The Edge, page 32
There were lotions and a glass bottle of perfume on the bathroom sink. Two toothbrushes were still hanging from the holder built onto the wall.
In a drawer in the small den he found piles of notes that Alberta had written to her husband; most also had drawings of some kind that clearly showed the skill and talent of the artist who had created them. She had signed all of them with “Love, Your Bertie.”
Devine sat down in the only chair in the room and found his eyes watering as he read one note after another. “Have a good lobster day.” “Don’t forget, sunscreen. This ain’t the seventies anymore!” He lingered the longest over a drawing of what was clearly Earl and his missus walking hand in hand down the rocky shore. The accompanying note read simply: “Happy Retirement to Us, My Love.”
He carefully folded the notes and replaced them in the drawer.
As he looked out the window the rain picked up, and there was even a slash of lightning and an accompanying crack of thunder to go along with it.
He went back into the front room and looked over a shelf of tattered VHS tapes and DVDs. Some were commercial movies but others looked to be of family and other personal events. He looked at the labels on the cases: birthday parties, weddings, anniversaries. Then his gaze held on one. The label read: WILBUR KINGMAN’S FUNERAL.
He pulled out the DVD case and looked around. Under the TV was a DVD player. He popped the disc in and turned on the TV. He sat back in a chair and started the DVD.
The scene opened in what looked to be a church. The coffin was brought in and set up near the altar. The place was packed, and Devine paused the movie so he could see who was there.
In the front row was Patricia Kingman surrounded by what was probably her family. Her black dress hung off her, as though the woman had suddenly shed weight after losing her husband.
He saw a years-younger Fred Bing up near the coffin directing the black-clad funeral home crew. Then he saw two older, tall men standing together off to the side. They looked so much like Bing that he reckoned they were his father and uncle, who had inherited the business from their father, before passing it on to Fred and Françoise.
And there was Françoise Guillaume near the door greeting people as they entered.
In another row were Dak, Jenny, and Alex Silkwell. This was the first time Devine had seen Jenny other than in a still picture or as a corpse on a table. She was sitting between her brother and sister and seemed to be consoling Dak, while Alex stared straight ahead with the look of a woman who wasn’t really sure where she was. Clare Robards and Senator Silkwell sat next to their adult children.
Harper was in the back row, dressed in a sergeant’s uniform. Devine didn’t see Wendy Fuss anywhere.
There was a whole group of burly, tough-looking men in ill-fitting or ancient suits. He figured they were Kingman’s fellow lobstermen, there to pay their respects to one of their own who had fallen. Their eyes were red, their faces puffy, and, to a man, they looked stricken.
A fresh-faced Annie Palmer sat next to her grandparents. She must have still been in college, Devine thought. Alberta was holding Earl’s hand and looking anxiously at him. Devine could imagine the words of support she was probably saying to him. Earl’s face was bandaged, and his neck was in a support brace, as was his left knee. His right arm was in a cast. A cane leaned against his chair. He sat very stiffly, and Devine knew the man would soon undergo unsuccessful surgeries to try and repair the damage.
On the other side of Earl was a tall man in a police chief’s uniform. He had a face as granitelike as the bluffs that formed the extreme edge of the town’s shoreline. His physique was impressive, his chest and shoulders filling out his uniform. Devine knew from the photo he’d seen at the police station, and the one that Fred Bing had texted him, that this was Benjamin Bing, the third and youngest son of the founder of Bing and Sons.
As Devine looked closer, he saw something on Bing’s chest that was stunning.
Damn, so he was a soldier?
Devine let the film run again and he watched as Bing leaned in next to Earl and started talking in earnest. There was so much background noise on the film that Devine could not make out what the man was saying. However, Earl’s reaction was one of surprise, even shock.
Later, as the service ended, Fred Bing directed the pallbearers out with the coffin. The grieving attendees filed out after them. As Benjamin Bing and Earl left, Bing had one arm around the older, injured man as he limped along with his cane. And all the while Bing was talking and each word seemed to be like a body blow to Palmer.
Devine’s attention now turned to Alex, who had hung back from the others. She seemed to be staring at the backs of Bing and Palmer. Then she visibly shuddered and put a hand on a pew to steady herself. Jenny hurried up, put an arm around her sister’s waist, and helped her out. They were followed by Dak and their parents.
Next, Françoise Guillaume came back into the picture. She looked first in the direction that her uncle had gone with Earl. And then she turned her attention to the Silkwell sisters as they exited the space. Then, alone, Guillaume left, too.
The film ended and Devine popped the DVD out and pocketed it.
Though he hadn’t been able to hear anything, what he had seen was telling, very telling.
As was Alex’s reaction to being close to Bing.
He had to find the former policeman. And fast.
Before someone else died a violent death.
CHAPTER
70
DEVINE PHONED CAMPBELL AND TOLD him about the video.
“Benjamin Bing had a Purple Heart pinned to his chest. Presumably, he was in the military at some point and was wounded. I need you to find out all you can about his service record.”
“On it,” said Campbell before clicking off.
Devine locked up the house and walked back to the truck fingering his West Point graduation ring. The United States Military Academy had been the first school to issue class rings. They were awarded to cadets right after the start of their senior year at the Point. After that ceremony was the “hop,” a formal dinner and dance for cadets and their guests during “Ring Weekend.” Devine had invited his family, but none of them had shown up. He had hung out with a fellow cadet and his parents and siblings. Not the way he had envisioned this career milestone playing out, but life was always taking swings at you, he had found. And you couldn’t always duck in time. But Bing didn’t have a ring on. And a man who wore a Purple Heart around certainly would have worn his West Point or other service academy ring.
So he presumably hadn’t gone through West Point. But he still might have been an officer since there were other paths of commissioning in the Army.
Devine pulled off the road while the rain poured down, turning the roads a muddy brown from all the runoff. Off the coast the Atlantic thundered against the rocky shore with all it had, and still the Maine coast stood firm against every punch.
He looked down at his ring. It was more than an accessory or a prize to show off. It represented a connection to the Long Gray Line and the cadets’ opportunity to join that esteemed group on graduation day. He remembered one of his instructors telling him that while Devine continued to work toward his commissioning as an officer in the world’s most powerful military, his past, present, and future were all wrapped up, at least symbolically, by this thin band on his finger. It was an eternal bond to the Corps, to the Long Gray Line, allegiance to Duty, Honor, and Country.
Well, my “eternity” turned out to be a lot shorter than most.
There was an annual ring melt ceremony held at Eisenhower Hall Theatre. Rings from Army officers were donated and placed into a crucible. There were photos and information about the donors. Every donor, or their family, received a handwritten letter from a cadet in appreciation. The rings were then taken to Bartlett Hall Science Center, where they were melted into a gold ingot.
Devine had dreamed about his ring being donated one day, either as the last full measure given by him on the battlefield, or many decades into the future as he died of old age. Technically, he could still donate it, he supposed. But he no longer thought he had the right to do so. And it wasn’t like his family cared one way or another.
Okay, that’s enough self-pity for one day.
So Bing was former military. Devine wondered why no one had mentioned that to him. He wasn’t sure how it exactly figured into all of this. But someone with military ties could presumably get access to an experimental Norma round easier than most.
He checked his watch and pulled back onto the road. When he drove up to Jocelyn Point, Alex was waiting for him out front with a small bag.
She settled next to him and they headed to Bangor.
“Thanks for driving me,” she said.
“No problem. Do you even drive? I’ve just seen you on your bike.”
She looked out the windshield. “I never saw the point,” she replied.
He snatched a glance at her at the same moment she looked at him.
She then said, “Last night was wonderful.”
“Yes, it was.”
“I haven’t, that is to say, I…”
“I… I really wanted to be with you that night. I had to be with you. But, I’m afraid I might have taken advantage. You were in a vulnerable position.”
“If anything I took advantage of you, Travis. And so what? We’re human beings. Sometimes… sometimes, you just can’t help yourself.”
She turned away and they drove for a bit in silence as they headed inland.
He finally said, “I was watching a video of Wilbur Kingman’s funeral.”
She turned to him. “A video?”
“It was at Earl’s place. I don’t know where it came from. You were in it, along with pretty much everyone else in town.”
“It was all very sad. Wilbur was a good man.”
“Who wrecked his boat on a shoal he should never have hit?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Does anyone really know what happened out there?”
“Of course. Earl told us.”
“And now Earl’s dead.”
“Wilbur’s death was years ago. That can’t be connected to anything happening now.”
“I wish I was as sure of that as you are. Benjamin Bing was in the film. He was seated next to Earl. Bing was talking and Earl was listening, and he didn’t seem too happy about what was being said. They went off together. You know anything about that?”
“No, how could I?”
“I thought you might have seen or heard something. You walked out right after they did.” He paused to see if she might annotate his statement with what she might have been feeling that day, while in the vicinity of Benjamin Bing.
Like terror.
But she said nothing.
“Bing was in the military,” he said.
“Wait, he was?”
“You didn’t know that about him?”
“Um… maybe, I… I don’t remember. I just remember him as the police chief.”
“You remember nothing else about him?”
“Didn’t you ask me that before?” she said, a bite to her words.
“Sometimes you get new information when you keep asking the same question over and over, because people recall more.”
“I don’t want to talk about him. What you said before gave me the creeps.”
The rest of the drive went by in silence.
CHAPTER
71
THE SURGERY HAD GONE WELL, they were told, and Dak was awake and alert when they came into his room.
Alex sat next to him and gripped his hand while Devine stood behind her.
“Are you in much pain?” she asked.
“Probably, but the morphine, or whatever it is, is doing the job.” He looked at Devine. “I can’t believe this happened. I can’t believe Hal is dead. Do they know any more? Have they found whoever shot us?”
“No, but it was the same type casing that was discovered near where your sister’s body was found.”
“Harper told me the bullet that hit me then struck Hal and killed him.”
“That’s right.”
“Shit.” Dak shook his head and his eyes glimmered.
“Harper tell you anything else?” asked Devine. He was not in Alex’s line of sight so he added raised eyebrows to the question to let Dak know what he was referring to.
“Uh, yeah, he said he’d get back to me on what he decides.”
“What are you two talking about?” said Alex.
“Nothing important,” said Dak quickly. “How are you doing, Alex? Hanging in okay?”
“Not if stuff like this keeps happening,” she said with a glare. It was clear that she did not like being left out of whatever was going on between her brother and Devine.
“How well do you know Benjamin Bing?” asked Devine.
“Benjamin Bing?” said Dak curiously. “What’s he got to do with anything?”
“I think he has a great deal to do with everything that’s been happening.”
Alex turned to scowl at him. “I’m going to get some crappy hospital coffee, which will still be preferable to listening to this.”
She rose and left.
“What is going on?” exclaimed Dak.
Devine sat in the chair Alex had vacated and said, “Let me postulate a theory for you.”
“Okay,” said Dak nervously.
Devine proceeded to tell Dak his ideas about Benjamin Bing being the one who had attacked Alex all those years ago, and then how he believed the Palmers had seen him leaving the area, so they had to die, too.
“The Palmers were in tough financial straits back then, Annie told me. So I think they saw Bing, and after they found Alex they put it all together. They tried to blackmail him. The family is rolling in money. Only Bing doesn’t play that game. So their house goes up in flames.”
Devine didn’t mention that Françoise Guillaume had performed the autopsies on the Palmers, because he wasn’t sure whether she had any culpability. Bing could have poisoned them or otherwise incapacitated them, and Devine now knew that Maine did not do full autopsies on people who died in fires that looked purely accidental. Whether that was the procedure fifteen years ago, though, he didn’t know.
“Your sister told your mother that she came up here to take care of some unfinished business.” He explained about her use of the satellite footage. “She figured out that it was Bing.”
“But he’s retired and living in Florida.”
“No, I spoke with Fred Bing and asked him to check on that. His father told him that he hadn’t seen his brother in at least two weeks.”
“How would Bing know that Jenny had fingered him to be the one who attacked Alex?”
“That part I haven’t figured out yet. But if he did, it gives the man a motive to kill her. Look, I’ve Venn-diagrammed this thing from every angle I can think of. I don’t believe this had to do with what Jenny did for the government. This stems from what happened to Alex all those years ago. And Benjamin Bing was in the military. He was wearing a Purple Heart on his police uniform in a video I saw. He could probably get access to a still-in-testing .300 Norma round with a polymer casing easier than most.” He looked directly at Dak. “Do you remember Bing being around your sister, showing her more attention than he should?”
Dak looked troubled. “Look, Ben Bing thought way too much of himself, okay? He was built like a stud and thought he was the handsomest, coolest guy in town. And yeah, he wore his Purple Heart and some other medals on his cop uniform, although that’s against military regs and probably the police regs, not that he cared. He always bragged to the guys about the heroic shit he did in the Army, and how he nearly died in combat, but he was always short on specifics.”
“So it was the Army and not another service branch?”
“Yeah. But I can’t recall him acting inappropriate around Alex. They wouldn’t have had much direct contact, actually.”
“But you were away in the Army during that time.”
“That’s true.”
“Alex told me that he personally busted her boyfriend for a traffic infraction. Beat the kid up. I don’t think that was a coincidence.”
“What’s Alex’s take on all this?”
“She doesn’t want to believe it or talk about it. It’s why she walked out just now. I was actually hoping that my raising it with her would cause her memory to come back and we would finally have Alex being able to ID her attacker. But it didn’t happen.”
“You think he took a shot at you because you’re trying to find out the truth?”
“Makes the most sense so far.”
“But why would he shoot me? Because what you’re saying is he had to be the shooter from last night.”
“He might have been aiming at me. But I don’t really believe that.”
“So why me then?”
“You’re thinking of selling Jocelyn Point. So Alex would be leaving there. Maybe he got wind of that.”
“But Bing lives in Florida. What does he care where Alex lives?”
“It’s hard to get inside the head of someone like him. Maybe he’s afraid if she leaves here her memory will come back and the truth will come out.”
“Maybe,” said Dak doubtfully. “And how does this tie into Earl?”
“I think Bing put Earl up to finding the body. For myriad reasons I didn’t believe his account of finding Jenny. Now, I saw a video of Wilbur Kingman’s funeral. In that video Bing was sitting right next to Earl. And whatever he was saying Earl was not happy about. I think he had something over Earl and he used it all these years later to make him pretend to find Jenny’s body.”
“And then what, Earl killed himself from the guilt?”
“No. There is no way that Earl could have hanged himself.”
“Holy shit, you think Bing killed him, too?”
