A Watery Grave (18 page)

They said nothing. Wiki had the impression that they had been talking and had abruptly fallen silent when he opened his door. Then he wondered who had been left in charge of the deck—the boatswain? The cooper? Perhaps Forsythe had brought another midshipman on board with him; Captain Wilkes's predilection for shifting men about the fleet certainly made that possible.

There was a small bench built between the bulk of the mainmast and the foot of the table. Wiki swung a leg over this and sat down. The lamplight from above fell fully on Forsythe, while Wiki himself was in shadow. Forsythe's face was flushed and sweaty, Wiki thought—but that could have been the effect of the lantern. His mouth, however, was definitely loose and damp. There was a half-full bottle between the two men; evidently they had been celebrating. Again, Wiki wondered about the officer on watch. Despite Rochester's instructions to him to look after the brig, it was obvious that if he checked he would be begging for trouble, and so he kept his mouth shut.

Both Forsythe and Kingman had got out of uniform and were wearing loose shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Kingman was so cadaverous that Wiki could see the double bones that made up his forearms, barely covered with thin, weathered skin, so that the limbs looked ancient and mummified. Forsythe's forearms, by contrast, were meaty and muscular. They were heavily tattooed, too, each with a coiled snake writhing from wrist to elbow. On the table, between Forsythe's hands, a flat, dark-colored object rested. Wiki looked at it and heard his own intake of breath. It was hard for him to look away.

Forsythe had been watching him intently. Now he picked the object up so that the light caught on it and said, in his southern drawl, “D'you know what this is?”

“Of course. It's a
mere.
” The leaf-shaped war club was very old, and had been carried in battle many times. It was stained dark at the edges, and the simple spiral carving at the handle end was rubbed and blurred.

“A stone ax, I'd call it. What's it made of?”

“
Pounamu
—greenstone.”

“Is greenstone valuable?”

“Very.” A greenstone
mere
was the supreme hand weapon, the mark of a chief, a potent signifier of his
mana
and his rank.

“You want to know how I got it?”

Not particularly, Wiki thought. He said nothing but simply waited.

“A New Zealand chief gave it to me, on account of he didn't have no use for it no more.”

Still Wiki did not speak, so Kingman, in an exaggerated voice, said, “He
gave
it to you?”

“Wa-al, he didn't say nothin'. He just lay there and watched me as I took it.”

Kingman rolled his eyes. “That sounds mighty careless of him.”

“Wa-al, there was this bullet hole in his forehead.” Forsythe mimed raising a rifle to his eyes, aiming it and firing. “Pinged him first shot, from 190 yards,” he said. “Asked for his head as a trophy,” he added.

Wiki didn't ask if he'd been given the head. Look down at us, lord, he mused ironically, and see what a contrast we make—the civilized tattooed
pakeha
and the uncivilized untattooed savage. Tribal warfare, marked by an endless cycle of insult and revenge, was part of his heritage; if he had been honest when the midshipmen asked about his impressions of America, Wiki would have confessed that he was still constantly amazed by the value Americans placed on human life. In the past, however, his mother's people had fought with wooden spears and clubs like the
mere
Forsythe held. Since then had come the white man's musket, which killed from a distance and destroyed many more men than had fallen in traditional battles. Now, not just in New Zealand, but throughout the Pacific, white sailors were drafted by the leaders of warring tribes for their war skills and their murderously efficient guns. Wiki supposed that most of these mercenaries went off with some kind of loot after they had won the battle for their patrons. He leaned back as the steward put a sea-pie on the table—his second sea-pie of the day—thinking that it would be as palatable as the first.

Three mugs of tea were served, and then the steward disappeared into the pantry. Forsythe put down the war club to help himself. For a while there was nothing but chomping and slurping noises, and then the lieutenant looked at Wiki and observed, “So you got yourself arrested by the sheriff back at Portsmouth, huh?”

Wiki lifted his brows, intrigued by the change of topic. “As you can see,” he said, “he changed his mind.”

“And I wonder why you was lurkin' on that riverbank when that boat bobbed along.” Forsythe snickered and said, “Been waitin' a tidy long time, hadn't you?”

Wiki said sharply, “How do you know that?”

Forsythe's eyes narrowed. Then he tapped the side of his head and said, “Brainwork. We had a little appointment there, remember.”

“An appointment you didn't keep,” Wiki observed.

“And you confounded know why—and you're bloody lucky I didn't, or you'd be six feet under right now.”

“Yet when I left the tavern you were in deep consultation with Powell.”

“Deep consultation, garbage. I was just givin' him the message what I'd come into the tavern to pass on—that he was wanted down at the waterfront.”

Wiki frowned. “A message from whom?”

Forsythe shrugged. “Don't know.”

“What do you mean, you don't know?”

“Exactly what I say, damn it!” Forsythe's fist landed on the table so the dishes all jumped and clattered. The pantry door opened and the steward's inquiring face poked through then retreated in a hurry. As the pantry door clicked shut again, Kingman was looking from Forsythe to Wiki and back, his mouth hanging open in a grin.

Then Forsythe said, his tone more controlled, “A junior mid marched up when I arrived on the wharf and said that Powell needed summoning, and when I told him to damn well deliver the message himself he was gone without even listening.”

Wiki snapped, “I don't believe you.”

“Believe what you bloody well like, but that's the way it happened.”

“What I believe,” said Wiki deliberately, “is that you sent Powell to Newport News with orders to come back to the riverbank with a note from Tristram Stanton.”

“
What?
What note? Why the hell would I want a note from Tristram Stanton?”

“That's the story as I heard it—from Jim Powell himself.”

“Then he's lying, the double-dealing little swab. And I was never on the riverbank!”

“So how do you know I kept the appointment?”

Again Forsythe tapped the side of his head and said smugly, “Brainwork. You was arrested there, wasn't you? And then the sheriff carted you off to the old prison on the waterfront in Portsmouth.”

“I think you were lying in wait,” Wiki reiterated doggedly. “And I think you saw the boat with Mrs. Stanton's body come floating down the river.”

Forsythe went red. “You bloody well couldn't be wronger if you tried, so you can put that little idea out to pasture.”

“So where were you?”

“None of your goddamned business.”

Wiki paused, staring at him. Then he said, in a casual tone, “How long have you and Tristram Stanton been cronies?”

Forsythe's eyes popped and his face went bright red. Then he let out a series of raucous guffaws. His meaty shoulders shook, crumbs spluttered from his open mouth, and tears of mirth ran from his eyes. Kingman giggled too, though uncomprehendingly, and Wiki watched, blank faced.

Finally, Forsythe sobered enough to blow his nose with a loud honking sound. Then he said derisively, “And you reckon you know such a lot, clever Mr. Coffin. Tristram Stanton thinks I'm lower than pig shit—on account of his wife was my cousin, and he was scared pissless I'd take her money.”

Wiki said, stunned, “Tristram Stanton's wife was your
cousin?
”

“Second cousin,” Forsythe amended. “Related through our mothers.” Then he warned, “Don't you get it into your head that there's anythin' to deduce from that—she was from the rich side of the family, I from the poor side, and I was never welcome in the Stantons' house. Not that I didn't call—when I could be sure that Tristram Stanton was not around so I could talk her into lendin' me some cash without him buttin' in. It was our family money, earned by my forefathers, not his! But I sure didn't hang around for the funeral.”

Instead Forsythe—like Burroughs—had been on the
Vincennes,
at sea, when the obsequies were held. Thinking deeply, Wiki said slowly, “Tristram Stanton wasn't at home the day his wife died.”

Forsythe bared his teeth and said, “So I heard.”

“And you were sailing soon—and lieutenants need a tidy sum to contribute to the mess, or so today I learned.”

“Cleverer than ever,” said Forsythe, and helped himself to another huge portion of pie. “Yup,” he said indistinctly, “soon as I heard he was away, I went around to beg Ophelia for some ready—because, by God, I needed it.”

Wiki said blankly, “Did you say
Ophelia?
”

“Yup, O-phe-lee-ah.” Forsythe drew the word out scornfully. “Somethin' else you did not know, huh?”

Wiki silently shook his head. The name was like a strange revelation. He remembered that in Shakespeare's
Hamlet
the spurned Ophelia had drifted off to suicide by drowning, singing a soft, demented song to herself as she floated through the reeds. For the first time the staging of the dead body in the drifting boat made some kind of sense.

“If you ever have pickaninnies—and God forbid you do—my strong advice is not to name them after anythin' in Shakespeare. Ophelia was a pathetic whining bitch, not altogether in control of her wits—like her namesake, folk told me. Didn't surprise me in the slightest to hear she'd ridden off in the dead of night, climbed inside that derelict boat, punted herself off, and taken poison.”

Wiki said, “She didn't die of poisoning.” Then, remembering his conversations with Rochester, he immediately wondered if he was wrong.

However, Forsythe was not disposed to argue. “I heard that, too,” he admitted. “But hell, suicide was on the cards. She'd threatened to do herself in more times than a camel can fart on a bucket of hay.”

“Nevertheless, she was murdered.”

“And Tristram Stanton was the man what snapped her neck.”

Wiki's eyebrows shot up in surprise at the other's flat tone. “As much as I would like to agree,” he observed, “the evidence doesn't point that way. Twenty men from various ships in the fleet have testified that Tristram Stanton was in Newport News at the time.”

“Wa-al, whatever the evidence, the fact remains that he had every good reason to put her out of her misery—which I did not! She didn't give me money then, damn her wizened heart, and I sure don't benefit from her death. So don't look to me for a motive, Mr. Deputy Coffin,” Forsythe said aggressively, and took a slurp from his glass. “At least while she was alive I had prospects. Now I have none.”

Deputy? So Forsythe knew about the sheriff's letter of authorization, Wiki realized—like everyone else in the fleet, it seemed. But had Ophelia Stanton really refused to give him the money? After all, he
was
her cousin—and he
was
off about the world for at least three years. Forsythe must have settled his mess bill somehow, and the money must have come from somewhere.

However, that conclusion did not feel quite right. Wiki remembered the southerner's glowering look as he had stormed into that Norfolk tavern—he had been looking for trouble, he realized now, simply to vent his frustration, which indicated that he just might be telling the truth.

He asked, “What time did you give up and leave the house?”

“What do you mean?” Forsythe demanded suspiciously.

“I'm sure you didn't concede defeat easily—I think you needed that money badly.”

The lieutenant scowled in silence a moment, ruminatively picking his teeth with a long fingernail. Then he admitted with a defiant air, “I was prepared to argue my case till kingdom come, but that craw-faced old bastard threw me out.”

“Stanton's father?” Wiki looked at the lieutenant's thick, muscular, tattooed arms, remembering the stiff, painful way Tristram Stanton's father had moved. “You're exaggerating, surely,” he said, with unconcealed disbelief.

“He got the servants to throw me out,” Forsythe amended. With an irritated movement he shoved back his chair, stood up, grabbed the bottle, jerked his chin at Kingman, and headed for the captain's cabin. “And it took a dozen of 'em to do it!” he yelled over his shoulder as he opened the door. Kingman followed, and the door slammed shut behind them.

Sixteen

It was a relief, at first, to emerge into the cool darkness of the deck. The brig had orders to keep pace with the
Vincennes
and was accordingly under easy sail—as the whole fleet knew, Captain Wilkes was not in any particular hurry yet. All should have been serene, but as Wiki looked around he was gradually beset by uneasiness. The moonlit sea was calm, but the brig rolled unhappily, and the hull and rigging creaked more loudly than they should, with a particularly loud wrenching groan from the spanker boom over the helmsman's head.

And the ocean was emptier than Wiki had expected. He looked about at the black shimmer of the water and then clambered up the main rigging to the crosstrees. From there he could glimpse the masthead lights of the
Vincennes
—but the flagship was about three miles away, much farther than he had expected. He could see another dot of light from the distant
Peacock,
but the gun brig
Porpoise
and the schooners
Flying Fish
and
Sea Gull
were nowhere to be seen.