Shark Island

by Joan Druett

  “So what did you see from aloft, that afternoon that Captain Reed was killed?”

  There was a long, suspenseful silence, while Pedro’s dark eyes slid from side to side, but then he said boldly, “I did see a great deal. One sees much from there.”

  “Perhaps what you saw will prevent more murders in the future.” Wiki paused, and then said reassuringly, “Just tell me what you saw that afternoon, right from the beginning.”

  It was as if he had turned on a faucet. Pedro suddenly became garrulous, the words hurrying out of his mouth and his sentences tumbling over each other; it was as if he had been anxious to tell someone about it, but hadn’t had the courage until now.

  “The cutter arrived at about the same time as the two boats,” he described. “I saw the two officers talk with Mr. Hammond, and then Captain Reed came out and they went into the cabin with him. Soon after that I saw the steward come out. He took a bottle to the seamen on the fo’c’sle deck, and I saw him sit down with them. Later still, I saw the captain and your two officers come out, and stand talking—I think they were arguing. The captain was yelling for more brandy, and I saw the captain’s wife bring it to him. Then Mr. Hammond called for two boats’ crews to go to the navy brig, but I am not one of those, you understand. Instead of going to the Swallow, I stayed aloft. After the boats had gone away, they all went into the cabin; then after a while I saw the two navy officers come out. They were in a hurry. I saw the captain’s wife come running out after the two officers from the navy ship, but she did not join them. She ran to the galley; then she ran back to the cabin; then she ran out again, screaming. That was when I came down from the rigging to see what she was screaming about.”

  “When she ran to the galley, did you see anyone else on the quarterdeck?”

  To Wiki’s surprise, Pedro nodded without even troubling to think.

  “Who was it?”

  “I can’t tell you, because it was only a glimpse—a movement, you understand. The man was either very short, or bent low down. Then he was gone. It happened very quickly, and my attention was on Mrs. Reed.”

  “Did you hear her call out to the cook?”

  “To the man in the galley?”

  “Aye,” said Wiki, thinking that this was the first confirmation he had had that there was a man in the galley at the time, because the cutter’s men had been so unsure of it.

  “She did say something to him,” Pedro said. “But I did not know the words. It was in a different language, perhaps.”

  Wiki hesitated, and then said, “Do you remember the kind of sound the words made?”

  Pedro shook his head, but then to Wiki’s surprise he laughed, saying, “When she called out it reminded me of the call of an owl—tu-whit-tu-woo.”

  Wiki’s brows shot up. “What happened next?”

  “Next, Mrs. Reed turned around and ran back to the after house. Down she ran, then back she came, screaming. Then everyone was running to the quarterdeck all at once and you came on board. I did not know then that you are an officer of the law, or I would have spoken to you right away,” he added importantly, just as if he expected Wiki to have forgotten that only minutes before he’d been doing his damnedest to avoid being questioned.

  Wiki said, “You can’t remember anything else—what the man you glimpsed was wearing, for instance?”

  Pedro shook his head.

  “Were you at the wake?”

  “But of course! Our captain was dead, and it was the right thing to do.”

  “And you played monte with the midshipman?”

  Pedro went back to looking nervous, blustering, “Is that something wrong?”

  “Perhaps you lost all your money.”

  “His lieutenant made him give it back.”

  “Who else was playing?”

  The seaman hesitated, but then rattled off a short list of names that did not include the steward, Boyd, Folger, or the cook. Wiki said, “Did they all lose their money to the midshipman?”

  “He was cheating, we think.”

  “But they all got their money back?”

  “Aye, sir. Your lieutenant made sure of that.”

  “So what happened afterward?”

  “Most went into the fo’c’sle, as it was no longer fun, you understand.”

  “What about yourself?”

  Pedro shrugged. “I stayed to have a small drink. Then Captain Hammond came out and ordered me to go to masthead lookout.”

  So, coincidentally, he was in the same vantage point where he’d been when Ezekiel Reed was knifed. Wiki said, “What else did you notice about our midshipman?”

  “He and your lieutenant were very, very drunk, and they were still very angry with each other, I think. Then the midshipman went and lay down in the captain’s boat.”

  “You saw him from aloft?”

  “He was directly below me. I saw people come and look at him—the boatswain’s mate, the steward, and then Captain Hammond. After they had gone away he got up and jumped out of the boat again. Some men came and lowered the boat, but he was not there. They pulled to the beach after putting your lieutenant in the bottom. After that I was off duty, so I went to my berth.”

  “Did you see where the midshipman went after he got out of the boat?”

  “Aye, sir. After he jumped out of the boat he staggered off to the after house, heading for the captain’s cabin.”

  “Is that so?” said Wiki slowly.

  Twenty-five

  The door at the top of the short companionway to the captain’s cabin was clipped open, so that as Wiki descended the stairs Annabelle was in plain view. Again she was sitting in an armchair by the stove. This time, however, the fire wasn’t lit. When she heard Wiki’s step she turned in the chair, looked up, and gasped, “Oh Wiki, you’ve come!”

  “Aye,” he said, and when he stepped right into the room she stood up and rushed to him as if she were desperate for reassurance. He held her, feeling the different ways her trembling body pressed hard against his. Looking down at her, he saw that the black hair was the same, shining like silk, falling in wings from a center parting and braided into the tender nape of her neck. Without volition, his hand cradled the back of her glossy head.

  He wasn’t even sure she felt it, because she pulled away, and settled back in her chair. “Please sit,” she said, in the formal way she adopted every now and then. He looked around, and took the seat he’d used before.

  She said, “Captain Rochester tells me you are now a sheriff.”

  “A deputy,” he corrected, and added wryly, “I didn’t apply for the position. The sheriff of Portsmouth felt frustrated because he couldn’t follow a murderer onto the exploring expedition, and so he delivered a document to Captain Wilkes appointing me his proxy.”

  “And did you find that murderer?”

  Wiki nodded.

  “So that makes you a most important person.”

  Wiki couldn’t find an answer to that—he didn’t agree, but he could hardly make the investigation more difficult by saying so. So instead, he gave her a self-deprecating smile.

  “Now you understand the situation,” he suggested, “you don’t mind if I ask you some questions?”

  “Only if I can do the same,” she said pertly.

  He laughed with surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “For every question you ask, I can ask you one of my own. Isn’t that a fair trade?”

  “I’m not sure that’s the usual procedure.”

  “But that is the condition I set,” she said. Her eyes were dancing with sudden mischief, but he nodded. Damn it, he thought, we’re flirting again.

  He said, “Me first?”

  “You are the important one,” she said saucily, “so of course you go first.”

  “How did Ezekiel find out that the sloop was wrecked on Shark Island?”

  “Shark Island?”

  “Ilha Tubarão.”

  “Is that what this island is called?”

  “Aye,” said
Wiki, and added severely, “Now I have answered two of your questions, and you haven’t answered even one of mine.” He repeated, “Who told Ezekiel the sloop Hero was lying here?”

  She shrugged, and said, “Ezekiel would never discuss his business affairs with a woman, even a woman who was his wife.”

  “Annabelle, that is not an answer!”

  “All I can tell you is that he went on shore at Rio, and came back very angry. He had learned that the sloop had been wrecked, and while he was away the cook and a seaman had run off. Next day, my husband received Festin and another seaman called da Silva on board, and we weighed anchor, and sailed for this coast. I didn’t go on shore at all,” she said resentfully. “This I did not expect when I made up my mind to go to sea.”

  “I’ve already told you that coming on a sealing voyage was a crazy idea.”

  She shrugged elaborately, looking very Gallic, and said, “What does it matter? This voyage turned out to be not for sealing.”

  “He gave up the sealing idea because the Hero had been wrecked?”

  “Of course. He wished to come and salvage it.”

  Wiki watched her through his lashes as he insinuated, “I wouldn’t have thought the sloop valuable enough to be worth the trouble.”

  She waved an eloquently dismissive hand. “I don’t know about value. All I know is that the captain of the Hero ran the sloop ashore in order to escape some pirates.”

  “So what happened after you arrived here?”

  “That couyon, Joel Hammond, he sailed the schooner over a rock, so she got a hole in her bottom. There was a great fuss with canvas and ropes as the men tried to stop the leak, and then Ezekiel came back from shore rubbing his hands together, and after that he drank a great deal of brandy.”

  Remembering something Forsythe had said, Wiki checked, “As if he were celebrating?”

  “And as if he were angry, too. He was pleased about finding the wreck, but furious when he found that the Annawan was no longer fit to go to sea. Every now and then he said he would send for one of his captains to come to the rescue, but mostly he was too drunk for anyone to guess what was going on in his head. I did not know until I came on voyage how much my husband drank. He was a different person at home. At home he was generous and attentive. At sea he was so … so unloving.”

  She leaned closer, so that Wiki was suddenly aware of her scent. The movement lifted her breasts in the confines of her low bodice.

  She said, “You have asked me four questions, and I have only asked you two.”

  Wiki thought back, and realized she was right, so he waited.

  “So why did you come on deck … the way you did this morning?”

  “I’d been swimming.”

  “But—met tes fesse a l’aire?”

  “I prefer to swim naked—and that’s two questions,” he said.

  She bridled. “Perhaps you think it is clever to come out of the water like some kind of—of primitive sea god.”

  He smiled wryly, and said, “No insult was intended.”

  “But your buttocks are tattooed! In—in great, bold spirals. Is that the custom in your country?”

  He thought about it. “In my iwi—my tribe,” he corrected.

  “So you have been back to your home since you saw me last?”

  “Oh aye,” he said. Getting home had been his chief aim after he and George Rochester had run away from the college in Dartmouth. He’d shipped on a whaleship because that was the most direct way of getting to the Bay of Islands. When the ship had sailed in the wrong direction, he had solved the problem by deserting at the next landfall and joining another ship that was going the right way. “I’ve been back twice,” he said.

  “And your people were glad to see you?”

  “Of course. I had many wonderful tales to tell,” he said dryly. “And because of that I was a person of importance.”

  “And you got your—tes fesses—tattooed.” She leaned forward again and whispered, “Did it hurt?”

  It had hurt like hell. On other islands in the Pacific, tattoos were tapped into the surface of the skin with special combs, which was painful enough, but in New Zealand the patterns were carved with a chisel as if the living flesh were wood. By the time his buttocks had healed, sitting down had become an unaccustomed luxury.

  However, Wiki merely smiled, and said, “Do you realize how many more questions you have asked of me than I have asked of you?”

  “Those don’t count, because you never answered the first question properly.”

  “Which one was that?”

  “Why did you rush up the side of the ship onto the deck?”

  “Because I was attacked by a shark.”

  “A shark?” For a moment he thought she would dash up to deck and go to the rail, like her cousin, and he said, “It’s gone.” Then he leaned forward, coming closer, breathing in her scent, resting his forearms along his thighs as he watched the subtle changes in her expression, and said, “Now it’s my turn.”

  She pouted, and waited.

  “How did the parrot get burned?”

  “It was an accident. It flew into the cabin stove all by itself.”

  “It escaped from its cage?”

  “No, I took it out. I opened the door and grabbed it.”

  “But why?”

  She exclaimed passionately, “You told me that Ezekiel’s ghost was in a bird, and I knew it was that bird—and I couldn’t bear it. Can you even start to imagine what it was like? Once, that bird was my special pet, but now every time the poor creature stirred on its perch I knew it was possessed!”

  Dear God, thought Wiki, what nightmares had he inadvertently triggered?

  He said, wincing, “So what did you do?”

  “I took it out of the cage to take it on deck and throw it over the railing—but it escaped; it struggled away from me, and flew into the fire. It fell to the floor and I thought it was dead. But it started floundering about—it was horrible, horrible! I heard Robert Festin killing hens for dinner—and when I looked he was chopping off their heads, so I wished him to chop off the parrot’s head, too, because it had to be put out of its terrible pain. He will cook it with tomorrow’s stew—and why not? Those couyons of sailors won’t notice it.”

  Wiki grimaced. Then he said, “Did Captain Rochester tell you about Passed Midshipman Kingman?”

  She looked puzzled. “That horrid skinny man who made that very crude joke about the convent where I was educated? What should I know about him?”

  “He was murdered the night of the wake.”

  “Murdered?”

  “Aye—and the last anyone saw of him, he was staggering toward the after house.”

  “What? But why would he come here?”

  Her voice had become shrill, verging on hysteria, so he said in a more gentle tone, “He knew that you had supplied the liquor for the spree, so maybe he wanted more. If he did come in here, though, you might have been the last person to see him alive.”

  “But I tell you I didn’t see him!” she cried.

  “Perhaps he wanted to see Alphabet?”

  She blinked, looking confused, and demanded, “Who told you Alphabet was here?”

  Wiki felt puzzled. “He did—Alphabet did. He said he slept in Ezekiel’s stateroom because you were so upset.”

  “Oh.” She bit her lip, blinking hard as if more tears were threatening. “He gave me his arm to escort me, yes, when I came back after the prayers, and I was crying, of course, but I don’t know why he told you that; he went off with the boat that took your officers to the beach, I think, and after I had finished crying I slept remarkably well.”

  “So you didn’t hear anything unusual?” he asked.

  She frowned, and said, “I heard the boat being lowered, and after that it was quiet. I went to sleep, but then I was woken by a bump against the wall.”

  “A bump?”

  “Yes. Just one bump, and maybe I heard footsteps, too. Later, I was woken again by a splash—or
maybe it was the boat returning—and then I went back to sleep and did not wake up until morning.”

  “A bump?” Wiki looked around. “In here?”

  “No, no. Outside, on the deck—up there.”

  He stood up and headed for the stairs, hearing the rustle of skirts as Annabelle hurried after him. When they arrived on deck, he looked at her queryingly, and she pointed toward the larboard side of the after house.

  He strode around the corner. Sun bounced up from the rippling water, forcing him to squint, and it was hot in the sheltered space between the wall of the after house and the larboard rail. He turned as Annabelle came up alongside him, and she said, “The noise came from here. A bump, and sometime after that, a splash.”

  Wiki looked down, and his heart seemed to freeze. Though someone had tried to scrub it away, there was a wide, dark stain on the planks.

  Twenty-six

  When Wiki returned to deck, George was still standing by the wreck, and so he dived over the rail and swam to the beach. As he walked out of the surf, Rochester came to meet him. For some moments his friend said nothing, instead frowning and watching assessingly as Wiki took off his shirt and trousers, wrung them out, and put them on again.

  Then he said, “Are you all right?”

  “Aye,” said Wiki. As a matter of fact, he felt magnificent.

  “You weren’t worried about sharks?”

  Wiki blinked, and turned and looked at the sparkling stretch of water he’d just swum across. The thought of shark attack hadn’t even occurred to him.

  Rochester gave up waiting for an answer, and led the way to the wreck, which looked different, Forsythe and his men having taken away a great deal of the cordage. Feeling awkward because of the odd quality of George’s silence, Wiki said, “Thank you for establishing my credentials—you must have done a good job on Joel Hammond, because he ordered his men to cooperate.”

  “So what did you find out?”

  “The cook was definitely in the galley at the time Ezekiel Reed was killed—and when I had a look around in there, I found that someone had burned some clothing in the fire. There was very little left, but enough to guess it was a bloodstained shirt.”