Feast of Murder(38)

Untangling himself from the low beam that had caught him and the narrow passageway that passed for a hall on the deck where his cabin was, Gregor climbed ponderously and carefully into the light on the upper deck and looked around. The fog was nearly gone now. Wisps of it trailed just above the water a little farther out into the bay, but they were like fairy dust. They lent enchantment without having the power to threaten. Gregor looked up and down Pier 36 and then up and down the piers on either side. The Pilgrimage Green was one of very few boats in dock, and the only one of any size. There was a jaunty little yellow single-masted sailboat at Pier 35 and a pair of fiberglass-hulled motorboats at Pier 37. The presence of even a moderate-size modern vessel, like a two master or a cabin cruiser, would have reminded Gregor how small the Pilgrimage Green was, but there was nothing like that and Gregor began to feel better. He looked into the rigging and saw men working there. Then he looked into the stern and saw men working there, too. Gregor had no idea what it took to sail a boat. He’d only traveled on boats once or twice in his life—to take Elizabeth on a cruise to Bermuda; as part of an FBI instructional tour on a submarine parked in Chesapeake Bay—and his basic opinion was that they were pleasant but not particularly necessary adjuncts to modern life. He was glad, though, that the men around him seemed so competent.

He wandered forward, toward the bow, looking around him as he went. There were a great many ropes, which Bennis had already told him to call “lines.” There were a great many pieces of metal, too, including heavy iron rings that seemed to hold the lines together and sharp-edged hooklike things that reminded him of harpoons, but couldn’t have been. There were even a few self-conscious Thanksgiving decorations. Ever since he’d come aboard, Gregor had been half-assuming there wouldn’t be any decorations. Decorations for a holiday like Thanksgiving didn’t seem to be the sort of thing people like these would do. The passion for decorating must have been more widespread than he realized. Somebody had put up a tall thick pole with Indian corn attached to the top of it. Underneath the corn was a small wood plaque with words written across its shiny surface in old-fashioned script:

God bring us safely to the shore

or safely home to Thee.

In spite of the script, the pole looked lethal enough to kill somebody. The whole deck looked like it would have been a wonderful place for a murderer intent on crushing his victim’s skull with something heavy, or smothering his victim with material guaranteed to cut off all air in thirty seconds flat. The deck was littered with large pieces of heavy, dark, closely woven cloth. Gregor had no idea what the cloth was for, but he was sure it had something to do with authenticity. On a modern boat, the cloth would probably have been replaced by plastic.

He passed a small hutlike structure that he assumed to be the place from which the steering was done—he’d have to ask Bennis what to call it—and came out well to the front, in the space like a triangle that led to the bow. In that space, a table had been set up and half a dozen chairs set out. The table was a rough-wood replica. The chairs weren’t authentic at all. They had been made out of canvas and machine-planed wooden slats and could be bought for less than fifty dollars from the “Home and Camp Specialties” catalog from L.L. Bean. Gregor wondered where everyone was. The table was full of food: great plates of Danish pastry; long racks of toast; huge bowls of fresh fruit. There were even little orange and yellow and brown ribbons strung along the edges of the serving plates, looking limp but trying bravely to be festive. The food that needed to be kept hot had sterling silver warmers under it—battery operated, and no more “authentic” than the chairs. There were two big urns of what Gregor assumed were coffee and water for tea, and they were the battery-operated kind, too. Was that a Coast Guard regulation? Did the Coast Guard make regulations of that kind? He went toward the coffee. There was steam rising from the sides of both urns. Gregor could see his breath. He understood the idea that some people might want to watch while they were set firmly and finally out to sea, but it was November. Somebody should have considered the possibility that at least some of the guests on this boat would rather not catch pneumonia doing it.

Gregor got a cup from the stack of cups on the table—they were secured by a plastic holder that wasn’t authentic either—and sniffed at the urns until he determined which was actually coffee. Then he turned on the spigot and filled up. Then, because he was still alone, he went to the side of the boat and looked out across the piers. At this point the side came just up to his knees and made him feel unbalanced.