A Halloween Disappearance
Chapter 3: Life — Living It, Serving It
Early the next morning, I awoke to the sound of the sailboat banging against the dock. If not for the rubber fenders I had put out after tying her up the night before, the hull would have suffered serious damage. Looking out through the porthole, I could see that a severe late-autumn storm had blown up overnight.
I should have expected this. It was November, after all—the tail end of hurricane season and the time of year when North Atlantic storms began making their presence known. It would have been foolhardy to head out into the open ocean under such conditions. I hadn’t planned my departure from Boston only to end up lost at sea a few days later.
Later that morning, I would make my way to the marina office to get the latest information on approaching weather fronts. For the moment, though, there was nothing I could do.
Instead, I rolled over and went back to sleep.
The storm surge tossing the sailboat against her lines was strangely soothing, like a cradle rocking me gently back and forth.
Just as I had suspected, conditions offshore would be hazardous for small boats venturing into the open sea. The winds would be pushing in one direction while the currents ran in another, creating some seriously large rollers. These conditions would make for miserable sailing, if not downright dangerous.
In talking with the marina’s manager, I learned that most sailing-yacht owners had abandoned any plans to make the run to Bermuda at this time of year. It was simply too foolhardy. Even if I managed to get there, the sailboat would likely arrive battered and in need of repairs. That could leave me laid up in Bermuda for weeks, if not months, and that was certainly not something I looked forward to.
He suggested an alternative that many other sailing-yacht owners followed: taking the Intracoastal Waterway south toward Florida. I could break up the journey with stops in Charleston, Savannah, and St. Augustine, taking my time along the way. From there, I could continue down the Florida coast and eventually make my way to Miami.
From Miami, it would be only a short sail to the Bahamas. Once there, I could continue on to wherever I wanted to go in the Caribbean.
That sounded like a good idea to me, so I decided to follow his plan. I asked the marina manager which charts I would need. There were several, but he also suggested loading the Intracoastal Waterway waypoints into the sailboat’s navigation electronics. Since I had the money, I gave him the go-ahead.
As I was leaving, he asked if I wanted to change the sailboat’s name now that I was her new owner.
Stupid me! I hadn’t even noticed that the boat still had a name.
I had to ask what the boat’s old name was. The owner glanced down at the paperwork spread out in front of him and said, “My Escape.”
I grinned and said, “No, leave it. I like the sound of it.”
Walking back to the boat, I thought, What are the chances of that? I took it as a good omen.
Back aboard, I made a quick inventory of what I would need to properly equip the sailboat for the journey. It took several trips to the local market to gather all the food I thought I would need. Each time, I made the trek on foot, only to return to the boat and realize I had forgotten something. I then had to turn around and make another trip to pick up whatever I had forgotten.
The marina crew filled my tanks with diesel fuel and fresh water and made sure I had plenty of propane. The LP gas tanks were securely fastened to the stern of the sailboat. In a few days, I would be ready to set sail.
All the packing and repacking had left the cabin untidy—or, to be honest, a complete mess. It looked like an episode of Hoarders.
I didn’t want to be seen in public too often for fear that someone might recognize me. For that reason, I planned to do a lot of reading. The previous boat owner had left a selection of books on one of the shelves. Whoever he was, he seemed fascinated by the Caribbean and pirates. Those books might have made for enjoyable reading, but I wanted a wider variety of subjects.
I needed to free up some shelf space, so I took the pirate books down and planned to store them in the cubbyholes beneath the beds and couches in the main salon. As I lifted the cushions to stow the books, I glanced down and was surprised by what I saw: a pair of stainless-steel Mossberg pump-action shotguns and several boxes of ammunition, including buckshot and slugs.This wasn’t for hunting. There was only one purpose those shotguns served: protecting the boat. Now I understood why there were so many books about pirates and the Caribbean. The boat’s previous owner wasn’t taking any chances; he was prepared to defend his boat against modern-day pirates.
I wasn’t going to remove them. I might need them myself someday.
Each evening at dusk, I would grab a newspaper from the vending machine on the main dock. I usually picked up copies of USA Today or The New York Times. Almost every night, the papers carried updates on the latest developments in Boston.
My mother-in-law had hired one of the best law firms on the East Coast to defend her daughter. Bill’s family had distanced themselves from him. None of the Howells were there to support him—not even his own parents.
In a way, I felt sorry for the guy. Although he didn’t have to rely on a public defender, he had the resources to secure good legal representation. Since he was an attorney himself, he knew whom to hire to represent him.
One person I didn’t see mentioned in the papers was Maris’s father. I think he had enough sense to stay out of the public eye.
It took a week, but I finally felt prepared to leave the marina and begin the slow journey south toward Miami, alternating between the Intracoastal Waterway and coastal sailing. Progress was slow, and I had to stop every other day to refuel along the way.
At night, I would find a spot outside the channel and anchor the sailboat. So far, the journey had gone more smoothly than I had expected. There were a couple of inconveniences, such as locks that had to be opened and closed and bridges that had to be raised and lowered.
The strange thing was that, as I made my way down the Intracoastal Waterway, the weather was perfect. It was sunny and warm, with no severe weather anywhere along the route. Looking over the logs I had kept, I found that it had taken almost six weeks to reach Miami, Florida, from my starting point in Norfolk, Virginia. On average, the sailboat covered close to twenty-five miles a day.
I had left Norfolk in the second week of November, and it was now two days before Christmas. The trip could have been made more quickly, I suppose, but I hadn’t wanted to rush it. I took time to resupply, take on additional diesel fuel, and simply relax. I was beginning to think I could get used to this yachting lifestyle.
Almost a month after leaving Norfolk, I stopped at a marina just north of Charleston, South Carolina, to take on diesel fuel, have the holding tanks pumped out, and top off the fresh-water supply. While there, I picked up the latest issue of USA Today, since it was the only newspaper in which I could regularly find news about Boston.
In the course of their investigation, the police had also uncovered a plot by Maris and Bill to skim some of the corporation’s profits. The newspaper speculated that they planned to run off together with the money and start a new life in a country with no extradition treaty, where they could live out their days in relative luxury, beyond the reach of the law.
The article speculated that I had discovered their plot and that they had eliminated me to cover their tracks. I had to laugh. Things had worked out even better than I had originally planned.