A Watery Grave (3 page)

Then, with ponderous deliberation, he thrust the guns into the wide leather belt that encompassed his massive waist and said, “Willy Kernacker, or whatever you call yourself, I am taking you into custody on suspicion of the murder of Mrs. Tristram T. Stanton and the desecration of her corpse.”

As they escorted Wiki Coffin away, over his shoulder he could see the seven ships of the expedition taking their departure. They were sailing in order of rank with their canvas billowing straight and the yards manned, the
Vincennes
in the lead, and the others following, while cannon thundered over and over in a rolling salute from the Gosport Navy Yard. With a terrible sense of desperation, he realized that the fleet was sailing, and had left him behind.

Two

They confined Wiki in the old Portsmouth Sugar House at the south end of Crawford Street. The cell was made of stone; but though it was pleasantly cool, it smelled bad because of the miasmas wafting in from the privy in the yard outside. There was a view of the waterfront from the barred window, but Wiki sank to the side of the narrow berth, his head in his hands.

At this moment it was impossible to believe he had been reluctant about joining the expedition—that he had agreed only because he did not want to offend an old comrade. Now he would have given a great deal to be on board the brig
Swallow,
the deck dipping and swaying beneath his feet, a sticky salt tang in the air he breathed, on the verge of sailing off to the southern polar regions of the Antarctic. Instead, here he was incarcerated in a Virginian cell. When the sheriff and his men returned a half-dozen hours later, he stood up with every expectation of the worst. Then, with relief so intense that his face creased up into triangles of delight, Wiki recognized the man who was with them.

“George!” he exclaimed, and then recollected himself. “Captain Rochester!” George Rochester might have been a mere midshipman, but—as Wiki knew very well indeed—he was a midshipman who commanded a ship of his own, the
Swallow.

George looked every inch a captain, too, dressed to the nines in a lieutenant's blue claw-hammer coat, its broad lapels embellished with gold buttons and lace, and a gold epaulette on the right shoulder, which announced to the world that he was the master of a ship. His long neck was encompassed by a stand-up collar lavishly embroidered with gold oak leaves and acorns and fouled anchors, and three more buttons decorated the cuff of each sleeve, laced with still more gold. His trousers were white, and because of the way he stood with his bottom and his knees tucked in, his muscular calves shoved out at the back.

Normally, George Rochester wore the benign expression of a sheep, the impression helped out by his long nose and fluffy fair sideburns, but at this moment he was extremely severe. “Mr. Coffin,” he pronounced, “you failed to report on board the brig.”

“I apologize, Captain Rochester,” said Wiki humbly. “Events were out of my control. It's very good to see you—I thought you'd taken your departure.”

“Then you were mistaken, sir! The squadron's lying abreast of Fort Munroe, ready to sail on the first fair wind, everything in a state of forwardness—it's a great day for America! However, when the sheriff informed me that he was taking you to revisit the scene of the crime, I insisted on coming along as your representative.”

So things were not looking up at all. His optimism dashed, Wiki silently followed the sheriff out of the cell and along a bricked corridor to a yard where five saddled horses were waiting. As they trotted along Crawford Street, a deputy rode on either side of him, and he was very conscious of the stares and whispers of onlookers.

Then the town was left behind, and they were riding along the bridle path beside the river toward the place where he had retrieved the boat. Wiki could see the big tree that had sheltered him as he had waited from midnight to dawn. The strong, lower branches spread out horizontally, reminding him of a gallows tree. The boat had been taken away, along with the body, but a big muddy scar in the grass marked the place where the crowd had dragged it out of the river. Wiki glanced around, thinking that the place looked remarkably ordinary, considering the things that had happened here.

The sheriff reined in. He said to Wiki, “You still reckon it was suicide?”

“I never said it was suicide,” Wiki retorted. Then he added soberly, “As it happens, I'm certain you are right. Someone killed her, and then laid her out the way I found her in that boat.”

“You think so, huh?” The sheriff looked interested. “And are you going to tell us what led you to that conclusion?”

“Her skirt,” said Wiki. He had thought about it deeply during the hours of imprisonment. “When I first saw the corpse, her dress was spread all the way to her feet. If she had laid herself out that way, she would have had to sit up and reach over the thwart to smooth down her skirt. Then, when she lay down again, the hem would have ridden up to her ankles with the movement. So, by logic, it was someone else who arranged her—after she was dead.”

“Clever,” said the sheriff. His eyebrows were hoisted high; it was the most complicated expression Wiki had seen on his face—surprise and curiosity mixed with a touch of admiration. “But you're sticking to your story of the mysterious man with a rifle?”

“He must have been the murderer. I presume he set up the scene to look like suicide, but when the boat was floating down the river he changed his mind and tried to get rid of the evidence.”

The sheriff sat still a moment, gazing at Wiki in contemplative fashion. Then, moving abruptly, he wheeled his horse, leading the way up the slope to the thicket. When the brush surrounded them, it was suddenly warmer. Clouds of insects whined. Where the crowds had pushed through, the ground underfoot was heavily trampled. The sheriff looked over his shoulder. “You want to find the tracks of your rifleman, Mr. Kernacker-Indian?”

“I'm not that kind of Indian,” Wiki said dryly.

The sheriff shrugged and nudged his horse along. They followed him in single file upriver through the brush, their horses walking a narrow track where others had come before. The air was filled with the sounds of unseen rushing water, the hum of insects, the rustle of twigs and reeds as the horses pushed through them, and the steady, slow thump of hooves. The late afternoon sun was hot, and a mixture of sweat and dust prickled Wiki's neck and arms. He watched Rochester's uniform-clad back bob along ahead of him and thought his friend must be very uncomfortable. However, the long torso was ramrod straight. Wiki himself was riding native fashion, slumped on his jogging horse with his knees well bent and his feet high up the withers. It was comfortable—almost relaxing. Then the little cavalcade emerged from the undergrowth, arriving at the top of a cliff that overlooked a creek.

The steep path that descended to the rivulet was overhung by trees. At the bottom was a backwater, where the stream formed a quiet lagoon. The surface of this pool was edged with reeds and dusted with pollen, and the water was dark with rotting vegetation. The air was cool, but the smell was unpleasant. This was the place where the boat with the dead body had been launched, Wiki realized. He could see the deep mark on the verge where the derelict had lain for a long time before being sent on its grisly last cruise and the dragging smear where it had been pushed into the creek. He slid off his horse—and was hit by a blast of overwhelming terror.

Wiki stumbled and fell, tearing one knee of his dungaree pants—he could
feel
the violence that had been done here, and the shocking abruptness of the release of the woman's spirit.
Haere e te hoa, ko te tatou kainga nui kena,
he cried in the back of his mind—“Go, friend, to the great abode that awaits us all,” commanding the tortured ghost to take
te ara whanui a Tane,
the broad path of Tane, to join her ancestors and abandon this world of life to the living. He was aware of the
pakeha
staring and wondering at his distress, but he was incapable of hiding it.

When the inner panic had subsided, he clambered shakily to his feet, looked at the sheriff, and asked as calmly as he could, “How was she killed?”

“Neck broken,” the sheriff said succinctly.

Wiki winced, remembering how the dead head had flopped. Now the progression of events was obvious to him—after the woman was killed, the murderer had laid out the corpse and had waded into the water to push the boat into the stream, using the paddle as a crutch. Then he had returned to the bank, mounted his horse, and from this vantage point had watched the craft float off on its way to the Elizabeth River. Changing his mind for some unknown reason, he had ridden along the riverbank with a rifle, chasing the boat in a doomed attempt to sink it with a couple of well-placed shots.

The sheriff seemed quite uninterested in dismounting to study the scene in detail, turning his horse to lead the way inland. The group followed. Within minutes the trail broke out of the brush and became a road that slashed through a patchwork of cultivated fields toward a mansion set among gardens and trees. This, it soon became obvious, was the sheriff's objective. The white marble columns of the wide portico gleamed magnificently in the late afternoon sun as they trotted toward it. For a long time they did not seem to be getting any closer, but then suddenly the dense shadow of the overhanging entranceway enveloped them.

While there had been no apparent movement inside the mansion, their approach had been watched, it seemed, as stable hands silently materialized to take their bridles. Wiki slid down from the saddle, feeling very much at a disadvantage in his crumpled shirt and dungaree trousers. Since dawn his clothes had soaked in the river, had dried on his body, and had become sweaty and dusty with the ride. George might have been hot and uncomfortable in his fine tailored uniform, but Wiki now envied him his smart appearance.

The entrance doors to this magnificent mansion were tall, with finely wrought glass panes. One of them opened to reveal a young black housemaid, the whites of her staring eyes matching the color of her mobcap. She looked terrified.

The sheriff said, “Mr. Stanton is expecting us.”

The girl's gaze darted from one man to the other and then fixed on Wiki's face. She pointed at his chest and said, “I don't know that I oughter let
him
in, sir.”

“Why not?” said the sheriff.

“I don't know about letting in Injuns.”

An impatient male voice echoed from behind her. “Bring them in, Em, goddammit. Don't you ever listen to orders? Bring them in!”

The harsh resonance of the voice seemed familiar, but when Wiki arrived in the huge marbled hallway and looked up the curved stairway to where the speaker was standing, it was a man he had never seen before. However, the resemblance was so striking, it was obvious this was the father of Tristram T. Stanton. The hair was thick gray instead of brown but flopped over the same kind of meaty forehead and bushy brows, and the thick-lipped, down-turned mouth was just as arrogant. Like his son, Stanton had protuberant, low-set ears that stuck out from behind long sideburns, and small, deep-set eyes that flickered from man to man. Despite his husky build, there was the same apelike look.

They all trooped inside, and Stanton jerked his head for them to come up the stairs. “You too, Em!” he shouted, and Wiki could hear the maidservant as she scuttled in their rear. Then, as they arrived at the doorway of a large reception room, he saw the reason she had been summoned. Lined up along one wall, watching the group's arrival with open fascination, were the servants of the house, who looked as if they had been waiting quite some time. After Em scampered to join the line, however, Stanton led the sheriff's party farther along the passage to a well-appointed study.

The room was dominated by a massive desk, which was piled with papers and faced a huge, many-paned window that overlooked the fields. The wall behind the desk was shelved and held rows of black boxes with the names of ships and merchants painted on them in white. Obviously, this was where the business of the plantation was carried out. Wiki wondered if the old man still held the reins or shared the office work with his son.

After stiffly lowering himself onto a seat behind the desk, Stanton busied himself with opening a humidor and selecting a cigar from within it. Though he waved a large liver-spotted hand at the chairs set facing him, the sheriff remained standing, and so did everyone else, too, waiting in silence as Stanton took out a lucifer, struck it, and applied it to the end of the cigar with care. Finally, when the stinging chemical smell of the match had been replaced with the aroma of fine tobacco, he puffed out a cloud and pursed his thick lips, revealing square yellow teeth clamped about the cigar.

He grunted, “So the silly bitch is dead.”

Wiki saw George Rochester blink with shock. Stanton saw it too and barked, “It's no secret—the woman was a confounded liability. Hysterical as a bloody jackass—we had thoughts of getting a certificate and confining her someplace for her own safety and the sanity of those around her.” He looked again at George Rochester and snarled, “You would prefer me to be hypocritical, sir?”

Rochester opened his mouth, blushing bright red, but before he could say anything the sheriff broke into the exchange, saying, “Mr. Stanton, I would be obliged if you'd tell me what you were doing last night and early this morning.”

“For the benefit of these gentlemen?” Stanton demanded. His contemptuous little eyes flicked across Wiki's face. “My son was out for the night. The folks around here are falling all over themselves to amuse and entertain the officers and scientifics afore they sail off to make America proud and famous. It's the height of Virginian fashion—a fad, a fad! It's whist parties here, banquets there, and I've hardly seen hide or hair of my son for the past six weeks, and my daughter-in-law loonier than ever on account of it. So she and I dined alone, as usual—if you can call it alone in a house full of confounded servants. Then I worked at some accounts, after that I retired, and she did God-knows-what. I woke in the night to hear a horse a-galloping down the carriageway, went back to sleep, thought nothing of it, not even when she chose not to turn up for breakfast.”