by Steve Goble
So they gathered here now by lantern light in the wee hours, where the only companions were rats, rum barrels, crates of goods, and the slush of ocean against the hull. And, of course, the seductive aroma of rum.
“Anne McCormac killed Cap’n Brentwood.” Hob drew a deep breath. “I heard her say it.”
“Damn!” Spider thought hard. “Are you certain, Hob?”
“It is the truest thing I have ever said.” The lad attempted a courtly bow.
Damn, Spider thought. If Hob is right, I have managed no more than to accuse an innocent man of murder. Spider did not like Little Bob Higgins, but he did not want to see him hang if he had not murdered the captain.
Spider took a deep draw from his pipe. Odin, seated on the deck with his knees drawn up to his appalling face, tried to take a swig from a flask, then turned it upside down and sighed loudly when nothing spilled from it.
“Spider.”
“Sorry.”
Hob sighed. “Might I get on with it?”
“Yes, damn it, Hobgoblin, tell us.”
Hob inhaled sharply, swelling his chest and rubbing his hands together in front of his face. “There I was, on the passenger deck, looking into the unassigned berths,” he began. “I saw no signs of Little Bob, of course, and now we know why. I listened at all the doors, too. I could hear Miss Brentwood crying to break your heart, and the Reverend Down snoring. Mister Fox was asleep in his berth as well, but Sam Smoke’s berth was empty. I took an opportunity.” Hob reached into his shirt and brought out a small pouch heavy with the scent of tobacco. He tossed it to Spider. “You go through your ration so quickly, thought you might like some of Sam Smoke’s stuff.”
“Thanks,” Spider said. He took a deep, appreciative whiff. “Did he have any rum or whiskey?”
“No.”
“Go on.”
Hob opened his mouth to speak, but a thud from above interrupted him. All three men looked up, Hob and Odin drawing pistols and Spider whipping out his throwing knife. Thomas the cat peered down at them from atop a crate.
“Goddamned cat,” Spider said. “Go catch a rat.”
“He misses the cap’n, I reckon,” Hob said. “Poor thing.”
Spider tucked his knife away. “How in the bloody hell did that cat follow us from our old ship to here?”
“He got off Austen Castle and found Odin,” Hob said.
“Can we talk about the killing?” Odin spat.
Thomas dropped from the crate, with an agility rather surprising in a cat so fat.
“Odin kept feeding him,” Hob said. “They are quite chummy.”
“He’s just a mangy cat,” Odin muttered, his lone eye narrowed in a scowl.
“Fierce, hellfire-spitting Odin, friend to felines.” Spider shook his head slowly, unable to suppress a laugh.
“I am saving Thomas to eat. Might eat you and Hob, too, if need be!”
They all laughed, then realized they were making more noise than was wise. After they quieted, Thomas curled up beside Odin, and Hob continued his report.
“As I was looking about I could hear the lady, Anne, humming to herself, in her own bunk.”
“And you tried to get yourself a peep, ha!”
“I did not, Odin,” Hob said, but even in the uncertain lantern light his face seemed to flush. “I went to creep out of there, all quiet, and then I heard someone coming down the ladder. It was Sam Smoke.”
Spider and Odin leaned forward. Hob blinked.
“As I had his tobacco in hand, I thought it best to hide.”
“Wise, wise,” Spider said.
“So I hopped into an empty berth, happened to be next to hers . . .”
“Of course it did.” Odin scratched his ugly scar.
“Aye. And I heard Sam approach and he walked right into her berth. Did not knock, did not speak, just walked right in.”
“Maybe he was expected,” Spider pondered.
“I do not think so,” Hob said. “I heard her gasp, and I heard him laugh. I put my ear up against the bulkhead. They were being quiet, but I heard her plainly tell him to get out. He laughed again and told her, ‘Drop the knife, Anne.’”
“Did she stab him?” Odin’s eyebrows arched, and he grinned in hope.
“No. She asked him what he was doing, and he said he had come to ask her the same, said he never expected to see her in these waters again.”
Spider sucked on the pipe until it glowed. “And what did she say to that?”
“Said her unfinished business was none of his goddamned affair and to leave her be or she’d decorate her fancy hat with his balls.”
“Rough talk from a fair woman,” Spider said.
“The talk got rougher,” Hob replied. “Their voices got even lower, and I did not hear all, but I heard enough.”
Spider leaned toward him. “What did you hear, lad? Little Bob’s life might depend on it.”
Hob snorted, and snot flew from his nose. He swiped a sleeve across his face. “Little Bob? They can hang Little Bob three times, and I’ll watch every time, gladly. I do not care a rat’s balls’ worth what happens to him.”
“Damn, boy, what did you hear?”
“I heard Sam say, ‘You came to kill him, didn’t you?’ And Anne said, ‘You goddamned know I did, and good riddance, too!’”
“Bugger,” Spider muttered. “Why would she kill Cap’n Brentwood? What’s the connection there?”
“I do not know,” Hob said. “She told Sam she had no problem killing him, meaning Sam, too, and he’d better get the bloody fuck out of her berth. He laughed, but he left. He went on to his own berth. I waited until I heard him shut it; then I crawled on out of there, quiet as a mouse.”
“Well done, boy.” Spider waved his pipe about as he tried to sort it all out. “So, do we tell Mister Wright maybe Little Bob didn’t kill the cap’n? ‘How do you know that?’ he’ll ask. ‘Why, we been spying on the paying passengers,’ is that what we say? And if she did kill him, exactly how did she do it?”
“She vanished before the Bible reading,” Hob said. “I recall that, because I was watching her.”
“You do watch her closely, don’t you?”
Hob shrugged. “A sight to see, she is.”
“Yes,” Spider agreed. “She’s a fine sight. And maybe a murderer.”
“Aye,” Hob said. “Not so fine now, I reckon.” He dropped his gaze to his feet and muttered something Spider could not discern.
“So, assume it was her and not Little Bob. She ain’t big, but she could not have hidden in the case clock; I don’t see how she could. And there was no place else, really, for her to hide. Maybe she could climb in through the stern gallery, she don’t seem all that dainty after all, but how could she shoot him and then latch those doors behind her? How could anyone possibly do that?”
“Witchcraft.”
Spider turned toward Odin. In the lantern light, the man’s eye was as bright as wet, white marble under a strong noon sun. “What?”
“Witchcraft, maybe. She’s a woman. Maybe she’s a witch.”
Spider gulped. His own grandmother had been executed years ago when the madness of Salem spread to other communities. He never believed she was a witch, and his mother had denied it vehemently his whole life, and that had made him wonder if perhaps all the hangings had been naught but fear cooking and bubbling within a community until it boiled over. Maybe all of those women were innocent. Anyway, his own past had taught him to be skeptical of witch claims. He shook his head.
“Let us not speak of such,” he said. “I think witchcraft is nonsense, and words like that make men mad, and we need to keep our heads here. Besides, if she’s a witch, why kill him with a gun?”
“Maybe she made him do it,” Hob surmised. “Goddamned cursed him, maybe, and compelled him to kill himself.”
“I think maybe all women are witches,” Odin mused. “It’s the only thing that makes sense, if you’ve known some women. But I do not think she killed the cap’n. Ha! I
truly do not! Don’t you want to know what I found, Spider John?”
“Bugger.” Spider hung his head. “You said you found something, and I forgot. What was it you found?”
“This,” Odin answered. He unfolded his heavily calloused hand to reveal a key.
“That is the cap’n’s cabin key,” Spider said. “I am sure of it. Where did you find it?”
Odin leered. “Before I went to the orlop, I peeped about in the fo’csle. Rummaged in some chests. I found this little gem in Hadley’s trunk.”
“No,” Spider said.
“Aye, hidden in the bottom under his clothes. I grabbed the key out of there because the boy don’t own nothing but them clothes, so why does he have a key? You sure it is for the cap’n’s door, Spider?”
“Well,” Spider answered. “It looks to be. The lock is still intact. I will check this key against that, but . . . I had that key in my hands a couple of times whilst getting Redemption in top form, and I think this is the correct key.”
“So Hadley killed him, not Anne?” Hob seemed relieved.
Spider shook his head. “She might have killed him. You are correct, Hob, she did walk away from the Bible reading. I don’t know where she was when the shot was fired. And I would rather think it was her, not Hadley. I just can’t believe it was Hadley.”
“Ha! Why?”
“Because Cap’n Brentwood’s death would hurt Abigail Brentwood, Odin.” Spider shook his head. “Hadley just would not hurt her. He would not.”
Odin scowled. “You put too much faith in people, Spider John.”
Spider sucked deeply on the pipe, pondering. “Probably. What do we tell Wright? Let us keep this key to ourselves, I think.” He removed the leather cord carrying Em’s pendant from around his neck and added the key to it. “Hadley would not get fair consideration, I do not believe. Black men never do. And I think him innocent.”
Hob spoke up. “Even if it was Hadley or Anne, can we wait until Bob is hung, and then tell Wright? Thomas would like that, I should think.” The cat leapt into Hob’s arms.
“Lord, help me,” Spider muttered, making his way to the ladder.
13
Even as he climbed, Spider tried to imagine flame-haired Anne killing the captain. He did not want her to be the killer. He wanted her to be beautiful and mysterious and flirtatious. He wanted her to be a pleasant distraction on this voyage, maybe even a bit of a dalliance to ease his separation from Em. He did not want her to be a ruthless killer.
It had been much easier to envision Little Bob doing the bloody deed.
Anne had been on the crowded deck only moments before the fatal shot was heard, so she would have possessed very little time for the kind of tricky maneuvering necessary. Could she have rigged some sort of line ahead of time and swung over to the stern gallery while everyone else was on deck? It seemed unlikely, but it seemed a better bet than cauldrons and spells and black candles full of human marrow.
Still, what Hob had heard in the berths below was damning, and the wench’s eyes seemed to say she was capable of anything.
A grand theory rattled in Spider’s head, one in which Anne sneaks away from the Bible gathering, climbs up to the poop deck, and bribes the helmsman with a bit of coin or a dram of liquor or a toss of her hips. I’m going to see the cap’n, she says with a wink, for a bit of fun. Keep your mouth shut, and you might have a bit of fun, too. Then she slides down a rope from the poop deck, shoots the man from the stern gallery, closes the doors . . .
Not bloody likely at all, Spider decided.
Could Anne have hidden in plain sight? Ducked aside from the cabin door, then joined the crowd when everyone rushed in to see what had happened?
She was a stunning woman and tended to draw men’s eyes. But there was a boldness about her, a confidence.
Spider paused on the ladder. Anne McCormac had vanished from the crowd before the shot. So had Sam Smoke. Could one of them have snuck into the captain’s quarters, snuffed out his life, scrawled the note, and hidden near one of the doors? It had taken Nicholas Wright four strong cracks with an axe to burst through the portside cabin door. Perhaps the killer had stood by the starboard door, obscured by the mizzenmast rising through the deck, while Wright fought through the sturdy oak on the portside. Once they were through the door, all eyes were on the dead man. The killer might have stepped away from the shadows and joined the crowd. Would anyone have really noticed?
Jesus, could it really be that simple?
No. Anne would have been noticed, Spider was certain, and he was equally certain she had not been among those in the initial rush to see what had happened to Captain Brentwood. Could she have disguised her fine dress, perhaps dressed as a seaman with a scarf and hat to tuck up the long, flaming red locks? Stood there brazenly as just one of the crew, and then stepped out in the confusion to don her dress over the sailor’s shirt and britches?
She had been bold when confronted by Sam Smoke, if Hob’s account was accurate, but was she bold enough to stand in the room while the crew discovered the body? And could she have changed apparel so quickly?
Spider smacked his forehead. The killer must have changed clothes because the captain’s blood had flown everywhere. The killer would have been splattered with it. No one in the cabin had been covered in blood. The killer must have doffed the bloodied clothing, perhaps tossed it overboard from the stern gallery.
What of Sam Smoke? That bastard could not escape the tobacco reek that followed him everywhere. Spider had not smelled Smoke’s pipe in the captain’s quarters.
That realization brought Spider once again to wondering why he had not smelled gunpowder and to supposing the shot must have been fired from outside on the stern gallery. It had to be that, or else all the rum had addled his sense of smell—but he had not had trouble discerning the lovely scent of Abigail Brentwood’s hair, nor the luring aroma of the rum he’d stolen. No. His nose still worked. The shot had to have come from the stern gallery.
So then, why did Hadley have a key?
It was all enough to make his head spin and make him want more rum.
“What the hell do you wait for, Spider?”
It was Hob, awaiting a chance to climb out of the hold himself.
“I was thinking, Hob,” Spider growled, “something you would not know about since it doesn’t involve your whore pipe.”
Spider resumed climbing and ascended into the fresh dawn air. A boat from HMS Southampton likely was on its way now to collect the prisoner Little Bob Higgins, and it would be a fine thing because Spider was now convinced once again that Bob had to have done the deed, whatever Hob might have overheard. Anne or Smoke would have been noticed, and everyone else was on the damned deck when the shot was fired. Bob had to be the murderer.
An image of the key Odin found in Hadley’s chest flashed in his mind. That image did not fit with Spider’s neat summation. Spider scowled at the image. Gnashed his teeth at it. Chased it off.
Spider tried to think of a good excuse to be out of sight when the navy boat arrived at Redemption. The presence of navy men aboard the fluyt would be unsettling, and Spider had no intention of reliving the experience of guarding the captain’s body while a king’s officer stood near enough to smell him. He would find a place to hide until it was over. The crew would pay respects to the captain and send his body into the deep. Wright would then hand over Little Bob, the navy men would take their prisoner and stow him in a brig until it was time to hang him, and that would be that. Redemption would continue on her way to Boston, so close to Nantucket that Spider imagined he would be able to smell Em’s sandalwood perfume from the pier.
An image of Em, naked, awaiting him, smiling at him, filled his mind. He fought it off.
Spider glanced over the port rail. For a moment, his mind still on home, he thought how lovely it would be to see some fin whales break the surface and toss up some spray. There were no whales here, though, not in this bright sun-swept sea, so different from the leaden,
cold northern seas. He realized he was sleepy and his mind was wandering, and he forced his thoughts to snap back to the present.
Southampton was not there.
Spider worked his way around the ship’s boat lashed on its mount, ducked a boom, and strolled across the tilted deck toward the starboard rail. There was no sign of the naval frigate there, either. Nor could he see the East Indiamen.
“I am damned,” Spider said to Odin and Hob, who had followed behind him. “Get on up top, lads, and have a look. See if our escort, hell, our whole fucking convoy, is out there. And,” he added, scratching his beard, “keep a weather eye for goddamned Ned Low, too.”
Spider headed toward the prow, for ponderous Redemption always brought up the convoy’s rear, and it was a safe bet that the other vessels were well ahead of the fluyt. “Pardon,” he said after nearly knocking over a seaman who was securing a foresail stay. Spider clambered out onto the bowsprit, nearly tumbling into the sea as he worked his way around the ropes, and peered ahead once he had managed to secure himself.
He saw nothing but open water.
The convoy was gone.
Spider looked aloft. Odin was there on the foremast. The one-eyed man looked at Spider and shrugged.
“Jesus,” Spider muttered, reaching for the pendant under his shirt. “Where the hell is our escort?”
That was when he noticed the rising sun was aft.
“This just got much, much worse.” Spider spat into the sea.
Redemption was coursing west, not north. They were headed west into island-rich pirate waters, not north toward Boston and Emma and little Johnny.
Nicholas Wright was trying to prove something to a woman.
And Spider’s dream of home sank beneath the waves.
14
“Luff and touch her, Mister Gangley.” Wright peered aloft. Even at a distance and in the dim morning light, Spider could see the bags under the man’s normally bright eyes and could tell the new captain was fighting a yawn. No wonder, Spider thought. Goddamned lovesick bugger has been up all night thinking of ways to keep me from getting home to Em and little Johnny.