Paul Doiron - Bad Little Falls

I dialed the Washington County jail and asked the receptionist if I could speak with Sheriff Rhine.

“The sheriff is having a breakfast meeting with the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency, but she said it would be OK for you go over there.”

“Where’s the meeting?” I pictured coffee and bagels in the district attorney’s office.

“The usual place-McDonald’s.”

What else should I have expected? A disquieting feeling came over me as I recalled Jamie Sewall’s smiling face. Had anyone notified her of her brother’s condition? What if I found her behind the counter?

The plows had barely made a dent in the snowpack. At best, they’d shaved a few inches off the top, sprayed some ineffectual salt brine down to melt the slick spots, and scattered pebbles, which now rattled around my truck’s chassis. The sun had finally emerged from wherever it had been hiding to pour sterile light down on the blinding roadsides. The morning was as white as a laboratory.

When I entered the McDonald’s, I looked for Jamie Sewall, but she was nowhere to be seen, except inside the frame of her Employee of the Month portrait. I exhaled-out of relief or disappointment, I wasn’t sure.

I saw Sheriff Rhine at a back booth, sitting with her face to the door, across from a man whose stiff posture and bristly haircut suggested he too worked in law enforcement. The sheriff had a long, handsome face with the profile of a cigar-store Indian, dyed black hair gathered in a ponytail, and strong-looking hands. She wore a navy suit over a light blue roll-neck sweater. Even seated, she appeared to be a tall woman. She caught my gaze and held it, as if she wanted me to approach.

Her companion was in his mid-forties and anonymous-looking in the way of some law-enforcement officers: dressed in a black ski jacket over a black cotton sweater, sandy hair clipped short.

As I neared the table, I heard him raise his voice.

“All we want is some goddamn cooperation, Roberta,” he said. “We’re on the same team here.”

“Not according to your boss. He says one of my guys is dirty.”

The agent heard me and glanced over his shoulder. We made eye contact briefly and he dropped his tone again. “You can’t keep going on TV and accusing the MDEA of malfeasance.”

“If the shoe fits.”

I knew from reading the newspaper that the Washington County Sheriff’s Department and the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency-known locally as the MDEA-had a feud that made the tussle between the Hatfields and the McCoys look like a polite disagreement between perfumed gentleman, but no one had yet explained to me the grievances that had fueled the conflict.

“Maybe you think this media crusade of yours is a joke,” he said. “But it’s going to come back to haunt you at your next election.”

“That’s what your director told me two years ago. And yet here I am.”

The agent stood up suddenly in the booth, bumping the table with his knees. “You’ll be hearing from us.”

“I’m giddy with anticipation. Have a safe drive back to Augusta.”

The agent didn’t say good-bye to me, but then he hadn’t said hello, either.

“Asshole,” said the sheriff as the door closed behind him. “Have a seat, Warden.”

I settled down and eyed her half-eaten sausage McGriddle enviously.

“You’ve probably heard about my beef with the MDEA.” Roberta Rhine had a gruff voice.

“I don’t know any of the particulars.”

“It’s a rogue agency, with a director who excuses and covers up misconduct by his agents. Did you know an MDEA agent lost-I repeat, lost — three thousand dollars in buy money? And then they have the gall to accuse one of my men-they won’t say who-of being on the take from Randall Cates.” She sipped from her paper coffee cup. “So you’re the one who found him dead, I hear.”

“Me and a couple of other wardens. Your chief deputy told me you had some special interest in Cates.”

“I certainly do. That tattooed freak killed a student over at the university last year.”

“That would be Trinity Raye?”

The sheriff nodded. “Randall Cates sold her some tainted heroin laced with a blood-thinning agent. Her friends said it was her first time smoking the stuff. She was just a hippie chick, experimenting. ODs are pretty common around here, but when it’s a nice girl from a nice home, everyone screams bloody murder. We had nothing to connect Cates to her death except about a thousand rumors.” She leaned back in the booth. The vinyl made a noise like a hand rubbing a child’s balloon. “Speaking of drugs, you look like you could use some caffeine. Why don’t you go get yourself a cup of coffee. Then you can tell me what happened last night.”

On the sheriff’s instructions, I bought myself the largest-size coffee the restaurant served, added three egg McMuffins, and returned to tell my tale. She listened with rapt attention, not interrupting, fiddling with a big turquoise ring on her right hand the whole time I talked.

When I’d finished, she said, “The state police will start with Prester Sewall as their prime suspect.”

“I would, too, if I were investigating the case.”

“Let’s see if Walt Kitteridge can shine any light on the matter.” Rhine removed her cell phone from her pocket. Kitteridge was the state’s chief medical examiner. She apparently had his number on speed dial, given how quickly the call went through.

“Walt,” she said. “It’s Roberta Rhine. I bet you know why I’m calling.”

She smiled at me while he spoke. Then she moved the phone away from her ear and held a man-size hand over the microphone. “He just got out of the woods, and he sounds wicked pissed about being called out in a storm.”

She moved the phone back to her ear. “I understand it’s still early, but I need to decide whether to put a guard on that guy in the hospital. If there’s a chance he killed Randall Cates, then I owe it to the doctors and nurses to send a deputy over there, don’t you think?”

Without hearing the other side of the conversation, I could guess the bone of contention: The medical examiner didn’t want to speculate on cause of death until he’d done an autopsy.

“It’ll be our little secret,” Rhine said. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Dr. Kitteridge must have relented, because the sheriff fell silent for a full minute while she listened to his preliminary findings.

“Thanks, Walt. I swear I won’t tell a soul. Give me a call when it’s official.”

She grabbed her winter coat from the booth and began working her arms into the sleeves.

“How’d you like to follow me to the hospital, Warden?” she said with a horsey smile. “Kitteridge found contusions on Randall’s neck and signs of petechial hemorrhage. It looks like someone held his face down in the snow until he suffocated to death.”

FEBRUARY 14

The hospital has got a weird smell. Like Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory or something. Creepy!

Ma sits me down in a chair in the waiting room while she talks to some frog-faced woman at a desk.

She says Prester is in the EMERGENCY ROOM and we can’t see him until he is STABLE.

Prester has never been stable, Ma says. I think it’s supposed to be a joke, but she don’t laugh.

She smiles and pats my hand. What do you know, Edgar Allan Poe? she asks me.

Nothing, I say. That’s what I always say.

Do you think you’ll be all right here on your own for a few minutes? I need to get something out of the van.

A cigarette?

You know I don’t smoke anymore, Lucas. It’s just something I need right now. She smiles and opens my NOTEBOOK on my lap. Just stay here and write some more stories for a while, she says. No one’s going to bother you.