Fisherman's Bend Page 14

  I placed my hand over the cup and thanked her before she poured. I explained that I was sure the next couple of days would be hectic, and I needed to go home and get a good night’s sleep, something that would be impossible if I caffeinated myself any more. She cheerfully whipped my check from the pocket in her apron and slapped it on the counter with a flourish that, as always, exemplified her abundance of energy and highlighted my lack of it. She disappeared into the kitchen, saying that she hoped to see me back for coffee in the morning before I could question the high price of the soup that I couldn’t drink and whether I should actually have to pay for it at all. Oh well, she had been generous with the pie. I plunked a salt shaker on my last ten-dollar bill, exited the café, and headed home.

  Exhaustion caught up with me before I crested the first hill, but I forced myself to pick up the pace and made it home in short order. Dragging myself up the stairs, I knew I had only one thing to do before hopping into bed. I needed to call Cal and line up a boat ride to Cobble Harbor for tomorrow morning. After scolding me for calling so late—eight o’clock—his wife, Betty, put Cal on the phone. A short chat included Cal’s teasing me about my gourmet dinner and assuring me that Chinese night at the café was indeed a prime example of getting what you pay for. Cal then accepted my offer of work tomorrow, as I knew he would, and agreed to meet at seven thirty for a quick coffee before boarding the Sea Pigeon. I hung up the house phone and glanced at my cell. I was surprised to see that someone had left a message, and then delighted to hear Dane Stevens’s voice on my voice mail reporting that he had gotten my message and that he and Quasar would certainly pay close attention, and notify me first if they noticed anything out of the ordinary. He thanked me for rescuing his sleeping bag from the corpse, and said that he was sure we’d see each other soon. That was hopeful, I thought.

  Sleep came easily. I woke as the first light climbed in orange streaks over the hills on the eastern horizon and settled, filling in the valleys like a syrupy juice before thinning and allowing blue sky to appear. I was refreshed and excited about the day ahead. And what a beauty it was! My mood indicated that my batteries had been properly charged. The benefits of a good night’s sleep are relatively unsung in today’s world of spas, energy drinks, and herbal supplements. And the best thing about sleep: It’s free.

  I wasn’t surprised to find Cal already seated and sipping a cup of tea when I arrived at the café fifteen minutes before our scheduled meeting time. I took the stool beside him that he had clearly saved for me; every other seat was occupied and a few people hung inside the door waiting. A cup of coffee appeared from nowhere accompanied by a ghostly voice that made some smart crack about status and desperation. “Want to split a bagel?” I asked Cal. “I can expense it.”

  “Let’s go Dutch treat,” Cal offered, as a plate piled high with eggs, sausage, fried potatoes, and toast was set in front of him. “You’ll probably want the second half of that bread doughnut for your lunch.”

  “Is that the special?” I asked Audrey as I pointed to Cal’s feast. I was happy to see that she had retired yin and yang and had replaced them with multiple studs.

  “That’s the six ninety-nine.”

  “Whoa! That’s too high for me. What’s the special this morning?” I asked, feeling like I wanted to splurge, but knowing I’d be riddled with guilt.

  “The special is two ninety-nine. Want it?” she asked as she dashed by in the opposite direction.

  “But what is the special? Eggs? Pancakes?”

  A loud voice called from the kitchen that an order was up, hastening Audrey’s pace in that direction. She opened her eyes wide in question and hesitated just long enough for me to say, “Yes, please.”

  “One special” was all I heard from the kitchen as the doors swung closed behind Audrey. It sure smelled good in here this morning. I wasn’t a picky eater, and I knew that breakfast was always good at the café. So it was fine that I had no idea what I had ordered. When Audrey reappeared with a bagel and cream cheese, I was pleased, but thought it was a bit expensive. “What kind of juice would you like?” she asked.

  “No thanks, Aud. I don’t care for any.”

  “It’s included with the special.”

  “Can I have—”

  “No substituting.”

  “Do you have V8?” I asked.

  “Tomato.”

  “Grapefruit?”

  “We’re out. Orange?”

  “No thanks. I don’t feel like orange,” I said and tried to decide whether I would like tomato after all.

  “What do you feel like?” Audrey looked a little irritated now as she really needed to hustle to tend to all of her customers.

  “Scrambled eggs,” I answered honestly. Audrey seemed fed up with my lack of cooperation. She curled her top lip and scurried away to clear a table that had just been vacated. “What’s eating her?” I asked Cal, who only shrugged in reply. I spread the cream cheese on my bagel and munched away, trying to get Audrey’s attention each time she passed to ask for the tomato juice I had coming. I’d be damned if I would pay three bucks for just a bagel. I would drink the juice even if I didn’t enjoy it. I had just finished the last bite of the first half of the bagel when Audrey presented a tall juice glass filled to the brim with steaming, fluffy, scrambled eggs. “Thanks,” I said with a smile that went unnoticed as Audrey turned toward the kitchen with an armload of dirty dishes.

  Cal was finishing his second cup of tea and looking at his watch when I heard a familiar voice I couldn’t quite place. Wrapping my leftover bagel half in a napkin and sticking it in my bag, I looked around to see from whom the distinct voice had come. “Sounds like the pilot, Willard Kelley,” Cal said just as I spotted the hulking figure taking up one side of a booth designed for four diners. Cal was right on. Kelley was louder than he needed to be, as men often are who have spent too much time around diesel engines. I told Cal that I would meet him at the dock in a few minutes as I had a bit of business to attend to with the pilot. Cal left what I thought was a ridiculously large tip, making me feel better about shorting Audrey a few cents to avoid having to ask her to make change for a larger bill. She’d appreciate that, I was sure.

  Kelley recognized me as I approached and smiled a friendly hello. He appeared to be fresh out of the shower. His graying hair was parted too close to his ear, requiring some kind of goop to defy the natural tendency of gravity. We made a bit of small talk, through which I learned that Willard Kelley was here meeting with his new pilot boat captain and with the man’s stern help. He introduced the men. Kelley had a cruise ship coming in to Bar Harbor and needed a ride out. Just like at our first meeting, I couldn’t determine whether Kelley was half drunk or fully hungover. They had to leave soon, he explained. I told him that I was assigned to file a police report for his stolen boat, to which he replied, “No need, dear. I won’t beeeeee pressing any charges. The boat’s back on her mooring, safe as caaaan be.” I went on to explain that Spartacus had been involved in a little criminal mischief while reported stolen and asked if he had any ideas about who had borrowed her, to which he replied, “I can guarantee you it was the Indian chief.”

  “George Paul?” I asked.

  “That would beeee the one. That guy has quite an enormous sense of entitlement! He helps himself toooooo anything and everything. It has something to doooo with their ideas of ownership. The lazy bastards don’t haaaaave anything because they don’t work. And they resent anyone who does.”

  I thanked Kelley for his time and asked how I might get in touch to follow up. He explained that since his new captain lived in Green Haven, he’d be in town quite often on his way to or from a ship. He liked the café and figured this would become his new haunt. I thought this was unlikely. As soon as Audrey became irritated with his volume and weird way of speaking, not to mention his enlightened opinions, she would run him out. I had now decided that Willard Kelley didn’t just make a bad first impression; the more you got to know him, the tougher he was to
like. So I would not give him any friendly advice regarding how to handle—or, rather, stay out of the way of—Audrey. Secretly hoping that she would find some reason to lash into him this very morning, I hurried out and down to the dock where Cal had the Sea Pigeon warming up. He had already let the bow and spring lines go. The pretty little boat leaned lightly against her stern line, like a dog into a collar when bored with heeling.

  I pointed at the stern line. Cal nodded, indicating that, yes, he was ready for me to cast us adrift. I stepped aboard, holding the line that I had removed from a cleat on the dock, and we were off. Just about every mooring in the commercial harbor was held by a skiff or rowboat, which meant that the fishermen of Green Haven were out in force today, anxious to benefit from prices that were finally rising after the high-season glut. The mood of the entire town fluctuated along with the market price and supply of lobster. Virtually every person in Green Haven—even people far removed from fishing—was in tune with the industry. Amazing, the degree to which the ugly little crustaceans referred to by the locals as “bugs” rule Down East Maine. The Old Maids could quote market price on any given day and recite statistics of flux and stasis in landings going back a decade.

  As we exited the channel and entered the bay, Cal pushed up the throttle to a comfortable steam. The Sea Pigeon seemed to lift the hem of her skirt out of the spray created by the increased speed. She skipped lightly between blue puddles that reflected every ray of sun. “This is a great boat, Cal,” I said in admiration for the Sea Pigeon’s grace. Cal smiled in thanks; I had given him one of the greatest compliments you can give to someone who has dedicated himself to the sea. I had never spoken to Cal about his life. But I knew that he had won the respect of everyone in town for his accomplishments offshore. Cal was, I thought, the epitome of the able-bodied seaman, even now in his seventies. And he handled the Sea Pigeon with a touch as light as that of a man on his wife’s back while leading her through a waltz to their song. He reminded me of my poor pal Archie, stuck in that damn Florida prison. Cal lit a cigarette, and I wished he didn’t smoke.

  We were soon slowing to an idle and rounding the first channel marker leading to Cobble Harbor. The Sea Pigeon settled deeply, pulling the surface up like a blanket. Swinging around and through alternating red nuns and green cans, we left the thoroughfare and headed for the town dock. Like Green Haven’s, Cobble Harbor’s commercial fleet was enjoying this calm day offshore. As late fall approached, it would bring great wind, and fair days like this would become scarce. Cal weaved a crooked path to the dock through a mooring field littered with rowboats. A gentle landing allowed me to reach a piling with the stern line, and I quickly looped it with a clove hitch. Cal wrapped a midship line around a piling and then back to the cleat from whence it came. He then made it fast with a jerk and called it good. He killed the engine and looked quite deliberately at his wristwatch.

  “I have no idea how long I’ll be, Cal. But I assume it’ll be afternoon before you see me back here.” I climbed from the boat to the dock.

  “Take your time. I ain’t going nowhere,” he said in his usual pleasant way. “Except maybe to poke around town a bit for lunch. I won’t worry about you, but when should I start worrying? Where will you be?”

  I thought it was sweet that Cal would be concerned and decided that I would meet him back here at three o’clock to touch base. I explained that I should be ready to head home by then, but if I hadn’t quite finished with Lillian, I would at least let him know at that point how much longer I’d be. He agreed with the plan and asked for Lillian’s address just in case. I didn’t have an address, but gave Cal the same directions to find her house that she had given me. Cal was the perfect partner, I thought, as I approached the parking area between the docks and Main Street. Unlike some of the partners I had been assigned through the years who were anxious to stab me in my back as opposed to covering it, Cal had no desire whatsoever to take over my job. But then again, who would want my current job? Deputy sheriff was not exactly a coveted position, and the insurance gig had gone unfilled and unapplied for until I decided to see if they wanted me to try it. Neither position had prestige or power. There wasn’t even much pay.

  The parking lot was full to capacity—mostly pickup trucks with bumper stickers promoting local seafood or ridiculing tourism or the federal government. As I turned onto Main Street, I heard an engine start behind me. I made my way to the sidewalk just as the truck turned onto the street headed in the opposite direction, nearly on my heels. The proximity of the vehicle made me turn around to look. I wasn’t sure, but it certainly could have been the same truck that George Paul had jumped into the other day. But it could just as easily not have been the same truck. So what was the point of noticing the truck? I wondered. I guess it had struck me as strange that a truck would suddenly leave a full parking lot when I hadn’t seen anyone around or any movement since we came into the dock. It occurred to me that I was slipping into my usual habit of overthinking things. What if Willard Kelley had been correct about George Paul stealing his boat? And maybe I had been the target, rather than aquaculture, after all. But what on earth would George Paul have against me? Ridiculous, I realized. It just seemed like someone had been hanging out in the parking lot until we had arrived. Real spies were far more discreet. Even local Maine ones.

  I turned left onto Quarry Road and walked the half mile Lillian had guessed was the approximate distance to Cobble Harbor’s public square. Park benches made with slabs of speckled granite looked as though they had sunk into plush, green moss. A right turn when I was across from the fishermen’s monument and a left up a long hill brought me to the end of a narrow road. The gate, although clearly marked PRIVATE, was wide open. I entered as Lillian had said I should, and walked around a sharp bend in the road that opened up to a stately home in a clearing. Funny, I would have assumed this was a summer house belonging to a wealthy Bostonian or New Yorker, not the home of the missing fisherman.

  Lillian stood waiting behind a screen door in the center of a room with many large windows. The screen occluded, but couldn’t conceal, the sadness in her face. She opened and held the door for me as I entered. Antiques and art melded and gave the house a refined feel. Elegant, yet homey—a combination not usually pulled off so tastefully. My eye was caught by wondrous sea creatures, sculpted from stone. I would have to ask her who had created them. Lillian ran a hand the length of a marble seal that almost seemed to preen with the attention. I complimented the piece. “Edgar Holmes—all of them. This was our first purchase, and we made it before he was discovered. The beauty is simple and innocent. I think that’s why I can’t walk by without touching this one,” she said. “I named him Oscar,” she added as she held the seal’s chin in her palm. It did seem like she had to make a real effort to pull her hand away, and I guessed that was due largely to what the rest of the day promised. She can’t have been looking forward to our conversation.

  I followed Lillian through a long hallway dotted with seascapes in oil. “I think I have everything you asked to see,” she said as we entered the kitchen. “And I’ve requested updated statements from banks, credit cards, and the phone company, which they have all promised to e-mail today.” Stacks of file folders covered most of the square kitchen table, and a laptop computer sat on a linen placemat at a seat I assumed was hers. A cordless phone lay on an open notebook next to a ceramic shell that held pens and pencils. “Shall I put on a pot of coffee?” she asked.

  “Thanks, that would be nice.” I pulled one of the eight Windsor chairs from the table and took a seat by a window that overlooked Cobscook Bay. “Your place is lovely. I hope you don’t mind my saying that it’s so much more than I expected. I guess I have a mental image—stereotype—of a fisherman’s house. And it’s just not like this at all.”

  “Modest was not what Parker wanted. He’s an extremely hard worker and a very shrewd businessman. You’ll see when you get into that stack that he made some good investments and has more than lobster tr
aps providing for us.” She opened a door exposing a large, full pantry. “That’s not to take away from his ability to catch fish. He’s good at what he does and always went the extra mile to make the most of it. He even ships his catch himself to avoid the middleman.” I was aware that Lillian was waffling between present and past tense when talking about her husband. She found an electric coffee grinder and a glass French press and placed them on the counter between us. Real coffee, I thought excitedly. I hadn’t had a decent cup since I left Miami, a city where connoisseurs raved about their favorite blends and where I fell in love with plain old delicious Dunkin’ Donuts java. I hadn’t found gourmet coffee in Green Haven, and wouldn’t pay for it if I did, and the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts is miles away.

  Lillian swung open the freezer side of the most spacious side-by-side unit I could imagine. The freezer was jam-packed from top to bottom with zippered one-gallon plastic bags, each one appearing to be crammed full of coffee beans. She grabbed a bag, almost causing a landslide, and then closed the door. “Wow,” I said. “Do you have trouble sleeping? I don’t think I have ever seen that much coffee.”