“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know the proper form of address I should use. Is it ‘Your lordship’?”
“It’s Alex, Ben. Just plain old Alex.”
The handsome young man smiled. “First of all, I haven’t said a word to anyone. About what I’m going to tell you, I mean. But I know who you are and I figured you’d be someone who’d listen. Mr. Hooker talked about you a lot, all the sailing you two had done up here over the years. Northeast Harbor, Nova Scotia, Trans-Atlantic.”
“We had some good times,” Hawke said, wistful for those fleeting moments, sadly missing his old friend.
“So he often said. Hook always claimed his friend Hawke was the finest blue water sailor he’d ever known, sir. But he was a good sailor, too, wouldn’t you say? I was only aboard with him a couple of times out in the bay. But you can tell, right?”
“Absolutely. Hook was a lifelong salt if ever there was one. Still competitive in the Bermuda Race until a few years ago. Why? What is troubling you?”
”Okay. Here goes. There is just no way on earth I can see what happened out there on the water as accidental. None.”
“Why?”
“Here’s the thing, sir. On the day it happened? Well, it was blowing pretty good out there, all right. Steady at fifteen, gusting to twenty-five, thirty knots. But nothing Cam Hooker couldn’t handle. Had I thought otherwise, I’d have volunteered to go with him. Not that he would have let me, but still.”
“Go on.”
“I know accidents happen at sea all the time, sir. Hell, I’ve had my share. But what I cannot understand, what I do not understand, is why on earth Cam Hooker would gybe that big boat, out there all alone, blowing like stink. I’m sure you’d agree that it’s the last thing he would do!”
“He gybed the boat? Good Lord. Why the hell would he do that?”
“Beats me, sir. A gybe? It’s the dead last thing anyone would do in a blow. Especially someone elderly and sailing single-handed.”
“I agree. But what makes you think that’s what happened?”
“Okay, here’s what I know. I had a few beers down at Nebo’s the other night with Jimmy Brown. He’s the chief of police here on the island. And he told me that when they found Maracaya, she’d drifted awhile and finally run aground on the rocks, out there on Horse Neck Island. The mainsheet, which Cam would have obviously kept cleated, was free. Why? Also, from where Cam was found, the position of the body near the gunwale, it was clear the boom must have knocked him completely out of the cockpit. And he was not a small man, sir.”
Hawke nodded his head, seeing it happen.
“That much force could only have resulted from an accidental gybe.”
“Yes, sir. And it was no glancing blow, either. His skull, sir, it was… almost completely disintegrated.”
Ben Sparhawk looked away, his eyes filling up.
“Damn it, sir. I’m sorry. I just… I just don’t buy it. Accident, human error, Cam’s old age, dementia, all that police bull crap. What they’re saying in town…”
“What do you think really happened, Ben?”
“Maybe I’m crazy, I dunno. But to tell you the truth, murder. I think someone murdered him.”
“Murder’s a strong word.”
“I know, I know. No idea how it happened. No idea why. But you asked me what I think and now you know.”
“Take me through it, Ben. Step by step. I’ll ask a few questions. Any information you think I need to have, give it to me. Can you do that?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“First. He was alone on board when he left the dock? Is that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And he sailed out of your sight alone?”
“He did.”
“But, once around the point down there, he could have seen a friend on the town docks, or someone on another boat in the harbor could have hailed him over. He could have stopped to let them aboard. A friend along for the ride or something.”
“He could have. But—”
“But what?”
“But he just never would have done it. Sunday was his day. He treasured every second he got to spend alone aboard that old boat. He didn’t go to church, you know. That boat was his church. His place of refuge. You know what he said to me early on in the summer?”
“I don’t.”
“He said, ‘I discovered something about sailing at a very early age, Ben. Something about the doing of it makes people want to keep their eyes and ears open and their goddamn mouths shut. I like that about it.’ ”
Hawke smiled. “He hated idle chitchat, all right. Always said they called it small talk for a very good reason.”
“Yes, sir. He said sailing all alone had been his salvation as he grew older. That’s what I think he believed anyway. I know he had a wonderful family, too. Hell, everyone on this island loved him. Look at them all.”
“But you think he would never have stopped to take someone else aboard before he headed for open water.”
“Not unless they were drowning”
“Which means the killer, if there was one, had to be hiding aboard when he left the dock last Sunday morning.”
“Had to be. Only way.”
“But you would have seen someone, hiding aboard, I mean.”
“Not really, sir. All I did below that morning was clean up the galley, plug in the espresso machine, check the fuel and water, and turn the battery switches on. Didn’t check the bilges, didn’t check the sail locker forward. No reason to, really. But, still. I wish to God I had.”
“Don’t even think of laying this off on yourself, Ben.”
“Well. I’m just sayin’, is all.”
“When did you last check those two places?”
“The afternoon before. One of the bilge pumps needed rewiring and I climbed down there and did that. And I’d bought some new running rigging from Foy Brown’s. I stowed it forward in the sail locker until I could get around to it. Nothing in either place, no sign of anyone on board.”
“But it had to be a stowaway, Ben. If you’re right about all this.”
“Yes, sir. It did. But where was he?”
Hawke looked away to the horizon for a moment, thinking it through.
“Assume this is premeditated. He’s been watching his victim for some time now. Knows all his habits, his routines.”
“Like his weekly Sunday morning sail.”
“Exactly. So. Saturday night, early Sunday morning. Our stowaway comes aboard in the wee hours, when everyone’s asleep. Finds the boat unlocked, so he goes below. Finds room enough to hide in the sail locker up at the bow. Sleeps up forward on top of the sails and prays no one needs a reason to open that hatch before she next left the dock.”
“That would work.”
“Comes up on deck after she clears the harbor. Confronts his victim. Has a gun or a knife. Words are exchanged. Sees how hard it’s blowing. Sees the opportunity for an ‘accidental’ gybe. No one is around to see. He realizes on the spot that he can make the murder look like an accident.”
Ben nodded in the affirmative. “Maybe Cam knows him. Maybe not afraid of him. The killer stands there talking in the cockpit, making Cam relax, let his guard down. Then he suddenly frees the mainsheet and puts the helm hard over. Wham! She gybes! Cam never saw that boom coming at him.”
“Was there brain tissue found on the boom, Ben?”