Shark Island

by Joan Druett

  “Of course I attended the wake,” the other said shortly. “But the service was on the afterdeck.”

  “You didn’t come to the foredeck for the spree? After all, it was Annabelle who supplied the grog,” he added, remembering that Alphabet had organized it with the steward.

  Alphabet’s mouth compressed, and he repeated, “I wasn’t here.”

  “So where were you?”

  “In the after house with Annabelle.”

  “What?”

  “I escorted her there after the prayers were finished, and—and she was too upset for me to leave her. She needed company—my supporting presence.”

  “But surely you didn’t stay in the after house all night?”

  “But I did,” confessed Alphabet, his gaze sliding away from Wiki’s puzzled stare. “I slept in Ezekiel’s stateroom. But for God’s sake, don’t tell anyone. Hammond would have my guts for a bandanna if he knew.”

  There was a shout from the quarterdeck—Hammond himself, summoning the watch for an important announcement. Alphabet muttered distractedly, “What the hell is he on about now?”

  Wiki opened his mouth to tell him about his strange appointment as a sheriff’s deputy; that Hammond would be following up his promise to instruct the men to cooperate in the inquiry. Before he could utter a word, however, Alphabet Green turned on his heel and left.

  Twenty-three

  Wiki walked back round the galley shed to its open door, which faced aft. Like the galley on the brig Swallow, it was surprisingly spacious inside. There was a large windowlike aperture facing the foredeck, which could be closed with a shutter but was open now, letting in plenty of light. Evidently the food was handed out to the crew through this, because there was a bench just inside with a couple of high stools handy, making a pleasant place to sit when the sun was shining in. Too, when the schooner was in icy waters and the window was shut, this would be the warmest spot on board. Wiki thought now that he could understand why Annabelle used this room as a refuge—she was the last person to worry about the proprieties of the captain’s wife sunning herself in the galley, he mused.

  Huge pots and pans hung from one wall, along with great forks, knives, and ladles. Ten headless hens dangled by their feet from hooks set into another wall, while the back quarter of the shed was taken up by an enormous iron stove. Festin was crouched in front of this, raking out the grate and expostulating in his unintelligible tongue. Evidently the fire he had lit that morning had gone out, much to his fury. When he saw Wiki he stood up and waved his arms about in dramatic fashion—it was somebody’s else’s fault, his expression plainly said, and once he found out who the culprit was, that man would be very sorry.

  Frowning, remembering the stench that had pervaded the schooner when he’d come on board this morning, Wiki hunkered down by the open fire door of the stove, opening his jackknife to pry around in the ash and cinders Festin had raked out. The blade hooked on something which dangled when he lifted the knife—a blackened scrap of cloth.

  Squinting at it, he said over his shoulder, “Do you have a sieve—a strainer?”

  Receiving nothing but blank silence in return, he stood up, searched the wall of cooking tools, came up with what he wanted, and then, ignoring Festin’s horrified exclamations, emptied the grate into the sieve, and shook it over a pan.

  The result was some more scraps of fabric, and one button, all of which Wiki took over to the window for close inspection. It had been a shirt, he thought—a striped blue and white shirt of the kind that seamen bought by the dozen from dry goods stores in port, or even from the slop chest—the ship’s store of goods for sale. The button, however, was unusual. The heat had shrunk and warped it, but when he sniffed there was a distinct smell of scorched animal bone. It had been a piece of antler, he thought.

  There were stains as well as scorch and ash on the disintegrating bits of cloth. Kingman’s neck would have spouted blood like a hosepipe, soaking his killer’s sleeve—maybe the entire shirt. It was easy to imagine the shirt being so sodden with blood that when it was thrown into the galley fire it eventually quenched the flames—though not before the garment was almost entirely destroyed. Again, Wiki remembered the ghastly stink that had pervaded the decks, now realizing that it had been due to more than burning feathers. Had the killer seized the chance to get rid of the blood-soaked evidence while Festin had been busy fetching the poultry from the coops and chopping off their heads? It seemed very likely.

  So who had been the owner of that common seaman’s shirt with an unusual antler button—the man who had knifed Zack Kingman? It seemed logical that it was the same man who had killed Ezekiel Reed, which meant it had to be one of the four Annawan men who had remained behind on the schooner. Putting the button in his pocket, Wiki set off again for the sternward end of the forward house, leaving Festin to clean up the mess.

  * * *

  Just as in the after house, a short companionway led down from the sternward entrance of the forward house to a passage, but here, instead of staterooms, there was a boatswain’s locker to one side, and a steward’s pantry directly opposite. There was a closed door at the end of the corridor—which led to the berth shared by Hammond and the mate, Wiki surmised.

  The boatswain’s locker was neatly stacked with barrels, ropes, paint and tackle, while the pantry was furnished with shelves of plates, platters, mugs, and bowls, a dry sink, and a spirit stove for heating water and coffee. Both rooms were occupied, with a man—presumably Boyd—overhauling gear in the boatswain’s locker, while Jack Winter was rattling cutlery in the pantry. Both had their backs turned as they worked, and neither heard Wiki arrive, so instead of accosting them right away he walked up the short passage as far as the shut door. Then he turned to face the way he had come. From where he stood, looking along the short passage and up the stairway, he could just glimpse the fore hatch—the one from which Festin had emerged with the little keg of molasses.

  Rousing himself from deep thought, he walked to the boatswain’s locker and tapped on the open door. Then, when the man still didn’t respond, he reached out and touched him lightly on the shoulder of his plain blue frock shirt.

  Boyd swiveled, startled, and then stared at him silently with rather protuberant blue eyes. Unlike most of the men on the schooner, he was clean-shaven. Past his burly shoulder Wiki could see a neat array of carpentering, blacksmithing, and coopering equipment. A cooper’s wheel stood in a corner, complete with grindstone. Another grindstone stood in a rack, with two empty spaces next to it. One gap would be for the stone that was in the wheel right now, Wiki guessed—but where was the other?

  He said sharply, without preamble, “Where’s the other grindstone?”

  “What?” Boyd frowned, and turned and looked at the rack. “Some bastard’s borrowed it without permission,” he exclaimed in a loud, hoarse voice.

  “Do you think you’ll get it back?”

  “I’ll make bloody sure I do!” His protruding eyes became suspicious. “Who the hell are you to ask questions?” he demanded—but before Wiki could answer, an older man came hurrying down the stairs.

  This, as Wiki immediately found out, was Boyd’s superior, the boatswain, Folger. A weather-beaten, scarred, and heavily gray-bearded fellow, he had two fingers missing from each of his hands. “You be polite to Mr. Coffin,” he sharply scolded his assistant. “Captain Hammond has been tellin’ us that he’s none other than a sheriff’s deputy from Portsmouth, Virginia, and that we are to give him all our cooperation, so you be careful what you say to him.” Then he turned to Wiki, and said anxiously, “Bill couldn’t be nothin’ to do with the murder of Captain Reed, sir—he was overhauling this locker the whole of that afternoon.”

  Wiki glanced sideways at Boyd, who was listening stolidly, and said, “But how can you be sure of that?”

  “If you could’ve seen the state of the locker after dinner, and compare it with the way I found it when I got back from the Swallow, sir, it would be as plain as the nose on y
our face that Boyd followed my instructions to the letter, and didn’t have the time for nothin’ else.”

  Wondering why Folger was so patently eager to clear Bill Boyd of suspicion, Wiki said, “Have you been a sealer for long, Mr. Folger?”

  “Many years,” said the boatswain, and looked ruefully at his maimed hands. “I started in the good old days, when there was money to be made, but this is all I have to remember it by. Sealing’s how Captain Reed founded his fortune—did you know that? He discovered a new rookery back in the days when a shrewd man could get five dollars for a prime skin in the Canton market, and that was only the start of his luck. He made a lot of sealers rich,” Folger confessed, “and we was hoping he’d do the same for us.”

  “We?” Wiki echoed.

  “There’s eight experienced sealers on board of this here schooner,” Folger said, and went on to reveal that Bill Boyd was one of that select group.

  Wiki, feeling more intrigued than ever, said, “Bill and who else?”

  One, to Wiki’s great surprise, was the steward, Jack Winter, who by now was openly listening, and who confirmed that they’d all held high hopes that this voyage would do well, on account of Captain Reed’s great reputation.

  “Then it’s most unfortunate for you that Captain Reed is dead,” observed Wiki.

  “Aye,” said Folger glumly. “Horrible business, horrible. I do hope you catch the wicked murderer, sir.”

  Wiki looked at Boyd and said, “Did you see anyone go into the pantry the afternoon Captain Reed was murdered?”

  “Not after Jack went a-drinkin’ and a-gossipin’ with them hands from the cutter,” Boyd returned at once. “Spent the whole confounded afternoon having hisself a good time on the fo’c’sle deck while everyone else was working.”

  His malicious tone got an immediate response from the steward, who cried, “That’s a damn lie! I wasn’t drinking—or only just enough to be sociable, and it was on the orders of Captain Reed himself, so it’s not right to infer I was slacking!”

  Wiki said, “What about the wake?”

  He was immediately aware that the boatswain looked alarmed at the sudden turn of the questioning, but the steward answered readily enough, “Mrs. Reed requested me to issue grog after the prayers was done with, and sent the bottles forward, so that’s just what I done.”

  “Did you serve a lot of grog to Passed Midshipman Kingman?”

  Jack Winter’s stare wavered guiltily. He said in a lower voice, “Aye, Mr. Coffin, I did.”

  “Even though he got very intoxicated?”

  “Mrs. Reed’s request was for me to be hospitable, and so I didn’t see it was up to me to stop him from drinking hisself so drunk.”

  “Where was he when you saw him last?”

  The steward paused. It was as if he and Boyd communicated silently, and then Jack Winter said, “He was asleep in the captain’s boat. It was hangin’ in the davits, and when Bill looked he was a-lying in the bottom, dead drunk, so he called me, and I looked, too.”

  Folger scratched his ear and said, “May I inquire why you’re asking, sir?”

  “There’s been another killing. We found Midshipman Kingman’s body this morning.”

  “Another murder?” When he saw Wiki’s nod, he said softly, “Oh, my lord.”

  “Were you at the wake?”

  “Not after the prayers—and Bill wasn’t there, neither. We was both in the fo’c’sle.”

  Boyd’s loud voice broke in. “You’re forgetting that he knows I spied the midshipman a-lying drunk in the bottom of the cap’n’s boat.”

  “Well, we both inspected the decks now and then,” Folger said quickly. “Seeing as there was a spree on the foredeck, and the ship sinking under our feet.”

  “So you saw him in the boat, too?”

  Folger looked down, and mutely shook his head.

  “When was the last time you saw Midshipman Kingman?”

  “During one of the inspections of the deck I took special note of him, on account of he’d got into a quarrel with his lieutenant.”

  Wiki exclaimed, “What?”

  “He’d set up a game of four-card monte, and his lieutenant didn’t like it.”

  Wiki frowned. Zachary Kingman was known to be addicted to gambling, but Forsythe was a gambler, too. He said, “Why was Lieutenant Forsythe upset about it?”

  “The midshipman was winning all the men’s money, and the hands were a-grumbling about it, on account of they reckoned he was cheating, and so they complained to his lieutenant, tellin’ him to put a stop to it, threatening that otherwise there’d be a row. He was angry with the midshipman already, for some reason, and so he agreed it wasn’t polite, and ordered him to give the money back, but had to shake him around a bit to make him obey.”

  My God, thought Wiki—here was another motive for Kingman’s murder. Four-card monte was the most popular form of gambling in most ports of the Pacific, and also the fastest way to lose your money. If Folger told Captain Wilkes about this during an inquiry, Forsythe was doomed to hang, for sure. Swinging round to the steward, he demanded, “Why did you go out of your way to get our officers drunk?”

  Winter’s eyes bulged, and he expostulated, “I didn’t intend for anyone to get drunk! It was a goddamned wake—a serious business!”

  “I don’t think Cap’n Reed would’ve minded if you did,” observed Boyd unexpectedly, and let out a raucous laugh.

  “Hush, Bill,” said Folger. He sounded nervous.

  Wiki looked thoughtfully from Folger to Boyd and back again, and then said to Boyd, “You laid out his corpse, I hear.”

  “He just built the coffin,” Folger interrupted quickly. “Didn’t do no more than that.”

  “So who put the body in the coffin?”

  Folger looked at Boyd, and the younger man said, “I did. But Jack here had already sewed up the body in that rug what was a-soaking with his own gore. Disgustin’, I call it. Bloody un-Christian.”

  Jack Winter exclaimed, “I don’t think it Christian any more than you do! But when I asked Captain Hammond for a piece of old canvas for a winding sheet he bid me use the mat to save expense. Not only was it bloody mean—if you’ll excuse my biblical language, Mr. Coffin—but it turned a nasty job into a dirty one. You ask Captain Hammond, and if he speaks the truth, he’ll tell you that’s the way it come about, and ’twasn’t nothin’ to do with me.”

  “What about the knife?”

  “What knife?”

  “The murder weapon. When I inspected the body,” Wiki elaborated with rapidly ebbing patience, “there was a knife in his back.”

  “Well, there wasn’t no knife when I saw it,” said the steward sulkily. “Just a gash in his back, and a hole in his front, and his shirt all soaked with gore.”

  Wiki exclaimed, “So who the devil took it out?”

  “Not Bill,” said Folger instantly.

  “Not Bill nor me, because the knife was already gone,” the steward said righteously. “You’ll have to ask Captain Hammond how it got out and where it went.”

  “I’ll do that,” said Wiki grimly, and turned on his heel.

  Twenty-four

  Out on deck, the noon sun was hot and bright, and Wiki was amazed how little time had passed since his dreadful swim at dawn. He went to the rail, and looked out at the bay where the Swallow floated serenely, and then turned to look at the beach, to find it ornamented with the glitter of George Rochester’s uniform. Wiki blinked, feeling very startled, wondering why George had left the schooner. Then he saw that Rochester was conferring with Forsythe, whose men were swarming over the wreck of the sloop. It was a hopeful sign, he thought. George, having established Wiki’s credentials on the schooner, was thinking over the proposition of building a raft and getting the Annawan hove down and repaired.

  When Wiki turned to survey the decks again, his attention was caught by a furtive movement. Someone, he realized, was doing his best to keep out of his sight—a Spanish-looking type, wearing a loose striped
red and white shirt over tight black pantaloons, the waist of the shirt cinched in with a broad, brass-studded belt. Having a very strong feeling that this was the character the cutter’s men had described coming down from the mizzen rigging about the time that Captain Reed was killed, Wiki approached him with intent.

  When this stylish figure saw Wiki coming toward him he started like a spurred horse, and moved decisively in a different direction—which confirmed to Wiki that this was indeed one of the men he most wanted to question. Pursuing him determinedly, he finally cornered him by the taffrail. “Hola,” he said, and the seaman stopped trying to get away.

  Remembering the name in the crew list, Wiki checked, “Da Silva, right? Pedro da Silva? Didn’t you join this ship in Rio?”

  “Senhor.” The bloodshot eyes were slipping in every direction to avoid Wiki’s stare. Though he bravely shoved out his chest by cramping in his buttocks and clasping his hands tightly behind his back, he was so obviously nervous he looked as culpable as sin.

  Wiki contemplated him for a long silent moment, something that didn’t ease the man’s jittery state. Then he asked in Portuguese, “Did you ship out to avoid conscription into the army?”

  “No, senhor! Never!” Pedro protested, but still refused to meet Wiki’s stare.

  “Because if that is the case, it might explain your guilty look.”

  “Guilty?” Pedro jumped a foot with fright. “I am guilty of nothing, sir, nothing!”

  “Yet you are trying to avoid me—why?”

  The seaman wavered, and then said uneasily, “I do not wish to appear before an official court of inquiry, sir. It would not be good—for my reputation.”

  “But why should you be called up to give evidence—unless you saw something of importance?” The seaman was silent, and Wiki pursued, “You could be the man whose evidence is the means of apprehending a vicious killer.”

  “Oh,” said the Portuguese seaman, and obviously wavered, impressed by the possible importance of his role.