The place was basically quiet… almost too still in fact. Yet trucks did rumble, in and out. I took a final tour around the huge old warehouse buildings and then headed out the main drive toward the highway. Then I heard a truck coming behind me. As it swept past I realized it was the blue van that Schilling had poked his head into. I snapped it as it bounced down the road ahead of me. I saw an elbow sticking out of the passenger window, but nobody turned to look.
Back at the fish pier I called Brian Hannon and told him I had located the Penelope.
"I'm overjoyed, Doc. I really am. You have made my day."
I asked him if he could request that the Rose be boarded by the Coast Guard on suspicion.
"Suspicion of what?" asked Brian.
"Who knows? Smuggling's the best guess I can think of."
"Absolutely not."
I told him I understood. But I said it in a very clipped tone.
"Look," he finally said, "I have a friend at the Massport Authority. After this episode he'll no doubt be my former friend… but I could… I could relay your message. They might tell the Coast Guard… they might not. But let me tell you. If it's a wild-goose chase I'm going to be all over you like a cheap suit."
He hung up. I called my brother-in-law, Joe, and requested the same. Finally I called my buddy Lieutenant Commander Ruggles and informed him what I found. Three requests. Hell, unless a hurricane blew in, the USCG would have to follow up. There was no excuse not to. Except of course one: that a private citizen had suspected something. That wasn't very strong. Well, I'd done the best I could, for the time being, at least.
Plymouth lay roughly equidistant from Gloucester and Wellfleet, if that meant anything. Also, it was pretty close to Boston-if that meant anything. There was only one person besides the crew of the Penelope/Rose who could clue me in: Danny Murdock. Even dead drunk, he could be eloquent. His sodden brain held the pertinent dope.
I eased the Hatton out of her borrowed slip and hummed back up Plymouth Harbor. I passed the cordage works and saw the Rose still hitched quayside, a white-dressed damsel amongst thugs. It was now late afternoon and things had ground to a total halt on the small pier. I glided on toward Duxbury Harbor. I drifted to a stop and let out anchor chain just inside the harbor, and clear enough of the breakwater so I could see the dock across the water. When Rose left I wanted to know it. I packed my pipe and dismantled the gizmo; the rain had lifted and-Lawd sakes amighty-there was the faint promise of sun. I sat on the cabin top and puffed and sipped a Budweiser, crinkling and uncrinkling my toes.
I thought of the scrambled CB conversation I'd heard. It could be interesting, it had issued from the Rose and if there was any marine double talk intended in it of the kind Ted had described to me in the Schooner Race. Somebody was referred to as the general, and he had something, tuna and, swordfish. Good for him. The other party didn't want to be forgotten. According to the general, he wouldn't be. That meant that in the future-probably the near future-the men of the Rose were going to do something.
Why did he call himself general? Either he was really a general-something I found myself discounting immediately-or else general was a code name. Why general? There was Miles Standish, standing up above the harbor. He was probably a general. That could be it. The only other general I could think of in the area was the General James Longstreet, the half-sunk target ship.
There were a lot of loose ends. I had to see Danny Murdock, drunk or sober. That was for sure. I lazed about in Hatton's cockpit for the remainder of the afternoon, reading, sunning, and watching the commercial pier. It was quiet as a tomb over there. The water was still as glass in the faint sunlight. The draggers were mirrored motionless where they sat. I could hear flies droning fifty feet away. I dozed in the dying sun.
The crackle of the CB awakened me. It was number-one son-the guy who loved whales. It was almost six. He was two hours late. We met at the dock and I ferried him out to the catboat via the dory. We had a long discussion on what had transpired, and decided that we'd wait it out, in shifts if necessary, until Rose cut loose and split. Then we'd make one more attempt at her interception. After that there was nothing much more we could do except to trail Ella Hatton back to Concord for her winter's sleep. We sat and talked. Jack told me Tony was under medication for his dose, which was good to hear. He said Mary was not the slightest bit pleased at this quixotic streak that I had manifested itself in me, and I understood-in part at I least.
"Oh, yeah, I forgot one other thing. Did you write a letter to someplace in the Caribbean?"
He took a thin aerogramme out of his pocket and tilted it around, looking at the postmark affixed to the tissue paper.
“Uh… Queen's Beach Condominiums?"
"Gimme."
I tore the flimsy thing open, and I read: QUEEN'S BEACH CONDOMINIUMS
Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
"Where Paradise Begins" September 18, 1979
Dear Dr. Adams:
Thank you for your recent inquiry regarding your friend and our client, Mr. Wallace Kinchloe. While it is the strict policy of this development, and all the developments of the Chadwick-Longchamp Group, to maintain the utmost confidentiality regarding all its tenants and clients, we do feel at this time obliged to reveal to you and any other interested parties our concern over the absence of Mr, Kinchloe, who indicated an arrival date here in Charlotte Amalie of September 1. Since it is now getting on toward October, we are justifiably concerned, especially given Mr. Kinchloe's extremely prompt communications in the past. You may rest assured that should he arrive here, we will notify him immediately of your concern. Until such time as we hear from Mr. Kinchloe, we shall of course maintain his suite of rooms as per the agreement. However, if there is no word from him whatsoever by the first of the year we reserve the right, under the terms of the contract, to offer the suite for rent or sale. We would regret doing this, of course, and still look forward to hearing from him. Sincerely yours,
John C. Pepper
Manager
I pondered the epistle, blowing pipe smoke down onto the page and watching it billow out around the edges.
"An arrival date of September l."
Windhover disappears in late June. Allow, say, three weeks for Murdock to alter the boat and fake the papers. She would then be ready for Walter Kincaid, presumed dead and now alias Wallace Kinchloe, to put out to sea around the first of August, maybe a bit later. Roughly a month, then, to make it from Cape Ann all the way down the Inland Waterway to the Miami area, then island hop a bit to A Bimini, the Bahamas, and on over to the Virgins. He could do it, but he'd have to hump a bit. Still, if he really wanted to get away, he wouldn't dawdle; he'd scoot. For a forty-foot-plus power boat a month was plenty of time to make it. Perhaps even with a quick duck southward to visit Grand Cayman Island too. Sure. Plenty of time. Only he didn't get the chance, because just before he set out… what?
At nine-thirty that evening the running lights on the Rose flipped on. I glassed the boat and could see the faint waver of heat above her stack. She was going out.