Links to Death: Murder in Maine

Links To Death

….Murder In Maine

By

Camille Mariani

iUniverse, Inc.

New York Bloomington

Links To Death

Murder In Maine

Copyright © 2008 by Camille Mariani

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4401-0699-6 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-0700-9 (ebk)

iUniverse rev. date:11/18/08

Contents

DEDICATION

Media Reports, 1987

PART ONE

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

PART TWO

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-seven

Chapter Thirty-eight

Chapter Thirty-nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-one

Chapter Forty-two

Chapter Forty-three

Chapter Forty-four

Chapter Forty-five

Chapter Forty-six

Chapter Forty-seven

Acknowledgment

DEDICATION

To Bert and Fran Mariani, Alexis Stowe, Karen and Phil Spechler and your dear families. My love and thanks to all of you, not just for your encouragement as I pen these novels, but especially for taking me to your hearts. I love you all.

… … .

And to my beloved spouse Albert J. Mariani, whose happy nature and laughter are infectious. You make my life good.

Media Reports, 1987

An Associated Press story reported that two barges were on the high seas, each seeking a port to accept its load of burned waste from Philadelphia.

One of the two carried 15,000 tons of the city’s incinerated garbage and wandered for a year after being rejected as far away as Africa.

The other, a 27,000-ton delivery of ash, was refused by Panama, where it was scheduled to be used as fill for roads leading to a large resort project. Greenpeace alerted the Panama government that the ash could be toxic.

The Break of Dawn, with 3,186 tons of Islip garbage from Long Island, was the first barge to receive media attention. Farmers in southern states were expected to buy the refuse for fertilizer. However, public outcry against spreading the fly-infested waste on fields resulted in rejection of the load. After two months at sea, the barge returned to New York Harbor under police escort and dropped anchor in Brooklyn’s Gravesend Bay, where it became a tourist attraction for nearly four months until it was agreed to burn the trash in Brooklyn and bury it in the Islip landfill.

PART ONE

Murder In Triplicate

Prologue

Harold Finnegan continued to swing his scythe through tall grass by the road, even after the white Cadillac stopped. More tourists who’d taken the wrong road. The directional sign at the T in the road fell over years ago, but Wilderness Road had little traffic, so who needed a sign? Just tourists.

A glance toward the house confirmed that Aunt Nell stood at the open window, peering out to see who stopped. She didn’t miss a trick, that one. Kept right on crocheting at the same time she saw every car. Harold thought of his old chair and his latest copy of Sports Afield. If she hadn’t insisted that he do something about the tall dead grass, he’d be clean and comfortable inside, not dirty and dismal out here.

The car window rolled down and a man with deep tan and shoulder-length black curls beckoned. The diamond on his finger was considerably larger than the one in his ear.

Hey there, his whiskey voice called. We seem to have taken a wrong turn. How do we get to Route 5?

Harold pulled a bandana from his back pocket, wiped his forehead, and took a long look at the stranger, then blew his nose and crammed the handkerchief back into his pocket. Leaning on the scythe, he tried to see the man behind the wheel but couldn’t get a clear view. Chauffeur, no doubt.

You goin’ east or west? Not that it mattered. He was just curious.

West.

Okay. He turned to the right and pointed. You follow this road until you come to a sign that says Route 2. You go left about a mile and you’ll come to another sign, To Route 5. It’s just half a mile from there.

It was too hot a day to be cutting grass. He’d give it up and go get a cold beer as soon as these two left. There would be a cooler day to do this job. Aunt Nell wouldn’t like it, but who cared? She didn’t like anything he did anyhow.

Thanks.

The car didn’t move. Harold studied the diamonds, especially the earring, while the man surveyed the two-story farmhouse with its sag in the ridgepole, like a sway-backed mare. The dark head leaned out and turned to look at the fields and hummocks rolling to the tall pines. He smiled in an approving, confidential manner.

Nice property. Belong to you, does it?

Half mine, half my aunt’s. She’s gettin’ on and made a deed out with me on it so I’d have it when she goes.

I’m thinking of buying a pleasant site like this. Plenty of trees and fields in the country, not too far from town. I want to build a retreat for company executives who like to combine vacation with a fitness program, all in one place. There’s a golf course nearby, I noticed. That’s another plus for this location. You think you and your aunt would like to sell?

I dunno. Might.

How much land do you own?

Oh, about 200 acres. Half fields, half woods. Had a sand pit, but that was shut down a long time ago.

The man turned to the invisible one and said something in a low voice. Harold could hear neither as words passed back and forth. Then the head leaned out again.

Well, talk it over with your aunt. What’s your name?

Harold Finnegan. Aunt’s Nellie Finnegan.

The man spoke to the driver again, took a business card from his shirt pocket, turned it over, wrote on it, and held it out the window.

Harold ambled over and reached for the card. He caught the strong scent of after shave and thought he’d get sick if he had that tickling his nose all day.

That’s what I’m prepared to pay for a fine property like this. It should be of interest to you. Call me when you decide.

The hand and the diamonds disappeared inside, the window went up, and the car sped away, leaving Harold with a slack jaw. The card read Dean Crawford, Engineer, Wexford, Mass. He turned it over, looked at the figure, and swallowed hard. Then he counted the zeroes, just to be sure.

He re-read it, whispered it so he could hear it aloud. His breath came harder. This was it, the windfall he’d waited for all his life. He knew the land would pay off some day, and here it was, a chance to become a millionaire. He looked toward the weathered house. Finally, he could leave this rotting place with its loose, single-pane windows that kept out neither summer heat nor winter cold. No more cutting wood for the stoves nor thawing frozen water pipes. No more piling the bed high with blankets and coats at night to keep warm. He thought of the modern ranch house he saw a few weeks ago just beyond the armory. The for-sale sign said it was $95,900. There would be plenty left over for a new truck. He could get a .308 rifle. Aunt Nell could have her teeth and her glasses fixed. God! This was great.

He dropped the scythe and bounded to the house. His explosive entrance startled Nell, and she missed one of the double-crochet stitches in a shell pattern.

What on earth? What’s got into you?

We’re gonna be rich, Aunt Nell. He could barely get it out.

What? You crazy? She adjusted her taped glasses and pulled a strand of yarn toward her from the basket on the floor. Narrowed to a slit, her eyes shot a message of distrust at him.

No. I’m saner than sane. Rich.

He turned around in a full circle. He felt as light as a ballet dancer. His hands flew into the air for an ecstatic stretch.

A couple-a guys just stopped and asked how to get to Route 5 and I told `em and then this one guy with a diamond earring asked if I owned this place and I said that you and I owned it together, and then he asked if it was for sale and I said I’d have to talk with you about it. Look here. He wants to buy it for…

Nope, she said. Don’t want to sell.

What?

I said I don’t want to sell. Born here, I’ll die here. That’s all there is to it.

He stood speechless. This was a damned poor time for her to get into one of her stubborn streaks just to cross him and be in control.

They want to pay a million dollars for this worthless place. We have to sell.

Over my dead body, Nellie said. She raveled out the last shell and made five double crochets. Her clenched lips turned as white as her hair bun.

Harold walked out the door to hide his anger. She was the most exasperating woman he ever saw, never wanted to do anything he said. Over her dead body? That what she said? Well, maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea.

Chapter One

Natalie came through the news room door on her usual Tuesday morning tear, combing her black hair, and talking about the trials of motherhood, the sleepless night with two sick children, and the early morning call for her husband to go to the hospital on an emergency.

In the one month she had worked here at The Bugle, Beth learned more from her boss about being busy as a one-armed paperhanger than she ever knew or wanted to know. Here was a woman overflowing with energy, her words clipped as short as her nails, and her mind set on fast forward. Natalie’s vitality inspired her two reporters to pick up the tempo and work harder.

Rolling her chair to the desk, Natalie tucked in her red blouse and asked, Where’s Steve?

If he should show up on time some Tuesday morning, she would probably still ask that same question out of habit, Beth thought.

When Beth only shrugged, Natalie said, I don’t know how much more of his tardiness I can take. He’s worse than my two girls put together and they’re only five and eight. If he doesn’t shape up pretty soon, I’ll have to fire him. I never saw such a lazy man in my life.

Maybe just deliberate, Beth said. She liked Steve, though it was true that he preferred to watch a basketball game over writing about it. Sometimes she wondered if he took the position of sports editor seriously, but she wouldn’t say so to Natalie. He had enough strikes against him in her eyes.

You’re welcome to believe that, if you like, Natalie said. "But I think he’s irresponsible. Lately he’s been coming in hung over Tuesday mornings. On a Monday night, mind you, he gets loaded. In the old days at The Chronicle he wouldn’t have lasted a week. If this were a daily, he wouldn’t last that long here, either. I keep cutting him slack. Not much longer, though."

Beth had heard about the "old days at The Chronicle" in Keystone, Massachusetts often enough that she had to believe it was the Mecca of all newspapers. Everything from janitorial services to the publisher’s interest in news content was greater there than anywhere else and way above anything at The Bugle. But Natalie worked there years ago and had to admit that now The Chronicle as she knew it was defunct, taken over by a media conglomerate six years ago.

A morning routine was that the first person arriving made coffee in the back room, usually Beth’s task. She went out to get a cup for Natalie now.

Watch it. Real hot, she said when she returned and set it on Natalie’s desk. I brought in doughnuts, too. Want one?

Thanks. I didn’t have breakfast. Count on you to think of it.

Since she thought of it every Tuesday, Beth just smiled and returned to the lounge, bringing back a lemon-filled doughnut for Natalie and coffee for herself. The unflappable Natalie Burke reflected tension in subtle ways, and Beth had begun to recognize them. Like this bit of absent-mindedness on publication day. One week she forgot to put a picture on page one. Beth brought it to her attention just before deadline. Since then, she was so alert to every detail that Beth felt exhausted at the end of the day just being with her.

Maybe Steve is interviewing our local golfing star, since she made that hole in one Sunday, Beth said.

Kristen? Maybe, but he should have told me if he is. That’s another thing, Natalie said, talking and chewing at the same time. He never tells me where he’s going. And why would he interview her on a Tuesday morning? No, he’s just trying to get out of bed. That’s my guess.

Beth returned to her desk, sorry that Steve did this. She had noticed his condition Tuesday mornings. He very well might lose his job, and what would he do then? She hoped that wouldn’t happen. Jobs in a small place like Fairchance were not plentiful, even in 1987, especially a good, clean job like this. But, of course, he had a college education. Maybe he could go to a larger city and get a writing job, or maybe a teaching position if he liked it better. Even a coaching job. He was qualified. Well, it wasn’t her problem, really. But she would find a quiet time to talk with him about his tenuous situation.

You called the funeral homes yet? Natalie asked.

No. Just going to now. All the town copy’s done.

Good. Don’t forget to check the legal notices.

No.

Beth reached for the phone to call the three undertakers in the area. She glanced out at the street, just coming alive with stores opening, people going to work. After a job interview in New York City, she decided she wanted to live in a quiet town, away from heavy traffic, hoards of foul-mouthed, pushy people, a place where she could hang her bag over a restaurant chair and not worry that some punk would grab it. This was it, peaceful Fairchance, named when Canadian pioneers decided to settle here. With river and lake, tall forests, and fertile land, the area was where settlers could have a fair chance to survive, an anonymous historian wrote.

The two lapsed into silence and ignored the phones. Staff in the business and advertising offices across the hall always answered. Each had her own stories to write or edit in the last-minute push of deadline for tomorrow’s issue. If an urgent call came in, someone on the other side would buzz one of them.

The rush of meeting deadline excited Beth. When she applied for the associate editor’s position, she little expected to get it since she had limited newspaper experience. But she did, and she couldn’t be happier.

The publisher, Marvin Cornell, preferred to attend to the commercial printing end of the business, and left operation of the newspaper to Natalie. Unless she had a financial problem that needed Cornell’s attention, Natalie consulted with him only about front page content once a week. She oversaw all news content, wrote her own editorials, did the hiring and firing.

Beth came to Fairchance, the shire city of Lanier County in central Maine, from the Hartford area, and thought it odd that a population as small as 7,500 could qualify as a city, let alone a county seat. She soon learned how teeming a little city could be, and how much fun it was to cover news that included strong support for the back-to-the-land movement of Fairchance College, a four-year environmental school. Hardly a week passed that she didn’t go to the college for a story. She anticipated the fall start-up when social activity and performances would get into full swing. At present, summer sessions were under way, with few students on campus.

Now, she turned her attention to the items on her desk, started typing again, re-wrote a headline. She jumped when Natalie’s phone extension buzzed.

Natalie yawned, took a sip of coffee, finished reading the copy she just wrote, and finally answered.

Natalie Burke. May I help you?

Beth stopped typing when Natalie jumped up, shoved her chair back, and at the same time reached for her notepad and bag.

My God. Then she repeated herself after listening for a few seconds. With a hasty Thanks, she hung up and draped her bag over her shoulder.

Let’s go, Beth. There’s been a murder on the golf course. A young woman’s body was found this morning. Her throat was cut.

Stunned, Beth felt that she should jump up, too, but her bottom seemed to be stuck to the chair. A murder in Fairchance was as unlikely as an extraterrestrial invasion. She never bargained on this sort of thing, never even thought of a dark side to reporting for a small newspaper. And this was definitely a dark side.

Bring your camera, Natalie said. I’ll do interviews and you’ll take photos. Timing couldn’t be better. We’ll have it for page one tomorrow. Everything else will be pushed back. Drew’s on duty at the hospital. Probably they called him.

Never one to enjoy movies about violence and murder, Beth couldn’t share Natalie’s enthusiasm over the timing. It was too late to excuse herself, say she was sick and needed to go home. But a body with cut throat wasn’t exactly what she wanted to witness this early in the day. In fact, she would be just as happy if she never saw a dead body, in any condition, at any time of day.

Harold Finnegan stopped in his tracks. It had been five days since the offer for the farm was made and now, at the far end of the property where he was checking boundary markers, all at once he understood Aunt Nell’s refusal to sell. Her birthplace meant nothing compared to her lifetime of living in one place. Under a canopy of pine branches, he finally came to his senses. Never before today had he experienced the awe of being in a great, hushed cathedral, nor had he felt peace that bordered on spirituality, or what might pass for it as far as he knew. He listened to the woods symphony, harmonious as a Carnegie orchestra’s sounds. Tree-top brush strokes, the brook in fluid crescendos, chickadee trills, offbeat bullfrog basses. Symphonic sedative. He could lie on his back and fix his eyes upward at the majestic pines and the cloudless blue sky just for sheer joy of inhaling clean woods air and hearing nature’s eternal music.

He had trudged along the western boundary line in the morning sunshine. This early heat wave was supposed to break today, according to the weather forecasters. He wouldn’t have worn a flannel shirt if he’d known how hot it would get, exceptional for the 16th day of June. At least the black flies couldn’t get at his arms. Here in the shade, he could breathe easier. He could think better. When he started to walk again on pine needles as deep and soft underfoot as a high-pile carpet, he began to analyze Aunt Nell’s obstinance.

Of course memory of these woods and the happy childhood days she spent picking berries, finding beech nuts, simply running wild remained strongest as short-term memory began to fail. She often told him about the pranks the brothers and sisters played on each other, and now, the youngest of six, she was the only one left. Her last sibling was his father, who died seven years ago. Harold told himself he should have seen it before. He should have been more sensitive to her dread, probably downright fear, of being uprooted at her age. She was comfortable, even if the house wasn’t in the best repair. Again Harold stopped. He made a decision on the spot. Maybe she was cranky at times, but she was good-hearted, and, for that matter, she was all the family he had left.

It’s okay, Aunt Nell. So we don’t become millionaires. Never was one before, guess I can do without the headache of riches now. You’ll have your wish and live out your days here in peace.

His feet were damp already from walking through the boggy area that started beyond their grass-growing, long-abandoned sand pit. But he went on to check the rest of the boundary markers. Might as well keep going, he’d come this far. No more distant one way back to the house than the other. Too bad half the land was swampy. Who else but someone from Massachusetts would ever want it, especially for such a price? No one could work the land. He didn’t even try after that first year here. He thought about how miserable he was that year. Without Mary, life hardly seemed worth living…his dear young Mary. Three years since she died, but he still missed her so much that most of the time he had no ambition, no energy.

Funny thing. He used to want to get up and get going. But after she died, he had no heart to do anything any more. He should thank Nell again sometime for asking him to come here and live, do the odd chores, and for changing the deed to joint ownership. It wasn’t a bad proposition. He was very happy to give up his janitor work, a miserable job really, maintaining two buildings in town. The lawyers were okay, but next door, the jeweler would wait until after hours to tell him to wash the windows or replace a toilet flapper. More than once Harold would have quit, but Mary had a level head and always talked him out of it. She was his guide in so many ways.

Now she was gone and he had no outside job and must cater to Nell. But it would be okay. Some day, after she was gone, he’d sell. Never