The Edge

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.