“Are you hungry? We could order in pizza.”
He was hungry, all right. But he didn’t need pizza. What he needed was to distance himself from Daisy. Making up his mind, he said, “I think I’ll turn in. Remember I said I was going out on the boat with Sal tomorrow? I’m to be outside waiting at dawn.”
“Sal? You hadn’t said who was taking you. Funny, he didn’t tell me. I’m not sure I want the Lazy Daisy going into Rum Row again.”
“I believe his contract lets him make those kinds of decisions. If you’d wanted to restrict his authority, you should have penned in something.”
“How did I know he’d be so foolish?”
“Don’t look at me like I twisted his arm. I gave him every opportunity to refer me elsewhere. He set the price. Daniel even tried to talk him out of going.”
“Well, then, that’s why. Sal’s tired of being Daniel’s little brother.” Ordinarily it wouldn’t be any big deal, but Daisy couldn’t shake the memory of that yacht. Whenever she thought about it, she felt chilled to the bone. “Don’t go,” she begged him suddenly. “Your going won’t bring Miranda back. Nothing will. You’ve got no business out there, Temple.”
Daniel had said the same thing, and Temple had more or less ignored it. Now his stomach took a major drop. Was there something she knew that she wasn’t telling? “But you went. Twice, according to your report.”
She shivered and hugged herself. “I didn’t give much credence to the stories. You know what they say about the whoppers fishermen tell. But that speedboat was real— and dangerous.”
“Look,” Temple said. “I’ve known DeVaca all my life. If I had to describe him, I’d say he was a true gentleman. He wouldn’t be involved in anything… dangerous.” Temple hunched his shoulders and pressed his lips into a tight line. “I don’t understand this at all.”
“It appears we’ll never know what happened,” Daisy said gently.
“That’s just it. Miranda’s parents want answers. Hell, I want answers.”
“Enough to risk your life?” Her voice had an edge of panic.
Temple watched how she rubbed at her arms. He saw the lines of worry that bracketed her lips and the fear lurking in her eyes. “Daisy, I can’t think of a single soul who’d want to do me harm. Not one.”
“Yes, well, I don’t know.” She thumped her chest with a closed fist, and the fear in her eyes changed to hardness. “That boat is my life, Wyatt. If anything happens to her, I’ll hold you personally responsible.”
The boat. So this was about money—and some damned smelly boat. “Fine,” he said, too loudly, as she brushed past him and left the room. Only it wasn’t fine. Moments ago he’d been angling to take her to bed. Now she sounded like… Miranda. Temple Wyatt had existed miserably for a year and a half with one woman who cared more for material things than for people, including her husband and child. He wasn’t about to make that mistake again.
Hearing his daughter stir in the alcove, Temple cooled his anger and went in to check on her. Undoubtedly their voices had disturbed her sleep. He tiptoed into the alcove, knelt beside her bed and murmured, “When you get well and we go home, puddin’, I’m going to spend less time on the road and more time with you, I promise.”
She rolled to face him and opened her eyes. Temple held his breath for a moment, expecting her to scream. She didn’t. Instead, she gave him the sweetest smile, tightened her arm around Straylia and promptly went back to sleep.
Temple was both shaken and overjoyed, although he doubted she was really awake. Still, what if she subconsciously knew him? With hands that shook, he snugged the sheet up under the dimpled elbow that lay hooked over the koala. Then he stood, smiled down at her and slowly withdrew.
At the door, he ran into Daisy. She handed him one of the three softly glowing lanterns she juggled. “I was just thinking,” she said pleasantly, as if they hadn’t argued. “Tomorrow, if you don’t mind, I may take Becca back to play on the beach.”
Temple experienced a sudden gut fear at the thought of his child going off with someone—like she had with Miranda. Just as quickly he got a grip on his emotions. “Realistically I know I have to let go—that I can’t smother her. But—” he hesitated before saying earnestly “—you will be careful, won’t you, Daisy?”
She gazed at him sadly. “I’m sorry you feel you need to say such a thing to me.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he said, avoiding contact with her body as he headed for his room. The minute he closed the door, he felt like hell. To take his mind off his troublesome landlady, Temple made phone calls to a few of his hotel managers. It was the first time in a long while, and fortunately none of them had problems for him to solve. Or, perhaps, unfortunately. He still needed something to occupy his thoughts. Oh, well, he had plenty of professional magazines to read. Except that the lantern started to flicker. After half an hour, Temple gave up and went to bed. Sleep evaded him far into the night as Daisy’s warning played over and over in his head.
THE MOON WAS STILL OUT when Temple’s alarm buzzed. He groaned, shut it off and fumbled for the jeans and shirt he’d laid out the night before. The minute he tied his sneakers he had second thoughts about wearing jeans all day in such heat, and shucked them off, donning, instead, his one pair of disreputable shorts.
He hurried downstairs in the dark, only lighting the lantern after he had the kitchen door firmly shut. No sense in waking the household. It was hard to know what sounded good for breakfast, to say nothing of what a man might want for lunch. After a few false starts, Temple settled on a couple of bagels with cream cheese for breakfast and a cheese sandwich for lunch. To heck with the cholesterol. Recalling the smell that hung over the Mosquito Fleet, Temple wasn’t sure he’d be able to eat, anyway. And the prospect of handling those slimy little crustaceans. . Temple shuddered.
Thank God Daisy kept a box full of rubber gloves under the kitchen sink. Let Sal rib him, he didn’t care. Contrary to what Daisy believed, shrimping wasn’t going to rank up there with one of the great experiences in his life. Too bad these gloves weren’t leather. He guessed he should just be thankful they weren’t pink.
Temple wished he hadn’t thought about Daisy. He felt a vague sense of guilt about the way he’d ended things last night. He’d conveyed the wrong message. Maybe if he left her a note and some cash to take Rebecca to the kiddy rides he’d seen advertised at Moody Gardens, she’d see it as a gesture of trust. Sometime during that long night, he’d realized it wasn’t a matter of not trusting her. And he was willing to believe she felt some genuine concern about his safety out in Rum Row. Lord, but he worried about her, too. Didn’t she have any clue how he felt?
Hoping he was doing the right thing, Temple wrote the note and slipped it under the edge of the coffeepot, along with fifty dollars. Then he gathered up his thermos and his lunch. After extinguishing the light, he made his way out to the curb to wait for Sal.
Daisy let Temple step out the front door before she completed her descent down the dark staircase. Plucking aside the curtain, she watched him saunter to the curb, where he was clearly illuminated by the street lamp. He wore shorts, she saw, and smiled. The man might argue, but he did take advice after he’d chewed on it for a while.
She didn’t want him to catch her spying, so she dropped the curtain and wandered into the kitchen to make coffee. That was when she discovered his note. It took her several minutes to recognize that in essence it was a vote of confidence. He did trust her. Clutching it, she ran to thank him. But apparently she’d dawdled too long; Sal’s Jeep was just rounding the corner at the far end of the street. Daisy was struck by the strongest urge to run after it—to snatch Temple back. She stood, staring into the gray dawn until the paperboy rode by on his bicycle and gave a wolf whistle. The kid couldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen. Tossing him a benign wave, she scurried back inside. It was time to feed her animals.
IN THE JEEP, Sal mumbled a greeting of sorts to Temple, then fell silent. Temple wanted to kno
w what shrimping entailed, but on viewing the hulk seated at the wheel, he now wished he’d asked Daisy. Although, considering how she felt about this excursion, she’d probably have told him to go to hell.
“I see you’re wearing deck shoes with net over the top of your feet,” he said to break the ice. “I only brought these jogging shoes.” Temple laughed, hoping to solicit a laugh in response.
Sal cast a quick glance at Temple’s shoes. “I hope you’re prepared to throw those things away at the end of the day. They’ll stink to high heaven.”
Temple mentally added eighty bucks to the two hundred he was already paying, then consigned his perfectly good polo shirt the same fate as his shoes. The cost of this jaunt was rising fast. Oh, well, he couldn’t look at it in terms of money. Not if it helped Miranda’s parents.
“I’m not going straight out to the Row,” Sal announced. “It’s not the best place to be at daybreak, dusk or after dark.”
“You’re the captain,” Temple told him. “I’m just along for the ride.”
“Maybe you’re not such a bad sort,” Sal admitted grudgingly.
Temple laughed. “I’ve built resorts in some pretty remote locations. I’ve developed a healthy respect for local superstitions, voodoo, et cetera.”
“Stuff that goes on in the Row isn’t voodoo. It’s real enough. Drugs and gun-running. Illegals.” He tapped his chest. “This hide ain’t worth much, but I’ve grown attached to it.”
“Why on earth would Daisy shrimp in such an area, and alone at that?” Temple asked.
“As long as her old man was alive, guys in the fleet didn’t mess with her. Now, outside of Dan’l and me and Loren Bonner, she takes a lot of flack for doin’ what’s considered here to be a man’s job. Daisy has a tendency to get off by herself, away from the main fleet. When the shrimp are runnin’ good like they’ve been this year, it’s easy to get busy and not worry about your fellow shrimpers until weigh-in. Dan’l said he should’ve guessed what she was about when she beat him by three hundred pounds of shrimp the day before the explosion He just didn’t add it up.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Temple said, “I’m not laying blame. I’m very grateful that she was out there that day. I just wondered why she’d take unnecessary chances.”
“Money Why else? Her dad let the house go. She started taking boarders to pay for fixing it up. Plus, he left her with doctor bills. She didn’t get a lick of help from those fluff-headed sisters of hers, even though they got an equal split in the will. Didn’t come to the old man’s funeral, but they called and demanded Daisy sell the house. Took all of her last year’s catch money to buy their shares. The only reason she leased me the boat is because she’s trying to hang on to the place. It’s everything to her.”
“Sounds like she’s had it rough,” Temple said in an abstracted voice as Sal wheeled into the busy parking lot down at the wharf.
“You don’t hear her complainm’, do ya? Anyway, she’s got me and Dan’l lookin’ out for her. Daisy’s business ain’t no never mind of yours.”
Temple had just been thinking maybe Sal wasn’t so bad. After that speech, he revised his opinion again. “If you and your brother gave a rat’s ass for her,” he snapped, “you’d have helped rewire that old firetrap. The place has dry rot on the dock side, and come the next rain, the roof over her kitchen sink is gonna leak. You fellows put into port between two and three o’clock. That leaves a lot of daylight to be hoisting a hammer, instead of a beer.”
Sal’s eyes chilled. “A lot you know, dude. Most afternoons my brother tends bar at the Smuggler’s Roost, and I wait tables at Willy G’s. Besides, Daisy didn’t ask for help,” he said sullenly as he hopped out of the Jeep. “She knows all she’s gotta do is ask.”
Temple wondered if he should apologize for having pegged the two Colettis as lazy louts. But because he didn’t like Sal’s possessive tone when it came to Daisy, he collected his thermos and lunch in silence. He would, however, judge them less harshly in the future.
“Could you run over what’s expected of me?” Temple asked after they’d boarded the trawler. “I’ve done my share of sailing,” he told Sal. “Pleasure boats and power crafts mostly. Although I did do some marlin fishing off Barbados. God, does it always smell this bad?”
Sal grinned. “It ain’t lilacs, that’s for damn sure. But if you think this is bad, wait ‘til the fleet comes back in hundred-degree heat, fully loaded.”
“I can hardly wait,” Temple muttered as the leanly muscled shrimper showed him where to stow his lunch, then gave him a quick lesson on the winches.
“Here comes Loren.” Sal waved to someone on the dock. “We’ll shove off now, and give you the two-bit tour en route.”
Temple nodded, then turned his attention to the beanpole youth who’d just boarded the Lazy Daisy. Following introductions, Sal and Loren took their stations, one fore and one aft. The boat was soon under way. About midpoint out in the channel, Sal gave two short raucous blasts on a horn. Temple nearly jumped out of his skin and grabbed his ears. Because it was clear Sal enjoyed catching him off guard, Temple braced himself against the rusted railing on the starboard side and vowed he’d be ready for anything the guy might pull.
He thought the first three hours went fairly well. He managed every task either of the seasoned shrimpers doled out. And quite well, even if he did say so himself. As the sun climbed high into a clear blue sky, Temple removed his shirt. Already sweat poured off him in rivulets. He counted himself lucky that Loren kept a variety of baseball caps in one of the foot lockers; after watching Temple wipe off his sunglasses a few times, Loren offered him his pick of them. Since there wasn’t one with the San Francisco Giants logo, he selected the Houston Astros. The kid grinned, and Temple wasn’t about to tell him it was the cleanest of the lot.
The boat’s forward hold was about two-thirds full of smelly wriggly shrimp when Sal announced they’d mosey out toward Rum Row.
“Don’t let my dad know,” Loren yelled at Sal over the noise of the engines. “He’d skin me alive. Made me promise after that yacht blew up that I wouldn’t crew for anyone going out there.”
Sal leveled a thoughtful look at Temple. “Folks on that yacht, ‘cept for the kid, were obviously up to no good,” he shouted back. “Ain’t nobody got a beef against us. We’re just gonna mind our own business. Cast a few nets, maybe take a look around the cove. You ain’t yellow, are you, kid?”
Loren shrugged his thin shoulders. “Rollie Sparks claims he followed a school of shrimp into the Row a couple weeks ago. His boat’s a twin to this one. According to Rol, some tough-looking dudes eyeballed him and his crew from the deck of a deep-V powerboat.”
Temple’s ears perked up. “When was this?”
“Thursday, week before last.”
Sal scowled. “Rollie Sparks is a blowhard. Hear him tell it, he’s made it with every dame on the Island. Truth is, the majority wouldn’t be caught dead in the sack with him.”
“That’s a fact,” Loren agreed with a chuckle. “The cute new waitress who worked Saturday nights at Willy G’s dumped a pitcher of beer over his head for spreading lies about her. It was great. She said it was worth getting fired over.”
“That happened on my night off. I heard the story, but I didn’t realize it was old Rollie. Wait’ll I tell Dan’l. No love lost between those two.”
Temple listened to the men’s discourse with interest even though he didn’t know Rollie Sparks.
They chugged along for maybe twenty minutes before Sal steered them into a secluded cove. Temple had a new appreciation of what it must have been like for Daisy, sailing all the way back to port alone, a terrified child in her care, debris from the explosion in her wake. In spite of the hot day, a shiver shot up his spine. This area was truly isolated. No wonder the boat had gone down without a trace—with no one, except Daisy, to see it. He sighed. Maybe he and Miranda’s parents needed to have a memorial service of some kind. Something to create a sense of closure for f
riends and family.
Temple took a moment now to whisper his goodbyes. He and Miranda couldn’t live together and they’d had trouble agreeing on how to raise Rebecca, but he’d never, ever wished her dead. And Domingo. The man had oozed old-world Latin charm. Temple had difficulty believing the courtly hotelier would be involved in anything as ugly as drugs or guns. Sadness stole over him.
“Somethin’ the matter, dude?” Sal called. “I’ve been talkin’ to you for five minutes. You seen a ghost, or what?”
Temple straightened away from the rail. “No. No ghosts. Just sorry memories about people I once…cared about.”
“You mean the couple who went down with the yacht?” Loren asked.
Temple nodded. He was prevented from speaking by the lump in his throat. “I’ve read that the sea always gives up her dead.”
“Sometimes she’s stubborn.” Sal shaded his eyes against the glaring sun and cast a glance around the quiet cove. “Looks like we got the place to ourselves today. Why don’t we drop a couple nets, then take our lunches in the runabout and go exploring? There’s a lot of debris from who knows what caught on those old cypress roots yonder. See, right near the curve?”
Temple looked to where he was pointing. “You’re right. Can’t say I’m hungry, but the plan suits me.” Turning, he deferred to Bonner.
“Yeah, smell kind of turns your stomach at first.” Loren lifted his baseball cap and ran a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. “If you don’t mind, Sal, I think I’ll stay here and crack the calculus books while I eat. I’ve got a big test next week.”
“Okay. Probably just as well not to leave the boat alone. Swells come up without warning in these currents.”
The men dropped the nets and anchored the boat in jade green water about a half mile from shore. Temple helped Sal lower the small outboard and waited while he grabbed his lunch sack before following him down the ladder. The tide was coming in. Temple decided that was what had suddenly turned the water a dark murky green—and added the choppiness. He wasn’t totally convinced they should be making this run.
The Water Baby Page 15
