Black Cat Weekly #19

THE LAST FERRY, by Jason Half-1

The Barb Goffman Presents series showcases

the best in modern mystery and crime stories,

personally selected by one of the most acclaimed

short stories authors and editors in the mystery

field, Barb Goffman, for Black Cat Weekly.

THE LAST FERRY,

by Jason HalfHe was the only one on the upper deck, sitting in a red rail chair and staring at the gray expanse of sky. If the cold drizzle that had started was bothering him, he didn’t show it.

The fact that he was alone was no surprise. Anyone with any sense—including me up until two minutes ago, when I realized we were one person short of the even dozen I had counted while we waited for the ferry—was staying warm and dry in the enclosed lower deck room below. And here I was satisfying my curiosity and getting soaked for my efforts.

He was just a young guy, early twenties or so, and although he had leather gloves on and a flannel jacket zipped up, he was hardly dressed for this weather. To give him some credit, the day had started clear and sunny, but his choice of clothes told me he wasn’t too familiar with the weather around here.

He showed no sign of noticing me, just kept looking out at the black water and the gray sky, shivering a bit. I could turn around, lean on the stair railing and walk back down to wait it out in the warm deck room. My arthritic joints would thank me. And he might not want company. If there’s one thing we islanders know, it’s how to mind our own business.

I studied him again. And I knew this wasn’t about my comfort. He didn’t look okay. I let out a breath and walked toward him, sat down beside him.

His gaze turned from the horizon to the puddles on the deck floor. The right gloved hand started to flex and coil. He said something, but I could only make out one word, and I hoped I had it wrong.

“Killed.”

“What was that?”

He crossed his arms, huddled himself up. Against the sweep of the wind and the rumble of the engine the reply came, soft but unmistakable.

“I think I just killed someone.”

A person can react a couple different ways to a statement like that. Maybe the most logical would be to fear for your safety, but this young man had no anger or wildness in him; if anything, he looked defeated. It would also be reasonable to want to find the nearest law official or loony doctor and let them sort it out. And a goodly number of people would choose to just walk away and not get involved.

I remembered my thermos of black coffee, took it out from my inner coat pocket, unscrewed the top, and poured.

He looked at the plastic cup and was going to turn away, so I told him to take it. He did and sipped. If he noticed the lining of whiskey I had added to the coffee, he didn’t show it.

“You said you think you just killed someone,” I started, my voice casual. “Does that mean you don’t know for sure?”

His eyes focused on the cup and a new expression formed, one of worry, maybe surprise. “This is not… I’m sorry. I don’t need to involve you in this.”

“That’s up to you.”

He took another sip of coffee. I waited.

He took a deep, shuddery breath, pulling cold, damp air into his lungs. “Do you know—” he stopped, started again. “Did you know Ryan Tanner?”

It was my turn to shiver, and I hoped that he would chalk it up to the wind and rain. I nodded. Ryan Tanner was an islander, about the same age as the stranger beside me. He had lived year-round in a small cabin off Prout’s Neck Drive. I didn’t know much about him. Like most islanders, he minded his own business. But I knew that his body had been found at the bottom of an overlook drop two weeks ago, his skull fractured.

“I knew him by sight, and I heard what happened to him. The accident.”

“Yeah. Accident.”

“Do you want to come downstairs, warm up inside?”

He shook his head. “No. I need to be up here right now.”

“Suit yourself,” I said and poured more coffee into the cup. Another silence, and then he offered me a sad, wistful smile.

“It started like a Cinderella story. I met him first at a bar on the mainland—this was back in August—and after this great conversation, right at eleven thirty, he says, ‘I gotta go.’ And he disappears. The next weekend, same thing. We meet, talk, have a great time, and then…” His left hand waved a specter of memory away. “I thought his carriage had to turn back into a pumpkin. So at one point I said, ‘I’m not leaving until you show me where you go.’ And he did. He took me to the ferry terminal, where he had to catch the last boat back to the island. That was our fourth date.”

I didn’t know I was frowning, but I suppose I was. The young man caught the look and squared his shoulders. “I’m sure your generation doesn’t want—” he started, but I cut him off.

“No. It’s not that. It’s just a surprise. Until you said that, I had no idea Ryan Tanner was…that way.”

His features softened, and the sad smile returned. “Yeah. Sometimes I think Ryan didn’t know it himself. He was going to be an electrician, you know.”

“Yeah, I knew that.”

“It wasn’t until the end of September when he felt comfortable enough to invite me to the island. And each time we would go to his cabin, that’s when he was able to relax and let his guard down. I asked him to tell me what he was learning at the technical school on the mainland, and at first he thought I was making fun of him, but I wasn’t. We wound up teaching each other. He’d tell me the difference between alternating current and direct current, and I would explain the differences of techno and house music. He’d show me how to use a voltmeter and I’d show him how to make dessert pastries using phyllo dough. What we had, it was nice.”

After a pause, his voice dropped and his delivery became slower and more deliberate. I knew there was more coming, and that it wouldn’t be easy to tell.

“The last weekend of October, two days before Halloween, we stopped in at Manders’ Market on the island to pick up some groceries for dinner. Lemon, garlic, I was thinking of scampi with shrimp and sea scallops. And I’m standing beside him, saying something about imported olive oil, when I see him freeze. His jaw, his arms go tense. I follow his stare and I see this guy at the front of the store. Dark, straggly hair, several days of stubble, dirty jeans, and a ripped T-shirt. And he’s looking back at Ryan, not really at me at all, just at Ryan. Then I hear ‘Come on,’ and Ryan’s already headed to the door. I didn’t know what was going on, so I left the food in the aisle and moved to catch up with him. And this guy gives me a look as I go past.

“At first, Ryan won’t even say anything, he just keeps walking up the road. But when we get back to his cabin, he tells me that the guy in the market is Cole Farraday. And that he lives on the island too.”

“Yeah.” It was all I felt like saying.

“I didn’t know anything else about this guy, but I was mad that just his appearance could ruin the evening for Ryan and me. But I know Ryan lives a different life than I do, so I tried not to push against that.”

I refilled the thermos cup, and he took a grateful drink before continuing.

“That next Saturday, going out to the island, Cole was there on the ferry. We went to the top deck, and Cole followed us up. Ryan sat two seats away from me and looked straight ahead. Cole sat down across from him. I kept waiting for one of them to say something, but they didn’t. Cole stared at Ryan, and Ryan stared back. It was like I didn’t exist. That ride lasted forever.

“He was silent over dinner in the cabin, and later we fought for the first time. I asked him why he cared what anybody thought of us, and he said it was a mistake bringing me out to the island. If there had been another boat scheduled, I would’ve been sent back to the mainland. I slept on the couch that night.

“I had a hard time getting to sleep, and I slept through what happened next. When I did wake up, I went into Ryan’s bedroom, ready to apologize, but he wasn’t there. I thought I heard a noise outside, so I put on shoes and a jacket and left the cabin.

“There’s a storage shed off to the side of the house, and Ryan was at the front, just out of view. I saw an open can of red barn paint, and at the same time heard the whoosh of a roller brush. I took a few steps closer.

“‘Hey, if you’re planning a home décor project—’ And then I saw it. Black letters, must have been spray painted, four feet high. He had already painted over the first letter, but the A and the G remained.

“‘Get back in the house!’ Ryan snapped at me. It took me a second to recover, and then I asked him, ‘Is this that guy, Cole?’ He told me to be quiet and go inside. I said, ‘You need to call the police, report this.’ And Ryan said no, so I said, why not? And he told me that Cole Farraday was the son of the sheriff who would come to investigate.”

Listening to the young man’s story, I had forgotten about the cold weather, the numbness in my feet and fingertips, but now the awareness returned. Cole Farraday was indeed the son of Samuel Farraday, acting sheriff, whose jurisdiction included the island. Both father and son have built reputations on their shared bad temper and their willingness to bend the rules for their own benefit. The rumor was that Samuel had moved Cole out to the island as a way to keep him from stirring up trouble in town.

The man was continuing. “I knew that Ryan was already pushed to the edge with all this. So I picked up a brush, and I helped him paint his shed.

“He said almost nothing to me until we were back at the dock, waiting for the noon ferry to let off its passengers. I wanted to stay with him, but he clearly wanted me to go. As people were walking up the ramp, he said very quietly, ‘I’m gonna talk to him tonight. This is gonna stop.’

“I looked at him, surprised. ‘Tonight? Don’t do it. He’s not worth it. Why don’t you come back with me? We can go into town, stay at a motel, talk this through.’ But he wouldn’t look at me. His eyes were set. ‘No,’ he says. ‘We need to get this settled, Cole and me.’

“I didn’t like this at all, and I tried again. ‘No, just come back with me.’

“‘You can board now,’ he says. And against my instincts, I left him.”

The sad smile returned again, and if he was about to cry, the mist and spray would surely camouflage it.

“He never gave me a phone number. I never even saw him with a cell phone. And I—” His voice trailed off, and his hands opened helplessly. “I don’t pay attention to the news. Otherwise, I might have heard sooner.

“I went back the next weekend, alone on the ferry, and walked up to the cabin. I got there and it felt cold, vacant. I found a flannel jacket of his and put it on. This one, in fact.” The man touched the collar of the rain-soaked jacket he was wearing. “Then I went down to the market, just trying to find something to do. Liz Manders was at the counter, and she gave me the strangest look.”

He fell silent. I knew it had to be difficult, and tried to choose words that would help him move on.

“That’s how you heard about Ryan. Liz told you about the accident.”

He nodded, his eyes closed. “She told me. Probably told me too much.”

“Liz likes to gossip,” I said.

“She told me that last weekend—I knew it was the morning after I left him—Ryan’s body was found at the bottom of the overlook drop by someone walking his dog. There was a gash on the left side of his head, deep enough to crack his skull, and that was what killed him. Someone had examined him before Sheriff Farraday got there.”

“Frank Betts, the island doctor.” I had heard the gossip too. “Betts is a good man.”

“And Liz Manders said something else. That Dr. Betts had pointed out to a volunteer medic a couple flecks of black paint in the wound. More black paint. And listening to this, I didn’t say anything, didn’t even react much. I just felt numb and useless. I guess I found my way back to Ryan’s cabin, but I don’t even remember walking there. I stayed in that cabin for hours, just thinking about what happened, thinking about him.