“Meantime, we’re in luck. Richard’s top assistant, a Dr. Peter Hubbard, is free to come out pronto. Hubbard is on his way to Logan right now to catch the plane for Chatham, he’ll be here early this afternoon. We need someone to go over to Chatham for him . . .”

Stephen Scott said at once, “Reed can take my Bertram!” Everyone understood the spirit of the offer. The Bertram craft was “the gold-­plated yacht,” Scott’s pride. It was the fastest boat around, could make the ten miles in less than half an hour even in rough water. “Where is Reed?” Scott thought to ask.

Craig Soaras remembered it was Brockshaw’s day off, and that his family had planned to picnic around East Beach. “I’ll find him,” Craig volunteered. He himself would have enjoyed the rare opportunity to sail the Bertram, but he knew that Scott would prefer to have his own man at the wheel.

Johnson said impatiently, “Okay! Whoever goes to Chatham, have him ask for Dr. Peter Hubbard.” He stood up abruptly, clearing his throat. “Now Craig and I will go find Sharky and bury him.”

“Damn shame!” the sheriff murmured. “That was a real nice pup.”

Scott spoke to the group quietly but with power. “And we all keep this on the quiet side, fellows, right?” The men comprehended his concern without further explanation; their grim faces told him so around the room.

Craig Soaras was opening the door for Elias Johnson to leave when a middle-­aged woman with two girls swept into the office, fuming with outrage. Hilda Cannon was a widow, the doyen of one of the oldest of the old Yarkie families, and she considered the sheriff’s office an extension of her own home. She and her twin daughters, fifteen-­year-­old Rebecca and Ruth, filled the room with their bulk and wrath. The woman was in mid-­shout before the door closed, and Johnson turned back to hear her complaint.

Mrs. Cannon shook a sausage-­like finger under the sheriff’s nose. She vociferated, “I warned you, Amos, but would you listen to me?” The woman pivoted to Johnson as her oldest friend. “Elias, I told him to run those hoodlums off the first day! We don’t need layabouts and drifters on this island!”

Amos Tarbell’s neck swelled against the tight collar of his starched tan uniform. “And I told you Yarkie is still under the United States Constitution!” It was now the sheriff who looked to Johnson for confirmation. “We may not like those three fellows, but they have their civil rights too, you know.”

Hilda Cannon’s eves bulged. “What about my girls’ constitutional rights?”

Amos Tarbell addressed the two girls directly. “Those men touch you, Ruth? They talk out of the way to you, Rebecca?”