Anchor Management

by Ellis Quinn

  Cherry said, “Stephen told me he had lunch with you and Pris already, Bette.”

  Bette said, “Well, maybe Pris said something to him. You know what a busybody she is.”

  “I’m sure,” Cherry said and laughed.

  Bette said, “Things definitely look up.”

  “I don’t suppose that woman in the bright colored suits has shown up,” Vance said.

  Bette said, “Charlotte?”

  “Stephen told me his mother’s still insisting I had something to do with it.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Bette said.

  “Said she’s going around the house heartsick and saying to her friends how they should stay away from my shop.”

  Vance asked if Charlotte knew her husband and son were still coming around the Bean, and Cherry smirked and said she hoped so. “You know who else? even Charlotte’s brother Quinton’s come in twice at lunch, coming up from the boatyard to get a coffee and a chocolate chip muffin. He’s never come in before.”

  “That’s great,” Bette said, “wonder if the rest of the Dawsons are sneaking around behind Charlotte’s back.”

  Vance said, “We should let you get back to the counter. I’m just glad to see most everyone back, and the Bean as busy as it should be. New customers and old.” He nodded toward the counter made of a lacquered halved log that ran the center line between the tables against the walls. At the frontmost spot, the guy who’d been competing for Cherry’s attention the last time they were here sat drinking a coffee and picking at a plate of leftover muffin crumbs.

  Cherry looked over her shoulder, then said, “This Calvin guy’s spending forty bucks a day, I just need a bunch more like him and I’ll be all set to retire in a few years.”

  “Guy’s got a crush on you,” Vance said.

  Cherry chuckled. “You think?”

  “Not bad looking. If you like skinny jeans and hipster mustaches,” Vance said.

  “Calvin’s nice, but he’s one of the ones who try too hard, if you know what I mean.”

  “Kinda, I guess,” Bette said. Like offering sea shells?

  Cherry said, “I like people who are for real.”

  Vance was for real, wasn’t he?

  Now Vance said, “You should buy the café some security cameras, to protect yourself in the future.”

  Cherry nodded. “I know it. Best thing I thought about being in a small town was leaving your doors unlocked.”

  Vance looked horrified, said, “You leave you doors unlocked?”

  Cherry laughed. “Oh, no way. I lock my doors, always have. And I ordered some security cameras. They came this morning, but they’re still in their boxes.”

  “That’s perfect,” Vance said, crossing his arms and getting in front of Bette, crowding her out. Cherry got flirty again, touching her hair, and Bette shifted back, watching the side of her son’s face as he talked. “You know, I set up all the cameras at Mom’s place when we were in Bethesda, also at one of the labs over at William and Mary. I could . . .”

  Cherry smiled, saying, “Would you really?”

  “I’d love to,” he said. “When do you want to do it?”

  Bette shifted back another few inches.

  Cherry said, “I can’t now, but . . .”

  Vance said, “What time do you close?”

  Cherry told him eight, and Vance said, “I’ll come by before then, I’ll set them all up. Does that sound okay?”

  “I’d love that,” Cherry said. “Don’t eat, all right? Come after I close and let me make you a late dinner . . .”

  * * *

  With Cherry back behind the counter to help Terry with the line buildup in her absence, Bette and Vance headed to an empty table by the step up to the back patio, walking past Calvin who had eyes for Cherry but was watching Vance now.

  When they were past, she said to him, “Table on the left here, Casanova.”

  He shrugged out of his jacket and gave her a funny look. “What the heck are you talking about, Mom—Casanova?”

  “Nothing, buddy,” she chuckled and took a seat.

  THAT EVENING

  Bette remembered a time once at Chesapeake Cove PS, a wintry January in the schoolyard hanging out with Fiona Hayes and some of those girls, the intimidating ones who were the first into boys. All of them huddled in their winter jackets, waiting to see if Bobby Bark was going to fight Cob Kehrli, this German kid with strict Lutheran parents. Those girls didn’t care about the fight, they were there to see Bobby, whom they’d deemed cute. And Bobby Bark was cute, but his personality wore at his more handsome edges. Bobby was a bully.

  As Bobby and Cob squared up in a ring of gathered twelve-year-olds, Bobby Bark’s good buddy and henchman, Chuck Coolidge, darted in behind Cob and got low on all fours without Cob knowing—the old sawhorse trick, Chuck in position for Bobby to push Cob backward over him. Nothing better than some good old humiliation added on top of a whooping. None of the other kids who saw what was going to happen stepped in to stop it (not even Bette), only stood giggling in anticipation.

  But Marcus Seabolt didn’t like it, enough he intervened. Marcus hoisted up Chuck Coolidge and said, “A fair fight’s one-on-one.” Some in the crowd booed because they’d been looking forward to seeing someone get tricked and knocked down, but Marcus didn’t care if he was unpopular. Right was right. Chuck Coolidge treated his upheaval as a personal affront and embarrassment and punched Marcus. Marcus wasn’t as strapping as he might be now. He didn’t shoot up until he was about fifteen, when he grew a whole foot in one year. Chuck said, “How you like that. One-on-one?” and stood with clenched fists, seeing if Marcus wanted another one. Marcus walloped Chuck and knocked him down. Then Cob was forgotten for the moment, and Bobby went after Marcus. Marcus knocked him down too. Cob stormed off, then Bobby and Marcus stood and argued, but no more fists were thrown. Marcus Seabolt wasn’t the fun target Cob Kehrli was, so after Cob was gone it turned into a spectacle of young male boisterousness. Turns out Bobby might have been lucky that day, and Marcus saved him a concussion. Cob Kehrli was a farm kid, and you never knew about kids like that. Some of them could be crazy strong. A month later Cob got his name in the paper after he prevented a grown man from trying to walk away with his little eight-year-old sister at the Save-A-Lot in the Sunburst Creek Shopping Center up in Jacktown when the whole Kehrli family was up there for a funeral. They said twelve-year-old Cob knocked out this man with one punch and put him in the hospital.

  But Marcus was the hero that day in the schoolyard, at least to Bette.

  The altercation had left Marcus with a with a short dash of a scar across the third knuckle on his right hand from when he’d knocked down Bobby Bark. It was funny, when they were friends she was so accustomed to seeing the scar, but tonight was the first time she’d even thought of it.

  Now that he was older, Marcus’s scar was faint to the point of being unnoticeable. But she was staring at it now, sitting across from him in the dining room.

  The lights were low in the kitchen behind them, and a fire crackled in the kitchen sitting room beyond the dining room’s open French doors. It would be too hot to burn a fire in the dining room’s fireplace since it wasn’t winter yet, but her cooking had made the kitchen warm and she’d opened Windows to cool it off. Then she liked having the windows open, because of the salty Bay air mixing with her baking and the early smells of autumn. They created a natural perfume better than any scented candle. From Pearl’s record player in the sitting room, Montovani played, the theme from “Carnival,” and other Broadway hits. Though the dinner had been a mad rush, everything had turned out well, and she felt contented and warm with three glasses of red wine, and a full stomach. Pris, Marcus, and she sat with empty plates, knives and forks put together, dinner done. Roast beef cooked perfectly on short notice; baked carrots with a honey glaze; squash from Pris’s garden baked with brown sugar and served with maple syrup; peas and carrots from her own garden; and biscuits and gravy, the biscuits whippe
d up by hand and baked in her grandmother’s favorite stone baking dish.

  Pris was staring at her, puzzled, saying, “Where on earth did you go?”

  She looked around, unsure. “What do you mean, go where?”

  “You were talking and then you stopped.”

  Marcus said, “You’ve been staring.”

  “Sorry,” she laughed, putting her elbows on the table, hands together and resting her cheek on them. “What was I saying?”

  Pris said, “I don’t even remember.”

  Bette said, “I was thinking it’s no wonder you became a police officer.”

  Marcus smiled, asking, “Why is that?”

  “You have a sense of justice.”

  “I know right from wrong,” he said.

  “That’s it exactly. I was just thinking how I remember where that scar on your hand came from.”

  “What scar?” he said, putting his big hands out and looking from palms to the backs.

  “Bobby Bark.”

  “Oh,” Marcus said and rolled his eyes, and rubbed a thumb on the knuckle. “It’s hardly there anymore.”

  Pris said, “That’s not we were talking about.”

  “Oh,” she said, sitting straighter, “right. Vance. No, he’s gone off with Cherry tonight. She has a new security system, and he’s helping install it.”

  Marcus took a sip of wine, said, “It’s too bad he wasn’t here. I’d like to meet him,” set his wineglass down, then leaned aside and she could hear the thump of his hand against Buster Crab’s ribs. She looked under the table to see Buster stretch out so Marcus would rub his stomach. Marcus said, “But I’m sure glad Buster’s still here to watch out for you.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  Pris said, “Especially with a murderer on the loose.”

  Marcus sat up again and looked at them both. He said, “Pris isn’t wrong.”

  “I know you said you didn’t want to talk business, but should we be worried?”

  “Why would you be worried? Did you do something wrong?”

  “Such a detective,” she said, and Marcus laughed. “I mean . . .”

  “No, I know what you mean. Most of the crimes like these are committed by someone the victim knew. So Jack was murdered for a reason, most likely, and unless you cross the murderer it’s not likely—”

  “We’d be a target,” Pris said, nodding.

  “And I’ll try not to steal that anchor,” Bette said, lounging in the Windsor bow back, the hundred-year-old chair not even creaking. She stretched her legs out and crossed her ankles together.

  Marcus leaned forward and said, “Okay, off the record . . .”

  Both she and Pris jumped to sit forward, eager to hear.

  Marcus said, “There’s a recording from the Crockett Foundation’s security camera.”

  Bette asked if it showed Jack stealing the anchor and Marcus said, “Can’t tell. But it is a man.”

  Pris said, “So it wasn’t Cherry.”

  “Not on the video,” Marcus said. “It’s a man, but the camera didn’t get the best shot of him. Had a hood up and everything.”

  “It had to be Jack,” Prissy said.

  Marcus said, “Most likely. I just can’t figure out why Jack would do that. I mean, Jack hasn’t been in real trouble in the longest time. About five years now.”

  Pris said, “Then why did Charlotte groan so much about Jack?”

  Marcus shrugged his shoulders said, “Jack had a reputation. I guess he had that reputation long enough his mother bears a grudge. After a few shots and beers, Jack was a problem. And that’s putting it nicely. But he hasn’t been arrested in five years. And he did seem to make an effort to get his life together. He hasn’t even had a traffic violation in that time.” He pushed back his chair and rose. “Let me do the dishes,” he said, collecting Pris’s, then reaching for Bette’s.

  “Thank you, Marcus,” she said and passed them over.

  They all worked together to move the table settings into the kitchen and arrange them on the island. The dishwasher was running, already working on the dishes she’d dirtied during cooking, so she ran a sink of hot water.

  Marcus said, “Now there’s what I really came for.”

  Pris set down the last of the platters, said, “A sink full of dishes?”

  “Apple cookies,” he said, standing next to Bette at the sink.

  On the windowsill, cooling on the pan, were two dozen apple cookies cooked to Pearl-like perfection. She’d tried one coming out of the oven, and it didn’t taste like baking soda. Not at all. It tasted like her grandmother’s apple cookies. Another reason she was feeling quite good tonight besides the wine.

  He leaned over the counter, looking out the open window into the dark. He said, “Just making sure there're no teenagers out there going to steal my cookies on me.”

  “I always wonder if Pearl knew we did it,” Bette said.

  “I don’t think we got away with anything without Pearl knowing about it.”

  She nudged him with a friendly elbow and they shared a smile and a nostalgic gleam in their eye.

  “Let me do the dishes,” he said, taking the scrubber from her.

  “It’s all right, Marcus, I’ll do them later.”

  Marcus checked his watch. “I should probably get going in about fifteen minutes. I’ve got to man the radio for Rescue tonight.” He took the dish scrubber anyway and began working on the dishes. Bette took the drying towel and Pris leaned her elbows on the island counter, her expression one of concentration. Bette knew what her aunt was thinking and wanted to talk about the case more as well (even if Marcus said there was to be no shop talk).

  Pris pondered to herself aloud: “I wonder if Jack Dawson was lashing out?”

  Marcus said, “Lashing out over what?”

  “I don’t know, but it was coming down to the time where Vinnie was going to hand over the business. I’m sure you’ve heard that.”

  “I did.”

  Bette said, “So maybe Jack knew that despite his efforts, his father still trusted Stephen more than him.”

  Pris said, “I don’t know why the two brothers can’t run it together.”

  “Me neither,” Marcus said.

  Bette shrugged, said, “It was just a thought. Maybe if Jack was disgruntled about not being respected, maybe he would revert to his old ways.”

  “And get in trouble?”

  “It was just stealing that dumb old anchor,” Pris said. “Hardly trouble.”

  “The trouble came later,” Marcus said, sudsing one of Pearl’s old china platters.

  Bette said, “I bet you it’s Charlotte who says only one of the boys could be the boss of the crab business.”

  Pris said, “You know, this is out of left field, but it could’ve been someone from out of town who killed. him. We got a lot of newcomers right now for the crab feasts. Could be some city slicker white shoe coming in here, and they’re used to getting away with things because of how wealthy their family is.”

  Bette said, “What’s a white shoe?”

  “Before your time. Murdering a local would be easy enough to get away with if you were gone by the end of the weekend.”

  Bette was skeptical. “A random attack over an anchor?”

  Marcus said, “I did consider that. It’s not so crazy.”

  “I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Bette said, “white shoes coming in here and murdering locals over a brass anchor.”

  “They didn’t even take the anchor, Bette.”

  “Then why would some white shoe want to murder Jack? And, seriously, what’s a white shoe?”

  Pris said, “What we used to call ivy leaguers.”

  Marcus said, “We’ll know more soon.”

  Bette said, “What’s going to happen soon?”

  Marcus said, “I’m waiting for Stephen’s alibi to confirm.”

  “What’s Stephen’s alibi?”

  Marcus ran an imaginary zipper across his lips
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br />   Bette scowled at him and he laughed.

  She said to Pris, “I thought Stephen didn’t have an alibi?”

  Marcus said, “Stephen admitted he was with someone that night.”

  They both said, “Who?”

  “Never mind, Bette. Stephen swore me to secrecy. Plus, you’re not part of the investigation.” He winced anticipating her response.

  “Yeah, right, I’m not part of the investigation.” She turned to Pris. “You hear that?”

  “We get no respect.”

  Marcus laughed, turned and flicked water off his fingers toward Pris.

  “Don’t you dare,” she said, stepping back from the island.

  Marcus said, “When this other person confirms Stephen’s alibi, I think Stephen will be cleared. I think Stephen’s just trying to buy some time.”

  “Time for what?”

  Marcus checked his watch. “Time for me to get going.”

  Bette said, “Wait a second. One more thing . . .”

  * * *

  Marcus bit into her crisp and golden apple cookie, baked with hard red winter wheat, and the dough formed by hand to Pearl’s precise written instruction. She bit into hers as well, both of them facing each other but looking up to the kitchen ceiling’s timber beams.

  He closed his eye and said, “Wow.”

  “Not bad, huh?”

  “Brings back some wonderful memories,” he said, opening his eyes and looking at her.

  “Think they’re as good as Pearl’s?”

  “I’d say you got it nailed, Bette. You’re a real Cove woman now.”

  She laughed and chewed. She’d left the Cove as a girl, not yet a woman. Returned as a woman, but not yet part of the Cove again. She would take the compliment.

  And Marcus was correct. The apple cookie brought back wonderful memories of the Cove, of her and Marcus as great friends, two kids who spent a lot of time together and got each other. Before things got weird and she got surlier, and before Roman Waters came to town. The apple cookies were a reminder of that brief halcyon window when she was happy as could be as a Cover girl with a dead mother and a chip on her shoulder.

  It was a wonderful time to have in her mind and one she was lucky to share with a guy like Marcus. Then and now.