A Watery Grave (2 page)

Wiki paused, disliking the word “son”—though, as he admitted privately, he had been called a great deal worse of late. Then he agreed. “They're right. Those pistols are mine. But I wasn't firing them. I was the one being shot at.”

“Wa'al, is that so?” said the officer, sounding as if he did not believe a word of it. “And jes' who was this feller you reckon was taking potshots at your carcass, huh?”

“I haven't a notion.”

“And you can't think of a reason?”

“No, I can't. He jumped out of the bush and fired without warning.”

“And your name?”

“William Coffin Jr. I'm with the exploring expedition.” Even as he spoke, Wiki could hear distant piping and the shouts of officers echoing across the water as the preparations to sail became more urgent.

The officer's thick eyebrows shot up. “You're a navy lad?”

“I'm a civilian—with the brig
Swallow.
”

“Dod dog it, he ain't no civilian!” a voice hollered from the midst of the crowd. “He's a seaman jes' like meself—and his name ain't William Coffin, neither.”

Everyone turned to gape at a scruffy old salt with an unshaven face and a dirty bandanna tied about his head. Wiki did not recognize the fellow at all, but it was all too obvious that the speaker remembered him. “Don't you be fooled by them blue eyes, Sheriff,” this sailor declared with a smirk. “He's a Kanaka—a native from one of them savage islands in the Pacific. I sailed wiv 'im onct and not for long, but I know it for a fact. His Kanaka name be Wiki Kehua, which folks say means ‘Willy-the-Ghost.' I reckon he's a runaway, sir!”

“Kanaka?” echoed the sheriff, pronouncing it “kernacker” in his long southern drawl. Turning back, he tipped up his hat with the barrel of one of the pistols to study Wiki at leisure, all the way from his long black hair to his flat broad feet planted strongly in the mud.

Wiki withstood the scrutiny in silence, knowing from experience that it was a bad idea to point out that though he was half New Zealand Maori, since the age of twelve he had been raised as an American and was probably better educated than any of these
pakeha
who were gawking at him now. It would not help, either, to inform them that though he was the direct descendant of famous warriors and powerful chiefs, he was also the son of a Salem sea captain—a man who had christened him “William Coffin” after himself. And it was certainly risky to mention that his Maori nickname, “kehua”—which did indeed mean “ghost”—was a mocking play on the name “Coffin,” plus his chameleonlike ability to talk and behave like a true-blue American one moment and a beach-bred native of the Pacific the next. The joke would be quite beyond them, he was certain, the
pakeha
understanding of the Polynesian sense of humor being so unreliable; and he certainly did not feel like laughing himself. Wiki was overwhelmingly conscious of the sounds echoing across the river from the fleet—the rattle of chains and the increasingly urgent shouting. Seagulls whirled and screamed above the sails that were unfurling in jerky succession.

The sheriff said meditatively, “Kernacker, huh? Up to this minute, I thought you were an Indian. How long you been here, son?”

“In Norfolk? A week.”

“On this riverbank, I mean.”

Wiki shrugged. “A couple of hours or more, judging by the stars. I don't have any kind of timepiece.”

“You were here during nighttime, huh? You got your pass to show me?”

“My…?”

“Your pass. All darkies got to carry a pass after curfew.”

Wiki stiffened with rage. Then he reined in his temper. There was a corpse in that derelict boat, and he'd already been accused of firing the shots that had drawn this crowd. If it turned out this woman had been done to death, he would be the obvious scapegoat—and this was territory where lynch law once reigned. He thought of a gravestone he'd seen under a tree in a field the other day that read:
JEB JOHNSON HANGED BY MISTAKE.

He said with forced calmness, schooling himself not to look at the ships making sail on the far side of the harbor, “I do not need a pass, and I knew nothing about a curfew. I was simply standing under that tree there minding my own business when I saw the boat come drifting downriver—from beyond that headland. I stepped out to see better, and I glimpsed a man behind me—he had a rifle, lifted it, fired. Once, twice, maybe more times, I don't know how many.”

“How far off was he?”

“Not far. Back there.” Wiki pointed at the thicket, thinking the marksman must have made a very quick escape since none of this mob had spied him.

“Yet he didn't manage to hit you, even though you was so close?” This time the tone was openly derisive.

Wiki was beginning to feel desperate. The
Vincennes
had now set her square sails, the broad canvas sheets luminous in the early sunlight. He tore his gaze away and said, “I shucked my pistols because of the weight and dived for the water. I was moving fast.”

“But by your own accounting, he took you by surprise, and he had at least two chances to shoot you dead. And, what's more, you can't think of any reason he would want to do that. You're certain sure he was firing at you and not at somethin' else?”

“Aye,” said Wiki. Then he paused, his mind suddenly filled with an altered picture of what had happened. He remembered the sounds of the first two shots, the double crack, the almost inaudible whine of the bullets—but suddenly he recollected, too, faint
thunks
in the distance as bullets hit something wooden.

The officer was watching him closely. Then he said, “So how come he hit that there boat instead of you, huh?”

Wiki frowned, remembering the two holes that had leaked so fast once the water reached them. It was certainly possible they were shot holes. Had the rifleman been firing at the boat? It had been higher in the water then, presenting a good target. He wondered with a grimace where the bullets had finished up. They were lodged in the corpse, he supposed.

The sheriff snapped, “I reckon those shots were fired in the wild hope of sinking the boat. What d'you think of that theory, huh?”

Wiki was silent a moment, thinking about it, and then said, “It's possible.”

“So how long have you known the victim?”

Wiki said, aghast, “She's a total stranger to me!”

“You don't know who she is?”

“Of course I don't!”

The crowd was growing as more people streamed down through the trees. “Mrs. Tristram T. Stanton, she,” an ancient beldame volunteered. “Richest woman in the whole of ole Virginny, married to the son of old man Stanton hisself.
Not
a happy situation. Threatened to do away wiv herself often. Looks like she done it. Poison, I 'spect,” she added, with an air of omnipotence.

“You think she committed suicide?” Wiki turned to stare at the corpse, which somehow looked more lifeless. The head was awry, the jaw sagging open. The muslin dress was sodden and sullied. The yellow hair looked as dead as wet hay. In many parts of the Pacific this would be considered a time of great danger, when the potentially malevolent spirit was loosed. The Polynesian side of Wiki's nature craved some kind of ritual to send the hungry ghost on its proper path to the realm of darkness—
te po,
the place of departed spirits. The
pakeha
part of his mind dismissed the idea, but the hairs on his forearms kept on rising.

Then he thought about the manner of the woman's death. He felt certain that the old crone was wrong, but was not sure why he was so convinced that Mrs. Tristram T. Stanton had not done away with herself. The body was reposed in such a consciously artistic fashion that it was easy to envisage Mrs. Stanton pushing the boat out, wielding the paddle until she felt the poison take effect, and then sliding under the thwart and taking up this pose, preparing herself for a melodramatic end. But still the image was unconvincing. Something about her dress …

“Hysterical sort she were, the poor mad creature,” the old crone nattered on. “I know it,” she claimed, “on account of my granddaughter is help at the Stanton plantation house. Mistress was so 'ysterical at the very notion of 'im bein' gone for three or more years, there were strong doubts he'd get away.”

This made no sense at all to Wiki. Then, as everyone stared at the old besom, the rapt silence was broken by the rolling thunder of a single cannon, setting the seabirds to wheeling and shrieking. It was the signal that the fleet was ready to drop down the river.

The sheriff didn't even bother to look at the source of the commotion. Instead, he turned his head to watch as two more horsemen came galloping through the thicket, reined in beside the beached boat, and leaped to the ground. Because they also wore nickel stars on their coat lapels, Wiki deduced they were the sheriff's men—his deputies, his
comitatus posse.
They knew their job, he saw, because after nothing more than a nod from the boss they embarked on a businesslike examination of the boat.

First, they picked up the paddle and studied it as if the damp blade could tell them something. Then, putting it aside, they set to poking fingers through the two holes in the hull. An animated but muttered conversation ensued. One produced a pad and pencil, and laboriously recorded the details of this discovery, along with the name of the victim.

Then they started in on the corpse. The head with its bedraggled lace and ribbon cap was pushed back—rather too easily, Wiki thought with a preternatural shiver—and the mouth pried farther open. “No signs of poison,” the sheriff said sharply, as if this confirmed his suspicions. “No blistering of the mouth.” The hands got the same treatment. “No burns, no gunpowder marks, no blood. Wa-al,” he said, straightening as this was noted, “let's get her out of the boat.”

“Give way,” said one of the deputies, and the crowd obediently shuffled backward, Wiki with them. Mud squirted around his feet—the riverbank was becoming very trampled. He expected the sheriff to give the order to break the thwart so the body could be lifted straight upward, but apparently he didn't think it necessary. The deputies, one on each side of the dead woman, gripped her stiff arms to pull her out from under the thwart. For a moment it looked as if the boat would refuse to yield its burden, but all at once with a ripping of cloth the body came up—with such a jerk that it arrived at a standing position before the officers could stop their hauling. When they staggered to a halt it dangled from their fists like a monstrous puppet, the head lying on the shoulder in a parody of life that was horribly grotesque. “Jee-rusalem,” someone in the crowd muttered sickly—and yet another rider came galloping down from the thicket.

The deputies hastily laid the body on the grass and stepped back, brushing their palms against their sides and looking sheepish. The horseman vaulted to the ground and ran over to the corpse, crying in a low voice, “Oh my God, so she did it.” Then he whirled on his heel and stared at the sheriff. “Who found her?”

Wiki saw that he was another big man, as brawny as the sheriff. Despite his wrestlerlike build, though, the newcomer had every appearance of a fine gentleman—albeit a most disheveled one. He wore a top-quality tailored coat, its black velvet collar turned down to display the lapels of his white vest, the high wing collar of his shirt, and the elaborate folds of his white silk cravat, but everything was spattered with mud. His knee-high boots were water stained after what had evidently been a wild gallop. He had lost or discarded his hat, and brown hair flopped over his broad, meaty forehead and heavy eyebrows. His ears were low down on his head and as protuberant as an ape's, sticking out from behind thick sideburns, and his small, alert eyes were set far back in the sockets.

This, Wiki had no doubt, was Tristram T. Stanton himself. Several of the men in the crowd had taken off their hats, presumably as a mark of respect to the bereaved. The sheriff, however, was unmoving, impassively waiting for Stanton to go on.

Stanton muttered, “I shouldn't have done it.”

“Done what, Mr. Stanton?” asked the sheriff.

“I've been invited to sail with the expedition as an astronomer. She did not want me to go, and we quarreled about it. Last night I sent her a note, telling her I was determined to go. But I did not believe she would carry out her threat.”

“Threat?”

“To put an end to her life.”

The sheriff pursed his lips judiciously and then said, “She didn't.”

“What?”
The tone was astonished.

“I don't believe she committed suicide.”

“Not suicide?” Stanton's face had gone scarlet. “But surely…”

“I regret to inform you that I reckon your wife was murdered.”

“Murdered?” Stanton cried.

“I figure she was killed, put in the boat, and then set adrift. When it was floating down the river, the murderer shot two holes into the waterline—two shots in quick succession, as many of the fine folks here have testified. His vain hope was to sink both boat and body without a trace, but people responded to the sound of the shots before the boat could founder.”

“But that's insane!”

“A nasty business,” the sheriff agreed. “The product of a savage mind.”

Savage.
Wiki's mouth was abruptly dry. Every eye in the mob was on him.

Stanton said blankly, “You've found the murderer?”

“I believe so,” said the sheriff, and again looked deliberately at Wiki, who took a backward step, saying hastily, “Now then, just a moment—”

It was not the sheriff who seized him, however. Instead, it was the two deputies who sprang forward and gripped his arms. The sheriff was busily contemplating Wiki's pistols, back to bouncing and balancing them in his broad palms. “Two shots,” he said reflectively. “Close together, which don't seem to allow much chance to reload. It appears to me a pair of pistols was exactly what the murderer needed—and that makes a lot more sense than an invisible fellow with a rifle.”