Westfarrow Island

by Paul A. Barra

  His dockage fees included use of the loading dock and equipment. Timmy O’Brien came in a flatbed and the two of them offloaded the freight Max Shertzer had ordered for Island Pelham and stacked it in Maven’s cargo hold. They sat on the gunwales of the boat afterward, resting from their exertions.

  Timmy, aka Timothy O’Brien, was a strapping lad of twenty-five with a wife and two young boys. His father was Bronc O’Brien, a hulking offensive lineman on the Morse High team that had preceded the one Anthony Tagliabue played for. Bronc had started out like Timmy after him, marrying early and working hard. His Sunday bouts with ’Gansett Bock bled over into Monday mornings with a hit of vodka to get him through the day. Soon he was drinking cheaper beer most nights, adding shots of rye on the weekends. His drinking habits got worse. By the time he was thirty-five, Bronc O’Brien was the town drunk. He was a maudlin sot, who hardly ever caused trouble. Local cops drove him home and protected him from any serious episodes with the law, but no one could protect his liver. The alcohol ate holes in it until there wasn’t enough organ meat left to function. He was dead when Timmy was still a Morse High School Shipbuilder.

  Bronc’s son, Timmy, was that rare bartender, a complete teetotaler. He worked only day shifts except in the summer, pulling beers, mixing a few drinks, and opening bottles of wine for the lunch waitresses and setting up the bar stations for the busy night crew. He made mixers, cut lemon peels and lime wedges, filled ice bins, and stocked product and glasses and napkins. And he cleaned. The night bartenders appreciated his setup so much they cut him in on a piece of their tips. He worked every day but Sunday and left before happy hour. He never touched a drop of the alcohol he sold. Sitting on the side of the boat next to Tagliabue, sweat staining his undershirt and darkening his fair hair, he looked as if he wanted a beer more than anything just then.

  “Something on your mind, Timmy?”

  “Yeah, actually.”

  Tagliabue said nothing. He waited. The younger man went on: “You know Josh White, he was a helluva guy. A born storyteller. Always had a sea story once he had a few in him, y’know?”

  Tagliabue nodded. Joshua was taciturn sober, loquacious drunk. Timmy went on: “I’m sorry about him dying. Heard he saved this boat by shielding the blast. That true?”

  “Pretty much,” Tagliabue agreed. “Nobody knows exactly what happened, but if old Joshua’s body hadn’t been where it was, this baby may have sunk.”

  “Damn. I hate that.”

  Tagliabue waited some more.

  “I heard you ask Max about Marv Harris. He ain’t going to say nothing because he worries about his job. I’m behind the stick every day so’s I see all the regulars anyway and sometimes he don’t cause he’s in the kitchen or his office. I seen Harris coupla three days ago. He was right agitated.”

  “You not worried about your job, Timmy?”

  “Not like Max.” He laughed. “I’m a hard worker and can always find work if I need it. Course, I don’t make sixty grand like Max is supposed to make. Besides, it’s not like I’m gonna reveal state secrets or nothing. All I seen was Harris grab holt of Red Fowler and head up to Mr. D’s office. When I seen them leave the restaurant it was an hour later or so.”

  “They leave together?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What day was that, you remember?”

  “I’m thinking it musta been Wednesday. We get our Coors deliveries on Wednesday and I was restocking the coolers.”

  “Thanks, Timmy. That’s good to know.”

  And it was. Wednesday was the day before Maven left on her ill-fated voyage to Westfarrow Island, the day Tagliabue loaded forty bales of hay. Was there a connection between the meeting of Harris and Fowler in Peter D’Annunzio’s office and the bomb going off in Maven? The timing sounded significant and Timmy thought the meeting was unusual enough to mention it to Tagliabue. He knew their habits as well as anyone, since he was at the Pelham East most days. Tagliabue decided to have a talk with Fowler, to see what he made of the meeting.

  Red Fowler was a big man, massive chest sagging a little as age and booze worked their damage on him, but still a force to reckon with. He had been an intimidator for so many years that his flagging strength didn’t concern him as much as Tagliabue thought it should have. He confronted young bucks with an air of invincibility; he acted quickly, instead of talking, so most drunks learned to fear him. The bar at Pelham East turned into a popular party venue as soon as the dinner hour faded out and Red was its unofficial bouncer, seated at a corner stool every weekend night and most others. He ended fights before they started, separating would-be combatants and removing them with little fanfare. The Pelham East enjoyed a reputation as a safe place to drink and socialize, thanks in good measure to Red Fowler’s presence.

  He lived near the bar in an old fisherman’s shack with a black woman named Hannah, a pleasant-faced former prostitute with a big smile and an easy nature. Because of Red’s kinky red-orange hair and wide nose, people thought he was part black, even though his skin was pale and freckled. No one dared ask him about his racial makeup.

  He was the constant companion to Marv Magpie Harris, a startling contrast to his smaller, swarthy friend. He was Magpie’s muscle in the many small-time nefarious deeds cooked up by Harris: selling stolen cigarettes and, sometimes, whiskey; insurance scams in staged car accidents; and some minor protection rackets along the waterfront. They also ran a few call girls, according to the contacts Tagliabue maintained in the village, and might have begun dabbling in pills. Both men had short rap sheets. Fowler had been arrested for a violent assault in 2010 that he pleaded down to a misdemeanor and six months in jail. He also paid the victim $25,000 as part of his punishment. The vic took his money and left Maine before Red’s jail term was up.

  Like his lawyer, Jack Brunson, Peter D’Annunzio fancied himself a mobster even though he had never had trouble with the law. In Tagliabue’s mind, the rich developer liked the respect accorded Mafia dons in the entertainment media, so he affected silk suits and cigars, even though he actually talked more like a college professor than a gangster. Posing as an ersatz mob boss was only entertaining up to a point, he reckoned, and Peter was not about to deny his education and position in polite society.

  Harris and Fowler worked for D’Annunzio in unspecified categories. They were apparently paid well enough so that the headman was never formally connected with any illegal activities. It seemed Red and Magpie might even be prepared to do time rather than turn against their source of legitimate income. Peter probably thought of them as loyal soldiers.

  Tagliabue thought about the pair on his way out to Westfarrow Island the next morning in a cool onshore breeze. Neither the two tough guys nor D’Annunzio seemed to be deep enough into evil to murder an innocent man, to say nothing of blowing open a boat and endangering anyone riding in it. What would be their motivation? Red and Magpie could be working for Jack Brunson, but the only point of contention remaining between Aggie and her ex was Francine, as far as he knew, and the filly’s value was still unproven. Maybe Brunson had a spy out on Westfarrow. That would not be conclusive either.

  Tagliabue unloaded his cargo at the town pier on the island and hopped a ride with the Pelham Island’s truck to the restaurant. Agnes Ann’s mother’s younger sister, Maybelle Townsend, met him there and drove him over to the horse farm. She was a tall woman of a certain age dressed in a frock and sensible shoes. Maybelle drove her four-door Chevrolet carefully, her thin lips straight. She was not overtly friendly to Tagliabue, although she and he had met many times on the island and she had agreed to drive him over to see Jesse when he called her the previous evening. Maybe she was protective of her dead sister’s daughter and didn’t think Tagliabue was a suitable suitor. Maybe she disapproved of him working on a Sunday morning instead of going to church. Slightly uncomfortable with the atmosphere inside the car, he ventured to ask about her grandnephew, hoping that was a safe enough subject to get them through the ride.

  Maybe
lle allowed that Jesse was no problem to board, although she thought his dismissal of academics an indicator of a faulty nature, at least.

  “The boy is smart enough to do well in college, but he’s not atall interested,” she sniffed. “That’s a shame. I told his mother so, not that it did any good.”

  Tagliabue was not sure how much the woman had deduced about his relationship with her niece but suspected she would not approve if she thought he was sleeping with her. He made noncommittal noises and offered no opinions about Jesse’s future. After a few miles in silence, Mrs. Townsend allowed that “. . . at least Jesse doesn’t seem to be part of the drug gangs that plague the island each summer.”

  “I didn’t know there were gangs out here, Miz Maybelle.”

  “Well, they may not be gangs in the, er, violent meaning of the word, but they do carry on some. They drive poor Constable Fletcher crazy.”

  “Drugs are everywhere in the country these days, I’m afraid. I’m glad your grandnephew hasn’t gotten involved with that crowd.”

  “No, sir. He’s a good boy in that respect. Works hard and has no time for putting noxious chemicals in his body.”

  Agnes Ann had made arrangements for a local semiretired farmer to look after her property and the remaining horses while she and her son would be away for the summer, a man named Bill Hammet. Hammet was a friend of Maybelle’s. Maybelle let him off at the mailbox and drove away. He waved good-bye; she didn’t respond that he could see.

  He caught Jesse as the boy was letting the four horses out to pasture. He helped him muck out the stalls and pile the manure on a compost heap behind the main barn. They talked as they waited for the iron bathtub used for a waterer to fill.

  “You getting tired of this routine, Jesse?”

  “I don’t mind it, leastways not this time of year. It’s a bitch on a cold winter morning. School’s what I don’t like. I like tending the animals.”

  “You a junior?”

  “Yeah, but I won’t be going back next year.” The boy smiled. “I turn seventeen this summer and that’s the quitting age ’round here.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’m hoping to become a horse trainer. Mr. Collier’s gonna take me on part-time, mostly to help with Francine, but I’ll learn a lot.”

  “You already know a lot.”

  The boy laughed at that, a carefree sound. Tagliabue realized Jesse was having the time of his life, and things were about to get even better. They went through the house and talked about how to leave things when his exams were over in two months. Bill Hammet was going to drive Jesse to the airfield and keep the horse farm’s pickup to use.

  “Looks like you got it all together, young fella.”

  That engendered another laugh from the boy. “Yessir. You got that right. I’ll drop you off at the dock on my way to town and see you on the mainland before you know it.”

  Jesse drove to the Town Marina and went off to a study session with a toot of the truck’s horn and chirp of its tires. Tagliabue washed down Maven using a town water hose and let her lines go at midafternoon. He was an hour out from the neck of the Kennebec when his cell rang. Johnny Coleman asked him to meet at Joshua White’s house.

  “You usually work on Sunday?”

  “Got a call I figure I better handle before somebody has a cow. It’s been bothering White’s neighbors.”

  Joshua lived, when he lived at all, in a converted boathouse upriver a quarter mile from Bath. Water ran under the forward part of it until the river iced up each winter. The place was cool in the summer, damp the rest of the year. The river moved actively where the boathouse was located, so bugs weren’t much of a problem, but choosing to live in a place where water was part of the home environment was just one more cause of wonder for Tagliabue when he considered his mate’s existence. Joshua had been different, no doubt about that.

  He had a rusted woodstove in one corner next to a made-up cot and across the tiny room from a primitive galley. In that cooking area a shuddering noise emanated from a lobster trap.

  “He’s been howling at night and won’t let me near him. I figured you might know him,” Johnny Coleman said.

  Tagliabue squatted and peered through the faded wood slats. A rat-faced beast lay curled on a beach towel, its bulging eyes staring at Tagliabue, a dry water bowl next to it. When he talked to the dog, the shuddering noise stopped. The animal’s naked tail thumped the towel twice.

  “I do know him,” he said. “Damn, I forgot all about him. His name is Polly.”

  The little dog whined and pulled himself toward the front of his cage. Tagliabue talked to him quietly for a minute and then put a finger between the slats and rubbed his head. Polly accepted the touch without snarling, so he opened the crate and clipped a line on the dog’s collar. He led him outside to the shingle beach, the detective following. The beast immediately cocked his back leg and urinated copiously on the stones. They walked down below the high-water mark; Polly hunched himself up and shat.

  “Joshua never brought him aboard the boat. He was afraid the wee thing would wash over the side or get hurt when we were working.”

  As the two men stood watching the dog, Tagliabue realized that he had never liked its ugly face and spindly legs. He thought a seaman should own a more manly animal, if he wanted one at all, or at least a more likable one. Polly’s hard, bulging body wasn’t pleasant to pet or hold and its yippy voice was annoying. And it was smaller than a cat. Maybe that’s why Joshua didn’t bring him aboard. He knew Anthony didn’t like the dog and he kept the animal away in deference to his friend’s feelings. That thought made Joshua’s absence a greater burden on Tagliabue’s soul.

  “If it’s a male, why’d White call him Polly?”

  The cop’s question brought a smile to Tagliabue’s face. “Watch,” he said.

  He squatted with his back to Polly and said: “Polly, up.” The dog looked at him for a moment. Then he ran up the man’s back and rested with its front legs over his shoulder. When Tagliabue stood up, the dog hung there like the moon over a back fence.

  The cop huffed out a laugh. “He looks like a parrot on a pirate. An ugly fucking parrot.” He laughed some more. Tagliabue joined him.

  “Joshua was an ugly pirate,” he said.

  That brought more gasping laughter from the two men. The dog looked around, comfortable and unconcerned.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Anthony Tagliabue agreed to take the dog and try to find accommodations for him. Coleman also had some news from the coroner’s office. He read from a notebook while Tagliabue fed the dog from a bag of Pedigree in the corner. Polly ate fast, snapping at the kibbles and spewing crumbs from both sides of his mouth. Tagliabue realized the poor beast probably hadn’t eaten in days.

  “The bullet in White’s back was a .38 caliber. Doc Ferguson said he thinks the bullet was fired while White was still alive, but the wound was not fatal. We found blood on the pier. Not much, but the lead was in muscle and he probably had not bled a lot from his wound. According to the ME.”

  The detective slipped his notebook into his breast pocket. He looked at Tagliabue.

  “We think he was shot on the pier at Cronk’s, then made his way into your boat. Thing is, he never called for help.”

  “Joshua didn’t believe in cell phones.”

  The two men were quiet for a minute as the dog attacked the dry food. Tagliabue asked, “Any idea of the time of death?”

  “Naw. The body was in cold water too long, I guess. It had to of been sometime after you left in the afternoon and before you came back at one or two. I’m thinking it was after dark, when the area was quiet. Maybe between nine and twelve. That’s my working hypothesis anyway.”

  Tagliabue looked at Polly and looked at Detective Coleman. “So I’m no longer a suspect, you’re saying?”

  “You never really was, not a prime suspect anyway. You do have a certain, uh, reputation in town. You killed people in the service, right? I had to look at you. Do my
due diligence, as the suits say.”

  “I understand.”

  He loaded the dog food bag into the lobster pot along with the animal’s dishes. He noticed Joshua’s Red Sox cap sitting on a TV in the corner and put that in too. Coleman did not say anything. The sheriff’s office was trying to locate next of kin for his mate, but Tagliabue guessed a stained old cap was not a valuable enough part of his estate to worry about. He put the trap in the trunk of the Jeepster. Polly went back on his shoulder and stayed there until he sat behind the wheel, then moved to the passenger seat for the drive home. The animal followed him into his apartment and seemed content to lie on the carpet as Tagliabue nuked a box of spinach and sautéed a piece of cod loin. Polly watched him with his buggy eyes the whole time. Tagliabue put some scraps of fish skin and bits of french bread in the bowl with more Pedigree; the two ate in the living room, watching television.

  After a couple of hours, the dog acted as if he had to go, so Tagliabue took him for a twenty-minute walk on wet streets. Back home again, Polly went into his crate and his new master into his bed. Two hours later, Tagliabue’s eyes popped open. He lay listening for whatever woke him, relaxing as he remembered he was on the beach, in naval parlance. That is, not aboard ship. He’d gone to sleep early in a small city where many people were still up and about. But the night outside his open window was quiet. Letting his eyes close once again, he drifted off. A haunting voice pulled him back. This time he got up and padded around on bare feet, listening and looking out each window, standing in the open front door. He heard rain spray against the brick siding of the house, the whisper of the tires on a car as it headed out of town. He smelled steam coming off the macadam and he smelled the mudflats of low tide. Light seeped out of a few windows on his street and blue flickered from Tom Sharkey’s TV on the second floor of the apartment building on the next block. The old man usually fell asleep in his Barcalounger and awoke at daybreak with his set still on. Tagliabue detected nothing out of the ordinary.