North Harbor

by Kennedy Hudner

  “Yeah, I think so. But we’ve got to move fast here, Luc. There may be others interested in that body.”

  Dumas nodded, but inwardly he was smiling. Great way to start the day!

  Four minutes later, they were backing off the dock and into North Harbor. Six minutes after that and they were out of the harbor and headed southeast into the maze of islands that would take them to Enchanted Island.

  _____________

  Calvin and Gabrielle sat on the rock shelf next to their kayaks, huddled together for warmth under a beach towel. They tentatively sipped the remainder of the coffee, their stomachs still too tender for any solid food.

  “Well,” Calvin said. “I told you we should do something a little different for our first date.”

  Gabrielle spluttered a mouthful of coffee. Calvin patted her on her back.

  “You okay?” he asked in mock solicitude. “I mean, what could be better than a kayak trip at dawn, a beautiful sunrise, and an enchanted island complete with its own body?”

  Gabrielle laughed, but the tears came as well. “Calvin, that poor man was shot! Murdered!”

  Calvin sighed. “You know,” he said tenderly. “I would have been perfectly happy to be here alone with you, just the two of us. We didn’t need the body.”

  “Stop it!” she said, a small laugh escaping her, tears rolling down her cheeks. “It’s horrible!” She leaned against him, head on his shoulder.

  “It was horrible,” he agreed. “No one’s ever beaten me in a race before.”

  She elbowed him hard in the ribs. “Next time you can find the body first.”

  Suddenly serious, he put his arm around her. “Sorry about all of this, Gabs. I guess it wasn’t much of a first date, after all.”

  “Memorable,” she murmured. “But maybe therapy will help me forget. Lots of therapy.”

  He smiled. “I mean it. I am sorry for all of this.”

  Then he heard the boat.

  ______________

  Finley spotted them through the binoculars. “There they are, north side of the island.” He took out his phone and called Calvin’s number.

  “Dad?” Calvin sounded relieved and anxious, all at the same time.

  “Calvin, I can see you. We are in your grandfather’s boat. Where is the body?”

  “On the other side of the island. South. Right at the water’s edge.”

  “Okay, we are going to go there. Can you and Gabrielle paddle there and meet us?”

  “Sure, easy.”

  “Calvin, while you were waiting for us, did anyone come nosing around?”

  “No, Dad. We saw some lobster boats, but always at a distance and they just went out to drop their traps.”

  “Okay, son. Meet you on the south side in just a few minutes.” Finley turned to his father-in-law. “Can you get us close in on the south side, Luc?”

  Dumas nodded, but didn’t speak. His Ellis 36 drew three feet, ten inches, but the area around the island was full of rocks. Take it slow, he told himself. Slow and steady. With one eye on the depth finder, he took the boat in at dead slow. “Danni,” he called to his daughter, using her family nickname. “Go up in the bow and tell me if you see anything that can hurt us. If you suddenly see the bottom, call out. Remember, we draw four feet.”

  Danielle scampered to the bow.

  “Frank, I want you on the starboard side. Same thing. Look for rocks sticking up or if the bottom suddenly appears.”

  They crept in, Dumas nudging the Rock Head ahead a foot at a time. Finally, about twenty feet from the shoreline, Danielle, shouted: “Rocks!”

  Dumas throttled back, just slightly, and the boat stopped. “Okay, let’s get two anchors out so she doesn’t drift onto something nasty.”

  Danielle, meanwhile, was standing on the bow, turning slowly in a full circle. She waved to Gabrielle and Calvin, about a hundred yards away, then jumped lightly down into the cockpit. “No boats in sight, if you want to get the body on board without being seen.”

  Finley waved to the kids as well, then turned to his wife. “Danni, Calvin is used to seeing me with a pistol, but if he sees the rifle and his mother with a pistol strapped to her waist, he might freak out a little. Why don’t you put the guns in the cabin, somewhere out of sight, but somewhere we can get at them if we need them.” Danielle nodded and went below with the weapons.

  The kids paddled up and began loading the kayaks onto the Ellis 36. Finley and Dumas, meanwhile, gingerly lowered themselves chest-deep into the freezing water and half-walked, half-swam to where the body lay, face upwards to the sun. The head was misshapen, whether from being shot or being immersed in water for several days, Finley didn’t know.

  Dumas leaned over for a better look. It had been almost fifty years, but bullet-ridden corpses were nothing new to him. “Huh,” he grunted. “Look here. See, the very top of his head was shot, but the angle is very steep. The bullet just grooved the top of his skull.” He frowned. “You know, he might have survived the shooting. Maybe, anyway.”

  Finley looked closer and suddenly felt his gorge rising. He hastily straightened and gulped several breaths of cool sea air, letting his stomach settle. Little wonder Calvin and Gabrielle were both sick: Mitchell’s body and face were ruined. He shuddered. He didn’t respect Henry Mitchell at all, the man was a weasel, but he wouldn’t have wished this on him.

  “Any other wounds?” he asked.

  Dumas studied the body. “Three more gunshots. One to the chest, two to the face. And, of course, the fish got to him pretty good. Poor bastard, nobody deserves that.”

  They shook out the bag they’d brought along, but quickly found they could not stuff the body into it. They finally settled for rolling the body onto a tarp and tying it, both men losing their breakfast as more decomposition gases escaped from Mitchell’s body. They dragged the body through the water, then tied a line to the winch and hoisted the body up and dropped it into the well of the Rock Head.

  It made a nauseatingly wet splat when it landed. More gas escaped from the tarp. Everyone looked a little green.

  “Oh, Christ, nothing like a rotting corpse in the morning,” Dumas sighed. “Going to take a week to get rid of the smell.” Then they pulled up the anchors and carefully backed into deeper water.

  Finley got on the phone with Honeycutt. “I think we better change the meeting place to the northeast side of North Harbor, the town, not the harbor itself. You got a map?”

  “Big GPS screen,” Honeycutt answered.

  “Okay, find Oceanville Road. You’re going to take Fire Lane 33 north off of Oceanville Road. Take the fire lane all the way to the water. There is a small pier there. Don’t worry about the house. It’s a summer house and it will be empty now. And listen, you’ll want to get Mitchell’s body refrigerated as fast as you can or it’s going to fall apart on you. Trust me.”

  Honeycutt chuckled unpleasantly. “Got it. Oceanville to Fire Lane 33. See you at the pier.”

  Danielle came out of the boat’s cabin, walking gingerly around the tarp that held the body.

  “How are the kids doing?” Finley asked her, wearing his ‘Father’ hat again.

  “Drinking some hot chocolate. They’re pretty subdued, but they are teasing each other, so they’ll be okay.” She wrinkled her nose. “No wonder they got sick. That thing stinks!”

  That “thing,” Finley reflected, was the father of eight kids. Even if he was an asshole, he didn’t deserve this.

  Thirty minutes later, they reached the end of the pier off Fire Lane 33. It wasn’t much of a pier, but it didn’t have to be. Honeycutt stood there, hands in his pockets, with three burly young men beside him.

  “These your guys?” Dumas asked his son-in-law.

  “Yeah,” Finley assured him. “The older guy is my boss.”

  Dumas raised his eyebrows. Boss? But he said nothing.

  The three younger men dragged a gurney out to the end of the pier, then hopped into the boat. The smell hit them almost immediately. �
�Jesus!” one of them complained, then reached into his pocket and brought out an air mask. The other two followed suit. They all put on thick rubber gloves. Within minutes the body was lifted from the boat onto the gurney and was rolled into the back of the truck.

  Honeycutt stepped over to Finley. “Are you confident no one saw you moving the body, Frank?”

  Finley nodded. “We were lucky. There were no other ships in the area.”

  Honeycutt looked relieved. “I was afraid something might have given it away. It wouldn’t take much to make the Cartel call off the drop.”

  Finley nodded. “We’re good, but I need your help with one other thing.”

  Honeycutt looked at him questioningly.

  “I’ve got two teenagers in the boat. They found the body. One is my son, Calvin, the other is a girlfriend of his. Local girl from North Harbor. I had to warn them that someone might be hunting for the body, and to run if anyone stopped at the island. Now we need to tell them not to talk about this to anybody. I want you to do it.”

  Honeycutt made a sour expression. “Why me?”

  “Because you’re the big-shot Director of the New England Region and they both think I am nothing more than a local cop,” Finley said patiently. “We want to keep it that way.”

  Honeycutt nodded in resignation.

  The two kids were brought out and Honeycutt showed them both his credentials. They looked impressed by the badge.

  “You guys have been great today. I mean it. I know that this has been a shock, but you handled it perfectly,” he told them seriously. “I can’t tell you what is going on, too many lives are at stake. But when this is over, I will come and tell you and your parents the vital role you played in this. Until then, you must not tell anyone. Anyone.”

  “I can’t tell my parents?” Gabrielle complained. “It’s almost eight o’clock and I puked up all my breakfast. How do I explain why I’m going to miss school today?”

  Honeycutt pursed his lips, gazing around at the assembly of Frank Finley, Danielle, Calvin and Luc Dumas. “You’ll tell them you were late because Mr. Dumas had a heart arrhythmia and fell off a ladder in his studio. In fact, once you are back to his house, you will help take him to the hospital.”

  “How the hell do you know I have a ladder in my studio?” growled Luc Dumas.

  Honeycutt ignored him.

  “Mr. Finley will back you up on your story, but even other members of the Police Department will not know what happened. You cannot tell anyone. Am I clear?” He looked at them sternly.

  The two teens looked at each other wordlessly, then nodded to Honeycutt.

  “If you need to talk to me, or if something comes up, call Mr. Finley. He knows how to get ahold of me.”

  “What about the body?” Calvin asked earnestly. “Aren’t you going to tell his family?”

  Honeycutt mentally cursed bright, inquisitive children everywhere. “Not yet. I know the family is grieving, but more lives could be lost. Soon, very soon, I will be able to tell them everything.”

  He looked from Gabrielle to Calvin, then back again. “Are we okay on this?”

  They nodded again, this time some of the drama and excitement seeping into their expressions.

  One of the three younger men came back and whispered into Honeycutt’s ear, “Sir, the goddamn stiff stinks like crazy. We need to get going or we are going to be puking our guts out all the way back to the office.”

  Honeycutt nodded judiciously, then turned back to the others. “I’m sorry, but there is something important I have to attend to, so I must leave now. Thank you again for your help…and your discretion.” With that, he turned and walked briskly back up the pier and into the truck.

  After the truck was out of sight, everyone deflated like a balloon. Calvin and Gabrielle looked spent, Finley felt like he needed a nap and a drink, not in that order, and even Danielle looked like she needed to just sit down for a while.

  Luc Dumas had seen post-combat letdown before. “Back in the boat, everyone. Let’s go home.”

  As they moved down the path, Luc Dumas turned to Gabrielle, “So, I understand you like Rumi in the original Arabic?”

  Once on board the Rock Head, Danielle took the teenagers below to the cabin and began making another mug of cocoa for each of them. Gabrielle and Calvin oscillated back and forth, one minute nonchalant about discovering a dead body and the next minute shivering and pulling the blanket tighter around them.

  Danielle got them settled with more cocoa and put her arm around Gabrielle. “Once we get back and Calvin’s grandpa ‘falls ill,’ I will call your mother and tell her you’ve been through a bit of a shock and that I suggested you stay home from school today,” she said. “But before we get into that, I just want to tell you that I am very impressed with the two of you. That was pretty rough back there and you both handled yourselves like adults. You should be proud.”

  Calvin and Gabrielle looked at each other, then Calvin grinned mischievously. “I thought I got sick to my stomach very nobly,” he said, “showing great courage and fortitude.”

  Gabrielle nudged him with her elbow. “Maybe the first time, but the second and third times?” She made a face. “Not so much.”

  ______________

  Frank Finley and Luc Dumas stood in the pilothouse, neither of them saying much. The sun was higher now and promised a glorious Maine day, or, to be more accurate, one of those rare but glorious Maine days when Mother Nature showed her tender side. No fog. No rain. No storms. No heavy seas.

  Dumas finally broke the silence. “So, the older guy is your boss.”

  Finley looked at him for a long moment, then nodded shortly.

  “And he’s with the DEA. Even though you’re a cop with the North Harbor PD.” He said it as a statement, not a question.

  Finley sighed. “Look, Luc, I can’t tell you anything about this.”

  Dumas idly scratched his chest. “Well, I take it that you’re not running around with the DEA just because I’ve got a marijuana plant in my basement.”

  Finley smiled. “Actually, we’ve been watching you for years. We’ve got an entire task force dedicated to you and that scraggly-assed pot plant.

  Dumas grunted. “Yeah, figures. My tax dollars at work.” He looked closely at his son-in-law. “What can you tell me?”

  Finley shrugged. “Not much, Luc. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

  Dumas scowled. “Does Danni know? You’re not keeping this secret from her, are you?”

  “She knows,” Finley assured him. “She knows everything.”

  “Hmm…” Dumas was not mollified. “Is it dangerous? I mean, we just off-loaded a dead body under what might be charitably described as ‘suspicious circumstances.’ And when we went out to fetch that body, you were carrying a small arsenal. Are you in danger?”

  “Some,” Finley admitted. “Hard to say how much, but I’m being careful.”

  Dumas took in a deep breath. “I’m going to go along with this, Frank, but sooner or later we are going to have a long talk. My only daughter and grandchildren are involved now. That doesn’t make me very happy.” He wrinkled his nose. “And to top it off, my boat stinks.”

  Chapter 19

  Thursday Night

  It was almost 5 p.m. when LeBlanc’s Celeste pulled up to the Cadot dock. It was a great catch, some three hundred lobsters, most of them hard shell. It took the better part of an hour to off-load the catch and then Jacob and the other sternsman were left the task of washing out the boat. That took another hour, but by 6 p.m. Jacob was climbing the ladder to the dock.

  “Hey, Jake, got something for you,” LeBlanc called, and waved him over.

  And there, parked at the dock entrance, was a well-worn Honda Shadow. LeBlanc climbed onto it, started it up and drove slowly around the parking lot. It was dinged, dirty and the engine smoked when he changed gears. It backfired when he shut it down.

  Jacob thought it was beautiful.

  “It needs a tune-up a
nd a good cleaning,” LeBlanc told him. He didn’t tell him that the bike belonged to Martin LaPierre and that he had just taken it over LaPierre’s objections. He reached into the side storage bin and took out a black helmet. “And for Christ’s sake, wear this.”

  Jacob took the helmet reverently. “This is great, Mr. LeBlanc. I can’t thank you enough.”

  LeBlanc snorted. “I want that bike back in one piece, Jake, and I want you in one piece while you’re driving it. And drive slow until you’re good and comfortable with it. See you tomorrow.” He got back into his pickup and drove away, content in the knowledge that Jacob Finley was now deeply in his debt.

  Jacob stood in front of the motorcycle, overwhelmed at his good fortune. This was the best thing that ever happened to him.

  “Hey,” a voice said behind him. “You really know how to ride that thing?”

  He turned and saw a girl who looked like she stepped from a beauty magazine.

  “Well?” she teased. “Do you?”

  “Yeah, sure,” he stuttered, feeling like he was fourteen again.

  She nodded and ran the tip of her tongue over her lips in a way that gave Jacob an instant erection. “Good, ‘cause I’m stuck here and I need a ride home.” She stepped closer. “Could you give me a ride? Please?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Jacob said hurriedly, before she turned into smoke and disappeared.

  She held out a hand. “I’m Katie.” She smiled, and it lit up her entire face.

  He took her hand in his. It was very warm to his touch. Something swelled in his chest.

  “I’m Jake,” he said.

  ______________

  Jacob got home late, after his parents had gone to bed. He and Katie had gone to a little diner in Ellsworth for burgers, then wandered through the Mall eyeing stuff that neither one of them could afford, and finally ended up getting ice cream cones in Blue Hill. The motorcycle had sputtered and smoked, but Jacob barely noticed. He had money in his pocket and a stunning-looking girl clinging to him as he roared along the Maine back roads.