Gray Ghost (17 page)

“Try to remember the last time you saw him,” said the sheriff.

He shrugged. “I can’t remember. A week? Not recently. Hey!” Leon yelled at the men at the other end of the bar. “When’d you see Albie last?”

The guys mumbled among themselves for a minute. Then one of them said, “It was like a week ago. I wanna say Sunday?”

One of the others nodded. “Yeah. I ain’t seen him for at least a week. I remember that Sunday. Albie was here.”

Leon looked at the sheriff and shrugged. “So Sunday.”

“What can you tell me about Albie?” said the sheriff.

Leon shrugged. “Fisherman. Used to run blue-water charters. Stopped doing that, I don’t know, six or eight years ago. Not sure why. Couldn’t make a go of it, I guess. Plus, he’s always complaining about his arthritis, bad knees. Let his boat get run-down, couldn’t find anybody to work with him. Competitive business, sport fishing. Expensive. I suppose Albie just couldn’t keep up. Nice guy, though. He’s got a lot of stories, even if after a while you start hearing the same ones all over again.” “You said he lives on his boat?”

Leon nodded. “He talks about it all the time. Had a bad money situation few years ago. Lived with his mother down in Stroudwa-ter. She was sick for quite a while. Big medical bills. When she finally died, Albie sold the house, used all the money to pay off her bills, managed to hang on to his boat. That’s all he ended up with. That boat. That was his choice. Keep the boat, sell his mother’s house. He says it was a no-brainer. Keeps her moored in the Fore River up near where the Stroudwater comes in. Takes her down to South Carolina for the winter. He’ll probably be leaving pretty soon. Likes to wait for the end of hurricane season.” Leon frowned. “What’s its name? Can’t think of the name of the damn boat.” He waved at the men at the end of the bar. “Any o’ you guys remember what old Albie calls his boat?”

One of the men said, “What is this, a quiz?” Another guy raised his hand and said, “I know, I know.” “Jesus Christ,” muttered Leon. “So what is it?” “
Friendly Fire”
the guy said. “Painted across the transom. She’s a dumpy old tub, white with black and red trim.”

“
Friendly Fire”
said Calhoun. “Odd name for a boat.” “Well, sure,” said Leon. “Albie’s an odd guy. He was in Vietnam. Doesn’t talk about it much, but you can tell it haunts him. I s—pose that’s where he got the name for his boat.”

One of the other guys said, “Nah, that ain’t it. Albie told me he named her after his mother. I guess she was always giving him a hard time.”

Calhoun turned to the sheriff. “I got an idea where she’s moored. Maybe we ought to go talk to Albie.”

“I guess we better.” The sheriff looked at Leon. “So how will I know it’s Albie when I see him?”

Leon gazed up at the ceiling for a minute. “Well, he’s a small man. Not very tall, and kinda scrawny. Tough little bird, though. You wouldn’t want to mess with him. Gray hair, what’s left of it. Wears glasses. Tattoos all over his arms from his time in Vietnam. He’s in his late fifties, I’d say. That help?”

“Sure. Thanks.” The sheriff took out his wallet and laid a five-dollar bill on the bartop. “That cover it?” he said to Leon. “A Coke and a coffee ?”

Leon pushed the bill back at him. “Drinks’re on the house. On account of me being discourteous to you. Least I can do.”

“Keep it,” said the sheriff. “We can’t take freebies. You know that.”

Leon left the bill on the bar.

“Anything else you can tell us about Albie?” said the sheriff.

“Maybe if you told me why you’re askin’ about him …”

The sheriff just smiled.

“Well,” said Leon, “there is one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Albie’s had a little money to throw around lately. Usually he’s broke, just a couple of crumpled-up dollar bills from selling some lobsters or a bushel of littlenecks or a few bluefish, and I charge him whatever he’s got, which means he ends up paying for his beer and gets a free bowl of soup and a dinner roll. Lately, though, he’s ordering fried chicken, a pork chop, like that, pays with nice crisp tens and twenties. I asked him, I said, Albie, you must’ve had a rich uncle die or something, leave you some money. Albie, he just gives me this look, like, I’ve got a secret, man.”

“When did this start?” said the sheriff. “Albie with the money ?”

“Oh, just the last little while. Not long. Few weeks, maybe. I don’t know exactly.”

“Before that Saturday night we mentioned? The sixth?”

“Oh, yeah, week or two before that. I guess if Albie came into some money, he’s probably found a classier joint than the Keelhaul to hang out in, which may be why I haven’t seen him lately. Look. Lemme get that information about Joanie for you.”

Leon disappeared through a doorway behind the bar. He was back a minute later holding an index card, which he handed to the sheriff. “Joanie’s a good kid. Hope you don’t hassle her too bad.”

“I don’t hassle people.” The sheriff stuck the card in his shirt pocket. “Not me.” He slid off his bar stool, reached his hand across the bar, and said, “Thanks, Leon.”

Leon shook his hand. “No hard feelings, okay?”

The sheriff jerked his chin at Calhoun. “Talk to my deputy.”

Leon held out his hand to Calhoun. “Sorry about being unfriendly.”

Calhoun shook his hand. “Always be nice to your local sheriff.”

They left the Keelhaul and climbed into the sheriff’s Explorer. Ralph lifted his head from the backseat, saw who it was, and tucked his nose back under his little stubby tail.

“So you want to go talk with Albie?” said Calhoun.

“I sure do,” said the sheriff. “What are we waiting for? You say you know where he’s got his boat moored?”

Calhoun nodded. “I know the area. There’s no marina or dock there. There’s some boats anchored in the deep water out in the middle of the cove, and if we’re gonna go knocking on Albie’s door, ask him about his meeting with Mr. Vecchio, we need to get my boat.”

They drove back to the shop and hitched Calhoun’s boat up to his truck. The sheriff retrieved some foul-weather gear and a big flashlight from his truck while Ralph peed. Then they drove to the East End boat landing.

Calhoun asked Ralph whether he’d rather stay warm and dry in the truck. Ralph gave him his
Are you serious?
look and hopped into the boat.

They launched the boat and putted out of the harbor and followed the shoreline southerly. Aside from the city lights, blurry in the fog off to the west, it was a black night, and the freshening easterly breeze was heavy with moisture.

The sheriff braced himself in the front of the boat, and Calhoun stood in the stern running the motor. The city of Portland lay off to their starboard side, and off to port lay Cape Elizabeth. After a while they turned due west and went under the Veterans Memorial Bridge and then the Route 295 bridge where Long Creek came into the Fore River.

Calhoun cut back on the throttle. “It should be up here ahead of us,” he said to the sheriff. “Get your flashlight out.”

There were a few scattered boats moored in the river, ghostly through the fog in the beam of the sheriff’s light. Calhoun wound among them while the sheriff shined his light on their transoms.

“Here we go,” said the sheriff after a few minutes.

His light illuminated the words
Friendly Fire
on the transom of a sport-fishing boat with a tuna tower and folded-back outriggers and red-and-black trim.

Calhoun shifted into neutral. Over the quiet burbling of the motor, he heard the clank of rigging and the slosh of waves slapping against the side of Albie’s boat and the wet swish of trucks passing over the bridge behind them. The sheriff scanned the area with his big flashlight. It showed four or five other boats moored in the area, none very close to Albie’s, none showing lights.

“Shine on
Friendly Fire
again,” said Calhoun.

The sheriff did.

“Hm,” said Calhoun.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” said the sheriff.

“Don’t look like Albie’s aboard,” said Calhoun.

“She appears deserted, all right.”

“That ain’t what I meant,” said Calhoun. “What I meant was, I don’t see any dinghy or rubber boat tied up to her.”

“So how could he get here,” said the sheriff. “That what you mean r

“Ayup. Doubt he swam. Must’ve locked her down and rowed himself ashore, left his dinghy there.”

“Hey,” the sheriff called. “Hey, Albie? You aboard?”

There was no rustle or bump of movement, no light flicking on, no response of any kind from inside the boat.

“Well,” said the sheriff, “he’s not there, and that’s that. We can’t go aboard if we’re not invited. A boat’s like a man’s house. Damn sorry to’ve wasted your whole damn evening, Stoney, never mind half a tank of boat gas. I’ll make it up to you.”

“I can go aboard,” said Calhoun.

“The hell you can. You’re my deputy, and I’m telling you, we’re not going aboard.”

Calhoun took his badge out of his pocket and put it on the seat. “I quit, then. Now I ain’t your deputy, and I can do whatever the hell I want to do, and I want to board this damn boat.”

The sheriff turned and shined his light on Calhoun for a moment. Then he said, “Ah, the hell with it. Pick up the damn badge. Let’s go see what’s on Albie’s boat.”

Calhoun shoved the badge back into his pocket, then put the motor in gear and putted over alongside
Friendly Fire.
The sheriff grabbed on to the ladder. Calhoun turned off his motor.

“Tie us off,” said Calhoun. “There’s a line in the locker under the bow.”

The sheriff found the line, hitched it around their bow cleat, and tied the other end to the ladder on Albie’s boat. Then he climbed aboard.

Ralph roused himself from his spot on the bottom of the boat. He went to the bow, looked up at Albie’s boat, and started making a little squeaky sound in his throat.

“What’s with you?” said Calhoun.

Ralph turned around, came all the way to the back of the boat, and sat at Calhoun’s feet. He continued whining.

Calhoun patted his head. “You can stay here. I ain’t gonna make you climb that ladder. We’ll be back.” He stepped over Ralph, walked down the middle of the boat to the front, checked the sheriff’s knots, then followed him up the ladder onto
Friendly Fire,

Ralph sat in the back of Calhoun’s boat, whining softly.

The sheriff was shining his light around the inside of Albie’s boat. There were three or four mossy lobster pots piled in a corner, along with some loosely coiled line. Scraps of seaweed and dried bait and seagull splatters littered the floor. “Nobody home,” said the sheriff. “Looks like he hasn’t been aboard for a while.”

Calhoun went over to the cabin, which was shut tight. He tried the handle, and it turned in his hand. “He forgot to lock up when he

left,” he said.

He pulled open the door that led below to the galley and the

berths and the head—and the smell that came blasting out drove

him three stumbling steps backward.

“Jesus,” said the sheriff. “I hope that’s not what I think it is.” “Afraid it is,” said Calhoun. He pressed his jacket over his nose

and mouth. “Dead human body,” he mumbled. “You never forget

that smell, even when you can’t remember where you smelled it. You

better shine your light in here.”

He was slumped on the floor, half sitting, his back wedged into the forward corner where the two lower berths met. His chest and arms were naked and caked and crusty with dried black blood. His chin was slumped down on his chest. His wrists and ankles were bound with duct tape.

He was a small, sinewy man with thin gray hair. Both arms were plastered with tattoos.

“Looks like we found Albie,” said Calhoun.

In the white glow of the sheriff’s light, Albie’s skin was purplish and bloated. It appeared to shimmer and twitch. It took Calhoun a minute to realize that bugs and maggots were crawling all over it. It was repellent, but he forced himself to look at it, to see that it had been a living human being, not some ugly decomposing thing. A man named Albie.

“Jesus,” whispered the sheriff.

“I’d say he’s been dead for some time,” said Calhoun.

“All that blood.” The sheriff grabbed Calhoun’s arm. “We’ve got to call it in.”

Calhoun turned to move out of the cabin. Then something caught his eye. He stopped. “Shine your light there,” he told the sheriff. “On the shelf by that berth there.”

The sheriff moved his light and stopped it on a book. It was one of those large-format paperbacks. The pages were curled from the dampness. On the cover was a black-and-white photograph of a submarine in the fog with some rocky coastline in the background. The title was
U-Boats on Casco Bay: German Submarine Warfare on the
Maine Coast. Under the title it said: “Now a PBS miniseries.”

The author was Paul R. Vecchio.

“There’s your connection,” said Calhoun. “That’s how Albie knew about Mr. Vecchio.”

The sheriff nodded. “Read his book and gave him a call, maybe.” He blew out a breath. “Come on, Stoney. We gotta get out of here before I puke.”

“Suits me.”

They backed away from the doorway. The sheriff shined his light around the inside of Albie’s boat one more time, and then they climbed down the ladder onto Calhoun’s boat.

Calhoun went back and sat on the stern seat. Ralph, who was lying on the floor, looked up at him. Calhoun scratched his muzzle. “Another damn dead body,” he told him. “You smelled it, didn’t you ?”

The sheriff sat up front and took out his cell phone and made a call. Calhoun couldn’t hear what he was saying.

After a minute, the sheriff folded his phone and jammed it back into his pants pocket. “They’re on their way. We’re supposed to wait here. Sorry, Stoney. This might take a while.”

“Okay by me,” said Calhoun. “I got no appointments. Wish we’d brought some coffee is all.”

The fog had thickened into mist. Calhoun and the sheriff pulled on their rain jackets.

Pretty soon the mist turned into rain. They huddled in Calhoun’s aluminum boat, tied up to
Friendly Fire,
the three of them, waiting for the troops to arrive. The sheriff sat up front with his back to Calhoun. They didn’t talk. There wasn’t much to say.

After a little while, Ralph crawled up on the seat beside Calhoun. He sat there for a minute, then twirled around a couple of times and flopped down with his chin resting on Calhoun’s thigh.

It probably was no more than an hour, but it seemed longer, until the Coast Guard boat came burbling down the river with all of its lights blazing through the misty rain and its searchlight sweeping the river.

“You called the Coast Guard?” asked Calhoun.

“Ayup,” said the sheriff. “Murder on a boat on the high seas, which includes the tidal part of rivers, is their jurisdiction. Those islands in the bay where you found Errol Watson, they’re part of Portland. It was Gilsum who I talked to. He called the Coast Guard. There’ll be local and state cops along with the feds. Talk about chaos.”

Someone called over a bullhorn: “Sheriff Dickman? Are you there? Is that you?”

The sheriff squinted into the searchlight and raised his arm.

“Go aboard
Friendly Fire
and wait for us. Leave your deputy where he is.”

The sheriff waved, then turned in his seat. “Okay by you, Stoney?”

“I don’t care,” said Calhoun. “Do your job. I’ll wait for you.”

The sheriff climbed the ladder onto Albie’s boat. A minute later the Coast Guard boat slid alongside. Calhoun saw the sheriff reach over and give somebody a hand. The man was wearing a rain slicker with USCG printed on the back. Calhoun knew some Coast Guard people, but he didn’t recognize this one. Then Lieutenant Gilsum boarded, and he and the Coast Guard guy shined their lights around Albie’s boat and down the hatch into the cabin where the body was. They conferred with the sheriff for a while.

Then, while Calhoun sat there in the rain with Ralph shivering beside him, several other people climbed over the gunwales of the Coast Guard boat onto Albie’s. Among them was Dr. Sam Surry, wearing an oversized yellow slicker with the hood covering her red hair. She was lugging her old black leather bag.

There ensued a confusion of lights and voices and winking camera flashes on
Friendly Fire.

After a little while, the sheriff leaned over the side of Albie’s boat and said, “Hey, Stoney.”

“I’m right here,” said Calhoun, “being obedient.”

“You can go home. I got a ride.”

Calhoun shrugged. “I ain’t a suspect? They don’t want to interrogate me ?”

The sheriff laughed. “No. Not now, anyway. Go home, get dry, feed Ralph. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”

“Okay. I ain’t going to argue with you.”

The sheriff waved and ducked away from the side of the boat.

Calhoun walked up to the front of his boat, untied the line from the ladder, and cast off from
Friendly Fire,
Just as he turned to move back to the stern where he could start the motor, a soft voice above him said, “Hey, Stoney.”

He looked up. Dr. Sam Surry was smiling down at him.

Calhoun grabbed ahold of Albie’s ladder so the tide wouldn’t drift him away and said, “Hi, Doc.”

“So we meet again,” she said.

“Yup. Another dead body.”

“I’m looking forward to Friday.”

Calhoun had to think for a minute. Right. Their half-day fishing trip. Four o—clock Friday afternoon. “Me, too,” he said. “Let’s hope to hell it ain’t raining.”

“I heard that fish bite better in the rain.”

“That’s a damn myth,” said Calhoun. “Fish under the water don’t know what it’s doing in the air. Only good that rain does is keep the other fisherman away.”

“Rain or whatever,” she said, “it’ll be fun, and I can’t wait. Anyway, go get warm. See you then.” She gave a quick wave and turned away.

Calhoun let go of Albie’s boat, went to the stern seat, started up his motor, turned his boat around, and headed back through the rain to the East End boat landing.

By the time he got to the landing, backed down the trailer, hitched up his boat, and got the truck headed to his house in Dublin, he figured it was sometime after eleven. A long day, and neither he nor Ralph had had any supper.

Whenever he drove past a meadow or pasture or some other open area, the rain came sweeping across the road at an angle. At times it came so hard that it drummed on the truck’s roof like handfuls of buckshot. The winding two-lane roads from Portland west to Dublin were slick and shiny in the headlights and littered with broken pine branches and windblown wet leaves.

It was a classic New England autumn nor—easter. Behind the storm would come a high-pressure front, with crisp, dry days and cold nights. Mud puddles would be frozen in the morning. Frost would coat the pumpkins in the fields and blacken the annual flower plants. The leaves would fall from the maples and poplars and oaks. The striped bass and bluefish would hasten their southward migration, and so would the Canada geese and black ducks, and pretty soon it would be winter.

Ralph was curled up on the passenger seat. Calhoun reached over and stroked his back. His fur was wet. Calhoun turned up the truck’s heater and switched on the fan.

By the time he turned off the road onto his driveway, he figured it was after midnight.

As he started down the long, sloping, unpaved driveway that ended at his house in the woods, he noticed fresh tire tracks in the muddy ruts. He stopped, pulled on the emergency brake, and got out, leaving the door hanging open. In the truck’s headlights, he scootched down to look at the tracks. They’d been made by a small truck, not an automobile, which ruled out the Man in the Suit, who drove an Audi sedan. Dirty rainwater had begun to seep into the grooves the treads had cut in the mud, but the edges were still sharp. Calhoun figured they’d been made less than an hour earlier.

He stood up and scanned what he could see of his driveway in the headlights. There was just one set of tracks. Whoever had driven in had not driven back out.

He went back to the truck, where Ralph was now sitting up and looking around. “You better come with me,” said Calhoun. “I’ll want you to heel.”

Ralph stood up on the seat, stretched and yawned, then slithered out.

Calhoun reached behind the seat and retrieved his Winchester Model 94. He levered a cartridge into the chamber. Then he shut off the truck lights, turned off the ignition, pocketed the keys, and eased the door silently shut.

He stood still for several minutes, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Without moon or stars, it was all shades of blackness, but gradually he was able to sense, if not actually see, how his driveway twisted down through the woods.

“Okay, let’s go,” he hissed at Ralph. “We got ourselves another damn visitor, and I just hope to hell he ain’t dead. And for Christ sake, you better heel. I don’t want something happening to you again.”

Ralph plodded along a few feet behind Calhoun’s left heel, and they moved down the driveway. Calhoun hugged the right side, outside the muddy ruts where the weeds were bent down and the footing wasn’t too bad.

He knew they were approaching the opening in the woods where his house stood by the way the driveway began to flatten out, and a minute later he detected a new lighter shade of black that signified the opening in the woods that was his yard and parking area.

Then he saw something else, so quick and sudden that he wasn’t sure he’d actually seen it. It was a momentary spark of orange light in the place where he usually parked his truck.

He whispered, “Whoa,” to Ralph.

They both stood there. Calhoun looked hard at the place he’d seen the light. Then he saw it again, and this time the spark lingered a bit longer.

“Stay,” he said to Ralph.

He didn’t bother checking. He knew Ralph would stay right there, sitting on the ground, for five minutes or for an hour or for however long it was until Calhoun released him.

He had his finger on the trigger of the short-barreled deer rifle. He carried it in both hands, ready to fire from the hip if necessary.

He crept closer to where he’d seen the wink of orange light. Then he identified the gray outline of a pickup truck parked there. Another spark of orange. It was coming through the back window from inside the truck.

He was barely ten feet from the pickup when he stopped, let out a long breath, and smiled.

He went up to the driver’s side and tapped the muzzle of the Winchester against the window.

A moment later the window unrolled and the business end of a handgun poked at his face.

“Don’t shoot me, honey,” he said.

“Jesus H. Christ, Stoney Calhoun,” said Kate. She pulled her gun back. “You can’t go sneaking up on a woman like that. Where’s your truck? And why are you brandishing a deer rifle at me? Where have you been, anyway? I was worried half to death.”

“All that’s a long story,” said Calhoun. “Anyhow, you ought not to go lurking around a man’s house in the pitch dark after midnight, either.”

“I wasn’t lurking,” she said. “I was waiting.”

He found himself smiling in the darkness. “So what the hell are you doing in there. Lighting matches?”

She showed him the half-smoked cigarette she was holding.

“You don’t smoke,” he said.

“Shows what you know.”

“Hell, I know you inside and out,” he said. “Never saw you smoke. Never smelled smoke on you.”

“Things change, Stoney,” she said. “You gonna invite me in?”

“I don’t know why you didn’t just go in,” he said. “You know it ain’t locked. You know you don’t need an invitation.”

“I feel like I do,” she said softly. “Since I …” She looked away.

“Come on,” he said. “Ralph and I are cold, wet, and hungry. Let’s go in.” He turned back to where Ralph was still sitting. “Okay, bud. Come on. Let’s get something to eat.”

Ralph was sitting on the wet ground. His ears perked up at the word “eat.”

Kate stubbed out her cigarette in her truck’s ashtray, then pushed open the door and slid out. Ralph got up and trotted over to her. She leaned down to pat his head, then straightened up.

Calhoun noticed that she was wearing blue jeans and work boots and a hip-length rain jacket—not one of the dressy outfits she used to wear when she came for sleepovers. He checked his reaction to that information and realized that he was not disappointed. He had assumed she’d never again come to his house at night, and now she had, and that was plenty good enough for the time being.

Calhoun held out his hand, and she took it, and they walked hand in hand through the mud, up the steps, and into the house.

Kate went straight to the cabinet over the refrigerator where she kept her bottle of bourbon. She poured an inch into a glass and sat at the kitchen table. She shook a cigarette out of a pack and lit it. “What can I use for an ashtray?” she said to Calhoun.

He half filled a coffee mug with water and put it at her elbow. “What’s with the smoking?” he said.

“You don’t approve?”

“Well, first off, it’s none of my business what you do, and second, that smoke smells so damn good that I’m thinking maybe I used to smoke myself.”

“Maybe you did,” she said. “Before lightning zapped you. That’s a pretty extreme method of smoking cessation, but it appears to have worked.”

“What’s your story? How come you took up smoking?” He wasn’t that interested in Kate’s smoking, but he figured it was connected to her frame of mind and why she’d come to his house, and that interested him very much.