Westfarrow Island

by Paul A. Barra

  WESTFARROW

  ISLAND

  PAUL A. BARRA

  THE PERMANENT PRESS

  Sag Harbor, NY 11963

  Copyright © 2019 by Paul A. Barra

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication, or parts thereof, may be reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotes in a review, without the written permission of the publisher.

  For information, address:

  The Permanent Press

  4170 Noyac Road

  Sag Harbor, NY 11963

  www.thepermanentpress.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Barra, Paul A., author.

  Westfarrow Island / Paul A. Barra.

  Sag Harbor, NY: The Permanent Press, 2019

  ISBN: 978-1-57962-569-6

  eISBN: 978-1-57962-584-9

  1. Spy stories. 2. Suspense fiction.

  PS3602.A8363 W47 2019

  813'.6—dc23 2018057838

  Printed in the United States of America

  To Joni Lee

  Who thinks my work is brilliant;

  I think she is brilliant.

  “The gray sea and the long black land;

  And the yellow half-moon large and low.”

  ROBERT BROWNING

  “Meeting at Night”

  1845

  CHAPTER ONE

  People who drifted in a certain stratum of Bath society knew the sailorman named Joshua White, a man whose face was gullied by salt air, coarsened and darkened by sun, and whose life was a solitary pursuit. He had never married—had never even had a serious girlfriend as far as anybody knew—and was most often seen alone except for the company of his wee dog, an ugly brute that snuffled and groused as it trotted at White’s heels, stuffing its bent muzzle into whatever flotsam had washed up from the Kennebec River. Sometimes the dog rode on the man’s shoulder. It did that when it tired of waiting for its master to leave one or the other of the bars that huddled along the cracked sidewalks of Front Street.

  When he laid off the booze, White was functional enough to serve as mate on Maven, Big Anthony Tagliabue’s coastal freighter. He and Tagliabue were friends, although many thought Anthony put up with him on his boat rather than needed him. Whatever the case, the captain was unhappy when Joshua White didn’t show up for a scheduled trip to Westfarrow Island on that cold April morning. They were supposed to get underway at two, to make landfall at first light.

  Tagliabue liked sailing at night. He liked to ride down to the harbor slowly, the voices of a Cherubini missa drifting out the windows of his Jeepster. He liked to suck in the smells of the waterfront as he rolled onto the rocked lot of Cronk’s Pier, the tarry, salty, rotting odors of life in a salt-river town.

  None of what he liked was happening forty-five minutes after one A.M. PBS was playing Tchaikovsky on Music Through the Night and the car windows were closed to a late season chill. The harbor was keeping her smells beneath the surface of dark, gelatinous water supporting broken bits of kelp, feather weed, and sea lettuce. The water lay across the Kennebec like a used painter’s tarp.

  Anthony Tagliabue looked around the parking area for his mate but saw no one. He waited. Ten minutes later, he hoisted his sea bag with a sigh and walked down to the boat. Maven squatted in the water next to one of the weak-bulbed bollard lamps, their frailty protected by pitted brass frames. The sixty-foot former buoy tender was a hulking presence in the shadows, a big, solid mass, a Percheron waiting in the stall for harness and a way forward.

  The old Director smelled as it always did: of damp bedding overlaid with the bite of fuel and the faint odor of paint. The sensory impact of the boat’s interior, along with the motion of the hull at its berth, put Tagliabue in seagoing mode. He didn’t descend the ladder but swung the bag on a near bunk and went to the conning station to prepare for getting underway. The Detroit diesels cranked and coughed and caught with a rumble. Tagliabue listened to them for a minute. He left them burbling beneath the surface while he loosed the hawsers fore and aft, hustling back to the con in case the wind shifted while she was untied. Joshua would have handled the lines had he been there.

  Tagliabue watched the black void alongside widen as Maven drifted from the pier. He inched both shifters ahead and eased the boat out. Red buoy Alpha showed to port; the channel was otherwise clear. Barely glancing at the stars blinking above him, he flipped the toggle switch for his running lights and peered hard into the darkness ahead.

  Maven moved slowly through the harbor. Tagliabue had seen and spoken to no one. He guided the beamy craft around errant pot markers using the conning spot. Twenty minutes later they were past the Fastend anchorage and out into open water. The boat took up the swaying of the sea as she churned through the black-green depths toward Westfarrow, where they waited for his arrival. He sat in the wheelhouse, felt his body begin to roll with the ocean rhythms. In his mind he strove to suffocate the premonition that had intruded on the start of the voyage, a vague feeling that something wasn’t right. Why didn’t Joshua show at Cronk’s? The mate was usually reliable. He could do this deal without Joshua, but he didn’t like it. A solo transit at night could be hazardous. He decided not to worry about his absence until he had more data to analyze. He blew out a breath, sat back, and increased speed.

  Tagliabue checked the corners of the blackness forward, moving his eyes constantly, hoping he could react fast enough in an emergency. His belly rumbled like Maven’s big engines at idle, reminding him of the coffee he’d made at home. The starboard lamp turned the spray green when he tossed the dregs over the leeward side. He stared at the empty cups. He missed Joshua. By now he would have had a fresh pot going. The salty old bastard had plenty of knots in his personal lifeline, but he could sail and was loyal. The two of them often anticipated problems when they talked over contingencies at sea. Joshua could be a contrarian in his opinions but always agreed with their final decision. Tagliabue needed someone to talk to but he kept off the radio. It was too early in the morning.

  Cursing Joshua’s absence under his breath, he moved to the navigation table to take a LORAN fix. He noted his position on a plastic-covered chart then stood quietly, eyes closed, feeling and listening as the wind from Maven’s forward motion misted the air around him with seawater. Was the boat’s motion just a bit sluggish? Probably not. Probably he was a little keyed up knowing what he had committed to do, looking for things that could go wrong. He sat back down at the wheel. The steady rumble of the diesels calmed him. Time passed.

  A different noise stole into his consciousness and sat him up. What was that hum? The waves were still moderate, the gauges steady. This was not a sound he expected to hear on the Maven. He could not identify it. Pulse quickening, he scanned the cargo behind him with his flashlight and saw nothing amiss. When he recognized that it was the bilge pump at work Tagliabue released the breath he’d been holding.

  But why would the pump start? The ocean wasn’t coming aboard, not topside, and the bilges were dry yesterday. It had to be a leak below deck.

  Tagliabue twisted the dial for autopilot and slid down the ladder. His boots hit the cabin deck with a splash. His heart jumped. Maven was miles from shore and taking on water. He bolted back topside, slowed the engines, pushed the gearshift to neutral.

  Below again, he slapped the wall light switch. The water sloshing around the interior of the cabin looked rusty when the twelve-volt lights bounced off it, but he didn’t take the time to analyze that yet. He had to find the leak and plug it. Bending at the hips he scanned the deck, looking for telltale bubbles. Something dark, large and dark, showed along the starboard side forward, almost in the V of the bow. A mattress from one of the bunks had somehow become wedged into the framing of
the narrow space. There was movement in the water around the shape.

  He sloshed closer, realized he was not looking at a mattress. The shape was wrong, there were appendages trailing from it, like broken limbs of a felled tree. Some of it appeared puffy and had risen to the surface. He refused to believe his eyes, pulled the flashlight from his jacket pocket, and trained it on the object. He was standing over a human body, in foul weather gear with a watch cap pulled low on its head. The body was partially submerged, so it had to be dead. What was a dead person doing in his cabin?

  The corpse was jammed into the space head first. Tagliabue had to use both hands to pull it out. Bubbles burst to the surface. The side of the boat was holed and the dead man had been keeping the sea out mostly.

  He turned the body over—God, was it Joshua? With a burst of strength, he heaved it up on a bunk. Its clothes were torn and ragged across its chest. Lacerations decorated the skin beneath like a tracery of solar flares. The wounds were washed clean. Some were deep and puckered at the edges. They began to suppurate blood as he stared at them. Blood plopped into the bilge water. It was hard to recognize the wan and flaccid face in the repose of death. The muscles weren’t knotted as they were in life, but it was Joshua’s face. There was no doubt in his mind that his friend was dead, and no doubt that his boat was sinking.

  Tagliabue sucked in a breath, closed his dead mate’s eyes, and turned back to the gouge in his boat where the sea was flowing in. It was a jagged affair, about a foot wide and half that tall, most of it above the waterline. He pulled gear from the bosun’s locker. He grunted like a sow in labor as he worked. He stuffed fiberglass batting into the rupture and lay planks across it. He set his hip against the planks and tried to drive eight-penny nails through them and into the hull of the boat. One bent, another flew off into the bilge water. His hands were stiff with cold; his legs felt numb. Despite the frigid seawater he was working in, his upper body was warm. Sweat stung his eyes. He concentrated and tried again. One nail went in, then another. By the time the wood was secured, he felt exhausted. Work was something he was used to, hard work, but this frantic race to save Maven used up the adrenaline that had squirted into his bloodstream and left him deflated. He staggered to the ladder and hauled himself up into the night air. He breathed deeply and willed his heart to slow.

  The patch would hold at slow speeds, he figured. Once the pump lowered the water enough, he could effect a more permanent repair, permanent enough to get him to Westfarrow Island. He’d beach her there and fix it with tar and glue and strong screws, if he could make it on the falling tide.

  There was nothing to be gained by worrying about that now. The boat was still on course, steaming at a knot or two toward the island. It remained black outside, a late moonrise producing only a sliver. It seemed that half the night had passed but he knew it was probably less than an hour since he discovered the body. His own body felt washed out, the big muscles trembling as he sat and let the weariness seep from him. His head nodded to his chest; he was tired. Normally, he and Joshua would take turns napping once their course was clear at sea, so he hadn’t tried to sleep before setting out for Cronk’s earlier that night.

  He roused himself with an effort of will, went below to check the patch. It was bleeding water around the edges but not as fast as the pump was pushing it over the side. Joshua’s body had kept the hole nearly plugged until Maven started carving the waves at speed. Once the pressure of the incoming ocean shoved the body out of its niche in the forward bulkhead, the hold began to flood. Joshua had saved his boat, and his life, with the mass of his mortal remains. The mate lay on the bunk now. One arm had fallen off the edge, its hand appearing to play in the bloodied water as it was drawn to the pump drain in the cabin decking. Tagliabue turned abruptly and went up the ladder.

  Forcing himself to stay above deck and let the pump work, Tagliabue tried to imagine what had transpired below. What had killed Joshua? What made a hole in the hull? It had to have been some sort of explosion, based on the pattern of wounds on Joshua’s torso and the jagged hole in the boat. Be patient, he told himself, wait until daylight. Mysteries that careened around in his head would settle out then.

  The nearest transmission tower for cell phones was located at the headland on Westfarrow Island, but it was not emitting a strong enough signal to access yet. He dialed 911 on his cell, hoping to pick up a signal from the mainland. A dispatcher answered, sounding as if she worked in the spray of a car wash. She kept asking him to repeat himself, her voice drifting in and out. Slowly and loudly, Tagliabue told her that he had discovered a dead body on his boat and that he would report it to the Westfarrow PD once he arrived at the island. The splintered voice of the 911 operator was still asking him to “Say again” when he disconnected and turned off the phone.

  He reached down and hauled his sea bag out of the cabin. After changing his jeans, he massaged feeling back into his feet. With dry socks on, he rested, surprising himself by nodding off. A crackling of the PRC-25 woke him. He heard a low voice, one he recognized instantly.

  “Maven here,” he answered.

  “What’s your ETA, Tony? Over.”

  “I can just make out Pepys Light. Over.”

  “You loaded?”

  “Aye. Pretty much. Over.”

  “Good. I’ll be happy to see you.”

  “Likewise. Switching to Zebra. Out.”

  Zebra was their personal code for a channel they used for private communications. Switching to it would alarm Agnes Ann, but broadcasting his predicament over an open band could be dangerous until he figured out what had happened to Joshua. Normally, once he sighted Pepys on a clear night, he was an hour from the island. At the Maven’s reduced speed, it would be daylight before he made landfall.

  On Zebra, he told her about the damage to his boat but said nothing about Joshua’s body or the likely cause of the damage. He was reluctant to alarm her when she could do nothing. Agnes Ann was conscious of radiotelephone discipline and Tagliabue knew she would wait to see him for the details of his troubles.

  “You staying afloat, Tony?”

  “Aye. Slowed but not sinking. I’ll contact you if anything changes.”

  “All right. I’ll prep the Dunphy and have Jesse set up a block and tackle on the beach.”

  The Dunphy was her lapstrake runabout, a small boat her teenage son, Jesse, could maneuver quickly in tight spaces.

  “Roger that. I’ll need rollers too. The tide will be falling by the time I get there.”

  “Okay. I’ll be waiting . . . stay on this channel, okay? Don’t be afraid to call.”

  “I’m never afraid. Out.”

  She laughed, tittered really, before he broke the connection, a tiny, bright laugh that caught somehow the exact expression of her pleasure at his remark. Joy pushed at his chest.

  It was a short-lived emotion as the thrum and wallow of his limping boat reminded him of his current predicament. He hoped to ease her fears with his joking braggadocio, but he was afraid, afraid his patch wouldn’t hold and afraid of who had killed his mate. He could do something about the former immediately, if not the latter. Pulling on his boots he went below once again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Tagliabue sighted the island not an hour after the fiery red sun had lifted off the horizon. His eyes were gritty and salt in the air made his skin feel tight against his face. Westfarrow was a substantial coastal land mass situated some fifty nautical miles from the mainland, usually a five-hour transit at Maven’s cruising speed. It seemed as if he’d been at sea for weeks this time, he was that wrung out. The trip hadn’t taken too much longer than a normal passage; it was the stress from the damage and being alone the whole time. He shook his head and pressed the mic button.

  “Westfarrow, Westfarrow. I’m approaching your location. Over.”

  Seconds passed.

  “Yes. I can just make you out in my glass. We’re ready. Over.”

  He could sense the relief in her voice. He wanted t
o reassure her, reinforce her feeling of relief, but piloting the boat singlehanded meant concentration. Agnes Ann knew that and kept her radio talk brief. She advised him that the tide had just turned and was still nearly full. He could see the outboard floating peacefully at the right side of the pier; he made for the left side.

  He came into the dock at Westfarrow slowly and reversed the engines, twin screws churning the still water to a creamy head. Agnes Ann and her son tied him off. Tagliabue swung out to the worn dock and shook hands with both of them. Their hands were smooth, leathery even. Lines radiating from the sides of the woman’s eyes caught the new-slanted sun as she smiled at Tagliabue. Her barn coat couldn’t conceal her slender leggy body, at least not to his mind’s eye. She wore a wool cap, like the one Joshua was wearing when he died. Brown hair straggled out from the back of it and lay flat against her neck. The boy, Jesse, tall as his mother at sixteen, was already looking in Maven, ready to begin unloading her cargo.

  “How many bales you got, Mr. T?” he asked.

  “Forty. Two hundred fifty dollars, total.”

  He mentioned the cost because he didn’t want Agnes Ann to have to ask. She said she’d get her checkbook, but he suggested they unload first and lay the Maven on the shingle beach. She agreed, knowing the boy was ready to get this early work done before he fed and watered the animals. He already had driven the flatbed to the dock. Tagliabue didn’t want to break the news about Joshua to Agnes Ann in front of Jesse; he felt it was a mother’s choice when and how to break bad news to her child, so he said nothing about the body in the cabin as he rigged the winch and started hoisting the bales ashore. Mother and son moved them into stacks on the back of the truck.

  “Phew, are these bales extra heavy or am I just getting old before my time?”

  “They’re heavy, Mom. It’s a good sign, means they’re packed tight so we get more hay in each one.”