MacMillan Wharf

MacMillan Wharf: Chapter Twenty-Six

MacMillan Wharf: Chapter Twenty Six

by Richard Gifford

Annie walked up the wooden steps to her second-story apartment just off Commercial Street. The entrance to it was down a narrow side alley between two buildings. She turned the key in the lock and pushed, but the humidity had caused the wood to swell, making the door tight. She leaned her shoulder into it and the door opened. Just out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw someone else coming down the alley, but when she turned her head to look, no one was there.

Once inside the shoebox of an apartment, Annie closed the door and locked the deadbolt. She immediately plugged her cell phone into its charger, then she checked her answering machine which was blinking with four messages.

The first was from her mother. “Annie, I heard about the murder of the scientist at that place you work. It’s just terrible. I hope everything’s ok. Call me when you get this. Love ya, bye.” Beep.

“Hey babe, it’s Shane. It’s like, four o’clock. Sorry about earlier. I was stressed about getting the traps done. I’m back at my place now. I tried you on your cell, but I remembered it’s dead. Give me a call when you get in, maybe we can go out tonight. There’s a good reggae band playing at the Beachcomer in Wellfleet. OK, talk to you later.” Beep.

“Idiot,” she muttered. “My life’s in danger, I’m about to break into someone’s house, and he wants to go out drinking.”

“Hi, it’s Mom again. I didn’t hear back from you, I’m getting worried. Please call me when you get in. I love you. Bye.” Beep.

“Hey babe, me again. I called Billy, and he told me you were out on a whale rescue. That’s cool. I bet you’re pretty tired. Why don’t you get some sleep and I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll come over in the morning.” Beep.

“You clueless moron!” she shouted at the machine. Annie pressed the delete button with vengeance. While she did, the phone rang. If it was Shane again, she was going to let him have it for being so, well, Shane.

“I thought something horrible happened. It’s so good to hear your voice.” “Hello?” She barked into the receiver.

“Annie, it’s Mary Ellen. Are you OK?”

“Oh, my God, Mary Ellen. Yes, yes, I’m OK. How are you?”

“I’m pretty sore, but other than that I’m all right. I didn’t know what I was doing this morning. It was like I stepped out of my own body.”

“I thought something horrible happened. It’s so good to hear your voice.”

“Thanks Annie, that’s sweet. I’m wondering if you could do me a favor.”

“Sure, anything you need.”

“Could you go over to my house and feed my kitty Ray Charles? There’s a key hidden inside a rock by the birdfeeder.”

Annie couldn’t believe the timing. “Actually, Mary Ellen, I was hoping I could go over to your place. Linda kept a copy of her environmental impact report on the gas drilling on her home computer; I need to get a copy of it as soon as possible.”

“Why? Can’t that wait?”

“I don’t think it can. Chief Souza thinks that someone might have been after that report when Linda was killed. There’s a creepy guy in town named Tom that might be connected to all of this. I’m the only one who knows what’s in that report, and the only copy is on the computer at your house. The sooner the report is made public, the better.”

“Annie, do whatever you need to do to keep yourself safe. I don’t want Linda’s death to be in vain, so get that report. But be careful, that Tom guy sounds dangerous.”

“That’s what the Chief says, too. Don’t worry, we’ll get him, and the report too.”

“Thanks Annie. Good luck. Oh, Ray Charles gets one can in the morning and one at night. Just make sure he has plenty of dry food and water, too.”

Annie laughed. “If he doesn’t, he’s likely to eat me!” She’d never seen a cat as large as Ray Charles. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. I’ll call you tomorrow. You can get calls at the hospital, can’t you?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Thanks for everything. You’re a good friend. Bye-bye.”

“Bye Mary Ellen.”

She immediately stepped into the bathroom and turned on the shower. While she waited for the hot water to come, she stripped off her foul smelling clothes, dumped them in the trash and stepped into the steaming shower. She felt the grime of the day start to wash off. She watched as the water at her feet changed colors from pink to brown and finally become clear. She would have liked to linger there, but she knew she had to meet Juicy.

She stepped out the shower and wrapped herself in a towel. When she opened the bathroom door, she let out a scream as she saw a large man’s silhouette peering through the front door window.

“Who are you!” she shouted. “Get out of here!”

The shadowy voyeur retreated hastily down the steps. Annie heard the footsteps fade as he ran up the alley.

She quickly double-checked the lock to make sure it was bolted, then went into her bedroom to dress. “Who was that?” she wondered aloud.  “God, Annie, what have you gotten yourself into?” She put on a clean T-shirt and transferred the contents of her shorts pockets into a pair of jeans. She unplugged the cell phone which was just barely charged, and slipped it into her back pocket.

The little voice inside Annie’s head, which she usually attributed to her grandmother, told her to be extra cautious. She rummaged through her purse for the can of pepper spray that her father had given her as a going away present in May. At the time, Annie thought he was greatly overestimating the dangers she might encounter in Provincetown, but now she was thankful for his foresight.

She opened the door slowly and looked around to see if there was anyone hiding in the alley. When she saw that it was clear, she slipped the small canister into her pocket and locked the door behind her. She moved as quickly as she could down the stairs and through the alley, feeling a little safer once she was in public view on Commercial Street.

Annie picked her way through the Saturday evening madness of Commercial Street. She’d forgotten that it was Fourth of July weekend, a time when just about anything could happen with tens of thousands of tourists in the streets.

Every few hundred yards, Annie looked over her shoulder to see if she was being followed, but with all of the people milling about it was impossible to tell. By the time she reached the East End Gallery district, the crowds had thinned out considerably. She saw the hand-carved, lotus shaped sign at the Dharma Gallery and her heart beat faster. Juicy was nowhere in sight.

She decided it would be safer for her to wait inside than out on the street, so she looked around the base of the birdfeeder by the side door and found the hollowed rock containing the house key.

Annie opened the door and was greeted by the enormous black bulk of Ray Charles purring at her feet. She quickly closed the door behind her and locked it.

Annie suppressed the lump in her throat and sat down at the computer. “Hi, Ray,” she groaned as she picked him up. “Good kitty. Let me get you some food.” Annie hurriedly fed Ray and gave him fresh water, then went into the home office that Linda shared with Mary Ellen. There were pictures all around of the two of them with their friends. Annie had seen them before, but never paid much attention to the vacation photos of San Francisco, New York, London, and a Caribbean cruise that Linda and Mary Ellen went on last winter. Now, the arrangements of pictures seemed more like a shrine to Linda’s memory.

Annie suppressed the lump in her throat and sat down at the computer. She turned it on and waited while it warmed up. Ray Charles, who was starved for affection,  climbed up into her lap, kneading her denim jeans with his giant double paws.

“Ouch! That’s enough, Ray,” she said as his claw dug into her leg.

She clicked on “Documents”, and saw a list of many different folders. Finally, she found the Whale Center folder and tried to open it. Annie hadn’t accounted for it being password protected.

Uh-oh, she thought, what could it be? Looking down at the pile of black fur curled up on her lap, she tried the obvious and typed in Ray Charles. She once heard that using a pet’s name for a password was a bad idea because it could be so easily guessed. Apparently, Linda had heard this, too.
Annie typed in password after password, trying to think like Linda with no luck. Her head throbbed from the stress. “Where is Juicy?” she said to Ray Charles.

A thought occurred to Annie to do a Google search for Thomas Lawrence. She spelled out the name and hit enter, and was surprised at how many hits she had for Lawrence of Arabia. No luck there either, she thought. Annie made a mental note to come back to this later.
She looked at the clock and saw that it was nearly seven. She needed to get down to MacMillan Wharf to help identify Tom Lawrence when the Explorer came in.

“OK, Ray, I’ll be back later.” Annie looked out the window on the side street to see if there was anyone watching her. Satisfied that she wasn’t being followed, she opened the door wide enough to slip outside and pull it shut behind her. She checked to make sure that it was locked and then placed the key back under the rock. After one final glance around, she made her way through the crowds on Commercial Street to MacMillan Wharf.

*                *                  *

Once he could see that Annie had left, the shadowy stranger who was watching her stepped out of the bushes of the house next door, and retrieved the key from its hiding place. He calmly let himself in, shut the door, and sat down at the computer.

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