Maggie Bright (2 page)

ELLIOTT’S BOATYARD

BEXLEY-ON-THE-THAMES

LONDON

No topic has more lurid appeal than when one is nearly murdered in one’s bed by a member of the clergy.

Clare Childs did not begrudge Mrs. Shrewsbury the right to pick the incident down to atomic particles. It was the most exciting thing to happen in the old tweedy’s life, and Clare was convinced the Shrew was grateful it had; but it had occurred
weeks
ago.

“More tea?” Clare offered.

“In a blink, your life changes. You are sixty-seven. Retired. Prepared to serve out the rest of your days in good deeds and usefulness. Yes, dear. Thank you.” She paused before taking a sip. “I can still see his eyes. They glowed red.”

They were brown. And frightened.

“Going to the Home Front meeting this afternoon?” Clare said brightly, though she knew it was fruitless to try and change the subject until Mrs. Shrew played it out to the bitter end.

“We’ll see him at Madame Tussauds one day,” she said with grim relish, eyes glowing a bit disturbingly themselves over her teacup. “Right next to Jack the Ripper. His clerical collar will be a chilling counterpoint. I wonder what name they’ll give him.”

“As he hasn’t committed any murder
 
—”

“That we
know
of . . .”

“I don’t know that he’ll grace an exhibit anytime soon.”

“What
would
they call him?” Mrs. Shrew mused. “He’s an American. He’s a vicar.”

“I don’t think they call them vicars in America. Not from the novels I’ve read. He is an Episcopal priest. Perhaps it’s Father something or other.”

“Father . . . Slasher. Father Maim. The papers called him the Thieving Priest
 
—such an insipid moniker for such gruesome potential. They got it all wrong.”

“The papers also said he had made off with ‘a mysterious package.’ Where did they get that? Nothing whatsoever is missing.” Clare scowled.

“‘The tearful owner of the
Maggie Bright
. . .’”

Tearful! Oh, why did the Shrew have to remind her?

“I’ve got it! The Reverend Yankee Maimer.”

“Really, Mrs. Shrew . . . sbury.” Clare had to stop calling her Shrew in her head. “You must put the matter out of your mind. It isn’t healthy.”

“What
I
wonder is why there hasn’t been an inquest. I have longed to give testimony. At the very least we should have been thoroughly questioned.”

Here was the one point upon which they agreed. Why hadn’t someone come? The night the incident took place didn’t count, as
there had been no one from Scotland Yard to question them, only the arresting constable. No one from the
Daily Mirror
had questioned them, either; no wonder they got their facts wrong. “Well, things
are
a bit busy just now. War and all. Perhaps
 
—”

“Yes, but do you see, that is
exactly
my point. He could be a German spy! I didn’t buy that trite New York American accent for one moment. Neither should you. A girl of your sensibilities. Offering
tea
while we waited for the police. If it hadn’t been for that man to subdue him, I don’t know what we should have done.”

“You did all right with the kettle . . .” It was a wonder the poor man’s skull wasn’t fractured. “And the shrieking.”

“It was a distractionary move,” Mrs. Shrew said modestly. “I occasionally employed the tactic on my students. Did you notice the staccato cadence of the shrieks?”

“I did.”

“Puts the perpetrator off center.”

“It did that.” Poor fellow probably thought he
was
in a Tussauds exhibit
 
—as a victim.

“Hail the ship!” came a call from outdoors. “I have news!”

“It’s that man,” said Mrs. Shrew disapprovingly, because it was proper to disapprove of men, though she smoothed her hair and brushed toast crumbs from her bosom.

Clare slid from the tiny dinette and ran up the ladder.

“Good morning, Captain John!” She smiled at the man on the dock. “Any news from your son?” She dared to ask because he appeared quite chipper this morning.

But the question did dampen him for just a moment. “No. Nothing. Bit odd
 
—I’ve gotten a letter twice a week.” Then he smiled. “I’m sure all is well. Stopped the Jerries in their tracks, no doubt, and Jamie leads the pack. Too busy to tell me about it!” He waved a piece of paper. “I have the information you were after!”

The timing couldn’t be worse. And yes
 
—there was Mrs. Shrew, right behind her.

“Information?” she called as she appeared at the hatch. Her voice always took on a slightly musical note when the captain was about. “What information?”

There was no signaling Captain John to be discreet. He’d already torn off his hat, eyes only for Mrs. Shrew. “Well, good mornin’, Mrs. Shrewsbury!” he said, as if heartily surprised.

“Good morning,” she sang. “What news, Captain? Has the barbarian invaded our shores? Ha-ha-ha!”

“Hasn’t come to that yet. We’ll be ready if they do. Only, I’ve found where they’ve stowed the Burglar Vicar. He’s in a jail in Westminster. Awfully far from Bexley, don’t you think? Don’t know why our own jail didn’t suit.” He nimbly stepped over the narrow plank from the dock to the
Maggie Bright
. “Here you are, love.”

Clare meekly took the paper.

“
What
is that?” said Mrs. Shrew.

“Only it’s a paper with an address on it,” said Captain John. “Where they’ve locked up the BV.”

Clare winced at the shrieking staccato silence.

Mrs. Shrew slid to her side. “It is worse than I have feared,” she said, voice breathy and low, no music in it. “You have developed: a 
fixation
.”

“What’s this?” said Captain John, looking with concern at Clare. “You do look a bit peaky . . .”

“Your tea. Your concern. Your
kindness
.” Mrs. Shrew turned upon the captain. “And
you
have thrown petrol on it!”

“Hang on,” the captain said defensively. “I’ve done what?”

“‘Put the matter out of your mind,’ hmm?” said Mrs. Shrew. “While you go about developing a sick, sordid,
victim
crush!” Her eyes glowed, and fell upon the paper in Clare’s hand. “I cannot let you have that.” She reached for it, but Clare held it high.

“Mrs. Shrew
 
—sbury,
honestly
. There is no fixation. There is only deep curiosity about why this man was on my boat. He had no intention to harm us in any way. I am quite sure of it. He was
looking
for something. I want to know what he was looking for
 
—why it was worth risking jail.”

“You don’t believe that rubbish about his wife due for their first child
 
—asking us to
let him go
for their sakes before the police came?”

“I don’t know what to believe. I do know he was after something. And there was something about him
 
—something innocent. And worried. And . . . well, rather pathetic.”

She became aware of her grasp on the mast stay. She followed the stay up to the mainmast.

The
Maggie Bright
was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, a gallant, lovely, hearty girl, and entirely in Clare’s hands: her two noble masts, the fifty-two feet of her length and the sixteen feet of her width
 
—
beam
, Captain John implored her to say. But it wasn’t until Clare had signed the papers of ownership transference that she knew something sacred had been turned into her keeping
 
—as if a spray of oath-taking fairy dust had erupted at the last scratch of the pen.

Clare felt as if the previous owner, of whom she knew next to nothing, trusted her. Trusted her to keep the fittings polished, the decks scrubbed, the bottom clean, to keep her free of leaks
 
—to keep her ready for any adventure, surely crouching at the very next corner. Perhaps all new boat owners felt this glowing responsibility. But Clare had believed from the start that
Maggie Bright
was something special.

“I have a right to know anything that concerns my vessel.” A gust of wind came singing through her lines. Fittings rattled a counterpoint. “If that is a fixation,” Clare murmured, eyes moving along the foremast line to the bowsprit, “oh, I am fixated.”

“Oh, go on
 
—she’s right, you know,” said Captain John indulgently, nudging Mrs. Shrew with his elbow. “Knew she was a sailor the minute she saw old Mags.”

“Sailor, perhaps,” Mrs. Shrew said. “Detective inspector, certainly not.
I
was the one to catch him in a lie. ‘Why are you here?’ I asked of the Thieving Priest, after the captain had restrained him
 
—”

“
Restrained
is a stretch,” said Clare. He sat meek as a lamb, sipping tea while waiting for the police.

“
 
—and do you recall what he said? ‘I am in England for the Lambeth Conference,’ and he said it
quite carefully
as if it had been
long rehearsed
. ‘
Lambeth
Conference!’ said I. ‘Well, that
is
a surprise . . . as there hasn’t been a
Lambeth
Conference since 1930, and there isn’t one now! Besides all that
 
—what would the
Lambeth
Conference have to do with your presence on this boat? Who are you
really
 
—
Father
Fitzpatrick?’ Oh, what a trump! Do you recall his face? Like catching a student in a lie!”

“Yes
 
—and he wouldn’t say a word after that, would he? Not a single word about what he was looking for.” Clare just
knew
he was on the very brink of confession when Mrs. Shrew had gone all Lambeth on everyone.

“He was
looking
to kill us. Do you not know feral nature when you see it? Try teaching school in Liverpool. West Kirby.”

“I intend to find out what he was after.” Clare studied the paper thoughtfully.

It hadn’t been just worry in those eyes. It was desperation. And in the end, as he was led away, it was defeat.

Yet there was something else. She folded the paper. Something she had not felt in over ten years. Just a flicker. She had to find him again to see if it were true, to see if she had only imagined it.

“Hang on,” the Shrew suddenly said. “Who’s that?”

They turned to the direction of her gaze
 
—the boathouse at the end of the dock.

“Who’s what?” asked Captain John.

“I could
swear
someone was watching us. And when I noticed, he ducked away. Around the corner of the boathouse. By the shrubbery.”

“You want I should check it out?” said Captain John, looking very capable.

Mrs. Shrew studied the area for a long moment and then said doubtfully, “No. No, it’s quite all right. Must be I’ve got the Burglar Vicar on my mind.” She turned a severe look upon Clare’s piece of paper. “Someone else certainly does.”

“Really, it’s nothing.” She slipped the paper into her pocket. “Join us for tea, Captain John?”

“Had mine, could use more, thanks,” he said. He followed Mrs. Shrew below.

Clare hesitated before descending.

She’d raise the sails today and give them a good scrub down, less to check for mildew than to see Maggie’s glory unveiled, if only at her moorings and not filled with sea wind. She’d check the mail and see if she had any new applicants for renters,
not
invaders of her sanctuary, as her lesser part mourned. Bright vision saw renters like Mrs. Shrew as a means to an end, and that end was to raise funds not only for the adventure of her lifetime, but quite likely the lifetime of
Maggie Bright
.

Vision! Courage! Singularity of purpose! That would conquer all.

Still . . .

“I thought you might have a secret, old girl,” Clare said softly, caressing the wooden grain of the hatch cover. She glanced at the shrubbery by the boathouse, then curled her hands around the hatch cover and swung below.

BARTLETT, NEW YORK

Murray Vance threw down the chalk and messed up his hair. He shook his fists at the door, then stood deflated until the knock came again. Smoothing his hair, tucking in his shirt, he went to the door.

How did they find him? He’d ask someday, sure there was a leak at the
Times
. Likely Eddie the elevator boy, that two-faced river rat. Said he wanted to draw someday and Murray believed him. You know what? That’s what comes outta being nice to people. They use you. That’s what he was learnin’.

“I ain’t so green anymore,” he muttered.

Murray put his hand on the doorknob, and some of the mad went out. Aw, kids after autographs, not a big deal. He was a kid not so long ago. For them, a tiny salamander sittin’ on the
M
, and he’d make the tail curl into the
V
. But he always felt stupid with adults. Had nothin’ to say to them. No salamander for them.

Murray opened the door to a pleasant surprise.

“Say! Mrs. Father Fitz! I thought you was an intruder! What’s cookin’? Where’s the padre?” His eyes dropped to her very large stomach. “Holy smokes
 
—you got a whole nursery in there?” He bent to the stomach and called between cupped hands, “Hey, kid! You a girl, you come out lookin’ like your mother, boy oh boy, are you gonna stop traffic!”

Confident he had paid her enough compliments, he straightened to smile at her
 
—and his smile quit. She’d been cryin’.

It was then he realized that
A
, Father Fitz wasn’t with her, and
B
, she’d never stand in his doorway without the Fitz.

“I’ve received a telegram, Murray. David’s been arrested.” She talked some more. She’d tried to contact the American embassy in London, couldn’t get through. Tried to contact Congressman Wilson
 
—they said he’d acted outside of American interests, nothing they could do.

She talked some more. He didn’t hear it.

This is some good cement, isn’t it?

Best stuff ever.

Murray was eleven, and the Bartlett Road Commission was fixing the downtown sidewalk. They mixed cement in a great cement mixer. It tumbled down into a wheelbarrow. They pushed the wheelbarrow to a square hole framed by wooden forms, and down the cement poured, pushed along the chute by men with long-handled scrapers. A crowd had gathered to watch.

Murray stared at the miraculous gray substance pouring into the hole. Infinite possibilities crashed down on him at once, and he suddenly knew what cement was capable of, and wondered why they all didn’t go a little crazy. But the crowd seemed to think they saw an ordinary thing, and no one shouted, “Cement! Cement!”

No one except Murray. But that wasn’t the worst of it. For at some point
 
—Murray didn’t know when, maybe when they finished
smoothing it flat with the wide scrapers
 
—he launched out and belly flopped into the middle of the cement-filled pool.

He rose, and watched the cement ripple down his body. He made his bare feet go up and down. Infinite possibilities became infinite inventions, and he wished with all his heart he could draw. He saw cement held in the air. He saw cement in oceans. He saw it mixed with other things, like coffee grounds, Buck Creek silt, talcum powder; he saw it tumbled with ground seashells, he saw . . .

. . . an angry crowd, and furious cement workers, and his screaming mother.

Sound came back and shame rushed in
 
—he saw his teacher who told other kids to steer clear of him, and his mother’s boss from Florsheim’s Cuff Link Factory, and a startled young priest. His mother’s boss shouted at him, wagging his finger, and Mother switched from shouting at Murray to shouting at her boss, and Murray cried out for her to stop, for she could lose her job. The cement workers shouted too, cigarettes bouncing at the corners of their mouths. A policeman came running to find out the fuss. People shouted and people laughed and people pointed.

Murray wanted to die.

Then suddenly, no one laughed. No one shouted. They stared.

“I wonder what it’s capable of . . .” said a calm voice beside him.

It was the young priest. He was ankle deep in cement next to Murray, but he wasn’t looking at Murray. He was examining a handful of dripping cement.

It was all over his trousers. It smeared his black coat.

He sifted it between his fingers. He lifted it to the light.

Then he noticed Murray. “This is some good cement, isn’t it?”

And Murray cried out, “Best stuff ever.”

Never even took off his shoes.

Murray rubbed his fingers together, surprised he didn’t feel cement.

“We know where this is goin’, don’t we,” he said to Helen. He shoved his hands in his pockets. He walked the room. “I ain’t goin’ to England. Hemingway said never again should this country be pulled into a European war through mistaken idealism. I put that in my speech. You know I got elected to the committee? Keep America Out of War? Me and the padre, that’s where we part ways.”

He picked up an ashtray, looked at the bottom, put it down. Fiddled with chalk in his pockets. Walked the room.

Helen said nothing. She just stood there, crying, wearing the same perfume.

“That’s what he gets for stealin’ my girl. He got himself into this, he can get himself out. Goes off when his wife is pregnant. I wouldn’t’ve left.”

He picked up a paperweight, tossed it hand to hand, put it down.

She just stood there. Crying.

“It’ll look bad, me goin’, just on the committee. Papers’ll find out and they’ll get it wrong. Well, I ain’t settin’ foot on foreign soil. We can’t solve our own problems, how can we solve theirs? The American Institution of Public Opinion said 95 percent of Americans don’t want another war. And 92 percent say
 
—”

She brushed hair behind her ear. It was the signal she and the Fitz worked out long ago to help him stay on track.

“You know why he went,” she said softly. “
A
,
B
, and
C
, Murray.”

“I’ve outgrown
A
,
B
, and
C
!”

“I know
 
—I’m sorry. I’m just upset.”

He messed up his hair.

Aw
 
—truth was, it still worked.

He found the chalk in his pockets and crushed it to crumbs.

“
A
, if he went because of the malarkey my old man told him, he’s as crackpot as my old man was.
B
, you know how hard it is to get to England? Place is surrounded with German mines. Not to mention German submarines in the Atlantic and
 
—”

“Murray, I haven’t told you all of it.” She looked down, trifled with a button on her coat. “David found the
Maggie Bright
.”

A
.

A
.

A
.

He couldn’t think of a
B
yet because he didn’t have an
A
.

“That why he’s in jail?”

She nodded miserably.

“Tried to break in?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry to tell you this way.”

He wished he could put that sun back on her face. He used to make her laugh.

He sifted chalk crumbs in his pocket.

There was only one person on earth he’d let use him, and one person he’d be used for. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied the powdered chalk on his fingers. Rubbed his fingers together.

“
A
, I’ll go get him.
B
, don’t worry.”

“Oh, Murray.” More tears came, and Murray took up walking and reaching for things.

“
A
, I am worried,” she said. “I can’t help it. And now I’m worried for you.” She dragged the heel of her hand against the tears, and her voice went quavery. “But
B
. . .” She laid a hand on her stomach.

He flicked a dangly bead thing on a lamp shade, watched it swing.

“’Member the last journey? Six years ago?” He flicked it again. “That was steppin’ outta Bartlett. I don’t count trips to New York City as journeys. Those are work related. Forty-three minutes from Bartlett to New York City by train hardly constitutes a journey. That’s what it says on the schedule, forty-three minutes
 
—yeah, 57 percent of the time! That’s false advertising. If it was 97 percent
 
—”

She brushed hair behind her ear, and he stopped talking.

She suddenly smiled through her misery. “Do they know who Murray Vance is, in England? I wish they knew him like I do.”

He rubbed the drawing callus on the side of his middle finger. “I get mail from England.”

“I hope you get back to it one day. You made me laugh.”

He caught her perfume, and turned away, and reached for things.

The Fitz was like the basement of his house, a place you don’t go much but what you gonna do without it? He was the rock bottom of Murray’s life. He anchored it.

The only mistake Murray’s mother ever made was introducing her boss’s daughter to the Fitz.

“Look in on my ma, will ya? And get my mail? Holy smokes, the logistics!” He clapped a hand to his head. “A ship to Lisbon, a train through the continent, a boat across the English Channel
 
—it’s mined; hope I don’t get blown up. There goes the kid’s godfather. Hang on, hang on. Let’s write down the details. When’s the next ship out?”

Off he went for pencil and paper.

What you gonna do without a basement?

Hang on, Padre. Ol’ Murray is coming.