Grey Lady

by Paul Kemprecos

  “Nantucket’s a small island. They would have known each other.”

  “Yes, but it was more than a casual acquaintance. They were friends, drawn together by their island heritage and common interests. They were accomplished Nantucket historians with an extensive knowledge of the island’s whaling past. They were on the board of the historical association which operates the whaling museum.”

  “Where did the murder occur?”

  “In the museum.”

  “So there were witnesses?”

  “No. It was after hours and the museum was closed. As trustees, both men had keys to the building.”

  “What was the murder weapon?”

  She pursed her lips is if she was having a struggle finding the right words, then said, “Coffin was killed with a boarding knife taken from the museum’s collection of whaling implements. After a whale was caught, boarding knives were used to cut strips of blubber from the carcass. It’s similar in shape to a bayonet.”

  “Was Mr. Coffin stabbed from the front or the back?”

  “From the front.”

  “Indicating that Mr. Coffin was aware he was being attacked. He may even have known the killer.”

  “That’s what the police believe.”

  I sat back and tented my fingers. “You’ve mentioned two of the three elements a D.A. needs to convince a jury that Henry Daggett is guilty. The knife is the means and the museum key presents the opportunity. The only thing that bothers me is the lack of motive. You said they were friends.”

  “I should have said that they had been friends. Both men were strong-minded Yankees. They’d had a serious disagreement recently. An argument over museum policy.”

  “That seems like a lame reason to make shish-ka-bob out of an old friend. Are you sure there wasn’t any underlying source of antagonism between them? Business deal gone bad. A grudge over a woman?”

  “You’re very perceptive, Mr. Socarides. There had been bad blood between the families going back nearly two-hundred years. You’ve heard of the Essex tragedy?”

  “I’m not an expert on Nantucket, but I read the Heart of the Sea, Nathaniel Philbrick’s book. The Essex was the Nantucket whaling ship sunk by a sperm whale. The story gave Herman Melville the idea for Moby Dick.”

  “Then you know that the real tragedy transpired after the ship sank in 1819. The crew struck out in whaleboats, thousands of miles from land. They avoided some islands out of fear of cannibals, which is ironic, because they resorted to cannibalism to survive.”

  “That was a long time ago. How is the Essex connected with this present-day murder case?”

  “Indirectly. Let me keep going. Another Nantucket ship was sunk by a whale a few years after the Essex incident. The Moshup went down in the same part of the Pacific, possibly attacked by the same whale that sent the Essex to the bottom.”

  “I’ve read a lot of marine history. I never heard of the Moshup.”

  “That’s because the whole thing was hushed up. There were rumors, but they were quickly quashed. The Quakers who ran the whaling trade were hard-nosed businessmen. One act of desperate cannibalism could be forgiven. A second might seem like habit. If outsiders thought Nantucket was home to hungry cannibals it would have been bad for the whale oil business.”

  “Not hard to see why,” I said. “Every time someone saw a candle made with Nantucket whale oil they’d think of someone boiling in a pot.”

  She suppressed a smile. “Technically inaccurate, but to the point.”

  “All very interesting, but what does the Moshup have to do with your client’s case?”

  “It goes to the missing motivation you mentioned. Mr. Daggett’s ancestor, also named Henry, was carpenter on the Moshup. Coffin’s was first mate. The police think that a recent museum disagreement turned up the heat and old resentments finally bubbled over into violence.”

  “That’s quite a leap. My ancestors came from Crete where revenge was a way of life, but after a few generations, people tend to forget and forgive.”

  “Unless the reason for that bad blood was so heinous it could only be washed away with more blood.”

  “And the heinous reason in this case?”

  “Simple, really. Mr. Coffin’s great-great-grandfather Obediah ate Mr. Daggett’s great-great-grandfather.”

  Lisa must have known that she was delivering a potent punch line because there was a mischievous sparkle in the lovely blue eyes.

  “That could take a while to get over,” I said. “What were the circumstances?”

  “It’s a complicated story. I’d be glad to tell you more after you talk to my client. He’s been allowed to stay home, monitored with an electronic ankle bracelet.”

  I tried to come up with a way to let Lisa down for a soft landing. I was thinking I should be back on the mainland dealing with the lawsuit that threatened my charter business. “From what I’ve heard, you might be better off spending the money on a good criminal defense attorney.”

  “I deal in conservation land acquisition and I’ll admit that criminal law is not my specialty. I know my limits. I’ve brought in a Boston law firm to join the defense. We’ll still need a thorough investigation to see if there is enough evidence to convict my client.”

  “And if there is, and it leads to a conviction?”

  “I’ll let justice take its course. But it will make me sad.”

  “You seem to have an emotional attachment to this case.”

  “You’re correct. It’s very personal to me.”

  “Why is that if I may ask?”

  She cocked her head and looked at me like a portrait artist searching a subject’s face for the inner person.

  “It’s really not complicated, Mr. Socarides. Henry Daggett is my grandfather.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Lisa Hendricks was a skilled angler. She had lured me to Nantucket using money as bait, set the hook with the cannibal story and reeled me in with the revelation that murder suspect Henry Daggett was her grandfather. Before I had a chance to wiggle off the hook, she gaffed me aboard with the offer to let me drive her classic MG red convertible. Which explains how I found myself behind the wheel of an antique sports car, with the top down and the salty air tossing the raven hair of the lovely woman at my side.

  Lisa showed me an escape route that circumvented the traffic gridlock in town. We rode through quiet old neighborhoods where the narrow streets were lined with antique houses. Lisa gave a running commentary on her family history. Near a windmill on the edge of town, she said we were not far from a neighborhood called New Guinea, once home to whalers of African ancestry. There was a cemetery nearby for black and Cape Verdean residents, where her ancestors were buried.

  The traffic soon thinned out. I kicked the MG up to an enjoyable, and slightly illegal cruising speed on Milestone Road, which ran in a straight line between thick stands of scrub pine and oak, the tough, shrunken trees that pass for forests on Cape Cod and the Islands. At one point, the woods opened up into a prairie spotted with trees shaped like umbrellas. Lisa said that the land had been cleared for the benefit of wildlife. The locals called it the Serengeti. Someone had put up big cutouts of African animals for those who had no imagination.

  I slowed when we got to Siasconset, a picturesque former fishing settlement on the easterly end of the island around eight miles from the main town. The road into the village is a pretty lane shaded by maple trees and lined with white picket fences. Tall privacy hedges cut off the view of many houses, but there were glimpses of rose-covered trellises on the shingled roofs. There’s an old casino theater built back when the fair-weather fishing village drew artists, writers and actors from the big city.

  Siasconset is a far cry from Times Square. Clustered in the village center are an insurance agency, a book store, post offic
e, package store and a couple of seasonal restaurants. With its silver-shingled, rose-covered cottages and sea-breezes, S’conset encapsulates the kind of Nantucket charm that the chamber of commerce talks about in its guidebook.

  It took about a millisecond to get through the roaring metropolis. Lisa directed me onto a gravel road lined with tall privacy hedges. At the end of the road was a circular driveway covered in crushed clamshells bleached bone white by the sun. The driveway served as access to a big summer house. With its gabled roof and wide, wrap-around veranda, the house had an understated elegance that bragged about the owners’ wealth without boasting. I smelled Old Money. The house was sheathed in white cedar shingles that had weathered to silver-gray. The lawn was so green and perfectly manicured that it could have been made out of AstroTurf. Set back from the house behind a privet hedge was a small cottage, and next to it was a three-car garage. A white Miata sports car was parked near the cottage.

  I pulled up to the veranda and we got out of the MG. We climbed to the expansive porch, which was furnished with rocking chairs and a sofa of white wicker. Lisa opened the front door and we stepped into a large lobby.

  A man was descending the wide staircase that went up to the second floor. He was dressed casually in tan shorts and a white polo shirt, and was probably in his thirties. He had a buff physique and a lifeguard’s tan. I had him tagged as a personal trainer or masseur. I learned that I was wrong a second later when Lisa introduced him as Dr. Tyler Rosen.

  “How’s Gramps doing?” Lisa asked.

  “Pretty much the same. No better, but no worse.”

  “I’m going to introduce Mr. Socarides to Gramps, if it’s okay. He’s on our defense team.”

  Rosen eyed me with less-than-friendly curiosity. “It would be fine, Lisa,” he said with a coolness in his voice. “Not too long a visit, though.”

  She thanked him and led the way up the staircase. As we stepped onto the landing, she paused and said, “Dr. Rosen has been treating my grandfather.”

  “Is your grandfather ill?”

  “In a way.” She shrugged. “Having a resident psychologist on call was part of the deal to get him released to the house.” I opened my mouth to ask for specifics, but Lisa said, “You’ll understand better after you meet him. C’mon.”

  We walked down a carpeted hall and stopped in front of a paneled oak wood door.

  Lisa turned to face me. “A word of warning. Gramps can be overwhelming and a bit demonstrative, but he’s really harmless.”

  “No sharp objects within reach?”

  “Nothing like that. Just play along. Remember that he sees things through a different lens. Literally and figuratively. Relax. Ready?”

  I shrugged. “Ready.”

  She knocked lightly. A man’s voice roared out.

  “Avast! Who goes there?”

  “It’s me. Lisa. There’s someone out here who wants to see you. Can he come in?”

  “Is he a whaler ye speak of?”

  “I’ve heard there’s none finer.”

  “Wait not, girl!” The gruff tone had vanished. “Send him aft.”

  Lisa opened the unlocked door. Seeing my hesitation, she placed her palm on the small of my back. With more strength than I would have imagined in her slender arm, she pushed me through the doorway. The door clicked shut behind me.

  I stepped into a room that looked like the Library of Congress. The shelves that lined the two facing walls held hundreds of volumes. There was a wooden trestle table and a captain’s chair in the middle of the room. Books and maps covered the top of the table.

  At the far end of the room, a section of floor was raised several inches into a platform in front of an arched window that rose almost to the ceiling. Someone wearing a long frock coat and a slouch hat was silhouetted darkly against the afternoon sunlight filtering through the glass panes. The man stood with his legs spread wide apart, as still as if he were carved from basalt.

  The face was obscured by the wide hat brim and details were lost against the back lighting. But even if I couldn’t see the eyes, I could feel the twin orbs burning through me with a laser-like intensity.

  He spoke. “Art thou a man or a spirit?” The deep voice had a hollow ring that echoed off the ceiling and hardwood floors.

  Lisa had advised me to simply play along. “I’m a man.”

  He paused as if he were testing the truth of my reply. “Aye,” he said with a chuckle in his voice. “I can see that well enough. Come aft.”

  I walked forward under his shadowed gaze and stopped at the base of the platform. He advanced several paces in my direction with a strange lurching walk, and then stopped. In his hand was an antique, telescoping brass spyglass.

  The face that peered down from under the brim must have been a handsome at one time. The jaw was firm and the features chiseled. The long nose could have denoted character, or simply a long nose. The face was creased with wrinkles and deep lines, like wrinkled parchment. The eyes were set so deeply in their sockets that it was impossible to tell what color they were.

  Without warning, the lips turned up at each corner, transforming his grim expression to one of joy.

  “Thou hast come at last!”

  “You were expecting me?”

  “Art thou not Starbuck?”

  Lisa’s voice whispered in my head.

  Play along.

  “Aye, Captain. That’s me all right.”

  “Aye indeed. Starbuck, the best lance in all Nantucket. The Pequod’s chief mate. The most royal prince in Ahab’s sea-washed kingdom. Where hast thou been, lad?”

  “I sailed across from the mainland.”

  “Ah. Thou hast been to visit your wife and brood on Cape Cod. Too long away, Starbuck. Too long. Here lies your true family. Stubbs and Flask. Queequeeg and Tashto. Brothers born in the billowing sea and baptized by the blood spray of the whales we have killed.”

  Sometimes I can be a slow study, and it had been years since I’d read Herman Melville’s saga about the white whale named Moby Dick. But I didn’t have to be a professor of American literature to figure out Daggett’s peculiar pathology. Lisa’s dotty old grandfather thought he was Captain Ahab, skipper of the doomed ship Pequod and nemesis of Moby Dick. This was weird. I backed away toward the door.

  The smile vanished. “Whither goest thou?”

  I stopped in my tracks. “I goest to see a man about a whale.”

  “Then thou hast heard the good news?”

  “I’ve been pretty busy, Captain.”

  “No matter. Come closer. It hast been much too long since the planks of the quarterdeck hast felt aught but my ivory thumper. Lend me your hand.”

  I walked back to the stage and raised my arm, thinking he wanted to shake hands. His right hand shot out and the fingers clamped on my wrist, then he pulled me up onto the platform with surprising strength. He bore into me with his burning eyes, a manic grin on his lips. He pulled me toward the window, where he released my arm and pointed. I was looking toward Nantucket Sound, but his imagination had apparently burned a different kind of image on his retina. His mad eyes saw the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean.

  He turned, and speaking softly, said, “Thou doubted your captain like the disciple Thomas. Thou said the white whale wast a dumb brute, that smote me from blindest instinct. That which struck my leg off, and made a poor pegging lubber of me forever and a day. Do you remember, Starbuck?”

  A thunderstorm was brewing on his broad brow as he pulled back the lower part of his frock coat and yanked up his pant leg. There was no peg-leg carved from whalebone as in the story. The skinny white leg was in once piece. Around the ankle was a metal strap holding the transmitter that would let the police track him if he wandered off from the house.

  “Yes, Captain. I remember. As if it
were yesterday.”

  His voice rose. “Now burn this into thy memory. That cursed thing which demasted me is soon to learn the meaning of revenge!”

  “That is good news, Captain Ahab.”

  He dropped the pant leg and raised his right hand in the air.

  “God will guide the lance in my hand. Its point will go to the heart of the great brute. I will kill that which had taken my leg, and consigned me to life as a freak, part human flesh, part spermaceti bone.”

  He grasped the spyglass as if it were a spear and brought his hand down in a sweeping motion, halting a few inches from the wooden floor. The energy seemed to go out of him and he stared at the parquet for a moment. Then he turned and lurched back to the window.

  I stepped down from the platform and walked with a soft step to the door. Lisa was waiting for me in the hallway with her arms crossed.

  “Welcome back to the 21st century,” she said. “How did it go?”

  “I saw the Gregory Peck version of Moby Dick. This performance was much more convincing. Your grandfather thought I was Starbuck.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Ahab’s chief mate? Ranking you second in command was a compliment. Did he let you up on the quarter deck?”

  I nodded. “He even showed me his ivory peg leg with the battery pack.”

  “Impressive. Only the ship’s officers are allowed on the captain’s deck.”

  Daggett was insane. Bonkers. Crazy-go-nuts. I didn’t take the invitation into his fantasyland as the compliment she might have intended. “How long has your grandfather been like this?”

  “Since the night of the murder.”

  “What happened to him?”

  She took in a deep breath and let it out. “It’s a complicated story. I can tell you all about it over a cocktail. You look like you could use one.”