China Jewel (4 page)

Doc Jerry spoke into his sat phone, with a little more excitement than he usually displayed, “Repeat. Over.” He was sitting forward and, leaning on his elbows, trying to improve the reception. He dressed in a Boston Red Sox tee shirt and shorts. He turned back to Cutter. “Hall’s having trouble with the phone again.” Captain Hall called in each day at noon after he finished sighting the sun for navigation corrections on the boat’s dead reckoning plot or direction.

Cutter grimaced. Dela’s Chinese technician had left River Sunday after grinning all the time but never getting the system to work well. The speaker phone clicked on. Through the broken sentences, Hall was describing the French clipper brig which had arrived during the night. Static ended the broadcast again.

“Keep trying.”

“He’s talking about the Louis 14 from France,” said Sparkles.

“The French have been progressing down from Nova Scotia since she harbored to repair their rigging from the crossing.”

Over Doc Jerry’s desk, Cutter noticed a large colorful poster thumb-tacked on the yellowed plaster wall above the instruments.

“Where’d this come from?”

Doc Jerry said, “Katy found it for me in her museum. It looks good with our boat going to China and the old Far East ports.”

He read from a printout. “This shows you guys the judgment of pirates by the Chinese court. This was the Consoo house. The orange and blue hues of the painting illustrate vividly the decorative interior of a British factory or office. Hundreds of Chinese attendees are there with foreign sailors in colorful costumes as well as Europeans and Americans merchants from the other factories. All are gathered to witness this hearing by Chinese officials sitting at the raised platform. The prisoners are in the foreground bound in small cages. They’re being accused by a French sailor.”

Cutter chuckled, “This is supposed to tell me we’re going to end up in jail?”

Sparkles said in her soft voice, “Never hurts to know your enemy.”

Cutter heard more phone static. “A few years ago, that French captain bid against us on a European deal. He’s a smart businessman.”

“Pierre Etranger. He's also got a top record as an amateur ocean racer,” said Doc Jerry.

“I remember his French venture group took business away from Strand’s people,” said Cutter.

Doc Jerry smiled. “If that boat sails well, he might be competition.”

After a moment Cutter said, looking at Doc Jerry’s downcast eyes, “What’s the matter? You’re not telling me something.”

He hesitated. “Your son and Etranger’s daughter have spent a lot of time together.”

“Jamie and the Frenchman’s girl?”

“He met her at college.”

“Jamie never told me,” said Cutter. He hesitated, then said, “I guess his mother knew.”

Doc Jerry muttered, “Kids tell things to different people.”

Cutter grinned, “Is he serious about her?”

“She seems to be good for him. Way I understand it, she got him to finish school.”

“Where is she now?”

“She’s on the French boat with her father.”

“Goddamn.” Cutter’s eyes twinkled, trying to hide his hurt. His hope of reconciliation with his son had been a fantasy. The boy had not come to sail on the Peregrine to be with his father. He realized the kid came for the girl, not him. He must still have all that hatred of Cutter his mother had taught him.

Cutter said, “He’s like his old man. He should have had better sense than have women on his mind. Sailing around the world is going to take all his concentration.” He remembered that was the cause of his divorce, having his family with him in Africa in the middle of the brutal fighting at the wells in those days.

“If you ask me, he didn’t tell you because you’d have that attitude.”

“Shouldn’t I?”

Doc Jerry continued, “At first he signed to sail on the French boat with her. When he found out you were involved with a replica ship too, he switched and tried out for the Peregrine crew.”

Cutter felt better. His son had come partly to be with his father. He said, “I’m glad he’s doing things on his own.”

“He feels he hasn’t been successful in your eyes. For one thing, he knew you’d turn him down if you had known. Makes a kid desire to do it all the more.”

Cutter said, “I wouldn’t want him to take the risk.”

“He knows what you did at his age when you joined the Rangers, got yourself shot up in Vietnam. That’s something to live up to.”

“I get it. Give me a break though. News of this girlfriend is a lot to handle.”

Doc Jerry added, “I’ve met her. She’s good on electronics.”

“I hope she’s not as ugly as her father.” Cutter chuckled, “Looked like a hedgehog. We made jokes about him. I don’t think he ever understood the English of what we were saying.”

Doc Jerry reached up and shut off the phone. Without the loud static, the room quieted. “Atmospherics are not helping us either. Maybe be better tomorrow.”

Three hours later the door to the office opened and let in a waft of hot summer air. It was laden with the midday stench of melted creosote tar from the overheated pilings at the harbor wharf.

Laura, the receptionist, called out. “Mister Cutter, you’ve got a visitor.”

He recognized the one local man he did not want to talk to. With his dark form silhouetted against the outside intense light, Pastor Allingham stood in front of Laura. As the black preacher closed the opening softly behind him, the sunlight shrunk gradually to a smaller triangle until gone.

The Pastor smiled, put out his hand, and said, “Laura had arranged this appointment for me. I hope I’m not stopping by at a bad time.”

Cutter walked toward him. Laura didn’t meet his eyes. “Fine, Pastor. I’m sorry we had so much trouble meeting. Been a madhouse around here getting the Peregrine away.”

“Can we have a few minutes now?” he asked.

Cutter shook hands. “Of course.” Cutter waved his arm to a chair and sat down. “Anything wrong?” He expected more complaints about the treatment of black workers.

“Not yet.”

Cutter took a deep breath. “I guess you want to discuss the church building repairs.” Jolly had mentioned the preacher wanted a charitable contribution for the roof.

The pastor jerked his head, slightly embarrassed, and replied quickly, “Oh no. That’s not why I’m here today.”

“Well,” said Cutter, in his most pleasant voice, “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve come to tell you something about the Peregrine.”

The Pastor’s face had a frown. Cutter felt a chill in the hot room air.

“The Peregrine?” asked Cutter, trying not to show alarm. What now, he thought.

“Yessir,” replied the Pastor.

Cutter said, “She was pretty sailing out of the harbor the other morning.”

The Pastor nodded. “Could you walk with me out by my church? It’ll just take a few minutes.”

“We can’t talk here?”

“No. I want you to meet a parishioner.”

They walked. Banks and marinas were spaced along the street, most of them built with a colonial look to match the town heritage. Dozens of local citizens greeted them. Many introduced their husbands and wives or children.

“River Sunday people care,” said Cutter as they moved away from the center of town.

“They respect you.”

“Not as much as you.”

“We each of us create good in our own ways.”

They passed the courthouse, a Georgian building of brick built not long after the Revolution. In front surrounded by giant boxwood were statues, one of a brass Confederate soldier holding a greening battle flag, another a flat plaque of a helicopter of the Vietnam era, a third dedicated to a famous local aviator of the Thirties.

Cutter said, “So much history in this town. It resembles a miniature of the whole United States.”

The pastor nodded. “The big maritime story here occurred in the War of 1812. The British tried to destroy us because of the fast schooners and brigs built here. The privateers raided England. To stop them the British actually bombarded the town with cannons from their large warships. However, the people fooled them. They put lanterns in the woods to draw fire and most of the cannon balls went into the forest instead.”

“Ships like the Peregrine were designed in those days,” said Cutter.

“We have quite a history, that’s for sure,” said the Pastor. “All the parts of it. The pile of foundation stones too.” The slave monument out in the harbor had been constructed from the ruins of an old slave auction building. This subject he had not brought up with any locals, black or white. He didn’t want to start the Civil War, the Confederate War as they called it, all over again.

The street turned to the left and moved into a poorer area with single-story houses, neat and well kept, with older cars along the curbs. In the distance were gray-walled factory buildings, all in a state of decrepit collapse. The Pastor mentioned these were the abandoned remains of canneries where most of the black population and many of the whites had labored packing produce and seafood.

They came to a church with walls covered with modern white vinyl. The steeple, at the end of a sagging roof, held a small brass cross. The front door looked worn, with a simple wood handle and marks in the paint to show much use. Inside a choir practiced.

“My church,” said the pastor. “The sisters are working on next Sunday’s service.”

“They make a beautiful sound,” observed Cutter.

“Perhaps you’ll attend as our guest one Sunday. Your son too, when he gets back from the voyage.”

“I’d like to,” said Cutter. He realized the shipbuilding crews had probably spread the word about Jamie being his son.

The preacher looked into Cutter’s eyes for a long moment. “I see sorrow even when you smile. One thing I recognize is the weight that folks carry around. Maybe it would be good for you to come by and talk. We all need church sometimes, especially a tough guy like you.”

Cutter did not face Allingham. He muttered, “Perhaps I’ll sort it out with you.”

Further down the street, they stopped in front of a small house with overgrown vines coming up one side. The pastor opened a rusty screen door and motioned Cutter inside. They went to the back through a neat living room. They came to a screened porch from which the harbor could be watched past ancient weeping willow trees. In a plastic chair sat a fragile elderly person, a grease-covered Caterpillar cap on his head.

“Pastor said he’d get you to come.” He spoke without turning his head towards Cutter.

“This is John Reedy, Mr. Cutter.”

The old man nodded, stood and led his guests outside to a small barn. Inside, he switched on a bulb hanging from a ceiling wire. Cutter smelled heavy mold. Beside stacks of dusty wood, antique carving chisels were carefully arranged in racks on the walls. The workbenches showed scars from many projects.

Reedy said to Cutter, “A tall young fellow come in here week or so back before the ship sailed. He kept asking to see the old nameboard. I showed it to him. He looked at it real careful. Afterward he seemed satisfied and left. I don’t get too many visitors.”

“What?” asked Cutter.

“When Mister Reedy come to me, I thought you might be interested,” added the pastor.

“Anything about him you remember?” Cutter said, remembering a stranger had been suspected in the death at the boatyard.

“White man, dressed casual like a tourist. Nothing more.” He thought for a moment. “He had a beard.”

“Tell about the boards,” Pastor Allingham reminded Reedy.

“My great grandfather, best wood carver in these parts, started this shop. As a slave, he worked for the owner of the shipyard, making the fancy work.” He rummaged along the back wall. “He cut the name pieces for the big ship, a hunnert and seventy some years ago.”

“The Peregrine,” Cutter said, as he smiled at the pastor, who nodded. He added, “We’ll have the public relations team write them up.”

Reedy said, “You best not. See, that’s it. Not called the Peregrine at that time. ‘Sides, he wouldn’t want no recognition for it.” Reedy turned to Cutter. “I tell you what, back when she first wet her sails, the sailors they say the fastest they’d ever been aboard. The truth come down in my family.”

Reedy finally found and held up two rectangular planks about three feet long and attached with a worn piece of line threaded through holes at their ends. He moved his wrinkled hand over the pitted wood to clean off the spider webs. “These were the samples he did for the fancy work. In those days a carver had to make them before starting the full size job. I don’t tell folks. ‘Fraid they will get stolen. Can’t figure how that man found out.”

Cutter examined the wood. At the bottom of each board was a small initial R and the date 1831.

Reedy said, “It spells Osprey.”

“Yes,” Cutter said, turning them carefully and noticing the ornate stars and scrollwork around the letters. “For another boat, I suppose.”

“Nossir, it was the only big ship they built here then. Rest were smaller schooners and sloops just for the Bay. My great-grandfather found out she was going to Cuba and run slaves against the Navy blockade over in Africa.” He paused and pointed to the small R. “His mark.”

“An artist keeps samples of his work, however evil”, said the pastor.

“You’re saying Osprey not Peregrine?” Cutter asked.

Reedy nodded, “Black folks around here understand about them white men’s boats. O’course, with this Peregrine being on television and all, I figure there’s reason to inform you the real name of the boat. Get you ready for bad news anybody finds out, so to speak.”

Cutter knew all too well the Chinese regulations for the race. Any entry that had a history of slave or opium dealing would be disqualified.

The pastor added, “I’m not trying to start trouble, stirring up slavery days. We got good friendships here between the whites and the blacks.”

The pastor went on, “However, if it is true, I’ll speak up.”

Cutter thought for a moment and said, “I had wondered why my personnel office had so much trouble hiring people of color for the shipbuilding work.”

Pastor Allingham replied, “I can’t say yes and I can’t say no.”

“You’ll trust me to do some research?” Cutter asked, carefully hiding his concern. “You two keep this to yourself for a while? I’m hoping this story might be false.”