The Edge

Chapter 20

The rain started to ease some as Devine pulled onto the long gravel drive. In the daylight everything looked different as he wound back through a thick stand of bare woods with cluttered undergrowth. The long limbs swayed, dipped, and creaked in the stiff breeze that had never been absent since Devine had stepped foot in Putnam.

The little cottage appeared to him in the middle of the woods. Coupled with the inclement weather, the place had an ominous sensibility to it, like something out of a Brothers Grimm violent yarn masquerading as a fairy tale. In the light he could see that it was white clapboard with faded green shutters, just as the man who had confronted Devine outside the bar had said it would be. He eyed the ancient station wagon again. And the F150 looked even older. The truck bed was filled with old tools, long metal rods, what looked to be a small concrete mixer, rolls of fish netting and rope, and grimy buoys.

Next to the house, on a small rusty trailer, was a wooden dinghy with a name neatly stenciled on the side.

He got out of the car and drew close enough to see.

Named after his dead wife.

Behind the house was a small building with curtained windows that he hadn’t noticed on his previous night’s recon.

He stepped up to the porch and was about to knock when the door opened and he was staring at the business end of an over-and-under shotgun.

Earl Palmer stood there in a red thermal underwear shirt and soiled dungarees, white socks on shoeless feet. He had about an inch in height on Devine and looked ruggedly strong with a barrel chest and long arms that tapered to slender hips and thin, bowed legs. Not bad for a man in his latter seventies, thought Devine. But lobster fishing demanded a lot of physical strength, he reckoned.

Up close he looked like a taller, broader Robert Frost, thought Devine, who had read the man’s poetry at West Point. His comrades at the Point had teased him about this, until some pretty local girls they had gone into town to see had told them that they found an interest in poetry incredibly attractive in a man. All the way back to West Point the guys had pestered him for details on some of Frost’s best-known lines that they could use for their own pickup efforts.

“‘Two roads diverged in the woods and I, I took the one less traveled,’” he had told them. He had learned that the line was often misinterpreted because Frost had regrets in his life and had not actually taken that road. When his buddies asked him what it meant he said, with all sincerity, “We chose a path almost no one else does. We’re going to risk our lives to protect our country and way of life. We chose the most honorable journey and also the most dangerous. It’s a selfless act of sacrifice in a country that routinely worships individualism over the collective.”

None of them had expected that response, he could tell. Hell, he still didn’t know exactly from where inside him those words had come. They had ridden the rest of the way back in silence, each man seemingly lost in thought over what Devine had said.

Devine had lost four of his classmates to war, including one in their group from that night, and three more to suicide after tours of duty that had forced them to see and do things that people should not have to ever see or do.

“Who are you?” Palmer said in a steady, calm voice that put Devine more on edge than if the man had been screaming. “I don’t know you. What are you doing on my property?”

“Travis Devine. I’m with Homeland Security. I’m here investigating Jenny Silkwell’s murder. I wanted to ask you a few questions, if I may.”

“Let me see some ID. Slow,” Palmer added.

Devine tentatively reached into his coat pocket and produced his identification.

“Hold it up high so I can see it.”

Devine did so and Palmer studied it at eye level before reluctantly lowering his weapon.

“What do you want to know?”

“Can we do this inside?” said Devine as the rain started up again. The porch had no roof, so he was getting the full effect.

Palmer stepped aside and motioned him in with the gun muzzle. Then he closed the door and pointed Devine into the room overlooking the front yard.

It was small and minimally furnished, but as neat and organized as, well, a ship’s cabin, concluded Devine. There was a woodstove that was generating considerable and welcome warmth. On a wooden shelf bolted to the wall were pictures of various people. Devine saw a younger Annie and what were probably her parents. And hugging Earl Palmer was, no doubt, his wife, Alberta. They looked about as much in love as a couple could be. And that picture was fairly recent, he could tell.

Palmer broke the breech on his gun and carefully set it on a table by the window. Devine sat in an old, rumpled chair by the woodstove. A stiff-moving Palmer opened the stove door and threw in some more pellets. Then he moved over to a new-looking recliner and picked up a remote. The chair lifted up so that he barely had to bend his knees to sit down. When he did, he hit another button and the chair lowered.

“Nifty,” said Devine.

“Damn body’s useless. Feel like an infant. Be wearing a diaper before long.”

Palmer set the remote aside and clenched the chair’s arms with his thick, gnarled hands. His eyes were a soft gray, and his disheveled silky white hair provided a sharp contrast to the reddened weather-beaten face lying just below it. “What do you want to know? I found her, that’s it. I don’t know any more than that.”

“Can you walk me through the time you left your house that night and when you found the body?”

“Why?”

“Because it might make you remember something new. Please,” he added. “Anything to help me find out who killed her.”

“I thought the chief and Wendy—”

Devine said, “Jenny Silkwell worked for the federal government. That makes it our concern. I’m sure you can understand. But I am working with the local police on the case.”

Palmer slowly nodded. “There always was scuttlebutt about what Jenny did. Top-secret stuff, I guess. Why you’re here, ain’t it?”

“Let’s assume that’s the case, yes.”

Palmer sat back and worried at his mouth with his long index finger. He never looked down, but kept his gaze rigidly straight ahead.

“I... went for a walk that night. I do that a lot now.”

“I understand you recently lost your wife. I’m very sorry.”

The thick white-tufted eyebrows rose and fell, like a heartbeat. “Bertie is... was built to go the long voyage, you understand. Strong as a bear, good health, sharp mind. I would’ve gone long before her, that’s for sure, if nature had any say about it. Both her parents lived well into their nineties.”

“What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Palmer pressed his hands against his bony knees, as though bracing himself for whatever he was about to reveal.

“What happened was somebody hit her with their car while she was out walking, knocked her into a washed-out gully behind some scrub bushes, and kept right on going. Left her to die, right there. No one could see her. But they say she... she dragged herself along that gully trying to get... help. Help that never came. And... she died. They killed my wife.”

Palmer eased his eyes closed for a moment, and his fingers gripped his thighs as though he were riding out some turbulence high in the sky.

That must be the other homicide that Harper mentioned he was handling, thought Devine. “So they never caught the person?” he asked, though he knew the answer.

Palmer opened his eyes. His hands retreated and he placed them back on the arms of his chair. “No, they never did. Some stranger passing through, most like. Putnam folk would’ve stopped and helped her. She’d still be alive. Wouldn’t have suffered like she did.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yep, that’s what people say, I guess. All they can say,” he added.

“I spoke with your granddaughter earlier, at her café.”

He nodded and said, “Annie makes real good coffee. Gives it to me free. Has a nice business going, and that ain’t easy to do here. Or anywhere, I guess.”

“So the night you went out walking?”

“Hell, gets so I can’t seem to breathe in this house no more. I grew up here. I see things and it takes me back, to other... memories. Better ones.”

“I can see that, sure.”

“Just head to the road and sometimes turn left and sometimes right. That night I turned left. Carry a flashlight with me. I got one of them reflective jackets. Annie bought it for me.”

“So you were walking?”

“I headed towards Jocelyn Point. I figured I’d get to it and then turn around and head home, try and get some sleep though it don’t come easy now. With Bertie next to me, I’d be lights out in ten seconds.”

“I’m sure. Did you even know Jenny was in town?”

“I’d seen her coming in that very day. I was driving through town. Do that sometimes, just to” — he looked around the space — “get outta here. She pulled into the inn. Supposed she was staying there.”

“And not at the family home?” Devine asked.

“Don’t think it’s the family home no more. Think it’s Dak and Alex’s place now.”

“And Jenny wouldn’t be welcome there?” Devine paused again.

Palmer’s head turned mechanically from side to side as the pellets popped and glowed behind the glass of the woodstove. “Don’t know about that. Have to ask them, don’t ya?”

“Okay, go on.”

“Every once in a while I’d head to the coast, stand there, look out. Nice bluffs along there. Can see nearly to Nova Scotia, least it seems like. Lived most of my life on the water, you see. Like looking at it. Calms me so.”

“You were a lobsterman?”

He perked up at that. “Over fifty years out there. Rough seas and fair. Never got rich but made a decent living. Ain’t so easy now. Lobsters moving farther out and heading north. Feel sorry for the folks coming up. It’s a lot harder now. Ain’t many other ways to make a decent dollar round here.”

“So you went to the coastline and looked out?”

“Yes, sir. Did it once more. And then...” His lips trembled and his long fingers flew up to settle them down.

“You walked to the coastline at that point?”

He removed his fingers and nodded. “Cold that night. And rainy. Had my long waterproof on and my hat. Water don’t bother me much, ocean or from the sky. That trail through the woods, I’ve been there many a time. Nice views from there. You can see the entrance to Putnam Harbor to the south, though I couldn’t really at night. But I know right where it is. Went in and outta that place more times than I can remember. Takes me back, you see. Looked out at the clouds over the Atlantic. Beautiful thing to watch, to listen to the rain falling. No lightning, mind you, or I would’ve skedaddled. Don’t much care for lightning.”

“And then what happened?”

“I... looked down,” he said simply, if hesitantly. “I looked down,” he said again, as though he was afraid Devine had not heard him. “And I saw Jenny.”

“Wait, you knew it was her from where you were standing?”

When Devine had gone back to the spot he had more accurately gauged the distance at over fifteen feet from witness to corpse. And the body had been sprawled on black rocks and partially submerged.

Palmer seemed confused for a moment. “No, I... I mean, I learned afterward it was her. I just saw a body at that point. I had my phone with me and I called the police. I waited till they got there. They rushed to pull her up. Young man went down there on a rope. The tide was coming in fast. They got a truck with a winch. She was half-covered with water. Much longer and she’d have been out to sea. But they got her out all right. Or her body at least. Jenny was long gone.”

“So it was just a coincidence that you happened upon that spot and looked down?”

“Yes, sir, it was. But I wish it hadn’t happened to me. Lost my son and daughter-in-law to a damn fire years back, then Bertie. Seen enough death. Just... seen enough...”

His voice trailed off and he swiveled his head and stared at the fire behind the glass.

Devine watched him for a few moments, trying to take in the true, full measure of the man. “Once you learned it was Jenny, what did you think?”

“I didn’t think nothing, really. I mean, I couldn’t believe it. Who’d want to hurt her?”

“That was my next question to you.”

“Must’ve been a stranger, like who killed Bertie.”

Devine thought Palmer very much wanted to believe that. “So anything else you can tell me that might help?”

“Nothing I can think of, son. Sure hope you figure all this out.”

“Well, that’s why I’m here,” he said.

Devine left him with his card and a request to call if Palmer remembered anything else helpful. He did not expect the man to ever take him up on that offer.

As he reached the doorway Palmer stirred.

“I know it don’t seem like much to you, son, but Putnam is all I got. It’s my home. Only one. Bertie’s buried here. So’s my son. I can’t never leave this place. Not ever.”

“Yes, sir,” said Devine.

Palmer swiveled his head back around and returned his attention to the fiery pellets locked behind glass. To Devine it seemed that the man was also in a prison of sorts, not of his own making, but just how the life cards had been dealt for him.

Devine veered around the house to the small building with the curtains. The door was locked, and the window coverings made it impossible to see inside. He could go back in and ask the man directly what was in there, but something in his gut said not to. At least right now.

He drove off, firmly convinced that most if not all of what Palmer had told him regarding finding Jenny’s body was a lie.

Now the question became why.