Berried to the Hilt by Karen MacInerney Page A

nightfall.”
    “What did you see?” I asked.
    “Well, I don’t really know. It may have been the fog playing tricks on me, but I swear there was a ship out there, reeking of tar. I could just make out the sails on her.”
    “Was there anyone aboard?” Tom asked.
    “Not that I could tell. I cut the engine, went to hail them, warn them off the rocks. I yelled out a few times, but nobody answered.”
    “Maybe they were below decks,” someone suggested.
    Mac shrugged. “Maybe. At first I thought it was one of those historical dress-up ships they float sometimes, or the Margaret Todd , out of Bar Harbor, gone astray.” The Margaret Todd was a four-mast schooner popular with the tourists—but as far as I knew, it never went more than a mile from shore, and Deadman’s Shoal was three miles out, in the wrong direction. “But it wasn’t a schooner,” he said. “It was too big for that.”
    “Could have been a clipper,” someone piped up.
    “Or a brig. Jonah Selfridge’s ship was a brig, wasn’t it?”
    “Matilda would know. And Eli, of course.”
    “Can’t ask him now, can we?”
    “Could have been either,” Mac said, shrugging. “I barely got a glimpse of it.”
    “What did you do?” I asked, anxious to get back on topic, since I had no idea what the difference was between a brig and a clipper, and didn’t much care at the moment.
    “I tried to get closer, but a big bank of fog rolled in, and the damn thing just up and disappeared.”
    “Did you try the radio?”
    “Ayuh. No answer, and no other boat reported seeing a ship in the area. Had gooseflesh all over me; I’ve never run my boat so hard, especially not with fog.”
    “The ghost ship,” someone murmured.
    “Probably too much rum in your mug,” a young lobsterman snorted. There were a few uneasy chuckles, but not much mirth. An uneasy silence descended on the smoky room, punctuated by the howl of the wind off the water and the occasional crackle of static from the weather radio.
    “Any word on the Lorelei yet?” I asked, looking at Tom. He shook his head.
    “Probably went down to the bottom with the Black Marguerite ,” Mac said. “Comes from messing with the dead.”
    “I doubt it was a ghost who sank a blade into McIntire’s back,” Tom said.
    Mac bristled, and the tension in the room rose. “Stranger things have happened.”
    “I wasn’t discounting your story,” Tom said quietly.
    “I heard it was Evan who called that Iliad outfit in the first place,” I said.
    “Double-crossed young Adam, is what he did,” said Mac. “It wasn’t his place.”
    “What do you expect from Ingrid’s son?” the young lobsterman—his name was Brad, I thought—snorted. “Thinks he’s better than the rest of us.”
    “And short on cash, to boot.”
    “Even with all the Sorensons’ money?” I asked.
    “His allowance isn’t big enough to cover his extracurricular activities.”
    “Drugs?” Mac asked with a knowing look, which surprised me. I had no idea Evan’s addiction was public knowledge; I knew he had been in rehab, but had promised his mother, Ingrid, not to say anything. Then again, in a community the size of Cranberry Island, there aren’t many secrets.
    “I don’t know much about that, but I do know he likes a wager from time to time,” Brad said.
    “Gambling debts, eh?” Mac asked.
    “Ayuh. He’s been a regular at a game in Bar Harbor, ever since he got back a couple of months ago. Word is, he’s in the hole for 10K, and some folks have started asking him when he’s going to pay up.”
    “A nice bit of pirate treasure would help with paying that off,” Mac said.
    “That’s what I’m thinking,” Brad said.
    “After all Adam’s done for him, too,” someone said, shaking his head.
    “Addiction can be a harsh taskmaster,” Tom said. “But this is all speculation.”
    “I do know one of ours is locked up just because that outsider came and tried to steal Davey Blue’s treasure,” Brad