“I wonder what she started to write,” I said when I gave the book back to Alice.
“Probably ‘Best Wishes’ or something like that. It doesn’t matter. It’s a nice keepsake, don’t you think? She has such nice, precise penmanship.”
“At least she spelled your name correctly.”
I showed her the inscription in my copy.
“It’s a natural mistake. You should have spelled it for her.”
“What did you think about her julep and magnolia accent? You could cut it with a knife.”
“Yes, that was a bit surprising. I thought she would be more, I don’t know, sophisticated.”
“Ah think you Yankees ‘ahre such snobs,” I said. “Jes cause we talk funny down h’eah don’t mean we ain’t ahducated.”
“That may be the worst Southern accent I’ve ever heard,” Alice said.
We started walking back into the building.
“I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done,” Anna said.
“We were happy to help,” Alice said. “I’m just sorry you did not get your interview. But at least you can email some questions.”
Suddenly, a song drifted up from Anna’s wrist. It was “Let It Go” from the Disney movie, Frozen. A few years earlier it seemed as if every little girl in the country was singing the song.
“Oh sorry, that’s my alarm,” she said, turning it off. “I have to get going, or I’ll miss my bus.”
The watch was blue and pink and had a picture on it. It looked tiny on her wrist. She saw me looking at it.
“It’s Princess Anna of Arendelle,” she explained, tapping the picture. “I know it’s silly. But Sam, that’s my brother, gave it to me for my birthday. It’s kooky, I know. But I loved the movie.”
“You’re not staying on Bald Head?” Alice asked
“I’m not. I took a bus from Fayetteville to Southport. There’s one leaving at 5 o’clock to go back. It’s the last one tonight. So I have to catch the 3:30 ferry to make it.”
“How long a bus trip is it?”
“About six hours. It’s not direct. It goes through Raleigh.”
“So you won’t get back to school until very late?”
I could see that Alice was concerned.
“That’s OK. I don’t have any classes tomorrow.”
“Then, why don’t you wait until morning?” I said.
“I doubt I could get a room in a motel this weekend, even on the mainland. Not any I could afford, anyway. I’ll be fine, but I must go. Thank you, again.”
She got up to leave, but Alice put a hand on her arm.
“We have an extra bedroom. Unless you have a solid reason for having to be back at school, you are staying with us. Alton can run you to the ferry tomorrow morning. I don’t want you traveling six hours on a bus at night.”
“I couldn’t let you do that. You’ve been kind enough.”
“Anna, please don’t argue with her,” I said. “It’s a losing proposition, as I’ve found out many times. I drove this part of the country during the day and don’t like the idea of you taking a bus at night, either. Now, come with us. Let’s go into the bar for a drink.” I caught myself. She was probably underage and went to a Christian college. “Maybe a soda?”
She smiled.
“The Good Lord made wine from water at Cana,” she said, smiling. “I wouldn’t mind a Chardonnay.”
The bartender carded her, but I needn’t have worried. Anna pulled out a driver’s license. When she put it back in her purse, she smiled at me.
“Fake proof. I’m in college, remember.”
“The Lord doth work in mysterious ways,” I said.
Her name was Anna Dickson and I could tell she was fascinated by Alice, and her accomplishments. That made two of us. She was a really nice kid, who had made a good start in life that had its share of tragedies. Both her parents were dead. She was on scholarship at school and her only close relative was her older brother, who was a missionary in Ecuador, and who she adored. She hoped to join him at his mission eventually. After a pleasant half hour or so at the bar and two bowls of peanuts, most of which I ate, we went back to the condo. I told the girls I would take them to dinner later but Anna insisted on repaying our kindness by cooking for us. I remembered meals prepared by college kids, and that must have shown on my face. Anna laughed.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Rhode. I’m a great cook. My brother and I have basically been on our own for years and I’ve done most of the cooking. Even took some classes.”
“I’m not sure we have much in the larder,” I said, still looking for a way out.
“I told you I stocked up at that gourmet market,” Alice said. “I’m sure Anna and I can whip up something. It will be fun.”
“You win,” I said. “But only if Anna stops calling me Mr. Rhode. Pretty soon she’ll be bringing me my pipe and slippers.”
“You have neither,” Alice said. “But you do look like you could use a nap. I’m going for a swim. Want to join me, Anna?”
“I don’t have a bathing suit.”
“I just bought a couple. One of them should fit you.”
The nap sounded like a splendid idea. I stopped worrying about dinner.
CHAPTER 7 - CAPTAIN VOLE
I awoke to the smell of fresh apple pie, which I soon discovered was cooling on the kitchen counter. As far as wake-up odors go, it’s in my top five. I looked at my watch. It was just after 5 PM. I guess I needed that nap.
I heard conversation coming from the deck. I could see Alice and Anna in lounge chairs taking the sun. I was halfway onto the deck when I realized they were topless. Alice didn’t do anything, but the girl crossed her arms over her chest. I mumbled an apology and started to go back inside.
“Alton, you don’t have to go,” Alice said. “We’ll get decent.”
They both put on the tops of their bikinis as I sat in a chair. I figured that either looking away or obvious staring could be considered rude, so I opted for the nonchalant glance. Since I was pretty familiar with Alice’s anatomy, most of the glance went to Anna’s. She was petite, with a firm figure and small but perky breasts with large pink nipples. She did not seem the least perturbed that I’d seen them. It made me wish I was back in college.
“I think I’ll start dinner,” she said.
After she went into the house, Alice and I stared out at the ocean. It was a beautiful day.
“Enjoy the view?”
“You bet,” I said.
“You’re welcome.”
“The Lord doth …”
“Oh, be quiet.”
A little while later the apple pie smell was getting a serious run for its money in the kitchen. Anna apparently did know how to cook.
Alice stood.
“I think I’ll see if I can help her.”
Alice has many strong suits, but cooking isn’t one of them.
“Don’t help too much,” I said.
“Suck farts. Why don’t you make yourself useful and open some wine?”
I did and we each had a glass with some canapés that Anna had somehow crafted out of cheese, olives and prosciutto. Dinner consisted of an arugula salad with olive oil, lemon and feta cheese, followed by sautéed chicken with a tarragon and wine reduction, and roasted potatoes. The meal was high-end-restaurant quality and I said so, having resisted the temptation to tell Anna that she was going to make some man very happy someday. That might be considered as sexist. Besides, I had recently seen her boobs and the remark might have an entirely different connotation. I don’t consider myself politically correct, but I’m no Cosby either.
We took our coffee and pie out to the deck.
“What are you going to do after you graduate, Anna?” Alice said.
“Eventually I’d like to join Sam in his missionary work, but he thinks I should be a little older. He’s very protective, but he’s probably right. So, I’ve applied for a teaching position at Alliance College. It’s a Christian college in Westchester. That’s
near New York City, isn’t it?”
“Just north of Manhattan,” I said, getting up for another piece of pie, which both women declined.
That bode well for a slice of breakfast pie. I did gladly refresh their coffees, however.
“Alliance has a Manhattan campus in Greenwich Village,” Anna said. “I’m hoping they send me there.”
“Anna, if you come to New York, you must call me,” Alice said. “I live in the Village. Before you leave, I’ll give you my contact information. And I’ll be teaching, myself. At Barnard. Very near Alliance. I want you to stay in touch.”
***
The next morning, on the way to the ferry, I dropped Alice off at the tennis courts for more torture from the indefatigable Jeff. She gave Anna a big hug and got another promise to stay in touch.
“She is so wonderful,” Anna said as we left.
“She thinks you are, too,” I said.
As we approached the ferry terminal we passed a row of fishing boats.
“There is that man from the luncheon,” Anna said.
“What man?”
“The one who tried to keep us out.”
I spotted him right away. Vole. Leonard Vole. He was using a hose from the dock to wash down the deck of a good-looking cabin cruiser with a fishing chair in its stern. He was wearing shorts, with no shirt, and muscles rippled across his tanned back. He looked more at home in that outfit than in the suit he was probably forced to wear at the reception for Ashleigh Harper.
“I did not like him,” Anna said. “I thought he was very rude.”
“He was out of his element,” I said. “He’s probably a better fisherman than he is a security guard.”
“That wouldn’t be hard,” Anna said.
At the ferry terminal she gave me a hug and a fatherly kiss on the cheek and I manfully suppressed the memory of her perky breasts. There was a crowd of people already boarding the next boat.
“Make sure you get in touch with Alice if you get to New York,” I said. “She’s counting on that.”
“Oh, I will. She gave me all her contact information. You’ve both been wonderful. I can’t wait to see you again.”
With that, she was off up the ramp, and, with a final wave, disappeared into the ferry cabin.
I drove back along the docks. Vole was still working on his boat. I saw the name on the side: She Got the House. I smiled. Vole probably had good reason to be a pain in the ass. Many of the other boat slips were empty. I got out and approached him. He looked up. It took him a moment to place me.
“Can I help you, chum?”
“Maybe,” I said. “No charter today?”
“Guys canceled. Last minute.”
“That’s too bad.”
“It happens. Goes with the territory.”
I didn’t like him, but I felt sorry he lost the income. It was a hit-and-miss occupation. Probably why he moonlighted doing security work.
“Good fishing this time of year?”
“Pretty good. Another week will be better. But I can catch fish any time of the year.”
“What’s running now?
“Bluefish are starting to show up. Big ones. Spanish mackerel, dolphin, some Kings, red drums, tuna, false albacore, tarpon.”
“Anything big?”
“Sure. Wahoo, white marlin. And sharks, spinners and black tips, mostly.”
Vole was in his element. He obviously enjoyed talking about fishing. Whatever else he was, Vole was proud of his ability on the water. I made a snap decision. Bald Head Island was located where the mouth of the Cape Fear River meets the Atlantic Ocean. According to the guidebooks I’d been reading, the sandbars nearby, called the Frying Pan Shoals, was famous for their fishing. I’d thought about trying my luck. Why not with Vole? He might be a hard-ass, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a good fisherman.
“Can you go out this afternoon?”
“With you?”
He looked surprised.
“Yes. You have a half-day rate?”
He did. It wasn’t that bad. I was in a splurging mood. Besides, a day on the ocean with salt spray in my face sounded a hell of a lot better than what Alice probably had planned for me. I didn’t want to give Jeff the tennis torturer another shot. I told Vole he had a charter.
He told me to meet him back at the dock at 1 PM.
CHAPTER 8 - TEN-POUND HEADS
The She Got the House was a good-sized boat. I went into the cabin to look around while Vole took her out of the marina. There was a metal table next to a bench on one wall. Opposite was a counter where a small knife with a sharp blade stuck vertically out of a block of well-worn wood. From the spools of line on a shelf next to the knife I assumed that Vole used it to rig his lures.
I went back on deck. I liked to fish. Have since childhood. I preferred fresh-water angling with spinning rods and fondly recalled trying to match wits with largemouth bass in upstate New York ponds. The fact that they have a brain the size of a pea and usually outwitted me did not decrease the fun. More recently, I have been going out bluefishing with Porgie Carmichael, a one-time inept criminal who now, thanks to my soft heart and appreciation — he took a beating rather than follow an order to kill me — now runs the Great Kills Marina for the Rahm family on Staten Island. Arman Rahm insisted that the marina is one of the family’s legitimate operations, but I still made him promise that Porgie would never be asked to conduct a burial at sea.
From the size of the stout rod in the holder in Vole’s fishing chair, I did not think we were going after bluefish. It was rigged for bigger game. The lure attached to the wire leader at the end of the line was huge, almost a foot long. I'd caught bass smaller than that monstrosity, which had three sets of treble hooks, the last of which was attached to one of the rod guides.
It took us about a half hour to get where Vole wanted to start fishing. He idled the engine and came down out of the cockpit to set up the rod. Vole was wearing a cutoff t-shirt and shorts. Up close, he was an even more impressive specimen, with deeply-tanned muscular legs and arms. On his right bicep was tattooed the distinctive Navy SEAL insignia of a golden eagle clutching an anchor, trident, and flintlock style pistol. I always wondered about that flintlock. I doubted that SEALS ever used them. Vole threw the lure into the water and let line out.
“We’ll troll a while. Get in the chair.”
“What are we after? Moby Dick?”
“Small lure, small fish,” Vole said. “Big lure, big fish. We ain’t after fuckin’ guppies.”
He went back to the wheel and the boat surged ahead, but slowly. We had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile when the rod bent in its holder and the reel’s drag began clacking as line was pulled out. I knew right away it wasn’t a guppy.
“Fish on!” Vole shouted. He again idled the engines. “Set the hook! Give it a good yank. Then start reeling and let’s see what we’ve got.”
I did as told. The fish continued to take out line.
“Tighten the drag!”
The reel was unfamiliar to me. When I hesitated, he clambered down from the cockpit and showed me how to do it by turning a knob on the side of the reel. Soon, I was gaining ground, or water, on the fish.
“Cobia,” Vole said.
“How can you tell?”
“They don’t jump. Take long runs. Like to head to bottom.”
It took me 15 minutes to tire the fish out and bring it close enough for Vole to gaff it. There was a small hinged platform that could be lowered from the stern and Vole maneuvered the fish onto it before heaving it to the deck. It thrashed about wildly. Vole picked up a wooden truncheon, what cops call a billy club, and whacked the fish on its head. Porgie Carmichael used the same type on recalcitrant bluefish. Vole knew what he was doing. My fish stopped moving.
“I told you it was a cobia,” Vole said, lifting the fish up by its gills. “Nice one, too. Might be 50 pounds.”
It may have been 50 pounds, but Vole held it out for me to admire with about as much effort as
if it was a five-pound pickerel. I didn’t know a cobia from a cobra, but I took Vole’s word for it. It was a handsome dark-brown fish with a spindle-shaped body and broad, flattened head with large and sharp-looking dorsal spines.
“They don’t have swim bladders,” Vole explained, “which is why they can dive so deep.”
“I guess it’s not catch-and-release,” I said, looking at the dead fish.
“Cobias are great eating. I’ll carve you some steaks. After this, just let me know what you want to throw back alive. I can sell the ones we keep to the restaurants.”
He threw the cobia in the cooler and then set my rod up again. Twenty minutes later I hooked my first tuna. It was a small one and I had no trouble landing it.
“Throw it back,” Vole said. “Where there’s one, there’s others, and bigger.”
He was right. I almost immediately hooked a much bigger fish. I had to work the drag several times to get it right. I was winning my battle when then things started to go crazy. All of a sudden, the rod gave a sharp jolt and then the reeling became a lot easier. At first I thought the fish had broken off, but I could still feel something on the line. I brought it in and lifted the head of what had once been a very large tuna out of the water. Everything behind its gills was missing. Those gills were dripping blood and opening and shutting reflexively. The tuna’s big glassy eyes looked startled, but I supposed they always looked that way.
“Fucking shark got it,” Vole said.
Maybe the tuna was startled, after all.
Vole yanked the lure from the tuna’s severed head and threw it back out. We trolled some more and I got another hit. But it was the same story. The tuna put up a hell of a fight until a shark hit it. I pulled in another 10-pound head. After the third time I began to feel like the man running the guillotine during the French Revolution.
“It’s shark city out here,” Vole said, disgustedly. “Look at them all.”
The boat, which suddenly felt a lot smaller, was surrounded by sharks, some quite large.
“I hate the sons of bitches. They’ve ruined a lot of my charters.” Vole held up my latest shortened fish. “You ever catch a shark?”
TURTLE DOVE (Alton Rhode Mysteries Book 7) Page 5
