The Edge

Chapter 5

After a short, pinballing flight in high winds, the plane thudded onto the tarmac in Bangor, Maine. After deplaning, Devine grabbed his rental Tahoe and commenced the two-and-a-half-hour drive east to Putnam. The tiny hamlet was located on the rocky Atlantic coast and had fewer souls than the passengers on the United Airlines jumbo jet flight Devine had taken back from Italy.

The leaves had long since turned color and abandoned their respective trees and bushes. Devine’s memories of a scorching summer in New York City and a mild fall in Europe had all been extinguished by the bitter cold here. His cable-knit sweater was underwhelming in its warmth factor.

He reached Machias, turned onto Route 1, and kept going north for a while until he turned off onto another road that took him east toward the world’s second biggest ocean. He could already smell the briny air and feel the bite of the punishing wind that kept rocking the Tahoe. He looked at a long inlet the ocean had cut into the rocky shore and, despite the mission he was on, the serene view lent Devine some calm.

Before the storm?

Devine glanced at his gear pack. Inside, among other things, was his Glock nine-millimeter, a backup pistol, and extra ammo for both.

As Devine drove he went over in his mind the briefing details.

Jenny Silkwell had been an operations officer at CIA. Her focus for the past few years had been on the Middle East. Before that her area of involvement was the Russian Federation, and before that, South America. A gifted, natural linguist, she spoke fluent Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Polish, and through immersion classes she had learned Arabic and Farsi before moving on to the Middle East region. Her job had led her to travel all over the world to meet with the human intel on the ground that she had recruited to work with America.

And maybe that had placed a wicked bullseye on the back of Jenny Silkwell, because the Russians, as well as factions in the Middle East, were not shy about striking back against perceived enemies. The answer to her murder might well lie in Moscow, Tehran, or Damascus rather than Putnam, Maine.

He had read both the national and local accounts of the murder. The national news had sent crews up here and broadcast stories for a few days until they moved on to newer stories that would capture more eyeballs. He supposed if the killer were tracked down and arrested, the big guns would be back up here to report on it.

In contrast, the local news, such that it was, had continued to go full bore with the story. Devine could imagine that the unsolved murder of a CIA officer and daughter of a war hero and former U.S. senator, who was himself a scion of a prominent and formerly wealthy Maine family, would be the most newsworthy thing that had ever happened in Putnam.

Along the way he had passed signs that said he was on the Bold Coast Scenic Byway. And it fit the bill. As his journey brought him closer to the Gulf of Maine’s shoreline, Devine, at intervals, saw narrow strips of sandy and pebble beaches as well as towering granite bluffs standing sentry along craggy coves filled with rock-strewn headlands and stout, robust greenery holding purchase on the saltwater-slicked rock wherever it could. There were also vast forests that reached to the horizon, and old orchards of fruitless trees leading right up to rocky cliffs standing firmly next to the water like silent sentries.

Finally, a weathered board on a rotting post announced the legal boundary of Putnam and stated its official population to be a few shy of 250. They must be hardy souls, thought Devine. The rugged topography and raw weather did not look like it was designed for the fainthearted.

He passed a young man in a New England Patriots ski cap riding a rusted bicycle that had no seat. That was followed by two young women astride mud-splattered ATVs puttering along. A battered 1980s-era station wagon slowly passed him going the other way. The driver had heavily wrinkled features and the hanging jowls of a Great Dane, and a head topped by fine snowy hair. He gave Devine a grim-faced once-over before he headed on down the road.

The Putnam Inn was located on the town’s narrow main street, the asphalt barely two cars wide. Devine angled into a parking space and tugged out his bags.

He looked across the street to where a small harbor nearly encircled by chiseled granite bluffs was situated, with a slender outlet to the Gulf of Maine’s slice of the ocean. There was also what looked to be a man-made breakwater to give added protection from storms. A number of boats were docked in slips weathered by the unforgiving elements, while others were moored out on the smooth, glassy water of the harbor. Men in heavy work clothing and calf-high waterproof boots were laboring on the docks and also on the boats, tying up ropes, lifting heavy boxes and metal cages, and scrubbing the grime and barnacles off raised hulls. It was a bustle of activity that was probably replicated up and down the coast here.

The smiling woman behind the front desk told Devine she was Patricia Kingman, the inn’s owner.

“Welcome to Putnam. I’ll apologize in advance if our service is not up to snuff. We’re understaffed, it’s why I’m manning the front desk. Nobody wants to work anymore. They blame it on COVID. I say it’s just being lazy. The X, Y, and Z generations, or whatever they call themselves? No work ethic.”

Devine, who was a member in good standing of the millennials, stayed silent as he signed in and produced his driver’s license and credit card. He received his room key, one of the old-fashioned kind with a one-pound slug of lead attached.

“You can leave that weapon here when you go out,” she quipped, eyeing the key with amusement. “Unless you want to do arm curls.”

“I think I’ll keep it with me, thanks,” replied Devine, who would never leave such an open and easy invitation into his private space lying around.

Kingman’s amused expression vanished as she first looked startled and then suspicious.

“What are you in town for, Mr. Devine? Can’t be pleasure unless you like the inside of a freezer.”

“A little business.” He eyed her steadily. “I understand you had some trouble recently?”

“I guess you can call the murder of a poor young woman trouble, yes.”

“What was her name again?”

“Jenny Silkwell.”

“Wait, wasn’t there a senator by that name from up here?”

“Curtis Silkwell. Jenny was his daughter. He got sick and had to resign. I knew Jenny since she was in pigtails and knee socks. Smart as a whip, pretty and nice as can be. She worked in Washington, DC.” She glanced carefully around, as though there might be someone listening. “Some folks say she was a spy or some such for us.”

“Do these ‘folks’ believe she was killed because of that?”

A stony expression slid down over the woman’s features. “Well, I can’t see anyone from around here hurting one hair on Jenny’s head. Everyone loved her.”

Well, at least one person didn’t, thought Devine. “So she grew up here?”

She nodded. “At the Silkwells’ ancestral home, Jocelyn Point. Named after Hiram Silkwell’s wife. He made money hand over fist well over a century ago, and built that place.”

“Any Silkwells left here?”

“Alex, Jenny’s younger sister, and her brother, Dak. They live at Jocelyn Point.”

“I suppose Jenny came up to visit with them when she was killed?”

Kingman folded her arms over her chest and took a symbolic step back. “My, my, I can’t imagine why I’ve been gabbing so much about the Silkwells to a complete stranger. You have a nice visit here, Mr. Devine. And just so you know, outsiders aren’t usually welcome here.”

“But I would imagine your entire business model depends on the exact opposite of that sentiment.”

She twisted her mouth in displeasure. “Your place is right behind here, first cottage on the right.”

She walked through a blue curtain set behind the front counter.

Devine grabbed his bags and off he went, a stranger in a place that didn’t particularly care for them.

Story of my life.