“So the boys must still be looking to make their bonus, right?” he asked as we both opened our doors. I noted that he left the keys dangling in the truck’s ignition—just as the drivers had done in nearly every other vehicle in the lot, I assumed, if the folks of Cobble Hill behaved the way people did back in Green Haven.
“There’s still time, yes.” There was something coy in his manner, and I couldn’t figure out what, if anything, he was hiding. When we first met, George Paul had mistaken me for a newspaper journalist and was incredibly talkative. I wondered if he now knew that I was an officer of the law. I certainly wasn’t going to volunteer that fact.
I thanked him for the ride and we parted company, taking off by foot in opposite directions. As I walked by the front of the truck, I noticed a smashed headlight and dented grill. This was probably the truck that had harassed me and broken the Duster’s taillight. I wondered who George Paul had borrowed it from and who had been behind the wheel of the truck and trying to run me off the road or scare me away from whatever I had gotten too close to. I stopped to enter the license plate number into my cell phone to run later. “It belongs to Parker Alley,” George Paul volunteered. I hadn’t noticed that he’d stopped and turned back to face me. “I didn’t think he’d miss it.”
13
NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE told me about George Paul, I couldn’t help but like him. He looked like a guy who had spent years sparring with Foreman and Ali; he and I didn’t seem to share a lot in common, and I couldn’t exactly call him a friend as he was still most accurately described as some guy I’d met in a parking lot. But I just liked him in the same sort of way that I like John Daly—the bad boy of the PGA. I’ve always been that way—I like who I like. This personality trait first surfaced in middle school when I found myself going steady with Stanley Rodriguez, a kid who basically laid permanent claim to the class dunce cap and who was widely believed to have “cooties.” I didn’t care. Again, I like who I like.
Happily, the flip side is not part of my makeup. I almost never dislike people for no reason at all. When I dislike someone, I have a darn good reason. So did it bother me that I had just sent a small wave of thanks to a man who had yelled across a parking lot for all to hear that he had given me a ride in a truck stolen from a man who was likely on the bottom of the ocean? Not really. George Paul would remain in my mind a good guy until he proved himself otherwise. I was expecting a comment from Cal as I approached the stern of the Sea Pigeon and wasn’t disappointed. “Didn’t your mother warn you about taking rides with strangers?” he asked.
“George Paul isn’t a stranger. I met him the other day. Besides, I didn’t want to keep you waiting or worry you.”
“He’s a creep.” Another party weighs in, I thought. When I didn’t respond, Cal continued. “He was sure concerned about what you were doing at Lillian Alley’s house. Of course, I didn’t tell him, because I don’t know anything. Didn’t stop him from asking questions though. Creepy.”
So, I thought, George Paul must have followed me to Lillian’s. Unwilling to debate “creepy” with Cal, I decided to change the subject. “Let’s get out of here. I’m starving. Let the lines go?”
“Sure,” Cal said as he loosened a line from the cleat closest to him. I slackened the stern line from a cleat and pulled the bitter end around a piling and back aboard where I coiled and stowed it on a hook under the rail. Cal knocked the boat in gear with the helm hard to starboard, kicking the stern to port and away from the dock. He reversed the engine enough to back the Sea Pigeon a distance from the pilings to a low him to pull out while turning to port and to avoid contact with anything solid. Once we were clear of the dock, I grabbed my cell phone from my bag and prayed. Damn! No service. I would have to wait until we made the corner around the steep headland and had a shot at the cell tower on Swan’s Island. I tucked the phone back into my bag to avoid staring at it like a teenager waiting for a text message.
Cal tugged a cigarette from a fresh pack in his breast pocket and tucked it into the corner of his lips. He raised an index finger in the air, suggesting I wait for something that had just dawned on him. He grabbed a brown paper bag from the console against the windshield and handed it to me. “There’s a nice sandwich shop about a block from the dock,” he said. “I figured that doughnut would be wearing thin on you by now. So I got you something. You ain’t one of them vegetarians, are you?”
“No. I’m a carnivore.” I wasn’t surprised that Cal had asked. About all he’d ever seen me eat was peanut butter and bread. Opening the cellophane wrap, I allowed the halves of the sandwich to separate, exposing an inch of pink roast beef. “Wow. Thanks Cal. Want half?” He shook his head and lit his cigarette. He enjoyed his smoke while I indulged in beef. How long had it been, I wondered, since I had eaten roast beef? This must have cost a fortune. I would add a small bonus to Cal’s check this week, I thought. Well, that was if it didn’t cost too much to repair the Duster’s taillight. I could order the lens and bulb from the Old Maids and repair it myself. That would save the labor of a mechanic. The thought of finances tempted me to wrap the second half of the sandwich and save it for dinner. But that might be rude. So I happily ate the whole thing.
Feeling stronger with a belly full of sandwich, I concentrated on organizing my thoughts. I felt that I had collected fragments of the whole picture but was unable to put anything together. If I could just start the puzzle in one corner, I could build from there. It was seldom that I had this much information and still could not formulate a viable theory to tie everything together. Right now I would be satisfied with a solid hunch, even one that might need to be discarded after I had the next clue. But I didn’t even have that. I closed my eyes and saw the pieces: Parker Alley, John Doe, George Paul, North Atlantic Shell Farms, Lillian, fishing rights, heroin, and Jason. I shuffled, rearranged, stacked, and played sleight-of-hand games with the pieces. But nothing clicked. Suddenly the Sea Pigeon lurched hard to starboard. I grabbed the edge of the console and hung on as we rolled to port and back to starboard in the wake of a passing boat.
When the Sea Pigeon settled down, I turned to see the boat behind us. The Ardency, Evan Alley’s boat, steamed away, throwing a mountainous wake. The captain and stern man never glanced back. “Looks like someone’s in a hurry to get to the barn,” Cal laughed, happy that I had been jarred from my trance. That made two of us. I added Evan to my puzzle pieces. I remembered how he had been so cool the day his brother’s boat was found circling. He had absolutely zero interest in searching for his brother and displayed no hope of finding Parker alive. Yes, Evan deserved some close attention.
I pulled the phone from my tote and held it to the sky in an offering to the god of cellular service. Three signal-strength bars rose from the depths. I hit the button recalling the number for the Sheriff’s Department, pushed the green SEND, and walked to the stern, where the engine noise was less bothersome. After two rings, a female voice identified herself as Sheila and asked how she might direct my call.
“Hi, Sheila. This is Deputy Bunker returning your call. I understand you have some information for me regarding a John Doe.” I was nervous with anticipation.
“Ah, yes. Let’s see. Bunker … Oh, here it is. Augusta faxed this and asked me to forward it to you. The man’s name is Jorge Aguilar. He was born in November 1970 in Champerico, Guatemala. He was employed by Central American Oil, aboard a tanker that is in and out of U.S. waters. So his fingerprints were on file with Homeland Security.”
“Does the report name the tanker?” I asked.
“Well, let’s see. I have a passport number.… No. Here’s a customs form. It’s six months old, but at that time he was aboard the Asprellra. Is that helpful?”
“Yes. Thanks, Sheila. Please let the sheriff know that I’m on this case and will report back with any developments.” I thanked Sheila again before we hung up and she seemed genuinely pleased to be of some assistance. I didn’t imagine much of her work included dead people from Guatemala
.
I joined Cal back at the helm as he eased the throttle to enter the channel that would lead us to the dock in Green Haven. “Cal,” I said. “Where was the Asprella heading after we picked up Willard Kelley the other day?”
“Halifax, Nova Scotia.”
“Is that far from here?” I asked.
“It would be aboard this rig. But I suppose it’s like next door for a tanker. They steam at twenty-five knots. Why?”
Why? That was a good question. I answered it in a rather long-winded fashion. I worked backward from the information provided by Sheila. I suppose this was a way for me to think out loud and fill Cal in on everything that I had kept from him until now. I tried to sort things out as I told Cal the details of what I had learned over the last three days, hoping that when I finished, the solution to the puzzle would suddenly be clear. When I got to the part about George Paul’s explanation of the Red Paint ritual and the connection I had made to the corpse, Cal laughed. I couldn’t imagine what he found funny. “What? It could have been someone framing the Passamaquoddy, right?” I urged Cal to tell me what he thought.
“The red stuff on the dead guy must have been copper paint. You know, that red antifouling paint everyone uses on the bottom of their boats? Originally, you were looking for someone you believed had fallen overboard, right?” This was embarrassing, I thought. Of course—it was just paint from the bottom of a boat. Cal continued. “Copper paint—of course, they don’t put real copper in it anymore, they just call it that. Still, it makes a wicked red mess on anything that comes into contact with it. I’ve ruined more clothes coppering the bottom of this boat.” The conversation was interrupted; we had just arrived at the dock and needed to concentrate on securing Sea Pigeon.
As we walked toward Cal’s truck, I mentioned that I had to get in touch with Willard Kelley to learn when the Asprella would be in the area again. “Good luck.” Cal seemed to be tired and had lost interest in the case. He was happy being the chauffeur. I told Cal that I would let him know in the morning what our next assignment would be. I suspected we would need to return to Cobble Harbor to check on some of the names Evan Alley might come up with, especially those of his brother’s enemies. I reminded myself of Cal’s age and understood that he was anxious to get home to dinner and an early bedtime. I bid Cal good night, thanking him again for the sandwich. “Kelley’s a creep, too” were his parting words. Cal, like most people of his age, gets a little cranky when he’s tired, I thought.
We sure had lost a lot of daylight since I had first arrived in Green Haven, I thought, as Cal’s brake lights flashed at the stop sign at the junction of the parking lot and Main Street. Anxious to get home to try to locate Willard Kelley and to touch base on the phone with Lillian, I hurried along. By the time I reached the top of the hill, I was gasping for air, and I was totally out of breath when I reached the stairs to my apartment. I had learned the hard way not to call anyone after five P.M. Mainers are strict about dinnertime, and they like to eat early. Most of the people I knew sat down for dinner promptly at five, and anyone foolish enough to interrupt the meal got an earful. I understood that fishermen rise at three A.M. and, in order to get their full eight hours, need to turn in by seven. Even the folks who don’t fish keep the same schedule. Except for my landlords. Henry and Alice prided themselves on their late dinnertime and fancied themselves European. I knew that this was because they liked a two-hour cocktail hour, a double they called it, and didn’t feel they could start drinking until five, which pushed supper to the ungodly hour of seven, something basically unheard of in this town.
But the Vickersons were still away, so I was on my own. I pushed open the door, flipped on some lights, and then dropped my bag in a chair and checked the answering machine. No messages. I loosened the buckle on my gun holster, removed it, and hung it on the wooden peg that Mr. V had mounted on the wall among three others for coats. I would secure the gun in its locked case later. Was it just four months ago that I had vowed never to carry a gun again? Well, I had lied. My vows were meaningless. I hadn’t made a New Year’s resolution in ages, because they inevitably brought on deep depression when I breached my contract with myself. I never kept any vow I made unless it was to someone other than me. That was different. And yet I had given Audrey my word the other day that I would put someone in jail. And right now, I seemed to be getting further from that promise. Audrey would never mention it, nor would she rub my nose in the fact that I hadn’t been able to deliver. But I’d bet she hadn’t forgotten what I had pledged. I certainly wouldn’t forget.
I sat at the table with a paper and pen and leafed through the relatively few pages of the local phone book looking for Willard Kelley or Cobscook Bay Pilots. There were a few Kelleys in the “Greater Bar Harbor Region,” but no Willard. I struck gold in the Yellow Pages. There was indeed a listing for Cobscook Bay Pilots, Inc., that included two numbers—one for the usual business hours and another for nights and weekends. I quickly dialed the second number, assuming it would forward to Willard Kelley’s home phone. A woman, I assumed Willard Kelley’s wife, answered.
“Hello, Mrs. Kelley?”
“Yes.”
“Hi, Mrs. Kelley. This is Deputy Bunker from the Knox County Sheriff’s Department. I’m looking for a Willard Kelley. Is this the correct number?” I asked as politely as I could.
“What will you try next? Give me a break. If you want to whore around with my husband, that’s your problem. He’s probably dead drunk by now. Stop calling me! Get it?” Crash! The phone was slammed down. I removed the receiver from my ear and stared at it in disbelief. Did that really just happen? I had to try again. I dialed the same number and got the same “Hello.”
“Hi, Mrs. Kelley. Please don’t hang up. This is Jane Bunker. I am a deputy sheriff here in Green Haven and am involved in an investigation, and I urgently need to get the schedule for a tanker your husband pilots.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Mrs. Kelley. I’m not looking for your husband. But I do need that schedule. I can come to your home with a warrant if you would prefer.”
“No, that’s not necessary. Which ship are you looking for?” she asked.
“The Asprella.”
“I’m the secretary here, among other things. I should be able to help you out. What did you say your name was?”
“Jane Bunker. Deputy Sheriff Jane Bunker. I work for the Knox County Sheriff’s Department.”
“Bunker, okay. Willard had a double today. He took one of the Carnival cruise ships into Bar Harbor this morning and is scheduled to meet the Asprella right about now to take her up the river to Bucksport. He’ll stay aboard while they pump, then take her back offshore later tonight. She won’t be back again until next month. Sorry about hanging up on you.”
“That’s quite all right. Thanks for your cooperation, Mrs. Kelley.” We hung up in a civilized manner this time. Either right now or not until next month! I’d better get a move on. I wondered where I would find the ship once I got to Bucksport, but couldn’t take the time to figure that out right now. I had to get going. I strapped my gun back around my midsection, threw on a jacket, grabbed my tote bag, and ran out the door.
I nearly choked when I calculated how much gas I would burn in the four-hour round-trip to Bucksport. If I weren’t in such a hurry I could at least ease up on the accelerator. But I needed to get there quickly. The sooner I was aboard the ship and asking questions about Jorge Aguilar, the better. Time is not a friend of a murder investigator. Guilty parties can create very elaborate and convincing alibis given enough time. They can buy witnesses, too. I stepped on the gas pedal even harder. I knew I would be reimbursed for my expenses. This was exciting. I tried to contain my nerves as I drove. I pushed the Duster like I was being chased by something out of a nightmare. This was exhilarating. Maybe this was a feeling that I’d been missing and hadn’t realized it. Pure adrenaline. Two hours, two hours to Bucksport. I prayed the Asprella would still be in port. Two hours faded to one
hour. I skidded around corners, flew off bumps, and squealed tires on straightaways. The old Duster was in top form. How many middle-aged women got to do this? I was crazed and I loved it.
The light distinguishing Bucksport from the surrounding blackness was a dull haze. Rising from individual bright spots and joining hands, the town’s lights dimmed as they spread upward, forming a cloudy veil that appeared to protect everything under it. As I entered the town and got under the umbrella, the haze cleared. From the middle of a bridge I could see a large terminal on the west side of the Penobscot River surrounded by tremendous tanks that looked like overgrown silos. Tugboats were bridling up to the only ship at the terminal. The bright yellow shell on the ship’s stack left no doubt. It was the Asprella. All I had to do was figure out how to get there, I thought.
I knew I had to turn right. I drove slowly off the bridge and continued on the main drag until I found a significant right turn—one that looked like it could support some tractor-trailer traffic. I had guessed correctly. A chain-link fence hemmed in the tank farm and wharf. A guard shack was manned by an elderly gentleman who tried to tell me I was in the wrong place until I showed him my badge. He waved me through and directed me to park in a spot marked VISITOR. I ran from the parking area to the wharf and sprinted to the section alongside the Asprella. A small hydraulic boom was winching up the aluminum gangplank that connected the ship to the top of the dock. I waved to the man running the winch, asking him to stop. “I need to board the ship!” I yelled. He stopped and waited for me to come close enough to talk. “I need to board that ship, right away.”
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