by Paul Doiron
The seas grew rough. The dinghy hadn’t been designed to face big water. The only consolation was that the fog seemed to be breaking. I opened up the throttle and received heavy spray in my face as the price of speed. My lips tasted of salt.
The engine had made me deaf to all other sounds. I decided to take a breather to clear the fumes from my lungs. I switched off the motor and found that I could hear the chattering of gulls and the cawing of crows maybe a hundred yards to the northwest. There must have been an island or ledge there where the birds gathered. Rocking back and forth on the churning seas, I listened.
In the distance a woman was laughing. The faint sound seemed to be coming from the same direction as the cries of the birds. Who else could it be but Ariel?
I decided to creep up on the Sea Hag. I pulled the motor’s skeg and propeller up and fitted the oars into the oarlocks. I tried to keep the racket to a minimum. The birds were raucous enough to cover whatever rowing sounds I made.
As I neared the lobsterboat, bits and pieces of dialogue drifted toward me across the water.
Crowley: “That seal that went under—that was a harbor seal. You can tell from the shape of the muzzle. It’s sort of puppy-dog-like. The gray seals have these big horse heads.”
Ariel: “Will we see gray seals, too?”
Crowley: “Maybe. They’re a lot more common than when I was a kid.”
Ariel: “When you were a kid, huh?”
Crowley: “The grays have brought back the sharks, though.”
Ariel: “Do you ever see sharks out here?”
Crowley: “Heck, yeah! Lots of them. I’ve seen blues, mostly, and basking sharks. Those are sizable sons of bitches. I’ve seen mako sharks jump ten feet in the air. We even had a great white come into the harbor once. Don’t think anyone went swimming for a full year after.”
What is this, a nature tour?
If the kid had malicious intentions toward Ariel, there was no hint of it in their casual conversation. My face and hair were soaked from the spray that my oars had whipped from the tops of the waves. Cold water ran down the handles and into my shirtsleeves when I feathered the blades.
“Kenneth, is that a man in a boat?” Ariel had spotted me.
“Whoever he is, he’s in Chum’s dinghy.” Crowley’s voice rose. “Ahoy there!”
I pulled on the left oar to bring myself around in a circle so that I was facing them.
Ariel leaned over the gunwale. She was wearing her parka and a shapeless wool hat I hadn’t seen before. “Mike?”
I put on a smile. “Hello!”
“What are you doing out here? We must be a mile from shore.”
Crowley ducked out from under the standing shelter. He stared at me with the focused intensity of a predatory animal that has isolated its prey from the herd.
“You get lost in the fog, Warden?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
I didn’t know why I was joking around. If my attempt was to put the lobsterman at his ease, it was not succeeding. He’d moved close enough to Ariel to push her overboard with one touch of his strong hand.
“Seriously, Mike?” Ariel said. “What’s going on?”
“Chum McNulty told me you two were out here. I found something outside the cottage that you need to see, Ariel. It’s important.”
Her face tightened. “What is it?”
I dug the oars in, this time using a reverse stroke to approach the lobsterboat’s stern at a perpendicular angle. “I’ll come up to your transom, Captain. And Ariel can step into the dinghy.”
My little boat bumped the Sea Hag. Crowley grabbed hold of the gaff he used to snag the toggles of traps. He brought the cruel hook down hard on the gunwale of the dinghy, holding me fast against his stern.
“You sure you don’t want to come up?” he said. “Nat’s got a pint of peach schnapps stashed somewhere.”
“It’s tempting, Kenneth, but I need to get Ariel back. I’m afraid it can’t wait.”
The gulls on the ledge kept up their maniacal jeering. Wisps of cottony fog began closing in around our boats.
“It seems like he don’t want you out here with me or something,” said Crowley with an insulted tone.
“That’s ridiculous, Kenneth.”
“Maybe I should go with him,” said Ariel. I saw alarm flicker in her eyes. She had finally stopped seeing Crowley as a hapless teenager.
“This is stupid!” The iron hook in his hands was an intimidating weapon. “You’re not afraid of me, are you, Ariel?”
“Not at all, Kenneth. I just need to go with the warden.”
He pulled the gaff loose, and the two boats began floating apart. I backed oars until I knocked the transom again. I had to keep rowing to hold the little boat in place.
“I’m sorry I said what I said about your sister. I was kind of a little drunk.”
She put a hand lightly on his forearm. “Kenneth, I’m the one who should apologize. Miranda ruined a lot of people’s lives out here. She had a habit of doing that.”
Now his face darkened again. “Chum’s shitty engine’s gonna die on you before you get halfway to the breakwater.”
“We’ll take our chances,” I said.
“What’s wrong with you people? I told you I’d take you in! Why are you afraid of me?”
This time, Ariel herself reached for the dinghy and held it while she stepped over the transom.
“Keep your center of gravity low,” I cautioned.
She sat down on the molded seat in the stern so that her back was to the Sea Hag. Her eyes were wide and full of questions. I tried to keep my own expression blank.
Crowley gave the dinghy such a forceful shove that we wobbled. Ariel reached out to steady herself against the gunwales. I hurried to drop the oar blades in the water.
He shouted after us, “If you capsize or get swept out into the gulf, don’t expect me to come looking for you!”
He removed his chewing tobacco from his pocket, shoved a wad inside his cheek, and watched us until we could no longer see him through the opaque curtain of fog.
“Didn’t you learn anything from your last attempt at ‘rescuing’ me?” Ariel said in a harsh whisper. “Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”
I kept my voice low as I rowed. “In a minute.”
“For God’s sake, Mike.”
I pulled the oars in and gave the outboard motor a yank. It didn’t catch. I tried again and it didn’t catch. I fiddled with the choke. The third time was the charm. Black smoke billowed around us.
Off in the fog, the Sea Hag roared to life. I knew that we couldn’t outrun the powerful lobsterboat. But I had formulated a plan if things took a bad turn.
“What are you doing?” Ariel shouted at me over the outboard. “You’re taking us out to sea.”
“Just around the back side of the ledge.”
She straightened up suddenly. “Oh, shit. I left my messenger bag on the boat. I knew I was forgetting something. We’ve got to go back for it.”
“We can’t.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I don’t trust Crowley. I think he’s dangerous.”
Her expression was one of strained disbelief. “He’s just a strange, mixed-up kid. You need to turn around. My phone is in that bag—and all my notes. I’m not kidding, Mike. We’ve got to go back for it.”
The Sea Hag was moving off in the direction of the harbor. I cut the engine again. Suddenly we could hear the gulls once more. I prayed that Crowley hadn’t glimpsed me pilot the dinghy around the back side of the ledge. With the fog breaking up, we couldn’t afford to be seen.
“What’s this all about?” Ariel demanded.
“It has to do with Nat Pillsbury. A week ago, by all accounts, he was head over heels in love with your sister. But ever since she died, he’s been acting like a devoted, protective husband. He made a midnight crossing in dangerous conditions last night just to pick up his wife and daughter and bring them back
to Maquoit. It wasn’t because the state police brutalized her. So why did he do it?”
“Because he felt guilty for the way he’d treated Jenny?”
“Maybe. But I just don’t get the impression from him that he came to his senses. When people said Nat wanted to run off with Miranda, I took it as an exaggeration. But what if he had been serious about it? What if he really had intended to leave his family for a new life with your sister?”
Ariel laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion. “Miranda would have told him he was dreaming. If anything, she probably wanted to shack up with the hermit, tend sheep, and burn incense.”
“Maybe she told Nat that.”
“Told him what?”
“That she didn’t love him. That she was just using him for sex. Maybe it made him furious.”
“I wouldn’t have put it past her. Miranda prided herself on being brutally honest, with the emphasis on brutally.”
“Then there’s Jenny Pillsbury. When I saw her this morning at the store, she was almost too friendly. She even offered to buy my breakfast. What was she even doing working after the night she’d had?”
“At least she was friendly to you. She could barely bring herself to look at me, and when she did, it was with hatred. But I thought you said she had an alibi for the morning of the shooting. Wasn’t she at the store?”
“She was at Graffam’s at the time Miranda died. She and Hiram Reed.”
“But what does any of this have to do with Crowley?”
“He’s Nat’s sternman. Whose idea was it to go out on the Sea Hag?”
She paused before answering. “It was Kenneth’s idea. I asked if he had time to talk about Miranda, and he said Nat had asked him to test out the engines. He said I was welcome to come with him out to Calderwood Ledge to look for seals.”
The sound of the lobsterboat engines had grown so faint they were hard to hear.
Now the dark shape of the ledge began to take shape. The seabirds, with their superior vision, reacted to our encroachment with a chorus of screeches. The rocks on the windward side of the island were sheer and steep. When the waves broke against them, brilliant splashes exploded high and white into the air. The lower reaches were enrobed with a thick, ocher coat of bladder wrack.
Most of the birds grouped along the ridge were herring gulls, with a few great black-backed gulls among them. On a separate outcropping the cormorants were drying their outstretched wings. They perched, menacing and cruciform, atop the rocks. From a distance, a mariner might have mistaken them for stone crosses marking the watery graves of the island’s lost fishermen.
“Mike?”
“Sorry, I am still trying to put this all together.”
“No. Listen.”
Watching the birds, I had been so lost in thought that I hadn’t noticed the growl of the Sea Hag returning.
43
Crowley must have searched the outer harbor, and when he didn’t find us, he must have realized that I’d snuck in behind the ledge. There would have been no other place I could have hidden the dinghy in such a short time.
I tried the engine, but it wouldn’t catch. The gremlin inside must have been waiting until I absolutely needed the spark plugs to fire.
I reached for the orange ditty bag at my feet. “I need you to put this on. It’s an immersion suit. You’ll float in it, and it will protect you from the cold water. I’ll help secure it. You won’t need to do a thing.”
“What about you?”
I lifted the sopped personal flotation device from the boat bottom. “I have this.”
“Mike, the water must be fifty degrees.”
“Forty degrees according to Chum McNulty.”
“It won’t matter if you have a life jacket. You’ll die of hypothermia in twenty minutes. Didn’t you see Titanic?”
I pulled the orange neoprene suit from the bag. “What did I tell you about movies?”
“That you don’t watch them.”
This standard one-piece Mustang survival suit had a center zipper, hood, and inflatable head pillow. At my instruction, she slipped her feet—shoes and all—into the bootees and wiggled the suit up her legs, past her hips to her chest. I guided her arms into the sleeves as if we were a couple on a date, and I were a gentlemen helping her put on her coat. The arms ended in gloves that were too big for her tiny hands. But otherwise, the fit was passable.
When we were done, she stared nervously at me from beneath her orange cowl and mumbled through the flap that covered the lower half of her face, “What do I do now?”
“You wait.” I pulled the personal flotation device over my head and cinched the side straps. The bulky, blocky thing had been orange before the sun faded the fabric to a dull persimmon. “You’ll float automatically if you go into the water so there’s no need to freak out. But you’ll want to blow into the tube beside your mouth to inflate the pillow behind your head. It’s designed to keep your face abovewater.”
“You don’t really think that kid intends to kill us?”
“I don’t know what he intends to do, but I want to be prepared for the worst-case scenario.”
With those words, I removed my pistol from its holster and tucked it into the vest above my wishbone. The PFD came with two exterior pockets. I placed my spare magazines in one pocket and my Gerber push-button automatic knife in the other. After a moment’s consideration, I added my badge to the items I was unwilling to lose.
Through the wispy fog we saw the Sea Hag round the north end of the ledge. Once Crowley was well clear of the rocks, he cut the engine and let the lobsterboat drift forward on its own momentum.
“What is he doing?”
“I assume Nat keeps binoculars on the counter. All fishermen have a pair on their boats. He’s watching us now.”
I tried the engine again. This time I got it sputtering. I turned the tiller toward the ledges.
“You’re going to crash us!” Ariel said through her mouthpiece.
“Hopefully not. I can’t outrun him, but if I can get us close enough to the rocks, he won’t be able to plot a collision course without risking his own boat.”
It took a moment for Crowley to recognize my stratagem for what it was. He restarted the dual engines and pushed the throttle down. Most fishing boats are built to plow through the water, but the Sea Hag was so powerful, with its twin inboards, it seemed to skim along the whitecaps.
Too late, I saw the flaw in my plan. Instead of smashing us head-on with his bow, Crowley turned aside at the last second, creating a horrific wave that lifted the dinghy, spun it around, and pushed it toward the looming ledge.
Ariel flopped against me. “He really is trying to kill us!”
“Brace yourself!”
We came in hard, and the fiberglass made a painful crunching noise. Worse, the lobsterboat had created a wave that crashed over the gunwale, flooding the bottom of the dinghy, and extinguishing the outboard.
The gulls had erupted into the hazy air, screaming so loudly we could hardly hear each other over their shrill voices.
Meanwhile Crowley had come around and was once more facing us as we collided again and again against the low cliff.
“He’s hoping the waves will swamp us,” I said.
“Should we try climbing that seaweed? Maybe we can get on top of it.”
“We won’t be able to get a grip on that bladder wrack. Or the basalt above. Take the oar. Use it as a paddle as best you can to keep us clear of the ledge.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to defend us. Promise me you’re going to survive this, Ariel. I’m going to need your testimony when I go in front of the attorney general.”
I wrapped my hands around the grip of my service weapon and leveled it at the figure behind the windscreen. Before he could react, I squeezed off a shot. The white-hot shell bounced off my shoulder as it was ejected from the chamber.
I saw a single hole in the plastic close to where Crowley had been standing
. The jostling of the waves had caused me to fire wide and to the left. Now the lobsterman ducked down so that I couldn’t obtain a target. He pulled back the throttle so that the screws turned counterclockwise and the boat backed off.
“There’s a marine shotgun onboard,” Ariel said. “He said Nat uses it on gulls sometimes when they mob his boat.”
I remembered the Mossberg pump Pillsbury had shown me. He must have brought the gun to the Sea Hag after our conversation. “He’s not going to shoot us.”
“Why not?”
“He wants it to look like our boat got swamped and we drowned or froze. Our deaths have to appear accidental.” The water in the bottom of the dinghy was above the tops of my Bean boots and oozing down my socks. I had no clue how much more it would take for the fiberglass hull to start sinking. “Right now his plan is to wait us out.”
The Sea Hag rose suddenly on a wave, then dropped just as fast.
“Hang on! Here comes a big one!”
The white-ridged crest rose nearly to the gunwale, and we found ourselves hurtling again toward the rocks. Ariel tried using the oar to brace us, but she lost her grip, and it was carried away by the current. Seconds later we were slammed against the basalt with such force I heard the fiberglass crack.
It was all I could do to hang on to my handgun as ice-cold water covered me from head to toe. The shock went through me like a surge of electricity. My heart clenched. My lungs gasped out the air they’d been holding. I was left so disoriented I didn’t notice that Ariel had fallen into the sea.
“Mike!”
I rubbed away the mucus flushed from my burning sinuses. “Inflate the head pillow! You’re going to float. Kick your feet to get clear of the rocks.”
The dinghy was swamped now. It would be dragged to the bottom soon, weighed down by the engine.
I glanced back at the Sea Hag, but Crowley refused to show himself. I raised the gun above my head and fired once into the air. Then I counted to five. Again I fired. Counted once more to five. And fired.
Three shots: the universal signal for a person in distress.
But would anyone back on Maquoit be able to hear them? Would anyone recognize their meaning?
