Bimini Twist Page 11

  “As a witness?” I asked, hoping to glean some feeling or emotion from Pete, who I suspected might have a theory on the demise or non-demise of Larry Vigue.

  “That, and I didn’t know I would be seeing you before party. This is a bonus.”

  I was flattered. But then I realized that Pete might think I had been fishing for that compliment. So rather than say something stupid, I clammed up and stared at the radar, which showed a number of green blips of light that signified boats within a one-mile radius from us. As the boat icon approached the first red triangle on the chart plotter, Pete said, “Larry’s buoys are fluorescent orange.”

  I stepped around Pete and out of the pilothouse where I could see better without straining my eyes through the windshield that had misted up from the fog. Pete instructed me to sing out when I saw the first orange buoy, which he explained marked a pair of Larry’s traps. Just as he pulled the throttle back to an idle, a bright orange buoy appeared off our starboard bow, bobbing slightly. “One o’clock,” I said loudly as Pete threw the engine out of gear and joined me at the helm station at the starboard side of the open work deck. “Should we haul it?” I asked.

  “There’s no point in doing that. The track on the plotter shows that he hauled and reset this pair, and moved southeast to the next one. I’ll just follow his track until I see something abnormal,” he said. “Then we’ll haul. Until then, we can keep our eyes peeled.”

  I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for. But I looked hard. I scanned and searched 360 degrees as we steamed from red triangle to red triangle, spotting orange buoys before moving on to the next. I wondered if Pete secretly thought a dead body was possibly floating, and was therefore really glad I was here. I put that thought out of my head and kept hunting. The fog was wet and cold, and clung to tendrils of my hair that were now sticking to my temples and forehead. Droplets hung in my eyelashes and cascaded down my cheeks when I blinked.

  “This is strange,” he said after about an hour. “The track line indicates that Larry steamed offshore here, let’s see, for close to seven miles. Looks like he stopped and drifted close to Schoodic Ridges, then steamed back and started hauling traps again.”

  “Maybe he went offshore to ram someone,” I suggested sarcastically as I tried to recall why I knew the name Schoodic Ridges.

  “Hey, there was a lot of bad blood between Ron and Larry. The ramming was a fit of rage, I think. The fishing has been slow this season. That always fuels the fire. Larry must have just lost control of his temper.”

  Was Pete really defending his sister’s husband’s ex-wife’s husband? I understood that fishing was the livelihood, and that poor times might tend to make one irritable. But did Pete expect me to buy the theory that this could escalate to attempted murder? He was playing it cool, I thought. He may have been in denial. Pete must still believe it would be best to let this all go, and he certainly wasn’t letting on that there might be a financial motive involved. I wanted badly to believe that Pete was protecting me from whatever he imagined might happen to a deputy sheriff who might ruffle some feathers. I decided that I should divulge that I knew more than he thought I did about what may have driven the incident. “Yes, I understand the bad blood,” I said. “I met your sister this morning.” I hoped that sharing this would allow Pete to open up with any information that might be helpful in sorting out what I assumed would be difficult to unravel. Wouldn’t Liza Thomas want to press charges if she knew Larry Vigue had been responsible for her husband’s death? We were searching for a trace of the man who had caused Pete’s brother-in-law to suffer a fatal heart attack!

  “Poor Liza. She is so dear. How is she? I should be with her now, and not out here poking around in the fog.” I didn’t bother answering as I knew Pete had agreed to assist the Marine Patrol, and by doing so was actually assisting me. I needed to learn the status of Larry Vigue. And this seemed like the best possibility, even if just to eliminate it. “Well, here’s the last red triangle. The track is definitely going in circles here,” Pete said as he stepped aside, allowing me to see the full screen of the chart plotter. “It looks as if he only hauled and set back one pair of traps after his trip to The Ridges. There is nothing whimsical about Larry. Every move is deliberate and calculated. So I assume he made efforts to throw off anyone who might be looking for him.”

  I studied the chart plotter and understood what Pete was saying. I saw the red triangles leading to the straight, unmarked track offshore. The dots displaying the offshore steam and return tracks were spaced farther apart, indicating a faster speed of travel, Pete explained. I saw the area labeled Schoodic Ridges. And I saw where the track thickened with dots nearly on top of one another and zigzagged slightly, indicting a slow drift. “Do you know of anyone other than us who would be searching for him?”

  “I can’t think of anyone who would care. Well, other than his wife.”

  “Let’s go back and start hauling the gear he appears to have handled today before the steam offshore. Then we can compare apples to apples,” I suggested.

  Pete agreed and pushed the boat into gear and headed to the string of icons on the plotter just west of where Larry took a break from fishing to ride south. Five red triangles bunched up in a tight group represented what Pete defined as a single string of gear—or five pairs of traps, two per buoy; or ten traps total. “We’ll haul this whole string. Normally, when a fisherman dies, we would have been asked to bring gear ashore for the widow to sell. But that would be premature.”

  Pete pulled on a pair of white cotton work gloves and grabbed the gaff from the starboard rail where he now stood, driving the boat with his left hand. The first orange buoy popped out of the fog just off our bow. Pete swung the boat so that the buoy came along the starboard side within reach of the short gaff. He knocked the engine into neutral while he gaffed the line under the buoy and pulled it aboard. He placed the buoy on the wash rail forward of the davit and hydraulic trap hauler, placed the line leading toward the traps sitting on the ocean floor below us between the plates of the hauler, and twisted a handle on the dash. The plates of the hauler, mounted vertically on the forward bulkhead and at waist level, turned counterclockwise, pinching the line between them and pulling it in aboard where it coiled neatly on the deck at Pete’s feet.

  Pete and I stared into the water where the rope exited, looking and not expecting anything other than lobster traps. As the first sign of color appeared beneath the surface, I stiffened and took a deep breath. Pete slowed the hauler until a yellow trap broke the surface. I almost said “Phew.” Pete grabbed the trap with his right hand, pulled it onto the wash rail, and started the hauler turning again. More color below instantly became the second trap on this line. Pete broke the trap over the rail and landed it just ahead of the first one. “Both traps have fresh bait in them,” he said. I could see that. “Freshly salted herring. It’s what we all use this time of year. The bags are full—no sign of anything. This pair was hauled earlier today, as we know.”

  “Let’s check the next pair,” I said. With this, Pete swung the boat around in a hard starboard circle, pushed the trap closest to him back overboard, and allowed the line connecting the two traps to become taut, which automatically dragged the second trap over where it splashed and quickly disappeared. The coil of line on the deck straightened out and followed the traps into the water until the buoy flew off the rail and smacked the surface.

  I watched the buoy fade into fog in our wake, and turned toward the bow to see the next buoy grow from faint to bright as we closed in on it. Pete stabbed with the gaff, slid the line between the plates, twisted the valve control, and watched with nervous anticipation. Two traps were boarded and set back into the water. We silently went through the motions for the remaining three pairs of lobster traps that produced nothing more than a handful of small lobsters and a mixed variety of crabs. All ten traps in this string had been hauled and freshly baited, just as Pete had expected from the evidence on the chart plotter. “This would
be more fun if we waited a few days,” Pete said as he steered Ragged But Right toward the solitary red triangle remaining in this area. “Then we might be catching a few bugs! What a waste of time. I should be hauling my own gear, not this idiot’s.”

  “Well, I appreciate your help here. It is necessary to eliminate the possibility that Larry met with an accidental death while fishing. So, let’s keep going,” I said. The fog was starting to burn off a bit; dense, dark patches eased to light, misty clouds that shifted across the water’s surface. The sun dissolved a hole that grew in circumference until blue sky hung like a distant awning overhead.

  “How did you come to meet my sister?” Pete asked as he neared the orange buoy.

  “My other job is with Marine Safety Consultants with whom Ron carried insurance for Elizabeth,” I answered, consciously avoiding the topic of the life insurance policy. “When my boss learned of Ron’s death, he sent me to visit Liza to offer support and instill confidence that we are on her side and will work as efficiently as possible on her behalf. And when I left your sister’s place I heard from the sheriff’s dispatcher that Insight had been found circling with nobody aboard. So I switched into my deputy sheriff’s hat, and here we are.”

  This explanation seemed to satisfy Pete. It was truthful in itself, even if it left out a few details. “How is Bradley?” Pete asked as he grabbed the gaff and plunged the hook toward the line that dangled beneath the buoy.

  “He is better than I would have expected in light of the fact that he lost his father. Maybe he’s in shock,” I offered. “Liza is distraught, of course. They’ll both be fine,” I said, hoping Pete would share an opinion. He did not.

  We stood staring at the hole the line pierced in the flat surface of the water. A yellow blur became a trap that scraped the wash rail as Pete slid it to make room for the second trap that we now anticipated would break the surface. Suddenly Pete stopped the hauler. I peered down deep as far as the sunlight allowed. A dark, amorphous shadow hung just at the edge of my vision. I placed my hands on the wash rail and leaned over the gunwale to get closer in hopes of distinguishing what lay below. I turned to look at Pete. His face was ashen and he had broken out in a sweat. “Can you haul it in a little more? I can’t quite make it out.” I said.

  Pete’s left hand grasped the valve handle, cracked it open slightly, which turned the plates ever so slowly and gently. The shadow took shape as it neared the surface. “Is that him?” I asked.

  “Yup.”

  SEVEN

  Pete gulped his lungs full of salt air and swallowed audibly. He seemed to be trying to compose himself, which was understandable. Most people do not have experience with corpses. And Pete had made it abundantly clear that he did not believe that Larry would be found tangled in his own gear. The limp, dead body, tethered to the boat by trapline, swayed the slightest bit in the tide, making the scene even more eerie. “Let’s get him aboard,” I said, taking command of a situation that was most definitely within my comfort zone.

  Pete shook off what I assumed was a sick feeling. His complexion regained its deep tan as quickly as it had drained to paste. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll haul him up to the surface hydraulically. Then we’ll have to manhandle him over the rail.” This was a statement to himself, I knew, so I did not respond in any way other than to position myself with my thighs pressed against the gunwale perpendicular to the body that drooped lifelessly and bobbed facedown below. Pete twisted the hydraulic valve to spin the plates of the hauler slowly. One booted foot rose to the surface, trapline tightly wound around the ankle.

  Pete reached down with his gaff and snagged the back of Larry’s T-shirt, bringing his upper body to the top of the water. He passed the end of the gaff to me to hold, which I did. Pete then bent over at the waist, laying with his belly on the wash rail, and grabbed Larry under his left armpit. “Okay, I’ve got him. Drop the gaff and grab his other arm,” he barked, taking charge. I did as he instructed. “Now on three. One, two, three…” We pulled together with a unified grunt. The corpse landed on the deck at our feet with a thud that I was certain would reverberate in Pete’s head for some time.

  Pete sat on the rail and stared at the body while I snapped pictures with my cell phone. Medium height and build, I thought as I started at the top and worked my way down. Larry’s head was pure white and hairless from the temples up; his hat, now missing, was apparently a permanent fixture that covered total baldness. From the hat-line down, Larry was a hairy guy. A bushy salt-and-pepper horseshoe fringed his head, and a gray, wild beard joined wiry chest hair that escaped the neck of Larry’s T-shirt like the frayed root system of weeds from under a rock. His exposed arms and hands appeared to be unharmed. Thick callouses common on working hands sheathed both palms and had turned to white prunes from water saturation. Black dungarees and black leather belt, black boots … “I wonder why Larry wasn’t wearing bib overalls like yours,” I said. “Don’t most fishermen live in those?”

  “Yeah. Some don’t, though. Especially if it’s really hot out,” Pete answered. “I never saw him without a hat. Never knew he was a cue ball. I guess you can’t be too careful,” he added. “If Larry Vigue got wrapped up and pulled overboard, it could happen to any of us. That’s what happens when guys get too comfortable. They get careless.”

  I nodded, understanding that carelessness was often a fatal mistake in my business as well. I concentrated on Larry’s right boot. The line was so tight around his boot’s ankle that the boot had been pinched to half of the diameter of the left. The trapline had been cinched to form a perfect clove hitch; one end of the line led to the trap that was still on the rail. The bitter end of the line that normally would have been tied to the second trap in this pair appeared to have been severed. I noted that Larry wore no sheath in which a knife may have been kept. “I wonder what happened to the other trap.” I held up the bitter end of the line that trailed after the hitch around Larry’s ankle.

  “Looks like it was cut. Or it may have gone into the propeller of his boat while he was setting out,” Pete offered. “But that trap”—Pete motioned to the single trap on the rail—“hasn’t been baited. So this had to have happened while he was hauling the traps. Maybe someone waked him so hard that the traps slid overboard before he had baited them, and got wound up in his prop. Then he stepped into the coil, got caught, and pulled over.”

  I knew that Pete’s theory of “waking” meant that someone had driven their boat by Larry at full throttle and close proximity so as to throw a huge wake toward him, aimed to roll his boat uncomfortably. Pete was either trying to be helpful or just making nervous chatter. I appreciated the observations and discernment from him as a commercial lobster fisherman. His knowledge of the fishery and of Larry Vigue would be extremely helpful, I thought.

  He continued. “I realize that waking someone is pretty tame compared to ramming. But it’s fairly common practice around here.”

  “Let’s get him ashore,” I said. “I’ll call the sheriff and request that he send the county coroner. You call the Marine Patrol and advise them that the body has been found and was indeed fouled in his own gear as suspected.”

  Pete quickly got the boat headed toward land. He called the Marine Patrol as I called the sheriff. “We’ll be at the commercial dock in Bar Harbor in about forty-five minutes,” I said, repeating what I’d heard Pete relay as our ETA.

  We steamed in silence until we entered the inner harbor and Pete pulled the throttle back to an idle. Small rivulets of salt water trickled from the corpse to the scuppers in the stern of the boat. Larry’s T-shirt and jeans had dried in blotches. The sun was still high in the sky at nearly 4:00 p.m. This day had certainly been a whirlwind, I thought as I grabbed the stern line. “I’ll want to get aboard Insight,” I said. “Where is the Coast Guard base?”

  “Southwest Harbor,” Pete said. “It’s faster to go by boat than by car this time of year. I’d offer to take you, but I’ll need to get over to my sister’s when we finish here.
And by the looks of the crowd that has gathered, that might be a while.”

  I placed my right hand in a salute to shield the sun from my eyes and observed a rather large and growing mass of people on the dock above the commercial floats. “Looks like a lot of people want to see Larry Vigue dead,” I said, knowing that this could be taken in different ways, and hoping for a telling response. Pete didn’t take the bait.

  Pete swung the wheel hard to port and reversed the engine, kicking the stern toward the float. Ragged But Right lightly caressed the chafe gear that protected the edge of the floats and came to a complete stop. I handed the stern line to a man in a fireman’s uniform while Pete wrapped the bowline around a cleat. The only men on the float were in uniform—fire, police, and EMTs. Civilians were here purely out of curiosity, it appeared, and were politely standing off above where they could see and not be in the way. Getting a peek at a dead body was something that would fill cocktail conversations tonight, I thought. A lot of people are intrigued with death and corpses as long as they keep them at arm’s length. I wondered how many onlookers were visiting tourists, and how many were locals. Landing a dead body would surely not be acceptable to the local chamber of commerce, I thought. If I had been asked to postpone all drug busts in the name of bolstering tourism, this would be frowned on for the same reason. Accidental death by drowning is a risk inherent in Larry Vigue’s chosen occupation. I had some doubts about the accidental part, but I’d keep those to myself for now.