Bimini Twist Page 12

  A man in a suit and tie scrambled down the ramp. As he approached, I wondered who he was, and assumed possibly the coroner. When he addressed the small group on the float, I understood that he was indeed not the coroner. “Really? You had to bring him here?”

  “Sorry, Joe,” Pete said. “But where else would I land? I live here. I fish out of here. I keep my boat here. My truck is here. And I want this body out of here so I can get out of here.” The man quickly apologized and offered his condolences to Pete for the loss of his brother-in-law, Ron Thomas. “This is Hancock County’s deputy sheriff, Jane Bunker,” Pete introduced me.

  Joe introduced himself as Bar Harbor’s city manager, which explained his concerns surrounding unloading a corpse in the heart of the town’s tourist district. “Welcome to Bar Harbor, Ms. Bunker,” he said. “I do hope you’ve had occasion to visit our paradise while not on duty!”

  “Well, actually I have not,” I answered honestly. “I was here yesterday looking for a young woman who has been reported missing. And this morning I was in Northeast Harbor on other business when I got the call about the boat circling. And now I should get to the Coast Guard station in Southwest Harbor and get aboard the victim’s boat to close the loop on this,” I said. Joe probably did not want my report, considering it was all bad and had all transpired in or around locations within his jurisdiction. He politely excused himself.

  Pete pulled gently at my sleeve and motioned toward the wheelhouse, suggesting that we have a little privacy. I happily followed. “So far our time together has been … well, strange,” he said. “But I am really looking forward to seeing you tomorrow night. We’re still on, right?”

  “Umm, sure,” I stammered slightly. I had been wondering whether the Alfond family would go through with the party. My hesitation was not that my initial feelings about Pete had changed. I was deeply interested. Maybe some weird fate had thrown us together, I thought.

  “You probably think it terrible that my aunt and uncle would not cancel the Solstice Soiree.” Pete must have sensed what I was thinking. “But the family never approved of Ron. He wasn’t what the older generation had in mind for Liza. Even Ron’s death will not be acknowledged,” he said just above a whisper. “The ultimate snubbing.”

  Pete had mistakenly assumed that I came from a family that would shut down to mourn a similar situation, I thought. He couldn’t be further from the truth. I didn’t even know my blood relations, forget about various in-laws. I resisted the temptation to ask Pete about his feelings.

  As usual, I had no idea how to appropriately respond. So I just said, “Take care, and I’ll see you tomorrow.” Inwardly excited about the rendezvous plan, I climbed off the boat and onto the float just as the EMTs zipped up the body bag and muscled it onto a stretcher.

  That I could mention a date and a body bag in the same sentence is telling in regard to my relationship history …

  Back in the Duster, I removed my phone from my pocket and laid it on the seat beside me. Just as I did, a text message dinged. It was from Anika, the missing Romanian’s roomie. Are you still looking for Bianca? Worried here.

  I texted back: Yes. Am following up on a lead. Believe she is fine. Let me know if you hear from her.

  Will do. Thank you very much.

  I appreciated text messages for their pointedness, I thought as I poked my way out of Bar Harbor in stop-and-go traffic. Deadpan texts were much easier for me to deal with on the job. Texts did not relay a sense of urgency, pain, sorrow, or anxiety. They were simply detached in a way that live phone calls were not. I got the reminder. I answered. And I had a record of it—yet another plus on the side of electronic, written communication.

  Signs indicating the way to Southwest Harbor were abundant and conveniently placed before every necessary turn. Once in Southwest, the Coast Guard station was equally well-marked. My stomach growled as I passed Beal’s Lobster Pier. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, I realized as I considered stopping for a quick bite. The line of people waiting for tables at Beal’s was a testament to the quality of food served there, but also acted as a deterrent as I intended to be aboard Insight while I had daylight on my side. I sighed and drove on by the restaurant. I would wait and eat dinner with the Vickersons and Wally, I thought. That would save me the cost of a lobster roll.

  A guard shack with an electric gate formed a conspicuous entrance to the Coast Guard station. I stopped and was greeted by the officer on duty. “I’m looking for Insight,” I said.

  The young Coastie smiled and replied, “I have wisdom beyond my years. Insight on what?”

  “Oh yeah,” I said with a grin. “The boat that was towed here. A lobster boat named Insight?” I opened my wallet and flashed my deputy badge.

  “Slip number four, ma’am. You can park in one of the visitor spots straight ahead. And I’ll call for an escort to the vessel. Please wait at your vehicle.” Interesting, I thought, how the badge brought out formality in most instances.

  I did as instructed, and was greeted by the escort as soon as I stood beside my car. Polite and proper, the young coast guardsman serving as my escort had little to say, which suited me fine. He guided me quietly to slip number four where Insight was tied with bow, stern, and two spring lines. I noted the scrape of green paint on the stem and starboard bow: remnants of foul play that I knew had led to the death of Ron Thomas. And perhaps the same was true of Larry Vigue’s demise. At least, I thought as I excused the young officer, Larry’s death could be considered self-inflicted. Was his fatal misstep an act of karma? My belief in unexplained quid pro quo for bad deeds had developed in my maturity. A young Jane Bunker would have said “bullshit” to any theory that included kismet. And now, as I was indeed an eyewitness to the ramming that I had considered attempted murder, I liked to think of Larry’s subsequent death as providential payback.

  I snapped pictures of the green paint that I knew came from contact with Ron’s boat. The fact that Elizabeth sat on the bottom of the ocean meant that there would never be a sample available to match. I wondered if it even mattered now. The only two people who knew most of the true story were me and Pete. And it was clear that Pete preferred tight lips regarding sinking ships. I hadn’t been assigned the duty of investigating Larry’s death. But I knew that my investigative duties required by Marine Safety Consultants would include exactly what I was doing now, which was climbing aboard Insight for a quick inspection and a few pictures.

  Insight was a crudely built, plainly finished utilitarian vessel. She was, I noted when I read the hull ID number on her transom, a forty-one footer built in 2007. She was configured nearly identically to Ragged But Right, with a split wheelhouse allowing two helm stations, one inside the house and one outside. She had a short house and a long cockpit; a configuration allowing more work space on deck. She had the typical hydraulic trap hauler, davit, and block. She had a welded plastic holding tank for lobster, fitted with twelve-volt pumps to circulate raw water to keep the lobsters alive. There was nothing out of the ordinary.

  My first overall impression was that Insight was much cleaner than I had anticipated. No mud on the wash rail. No seaweed, bait, or crabs on the deck. There were no lobsters aboard. And there was very little bait aboard. If Larry had gone overboard with his traps, I thought the scene would have been different. After hauling a few traps with Pete, I knew that Larry’s gear was fairly fouled up with growth and slime that spattered all over the place. I doubted the Coast Guard would have touched anything. And they certainly would not have cleaned the boat. Would they have tossed bait overboard? No way, I thought as I continued to snap pictures and grew more skeptical.

  The electronics were similar to Pete’s setup. There was a chart plotter, VHF radio, radar, and depth sounder. I knew the Marine Patrol had grabbed the SIM card from the GPS, as they had given it to Pete to find Larry’s gear. There was an additional black box mounted on the port dash that I was not familiar with. The box was labeled “Furuno—FA-150.” My cell phone indicated full
service. I googled the machine’s label out of curiosity and learned that it was an AIS, or automatic identification system, used on boats and ships. My reading was interrupted by a man’s voice from the top of the wharf. “Hello there!”

  I stepped onto the deck and said hi to the young coast guardsman who had escorted me to the boat.

  “My team leader sent me back to assist you. Do you need any help?”

  I wondered if the kid had been reprimanded for not staying with me. I certainly didn’t need or want him here while I poked around. “No thank you. I’m all set here. Just taking a few pictures—protocol for completing accidental death reports.” I hoped he hadn’t been given an order to babysit me.

  “Well, dinner is at five. And it’s almost five. Do you need an escort back to your vehicle? If you’re going to be a while, I can check back after dinner.”

  “I’ll be gone by then,” I said, relieved to know that he was hungry and didn’t care what I was doing or why. “But thank you for the offer.” He left quickly, as if he thought I might change my mind. My stomach growled, reminding me again that I was starving. Just a few more minutes, I thought, and I’ll be out of here. I continued my inspection of the boat.

  An aluminum beverage can wrapped in a bright red insulated cozy sat on the dash just ahead of the helm. The cozy, purposed to keep drinks cold, was also a good way to keep them upright in rough seas, I thought as I snapped a picture. I spun the cozy around and read the advertisement: “Princess of the Seas—Bimini.” How interesting, I thought, that Larry Vigue would have a souvenir from the very cruise ship that was featured in my active investigation of missing girls and boys. I fought the urge to tie the two cases together, as I knew that in small-town Maine everyone and everything were connected or separated by far fewer than the six degrees.

  There was no beer cooler aboard. No lunch pail. The usual orange rubber bib overalls that old timers call “oil skins” hung on a hook. A framed picture of a very much alive Larry Vigue and an attractive woman who I assumed must be his wife (formerly Mrs. Ron Thomas) was secured between two side windows. I searched through all cubbyholes and drawers and found nothing unexpected. Bands for lobster claws, various plastic replacement parts for traps, a tool used to splice line that I knew as a fid, cotton work gloves, a tube of grease and a tube of sunblock, spare hoses, gaskets, fittings, duct tape, et cetera. I found a ship’s log that was flipped open to today’s date. Blue ink scribbling indicated that Larry had fueled the boat this morning, noting that he had pumped aboard eighty-six gallons of diesel and recorded 9,550 total engine hours. There were two sets of numbers that I didn’t recognize scrunched up in the upper-right-hand corner of the page—42030 and 13275. I snapped a picture of the page and flipped through the entire log, finding numbers of traps hauled and pounds sold. Prices were recorded every day that Larry had sold lobsters. I took special note of yesterday’s page, hoping to see something different to prove that the ramming and sinking of Elizabeth was premeditated. I don’t know what I expected to find. But there was evidence of nothing.

  I left the wheelhouse and walked around the perimeter of the cockpit or work deck. There were knives secured under the transom at both corners. I realized that these had been placed there for emergency use. There were also knives secured at the davit and under the wash rail at the hauling station. All knife blades were held by strips of leather that had been screwed into bulwarks at strategic places, places where a man could easily grab one and cut himself free if tangled in gear and being pulled overboard at the stern or starboard rail. It appeared that Larry could not reach a knife or didn’t have time, as all knives were in their holders. There were no empty strips of leather. I slid one knife out and thumbed the edge of the blade. It was razor sharp. So it appeared that Larry had taken the usual precautions to save himself should he ever get wound up. I reasoned that these were things that only men who choose to fish alone do.

  The only remaining thing I could think of to do was to get a look at the propeller. The bitter end of the line that was hitched around Larry’s ankle appeared to have been severed by a propeller, as it was frayed in a jagged way, like it had been chewed. A knife would have made a cleaner cut, I thought. So if the line had been fouled in Larry’s prop, there should be line remaining there now and wrapped around the shaft and possibly the rudder as well. There may even be a lobster trap hanging from the boat’s running gear, I thought. The second trap of the pair was missing. I had no way of getting a diver right now. And I had no idea when or if the boat would be hauled out of the water for inspection. That, I thought, would depend on the widow’s wishes and intentions for the boat. I wanted badly to be thorough and avoid another trip to Southwest Harbor if possible.

  Call me MacGyver. I found a used Ziploc bag in the trash can in the wheelhouse. I grabbed the duct tape from a drawer. I placed my phone in the video mode, sealed it in the bag, and taped it to the end of a gaff pole. I plunged the rig under the surface of the water at the stern of the boat, and moved it back and forth, slowly rotating the pole in hopes of capturing what I needed to see. I prayed that the bag wouldn’t leak, as I had purchased the most inexpensive phone on the market, which was not waterproof, or even moisture resistant. After thirty seconds, I retrieved my underwater camera and was happy to see that it was dry.

  I had done a good job of filming. The prop, shaft, and rudder were all clean. No pot warp. No trap. So, I reasoned, it was unlikely that Larry’s gear had been caught in his own propeller. I was mildly satisfied to at least eliminate that as a possibility. But, I knew, there were many other scenarios that could explain the evidence at hand. I felt good about having been thorough, even though I didn’t know whether I was on the insurance company’s or Hancock County’s clock. I had covered the bases, and realized that my jobs had a lot of overlap.

  I put everything back as I had found it, and climbed out of the cockpit and onto the wharf. Walking briskly in the direction of the visitor parking, I inhaled a breath of bait-filled air. It wasn’t unpleasant. But it was distinct and salty. Beal’s Lobster Dock hummed with activity next door to the Coast Guard base. I stopped and watched as working boats unloaded their catch into plastic totes that were slid onto a set of scales and then splashed into wet storage. Most boats had two people on board, and a couple of larger vessels had three. It was a bit unusual for serious fishermen to go solo, but not unheard of, as Pete had explained. Totes of freshly salted herring were hefted onto decks and stowed for the next day’s fishing. Boats zipped quickly from the dock to moorings where they replaced dinghies and skiffs that acted as placeholders while boats were offshore. It was almost time for this working section of the harbor to go to bed, I thought as the day dimmed slightly.

  As I started back toward the Duster, suddenly a siren blared. It was so loud, I covered my ears with my hands and scrunched my neck down into my shoulders. The siren silenced and a whistle sounded seven short blasts followed by one prolonged blast. I recognized this sequence as a general alarm meant to alert crew of an emergency on board ship. I wondered briefly whether this was a practice drill for the coast guardsmen. A door was flung open at the front of the building closest to me. The sign pointing that way indicated that it was the mess hall.

  I counted eight Coasties as they sprinted from the open door in single file fashion. I followed them with my eyes as they literally jumped into two hard-bottom inflatable boats, four men in each boat. Helmets and life vests were donned. Outboard motors purred, lines were cast, and rooster tails of water were thrown from behind the boats as they quickly disappeared to seaward. Small wakes dissipated into shoreline on either side of Southwest Harbor and everything was still. The man I knew as my escort hustled down to the float from which the boats had disembarked and coiled all dock lines neatly from where they had been tossed haphazardly.

  As he made his way back toward the mess hall, I intercepted him. “Thanks again for your help,” I said. “What’s the commotion? Drills?”

  “No ma’am,” he answered
. “We received a call of a person in the water. Search and rescue teams have been deployed in hopes of reaching the scene before dark.”

  “Wow. Well, I am impressed with the speed of getting underway. There’s a lot more excitement here than I expected. Never a dull moment, right?” I said, hoping to get details of the emergency, mostly out of curiosity.

  “Yes, we are kept busy in the summer, for sure. Too many pleasure boaters who have no training or experience. We play a lot of cards in the winter months.”

  “Was this call a pan-pan, or a Mayday?” I asked, not testing the young man’s knowledge of the difference, but rather in hopes of gaining credibility with him. (PAN—Possible Assistance Needed. And Mayday—signifying grave and imminent danger.)

  “Our radio operator heard the call as a pan-pan first. It was a man overboard in which the vessel putting out the call was maneuvering to recover the victim. But I guess the captain must have decided he needed help because—well, you heard the alarms. Our search and rescue squads are responding to the Mayday.” I maintained eye contact, relaying that he held my interest. I nodded, hoping for more information. Even though I knew this was none of my business, any time there is an emergency of any nature, I am compelled to assist. In this case, I was trying to figure out if I was needed in any way, but trying not to interfere with the Coast Guard. “We have responded to eight calls already this week. And it’s only Thursday! The weekend warriors will keep us hopping starting tomorrow night,” he exclaimed. “All eight calls were responded to successfully, thankfully. Five boats needing a tow, two taking on water, and one fire.”

  “You guys are good,” I complimented him with total honesty and admiration that I had gained through many years of experience working hand-in-hand with the USCG stations in Fort Lauderdale, Key West, and the Air Station base in Opa Locka, Florida. “I’m sure whoever is treading water right now will appreciate the quick and efficient response.”