by Steve Goble
“Maybe they are the killers.”
“I do not think they could agree on anything, let alone on plotting a murder, Hob.” Spider flicked the boy’s ear. “Besides, judging from the way the blood was strewn about, and the wound, and the spot in the bulkhead where the ball struck, the shot was at a level. Not from above.”
“What about Hadley?” Hob’s whisper was low and conspiratorial. He pointed aloft where the former slave sat.
“What about him?”
“He loves Miss Brentwood, Spider John. He truly does.” Hob wiped his lips. “You see it in his eyes, and he follows her like a puppy. But her father wasn’t about to let her be with a slave.”
“Former slave,” Spider reminded him.
“Former, then. Still, if the cap’n stood between Hadley and the woman he loves, maybe he decided to kill him.”
Spider pondered. “No. Hadley would slice you or me deep if we hurt the girl, but I don’t see him killing the cap’n. I just don’t. And he ain’t magic or nothing, couldn’t walk through locked doors or anything. I think you’re daft, Hob.”
“A man will do crazy things for love, Spider John. He surely will. And he didn’t need to walk through walls. Maybe he had a key.”
Spider raised his head sharply. “A key?”
“Right, a key,” Hob said. “Remember Mister Wright lost a key? He had to hack through the door with an axe because his key was missing.”
“Hmm,” Spider said. “Indeed, you are remembering it right, Hobgoblin. Well done.”
Hob’s face beamed like the sun.
“I still do not think Hadley so evil as to kill a man,” Spider continued. Hob and Odin rolled their eyes and shrugged.
Spider looked across the deck at the crew and passengers. Nicholas Wright was currently in the midst of one of his numerous trips below to check on Miss Brentwood’s welfare, allowing the nervous men to settle down a bit without their new captain about.
Sam Smoke stood atop the forecastle, fouling the air around him with his ever-present pipe, and grinning as though he had just shared a joke with Lucifer.
Anne was now on the poop, staring out to sea and seemingly lost in thought, unaware of Hob’s steady gaze upon her back.
Everyone else either sat quietly, eating their Sunday meal or playing at dice or sewing up holes in shirts and britches. With every soul aboard lost in his or her own thoughts, the now clear-headed Spider finally had a chance to discuss his suspicions with Hob and Odin.
“However it was done,” he said, “I think the girl was right. Her father was shot dead by someone else. There were clues.”
“What clues?” Hob was all attention now.
“I should have smelled gunpowder,” Spider said. “Anyone who went in there should have smelled gunpowder. So why didn’t we?”
“Not a whiff of powder at all?” Odin’s eyebrows arched, and the motion stretched his facial scars in a way that made them even more horrid. Spider, for a moment, wondered if perhaps the blade or cannonball that had carried away Odin’s right eye might have done the poor soul a favor if it had ripped away the right eyebrow as well. Perched as it was above Odin’s wretched scars, it seemed like a hairy worm about to burrow into rotting meat.
“None,” Spider said.
“Well, the grating was uncovered,” Hob said. “So it went out that way, likely.”
Spider shook his head. “No, it would not have cleared that quickly, not with everything else shut tight. I tell you, we were hacked through that door moments after the shot, too. Cabin was all closed up. The air should have been thick with the smoke.”
“So a shot from the stern gallery, then,” Hob said. “The gun and the killer outside in the breeze, he fires his shot and the smoke flies away on the wind. Then he closes it up and goes on his way.”
“A bit quieter, boy,” Spider admonished before setting aside his empty bowl, picking up his burning pipe and drawing deeply. “God, I love a good pipe after a good meal,” he said. He let a heavy cloud of smoke out on the breeze and paid special attention to the lingering scent. “Your idea is sound, Hob, provided I can figure out how a man could fire a shot from the stern gallery, close up the doors, and then latch them on the inside while he is outside. That’s the rub, there. They were latched, I tell you, from inside.”
“Maybe there is a hole he shot through? Or he squeezed a gun between the slats?”
“No, boy,” Spider said. “I checked it all myself, before we ever sailed. Solid doors. I looked them over while we were in there, too. No holes that I could see, and I am a carpenter. That’s something I’d notice. And the slats open just enough for some air, but you couldn’t shove a gun barrel between them. And besides, those open and shut from the inside and were latched tight.”
“Don’t see anyone wanting to kill the sad bastard,” Odin said. “What would be the reason for it?”
“That I cannot say,” Spider answered. “We’ve all seen a lot of killing”—and he looked about to make sure no one else had heard that, then cursed himself for speaking it aloud—“but we always knew the why of it. This, I do not understand at all. The cap’n was well liked. A good man.”
“I bet it was Sam Smoke,” Odin growled.
“Possibly,” Spider said. “He’s a killer if I ever saw one, and I have seen plenty. But what does he gain by the cap’n’s death? Why would he do it?”
“Just because it is the very kind of thing that amuses him,” Odin answered tersely. “Scum like that don’t need no other reason.”
“Perhaps he did have a reason,” Spider pondered. He inhaled deeply from the pipe, thought hard for a couple of heartbeats, then blew a stream of smoke. “This here pretty ship used to belong to pirates, aye?”
“Aye,” Hob answered, his eyes widening. “You think Sam Smoke is here looking for something hidden aboard? A treasure map? Or a chest of gold?”
Spider smacked the lad on the side of the head. “Be calm, Hobgoblin. I never saw a pirate mark on a map where his treasure was hid. Hell, every pirate I ever knew spent the loot as fast as he stole it. And even if a man hides some of it away against a brighter day—a brighter day that don’t ever come for pirates, mind you—a clever man hides his treasure where he can find it again, without a goddamned map. No sense leaving a trail for someone else. But maybe there is something hid aboard, from the ship’s past, or perhaps Smoke just thinks that to be true.”
“Aye,” Hob said, eyebrows scrunched in thought. “So not a map, then, but maybe Sam Smoke is looking for something else.”
The notion intrigued Spider, but the more he thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed. “I think not, Hob. I looked over very bit of lumber in this vessel before she sailed. Hell, you were right there with me, when I could get you to work. I can’t think of a good hidey-hole that we could have missed. If something was hid aboard, by thunder, we ought to have found it.”
“Maybe it is among the cargo; perhaps one of those barrels is full of gold instead of rum or molasses, and Smoke knows it!”
Spider had a reply, but it was cut short by a commotion on the deck.
“Thieves!” Lazare, the cook, strode into sight after ducking beneath a boom. He wielded a wooden ladle as though he would club someone. “Scoundrel! Which of you stole it? Admit your crime!”
Hob laughed, for the man’s face was a bright red visible even in the lowering light. Odin chuckled, and whispered, “The man’s food is worth stealing, ha!”
“We’ve a more serious crime to tend to,” Spider said, leaning forward. Hob and Odin leaned toward him. “Imagine it this way, perhaps. A man, whoever he is, wants to kill the cap’n. He gets in the cabin, say, from the stern gallery, perhaps a bit of fancy climbing out on the hull, down from the poop. Probably on a rope. He’d have to go in that way, would he not? Or else be seen going in? We were all outside the cabin there, waiting for a sermon. Anyone entering through the doors would have been seen. Did you see anyone go in?”
Spider looked at Hob, then Odin.
Both shook their heads.
“Right. Neither did I.” Spider sucked hard on the pipe; it helped to calm his mind. “And besides that, the cabin doors were locked from within. We know that, too. Very well, then, our acrobatic fellow climbs about, finds his way onto the stern gallery . . .”
“Maybe even hid there all night,” Hob surmised. “Waiting for the cap’n to throw it open in the morning.”
“Maybe,” Spider said. “Maybe.” He tried to recall whether anyone had been missing from the Bible gathering but could not come up with a name. Wright had gone through the roll, nearly eighty souls, and no one had failed to respond.
Odin scoffed. “Climbing and sneaking. That’s a lot of work to kill a man.”
“Aye,” Spider said. “But these ain’t pirates. Walking in and simply killing the man, and not caring who knows it, ain’t their nature.”
Odin scooped up another gob of ackee on his knife and swallowed it. “Smoke’s a pirate.”
“Aye,” Spider said. “And he wasn’t in sight when the shot was fired, either, now that I think on it. He’d been there before but walked away.” Spider tried to reckon whether the man could have gotten to the stern gallery in time to have fired that shot.
“I still bet he did it,” Hob said. “He is damned good with a gun, and if you are correct he got his hands on one after the shooting match. If it was a tricky shot through the slats, or some other strange trick, he’s the one for it.”
“Sam has a fancy for your redheaded lady, too, he does,” Odin chided. “Wants to bend her over a barrel, same as you, Hob.”
“Quiet,” Spider said. “We ain’t sailing under goddamned foul-mouthed Barlow anymore, you fucking buffle-headed lobcocks.”
Odin and Hob stared at him, stung by the insult at first but gradually grinning.
“Well, then,” Spider said. “Our man works his way to the stern gallery, awaits his moment, fires the shot, closes it all up some way we haven’t reckoned on yet . . .” Spider inhaled again from the pipe. “Then, he knows he’s got to get away, or hide. We’re all going to be on him in a heartbeat, see? He’s got to have his escape planned.”
“I did not steal your fucking bread!” It was Holst, a hulking German forecastle hand who possibly could lift an anvil without anyone’s aid, roaring at Lazare. “I do not even like your fucking bread! It is too much air, I say!”
“I’ve seen you eat half a loaf at a sitting!” Lazare lifted the ladle.
“He is going to strike,” Hob said.
“Holst will break his neck,” Odin replied.
Spider said nothing. His mind was turning on an idea.
“I eat what is set before me!” Holst shoved the cook, who landed on his ass. “My mother taught me to never waste food, even if the food is waste!”
“Jesus!” Hob laughed like a barking seal.
“Belay this now,” said Wright, who had appeared seemingly from nowhere. “What the bloody hell are you men at?”
Lazare rose quickly. “Another theft, sir. A loaf, a special one, that I wished to give to the poor miss to lift her spirits.”
“And he accuses me,” Holst said, bowing to the sailing master. “I do not even like his food. It is like shit in a bowl.”
“You eat it well enough!” Lazare rushed the man, ladle uplifted, but Wright grabbed him from behind, spun him around, and shook him like a dusty blanket.
“No choice!” Holst bellowed. “No choice but to eat your puffed-up airy bread and weak sauces, made for babies and kittens, not men! I . . .”
“Settle yourself,” said the sailing master—captain, Spider reminded himself—“or I will order you flogged. Both of you.”
That sobered Lazare. “Aye, sir. I am sorry. Forgive me.”
“I am sorry, sir,” Holst said. “But, if he is to be flogged, I will volunteer.”
Wright, still holding onto the cook, turned to Holst with a glare that said the man had better start taking matters seriously. “Will you answer his charge?”
Holst inhaled deeply and ran a hand through his thick blond hair. “I eat readily enough, sir. My mother taught me never to waste food, no matter if it tastes like weasel soaked in piss—”
“Cretin!” Lazare tried to free himself from Wright’s grasp but could not.
“If I stole this man’s food, sir,” Holst said, “it would be only to spare some other poor damned soul from eating it.”
Wright seemed to fight a battle within himself, Spider thought, but managed not to laugh. “Lazare,” he finally said. “I do not believe Mister Holst stole your loaf. However,” he added quickly before Lazare could shout again, “I do not doubt that someone aboard has helped himself to more than his share of your fine food. We shall find the thief in time, but in faith I do not believe Holst is the culprit.”
“Thank you, sir,” Holst said.
Lazare settled himself. “Very well. Forgive me, sir. It was a special loaf, as I say, and the young miss would have loved it, I am certain.”
“We will find your thief,” Wright said, waving the man off. Lazare went away, and Holst returned to his place along the starboard rail and shrugged at his friends. Wright wandered over toward the bulkhead where a few men played at dice.
“Well, then,” Spider said, once Hob and Odin stopped laughing. “Our killer, as I said, makes his way into the cabin by way of the stern gallery. Bespeaks a certain nimbleness, I would say. Once the deed is done, though, how is he to escape? He might climb back out the way he came in, but by thunder, how would he latch the doors from the inside? Tell me, how?”
Hob scratched his head. Odin shook his.
“No way to do it,” Spider said. “I know those doors well, mind you. One needed rehung, and both needed paint. The latch is solid. If you are out on the stern gallery, you can shut the doors, but you cannot latch them from outside. Impossible.”
“So then, Cap’n Brentwood killed himself.” Hob spread his hands wide.
“No,” Spider said. “I think not. I think the killer shot the cap’n, then closed off the stern gallery and hid himself within the cabin. It is the only thing that fits, as far as I can see it.”
“Closed off the gallery? Why?” Odin grabbed Spider’s pipe, sucked at it deeply, then gave it back.
“He wanted it to look like the cap’n had taken his own life, see? He wrote a note, he did, and left the gun there.” Spider drew at the pipe. “If the gallery doors are open, it leaves room for doubt. We might wonder if someone climbed in there and killed him, then escaped by the same route. See? No. So he shoots from the stern gallery, the smoke floats out on the wind; it was a good breeze, remember? He closes off the stern gallery, latches it tight, so we will think no one came that way, and he hides in the cabin while we hack our way inside. It is crowded, confused, we are all in shock, and the killer, bold as you may ever see, walks right out among the crowd, hidden in plain sight, as you might say.”
Hob and Odin stared at him. “That is the most preposterous goddamned thing I ever heard in my life,” Odin finally said. “And I saw Blackbeard piss on a shark.”
“Let us hear your idea, then,” Spider said.
“The cap’n, sad and missing his wife, locked up his cabin and shot himself in the goddamned head,” Odin said.
“And wrote a note first,” Hob said. “He wrote a note, right?”
“Hmmph,” Spider said. “Well, then. Yes. There was a note. I don’t read, but I have seen a lot of writing. It was but a few words, written by a shaking hand.”
“My hand would shake if I was about to put a gun to my head,” Hob said.
“Aye,” Spider replied. “But such a crazy scrawl, I wonder if his daughter could look at it and recognize her father’s hand?”
“Do you want to ask her to do that?” Hob shook his head.
“She’s got the backbone of a fighter in her,” Spider said after a moment’s consideration. “Yes, by thunder. She wants to know the truth. I believe she would look at it.”
“Where is the no
te?” Odin stabbed at the air with a long finger.
“Cap’n Wright read it after we all burst in and later showed it to the lieutenant,” Spider said. “I reckon Cap’n Wright handed it over to the navy, so it could be part of some official inquiry.”
“Well, I will just swim over to yonder frigate and fetch it back,” Odin said. “The two of you do something to draw the navy’s attention while I sneak about and get it.”
They all stared at one another, shaking their heads.
“So,” Spider said after a few seconds, “that clue is forever out of reach.”
Hob and Odin nodded.
Spider puffed at his pipe and watched Wright roll the bones with his men and then kick a barrel as they all cried out in triumph.
“Where would your killer hide?” Odin asked after a few heartbeats. “There was no place inside that cabin where a man might hide himself.”
“Under the desk,” Hob ventured.
Spider pointed his pipe stem at Hob. “Not a big desk. I doubt a man could fit in that space, in any case. But,” he said, glancing across the deck at Holst, “I begin to have a notion.”
Spider sucked hard at the pipe, alternating his glance between Odin and Hob.
“Goddamn it, Spider John, what is this bloody notion of yours?” Hob’s hands were flung wide, his eyebrows raised and his eyes wide.
“Let me ask you this, gentlemen,” Spider said. “Are we well fed?”
“What?” That was from Odin.
“Do we eat well?” Spider blew out a big cloud of smoke. “Our provisions. Generous, do you think?”
“Aye,” Hob said, twisting his face as though considering the question hurt. “Not long out of port and some of the fish still fresh. Lazare knows his trade, too, no matter what Holst may say. I don’t think I have ever had such good food on a ship.” He wiped a finger across the bottom of his bowl and sucked the juice off it, as if to illustrate the point.
“Better than salt pork and weevil bread, for certain,” Odin chimed in.
“So then,” Spider said, “who is it that steals the cook’s food? We eat well, he cooks plenty, so who steals it?”