Dead Reckoning: A Nantasket Novella (Nantasket Novellas Book 1)

by Robert White

  One of the young ADAs, Michael something was his name, started on about the case, short on facts but full of opinions as to why it was causing such a stir. He carried on as if it was his case and he understood all of the angles, both real and imagined. I saw a few eyes roll around the table. Finally he turned to me and said “Hey John, didn’t you find one of the vics? Not the thug but the fisherman drug runner one, right?”

  Lauren quickly jumped in. “Eddie Thayer was John’s cousin,” she said, “John saw his boat drifting around the harbor Tuesday morning before school.”

  “That’s right, you’re a teacher.” Michael made it sound like a disease. “So he was your cousin? I guess you can’t pick your relatives.”

  “Nor your colleagues,” I said, turning to Lauren as I stood to leave. She shrugged to the group, half apology and half annoyance, and followed me out to the lobby of the hotel. “Sorry,” I said, “but I am not spending the evening with that.”

  “We weren’t going to,” she said, “they were just there and I couldn’t ignore them.”

  I cast her what must have been a pretty doubtful look.

  “Look, they’re not all so bad. Some of them are even my friends.” She stopped there, letting her disappointment register with me. “Anyway, we are invited to sit at the grown-ups’ table tonight. The man himself invited us. We should head on up.” She turned towards the elevators. I watched her for a couple of seconds, and then followed, vowing to do better.

  I met Lauren when I was in graduate school. I was taking night classes at a Boston area college, slowly working towards a master’s degree. I had been teaching for seven or eight years, and, while my science knowledge was right where it needed to be, I realized that if teaching was to be my life’s work then I should learn a bit about education itself. The program was great. The professors respected the fact that most of us had already accomplished the basics. They let us teach each other as much as they taught us. We stayed focused on useful things. I finished having a deeper, wider understanding of my chosen career.

  Lauren was enrolled in a different version of the program. Aimed at recent college graduates who wanted to start teaching, it was a much more concrete program, focusing on classroom management issues, pedagogy, and had a complete set of hoops to jump through, along with a host of other unpleasantries, all aimed at meeting the newer, more stringent state licensing requirements.

  She was a couple of years out of college at the time and had been working as an administrative assistant at a small advertising agency. After watching who advanced and who didn’t, and learning why this was, she began to think she might put her English degree to a better use teaching school.

  We met in a seminar on writing across the curriculum, one of the few courses offered to students in both programs. We were assigned as partners on a project aimed at helping math and science teachers make better use of writing in our curricula. Lauren jumped into the project wholeheartedly and began spending a lot of time with me in my classroom, and eventually outside of it as well. The next fall she began teaching in Weymouth, a few towns away, and by the end of that school year we were making wedding plans.

  Lauren taught school for a couple more years, but it frustrated her. She found she was often disappointed with her students’ work, saddened by their lack of interest in the books she taught. She wanted them all to be as passionate and invested in words and language as she was. She cycled from feelings of anger with the kids to feelings of failure on her own part. Finally, she quit and enrolled in law school. We never really discussed it, but it seemed like a good move for her at the time.

  The ballroom at the Copley was crowded. A jazz quartet played in the corner. Servers carrying trays of hors d’ouvres circled from cluster to cluster, working around the long line that led to the bar. We stopped at a table near the door to get our seating cards and then made our way into the fray.

  “What is this for, anyway?” I asked Lauren.

  “The mayor’s summer camp out on Long Island.” Her eyes hunted the crowd. “It opened a few summers ago and needs to grow. It’s a nice program for kids from the city, gets them off the street.”

  “Lauren. John.” A voice from behind sounded over the general din of the room.

  We turned to see John Wallace waving us over to a group of people near the podium. We crossed the room and shook hands.

  “Glad you both could make it. Have you met the mayor? Your Honor, this is Lauren Smith, one of our assistant prosecutors, and her husband John.”

  “Nice to meet you both. Thank you for coming.” The mayor’s handshake was a strong, two handed double pump while his eyes looked over my shoulder. For an instant, his face registered a look of distaste. He quickly recovered and extended his hand past me with a big smile. “Councilman, glad you could make it.”

  I turned to face the object of my recent internet search. Charlie Donnelly was an impressive presence, even among the beautiful people. Tall, tan and well tailored, he instantly became the center of attention. “I wouldn’t dream of missing this. You remember my sister?”

  The mayor took her hand. “How goes the campaign?” He turned to Lauren and me. “Mary Ann is running her brother’s congressional campaign. Mary Ann Kerrigan, Councilman Donnelly, this is Lauren Smith, ADA, and her husband John.”

  We all shook hands, said our hellos. Mary Ann studied me hard for a moment. A short woman dressed in a business suit, she had graying, shoulder length hair and no nonsense air about her. “You found the murdered fisherman out in the harbor. I heard he was your cousin. My condolences.” She paused, seeming to want to say something else. Her brother stepped in to fill the gap.

  “Are you working on the case?” he asked Lauren.

  “Lauren is backing up Tom Richards.” John Wallace moved into the group as the mayor turned away to greet more guests. “I’m afraid I need to steal Lauren away for a minute.” He nodded to me, “please excuse us.”

  “It was nice meeting you, both of you.” Charlie Donnelly put a hand on my shoulder then headed out into the room.

  I quickly found myself left alone with Mary Ann Kerrigan. “My condolences as well, I understand Jack Nolan was a friend of your brother’s.”

  “An old acquaintance is more like it. Poor Jack, we all grew up together.” She took my arm and led me towards the bar. “Any idea what was going on out there?”

  “I haven’t a clue,” I said. “Eddie and I weren’t that close.”

  She seemed a bit surprised by this, but didn’t comment. “Drink?” she said, motioning towards the bar. I stood by as she ignored the line and got me a Sam’s, in the bottle, and a glass of red wine for herself. She stuffed a twenty in the tip jar and offered up a toast. “To better days.”

  I tapped her glass with my bottle and took a swig, then looked around, trying to figure out where Lauren had gotten to.

  The evening alternately dragged on and sped by. When it was over I allowed myself to hope Lauren would come home with me, a hope she gently but firmly dashed with talk of a busy Saturday morning at the office. I kissed her on the cheek and put her into a cab, then rounded up my truck and drove on back to Hull.

  Saturday -6:00 AM

  It had rained in the night and the morning was a bit gray, but the edge of the clouds was visible to the west. I made some coffee and drank a cup, then filled my thermos with the rest. A couple English muffins with peanut butter and a glass of grapefruit juice later and I was out the door and headed for Nantasket Pier, wearing my uniform of khaki shorts, sneakers and official, blue Hull Harbormaster t-shirt and ball cap. A VHF radio and a rigging knife on my belt, along with a pair of sunglasses on a lanyard around my neck, completed my work attire. Summer had arrived.

  I spent the morning patrolling the various harbors and mooring fields throughout the town’s waters, noting which boats were in and who had not yet attached their town mooring permit stickers. On each of these I left a notice in a plastic bag weighted with a small stone
, a reminder of mooring fee policies and prices. I would give them a few weeks before issuing more serious warnings. Most folks either had their stickers but hadn’t attached them yet, or didn’t think to send in their forms until after the boat went in. It was the same every June.

  Out at the gut people were fishing. The tide was turning, starting to ebb, and the stripers were feeding pretty hard. I watched as a guy in a sixteen foot Carolina skiff boated a nice keeper right off the cliffs on Peddock’s. It made me think of Eddie. He should have been there, patiently teaching a client how to cast a fly across the moving water, telling stories between fish, cheering the hook-ups, doing all the things he loved and was so good at. Then I thought of Sharon, hooked up to machines, fighting for her life in the hospital. I spun the wheel and headed back into town, my peaceful morning shattered by reality.

  I spent the rest of the morning in the office, doing paperwork and answering the odd phone call. A bit after noon, maybe twelve-fifteen or so, a woman’s voice called out on the radio.

  “Hull Harbormaster, Hull Harbormaster, Highlander.”

  “Highlander, Hull Harbormaster, switch to 71.” I waited for her response and shifted to the working channel.

  “Hull Harbormaster, this is the sailing vessel Highlander. I am anchored north of Bumpkin Island, at the eastern end. Would it be possible to get a pump-out either this afternoon or in the morning tomorrow?”

  Pumping out boats’ sanitary tanks is one of my duties. Boats are not supposed to flush their waste overboard when they are in our local waters. Instead, their heads flush to an on-board holding tank. The waste is then pumped out and transported to a treatment facility. We have a special boat for this task, with a pump, hoses and fittings, and a good size tank.

  “Be out within the hour,” I replied.

  “Thank you, Highlander returning to channel nine and standing by.”

  I finished up the mooring list I had been working on and headed down to the dock. The pump-out boat was tied up across the finger from the patrol boat. I started the outboard and let it warm up while I checked over the pump-out equipment. After a few minutes, I cast off and headed away from the dock.

  The sky was now clear, the last of the clouds having faded off into the east. A warm breeze was starting to fill in from the southwest. The tide was just about low, forcing me to run out and around the west end of Bumpkin before cutting back in to the east and finding Highlander. She wasn’t hard to spot. Her bright red hull stretched all of 60 or so feet and glittered in the sunshine. Her tall mast was steady as she rode her anchor about two hundred yards off the beach.

  I pulled along side and gave a shout. A thirtyish woman with a deep tan and sun-bleached hair popped up from the companionway.

  “That was quick,” she said with a smile. “The fitting is on port,” she said, motioning to the opposite side of the boat and forward.

  I backed off and let the boat drift while I rigged some fenders, then pulled around and tied off to an amidships cleat. The woman worked a spanner and opened the deck fitting while I attached the correct adapter to the hose. When we were both ready, I handed the hose up to her. As she took it, she looked at me. Recognition worked its way across her face.

  “Mr. Smith?” she asked.

  I took another look, but couldn’t quite place her. I nodded and smiled, running through the fifteen hundred or so students from years past.

  “Andrea. Andrea Buscelli.”

  Joe Buscelli’s daughter; the fifteen year old girl merged with this attractive woman. “Andrea. That was a long time ago.”

  “I think it was your first year teaching. My mom and dad split up that winter and I moved away.” She finished connecting the hose and nodded. I started up the pump, listening as its whine bogged down into a proper groan. “You’re still teaching, right?”

  “Oh yeah, this is just a summer thing, a few days a week. This is a nice boat you have here, Andrea. An Alden, right?”

  She nodded, “yeah, I wish it was mine. I’d sell it, buy something around thirty-five feet, and sail away.” She opened up a small deck hatch and pulled out a wash down hose. “I’m delivering it to Mt. Desert for the owner.”

  “By yourself?” I asked.

  “I had a crew from Anguilla to Newport, but he bailed on me there.”

  The groan climbed back to a whine. I let it run for a bit more, then shut off the pump. She disconnected the fitting and passed the hose back to me, offering the wash down pump.

  “It turned out he wasn’t as experienced as he had led me to believe. We had a bit of northeast wind crossing the stream and he kind of lost it.” She replaced her deck fitting as I finished stowing my gear. “I guess he was embarrassed, because he took off when we got to Newport, something about a dying Grandmother.” She laughed at this. “Wanna come aboard and see how the moderately rich make do?”

  She showed me around, both above deck and below, talking animatedly about both the boat and its owner. Ian MacGregor was a Scottish computer engineer who designed some piece of router equipment that allowed internet bandwidth expansion on existing infrastructure. Highlander was well rigged for shorthanded sailing, finished beautifully below, and kept immaculately. We finished our tour and ended up in the cockpit, drinking diet cokes and talking boat stuff.

  “So are you here to visit your dad?” I asked.

  “Umm, I think so. If I can get up the nerve, I will.” She looked down and toyed with her soda can. “I haven’t seen him much since I was fifteen, and not at all for the past ten years or so.” She looked up to see how I would respond to this. I’m not sure what she saw, but she continued on. “It was weird. Everything was fine, and then we left, mother and I, on a Saturday morning. Mother still won’t tell me why.”

  We talked a bit more about less weighty things, and then I got up to go. “How long do you plan on staying?” I asked her.

  “I don’t need to be in Maine for almost two weeks. I figured I would get some work done here and then do the rest in two hops, somewhere in Casco Bay, then on to Northeast Harbor.”

  “Well if you need anything, give me a call.” I wrote my cell number on the back of a harbormaster card and handed it to her.

  “There is something,” she said. “I really need to do some laundry, and taxis and laundromats don’t quite fit in my budget.” She fidgeted and looked uncomfortable when I didn’t answer right away. “Sorry, I’ll figure something out.”

  “No, it’s no problem, really. You can use mine,” I offered. “When do you want to?”

  “Would this afternoon be okay? I don’t have a lot of stuff; it’s just that it is all pretty rank right now.” She smiled.

  “I get done at four. If you dinghy in to Nan Pier then, you can tie up in the slip with the pump-out boat.”

  “Thanks! See you then.”

  I slowly motored away from Highlander, heading over to the A street mooring field. Andrea had grown up to be a bright and capable, not to mention very pretty woman. I wondered if she would go visit her father while she was here. I wondered what could have wrenched a family so completely apart.

  I made a good tour of town waters and got back to the dock around three-thirty. About twenty-five minutes later, Andrea arrived in Highlander’s inflatable with a duffle full of laundry. I introduced her to Tom, who was working the evening shift, and then we climbed in my truck and headed home.

  I showed Andrea to the washer and dryer in the mud room. Luckily it wasn’t too much of a mess. Back in the kitchen, I got out some chips and salsa and a couple of beers. It was nice hearing someone else in the house, but I had to remind myself that it wasn’t Lauren. It was then that I noticed the manila envelope on the table. There was a sticky note attached. You really should lock your house. Take a look at these. I’ll call- Kounadis

  I opened up the envelope and saw that it contained copies of lab reports- ballistics, forensics, pictures, and posts on both victims. I looked for but couldn’t find a cover sheet or s
ummary. I was putting it all back in the envelope when Andrea came into the room.

  “How long ago did she leave?” she asked.

  “Hmm?” I said, confused.

  “Your wife. How long ago did she leave?” Andrea picked up a beer and gave a good, long pull. “I mean, it’s obvious a woman had lived here, plus there is your wedding band. But there are no woman’s clothes in the laundry. By the way, I had smallish loads, so I mixed our stuff. Might as well get yours done, too.” She smiled.

  I stood there a minute, processing.

  “I’m sorry, I’ve over stepped.” Andrea looked down. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “No, it’s okay. She left a couple of weeks ago. She moved into the city, to be closer to her work.” I paused, chugged some beer. “Wow, that sounds lame, huh?” I picked up the chips and salsa and motioned to the back door.

  We just sat quietly for a while, enjoying the afternoon sun and the rustle of the breeze on the pond. Andrea kicked off her flip flops, closed her eyes and stretched out her long, brown legs. “I just got dumped, too,” she said. “That guy? My crew? He was my boyfriend. His name was, is, Mark. We had lived together all last winter down south. We were going to find a place in Maine, maybe settle down.” She kept her eyes closed, face turned up to the sun.

  We sat quietly for a bit more, both of us no doubt thinking of things past, imagining alternate outcomes. I wondered if Lauren had such thoughts, or if she was too busy acting to react. Then I thought of Eddie and Sharon and Danny, lives destroyed beyond reaction.

  Andrea choked on a quiet sob and I looked over to see a single tear course across her cheek and onto her neck, under her ear. “This is the first chance I’ve had to relax in two weeks. I didn’t know I’d fall apart.” She exhaled a short laugh and seemed to compose herself. She turned to face me. “I’ll bet you regret your offer now, huh?”