I knew three things:
There had been a homicide and the suspect was a female.
If the files were sealed and no one went on the record with me, I was royally fucked for 6:00.
I had unexpectedly found the story of my career.
On the other side of a very thin wall, Chief Dodge made notes. It was starting to get dark and it was going to be a long night ahead. He realized the calm balance of their town had been upset. “There’s one more thing,” he said.
“What is it, Chief?”
“There were others.”
Conte and Odom looked at each other. Now there was no air in their lungs.
“What do you mean?”
At first, Dodge wouldn’t make eye contact, tapping a pen on his desk as he spoke. But saying the words brought out more strength in the chief.
“There are others who’ve lived on that farm with her. Other young men. Other guys we’ve seen around town with her.”
There was silence in the room. “Go on.”
“And there’s at least one or two that…I can’t say I’ve seen in quite some time.”
4
Adam
Pamela Paquin enjoyed the girl talk with her houseguest. She had been surprised as all hell when her son and daughter came home with this strange older woman and a cage full of rabbits. Is she some kind of freaky rabbit saleswoman or something? she first thought. She was surprised that the woman was actually offering money to her daughter to take care of the rabbits. And then she was touched.
Donald carried in the box containing the hutch. He explained how Sheila had bought it for them and how she took the two of them to dinner. Who does that? Paquin thought.
When Sheila LaBarre walked up to Paquin’s home, the other woman felt embarrassed, because it looked dilapidated. The exterior of the building was sea foam green, sided with ruffled metal slates made of asbestos. There were bicycles on the porch. It looked like the front door frame might have been broken. Spiderwebs caulked the outline of the porch lamp fixture, its bulb bare.
Pam Paquin kept her home clean the best she could. However, she was living on disability in a house that was so rundown that she couldn’t get insurance for it. She was dealing with two adult children with developmental disabilities and her own brother, who also had problems. Paquin’s other brother was dying in an institution, and her mother (who emigrated from Manchester, England, to Manchester, New Hampshire) had slowly gone insane. Colorful people were always a part of her life, so Sheila LaBarre fit right in.
Paquin had been entertaining a friend, Sandra Charpentier, when Sheila arrived. Charpentier had bounced back and forth between housing in Manchester and Worcester, Massachusetts. She looked like Paquin’s younger sister, except her hair was longer and striking platinum blonde. Paquin and Charpentier were close, but nothing prepared them for the journey they were about to go on.
Immediately, Sheila worked her charm on the mother as she had on Paquin’s son and daughter. Paquin listened carefully to Sheila’s story about running away from her boyfriend and never inquired for further details. The guest was polite to a fault and full of flattery.
The Paquins were captivated by the affirmation the woman gave them. Sheila told them she was a multi-millionaire who had inherited a horse farm. The women never asked why a wealthy landowner like herself would seek out a place to stay from a stranger. They were too enthralled with the stories she was weaving. Paquin wanted to know more about the horses and could she come visit the farm sometime?
Sheila introduced everyone to the three rabbits who were now under the care of Paquin’s children. Sapphire was the gray one, the “alpha female,” as Sheila described her. She was pregnant by one of her two companions. Little Satin was white with a pink nose and very gentle. Snooky was the oldest and the one with the most character. Sheila found the male rabbit six years earlier in Hampton on land owned by Dr. LaBarre. He was brown, with white patches on his left paw, leg and ear. The little guy was suffering from pasteurelosis, the rabbit sniffles, an illness often brought on by stress in the animal.
Sheila sat with her legs curled up underneath her on the couch, watching television. Charpentier had stayed and laughed along with them. For most of the evening, the siblings had played with Snookster, Sapphire and Little Satin. The rabbits were in the cage that Sheila had them in while in the car. Paquin’s brother, Charlie, couldn’t take the clucking anymore, so he excused himself and went into his bedroom.
“Pam, I just don’t know what I’d do without you,” Sheila said to Paquin. The kindness from her voice flowed freely. “You are a true angel and a true friend.” It was a steady and powerful barrage of compliments and positive attention the woman had been showering her hosts with. Paquin felt more and more at ease with Sheila as the night went on. There was no talk about where the woman would go tomorrow or what would happen to her. The talk was of horses and rabbits…and sometimes of racy sex. They all seemed to be enjoying the moment.
A person of sophistication might have considered Paquin gauche. She was overweight, missing a front tooth and had dyed her short hair an unnatural shade of red. But she was kind and hospitable and Sheila LaBarre needed a friend now more than ever.
They felt the air come out of the room at 10:59. That’s when WMUR-TV launched the headlines of their evening news program. The sight of something on the television caused Sheila to place her hand over her mouth and tremble. Paquin didn’t know what the story was about yet, but Sheila knew instantly. With one hand she pointed to the young man’s photo on the screen. She covered her mouth with the other.
“That’s Adam,” she gasped.
Adam? Paquin thought. Who’s Adam?
Silence fell over the room as all eyes zoomed to the television set. An anchorwoman looked sternly back at them.
“Good evening,” she said to the room. “An investigation is under way tonight for a man who went missing in Epping.” The words “Missing Person’s Case” appeared on the screen above a photograph of a young man in a white shirt. The name listed was not Adam.
“Kenneth Countie moved to town just three weeks ago,” she continued. “And tonight the Attorney General’s office, along with the local police department, is actively searching for him.”
The screen divided into two pictures: the anchorwoman in one box, a field reporter in the other. She asked the reporter to provide details, and he introduced a taped segment. The first shot was of a uniformed officer holding a spool of yellow crime scene tape. He unrolled it, left to right, and tied it to a wooden post. Sheila recognized it as the hinge to her front gate.
“Authorities run tape across the entrance to a secluded farmhouse in Epping,” the reporter said. “It is here they hope to find clues in the disappearance of a local man…”
“That’s my house,” Sheila said, pointing to the screen. Paquin was stunned. How could this nice woman on my couch be involved in this?
A gentleman in a suit appeared on screen. The graphic that was superimposed over the lower third of the picture identified him as Peter Odom, an assistant Attorney General. His tone was plain, calm, almost unconcerned. “According to his family, it’s curious that he has not contacted them in several days. While we do have a concern, it would be premature to talk about foul play.”
The reporter’s voice continued over more evening shots of the property. “Odom says this farm on Red Oak Hill Lane is Countie’s