by Paul Doiron
I removed my SIG from its holster and set off into the fog. The grass was patchworked with spiderwebs that held the dew like jeweled veils.
I came upon Harmon’s silver truck parked at the trailhead to Norse Rock. He had backed into the space as if he expected to make a fast getaway. I touched the hood and found it cold. I glanced inside the cab but saw nothing of note. Then I circled around to the back of the pickup and noticed a diesel smell wafting up from the bedliner.
So Harmon was planning arson.
I headed down the hill. The first building I passed was the former Dennettsville Volunteer Fire Barn. The roof of the derelict structure was one good snowstorm away from collapsing.
From a distance the sea made a sound like breathing. Somewhere out in the cove a long-tailed duck began to yodel.
I came upon the take-out stand Radcliffe had mentioned, shuttered now for the season. It was an old hamburger cart the Washburns had hauled over from the mainland and repurposed to sell seafood. The name of the business was the Chowdah House. The faded menu advertised deep-fried lobster as a specialty, which struck me as an abomination.
I made a point of listening for Radcliffe since I feared he would have trouble obeying my instructions.
Soon I stood atop the old seawall. It had been built to protect the road around the cove. Cigarette butts and rubber bands used to bind the crushing claws of lobsters floated in the froth. During full and new moons, the waves must have regularly spilled over the top of the barrier and washed out the road.
I spent half a minute surveying the cove, or what I could see of it in the fog. I saw the silhouettes of the ducks paddling in zigzag patterns out in the deeper water. I picked out a big white ball that marked the mooring for someone’s lobsterboat. A dinghy was tied up to the giant buoy.
The next building was the flophouse where the Washburns housed their employees. No one seemed to be in residence at the moment.
Past the seawall were the remains of vanished wharfs in the form of pilings rising like a submerged forest from the surface of the sea. Farther to the northeast were docks still standing. The stench of rotten fish hung on the air. I passed a rope shed. I passed a row of rusted barrels, some empty and collecting rainwater, others containing fermenting pogies to be used as lobster bait.
Off in the water another mooring ball bobbed on the waves, this one with a canoe tied up.
Two big houses stood side by side. Both had barren yards that stretched to the water’s edge. Both had private docks. Both had burgundy trucks labeled with racist and anti-Semitic symbols.
I was so intent upon the Washburns’ homes that it took me a minute to notice the shadow at the end of the nearest dock. I froze as soon as I realized it was Harmon. He was sitting on a piling, his muscled back to me, staring out at the fogbound cove. On the rough wood beside him were two big plastic containers, and I had no doubt they held enough gasoline to incinerate Eli’s and Rudyard’s houses.
I didn’t level my gun at him. Not yet. My footsteps were soundless until I stepped on a loose board that knocked hard against its neighbor. The echo caused Reed to flinch, but he didn’t turn around.
“What are you doing, Harmon?”
The old man refused to face me. “Who is that? The warden?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Investigator Bowditch.”
“I am exploring my options,” he said wistfully. “I just missed them, you see. Heard their engines as they rounded the Daggers. They won’t be back till nightfall.”
“They went out fishing?”
“Season don’t start until December, but those bastards couldn’t give two shits about any agreement they made. They’re already hauling and probably have some accessory who comes out, maybe from Swan’s or Frenchboro, to pick up their catch. Could be the same piece of dung who’s been providing them with drugs. God only knows who else they’ve been selling to here besides Hiram. But it won’t be long until the overdoses start up again.”
“So you’ve been sitting here, planning your revenge?”
“That would be an accurate summary.”
“What have you been waiting for?”
“Can’t decide what to burn.”
“Not the houses?”
“They’ve got those overinsured, I’m pretty certain. They’d probably welcome the chance to rebuild. Torching their boats would have hurt them the worst. But that’s not happening. I’ve been contemplating incinerating their vehicles, but it doesn’t seem … proportionate. Is that a real word?”
“It is.”
“I haven’t met a lot of fish and game wardens. Are they all as book-smart as you?”
“I’m an outlier.”
“Thought so.” He shifted his rear end on the piling. “You’re going to try to stop me from taking my revenge, ain’t you?”
“You know I have to.”
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
A board knocked and I realized Radcliffe had tiptoed up behind me. I kept my focus on Reed.
“Who’s that with you?” the harbormaster snapped.
“It’s Andrew, Harmon.” The tremor in the constable’s voice was more pronounced than usual. “I have been worried about you.”
“Have I ever told you what a horse’s ass you are, Radcliffe?”
I did my best to keep my tone calm. “What is it you need to tell me, Harmon?”
“I’ve got a gun in my lap here.”
“Maybe you should set it down beside you.”
“And if I don’t, what do you plan on doing?”
“I’m exploring my options.”
He slapped his knee as if in actual good humor. “That’s a good one. You got me there.”
“I don’t know you very well, Harmon. But I don’t think you’re a murderer.”
“Eli might hold a different opinion.”
“There’s a difference between shooting a man who’s threatened your family and shooting a law enforcement officer.”
“Maybe I want to go out in a blaze of glory.”
“You don’t strike me as the suicidal type.”
“Why not? I’m the last of my line. My daughter won’t speak to me or let me see my grandkids. And even if Hiram recovers, he’s only going to do it again. I raised a weak boy, Warden. I raised two weak boys. My old man would have been ashamed of me.”
“He’d be even more ashamed of you if you killed yourself.”
“Good thing the old bastard’s dead, then.”
“Put down the revolver, Hiram. If not for your own sake, for Martha’s. What’s life going to be like for her with you gone?”
“She’ll be pleased as punch. She can move back to America and be with her daughter and grandkids.”
“I doubt that’s what she wants.”
“With due respect, Warden, you don’t know jack shit about her or me.”
I could feel my palm grow slippery around the grip of my pistol. “Please don’t make me do this, Harmon.”
Radcliffe piped up, “If I could say one thing here—”
Harmon and I spoke the exact same word at the exact same moment: “No!”
What happened next shocked me. Harmon Reed began to chuckle. First it was soft, but it quickly became a loud belly laugh. I wasn’t sure what to make of his response until he tossed his heavy gun onto the wharf beside him.
Radcliffe had been wrong about the caliber. It wasn’t a .38 Special. It was a .44 Magnum capable of taking down a charging bull moose. The barrel of the Ruger Redhawk was longer than a porn star’s penis.
Harmon, laughing, swung around on the piling. His horny hands clutched his kneecaps. His bushy eyebrows bounced beneath the brim of his hat.
“What’s so funny?” Radcliffe asked as if he had reason to fear the answer.
“You are, Andy. If I shot myself in front of you, I know for a fact that you’d dissolve into a puddle of jelly. It would be a miraculous transformation of man into marmalade. But I wouldn’t be around to see it! Now, how could I miss a sight
like that?”
41
I tried to persuade Harmon to let me keep his gun for him—just until the present crisis had passed—but the old man refused to yield.
He fastened the long-barreled Redhawk into a shoulder holster beneath his raincoat. “Don’t press your luck, Warden. Besides, you’ll be leaving this island sooner or later, and things will return to the way they’ve always been. I expect I’ll be needing this pistola before too long.”
“You could expedite my departure by coming clean about what really happened after Crowley appeared on your doorstep the other morning.”
He lowered those expressive brows. “Are you accusing me of lying, sir?”
“If you prefer, we can call it obfuscating the truth.”
His pipe-stained teeth made a surprise reappearance when he smiled. “Well, in that case! The boy was panicked. He said he hadn’t shot the Evans girl and he showed me his rifle. The bore was all dirty. I suggested we clean the thing to be on the safe side. I asked him if he’d seen anybody else while he’d been hunting and he said no. Truth be told, I had a sense Kenneth was hiding something. So I decided to call Andy with the news and ask him a question: If Kenneth really had shot that woman by mistake, what would the legal consequences be? I wanted to know if I could protect the youth from being tyrannized by the state as I had been.”
Radcliffe hadn’t fully recovered from Reed’s threat to blow out his own brains, but now he spoke up in his own defense. “You can see how I misunderstood what Harmon was telling me. I thought he was saying that Kenneth really had shot Ms. Evans.”
The harbormaster shook his big square head. “Andy, I’ve met twelve-year-old girls less excitable than you.”
“Harmon, I’m sick and tired of being the butt of your jokes.”
“If you don’t want to be the butt, then stop being an ass!”
By this time I had decided to take another run at Crowley. His tantrum the previous night, coupled with this new information, warranted another conversation with the gangling goat boy.
The clock was ticking on my investigation.
“If you won’t let me watch your gun for you,” I told Harmon, “how about I take those cans of gas back to town with me in my truck.”
“Warden Bowditch, you are a stitch. I will let you follow me into town if it will ease your troubled mind. But I’ll be returning these spare jerricans to my boat where they belong. Last thing I need is to be out fishing someday and run out of diesel because I’d given my spares to my game-warden babysitter.”
* * *
Radcliffe rode with Reed on the return into town. It was not my choice. While I tended to believe their latest version of what had happened in the hours following Miranda’s murder, I hated giving the coconspirators another chance to reconcile their accounts. But I had no standing to insist the constable ride shotgun with me again.
Harmon managed the drive back through the fairy-tale forest without ever dropping below fifty miles per hour. I lost sight of his taillights well before I arrived in the village.
Up ahead I saw Joy Juno approaching in her monster truck. The road was narrow, hemmed in by knotweed and barberry, so I pulled over to let her pass. I cranked down the window, expecting she would stop to exchange a few words, but she didn’t so much as acknowledge me. As she rumbled past, I spotted Beryl McCloud slunk down in the passenger seat. The teacher had the same complexion as a cadaver.
Harmon must have driven straight back to his house in Marsh Harbor because there was no sign of his GMC on Bishop’s Wharf or anywhere else along the waterfront. I noticed Crowley’s green Ford backed into an alley that led out to one of the wharfs on the east side of the harbor. But before I took another charge at Kenneth, I thought it might be prudent to check in on Ariel to be sure the villagers hadn’t ridden her out of town on a rail.
Her bicycle was still leaning against the side of the store where I’d last seen it.
The crowd inside Graffam’s had thinned out as it always did after the lobstermen had finished their gabbing.
There was no sign of Ariel.
Jenny Pillsbury and her baby were gone, too. The store owner himself now manned the cash register. I filled a coffee cup and approached the counter. “Hi, Sam. I don’t suppose you know where Ariel Evans went?”
“Can’t say I do.”
“What about the time she left?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes ago.”
“Did she leave with somebody.”
“I was cleaning the grill and emptying the fry oil into the barrel out back.”
“Come on, Sam. Don’t pretend you don’t watch what’s going on here even when you’re busy.”
He scratched his impressively dense beard. “She went off on her own.”
“Who had she been talking to?”
“She tried to talk to quite a few folks. Can’t say she had much luck. Think she spoke to Alfie Lunt. Chum McNulty. Jenny, of course.”
“Jenny Pillsbury?” I wasn’t sure why I was hearing a buzzing in my skull, but I had learned long ago not to disregard these random warnings. “Could Ariel have gone with her?”
“It’s possible, I guess.”
“Thanks, Sam.”
The storekeeper called after me, “Are you going to pay for that coffee?”
I slapped some bills on the counter.
Outside, I turned right and I turned left. I saw no sign of Nat Pillsbury’s truck. Was it possible Ariel had cajoled the wronged wife into taking her back to the house for a confidential interview?
Across the street, Chum McNulty ambled out between two rattrap buildings. He began unloading marine gear from the bed of the pickup. I guessed he was bringing supplies out to his lobsterboat.
“Hey, Chum!”
The old man spun slowly around until he located the source of the interruption. “Hey, Warden. Ch’up ta?”
“Have you seen Ariel Evans this morning?”
“Sure did. Not ten minutes ago. She was headed out with Kenneth.”
“What?”
“He’d pulled the Sea Hag up to the dock for her to board. Didn’t hear what they was saying. I’m deafer than a haddock, you know. Figured he was giving her a tour around the island. Not that there’s much to see yet. Fog’s burning off, though. Marine forecast is for partly sunny weather into the weekend. I ain’t complaining.”
“I don’t suppose there’s a motorboat tied up somewhere I can use?”
“I’ve got a Beacon dinghy down the end of the dock. Outboard’s kind of temperamental, but there’s a pair of oars if the engine conks out, which it most likely will.”
“I’ll take it.”
As I slid along the side of his truck, I spotted a personal flotation device, or PFD, sitting atop the pile of random gear in the bed. I grabbed it. Then noticed an orange ditty bag underneath. It was the kind of sack into which you might stuff a sleeping bag. “Is that an immersion suit?”
“You mean survival suit? Yeah, it’s a Mustang I picked up at West Marine. Sam makes fun of me for bringing it along. He says if the Siren ever goes down, I won’t have time to put it on anyhow.”
“Mind if I borrow it?”
“You planning on going for a polar-bear dip? Water’s forty degrees last I checked.”
I made my way down the alley between the two sad-faced buildings and along the wharf where Ariel had boarded Pillsbury’s boat only minutes before. An aluminum ramp descended to a second floating dock, where a small boat was tied up. My hollow footsteps rang out across the harbor as I made my way down to the waterline.
Chum’s dinghy was about eight feet long and made of white fiberglass with an emerald-green underside where it had acquired a coating of algae. The engine was an antique Yamaha two-stroke. The oars lay across the molded seat. I tossed the PFD and the ditty bag with the survival suit into the rainwater pooled in the bottom. Then I unfastened the line from the cleat. The dinghy tipped back and forth until I found my balance. The old man gawked at me from the wharf. I hoped
to God I wouldn’t have to take this shallow, unstable craft into heavy seas.
As I drifted clear of the dock, Chum McNulty called after me, “Do you have a plan or are you just frigging around?”
It was a damn good question.
42
It was like boating through a cloud. There was no wind and little current, and the surface, at first, was as smooth as a black pearl.
I jogged past several lobsterboats floating silently on their moorings. A V-shaped wake trailed from my sputtering engine. It caused the unattended boats to rock like cradles. I have always found something forbidding about ships and boats with no one aboard.
I couldn’t explain the panic that had seized hold of me. I had never viewed Kenneth Crowley as the most likely suspect in Miranda’s murder. But something about his having invited Ariel onto a boat alone was worrisome, especially after how he’d blown up at her the night before. I couldn’t imagine why she’d gone with him unless it was to prove she wasn’t afraid. She was as foolhardy as I was in that respect.
The Sea Hag could be anywhere. It could be miles from the island. How far would I get in an eight-foot motorboat?
I came upon a raftlike float called a lobster car. In a month the island lobstermen would tie up crates to it containing their daily catch. But for now it waited. A cormorant surfaced from beneath the raft and confronted me with red eyes. Clamped in its cruel bill was a writhing pollack, which the bird swallowed whole.
As I rounded the Marsh Harbor Breakwater—a wall of boulders extending a hundred feet into the bay—I encountered a faint chop that bounced the dinghy up and down. Already I could hear the booming of distant breakers as they ran headlong into the outer ledges. Rip currents began slowing my forward progress. I throttled the engine until I was safely away from the breakwater. I couldn’t smell anything except the gasoline fumes coming from the outboard.
Somewhere off to my right must have been John’s Point. I had read that a monument there commemorated Captain John Smith’s “discovery” of Maquoit in 1614. The explorer, of Pocahontas fame, had previously planted King James’s flag on nearby Monhegan Island. Both Andrew Radcliffe and Joy Juno lived on John’s Point.