My morning routine at Mashnee was totally predictable. I always began the day with my early morning run, unless of course I had been called to duty by the business of professional sleuthism.
On this particular morning I wanted to get out on my boat as early as possible. The seas were incredibly calm, which was going to make for a great day of guys, girls, (maybe) beer, food and water skiing. But first I had to clean the boat up and head over to Memorial Beach to refuel. I knew the tank was fairly low and my dad would be pissed if he wanted to use the boat and it wasn’t properly gassed up with at least three-quarters of a tank. Preferably full. We had a deal: I used his credit card to buy gas and the rest was my labor and responsibility. Plus, the boat had to be clean and shiny, spotless really, and ready for any kind of surprise inspection my dad might throw at me, especially on weekends.
Fine. Fair ’nuff.
So, I hustled down the narrow, sandy path leading from the ballfield and back parking lot to a portion of the beach where about nine or ten Mashnee families kept their dinghies, ours being one of them. Most of the small rowboats were smartly painted in an array of classic and colorful pastels, many with bottoms showing signs of rapid deterioration from the necessity of being dragged to the ocean’s edge at low tide, if you were alone with nobody to help lift, as was too often the case.
As I approached our dinghy, its placement struck me as off, and the gray painted oars were protruding slightly from underneath, something I never did. Then, when I flipped it over, having to give a bit of heave-ho, I knew for certain. Something was wrong. Quite wrong.
I noticed a set of deep drag marks leading from the dinghy through the granular sand leading toward the ocean. No question, the rowboat had clearly been moved. Dragged. Then I quickly spun my head toward the ocean, anxiously scanning for our mooring and the Can Of Worms Too, and was beyond relieved to see our skiff still tied up and bobbing slightly with the current.
Oh well, someone had just “borrowed” my dinghy to get to their boat. Pisses me off, but people were always lending and borrowing stuff at Mashnee, no big deal, just being neighborly and all that, but it was usually with permission.
Whatever, it was just a dinghy. Right? Sometimes people borrow them, no biggie.
Then I saw something much more alarming. Like a five-alarm alarm. I was fastidious when it came to tying my dad’s boat. I always ran two, thick, heavily braided marine lines through the mooring clip, securing one with a bowknot and the other a midshipman’s hitch—knots I learned to tie in the Coast Guard Auxiliary training course my dad made me take. Even from my vantage point on shore, I could see that one rope was missing. I couldn’t quite see which one, but one thing was definitely clear…
Somebody messed with my dad’s boat! Oh man.
I couldn’t row out fast enough. My head racing with thoughts of various and insidious punishments my father might dole out if anything happened to it!
And it got worse. Much worse. Upon arrival I instantly knew the boat had been breached. Cushions had been moved, lines used, the anchor untied and there were some gum wrappers, a discarded can of Coke, and a wet towel on the deck…. I was beside myself.
My eyes were frenzied as I searched for further evidence of infusion and piracy, noting a grease smear on one of the rear upholstered seats, and my other braided line, the one I use as a second to help secure to the mooring, lying carefully looped on the floor, and configured into some kind of a knot…
Shit!
Somebody really had breached our boat. Dammit! Thieves? Joy riders? J.D.s? Who would even do something like this? There was only one answer.
Memorial Beach kids!! It must have been.
This was payback. For certain.
Had to be! Probably those Jackson brothers and their band of summer instigators! Those cross harbor bastards… It figured… Then, just as I was set to round up the guys to mount an all-out assault on all things Memorial, I looked down and noticed something strange and particularly unnerving about the knotted rope lying on the carpeted deck,
At the end of it, there was a noose.
Complete with a hangman’s knot.
I instantly froze in place, startled. Are you kidding me?! Would the kids at Memorial Beach really do this? Take my dad’s boat? And leave a noose? Is this a bad joke? A threat? Whatever it was, it was damn serious!
Then I noticed, crumpled up in the center of the noose was some kind of a note scribbled in thick black ink on the back of, my father’s boat registration of all things, and it read:
NOT SO FUN
WHEN IT’S YOUR BOAT
IS IT LITTLE PUNK
RUNNER BOY!!!
Holy mmmmoly!
Not for the first time that summer did my stomach flip over, filled with butterflies, my head pounding to an all-too-familiar theme.
What the eff have you got yourself into this time, Jimmyrocket?!
The answer was trouble.
And no way could I tell anyone, especially my dad, if, that is, I ever wanted to drive my boat again…!
This was one retaliatory punch I’d have to take like a man.
Chapter 53
Suspicious
The next night we called another meeting at The Hut.
Not that these meetings were all business by any stretch. We loved hanging out at The Hut, especially with girls and beer in attendance. By now, Christine was a permanent figure on my arm, and her best friend Sally, was never far behind. Tommy’s gorgeous girlfriend, Tina, from back home (I told you she was miss teenage massachusetts, right?) was making regular weekend appearances, sometimes bringing a friend, and the rest of the guys were constantly flirting with everything female that moved, especially hitting on any newbie renters.
Man, the awkward pickup lines that were used on these poor girls, the most popular of which had to do with showing them the “special and little known features of the island.” Guy code for a make-out walk to the beach, or the dock, or the ball field, or better yet, The Hut!
But, tonight we needed to sort stuff out.
Big. Important. Stuff.
The evening was dank and drizzly with a touch of coolness in the air; an unwelcome precursor that summer was fading, although the night’s gloominess did seem a fitting backdrop to our rather serious mood. The beach was damp enough so that footprints were left in the sand, mostly bare, a few with sneaker tread designs. Long hair was wet. The girls’ hair was wet and frizzy.
