Bad Men

She skipped to the “Police Beat” page, sca

Her meal finished, she drove downtown and parked in the public market’s parking garage. She bought some fresh produce from one of the stalls in order to get her parking validated for two hours, then headed up Congress to the Center for Maine History. She walked down the little pathway by the side of the Wadsworth-Longfellow House and entered the reading room, ignoring the sign that invited her to register her name and the reason for her visit in the library’s logbook. The librarian behind the desk was in his late seventies, she figured, but judging from the gleam in his eye as he smiled at her, he was a long way from dead.

“Hi, I’d like to see whatever you have on Dutch Island,” she said.

“Sure,” said the librarian. “May I ask what your interest is in Dutch?”

“I’m a police officer. I’m heading out there soon. I’m just curious to find out a little about it.”

“You’ll be working with Joe Dupree, then.”

“Yes, so I understand.”

“He’s a good man. I knew his father, and he was a good man too.”

He disappeared among the stacks behind the counter, and returned with a manila file. It looked disappointingly thin. The librarian registered her expression.

“I know, but there hasn’t been too much written on Dutch. Fact is, we need a good history of the islands of Casco Bay, period. All we got here are cuttings, and this.” He removed a thin sheaf of typescript pages from the folder, stapled crudely along the spine.

“This was written maybe ten years ago by Larry Amerling. He’s the postmaster out on the island. It’s about the most detailed thing we have, although like as not you’ll find something too in Caldwell’s Islands of Maine and Miller’s Kayaking the Maine Coast.”

He retrieved the books in question for her, then settled back in his chair as Macy found a space at one of the study tables. There were one or two other people doing research in the library, although Macy was the youngest person in the room by almost half a century. She opened the folder, took out Amerling’s A Short History of Dutch Island, and began to read.

Torres and Misters led Moloch back to the Land Cruiser, deliberately keeping up a fast pace, the restraints on Moloch’s legs causing the prisoner to stumble slightly on the final steps.

“You asshole, Moloch,” said Torres.

Moloch tried to maintain his concentration. The grand-jury hearing had been a bore for him. So they had found the body of a woman, and Verso-small, foolish Verso-was prepared to testify that he had helped Willard and Moloch dispose of her in the woods after Moloch had killed her.

SFW: So Fucking What?

As soon as the direction of the prosecutor’s questions had become apparent, Moloch had begun to speak like a handicapped man, talking through his nose, the words barely intelligible.

“Is there something wrong with him?” the judge had asked, but it had been Moloch who provided the answer.

“Sorry, Your Honor,” he’d said, modifying his speech sufficiently for his words to be understood. “But I was kissing your wife good night, and the bitch closed her legs.”

That had been the end of the proceedings.

“You hear me?” repeated Torres. “You’re an asshole.”

“Why am I an asshole?” said Moloch. He didn’t look at the men at either side of him. Neither did he look at the chains on his hands or his feet, so used was he to the shuffling gait their presence necessitated. He would not fall. The investigators would not allow him to fall, not with people watching, but still they kept him moving quickly, depriving him of even the small dignity of walking like a man.

“You know why.”

“Maybe I just felt the urge to jerk that old judge’s chain some.”

“You sure jerked it,” said Torres. “You surely did. And don’t you think it won’t come back on you, because it will. You mark my words. They’ll take your books away, leave you nothing to do but shit, sleep, and jerk off.”

“Then I’ll be thinking of you, except maybe not when I sleep.”

“You fucking asshole, you’re a dead man. You’ll get the juice for this, doesn’t matter how much you mouth off to the judge.”

“Sticks and stones, Mr. Torres, sticks and stones.”

They reached the car, Moloch smiling at last for the cameras, then he was put in back and his chains locked once again to the D ring.

“It’s been fun spending time with you both,” Moloch said. “I appreciated the company.”

“Well,” said Torres, “I can’t say I’m looking forward to the pleasure again.”

“And you, Mr. Misters?” said Moloch, but Misters didn’t respond. “Mr. Misters,” repeated Moloch, savoring the words on his tongue, extending the “s” sounds into long washes of sibilance like water evaporating from the surface of a hot stove. “Wasn’t that kind of the name of some suck-ass, white-bread band in the eighties? ‘Broken Wings,’ that was them, right?”

Misters remained silent.

“Your partner doesn’t say very much, does he?” said Moloch to Torres.

“He’s kind of fussy about who he talks to.”

“Well, maybe he’ll find it in him to say a few words before the journey’s end.”

“You think so?”

“I’m certain. I can be a very interesting conversationalist.”

“I doubt that.”

“We’ll see,” said Moloch. “We’ll see.”

And for the next five miles he hummed the chorus of ‘“Broken Wings,” over and over and over, until Torres broke down and threatened to gag him. Only then, when the young investigator was sufficiently rattled, did Moloch stop.

The surroundings of the library had faded around Macy. She was no longer conscious of the old librarian, the other researchers, or the occasional rattle as the main door opened, the cold air accompanying it. Instead, she was lost in the history of Dutch Island, the history of Sanctuary.

The Native Americans had fought hard to maintain their hold on the islands of Casco Bay. Like modern-day tourists, they summered on the islands, fishing and hunting porpoises and seals, even the occasional whale. Chebeague was their main base, but they used others too, and were resentful of the gradual encroachments of white settlers. The islands were the centers of population in the new colonies: they were easy to defend, safer than the mainland, and offered an abundant source of food from the ocean. Macy noticed that a lot of them, like Dutch Island, had multiple names: Great Chebeague was once Merry Island, then Recompense; Peaks Island was formerly Munjoy’s, Milton’s, and Michael’s, the name changing as the owners changed.

Despite their relative safety, the islands were still frequently attacked in the late seventeenth century. Settlers who were fleeing the atrocities on Harpswell Neck and other islands nearer the coast built a fort on Jewell, on the Outer Ring. In September 1676, a bloody year with attacks on whites at Casco Neck and Back Cove, the families on Jewell were attacked by eight canoes of warriors and were so disturbed by the experience that they retreated to Richmond Island. For the remainder of the year, the natives rampaged along the coast, a

Dutch Island, named for a Dutch sailor named Chris Herschdorfer, who was briefly shipwrecked there toward the end of the seventeenth century, was a different matter. It was farther from the mainland, and the distance made the crossing difficult for the Indians, who had only birch-bark canoes in which to travel. Furthermore, they regarded the island with suspicion, and seemed content to leave it unexplored.