The Bluewater Wraith

By T.R. Sullivan

Lacy and David Taylor buy a houseboat at a charity auction, although neither of them knows the first thing about boating. Lacy feels that "it'll be a brand new adventure for us -- owning a boat. We'll have a wonderful time."

When they find a harbor to moor their boat, they also meet the boat's previous owner and his new wife, Frank and J.J. Patterson. The four of them soon become fast friends, even though Lacy is a little concerned about the attraction between her husband and the previous owner's new wife.

As they learn about their boat and the harbor they're in, Lacy and David also learn something else: their boat is haunted, and their lives are in jeopardy.

..."A ghost haunting the claustrophobic confines of a houseboat is a frightening idea...and Sullivan writes well enough to make sure you believe it." (aBumpInTheNight review)

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456608644

Book preview

She roams the night – a weary wraith

Who’s doomed to haunt until she’s found

With tattered shroud and shattered faith

And laid to rest in hallowed ground.

Anon.

Last August, My Mate and I attended a charity auction in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where we met a man who was selling his houseboat and everything with it.

He wasn’t an old man – he was only forty-two at the time – so we were curious about his reasons for selling. Was he tired of boating? Frustrated by it? Was it too expensive for him? As curious as we were, we couldn’t ask him why he was selling – because it wasn’t polite, and it wasn’t any of our business.

But we didn’t need to ask him. He seemed eager to talk about his reasons. He seemed compelled to share his reasons with somebody else, as if he couldn’t quite believe them himself.

The story you are about to read is his story– a story that begins with one auction, and ends with a second. The only thing we’ve added is what happened before the auctions…

The murder.

T. R. Sullivan

Winneconne, Wisconsin

************

Prologue

June, 2010

The Murder

The killer sat on the plaid sofa in the boat’s pilothouse, patiently waiting for the drug he’d given his victim to take effect. It shouldn’t be long now, he thought, she should be completely under in another hour.

The entire boat was dark, from the pilothouse at the front – where the killer sat sipping his brandy – to the aft cabin in the rear – where the victim lay sleeping. When the woman moaned softly and turned onto her left side, the man put his brandy down on the table in front of him, picked up a flashlight, and checked his watch. 1:15 a.m. I’ll wait until 2:00 just to be sure.

As he waited, the killer took a waterproof lake map from the table, opened it, and focused his flashlight on a spot he’d marked in red two weeks earlier – Horseshoe Hole, in Lake Poygan. A depth of 12 feet, he thought. Should be 20 feet, but 12 will have to do. He turned his flashlight off, set it on the table, and picked up his brandy again.

The man sipped his brandy, and reviewed his plans for the woman. He had wanted to dump her body in Lake Butte des Morts or Lake Winnebago – where the water depths were 19 to 21 feet – but he would have needed bridge openings to get the boat into those lakes. That would have meant witnesses – the bridge tenders – and the killer certainly didn’t want any witnesses tonight. That’s why he’d picked Horseshoe Hole in Lake Poygan – it was the deepest patch of water he could reach without worrying about anyone seeing him.

That’s also why he’d picked an almost moonless Tuesday night – this night – to kill her. So no one would see him. The harbor was very busy on the weekends, but in the middle of the week – Tuesdays through Thursdays – the harbor was always quiet. Very few others were around. And since there would be very little moonlight, his movements would be nearly impossible to see, even if others were around.

The killer continued sitting in the dark, sipping his brandy, reviewing his plans – and checking his watch.

Finally, it was time.

He set his brandy on the table, got up from the couch, and walked across the carpet to the pilothouse’s sliding glass door. He opened the door and went outside.

He stood on the boat’s bow for a moment or two, looking around the harbor for any signs of movement. The only movements he saw were the other boats in the harbor, swaying back and forth in their slips, and the leaves of the harbor trees fluttering in the evening breeze. Nothing more.

He turned on his flashlight, stepped off the boat and onto the wooden pier, and walked towards the harbor’s pool house. It was a short walk – less than seventy yards – just across the harbor’s gravel driveway. The only sounds he heard were his own shoes on the wooden pier, then on the gravel driveway, and then on the cement sidewalk leading to the pool house. Nothing else.

When the man reached the pool house, he checked the swimming pool, the dressing rooms, the kitchen, the laundry room, and the utility room. No one else was around. Everything was quiet.

Confident his actions would go unnoticed, the killer returned to the wooden pier and unlocked a white dock box that was sitting there. He opened the box and removed a large twin-pronged anchor with several feet of white nylon rope attached to it. Walking down the pier to the boat, the man carried the anchor and the rope to the rear of the boat, where he tied the rope to the railing on the starboard side – the right side – of the boat’s aft deck. He propped the anchor against the deck’s railing – with its two pointed shanks jutting straight upward – and then he walked back on the wooden pier to front of the boat.

When the killer arrived at the pilothouse door, he stopped to take one more look around the harbor. Satisfied that no one had seen him, the man opened the sliding glass door and stepped inside.

For a moment, he stood there just inside in the pilothouse, with his back against the sliding glass door – listening for sounds.

Everything was silent.

He turned left and walked down the short flight of stairs from the pilothouse to the boat’s galley – the kitchen – where he paused once more to listen. He thought he could hear the victim’s breathing, but he wasn’t sure. He moved slowly and quietly into the aft cabin, where the woman lay sleeping.

The man stood beside the bed for a minute or two, and watched the woman sleep. She was breathing deeply and evenly. He shook her shoulder, and called to her. Sarah? Can you hear me? Are you awake?

The woman didn’t respond. She was definitely under.

She was ready.

The killer turned, and walked back through the boat’s galley and up the small flight of stairs to the pilothouse. He walked to the black leather padded helm area at front of the pilothouse and flipped two toggle switches that read helm lights and blowers. After a few minutes, he reached over to a pair of red throttle handles, and pumped both of them up and down three times. Then one at a time, he twisted two keys in the helm that read ignition. Both of the boat’s Chrysler engines started immediately.

While the engines were warming up, the man completed his pre-departure checklist. When he finished, he walked back outside the boat and disconnected the boat’s shore power, water, cable, and dock lines. Then he stepped back through the pilothouse door, closed the door, and took his position at the helm.

The killer hesitated slightly before he flipped another toggle switch that read navigation lights. …Maybe I should make the trip without lights – the boat would be harder to spot. No...too risky. If the sheriff’s out patrolling tonight, and he catches me running without lights, he’ll stop me – maybe even come aboard. That’s the last thing I need tonight – a run-in with the sheriff...

The man flipped the light switch on, and took one last look around the harbor area. Assured that no one was watching him, he pulled the boat’s two red throttle handles downward to their lowest positions, and he pulled two other handles – the boat’s two black shift levers – downward to the reverse position. The boat moved slowly backward, out of its slip and into the waters of the harbor’s front bay.

When the bow of the boat had cleared the end of the wooden pier, the man pushed the starboard – right – shift lever to its forward position. The boat slowly rotated left until its bow was pointing towards the mouth of the harbor. Then the man also pushed the port – left – shift lever to its forward position. The boat slowly moved straight into the mouth of the harbor, towards the lake beyond.

As the boat moved out of the harbor and into the lake – Lake Winneconne – the man pushed the two red throttle handles slightly higher. The boat picked up speed and the man settled in behind the boat’s steering wheel, making slight adjustments to keep the boat on the westerly compass course that he’d plotted two weeks earlier. He had to be careful in these waters – the depth was only 4 feet, and there were submerged weed beds scattered everywhere. There was very little light, but it was enough – he could see the southern shoreline of the lake, and he could see the tops of the weeds flying by on either side of the boat.

Eight minutes later the boat passed Lone Willow Island, which marked the end of Lake Winneconne and the beginning of Lake Poygan. The killer relaxed a little as he saw the island, because it meant the water depths would increase from this point on – from 6 feet to 12 feet. The worst part is over now…

For the next 18 minutes the killer steered the boat due west, and monitored the water’s depth using the boat’s GPS and its depth sounder. 6 feet…8 feet…10 feet…

When the depth sounder registered 10 feet, the killer pulled the twin red throttle handles down to their lowest position. The boat slowed to a crawl. 11 feet…12 feet...

Then the man pulled the boat’s two black shift levers to their neutral – idle – position. He had reached his destination – 44o 08.500’ North Latitude, 88o 49.900’ West Longitude.

Horseshoe Hole. The boat was sitting in 12 feet of water, with Horseshoe Hole immediately below it. The lake was dead calm. The boat was not moving. The only sounds were the boat’s twin Chrysler engines, idling.

The killer turned off the navigation lights and stepped outside onto the bow. He looked around the lake. Everything was dark. There were no lights anywhere along the lake’s shoreline. He could see the silhouettes of several trees – but no cottages – along the lake’s southern shoreline, approximately a mile away. He could see two vague dark mounds at Old Indian Point and Norwegian Bay, two miles away on the northern shoreline. He could see absolutely nothing along the shoreline to his west and his east, over three miles away. Excellent. If I can’t see them, they can’t see me, he reasoned to himself.

He went back inside and checked the boat’s GPS one more time. Better than I’d hoped. The boat hasn’t moved enough to register a change.

He turned away from the helm and walked down the short flight of stairs, through the galley, and into the aft cabin. His victim was still asleep. He nodded confidently and walked to the foot of her bed, where he opened the sliding glass door leading out to the aft deck. A slight breeze wafted through the open door, and the sound of the idling engines became louder inside the boat.

The killer walked back to the side of the bed, pulled the covers away, and lifted his victim’s body onto his right shoulder. He carried her to the end of the bed, and out through the sliding glass door. There he knelt down, and laid the woman on the deck – as close as possible to the twin-pronged anchor he had propped against the starboard railing earlier that evening.

Then the man stood up and went over to the railing, where he began to loosen the end of the nylon anchor rope that he had secured there earlier – the end of the rope he would now use to tie the woman’s body to the anchor. I could use a little light to see this knot, but I can’t risk anyone spotting the boat…hmm…this may take a minute or two…

While the killer stood at the railing working on the knot in the anchor rope, the woman awoke from the noise and the vibration of the engines. She rose unsteadily to her feet and stepped towards the man.

Where…where are we? The woman asked in a slurred voice as she struggled to maintain her balance. What…what did you put in my…my wine?

Startled by the woman’s voice, the killer turned quickly to face her. His movement rocked the boat slightly, so the woman lost her precarious balance and fell backwards – onto the anchor.

As the twin prongs of the anchor impaled her body, the woman cried out – partly in pain, partly in surprise, and partly in fear for her life. The woman’s cry pierced the night’s silence as a bolt of lightning would have pierced the darkness, and the sound echoed and re-echoed across the lake – again and again and again.

The killer immediately pounced on his victim, clamping the woman’s mouth shut with his left hand, and pushing her further onto the anchor with his right.

Sarah, Sarah, he whispered gruffly, we can’t have that…people will hear us.

The woman groaned with pain, and struggled to free herself from the man and the anchor. The killer held his struggling victim down and watched anxiously as distant lights blinked on – one by one – dotting the shoreline in all directions.

Now look what you’ve done, Sarah, the man whispered, you’ve awakened all these fine folks from their sleep. Let’s hope they don’t come out for a visit, eh? Now be a good girl and die.

The woman whimpered, and her struggling grew feeble. As the man continued to hold his victim down and watch the shoreline, the distant lights began disappearing – one by one. Before the last light disappeared, the woman’s body had become limp.

The killer checked his victim’s pulse and nodded with satisfaction. Excellent. I’m back on plan.

Then the killer noticed that a pool of blood was forming underneath the woman’s body. He quickly went back inside the boat, pulled the top sheet from the bed and came back out to the deck. With a tremendous effort, he freed the woman from the anchor and wrapped her in the bed sheet, trying to mop up as much of the blood as he could while he worked. Then he went back to the railing and finished untying the anchor rope knot. He bound the woman’s body with the rope, and eased her and the anchor into the lake on the starboard side of the boat – just as he had rehearsed in his mind.

The killer let out enough nylon rope to set the anchor in the mud at the bottom of Horseshoe Hole – with the woman’s body bound into the rope just above the anchor, approximately 10 feet below the lake’s surface. He temporarily wrapped the free end of the anchor rope to the starboard railing, while he went inside the boat to check the GPS and the depth sounder one more time..

The GPS unit at the helm read 44o 08.625’ North Latitude, 88o 49.700’ West Longitude, and the depth sounder read 12 feet. Still in Horseshoe Hole, and still at 12 feet. Right.

On his way back through the galley, the man took a heavy toolbox from the galley closet, and an empty bucket from beneath the sink.

He returned to the aft deck, tied the toolbox to the free end of the anchor rope, and eased the box and the rest of the rope into the water. As the box and the rope sank quickly to the bottom of Horseshoe Hole, the killer scooped buckets of water from the lake and washed the woman’s blood off the deck. In minutes, there was no obvious evidence that the woman had ever been on the aft deck of the boat.

The killer washed and dried the bucket in the galley area, and then he made the bed in the aft cabin. Satisfied that he had removed all traces of the woman, he went back to the helm.

There, the man pushed the boat’s two black shift levers into their forward positions, and the boat began moving again. Then the man turned the steering wheel left and eased the two red throttle handles forward, so the boat turned away from Horseshoe Hole and moved swiftly back to the harbor area.

An hour later – around 4:45 a.m. – the killer was driving to Oshkosh, where he would spend the next two days in a hotel room that he’d been occupying since the beginning of the previous week. He had left the boat where he had found it, with all the lines and cables connected as they had been before, and with the boats’ keys sitting on the pilothouse table with a typed note that read:

To Father Keen’s Crew –

Here are the keys you’ll need…Father Keen already has all the paperwork…

Hope you guys get a good price for the boat in your auction next week…

If you need anything more, call the Harbormaster at (920)-555-6243…

As the killer drove, he smiled to himself. Perfect, he thought, Absolutely perfect.

************

Part I

August, 2010

1. A Boat for Auction

Did you see this ad in the local paper? They’re holding a charity auction at a place called ‘Father Keen’s’. I think it’d be fun to attend an auction – even if we didn’t buy anything.

David Taylor smiled to himself. His wife Lacy was doing it again. She had this quirky little habit of asking him if he’d seen something in a section of the newspaper that she hadn’t given him yet. She was an intelligent, warm, beautiful, sexy woman that he loved dearly – but she did have these funny little habits that made him want to laugh out loud. He tried not to laugh aloud though, because he didn’t want to hurt his wife or humiliate her.

The local paper Lacy referred to was the Saturday morning Oshkosh Gazette. David and his wife were staying in Oshkosh to attend the annual EAA AirVenture Fly-In – an event hosted by the Experimental Aircraft Association, featuring nearly 12,000 airplanes of all descriptions, plus 800,000 curious on-lookers just like the two of them. David and Lacy had been fortunate enough to find lodging at the Heritage Resort and Marina – the best hotel in Oshkosh – located on the western banks of Lake Winnebago. They were eating their breakfast on the hotel’s outdoor patio – enjoying the resort’s gourmet food, the view of the lake, and the warm August sunshine. David and Lacy were vacationing in Oshkosh – and they were loving it.

I must have missed that ad, David replied to his wife. What kind of things are they auctioning – clothes and furniture?

They’re auctioning all kinds of things – even cars, motorcycles campers, and boats.

Interesting, David said. Where is this place?

Let’s see…The ad says Father Keen’s Place is on Oshkosh Avenue, just east of Highway 41. It says you can view most of the auction items at Father Keen’s – all of the items except the boats. The boats are supposed to be located in the Heritage Resort Marina…oh, that’s here! I’ll bet the boats are in that fenced-in area right over there!

Lacy was pointing to a gated marina area about a hundred yards southeast of where they were sitting, at the water’s edge. The marina was filled with scores of large boats – some sailboats, some powerboats – mostly blazing white, marine blue, teak, and stainless steel. A sidewalk wound from the outdoor patio exit – just a few steps away from their table – through the resort’s beautifully landscaped grounds, to the marina’s front gate.

"Let’s check out the boats first, OK? Lacy asked. Then we can go over to Father Keen’s and see what else they have there. Are you almost done eating, Honey? Let’s go as soon as you are done, OK? Oh…be sure to chew your food, though."

David laughed. He couldn’t help himself. I’m just about done. Why don’t you go ahead…I’ll pay the check and catch up with you.

Lacy smiled. She had a smile that warmed David through and through. It was a smile of beautiful white teeth and sparking green eyes, and it made him weak in the knees every time he saw it. And then there was her flaming red hair, her porcelain skin, her…

I sound like I’m part child and part mother, don’t I? she said. Then she laughed her wonderfully throaty laugh. Sorry. I guess I’m a little excited.

I know, Babe. No problem. I’m excited, too. Go ahead. I’ll catch up.