“You should have said something earlier,” Vic said.
“Well, I didn’t know until we got into it.Can’t you dial it back a bit or something?Stacey, can we get another take?”
“It’s fine, guys,” I said.“The take was fine.If you start being prima donnas about this, it’s going to be a real turn off.And a pain in the ass to keep track of.”
“I just feel stiffed,” Eddie said.
“And I totally respect that,” I said.“We’ll try it a different way here in half an hour.Do you guys know where we’re going?”
“I thought Brother Al was in charge of that,” Vic said.
“I’m going to go to the cabin and check it out,” I said.
The stairsdown to the cabin went deeper than I expected.Brother Al was staring at some nautical charts.At the window, near the inside, a man I’d never seen was standing at attention near another steering wheel.
“Stacey,” Brother Al said.
“There’s a wheel up top,” I said.
“Yes,” the man at the wheel said.“There’s two.”
“I guess I don’t know a lot about boats.Who are you, again?”
“A parishioner,” Brother Al said.
“I work with Captain Fredericks,” the man said.“Name’s John Steeley.”
“You look normal,” I said.
“Thanks, I guess,” he said.
“He’s a human,” Brother Al said.“Works with our missing cargo ship usually.John’s familiar with the route, so we’re tracking where they may have gone.”
“How’d you get into Brother Al’s parish?”
“I’m a vassal,” he said.“My wife’s vassal.”
“Elizabeta Steeley is one of our more recent converts,” Brother Al said.
“So he’s on the level,” I said.
“If you’re asking if my wife is a vamp, the answer is yes,” John Steeley said.
“I gotcha,” I said.“So, you guys are good on directions, then?”
“There was some stormy weather that night,” John said.“Could have blown them off course from their normal route.We’re tracing the usual course ourselves, but if the wind really blew hard, and the fog set in, then I could see them drifting somewhere else.”
“The real question is why we the coast guard hasn’t found them,” Brother Al said.“Or why they haven’t reported in.”
“What do we do if we trace their steps and don’t find them?”
“I hadn’t planned that far,” Brother Al said.
“So this could be a wild goose chase,” I said.
“Unfortunately so,” he said.
“Huh,” I said.“I’ll be back.”
