The Last Altruist: A Maine Mystery, #1

By Richard J. Cass

Ardmore Theberge returns to Portland, Maine, to start his own business making hand-drawn maps after he gets himself dishonorably discharged from the Army for assaulting a superior officer—who deserved it, by the way, but we'll get to that. He befriends a stationary store owner and her mentally challenged son, Robbie. Ardmore learns the store owner is under increasing pressure to sell her three buildings. When a real estate developer is killed in the store and it looks like Robbie did it, Ardmore steps in to protect the boy, who disappears.

Ardmore discovers that two high-ranking politicians want to buy the buildings. Rebekah Horvath, the store's owner, was in the Foreign Service in Belgium with them, years ago, when she was abruptly recalled and forcibly retired. The two politicians believe Rebekah's husband has hidden damaging evidence on them, and their agent in Portland is none other than Roger McGinty, the officer Ardmore beat up in Iraq for desecrating the body of a civilian. Ardmore believes McGinty killed the developer to keep him from competing for the buildings—and wonders if he's also there on another mission—for revenge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Encircle Publications
• Release date: Sep 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781645994039

Book preview

1

I want you to draw me a map of Little Cranberry Island, Davidoff said.

I nodded. He could have purchased any number of commercial maps: meteorological, topographical, navigational charts. That wasn’t why he’d come to me.

It’s an engagement present, he said.

Davidoff—‘Call me Dave’—was an unlikely romantic, the size of a college linebacker, deep-water tanned with a shaved head and fleshy cheeks stubbled blond. His jaw muscles bulged up under his ears and he projected a rubbery endurance that would keep him coming at you in a fight.

His knee jigged up and down as we sat on the concrete patio outside my workshop. He had to be from New York or Boston, someplace you needed a lot of fast-twitch muscle to survive.

You understand what you’re commissioning here, Dave? Not something suitable for navigation, a presentation piece. As accurate a set of contours as I can draw, even isolines if you want them. But hand-inked and hand-lettered. One of a kind.

He didn’t ask what an isoline was, but I didn’t expect him to be that curious.

I was already thinking about how I’d do it. He wouldn’t want to pay for a complete resurvey of the island. The best I could do was back-check some of the elevations in the most recent survey I could find, then adjust for any changes. Carney lived on the island. I’d be able to toss him some work.

There’s an inlet on the northeast side? Can you draw in a little red tent where the beach is? Or even just an X, like marks the spot?

I’m a mapmaker, Dave, not a cartoonist. And this isn’t a collaboration. But once you own it, you can paste My Little Pony stickers all over it for all I care.

He frowned at that, frowned again when I told him what it would cost.

Seems high.

You came to me, Dave.

I did not advertise. I wondered how he’d found me. It was only my third project since I’d invented this line of work for myself, after the military career that wasn’t possible any longer.

His blueberry eyes showed offense.

Still seems like a lot of money.

Here was a man who negotiated his way through life, never took the first offer if he thought he could do better. No gene for acceptance, for giving up control.

Dave.

If he noticed how I kept repeating his name, he’d think it was a compliment, acknowledgment of his primacy.

Why don’t you bet me your boat?

I wasn’t sure he owned one, but he looked the part.

We can flip a coin, throw the I Ching. However you like to gamble. You win, I draw your map for free. You lose, I take your boat.

He squinted.

A Bertram 35? Three quarters of a million dollars against a piece of paper? You must be nuts.

You came looking for me, Dave. And price isn’t the same as value.

His knee jiggled faster. Was he considering it? Maybe there was more to him than I thought.

You are a strange dude, Mr. Theberge.

He slipped a leather checkbook out of the side pocket of his cargo shorts along with a Pilot G-207, extra fine point. The pen was a sophisticated choice—smooth-flowing, large ink capacity—for someone who probably didn’t use it for anything more complicated than writing his signature. I’d always liked the instrument because its model number was the same as the area code for the state of Maine. This place where I’d fled, after all my troubles.

2

My last project had been an elaborately decorated map of the landscape at the Battle of Gettysburg, which involved long torturous conversations with two pudgy reenactors who wore full regalia to our conferences. I quickly tired of their historically authentic body odor and supercilious certainty.

One of them accused me of mislocating Little Round Top, and in the same breath suggested I add in a small hill that had not existed in 1863. They planned to reenact the battle using my map and didn’t see altering the landscape as a cheat. They were overawed by the way I aged the paper, with cold tea and a hair dryer, but they had paid without complaint.

As was my working habit, I threw out all the half-used pens, the opened ink bottles, the papers on which I’d scratched out notes and drawings, clearing the shop for another project. Davidoff’s commission meant I had to restock my workshop, which meant a trip into Portland.

Leland Standish is pressing me to sell the building again.

Rebekah spoke up the instant I stepped into Horvath’s Office Supply, the brass bell overhead tinkling. I shoved the humidity-swollen door shut behind me.

Good morning, Rebekah.

I didn’t know why she was telling me that. There wasn’t anything I could do about it.

The sun did not penetrate the store’s front windows and the exposed brick walls sucked in whatever other light there was. The farther inside I walked, the more it felt like a cave.

Tall wire racks along the walls held the store’s stock in jumbled disarray: envelopes in all shapes and sizes, boxes of pencils and ballpoint pens, manila folders, cardboard tubes of various lengths and diameters. Bankers’ boxes, rolls of bubble wrap. In the far back corner, a locked room led to a storeroom of specialized supplies Rebekah maintained for artists.

Robbie, her son, sat at a scarred wooden table in back with scissors, paste, and construction paper, creating another in his endless series of collages.

Robert, she said. Look who’s here.

The boy—he was physically and chronologically a man, but I couldn’t think of him as one—dropped the scissors with a clatter that made Rebekah wince. His smooth round face broke into a smile as he pushed back his chair.

The usual package, Ard-man?

Robert. What did we say about people and nicknames?

His cheeks reddened, but his eyes showed mischief, as if he’d gotten her to bite on a terrible riddle.

Don’t worry, Becky. Ard-man doesn’t mind.

Her mouth tightened.

Yes, Robbie. The usual. Please. I couldn’t keep him out of trouble, but maybe I could postpone it.

Rebekah sighed. Her straight silver hair, cut chin-length, framed a delicate facial structure. She was slim, tall, and elegant, and as always when I came into the store, I thought what a beautiful young woman she must have been. The weak yellow light from the overheads glinted off her glasses, hiding her eyes.

Standish is still trying to buy up the block? I’d have thought the real estate developers would still be lying low. The recession.

Robbie rattled around the store with a red plastic basket, whistling something that sounded like the Maine County song.

Wish that were so. Millicent and I are the holdouts.

Millicent Feathernight owned Beanie’s, a coffee shop in the old bank building on the corner of Freethinker Street.

This is new pressure? Something’s changed?

She lifted a shoulder.

Someone else wants the building. He must have found out.

Competition. Would you sell it?

One of the reasons I kept my business out on the marsh in Scarborough was so that I didn’t have to deal with this: ownership, rents, city bureaucracies, politics.

She pushed her hair back behind her ears with both hands.

The building’s been in Walter’s family since 1866. After the fire. But we’re not a sea captain’s house. Or a Revolutionary War tavern. Historic designation would make it easier to hold onto.

National Register?

Unlikely, since the state turned us down. And in this political climate? We’re not kissing the right derrières.

I thought about the way a map was only a slice of time, how the contours of Little Cranberry Island today were different from yesterday’s.

Change, Rebekah. Nothing stays the same.

I don’t need you to tell me that. She glanced at Robbie, still collecting from the shelves. I’m sorry. I don’t worry so much for me. Robert doesn’t accept change very well.

I struggled for something encouraging to say.

City moves slowly.

And another condo project would add to the city tax base. Which has dwindled.

A surprising number of storefronts still had Closed signs in the windows, two years post-pandemic.

The back of my neck itched, the way it always did when a conversation turned political.

People tend to panic when the economy goes south.

Leland Standish’s personal economy is never down. That kind of greed is an abyss. Not something he uses for a sensible reason, either, helping the world or even living well. It’s a sickness.

I didn’t want to argue with her. Before her husband died in a boat crash off of Five Islands last year, he’d been a career diplomat. From talking to her, I knew they’d lived in places where the standard human frailties were magnified, maybe flourished more openly than at home. Her frame of reference for judging people was more informed than mine would ever be.

Robbie hauled the full basket to the front of the store.

At least you have options, I said.

She tipped her head.

I should be grateful.

Let me know if I can help.

She gave me a slow sad smile.

I noticed the open flap on Robbie’s nylon belt pouch.

Hey, sport. You lose your Leatherman?

He muscled the loaded basket up onto the counter, next to the ancient mechanical cash register. I’d given him one of the stainless steel multi-tools for his last birthday, after checking with Rebekah. He’d been fascinated with the awl, the toothpick, the wire cutters, and tweezers, less so with the knife blades. His face twisted unhappily. Rebekah interrupted.

We will find it, Robert.

Her look begged me to let it go. I nodded and unpacked the basket.

What have we here? The .35 and .45 Pigma Micron pens? Excellent choice. French curve, protractor, pencils and erasers, red and blue ink. We’d better have a bottle of the green and yellow, don’t you think? And maybe half a dozen sheets of that nice Japanese rice paper? A3 size?

Robbie’s face glowed. The good papers were stored in the back with the other valuable supplies. Rebekah took a key from her desk drawer and held it up.

Be careful in there, Robert. Please. The light is bad and the floor is uneven.

Got you, Becky.

Robbie bustled toward the back of the store.

Thank you, she mouthed.

For what, I had no idea.

3

Beanie’s resided in a stately brick building that once housed the main branch of the Old Canal Bank. The architecture spoke of a time when a business’s location and physical appearance attested to its stability in the community. The windows on the walls that formed the front corner were six feet high and two feet wide, one looking forward onto Freethinker Street, the other at the pocket park on the corner with Essex Street.

The late summer grass in the park was the dull green of a pear and the granite benches were crowded with street people. Though the main police station was only a couple blocks away, the small oasis was a demilitarized zone. As long as they didn’t hassle the tourists, the kids and dogs could hang out.

If I didn’t stop in and say hello to Millicent before I headed home, I would hear about it. The music that greeted me as I pushed through the door from the foyer was atonal and jagged. It made my teeth hurt.

The coffee shop was uncrowded this close to lunch time, one dreadlocked student type sitting up on the raised floor in the back corner, staring at the screen of his MacBook as if translating runes. The walls were a pale gray with a hint of purple, the tabletops a veined green composite. The stainless steel counters and sinks in back were scratched but spotless.

Millicent saw me flinch. Even her regulars complained about her musical taste, but it was useless to complain. Her coarse black hair shot off in several directions, a buzz cut gone rogue. Silver earrings bore a disk of turquoise where the bear’s belly would have been and a choker of black agates sparkled at her throat.

Philip Glass was a genius, she said.

I nodded up at the grad student, who wore AirPods.

I guess he doesn’t appreciate it, either?

Hello, Ardmore. I’m fine. How are you? Would you like a cortado?

She rinsed a short thick glass in hot water. Someday I would change my order to keep her from taking me for granted.

Millicent.

She twisted a handle on the espresso machine, triggering a hiss of steam.

All this, and now I have you, too. She waved a hand around the room.

Business still slow?

Skin of my teeth, Ardmore. Skin of my teeth.

Yellow-brown liquid dribbled from the machine’s shiny teats.

Standish leaning on you too?

I sat on a high metal stool at the bar.

You’ve been talking to Rebekah. She pointed the remote and lowered the volume of the music. She’s going to sell, isn’t she?

My neck started itching again.

I don’t know. Why does it matter?

She planted herself across from me, set the drink down.

I don’t own this building, Ardmore. Just what’s in it. Rebekah owns the whole block.

The stationery store, Beanie’s, and the abandoned storefront in between.

I’m sorry. I didn’t know.

There wouldn’t be anything you could do about it. I’m used to getting fucked over.

The anger was not for me, but a generalized rage against being treated badly, even here in liberal Portland. She was a woman in business and a Native, and for some people, that was two marks against.

I make maps, Millicent. I never claimed to be good for anything else. I’m on your side, for what it’s worth.

Her expression made me think of the faces ancient mapmakers drew out at the edges of unexplored land masses, oceans where the known world ended. Here Be Demons.

I’m tired of that bastard, Ard. And all the rest of the greed heads. They’ve run this city for their own benefit long enough.

A dozen gold bangles jingled as she slammed her fist on the counter.

I wished I could help, but the business people in this city got away with anything that looked like it might raise the tax base. Millicent and Rebekah fighting them would be a neighborhood version of David and Goliath, only David was naked and someone had cut the elastic out of his slingshot. And I was a solo practitioner. I had no interest in joining any group effort.

You know how it works. I’d offer to help, but I don’t have as much pull as your average hot dog vendor.

She polished the pristine counter in front of me with a rag.

I know. I’m just venting. There’s nothing anyone can do.

Which made me wish there was something.

Ain’t over ’til it’s over.

Her anger scudded away like a squall over the marsh.

Yogi? Or Casey Stengel? She set my empty glass in the sink. I don’t think the Old Ones are going to help me on this one.

Her ferocity reminded me of all the female warriors I knew about: the Amazons, Joan of Arc. Moving Robe Woman, at Little Big Horn. I had no idea how to help.

I need a pound of espresso beans, too.

She scooped them from a bin, folded over the top of the bag, and cinched it tight. I handed her a twenty. She dropped the change into the tip jar without asking.

Thanks for coming in, Ardmore. I always feel a little better after we talk.

She touched two fingers to her lips and blew me a kiss.

I carried my coffee beans out into the afternoon sunshine, the concrete sidewalk of Freethinker Street hot under my soles. It never occurred to me she was not being sarcastic.

4

The buildings are not for sale. This block has been in my husband’s family for over a hundred years. And the store is my primary source of income.

Rebekah tried not to show her bitterness. Robert sat at the broad wooden table in back, cutting shapes out of construction paper with a pair of long-bladed scissors.

I understand that, Mrs. Horvath.

The man standing in front of her desk in the stationery store was short, thin, unprepossessing. His head was bald, not shaved but naked-looking, as if he might suffer from alopecia. A small triangular divot marred the pale skin by his left temple, as if he’d hit his head there as a child. His posture was military straight.

However.

There was always a however with these people. Bureaucrats. Roger McGinty had shown her a letter identifying him as a representative of the General Services Administration in DC, the uber bean counters her compatriots in the Foreign Service used to mock. He was, it said, empowered to make inquiries and negotiate contracts on behalf of the Federal government. But Rebekah knew how that government worked and this was very much not standard.

There is no however.

Roger frowned at her tone. She smiled to put him at ease. He was so sensitive to her moods.

I have no interest in whatever plans the Federal government might have for this property. She suspected a plan to site an ICE facility here in Portland, only about 175 miles from the Canadian border.

McGinty measured her in that too-familiar way she’d known throughout her career. It was not sexual so much as authoritative, certain that whatever he wanted was more important than anything she had to say or do.

I’ve been authorized to offer you a very generous amount for your holdings. In cash, if you prefer.

Another red flag. The government offering to let her avoid the taxes on a sale?

The scrutiny of his gray eyes was a weight.

We’re also prepared to offer you relocation assistance for your business. He surveyed the dusty store with barely concealed disdain. Should you so choose.

She was more intrigued by the insistence behind his offer than the possibilities it presented. Her husband Walter had died in a boating accident only last year and she still felt adrift, unwilling to engage in life-changing decisions.

I’m sorry, Mr. McGinty. I’m not in the market.

McGinty was taking her reluctance for a tactic. The figure he’d named was absurdly high for the Portland commercial real estate market, especially in this downturn. It reminded her of the old scandal, the Pentagon paying $640 for a toilet seat.

Call me Roger. Please.

Mr. McGinty. I have a business here that I’m content with. My son has a stable life here, support. Why would I upset all of that? Certainly not for money.

His intransigence annoyed her, that male certainty abetted by the power people took unto themselves when they worked for the Federal government. She remembered it too acutely.

I don’t believe you. He said it as if it were not an insult.

This conversation is over. She could still muster the chilly dismissive tones of a senior officer for a junior.

I have some contacts in the State Department, he said. Some influence there.

How nice for you.

Were his connections supposed to impress her? Make her acquiesce when she realized how powerful he was? Or was this a threat to crash the weight of the government down on her? She didn’t care. She had nothing left to give them.

I wonder. His shoulders relaxed, as if they were through the preliminaries and he could now state the real reason he was there. "Whether you would be interested