Dead Down East (6 page)

“As you know, I’m in the dark about why we
are here. I can live with that for the time being. What we need now
is a story with no holes in it. It has to make sense, and it cannot
contradict any fundamental facts that can be readily checked out.
If FBI Officer Edward Handley asks us follow up questions, we can’t
grimace and say, ‘Gee, I’ll have to consult my sweetheart to
synchronize our versions.’”

Cynthia seemed to be soaking this all in. She
was noticeably tired and stressed, but appeared to be settling into
her professional profile. As a real estate agent, no doubt she has
resolved lots of problems while thinking on her feet. That training
might prove vital in getting us off this island without a major
revision in our day planner…like becoming suspects in a murder
investigation.

“Jesse,” she said, “Thank you. This past
night has been devastating for me, and I haven’t been thinking
clearly at all. I’m just beginning to see what we need to do here.
You seem to have a grip on it. What do you suggest?”

“OK,” I said, taking charge. “We are in a
cemetery, you are tired and frightened, and I don’t know why I’m
here. So…”

The wheels were beginning to turn.

“We have just had a lover’s quarrel,” I
concluded. “That comports pretty much with the way we look. You
stormed out of our house in Augusta a few days ago to get away from
me. But you don’t have your car, so how did you get here? Let’s
see… A friend of yours picked you up, drove you here and dropped
you off. Is there anyone you know, who has a cell phone and could
be the third leg of our stool? He or she might be able to round out
our story.”

Cynthia said, “Why do we have to involve a
third party? Couldn’t you have driven me here a few days ago, and
now you are coming back to get me?”

“That would be simpler, of course, but,
unfortunately, when I came through the roadblock, I hadn’t yet
fully prepared for that nuance in the scenario. I didn’t want to
divulge your specific location, so I said that you were at a home
on Cundys Harbor Road near the cemetery, but I didn’t know the
exact address. My GPS spoke up indicating what direction I needed
to take to get there. If I had been here two days ago, why would I
be using GPS to find it again? I’d have known the address.”

“I see,” said Cynthia. “I guess you’re
right.”

She hesitated for a minute, and then finally
said, “Yes there is someone. And there’s only one; his name is
Richard Merrill. Do I have to explain his involvement to you right
now?”

“No, that’s not necessary,” I said. “What you
need to do is to call him and bring him on board. You will have to
explain to him very carefully what’s happening here. But first we
need an address and a precise reason why you are here.”

I pointed my finger forward and continued,
“Do you see the house over there by the grove of trees? I noticed a
number of things about the place as I drove by. The mailbox reads
‘Fred and Laurel Smith,’ and no one seems to be home. There is no
car in the driveway, and the grass is very tall around the house.
Probably no one has been there for quite some time. Let’s see if we
can reach the Smiths by phone.”

I took out my cell, called information and
requested the phone number for the Smiths at that location. The
operator recited the number, and I dialed it. Fortunately there was
no answer, and even better, there was no answering machine asking
for a message. This provided us with an opening.

“Let’s suppose that Richard Merrill is
house-sitting at the Smith’s. And let’s also suppose that two days
ago he picked you up in Augusta and brought you here. However, at
this moment he is wherever he actually is, away from the house,
doing whatever he is actually doing; we want to fabricate as little
as possible. He left you alone in the house, and I have come to
pick you up. We had been fighting, but we’ve made amends, and we’ve
decided to go back home.

“Richard will have to know all of this in
case Officer Handley calls him to corroborate the story.”

Cynthia stared at me for a minute and slowly
nodded her approval.

“OK,” I said finally. “Call Richard now and
bring him aboard our leaky Ship of Fools.”

Cynthia sat quietly for a minute and gathered
herself. She then took her cell phone from her purse and dialed
Richard’s number. When Richard answered, Cynthia told her
story—
our
story
—with all the gremlins included.

I listened carefully to her conversation and
discovered a few salient points of interest. First, and foremost,
Cynthia Dumais was with the governor last night, and she
witnessed
the murder!

I had loosely imagined that possibility on my
two-hour drive here, but the stark reality of it rocked my bones.
The expression, “In for a penny, in for a pound,” didn’t apply
here. There was a lot more than a measly pound involved.

During the time I was studying to be a
private investigator, I got in the habit of watching classic
detective movies dating as far back as the mid 1930’s. William
Powell played “Nick Charles” in
The Thin Man
. There was Jack
Nicholson in
Chinatown
, Paul Newman in
Harper
, and
Donald Sutherland in
Klute
. But Humphrey Bogart immortalized
the consummate, big screen gumshoe, first as Sam Spade in
The
Maltese Falcon
, and later as Phillip Marlowe in
The Big
Sleep
.

At that moment, Cynthia Dumais reminded me of Mary
Astor, who played Brigid O’Shaughnessy in
The Maltese
Falcon
. At the end of the movie, Bogey finds out that Brigid
has committed two murders. She pleads with him not to hand her over
to the police. She turns on her charm, but to no avail. Bogey is
having none of it. His parting words for Brigid are, “I’m going to
send you over. The chances are you’ll get off with life. That means
you’ll be out again in twenty years. You’re an angel. I’ll wait for
you.” He clears his throat and concludes with, “If they hang you,
I’ll always remember you.”

An unsettling thought began to stir my gray
matter. Could the story line of
The Maltese Falcon
be
replaying itself in the murder of William Lavoilette? Could the
sweet and seemingly innocent Cynthia Dumais be the reincarnation of
Brigid O’Shaughnessy, dragging me unwittingly into a gnarly mess of
unexpected consequences? It occurred to me that it would have been
simpler, and a whole lot safer, if I had taken Michael’s advice and
simply left my cell phone turned off.

That’s the problem with good advice; you have
to be smart enough to take it.

As Cynthia continued to talk on the phone, a
number of other things came into focus. First, Richard Merrill was
in Massachusetts on a business trip. Secondly, she and Richard had
spoken at some time during the night or early morning about her
predicament. It was apparent that Richard knew about Cynthia’s
close involvement with the governor and had even helped arrange
clandestine meetings for them. And lastly, it was obvious that
Cynthia Dumais was having an affair with William Lavoilette. I
would have to hope that the affair had been a true love affair, and
not a pretense to lure him into the open to be murdered. My
instincts told me that Cynthia was innocent, or as innocent as a
governor’s mistress could be. On the other hand, my instincts had
failed me repeatedly in the past. After all, I am a male.

Cynthia hung up the phone and stared at me.
Judging from the look on her face, she realized I was aware of the
messy details. She searched my face to see where I stood. Despite
my growing anxiety, I tried to comfort her with an expression of
confidence and understanding. I did the best Humphrey Bogart I
could muster under the circumstances. But even Bogey had his
limits. One more of his terse lines passed between my ears, “I hope
they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck.” But I kept that
to myself.

“OK, Cynthia. We are going to drive home now.
We have ‘made up’ like any other couple who’s had a quarrel. We’re
getting back together. Your actual nervousness will dovetail well
with a lover who has been miffed and is trying to reconcile. My
nervousness works in the same way. But we don’t want to over-act in
front of an FBI agent. These guys are well trained to see through
disguises. So, as any couple would agree, it’s none of his damn
business why we were fighting.”

Cynthia relaxed noticeably when I said that.
The Bogart façade seemed to be working.

I continued, “Richard drove you here. That’s
why you don’t have your own car. Give the officer Richard’s number
only if he asks for it. If the officer calls him, we’ll have to
hope that Richard can cut the mustard and verify our story.”

“We can trust Richard,” Cynthia said. “He’s
ready.”

“I hope so. Keep in mind one important thing,
however. When questioned, don’t offer any more information than is
absolutely necessary to answer the officer’s questions. The less
you say, the less we’ll have to explain in any subsequent
conversation. Don’t even mention Richard, unless they insist upon a
clarification. Just say you ‘came here’ a couple of days ago. If
they ask you how you got here, or where’s your car,
then
you
can mention Richard. Otherwise keep him out of it. Keep everything
as simple as possible. Your foot can’t get into your mouth if you
keep your lips sealed.”

It occurred to me that it might be a good
idea to mention the “two conversational devices,” but I resisted
the temptation. For one thing, our story was already complicated
enough. Cynthia didn’t need two more things rattling around her
brain. But the main reason I didn’t bring it up is that Cynthia is
a woman. Undoubtedly she already knows about
apologies
and
compliments
.

Something more important did occur to me,
however.

“Cynthia,” I said. “I gather from your
discussion with Richard that you spent Friday evening and all day
Saturday at the governor’s summer home. Did you leave anything
behind that would indicate you were there?”

“No,” Cynthia said. “William had insisted
that I travel light. Everything I brought with me is in the bag on
the floor behind my seat, and there’s nothing in the bag that can
be traced back to the governor’s house.

“Whenever we ate, we cleaned our dishes,
dried them and put them away. He didn’t want evidence of a second
person lying around. I wore his sweats and jacket if I needed extra
clothing. William informed the guard at the gate that he didn’t
want to be disturbed over the weekend. The guard did not know I was
there, and there is nothing of mine left in the home. As far as he
knew, unless he is psychic, the governor was alone for the
weekend.”

“That’s good,” I said. “No doubt, by now,
they have interviewed the guard and have completely searched the
house. If your identity could be extracted from anything in the
house, there would already be an alert next to your name in the FBI
file. We’d get nailed at the roadblock in a heartbeat.”

I took a deep breath and made my closing
speech with great emphasis, “Cynthia, there is one final thing. I
understand that you don’t want to talk to the authorities right now
about your involvement. You have your reasons, and I respect that.
But if our story falls apart at the roadblock, you will have no
choice. You’ll have to come clean with them. If you don’t make that
transition in a completely open and honest way, you won’t be
treated as a material witness; you’ll be a prime suspect. And I
will be an accomplice, either after, or before, the fact.”

“Definitely,” Cynthia responded firmly. It
was some consolation that she finally sounded resolute. I could
only hope she meant what she said.

I started the car and turned around in the driveway.
I inched forward to Cundys Harbor Road. Together we headed toward
the bottleneck that awaited us. If we could make it through the
roadblock and over the bridge, we’d be well on our way home. Before
that could happen, we’d have to clear the first hurdle, namely,
putting Officer Edward Handley in my rear view mirror for the
second time in less than an hour.

We crawled slowly toward destiny.

A mile down Cundys Harbor Road, we came to
the left bend that leads to the intersection with Highway 24 from
the east. When we were halfway through the turn, I saw the same
group of cars and police officers that were there when I’d driven
onto the island.

Stage fright sharpens your senses and slows
down time. That’s what I felt the moment I saw Officer Handley
raise his arm and flag us to a stop. He and his sidekick were now
handling the cars exiting the island from the harbor road. Other
patrolmen were stationed to interview drivers coming onto the
island from the north or leaving from the south.