Billingsgate Shoal da-1 Read online

  The story sounded reasonable enough. It is not usually printed in public reports because it is thought to be embarrassing or in poor taste, but the primary cause of sportsmen falling overboard from boats and drowning is urination. Almost all the recovered victims are found to have their flies open. The incidence is, steep during the summertime fishing season when men go out not only to see how many fish they can catch, but how many beers they can drink. No, were it not for one thing I could easily envision Jim Schilling-with four or five beers. or a thermos of coffee inside him-leaning over the gunwale relieving himself, perhaps while under way. Then the boat yaws or hits a sudden chop or swell and bingo, it's overboard into the icy Alaskan waters. And if you happen to hit your noggin on the way down-something I was now an expert on-the chances of your coming up again are about fifty-fifty. But it was the "other thing" that as much as told me the story was fabricated. It was the photo of James Schilling that accompanied the article. It wasn't a good reproduction because Sara had photocopied it. But it was good enough. I called Mary into the sunporch.

  "Look here, Toots. What do you think?"

  She stared for four or five seconds before it hit her.

  "Charlie, it's him. It's him."

  "Yep. It sure is. The beard helps, but it doesn't hide enough."

  "Well what's he doing here?"

  She was referring of course to our mysterious piratelike friend whom I had managed to photograph a few weeks previously aboard the phantom vessel Penelope in Wellfleet Harbor. The man was James Schilling, presumed dead. The man who hated Walter Kincaid. I decided that a good thing to do would be to have a lengthy and frank discussion with Mary's brother, Detective Lieutenant Joseph Brindelli. And was in the process of thinking of calling Joe and moving toward the phone when it rang. Mary answered it and handed it to me..

  "How are you, dead man? How would you like to come over tonight and have too much to drink?" asked Jim DeGroot.

  We replied in the affirmative, with deep suspicions that the invitation was offered chiefly because of my-skill-which I wear modestly-in preparing fillets of striped bass. Still a semi-recluse, I managed to slip into Mary's Audi and scoot down low in the seat. In a few days I would abandon all attempts at remaining invisible. Things in Gloucester would swing into their petty pace by then. But for the nonce, I was incognito.

  "Ohhhhh, poor baaaaa-by," cooed Janice DeGroot as she planted a big one on my cheek and cocked a learned eye at mine. "That's the biggest shiner I've seen in years, Doc. Does it hurt?"

  "Only when I laugh. I was informed by your spouse over the wires that we have been invited to abuse alcohol. Let's get down to it."

  I found Jim in back lighting the grill. The fillets were all set: slabs of milky white flesh the color of quartz that would cook up to look like boiled egg whites and would flake off in luscious chunks by merely pointing a fork at them. We greased up big squares of heavy aluminum foil and placed a fillet on each. Then we covered them with thin-sliced lemons and lots of butter. We covered this with paprika, thin-sliced scallions, and some Old Bay seasoning, then folded up the edges of the foil. Just before sealing the packets, we poured a generous jigger of chablis over the whole thing and added a sprinkling of finely-cut fresh chives. After ten minutes over the coals the packets sent forth a merry bubbling sound, and I poked several holes in each with a toothpick and watched the tiny jets of steam rise from them. The aroma was made more delicious by the two ounces of ice-cold gin that was wending its way through my interior, cutting a wide swath of destruction. I could have eaten a horse, and said so.

  "Then how come you only weigh-what is it you weigh, Doc?"

  "One hundred seventy-four."

  "Well how come?" asked Janice.

  "I'll tell you how come," said Mary. "Because he eats only what and when he likes. He has a light breakfast and skips lunch, when he runs. He pigs it up at dinner. But that's only once a day."

  "All work should be put behind you by dinnertime," I said. "There should be nothing but pleasant things from six o'clock on. Music on the stereo… the chatter of friends… laughter of children… evening twitter of birds, et cetera. A cocktail or glass of wine… an easy chair… the aroma of cooking food. In short, this experience; now. What the hell's a wrong with you?"

  Mary was wiping away a tear. She was thinking of Mr. X, and the photograph of Jim Schilling. She didn't like any of it. We talked all during dinner about what was going on, what it all meant. It broke my rule of nothing but pleasant things after six, but there was no escaping it. Jim and I agreed on how easy it would be for Schilling to falsify his death, especially in a remote region of Alaska. If he were willing to part with a $300 rifle-which he was-the ruse would gain instant credibility. He could have either bribed the guide or arranged another escape route. Both Jim and I strongly suspected the latter strategy, since a bribed guide is generally a poor liar, whereas a duped guide is an earnest witness. It would have been simple for Schilling to arrange a clandestine meeting with a pilot a few miles from the swamped boat. Three hours' trudge would take them far enough away from the camp so the guide would never hear the small, single-engined pontoon plane…

  But why?

  We agreed the most logical explanation was that he wished to return to Massachusetts to seek revenge on his former employer. But if this were true, hadn't he taken a long time to act? What was he engaged in during the past year? It was all curiouser and curiouser, but unfortunately no clearer.

  "Go to the police, Charlie," Jim said.

  "No."

  "Yes dammit!" screamed Mary. She was crying, and hadn't eaten.

  "OK," I said.

  ***

  I wrote a letter to Chief Hannon summarizing the events of the past two weeks. It was no masterpiece but it would serve well enough to lay out what had been happening, both in my mind and the real world. I sent a copy to Joe too. Either Chief Hannon would be impressed, or he would think I was crazy.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  "Know what your problem is?" said the chief as he put my letter down on his desk and peered at me over his glasses. "You're crazy."

  "I was hoping you weren't going to say that."

  "What am I supposed to say for Chrissake? You see a boat that looks like another and they both disappear. You ask around and discover that a certain man's private life and his business aren't all they were cracked pup to be-as if that's a rarity. You get in a bar fight up in Gloucester-which, by the way, you are too old to be doing-and later get hit on the head and tossed in the drink. A hundred miles away, I might add, and two weeks after you presumably saw Windhover's reincarnation down on the Cape. Now Doc. What am I supposed to say?"

  I felt like a naughty kid in the principal's office. I stared idly out Brian's window and watched a gray squirrel hop along a giant oak limb, fluffing its tail and chattering. The word was getting around fast; even the squirrels knew I was crazy. A blue jay shrieked, and the squirrel chattered and flipped its tail in little quick jerks.

  Brian Hannon picked up the phone and summoned an aide. He told the aide to run down some background information on James Schilling and Daniel Murdock.

  "You did it. Why did you, if I'm imagining the whole thing?"

  "I don't want you to suppose anything from it. Remember this: you still haven't a thing concrete to go on. It's one pipe dream strung to another, all the way along. But I can get the information, and will, if there is any to be got. I can do it without pangs of conscience because doing so will indirectly protect you, which is what I'm paid to do. We'll get back to you in a few days. You can be reached at home?"

  "No. We're taking off from the Cape tomorrow early. I'll be spending two days or so getting Ella Hatton ready."

  "Who's she?"

  "My boat."

  "Oh I see. Getting her ready to take her out of the water?"

  "No. Getting her ready for a cruise around Cape Cod Bay. I don't want anyone except you and the family, and Jim DeGroot, to know where I am or how long I'll be gone. If you nee
d me, call Mary and leave a message."

  "and what do you intend to do on this cruise?"

  "I'm going to find the boat: Penelope, Windhove r… Whatever the hell her name is, I'm going to find her if I have to pick up Cape Cod by Provincetown and Buzzards Bay and turn it upside down and shake it."

  "That's a dumb idea."

  "I didn't expect you'd think it was a great idea. Mary is not too wild about it either."

  I rose to go, but he detained me. He opened a small metal filing case behind him and drew out my card. It was my application to own and carry a handgun. These are very difficult to get in Massachusetts. If you are caught toting a handgun and are not so licensed, you are sentenced to a year in the can. No ifs, ands, or buts. Chief Brian Hannon, after some debate, had granted me the Permit to Carry two years ago when I took up target shooting. He examined some slips of paper behind the card.

  "Hmmm. Two additions since your original purchase. Ruger Bull-Barrel auto target pistol, caliber 22. Browning 9 millimeter auto. Tell me, Doc, you're not thinking of taking these along with you on your cruise are you'? And if you do, do you really think you might need them?"

  I paused at the doorway and turned.

  "As Fats Waller used to say: 'One never knows, do one?' "

  ***

  "I still can't believe we went, Charlie," said Mary as she slid into the front seat. It was just before midnight and we were leaving the Surf Theater in Wocasset.

  "How did you like them?"

  "I can't believe they're legal. Honest to God I had no idea-"

  "But how did you like them?"

  "I think they're disgusting. I mean even the titles."

  "I don't know, I thought the titles were rather clever, especially A Hard Man Is Good to Find."

  "Hmmm. What was the other one called?"

  " Genitals Prefer Blondes."

  "Well it was disgusting."

  "Well then I'm sorry I took you."

  "You didn't like them, did you?"

  "I think a little dirt every now and then is nice. You sure you didn't like them even a little bit?"

  She protested that she didn't. The movies exploited both men and women she said, and debased sex. And furthermore, if she'd any idea that they were that explicit and graphic she never would have consented to go in the first place. And she would never go again. I kept my mouth shut.

  We had arrived back at The Breakers the day before. All through the drive we discussed-argued actually-the merits and disadvantages of my secret Bay cruise aboard the Ella Hatton. I was propounding the former, she the latter. I finally managed to convince her that I would be safe because I would remain inconspicuously in the background: in small bays and inlets, in snug harbors and along beaches.

  We swung into the wide gravel drive, exited the car and started up the back steps. The surf was loud. Mary had been strangely silent during the ride back to the cottage, as if she I were concentrating on something.

  As soon as I shut the door behind us, she jumped me.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The list grew. The piles and stocks of supplies grew consequently. These items were transported semi-surreptitiously down to the Hatton's slip in, Wellfleet Harbor where, incidentally, there had been no sign whatsoever of Penelope. My beard was half grown and emerging iron gray. Dark glasses and a big floppy canvas hat helped further to keep my face hidden. With Jack helping out, I managed to secure the cargo aboard the Ella Hatton. It was two weeks past Labor Day but the harbor was still full. The hard-core sailors didn't take their boats out until late October. A few diehards have been known to leave their boats in the water all winter, going on the assumption it won't freeze solid. If it does, the boat has had it, crushed between packs of moving ice like a grape in a wine press.

  When we were finished, every cubby, hatch, and shelf in the Hatton's interior was filled with canned hams, fresh corn and melons, cases of soda water and beer, wedges of cheese, cigars and pipe tobacco, and everything else needed for a couple of weeks afloat in comfort and style.

  Ella Hatton's antique appearance comes mostly from her rig. The wide, low sails and the graff rig, the bowsprit and the jibboom all bespeak an earlier age: the turn-of-the-century fishing and clamming industry on the Cape where these boats originated. Also the wheel, tiny portholes, wide rudder, and her soft, blocky lines have the plain, rugged look of a commercial craft rather than the sleek, faintly fragile appearance of the racing yachts.

  She draws just two feet of water with her centerboard up, which means that she can be beached. Also, because of her flat bottom and wide shape, she sits perfectly upright when stranded on a tidal flat. This is important because in Cape Cod Bay stranding is a common, often times intentional thing, and a boat that sits level is far more comfortable than one that lies on her side.

  Jack and I finished stowing the gear after I had placed the two twenty-five-pound blocks of ice into the icebox beneath the cockpit seat. Then we closed the teak shutters, drew back the main hatch, and locked up tight with a big brass padlock. In the morning I would top up the fuel and water tanks and cast off.

  "It seems to me we put about two tons of stuff aboard," said Jack as he stood up on the dock looking down at the catboat, "but she doesn't seem any lower in the water or anything."

  "She's as wide as a pie pan. Maybe that's why."

  We went back to The Breakers for dinner.

  A driftwood fire was crackling away in the grate. I unrolled the charts on the low coffee table and we poured over them, roughly outlining my mission. Mary was to be settled in at the domicile in Concord with Joe, who was coming for an extended visit. He loved his Beacon Hill flat, but a sojourn in the countryside-particularly in fall-was an annual custom he looked forward to. From my point of view, considering certain recent events and possible future complications, I was glad an armed officer of the law would be staying with Mary.

  Tony had finished his summer job in New Hampshire and was up in Acadia National Park camping with friends. Jack would return to Concord with Mary in the morning; I didn't want him or any of my family at The Breakers without me.

  I told them I would head west along the inside of the Cape first, nosing my way into the small harbors of Barnstable and Sandwich. From there I would either head north to Plymouth, or south through the Cape Cod Canal down into Buzzards Bay and the oceanside, although I doubted this. Whatever was happening-if anything-was happening in the Bay, or to the north.

  Next morning after the breakfast dishes were cleaned and put away, we shut The Breakers up tight, hiding all the valuables and locking it. Then Jack and I dragged the twelve-foot Swampscott dory up from the beach and put it on the roof rack of his Land Cruiser. We stowed the tiny British outboard engine in the back and headed for the harbor. I would tow the fiberglass dory behind the Hatton. It would enable me to come ashore from any anchorage and provide easy dockside access in any harbor I chose to enter. Besides these conveniences, it was unsinkable (the Hatton, with its lead ballast, was not) and would make a good lifeboat should the Hatton swamp in a heavy sea or dash herself to pieces on a ledge.

  When everything was in order I kissed Mary good-bye and reminded her that I would call once a day without fail. She clung a bit too hard, too long. She was still worried.

  Jack was to follow her to Concord and spend a few days there, tentatively to arrive in Plymouth on the third day to reconnoiter with me and the Hatton.

  The two cars made tight turns in the harbor parking lot, then glided up to the mainroad, turned, and vanished.

  I made ready and cast off.

  When I was clear of the harbor, I cut the engine to a crawl and I began to watch my "telltales." These are strips of fuzzy orange yarn tied to my stays. They blow in the wind and indicate its direction. I wanted to be directly into the wind when I raised the main. I winched it up and the boom and gaff flapped spastically back and forth. The jib followed. The sails flip-flapped stupidly until I turned the Hatton downwind a bit, until the telltales were parallel t
o the leading edge of the sails as I hauled them tight. Then, a change came over Ella Hatton. The sails caught. The boat heeled slightly, and there was a sense of force, pressure, and function. I cut the diesel. In a few seconds our speed picked up because the slow-turning prop had feathered itself, thus decreasing the resistance of the boat in the water. I trimmed the sails still more and adjusted the Hatton's course.

  When a sailboat is properly trimmed in a fresh breeze-when the wind direction, hull, and sails are all in perfect symphony-she trembles. It is a stiffening tremble, as in a woman reaching orgasm-a vibrancy of energy and force that tells the experienced helmsman that the boat is performing optimally.

  With the engine cut, there was only the sound of rushing water and the creaking of the sheets and blocks. I sat holding the wheel and kept Ella Hatton heading south. Both sheets were fastened in jam cleats. These are cleats that hold the lines by means of toothed cam gears, and can be released immediately in a strong puff of wind. Jam cleats have made solo sailing easier and safer. The Hatton bounced and dipped along; I watched the green-blue water slide past, sending up never-ending streams of bubbles and tiny whirlpools of silver air and water. Farther back the brine swirled white-gray in endless filigrees of foam. There was the hiss and chuckle of moving water. The hiss I find a particularly pleasant sound, the sound of effervescence, like soda water or champagne.