Dark Moon Walking (19 page)

“What the hell do you want, you silly old fuck?” Annie shouted down to him. “Stop banging on my boat.”

“He's dead!” The sound was something between a scream and a wail, and the words were distorted by his lack of teeth.

“Who's dead? What the hell are you talking about?” A cold worm of fear shivered to life as she wondered if he was talking about Walker. Of the few people living here, Walker was the one Tom would be most likely to know and recognize. Walker was always out paddling that canoe of his, visiting every tiny nook and cove.

“Dead! Dead! Dead!” The quavering voice rose and fell, the rocking was starting again, and she thought the oar pounding was next.

“Okay! Okay already. You already said that.” Annie cut him off in mid-ululation and leaned over to rattle the ladder. “Tie that piece-of-shit dinghy up to the ladder and get up here. I ain't standing out here all night.”

She moved back from the rail, far enough to be out of sight, hoping his need for contact would make him move, hoping he could keep himself together enough to do it. Could he even climb the ladder? He had to be in pretty good shape to have rowed all the way here, but maybe he was exhausted.

For several minutes she heard nothing but an occasional moan, but at least the pounding hadn't started up again. She was about to step forward and see what he was up to, maybe prod him some more, when she heard a creak from the ladder and the sound of feet climbing up the rungs.

She moved back into the cabin, turned on the light, and poked at the firebox on the stove. She certainly needed a cup of tea, and maybe he could use one too. Might even help settle him down some. The kettle was still hot and she pulled a china teapot out of a cupboard, dropped a couple of tea bags into it, and filled it with water. She knew he had reached the deck: she had heard him scramble over the railing. She could feel him peering in though the porthole, watching her, but he didn't come in. It was unnerving, but it matched the man. He was crazy. A real loony. She could not imagine what kind of horrific event, real or imagined, had made him set out in the middle of the night and reach out to another human being.

She took two cups off their hooks and set them on the table, then, as an afterthought, reached up for the sugar bowl and placed it beside them. Maybe that would bring him in. The poor old bastard had to be hungry. There was a can of milk already open in the fridge and she added that to the homey tableau. Lastly, and with a good deal of reluctance, she dug out a box of chocolate-chip cookies and put a few of them on a plate. She really hated to use up the cookies. They were her special treat. She only bought one box a month, over at the floating store, and she only allowed herself one a day, just before she went to bed. Still, if it got the old bastard off the deck and settled down a bit, it would be worth it.

She sat down on the bench, poured herself a cup of tea, and waited. She had drunk half of it before Tom finally sidled into the doorway, and she was almost finished before he found the courage to move in and join her at the table, sliding awkwardly onto the bench across from her and perching on the edge of it, his thin body tense and coiled, poised to run.

She ignored him. Picking up the pot again, she filled both cups, then pushed one slowly across the table toward him. For several minutes he simply sat motionless, staring at the cup as though he expected it to come to life. Then, with a darting glance at her, he snatched it up with both hands.

Still she stayed silent, quietly pushing first the sugar bowl and then the milk toward him, but avoiding the eye contact she thought might frighten him. He stared at those too before reaching grimy fingers into the sugar bowl to pick out three sugar cubes. He held them for a few seconds, then dropped them one by one into his cup and watched with rapt attention as they dissolved into the pale liquid. She waited till he looked up again, then pushed the plate of cookies over. This time the fingers moved more quickly.

“Who's dead, Tom?” She kept her voice low, hoping not to set him off again, but she heard the first moan start even before she had finished speaking.

“Tom! Who's dead?” This time she smacked her hand down on the table to accompany her yell, cutting off the moan in mid-quaver. “Who?”

He stared at her in shock, his eyes wide. “Don't know,” he whispered. “Man.”

“A man's dead?” she asked. “A man you don't know?”

He nodded, wrapping his thin arms tightly around himself as he rocked to and fro. The half-eaten cookie sat forgotten on the table. Annie breathed a sigh of relief. Tom knew Walker.

“Man. Floating.” The words were disjointed, unfamiliar in his mouth.

She looked across at him. He was a pathetic figure: scarecrow thin, dirty, and obviously terrified, hands rough and scarred, sparse gray hair lank and stringy, thin strands meandering across his mostly bald head. He could have been Dickens's model for
Uriah Heep
, she thought, except he didn't match the unctuous part.

“Where did you find this man?” She had to keep him talking. If he stopped, he was going to start the moaning and rocking again.

He writhed and twitched, his eyes sliding from side to side. “In water. On rocks.”

“In your bay?”

He rocked back and forth in what she thought was a nod.

“You've never seen him before?”

He shook his head so violently, his whole body shook with it. “Don't know! Never seen!”

“Huh.” She didn't know what else she could ask him. Or what she should do. She wished Walker would come back. He would figure something out. He had that quietness that gave confidence.

Thinking of Walker made her think of the man Walker had called for help—and the reason he had called him. Maybe this dead man was somehow mixed up with what had happened to Claire's boat. And what about Claire? Where was she?

“You sure it was a man?” she asked.

He stared at her for a minute as if confused, then nodded. “Man. Man.”

“How do you know? Was he naked?”

“No! Has clothes! Pants. Shirt.” He patted himself as he spoke, indicating each item.

“Tom, women wear pants and shirts too,” Annie said.

His agitation increased. “Not woman! Man. Has beard!”

“He has a beard?” So not Walker, or Claire, or the guy Walker had called in—what was his name? Dan. That was it.

Tom nodded vigorously. “Beard. Long beard. Red. Red hair.”

“He had a red beard?” Tom nodded again, his eyes tightly closed.

This seemed much too vivid, much too detailed, to be some figment of imagination, even in a brain as troubled as Tom's seemed to be. Certainly his agitation was real, and Annie thought the fact that he had come here, and was talking to her instead of to one of his “voices,” also pointed to his story being true, even if hard to believe.

The bigger question was what to do about it. She supposed she could always go over and see for herself, but what would that accomplish? She had no desire to see a dead body, and other than reassuring herself that Tom was in fact speaking of reality, it would do nothing to help her figure out the next step.

Maybe she should go over to Dawson's Landing. They had boats stopping at the floating store all the time. They might have heard if someone was missing. Might even know who this dead guy was, and they could contact the
RCMP
to come deal with it. But that would take time, and what would she do with Tom?

Once again she wished Walker were there, but she had no way to contact him: he didn't have a radio, and she didn't know where he lived. That left his friend, Dan. He had told Walker that he was no longer with the
RCMP
, but he must know a lot of them and he would certainly know how to handle something like this. She could call him, although she recalled Walker saying it was dangerous to use the radio because those men might hear it. The radio was public, and anyone could listen in on a conversation. She would have to be careful what she said. Maybe she could make up a story that would bring him here—something completely different but important enough to make him agree to come. She looked at Tom, sitting across from her, his eyes tightly closed as he rocked endlessly back and forth. That dark stain on his sleeve was almost certainly blood, but it didn't look fresh and she had no desire to check it out. On the other hand, it did give her an idea. A medical emergency. That might be the perfect excuse to get on the radio and call for help. She wouldn't even have to give out her location because he had already been here. She searched her memory for the name of Dan's boat. She had only glanced at it when he first came in. What the hell was it.
Dream
 . . . something?

SIXTEEN

The morning was in full bloom, sun stabbing through the trees with tongues of light, gulls wheeling lazily over the water. As Dan and Claire got under way, Dan kept the revs on the outboard low to keep the noise down and whenever he could, he kept close to shore.

Claire sat huddled in the front of the dinghy, the visor on the ball cap Dan had given her pulled low over her eyes and the hood of a green rain jacket up over her head. She looked both awkward and ridiculous in the oversized clothing, but Dan's initial feelings of sympathy were more than offset by the concern he felt growing with every turn of the motor. She had been so sure that this was something she wanted to do. So certain she could handle it. Now he could see her fear building with every slap of a wave against the bow, and he was aware of the worried glances she was throwing his way.

The entrance to the passage that lay to the south of Claire's Cove, as he called the little bay where Claire had hidden in her kayak, opened up, and Dan cut the revs even further as he let the dinghy idle along its southern shore. He had loaded a fishing rod and tackle box on board before they left, and now he placed the rod in the rod holder and fed out some line. It wasn't much, but at least it provided some kind of cover story. He felt almost as nervous as Claire looked and he asked himself for perhaps the twentieth time if he should simply turn around and go back to
Dreamspeaker
, fire up her engine, and head south.

“You don't have to do this, you know,” he said, leaning forward to peer under the visor at her pale face.

She flashed him a strained smile. “Thanks, but I think I do. I need to see them for myself.” She looked across the water toward Spider Island. “I'll be okay once we get there. It's just sitting here thinking about it that's getting to me.”

He sat back, still not happy with what they were doing, although perhaps a little reassured by the knowledge that this was her decision as much as his. He wasn't normally an indecisive man, but the fact that there were no clear-cut courses of action open to him bothered him almost as much as the feeling that he was endangering the life of a young woman he had just met.

But he had been right in thinking she was tough. No matter how frightened she might be, she had made her decision and she was not going to back out. Now he needed to do the same. His hand reached back for the control stick and he turned the dinghy north. “Okay. Let's see if we can find Walker.”