Chapter Six of the novel, The Talking Mime

Chapter 6

We meet an Oxymoron

      The next morning was as foggy as San Francisco Bay at its worst and we were all asleep at 8 a.m. or so when some passing boats threw large enough wakes to stir all of us and send my bottle of Bailey's — left on the galley stove — crashing onto the cushioned bench next to the table.

I rocketed out of bed to retrieve the bottle, thinking a lot more about my need for a future nightcap than the probable mess. The Bailey's was OK, but we rocked for a few moments as the boat settled down.

I looked out the porthole to see if I could spot who had shaken us, and I saw that Rocinante and the 20 or so other boats hanging on the buoys looked as disorganized as a Little League team on its first day of practice. The still air was letting each boat rock and drift pretty much in its own pattern. Rocinante seemed to be feeling some deep current with its keel, because our bow was still clearly facing the ocean while some pointed to Santa Cruz and others looked squarely at the windows of the Anchor Inn.

A 60-foot Cheoy Lee ketch was nearest to us with the name Golden Wings, painted in gold letters on its teak stern. A handful of well-varnished boats, mostly sailboats, were moored, too, with handful of large motoryachts. I wondered how many of them we would see in the Channel Islands and points south along the coast where I figured we would be in a few days.

I had originally planned to pull out today for a short sail over to Monterey Harbor for an overnight, followed by another push in a couple of days south around Point Conception and on to San Miguel Island, the northernmost of the Channel islands and a bit mysterious. There is a wonderful, if somewhat tricky entrance to an anchorage on San Miguel Island where we had spent the night two years before.

Still feeling the ache in my shoulders from the all-night sail from San Francisco, I decided to not even raise the issue. I thought Nym was likely already planning a day ashore to do some sleuthing, sleuthing that definitely included talking to the coroner if she could find him.

I finally spotted the culprit that had likely awakened us with its wake — a 25-foot, twin-engined powerboat  with "Santa Cruz County Sheriff" painted in two-foot high letters on the side. It was out near the edge of the buoys, moving cautiously like a dog sniffing for something. It slowed way down as they approached a 70-foot fishing trawler. The trawler was anchored just outside the buoys in an area where people too cheap to spend $20 for the peace of mind a buoy buys drop their anchors. If I have the option of paying a reasonable fee to a local municipality (which becomes liable for my boat if the buoy breaks loose) or relying on my anchor and chain, I almost always opt for the buoys on the theory that my chain and anchor have a definite lifespan that's shortened every time I use them.

Nym thinks I just hate pulling up the anchor.  She's right about that, too.

The sheriff's boat circled the trawler, this time as the boat's stern swung towards us in the waves. I reached for the field glasses, and after getting everything in focus saw the name. I read it again, always amazed at the names people give their vessels. Looking closer, I realized it looked like a commerical fishing trawler but was really some kind of personal yacht. It was too fancy for a commercial boat. And the name The Talking Mime, seemed out of place for a fishing boat that went after tuna, or squid, or whatever they can catch.

I shouted to Nym that she had some of her law enforcement colleagues to thank for rocking us out of our bunks and that the sheriff's boat looked like it was looking for something on The Talking Mime.

"Dad. Did you say 'Talking Mime?'" Jacob asked from the V-berth. "Isn't that one of those oxymorons, like when you say military intelligence or jumbo shrimp?"

I smiled as only an father - who is also an English professor - does when their child grasps a concept, until it was shattered by his brother Jerrod.

"That's an oxy, you moron," he screamed and I heard the tumbling and wrestling start in the v-berth cabin. "Anything gets broken, you clean the decks all day, bozos," I said.

Back in the galley Nym was already making coffee, dressed in an ankle-length nightshirt she favored on cool mornings like this. On the back it says "Admiral of the Fleet," and there were times when she meant it.

"What's going on with the sheriff's boat?" she asked, obviously still sleepy or she would already be up on the deck with the field glasses.

"I'll go look," I said, pulling on some jeans and a sweatshirt as I realized how cold it seemed below decks, even as the sun was beginning to push some of the gray back.

Out in the anchorage, the sheriff's boat was circling The Talking Mime like a matador circles a bull, swooping around fast, stopping, then turning and swooping again, but in the other direction. The motion of the sheriff's boat was rocking The Talking Mime with its wake and it was hard to tell just what the deputies were thinking. I counted three men, one carrying a hand-held radio, one driving the vessle and a third securing fenders alongside the side of the boat.

"I think the guys on that sheriff's boat are going to board that big trawler out the edge of the anchorage. I don't see any crew above decks on the trawler though."

Rocinante has visited harbors all over the California coast in the 10 years we've owned it, not to mention many hours in San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento Delta. We have witnessed quite a few U.S. Coast Guard boardings of vessels — ostensibly to check for safety equipment — but there was a such a disproportionate number of boats stopped that had bikini-clad crew I often wondered whether safety or skin was the issue. Still, I had never witnessed the Coast Guard board a boat that was unoccupied. But then, these were cops. And for a minute I wondered if maybe the boat was stolen. It's rare, but it happens.

Nym came up on deck and we traded the field glasses back and forth, watching the three deputies, clad in short-sleeved, dark-blue shirts and matching shorts, now side-tied to The Talking Mime. Their shorts gave me great hope that it might actually be warm later today.

Nym peered intently, put the glasses down and then peered again.

"I'm sure," she said.

"Sure?"

"I'm sure that one of those deputies was sitting at the bar last night when we went in," Nym said. "He was the only one in the place with a decent haircut — except for you, of course."

I shook my hair in mock indignation, but didn't doubt Nym's observations. Our 10x50 binoculars could almost count nose hairs at this distance,  and I was sure she had picked him out.

"I remember him because he watched us the whole time we were there," she said. "Even when we had that visit from the planet of the apes."

I suspected that the deputy might have been staring more at Nym than all four of us. She had been certainly the best-looking woman in the place. Well, actually she might have been the only good looking woman in place.

Jerrod and Jacob popped their heads up out of the forward hatch, hollering back to us in the cockpit in the middle of the boat. "What are you guys talking about up here? Can't you see we youths need our sleep?" Jacob said.

I was pleased to see they had apparently not broken any bones and were, I hoped, going to now shift into their Hardy Boys personalities, which although pretty boisterous, was at least survivable on the boat.

"It look's like some sheriff's deputies are going to board that fishing boat or yacht, out at edge of the anchorage," I offered. "If your Mom would quit hogging the field glasses, I could tell you more about what's going on."

I turned to see if Nym was going to give me a hard time, but she was still staring intently, barely moving at all.

"Alex, they all have their weapons out. One is staying in the sheriff's boat, the other two are boarding. They have a pry bar, too. The one who was watching us last night is working the lock with the bar, I think. Damn. His back blocking the door now.
     Nym watched for another few minutes while I nudged her, trying to get her to give me field glasses back. She didn't take the hint.

"JESUS!" Nym suddenly shouted.

She almost dropped the glasses from her neck, snapping them back up to her eyes while I looked off in the distance, trying quite unsuccessfully to see what had startled her — Nym who never swore.

Then I heard the sharp report of the gunshots that Nym had seen. She told me later that she saw the gun flash — four times — all so fast and unexpected it had startled her.

"They're just staring down in the cabin now with the door open," she said, still peering through the binoculars. "The closest deputy still has his weapon pointed down into the cabin like he's ready to fire again.
      Somebody just got hurt Alex," she said shaking her head. "I think somebody just got hurt really bad."

 Next: Chapter 7 - A bark worse than a bite