Rigged for Murder (Windjammer Mystery Series) (8 page)

Brie looked up at him. She’d almost forgotten why she had chosen her occupation. “Thank you for that,” she said. But behind her words something stirred. It felt like hope.

John reached for the plate George had left on the table. “I think George is depending on us to make this bread do a disappearing act.” Uncovering the plate, he took a piece. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint him.”

“Me either.” Brie smiled as she reached for the plate.

“It’s 4:45,” said John. “You should try to get a little more sleep before 6:30 rolls around. I have a feeling tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

“The first thing is to get the body to shore.” Brie brushed a crumb from her mouth. “Do you know if anyone on the island has a place where it could be stored?” she asked. “Maybe a large cooler?”

“Fred Klemper runs the general store. He’s got a cooler. We’ll go there first.”

“Then we need to radio the Coast Guard. Is there any form of law enforcement on the island?” Brie asked. “Maybe a sheriff or town constable?”

“I’m not sure if there is on Granite Island. Judging from the size of the community, I’m guessing there won’t be. But Fred will know.”

“It might be good to follow through with your idea of visiting the inn tomorrow. A hot shower would be wonderful, and it would get people off the boat. The inn also might provide a little more privacy for me to start questioning the passengers. I guess it would depend on how well you know the owners, though. After what’s happened tonight, they may not be comfortable having us there, even though I’m a police officer.”

“Glenn and Betty Johnson own Snug Harbor. They’re close friends of Ben Rutledge—my friend I mentioned this afternoon. My father died when I was 16. His death left me a confused, angry, and withdrawn kid. Ben took me under his wing, taught me about sailing, the sea, and many more important things. That was how I came to the
Maine Wind
. She was his ship. When he wanted to retire from the cruising business, I took her over. Glenn and Betty are a lot like him. They’re just good people—salt of the earth. I know they’ll help in any way they can.”

John paused, slowly rotating the cup in his hands.

“What is it, John?”

“Do you…” He hesitated. “Do you think the rest of us are in danger?”

“It’s hard to say. I wish I could tell you we’re not, but I can’t. I do know that most murderers have one motive and are after one victim. The only constant is that they’re desperate people. The person in danger is the one who gets too close to the truth.”

“And that would be you,” John said bluntly.

“Yup.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

He said it with such force in his voice and such intensity in his eyes that Brie felt instantly safe. As a detective she knew she was still vulnerable, but the woman in her felt shielded by his determination. Reluctantly she reminded herself that John was still a suspect. She couldn’t eliminate him just because he made her feel safe.

“I just remembered. Glenn is a ham radio operator,” John said. “He’ll be able to radio the Coast Guard. We’ll stop up at the inn and talk to him and Betty after we leave the body at Fred’s store. We’ll decide then whether to bring people ashore.”

Brie yawned wide. Exhaustion had hit. “Maybe I
will
try to catch another hour or so of sleep if it’s okay with you.”

“I want you to.”

Brie stood up. “Then I’ll see you at 6:30.” In what had in recent months become an uncharacteristic gesture, she reached out and laid her hand on his. “I’m sorry about this, John.”

“Me too,” he said, getting up. “I’ll walk you to your cabin.”

With John behind her, Brie climbed the ladder and headed aft, surveying the body as she passed, making sure the tarp was secure. They descended the ladder to her cabin. John opened the door, flipped on the light and scanned the small quarters.

“All clear,” he said.

“Thanks,” said Brie, aware of the irony in this situation. A little more than a year ago, this kind of behavior from a man would have turned her off. Now, she felt oddly grateful.

She stepped into her cabin and locked the door. Her nerves felt raw. Trouble had followed her—she hadn’t escaped it. The thought of a murder invading her vacation made her angry.

Vacation
? She chuckled at the thought.
You plan a vacation.
One day she’d thrown together a duffel full of clothes and called the head of the department to tell him that she was taking the leave he had offered her. She’d taken a cab to the airport, cleared the gun paperwork, and found a seat on a plane bound for Detroit with a connecting flight to Maine. The whole thing had taken three hours. That wasn’t planning—that was running.

Her sleeping bag beckoned. Peeling off her rain gear, she hung it on the back of the door. She exchanged her jeans for a pair of cozy sweatpants and crawled into bed. She set her small travel alarm for 6:15 a.m. and tucked it under her pillow, along with her gun. Then, closing her eyes, she took some deep breaths and lay there for a few minutes, using a mental technique she’d developed for turning off her thoughts. Phil moved in front of her, taking the bullet, then he was gone. The rain beat on the deck above her in a steady rhythm. Sleep finally came.

B
RIE WOKE AT 6:10, pulled her clock out from under the pillow, and turned off the alarm
.
She stretched in her bag, unleashing a series of pops along her spine, then reached up and massaged her scalp to wake herself up. Previews of the day’s responsibilities began to race through her mind. For all intents and purposes, her vacation was over. Today she’d be questioning the passengers and crew—hoping to flush out a killer. The possibility of that sent a shiver through her. She was used to working as part of a team on homicides. But until the Coast Guard could get to them, she was it. John would back her up, of course, but she was the one with the experience and the gun.

Yesterday, in the storm, the ship had felt like a safe haven. What a difference a day could make. With a sudden twinge of homesickness, Brie thought about her apartment back in Minneapolis. Her mom had always chided her about being a minimalist. It was true—except for a few cozy afghans and too many books, her small Minneapolis apartment was fairly spartan. Brie also had mixed feelings about technology and, in her private life, clung to an almost anachronistic simplicity. The psychiatrist in her had long ago recognized this tendency as an attempt to create some balance with her emotionally complex job. Anyway, as far as she was concerned, less stuff meant more time. She had used that time to advance her career. But she wondered now, as she lay in her berth, whether that had been the wisest choice.

After a minute or two, Brie dammed up her stream of consciousness and unzipped her sleeping bag. She sat up and dangled her legs over the edge of the berth. The cabin was cold and damp. A metallic taste in her mouth told her she hadn’t had enough sleep. She grabbed her toothbrush and filled her cup from the wooden cask. The strong taste of mint started to bring her around. After rinsing her mouth, she ran the hairbrush through her hair eight or ten times, her scalp tingling under the bristles, and then pulled the hair back into a ponytail. She exchanged the sweat pants she’d slept in for a pair of jeans, pulled on a gray wool sweater that matched her mood, and went to use the head at the end of the passageway.

The nor’easter was still making its presence known, and rain drummed persistently on the cabin top above her.
Great day to move a body
, she thought, glancing upward. In a few minutes Brie was back in her cabin. She clipped on her gun, put on her foul-weather gear and rubber loafers, and headed topside.

The captain was standing up near the bow with George, who disappeared down the galley companionway as she approached.

“Hey, Brie. Were you able to sleep?”

“Yup. But considering how I felt when I woke up, I might have been better off just staying up.”

George came back on deck and handed her a steaming mug of coffee. “Morning, Brie.”

“Thanks, George. Your coffee makes standing in this rain almost tolerable. I thought you’d take the chance to sleep in this morning since breakfast is later than usual.”

George shrugged. “I’m best if I stick to my schedule. Creature of habit, I guess. So, what’s the plan, Captain?” As George spoke, Scott and Tim came on deck wearing their foul-weather gear.

“Morning, gentlemen,” the captain greeted them. “We’ll get started right away if that’s all right. George, you may as well stick around for a couple minutes. We may need your help.” He turned to Scott. “Would you bring up the back-board from the storeroom? We’ll use it as a stretcher. And grab a roll of duct tape.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“We’ll place the tarp underneath the body when we move it onto the backboard,” DuLac said. “Then we’ll tape the tarp closed and lash the body to the board so we can lower it to the yawl boat.”

Brie spoke up. “What you’ll see under the tarp will be shocking. I want you to be prepared.”

The five of them moved over to the body. But despite Brie’s warning, as they uncovered it, George stepped back in shock. “Jesus!”

The bluish tinge of Pete’s skin was amplified by the yellow of his rain gear, and rigor mortis had set in, hardening his features into a grotesque mask. The four men lifted the body onto the backboard and wrapped the tarp around it. They taped and lashed it. Then, with each man taking a corner of the board, they made their way to the stern of the ship.

Brie checked the area under the body to make sure she hadn’t missed any evidence. She stooped down and inspected the deck planking where Pete’s head had been. Taking the tweezers from her pocket, she removed several wavy blond hairs caught between the planks. She placed them in a baggie, zipped it up, and dropped it into her pocket to add to the other evidence.

Scott and Tim went over the stern and down the ladder to the yawl boat while the captain attached one of the pulleys to the lashings around the body. Then he and George hoisted it up and slowly lowered it down to Scott and Tim. Once the body was secured, John and Brie climbed down to the boat.

“We’ll try to be back by breakfast,” he called up to George.

With that Scott turned over the engine and released the line that secured them to the
Maine Wind.
It was almost seven o’clock as he steered the yawl boat over the choppy water of the bay toward the waterfront docks of the village.

“Once we land, I’ll go up to the general store and rouse Fred Klemper,” John said. “The rest of you can wait in the boat. No point taking the body out until we know where we’re going with it.”

As they crossed the cove, Brie studied the village for signs of life. Except for the smoke that curled from a few chimneys, she found none. The small harbor was dotted with lobster-boats bobbing at their moorings. No fishermen would be heading out today. Yesterday’s gale had become a full-blown nor’easter, packing high winds and piling up huge seas.

Crowning the bluff above the village was a large white Victorian house with cranberry-colored shutters and a porch running around three sides of it. As if reading her mind, John pointed toward it. “That’s Snug Harbor Bed and Breakfast.”

“They must have some view from up there,” Brie said.

As they got closer to shore, Scott slowed the yawl boat to an idle and they floated the last few yards up to the dock. John threw the bow-line over a piling, hopped onto the dock and secured the stern line that Scott threw him.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said. He turned and strode off the dock and up a small hill toward the general store. Brie, Scott, and Tim waited with the body.

John was back in fifteen minutes. “Fred says we can put the body in his cooler until the Coast Guard gets here. He told me that over the years he’s had occasion to store two other bodies in the cooler when people died suddenly and there was no way to get them to the mainland.” John gave Brie a hand up out of the yawl boat.

“Did you ask him if there’s a constable on the island?” Brie asked.

“Fred said there isn’t. So, for now at least, we’re on our own.”