Rigged for Murder (Windjammer Mystery Series)

by Jenifer LeClair

  “So you’re just waiting for the Coast Guard?”

  “That’s right. As soon as they get here to collect the bodies, we’re weighing anchor.”

  “Well, I hope it goes smoothly,” Anna said with sincerity. She pointed off to starboard. “There’s my first bunch of buoys.”

  While they’d been talking, Brie had seen by the compass that they were veering east, traveling along the northern shore of the island. Slowing the boat to a crawl, Anna started weaving through dozens of brightly colored buoys toward the ones she’d pointed out. They had glo-green tops with stripes of crimson red and a screaming shade of yellow.

  “Now we go to work,” Anna said. “I’m going to circle up next to a buoy, Brie. You take the gaff that’s over on the starboard rail and hook the buoy. I’ll be right there.”

  Brie followed directions, and as Anna slowly circled the boat in, moving barely above an idle, Brie hooked the first buoy. Anna was at her side in a moment. She reached over the gunwale and grabbed the line attached to the bottom of the buoy. “This line is called pot warp, Brie. There are two traps on each line.” She fed it through a block and into a hydraulic hauler which, when activated, pulled the traps up. Slowly the line accumulated on the deck, and eventually the first trap broke the surface of the water. Anna reached over and brought it up on the rail. She told Brie to pull the second trap on the line—called the trailer—which broke the surface a few moments later. The traps each contained three bricks to hold them in place on the ocean floor, and they were surprisingly heavy, even empty. Brie suddenly realized the strength and endurance this job would require and had to admire the ease with which Anna pulled the three-foot-long traps up onto the gunwale of the boat, time and again.

  “How many of these do you haul in a day?” Brie asked.

  “Usually about two hundred if I have a sternman—fewer if I’m working alone.”

  “Wow!”

  “You earn your money the hard way in this job.”

  “Hopefully you catch more than we are today.” They had been working their way along the shore for quite a while and had pulled several dozen traps. So far they had gleaned only nine keepers, which Anna had banded and tossed into a box on the deck.

  “This is usually the slow part of the season. It’ll pick up as summer wears on,” she said with surprising confidence. Brie decided she’d never be able to gamble her income on the comings and goings of a bunch of creepy crawlers captured through backbreaking labor. She felt renewed gratitude for the education her parents had provided for her.

  “Break time,” Anna announced after they’d finished the next five buoys.

  Brie checked her watch and was surprised to find they’d already been gone for almost two and a half hours. Stepping back to the wheel, Anna maneuvered the boat clear of the forest of buoys, motored out a ways from shore, and cut the engine. She slipped the wide suspenders off her shoulders and stepped out of her oilskins that she wore when working. Then she grabbed the thermos of coffee, a jug of water, and a brown paper bag that contained an assortment of candy bars. “Let’s go aft,” she said. “We can sit on the storage locker.” It was a near perfect morning—the breeze was cool but the sun warmed them.

  “I make myself take a break every couple hours, or I’d never get through the day,” Anna said.

  “I can believe that,” Brie said. She took off her raincoat and laid it on the deck.

  They were about to sit down when Anna noticed something was sticking out of the locker. She lifted the lid to tuck it back in. Brie saw a couple of spare buoys and floats, as well as some scuba and snorkel gear. “Are you a diver?” she asked, seeing yet another side to Anna.

  “Yup,” Anna said, closing the locker without further comment and sitting down on top of it. She stretched her long, denim-clad legs out in front of her, pulled her arms above her head and arched backwards over the gunwale. “I call this the reverse curl,” she said lightly. “It makes up for all the bending over. Give it a try, Brie.”

  Brie took in Anna’s long, lean body. She’d noticed that Anna was tall when she’d interviewed her yesterday, but somehow, she was more aware of her height today. Maybe because she wasn’t wearing baggy rain gear, or maybe because her height coupled with her athletic strength was impressive.

  “My dad taught me to dive,” she said, returning to Brie’s question. As she spoke, she dumped the contents of the paper bag out on the storage locker and told Brie to help herself. Anna picked up a nut roll and tore open the wrapper. “Dad was in the Navy—that’s where he learned to dive. Living out here, he used it mostly for going under and checking out the boat or looking for lost fishing gear. I used to beg him to teach me, and finally, when I was fourteen, he did. After I learned, we used to go out and dive just for fun. Since he died, I haven’t done much. There’s a rule—you’re never supposed to dive alone. But I break it sometimes.”

  Brie munched a little more of the Snickers bar she’d selected, but her stomach was starting to feel slightly unsettled. So she wrapped up the remainder and, leaning over, tucked it into the pocket of her rain slicker that sat at her feet. Then she flipped the coat over and pulled out a wad of Kleenex from the other pocket. The suicide note that she’d placed in her coat up on the bluffs yesterday fell out of the pocket, its message in plain view of Anna.

  “Is that the suicide note?” Anna asked, fascinated.

  “Yes,” said Brie. Feeling uncomfortable, she quickly tucked it back in her pocket. She was agitated with herself. How could I have forgotten to put it with the other evidence? The answer, of course, was obvious. The fact was that in the past year since the shooting, she had done a number of things that were out of character for her. She had learned to forgive herself for most of them, but she felt particularly uneasy about having this key piece of evidence with her.

  “Well, ready for more hard work?” Anna asked, standing up.

  “I’m game,” Brie said. “This is a great experience—thanks for inviting me, Anna.”

  “Hey, you’re coming in mighty handy today. Nothing wimpy about you, girl,” she said, laughing. “The rest of my traps are down the other side of the island. It’ll take about ten minutes to get over there.” Anna started to walk back toward the wheel.

  “I’m just gonna hang out back here till we get there,” Brie said. “My stomach’s feeling a little off—probably not used to chocolate this early in the morning.”

  “Could be the motion of the boat, too,” Anna said. “You just sit tight—I’ll go a little slower.”

  “Thanks,” Brie said. “But I usually don’t get seasick, so not to worry.”

  Back in the wheelhouse, Anna steered the boat, banking it east-southeast in a long, gradual arc. John’s prediction was right. The sea was still rough on this side of the island, with remnants of the gale apparent in the larger-than-normal waves running in from the northeast.

  Sitting on the locker, Brie tried to relax, but she had a growing sense of unrest. She was beginning to realize that this wasn’t indigestion, but something else. Her gut was trying to get her attention, and she had the distinct feeling that there was something she should be remembering. She wondered whether she should have come today, and if, somehow, she might be needed on the Maine Wind.

  By 9:30 everyone aboard the Maine Wind had finished a breakfast of French toast and bacon and was cleaning up the dishes, when a call came across the radio. DuLac bounded up the companionway and headed aft. As he got closer to the receiver, he recognized Glenn’s voice. He grabbed the mike. “This is the Maine Wind. Over.”

  “I’ve got a call here for Brie from Garrett Parker. Do you want me to patch it through? Over.”

  “She’s not here, Glenn. She went out lobstering this morning with a gal named Anna Stevens. Over.”

  There was silence at the other end of the radio.

  “Over,” John repeated.

  “Let me sign off with Garrett.”

  Glenn was back on the radio in seconds. “John, I’m worried
about Brie.”

  “Why, Glenn? What’s wrong?”

  “That Anna—she’s got a mean streak a mile wide. Used to be married to Jack Trudeau, and Pete worked for Jack. It just doesn’t feel right, John. Over.”

  “She never told Brie she was married to Trudeau. What else, Glenn—there’s something else, isn’t there? Over.”

  “Trudeau divorced her about a year ago—story was she’d had an affair. I don’t put much stock in the island gossip, but the rumor was she tried to kill him one night after the divorce. He never pressed charges, so who knows? I’ll tell you one thing, though. I wouldn’t want to cross her.”

  “Thanks, Glenn. I’ll get back to you. Over and out.” DuLac set down the receiver. A picture had been shaping up in his mind. What if Pete, the womanizer, had had an affair with Anna while he lived on the island? Maybe she blamed him for her divorce, or maybe she’d just decided to give man-killing another try. He didn’t know how Tim fit in, but something was terribly wrong. And his concern last night and this morning for Brie’s safety? Call it psychic, but it wasn’t the sea that was her enemy today.

  Rob Lindstrom was just coming up the companionway. John stopped him. “I need your help, Rob. Get in the yawl boat.” Rob read the urgency in his voice and didn’t argue.

  Scott had come aft. “Take charge here, Scott,” DuLac said. He climbed over the stern and, within seconds, was in the yawl boat, turning the key. Rob freed the line and they sped across the cove toward a lobsterboat that had just docked.

  John spun the boat in a circle near the end of the dock and shouted to a scruffy-looking lobsterman. “Where can I find Jack Trudeau?”

  Paulie Tillman gestured out to sea with a hand missing an index finger. “Out there. Haulin’ traps.”

  “Do you know where Anna Stevens has her traps?”

  Paulie turned and spewed a mouthful of brown tobacco juice over the side of his boat. “She’s got traps up north and over east o’ the island.”

  “You have to take us out there. It’s an emergency.” John had already thrown a line around one of the dock pilings, and Rob had jumped off the yawl boat.

  “Hey, man, what’s in it for me?” Paulie smelled a chance for easy money.

  Rob stepped across the dock. “A broken nose if you don’t get us out there on the double,” he said, looming over Paulie.

  “Okay, okay. You don’t gotta get mean about it.” Paulie went forward and turned over the engine of a lobsterboat that looked as unkempt as himself. John and Rob jumped aboard. “Which way?” he asked, pulling away from the wharf.

  “East,” John said, instinctively. The seas would be high over there. That’s where she’d go.

  As Brie sat on the locker watching the liquid-silver ocean skimming by, her mind returned to the murder scene and began to focus on the details. The vague feeling of unrest was turning into full-blown apprehension when a disturbing idea entered her head. Another one followed shortly thereafter and another, each causing a click in her consciousness, like tumblers falling into place under the hand of a safe-cracker. That lobster band next to Pete’s body; he wasn’t playing with it, as they had thought—he was trying to leave a clue.

  Pete had lived on the island. Anna was pretty—leaning toward beautiful. Pete would have gone after her. The rest Brie could only guess at. Remembering the black traces under Pete’s nails, she knelt down on the deck in front of the locker. She glanced briefly over her shoulder before opening the lid. Anna was busy piloting the boat. Quietly, Brie lifted the locker cover and searched for the article she thought might be there. From the corner of the locker she drew out the hood of Anna’s wet suit. As she turned it over, her heart jumped into her mouth. Three faint parallel lines were visible on the right side of the black hood, as if the fabric had been slightly compromised. Traces where Pete’s fingernails had dug desperately into the hood in his dying moments.

  “Planning to go diving?”

  Brie whirled around just in time to glimpse something moving toward her head.

  She was caught in a riptide, and it was pulling her under. She tried to struggle back to the surface, but her hands and feet were bound, and her yellow raincoat became a suit of armor, dragging her farther down. Slowly, slowly she fought her way back to the surface, gasping not for air but for clarity of vision, clarity of mind.

  When she finally swam back to consciousness, Brie was surprised to find herself not in the water, but still on the deck of the Just Jake. Her hands and feet were bound with gray tape, and Anna stood over her, smiling. No longer a smile of friendship, but one of absolute domination. Hatred emanated from her green eyes. Brie sensed that this was no narrow or focused hatred, but one that painted in broad, sweeping strokes large enough to encompass the entire human race. The boat was pitching violently, and she looked around. They were a long way off the island. Brie decided this didn’t bode well for her chances of reaching retirement age.

  “You know, it’s too bad it had to end up this way. I really wasn’t planning to kill you when we came out here today. I just wanted to make sure you had the whole thing figured as a murder-suicide. I knew you’d learned about Madie’s death from Jack. I made sure I found out everything he told you as soon as you were out of sight of my boat yesterday. He’s more scared of me now than when we were married.” Her ugly laugh carried over the sounds of the sea.

  “You were married to Trudeau? Why didn’t he tell me that?”

  “For a detective, you’re not too bright. Jack’s brain is in his pants. He figured he’d have a better shot at you if he didn’t admit to being divorced. That, and he likes to hide from the fact that we were ever married.” The laugh came again. “I’m never going to let him forget, though. Anyway, everything was going fine until your comment about getting the handwriting analyzed. I guess I hadn’t figured on that. And then when I saw the note fall out of your pocket, I knew I could get rid of the only piece of evidence connecting me to the crime. So, nothing personal, but our friendship is about to come to an abrupt end.”

  “But how did you know about Tim?” Brie asked, trying to keep Anna talking while her mind worked on escape.

  “Everyone in Lobsterman’s Cove knew about him. He used to make his little pilgrimages to the island and go up on the bluffs and mourn for Madie. Then he’d go down to the Two Claws Bar and get drunk. He’d tell his story to anyone who’d listen. I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw him carrying Pete’s body up to the general store. I thought maybe he’d been planning to kill Pete himself. He’d never have had the guts, though. Pathetic loser.

  “I knew right then I could make it look like a murder-suicide. So I wrote the note, staked out a spot in the woods near the inn and waited for him to head up to the bluffs. I knew he’d have to go up there, but I hadn’t figured on you following him. You almost ruined it for me. When I couldn’t scare you off, I hid in the woods up near the cliffs and waited, hoping I’d get a shot at him. Then this other guy showed up, but he didn’t stay long. Once I was sure we were alone, it was easy to sneak up on him, what with the noise of the ocean. He was so close to the edge I could have sent him over with one finger.”

  Brie watched Anna bask in this chance to tell her tale. Like many killers, she relished the opportunity to prove her superiority by disclosing all the gruesome facts.

  “It’s just too bad for all of you that you anchored here to escape the gale. I found out quite accidentally that Pete was on board when I stopped out to sell you the lobsters the first night you arrived. With the dark and the rain, he never recognized me. After all, back when I knew him, I was just Jack’s wife—didn’t have my own lobsterboat. But when I saw him, it was like opening an old wound and pouring salt into it. I promised myself three years ago if he ever came back here, I’d kill him.

  “So I went back to the wharf, got on my diving gear and swam back out. I snuck aboard while you were all having dinner and disabled the radio to make it harder for you to reach the Coast Guard or any boats in the cove in case things go
t sticky for me. Then I hid in the lazarette and waited. Waited, remembering how he’d lied to me, how he told me he loved me, how he promised he’d take me with him when he left the island. I waited there, my hate for him growing with each passing hour—waited for his watch. Waited while he screwed that little dark-haired bitch, knowing he’d used me exactly the same way. While they were having at it, I snuck out of the lazarette and hid in the shadows. I wasn’t alone either—there was another guy up forward watching the whole thing. It was like a freakin’ side show. And when she’d finally had enough of him, then it was my turn.”

  Anna fell silent for a moment as if gathering her energy for the story’s climax. Gulls circled overhead, crying. Brie saw the madness in her eyes—the same madness she’d seen in the eyes of other killers. She remembered Pete’s face during the gale, and knew now that what she’d seen hadn’t been fear of the storm, but apprehension that they were sailing to this island.

  Suddenly Anna was talking again. “He was so far gone after his romp with that little whore that Fred Klemper could have finished him off. I strangled the life out of him, feeling my power return with each ounce of life I squeezed from him. He got a good look at me too. Right at the end I knelt over him and drove that marline spike into his heart, kind of like I was killing a vampire. He wasn’t going to suck the life out of any more unsuspecting women. I had a close call too. Right after I’d finished him off, this big hulk of a guy appeared at the back of the ship. I hid a few feet away from Pete, and as soon as he saw the body he took off. I figured he was headed to get the captain, so I climbed over the bow and went down the anchor chain.”

  So that was the creaking sound Howard had heard over on the starboard side of the ship. All the pieces of the puzzle fit together, but Brie doubted she’d ever get to show it to anyone. Anna, having taken the suicide note from Brie and stuffed it in her own jeans, was filling the large pockets of Brie’s raincoat with some kind of lead weights and taping them closed, obviously in preparation for shoving her overboard.