Free Rigged for Murder (Windjammer Mystery Series) by Jenifer LeClair Page A

it up, and dropped it into her pocket to add to the other evidence.
    Scott and Tim went over the stern and down the ladder to the yawl boat while the captain attached one of the pulleys to the lashings around the body. Then he and George hoisted it up and slowly lowered it down to Scott and Tim. Once the body was secured, John and Brie climbed down to the boat.
    “We’ll try to be back by breakfast,” he called up to George.
    With that Scott turned over the engine and released the line that secured them to the
Maine Wind.
It was almost seven o’clock as he steered the yawl boat over the choppy water of the bay toward the waterfront docks of the village.
    “Once we land, I’ll go up to the general store and rouse Fred Klemper,” John said. “The rest of you can wait in the boat. No point taking the body out until we know where we’re going with it.”
    As they crossed the cove, Brie studied the village for signs of life. Except for the smoke that curled from a few chimneys, she found none. The small harbor was dotted with lobster-boats bobbing at their moorings. No fishermen would be heading out today. Yesterday’s gale had become a full-blown nor’easter, packing high winds and piling up huge seas.
    Crowning the bluff above the village was a large white Victorian house with cranberry-colored shutters and a porch running around three sides of it. As if reading her mind, John pointed toward it. “That’s Snug Harbor Bed and Breakfast.”
    “They must have some view from up there,” Brie said.
    As they got closer to shore, Scott slowed the yawl boat to an idle and they floated the last few yards up to the dock. John threw the bow-line over a piling, hopped onto the dock and secured the stern line that Scott threw him.
    “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said. He turned and strode off the dock and up a small hill toward the general store. Brie, Scott, and Tim waited with the body.
    John was back in fifteen minutes. “Fred says we can put the body in his cooler until the Coast Guard gets here. He told me that over the years he’s had occasion to store two other bodies in the cooler when people died suddenly and there was no way to get them to the mainland.” John gave Brie a hand up out of the yawl boat.
    “Did you ask him if there’s a constable on the island?” Brie asked.
    “Fred said there isn’t. So, for now at least, we’re on our own.”
    Brie looked out to sea. There was no horizon line, only a grayness that seemed to match the lack of definition she felt. When she turned back there was resignation in her voice. “I guess this means I’ll be conducting the investigation by myself,” she said. “So, let’s get the body to a secure place, and then we need to get to a radio.”
    “Scott, you and Tim lift the backboard up. Brie and I will help slide it onto the dock.” This done, Scott and Tim boosted themselves out of the boat, and, with each person on a corner, they started for the general store with the body.
    As they made their way along, Brie scanned the cluster of houses that huddled along the hill near the waterfront. From the second-story window of a small Cape-Cod house, a woman with raven hair watched them. When she realized Brie had noticed her, she stepped back into the shadows. Brie wasn’t surprised. In a tiny village like this she imagined lots of other windows were occupied by curious onlookers.
I’d certainly be interested if I saw four people carrying what looked like a body through the rain.
    When they arrived at the back door of his store, Fred Klemper was waiting for them. He was a ghost of a man, tall, thin, and anemic-looking.
Ideal to watch over a corpse
, Brie thought. She had the odd impression that, were he placed in front of a bright light, she’d see right through him. The magnifying glasses he wore slid down his nose, and with a spindly finger he pushed them back up. Brie noticed a gleam of anticipation in his owlish eyes, as if he relished the thought of a