Bunker 01 - Slipknot Read online

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  the town was established. Blaine inherited his family’s arro-gance and palatial compound and all of Granite Bluff, the very private and gated thousand acres, off-limits to anyone lacking the proper pedigree, unless hired to serve in some fashion. Most residents of Green Haven detest Blaine Hamilton for one trivial reason or another—some can’t put a finger on why they dislike him, they just do.” I had been at the meeting, and so far, this was all news to me. The Hamilton history piqued my interest. In my experience, greed was nearly always a factor in murder cases.

  “There are no clear lines in this battle.” Audrey refilled my mug and delivered my muffin, which had been split and grilled with butter. “The wind-power issue is splitting families and friends, and it cuts across economic and social status and political ideologies.

  “Then who should sashay into the gym with all eyes on her but Alex’s mother. Poor Alex must have been totally humiliated. Lucy Hamilton’s skirt was shorter than those worn by Green Haven High’s cheering squad, and the cut of her red cashmere sweater exposed more cleavage than anyone would be comfortable with.” I, too, had noticed the scantily clothed woman and recognized her as the wailing mourner on the dock this morning, but I kept my mouth shut and listened to Audrey.

  “The fact is”—Audrey insisted on saying “fact” a lot—

  “that Alex is embarrassed by his mother’s poor reputation, a scandalous renown that she seems to enjoy enhancing. Lucy had strongly suggested, to the point of coercion, that her son attend this meeting in support of his new dad.” I nearly s l i p k n o t

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  choked on my coffee, wondering how Audrey knew this. She must have fantasized a conversation with Alex. “Alex’s attendance was neither in support of Hamilton nor in opposition to the wind farm, contrary to what his chosen seat suggested, but rather, to appease his mother.” I resisted the urge to blurt out, “How do you know?”

  This could go on all day, I thought, and never get to the substance. When Audrey left for a moment to tend to the cash register, I was able to bring the story up to the actual meeting before Audrey took over again. “The first selectman tested the microphone by tapping it with the tips of his fingers, thereby calling the meeting to order.” Oh my God, I thought. Too much detail. “He welcomed the audience and informed them that this was an opportunity for all townspeople to gather facts and ask questions regarding the construction of a wind farm in Western Penobscot Bay. There would be, he said, a series of meetings prior to the annual town meeting in March, when a nonbinding advisory question will be added to the ballot.

  “ ‘What do you mean, non binding?’ yelled a red-nosed Nick Dow from the bench. ‘Are you wasting our time?’ Poor Alex must have wanted to crawl under the bleachers as all eyes focused on what appeared to be his teammate, who stood slightly off balance, wringing his hands inside the pouch pocket of his hooded purple sweatshirt. The crowd silently waited for the selectman to answer the accusation.”

  The Old Maids were enthralled, and their intense focus egged Audrey on.

  “The selectman said that this process will be different

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  than what we’re used to, because it falls under section two-nineteen,” Audrey said. “We don’t control the permit. Section two-nineteen is a state statute that grants permits for utility projects such as the proposed wind farm.

  “So now Nick Dow stood and screamed, ‘Our input means nothing!’ Pointing across the court with an unsteady gesture of his right hand, he continued belligerently, ‘You in-cestuous bunch of mongrels can slink back to that rock you call paradise. You add nothing to this town. All you do is take, take, take . . .’ ” I didn’t actually remember the third

  “take,” but I let it slide for argument’s sake. “Some folks were booing and motioning for Dow to sit down, but he kept hurl-ing insults at broader and broader targets until he included every faction and family on both sides of the court. Others joined in the shouting until the gymnasium was roaring. The selectman banged the microphone on the table in an attempt to restore order, to no avail. A few people were trying to leave. There was pushing and shoving. Old Mrs. Holmes struck a bearded granola with her purse.” I recalled the weapon being an umbrella, but that didn’t matter.

  Audrey the clairvoyant really began waxing philosophical.

  “Nick Dow succeeded in poisoning the sacred ground of the basketball court—historically the town’s great uniter.” Go, girl!

  “That court has always leveled the town’s social hierarchy.

  The kid of the worm digger is as revered as the doctor’s son.

  Both wear the same shoes. This is the only place everyone cheers, hopes, and prays for the same outcome. The Green Haven Herring Gulls are the pride of the town! In this arena, s l i p k n o t

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  Green Haven has risen above the larger and more affluent of the entire state of Maine. They even beat Portland.” The drama queen ramped it up for the finale. “On game nights, at the sound of the whistle on center court, Alex Aldridge is the most loved golden boy. Nick Dow, now standing on the bench and slurring loudly through cupped hands, had managed to disgrace this gymnasium where folks at a Friday-night game are more reverent and community-spirited than in church.”

  I thought I heard one of the Old Maids sniffle.

  “The shouting and shoving escalated. A man in a plaid shirt passed by us holding a bloodied nose. Someone had to do something. Someone had to get the instigator out of our beloved gym. Brave Alex grabbed the sleeve of Dow’s salt-stiffened sweatshirt and jerked him down from the bench.

  Pulling him close to be heard, Alex spoke directly into Dow’s ear. ‘Come on, Nick, let’s get out of here. We need to sober you up. Dad’s expecting you aboard the Sea Hunter first thing in the morning.’ ” I had not personally heard what was said, so I could neither challenge nor confirm Audrey’s younger ears.

  “Nick placed both hands in the middle of Alex’s broad chest and pushed him away with uncanny whiskey-bolstered strength. Alex tripped over someone behind him, went down onto his rear end quite abruptly, and slid on the seat of his jeans across the polished hardwood, skidding to a stop at mid-court.” A pause for effect left us breathless. “This motion in the middle of the chaotic sidelines hushed much of the noise.

  Nick Dow staggered close and stood over Alex as if to help him up. Speaking loudly and clearly enough for everyone to

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  hear, Nick said, ‘Why are you here? You’re not old enough to vote. Besides, no matter what the state decides, you’ll be supported by one of your daddies.’ Poor Alex looked horrified.

  He sat, unable to get up, soulful black eyes blinking wildly.

  Dow did a very crude bump and grind. Thrusting his pelvis, he bellowed, ‘Who’s your daddy?’ ” Audrey actually did a great Dow impersonation, I thought.

  “Most of the crowd was disgusted by the obscene display, though a few degenerates were amused. Alex sprang to his feet and ran from the gymnasium, totally humiliated.

  “And that, gals, is the gospel.” Audrey made another quick sweep through the dining area and into the kitchen, returning before the doors stopped swinging. The more I learned about Nick Dow suggested that he had many possible enemies, regardless of the “syndrome” Audrey had pinpointed so accurately. Dow had certainly upset everyone who’d attended the meeting. Any fisherman in the area must have been aware of the letter he had written denigrating their livelihood. Between his outburst at the meeting and the campaign button he’d worn, he would have generated enemies on either side of the wind farm issue. The list of nonsuspects was shorter than the suspect list at this point. Handy, I thought, that everyone assumed Dow’s death had been a drunken misstep. Otherwise, all of this relevant background information would have to be pulled through clenched teeth.

  Most of the customers had l
eft by now, and the Old Maids were making preparations to get across the street to work, mumbling about being lucky to have missed the meeting, and verbalizing sympathy for Alex Aldridge. “Alex will be fine,”

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  Audrey said protectively. “He’s getting a basketball scholarship from Boston University. Ticket out of town! He can tell his new friends that his mother died during childbirth.” This last was kind of rough, I thought. But not knowing Lucy Hamilton, I delayed judgment. I thought about all that Audrey had revealed of Green Haven’s community and wondered if her beloved Alex was capable of murder. Or what about his mother?

  I knew better than to ask Audrey her opinion of what Alex or Lucy may or may not have been capable of. Given all she had said, she would certainly be dismissed from the jury. As Audrey scraped scraps from plates into a garbage can, I winced. Half a doughnut plopped into the trash along with an untouched slice of toast. What a waste, I thought. I wrapped the uneaten half of my muffin in a napkin and placed it carefully in my bag. I figured it would suffice as lunch.

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  in light of the flood of information that had gushed from young Audrey with each tipping of the coffeepot, I decided to shuffle the order of business that I had planned to conduct this morning. Working strictly between the lines of survey and insurance documents was going to drive me insane. I needed a hobby. Solving the mystery surrounding Nick Dow’s death was going to satisfy my lust for something more challenging. Clandestine investigation of murder was so much more interesting than checking off boxes on official forms! My first priority had now become meeting the Hamiltons. Blaine and Lucy were, conveniently, the owners of Fairways, a forty-two-foot Hinckley—one of the more cov-eted crafts of knowledgeable sailors—but out of the price range for most. Like a hefty percentage of watercraft in the area, commercial and recreational alike, Fairways was insured by Top Notch Securities, a division of the largest marine insurance company in the East. Blaine Hamilton had requested a routine insurance survey of his vessel months ago, and now that Eastern Marine Safety Consultants had representation in the area—namely, me—they had been hired s l i p k n o t

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  by Top Notch to perform the survey. The boat’s inspection was, of course, the means for me to survey its owners and to hopefully get a more mature, less emotional take on the pulse of Green Haven and the series of events that had led to the death of Nick Dow. As long as the death remained accidental, everyone would be generous with opinions. I knew well that when murder is suspected, people suddenly get very quiet.

  Slipping behind the wheel of my 1987 Plymouth Duster, I tossed my messenger bag onto the seat beside me and buckled up. The model of my ride was, in reality, a Turismo, but I referred to it as the model preceding my car, since Duster seemed a much better fit for the driver. I stomped the gas pedal to the floor three times and turned the key. The engine started with a roar and quickly idled down to a purr. Staring at the fuel gauge, I willed it to move above the big “E.” It did, but just a hair.

  I had been driving around on fumes, refusing to pay the nearly three dollars per gallon charged at every pump south of the causeway that separated Green Haven from the civilized world of moral, nongouging purveyors of petroleum. I was waiting for another legitimate reason to travel north of the twisting strip of connecting road to justify the forty-mile round trip. I had done the math and knew that the extra miles driven would inhale the dime saved per gallon. But it was the principle of price-comparative shopping that kept me coasting by the single pump in front of Island Hardware and Variety, known to the locals as the Old Maids, after the two sixty-somethingish gals with whom I had shared coffee earlier.

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  I understood that small-town proprietors demanded loyal patronage from locals. For business to survive, they absolutely needed a solid customer base among the year-round residents. I had been warned by Cal that the Old Maids took this demand for loyalty to the extreme. I would eventually frequent this staple of the community, but not today. With my right hand, I blindly searched my bag for the directions to Granite Bluff while steering with the left. Keeping my eyes deliberately on the road ahead, I was unable to discern whether the two figures in the passing peripheral storefront had actually waved a friendly hello or beckoned me to come in.

  “Hi, gals. Bye, gals. Three bucks a gallon? Not today, gals.” I spoke loudly, with the confidence of anyone enclosed in a speeding car with the windows rolled up tight. My fingers found the envelope on the back of which Cal had drawn a primitive map of the area, with arrows leading to a boldly printed g.b. I held the map in the center of the Duster’s steering wheel while navigating the route through a maze of tiny shops lining the narrow Main Street, and headed out of town the “western way.”

  The road twisted and turned up and down small rolling hills strewn with granite boulders, sun-dappled blueberry fields, and patches of spruce trees grown so thick that as I cruised through their shade cast over the road and back into splotches of bright sunshine, I was intermittently cooled and warmed. Entry into each black shadow was saluted by sun-glasses pushed from nose to forehead and back to nose at exit.

  Up and down the glasses went until I was convinced that I had missed the Hamiltons’ driveway. I wondered why people of s l i p k n o t

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  their stature would choose to live so far from civilization.

  Then I recalled something I had read in researching Maine prior to my move. New money desired addresses such as Bar Harbor or Kennebunkport. Old money stayed where it was born. If Audrey had her history straight, the Hamilton fortune had been born in Green Haven. I had already noticed that Green Haveners referred to the more touristy Maine towns with the same derogatory adjectives used in Miami about South Beach.

  Slowing the Duster to a crawl and looking for a place to turn around, I calculated how much time and gasoline I had wasted in getting lost. I completed a seemingly endless series of steep turns that bent sharply one way, then the other. A straightaway and large clearing on the left, divided by a private drive marked on either side by granite pillars of intimidating size, elicited a sigh of relief. It was precisely as Cal had described. A sizable brass plate framed by intricate masonry on the right-side pillar read, granite bluff—1879. Quite formal, I thought, and stopped between the pillars. Perhaps I would announce my arrival with a quick, courteous phone call. The Hamiltons were not expecting me for another two hours.

  Pulling a cell phone from one of the many caverns of my bag, I was surprised to see a strong signal but not so surprised to read “low battery” on the phone’s display. Yet another reason to travel to Ellsworth, I surmised. My landlords had warned me of the cost of electricity and cautioned me to use it sparingly. Given my tendency toward frugality, I’d heeded this advice. I simply must invest in a twelve-volt charger to be

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  used in the Duster, I thought. But this would require running the car’s engine at three dollars per gallon. Electricity was thirty-two cents per kilowatt-hour. Outrageous! Perhaps the Old Maids carried car chargers. There was a Wal-Mart in Ellsworth. Forty miles round-trip . . . The path of my daily existence was scattered with what I had come to call my

  “Scottish dilemmas.” I tossed the phone back in the bag. I would arrive unannounced and ridiculously early. Oh well, I thought, it might serve my ulterior motive to catch the clients off guard.

  One quarter of the way into the mile-long drive to the Hamilton estate, I was taken with the swells and gentle grades of earth and shallow grassy troughs connecting perfectly sculpted mounds on either side of me. I felt as though I had been magically transported to the Old Course at St. Andrews. This was exactly how I had imagined it on my many total submersions into every written work on the subject. A raised plateau overgrown with a distinctly different hue of green and distinguishing texture easily could have been a tee box anywhere in Scotl
and. Not that I’d ever been there; I just knew. Rolling down a window, I took a deep breath, confirming that the ocean was near.

  Cresting a long, slow climb to the highest peak in the vicinity, I eased the Duster to a stop and reveled in the rare sensation of the moment—comfortable in loneliness and not totally understanding the happiness that I equated with the sensation of being home. I had come to know that home was a feeling, not a physical location. Down below the acres of lavender meadow, lush with lupine in full bloom, water and s l i p k n o t

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  land melded in a most un-Mainelike fashion. It was an easy union of green and blue and not at all the usual contentious juxtaposing of jagged ledge and frigid sea that the estate’s name conjured. Although my mother never admitted to missing anything about Maine, she had on occasion described its raw, natural beauty in terms quite dear. I now had a real picture to enhance her verbal illustrations.

  I released the brake and rolled from wild, intrinsic beauty to the more manicured area surrounding the Hamilton complex. The main house was a large, stately shingle-style cot-tage. With neither window boxes nor balconies, the estate was handsome, with its masculine trappings of stone walls, a detached barn, and various outbuildings. As I parked and climbed out of the car, I visually followed a boardwalk to a granite pier from which hung an aluminum ramp connecting a square floating dock. Tethered to the float lolled an eggshell-type dinghy that was, I assumed, the means of transport to the sailboat moored peacefully in the center of this se-cluded cove.

  Like all coastal communities with which I had become familiar, there was an obvious segregation of work boats from pleasure craft in the Green Haven area. There was the working harbor, where the lobster boats swung on moorings and bigger commercial vessels chafed against worn pilings of old piers. And there was the basin, with its fancy full-service marina, where most of the sail- and power-driven yachts were pampered. My mentor had always bristled at the distinction of boats between commercial and non as “pleasure” and