Away with the Fishes

by Stephanie Siciarz

  “The next visitors, they were okay?” Raoul asked, hoping to hurry her along.

  “Oh, heavens no! They had the worst time yet.” She leaned in closer to him and added knowingly, “Bad barracuda. Nearly died.”

  “From the fish?”

  “From the island,” Mrs. Jaymes said. “The island sent that poisoned fish straight to the Captain’s table. After that lot, no one ever visited him again.”

  “That’s when he killed himself?”

  “No, not then! That’s when he got his fishing boat. The very day they left.”

  “Fishing boat?” Raoul asked, thinking of fisherman Madison Fuller, and of the fisherman with the lonely heart. Was fishing the connection?

  “You see, the Captain tried everything—from his piano to horticulture to hummingbirds, as he put it—and nothing worked. He scoured the island from bottom to top, opened up Oh to the famous and rich. His happiness was on Oh, Dagmore was surer than sure of that. But he couldn’t figure out where on Oh it was exactly. He looked behind clouds, under bushes, and on top of the highest hills. It wasn’t in his garden or his sitting room, or under the umbrellas on his beach. Not in the rainforest or Fort Tuesday or Tempperdu.”

  “Did he ever find it?” Raoul asked anxiously, interested not as a government official investigating a case, but as an islander to whom happiness had more than once proven elusive.

  “He thought so. He said he caught sight of it as he walked home past the lumberyard of Higgins Hardware, Home, and Garden. It was covered in dust and wrong-side up, but it was there behind a stack of plywood, no mistaking it.”

  “What was?”

  “The fishing boat! That was supposed to be his happiness.”

  “Ah.” Raoul was growing restless. There seemed to be some similarities shaping up between Dagmore’s story and Rena’s, and even Madison’s, but none that made much difference. There was a mountain of pre-trial work to do, Raoul’s subordinates were beginning to whisper about his absences, and he was wondering if maybe Bruce wasn’t right. Maybe the truth would surface once the trial got under way.

  “I’d love to hear more, Mrs. Jaymes, but I’m afraid I really must be going,” Raoul said, closing his notebook and capping his pen. “Can you think of anything else that might be worthy of mention?”

  Only, she said, that from the minute the Captain brought home the fishing boat, she noticed a fullness to his cheeks and a quickness to his step that she hadn’t spotted for a very long time. ‘It’s a boat, Mrs. Jaymes. Isn’t she a beauty?’ he had happily panted. It wasn’t a beauty, Mrs. Jaymes assured Raoul, but the Captain planned to fix it up. He wanted it, he had told her, because his happiest days were the days he spent at sea. He thought maybe what was missing all along was a boat of his own.

  “Was it?” Raoul asked her.

  “Oh, heavens, no!” she laughed, as if Raoul had posed the most preposterous of questions. “It wasn’t a boat that was missing. It was a girl.”

  36

  With Officer Raoul Orlean at the helm, the ship of Oh’s justice was moving full-steam ahead. Not too enthusiastic at first about his role in the Madison Fuller affair, Raoul was keen to get the trial started. He had come to the conclusion that the police might be their own worst enemies, and the sooner they were up on the witness stand, the sooner the sensible Glynray Justice could crumble their case. Raoul had come up with nothing to crumble it in the interim.

  To expedite his duties, which left Raoul no time for anything else—not for painting, for sleuthing, for Mrs. Jaymes—Raoul turned the prime-ministerial Decree that had put him in charge of the Bicycle Trial into a virtual laissez-passer. Like a badge, he flashed it to access the government’s coffers and bypass its convoluted protocols, and in the space of a week was able not only to procure the prosecutor Monday Jones from Killig, but to fly in the tarpaulins, toilets, speakers and mics. With Oh’s own Ministry of Health he had arranged for a medical station and water to drink, and he had personally taken the construction team in hand. Thanks to his insistence, the dais was done, and so was much of the seating.

  Raoul sent word to Police Chief Davenport to get his witnesses ready, that a trial date was officially set, for the Monday one week to follow. In the meantime, the remaining details would be wrapped up; the last of the seating seen to; the jury selected; and lawyers Justice and Jones would consult with their clients, Madison Fuller and the Island of Oh, respectively. When Chief Davenport balked and asked Raoul “What’s the hurry?” Raoul blamed the rain that was due soon thereafter, and promptly displayed his laissez-passer to remind the Chief who was now really in charge.

  A frenzy fell across Oh that week leading up to the trial, as the various players prepared themselves for their parts. Chief Davenport arranged for Officers Tullsey and Smart to round up jurors (not a problem, because jurors on Oh are paid, and no islander declines easy money), while the Chief himself reviewed with the Prosecutor the evidence gathered to prove Madison Fuller’s guilt. They drew a timeline and a map of Oh and discussed every piece of evidence and every clue (from the bike to the beach towel to the shortcut to Thyme), and how each fit into the murderous puzzle.

  “Don’t worry too much about the evidence, Davenport,” Mr. Monday Jones assured him. “I’ve yet to lose a case. Just make sure there’s a corkboard close to the jury, where I can pin up all my points.”

  “Yes, sir!” the Chief agreed. Clearly, the Island’s case was in capable hands.

  Chief Davenport immediately phoned Raoul to order the corkboard, then escorted Monday Jones to the Hotel Sincero, where Raoul had set him up in a suite on the government’s dime. (This, to the delight of the hotel’s owner and Raoul’s pal, Cougar Zanne.)

  While the Prosecution baked in the sun at Cougar’s, the Defense cooked up its strategy at the bakery. Together with Trevor, Glynray Justice, too, made a timeline and studied a map, and refuted the pieces of evidence one by one. The Island’s case was full of holes, he said, and Madison, as good as a free man.

  “You sure?” Trevor asked.

  “I couldn’t say with one-hundred percent certainty, but the evidence they have is completely circumstantial. Is there anything else you can tell me to help clear Madison’s name?”

  Trevor had no arguments on hand, but he had solved a problem or two in his day (his bakery business was built on it), and he felt sure there was a solution he had overlooked. He and Glynray re-examined the facts, inside-out and back to front, wracking their brains for the better part of an afternoon.

  “Aha!” Trevor cried out suddenly, slamming his hand on the bakery counter. “Madison couldn’t possibly have hit Rena and run. He doesn’t own a car.”

  “No?”

  “No! Does that help?” Trevor asked Glynray anxiously.

  “It surely doesn’t hurt,” the attorney said, making a note on his yellow pad.

  With that, Glynray left for the courthouse jail, to present the Defense’s case to Madison, including their ace in the hole, the fact that Madison owned no vehicle. As he walked across town, Glynray noticed a hustle and bustle unusual for Port-St. Luke on a run-of-the-mill late afternoon. He never suspected that the to-and-fro of islanders was as earnestly involved in the Bicycle Trial as he.

  Indeed both jurors and spectators ran busily about. There were new clothes to purchase and hair to plait, time off work to ask for, shoes to shine. The trial was turning into a real to-do, and no one dared show up uncoiffed or ill-prepared.

  For his part, Raoul had got a trim and a shave, had arranged for security to safeguard the site, and for seats for the VIPs. On the dais, the jury members would sit to the right, facing not the crowd, but the Prosecution and Defense tables set up next to each other on the left. In the middle, a judge’s bench had been erected for His Honor Maxted Samuels, the magistrate assigned to the case (Oh only had two and the other had recused himself, on account of his being a fisherman in his spare time).

  Those with a special interest in the case, May, Branson, Randolph, Trevor an
d his wife, were of two minds as the trial date neared. They were eager for the evidence to be presented and for Madison’s acquittal, but apprehensive that things might not go as they thought.

  Bruce was excited about the Bicycle Trial, from which his front pages would indubitably benefit, and about the Special Access press pass that Raoul had arranged for him.

  Madison was none of the above. Not eager, not apprehensive, not excited. At least not about the trial. He considered it a mere formality, since he had done absolutely nothing wrong. All his mind could focus on was Rena.

  Rena, who, officially missing for days now, bobbed and floated far away with the fishes, her soul no longer troubled by the island’s senseless trials.

  37

  Life on Oh doesn’t lend itself to readiness. Carry your umbrella, not a drop of rain will fall; don’t, and you’re in for a drenching. Plant your sorrel in time for Christmas, and your flowers will be finished before the first halls are decked; but delay, and you’ll be lucky to have a sprig by Old Year’s Night. Coop up your chickens, pen in your goats; still they’ll find a way to get away from you.

  The locals know all this and more, and yet they conduct themselves as if they have a say in what goes on around the place—and why not? Predictably fickle as the island is, one day it might just leave them to their own devices. They build themselves houses, and fishing boats, fashion happiness with hammer and nail, and hope each morning for sunny skies and kindly tides. When the tides pick up and the storms roll in (as they inescapably do), the islanders cover their rooftops with plastic and wait for the clouds to pass.

  Like a pair of fencers forever en garde, island and islander thrust and parry, attack and dodge, until the one lashes out in a poke to the heart, that the other is helpless to foil.

  38

  When Monday morning rolled around, Raoul proudly surveyed the scene of his Bicycle Trial. Every last variable was in place, right down to the scant clouds and the abundant sun. Only Justice was missing, Raoul thought to himself, referring not to Glynray, but to the hallowed institution. He prayed it would turn up by the trial’s end.

  Glynray Justice was of course present, as was Monday Jones, both sporting their finest ties and most fashionable suits, despite the island temperatures. Madison wore a tie as well, but sat in shirtsleeves at the Defense table, looking achingly at May in the audience. As a family member of the accused, Raoul had assigned her a place among the VIPs, represented on that first trial day by some of Oh’s lesser ministers (Sanitation and Traffic), and by Chief Davenport and Officers Tullsey and Smart. Branson, Randolph, Trevor and Patience sat somewhere in the middle of the crowd, while Raoul circulated its borders, assuring himself that no islander fell out of line. Bruce had predicted correctly: outside the official court perimeter established by Raoul, vendors of fruit and drink and floppy hats opened up for business. Bruce himself, press pass prominently displayed, meandered through the makeshift court, now eavesdropping on spectators, now listening in to legal counsel and clients.

  The trial was set for eight a.m. (which on Oh might mean nine or even ten), but with Raoul on the clock, things got started by eight-thirty-five, as Judge Samuels arrived. The police band broke into the national anthem, which everyone sang wholeheartedly, and when it was finished the trial began.

  “You may be seated,” the judge said to everyone there, before addressing the trial’s key figures,

  the jurors: “Members of the jury, have you been sworn in?” he asked. (They had.)

  the Prosecution: “Mr. Jones, are you prepared to speak on behalf of, and act in the interest of, the eminent Island of Oh?” (He was.)

  and the Defense: “Mr. Fuller, do you understand the charges brought against you and do you submit to the representation of Mr. Justice here present?” (I do, Mr. Fuller said.)

  The judge then ordered the trial to proceed, with the opening statement of Prosecutor Jones. Mr. Jones was a seasoned attorney and knew how to win over the toughest of crowds. His arsenal was stocked with charm and a flair for the dramatic, and his rugged good looks didn’t hurt. He slowly stood up and straightened his tie, calling attention to his good taste and to his concern for detail. With deliberate, suspenseful steps he approached the microphone that stood in the middle of the dais, positioned himself with his back to the Defense, and splayed a semi-circle of charisma, like a hand-painted fan, that went from the judge on his left, to the jury before him, to the audience on his right.

  “Your Honor, members of the jury, sisters and brothers, good morning,” he began, distributing his personality along the whole of the fan’s arc. “Welcome. Welcome to what I promise you will be a tribute to the investigative skills of the authorities of your great island nation. Behind me, sisters and brothers, sits an unlucky man, a man who lost his way. To find it again—to clear his path—he ran over a woman, a fellow human being, who he felt was barring his road. That’s right, my friends,” he replied to the anxious stirring of the horrified crowd, “he ran down Miss Rena Baker, killed her, and dumped her body in the sea, which, as you are all aware, is in great supply here, and unforgiving.”

  “Objection!” May cried out, standing up from her VIP seat. “Madison has never thrown a woman in the sea in his life!” May’s friends and supporters hooted and cheered.

  “Order! Order in the court!” Judge Samuels shouted, pounding his gavel. “There will be no objections during opening arguments! Mr. Jones, please continue.”

  Branson and Trevor looked at each other, worried. Branson wished he could sit closer to May, to hold her hand and comfort her, but a teacher at the Boys’ School was not as Very Important a Person as a Minister in charge of sewage.

  “As I was saying, ladies and gentlemen, the sea is unforgiving. So unforgiving, that we have no body to show you. The Defense will argue, ‘no body, no crime,’ but there is a body, my fellow citizens”—so had he beguiled them with his performance thus far that they forgot he was a citizen of Killig—“there is a body in the sea. Because we can’t see it, does that mean it isn’t there? Do we see every swimming fish and every coral reef when we look at the sea from our windows? Of course we don’t! Does that mean we believe them not to be there? Of-course-we-don’t,” he finished, punching the last four words in an ominous, singsong baritone.

  “The last thing I wish to say, before we begin, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is this: I’ve always been a lucky man. My momma, rest her soul, named me Monday because I was born on a Monday, and that’s my lucky day. I ask therefore that you show no bias toward the young man accused of this heinous crime, simply because fate has seen fit to start his trial on my lucky day, not his. The law requires us, all of us, to treat him as an innocent man until the trial is over, even if in our hearts we know him to be guilty.”

  Solemnly he walked back to his place at the table, while the spectators applauded his eloquent speech and the display of integrity with which he had closed it.

  Monday Jones was a tough act to follow. Glynray Justice, though one of Oh’s top attorneys, lacked Monday’s stage presence and hoped the plain truth would trump showmanship.

  “Members of the jury,” he said, wasting no words on the audience or even the judge, “I would like to start by responding to something said a moment ago by my esteemed colleague. Mr. Jones, here, has suggested there are plenty of fish swimming in the sea, and that we ought not to assume otherwise because we don’t see every one of them.” He paused for dramatic effect, inspired by the stage and by the rapt attention of the spectators.

  “Well, he’s absolutely right.” The crowd collectively gasped, and Glynray paused again before going on. “Mr. Jones would have you accept that the fish you cannot see are vibrant and alive, and so too would I ask you to accept that Rena Baker is vibrant and alive. We have no proof to the contrary, and the fact that we can or cannot see her is not the matter at hand. What matters here is the future of a wrongly accused man, a man accused of murder when there is no corpse to be found. Remember, ladies and gentlemen o
f the jury, that your verdict must be based on the truth—the truth as supported by irrefutable and visible (here he raised his index finger) evidence. You may not—indeed you must not—base your ruling on what you cannot see. Do not determine my client’s guilt or innocence on the basis of invisible fish.”

  Though the trial had barely begun, the judge called a short recess after the opening arguments, both sides having succeeded in riling up the crowd. Raoul was chagrined by the interruption, for once the gavel went down, the islanders would mill about, visit the toilets or the beer stalls, and start heated debates from which it would be hard for him to herd them back inside the official perimeter.

  During the break, Monday had his corkboard wheeled close to where the jury sat, and Glynray conferred with Madison and with Trevor, who had sneaked up onto the dais.

  “Great start,” Trevor said, though whether speaking to Madison or Glynray, he wasn’t sure. “Invisible fish. That was good!” He clapped Madison on the back.

  “We’ve got a long way to go,” Glynray cautioned. “They’ll call the police as witnesses first and go through the evidence piece by piece. I’m sure that shyster will drag it out for days.”

  “Then you get to cross-examine?” Trevor asked.

  “That’s right.”

  Through a megaphone, Raoul’s voice could be heard requesting that everybody return to their seats, so Trevor gave Glynray and Madison a nod, then jumped down off the dais. On the way to his place in the crowd, he stopped by May to say hello and wish her well, and to assure her that Glynray wouldn’t let them down. On the one hand, May felt relieved that the trial was finally under way, but on the other, she was scared to death. Every word that the loquacious Prosecutor spoke sent chills up and down her spine.

  As Trevor reached his place next to Patience, Monday Jones arose from his chair and called his first witness, Officer Arnold Tullsey. Officer Tullsey stated his name for the record and Monday swore him in.