Douglas Preston: Crimson Shore

Lake waved over the waitress and placed the order. He leaned forward. “Let’s see. The new waitress—”

“We need not discuss the waitress. Next?”

“Hmmm...” Lake looked around the room. There were only two tables occupied in addition to the bartender and a man at the bar. “The man behind the bar is Joe Dunwoody. The Dunwoodys are an old Exmouth family, go way back to colonial times. His brother Dana is one of the selectmen, and a pretty shrewd lawyer to boot. You don’t cross him.”

“And if you do?”

“You might not get a permit for that garage you want to build. Or the septic inspector might show up and red-tag your system. Petty stuff — but annoying.”

“Next.”

Lake looked around. “See that busty woman in the corner nursing a Seven and Seven? Dolores Claybrook. Town busybody. Horrible woman, the very definition of schadenfreude . Her family was one of the wealthiest in town, made their money in Gloucester — shipbuilding. A branch moved here and got into the codfishing business. They went into a decline along with the cod. She’s the last one left, buried three husbands. If you winked at her and pinched her ass you could really get her talking.”

“Perhaps some other time. Next?”

“That couple at the table near the window — Mark and Sarah Lillie. He runs the local insurance agency, dabbles in small-town investments. They own a financial-planning business on the side. His family goes way back, too — guess almost everyone in Exmouth does. Originally from Oldham.”

“Oldham?”

“Small town that was situated on Crow Island, south of here. It was destroyed in the hurricane of ’38. Most of the residents settled in Dill Town, which had previously been abandoned. The Lillie family has since integrated itself with the blue blood of Exmouth — or what passes for it, anyway.”

Pendergast indicated a tweedy man eating dinner at the bar. “And that rather curious fellow, the one with the leather patches on his jacket?”

“He’s not from around here — obviously. English. He was here a few weeks ago, doing historical research on a maritime mystery rather famous in these parts. Now it seems he’s back, I don’t know why.”

“A maritime mystery?”

“The 1884 disappearance of the SS Pembroke Castle , out of London, bound for Boston. It vanished at night in a nor’easter somewhere along the stretch of coast between Cape Elizabeth and Cape Ann. Not a trace was found, not even a broken spar. You get people coming through from time to time, trying to figure out what happened. It’s like the Flying Dutchman or the Marie Celeste .”

“Curious. And the gentleman’s name?”

“Morris McCool.”

“Have you met him?”

“No. But I must say, there’s something suspicious about him. If he wasn’t from ‘away,’ he’d be my first suspect for the theft of my wine cellar. Morris McCool... there’s a made-up name if ever I heard one.”

“On the contrary, no one would invent a pseudonym like that.”

Lake paused while the waitress brought them a large platter of raw oysters on a bed of crushed ice, with a side of cocktail sauce, grated horseradish, and lemon slices.

“How do you like them?” Lake asked.

“Lemon and no more.”

“There’s my man.” Lake squeezed lemon over the glossy, fat oyster-bodies, watching the edges curl as the acid hit them.

“After you.”

Pendergast picked up one and, with a quick gesture, brought the shell to his lips, soundlessly sucked in the oyster, laid the empty shell down with feline delicacy, and dabbed at his lips.

Lake took another and they fell into silence as they proceeded to suction in one plump oyster after another in rapid succession until the platter was nothing but glistening, empty shells.

Pendergast gave a final dab to his lips, then folded up the napkin and glanced at his watch. “Now I must be on my way. That was most enjoyable — thank you for the suggestion.”

“My pleasure.” There was something about this fellow that Lake found curiously attractive: the keen marble face, the black suit, the austere look... and, not least, his avidity for oysters.

Morris McCool departed the Captain Hull Inn, feeling quite expansive despite the shepherd’s pie that lay heavily in his gut. While the meal had been a travesty of the real dish, he was quite surprised at the fine range of local beers and ales now available in America; on his last visit, twenty years before, he’d been hard-pressed to find something other than Coors.

McCool was an enthusiastic walker. Back in his village in Penrith, Cumbria, he always took a walk after dinner to aid digestion. He was a great believer in fresh air and exercise, and it was on these after-dinner walks that he’d had many of his historical insights and ideas.

But this would be a walk with a purpose. Taking a hand-sketched map from his pocket, he perused it, oriented himself, and started toward a silvered wooden staircase leading down the bluffs to the beach below.

The rollers came in on a regular cadence, thundering and hissing up the strand, withdrawing in a sheen and repeating. Keeping to where the sand was still firm from the dampness of the retreating tide, he continued down the beach toward the broad marshes where the river Exmouth flowed into the bay. The infamous “greenheads,” which dominated the heat of the day, had retired for the cool October evening.

He inhaled the salt air with satisfaction. He was so close now... so very close. While there were still some puzzling — indeed, quite inexplicable — aspects, he was sure he had solved the main mystery.

The beach was deserted, save for a small figure behind him enjoying a similar evening stroll. The figure seemed to have appeared rather suddenly, out of the marshes. McCool was not pleased that someone might note where he was going, and he quickened his pace to leave the fellow traveler behind. Even as he walked, the lighthouse on the distant bluff began winking on and off, no doubt automated to come on as the sun set. And the orange globe of the sun was sinking down into the skeleton pines along the verge of the marsh.

The beach turned inward where a ribbon of the Exmouth entered the ocean, the current flowing out of the broad estuary with the ebbing tide, exposing dark gray mudflats. There was a rich but not entirely unpleasant smell coming off the flats. As he made the turn, he glanced back and was considerably startled to see the figure behind him was much closer. The man must have been walking briskly, perhaps even jogging, to have gained on him that much. Was he trying to catch up? Even from a distance McCool didn’t like the look of the man.

A faint trail led through the marsh grass along the edge of the trees, and he quickened his pace even more. The man was perhaps a hundred yards behind now, dressed in rough-hewn and rather obscure-looking clothing. Or at least that was McCool’s impression from a quick glance.

He walked along the trail, checking the rude map. The nineteenth-century working waterfront, long abandoned, was around the next bend of the estuary. As he turned the corner, it came into view: a series of old wooden pilings extending in parallel rows of stubs into the bay, the decking long gone. Massive granite pilings, formed of rough-cut blocks, still stood along the shore — and would stand to the end of time — the granite foundations of loading docks and wharves, along with a ruined fish-processing plant. McCool had carefully mapped this area, using historical documents and photographs to re-create the waterfront of the 1880s. This was where the draggers and seiners and coasters had plied their trade, having endured a long economic decline from the whaling heyday of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The moribund waterfront had finally succumbed to the infamous “Yankee Clipper” hurricane of 1938. The modern waterfront had been rebuilt farther up the estuary, in a more protected location. But the town had never really recovered.