The best use of my time, I decided, was to search for Garrett Meadows.
I couldn’t assume he had tried to flee the island in the skiff. The intruder might have been the one to cut the line. And there was no saying how that oar had fallen into the water.
I remembered what Garrett had said about the silent man in the swordfishing cap: “Everyone else who comes out to Baker focuses mostly on the birds, but our friend ignores the birds like they’re not even here. The man is our own personal paparazzo.”
Photographing the researchers without their consent was one thing.
Sneaking into their camp to bludgeon them to death was another level of messed up.
The best place to look for signs of Garrett Meadows was in his tent, of course. So that was where I began.
While the risen sun yet remained hidden, the mist had become permeated with ambient light. In the yellow-gray glow, I could now see blades of grass without the help of artificial illumination. I followed my own footprints back to the base camp and then down to Garrett’s tent, which was the closest to the water.
I nearly stepped on a pair of glasses in the weeds.
Had he dropped them in flight? Did he have another pair? How well could he see without their assistance?
On the edge of the platform were two slip-on mud shoes, the kind worn by backyard gardeners, arranged side by side. I squatted and inspected the wet ground and found the prints of two bare feet. A set of tracks led through the mud toward the shore path before disappearing into the juniper. The spiky plant would have cut up his feet, and sure enough, I soon found blood, ten yards in.
There was no sign of the intruder anywhere around Garrett’s tent.
Interesting that the murderer didn’t make the tent of the only man on the island his first stop.
I hadn’t yet met a violent criminal with a degree in gender studies. Males were the protectors. Females were the protected.
Unless our guy knew Kendra was the one most likely to fight back or be armed. Which means he had personal knowledge of the staff.
I jumped onto the platform, landing to one side of the yawning tent. Peering in with my flashlight, I saw that a sleeping bag was bunched as if he’d kicked it off his legs. Otherwise, everything was clean and orderly. The tent looked and smelled new, as if he’d bought it on his drive up the coast. The women’s tents had been unswept, strung with drying socks, and littered with used mugs and half-read books.
What am I not seeing?
A flashlight.
Surely, Garrett had kept a light source nearby in the event he had to go to the outhouse in the dark. I didn’t have to return to the other tents to remember that Kendra had a camping lantern within reach of her sleeping pad and Hillary had a headlamp.
I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but indications pointed to Garrett having heard something—a scuffle, a shot—at which point he fled in a panic. He must have known he’d dropped his glasses but had been in such a hurry he didn’t dare hunt for them in the dark. My bet was that he’d made directly for the landing.
I relocated his bloody tracks in the mud on the far side of the juniper patch but lost them again where he’d crossed an exposed ledge. The pounding rain had washed the stone clean. But I suspected he’d continued toward the landing after he’d hit the shore.
We’d seen no sign of him when we’d arrived at Plymouth Rock, but I took another look between the half-submerged boulders that flanked the launch and was relieved not to stumble on yet another corpse.
Someone had either taken the skiff or cut the line so that it had drifted off. My money was still on Garrett. There was zero evidence to confirm my hunch. But losing an oar in a desperate attempt at escape was consistent with what I’d heard about his lack of boating experience.
I checked my watch and realized I’d been ashore less than an hour. The slowness with which time seemed to move here reinforced the purgatorial impression I had formed of this forsaken place.
On a whim, I tried my cell phone, but there was still no signal.
Every now and again, a seabird would materialize and dematerialize in the fog like a winged apparition. And I thought of Stacey out there alone. Her odds of getting her phone to work were probably no better than mine.
I decided to make another attempt to raise help.
Taking a shortcut, I waded through a swath of tall grass that smelled pungently of storm petrels. Baker was home to two species, Stacey had said, neither of which were in evidence. The nocturnal ones were all sleeping in their burrows while the diurnal ones must have been hunting at sea.
Next, I entered into the domain of the terns. The sharp-winged birds rose up shrieking from their hidden nests. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand how anyone could get accustomed to the cacophony of Baker Island.
Turning inland, I followed a thin path, more like a crease in the bushes, up to the ridge. I moved slowly, my imagination filled with images of wartime munitions lurking everywhere about me, hidden beneath a scrim of pebbles. I had trespassed into the nesting grounds of the laughing gulls. They began their aerial assaults. I covered my head with my hands and received a cut along a knuckle from one of their beaks.
The insane cries of the gulls were so earsplitting I didn’t hear the boat engine at first.
I turned in a full circle, until I could locate the direction of the sound.
The invisible boat was approaching at an idle from the north—it was headed to the mooring.
Careless of unexploded bombs, I took off at a sprint toward camp. I wanted to believe Stacey had already found a lobsterboat and directed it to the island. But I couldn’t assume the visitor was friendly.
To be safe, as I topped the hummock above the landing, I threw myself down behind the boat shed where the researchers stored ropes, life vests, folded and unfolded tarps. I wished I’d brought along my binoculars.
Circles of illumination floated like will-o’-the-wisps in the fog. The vessel slowly took shape, then gained definition. The white bow belonged to a former lobsterboat that had been remodeled for a second life as an inshore runabout. It was towing an inflatable dinghy on a polyester line.
Just as the name Selkie came into view on the prow, a female voice exclaimed, “What the fuck?”
It was Maeve McLeary.
It occurred to me that I shouldn’t make my presence known immediately. Better to observe the ornithologist’s reaction to the missing skiff if she didn’t know she was being watched.
“Where’s the goddamned rowboat?” She brought the Selkie in a circle around the volleyball. “What the hell is going on?”
I saw her now: a skinny woman dressed in yellow oilskins. She wore a khaki cap with the puffin logo that was the Maine Seabird Initiative’s insignia. A silver braid hung down the back of her rain jacket. I couldn’t make out her wrinkled features, but my imagination could supply them from the shrine of photographs inside the cookhouse.
“How the hell did they lose the rowboat?” She had a very loud, although not unpleasant voice.
The water churned up behind the boat was aquamarine with white bubbles. Billowing exhaust fumes added a purplish tint to the fog. McLeary was obviously a skilled boat handler, moving easily around the deck to secure the Selkie to the mooring. She pulled in the dinghy, then began rowing ashore with economical oar strokes.
Only now did she catch sight of my Seguin hauled up above the tide line. I was puzzled she hadn’t seen it sooner.
“Whose kayak is this?”
I almost waited too long. I tucked my Beretta inside my dry suit where she wouldn’t see it and advanced down the trail.
“Mine.”
She paused in mid-row and let the plastic oars hang dripping as if she hadn’t entirely heard me. She squinted up the hill. The sight of me, a stranger, provoked instant rage.
“Whoever you are, you’re trespassing on my island. Are you responsible for my missing skiff? Where the hell is my crew?”
Before I could answer, she’d begun rowing back to the Selkie.
“Dr. McLeary! My name is Mike Bowditch. I’m an investigator with the Maine Warden Service.”
It was my impression, based on the quickness with which she tied up the inflatable and scrambled aboard the Selkie, that she hadn’t heard a word I had said.
“Dr. McLeary!”
As she turned the engine key, there was a momentary whine from some petulant warning indicator. With her other hand she grabbed the mic attached to her VHF radio.
“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!” she shouted into the hand unit. “This is Selkie, Selkie, Selkie. This is Selkie. Position is Baker Island, north end. One adult on board. Reporting an unauthorized intruder in restricted area. Male, early thirties, six feet plus in height, approximately one hundred and ninety pounds, dressed in olive-and-orange dry suit. Island research staff won’t answer hails. Repeat: no response from research staff. Intruder used red Lincoln Seguin to access restricted area. Requesting response boat. Selkie is thirty-two-foot cruiser, white hull, white deck. Over.”
I produced my badge and held it out. “I’m a game warden, Dr. McLeary. My name is Mike Bowditch.”
A voice came through the overloud speaker: “Selkie, Selkie, this is Coast Guard Station Boothbay Harbor. Message received. RP-M on the way.”
I had reached the terminus of Plymouth Rock. Still clutching my badge, I raised my hands above my head as if surrendering to overwhelming force. But Maeve McLeary glared at me from the safe distance of her picnic boat.
She must have had clout with the Coast Guard if she could persuade an E-3 to send an armed boat to her rescue without explanation. Hopefully, when the Coasties arrived with their M4 carbines and M60 machine gun, they would be willing to listen to me before they opened fire.