In a post back in March I wrote that the island has no law enforcement. That isn’t exactly true.
The National Park Service, which owns most of the island, employs three seasonal rangers. All three are full-time island residents–which is really a miracle since that doesn’t happen to be a prerequisite for the job. The park is open May through October, and as it’s part of Acadia National Park (which, I’m told is the most visited national park in the country) we get several thousand visitors in a single season.
And for good reason. Though the park is remote access–meaning that the only way you can get there is by boat and the campground is at least 7 walking miles from the nearest outpost of civilization–it’s not so remote that you have to hike in after you arrive on the island: during the summer, the mail boat takes you right to campground entrance. So, normal people who aren’t dyed-in-the-gortex backpackers can enjoy a night or two roughing it. They could even conceivably bring a bottle of wine or two and a gourmet dinner if they wanted, without having to lug it through the New England wilderness. On the other hand, those that are diehard hikers, can get off at the town landing and hike the seven miles to the campground; an invigorating walk that takes them through the west side of town, past the Sea Urchin gift shop where they can purchase a coffee mug to replace the one they forgot, and then stop at the village chocolatier to pick up a few freshly made truffles. I mean, rugged or not, who doesn’t enjoy a fresh truffle with a nip of whiskey from their flask or a sip of cowboy coffee from a nice sturdy mug? In other words, this part of Acadia National Park has something for everyone. But I digress.
The feds feel that this many visitors to a national park speaks to the need for law enforcement. I mean, visitors like to pick up shells and rocks from our beaches, or pick flowers, or gather pine cones. All these are fine-able crimes in a national park, and so the NPS deems it necessary to send out a law enforcement officer to patrol. In the past this has usually been a person from off-island who is 1) not happy to be here, and 2) unimpressed with his housing options which consist of a primitive cabin deep in the park that boasts little more than a hard bunk, an outhouse and a well-established colony of mice.
A couple of years ago, my friend Deena (one of the seasonal rangers), decided to eliminate the need for an off-island, heat-packing discontent, and completed the training that would allow her to be our de facto LE. Of course to look at her, you wouldn’t know it. She dresses just like the other two rangers, Wes and Amy (something we often tease them about when all three come in for a cup of coffee in the morning), and she doesn’t often carry her state-issue gun or handcuffs. But Deena’s training ensures that if there is ever a need for crime-solving or ass-busting on the island, it’s dealt with it in a no-drama, no-nonsense, quiet and sometimes unconventional fashion–which is, in times like these, the island way.
So, when I came bursting into the cafe a couple of weeks ago, covered head to toe with peat and mud, and found a uniformed Deena nibbling discernably on one of my farm market biscuit rolls, I practically fainted with relief
Despite my panic, Deena remained un-ruffled. She finished her breakfast, topped off her coffee, and not until then did she follow me into the forest. After all, she said, when I crossed my arms and tapped my foot impatiently while she stirred cream into her cup, whoever it was out there was already dead.
True enough, I suppose, but it’s not every day you find a skeleton in your backyard, and I was a bit out of sorts, to put it mildly. And, after Deena and I together heaved the rest of the bed frame from its spruce root tethers and unearthed the rest of the bones, it was with some small bit of grim satisfaction that I saw her hands shake and her voice quaver slightly as she spoke into her radio to call in our discovery.
Having been instructed by the Knox County sheriff not to further disturb the site, Deena and I found no reason to hang out in the mud with a creepy skeleton, and retreated to the cafe. So, when the sheriff and his deputy did finally arrive (by boat, from Rockland), the scene was exactly as we had left it.
The bones–female, according the the sheriff, who had apparently, seen this kind of thing before–were laid out almost casually along the length of the bed frame, whose mattress had long since rotted away. The skeleton was more or less completely intact, save the left hand, which still lay where I threw it in my panic when I unwittingly tore it from its frame (the thought of which was making me increasingly queasy).
They snapped some photos, took measurements, made some rough guesses on the age of the bones, and then calmly, and without much ceremony, and frustratingly little talk, packed the bones and the bed frame into bags and cases, and walked out of the forest.
The sheriff, it seemed to me, anyway, seemed to think little of the discovery of the strange remains of a dead woman in a quiet island forest. The bones were old–possibly one hundred years, or more–and long forgotten, and might have been no more than an unmarked grave of some aged, long-ago islander. Might have been, if it wasn’t for that pesky gun.
Disconcerted and jumpy, and not wanting to hang around the house, I accompanied Deena while she escorted the sheriff back to the town dock. The men assured us that they would look into the matter, but as they pulled away, it was clear to me that “looking into” it, would be no more than flipping through a few old census reports and matching a name up with a likely candidate. A hundred years ago, these offshore islands may have well have been another country for as much as the mainland authorities knew about them and their residents. Death certificates were practically nonexistent, and knowledge of the comings and goings of people virtually impossible to track–except in the long memories of those that lived there. And when that failed, well, that was it.
Except for that journal–the one that was tucked quietly away in the cedar chest of my guest bedroom.
