Black Frog, page 13
Doug couldn’t see a dock or any evidence of a house as they approached the heavily wooded shoreline. The trees were massive, and taller than any Doug had ever seen before in northern Maine. He looked at Minnis with a questioning expression, and Minnis smiled as he responded to Doug’s obvious question.
“You’ve landed in a rare surviving patch of ancient forest. It’s never seen a lumberjack or an axe. The Eagle Lake old growth preserves east of here are much better known, and have been popularized, but there are other remaining old growth stands that still survive. This is the largest, but only a few people know about it and even fewer have seen it. It’s the reason I bought the lake and the surrounding forest.”
Minnis killed the engine as the boat slid up onto a small sandy beach. Doug and Chief Marcus climbed out and were passed an armful of packages to carry as they were led up a narrow path. Doug glanced up from the trail, and looking into the forest, was surprised to notice a single story flat-roofed house set in among the trees just twenty yards or so in front of them. The entire front of the house was large glass panels and sliding doors that reflected the surrounding forest, making the structure almost invisible from the nearby lakeshore. High above, the overstory canopy extended unbroken above the house. Glancing around, Doug set his load of packages down on the ground-level deck that extended along the front of the house and asked an obvious question.
“Where do you get your power?”
“Mostly it’s from a series of river turbines set in two nearby streams that feed into the lake. I have a backup gas generator but so far I’ve never needed it. But even I’m not crazy enough to live here in the winter. I stay from just after ice-out in the spring till just before the lake ices over in the fall.”
Sliding open one of the massive glass doors, Minnis led Bateman and Marcus into a large open floor plan room. The view out the window wall was stunning – framed by massive old growth pines, the lake sparkled in the mid-day sun, and a pair of loons could be seen in the near distance. The floor and walls of the room were aged pine. A kitchen alcove held a small four-burner stove, pine cabinets, soapstone countertops and sink, and a large espresso machine. Along the back wall a half-open door showed a glass-walled hallway leading to a separate structure, probably a bedroom suite. Motioning his guests to a large brown leather couch with a great view west down the lake, Minnis asked if they wanted coffee. Bateman and Marcus both nodded, and Minnis brewed three large cups before sitting across from them in a matching leather club chair. Behind him, at the far end of the room, a U-shaped desk had several dozen fountain pens scattered across it and held three large computer screens, all of which were dark.
Leaning back in his chair, Minnis gazed out at the lake, looked at Doug, and began.
“The chief has vouched for you Detective Bateman – he says you can be trusted. You appear to be a straight shooter, and Signorina Elettra didn’t turn up anything concerning about you. So with a few ground rules, I can try to help with your investigation.”
Seeing Doug’s puzzled expression, Minnis looked amused and explained.
“Elettra is what I call my computer system - it’s named for the computer sleuth secretary in Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries. I’m a big fan of Leon’s books and Signorina Elettra’s ability to access information on the Internet, even when it is protected by supposedly unbreachable security. That’s basically what I enjoy doing. So if you’re willing to agree to a few things, I can try to be of some help in the investigation.”
“What are the ground rules?” Doug asked.
“Well, can you both confirm that you do not have any recording devices?”
Doug and Chief Marcus both nodded.
“I’ll print out the main bullet points for you of what I have learned, which unfortunately is not much. It’s for your eyes only, and while it might help you to identify worthwhile lines of inquiry, none of it can be used in any prosecution – you’ll need to find independent corroborating evidence. And of course, I’ll insist on a clear commitment on your part of what we could call ‘use immunity.’ That simply means I will deny being the source of any of this information and any perceived illegalities that might be associated with how I obtained it.”
Doug responded.
“That all sounds good to me.”
“OK,” Minnis replied. “And keep in mind, I have an excellent working relationship with national intelligence entities and law enforcement, so even if you decided to make problems for me, it wouldn’t go well for you.”
Doug smiled.
“How good is your on the ground security here, Mr. Minnis?”
“You don’t want to test it Doug. And your ex-Seal colleague Tom Richard’s Ghillie suit and bag of tricks wouldn’t do him much good either. I have a quite good system, installed by friends who owe me a few favors. And it’s not a passive security system – it bites.”
“Richard A. Potter,” Minnis continued, not waiting for a response. “Sorry to say, no clear potential killers for little Rick really jumped out at me. He was a pretty sad character, all in all. He had a complicated, warped, family background. His grandfather Albert Gremill, rejected by the military during WWII - moral turpitude apparently, worked odd jobs, and for the government during WWII over at Seeboomook, and then turned to crime after the war. He went to prison for a lengthy term in the early fifties and Rick’s grandmother got a divorce and raised his dad Percy on her own. She died when Percy was only seven or so, and a very wealthy elderly couple – the Potters, adopted Percy. Percy inherited all of the Potter’s companies and properties when they passed away, and promptly married a beauty queen from South Carolina. Rick was their only child and was raised mostly by nannies before being sent off to boarding school at a young age. He really didn’t get to know his adoptive parents much before they died in an avalanche vacationing in the Swiss Alps.”
Minnis paused, took a sip of his coffee, and continued.
“Little Rick never married – too fascinated with himself I guess. He was never part of the community here and most people found him to be a self-important bore. He was all puffed up and always focused on constructing an alternate reality in which he cast himself as a mover and shaker, a pillar of the community, and the scion of a very prominent, well-respected family dynasty. I don’t think there are any irate husbands out there – Potter didn’t hit on married women – he mostly tried to impress a string of younger women who hadn’t yet been subjected to his long boring efforts at self-promotion. The women he dated never stuck around for very long.”
Minnis took another sip of coffee and picked up the narrative.
“Judging from his various bank and brokerage records it’s clear that at the same time that he was spinning his little alternative reality for himself and showing his watch fob to anyone willing to listen, Rick was also making lots of bad business deals and throwing away the family fortune at an impressive rate. His exclusive high-end fishing and hunting camps were not doing well and he ended up having to sell off most of his timber holdings to cover his bad deals. Then came liquidation of his stake in a number of local businesses, and in the last year or so his email accounts show that he had been doing a lot of online betting, with disastrous results.”
Raising his hand, Doug interrupted.
“So who do you think had a motive to kill him?”
“Well, I ranked the top five for you in my written dossier. In fifth place is the contractor who got stiffed on tens of thousands of dollars of renovations on the Potter compound on Sugar Island. Fourth is the business partners on the local airport development who haven’t been paid what Potter owed them. Third place I would give to local timber-cutting outfits who according to court records are suing him for short-changing them on profits from harvesting from his properties – these are hard men who are not used to being crossed. Second place goes to the development syndicate planning the Lily Bay golf course communities – Little Rick appeared to have really pissed them off for no apparent reason. My top candidate for axing him is the Boston faction of the Patriarca crime family – the New England Mafia. Little Rick was in to them for several hundred thousand dollars from his sports betting when he was killed, and he was ignoring their requests for payment. It doesn’t make much sense for them to knock off someone who owes them money, I realize, but their internal communications suggest they might have been prepared to write off the losses and make an example of him. I would have expected some sort of calling card, however – maybe a betting slip stuffed in his mouth.”
Minnis paused and Doug responded.
“These are all good leads Paul. We really appreciate your help. What can you tell us about Virginia Breen?”
“Breen is pretty much the opposite of Little Rick. He went from riches to rags; she grew up poor and turned her small real estate company into a large multinational property acquisition and investment empire. The oldest of six kids, Virginia worked in the potato fields of Aroostook County and as a waitress in high school, got a partial scholarship and continued waitressing during her undergrad years at the University of Maine, majoring in business. She got into real estate after college, starting as a sales agent, but showed an early talent for spotting properties with up-market potential. She formed her own company eventually, brought her brother into the business, and started attracting major investors. Breen steadily built the business, went international, but never forgot her northern Maine roots.”
Minnis paused, sipped his coffee, and continued.
“Her bank records, tax filings, and financial transactions are complicated, as you might imagine, but they looked mostly kosher up till about five years ago – then I started noticing big wire transfers into her realty acquisition accounts from overseas banks – mostly in Cyprus. I’m still working on tracing those funds back further, but would guess that they were funneled through shell companies and will be hard to track. At about the same time, her company began acquiring a variety of land parcels, large and small, scattered seemingly randomly across the middle of Maine. There may be a motive hidden somewhere in there, but so far I haven’t been able to see it.”
Minnis paused and Doug asked.
“So nothing promising turned up?”
“Other than the recent flurry of land acquisitions funded by unknown overseas actors, I admit, I came up empty. Her brother Gary, of course, should be on your short list – they had a serious falling out about the time the Cyprus cash inflow began. She cut him right out of the company then, and he is one angry sibling. It got nasty. So he certainly has a personal motive for wishing her harm and might also be able to shed light on her business dealings back then.”
Minnis stood, indicating that the discussion was over, and offered to show them around his place in the time left before Chip returned.
As Chip Wills landed the deHavilland Beaver back in Greenville, Doug checked his phone and listened to a voice mail from Anne.
“My place, whenever you can get here. Sauvignon blanc is chilling. Pick up some of the large lump crabmeat at Graves there in Greenville. Call me.”
14
Anne
Wednesday
It was a little after eight in the morning. Anne lay in bed with Charlie curled up purring on the pillow next to her. The sun was streaming in the bedroom window and she could hear the laughter of several kayakers paddling past her camp on the south shore of Sebec Lake. Doug had left a half hour or so ago, needing to drive back to his place for a change of clothes before heading up to Greenville to follow up on several of the leads Minnis had come up with.
Last evening had been good. Wearing a sleeveless white blouse that she had had for ages, along with a worn pair of shorts and flip-flops, Anne had greeted Doug with a kiss and a chilled glass of wine as he walked in the kitchen door with a plastic container of crabmeat. Taking the container, she admired the large chunks of fresh crab as she poured it into a mixing bowl on the kitchen island and began putting the crab cakes together – combining the crabmeat with finely diced red, yellow and orange bell pepper, along with a poblano for a little heat. Anne added some basil and green onion, a raw egg, a shot of Worcestershire and Tobasco, and just enough mayonnaise to hold the crab and peppers together. Forming the mixture into patties she coated them with panko breadcrumbs and slid them into a cast iron pan with olive oil and butter. The pan went on top of the six-burner industrial stove she had found for sale the year before in a closed restaurant down in Dexter. The roast corn salad, still warm from the oven, was already on the table – kernels from four fresh cobs that she had picked up from Stutzman’s Farm Stand that afternoon, combined with diced red onion and black beans and roasted for half an hour, then tossed with lime, cilantro and green onion.
Doug sat at the small wooden kitchen table – simple yellow placemats, thrift shop knives and forks, paper napkins, two candles, and the corn salad. As she made the crab cakes and slid them into the pan to cook – just three minutes on a side, Anne talked about her day and her lack of progress on the Cowboy rapes. She had not as yet found any connections between the two victims – they didn’t know each other, had no friends or acquaintances in common, had different cable providers, different propane providers, shopped at different markets, and did not frequent the same bars or restaurants.
Doug was listening quietly, occasionally taking a sip of his wine, and watching her with a relaxed intensity that made her turn from the stove and ask.
“What are you looking at? What’s going on?”
Doug smiled.
“I’m looking at a beautiful woman cooking me dinner and telling me about her day. I’m watching the sunlight on your hair, noticing your long legs, the cat on the counter picking up a stray piece of crab, and feeling the sweet breeze off the lake. I feel happy Anne, for the first time in a long time. It feels like school just got out and the whole summer is stretching out in front of us. Like vacation just started. Can life be this simple? This easy?”
Anne took three short steps over to where Doug was sitting, straddled him and sat on his lap. Smiling, pressing up against him, she leaned in, and he could feel her breasts against his chest and her breath on his ear as she answered his question in a whisper.
“Yes, Douglas, I think so.”
As Doug began to embrace her, Anne jumped up and moved quickly back to the stove and the crab cakes, adding over her shoulder.
“But first we need to find out what you think about my cooking.”
After dinner they sat out on the dock and let the evening unfold. A family line of mergansers swam by – a mother followed by six young of the year. A kingfisher chittered as it flew along the shore. A patio boat pulled shrieking kids on tubes in circles over by Pine Island, where two baby eagles perched on the edge of their nest, flapping their wings in anticipation of their first flight.
The temperature dropped as the sun disappeared below the tree line, and reaching over, Anne took Doug’s hand and led him back to the cabin.
. . .
Checking the clock on her bedside table, Anne forced herself to get up, showered, had a quick breakfast, and headed into work. She had been watching for a white Ford Ranger pickup truck ever since Becky’s roommate Heather had described it the day before yesterday, and her Glock sidearm was within easy reach on the passenger seat next to her. But she took no notice of the beat-up black Honda Accord – the Chick Magnet, when it pulled out of the Dunkin Donuts just west of town and followed her. It drove on past down Main Street when she pulled in and parked at the sheriff’s office, but then turned around in the Bangor Savings Bank parking lot and parked across the street. Cowboy watched Anne enter the building before getting out of the Chick Magnet, crossing the street, and going into the Rite Aid Pharmacy located next to the sheriff’s office. He came out a few minutes later with one of their five-dollar Dover-Foxcroft T-shirts, a large diet coke, and a bag of pretzels. Ready for a long wait if need be, he settled back behind the wheel of the Chick Magnet. He figured he would follow Anne at a discreet distance until he saw an opening, and then finish her. As he thought about how it could unfold, Cowboy reached down to the sheath on his belt by his right hip and touched the handle of his Ka-Bar D2 Extreme combat knife. He had carried it throughout his military service and always kept it close at hand. This was not the big shiny knife he used to impress his fiancés – this was his killing knife. And he was good with it.
As soon as she sat down at her desk Anne checked her emails and saw a message to call Patty Crown at Quantico. Picking up her phone, she called the number Patty had given her. The FBI agent answered on the second ring.
“Thanks for calling me Anne. I’m glad I caught you. I have a lot of information on this guy we decided to call the Cowboy. I’ll send you my report by email in a few days, once it’s complete, but I wanted to give you a heads-up before that.”
Noting the unconcealed anxiety in Patty’s voice, Anne voiced a brief “thanks Patty,” and asked what she had found.
“Cowboy didn’t show up in the ViCAP database – not too surprising I guess, but when I started querying state and regional databases and followed up with emails and phone calls to law enforcement units that had made promising entries, the Cowboy showed up all over the place. We have the beginning of a geographical pattern that’s pretty distinct but doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.”
“What kind of a pattern?”
“That’s what’s so weird. If these are all Cowboy incidents, they pop up as isolated clusters of rapes – three or four, five at most, in each cluster, assuming we have all of the rapes, and we may not. The first loose cluster is in south Texas, spread along the borderlands. Four rapes, the whole marriage ceremony thing, with brides marked by ear notching – a triangle cut out of their right ears. These look like the start for the Cowboy – pretty poorly planned – one in broad daylight with Cowboy wearing a mask – no large knife to scare the victims, no Ketamine, and more of a pleading, insecure narrative.”
