The Whale's Footprints - Rick Boyer (10 page)

"Right. Exactly. And I'm real sorry he's gone. I
guess I feel sorriest for his mom and dad."

"You said it. Let's get back to Hartzell for a
second. Why's he so fanatical about his data?"

"Because he's a research scientist. They're all
fanatical about their projects. At least the good ones. And since the
labs at Woods Hole are the best in the world, they naturally attract
the best talent."

"Is his data valuable? Would it be worth
stealing?"

He shrugged his shoulders and cranked the winch in a
few clicks. The mainsail stopped popping.

"Who knows? There could be big money in it. See
Dad, some of these research jocks, they get enough data and some
theories that test out in initial phases, what they do, they take
their stuff and quit academics. They sell their secrets to a major
pharmaceutical firm or research lab for a million bucks. Or they just
borrow some money and set up their own corporation. Then the bucks
really roll in."

"
If they're right," I said.

"Sure. If they're right. But usually, if they're
on to something, they know it. If their hunches and procedures test
out, they know they've got something worth big bucks. The university
can't hold them. And it can't claim title to the discovery. Now, say
you work for Bell Labs, or any of the big commercial establishments.
They pay you very well. But you can bet that whatever you develop
there, they own it. And they won't let you take it away for your own.
Most universities don't have that kind of hold on their people. If a
guy hits the Jackpot, the royalties are his, at least most of the
time."

"And you think Hartzell is close to such a
breakthrough? With his Midas-touch project, getting silver from sea
water?"

"I really wouldn't know."

"
Would Andy know? And if he did, would he steal
the data and try to sell it on his own?"

"
Naw. First of all, Andy was convinced that
Lionel Hartzell was just a bunch of hot air and paranoia. Frankly, I
think he underrated Hartzell. But Andy had no respect for him or his
work. But the second part of your question, would he steal it . . ."

"Well?"

"Oh, hell. I feel guilty, talking about somebody
who's dead."

"Tell me, dammit."

"This may or may not figure into it, but I know
that Andy had debts. He owed some money from gambling."

I was stunned at this revelation; it sure didn't fit
the impression I'd formed of him.

"How do you know this? Are you sure, or just
speculating?"

"I don't know the amount he owed, but I know he
owed money because he told me. I don't think he was a compulsive
gambler.  He was just very money hungry. He wanted more than
anything to lay away a nest egg for med school and take the pressure
off his parents. Once when I was out running, I saw him talking to a
guy driving a big white Cadillac. The kind that has an extra tire
case on the back, behind the trunk? And the windows all darkened? It
was on the edge of town, up near Oyster Pond Road. Andy was sticking
his head inside the driver's window, talking with whoever was inside.
That's just not the kind of car you see around Woods Hole very often.
I asked him who the guy was and he said, 'He's an old friend from
home I met after high school. I owe him a little money from loans,
but he knows I'm good for it.' "

"Why didn't you tell this to Paul Keegan, for
Chrissakes?"

"Why? What's it got to do with the murder?"

"Who knows? Possibly everything."

"
Then we'll tell him next time we see him. But
Andy said he was a friend. An old friend from high school in
Providence."

"Who else in Woods Hole did you and Andy hang
around with? Whoever killed Andy must have known about his epilepsy
and the medication, right? So they would have to have known him
pretty well."

He leaned over the side again, dragging a hand in the
water. Then he brought his wet hand up and rubbed the cold water over
his face. Sensing his fatigue, I took over the wheel while he
stretched and yawned.

"Yeah, but see, the problem with that is, that's
me."

"I was afraid of that. But think hard. Anybody
else?"

"Well, Alice. She'd know about his condition.
Then there were the rest of us living in houses around the campus.
There were parties every weekend, with people coming and going in and
out of our house. They'd go use the John, where Andy kept that big
brown bottle of meds in the cabinet. It had the label right on it,
with the drug and the dosage, the way all prescription drugs do. I
suppose if they'd snooped in the cabinet, or were looking for an
aspirin or something, then they could have seen the medication.
Everybody there is a scientist at the graduate level; they'd be able
to figure out what the meds were for. I mean, it wouldn't take a
genius. Andy kept his problem quiet, like I said earlier. But I'm
sure more than a few people knew he was epileptic."

"Tell me about Tom McDonnough."

"Nice guy. But he has his own private bedroom.
You remember the layout of the house, don't you?"

"Vaguely," I answered. "Isn't his room
upstairs, around the corner from yours and Andy's?"

"Right, and we all share the three rooms
downstairs."

"Well, how did Andy and Tom get along? Any
arguments? Resentments?"

"Nope. And Tom's not a good bet, Dad. He's a
down-to-earth, talented professional. He's got a job next fall
teaching at Holy Cross. He's engaged to be married next Christmas. Is
that kind of guy going to wreck his life by committing murder?"

" 'Course not. But we know you didn't, so our
inquiries will be focused outward from there. And so they'll have to
include—"

"Wait a second, Dad. You said 'our inquiries.'
Are you planning on making inquiries?"

I thought about it for a second. A second was all it
took.

"Yes I am. I never thought about it fully until
just now, but I will be digging around a bit. You're a suspect in a
first degree murder case. Somebody killed Andy Cunningham in our
house, probably knowing you would be put on the hook for it. Damn
right I'll be making inquiries."

"Well . . . I don't know, Dad. I mean, what if
people don't want to talk to you? You don't have any real authority.
You're just my dad."

"One: being your dad is enough. It's plenty.
Two: it so happens I do have authority. I am the temporary medical
examiner for Barnstable County."

"But you told Uncle Joe you didn't want that
job."

"I said I'd think about it. Well, I've thought
about it, and decided. I'm going to take it."

"Medical examiner? Doesn't that mean you'll have
to cut up dead people?"

"Uh . . . yes. If there are any dead people that
need cutting. I'm just praying there won't be. The M.E. title will
enable me to ask questions on an official basis. Remind me to inform
Uncle Joe."

He sat on the cockpit cushion, head in hands, and
groaned. I decided to change the subject and give the kid a break.

"We've got another three, three-and-a-half hours
to the mouth of the canal if the wind holds. So say we'll arrive at
around four. If we enter the mouth at four-thirty, we'll buck the
current for a little bit, but it will be slowing down. Then slack
water will arrive at five. Halfway through the canal, the current
will turn our way."

"And how fast does it get?" he asked.

"Four to six knots. So if we add our motoring
speed of five knots to the current, we'll be shooting down the ditch
at nine or ten knots. That's flying."

So we sailed on, dipping
and bouncing over the bay, sometimes heeling over a tad, sometimes
rocking with the gentle roll of the swells. We saw pleasure craft and
bay trawlers, draggers, purse-seiners, sport fishermen, and, as we
neared the mouth of the canal, an increasing number of cargo
freighters anxious to save the 162 mile leg around the outside of the
Cape on the Boston-to-New York run. Of course the really giant
vessels, especially the huge oil tankers and container ships, still
went around the long way. They had to; they were way too big for the
canal, even though, at over four hundred feet across, it's the widest
sea-level waterway in the world.

* * *

 
We arrived at the canal mouth at quarter
to four. Even a novice navigator can't miss the canal's eastern
terminus: the three-hundred-foot smokestack of the Sagamore power
plant, complete with flashing strobe lights, stands right on it.
Standing off the canal about a thousand yards in a freshening breeze,
I raised the canal office on VHF channel 13 and inquired about the
tide currents and traffic. As I'd suspected, traffic was light on a
Monday, and the keeper told me the head current was slowing. Slack
water was due shortly. If we waited another forty-five minutes, we
could catch the start of the westbound current. We dropped sail and
motored into the canal mouth, then into a tiny mooring spot called
the Harbor of Refuge. This dredged pocket of deep water within the
land cut is a handy and protected stop-off point for small craft
awaiting a fair tide.

We moored in a slip there, and I dove below and
brought the chilled ham out from the ice locker. I'm not much on ham,
frankly. But I prefer cold ham to hot, and a big chilled ham that you
can carve away on at your convenience is the perfect thing to take on
a sailboat cruise. We'd packed some Italian-style sub rolls, which I
now sliced down the middle and packed with thin-sliced ham and Swiss
cheese. I slathered Dijon mustard over the sandwiches, then spooned
out Mary's cold broccoli vinaigrette on paper plates. We sat in the
cockpit, fighting flies and eating our early dinner with iced bottles
of Hackerbrau. I realized we'd skipped lunch, something I do
regularly. But Jack was famished. He destroyed his ham and cheese
immediately, and went for seconds on the cold broccoli salad. We had
finished our meal and cleaned everything up shipshape by the time the
tide had turned.

Engine running, we cast off and swung out into the
canal traffic and kept to the right—just as on a highway—watching
a Peruvian freighter dead ahead of us churning down the ditch. She
was empty: riding so high we could see the violent, fountainesque
wash of her screw beneath her tall, rounded stern. Behind us was a
big "motor-sailer" yacht. We cracked open two more beers
and sat in the dying sun. This part of the trip was delightful. We
watched the shore slide by us at a rattling good clip.

There was one eerie sight: an overturned aluminum
boat floating just below the surface. Undoubtedly a victim of the
gale, it bumped up against our hull before we even realized it was
there.

I sure hoped nobody was underneath it. Before we
could grab it, it was gone, doomed to drift on its dismal journey by
itself. The Sagamore Bridge looked awfully big and high as we slid
underneath it, much more impressive than it looks from on top. A
light touch on the wheel was all that was needed, and I steered while
Jack stripped off his shirt and lay down on the cabin top to catch
the last of the sun. I lighted my pipe and reflected on how
good it was to be on the water.

When we got down toward the Bourne Bridge, the canal
authority turned the shore lights on, though it was still fading
daylight. The big mercury vapor lamps glowed yellow on our side of
the shore and white on the south side. They're spaced about five
hundred feet apart. I watched them as Jack dozed on the cabin top.
They seemed to be whizzing by faster and faster . . .

By the time we passed under the raised railroad
bridge near the canal's mouth, we were fairly flying down toward
Buzzards Bay. From experience, I knew that the easy, fun part of the
sail was over. I woke Jack up and told him to get ready. He slipped
his pullover shirt back on in the evening chill and joined me in the
cockpit for a cup of coffee. I pointed up at the telltales, strips of
bright woolen yarn and lightweight ripstop nylon that are fastened to
the stays. They blow around in the slightest breeze, miniature
weathervanes that tell the sailor where the wind's coming from and at
what velocity. They were standing straight out now, whipping and
snapping in the wind. A southwest wind, and strong.

"Okay pal, this is it," I warned as we
neared the western mouth of the land cut. "The party's over.
That southwest wind is driving a lot of big water up Buzzards Bay
right towards us. And the canal current is blasting down towards the
water. Get the picture?"

"
Collision course."

"You said it. When the tidal bore meets that
incoming sea, it'll raise a chop to wake the dead. So hold on. Here
we go."

We shot out of the canal mouth into waves that were
three and four feet high. They smacked into our little catboat head
on. Since her wide, shallow hull won't slice through seas,
Ella
Hatton
was thrown up and down like a steam
hammer. The foredeck and cabin top were soaked, and we were
continually doused with spray. We shouted at each other over the
thumping and splashing, agreeing that it wasn't fun. And we still had
another five miles to go down the dredged channel until we could veer
off to our anchorage for the night. I finally figured that the best
thing to do was cut engine speed and let the tide do the work. With
some of our forward motion gone, the chop was less intense. Still, we
kept the sails down and took turns fighting the helm.