He nodded at Charlie and smiled at MacPherson. “Good day, Corporal MacPherson,” he said. “Nice to see you again.”
The female Mountie corrected him. “Sergeant MacPherson,” she said.
Scarnum smiled. “Congratulations, Sergeant,” he said.
MacPherson, a big stern fellow with black hair and a grey moustache, didn’t smile back. “I’ve got some questions about your salvage vessel here, Mr. Scarnum,” he said.
Charlie spoke up then. “They’ve been asking me all about it, but I told them I don’t really know nothing,” he said.
MacPherson turned to Charlie.
Scarnum nodded toward the Kelly Lynn, which the Mounties were getting ready to board. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know if you tell those Mounties to stay off my salvage,” he said. “My lawyer tells me I’m not to let anyone on it until we make a deal with the owner.”
MacPherson dug into his pocket for a flimsy piece of paper. “This is a warrant to impound the Kelly Lynn,” he said. “We have reason to believe that James Zinck was murdered on that boat, and we’re going to run it into town.”
Scarnum’s face was blank. “Jimmy Zinck,” he said, and he sat down on a box on the wharf. “Jimmy Zinck is dead?”
“Mr. Scarnum,” said MacPherson, “where were you the night of April twenty-first? That’s two nights ago, the night before you salvaged that lobster boat.”
“Jesus,” said Scarnum. “You don’t think I had anything to do with killing Jimmy, do you? Christ. Why would I want to kill Jimmy?”
He looked at the impassive faces of the two Mounties and shut his mouth.
“I was here on the night of April twenty-first, finishing up some work on Cerebus there, getting ready to take it to Halifax the next day.”
“Can anyone confirm that?” asked MacPherson.
“Well, let me see,” said Scarnum. “I suppose Charlie came down to see how I was getting on at some point that night. I’d have to think.”
“Yes, I did,” said Charlie. “I can tell you he was here.”
MacPherson and the young Mountie looked at each other skeptically.
“Mr. Scarnum,” said MacPherson, “with your permission, we’d like to have a look at your boat there, see if we can find anything that confirms your story.”
“You don’t have my permission,” said Scarnum. “I don’t know nothing about Jimmy Zinck’s death and I don’t think I have to prove that to you.”
At that moment MacPherson’s walkie-talkie went off. He stepped away and looked out at the Kelly Lynn, where one of the Mounties was standing in the wheelhouse, with his walkie-talkie to his ear.
“Are you sure?” said MacPherson. “All right. Over.”
He turned to Scarnum, his face cold and angry. “I don’t give a good goddamn if you give us permission or not,” he said. “We have the right to search your fucking boat and we’re going to. And you’re going to wait in the back of the cruiser here.”
Scarnum didn’t move. “I want to call my lawyer,” he said.
“I don’t give a fuck what you want,” said MacPherson. “Put your hands behind your back. Put the cuffs on him please, Constable Léger.”
It wasn’t until the two Mounties actually boarded the Orion that Scarnum remembered the pillbox of cocaine that he’d left in the pocket of the pants he wore yesterday.
He started to sing softly to himself as he waited for MacPherson to walk back holding it.
“I’s the b’y that builds the boat and I’s the b’y that sails her,” he sang. “I’s the b’y that catches the fucking fish and brings ’em home to Liza.”
MacPherson came out after five minutes with the pillbox in one plastic evidence bag and Scarnum’s GPS in another. He stopped on the dock and made a call on his walkie-talkie, then one on his cellphone. He opened the front door of the cruiser and tossed the plastic bags on the dashboard. He looked through the steel grill at Scarnum.
“You, Mr. Scarnum, are under arrest for possession of an illegal narcotic,” he said.
Charlie tried to talk to MacPherson, but he ignored him, slammed the door of the cruiser, and went to the dock to wait for one of the Mounties on the Kelly Lynn to fetch him in a little rowboat.
Charlie wandered back to the cruiser. “What the fuck they got you in there for, Phillip?” he shouted.
Scarnum grinned up at Charlie. “They think they found some cocaine on Orion,” he shouted, so Charlie could hear him through the reinforced window.
“Call the lawyer, Charlie,” he said. “Call Mayor and tell them they’re taking me to the detachment.”
They didn’t leave him in the interrogation room to sweat it out for long.
MacPherson and Léger came in after only about twenty minutes.
“Look,” said MacPherson. “We got you fair and square on the coke, and that means you are sure as shooting gonna do some time in one of Her Majesty’s federal penitentiaries.”
He leaned back to let that sink in and chewed on the cap of a pen.
“You’re a good-looking fellow,” he said. “I bet you’d be popular in Dorchester.” MacPherson laughed at his own joke.
Scarnum stared at him. “I think I want to talk to my lawyer,” he said.
MacPherson stared him down. “What did you think of all that blood in that lobster boat?” he asked. “You’re an icy fucker, aren’t you?”
Scarnum stared back at him.
“If you didn’t kill him, why didn’t you give us a call when you saw the boat was full of fucking blood? What’s wrong with you?”
Scarnum said nothing.
“You even bought champagne, didn’t you, ready to celebrate your big payday, huh?” said MacPherson. “Man, that’s cold.”
Scarnum looked away and answered, measuring his words. “I only went into the cabin of the boat once and it was pitch black, and I was some fucking tired after hauling the cocksucker, excuse my language, Miss Léger, after hauling the Kelly Lynn off the rocks. I didn’t see no fucking blood and I don’t have the first clue who shot Jimmy Zinck.”
“How well did you know him?” asked MacPherson.
Scarnum pondered, then replied. “Not well. Seen him a few times at the Anchor. Young badass lobsterman. Talked loud. Never did business with him.”
“Where’d you get the coke?” said MacPherson.
“What coke?” he said, quickly. “I don’t know nothing about no coke. If you found coke on my boat someone else must have put it there, maybe whoever shot Jimmy Zinck. Maybe you’d be better off looking for that guy instead of bothering me.”
“All right,” said MacPherson. “We’re bothering you. Innocent Phillip Scarnum. Wouldn’t say shit if his mouth was full of it.”
He paused and looked down at the pen top in his hand, which he had chewed to pieces. “Tell me, Phillip, how’d you know Jimmy Zinck had been shot?”
Scarnum answered quickly. “I never said he’d been shot,” he said.
“Yes