Dead Down East (13 page)

“All he said was, ‘No one else knows, and as an
officer of the Maine State Police, I am not at liberty to discuss
my methods with you.’

“And with that he stormed back inside the Governor’s
Office Building.

“I called William that evening after work. I wanted
to be sure he was alone when I told him about my meeting with
Travis. The next day, William called him into his office for a
private conversation.

“Apparently Travis had seen the governor alone,
driving away from the Blaine House parking lot. This was after
hours, and Travis was on his way home. He decided to follow the
governor ‘for security reasons.’ When William got to my house,
Travis parked nearby. He then followed William on foot around the
block and saw him get into Cynthia’s car and drive away. He hurried
back to his own car and then sped all the way to Cynthia’s house
just in time to see her car disappear into the garage.

“William considered firing Travis, but he decided to
follow the advice of the ancient Chinese general, Sun-tzu: ‘Keep
your friends close, and keep your enemies closer.’

“William told him never to tell anyone about the
affair. If he did, he would be fired. As far as I know, they never
discussed it again.”

“Do you have Travis’ phone number and home address?”
I asked.

“Sure.”

He pulled out his iPhone, flipped through some
screens and read them to me. Along with his home address, he had
three phone numbers for Travis, his office number, his home phone
and his cell. I wrote them all down.

Then, I did my best
Columbo
impersonation. I
paused, for dramatic effect, and then said, “Richard, there’s just
one more thing…

“As you know, I am representing Cynthia in
this case. But when I interview people close to the governor, and
especially women, it would be helpful if I didn’t have to divulge
Cynthia’s name as my client. It might affect their responses.
Besides, Cynthia wants to remain anonymous and hidden from
view.

“So, I am wondering if it would be all right
with you if I say that
you
hired me to investigate the
murder. There’s a very significant advantage to this. Most of the
people who are close to the governor know you, and they are aware
that you know them. They will be more inclined to speak openly and
truthfully if they think I will be reporting back to you. If I
happen upon someone involved in the crime, he—or she—will feel
exposed if he refuses to talk, and pressured to not be caught in
lie.”

“That’s an excellent idea, Jesse. I’m all for
it. In fact, I have decided to cover half of your expenses.”

He turned to Cynthia and said, “I’m sure you
won’t mind.”

He turned back to me and said, “I was
considering this before we met, but quite honestly, I wanted to
size you up first. You seem to handle yourself well, and you have
one big advantage over the FBI. Cynthia is your eyewitness.
Currently, they only have a homeowner who happened on the scene and
wasn’t even aware that a murder had taken place until it hit the
news.

“Feel free to check with me to verify the
stories you hear. The FBI is treating everyone as a possible
suspect, me included. They might ask my opinion about developing
leads, but they won’t be open to discussing what they know. If you
keep me apprised of what you uncover, I might be able to help you
decipher things.”

“Right,” I said.

He was essentially correct in his assessment,
but something troubled me. Richard belonged to the relatively small
circle of people who actually knew where the governor would be over
the weekend. Whoever killed him had that same information. I
couldn’t completely rule Richard out as a suspect. It was entirely
possible that Richard would be applying General Sun-tzu’s advice in
his dealings with me. Maybe I was now Richard’s enemy, and he
wanted to keep me close.

Instinctively, my thoughts turned to Rhonda.
Soon I’d be dusting her off and getting her loaded. I might even
have to sleep with her. My heart skipped a beat and my mind began
to drift. Come Thursday evening I could be involved in a
ménage
à trois
with Rhonda and Angele—two loaded women and a private
dick. What would Bogey do?

I wanted to nail down Richard’s whereabouts
over the weekend without sounding nosey.

“Richard,” I said. “I imagine the FBI will
want to know where you were on Saturday night. Cynthia told me you
were out of the state.”

“In fact they did ask me that, first thing. I
showed them my hotel and gas receipts. I spent the weekend on
Martha’s Vineyard. Business and pleasure.”

I decided it would seem a little indelicate
for me to ask to see those receipts, so I passed on that. Besides,
if Richard happened to be involved in the murder, he was smart
enough to have a good alibi. I felt sure he actually was on
Martha’s Vineyard, quite probably schmoozing with Martha
herself.

Both Richard and Rebecca were out of the
state when William was killed. That didn’t qualify as a major
coincidence, but it was interesting nonetheless. The mental notes
were piling up.

As I rose to shake his hand, I casually
asked, “Richard, are you married?”

He smiled and said, “No, I’m not.”

I didn’t know if it was the exact angle of
his smile or his Hawaiian tie, but it suddenly popped into my head
that Richard could be gay. If I were a woman, I probably would have
figured that out before I shook his hand the first time. In fact, a
finely tuned woman might have “known” he was gay by the mint green
upholstery in his Lexus. Angele can spot a gay man by the smell of
his cologne at fifty paces. I’ll never understand women.

I figured Cynthia and Richard would want to talk
privately, so I gave them that opportunity. “See you tomorrow at
one o’clock, Richard” I said. “Feel free to stick around here for
some lunch before you go back into town. Cynthia, you have the run
of my kitchen if you want to fix something. Right now, I want to
research the governor’s life on the Internet.”

I walked down the hall and into my office. I checked
the surveillance videos; nothing appeared to be happening at
Cynthia’s house. If anything had happened, a motion detector would
have logged the exact time of the intrusion. The only thing that
had moved was a lady and her dog, up the street and back again.

I checked my email to see if I had gotten a reply
about the license plate. Strike two. So I decided to read some of
the governor’s bio. I Googled his name and opened Wikipedia. There
would be plenty of time for more serious reading later. His
Wiki-page began, “William Louis Lavoilette, born August 15, 1968,
assassinated on Sebascodegan Island, June 1…” Bloggers never
sleep.

I heard Richard’s car drive away, and then Cynthia
joined me in the office.

“I know that you didn’t want to talk with Richard
about other women in front of me,” she said. “Thank you for that.
I’d like to keep the memory of William the way it is. I loved him,
and he loved me. That’s certain. There’s no way to improve upon
that memory. But it could be tarnished with gossip and speculation.
I’m confident that the truth won’t undermine what we had together.
No one is perfect, but William was the genuine article. He was warm
and caring. He led Maine with his heart, and he stole mine in the
process.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Cynthia. Everything I know
about him is favorable. I voted for him, and I was planning on
doubling down in November.

“There’s nothing new at your house or with the
license plate ID. I want to spend a little more time researching
William’s life. Then I’ll call Travis to get a better sense of him.
I doubt that he will want to talk to me, but since I am
representing Richard now, he may be willing to open up. In the
meantime, try to recall anything that William or Richard ever said
to you that might be important, even if it seemed insignificant at
the time. A name, a corporation, a bill in the State House—anything
that would be worth investigating. If your memory gets bloated,
empty it out and use your intuition. I’m a man and you’re a woman.
Let’s keep both genders on the case.”

Cynthia nodded and walked out. I returned to the
online biographies of William Lavoilette.

William was born and raised in Bath, Maine, about
eight miles east of where he went to college at Bowdoin, and ten
miles northeast of where he was murdered. His father, John
Lavoilette, worked for decades as a private contractor for the
shipbuilding industry in Bath and retired in 2009. He and William’s
mother, Patricia, still live in the area.

I was able to discover that their home was across the
Sagadahoc Bridge near the small town of Woolrich. I took note of
their address and phone number. Depending on how the investigation
proceeded, I might eventually visit with them, but only after a
reasonable period of mourning.

During William’s first year at Bowdoin College, he
was involved in a fatal automobile accident. There were four people
in a car when it hit a deer along Route 1. The car careened off the
road and crashed into a tree. Lisa Hilliard, a nineteen-year-old
woman sitting in the front passenger seat, was killed. No one else
was seriously injured. William was the driver.

A police investigation concluded that William was not
at fault. They determined that he was probably not speeding at the
time of the crash. A breathalyzer test indicated that William had
not been drinking. There was a young man and woman in the back. Two
of the passengers had been drinking that night—Lisa Hilliard and
the man in the back—and although he was below the legal drinking
age of twenty-one, no charges were filed against him.

Near the end of the article a name jumped off the
page, “The passengers in the back seat were Richard Merrill and
Virginia Latham, and the car belonged to Richard.”

I was struck by the possibility that Richard could
well have been driving, and William might have covered for him
because Richard was drunk.

I jotted down the names, Lisa Hilliard and Virginia
Latham. The accident occurred more than twenty-five years ago, but
you never know. Painful, unresolved memories have a way of
festering over time. Lisa was someone’s daughter and, more than
likely, someone’s sister.

There was another noteworthy feature about William
Lavoilette that caught my attention. Both he and his father were
Freemasons. They attended meetings at the Masonic Temple on
Washington Street in Bath in the ‘80’s and 90’s. The article didn’t
mention if William was an active member after that. I found it
interesting that the first Governor of Maine, William King, was
also a Freemason. Maine joined the Union on March 15, 1820. William
King, who was already the governor, was installed into the office
of Grand Master of the Freemason Grand Lodge of Maine on June 24,
1820.

• • •

It was twelve-thirty. I decided it was time to give
Travis Perkins a call. I tried his cell phone first. He picked up
on the second ring.

“Hello,” came the terse greeting.

“Hello, is this Travis Perkins?” I asked.

“Who is this?” he asked. “Your name and number are
blocked.”

“I am Jesse Thorpe. We met briefly a couple of years
ago.”

“I know who you are.”

“I have been hired by Richard Merrill to investigate
the murder of Governor Lavoilette. I’d like to ask you a few
questions if that’s all right.”

“It’s not all right. I’m an officer of the Maine
State Police. If we have a talk, I’ll be the one asking the
questions.”

I thought for a moment and decided that some talk was
better than no talk, so I said, “That’s fine. Ask me whatever
question you’d like.”

“I said ‘
If
we talk.’ But we’re not talking.”
And he hung up.

I keep a calendar on my wall, next to my computer.
This year it’s “Island Paradise.” Angele gave it to me for
Christmas with a wink and a nod. She said we needed a vacation, and
besides, it was more sophisticated than the lingerie calendar I had
used the previous year. I suppose it is, but lingerie is cheaper
than a week in the Bahamas. I told her she might have to settle for
a 12x12 glossy color photograph of a different beach each month
this year. “You’re more than welcome to step into my office any
time and dream away,” I said. That did not go over very well.

As a couple, Angele and I fall somewhere between the
stages of “dating” and “engaged.” She refers to it as the “Zesty
Pre-committed Juncture.” As far as I can tell, there is no longer
any widely acceptable euphemism for the period between dating and
being engaged. A generation ago it was called “going steady,” but
that phrase has disappeared from the idiomatic dictionary. Even if
it were still in vogue, “steady” would not apply to Angele and me.
A number of more appropriate adjectives rise from the cauldron of
our relationship, which is why I mentioned the calendar in the
first place.