said Scarnum.
Chester is built on a wooded hill at the head of sparkling Mahone Bay, a sailor’s paradise dotted with pine-clad islands. There is a bay on each side of Chester — the Front Harbour, lined with wooden wharves and filled in the summer with sailboats and cape boats going to and fro, and the Back Harbour, a quiet backwater lined with houses.
It was built when every village and town around Nova Scotia had a shipyard, where men with hand tools turned trees into wooden vessels, so the houses were built by shipwrights with all the time in the world on their hands and plentiful, cheap timber. They are handsome, sturdy, wooden homes, clad in clapboard, with peaks and gables and widow’s walks looking out over the water.
In the early part of the last century, rich Americans discovered Chester’s charms, and since then the little port had been largely bought out, taken over each summer by well-off come from aways: Americans, Ontarians, retired Halifax professionals. The summer people have bought up most of the beautiful homes from the descendants of the sea captains who built them, driving up the property values, which has sent most of the locals inland or down the bay, where land doesn’t cost so much. In the summer, Mercedes and Land Rovers clog the narrow, tree-lined streets, but during the rest of the year, there are pickup trucks and old sedans.
What passes for a downtown strip — a bank, some churches, a few cafés and pubs and a ship chandler — takes up one street a few blocks from the water.
There was not much going on this Monday at lunchtime, and Scarnum found a parking spot for his old Toyota pickup right in front of the Victorian house on Queen Street where William Mayor had his office.
Inside, Mayor’s receptionist greeted Scarnum and showed him into Mayor’s office, a pleasant wood-lined room with a view of the carefully groomed backyards of some of Chester’s nicer homes.
“Phillip, good to see you,” Mayor said, rising from his chair and extending his big, soft hand.
“Good to see you, William,” Scarnum said and sat down in a wooden chair in front of the lawyer’s desk.
“Phillip, you hungry?” said Mayor, patting his oversized belly. “I’m starved. I’m about to get some fish and chips sent in from the Anchor. Want an order?”
Scarnum did. Mayor called in the order and sat back in his chair, looking at Scarnum over his rimless reading glasses.
“So,” he said. “Sounds like you’ve got a story to tell,” he said, and leaned back in his chair.
“Well,” said Scarnum, “I was doing a delivery run yesterday, taking a schooner into Halifax, when I saw a boat — the Kelly Lynn, though I didn’t know her name then — washed up on the rocks off Chebucto Head, just inside the Sambro Ledges. She was getting banged up pretty good, I suppose, and for some reason I got it in my head to get her off, which I did. Took a bit of doing, but I got a line onto her and towed her back here to Chester. Right now she’s tied up on a mooring down at Charlie Isenor’s yard.”
“There was nobody aboard her?” asked the lawyer.
“Nope,” said Scarnum.
“Well,” said Mayor, smiling, “It seems to me you’re likely in for a pretty good payday out of this.”
He reached into a drawer in his desk and pulled out a contract and slid it across the desk.
“Before we go any further, I’d like to sign you up. Here’s the dealio. This is my standard salvage contract. Sign here and you’ll give up 15 percent of the salvage fee to me, regardless of how much or little it is. In return, I’ll contact the owners and try to, uh, negotiate the best price I can for you. The alternative is you could contact them yourself and try to make your own deal, but in my experience vessel owners are sometimes reluctant to pay their salvage fees, and a lawyer’s letter or two helps clarify their thinking.”
The receptionist knocked on the door and brought in two orders of fish and chips.
As they ate, Scarnum read the contract. “How’s it usually work?” he asked.
“Well,” said Mayor, “it’s a pretty well-defined area of law. The idea is that a salvor has an ownership stake in a vessel if it’s clearly in jeopardy of imminent destruction when the salvor salvages it. The legal principle goes back to ancient Rome. If we can show that the Kelly Lynn was likely a wreck without your intervention, then you are entitled to a payday. If she just slipped her mooring and was floating in Chester Basin, you’re likely out of luck, but that isn’t your story. If you risked life and limb to save her, your share goes up. If we can’t agree on a price with the owner, then it usually goes to arbitration. Depending on how well your story holds up, you’re likely entitled to 25 to 50 percent of the replacement value of the boat.”
Scarnum whistled. “Minus your cut,” he said.
Mayor smiled, his broad, pale face lighting up. “That’s the way she works,” he said. He had a bit of tartar sauce in the corner of his mouth.
Scarnum bent to sign the contract. “How long’s it usually take?” he asked.
“Anywhere from a few days to a few months,” said Mayor. “Depends on the state of mind and the state of finances of the owner. If it’s some hard-up lobsterman a payment away from losing his boat, it could be a while. If it’s a big outfit, could be pretty quick.
“Until then, you are to maintain possession of it,” he said. “Nothing short of a court order ought to convince you to turn the Kelly Lynn over to anyone. Don’t use it yourself, and don’t let anyone else go aboard it. Just leave it at the mooring and don’t let anyone aboard the damn thing. If the owner can somehow get it back into his custody, the legal situation can become more complicated.”
“Sounds like I ought to guard it,” said Scarnum.
“I would if I were you,” said Mayor. “Or I’d ask Charlie to do so. Does he still go rat hunting around the boatyard with his pellet gun?”
Scarnum smiled. “When he’s got a mind to.”
“You might encourage him to be out hunting rats if any strange cars pull up. If I were you, I’d ask him to keep an eye on the Kelly Lynn for you,” said Mayor.
Scarnum nodded.
“Now,” said Mayor, “I need to hear your story, while the memory’s still fresh.”
He hauled out a digital voice recorder and put it in front of Scarnum, and got him to unspool the story.
The lawyer took notes as Scarnum talked. Every so often he’d lift his head to interrupt with a question. Otherwise, he was hunched over his pad, scribbling as Scarnum talked.
When Scarnum got to the part where he hauled himself aboard the stern of the Kelly Lynn, the lawyer put down his pen and looked sharply at Scarnum.
“I need a bathroom break here,” he said and switched off the recorder. But he didn’t head for the bathroom. He sat still, staring at his pad, then lifted his face to gaze at Scarnum.
“Look, I don’t mean to insult you, but it’s unwise to, uh, embroider your story. The element of risk does factor into the payout,
