The Whale's Footprints - Rick Boyer (26 page)

"
So? So what do you think?"

"If the two B and Es are not connected, then the
break-in here was done by some young druggie, or druggies, strung out
and needing quick cash. That's what I think."

He nodded and stretched out his huge, hairy legs,
which, for him, were deadly pale. "Yeah, fine. But because a
strange little voice keeps telling us, we've been assuming that the B
and Es are related. This little voice that won't go away keeps saying
that the same person or persons did both jobs, looking for something
that wasn't a radio, that the stolen radio was just an afterthought?

"That's what I think, too."

"And you're also saying it might not be
Hartzell. And I'm beginning to agree. So where do we go now?"

I shrugged, chewing. "Who knows? Maybe back to
the Henderson family."

"Why them?" asked Mary.

"
Because they're the link that fits best. They,
at least Alice, seem to be in the center of this whole affair. Terry
is roughly the same age as the kid who pawned the radio. I'm not
saying that he did it; I'm saying that he's the right age, in the
right place, at the right time, and he knew Andy."

"But you've already talked to Alice, Doc. And
Keegan's interviewed Terry, too. In depth."

"Then I guess it's our turn."

"You have no authority," said Moe, trying
to remove a bit of apricot skin, or bean sprout, or some damn thing,
from his teeth.

"I do have authority. I am the interim medical
examiner for Barnstable County. So there."

"Big deal," Moe sniffed. "Dat doesn't
cut any ice wid me."

"Well I'm not interviewing you. So go eat your
steamed grass and shut up."
 

NINETEEN

Eye—eeeeeee! . . . Eeeee-yonk.' . . . Yonk, yonk,
yonk yonk!

The big herring gull glided in over us with delicate
rowing motions of its long wings, then fanned them forward against
the air as it stopped its flight above the trawler's mast, extended
its over-sized, ducklike feet, and settled down there twenty feet
above the deck, moving its head around in little jerks, looking out
over Penzance Point.

Joe and I were standing on the afterdeck of the
Highlander
, the
sixty-foot stern trawler owned by William Henderson, father of Alice
and Terry. The vessel's hailing port, listed under her name, was
Falmouth. But now she was berthed in Woods Hole, at the fishing docks
west of the MBL. The senior Henderson was ashore at the moment, but
Terry was sitting on the engine housing near the big winch drums,
looking up at us nervously. I took my eyes off the noisy gull and
looked down at the boy.

"I know Lieutenant Keegan already talked to
you," said Joe softly. He has a great bedside manner when he
wants to turn it on. Usually he begins an interview in this fashion,
resorting to the tough cop routine only when he meets resistance.
Clearly, we had Terry Henderson's attention.

"What we want to find out now is, who would want
to break into Andy and Jack's room, and maybe also into the Adams's
cottage up near Wellfleet?"

The kid shrugged and bit his lower lip lightly,
nervously. "I don't know. I kinda thought that old man Hartzell
was a good shot at it, you wanta know. But see, I'm not really with
that group at the labs; I work for my dad on the boats and stuff. I
don't really know what's going on there; the only time I see those
guys is at some of the beach parties."

"What guys?"

"You know, Jack, Tom McDonnough, the younger
guys at the lab. We see each other at some of the parties. My sister
helped get us together, kinda."

"Where is Alice now?"

"She's out on the
Westward
again. We haven't seen her in two days."

"And you have no idea at all who would've wanted
to kill Andy?" I asked.

"No. Like I said before, knowing Andy, I can't
believe it was anybody in their right mind, you know? So that's why,
when they tagged that old nut, I thought he might be the one."

We heard a thump from the
Highlanders
bow, looked up through the wheelhouse, and saw a big, ruddy,
white-blond man walking aft with heavy, deliberate steps. He glanced
in at the three of us and frowned.

"Something wrong? What's this?"

"Dad, these guys are asking about Andy
Cunningham again," said Terry.

"Oh really now," the big man said, setting
down a cardboard carton on the engine housing. "Well gentlemen,
that's nice and all, that you're so concerned, but I've got a
business to run. That boy's been dead now going on two weeks. We're
all sorry, but life goes on."

He offered his hand and we introduced ourselves. Bill
Henderson was the owner of the
Highlander
and apparently several other boats as well. He was half a head taller
than I am, which made him at least six four. And he was solid, too.
His hands were big, rough, warm, and dry. After we shook hands,
Henderson returned to the carton, taking out a can of grease, prying
it open with a wide screwdriver, and scooping out big globs of the
greenish-brown jelly, which he smeared on the winch axles.

"
Goddamn salt air is pure hell on metal,"
he grunted. "Even the new alloys that are supposed to
be—ummmph.' shit!—supposed to be corrosion resistant. Terry, go
into the wheelhouse and start this up," he said, almost under
his breath. But before he'd even finished, the boy, so casual to most
people, was on his feet and making a beeline for the wheelhouse. We
heard the twin diesels rev up and watched the drums turn, then
reverse. Bill Henderson made minor adjustments, primed the axles with
more slick goop, and ordered the winches switched off.

"
I think I heard a strange thing about this
Cunningham kid," said Henderson as he lighted a cigarette, then
tapped the grease can's top back in place with the screwdriver's
butt. "Somebody happened to mention to me—was it you
Terry?—that the kid owed some money. Or something like that. What
was it anyway, Terry?"

The kid shrugged his shoulders, and his old man
squinted at him. There was the look of interrogation in that squint.
Terry just shook his head vaguely.

"Wasn't it you who told me? Goddammit! Who the
hell was it?"

Bap! Bap! Bap! He tapped the can harder in his
frustration. His son's jaw fell slack, and again he shrugged.

"Well anyway, I heard this scuttlebutt, and it
could be pure bullshit, that the kid was in hock. Pretty deep in
hock, and that he—"

"Can you remember where you heard it?"
asked Joe. "This could be important."

"Well, I'm trying. I thought it was Terry, or
Alice, or one of the kids. Hell, Dr. Adams, it coulda been your kid.
Naw . . . no wait—He rose, grabbed the can of grease, and went
forward to stow it in a locker. He came back almost immediately,
leaving scarcely a lull in the conversation. For such a big man, he
moved with a lot of speed and grace. But as he sat down, he was
breathing faster. "Aw hell, I can't remember, but it was
somebody. Anyhow, it just made me think that the kid wasn't what he—"

Henderson was looking past us; something had
momentarily caught his eye. But in a flash, he seemed to wave it off
and kept muttering about "outside elements."

"You know what I'm saying, right Lieutenant? I
mean, it seems like everybody's questioning all of us in the
community. And you're all wondering why it doesn't make too much
sense and you're not getting anywhere. You ask me, you're not looking
far enough away from home. But shit, what do I know? I'm just another
one of life's chumps, tryin' to rub two nickels together-- excuse me
a sec—"

He hustled down the Highlanders gangplank and across
the dock, moving with that same driving speed I found so remarkable
for a man his size. Looking beyond the docks, I saw that a big navy
blue Mercedes had pulled up into the asphalt parking area. The
driver, a plump, well-dressed, white-haired gentleman, leaned against
the door, facing us. He was dressed in what I'd call rich-casual. I
saw him flip his left arm up, brush back the sleeve of his blazer
with his right hand, check a gold watch on his wrist, and lower the
arm again. Bill Henderson came up to the man and they started talking
without shaking hands. That meant they knew each other well, or had
seen each other often. I turned around and saw Joe busy watching two
young women padding along Albatross Street in bikinis. By the time I
turned around again, the Mercedes was rolling away and the senior
Henderson was trudging aboard his boat again.

I went aft and stared along the ramp cut into the
Highlanders
rear deck
that sloped down to the water's surface. The nets were played out and
hauled in right up the stern. Hence the name: stern trawler. We
Americans finally got the hang of building these efficient boats
after spending twenty years watching the Koreans, East Germans,
Russians, and Japanese use them to slurp up all our fish. We were
catching up, slowly but surely. Even so, the two-hundred-mile
limit—excluding foreign craft from our rich coastal waters—hadn't
come along any too soon.

"
No, I tell ya I can't remember," I heard
Henderson saying to Joe. He said it like this: cahnt. I swept my eyes
around the big boat. I didn't want to ask permission to go below, but
I knew there would be berths there for four, five, maybe as many as
eight crew members. And then there were those big twin diesels, and
all that navigation gear: radar, Loran, SATNAV, ASDIC, sonar depth
sounders, sonar fish finders. Two-way radios . . . the works. What
was I looking at? Half a million? Eight hundred thou? A mil and a
half? What?

"No," Henderson continued in his boomy
baritone. "Seems to me somebody saw a Mafia wagon around. Aw
hell, don't lissen a' me Lieutenant. What do I know?"

I went up to where the two men were standing near the
wheel-house. Joe was putting away his notebook. He stuck his hands
into his pants pockets and shrugged. Then Henderson leaned over and
pointed a big finger at his chest.

"Hey. Not to get nosey or anythin', but I
thought that other guy was workin on this thing."

"Paul Keegan? Yeah, he is. But we're helping
out. And I'm not sure the suspect he's got is going to pan out."

Henderson looked up to the wheelhouse. He shouted for
his son to start the engines. Again we heard the rising crescendo of
the big diesels beneath us. The steel deck vibrated under our feet as
Henderson went forward to cast off. Time to leave. Joe and I thanked
Henderson for his time, waved to his son up behind the glass in the
wheelhouse, and disembarked, walked along the dock toward the MBL.

"Why not stop in the Kidd first for a coupla
cold ones?" suggested Joe. So we did.

The pretty girl behind the bar handed us two St.
Pauli Girl beers as we leaned on that unique and curious marble rail
in the Cap'n Kidd. Never seen one like it before or since.

"So what are you thinking, Doc? You seem awfully
preoccupied."

"I'm wondering where Henderson sells his fish.
It can't be here in Woods Hole. And Falmouth's harbor hardly deserves
the name."

"I asked him that very question. He sells fish
in New Bedford. Where else?"

"That makes sense. I've heard New Bedford is the
biggest commercial fishing port in America. Bigger than Gloucester.
Bigger than San Francisco, Seattle . . ."

Joe chewed a handful of peanuts and scuffed his size
thirteen shoes along the floor of the bar.

"I been thinking; there may be a new angle on
this thing. Suppose the mob was in on the hit. Not necessarily that
kid Slinky, but somebody else in the organization not so wet behind
the ears.

We know they never woulda killed Andy the way it was
done. But supposing they bumped into old Hartzell and discovered he
hated Andy too. Why then wouldn't they make a deal with him and—

"Naw. C'mon, Joe, even I know the mob would
never do a hit like that."

He chewed some more, nodding philosophically.

"Okay, try this: Andy has done something really
major to piss the Wiseguys off. A lot of times, you owe the mob money
and can't pay, and they know you haven't got the scratch, they ask
you to do them a favor. So maybe he undertook the favor—whatever
slimy thing it might be—and totally blew it. That would get him
wasted."

I swiped a couple of peanuts. After one, I couldn't
stop. There was a ring of truth to Joe's theory. It seemed to fill in
a lot of blank spots.

"
What kind of favor would this be?" I
asked.

"A common one is courier, or bagman. They ask
the guy to carry something hot for them. Or maybe carry a big load of
dope across the border. Something like that."

"Well, we know the favor had to be in this
region. What's most likely here?"

"Well, keeping to the dope idea, maybe the mob
asked him to borrow one of the official small craft from here, say
like that skiff you guys used the other day. Where was it from? The
National Marine Fisheries Service? Anyway, asked Andy to borrow a
boat for half a day and run in a load of coke or grass from the
mother ship. just zip out there, take on the goods, and zip inland in
a—"