Crimson Shore

15

They returned from tea to find a man standing outside the closed door, baseball cap in hand. Pendergast ushered him in and he looked around with rheumy eyes, clearly intimidated by the setup. Constance had not seen this man before. As he stepped past her she caught a faint whiff of bourbon and cigar smoke.

“Make yourself comfortable, Mr. LaRue,” Pendergast told him.

The man settled himself in a chair.

With precision and formality, Pendergast threaded a reel-to-reel tape onto the recorder, fussed with the controls, and then — making the final adjustments — he depressed the START button. The reels started turning. It was interesting, Constance thought, that he had not bothered taking these steps with the lawyer.

“Please speak clearly into the microphone,” he said.

A nod. “Yes, sir.”

“State your name and address for the record.”

Gordon LaRue lived in Dill Town, he said, had lived there all his life, and had a small business cutting grass for a living.

“And how long have you cut Mr. Lake’s grass?”

“Twelve years.”

“On the weekend Mr. Lake was gone, and his house was broken into, you cut the grass?”

“I did. He liked me to come when he wasn’t around, on account of the noise bothering him.”

“And what time did you come that weekend?”

“On Sat’day, about eleven.”

“Did you see anything out of the ordinary?”

“No. The grass didn’t need much cutting, seeing as how it’s getting into fall. Mr. Lake likes to keep a nice lawn, though, on account of the sculptures.”

“Any sign that someone other than Lake had been there?”

“Didn’t see anything. Didn’t look like anyone had broken in. No strange cars, nothing.”

“And you left at what time?”

“Twelve thirty.”

“That will be all, Mr. LaRue.”

As the man stood up to leave, Pendergast said casually, “Dill Town — the outlying town first settled by black whalers, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting. Thank you.” Pendergast ushered LaRue out the door, closed it, and turned to Constance, giving her a brief smile.

“Fishing?” said Constance, wondering why they were so obviously wasting their time.

“Indeed. Let us put another fly on the water. Fetch the next fellow for me, if you will.”

Constance went out and found another interviewee seated in a chair in the hallway, face red, little white hairs on his neck standing out in irritation. He rose. “I hope this isn’t going to take up a lot of time,” he said, looking her up and down with faded but alert blue eyes. He was about seventy, in a lumberjack shirt, suspenders, and blue work pants. A faint odor of the marshes clung to him.

“This way,” she said.

He pushed through the door aggressively and refused to take the proffered chair. Pendergast once again fiddled with the equipment.

“Well?” the man asked impatiently. “I ain’t gonna answer any questions, if that’s what this is about.”

“Just a moment, so sorry, just trying to get the equipment in order. Mr. George Washington Boyle, is it?”

“That’s Benjamin Franklin Boyle,” the man said. “Nice start there, Mr. Detective.”

“Endless apologies.” More fussing. “You are here, Mr. Boyle, in a completely voluntary capacity. So you wish to decline answering questions?”

“And if I do? You gonna get a warrant or something, make me come back?”

“No, no. I’m conducting a private investigation. I have no subpoena power. You are free to go. No hard feelings.”

A grunt. “Well, as long as I’m here...” He sat down.

Constance could see that Boyle was a man of higher intelligence than his looks warranted, and that Pendergast, in feigning incompetency and giving Boyle a feeling of superiority, had managed to put the man in the right frame of mind for answering questions. A clever ploy — and in stark contrast to her own sadly underdeveloped skills with people. She recalled the long list of potential interviewees and wondered if perhaps it wouldn’t have been better for her to stay back at Riverside Drive.

“Mr. Boyle, on the weekend of the wine theft, you were, I presume, clamming on the Exmouth mudflats?”

“I went out on Saturday afternoon for a few hours.”

“Whereabouts?”

“An area they call the Channel Flats.”

“Can you show me on the map?” He unrolled a map of the area and placed it in front of Boyle.

“Right here.” A dirty finger thumped the location.

“Ah. I see you had no view of the lighthouse at all.”

“That’s right. That’s two miles from the light and behind the Exmouth bluffs. You can’t see over the marsh grass and cattails, anyway, seeing is how they’s five, six feet high in most places.”

“I was hoping you might have seen something, perhaps coming or going.”

“Nothing but mud and clams.”

Pendergast began rolling up the map. “You must know those marshes quite well.”

“Better than just about anyone.”

“I imagine they have their own peculiar beauty.”

“They do.” Boyle said it with conviction, but also in a tone that meant he had no interest in exploring that subject further.

“And a history?”

“Oh, yes.”

“But I don’t suppose you have much interest in history, being a clammer.”

Now the man bristled. “I was captain on a dragger, Mr. Pendergast, for forty years. I’m a seafaring man, and seafaring men have always had an interest in history.”

Pendergast raised his eyebrows. “I see. But what sort of history could an uninhabited marsh have?”

“More than you might think.” Boyle laughed. He was enjoying having an audience, especially someone as dim-witted as Pendergast. “All kinds of history. Stories, too. Of witches. And the Gray Reaper.”

“The Gray Reaper?”

“Sometimes at night, you see a light out there in the marshes, moving around, bobbing this way and that. That’s the Gray Reaper. Couple hundred years ago, they say, there was a man named Jack, and he was the meanest son of a bitch between Casco Bay and Gloucester. When he died, the devil came and got him, hauled him down to hell. But Jack was so ornery that after a while the devil couldn’t stand it anymore. He tossed Jack a glowing coal and said, “You’re too mean for my hell, so you take that coal and go start a hell of your own!” He roared with laughter. “He’s there in the marshes, covered in the gray-black mud. That’s where he got the name. Blends in, like so you can’t see him. Save for the coal, of course. When you see that light bobbing out there, that’s the Gray Reaper wandering around, coal in hand, looking to reap some souls and start a hell of his own.”

Pendergast seemed considerably irritated by this diversion. “And the witches?”

Boyle waved his hand. “There’s a story, goes back to the days of Salem. When things got hot and they started hanging the witches down there, a group of them hightailed it out of Salem in the dead of night and came north, where they settled on one of those salt marsh islands, out of the reach of civilization. Men and women both, mind you.”

“Are you saying there were real witches?”

“I’m saying no such thing. The legend is those old Puritans hanged a lot of innocent people while the real witches got away.”

“Where in the marshes did they settle?”

“Nobody knows. Inland a bit somewhere, according to the story. But things didn’t go well. A bad winter, starvation, and Indian attacks wiped them out. Later on, they say, from time to time a traveler would get lost in the marshes and come across the ruins of that witch settlement, wooden houses all rotten and collapsed. They say in the middle of this crazy settlement was a circle of flat stones with carvings on them and, in the center of that, a piece of slate with a one-word message.”

“Which was?”

“T-Y-B-A-N-E.”

Pendergast and Constance exchanged glances.

“What does it mean?”

“No one’s ever figured it out.” A knowing leer. “Until now, maybe.”

“So you’ve heard that whoever killed the historian, McCool, carved that word on his body.”

Boyle shrugged. “Can’t keep no secrets in a town as small as Exmouth.”

“Any speculations as to why someone would do that?”

“It’s some kids, probably, tweakers from Dill Town getting their kicks, playing at raising the devil. They robbed the man to buy drugs and are dumb enough to think they’ll get the cops to think witches did it.”

“Why Dill Town?”

“Dill Town’s got a lot of history of troubles. Crime, drinking. That sort of thing.”

“Have you seen any sign of people in the salt marshes?”

“As a matter of fact, I have. I think there’s a homeless guy living out there. Seen some footprints in the mud, trails through the grass. Never seen him in the flesh, but a few times I’ve smelled his campfire.” He laughed. “Maybe he’s the guy swiped Lake’s wine collection. Now there’s a wino’s dream. Maybe he’s even the Gray Reaper in person. You might want to look into that, Mr. Detective.”

“I will,” Pendergast said, rising. “Thank you, Mr. Boyle, for your time.” He glanced at Constance. “I think we can dispense with the rest of the interviews — for now, at any rate.”

Boyle got up. Then he leaned forward and asked, in a confidential tone: “How much does a guy get paid in your line of work?”