird is well known in Augusta. She has a
little shop in the Franklin Plaza on Western Avenue. The sign above
the entrance reads, “Misty Starbird: Psychic, Tarot Cards, Crystal
Readings and Tea-Room Advice.” A second sign, in orange neon, hangs
in the window below and reads, “Tell me nothing…I tell all.”

I liked that. In fact, I like Misty. She once told me
I was going to “take an elevator ride through the roof to a
mystical penthouse apartment.” That was exactly one week before I
met Angele. I can safely say she was spot-on with that
forecast.

Generally, I’m not into the paranormal. I take things
as they come, without making adjustments to my daily schedule based
on psychic premonitions. I’m not opposed to the ideas of
clairvoyance, séances or time travel, but there is already plenty
for me to do in my earthly life.

“Thanks, Angele. I hadn’t thought of Misty. She might
provide us with some insight,” I said.

“
Might
? There’s no
might
about it.
She’s clairvoyant, Jesse. She sees things. She’ll cut right through
the veil. We’ll have this case solved by the weekend.”

“Let’s hope so. By the way, where is that
envelope?”

“It’s on your desk in the office.”

I finished my potato pancakes and went to my office.
I opened Travis’ envelope very carefully. I didn’t want to
contaminate the bloody sleeve. It was nestled inside the list of
phone calls Travis had received from Justin Cook. I eased the piece
of cloth onto a clean sheet of paper, folded it and put it back in
the envelope.

The list revealed almost a dozen calls from Justin to
Travis over a three-week period. I imagined Justin’s cell was a
prepaid phone. Almost surely it was now in the trash or at the
bottom of a lake. But I tried the number anyway. A recorded message
indicated that the number was no longer in service.

Tracing the origination point of those calls might
provide some clues. However, the easiest and most accurate method
of localization requires both hardware and software on the handset.
That seemed highly unlikely in this case. Other ways to track
caller positioning include network-based techniques and WiFi. Both
involve privacy issues not yet entirely resolved in the courts.

I put the list of phone calls in my desk. That had a
relatively low priority at this point. Determining where Justin is
now was much more important than determining where he had been over
the past three weeks.

I pulled up the videos of Cynthia’s home. No problems
there. Then I called out to Angele and asked her to join me in the
office. She came right away.

“Angele, there are a number of things to do today, so
let’s plan our itinerary. First of all, how long will you be here
in Augusta?”

“I have to be in Portland tonight. I managed to get
one day off, but I won’t be able to come back here on Thursday as
we had planned,” she said.

“OK. It’s a little after eight now, and we’ll be
seeing Misty at nine. I need to drop off the blood sample at
Paternal Affairs on our way. Later today, I want to go to Brunswick
and Sebascodegan Island to survey the scene of the crime.”