Waiting for Harvey (The Spirits of Maine) (19 page)

It would likely be daylight before her remains were discovered.  When they eventually determined that she was Cordelia Godwin, they would trace her back to Portland.  They would be looking for Mr. Harry Godwin, but he no longer existed.  She was the last tie to him.  I had never been so happy to be Harvey Cloutier.  I was a free man! 

Whistling cheerfully, I walked along West Grand Avenue until it crossed over Goosefare Brook and the street became Seaside Avenue.  Before sunrise I was in Saco.  Later in the morning I strolled over the bridge that connected Saco to Biddeford. 

Briefly, I wondered about my family in Biddeford.  I thought of my mother and considered a detour to see her.  Still too many years had passed and it would be troubling if I found that she had passed.  Worse, I might encounter my father and there was sure to be rage from both of us.  It would be best to let the past sleep. 

The sun blossomed in the September sky.  It was perfect weather for walking.  I continued south into Arundel.  The following morning I woke in a small hotel near Boston.  For weeks, I swindled and stole from the local citizens.  My con jobs proved to be even more prosperous in the neighboring communities than they were in the city.  Everything was going well and I considered settling in the area.  Then an article appeared in the Boston Herald.

On a rainy Wednesday morning, I sat eating soft boiled eggs and toast in a small café.  There weren’t many people there and I appreciated the quiet.  The old man at the next table read his copy of the Boston Herald, folded it and left it on the table.  I picked it up and unfurled it in front of me.  I looked at the front page and my stomach sunk.

The body of Mrs. Cordelia Godwin had been found on the train tracks in Old Orchard Beach.  The Coroner determined that her neck was broken before she was placed on the tracks.  A desk clerk at The Ocean House Hotel told police that Mr. and Mrs. Harry Godwin had checked in late in the afternoon, the day before she was found.  The couple left for the evening but never returned.  Mrs. Ina Stanley of Portland read the initial report in the Portland newspaper and she contacted police.

Detectives believed that the young couple had been besought by thieves as they walked along West Grand Avenue at night.  Poor Mrs. Godwin had been murdered and left along the track of the Grand Trunk Railway in Old Orchard Beach.  Mr. Godwin had not yet been found.  Authorities feared that he might have been the victim of a similar fate.

Portland Police visited the home of the Godwin’s and found a portrait, believed to have been taken on their wedding day less than a year earlier.  Copies of the photograph were distributed throughout the region and they appeared in the local newspapers.  There was still hope that Mr. Godwin would be found safe and sound. 

The infant daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Godwin had been left in the care of Mrs. Stanley when the happy couple traveled to the shore.  With the help of Mrs. Stanley, Police contacted Mrs. Godwin’s family in Houlton, Maine.  Arrangements were made for the family to travel to Portland to retrieve the child. 

Alongside the story, the picture of Cordelia and I was printed, as bold as you please.  Neither of us smiled, it wasn’t a happy occasion.  She stood there in the white dress with the blue and yellow flowers printed on it.  She was at my side but slightly behind me as if she didn’t want to be seen.  No, it was not a happy day.

I rolled the newspaper tightly and crammed it inside the pocket of my suit coat.  Even in death she plagued me.  All I wanted was to be free of her, but she clung on, pointing a finger at me from her grave.  I was confident that she was memorialized with an elaborate funeral and an extravagant marble gravestone.  She would lie in her grave, dressed in the finest fashions that money could buy and she would continue to harass me.

There was no chance of returning to the hotel I lived in.  Too many people would have seen the newspaper.  The photograph presented a good likeness of me, and I would be easily recognized.  I had no desire to be confined in a local jail cell while I awaited the transfer back to Maine.  In Maine I wouldn’t be executed, I would rot in the prison at Thomaston until I died. 

I travelled south from Massachusetts to Connecticut and into New York City.  It was not at all what I had expected.  There were good places to hide, but I was an unwelcomed outsider.  After only a few days, I was looking for a new home in western Massachusetts.  I called myself Walter Needham and claimed to be a Veteran of the Great War.

My ruse seemed to be working when the next story about the murder of Cordelia Godwin was plastered across the front page of the New England newspapers.  I hadn’t anticipated it and it left me rattled.  My head was muddled and I had trouble thinking of a sensible plan.  Sitting under an old apple tree, I read through the latest story from the Boston Daily Globe. 

The remains of murder victim, Mrs. Cordelia Godwin has been laid to rest in her home town, Houlton, Maine.  Police have determined that the attractive young woman was killed by her husband and left on a stretch of the Grand Trunk Railway that passed through Old Orchard Beach.

An intense manhunt had been initiated in Portland and spread out throughout the States of New England.  Mr. Harry Godwin, also known as Mr. Harvey Cloutier, formerly of Biddeford was believed to be armed and dangerous.

In a related case, Mr. Leon Tripaldi was arrested in Houlton, Maine after he confessed to committing crimes while in the company of Harvey Cloutier.  The two men were grifters in Portland.  They were also responsible for the deaths of Abel Hilaire and Portland Police Patrolman Ethan Corey.

Tripaldi and Cloutier fled to Houlton after the two murders.  They concealed their true identities and lived as Leonard Bowen and Harry Godwin.  The men eventually married women from Houlton.  Tripaldi remained behind while Cloutier took poor Cordelia Godwin away with him.

When the family received the news of the young woman’s murder, Leon Tripaldi quickly made a confession to police and offered to assist in any way he might.  Mr. Tripaldi was interviewed from his jail cell.  Police stated that he is cooperating with their investigation.

Mr. Tripaldi provided valuable information that Police believe will aid in Mr. Cloutier’s capture.  Tripaldi has also agreed to testify against his former friend at his trial. 

The hunt was underway throughout New England.  My best friend had given information to the cops.  That idea surprised me most of all.  Leon had betrayed me.  Abel wouldn’t have done that to me.  I waited until dark, then started my trip north into Vermont. 

As the weeks passed, the search continued.  I stayed on the side roads and traveled by night as much as possible.  Finally, I made my way into Canada.  I stayed in Ottawa for a while but winter was coming and I needed to get settled.  I traveled east to Sorel-Tracy, Quebec.   

I stayed through the spring.  There was work to be found when I looked hard.  I made friends with a small group of poachers who had withdrawn to Canada with the law on their heels.  Stealthily, I slipped across the border with them to shoot deer, moose and other animals from the Maine woods.  We returned to Canada again where we hid well.

*

For nearly three years I lived as Walter Needham in Canada.  My new friends knew nothing of my past.  They took me for a troubled city boy with a shotgun wedding waiting for me back home.  Genially, they taught me to hunt, trap, and stay ahead of the Game Wardens.  There were few police to worry about in the sparsely populated northern county in Maine.  Yet the Wardens could pose a greater threat as they tracked us through the woods.

In time, I grew tired of traveling back and forth between Maine and Canada.  Several of my friends were sitting in jails on one side of the border or the other.  I had worked too hard to avoid the Maine State Prison and I wouldn’t surrender peacefully.  I was armed and determined to fight to the death if they tried to take me in.

In the dense woods south of St. Francis, I built a simple shack.  I had claimed a wide clearing where I could see anyone approaching along the animal trail that crossed the open space.  With the help of friends, I had learned to provide for myself.  I listened well as they talked about the necessities and medicine that the forest provided.

Gradually, I improved the dwelling and I survived my first winter living out in the woods.  In the spring, my friends came to see me as they passed through the area.  I hunted and trapped with them, but I stayed behind when they traveled north again.

Unfortunately as I grew more comfortable in the area, I also became better known.  My friends weren’t the only people out in the woods.  The locals hunted there as well, with their licenses.  The Game Wardens moved through too.  They were looking for poachers and anyone who might be breaking the law.  Lucky for me, they were busy men.

Through my years in Canada, I had acquired some of the Canadian French language, but my accent gave me away.  I had been a fool to claim that I was a Canadian.  Rumors spread about the man from away who claimed to be from Montreal.  Poachers, bootleggers, and other criminals trekked from the U.S. in and out of Canada.  Few were bold, or stupid, enough to attempt to settle there.  I had been reckless, breaking too many rules and believing that they couldn’t out-smart me.   

In the fall of 1921, Game Warden Earle Slatters arrived early in the day.  Slatters had come by only a few days earlier.  It was nothing unusual for him to pass through and stop for a cup of hot coffee.  We talked about the movement of the wild game and the coming of winter.  He was a likeable guy and I appreciated the company.

During Earle Slatters last visit, something had roused his suspicions.  After reflecting on my words, he came to understand that I was not the man I claimed to be.  He talked to local hunters and merchants who knew me.  Tiny inconsistencies were noted and my story began to unravel.  Each question led to more queries.  A look through the pile of wanted posters clinched it.

Game Warden Slatters contacted two of the men under him and talked to them about me.  They had priority cases in the works but assured him if he could wait just a day or two they would go along with him to arrest me.  He agreed and went home.  A few hours later he decided not to wait. 

I can’t say whether Slatters meant to confirm his suspicions or to arrest me on his own when he walked toward my shack that day.  He arrived early in the afternoon.  It was an unseasonably warm day and I was preparing meat to be hung in the smoking shed.  Salted fish had been packed in a wooden barrel to be preserved.  Without good preparations, it would be difficult to survive through the long winter.

He approached from the north end of the game trail and I heard him coming.  I waved to him and put the coffee pot on the stove.  The door to my shack hung open, but the fire was burning in the woodstove.  Venison stew was bubbling on the cast iron top. 

Game Warden Slatters eyed me warily.  I noted a change in his manner, but I didn’t let on.  He approached slowly, with his right hand on his hip.  I smiled cheerfully and offered him a hard biscuit with some strawberry jam.  He refused and stood out in the clearing.

“Is there something you’d like to tell me, Walter?” he asked.

“Not that I can think of,” I responded and put the cover on the fish barrel.

“Would you prefer to be called Harvey Cloutier?” he asked, rolling the words off his tongue as if they were coated with bitters.

“Can’t say that I would,” I replied. 

“I need you to come with me,” he announced, shifting nervously from his right foot to his left and thumbing the flap that covered his weapon.

“I can’t do that Earle,” I told him, reasonably.

“Walter, make this easy on us both,” he asked and I heard the desperation in his voice.  He didn’t want to shoot me and he didn’t want to die.  He wanted to put handcuffs on my wrists and walk out of the woods with me.  If all went well I would be in jail down in Cumberland County by morning and he would be sitting at the family breakfast table with his wife and children.

“You can’t ask me to waste all of this good food,” I admonished.

“I’ll see that it doesn’t go to waste,” he assured me.  “There are needy families.  The church will see that it gets distributed fairly.

“Can you let me use the privy before we go?” I asked.  “If it was just a whiz I’d go on the side of a tree but…”

“Tend to your business, but don’t take too long,” he agreed.

I gave a nod of thanks and walked back to the outhouse.  I stepped inside and banged the door shut.  Out in the clearing he waited patiently for me.  Inside I lifted the leg of my wool trousers and removed the Walther M4 pistol from the top of my boot.  I drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly.  Another minute passed while I prepared my head.  I had no other choice.

I kicked open the door and took aim at Slatters.  I hadn’t expected to see him standing so close with his rifle pointed at me.  He was on the ball and I offered a slight nod of appreciation before I fired at him.  The sound of gunfire startled birds and they fluttered up from the treetops, scattering across the sky.  Frightened animals ran between the trees and along the trail, fleeing in a panic. 

Searing pain spread from my upper arm across my chest.  I was sure my shirt was on fire.  Slatters fell to the ground and lay still.  My hand went limp and my pistol landed in a pile of dead leaves.  I was confused when I dropped to my knees and fell forward.  I lay there in the dirt, unable to move.