CHAPTER THREE

They set off, the cop making a call on his cell to the island satellite hospital as they crunched down the beach to the boat. Maven was completely aground. Fletcher and Tagliabue went aboard. Tagliabue hated having to look at his old friend’s corpse again, even though it didn’t much remind him of the man who had sailed with him hundreds of times. Joshua had a snarly voice and a face that moved like an ensign rippling in the wind as he argued or cajoled or laughed, until it finally came to droop as a flag did in calm conditions when he settled in for a glass of scotch at the end of a trip. The body on the Maven’s bunk held no resemblance to Joshua White anymore. His spirit was long gone.

Fletcher, the Reluctant Cop, as Tagliabue had taken to thinking of him, gestured vaguely with his hand at the blanket covering the body. Tagliabue peeled it back. Fletcher looked at the body, at its ruined chest and wrinkled face, the cop’s Adam’s apple working like a Lilliputian elevator. Standing two feet away from the corpse, he made no move to touch anything.

“Er, how’d the poor lad come to land on this bunk?”

“I put him there. When I saw the hole in the hull of my boat and realized he would be in the way of repairs.”

The two men were speaking in near whispers, even though mother and son were out of earshot. Constable Fletcher took out his smartphone, began snapping some pictures of the body in situ and taking random shots around the cabin. He picked up shards of what may have been some kind of plastic, tiny lengths of wire, and random bits and pieces that lay about the decking and put it all in a large baggie he had pulled from his pocket. They peered at the body some more and then Fletcher nodded. Tagliabue floated the blanket over Joshua’s remains again and they went topside. They waited in the fresh air until an ambulance puttered slowly down to the dock.

“There’s not a coroner on the island, Anthony. We’ll ship White’s corpse to the mainland.”

They helped two EMTs move the draped body—Jesse looking on with an ashen sheen to his face—and watched it driven away before Fletcher spoke again.

“I’ll e-mail a report. They’ll want to visit with you when you get back to Bath.”

Jesse went off to school while Tagliabue and Agnes Ann gathered material and tools to patch the hull. They worked side by side for almost two hours, speaking only about the work. A thin sun was out and they both began to sweat freely by the time they finished the job. Tagliabue had his shirt off. Flecks of glue and sawdust stuck to his chest. They went back to the house and showered together before spending another two hours in her darkened bedroom.

Later Agnes Ann sat in the living room wearing a flannel robe and slippers. It was an old house; the thick walls kept it cool in the spring for most of the day.

“It feels good to just sit. I’m not used to so much work.”

“Work was it?” Tagliabue asked. He was stretched out on the couch, drowsy from his night at the helm.

She dipped her head, a hint of color coming to her face. He thought she looked ten years younger, and innocent.

“I’m talking about the boat repairs, big man, not you ravishing me.”

“Ravishing?”

That brought a chuckle from Tagliabue and got him to a sitting position. She giggled into the mug she held in both hands. He stretched and groaned, smiling broadly. The smile slowly faded as reality intruded again. They had another risky voyage facing them, and more work to do. They also had to face the mainland police, bury Joshua, and get Francine safely stabled a long way from her home.

He wondered, not for the first time, at the vagaries of human nature. Despite the violent death of a friend and danger he had faced at sea—or maybe because of it—he and Aggie had been wanton in their sex. They’d been apart for two weeks, so that may have had something to do with it, but it occurred to him that he should be feeling some guilt at enjoying life so much when Joshua lay in a hospital morgue.

“Jesse will be home in a minute,” Agnes Ann said. “I’d better get dressed.”

She walked over to Tagliabue and straddled his lap. She let the front of her robe fall open as she held his head to her breast. He felt a stirring, but then she was gone, closing the bedroom door behind her. He shook himself and took the mugs to the kitchen.

When the boy drove the pickup home from school, and after he consumed what seemed to be as many calories as the horse ate following her workout, they found Maven refloated on the second high tide of the day. They moved her back to the pier and made her ready for the most important voyage of her long career. The Maven was an old Coast Guard buoy tender that Tagliabue had converted to a carrier boat. At sixty feet long and beamy, she had a deck winch and cargo space, drew a bit over five feet and was maneuverable inshore with Tagliabue at the helm in the covered conning station that snugged up against her snub nose. He had built a half-sized makeshift stall in the aft section of the open hold; they had to get Francine into the stall for her journey. The entire evolution had to be done away from public scrutiny. If Constable Fletcher had recognized the stable for what it was he had said nothing. Tagliabue blew out a breath and got ready to face a difficult loading and a secret journey.

Jesse walked the horse down. Agnes Ann had administered a sedative to her but she was skittish walking out on the worn pier decking. Mother and son calmed her by stroking her face and muzzle, talking in a constant low-pitched flow. The woman slid a blindfold over the beast’s eyes. Tagliabue fit a double-strap harness around her belly, watching her sharp hooves as he worked even though Francine was used to being saddled and handled. She moved her feet but did not otherwise protest. He clipped the harness rings to the winch cable and took up the slack slowly. The filly started when the winch engine cranked up and stood twitching when the straps pulled tight. The humans all kept their distance.

“She seem comfortable enough, Aggie? If she starts kicking in the air we could have a mess in a hurry. I don’t know how much strain this old rigging can handle.”

Mother looked at her son, who answered Tagliabue: “Maybe give her another minute, Mr. T. I think she’ll be all right.”

Tagliabue kept the winch motor running. The horse began to rest against the straps as the barbiturate kicked in. Her head slowly drooped. At Jesse’s signal, Tagliabue worked the winch lever slowly and the horse lifted off the pier. He upped the power and the three of them began to move quickly, mother and son steadying the animal while Tagliabue swung the winch aboard and lowered it. The horse was soon standing on the boat deck. When he slackened the cable, she swayed. Jesse put his shoulder to her flank and took some of her weight. Tagliabue dropped the straps and the three of them forced the horse into the stall, he and Aggie linking hands around the horse’s buttocks and hauling her forward while the boy pulled her by the halter. Dragging her hooves, Francine clopped into the structure and rested against one wall. She nickered softly.

Tagliabue had fitted a rubber mat designed for a pickup’s bed to the floor and covered it with a thick layer of straw. Jesse stayed in the stall with his drugged filly while Tagliabue and Agnes Ann secured the winch and made the vessel ready for sea. They had less than an hour before the sun went down.

They set off into the gloaming on a falling tide, Maven rolling easily on long, reaching swells. When Tagliabue turned his cell back on he saw two messages from a sheriff’s detective in Bath, both asking him to call. The second seemed a bit more testy in tone than the first. He saw the blinking lights of a small plane heading into the regional airfield on Westfarrow and wondered if that could be sheriff’s investigators. Calling the number on his cell, he left a message saying he was at sea and would call in at the sheriff’s office when he put ashore, about midmorning.

Agnes Ann went aft to check on her son and her horse. She was smiling when she returned.

“Both of them sleeping the sleep of the innocent,” she said. “Ain’t life grand?”

“Amen, sister.”

Hours passed. Tagliabue kept the throttles moderated so the noise and motion of the boat were easy. He and Agnes Ann took turns napping in the conning chairs. It was unsatisfactory sleep, often interrupted and uncomfortable. Neither wanted to go below to a bunk.

When the sun came up to a clear cool morning, Jesse scuffed his way into the wheelhouse scratching his unruly curls. The sedative was wearing off, he said. Francine was beginning to move around. He ate the remaining two sandwiches for breakfast while the adults smiled and settled for a third pot of coffee.

“How long before we put ashore?” Agnes Ann asked.

“Maybe an hour.”

Armed with that estimate, she and her son went back to the stall to give the horse another shot, one that would last through the offloading procedure. Leaving Jesse with the horse, Agnes Ann went farther aft and stood on the fantail, watching the churning wake Maven carved through the pool of molten bronze made by the early sun. Tagliabue saw her standing there and wondered to himself what she was thinking.