With my boat coming out of the water, and no jobs in the works, money would soon be tight. I set a course across the marina parking lot for a waterfront bistro named Trader Ed’s. I was thinking that a frosty beer might help me come up with an idea how to keep the boat loan payments to my family flowing during the lean months. I was about halfway to my bar stool when a silver Mercedes convertible pulled up beside me and braked to a stop. A woman wearing a dark gray pinstripe suit got out from behind the steering wheel.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m looking for a boat captain named Aristotle Socarides. The harbor master pointed you out.”
“That’s me,” I said. “How can I help you?”
“I’d like to retain your services.”
“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m done fishing for the year. My boat will be out of the water in the next day or so.”
“That’s not a problem.” She removed her sunglasses to reveal coral-colored eyes under arching brows. “My name is Bridget Callahan. I’m an attorney. I know that you’re a retired police officer and that in addition to running a charter boat, you sometimes take on cases as a private detective.”
“Word gets around.”
“Thanks to modern communications technology.”
She held up a cellphone. On the small screen was the face I see in the mirror during the morning shave. The earring and mustache of my pirate days were gone. I was now a serious businessman. The photo of me at the wheel of the Thalassa was from the business section of the Cape Cod Times. The headline was: “Former Cop, Charter Captain Moonlights as Private Eye.”
“I mentioned the private eye thing to the reporter as an aside,” I said. “I don’t have a lot of clients.”
“All the better. You’ll have time to take a case for a client of mine.”
“Depends, Ms. Callahan. I don’t do divorce investigations. They’re too dangerous.”
“Nothing like that. My client would like to recover some valuable property.”
She tucked the phone in her pocketbook and handed me a business card. The words embossed on the card in gold told me that Bridget Callahan was a partner in a Boston law firm that had more ethnic names than the United Nations.
“Big legal powerhouse, as I recall,” I said. “Making partner couldn’t have been easy.”
“It wasn’t. It took talent, hard work and a willingness to deal with difficult clients.”
“Congratulations. Does this case involve one of those difficult clients?”
She nodded.
“Why come to me? My last big case had to do with oyster poachers. Your firm must have staff investigators.”
“We do. One of them gave us your name. He said you’d be perfect for this job. That you take unusual cases.”
She mentioned a retired detective I knew from the BPD.
“He’s a good cop,” I said. “What makes this so unusual he can’t handle it?”
“The client is a bit eccentric.”
“In what way?”
“He’s a collector,” she said, as if that explained everything.
“Does this eccentric collector have a name?”
“His name is Merriwhether Ruskin the 3rd. He wants to meet you.”
“Send him over. I’ll be here for at least another hour.”
She brushed a curl of silver and auburn hair back from her face as she collected her thoughts. “Mr. Ruskin doesn’t get out much. He has, um, peculiar health issues. It’s hard to describe. He’d like to talk to you in person.”
I glanced up at the clear blue autumn sky. The raw north winds and slag gray clouds of winter seemed far away, but it would be spring before I earned another paycheck. Meanwhile, the boat loan statements would arrive with the regularity of waves breaking on the shore. A job for a rich client would get me through a few months, maybe longer.
Trader Ed’s would have to wait. “I’m ready when you are,” I said.
“Wonderful,” she said. “Let’s go for a ride.”
Bridget’s client lived twenty minutes from the marina on the shores of Nantucket Sound, in a gated community of sprawling silver-shingled houses hidden behind tall hedges that protected their owners’ privacy as effectively as castle ramparts. The only things missing were moats and drawbridges. A long gravel driveway led to a two-story mansion surrounded by manicured lawns of impossible green. A white-trimmed porch bordered with hydrangeas ran along the full length of the house.
On the drive over, Bridget talked about growing up in the gritty working class enclave of South Boston, making her Harvard law degree even more impressive. I talked about my roots in the former factory city of Lowell and my stint in the Marines. We were chatting like old friends by the time we got to the house. She snapped the switch into business mode as soon as she parked behind a black Cadillac sedan in the circular driveway.
“This is it,” she said.
This was a mega mansion that looked to be at least ten-thousand square feet in size. I had to crane my neck to take in the whole length of the front porch and the three-story height.
“Nice little shack. What does Mr. Ruskin do to pay the lighting and heating bills in this place?”
“He doesn’t have to do anything. He comes from an old New England family that made its fortune years ago in labor procurement, energy and pharmaceuticals.”
Bridget answered the question with a straight face, but the airy lilt in her voice sent me a different message. “I get it. The skeletons in the closet of many a respectable Yankee family. Slavery, whale butchery and the opium trade, in other words.”
“Yes. In other words. Mr. Ruskin currently dabbles in nation-building.”
I had to think about that. “Gun running?”
“Guns, missiles and bombs. And people to use them.” She cocked her head. “I think I like you, Mr. Socarides.”
“Soc. My friends call me Soc.”
“Very well, Soc. I answer to Bridge. Shall we?”
The slightly stooped man who answered the front doorbell looked like the greeter in a funeral parlor. Gray hair, grayer face and matching four-button suit, all the color of fog. Speaking softly in an undertaker’s voice, he said, “Follow me to the visitation room.”
He led the way down a long hallway, opened a door and ushered us into a rectangular space around twenty feet square. Three walls were plain. The fourth was covered by a hanging tapestry that showed a medieval hunting scene of sharp-toothed dogs taking down a unicorn. The fact that the victim was an animal that never existed did little to ease its pain at being ripped apart.
The gray man pressed a wall button. The tapestry slid silently aside to reveal a glass window. He pointed to a leather sofa facing the window, then left us alone.
The lights on the other side of the window went on seconds after we had taken our seats. We were looking into a big room. Directly in front of us was a metal and plastic desk and chair.
The room was a zoo of the dead. Animal heads of every kind festooned the walls. Their eyes were glassy and their expressions far from happy. Antelope, mountain goats, bear, some big cats.
Bridget was silent.
“You’ve seen this before?” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “I think it’s kind of creepy.”
“Ever wondered what hunters do with the rest of the animal?”
“That’s even creepier.”
“What is this place?” I asked.
Before she could answer, a door swung open between a pair of tusked boar heads at the far end of the room. A ghost-like apparition entered the room, made its way in our direction, and stopped next to the desk. It wore a hooded white suit, like the kind worn to protect against hazardous materials. A white gauze mask covered the lower part of the face. The feet were encased in fabric pull-ons.