Billingsgate Shoal (10 page)

There were several other envelopes under this one,
including what appeared to be a magazine wrapped in brown paper near
the bottom. A
New Yorker
?
No, not quite the same. Then I noticed that the second envelope from
the top, the one directly beneath the blue one, had its upper edge
peeking out. All._I could read was the top line of the return
address: A. J. Liebnitz and Sons, Ltd. Where it came from I couldn't
tell. But I could tell this: the envelope was certainly classy
looking. The paper was the thick parchment type with lots of little
fibers in it, sort of like the kind in U.S. dollar bills. Also, the
name A. J. Liebnitz was embossed as well as printed. It was obviously
not your standard junk mail, the kind telling you that Finast has
weiners on sale for 79¢ a pack. I wrote down the name A. J. Liebnitz
and replaced pad and pen.

Finally, I took note of the date on the postmark on
the letter from the Virgin Islands. August 12. Almost a month ago.
Wherever Wallace Kinchloe was, he hadn't visited his mail box in
quite some time. And the letter on top was the most recent one too.
How long had the ones at the bottom of the heap been lying there?

At three o'clock exactly I
met Jack at Brookstone's, as arranged. We looked at the fine
woodworking and gardening tools from England and Germany, and I
bought a big hurricane lamp with a walnut base and big crystal
chimney for the porch at the cottage. Mary would love it. Less than
two hours later I was sitting in the sauna bath turning over the
events and discoveries of the past week. One thing kept rising
uppermost in my thoughts: whether Allan's death was accidental or
not, it was beginning to look more and more suspicious. This only
increased my desire to find
Penelope
and her captain. And that boat was proving to be, at each tum of the
path, more and more elusive and mysterious.

* * *

Later in the week I kept my promise to Mary. After
doing two hours of paperwork in the office I walked two doors down
the corridor and entered Moe Abramson's office.

Soon I was reclining in a two-thousand-dollar belting
leather Eames chair, watching the thirty-gallon aquarium. Two
cardinal tetras chased each other from territory to territory. Small
iridescent schools of neon tetras and zebra dianos winked about under
the fluorescent light. A Mozart concerto hummed and danced in the
background. Moe's office was plush indeed. Sitting there, one would
never guess that he resided in an ancient Airstream motor home in
Walden Breezes Trailer Park. In short, most patients assume that
psychiatrist Morris Abramson is sane. If fact he's a nut. He gives
almost every penny he makes to one charitable organization or
another. He keeps trying to save the world. The last guy who did that
got nailed up to two pieces of wood.

He glared up at me.

"So you're feeling better?"

"Much," I answered, noticing a slimy,
eellike creature emerge from under a conch shell and slither along
the sand on the bottom of the tank. "What the hell is that?"

He smiled at the creature. It had no eyes and
feathery whiskers around its sucking mouth.

"That's Ruth, my loach."

"Well, Ruth's got a bad case of the uglies—"

"Look, Doc, it relaxes the patients. Gets their
minds off themselves just a bit. They find they're so busy staring at
the tank they open up more—tell me things they wouldn't
ordinarily."

"You should keep a vomit bag taped to the side
of the glass for people who have the misfortune to look at that thing
too long. It's worse looking than a sand worm."

The slender, bearded man advanced a pawn on the board
that sat on the desk made of solid teak with brushed chrome trim.

"Your move, Doc. So you're happier. Ah, you feel
better about your job."

"Wrong. As you can see by the damaged arm I'm
not currently practicing. Maybe that's why I feel better about it.
I've been spending my time tracking down a boat and a man. Both are
elusive. Of course it's. probably nothing except my overactive
imagination and sense of guilt."

Moe sat up straight in his chair and arched his
eyebrows at me behind his wire-rims. He stroked the beard.

"But I'll tell you one thing Moe: it's not
boring."

"So tell me. . ."

"How much will it cost?"

"Plenty."

"Who are you giving it to?"

"The Hadley School for the Blind and the Kidney
Foundation."

"Who do you know who's blind?"

"Do I have to personally know someone who's
blind to help? Someone's got to do it. Why not me?" .

"OK," I said, and cleared my throat to
begin. Ruth sliggered over to the edge of the tank and smushed her
prehistoric snout up against the glass nearest me as if she, too,
couldn't wait to hear.

"Cute isn't she? Kind of grows on you, like a
wart," said Moe. "So begin already; I haven't got all day!"
 

CHAPTER SIX

MARY'S BROTHER, Joe Brindelli—Detective Lieutenant
Joe Brindelli—appeared at the Concord domicile promptly at
nine-thirty two days later. He joined us for after-breakfast coffee.

"Well? Anything?"

"I checked on Walter Kincaid, his wife Laura
Armstrong Kincaid, and the Kincaid Foundation?

"What foundation?"

"The Kincaid Foundation is a small one that was
founded to finance the exploration of various marine archaeological
sites for the purpose of recovering quote 'maritime relics of
historical and artistic significance for the museums of New England'
unquote."

"Sounds like a front to finance his private
yacht, the
Windhover
."

"Maybe. Certainly he used the foundation and its
tax-free money to finance his trips. And certainly again, we can
assumes that each and every time he stepped aboard the converted
trawler it wasn't all for business. But I did hear from more than one
source that he contributed heavily to many of the local museums, most
especially the Peabody Museum in Salem and the whaling museum in New
Bedford."

"What were these marine relics?"

"You know—parts of old sailing ships, pottery
shards, old whiskey bottles, coins, cutlasses, cannons—"

"And he gave it all to the museums?"

"No way of telling that, is there? I wouldn't be
surprised if he kept a few of the better pieces for his own private
collection."

"Jack did a little research on the Wheel-Lock
Corporation. They make some kind of rotary lock that is partly
mechanical and partly electronic. These are very top-quality,
high-ticket items and are mostly used to guard important things like
banks, annories, research facilities, and so on. Kincaid patented the
basic mechanism of the first lock aback in 'fifty-seven."

Joe sipped his coffee, listening. Then he added:

"Kincaid's a New England boy, or was MIT grad,
born in Woburn sixty-two years ago. Hitch in the navy during the war.
Married Laura Armstrong in the early forties. No children. Good
credit rating—as you might expect—no dirt. Clean. The wife is
from a rich family in England, though she was raised here. The
Armstrongs immigrated here when she was a kid. Apparently they owned
some kind of tile or ceramic factory over there and her mother sold
it out after the father died. She's also clean as a whistle. I tell
you, Doc, if it's dirt you're after concerning the Kincaids, there
doesn't seem to be much of it. If there is—or was—any bad
business with them it's an affair of the heart not of the wallet."

I sat and thought a bit.

"Did you get the number?"

"Uh huh, but only because I'm a cop. I don't
want you climbing all over her and—"

"No. Don't worry. I'm just wondering how best to
approach this thing—"

"I'll give you the number if you promise me
you'll explain clearly and quickly to her what's on your mind, and
not keep bugging her if she declines to meet you."

"Done. Thanks. Oh,
and there's another name for you to check out."

* * *

"Mrs. Kincaid?"

"Who is this? How did you get my number?"

I explained the situation and told her I thought
there might be a faint possibility that her husband was not dead.
There was a stony silence at the other end.

"Mrs. Kincaid?"

"I heard you. Now what is this? My. husband. My
late husband, has been missing now for almost two months. It's been
hard enough as it is without people claiming they can find him."

"Yes I know. I'm sorry. It's just that I think
there's a remote possibility that your husband's boat, the
Windhover
is still around in a different guise."

Long silence.

"Mrs. Kincaid? Mrs. Ki—"

"What did you say your name was?"

"I am Doctor Charles Adams."

"And you're a doctor?"

"Yes."

"And how did you happen—look, maybe you could
come out—just for a few minutes."

I received instructions from her on how to reach the
place and departed.

It took me almost an hour to find it. It was on a
semiprivate road called Rudderman's Lane and was surrounded by a high
whitewashed wall. The house and grounds had the aura of formal French
elegance: gravel drive with large turnaround that lead to the double
garage attached to the house, which had high, steeply sloping slate
roofs over tall fan windows. The walls were cut stone with quions and
timbers where applicable. Norman French—half a million dollars,
perhaps more. Old Man Kincaid had done all right with his lock
company, that was for sure.

I got out and walked across the gravel. My footsteps
seemed to intrude on the silence as if this were more noise than the
place had had in years . . . maybe decades. You can count on a direct
correlation between the wealth of a neighborhood and the degree of
silence it has. Silence and privacy. If the big wrought iron gates
were shut and padlocked, nobody on the outside would ever hope to
have the faintest idea of what went on inside number 11 Rudderman's
Lane.

I pushed the button at the front door—I had to hunt
for it amongst all the ivy—and heard a distant peal of chimes with
the same timbre and resonance as the ones at Westminster Abbey.
Nothing for a while, then I heard the electronic pop-pop of an
intercom, and noticed the small speaker cleverly hiding in the
leaves.

"Who is it p1ease?" Pop!

The voice, a woman's, sounded as if it were coming
from inside an oil drum.

"It's Dr. Adams, here to speak with Mrs.
Kincaid," I said.

Pop! -"I'm around in back on the terrace; come
on around through the yard." Pop!

I trudged around, walking on a creeping bent lawn, no
doubt fastidiously kept up by a dozen or so Latin immigrants. I
passed rose gardens, bronze statuettes, a fountain, a small Haiku
garden with an enchanting teahouse. Besides money, the Kincaids had
taste. The only thing that marred an otherwise flawless lawn was the
ugly scar of dirt and newly sprouted grass at the side of the house
where a septic tank had been repaired.

"Dr. Adams?"

I saw an attractive woman, late forties I would
guess, rise off at redwood lounger and stroll toward me over the
flagstones. The terrace was surrounded by a tightly trimmed hedge,
and I entered through a trellis-topped gap in it to shake her hand.
She was silver-haired, dressed in slacks and cotton-canvas blouse,
with a nautical type rope belt and navy blue Topsiders. Rich casual.
She'd been doing some gardening, she told me, and I could see the
trowels and flats laid out on the side of the terrace.

"You have a lovely house here, Mrs. Kincaid. I
see you have the same problem here we do in Concord. A new leaching
field?"

She looked over in the direction of the recent
excavation.

"No. Here in Manchester we have sewerage
systems. Walter—my husband—had that big oil tank put in early in
the summer. It's huge. I think it holds 5000 gallons or something. He
always knew how to get the most for his money. Also, you may call me
Laura, Doctor. You seem to be quite a gentleman compared to the
police and reporters I've been shunning these past few weeks. I'm
going in to get some iced tea. Do you want some?"

She came back with the tea and we sat down. She was a
good looking woman, fit and trim with a pretty tan face that was kept
moisturized and tight by beauty treatments and preparations available
to women with money. Then, as she turned her head away from me to set
her drink down, I saw the tiny pale pink dot under her jaw. I saw it
only because she tilted her head up and around, and because her deep
tan made the minute scar all the more visible. Mostly, I saw it
because I make my living with jaws and faces, and what's inside them.
Face lift. Jaw tuck. Nice job. Probably eight to ten grand worth of a
master surgeon's time.

She turned to me and ran her palms down her thighs,
stretching out her arms idly. Underneath her cordiality was a regal
coolness, an air of impatience and condescension that I found
annoying. However, I tried to see the situation from her perspective,
and immediately I understood.