Bob was sitting stooped at the table, head in hands. I put my hand on his shoulder.
“What’s going on?” I asked. Bob shrugged his shoulder. “Pain?”
“Yeah.”
“Should I call your doctor or anybody else?”
“No. And don’t let my friends know. I don’t want anybody to know. Promise me. The pain’ll pass. It usually does. I’ve got some pills; they’re in the cabinet above the sink. Get me three and screw the label.”
I gave him my word and I did what he asked. The label read take two tablets every 3–4 hours when needed, not to exceed 8 tablets in 24 hours. I poured a glass of water and returned to Bob.
He swallowed all three with a few sips of water. “I need to go to bed,” he said. “These should knock me out for awhile.”
Once he was in bed, I returned to the kitchen. Without morphine, there’d be no sailing. No question that the pain would increase. But where to get it? I couldn’t leave him alone. And that idiot on the porch, what the hell would I do with him? Bob’s friends would take care of him in the morning, but then what? Maybe Bob’s buddies would know what to do. I heard Bob moan and went to his side. He was in a fetal position. Soft moans came with each breath, interspersed now and then with groans. Oh God, how helpless I felt.
As I paced, I was hailed by Roberts. “Mr. Lambert, is everything okay in there?”
That put me over the top. Maybe I should get the maul and finish this pathetic bastard. I came out of the door like a bull ready to gore. Roberts cowered.
“Easy,” he said. “I didn’t mean to pry, but…”
“But what?” I asked, trying hard to control myself.
“Something’s wrong. I heard moaning.”
“Mind your own fucking business,” I said.
“Wait,” Roberts said. “I know what you think of me, but let me try to explain. Let me just try to turn the clock back with all this. I’m wrong. I’ve been wrong. I screwed up, I know it. You’re right. I can’t seem to let the past be the past. I want to, believe me. Pulling a gun on you, my God, I regretted it the moment I did it. I’m amazed you didn’t squash me against the dock. I’ll go to Stone Island, willingly. But right now, I give you my word: I will not try to return you to Sunset. As far as I’m concerned, you’re missing and that’s that. I’m sorry.”
“All this because you heard a moan? You think I’m nuts enough to believe anything you say?”
A heavy groan came from the cabin. I reached over and closed the door.
“There,” Roberts said. “That’s what I’m talking about. I know what that sound is. I know it because that’s how my grandfather sounded when he was dying. Come on, what’s going on here? Can I help? I’m no good to you chained up. How can I gain your trust?”
I remained silent for some time. Roberts had been in his I’ll help mode before. I admit, his tone was different, but trust him? That was asking a lot. The thing of it is, with Bob suddenly going downhill, letting Roberts go might be a blessing. He’d rat me out, of that I was certain. But so what? If he showed up with the law, at least Bob might get some help and I would’ve kept my promise not to tell anyone. I wouldn’t go back to Sunset, I promised myself that much, but I’d figure it out. I’ve always been able to figure it out.
“Years ago,” Roberts said calmly, “I tracked down this kid accused of killing his aunt and uncle along with two cousins. He was sixteen years old. I found him in Dubuque, Iowa working as a dishwasher at a local resort. He was living under an overpass. During my investigation, I became convinced that this kid was innocent. All of the evidence pointed to a vagrant who had wandered by this farmhouse in the middle of a Kansas cornfield. The district attorney, though, was not to be convinced. No matter what evidence I threw at him, he held fast. Get the kid, he told me. Let justice do its work. Well, I did. I took the kid in and you know what? He was convicted. I still wake up with that one. The kid was tried as an adult and executed. I should have let him go.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, except that letting you off might somehow ease my guilt over that case. You know, watching you and Bob do your thing, I’m a bit jealous. You’re so damn free. Maybe it’s time for me to look out of the windshield instead of through the rearview mirror, as you said. Maybe things would go better. Do you remember saying that to me?” I nodded. “Well, it struck home. So did your comments about me someday being in a nursing home. Look, what I’m trying to say is, just let me help.”
“Let me think about it,” I said.
I went inside. Bob looked relaxed now. I stroked his brow. It felt like he had a slight fever. His breathing was labored. Now and then he gave a moan, but they were soft, almost purrs. The bedroom was sparsely furnished with what appeared to be homemade furniture. His dresser top was covered with photographs. His wife, kids in various stages of life, Bob standing on his boat with a large lobster in each hand, a yellowed photo of a couple, maybe his parents. I pulled a chair up alongside his bed and sat down. I nodded off. When I awoke, Bob was still fast asleep. He was snoring, which made me smile. Whenever he and I had gone cruising, his snoring nearly drove me crazy. I’d taken to carrying earplugs whenever he came aboard. But not now, his snoring was the best music I’d heard in some time.
I rummaged through the kitchen and came up with some lunch meat and a few slices of bread. I made two crude sandwiches and went back to the porch. I gave one to Roberts and, taking the other with me, walked down to my boat. I climbed aboard and ate my lunch in the cockpit. My first and only concern at this point was helping Bob get through the pain and that meant getting my hands on some morphine. I went back to the porch.
“Morphine,” I said to Roberts
“What about it?”
“Can you get your hands on morphine?”
“That’s not easy to do.”
“Yeah, you think I don’t know that? Can you get it?” I repeated.
Roberts took a deep breath and nodded, “Maybe.”
“I need more than that.”
“Portland. If I could get to Portland, I’d probably find some on the streets.”
“Just how do you do that?”
“FBI does it all the time. Find drugs, I mean. Once you get onto it, dealers are easy to spot. The problem is that dealers are as good at spotting agents as we are at spotting them.”
“What are you telling me?”
“I’ll need some cash; a couple grand would do it. I’ve been down this route before. Of course, I was wearing a wire back then. Tricky stuff, but with luck, I could be back here tomorrow. The question is, how do I get to Portland?”
“I’d give you my tender. A Zodiac with a thirty-horse power motor. Goes like hell. But could you find your way?”
“Without fog, I could. How about I use the inflatable to run back to the boat rental place, get my rental car, and go from there.”
“What boat rental place?”
Roberts told me the story about wrecking the Boston Whaler.
“It seems to me that the boat rental people are going to be asking a lot of questions if you come sauntering up to their dock in a Zodiac.”
“Not if I land the boat and just go get the car. There’s an abandoned lighthouse just around the corner from the rental. I could land there, get the car and be on my way. Can you find my keys? Your partner put them somewhere.”
“Yeah, I saw your keys on the kitchen counter. I’ll get them when I go back inside. Are you sure that you can be back here early tomorrow morning?”
“If things go well, maybe even tonight.”
His plan seemed plausible. He even sounded enthusiastic, a chance to practice the profession he’d never mentally left. I went back into the cabin, picked up Roberts’ car keys and went into Bob’s bedroom. He was sleeping like a baby. I checked in his pants pocket, found the padlock key, and went back to unchain Roberts.
Free of the chain, Roberts went through a series of stretching exercises, deep knee bends, back twists, swinging arms, neck bobs, the whole gambit. He wound up the routine with a bunch of push-ups, ending by flipping over on his back to pull one knee then the other up to chin and back down. About to get up, he asked, “How about a hand?”
I reached out to him and in a split second, I was on my back with Roberts on top of me. His eyes shot darts. He grabbed my wrists and twisted my arms above my head. Pain shot through my shoulders and down the length of my back. “Listen, you creep,” Roberts said, his spittle spraying my face, “You mess with the FBI, this is what you get.” He let go of my left arm and slapped me hard across the face. I grabbed his hair, tried to knee his back, yelled as loudly as I could, but it was of no use. His hands grasped my throat. “Resisting arrest,” he hissed, bearing down. “You don’t do that to a federal officer.” His hands tightened.
I was on the verge of passing out when felt something warm splashed over my face. Roberts’ grip eased. I gasped for air. His body slumped forward, twisting and writhing on top of me. I was caught in a nightmarish tangle of snakes. I struggled to breath. I tasted blood as a gush of viscous fluid cascaded over my face and neck. Roberts’ shuddering body fell to the side. Vomiting, I twisted away from it, grabbing long, noisy breaths before settling into steady inhales and exhales.
When I looked up, there was Bob standing over Roberts’ body, a blood-covered maul in his right hand, an odd look in his eye. It was a look I hoped never to see again and one I knew I’d never forget.
Bob looked at me. A long silence passed between us before he finally said, “Let’s get you cleaned up. We have some work to do.”
Setting the maul aside, Bob leaned down and helped me to my feet. Now still, Roberts’s body lay face down. A jagged crater the depth of the maul’s head had been chopped in the center of his shoulder blades. Bits of exposed vertebrae were embedded in bloody flesh and torn cloth. I turned to the porch rail and threw up again. Never in my life had I seen such gore, such absolute destruction of the human body. I wiped my mouth. “My God Bob, we just killed a man. Wasn’t there another way?”
“I just killed a man,” Bob shot back. “Not you. But, I’d rather look at it like I was saving your life, not taking his.”
“Self-defense?”
“Yeah, you could say that.” Bob moved to cover the corpse with the old army blanket. “Let it go, Charlie. Let’s go inside and get you cleaned up.”
I said, “Wait, Bob. I’ve never been involved in a killing before. Shouldn’t we at least call the police, I mean let somebody know about this?”
Bob walked to the far end of the porch, as far as he could go from Robert’s body. He turned, staring me in the eye.
“You say that like I enjoyed myself—like I’m a serial killer or something. For the record, this is a first for me and I don’t enjoy being treated like I’m some deranged murderer. Can’t you ever just understand that life is something that happens, that we’re not in charge of every goddamn thing under the sun? Roberts was a nutcase, pure and simple. He couldn’t get over growing old. For Christ sake, the bastard would’ve killed you!”
Poking his finger at me, he raged on, “Suppose I was the one being choked to death, what would you’ve done? Asked Roberts to please stop hurting your friend? Call for Mommy? What the hell was I supposed to do, tap him on the shoulder? If you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit weak these days. If I didn’t take him out with one blow, he could have killed us both.
“So, go ahead,” Bob said sarcastically, “make the call. But before you do, here’s some facts. First, the police will come out here, ask all sorts of questions. Forget the sailing trip; we’ll be tied up with inquests, district attorneys, lawyers, detectives. Newspaper folk will descend on my island like hungry black flies. Second, you’ll be back in Sunset faster than a cat shot in the ass. Third, I’ll be dead before the legal wheel turns half-way. So, go ahead and make your call if makes you feel better.” Bob side-armed me out of the way, grabbed the screen door, and disappeared inside.
Stunned, I moved to the side of the porch away from Roberts’ corpse. I looked down at That Good Night. My first impulse was to jump aboard. Hide myself from myself. I want life to be simple. I’ve always wanted that. But life isn’t simple, is it? All I wanted was to get out of Sunset and enjoy my remaining days sailing. But no, my kids abandon me, my best friend is dying, I was just nearly killed. And now instead of praising Bob for saving my life, I challenge him. Life is a series of decisions. We have choices to make right up to the end, that is if we still have the guts or wherewithal to make them. Back at Sunset, we were denied choice. We ate what they gave us, didn’t get to go shopping, went to bed and woke up according to a schedule. Hell, life without choice is no life at all. Bob’s right of course, calling the police or anyone else about killing Roberts would be the end of it.
I caught a whiff of myself. Vomit, the coppery smell of blood, and God knows what else. My shirt looked like it was tie-dyed by a butcher.
I went into the cabin. Bob was sitting with his elbows on the table, his head bowed and cupped in his hands.
Without moving, he said, “Sorry about all that. Caught up in it, I guess.”
“You did the right thing, Bob. There was no alternative. And as far as calling the police, I was way off base. Can we go on from here?”
“Yup,” was all Bob had to say.
“So,” I asked, “how did you know I was in trouble out there? You were sound asleep when I left your bedroom.”
“You wake a dead man when you go through his pockets,” he answered.
“The key?” I asked.
“Yup,” Bob said, slowly getting up from his chair, and giving me a grin that made everything seem as right as rain. “Why don’t you get cleaned up,” he said. “Those clothes will have to go into the burn barrel. While you’re in the shower, I’ll go down to your boat and get some fresh stuff. There’s a bottle of mouthwash in the medicine chest. I suggest that you use it.”
I went through a half bottle of Listerine before my mouth felt even close to being clean. Hearing my gargling, Bob popped into the bathroom to hand me a tall glass of Black Grouse. “You need this,” he said, leaving. I took a few healthy swigs. I stayed in the shower until the hot water gave out. I could have used another half hour, and knew that I wouldn’t feel clean for a long time. Bob called to me that he had my change of clothes, which he had brought up from the boat. “Found these,” he said dangling up a sexy red thong through the partially opened bathroom door. “Pretty good time in Boston, huh?” he teased. I grabbed them and let it go at that. How Bob was able to joke after going from abject pain to a snooze to killing a man was beyond me, but Bob is Bob and may he never change. Washed and dressed, I joined him at the table.
“I guess that we better clean up,” I suggested, gesturing toward the porch.
“No need right now, Charlie. Friends are on the way. We’ve had enough struggles for one day. Go down to that boat of yours and take a nap, maybe snuggle up with that thong, slip it over your head for all I care,” he laughed. I just shook my head and left. On my way out, I focused my eyes straight ahead. One look at That Good Night with her promise of safety and solace was all I needed.
I woke up from my nap to the heavy throbbing of a turbo diesel and looked out of the companionway. A lobster boat was tying up behind That Good Night. Three men hopped off the boat. Though the weather was clear, they were dressed in yellow foul weather gear. They headed up to Bob’s cabin. I gave a thought to joining them, but the thought of the gruesome act of cleaning up the porch killed that idea.
About an hour later once the mess was taken care of, Bob called down to me to come up and meet his friends: Francis Jensen, Earl Honauer, and Dustin Adams, all retired lobstermen, each hitting their mid-seventies. I was the interloper as they exchanged one fishing story after another: traps wrecked after storms; the idiots that moved in on their territories only to find their traps destroyed; the varying price of lobster, the big four pounders. They talked of boats and engines and stories of wives and children, families stretching back generations. They were shocked over Maine property value reaching unimaginable heights and didn’t like the idea that our government was ungovernable. But not once in all this conversation did talk of the disposal of Roberts’ body cross their lips. The porch was as clean as a pin; all signs of Roberts having been there were gone. When I asked about it, I got cold stares. Bob offered that Roberts must have died at sea. His battered rental from Dinger’s Rentals was already reported to the coast guard. Martha Dinger confirmed that Roberts had rented the boat. The rowboat was returned to Hi Fabinham as if it had never left his property. A search was on. Maybe Roberts’ body would wash up, maybe not. That’s the way it goes in tidal Bay of Fundy.
I could sense that Bob was experiencing the onset of pain. He affirmed my suspicion when he got up and, excusing himself, went inside. I followed, letting the lobstermen get back to storytelling. Bob took three more pills and headed to his bedroom.
“Tell the guys I have a stomach virus and went to bed. They’ll understand.” I nodded and told him that I’d check in on him later. I left his room and returned to the porch.
The lobstermen were standing at the sturdy railing peering down at That Good Night. “Pretty fancy boat you got there,” Earl commented. “Draw a lot?”
“Five feet,” I said.
“Pretty good for such a big boat. How long is she anyway?” Francis asked.
“She’s forty-six feet overall,” I answered.
“Bob says you single-hand. A bit of a chore, I’d say,” he said.
“Not bad once you get used to it. She has a lot of extras that make it doable.”
Conversation bogged down and the four us just stared straight ahead. There just wasn’t a lot we had in common.
Francis broke the silence with a bit of sarcasm: “I guess we better be on our way. I hope the Coast Guard finds that guy. It can get pretty lonely floating around Fundy.” Muffled chuckles all around. I ignored the macabre banter.
I joined the three guys for the walk down to the dock. About ready to climb aboard their boat, Dustin paused and asked, “So tell me, what’s going on with Bob? Doesn’t seem himself. Hasn’t for some time.”
“I think he has some kind of virus,” I lied.
The three men looked at each other, then Dustin continued, “Look, Charlie, we don’t mean to pry, but that’s no virus. We’ve known Bob since grammar school, fished with him, our families grew up together. Why, we’re as close as twins in a womb. Now, Bob’s always been the quiet sort, keeps his cards pretty close to his chest. If you know something that we don’t know that would help that stubborn mule, why not just come out and say it.”
Here I was being stared at by three of the most honest, hardworking men on this earth—albeit now involved in a conspiracy to dispose of a corpse—and lying to them. Well, I just couldn’t do it. Breaking the promise I made to Bob was a serious matter, but watching him suffer was worse. “Cancer,” I said hoarsely. “Bob has cancer.”
“How far along?” Francis asked matter-of-factly.
“I’m not sure. He said it’s spread and that he doesn’t have much time left. He asked me take him on one last sailing cruise. That’s all I really know.”
Of course, you can imagine how somber all this was, the four of us standing on Bob’s dock realizing that each of us in our way was about to lose a dear friend. Earl had turned away to dab his eyes, not willing to let his friends see his tears.
“There’s got to be something we can do. Hell, we just can’t let the man suffer,” he said.
I said, “Bob made me promise that I wouldn’t tell a soul, so whatever you do, you’ve got to act like you’ve come upon this on your own.”
“Oh hell, that’s Bob all right, stoic as a terrier meeting a grizzly,” Francis said.
“There is one thing you might help with, but it’s a long shot,” I said. “Morphine. If I could get some morphine, it would ease Bob’s pain, which is going to get a lot worse.”
Earl rejoined us. His eyes were red and swollen. “Morphine?” he said. “They gave that to my mother during her last days. It works with the pain, but it sure put her down.”
“More than the pain?” I asked.
“Well now,” Earl came back, “You got a point there. Let’s just say she was better off being in another world.”
“How soon do we need to get it?” Francis asked
“As soon as possible,” I said. “With the investigator ‘lost at sea,’ we’re free to go on that last voyage. I’d like to depart tomorrow if we could.”
Dustin jumped in, “We can get some. There’s always ways.” The others nodded their head in agreement.
“It’ll be expensive,” I said.
“You let us worry about that, Charlie. We’ll take care of that. You take care of Bob,” Francis said.
“Bob can’t know where I got it. How do you plan to get it to me before we leave?”
“What time you casting off?” Francis asked.
“I’ll take the tide out; I think it’s around ten.”
“We’ll be here to send you off. We can get it to you then.”
Before jumping aboard the lobster boat, Earl approached me.
“Hey Charlie,” he said, “when we were getting that guy ready, you know up on the porch, I had to, well, uh, lift him up some. Oh, the looks of that fella wasn’t something to talk about in church, I’ll tell you that. I used his belt, well, like he was a suitcase and his belt was a handle and the dang buckle snapped open and came right off in my hand. Now, I think this here buckle is some strange gizmo because when I fiddled with the flicker thing, a teensy light on the back lit up green.
“Here, I’ll show you.” With that Earl flipped the post back and forth, and sure enough, a pinhole sized light flickered green.
“Thanks, Earl. You did good work. I’ll have to check it out,” I said, pocketing the device. Thinking of the tiny FBI gun Roberts pulled on me, my guess is that this new find had something to do with his investigation. I made a mental note to examine it once I had a moment.
Without another word, Earl undid the bow line and jumped aboard. Francis cranked the engine, and in a plume of diesel exhaust, they were off.
I climbed aboard That Good Night and went below to cook up some soup for Bob. Cook? Hell, I heated up a can of Campbell’s and headed back to the cabin. Bob was sleeping. I put the heated soup on the cold stove, and then went to his side. His snoring let me know that pain was not an issue. I returned to the kitchen and stuck a note on the pot that he should just heat and eat. As I was about to leave, Bob called my name. He was sitting up when I reentered his bedroom. “Good sleep?” I asked.
“Slept more in the last three days than I did during my entire lifetime. Don’t like it. There’s work to be done.” The minute he stood, he teetered and plopped back down on the edge of the bed. “Do me a favor, he said. “In the third drawer in the dresser is a yellow envelope. Can you get it for me?” I did as he asked and handed the envelope over to him. “This,” he said, “is important.” For the next half hour, Bob explained that the envelope contained his last will and testament. “All signed and legal,” he said proudly. “Giving some of my stuff to the kids and the church, but this here island is going to The Nature Conservancy. Those deer out there are the real owners, but they sure as hell can’t hold a deed. Folks at the Conservancy, they’ll do right by these creatures. Lawyer has the originals; he’ll handle everything. All I need is for you to call him when the time comes, his number’s on the front of the envelope, right here,” he pointed. It read Arden Schmidt, Esq., followed by an address and phone number. I asked Bob why he was giving me the envelope. “You never know. If old Arden dies or gets killed before I do, you have the back up.”
“And what’s the likelihood of that happening?” I asked.
“Snowball’s chance.” Bob snorted.
I took the envelope. “How about some soup?”
“Yup, that’d be good.”
“Let me heat it up for you before I head back to the boat.”
“No, Charlie, you did enough for one day. I can get by.”
Hoping that the lobstermen would show up with the morphine in time for us to depart, I said. “We can leave on the voyage tomorrow if you’re up to it.”
“Yup,” he said. “We can.”
We said goodnight and I returned to my boat. Before turning in, I grabbed a can of tuna and ate it right out of the can. That night, I slept the sleep of the dead, Abigail’s thong tucked under my pillow, stuffy cradled in my arms.