Free Billingsgate Shoal by Rick Boyer Page A

Globe. After a lot of hee-hawing on the other end, and
spending half my life's savings in small coins, I was informed that
Peter Scimone was really a stringer who lived up in Gloucester. I got
his number and called him. I said I'd lay three crisp tens in his
hands for a series of eight by ten glossies of the Windhover he photographed a month ago. He said for three crisp tens he'd begin
running the prints instantly, and they'd be ready for me when I
arrived.
    Scimone lived down near the water in East Gloucester,
just on the borderline of the artists' colony called Rocky Neck. It
was a shack, but nicely kept up and decorated with many potted plants
hung from macrame holders. Peter emerged from his darkroom with four
prints of the Windhover .
I glanced at them and was instantly on edge, and excited. Even at
first blush the missing Windhover and the phantom Penelope were very similar.
    Scimone had done the job quickly on a moment's notice
for the local Gloucester paper, and the print was a year old when the
Globe bought it. He didn't remember much about any of it. A
gray-haired man sat on the deck of the boat with two other men. On
the dock behind the boat was an attractive young lady with long blond
hair. Scimone knew nothing about her, had not seen her before or
since. I paid him and left with the prints.
    On the way back through town a name, crudely painted
with a big brush on a mailbox caught my eye. The name was Murdock,
and the house was near the water. I pulled over and walked to the
mailbox. If it was Daniel Murdock, and he couldn't construct a boat
any better than he could write his name on his mailbox, I wouldn't
want to be out in a millpond on one of his vessels.
    I knocked at the door which, like the house, wasn't
in very good repair. I waited. The gulls cried and cars whispered by
behind me on the road. A curtain fluttered in a window above me. A
voice called out asking me what I wanted.
    I said merely that I wished to speak to the owner,
Mr. Dan Murdock.
    "I've got a boat that needs work on it. Where
can I reach .him?"
    "Who wants to know?"
    "Doesn't he do repair work?"
    "Who wants to know? He ain't heah."
    "Where can I find him?"
    "Try the Schooner Race or the Harbor Café.
He'll do it. . .if he's not too drunk. He owe you money?"
    "No. I just want to talk with him briefly."
    The window slammed shut and I walked toward the car.
But I stopped, and chanced to look back beyond the tiny frame house
toward the harbor, whose slimy water, coated with prismatic and
rainbowesque swirls of petrochemicals, gave off a heavy aroma. A
shack was back there, perched over the harbor like a stork over a
lily pad. I began ambling down the gravel lane toward it, I was
curious to see the spot of Penelope's conception and delivery.
    I heard the window slide up again with a clunk.
    "He ain't heah! Mistah, go away!"
    But stubborn soul that I am, I kept at it. When I was
halfway to the shack, I heard the ring of a phone inside it. It rang
once. That's all.
    I stood in front of the doorway. The place was dark
inside. I peered in through the windows. There was the looming dark
shape of the bows of a big boat silhouetted by the shiny harbor water
behind it. I tried the door. It wouldn't budge. But why only one
ring? Had the caller hung up after only one ring? No. Murdock was in
there, in amongst the tools, timbers, and old beer cans that lay
strewn everywhere. I looked again through the windows of the dismal
place, but nothing moved in the dark. I pounded on the door, then
peeked again. Then left. The single ring was probably a warning
signal sent by his wife. Lord knows how many people were anxious to
make contact with Mr. Murdock. From his apparent drinking habits and
the slovenly state of his operation, I guessed that he owed quite a
lot of people money.
    "Mrs. Murdock? Mrs. Murdock!"
    Curtain flutter. Window up again.
    "Mistah, look he ain't—"
    "I know. Listen, tell him a man wants very much
to speak to him about the Penelope .
Tell him