Shark Island (19 page)

“Was the coffin open for viewing?”

“It was set on the carpenter's bench, and it didn't have a lid on yet, so men could take the opportunity to say farewell if they wanted. I can't say I took more than a glance, just enough to see that the body was all wrapped up in a rug, the way Hammond said. I guess,” Forsythe added on a ghoulish note, “the rug was dark on account of it being the one he'd bled all over. Then I headed to the after house to pay Annabelle—Mrs. Reed—my respects.”

And to hand her an assurance that the
Swallow
would carry her to Rio, Wiki thought moodily. “Was Zachary Kingman there?”

“Nope, Zack was on the forward deck at the time.”

Biting back jealousy, Wiki said, “Did you escort Annabelle Reed to the wake?”

“Nope. A dark-looking fellow came and fetched her from the cabin when it was time for the prayers. They seemed to know each other well.”

Alphabet Green, thought Wiki. “And after the prayers were over?”

“She went back to the after house. Then the steward started handing out the grog.”

“Was Joel Hammond there all the time?”

“He headed off after he'd finished the Bible reading, and I didn't see him again.”

“While the men were drinking? Didn't you think that was odd?”

“Didn't bother to think about it at all, tell the truth.”

“Did all the hands take part in the spree?”

“Nope. There was some what went into the fo'c'sle instead.”

“So who stayed?”

“Look, I don't know these men—they're strangers to me. And I got bloody drunk,” Forsythe said again, this time defiantly. “I've never in my life got drunk so hard and fast.”

“What about Zachary Kingman?”

“Aye, he was in the same condition.” Forsythe paused, then said, “How do you reckon it happened?”

Wiki hesitated. Then he said, “According to where I found him, he was dropped off the foredeck, probably over the rail behind the galley. If it was there that his throat was cut, the galley would have hidden it from anyone on the open deck.”

Forsythe's eyes went flat and dead, and Wiki suddenly felt some sympathy for the murderer if the southerner ever caught up with him. “In God's name,
why?
” he demanded. “Why would anyone want to cut the throat of a poor harmless silly bastard like Zack?”

Wiki paused, and then said very carefully, “It might have been so you wouldn't have an alibi for the time that Ezekiel Reed was murdered.”

“What!”

“Zachary Kingman would have backed you up in everything you said about going forward after Reed had thrown you out of the cabin, and not going back to the quarterdeck until you heard his wife screaming, but now he can't.” Wiki paused, and then said bleakly, “If Hammond keeps on claiming that Reed was killed with your knife, it's not going to look good.”

“You think those bastards are trying to pin Reed's murder on me?” Forsythe exclaimed. “And that's why poor Zack was killed?”

Wiki nodded grimly. The men stared at him in shocked silence. Then George shifted uneasily and said, “What about Mrs. Reed? Is she part of this conspiracy?”

“Bloody good point!” Forsythe snapped. “When I saw her the night of the wake she said nothin' at all about glimpsing me goin' back into the cabin—and yet she tells you about it the next goddamned day, right after the captain is buried. That sounds kinda convenient to me!”

Wiki said uncomfortably, “That's true—and if she sticks to that story it's now your word against hers.”

“And what do
you
reckon? Is her word more believable than mine?”

Wiki chose his words carefully. “Right at the start I did think that you might have pulled a knife after getting into a brawl with Captain Reed. Too, it took muscle to shove a knife all the way through his chest and out the other side—and you have plenty of that. But no, I don't believe you killed him. It has to be one of those who stayed behind on the schooner when the two boats came over to the
Swallow.
”

Said Forsythe sardonically, “Wa'al, that's a huge relief. Can I ask the reason I'm off the suspect list?”

“Captain Reed was stabbed in the back—which isn't your style.”

“And thankee for the kind compliment,” Forsythe said in the same ironic tone. Then he slammed his fists on the table, and used them to lunge to his feet. “I'm off,” he announced.

George Rochester blinked, but said mildly, “Can I ask where?”

“I'm off to build a raft,” said Forsythe grimly. “Because if we take the
Annawan
men to the expedition fleet, and Hammond and Mrs. Reed repeat their goddamned lies to Wilkes, he'll have me hanging from the yardarm of the
Vincennes
before the next sun sets.”

Twenty

As the sound of Forsythe's boot steps retreated on the deck above, George Rochester thoughtfully studied his mug of cold coffee. Finally, he said, “I'll hand the deck back to you, Constant, if you don't mind. Wiki, if you would join me in my cabin?”

Midshipman Keith wriggled out of the cramped space along the bench, and then scampered up the companionway. Rochester transferred his gaze to the steward, who was still fussing over the parrot. Wondering if he would ever get his chair back, he demanded, “Don't you think the poor wretched creature should be put out of its misery?”

“Oh no, sir,” Stoker earnestly replied. “A regimen of salt butter admixed with pepper would set him up a treat, and in time even his poor blind eyes will heal.”

Rochester said, thunderstruck, “Pepper—for
birds?
”

“My father was a higler, sir,” the steward informed him, “and my mother a henwife. Pepper, whether cayenne or black, was their strong resource in a crisis of the poultry kind. Strengthens the innards, they used to say. For hen lice flowers of sulfur in lard is the remedy, but I doubt we have that problem, the lice all being scorched to death, as it were.”

“You consider parrots
poultry?
”

“Well, sir, taking into account that he has a beak, sir, and feathers, though sadly damaged, I do reckon this parrot is pretty close to being kin with hens. You have to remember, sir, that though hens are certainly more useful than parrots, they belong to the same kingdom of birds. What would really set this poor fellow up,” said the steward, his tone becoming confidential, “is a gruel of fine cornmeal in milk.”

“Milk?” exclaimed George. “Where the devil can we get milk?
Good God,
” he muttered, and then, more loudly, “Do leave your higlering, there's a good fellow, and brew us a good pot of hot coffee and break out my dress uniform.” After he and Wiki had settled in his cabin, he said in a hushed voice, “What the devil is a
higler,
do you reckon?”

Wiki, from his customary seat on the sofa, said, “A man who peddles eggs.”

“Good God, the things you know, my lad. But how do you reckon the parrot got burned in the first place?”

Wiki shook his head. The memory of the strange little cook thrusting the horribly damaged bird at him was vivid, along with the stink of burned feathers, but he could think of no explanation. Instead, he said, “What are you up to,
e hoa?
”

“I'm going to rig myself up in the full pomp and glory of an officer of the U.S. Navy, and we're going together to the
Annawan.
The sooner you get your questions asked and answered, the better.”

“You really think wearing uniform will make a difference?” said Wiki dubiously. Fine uniforms had never made any difference to him—but if George was going to go aboard in full formal fig, he supposed he would have to break out his best broadcloth.

“Absolutely, my dear fellow. Wilkes would be the first to assure you that a few yards of gold lace and a flourish of a cocked hat can work miracles.”

Wiki rose to go and shift his own clothes, taking this as a hint to do so, but Stoker arrived with a pot of steaming coffee, and Rochester signed to him to stay. The steward set to rattling drawers in and out and slamming locker doors, and like magic George's dress uniform materialized on his berth, everything already starched and ironed. As George had often observed, Stoker was a
gem.

Then, with the final slam of a door, Stoker was gone. Stepping out of his trousers to reveal a pair of well-muscled, remarkably hairy legs, George pulled on white pantaloons, saying as he buttoned them up, “Now, what's this about a raft?”

Wiki, having drunk his coffee, was slumped into his favorite thinking position with his forearms along his thighs and his hands at rest between his knees, scowling at the carpet between his feet. He cast a look up at George, who was smoothing down his shirt and tying his black stock, preparatory to putting on the close-fitting, single-breasted white vest, and said, “When I was looking for Forsythe on the island yesterday, I found him up at the prison—which truly is a ruin—and inside the main building we found a big pile of heavy beams, which would make first-rate material for a raft to careen the schooner against.”

George was silent a moment, absorbed in the fiddly job of doing up the row of little gold buttons that ran down the front of the vest. Then he said, “How's my stock?” The one small looking glass the brig boasted was infamously spotted, the result of years at sea.

“Looks fine to me,” said Wiki after a cursory glance.

“As if I could trust you,” George derided, and then asked, “Enough to make a raft that's big enough for the job?”

“Aye,” said Wiki, and nodded.

“I'd already gathered that you're very keen to get the
Annawan
hove down,” Rochester observed; “but the raft is a new idea.”

Wiki said, “I don't think the schooner's timbers would stand her being beached, but with a raft anchored tight up to her side, and fitted out with heaving posts, she could be hove down with water under her bottom. If well anchored, it would prevent her getting overset and sinking. The raft will make it a lot easier to get her righted, too, once the broken plank is replaced and caulked tight—all we'll have to do is let the cable out again. And we happen to know about twenty tons of loose copper ballast, which could be shoveled from one side to the other to help the process along.”

George picked up his blue dress coat and shook it out. Light from the stern windows twinkled brightly on thirty-two gold buttons—nine down each swooping lapel, one on each side of the stand-up collar, three on each cuff, and three on each of the two pocket flaps in the tails of the coat—and several expensive yards of half-inch gold lace.

Squinting as he inspected the coat for grease spots, he said, “You certainly do seem to have it all worked out—but I have to confess it gives me a problem.”

“How so?” said Wiki with foreboding.

Rochester hollered for Stoker, who came in and held the coat while he shoved his right arm into the sleeve. “Wilkes should be informed as soon as possible that we've lost a man—an officer, damn it!” His left arm went into the other sleeve, and the coat was lifted over his shoulders. It was so close-fitting that it took the concerted efforts of both the wearer and the steward to get him into it.

Wiki objected, “But Forsythe is right, you know.”

“You agree with his gloomy prognostications of being hanged from the yardarm?”

“I most certainly do. If Joel Hammond persists in his claim that the knife hauled out of Reed was Forsythe's, and if Annabelle Reed repeats her assertion that she'd glimpsed Forsythe on the quarterdeck just before she discovered her husband's murdered body, a court-martial could very easily end up that way.”

“It hasn't occurred to you that Forsythe might, in fact, be guilty?”

“He's not,” Wiki said with perfect sureness. “I honestly don't think he knifed Ezekiel Reed, and I'm damn sure he's not capable of killing Kingman, drunk or sober. And if you did set sail for the fleet, what would you do about the
Annawan
crew?”

“If I followed regulations, I'd take all seventeen on board, and carry them to safety. In fact, if I don't, Wilkes is likely to have my guts for a bandanna.”

Seventeen.
It was that indefinably threatening number again. Wiki involuntarily exclaimed, “But at least one of them is a murderer—who would happily stand by and watch as Forsythe was hanged for his crime!”

George paused, first fastening his belt, and then waiting as the steward fussily arranged the gold epaulette on his right shoulder. “In that case,” he said, “we must keep our fingers crossed that you get some useful evidence from questioning the crew, and find the murderer—or murderers—first.”

“And if I can't?”

George sighed deeply. “Then we'll stay and get the schooner fixed—if we can.”

Thank God,
thought Wiki. Then, he said very soberly, “You have no idea what a relief it is that you're coming with me to the
Annawan.
”

“Glad to be of assistance, old chap. Hand me that letter of authority from the sheriff of Portsmouth, and I'll smooth your path with everything in my power.” And Captain Rochester, his gold-mounted cut-and-thrust sword tied to his belt, picked up his gold-trimmed cocked hat, and headed out of the cabin and up the companionway.

Wiki hesitated a moment, and then went to his stateroom to fetch the letter of authority. Rochester didn't have to wait very long. Figuring it was hopeless to even try to match George's brilliant appearance, Wiki didn't bother to shift out of his workaday dungarees into anything more formal.

Twenty-one

After they arrived on the deck of the schooner, Wiki stopped and looked around, vividly reminded of his precipitate arrival early that morning, though the scene was very different. Joel Hammond was on the waist deck talking to the men on watch, who were huddled in a sullen group about the pumps. He turned and walked up, his small eyes wary.