BECAUSE OF THE WEATHER and the constant possibility of some sort of emergency, she no longer dressed up for work at her desk. Now it was usually an old wool skirt and a sweater under the jacket she’d found in the work room, and boots loosely laced to step into and out of.
In the morning after her office phone calls the storm had lessened, and she was in the forest again, tacking the last name signs to trees. On one of the white pines a large branch about fifteen feet up had cracked and was hanging down. She brought half the extension ladder and the handsaw, and wrangled the ladder up against the tree and climbed it. Not until she was up there did she realize that this was not something she should be doing, standing fifteen feet up on an unsteady ladder with no one holding it, sawing away at a branch.
Earlier, on the phone, Hugh had been testy, and he’d asked when she was finally coming back.
“I think you’ve been gone long enough, Margaret,” he’d said. “I want you back in person here with us, okay? Attending meetings, answering your bloody phone, not a thousand miles away, but with your ass, if you’ll pardon the expression, in your chair behind your desk. Is that clear? So when? I want a firm date.”
“How about right after Thanksgiving, Hughie. It’s only a week away.”
“Don’t Hughie me on this one. I want you back here.”
“Okay. But just another week, Hugh. Please. I promise. Absolutely.”
He’d grumbled a bit more, but in the end he’d agreed.
The saw kept binding and she had to pause often. Eventually the branch came off and crashed to the ground. Resin on her hands, scrapes, and a long sliver driven in just now from somewhere.
The branch was big, much bigger on the ground than it had looked up in the tree. She would have to drag it somewhere and chop it up, but she wasn’t ready to deal with that now.
She put away the ladder and then sat for a while in her favourite spot on the rock shelf, with her eyes closed and salt air blowing into her face.
One reason she was in no hurry to fly back to Toronto was that she was making progress here. Inner progress. The previous day in this very spot she had fully accepted for the first time that what had happened with Andrew could never be undone. Never changed. Never. That the only thing she could ever hope to change was how she saw it. If she found a way.
She stood up and walked back to the house and showered. She used a needle and tweezers on the sliver, then rubbing alcohol and a Band-Aid.
When she came out of the bathroom, the phone rang. It was the inspector telling her they had found the missing boat, and a salvage operation was underway. He told her where it was and said that Sullivan was already there.
She ate a bite of lunch and then changed into her coat and street shoes and got into the Buick. She took the highway south and followed the turnoff to Rag Bay and then the two-track, and before long she saw the cars and the tractor and a boat trailer. She pulled over in the weeds and climbed out. The trailer was half submerged and they were winching a Cape Islander onto it, and as it came up and met the rollers, water gushed from a great hole low in the starboard bow and from another hole closer to the stern.
She stood next to Sully, watching, and nearby the same diver was leaning against his van, pulling off his wetsuit legs.
“A birdwatcher saw the top of the antenna mast sticking out at low tide,” said Sully.
By mid-afternoon the boat was in Telford Herman’s yard, and Sully had run police tape around the shed. Sorensen had arrived, and now he and Sully were up in the boat, inspecting it with hand lights. No one else was allowed in the shed.
“That’s Fergie’s boat,” Telford said to her. “Pat Ferguson. The cops don’t want to say, but we know. We been keeping his engine running. It’s an old Volvo job. Cast iron. Lasts forever. Do you know him?”
“I do. When his wife was still alive I got my eggs from her. Good brown eggs.”
“Mrs. Herman got them there too. When Helen passed he tried to keep the egg business going, but he didn’t know the first thing about chickens or eggs. And he hasn’t been fishing in years, not since the licences became so hard to get. But he knows the water and where the wildlife is and the diving spots, and so he takes tourists out for his upkeep. In the winters we hauled and stored his boat for free eggs and then for nothing.”
Minutes later Sorensen came down the ladder.
“Any sign of him?” said Telford.
“Can’t say. What would cause that damage?”
“Rocks. Wave action against rocks, if the boat got away. I’d say it’s been on the bottom for some time. Not just a few days. From all the mud and silt. Many tides washing through it.”
“How long?” said Sorensen.
“Weeks.”
“That could be. Is it fixable?”
“Probably. Cost a bit, but it’s still a decent boat. A bit weird with that add-on cabin, but some people might like that. I’d have to take a closer look. But just so you know, I don’t want it in my shed for too long because the shed makes money. We can get it out and up on a cradle in the back.”
“No, we can’t,” said Sorensen. “I need to bring in forensics, and they’ll take a very close look. We’ll pay you the same day rate we paid for Danny’s boat. You just call the office, Telford. For now the boat gets locked up and Sergeant Sullivan will post a guard.”
She followed Sorensen to his car. Daylight was fading. He opened the trunk and sat on the chrome bumper while he pulled off the rubber boots and put his leather shoes back on and tied the laces. He looked weary to her.
“It’s Pat Ferguson, isn’t it?” she said. “Telford recognized the boat.”
“Yes, it is. Do you know him?”
“Everybody knows him. He must have been on your list of right boats and right skills.”
“Yes, he was on our list. We just couldn’t find him. Or his boat.”
“Maybe they took it and then got rid of it.”
“I don’t think so. They weren’t sailors.”
“Maybe they threatened him. Forced him to take them out.”
“Possibly. Or promised him money.”
He finished with his shoes and stood up.
“Forensics will find even the smallest remaining trace of what went on. Signs of struggle. Blood. Bullet holes. In the meantime we’ll keep looking for him. But I think we all know what went on here.”
“Do we?”
He reached for his boots, set them in the trunk and closed the lid hard. He turned around to look at her. “Do you know John Patrick Croft, Mrs. Bradley?”
“I do.”
“Maybe go and talk to him. Tell him about today.”