Rigged for Murder (Windjammer Mystery Series) (10 page)

“Thanks again, you two. I’ll lock up when we leave this evening, and Brie and I will stop back up here before the
Maine Wind
leaves its anchorage.”

“Good luck, and stay safe,” Glenn said.

They rounded up Scott and Tim, and after donning their raincoats, the four of them headed for the front door. They waved goodbye to Betty and Glenn as they descended the porch stairs.

A cold northeast wind blowing over the top of the island assaulted them as they emerged from the shelter of the inn and crossed the front lawn. Storm clouds roiled overhead. It felt good to Brie to drop down along the road, out of the biting wind, toward the cove. She wondered why Pete’s name might have seemed familiar to Betty. Could he have stayed at the inn? As she surveyed the
Maine Wind
lying at anchor, its masts like skeleton fingers pointed accusingly at the ominous sky, she wondered what other dark surprises this day had in store.

A
S THE YAWL BOAT CROSSED the harbor, Brie watched the
Maine Wind
for signs of life, but found none. The passengers were either still sleeping or clinging to their cabins to stay out of the raw weather until George rang the bell calling them down to the galley. They approached the stern of the ship, with Scott cutting the engine a few yards away. Brie noticed Scott had been unusually silent this morning, engaging in none of the easy banter she’d come to identify with him. He helped DuLac secure the yawl boat to the stern of the ship, and the four of them climbed the ladder with Brie leading the way.

“Thanks for your help, Tim,” DuLac said.

“Glad to,” Tim replied. “If there’s nothing else you need right now, I’d like to go below and wash up before breakfast.”

“Go ahead,” DuLac said. “Scott, let’s tighten up those lashings around the mainsail.”

Brie caught his arm as he started to hop up on top of the cabin. “Captain, I need to ask you some questions before we take the passengers ashore this morning. You have important background information on the crew, and possibly a few facts about some of the others that may be of help. I’d like to get that information from you now, because once we get to the inn, I’ll need you to keep an eye on everyone while I’m doing the questioning.”

“That’s fine, Brie. Just tell me when and where.”

“We need to talk someplace private.”

“How about my cabin, before breakfast? We still have a half hour.”

“What about Rob and Alyssa?” Brie asked. “Their cabin is just across the passageway.”

“I’ll go down right now and ask if they could go forward to the galley early.

“Great. I’ll help Scott finish up on deck and meet you down there in a few minutes.”

Having secured the sail, Scott hopped down off the cabin top. “Brie, could you help me bring the kerosene lanterns down to the storeroom?” he asked.

“Sure, I’ll get the ones up near the bow and bring them below.”

Moving forward, Brie retrieved a lamp hanging from the ratlines, a ladder-like system of tarred rungs and rope rigging, used for going aloft, that ran at an angle from the ship’s gunwales, three quarters of the way up the masts. Over the last three days, she had watched the crew climb the ratlines to work on the topsails and rigging far above the deck. They reminded her of trapeze artists or tightrope walkers at the circus, climbing to their tiny perches above the audience. The sailor in her longed to climb up there. She’d have to get John’s permission to do it before they got back to the mainland.

She found a second lamp on the galley cabin top and started down to the storeroom. At the bottom of the ladder she nearly collided with Tim, who had just come out of the head and was pulling on a white tee-shirt. She took in the unusual tattoo on his chest. It depicted either a rising or a setting sun, and there was a woman’s name under it. Brie wondered if it implied that the sun both rose and set in this woman. She thought back to their conversation at dinner last night; he hadn’t mentioned a girlfriend. She made a mental note to ask him about it when she questioned him.

Proceeding into the storeroom, she placed the lanterns in their cabinet and passed Scott on her way out the door. “See you at breakfast,” she said. She headed to the stern of the ship for her meeting with the captain. At the bottom of the companionway ladder she rapped on the door to her left.

“All clear down here?” she asked when John opened his door.

“Yup,” he replied. “Rob and Alyssa jumped at the chance for an early cup of coffee in the galley. They both looked like hell. Alyssa had obviously been crying a lot, and Rob looked like he could use a strong drink—and I’m not talking coffee.”

“I need to grab my recorder and notepad in my cabin, and we’ll get started,” Brie said.

She was back a few moments later. Stepping into DuLac’s cabin, she closed the door after her and looked around. On the back wall was a chart table and, under the table, a wood rack with small, square pigeonholes that held rolled-up charts of all the coastal waters John sailed. A bookcase next to the table was filled with books on sailing and the sea. Directly across from the door was a double berth, half of which tucked under the deck overhead, and just to the left of the door was the radio transmitter—now inoperable. In front of the chart table was a wooden chair, the seat of which both swiveled and rocked. Brie noticed it was bolted to the floor-boards so it wouldn’t fly around when the ship was under sail. John rocked back in the chair, hands locked behind his head, one foot propped on his knee. He wore a red flannel shirt that set off his dark hair and placed a butterfly in Brie’s chest.

“Would you like the chair, Brie? I can sit on the berth,” he said, starting to get up.

“That’s okay. I’ll just sit up here.”

Climbing onto the berth, Brie folded her legs under her Indian style. Her detective training had taught her to position herself higher than the person being questioned, thus creating the psychological sense of having the upper hand. She wasn’t sure, though, if having the upper hand by sitting on the bed of a man you were attracted to, who was, coincidentally, a suspect, would qualify as correct procedure. But what the heck—it was the best she could do.

Brie switched on the recorder and began to speak. “Wednesday, May 14th. Interview with John DuLac, captain of the schooner
Maine Wind
.” She rewound a little of the tape to make sure it was recording and then addressed John.

“I’ll start with some questions about Pete, and then move on to some background on Scott and George,” she said.

“Okay, shoot.”

“How long have you known Pete McAllister?”

“Only since March, when I hired him to crew this summer.”

“Do you know who employed him previously?”

“He was second mate on the
Yankee Pride.
Jim Gallaway is the skipper. I checked with him before I hired Pete.”

“And what did you find out about his time on that ship?” Brie asked.

“Jim said he was a hard worker and excellent on the high rigging, which was one of the main reasons I hired him. The first and second mates frequently have to go up the masts to do a repair or unfoul a line or sail while we’re underway. You want the most sure-footed mate you can get at the top of a swaying 80-foot mast. Pete was made for that work. He was a rock climber—had even taught some classes in it, I hear. He had absolutely no fear up there.”

“You admired him,” Brie said.

“There are aspects of sailing that require raw courage. Pete had it, and I admired that part of him.”

Brie wondered, recalling Pete’s face in the midst of the gale yesterday. She knew that the real test of courage often comes when you’re face to face with something totally beyond your control—when you’re hurled blind into the darkness.

“Don’t get me wrong,” John said, as if reading her doubts. “Pete had his flaws like all of us.”

“And what were those?” Brie asked.

“Pete liked the ladies, and sometimes he didn’t discriminate between the married and unmarried ones. It got him in trouble on the
Yankee Pride
. Jim Gallaway warned me about it. You saw the result of his outrageous flirting last night at dinner. I thought Rob Lindstrom might kill him on the spot. I warned Pete before I turned in—any more of that and he wouldn’t finish the season with me.”

“Did Jim Gallaway fire him?”

“No. Jim’s long-time second mate had been injured a few weeks before the season began last year. When he hired Pete, Jim made it clear that it was only for one season.”

“Did you hear anything unusual in the night? Anything wake you?” Brie asked.

“If it had, I’d have been up on deck moments later. It’s my job to check out anything I hear. A ship lying at anchor is always vulnerable. That’s why we stand watch. Everyone on the crew is trained to respond to any unusual noise or vibration. Unfortunately, I heard nothing. Yesterday was an exhausting day, and I was out like a light the minute I hit my bunk.”

John studied Brie as she jotted down notes. He hoped this interview would take a while. He liked her sitting on his bed and wished he could be over there with her. He had become increasingly attracted to her over the last few days and found her straightforward, no-nonsense demeanor refreshing. She displayed a kind of bare-bones honesty that was a rare find in anyone, man or woman. To top it off, he found her simply beautiful, with the emphasis on simple. Everything about her suggested clean straight lines, from her perfect posture to her long blonde hair. She had the kind of translucent beauty that needed no make-up or fancy clothing to enhance it. He guessed she had been an athlete at one time; there was a refined strength about her movements that implied some form of disciplined physical training. But she was also somewhat of a study in contrasts, he thought. Strength mixed with vulnerability, self-assurance coupled with shyness. She was complex, and in that lay a challenge. John liked challenges.

“John?” Brie looked at him quizzically. She checked her watch, eager to finish questioning him.

“Sorry. What was the question again?” he asked, flustered. “I was just thinking about something.”

Brie smiled. “Anything you’d like to share?”

“No. I mean, not right now,” he fumbled. “It doesn’t relate to the murder.”

“Well then, the question was, did either Scott or George know Pete before he came to work on the
Maine Wind
?”

“I’m sure that Scott and George had heard his name—the names of crew members within the fleet tend to get around—but I think they met Pete for the first time a few weeks ago, when we all got together to go over plans for this season.”

“Did they both seem to get along with him?” Brie asked.

“You’ve seen about as much of that interaction as I have. We’ve only been working together for two weeks. Pete was easy enough to like, though. He had a positive outlook on life.”

“Can you think of anyone else on board who might have had a grudge against him?”

“Will Thackeray also applied for the second mate’s job this season and was mighty upset he didn’t get it.”

“Really! Well, that explains his antagonism toward Pete.”

“Will came up here in March looking for a job on one of the windjammers. He graduated college this spring, and I think he saw the windjammer job as kind of one last fling before joining the adult world.”

“But you didn’t hire him.”

“Will had plenty of sailing experience—more than Pete actually—but I decided on Pete because he’d crewed aboard another windjammer. I guess I felt a little bad about Will, so I offered him a fifty percent discount if he wanted to come on the first cruise. You don’t think he had anything to do with Pete’s death, do you? I mean, people don’t kill each other over summer jobs.”

“People will kill each other over just about anything you can imagine.”

“But you’d have to be completely unbalanced to kill someone over a summer job.”

Brie gave him a wry smile. “Murderers generally are unbalanced,” she said. “So, anything else you can think of that might point to a motive?”

“You mean other than Rob with his insane jealousy, which Alyssa seems to take great pleasure in aggravating? That outburst last night was right on the edge. If he caught those two together again, I don’t know what he might have done.”