11
The office of the Knox County sheriff is located in the same building as the jail, down the end of an obscure road near the sulfurous Rockland city dump. The deputy who drove us there, Skip Morrison, was a friendly acquaintance of mine, a freckle-faced beanpole prone to chattering. Charley rode in the passenger seat, while I was stuck in back, where the doors had childproof locks.
“So it looks like Westergaard is the perp,” said Skip, speaking loudly over his shoulder.
“I think it’s too soon to say that with certainty,” Charley said.
I realized that my old friend was technically correct. The circumstances appeared damning for Hans Westergaard, but at this point, who could say where the evidence might lead?
Skip was not persuaded. “I’ll give you odds right now that Westergaard’s our guy. In these things, it’s always the boyfriend.”
In spite of my better judgment, I found myself siding with Skip.
At the jail, a state police evidence tech made us change into orange jumpsuits and slippers while he bagged our clothing and shoes. My forearm was still bleeding, so I found a first-aid kit, rinsed the wound under the bathroom faucet, and wrapped it tightly with a gauze bandage.
The state had our fingerprints on file, but the technician drew my blood, swabbed my tongue, and carefully plucked several hairs from my head. Then we were given access to computers so that we could type in our statements. Menario and his detectives would certainly question us about these documents, and AAG Marshall would need to sign off on them, as well. I felt a ponderous responsibility to choose my words carefully.
At the Maine Criminal Justice Academy, we’d been taught to fill out incident reports with short declarative sentences. Don’t elaborate. Don’t hypothesize. Just stick to the facts.
But what, exactly, were the facts of my involvement in this murder investigation? How was I to explain my daylong infatuation with the missing woman? Or my itchy mistrust of Hutchins?
When I reached the section in the report where I was supposed to describe my discovery of the body, my fingers hovered over the keyboard. The image of Ashley’s naked body, bound with rigging tape, cruelly sliced, and defiled by that disgusting profanity made me nauseous. Why the hell would Westergaard torture her that way? And why leave her corpse in his own bedroom? Was he trying to make it look like the act of a random psychopath? Under the fluorescent lights of the patrol office, my head began to ache. The hour was too late for so many questions.
I became aware of someone standing at my shoulder.
It was Sheriff Baker. His L.L. Bean parka was folded over his arm, and I saw that he was wearing a pressed oxford-cloth shirt tucked into pleated chinos. His hair was wet and freshly parted. He looked neater than any man should look at three in the morning.
“Can I have a word with you, Mike?” he asked. “If you’re done with your statement.”
From across the room, Charley raised his red-rimmed eyes at me without expression.
I followed the sheriff into his office. The dull walls were adorned with plaques and awards bearing the names of various fraternal and community service organizations. The air smelled of furniture polish: a lemon/beeswax aroma.
“Have a seat.”
He moved a pen from the stand beside his blotter and began turning it in his nubby fingers. “We’re going to want you to come back here tomorrow morning to look at some videos of the house.”
“That’s what Detective Menario said.”
The sheriff continued: “I put a call in to your division commander earlier to inform him of your involvement in the investigation. He said he’ll be in touch with you.” His chair gave a squeak as he repositioned his oversize rear end. “I didn’t realize you’ve only been a warden for such a short time. Lieutenant Malcomb thinks you have real potential.”
That was a backhanded compliment if ever I’d heard one. I could only imagine how irked the lieutenant would be over my involvement in another murder investigation. Once again, through my impetuous actions, I had managed to put my career under a cloud.
“Sheriff, how can I help you here?”
Baker smiled ever so briefly again before his features reset-in the law-enforcement trade, it’s called “a microexpression”-and cleared his throat. “I fully understand that the state police have jurisdiction in this investigation, just so you don’t misinterpret my interest. You mentioned that the victim was naked and bound with some sort of tape?”
“My guess is that she asphyxiated from having her mouth and nose taped shut, but that’s a question for the coroner.”
“And you said that she had a word cut into her skin?”
“Slut.” Even saying it made me sick to my stomach. “That was the word.”
“Interesting.” He blinked at me from behind his tinted glasses.
“Is that it?” I asked. “Is that all you wanted to ask?”
He inserted the pen back in its stand. “Detective Menario said I should send you home after you were done with your statements. But you need to go to the hospital first.”
“What for?”
“You’re bleeding on my chair.”
It was true; blood had seeped through the gauze bandage, staining the jumpsuit and dripping onto the floor. “Fuck,” I said.
“I’ll arrange a ride for you to Pen Bay.”
“Charley’s going to need someone to take him back to my house,” I said. “That’s where his van is, and his wife is waiting for him there.”
He picked up his desk phone. “Morrison can drive him.”
“So we’re done?”
He held the phone in midair, as if waiting for me to leave. “Thank you. Yes.”
I wandered back out into the patrol office, wondering what had just happened. Why did Baker seem so antsy? Maybe it was just the brutality of the crime and the prospect of having a sexual predator loose in his county for the first time since his election. But why did he ask me about those specific details? When he had mentioned the rigging tape, a fleeting memory had flashed in my head. There was something vaguely familiar about the circumstances of this murder.
I decided to get some coffee in the break room before checking back in with Charley.
The Knox County Jail was usually where I brought anyone I happened to arrest. Most of my cases seemed to be Class D or E misdemeanors. Rarely did I have an occasion to drag some idiot to jail in handcuffs. So I wasn’t used to hanging out in this part of the building, let alone dressed in inmate garb.
In the hallway, a middle-aged woman with saffron-tinted curls and wearing a sheriff’s uniform that squeezed her breasts and hips was washing a carafe in the sink. She did a double take at the sight of me.
“Mike! I didn’t recognize you.”
“Hi, Lori.”
Lori Williams was a dispatcher at the 911 call center. She’d been the one to radio me about the deer/car collision the previous night, and she’d taken my call from the Westergaard house when I phoned in the murder.
“They took my clothes for fiber samples,” I explained.
“What happened to your arm?”
“Just a cut.” I forced a smile. “Is there any coffee?”
“I was just making some.” She filled the carafe with water from the tap. “That poor woman! I’ve been thinking about her all day.”
“That makes two of us.”
