The Raft

Prologue

Jerry knew he'd never get a good night's sleep until something was done about the Raft.

He sure as hell hadn't gotten one last night and he knew tonight he'd do no better.

Jerry stumbled around his kitchen, making the motions of brewing coffee.

He huffed and paused, defeated by the seal on the coffee can and looked out of the bay windows of his kitchen, out at the panoramic view of the Puget Sound beyond.

Here he was with a front row seat to the Extinction of the American Working Man. Bastards, Jerry cursed at the black shadows of the boats floating out in the water. It was raining, the clouds low and heavy, dumping a sheet of the signature Northwest drizzle over the Sound. But Jerry could still make out the mosquito fleet of tiny craft moored just beyond the shore of his waterfront property. Goddamn Rafters, Jerry cursed again. It was all their fault. Why couldn't the government do something about them?

Linda came out of the bedroom with the dogs in tow. She had their float toys, and they were scampering to snatch them out of her hand. It was time for their morning exercise and Linda was taking them down to the water for a swim. It was their morning ritual, Jerry's wife and the dogs. The dogs would swim for fifteen to twenty minutes, out and back, dutifully retrieving the thrown float toys. They'd do it until they drowned, Jerry was certain, if Linda's arm didn't always tire before the dogs did. They'd come back soaking wet and leave wet paw prints all over the hardwoods. They'd curl up before the pellet stove, lit or not, and pant pools of drool onto the floor.

There was the thunder of dog feet on the stairs down to the basement as Jerry returned to his hapless attempt to make coffee.

Thirty years Jerry had spent at Boeing, welding jumbo jets and the tail assembling for strike fighters. Thirty years on the job and his hard work had bought him his dream home. He'd built it mostly himself, on weekends and vacations. The patch of waterfront property had been the most dear expense. The commanding view of the Puget Sound, and the skyline of Seattle beyond, was worth a pretty penny, at least it was back when Jerry had bought it. Before the Raft. Now those vagabond, good-for-nothing freeloaders were driving the home prices into the toilet, stealing money from honest, hardworking folks like Jerry. Who wanted to spend five to ten million dollars to look out at a cluster of ramshackle, barely seaworthy eyesores? A fleet of tax-dodging hobos. Not even Jerry. But Jerry was stuck with it. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't sell his house. Not with the Raft practically camped out on his shore.

The whole system was upside down. Guys like Jerry couldn't catch a break, but the floating refuse out there could happily shit all over Jerry and no one lifted a finger. Why didn't the government do something? Clean up the mess. Even the courts had told them that they could, that the Rafters didn't have a legal leg to stand on. But still, there they all sat, out in the Puget Sound – and almost every other major body of water in the United States. It was a goddamn social phenomenon. It made Jerry sick.

He finally had the coffee grounds in the machine. He flipped the switch and watched the brewed coffee as it started to trickle into the pot. Linda would want a cup when she returned upstairs with the dogs. It was cold and rainy out there, she'd need a cup to warm her up.

The whole thing was stupid. A stupid loophole some smart aleck thought he'd found in the 2020 revised tax code. The text stated that any US Citizen who failed to set foot on US soil during the preceding tax year was exempt from paying taxes up to a fixed maximum of two hundred thousand dollars.

It was the language that tripped up the IRS: set foot on US soil. Some wise-ass interpreted this loophole to apply not just to US Citizens abroad, but to any US Citizen that literally didn't set foot on US soil. Sat up in a tree, for example, for a whole calendar year. Some people actually tried it, with varying and humorous success.

Of course, it was all a bunch of bullshit and the IRS treated it as such. But when the tax protesters took to the water and cast off on the inland waters of the US, they seemed to grab the popular imagination. After all, there was a strong motivation behind the attempt to dodge income tax, and a lot of grassroots sympathy, with the base marginal tax rate topping over forty-five percent.

The whole movement was known as the Raft. Not a single vessel, but a whole fleet of ragtag, dispossessed ships. Essentially anything that floated and kept a bum from setting foot on solid ground. That was the Raft. With each and every deadbeat skipping out on his fair share of the tax burden.

But damn it, Jerry paid his taxes, even on his social security, something his father's generation had never had to do. If Jerry could pay his taxes, why couldn't those bums? The government needed to come in and arrest the lot. It was obscene, the sight, floating out there flipping the bird at Uncle Sam.

And on Jerry's doorstep, too. The politicians back in Olympia and even Washington, D.C. didn't have to deal with it. But Jerry did, every day. All those tiny little craft, each holding a stinking hippie. God knows where they were all going to the bathroom. In the Sound, Jerry wagered, and then that refuse washing up on Jerry's beach.

It just wasn't fair. A guy who works his whole life, does his time, pays his taxes, he gets screwed over. But those deadbeats...

The coffee was ready. Jerry poured himself a cup.

When Jerry first heard the screams, he was not concerned. His wife was prone to hollering at the dogs if they swam out too far from shore. But when her screams didn't die away, he began to grow alarmed. He crossed the dining room to the window and looked out through the rain-spattered glass. The dogs were out of the water, rooting at something at the very southern edge of Jerry's property. His wife was sprinting back towards the house as fast as her age and bum knee would let her.

Jerry! she screamed up from the back basement door. She screamed with such blood-curdling force that a cold shiver shot down Jerry's spine. Something was wrong, very wrong. He'd never heard his wife's voice betray such fear. Jerry dropped his coffee mug on the dining room table, dumping its contents across the oak surface. He sprinted for the basement stairs.

His wife was standing at the door to the mud room, her face sheet white.

They didn't speak. Jerry crossed the small patch of lawn between the house and the water's edge, shuffling in his slippers. Leave it! Leave it! he commanded the dogs, but they ignored him, sniffing curiously at the dark mound. When Jerry was on top of them, he smacked each animal roughly on the haunches, sending them whinnying off in the frigid surf.

Jerry already knew what he'd find. The abject terror in his wife's eyes had spoken volumes.

Jerry leaned over the mound gingerly, struggling to keep his footing in the loose gravel of the beach. He could feel his heart pumping a thousand beats a minute, the blood thundering in his ears. He reached out and turned the dark mound over. Behind him, Linda let out a horrified cry and began to sob.

It was a young woman, or had been, her face white, her lips blue. Her dark hair was a tangle of flotsam and mud, wrapped in the heavy, coarse, hemp fabrics of handmade clothes. But it was her feet that instantly marked her as a Rafter. Jerry looked down and stared at her white, porcelain toes.

She was barefoot. The Rafters were always barefoot. There was no need for shoes when you lived your days aboard ship.

She'd died and fallen into the water. Jerry looked out at the countless silhouettes that bobbed out in the Sound, hidden by the haze of the Northwest morning. She'd died and fallen off one of those vagabond craft and washed up on Jerry's beach. She was dead. Back on US soil.

Jerry's gaze returned to her cold, dead, sheet-white toes.

Chapter 1

Maggie's toes curled against the cold as she piloted her launch towards Alki Beach.

It was far too early for Maggie to be out of her nice warm bunk, and far too rainy for Maggie to be out and about in a small craft on Elliot Bay. She shivered, half from the weather, half from panic. It was far too early for Maggie to be having so much emotional drama, too. She coughed and told herself to keep it together.

She'd had a small panic attack as she'd lowered her dinghy into the water, a few minutes of tears that she'd been able to swallow back. Now, she would hold it together. She was not going to make a scene. Perhaps five years ago she'd have blubbered her way through a day like today, but five years ago was five years ago. Today was different. Today was five years of distance. Maggie could hold it together.

Maggie shifted her heading, changing course out of the path of the speeding pleasure boat that had obviously not seen her tiny dinghy. She bounced in the wake as the behemoth passed, her small, electric outboard motor purring towards the public beach. There was a single red-haired figure silhouetted in the gray morning of the beach, and Maggie knew this marked her destination.

She let a wave of panic build and wash over her. She let her eyes water. Moments later, she was back in control, but she didn't trust herself to hold on to it.

She was going to hold it together, she was. She had to hold it together. If she let Rachael see her cry...

The phone had rung an hour earlier. The black slab of an iPhone, the one Maggie kept on a charger in her galley. It woke Maggie from a deep sleep, beeping rhythmically. Maggie had to search her memory to identify the sound. It had been... well, years since the phone had rung. Maggie only really kept it out of habit, paying the monthly service charge out of what few dollars still remained in her dryland bank account. She'd scrambled to answer it, tumbling out of her snug bunk.

Hello? she'd asked, half expecting a robo-call.

Silence.

Maggie was about to return the phone to its charger, and herself to her inviting bunk, when a small voice came from the speaker. Maggie?

Maggie's heart leapt.

The voice was instantly familiar – instantly welcome and unwelcome at the same time.

Rachael? she'd asked the phone, still holding it out towards the charger. Remembering the old habit of holding a phone to your ear to listen to the other party, she quickly brought it to the side of her head. Rachael?

Hi- hi, Maggie.

What? Maggie stammered.

I-

Why? Why are you calling? Maggie asked, then realized she was being bitchy. How are you?

Good, good, the soft voice on the phone coughed. Look, I know I shouldn't call like this, but it's sort of an emergency.

Maggie's brain scrambled to think of what sort of emergency it could be. What sort of emergency Maggie could help Rachael with. What's wrong? she asked.

You see, um, well...

What's wrong? Maggie asked again, now concerned. Are you okay?

Yes, yes. It's not me, it's... well, there's no other way to say it... they found a body.

What?

A body, off Bainbridge Island. Washed ashore.

Oh, Maggie replied, her heart still thumping away.

Well, you see. The body, the girl... it was a young woman... she was barefoot, you see.

In the water?

Yes, so you understand, everyone – the police – are assuming she's a Rafter.

Yes.

And since I understand you're sort of what passes for law enforcement out there...

No, Maggie said strongly. No, it's not like that- It really wasn't like that.

But I was thinking, Rachael kept on. Maggie knew better than to interrupt, Rachael always said her peace. I mean, if it's going to fall on you to investigate this death... or whatever you do... well, perhaps you wouldn't mind a shadow? You know, someone from the media?

What? You? Maggie replied in horror.

Yes. There's a lot of interest in the Raft right now. You know, buzz with our readers. People are curious. My editor is curious. You know... about how exactly you people deal with stuff like this. I know it's out of the ordinary, and I know you and I... she trailed off.

I don't know, Maggie said after a long, pregnant silence. I think you think I'm some sort of cop. That's not what I do...

No, I know. I know it's all different out there on the Raft. That's what I want to write about. That's what interests our readers. Rachael sighed and tried to sound earnest. Look, I know how weird this is. Five years and we haven't spoken. But... well, this might be good for both of us: the Raft will get some non-critical exposure and I'll get a good story. A very good story. And we can reconnect. Catch up...

Your editor told you to call me, didn't he? Maggie said flatly.

Yes, Rachael replied honestly and tried to laugh, but Maggie could almost hear her wince in pain. But Maggie-

No, no, Maggie interrupted. If you've got your orders, that's fine. It takes guts to call. I couldn't have called you.

I know, Maggie... about...

It was Maggie's turn to force out a casual laugh. If you want to come out and write a story about the Raft, that would be great.

Really? Rachael replied with surprise.

"Sure. I can't promise you a good story. I don't know anything about what has happened – there's no reason to believe I'll have anything to do with it. But if you want to get a story about the Raft, then I'd like to help." Maggie was rambling, she should have kept her mouth shut. The second the words left her mouth she regretted uttering them.

Great. Rachael seemed genuinely happy. I can meet you at Alki Beach. In an hour? Would that work? I don't know the protocol...

That's fine, I'm not far from the city. Just bring some boots, I can't come ashore.

Great. Great. Great. Rachael repeated. Um, Maggie?

Yes.

Do you know..? Rachael trailed off, then came back strong. I have a daughter. I'm married. Married. She rolled the last word around in her mouth, as if enunciating it could give it more meaning.

Yes, sure, Maggie lied.

Okay then. An hour?

Great.

#

Maggie's toes curled against the fiberglass hull of her launch.

The silhouette of Rachael was growing larger. Maggie kept the bow pointed towards her. Rachael, wrapped in some large, bulky overcoat with a brown scarf snapping behind her in the biting wind, was standing in the surf. A large bag sat in the sand next to her and she wore knee-high rubber boots, as instructed.

As Maggie approached, slowing her launch in the shallows, Rachael scooped up her bag and strode out into the water. Five yards from the shore, Rachael met Maggie's boat, tossed her bag inside and agilely hopped up and over the gunwale.

It all happened so fast. Suddenly, Rachael was sitting before Maggie, large as life, tugging strands of hair out of her mouth and smiling.

Maggie brought the launch about. She throttled the small, high-pitched engine to life and began the return journey out into the bay.

Don't start, Rachael said, watching the skyline of West Seattle fade away behind Maggie's back.

I wasn't, Maggie grinned.

Just... don't start, Rachael repeated.

I wasn't. You look good.

I said-

Okay! Maggie held up her free hand in a gesture of surrender.

Rachael did look good. Five years older perhaps, but still beautiful. Like Nicole Kidman with laugh lines, Maggie remembered. That was how Maggie had often described Rachael. Back then. She had more crow's feet now, sure, and some gray in amongst the red hair. But still, she looked perfect. Maybe a little thin.

They let the rain and the waves stream past them, sitting in silence. The boat bobbed on the wakes of passing craft. Five years and so much to say. Neither one spoke.

Married? Maggie finally broke the silence.

I said don't start. Rachael refused to make eye contact, looking out at the passing ships.

"It's just... to a man?"

Maggie... Rachael said, finally turning to face Maggie.

I know. Don't start. Maggie focused on her navigation, falling in behind a fast-moving speedboat, staying within the V of its wake. How old is your girl? Maggie asked.

Three, Rachael replied.

Children, huh?

It happens.

So I've read, Maggie smirked.

Don't-

I know. I know.

They both looked to port to watch a sailing dinghy, its sheets billowing in the breeze as it cut a speedy course perpendicular to their own.

Then, without warning, Rachael blurted out, I called her Margaret.

The revelation stunned Maggie. She sat in silence, her mouth slightly ajar.

Rachael backpedaled, realizing she'd put her foot in it. She stammered, Maggie, I- I can explain...

But the tears were already coming. Any chance of Maggie keeping her composure had taken flight with that last bombshell. She couldn't hold back. She sniffled and steered and tried to pick a path through the busy bay. Back towards her sailboat. But the tears kept coming.

Chapter 2

You must think I'm a monster... after all this time... coming out here and saying all these things... Rachael sounded sincere.

She hadn't just come out to the Raft to ruin Maggie's life. Really, she hadn't. But when the story of the dead Rafter had come across the wire, Rachael had reacted badly. She'd been sure it was Maggie. Positive. Even after reading the physical description of the deceased, Rachael hadn't been able to shake the sinking feeling in her stomach. She had to hear Maggie's voice, make sure she was okay.

Forget about it, Maggie said as she cranked her dinghy back up to its storage position. It had brought them across the crowded bay, out into the relative peace of the open Puget Sound, where Maggie's sailing yacht waited. Up a short ladder and Rachael found herself standing in the cockpit of the 40-foot-long craft, her luggage at her feet. Despite her heavy jacket, she shivered.

Rachael had found Maggie's old number in the margin of her 2008 notebook, diligently filed away with a gaggle of identical, dog-eared, blue exam books from throughout the years. The number was right where Maggie had written it the night they'd met in that bar. Rachael had gone home with someone else, she remembered, but called Maggie the next evening. She had no idea if the number would still work - the last time she'd called it was over five years prior - but it was all she had.

The number had rung to Rachael's infinite relief, and Maggie had answered.

Really, I'm sorry, Rachael said.

Rachael had lied and made up some tale about chasing down a story, and here she was aboard Maggie's boat with no clue of why she was there – that was a lie, too, she knew exactly why she was there, but she almost refused to admit it to herself. The task was so Herculean: she knew she had to get Maggie off the Raft. Somehow.

It's okay, Maggie dismissed, securing the dinghy. The yacht was named the Soft Cell, Rachael could only vaguely remember why. It was the name the ship had borne when Maggie had purchased it and she was the unsentimental sort who'd never bother to rename anything once it'd been named. The yacht had been the dimensions of Maggie's home for the last five years. Since she'd left dryland and joined the Raft.

Is it always this bumpy? Rachael asked. She was already starting to feel seasick. She'd never had the stomach for boats.

Maggie didn't answer. It was still drizzling, but she removed her jacket as she worked. She tied ropes off to cleats. Maggie hefted the dinghy's electric outboard off its mount and began to spirit it away in a compact storage bin under one of the cockpit's benches.

Five years and Maggie hadn't aged a day, Rachael marveled as she watched her work. Her dark skin still exotic, with her hard-edged face that only softened when smiling. Maggie stood a good head taller than Rachael, with wide, strong shoulders, and lean, thin arms. Time seemed not to have touched her. Her head of dark, tangled hair was well kept but still wild, whirling around her head. With her jacket off, Rachael could see the complex arrangement of her tattoos. The oversized, finely detailed Cross of Lorraine on her right upper arm still held Rachael's attention. Its significance escaped her.

"So, what do