death of a lobsterman

On a remote island in Maine, a group of friends thought they witnessed one man killing another with an axe. But no one was ever arrested. In a small town far out at sea, justice sometimes works a little differently.

- Jesse Ellison

Heidi Guilford rode shotgun in her boyfriend’s white Dodge Charger. Her stepsister and a couple of friends sat in the back, with the windows rolled down for the smokers. It was a cool night in June 2020— sweatshirt weather—an unremarkable Sunday on an island off the coast of Maine. They could have been in any small town, just about any place. A loud engine, blaring music, laughing shouts from the front seat to the back. And all around them:

Quiet.

Heidi knew every inch of these roads. They all did. They’d grown up on this island, Vinalhaven, 24km out to sea by ferry, a rock in the ocean that the glaciers hadn’t quite smoothed over. Eleven kilometres by eight, population 1,200, give or take, and triple that when the summer people showed up.

They took a left off Heidi's road out by State Beach and swung through town, cruising slowly through the downtown stretch, past the bar and the grocery store and the bank, then out to Old Harbour Road and over to the Basin. Most years by mid-June, there are enough tourists in town that you wouldn’t recognise everyone, but 2020 was different. This June felt more like the wintertime, when you can pretty much tell who’s driving every car on the road, often just by the headlights.

They were headed back toward Heidi’s place when they saw a Chevy Equinox they knew belonged to Jennie Candage racing past them. But Jennie would never drive that fast, so they figured it had to be her boyfriend, Roger Feltis. Roger was a local lobsterman, fairly new to the island, 28 years old and husky—big enough that he could seem intimidating, but with a sweet, goofy smile.