Gray Ghost (16 page)

So who was Albie? Had he been keelhauled—or punished in some way, or killed’on Saturday, September 6, at nine o—clock?

And what, if anything, did that have to do with going fishing on Tuesday ?

Errol Watson had been punished cruelly and severely, but being incinerated was nothing like being keelhauled.

Well, Paul Vecchio was a college professor. He probably liked metaphors and figurative language.

Another thought: “Albie” was what fishermen sometimes called false albacore, the small schooling tuna that occasionally appeared in the coastal waters off Maine and, more abundantly, around Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard. Albies—and their cousins the bonito’ were especially prized by fly fishermen.

But keelhauling a fish? That made no sense.

He waited until eight thirty to call the sheriff. He didn’t want to interrupt the man’s breakfast and hoped he would catch him after he was done in the bathroom.

Jane answered and said her damn workaholic husband, who’d been out till after midnight the previous night, had already left for the office, and you could probably catch him on his cell.

So Calhoun picked up his cell phone, pressed the button on the side, and said, “Dickman.” After a couple of rings, the sheriff said, “Stoney? What’s up?”

“I got something to show you.”

“What kind of something?”

“It’s this piece of paper I found in Paul Vecchio’s L. L.Bean gear bag, which he left in my boat. It’s got writing on one side and some kind of abstract design on the other side, and I’m thinking he came to my house to fetch it, and I think he dropped that bottle of sunscreen to remind me about his gear bag, and it might be connected to him getting killed.”

“Piece of paper, huh?”

“A scrap of notebook paper, yes.”

“A clue, eh, Sherlock?”

“You don’t need to be sarcastic with me,” said Calhoun.

“Sorry, Stoney. That is what you’re thinking, though, right? This piece of paper’s some kind of clue?”

“Ayuh. That is what I was thinking.”

“You’re right. It might be.” The sheriff hesitated. “Okay, look. I’m just pulling into the parking lot at the state police headquarters. Got a big meeting with Lieutenant Gilsum and his crew. Enfield, the DA, he’s going to be there, too. They want my report on our meeting with Franklin Dunbar. We’re all supposed to be comparing notes, getting reorganized and coordinated. I don’t know how long it’ll take. Gilsum does love his damn meetings, and he will no doubt want to do some showing off for Enfield. What can you tell me about this piece of paper?”

Calhoun told him what it said and tried to describe the design with the upside-down
U
and the crude shapes, some with X’s drawn through them.

“Hm,” said the sheriff after a minute. “Interesting. I bet you’ve given it some thought, and I want to hear it. Myself, I can’t think about it now. You gonna be at the shop today ?”

“Ten till four,” said Calhoun. “It’s Tuesday.”

“I’ll meet you there. Gotta go.”

Calhoun hit the Off button, hesitated, then shoved the phone

into his pocket. He picked up the deputy badge, bounced it in the palm of his hand for a minute, then stuck that in his pocket, too. He wasn’t sure anymore if he was going to quit. It all depended on whether he’d be able to focus on the Paul Vecchio case.

He was definitely done with the Errol Watson investigation.

He folded Vecchio’s scrap of notebook paper and stuck it in his shirt pocket. Then he poured himself a travel mug full of coffee and took it, along with Paul Vecchio’s gear bag, down to his truck. He stuck the gear bag in the back, hitched up his boat, opened the driver’s door so Ralph could jump in, and headed for the shop in Portland.

He wanted to keep the boat handy to the water. He had that fishing trip with Dr. Sam Surry coming up on Friday, and maybe they’d pick up another trip before that. Maybe someone would even call wanting to go out today. He could park the boat in the lot beside the shop and be ready.

He got there a little before ten. Kate had already opened up. She was at her desk in the back office talking on the phone when Calhoun walked in. She arched her eyebrows and wiggled her fingers and gave him a quick smile, then looked down at something she was reading on her desk.

Calhoun felt a familiar tingle. It was nice to see Kate smile, however briefly. She hadn’t been doing much smiling lately.

Ralph went over and lay down beside her. She reached down and gave his shoulder a scratch.

Calhoun poured himself a mug of coffee and took it up front to the counter. He opened the trip book and wrote in Dr. Surry’s name for four o—clock on Friday. There were no other trips scheduled before or after that.

He was tying some more landlocked salmon featherwing streamers when Kate came out of her office. She stopped by the fly-tying bench, watched Calhoun for a minute, then said, “We ran low on your Deceivers and sand eels this year, you know. People really liked them. Maybe you can make more of them for next season?”

He looked up at her. “You saying I shouldn’t be tying these streamers for the Boston boys ?”

“I was saying no such thing,” she said.

He shrugged. “My mistake.”

“You seem kind of cranky this morning, Stoney. You okay?”

He wanted to say: I am not okay. I don’t like pretending that nothing’s wrong between us. I don’t like it that I can’t even hope you’ll come to my house some night. I don’t like thinking that we are over with.

What he said was: “I’m fine. This business of working with the sheriff is kind of stressful, that’s all.”

“Making any progress?”

“I don’t know.”

She touched his shoulder for a moment, then went behind the counter.

His shoulder tingled where she’d touched him.

A few minutes later, from behind the counter, Kate said, “You booked yourself a trip, I see.”

“Friday afternoon,” he said. “Half a day.”

“Dr. Sam Surry. That cute redhead, huh?”

He looked up at her. He didn’t know how he was supposed to answer. If he said yes, would that mean that he agreed that Dr. Surry was cute?

Kate had her elbows on the counter with her chin in her hands, looking at him, neither smiling nor frowning. “We take turns, Stoney,” she said. “You know that’s our rule. You had the last trip. This one should be mine.”

“Dr. Surry specifically asked me to take her out,” said Calhoun. “What was I supposed to say?”

“We’ve been over this before,” she said. “You don’t get to take out who you want and refuse to take out who you don’t want. That’s not professional. That’s not how we agreed to do it.”

“It was her who asked to go out with me,” he said. “Not the other way around.”

“Hard to blame her, charming rogue like you.” Kate was not smiling. “She’ll have way more fun with you, I’m sure.”

“You want me to tell her you’ll be the one taking her out instead of me?” he said. “I can do that.”

She smiled quickly. “Oh, we wouldn’t want to disappoint the client. I bet she’s a big fan of yours.”

“It’s not like we’ve got all these trips lined up,” said Calhoun.

Kate narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s for God damn sure.” She slammed the trip book shut, turned, stalked back to her office at the rear of the shop, and kicked the door closed behind her.

Calhoun was at the front counter talking on the phone with the Simms sales rep, listening to what he had to say about next year’s line of breathable waders, when Kate came out of her office, where she’d been holed up all morning. She stood there pretending to straighten out the display of rain gear until Calhoun hung up. Then she said, “You want a sandwich or something?”

“Sure. Tuna would be great. Onions and lettuce. Whole wheat bread.”

She smiled. “I guess I know what you like on your tunafish sandwiches.”

You know as much about me as I do, he wanted to say. You know every square inch of my skin. You know how my crazy brain works. I have no secrets from you.

Instead, he said, “Why don’t you bring Ralph with you? He’s been cooped up all morning.”

She gave him a little smile that did not reach up to her eyes. “I’m sorry, Stoney. About how I’ve been acting. It’s me, not you. I’m the cranky one.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “How’s Walter doing?”

She gave her head a quick shake. “He gets a little worse each day.”

“Tell him hello for me.”

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll do that.”

Calhoun and Kate were sitting on the front steps of the shop finishing up their sandwiches and Cokes and enjoying the midday September sunshine when the sheriff’s Explorer pulled into the lot.

Ralph, who had been lying there attentively, alert for errant sandwich crumbs, got to his feet and trotted over to the Explorer.

The sheriff climbed out, leaned over, gave Ralph a pat, then went over to where Calhoun and Kate were sitting. He touched the brim of his hat, nodded to Kate, said, “Ma’am,” and turned to Calhoun. “You going to be free around five today, Deputy?”

“We close up at four,” said Calhoun. “Anytime after that.”

“I’ll shoot for sooner,” said the sheriff, “but it’ll likely be sometime after five.”

“I’ll be here,” said Calhoun, “unless you want me to help you interrogate families whose daughter has been raped and molested, in which case you’ll find me back home stacking firewood, and don’t bother comin’ after me.”

The sheriff glanced at Kate, who seemed to be watching them with an amused little smile playing around her mouth. Then he turned back to Calhoun and nodded. “I do understand, Stoney.”

“I’m pretty interested in what happened to Paul Vecchio,” said Calhoun, “but I’ve lost interest in what happened to Errol Watson. I decided I ain’t going to work on that case anymore. I just want you to know that.”

“Watson was an evil man, all right,” said the sheriff. “That doesn’t make murdering him okay.”

Calhoun shrugged.

“Anyway,” said the sheriff, “you’re off the hook. Lieutenant Gilsum figures he’s got what he needs to close that case. He wanted me to tell you he appreciates your good work.”

“Franklin Dunbar?”

The sheriff looked at his watch. “As we speak, with the blessing of District Attorney Enfield himself, Gilsum is hauling Mr. Dunbar and his wife and son in for questioning, reading them their rights, and getting warrants to search their house, with particular emphasis on the family computer. Also their boat and car.”

Calhoun shook his head. “You know as well as I do that Dunbar couldn’t do something like that.”

“I know no such thing.” The sheriff smiled. “Anyway, that right there is the best reason I can think of for you not to quit on me.”

Around four, Kate said she was leaving for the day, going to go visit Walter. Calhoun was sitting at the fly-tying bench, still turning out landlocked salmon streamers for the Boston guys. He reminded her to say hello to Walter for him.

She looked at him for a minute, then nodded and gave him a tiny little smile. She scootched down and patted Ralph, straightened up, waved her hand, and left.

Calhoun got up, put on the classical music station, and went back to tying flies. Some time later he felt a vibration against his leg. He fished out his cell phone, hit the green button, put it to his ear, and said, “Sheriff? That you? Everything okay?”

“I’m just leaving this damn meeting,” said the sheriff. “Sorry it’s so late. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes. Don’t go anywhere.”

“What time is it, anyway?” said Calhoun.

“After six.”

“What—”

“Don’t ask.”

When the sheriff came in, he said, “I could use a drink.” Somewhere along the way he’d changed out of his uniform. Now he wore a red-and-black-checked flannel shirt, baggy blue jeans, and a black windbreaker, no hat covering his bald head.

“I got Coke,” said Calhoun. “Coffee’s still hot.”

“That’s not what I had in mind, but I’ll take a Coke.”

Calhoun went to the refrigerator in back, fetched two cans of Coke, and brought them to the front of the shop. The sheriff had pulled a chair up to the fly-tying bench. He was looking at the flies Calhoun had tied. They were lined up neatly, stuck into the foam strip along the side of the bench while their laquered heads dried.

“These are nice flies, Stoney. You do good work. What’s this one here called ?”

“That’s a Warden’s Worry. Classic old Maine streamer fly. That one there’s a Gray Ghost, and we got a few Black Ghosts and Green Ghosts, too. Right there, and there.” Calhoun pointed at the various flies.

The sheriff was peering at them, apparently fascinated.

“So you gonna tell me what’s been going on,” said Calhoun, “tied up in meetings till six o—clock?”

The sheriff looked up. “They’re holding Franklin Dunbar.”

“Case closed, huh? You don’t seem exactly triumphant.”

“It doesn’t feel good to me,” said the sheriff. “We got no witnesses or physical evidence, just for starters. Gilsum figures the motive is enough at this point, that plus Dunbar having no alibi. He’s confident they’ll come up with something.”

“How about you?”

The sheriff shrugged. “I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if Dunbar did it. If I were him, I probably would. Still, I’m uncomfortable with it. Uncomfortable with Gilsum, really. He’s too damn hot to make his arrest, close his case. You should’ve seen him grill poor Dunbar.”

“He didn’t confess, did he?”

“No such luck,” said the sheriff.

“What about the Vecchio murder?” said Calhoun.

“I guess Dunbar could’ve done that, though it’s harder to make sense of. He’s got no alibi for that night. Claims he was on the road, says he has no idea who Paul Vecchio is. Gilsum’s going to check Dunbar’s phone and e-mail records, try to catch him in another lie.” The sheriff shook his head, then took a long swig of Coke. “You got that piece of paper you were telling me about?”

Calhoun took it out of his pocket and unfolded it on the table.

“You said Vecchio had it in his gear bag?”

Calhoun nodded. “When we were on the water, he took the bag out of the compartment under the seat and pretended to be digging around for some sunscreen. I was looking for fish, trying to watch where I was going, not paying much attention to Mr. Vecchio, but I can see it in my head, him with his bag on his lap, his back to me, bent over looking at something.”

“Looking at this piece of paper, you think?”

“What I see in my memory, it’s not clear. Like I said, his back is to me, but he’s looking at something, and it could be this piece of paper. After a minute, he puts it back, finds his sunscreen, makes a big show of lathering himself up with it.”

“Hm,” said the sheriff. “Interesting.” He squinted at the printed words,
Keelhaul Albie
9/6 9:00. Then he turned the paper over and looked at the design with the inverted U and all the misshapen circles, some of them with X’s crossed through them. He looked up at Calhoun and jabbed his forefinger at the paper. “This make any kind of sense to you, Stoney?”

Calhoun shook his head. “Just a bunch of shapes.”

The sheriff turned the paper over again and pointed at the words and numbers that were printed there. “So what do you make of this?”

“I’ve been thinking about it. Haven’t come up with much of anything worth sharing. I don’t think they keelhaul sailors anymore, do they ?”

The sheriff smiled. “September sixth was a Saturday, right? Exactly a week after the ME said Watson died ?”

Calhoun nodded. “Right.”

“I have one thought,” the sheriff said. “It occurred to me this morning after we talked on the phone, when you read this to me. There’s a place called the Keelhaul Cafe down an alley off of Wharf Street in the Old Port part of town. Know it?”

“Never heard of it,” said Calhoun. “I guess if I did, I might’ve made that connection myself.”

“I’m sure you would have,” said the sheriff. “You don’t forget anything. The Keelhaul’s what you might call a downscale kind of

place. I made a drug bust there last winter, I think it was. Mostly fishermen, lobstermen, sailors, the odd freelance hooker hang out there.”

“Maybe some guy named Albie hangs out there, too,” said Calhoun.

The sheriff drained his Coke, crushed the can in his hand, tossed it into the wastebasket, and stood up. “Exactly what I was thinking,” he said. “Why don’t we go see?”

At that, Ralph, who’d been lying under Calhoun’s feet, yawned and got up and trotted over to the door.

“Does that dog understand everything?” said the sheriff.

“Only if it’s in English,” said Calhoun.

It was nearly dark when the sheriff pulled his Explorer into the shadowy alley off Wharf Street. The entry to the Keelhaul Cafe was on the left. Some trash cans were lined up along the blank wall on the right. Aside from the double-sized oak door with the faded wooden sign and the dim light hanging over it, both walls were tall and flat and blank.

Calhoun and the sheriff climbed out of the truck. Ralph remained curled up on the backseat.

When they went inside, Calhoun was hit by the sour smell of decades of spilled booze and out-of-service toilets and stubbed-out cigarettes. Some female country singer was crooning about a snake, by which Calhoun surmised she meant a man.

The bar ran across the back wall of the low-ceilinged rectangular room. On the left side were half a dozen square wooden tables. A big-screen wall-mounted television set, muted, was showing a baseball game.

The right side of the room was dominated by a pool table. A young guy with a ponytail was shooting a game with a blond girl in tight, low-slung blue jeans and a cropped tank top. Four or five middle-aged men at the bar were craning their necks around, watching the pool game. Watching the girl, Calhoun supposed. The way she bent over the table, stuck her butt up in the air, wiggled it around as she lined up a shot, showed all that skin between the top of her jeans and the bottom of her shirt, she knew she was putting on a show for them, and the way the guy in the ponytail was grinning and glancing toward the men at the bar, he was enjoying the attention she was attracting from them.

The sheriff slid onto a bar stool. Calhoun climbed onto the one beside him. The bartender was down at the other end talking to the four other guys.

Calhoun looked around. Fishing nets draped on the walls, lobster buoys hanging from the rafters, weathered wood-plank walls and floor. There were six fake portholes in a line behind the bar. The heavy round frames looked authentic enough, but behind the glass, it was just blue paint on the splintery wall.

After a few minutes, the bartender was still down there talking to the other guys, and Calhoun decided they were being ignored. He slid off his stool, went down to the other end of the bar, wedged himself between two guys on stools, and stood directly in front of the bartender. “Hey,” he said.

The bartender glanced at him, then turned and said something to one of the men he’d been talking to.

“You,” said Calhoun. “Mr. Bartender. You planning on waiting on us? Me and my friend need a drink.”

The bartender glanced toward the sheriff, then looked at Calhoun. He had bulky arms, a deeply creased face, curly gray hair. “You’re keepin’ bad company there, if that man’s your friend.”

“You know who he is?”

The bartender smiled.

Calhoun leaned across the bar and crooked his finger at the bartender. “Come here,” he said. “I want to tell you something.”

The bartender shrugged and bent toward Calhoun.

Calhoun wrapped his hand around the back of the man’s neck, squeezed it hard, and hauled him off his feet.

“Hey, shit,” gurgled the bartender. “What the hell you doing?”

Calhoun pushed his face right up to the bartender’s. “That bad company down there,” he said, “that’s your county sheriff, the man who keeps you and your family safe and secure, and if you don’t get your ass down there and ask him politely what you can bring him to drink, you’re going to find one of them pool cues shoved all the way up your ass. Okay?”

The guy nodded. “I know who he is,” he said. “I was just bustin’ his balls a little. I’ll be right with you, okay?”

Calhoun let go of his neck. “Thank you.”

He gave the bartender’s cheek a pat, then went back and sat beside the sheriff, who had a bemused smile on his face. “Was that necessary, Stoney?”

“I don’t know. I have a high tolerance for a lot of behavior, but purposeful rudeness just gets to me.”

A minute later the bartender came down and swiped his rag over the bar in front of Calhoun and the sheriff. “Sheriff,” he said. “How you doin’ ?”

“Not too bad, Leon,” said the sheriff. “How ‘bout you? You behaving?”

Leon shrugged. “Tryin’. What can I get you?”

“Draft beer for me.”

“Coffee,” said Calhoun. “Black.”

Leon went off to fetch their drinks.

The sheriff leaned to Calhoun. “I hassled some of Leon’s customers about selling drugs here in this establishment last winter,” he said. “He took it personally.”

Leon came back with a mug of coffee and a glass of beer. He set them in front of Calhoun and the sheriff. “So what’s up?” he said to the sheriff. “I don’t figure you came here for the ambience.”

“Ambience,” said the sheriff.

Leon smiled.

“You know somebody named Albie?”

“Old fisherman? Lives on his boat down near the mouth of the Stroudwater?”

The sheriff shrugged. “Sounds right. What’s his last name?”

“Wazlewski? That ain’t quite right, but something like that. Po-lack name, begins with a
W,
ends with-—ski.’ That who you mean?”

“Was he in here at nine o—clock on the sixth?”

Leon frowned. “The sixth …”

“Week ago Saturday night. Were you here?”

“I’m always here,” said Leon. He looked up at the ceiling for a minute, then nodded. “Yeah, Albie was here that night.”

“You remember that specifically ?”

“Matter of fact, I do,” said Leon. “What about it?”

“Tell me what you remember,” said the sheriff.

“Saturday,” said Leon. “Always busy. Albie liked that corner table”—he pointed toward one of the tables’“where he could watch the TV, eat some soup, chew on some bread, sip on a beer. When we were busy I’d make him sit at the bar. Didn’t want to waste a whole table on one person, you know? The reason I remember about that particular night was, Albie was with somebody. I mean, some of the regulars might go sit with him, shoot the shit for a minute, but this was some guy I never seen before. Not the kind of gentleman normally comes into this dump, and not the kind of guy you’d expect to be conferring with Albie.”

“What’d he look like,” said the sheriff, “this stranger?”

“Tall, salt-and-pepper beard. Somewhere in his late forties, early fifties. Wearing a sport coat, creased pants, shined shoes, you know ?”

“Ever see this man before that time?”

Leon shook his head. “Nope.”

“You sure?”

“Yep. I’d’ve remembered him.”

“You’ve got a good memory for this,” said the sheriff. “Any reason you’d remember this particular man so well?”

“I remember everybody. We always got the same customers. Regulars. That’s the kind of place the Keelhaul is. Somebody new, you remember him.” Leon shrugged. “So this well-dressed guy you’d expect to see in some fancy restaurant with a classy blonde, he’s huddling with old Albie? You remember something like that. It didn’t fit, you know what I mean?”

“Sure,” said the sheriff. “What were they huddling about, do you know ?”

He shook his head. “Couldn’t tell you. I remember, though, they had a piece of paper on the table between them. Albie was poking at it, writing on it. I didn’t get a look at it.”

“Writing with a pen or a pencil?” said Calhoun.

Leon darted his eyes at Calhoun. “How would I know? I’m standing here, they’re sitting over there, you know?”

“You catch the guy’s name?” said Calhoun.

Leon shook his head.

“Did you hear anything they were saying?” said the sheriff.

Leon shook his head. “Joanie was waiting tables that night. Maybe she did.” He looked at Calhoun. “Maybe she caught a name, saw if he was using a pen or pencil.”

“Joanie,” said the sheriff. “She coming in tonight?”

“She’s only on Fridays and Saturdays.”

“I’ll need her full name, address, phone number.”

“It’s Joan McMurphy. You want to hang on, I’ll get that information for you.”

“In a minute,” said the sheriff. “You said Albie comes in all the time. You expect him tonight?”

“What I said was,” said Leon, “he used to come in all the time. I ain’t seen him in a while.” He paused. “Maybe not since that night, I’m not sure.”

“That Saturday night. The sixth.”

“Right,” said Leon.

“The night you saw him huddling with the guy with the beard.”

Leon frowned. “He might’ve come in the next night. It’s been a while, though.”