Anchor Management

by Ellis Quinn

  “Yeah?” he put his hands on his hips and resumed his authoritative cop pose.

  “Stephen’s got some secret, and it’s big enough to him that he’s hiding it.”

  “Right, what you overheard at the park. Secrets are meant to be hidden.”

  She said, “But Charlotte knows it. Cherry also knows the secret and they’re hiding it together, her and Stephen.”

  “It’s not much,” he said. “But it’s something, I guess.”

  “But I still can’t figure out who killed Jack,” she said.

  “Stephen said he did it.”

  “You think he did?”

  “Maybe this secret was worth killing over, Bette. You never know.”

  “I think,” Bette said, looking down the pier, “Charlotte’s holding all the cards. Every last one.”

  * * *

  In Pris’s truck on the way back to Fortune, Pris said, “On the bright side, with Stephen confessing, I bet they’ll have to let Cherry out.”

  “They better,” Vance said, sitting up front on the passenger side.

  Bette said, “I sure hope so. There’s a certain relief, I guess, though it doesn’t sit right Stephen being the murderer.”

  “No, it don’t,” Pris said.

  “Makes sense to me,” Vance said, and Pris shot a look to Bette.

  Pris said, “You enjoy your walk with us today, Vance?”

  “It was good.”

  “Old Margaret sure chewed you ear off.”

  “Yeah.”

  “The other girls were angry with Margaret for hogging all of your time.”

  “Oh yeah? I didn’t mind talking with her. She was cool.”

  “Some of the other ladies were looking for they turn, too.”

  “Maybe we’ll walk again while I’m here,” Vance said. “It was kind of fun. Never a dull moment around the Cove.”

  “Oh, and Miss Margaret,” Pris said, “wanted me to tell you not to worry none on your color difference, you and Cherry.”

  “What?” Vance said, harried. “I don’t . . .” He didn’t even know what to say.

  “Margaret’s Irving is white as snow, too. She wanted me to make sure you knew.”

  Vance groaned and thrust his head back into Pris’s leather headrest. “I do not even want to talk about this.”

  “Just passing on a message for you, said I’d do it is all.”

  “Message received,” Vance said, and crossed his arms, trying to disappear inside his coat.

  Bette leaned between the two front seats and said to him, “I feel like this might be karma coming out to get you, payback for hiding in my woodpile and trying to give me a heart attack.”

  THAT AFTERNOON

  The oven’s timer chimed, and she pulled the baking sheet from the oven.

  “Look at that color, Buster,” she said, “I think that temperature was about right, wouldn’t you say?”

  Thump–thump. Behind her, sitting on the cotton rug in front of the sink, Buster wagged his heavy tail in agreement.

  She slid the hot sheet onto the big maple cutting block she had ready on the island. Interspersed on the sheet were six crab cakes.

  “Here we go,” she said, “round three.” This was the third batch of the big What’s-in-Jonas’s-crab-cakes experiment. What Vance and her—and Buster—didn’t eat in the next few days would be frozen and sent back to school with Vance with ice in a cooler bag.

  The baking helped her think. Having front focus let all the juicy bits of her subconscious get to work, roll up their sleeves and see what they could form out of facts she knew.

  “Let’s get them while they’re hot, buddy.”

  With a knife and fork, she cut into the first cake. Nice and flaky. Looking good. Smelled right as well. She cut off two good sized chunks, popped one in her mouth, forked the other one, and chewed with her eyes rolled up to the ceiling as all her senses kicked in gear, trying to determine how close round three was to Jonas’s original. She turned then, and sunk to the floor, her back against the cupboard. Buster came over for his sample.

  “Sit.”

  He did, like a good boy, and she extended to him a mouthful of crab cake. He was gentle removing it, and his was gone a lot quicker than hers. She chewed, inhaled, chewed some more, then swallowed. “That’s a good crab cake,” she said to Buster, and rubbed the top of his head. He stood again, and she said, “Real good. What do you think? How close are we?”

  Buster licked her face, and she threw her arms around his muscular neck. “You’re right, you’re right. It’s a great crab cake. I mean, I hate to say it, but I think it might be better than my grandma Pearl’s. But it’s not the same as Jonas’s.”

  The crab cakes were good—no, great—and she was closer, but not there, yet. So these she bundled into a container and put them in the fridge. These would be worth re-heating tonight and serving for dinner. Vance was out for the afternoon, gone in his Jeep for a drive and a think. What would be great was if they could all get together tonight, Cherry included.

  She said to Buster: “You know what I’m gonna do, soon as Cherry gets out? Ask her for some eggs. You got it, buddy, eggs from her hens, then I’m a sneak em back here and make my own mayonnaise and we’ll see what’s what.”

  She squatted down to Buster’s level and got eye-to-eye. He licked his chops and leaned his weight against her, liking the head scratches. He began some serious cheek kisses, rocking her head back and forth.

  And something flittered up from her subconscious, one bright butterfly independent of its kaleidoscope.

  “Hey, let me ask you another thing, Buster.” Buster stopped licking, stepped back, sat, and she wiped her face clean with the sleeve of her flannel shirt. “You think it was weird how that Charlotte was going off on Marcus? You know what I mean? I mean, I understand her being mad, but it’s just nagging at me the way Charlotte kept saying Stephen was her son.”

  Buster cocked his head, trying hard to comprehend.

  “You think it’s weird like how I do, don’t you?” She thumbed her waistband. “Pants are getting tight, all these crab cake experiments, let’s walk em off, what do you say?”

  * * *

  Their walk took them from the back of Fortune down the beach into town and all the way to the Chamber of Commerce. Buster waited outside while she went in. The woman there said Vinnie wasn’t in the office today, which made sense, and she thanked the woman. Then she walked Buster down around the Crockett loop toward The Cracked Crab and on to the wharf. They toured the marina, looking casual.

  A guy like Vinnie, she imagined, on a day off like this while he grieved the loss of his son and the arrest of his other son, wouldn’t be at home, would likely go to a place to be alone and where he felt at rest. He was probably out on the water somewhere, out on his boat. She figured she would just walk Buster up and down the boardwalk by the marina for an hour and chance into Vinnie coming back to shore.

  But Vinnie wasn’t on the water. His boat was berthed at the pier, a big 35-footer, bright white with swooping curves and black hull windows; the motors were inboard, the decking lacquered wood, the leather tan, and up top was a hard top roof that protected the cockpit. Across the stern read the boat’s name: Mayor Mayknot.

  He wasn’t on the water, but she’d found him. Vinnie was on the boat. He was on the boat and looking at her now, puzzled.

  “How you doing today, Miss Whaley?”

  He wasn’t in his normal attire, no snappy blazer or fancy tie with nautical emblems. He looked like an older version of the Vinnie she remembered from when she left the Cove. Rugged, wearing a worn-out fisherman knit sweater and a pair of jeans. He wiped his hands on a rag.

  Vinnie said, “Who’s your handsome companion?”

  She continued walking, saying, “This is Buster. He’s a stray.”

  “Oh, he’s the stray,” Vinnie said and showed a troubled smile. Bette took it to mean that Vinnie had heard all about the stray and all the problems of the Whaley women and t
heir bothersome café friend.

  She said, “I’ve been eating so many crab cakes since I’ve been back, I have to walk for a couple hours a day, or you can enter me in the Santa Claus parade this year as a float.”

  He laughed, sat down in the back deck’s lounge so he still faced her. He said, “You two want to come on board for a minute? Your doggy want some water? Or how about you, can I offer you a drink?”

  She looked farther down the wharf, pretending she had no intention to stay. She said, “Oh Vinnie, I wouldn’t want to bother you.”

  “I don’t mind,” he said. “Might be nice to have something to take my mind off things.”

  “I hear that,” she said. “You sure he’s okay on board?” She jiggled Buster’s leash.

  “Think I might like a canine companion myself some time. He’s more than welcome. Come on board, you two.”

  She set foot on the back step of his cruiser, then paused a second. Last time she got on a boat, it was with an unsuspecting man who turned out to be a murderer.

  Could Vinnie have killed Jack?

  Why wasn’t Vinnie ever a suspect of hers? Vinnie was Vinnie. Vinnie was hard-working and seemed honest. But so was Troy Murdoch . . .

  She’d cheated death once already. Could she do it again? Especially when she did something so stupid like getting on a boat when no one knew where she was with a man who might’ve murdered his own son . . .

  Vinnie crouched down and encouraged Buster to come join him. “Get over here, champ,” he said, and Buster lunged. She had to follow, stumbling in behind him, but she let his leash go. Vinnie wrestled with her dog a moment, and Buster danced on his back feet, giving Vinnie face kisses, wriggling around; she got on board.

  Something about the way Vinnie’s emotions flooded up in Buster's presence told her he couldn’t be bad. Vinnie laughed and clapped Buster’s back to the point she could see a tear form under his eyelashes. He wiped it, sniffled then and stood up. Brought out from his pocket a dirty old handkerchief and blew his nose, folded it inside out, then dabbed at his eyes. “Let me offer you a drink,” he said, “I’m having a soda, let me get you one.”

  “That would be fine, Vinnie. That’d be fine.”

  He opened a seat lid, and there was a cooler underneath. From it, he pulled out a can of pop, opened another cupboard door and brought out a glass. He poured her a ginger ale, pausing halfway, then looked over his shoulder. “Mine’s got whiskey. Can I offer you a whiskey?”

  “Just the ginger ale, Vinnie. I’ll be fine with that.”

  “Just checking,” he said, continuing to pour until her glass was full. “Wouldn’t want to seem rude,” he said, then turned and handed her the drink.

  She took it, but before she could sip, he took his own drink and held it up. “To Jack,” he said, and she smiled, touched her glass to his. They drank. He said, “I guess it’s probably early for a drink, and I hope you don’t think less of me.”

  “Of course not, Vinnie.”

  “We’ve all got our troubles, I’m sure you’ve got your own, I just seem to be at a peak. I don’t normally drink during the day.”

  “Don’t worry about it at all, Vinnie. I didn’t even think of it.”

  “Mayor of the Cove has to have some better standards, though.”

  “Nobody would fault you, Vinnie. Especially in this town. And under the circumstances . . .”

  “You got that right,” he said. “I suppose you heard.”

  “About Stephen?”

  He nodded, then sat down again. He pressed his face into both hands and rubbed his fingertips into his eyes. She sat across from him, and Buster sat between them.

  She said, “You know, I remember when you came to town. You and Charlotte. I was just a kid, and I was heading out. Trying to get out of this place.”

  “Why did you want to leave? Not being pushy, just curious.”

  “Age-old story, I imagine. Small-town girl meets big city man.”

  “You left the Cove for a fella?”

  “I’m embarrassed to say I did. But I have a good young man to show for it, and I don’t have any regrets.”

  “You’re my kind of woman, Bette. And you’re a lot like your grandmother. The insight and all.”

  “You think I have insight?”

  “You have a way. Wish I could’ve met your mother.”

  “She was gone before you came to town. Maybe if my mom was around, I might not have been so mad all the time. Might a stayed in the Cove and who knows where I’d end up.”

  “You’re forgetting about that son of yours.”

  She laughed and leaned back. “You’re right. You’re definitely right. He makes it worth it.”

  “Yup,” Vinnie said, his brow growing troubled again.

  She said, “Don’t worry. It’s all going to work out, Vinnie. I don’t know what on earth would make Stephen say he did it, but there’s no way he did. I don’t even know him a quarter as well as you. You don’t think he did it, I’m sure.”

  “Of course I don’t. He’s my son. That was his brother.”

  “They got along?”

  “Peas in a pod, those two.”

  “I saw Charlotte this morning sticking up for Stephen. She really let Marcus have it.”

  “She told me,” he said.

  And here was the tricky part. She said, “She used to stick up for Jack like that? You know, when Jack got in trouble with the law?” She sipped her ginger ale.

  Vinnie raised his eyebrows, eyes cast off to the side as he thought about it. He said, “No. No, she didn’t.”

  She watched his lips purse and his mouth work around. The man was deep in thought. It looked like there was something he’d like to get off his shoulders. She said, “Charlotte’s awful harsh sometimes, but boy, she had her back up defending her son. Couldn’t be mad at her for that.”

  Now Vinnie chewed the inside of his cheek and she waited some more. Wondered how to get it out of him.

  He sighed now, put elbows on knees and hunched forward, interlacing his fingers. He looked heavy. “I’ll tell you something. Charlotte didn’t stick up for Jack. Jack was a handful, but so was I when I was his age. I was a handful when I met Charlotte. She should have been used to it. Stephen was that way too. But you know what it was?”

  “I hope you feel you can tell me.”

  Vinnie said, “I think I do.” He looked her way. “Jack’s my son. . . . But he’s not Charlotte’s. He was my son before I even met Charlotte. I was married before. After Jack was born, gosh, he was just a little baby . . . his mom went off to a bad place. We weren’t so big on psychology and mental health back then, but it was postpartum depression, I figure now. We went our separate ways, and she gave up Jack without a fight. Jack figured it out when he was a teenager, that maybe, just maybe Charlotte wasn’t his mom. He knew . . . knew, and he wanted to find his own mom. I helped him. But, Bette, when we found her . . . I used to love that woman. Delilah. But her life’d taken this terrible turn. She was hard to find. When we found her, she was a mess. She was in Baltimore. Drugs, petty crime, theft, forgery. . . . We didn’t know it at first, found out later. We saw she wasn’t in a good living situation. Jack went and spent the weekends with her for a summer. One Saturday he calls me. Calls me and says he caught Delilah doing drugs and can I come and pick him up.”

  He ran his hands through his hair, sighed, reached for his drink on the leather seat at his side, then took a healthy swallow. He patted Buster, who panted between them. “On the way home, I could see how it messed him up. I could see how he was hurting, and I didn’t know what to tell him. Part of me was mad at myself that I never stuck with it. Never stuck with Delilah and tried to figure out what was wrong. But Delilah was trouble, Bette. Explosive, dangerous. I only say it now because I regret the way things went. But in the moment—me and wild Delilah and baby Jack—I couldn’t bear to be with Delilah another minute. But then we’re driving back, and Jack says to me . . .”

  Vinnie shook his he
ad and paused. Then took another sip of his drink. “Says, ‘Dad, Charlotte’s always spoiled Stephen and spoiled Sophia. You think she doesn’t like me because I’m not her son?’”

  Vinnie looked up at her and the tears had returned.

  He said, “Imagine your son saying something like that to you.”

  “I can’t, Vinnie. I’m sorry.”

  Vinnie stood, then moved to the chrome railing that ran the back deck of his boat, gripped it, and looked over the edge between his boat and the one in the next berth, down into the murky water. Buster got up, moved closer to Bette, sat and leaned his weight against her knee. She sipped her ginger ale and gave Vinnie time to think.

  When he turned, he’d gathered himself. “Bette, I’ve tried real hard with this family. Making sure everyone’s got what they need and tried to be a good role model. I’m at odds at times . . .”

  “With Charlotte?”

  He nodded. “She’s a good woman. Good to me. I wouldn’t be where I am without her fire under my bottom.”

  “You work as a team.”

  He chuckled, looking down at Buster. “Not really. Sometimes, yes. You know, after Jack met Delilah, his problems got worse. Jack started getting in trouble. Worse trouble. Charlotte and Jack butted heads, and Charlotte’s no wilting flower.”

  “I know.”

  Vinnie leaned his butt on the chrome railing and bumped his fists together. “They were like oil and water. Jack lets it out that she’s not his mom and Charlotte says if he doesn’t smarten up he’s going to end up no better than Delilah, and she wouldn’t lift a hand to help him if he did. Tough love, right?”

  “I guess. Except when you hear something like that and you’re young and lost, you can just think it’s in your blood, that you’re doomed to be the way you are.”

  Vinnie’s eyes widened, and he nodded again. “That’s it exactly, Bette. Charlotte’s done a lot of bad in the name of tough love. Her tough love’s helped me, and I’ve always turned a cheek, thinking it was for the greater good. That maybe if I couldn’t turn Jack around, she could.”

  “He wouldn’t listen to you, either?”