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Last week I wrote here about Krista Dittmeyer, the 20-year-old waitress whose body was found in a pond in New Hampshire, not far from where her car was found, her 14-month-old daughter still strapped in the back seat. This week police arrested three men, including one Anthony Papile, 28, charged with murder. Also charged was a guy named Michael Petelis, a friend of Dittmeyer’s boyfriend and father of her child. Petelis reportedly had pledged to look out for Dittmeyer while the boyfriend was doing two years for selling cocaine. Instead, police say, Petelis lured Dittmeyer to New Hampshire where Papile bludgeoned her with a mallet, bound her with duct tape, and, with Petelis and a third friend,  dumped her in a pond.The motive, according to the detectives: Dittmeyer had drugs and cash. The three guys divided the stuff up after the killing.

This news has unleashed an outpouring of anger and disbelief. That Dittmeyer could be dealing drugs. That Papile could kill anyone, much less this young woman. That any of this could have happened. Read the accounts from friends and family of the victim (I’ve been following the stories written by David Hench and Ann Kim in the Portland Press Herald) and the alleged perpetrators and you would think that aliens had taken over their bodies, turning good, normal, loving people into something very evil.

Pretty to think so.

The truth, as is almost always the case, is somewhere in between. Dittmeyer probably was a nice enough young woman a lot of the time, maybe in her own way a decent mom. But if she was dealing drugs, as the police account implies, then she was most likely using drugs, and drugs slowly but surely skew your judgment. They involve you with people whose judgment is equally messed up. You don’t see all the cocaine, oxycodone, crystal meth as bad things. You and the people around you see them as a commodity, something you need to function, like coffee. Eventually the drugs, the money associated with them, and the people drawn to that world—damaged, emotionally off-kilter— become an explosive mix. A very young woman ends up dead. If convicted, the three guys go off to prison, where they will watch TV, work in the laundry, watch their backs. The rest of us shake our heads, say good riddance to dirtbags, and very quickly forget they ever existed.

This is a real-life shame, of course. but I bring it up here because the whole crew could have stepped out of one of my books. In fact, for the past few months I’ve been writing a character named Beth. She got into drugs when she was seventeen, through her boyfriend Alphonse. He’s in prison for dealing heroin but he was around long enough for Beth to have their son Racket (the name’s another story). Beth is using so much, hanging with a bunch of other drug users, that the state takes the baby away. The state worker is Roxanne. Roxanne actually felt sorry for Beth, whose life has been a series of wrong turns.

A year goes by. Two. And then something very terrible happens. To all concerned.

This book will come out in 2012. I’m not sure exactly how it’s going to turn out. But I do know that working with Jack and Roxanne and Clair has taught me that people are a mix of good and bad, smart and dumb, lucky and unlucky. The ones with the worst luck end up like Krista Dittmeyer, who by most accounts took one wrong turn too many.

Wrong place, wrong time, wrong people.

At 50 mph the sign was a blur, the kind of thing that has you saying, “Did I see what I thought I just saw?”

I pulled over, laid on the brakes. Backed up. And yes, I’d gone to Hell. Or close to it. Or maybe to a one-way trap door leading directly downward, due south, bring your sunscreen and asbestos swimming trunks.

The sign is handpainted with some care. It is angled precisely so the arrow is parallel to the pole, making me think maybe it was screwed to the pole first and then painted. By whom? I don’t know. Why? I don’t know that either. I do know that I find it intriguing as, well, hell.

So is it the work of a very religious person? Well, maybe, but why nail the guidepost to a powerline pole on the edge of the woods in a forlorn stretch of road in central Maine? Why make it so small that it leads to more quizzical headshaking (what did that say?) than remorse? Is it a reminder that Hell is down there, as in right below us (there may be an express elevator) and you–yes, you– could be there faster than you can say Osama Bin Laden. (Do you think they have roommates in Hell? “Hi, I’m Osama. I didn’t catch your name.”)

I’m joking, of course, but it’s making me uneasy already. Because I’ve long thought that the world would be a better place if we thought there was a reckoning looming. That the Devil was absolutely real, not a Halloween costume. That in the end you don’t get away with anything.

The villains in my book might think twice before committing that crime. The murderers might not pull the trigger. The bad guys would know that even if Jack McMorrow or Brandon Blake didn’t nail their sorry butts to the wall, as evildoers they’d eventually be taking the express train to Hades.

Of course, as a crime writer dependent on people’s bad behavior, I’d be out of business. So I’m going to leave it at that. I do know that, if nothing else, I’ve found my next cover.

When I was in the newspaper columnist biz, all those years ago, every few weeks I’d empty the notebook. I still have notebooks (different ones). To my left is a table littered with them. They’re filled with plot notes, thoughts on characters, stuff I’ve seen in my travels. So here you go. … Three kestrels flew in front of me in  two days. Birds and animals  are hunting hard, babies in the den and nest. … Bass fisherman out on my lake on Saturday. Icy rain, gusting winds. Dedication. … I’m not a gun nut but shooting a .22 pistol last week taught me why they invented nine-milllimeters. … A Maine law enforcement officer went out of his way to answer my questions last week. Two and a half hours worth. Thanks, Sarge. … Just finished reviewing edits of PORT CITY BLACK AND WHITE. Editors are truly unsung heroes. Michael Steere at Down East Books somehow kept track of all those bad guys. … How ’bout those Red Sox! Really. … If I’m good in this life will I come back as Ray Allen? …

Rolled into the Mass Cruisers cruise night last week at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro. Beautiful cars. Nice guys. My pal Chuck B was chillin’ with the rest of the El Camino crew. …Woman I know is about to get galleys for her first book, a lovely memoir. Cloud nine. More on that later. … A phoebe is calling behind the barn. … Heard a  story about a very tame raven today. His name is Edgar. Smarter than your average bird. … If I hadn’t been a writer I would have been a field biologist. Or a cop. … The Long Island serial killer is not long for the outside world. … How many people have access to burlap sacks? … Another killer on the loose here in Maine, the Way Life Should Be. … Young woman missing from Portland, bones just found in field in Northport. … Detectives working it hard. … Reminded me of the beginning of LIFELINE. But that was only a story. … Until next time.