“Yeah, I just heard it. Sammy said it was on the news.”
“Y’all here to talk or get this motor in?” said Mahlon.
When they had the block and tackle attached to the trestle and a heavy cable fixed to the chain around the engine, they hooked the other end to the pickup. I volunteered to crank up the truck and pull the cable slow and steady for them while the three of them guided the heavy engine up over the side of the boat. Then I backed up so they could lower it into the hold.
“Damned if I don’t feel like busting a bottle of beer over that engine right now!” Mickey Mantle said when the chains and cable were removed and the engine sat squarely where it was supposed to.
“Time enough for beers when we bring in our first catch,” Mahlon said sharply. “Hand me my saw and let’s get these last strips on ‘fore midnight.”
“Before I go,” I said, “I need to ask you. Any of y’all see somebody break in over there this afternoon?”
That got their attention.
“Naw,” said Mickey Mantle.
“I was fishing,” said Mahlon.
“What’d they take?” asked Guthrie.
“Nothing, so far’s I can tell,” I admitted. “But they messed up Carl’s lock and strewed my things around.”
“I worn’t here,” Mahlon said again and revved up his Skilsaw with a conversation-stopping roar.
I waved goodnight and started back to the cottage, but as I circled the boat shed, I heard my name called in a voice so low that the noisy saw almost drowned it out.
It was Mahlon’s wife. White-haired and half-crippled with arthritis, the reclusive Effrida beckoned to me from a darkened side window.
“I heared what you asked them,” she said in an urgent rush of island speech. “I seen him, the man what broke into Carl’s this evening. It was a few minutes after five.”
“Did you know him?”
“I seen him before. Lives over to Beaufort, I think, but I couldn’t call his name.”
She then proceeded to describe Chet Winberry right down to the white fishing cap and navy-blue windbreaker he’d been wearing when Barbara Jean and I met him at their landing.
No wonder he’d caught only three fish all afternoon.
12
There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign;
There everlasting spring abides,
And never-withering flowers...
But tim’rous mortals start and shrink
To cross this narrow sea, And linger, trembling on the brink,
And fear to launch away.
...Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o’er,
Not Jordan’s stream nor death’s cold flood
Should fright us from the shore,
—Isaac Watts
“A navy-blue windbreaker with attached hood,” I raged to Kidd Chapin. “Remember how you thought last night’s prowler was wearing a hooded jacket? The lying bastard! Pulled a muscle jogging for his newspaper this morning, did he? Too bad he didn’t break his goddamned leg last night.”
“Now hold on,” said Kidd. “Just because he broke into your place doesn’t mean he was the one you chased. Think about it. Why would he look for the papers over there if he thought they were here?”
“Because he didn’t know they were here till this morning. Jay Hadley discussed it with Alliance members at Andy’s funeral, but Chet was talking to someone else when they went into their huddle. Barbara Jean told him at breakfast that I had Andy’s papers, and I bet he worked the conversation around to find out naturally so she doesn’t suspect a thing. He must have searched the trunk of my car at noon and when he didn’t find them there, he rode his boat over here.”
I was furious when I thought of Chet’s nice helpful offer to look over the papers for me because, quote, “I know most of the players.”
Didn’t he just, the bastard?
“Well at least he saved me some time,” I told Kidd. “I was going to start with Linville’s latest deals and then work back to the earliest. Now I’ll start with the Ritchie House transaction.”
While I retrieved the relevant documents from their hiding place between the newspaper sections and started laying them out in chronological order on the kitchen table, Kidd puttered quietly between refrigerator and sink and fixed me a shrimp salad.
It was delicious. “I didn’t know I’d brought lettuce,” I said.
“You didn’t,” he answered. “You also didn’t bring the green peppers or the tomatoes. Or the pint of ice cream in the freezer.”
“Ice cream?”
“Fudge Ripple.” He cocked his long homely face at my interest. “If you’re nice to me, I may let you have a spoonful.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” I said, feeling oddly comforted.
• • •
An hour later, I knew why Chet had tried so desperately to steal those papers.
It wasn’t hard to find once I knew what I was looking for, although I still might have missed the significance if Andy hadn’t practically drawn an arrow.
Twelve years ago, Linville Pope had bought from Ritchie Janson the waterfront property that later became the Ritchie House. She had put up her husband’s dilapidated Morehead motel as part of the security. The rest was secured by the title to the Washington Neville, put up by Chester Amos Winberry with his power of attorney for Neville Fishery when he co-signed for the balance of the loan. The bank officer who approved the loan was probably one of Chet’s good ol’ buddies.
All done with a wink and a nod, no doubt.
“What’s illegal about that?” asked Kidd.
“The thing is, he had a fiduciary interest in the property because he was also Ritchie Janson’s attorney. Even if he were scrupulous about the actual sale—which, in point of fact, he wasn’t—that would certainly get a jaundiced look from the Bar Association if it came out, although he does seem to have made Linville pay a fair price.”
“How was he unscrupulous about the sale?”
“Look at the date Ritchie Janson’s supposed to have signed the bill of sale.”
“December fifth. And?”
“Now read his obituary notices from the local newspaper.”
“Died December twenty-second after a lengthy hospital stay. Oh, so he let her take advantage of a really sick old man?”
“Not just sick, Kidd. Look at this letter to the editor where somebody wrote an appreciation of his life. See where she says that he lingered a month after his last stroke, but never regained consciousness? Not too many unconscious men sign bills of sale that I know of.”
Kidd gave a low whistle. “Judge Winberry forged his signature?”
“He wasn’t a judge back then.” I leaned back in my chair, fitting all the pieces together. “What really must be tying a knot in his tail is that he used Barbara Jean’s boat to start Linville Pope on a fast track that eventually threatened the things Barbara Jean values most.”
“He must have been sleeping with her,” said Kidd.
“Yes,” I agreed slowly. “But he’s so crazy about Barbara Jean.”
“Not always a contradiction,” he reminded me wryly.
“You know what this means, don’t you?”
“What?”
“Except for Mahlon Davis—and he thinks everybody’s out to get him, so it doesn’t count—people say Andy was one of the most law-abiding men on the island. He wouldn’t touch anybody’s clam beds, they say, or take a scallop or oyster out of season, but he might bend the rules to protect members of the Alliance. Quig Smith says Andy made a phone call Sunday morning from Cab’s and was looking at his watch like he had an appointment. What if he threatened to tell Barbara Jean what he’d found if Chet didn’t get Linville to quit lobbying against commercial fishing? And what if he set up a meeting out on the water to hear Chet’s answer?”