Patriot

CHAPTER 10

A perfect day for a funeral.

It was raining steadily, but softly. Dripping from the leaves, dripping from the eaves of the old Maine cottage on the hill. Tendrils of misty grey fog curled up from the sea only to disappear into the steaming pine forests. Thin, ragged clouds scudded by low overhead.

Hook’s burial service was in the overgrown family plot. A hallowed patch of small worn gravestones dotting a hilltop clearing overlooked the busy harbor. There were rows and rows of folding white chairs arranged on the grass surrounding the gravesite, filled with mourners hidden beneath rows and rows of gleaming black umbrellas.

There was even a piper in full regalia standing by the freshly opened wound in the rich earth. A white-bearded fellow wearing tartans, an old friend of Hook’s who’d rowed over from Vinalhaven for the three o’clock service.

At the center of it all, a yawning grave.

Alex Hawke was seated in the very last row beside Brick Kelly. Hawke let his eyes wander where they would, taking it all in, the simple beauty of the rainy Maine day and the still and perfect sadness all around him.

Down at the dock, Hook’s black ketch was flying signal flags of muted color from stem to masthead to stern, thanks to young Ben, the good-looking college kid Cam Hooker had hired that summer. Ben was sitting with the Hooker clan’s grandchildren now, trying to keep them still. Earlier, he’d been trying to catch Hawke’s attention. Curious enough.

Now that they’d moved down to the house after the service, Hawke wanted to find out why the young man seemed so interested in talking to him.

Finally, Hawke said, “Can I help you with something?”

“You’re Lord Hawke, is that correct, sir?” They stood together, both holding plates, everyone inching forward in the buffet line circling through the living and dining rooms. Both rooms were full of musty old furniture, scrimshaw, cracked marine paintings, and frayed oriental rugs made all the more beautiful by the fade of age and deliberate lack of care.

“I am, indeed,” Hawke said, puzzled. Why should anyone here know who he was? He stood out, he supposed, in his uniform. Royal Navy Blue, No. 1 Dress, no sword. Bit of a spectacle, but nothing for it, it was regulation for service funerals.

“Ben Sparhawk, sir. I worked for Director Hooker this past summer. Helping out with Maracaya and around the dock. I wonder if we might have a word outside, sir?”

Curiosity piqued, Hawke said, “Of course. What about?”

The boy looked around and lowered his voice.

“I’d really rather not discuss it here if you don’t mind, sir.”

Hawke looked at the long line of people slowly snaking toward the buffet tables set up in the dining room. “Let’s go out onto the porch and get some air,” the Englishman said. “I’m not really hungry anyway.”

“Thank you,” the boy replied, somewhat shakily. He followed the older man outside into the damp air, misty rain blowing about under the eaves. “I really appreciate your taking the time.”

“Something’s bothering you, Ben,” Hawke said, his hands on the railing, admiring Camden Harbor across the bay and the beautiful Maine coastline visible from the hilltop. “Just relax and tell me what it is.”

“I don’t really know quite where to start and…”

It occurred to Hawke that he’d always loved this part of the world. That someday he would very much like to own an old house up here. The fresh summer air full of white clouds and diving white seabirds, the endlessly waving tops of green forests, the deep rolling swells of the blue sea. Bermuda was lovely, but it wasn’t this. For the first time he understood viscerally what his old friend Hook had known and cherished all his life. Down East Maine was closer to heaven than most places you could name. And you probably couldn’t even name one.

“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 said you were the finest blue water sailor he’d ever known, sir, and one of his closest friends. 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 jibe 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! It’s the dead last thing anyone would do in a blow. Especially someone sailing alone.”

“I agree. Why in the hell would he do that?… 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 main sheet, 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 jibe.”

“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 bullcrap. What they’re saying in town…”

“What do you think really happened, Ben?”

“Maybe I’m crazy, I dunno. But—”

“But what, Ben. Tell me.”

“Murder. To tell you the God’s honest truth, sir, it was murder. I think someone murdered him.”