Authors: Steven Axelrod
I did no better with Pell himself. That same afternoon I drove down to the docks and walked out to the private pier where the
Nantucket Grand
was anchored.
The ship loomed fifty feet high, a hundred and fifty feet long, shifting nets of light from the water reflecting on its massive hull. The giant radar array, looking like a city on the moon, soared over my head, and the vessel itself looked like a low-slung modern office building in Singapore or Dubaiâthe great slabs of squint-inducing glossy white metal and fiberglass, the giant walls of tinted windows, the layered canopied decks rising into the glare of the sun.
What did such a sea monster cost?
I looked it up: somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy million dollars. How much good could you do with that amount of money? The question wasn't worth asking. It would just make me angry and I wanted to stay calm. Pell was a modern day Pharaoh, and this grotesque, ostentatious cruise ship was the monument to his positionâthe prize and the proof of it. The boat radiated power, you couldn't deny that, and it was overwhelming. It made you feel small and puny, and anonymous, one of the inconsequential rabble. I might have made a serious tactical mistake.
On board this ship, Pell would have serious home-field advantage.
I started aboard and the uniformed bo'sun stopped me. “Shoes off, please.”
“Excuse me?”
“No shoes on board, sir.”
“I'm here on police business.”
“I understand. I'll inform Mr. Pell of your arrival. But we don't allow shoes on board the ship.”
“You have to be kidding.”
“It's a universal rule, sir.”
“Like Japanese houses? Shoes off at the door.”
He smiled, nervous but relieved. “Exactly! That's exactly right. It's a custom everyone respects.”
“Fine.”
I cocked my leg at the knee, unlaced my shoe and toed it off, did the same with other one.
“We have slippers you can wear on board.”
“Thank you.”
“Your shoe size?”
“Ten and a half.”
“Perfect.”
He scurried aboard and I followed him into a high-ceilinged nautical living room, dotted with silk-upholstered couches and Indian sandstone coffee tables, hung with subdued abstract paintings chosen to pick up the taupe and pale green colors of the Berber rugs, setting off the polished mahogany furniture. The cabin felt expensive but cheap and tacky at the same time, a sterile concept of a rich man's world, sleek and soulless. I thought of my mother, saying “All the money in the world can't buy you taste.”
That made me feel a little better.
The steward handed me a pair of beige boat slippers with a pale green stripe. “Size ten and a half.”
“Just tell your boss I'm here.”
“Yes, sir.”
He disappeared aft, and I strolled around the big room, noting the hammered silver lamps and the cut crystal vases bulging with white roses. The boat rocked gently on the water and the air conditioning whispered in the background.
“Chief Kennis!”
Pell strode into the room, wearing the full Nantucket summer uniform of blue blazer, polo shirt, and Nantucket “reds” from Murray's, the pink pants that bled down to a dusty rose after repeated washings. As usual I felt the force of his charismaâthat potent mixture of charm, willpower, and a restless intelligence that chose to settle its flattering undivided attention on you. It was the size of him too, you tended to forget that when you hadn't seen him for a while. He was tall and broad and fit, with masses of thick gray hair, huge hands, and a crushing grip. I squeezed back as we shook hands but there was no way I could win that contest. He gave the impression that it would be easy and mildly amusing to crush every bone in my fingers, but that he chose to show mercy instead. His blue eyes glinted with combative satisfaction as he registered my wince of pain.
“What can I do for you, Chief?”
“I have a few questions. It won't take long.”
“I've got all the time in the world, Chief. It's summer and I'm already on Nantucket! Don't you love that bumper sticker? Says it all. Stop and smell the rosea rugosa, that would be my bumper sticker.” He took my arm. “Let me give you the nickel tour.”
I looked around. “More like the Krugerrand tour.”
He barked out a short laugh. “Quite right. That would be close to twelve hundred dollars, according to today's spot price on the London market. And worth every penny, as I'm sure you'll agree.”
I had to admit he was rightâthe gorgeously furnished open-air decks, the lavish staterooms with king-sized beds and wide windows overlooking the harbor, the interconnected living areas opening into more canopied decks were all dauntingly impressive. There was a fully appointed gym on the lower level, along with quarters for the crew, a huge galley and a pilot house that looked like a NASA control room, with banks of touch-screen computers faced by leather swivel chairs on the gleaming wood floor. One broad cabin on the lower deck was closed off for renovation, soon to be reborn as the screening room Phelan had mentioned.
“We have two Caterpillar engines that run on aviation fuel,” Pell informed me. “A fifteen knot cruising speed, and a range of six thousand nautical miles. The
Grand
can cross the Atlantic easily, and we've done it on several occasions. Fabulous trip, if you've got the weather. The
Grand
has two tendersâa twenty-seven-foot Dariel Limo and and 24-foot Rive Iseo. Plus a twelve-foot sky boat and very fast stable rescue boat. We even have a helicopter pad.” He recited all this with the barely controlled pride and pleasure of a parent talking about his child's Dean's List grades and equestrian event ribbons. There's a lovely Yiddish word for it: kvelling.
But the ship scarcely seemed real to me. The surfaces were too smooth, the colors too muted, the lighting too indirect. It manifested as a hologram of itself, a CGI trick in a movie. I missed the barnacles and bright work of a real boat, the gorgeous canvas-rigged sailing ships that glided into Nantucket harbor every year for race week. They were connected to the wind. Where did this floating palace connect?
“You spend enough time on board this yacht, and you'd forget the outside world even exists.” I remarked.
Pell grinned. “That's the whole idea, Chief. It's a world unto itself. â
In Xandau did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree. Where Alph the sacred river ran down to a sunless sea.
'”
I was impressed by his knowledge of nineteenth-century poetry, but I couldn't ignore the opportunity he had given me with the quotation. I chose a spot a little farther along in the poem for my response:“
âAnd âmid this tumult Kubla heard from far, ancestral voices prophesying war.
'”
“I see you know your Coleridge,” Pell said.
“Every school child knows that poem.”
“Maybe when we were in school. Now they study rap lyricsâto maintain relevance and diversity. Two of my least favorite words in the English language, by the way.”
We were standing on the upper deck, our backs to the town, looking out over Coatue and the head of the harbor. A pale breeze ruffled the water, carrying the smells of brine and boat fuel and the fragrant smoke from a barbecue fire.
Enough chit-chat. “So your detective found Daisy.”
“Yes, at that man's funeral. And then he lost her again. Last seen haring down the road with the local police chief in hot pursuit.”
“I lost her, too. But I tracked her down, no problem.”
“And how did you accomplish that feat, if I may ask?”
I smiled. “Detective work.”
If my little slap at his employee bothered him, he didn't show it. “So where is she?
“I think we should let her tell you that herself. She's safe and healthy. She's a functional adultâ”
“I often wonder about that.”
“If she wants to get in touch, she knows where to find you. This boat is hard to miss.”
He smiled thinly. “It's a ship, Chief Kennis.”
“Right. So here's what we've got. Daisy was living with Andrew Thayer. Douglas Blount was in love with her. That's why Blount killed him.”
“Don't you mean allegedly killed?”
“Blount confessed.”
“Tragic. I should never have hired a convicted felon, but at the time I believed that our prison system really does rehabilitate criminals. Doug seemed a perfect example. In fact penitentiaries are more like graduate schools for the aspiring thief or murderer. They come out good for nothing but a life of crime and uniquely fitted for it, well-trained and hardened. That was our Mr. Blount. He talked a good game, at least. He certainly fooled me.”
“Some officers at the station believe it was a crime of passion.”
“You know he killed Todd Macy. Was that another crime of passion?”
“He seemed like a very passionate man.”
Pell laughed out loud. “Did he really?”
“No.”
“He was covering up his criminal activities, nothing more. That sickening sex-for-drugs racket he was involved with.”
“So you knew he killed Macy?”
This knocked Pell off balance for a second, but he recovered smoothly. “You found the murder weapon in his house! So there's not much doubt.”
“How do you know we found the murder weapon?”
“I get around, Chief Kennis. People still talk to me and I still listen.”
“Who in particular?”
“I'm not sure I'm under any obligation to tell you that.”
“You are if it was a cop.”
He lifted his hand and his shoulders, tipping his head in a sort of peacemaking shrug. “Then let's assume it was not.”
“I think your daughter may have been involved with that racket, as you call it.”
“She's my stepdaughter. I adopted her after her father died.”
“Yet she kept his name.”
“We didn't always get along.”
“Clearly. So you knew about her part in this pornography scheme?”
“I didn't say that.”
“But it doesn't surprise you.”
“Daisy was always a troubled girl, Chief Kennis. From an early age her looks wereâ¦disruptive. And she very much enjoyed creating those disruptions. They say power corrupts. She was very powerful. I tried to impose discipline, to provide her with some sort of moral compass. I only succeeded in alienating her. Still it seemed like we had reached some rapprochement in recent years. She enjoyed being back on the island. She found herself a good job. Her troubled past allowed her to connect with the kids at the school here. She understood their problems. She was able to help. Or so she said.”
“That sounds good. But she was recruiting for this criminal enterprise. Suborning under-age sex and drug use, actively working to ruin those kids' lives. Kids who trusted her. One of them is in a coma right now, and it's partly Daisy's fault. She's going to be tried as an accessory, Mr. Pell. Before and after the factâaiding and abetting the crime and helping to cover it up.”
“If any of this is true.”
“Is it?”
“I have no idea. I certainly hope not.”
I'd taken this path about as far as it would go. Time to switch things up. I put my back to the rail, looking into the connected state rooms of the giant vessel through the open glass door. “What do you know about Blue Heron Estates?”
“You mean the White Heron theater company? I'm a big supporter.”
“No, Blue Heron Estates. They're planning a major development in the moors.”
“Never heard of them.”
“Half the land they're building on belongs to the LoGran Corporation.”
“No, sorry. You're wrong about that. We divested ourselves of that property more than eighteen months ago. LoGran is not a real estate company and, frankly, we wouldn't know what to do with a parcel that size.”
“Who did you sell it to?”
He leaned his elbows on the polished steel of the railing, staring out at the Great Point lighthouse, a tiny white filament stapled between the blue of the harbor and the sky.
“I'm not sure. Some Canadian group, I think. They certainly weren't developers. I don't recall any âestates' in their business name. More of a holding company, I think. If they had any plans, they were long-range ones. Tapping the aquifer for a bottled-water concern? Harvesting deer ticks for medical research? I'm just guessing. The kind of work I started ProACKtive to support.”
I took a breath. “Okay. Now you know what my detectives think is going on. Want to hear my theory?”
“Of course.”
“I'm thinking Blount killed Andrew Thayer because Andy refused to sell his section of the Thayer property. Their land abuts the LoGran parcel.”
“I don't see why. That parcel has nothing to do with LoGran or me, or Douglas for that matter.” Pell pushed himself upright and took what looked like an invigorating gulp of the humid sea air. “Besides, that's not much of a business model, Chief. Killing people you can't convince. I imagine the corpses would start to pile up quicklyâas would the evidence against you. And I can't imagine any business transaction that would be worth taking a human life.”
“Well, someone can.”
“I suggest you talk to these Blue Heron people, then. They're the obvious suspects, if your theory is correct. But I would look to Doug's otherâ¦activities, if I were you. Drug dealers often kill in the course of their business, so I've heard.” He smiled. “Realtors? Not so much.”
I smiled back. “And where were you on the day of the murder?”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you have an alibi for that morning?”
“Iâit'sâ¦of course I do. I was on board the
Grand
all day, with a terrible headache. I get migraines, you know. Absolutely unbearable. The crew can vouch for me. Feel free to check with them.”