In Maine, empty streets and closed shops as search for mass shooter drags on

LEWISTON, Maine — Empty parking space after empty parking space lined the usually busy Main Street. Most shops and businesses were dark, with notes in their windows about unplanned closures.

In a country where so much of the aftermath to a mass shooting has become almost routine — makeshift memorials at the scene, candlelight vigils — the eerie quiet in Lewiston, Maine, on Friday morning was far from normal.

The suspected gunman still hasn’t been found after opening fire at two Lewiston establishments late Wednesday, killing 18 and wounding at least 13 others in Maine’s deadliest mass shooting, leaving tens of thousands still under shelter-in-place orders as swarms of law enforcement officers scour the region.

Trees with leaves turning orange, yellow and red line Main Street, not far from where a “Lewiston