Dead Man’s Tale
Tancook schooner: a schooner designed
and made on Tancook Island, N.S.
Manny called it the mid-morning lull, after breakfast and before lunch. He sat on the counter, his head tilted back. As if the answer he was looking for was on the ceiling.
“The rumours about the murder involved a fisherman called Cavendish. There was bad blood between McCoy and Cavendish. In some people’s minds, finding McCoy’s raccoon coat with blood on it linked McCoy to the death.”
“Was McCoy charged with murder?”
“Nope, never was.”
Four early lunch customers burst into Manny’s Grill, clamour- ing for his attention.
“Gotta get back to work. Why don’t you go to the Roué Reading Room at the library just around the corner. On Pelham Street. Look at what they’ve got. Ask for Marianne.” Manny pointed to Pelham Street on another map of downtown Lunenburg on his paper placemats.
William had also wanted to ask Manny if there was talk of gold linked to McCoy because of old Mr. Trenton’s question about it. Maybe it was just crazy talk. Either way, Manny was too busy to discuss it right now.
-
Marianne had brown hair with purple-red ends. A lambskin vest topped her green plaid skirt and her smile flashed matching green braces.
“A lot of rum-runners had to hire captains and boats. McCoy, on the other hand, was a first-class sailor with his own boat. When he retired, McCoy bought a Tancook schooner and converted it from fishing boat to blue-water sailor — a pleasure craft. The Tancook schooners were the inspiration for the Bluenose.”
She pointed a red fingernail towards photographs and plaques on the walls. She explained that the Mr. Roué for whom the reading room had been named had designed the famous Bluenose. She pointed to a model of the schooner that sat in a small recess between two photographs of Mr. Roué. Apparently, in the early 1900s, Bluenose was the fastest fishing schooner of its day. And getting your catch to market fast, she explained, meant getting the best price. Looking at it in miniature, William realized that it looked a lot like Fathom when he’d seen it sitting in its cradle in the boathouse.
The librarian continued. “The fisherman from Gloucester, Massachusetts, sent a challenge to all fishing schooners from New England and the Maritimes. They wanted to race. Angus Walters from Lunenburg, the captain of Bluenose, won more times than any other boat or captain.” She nodded for emphasis. William jotted down some notes. He liked history but he was more interested in whether McCoy had hidden some gold.
“If you want more information, try the Old Lunenburg Histori- cal Society.” She circled their location on William’s map.
-
The archivist for the Old Lunenburg Historical Society blinked through thick, oversized glasses. His blinking and his hairy ears made him look like an owl. He spoke from behind his desk. “Yes, we have all sorts of things on the Real McCoy on our computers upstairs. But access is restricted to people doing scholarly research. Do you have a letter from your teacher confirming this?”
William stomped out and down to the sidewalk. He stopped, turned, and studied the building. Between the buildings he spotted a drainpipe leading up to a second-floor window. He slipped into the passageway and tugged on the drainpipe. It was secure. He tucked the notebook under his belt and shimmied up the pipe.
He flattened against the wall and held his breath. A woman pushed a baby stroller along the path beneath him. He held his breath till she passed without looking up. He reached for the window, which was open a crack, and pushed it wide enough to slide in.
A tap of the keyboard roused the computer. They obviously didn’t need a password, what with the owl standing guard downstairs. He scanned articles and took notes. He found some old newspaper photographs showing McCoy arriving at the Halifax train station in the fall of 1947. His full-length raccoon coat flapped open to show his initials on the lining. McCoy didn’t look too happy to be greeted by the press. What was he trying to keep out of the papers?
There was a photo taken a few weeks later of a fisher called Cavendish, “shot in the chest with a large bore revolver on his Cape Islander.” There was a close-up of Cavendish’s face that showed a faint indentation under his cheekbone. It was a crescent moon with a star at either end. There was also one of McCoy’s bloodstained raccoon coat with the initials “W.M.” on the lining, found on the beach a few miles from the body.
William heard voices. The owl-faced man invited the visitor he called professor to use the empty research room. William hit “print” as he heard the visitor start up the stairs. He jammed a chair against the door. The first photo came off the copier just as the visitor tried the door and called to say it was locked.
“What?” he hooted. “I unlocked everything when I came in.”
The second picture appeared on the tray. The third started printing as William heard keys jangling up the stairs. William scooped up the last picture, moved the chair, and scampered out the win- dow. The door creaked open just as he pulled his leg out. The owlfaced man was talking to the visitor. He didn’t see William fleeing.
He slithered down the drainpipe, catching his knee on a bracket, and bit his lip. He rubbed his knee then reread his notes as he limped back to the sail shop.
Rum-running was a risky, exciting occupation. And it was profitable. An RCMP officer made about seventy-five dollars a month at that time, while a rum-runner could make three hundred. A captain who owned his boat like McCoy made a whole lot more.
He bounded into the sail loft and slapped his notebook down between the computer and cash register. That got Harley’s attention. “You wanted facts? Fifty thousand dollars was missing from the Real McCoy’s estate when he died in Florida. They think he brought it with him and hid it in Lunenburg. Cool, huh?”
“That sounds like a lot of money. Did he earn enough for that to be possible?”
William opened his hands, palms up, to say he didn’t know.
“Oh, your mom called. She was sorry she missed you.”
“Yeah? Was Brad there?” His tone was cold.
Harley shrugged. Without asking if he was hungry she skipped into the kitchen. She ladled out a bowl of soup and brought it back out for him. “She said she’d call you again.” Harley could see that her cousin was troubled. She picked up the notebook and said, “Why don’t we talk to Manny at the Fisheries Museum tomor- row? A couple of times a week he does the afternoon talk on rum-runners. I’ll eat lunch late and come with you. This still doesn’t mean I believe in all this ghost stuff, though.”
William studied the Scrabble board and turned “ant” into “phantom.” “But you’d like me to find ‘something of value,’ right?”
“Well, duh …,” she answered, which got them both laughing.
-
The next day they headed to the museum, munching on Harley’s sandwiches. Between the wharf and the road stood a circle of black obelisks.
He knew what they were because his parents had a photo of themselves in Place de la Concorde in Paris — the photo his mom had removed from their pin board. In it they stood beside a big obelisk Napoleon had brought from his conquest of Egypt.
The obelisk in the middle of this cluster had a carved inscription: Dedicated to the memory of those who have gone down to the sea in ships and who have never returned. Even with the sun shining on them they looked as dark as the water they spoke of.
He had slowed down, and Harley mistook his change of speed as interest. She told William the story of the family names engraved on the black granite obelisks. “When the August gales came up, well, some of those storms wiped out entire families. That’s why they passed a law that stopped all the men — fathers and sons — of the same family from sailing together on the same ship. So women weren’t left destitute.”
Harley stopped and touched the names of four family members who had perished on the same voyage in 1927. “If these four men had lived, their great-grandchildren would have been our cousins. Granddad Emmett says that the seas roar during a storm to mask the screams of dying sailors. Sometimes, when you go to sea, there’s the devil to pay. You know where that expression comes from, Toronto boy?”
“It’s about being in trouble, but I don’t know where it comes from.”
“Well, it’s not the devil with the horns. On the old boats they filled the seams between deck planks with oakum. That’s a type of coarse fibre and that was called ‘paying.’ Hot tar would seal the oakum. The farthest seam out was called ‘the devil’ because it gave you a devil of a time to seal it. So, like, the full expression is, ‘the devil to pay and no pitch hot’ — no hot tar to pour over the oakum. It means that you have a difficult task, or a lot of grief. Going to sea during the August gales was a big challenge. All these names on the obelisks prove that.”
They got to Manny’s just as he was closing and walked together to the museum.
“Hey, Manny, how’s it going?” Harley asked. “You’ve met my cousin, William?”
“I’ve had the pleasure,” said Manny with a bob of his head.
“You believe in ghosts, Manny?” asked Harley to William’s embarrassment.
He gave Harley a serious look without breaking pace. “I don’t mess with ghosts.”
William smiled. Finally he had an ally.
“My ancestors,” continued Manny, “came from Africville, outside of Halifax. ’Fore that they was runaway slaves. Come up from the States on the Underground Railroad. And ’fore that, they was shipped from Benin in Africa, where there’s a long history of believing in spirits, hougans, and zombies. So, yes, I believe in ghosts. Why you askin’?”
“William thinks he saw a ghost,” said Harley.
Manny stopped at the museum door. “Seeing a ghost usually means something’s afoot … something’s going to happen.”