The House at Hull

by Karl Tutt

  Chapter 7

  He did. That afternoon the phone did its Chopin thing.

  “Okay, Mr. Clairvoyant, I got it scheduled. Told the Captain I had a hot lead. It damned sure better be one. We’re gonna leave the harbor about nine in the morning. Shouldn’t take us more than ninety minutes to get there. Three uniforms and a couple of dogs. I called Todd. I’m not sure it’s such a good idea, but he wants to go . . . show us the cove where we can get to the beach. I couldn’t exactly tell him no. I think he’s going to meet us out there in their Donzi. He said you can ride if you want. I think maybe you should join him. We may need you if he gets squirrelly. That’s, of course, if you don’t have the Duke and Duchess on your schedule.”

  “Very funny, Gumshoe. I will certainly clear my busy social calendar and I’ll call Todd.”

  “See you then,” he said abruptly and hung up.

  Todd agreed to pick me up near Long Wharf at seven-thirty A.M. For some reason, he wanted to drive to Hull. I didn’t protest. I was there on time and so was he . . . in what looked like a ’57 or ’58 black Mercedes 190 SL. The top was down. The supple red leather upholstery gleamed and the ivory steering wheel looked like it had just come off the showroom floor. He revved the engine and dropped it down into first. It was like ice, smooth and definitely cool.

  “One of Dad’s last projects,” he said, “loved the old babies. This lady was in the shop in North Carolina. They specialize in rebuilding Mercedes. It took a year and a half. He probably spent $150,000 on it. She needed a run. This seemed like as good a time as any.”

  I couldn’t say much. “They don’t build them like they used to” just wasn’t going to get it. But they don’t.

  He elegantly fought the traffic out of Boston and we headed for the peninsula. I had some questions, but it was time for diplomacy, even a bit of delicacy. The man was obviously still hurting and given our destination, more than a little nervous.

  “Shasta is certainly very attractive. Seems smart and devoted to you. So how long have you guys been engaged?”

  With no more prodding, he began the whole story.

  “We met a Hull’s Kitchen, a little joint across form Nantasket Beach. It’s most outside seating. You can get a cold beer and lobster . . . boiled, fried, grilled, darned any way you can prepare it.They had met at Hull’s Kitchen across the street from Nantasket Beach. It’s a small joint with mostly outside seating. You can get a cold beer and lobster … boiled, fried, grilled, darned near anyway it’s prepared. Great food and reasonable prices. She was sitting with some girlfriends at a table next to me. Knocked me right out from the get-go. I smiled at her and she smiled back. Next thing I know we were talking. It was so easy. Her parents had a place just up the coast in Cohasset. I told me she was a Wellesley grad, now doing an M.B.A. at Boston College, a Shipley, and my god . . . simply ravishing. I asked her out and fell we just fell . . . ‘hopelessly in love’ is probably the appropriate phrase.’

  He didn’t say so, but between the lines I read also “hot as hell in the sack”. It was the stuff of fantasy, the perfect coupling of budding New England royalty.

  He didn’t say much of anything about his mom, dad, or Cherie, so I didn’t ask. After a while he got very quiet. I honored his silence. Soon we were pulling into the parking lot of the Hull Yacht Club. He pulled the top on the Mercedes over the interior, locked the chrome latches, and we went to the desk to get a tender out to the big yacht. Her name was DULCE REVE, which translates roughly to sweet dream. She shined and swayed gently in the even swells. The Donzi waited faithfully at the stern. She fired up on the first turn of the key and snuffled like a fine steed ready to spring from the starting gate. The day was magnificent, bright sun dancing on the wavelets . . . not really the thing for searching for bodies. The Donzi was fast, but smooth and effortless. We didn’t try to talk over the purr of the inboard. Besides, I think he was just plain scared at what we might find. I didn’t like it either.

  The police boat was making tight circles when we spotted them just north of Outer Brewster. Billy waved and the dogs barked. Todd pulled into a barely visible cut and we eased into a small basin with a smudge of beach. They followed. He parked the Donzi just outside the rocks and dropped the Danforth into the shallow water. He threw another steel fisherman anchor off the stern and secured it to a cleat. We waded ashore and waited. The giant shepherds barked and bounded into the spray ahead of the uniforms. What the hell? No one was going home dry.

  Billy frowned. He’d removed his Florsheims, the argyle socks, and rolled his pants legs as close to his knees as he could get them. Still, the salt rivulets had splashed up his leg and soaked the cuffs of his pants. Billy slipped on a pair of Reeboks. Todd took us to a steep winding path that led to the summit. We began the climb. Two uniforms held the dogs at bay while they nimbly raced over the rocks. Billy stuffed an old t-shirt up at their eager noses. Soon the dogs took the lead and we followed.

  There was little land area on the plateau. Rocks, sandy soil, and the occasional purple wildflower happy to be alive, bowing to the strong breeze. A few birds, but seemingly unaware, or at least unconcerned, about our invasion. Todd wanted to smile, or to cry. I wasn’t sure which.

  The dogs paused at the top of the plateau. They bayed and whined for a moment. Then their noses went to the ground. It didn’t take long. They tugged at their leashes and howled like banshees on a cloudless night. The ground was freshly turned, a somber combination of black and gray, with spider legs of orange in it.

  “Hold it,” Billy instructed, “we need to get a team out here before we touch anything.”

  He pulled his cell phone, hit a button, and mumbled some quick directions to an anonymous voice on the end of the line. He looked at me stoically. “Get him the hell out of here,” his eyes said. Somehow Todd understood. We slowly negotiated the rough, rocky path and were back on the Donzi in fifteen minutes.

  “I knew,” he whispered.

  The bodies were in a shallow grave near the center of the island. The scorching sun and the salt spray had already begun to take their toll on them, and the birds had given the desiccated flesh a good going over. But it was them. Billy called me later that day. The ME confirmed the identities. Dental, DNA, the whole routine. Now we just needed to know when and how they got there. The autopsies showed small caliber wounds at the base of each skull. Neat and quick. Two .22 slugs fired delicately into each one. Too much time had passed to determine who had died first. The Boston PD forensics team went back through the house at Hull with a fine toothed comb. It didn’t help that we had been there. They also went over the yacht. Same song, different verse, but nothing. No signs of blood, no unexplained prints, no latents, nothing to indicate time, motive, opportunity or any other damned thing.

  Zero.

  So we had the bodies, but we sure didn’t have anything else. There were a couple of things that bothered me. First, the beach on the island and the path were apparently unknown to most of the casual mariners who navigated these waters. Yet Todd knew exactly where to take us. Also . . . there were three bodies. Who had the knowledge and strength to cart them up to that summit? The path was steep and uncertain. Was there an accomplice? Maybe a helicopter? And if Todd was involved, why had he led us to the bodies? He was smart enough to know that no matter how careful he, or others, had been, there was the strong possibility of incriminating evidence. I didn’t want to think it, but at least now there were bodies to confirm the deaths. Any inheritance would be much smoother, not to mention quicker. It was baffling, but there was too much of this case that defied any reasonable explanations.

  I knew Billy . . . knew how thorough he was, but if he couldn’t come up with something, we had to. We were back at my basement digs by now. I felt like I had crawled into a cave. It was dark, and it didn’t seem so cozy now. The discovery of the bodies seemed to cloy at me and make me feel tainted. I kept brushing imaginary things off my arms and face, but they kept creeping back.

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nbsp; Eleisha barely looked up when I closed the door. She had been working on the Shipley thing for a couple of days. The sites contained multiple firewalls, some sites even carefully encrypted. She muttered to herself and cursed the Dell in broad ugly terms, certainly not befitting a lady, but I had to admit that Eleisha didn’t always fall neatly into that category. Anyway, I decided not to mention it. I poured a plastic cup of jug red and fell onto the sofa.