The Corpse Without a Country (2 page)

I had last seen Mike Fenney on the corner of Salmon Avenue and Harbor Way in Puget City. He was selling the newspapers he had once helped write. He wore a pair of ragged dungarees and a ragged sweatshirt and a dirty hat on his balding head. He breathed fortified wine with every paper he peddled.

But now he was wearing an expensive-looking yachting costume with a billed yachting cap, and there was nothing on his breath a tooth brush couldn’t take care of.

He looked better than he had in six years. His skin had color in it and a tan from sun and wind. The wine cloudiness was almost gone from his dark eyes, and he had begun to put back a little of the flesh that six years of swilling muscatel had wasted off his long, bony frame.

He had been a gentleman for thirty-five years and a bum for six. Now he looked almost the gentleman again. He had been a great newspaperman for a town our size, twice considered for the Pulitzer Prize.

He didn’t look happy to see me. He ducked out of shaking my hand by flipping his fingers at the bill of his yachting cap in a kind of mock salute.

“How’s the insurance company hawkshaw?”

I said, “What gives, Mike?”

“With me? I just wanted a change of scenery, so I went for a boat ride.” He flashed a satiric grin that showed he still had two upper teeth missing. “See you, Durham. I’ve got a date.”

He sidestepped me like a quick-witted bar drinker sidesteps a lush and left me with my hand still out and my mouth hanging open.

I stood and watched him stride off. He glanced back, saw me watching, and again gave me that half mocking salute. Then he turned and trudged out of sight behind a warehouse. I had half expected him to head for the
Norway Flyer;
the idea in my mind was that he could be the man Arne hired. It wasn’t too farfetched an idea, either, even if Fenney was a wino: a good newspaperman is often a good detective. And he looked as if he had straightened himself to where he could become a good newspaperman again.

But he hadn’t gone toward the
Flyer
, and I pushed him to the back of my mind. I was concerned with Tom Harbin right now. I went to find the charter boat operator. I found a whiskered old-timer in an eight-by-eight hut. He had his tail in a chair and his feet on a desk. He was as motionless as the furniture. I coughed.

He left his feet where they were, opened one eye, and said, “I got boats twenty bucks a day up to fifty. You want anything fancier, go somewheres else.”

I came to the point. “Did a man about thirty, tall, dark hair, olive skin, charter a boat from you recently? Maybe early this morning?”

The old man came alive at that. His feet came down hard on the floor, bringing up a spurt of dust. “These damn young bucks! At three in the morning he wants a boat. Had to get out to some island and start diddling, I suppose.”

If the old man had got that impression, Tom could have been the one. I said, “What time did he check back in?”

“In? Hell! He ain’t showed yet. Got my best outboard too.”

I said, “Can I see the register or whatever you had him sign?”

It cost me a five-dollar bill, but I got to see Tom’s bold signature. I noticed that he had rented a cream and white fiberglass twin outboard cabin cruiser.

I said, “I suppose he headed west.”

“Where else is he going from here?” the old man demanded. “The water’s to the west.”

I shifted to another tack. “How long has that boat that just came in been out?”

“Since eight this morning. You’re a curious young feller.”

I said, “I was born that way. How about chartering it to me?”

“Thirty a day plus a hundred dollar deposit on the deductible insurance,” he said quickly.

I had the feeling it was worth about twenty a day, but I paid without arguing. He tucked the money away, handed me a standard form to sign, and went off to fill the gas tank.

The boat was fiberglass and powered by a thirty horse outboard. It handled well and had all the speed I needed. I took it well into the channel and then opened the throttle.

By the time I got beyond Lummi Island, the last of the sun was silhouetting the peaks of Vancouver Island. The air was chilly but filled with the crisp, tangy odor of salt water. It felt good to be aboard a boat after flying all day in a big rocking chair of an airplane.

By the time I reached the southern end of Boundary Pass, with Corning Island dead ahead, the water lay under deepening purple shadows of coming night and the outlines of the islands had begun to blend into the darkening sea. A cheerful pinprick of yellow light showed from a house on the northeast side of Corning. I waved at it.

Boundary Island was less than a half mile north of Corning and slightly to the west. I decided it was time to look for Tom’s boat.

As I swung north to avoid the currents off Corning, I heard a powerful outboard buzzing somewhere off in the dark. I wondered if this might not be Tom, but the boat didn’t appear. I put Boundary Island dead ahead and opened the throttle.

Boundary is almost rock-rimmed, but it has two small, crescent-shaped bays, one on its east side and one facing west. The Rock, which is sliced exactly in two by the Canadian-United States line, lies off the northern point that helps form the west bay. I swung around the Island toward the Rock, thinking that if Tom had come here, it would be the logical place for him to tie up.

On top of the low cabin there was a spotlight on a swivel. I switched it on as I slowed to maneuver into the bay. The light picked out a crescent of white sand beach and beyond it, the start of thick fir timber and heavy fern undergrowth that covered most of the land. The island was only a little over a square mile in area, but it was rugged, with a regular mountain peak popping up out of the timber in the center. As far as I know it was waterless and uninhabited.

As I eased in toward the beach, there was no sound but that of my own motor. Then I heard the high buzzing of that other outboard, only closer to me now. I slowed a little more, wondering again if Tom might be in the other boat.

Then I saw him. The light lay a white finger on his body, tossed on the sand. His legs were lapped by the tide; his head was pointed toward the timber. I didn’t need any closer look to recognize Tom Harbin.

Nor did I need a closer look to know that even with the cold sea water crawling up his legs, he wasn’t moving.

I
BROUGHT THE CRUISER
in until I could feel the brush of sand against the keel. Then I leaped ashore and tied up to a projection on a piece of driftwood lying at tideline. I went to where Tom lay. He was on his stomach, his cheek resting on one arm. I could see that he had crawled this far onto the beach and then collapsed of exhaustion, or had died if it. I could see no sign of breathing. I turned him gently onto his back. Fresh blood was oozing from a deep slash that ran from just above his right eye and angled over to his right ear. He had taken a terrific blow from something.

I wondered where his boat was. My mind formed a picture of his striking a rock or being capsized by a wake, of hitting his head on a projection on the boat, and then swimming until he reached here.

Only Tom was one of the best sailors I knew. He could handle a boat like this fiberglass job in almost any kind of weather we might get on the Sound. And he knew how to take care of himself in case of an emergency.

I stared down at the sluggishly flowing blood. And then the realization hit me—if he was bleeding, he was still alive. I ran my hand beneath his jacket and shirt and laid my fingers next to his skin. He was cold, wet, and clammy, but beneath my fingers the slow throb of life was there. And I could keep that life throbbing, I thought, if I could get him to a doctor before shock or exposure or loss of blood finally did him in.

I looked toward my boat and debated the best way to get him aboard. I was still working on the problem when I heard that outboard again. And this time I saw it. Running lights aglow, it came sweeping around Boundary Rock and into the bay.

Light stabbed at me from a powerful spot, pinning me ruthlessly to the beach. Then it was gone, swinging seaward again. For a brief instant the backwash of that strong light let me see into the cockpit. I had a glimpse of a woman at the wheel, her tall body straining against the wind her motion created. I saw long blonde hair, caught with a ribbon, and a strong, finely-drawn profile. And then she and the boat were gone, sweeping out past the south headland. The roar of the motor became a distant, fading whine.

I could have sworn I had seen a man beside the blonde—a man with mustard-colored skin and straight dark hair and thin, knifelike features. A very small man whose head came barely to the point of her shoulder.

Or had the night shadows dreamed him up for me?

At the moment I couldn’t take the time to be concerned. Tom was my problem. I had to get him into the boat without injuring him even more. He was a good-sized man, taller than I but not quite so heavy through the shoulders and chest. Still he weighed a good one-ninety, ten pounds more than I did. Getting him into my arms and pushing myself erect took most of the strength I had.

With his head laid open, I had to hold him as a woman would a child. I began a slow march into the water. To reach the cockpit where I could lay him down, I had to walk fifteen feet into the bay.

And I didn’t know where the shallows ended and the bottom began its sharp downward slope. The water crept past my knees and up to my waist. Soon it was pushing against Tom’s back, taking some of his weight from my arms. I could feel myself sweating despite the icy water and the chill air. With each step there was the threat of the bottom dropping out beneath me and throwing us both into a treacherous hole.

When I reached the side of the cockpit, I found I had been holding my breath. The water was up to my armpits. I let out stale air and took in fresh and then, gently, lifted Tom high enough to clear the gunwale. My hands were numb and I could feel him beginning to slip. I dug my fingers into his clothes, straining to let him down easy.

I got him on the deck and for a moment I could only cling to the rail and suck in deep breaths of the cold air. Finally I was able to pull myself aboard and take care of Tom. I made a pillow of my coat, although it was as wet as his. I got out the flashlight and examined him again. His face was twisted with pain and exhaustion. Anxiously, I felt for his heartbeat again. It was still there, a slow and steady rhythm.

I thought I saw his eyelids flicker under the bright light. I bent down. “Tom? It’s Peter Durham. Come on, boy. Wake up!”

His lips moved. I said again, “Tom?”

His voice came out in a faint breath. Just one word. One single, crazy word. And then he went lax, as if the effort had drained his last reserve of strength.

He said, “Zwahili.”

I was sure that was the word he spoke. I thought about it as I got underway. I opened the throttle wide. Cold air rushed into the cockpit, plastering my wet clothes to my skin. Icy spray whipped over the bow into my face. I shivered and thought about the word some more. It had been “Zwahili.”

It made no sense at all.

The night was clear, and I could see the glow of cities against the dark sky. All of them seemed an incredibly long way off: Vancouver far to the northeast, Victoria south and west, Bellingham almost due east, but cut off by islands.

The outboard simply didn’t have the power to get me to any of them as quickly as I needed.

And then I saw the light on Corning Island as I swung around its northeast tip. I swung in toward the bay, thinking that the owner of the house there might have a way of communicating with the mainland and that I could call for the Coast Guard helicopter.

And then it didn’t matter whether there was communication here or not. Because in the bay was a sleek, fast-looking cruiser tied to a small dock.

I had spent too many years in diesel-powered fishing boats to think highly of most of the streamlined, bechromed lake cruisers that many people took onto salt water at the risk of their necks. But I had to admit that many of them had the virtue of speed. And this one was bound to have more speed and more stability than the cockleshell I was bouncing Tom about in.

I swung toward the dock, letting off a blast from the airhorn. The light I had seen as a pinprick of yellow against the blackness grew larger, showing me the squarish outline of a cabin window. By the time I had tied up, a larger light appeared as someone opened a door.

I yelled through cupped hands up toward the cabin, “Emergency down here!”

A floodlight came on, drowning me and the dock in harsh brilliance. I could hear two persons running through the darkness toward me. I went back to the boat and looked down at Tom.

He was breathing about as before. His bleeding had slowed, and his skin had a pasty, corpselike color beneath its natural olive tint. I was afraid he didn’t have much time left.

I feared pneumonia as much as anything else. I had no way of knowing how long he had lain on that beach, half in and half out of water that could not have been over fifty degrees warm.

Heavy footsteps pounded on the dock. I looked up. When I saw who was coming, I almost cast off and started away. I would have, only Tom’s life was more important than my feelings.

Coming toward me was Reese Fuller, and his arrogance showed through as he stared at me. He’d been running but he wasn’t breathing hard. Not a hair of one of his handsome black curls, shot with just enough gray at the temples, was out of place. He was a tall, solid man and in fine physical condition.

For my money, he was also one of the world’s prime bastards.

He said to someone behind him, “It’s Durham!” as if the tide had cast something dead up on the dock.

I pushed down the craving to massage those chiseled features with my fist. I said, “Tom Harbin’s in here, badly hurt. I want to get him to a doctor—fast. Your cruiser will make better time than this job.”

I had managed to ask him for help without gagging, but it had been an effort.

A quick patter of light footsteps came down the dock and Jodi Rasmussen appeared alongside Reese Fuller. I hadn’t expected to find her here. But since I had, seeing Jodi was no surprise, because I remembered she owned this cabin on Corning. Three years ago she had taken off for Europe. I was only surprised I hadn’t heard she was back.