Gray Ghost (19 page)

They sipped their coffee and looked off to the distance. “Kate took up cigarette smoking,” said Calhoun. “What do you think of that?”

“I think Kate’s a woman who really ought to have some kind of vice.

Calhoun smiled. “She is kind of perfect, now that you mention it.”

“I still miss it.”

“Huh?”

“Smoking,” said the sheriff. “Cigarettes.”

A few minutes later, the sheriff said, “Where I’ve been this morning is tracking down that waitress.”

“Joanie,” said Calhoun.

“Joanie McMurphy. She was still in her bathrobe when I got there. I asked her about Albie Wolinski and Paul Vecchio that night.”

Calhoun nodded. “You’re like a terrier, you know that?”

The sheriff shrugged. “Got to follow up. You never know. So anyway, about all she could tell me that we didn’t already know was that Albie was drawing on a piece of paper with a pencil, and it seemed like he was using the drawing to try to illustrate something for Vecchio.”

“She didn’t overhear what they were talking about?”

The sheriff shook his head. “You still have that piece of paper you got out of Vecchio’s gear bag?”

“The one that led us to the Keelhaul and Albie, you mean?”

“That’s the one,” said the sheriff.

“You think that’s the paper Albie was writing on?”

“One side was in pencil, right?”

Calhoun nodded. “I think it’s still in the shirt I was wearing yesterday.”

“Let’s take another look at it,” said the sheriff.

Calhoun found the scrap of notepaper in the pocket of his shirt, which he’d tossed on the floor behind the sofa when he went to sleep. Normally he hung his shirt in the bedroom closet, but Kate had gone in there and closed the door on him.

He went back onto the deck, hitched a chair over beside the sheriff, sat down, and unfolded the sheet of paper to the side that read
Keelhaul Albie
9/6 9:00.

The sheriff glanced at it, then turned it over so that they were looking at the side with the inverted U and the random shapes with X’s through some of them. Except the way the sheriff had it turned, the
U
was now on the bottom, not the top. This way it looked like an open bowl, not an upside-down one.

It still didn’t look like anything more than what a monkey with a pencil might draw.

“This,” said the sheriff, tapping the meaningless scrawls and scribbles on the piece of notepaper, “is what Albie Wolinski was drawing for Paul Vecchio that night at the Keelhaul. It’s more or less what Joanie McMurphy described to me. The way I see it, Vecchio went there with his directions written down on one side of this piece of paper. Albie was who he was meeting, the Keelhaul Cafe was the place, and there was the date and the time. When he got there, for whatever reason, Albie wanted to draw something for him. So Vecchio took out the scrap of paper he’d written his directions on, and Albie used the other side to sketch on. This here”—the sheriff jabbed at the paper with his forefinger’“is what he sketched.”

Calhoun was looking at the paper from beside the sheriff’s elbow. He reached over and pulled it in front of him. “Look at it this way,” he said, and he rotated the paper ninety degrees so that the U became a C. “That look familiar?”

The sheriff frowned at the paper, then shrugged. “Sorry, Stoney. Maybe you’re better at spatial relations than me. You see something I don’t see ?”

“It’s Casco Bay,” said Calhoun.

The sheriff bent closer to the paper. Then he turned his head and looked at Calhoun. “You’re absolutely right. I’ll be damned. It’s crude, it’s not drawn to scale, and most of the details are missing. But it’s exactly how somebody would sketch the bay.” He traced the outline of the C with his forefinger. “This is the coastline. Falmouth here, here’s Portland, and Cape Elizabeth here. And these”’he put his finger on one of the shapeless drawings, then on the next one’ “they’re some of the islands. Right? You know the bay better than I do. That the way you see it?”

Calhoun nodded. “This here’s Mackworth.” He moved his finger across Albie Wolinski’s pencil-sketched map of the bay. “Great Diamond. Long. Great Chebeague, right? Here’s Hope, and Cliff, and Jewell, and’”

“I’ll be damned,” said the sheriff. “That has to be Quarantine. It’s got a big fat X through it.”

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” said Calhoun.

The sheriff nodded slowly. “Albie drew an X through Quarantine Island for Paul Vecchio. X marks the spot. To show him where Errol Watson’s body was. See, Albie had Vecchio’s book, knew he was a writer, knew he lived in Sheepscot and was interested in stories about Maine. Old Albie figured Vecchio would pay him money for a juicy story. Got ahold of him, arranged to meet him at the Keelhaul. Remember how Leon said Albie suddenly seemed to have some money to spend? So he drew this map for Vecchio with these X’s on it. Then Vecchio hired you to go fishing, but really what he wanted was a boat ride so he could poke around on Quarantine and

see if Albie was telling the truth. He maneuvered things out there, saying he had to take a leak, stretch his legs, to get you to drop him off on the island without telling you he was looking for a man’s incinerated body.”

“Vecchio already knew what happened to Watson,” said Calhoun, “because Albie told him. I took him there so he could confirm it.”

“And,” said the sheriff, “it got him killed.”

“So look,” said Calhoun, moving his finger over the pencil-drawn map. “There are these three other islands with X’s drawn through them. You suppose … ?”

The sheriff straightened up, leaned back from the table, and turned to Calhoun. “You think you can follow this map, Stoney?”

Calhoun nodded. “Might be a little trial and error. There’s a helluva lot of little islands in the bay. But, sure. I can find these with X’s on ‘em, if that’s what you mean.”

The sheriff puffed out his cheeks and blew out a long breath, then pushed his chair back and stood up. “Let’s go take a look. You mind if we take your boat?”

As Calhoun expected, last night’s storm had dragged a high-pressure system in behind it. Now, as they skimmed across Casco Bay, the sky was high and blue and utterly cloudless, the sun shone so bright you had to squint, and a sharp breeze kicked up whitecaps all across the bay and blew salt spray on their faces.

The first island on Albie’s map was little more than half an acre of jumbled boulders with some scrubby brush and a few wind-bent oak trees poking up in the middle. Calhoun guessed that if the weather gods ever conspired to blow a hurricane-sized easterly wind at the bay during a full-moon high tide, the little island would end up entirely underwater.

He had to circle it twice before he spotted a patch of sand among the boulders where he could land his boat without scraping the hull. The sheriff got out and wedged the anchor between some rocks. Ralph hopped out after him and went exploring.

Calhoun followed. “If there’s a body here,” he said, “Ralph’ll find it.”

A minute later Ralph started barking.

They found him sitting on the ground with his ears laid back, whining deep in his throat and staring at the blackened body, which was propped up in a sitting position with its back against a boulder facing east. It was charred and crusty. Its face was burned off. Its ears and nose and fingers were nubs. Just like Errol Watson.

“Oh, boy,” said the sheriff. He shook his head, then muttered, “Oh, boy,” again. He blew out a long breath. “Well, I gotta call it in.” He fished his cell phone from his pocket. “Does this island have a name, do you know?”

Calhoun shook his head. “I suppose it does, but I don’t know it.” He pointed. “We’re due east of Bangs, there, maybe half a mile.” He pointed again. “Over there’s Bailey and Orr’s.”

The sheriff nodded. “Good enough.”

As Calhoun watched, the sheriff wandered away and selected a boulder on the rim of the little island to sit on. He poked at his phone, then put it to his ear, all the while keeping his back to the dead body and gazing out toward the western horizon. Calhoun heard the murmur of the sheriff’s voice, though from where he was waiting, he couldn’t hear what he was saying.

After a few minutes, the sheriff stood up, shoved the phone back into his pants pocket, and came back to where Calhoun and Ralph were waiting. “You still with me, Stoney?”

Calhoun nodded. “I’m your deputy, remember? Whatever you say.

“We got two more islands with X’s on them. I hope you can locate them.”

“We’ll find ‘em,” said Calhoun.

There was a burned-beyond-recognition body on each of the other two islands from Albie Wolinski’s map. Both bodies had been propped up against a boulder facing east. Both had only nubs for fingers and ears. Calhoun was pretty sure their penises had been jammed into their mouths, but they didn’t check to verify it.

Counting Errol Watson, that made four burned bodies, one on each of the four little Casco Bay islands that Albie Wolinski had marked with an X.

The sheriff talked for a long time on his cell phone after they found the last body. When he came back to where Calhoun and Ralph were waiting, he said, “This is going to be a long day, Stoney. You okay with that?”

Calhoun shrugged. “Kate gave me the day off.”

“I told Gilsum we’d wait for him where our first body is. He’ll bring a veritable posse, no doubt, and a fleet of boats. We’ll need to show them where the other two bodies are.”

“Whatever you want.”

A little over an hour later, a flotilla of assorted motorboats materialized from behind one of the big islands and headed for them. There were seven of them altogether, and each of them managed to find a patch of beach to nose onto. Then the little island was swarming with people.

One of them was Dr. Sam Surry, wearing sneakers and khaki pants and a pale blue windbreaker. Her red hair was in a ponytail that stuck out the back of her Red Sox cap. She was lugging her old black medical bag. When she hopped off the boat, she stopped and looked around, then went straight to the rock where Calhoun and Ralph were waiting. She squatted down, rubbed Ralph’s back, and looked up at Calhoun. “We’ve really got to stop meeting like this,” she said.

Calhoun shrugged. “Better than not meeting at all.”

She smiled. “I’ll never be able to look at Casco Bay the same way again.”

“That mean you don’t want to go fishing Friday?”

“Hell, no. I’m looking forward to it. Let’s just not stop off at any islands, okay?” She gave him a quick wave. “Gotta get to work.” She headed over to where the others had gathered by the body.

After a while, the sheriff came over and asked Calhoun to lead the way to the second body, so he and Ralph piled into their boat, and all but two of the other boats followed along. Calhoun showed them where to land, and then he and Ralph got out and led them to where the body was propped against the boulder, facing east.

After much discussion, the various official people figured out who was going to stay there and who was going to move to the third island. Then Calhoun led two of the boats to where the last burned-up body was waiting.

Calhoun and Ralph sat there in his boat at the third island waiting for further instructions. After a while, he figured out they’d forgotten all about him. He’d done his job. They didn’t need him anymore.

The sheriff and Dr. Surry had stayed back at the first island. Calhoun assumed that they’d have to check out the other two bodies before they were done.

This was going to take a while. Calhoun wasn’t much good at waiting around for other people.

He remembered his cell phone. Once in a while he was glad he had it. He took it out of his pants pocket, pressed the button on the side, said, “Dickman,” and held it to his one good ear.

He heard it ring. Then the sheriff’s voice said, “Stoney? That your

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s up? We’re kinda busy here.”

“You gonna need me for anything else?”

The sheriff hesitated. “Well, actually,” he said, “I guess not.”

“I’ll hang around if you want, but…”

“Nope. No reason to do that, Stoney. We got plenty of boats and more damn expertise than we can use out here. You and Ralph go on home. You did great work today, both of you. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“I’m pretty interested in this whole thing, you know.”

“Of course you are,” said the sheriff. “I’ll keep you informed, I promise. Soon as I know something, you’ll know it. Go home, Deputy. That’s an order.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Calhoun tapped Ralph on the forehead. “Okay, bud. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

By the time they got back to the landing and hitched up the boat, Calhoun figured it was almost two in the afternoon. He thought about stopping in at the shop, saying hello to Kate, seeing how she was doing. She had a lot on her mind. The note she’d left hinted pretty strongly that she didn’t want to see him, though. So he drove straight home to Dublin.

He spent the rest of the afternoon splitting firewood and stacking it in the shed beside the house. It was good, hard, rhythmic work. He liked the way splitting a hunk of straight-grained seasoned oak required finesse and precision, and he took pride in dropping his maul in the right place and seeing two equal halves go flying off the chopping block. Wood-splitting demanded a kind of concentration that allowed one level of his mind to wander wherever it wanted, and as he watched the piles of woodstove-sized hunks of split wood grow, he allowed that semiconscious level to ponder three more burned bodies facing east from little uninhabited Casco Bay islands.

Albie Wolinski had drawn his crude map to show Paul Vecchio where the bodies were, which meant, of course, that Albie already knew their location.

Maybe it was Albie who took those four men out there, cut their throats, lopped off their penises, shoved them into their mouths, and set them afire.

That left the question of who killed Albie.

Maybe it was Paul Vecchio.

That left the question of who killed him.

Calhoun figured that some one person was doing all the killing. First the four men on the Casco Bay islands. Then Albie. Then Vecchio.

Unless it was Franklin Dunbar, which he doubted, the who and why of it was eluding him.

He didn’t quit splitting wood until darkness began spilling out of the woods. Then he hung his maul on its pegs, whistled up Ralph, who’d spent the afternoon nosing around the yard, and went

inside. He had a long shower, savoring the way the hot water needled into his achy shoulders, and he lingered there for a long time, thoughts of dead men mingling strangely with thoughts of Kate. He hoped she was doing all right.

The next morning, Thursday, Calhoun and Ralph got to the shop around nine thirty. Calhoun unhitched his boat and left it in the corner of the lot, where it would be ready for his trip with Sam Surry the next day. Then they went inside. Ralph went over to his corner, turned around three times, lay down on Calhoun’s old sweatshirt, tucked his nose under his tail, and went to sleep. Calhoun flipped the sign that hung in the window to OPEN, loaded up the coffee urn, and checked the phone for messages.