Away with the Fishes

by Stephanie Siciarz

  41

  It was well into evening when Raoul reached Mrs. Jaymes’s house. He apologized for troubling her so late and, without any pretense as to his presence, simply asked her if she might spare an hour or so to tell him more of Dagmore’s story. He told her he’d like to hear about the fishing boat, particularly. Mrs. Jaymes replied that there really wasn’t a lot to say in that regard, that the boat hadn’t amounted to all that much in the end, but she was certainly delighted to continue her tale.

  She invited him in and started in on her story, which Raoul continued to take down in his notebook, just in case something salient emerged.

  “You said something about the Captain and a girl last time, too,” Raoul reminded her. “Do you remember?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said with a disgusted puff. “I couldn’t forget that one any more than the Captain could.”

  As the months went by, Mrs. Jaymes warmed more and more to the Captain’s fishing boat. It was still an old wreck, if you asked her, but it was taking shape, as was the Captain himself. He devoted hours every day to sanding, smoothing, and sealing, and by the time the boat was ready for its first coat of paint, the Captain was cheerful, muscular, and tanned the color of pure dark chocolate. He looked so good, it got Mrs. Jaymes to thinking. The Captain had already tried everything to busy his body and mind, from communing with family ghosts to hosting timorous violinists. What he needed next wasn’t a boat of his own but a woman. A fine island girl!

  It was a doubly good idea, because Mrs. Jaymes would recruit Hammer Coates’s help in finding the Captain a wife. For years she had wished to broach any subject with the handyman that wasn’t related to nuts or screws or weeds in need of pulling, and had always chickened out. Thanks to the Captain’s fishing boat, Hammer was at the villa every day from sun-up to sundown, and with the excuse of the Captain’s wellbeing, Mrs. Jaymes would finally have a reason to pull him aside for a private chat.

  In the beginning, Hammer didn’t much fancy the idea of butting into the Captain’s affairs, but the thought of butting into Mrs. Jaymes’s intrigued him, and so he agreed to go along. They began taking strolls through town to evaluate the pool of pretty girls, and in a few months Mrs. Jaymes had compiled a list of over two dozen candidates to work her way through. She hadn’t yet figured out how she would introduce the females into the Captain’s house, but once she did, surely from a pool so deep he would find at least one that was pleasing.

  While Mrs. Jaymes elaborated her bride plan, the Captain, clueless, busied himself with his boat. It had become his newest obsession, and for it he abandoned even his precious piano temporarily. Once he and Hammer had finished the basic renovations, the Captain began to embellish his boat with glossy varnish and brass touches, and gadgets for every purpose. It was the most kitted-out boat of its size on Oh (it held no more than two persons at once). Dagmore painted it, and repainted it as soon as its sheen was faded by the salt or the sun. He spent more time in the boat on sand than he ever did at sea.

  This doesn’t mean the boat wasn’t a seaworthy craft. It was. He and Hammer had taken it out to ascertain as much, having first had it blessed by a Baptist pastor, and they both came back dry as bones. After that, the Captain took it out alone now and then, but being at sea made him sad, while the possibility of setting sail excited him. So in the end, sea-captain Dagmore enjoyed his boat more on land than on water.

  Try though she might during the early months of the Captain’s boating, Mrs. Jaymes couldn’t coax him to invite some fine island girl for a day at sea. She had offered not only to make up their picnic lunch, but to provide the woman as well.

  “Row her up the coast a piece and lunch on the shore,” she suggested, but Dagmore only looked at her like she was mad.

  Having failed to hit the mark by direct strike, Mrs. Jaymes opted for a subtle, sneak attack. Suddenly she was demanding more help at the villa (something the Captain had always promised her, she reminded him) and parading in front of him every day candidates for the positions of dishwasher, laundress, flower-gardener, and assistant cook. Still, the Captain didn’t bite. A good year and a half went by, maybe more, and Mrs. Jaymes had recruited every fine girl she and Hammer could find at the market, in church, and in line at the Island Post. Captain Dagmore, though, preferred to buff his boat alone. Mrs. Jaymes had all but decided to throw in the beach towel, when fate gave a push to her plan.

  Although the Captain was not the sort of man you could tell what to do—he had to make his mistakes for himself—you could plant a seed in his soul that, over time, would bloom. Mrs. Jaymes had done just that for years, when she complained about his troublesome visitors. He knew deep in his heart she was right all along, but not until the bad barracuda and his guests’ near demise had he acknowledged the raging blossoms in his bosom. The germ Mrs. Jaymes had lodged in his heart this time around had taken root far more quickly, unbeknownst to her or to the Captain himself.

  As he walked to Higgins in town one day, where he planned to purchase some brass cleaner and extra-soft cloths, he pondered Mrs. Jaymes’s incessant matchmaking and how problematic he was sure a woman would be. Far more so than a boat, he reasoned, which required only a bit of scrubbing and polish. He could prop it in the sand and forget about it; if he never got it wet, it wouldn’t complain.

  Dagmore decided to stop at the Savings Bank before he did his shopping. He liked to check on his accounts from time to time, to make certain the island bankers had his interest at heart. There was a long, slow line, as usual, which Dagmore would normally have forgone in favor of a rap with his knuckles on the Bank Manager’s office door. On this particular day, it so happened the Captain found himself waiting behind a pretty young thing (at least from the back), with an hourglass shape clad in tight white cotton. Her dress was dotted with dainty purple flowers and cinched at the waist with a shiny black belt that matched the shiny blackness of her high-ish heels.

  Dagmore found himself staring at her, amazed. It wasn’t desire that determined his interest but awe. Mrs. Jaymes must be completely mad, he told himself, to think a creature as complicated as this could solve a man’s problems. “Imagine!” he scoffed.

  “Pardon me?” the creature, hearing him, turned back and said. She was as tall as Dagmore, but because of her shoes and the way her cotton dress propelled her chest upward, he found himself face to face with her ample cleavage.

  “Did you say something, sir?” she tried again, calling Dagmore’s attention to her face. Its features were regal, strong cheekbones and full, humid lips. Her eyes were black pools, deeper than any sea he had ever peered into.

  “No. No, I didn’t,” he managed to whisper and she smiled at him, then turned around again.

  Dagmore’s heart was racing. He couldn’t remember what he was doing at the Bank, and he had no idea which account was his. It seemed to him that all that mattered in the world right then were the purple blossoms raging over the poorly contained bosoms of the girl that stood close enough to touch.

  To think, a creature as complicated as this could solve a man’s problems.

  Imagine!

  Before Mrs. Jaymes could reveal the identity of this creature that was sure to cause more problems than she would solve, Raoul decided to call it a night. It was enough that he saw Dagmore’s son, Branson, mooning over May Fuller all day in court. Raoul wasn’t up to hearing about the Captain in love, not with murders and missing women to sort out. He said goodbye to Mrs. Jaymes and went home on foot. He wondered, as he walked, if he ought to ask Branson Bowles about his father. He tried to remember how young the boy would have been when his father killed himself. Ten maybe? Raoul supposed the suicidal Captain was a sensitive subject for Branson, and he decided to leave it alone. Besides, hope how he might for some clue in the Captain’s story, there didn’t seem to be a single one.

  Raoul reached home and crawled into bed. Ms. Lila had left him some supper, but he wasn’t hungry. As she snored gently next to him, Raoul replayed the day’s events in
his mind, the particulars of the trial, Captain Dagmore and the girl at the bank, and… Bruce! It struck Raoul suddenly that as he left the court that evening, Bruce had spoken to him with a strange smile on his lips. A strange smile that Raoul had seen before.

  “I wonder what in the world he’s up to now,” Raoul sighed. Inside his head, though, a quiet and desperate little fly prayed that Bruce had indeed got up to something.

  And, whatever it was, it had better be awfully good.

  42

  *

  Honest man, early 40s, athletic, with fishing boat STILL seeks honest woman, early 30s, with bicycle, cooking skills, and dainty hands. For immediate marriage.

  *

  Bruce was up and at the bakery early on the Thursday of the second week of trial. He knew he was in for a busy day of court reporting, and he wanted some of Trevor’s whole wheat buns to boost his stamina. Truth be told, he also suspected a hero’s welcome at the bakery, and who would pass up one of those?

  “Bruce!” Trevor exclaimed, holding the Morning Crier in his hand. “Do you realize what this means?”

  “If you mean,” Bruce replied, “that the real killer is still out there somewhere and still putting ads in my paper, then yes, I do.”

  “I wonder if Glynray has seen it?” an overjoyed Trevor asked no one in particular.

  “Seen what?” Patience asked, coming into the bakery from the storeroom in back, where she had been counting bags of flour.

  “This!” Trevor held out the morning edition.

  Patience wiped her hands on her apron and took it from him. “What’s this supposed to mean?” she asked, confused, looking alternately at her husband and at Bruce.

  “It means whoever placed the first ad is still out there,” Trevor said gleefully. He grabbed Patience by the waist and danced her around. “Wait until May hears this!”

  Trevor was so excited he didn’t know who to call first, Glynray Justice or May Fuller. He phoned the lawyer’s office, only to discover that Glynray, no slacker, was already at court with a copy of the paper, waiting for an audience with the judge. Next, Trevor called May, but she, too, had seen the ad and reached the same happy conclusion as everyone else. She rushed to court to see if Madison would be freed on the spot, but it wasn’t quite as simple as that. Still, Judge Samuels did declare a day of recess, mostly to diffuse the reaction that the news of the ad had triggered. He figured the lawyers could sort the matter out for themselves, while he could spend a much needed day at the beach.

  Not only did the lawyers not sort it out for themselves, but each dug in his heels, adamant about making a public show of the new piece of evidence. Glynray didn’t want some quiet dismissal of Exhibit A (the first lonely hearts ad) in light of the ad just placed, and neither did Monday, who felt the new ad needed rebutting head-on and on stage. The day off was thus for nothing. Worse, while Judge Samuels blew off steam, the local gossip only picked some up.

  Raoul had experience with newspaper ads, having placed one or two in the past. He knew there was always more to them than met the eye. Though he hadn’t seen the Crier that morning, he heard about the second lonely hearts ad the minute he got to court. Mr. Justice and Mr. Jones might be content to discover the ad’s merits in front of an audience, Raoul thought to himself, but he was not. He thought it best to investigate them beforehand and in private, and for that he sought out Bruce.

  Raoul couldn’t have imagined the two blows the day would hold for him. Before he could even get to Bruce, the first one came at him all the way from Killig. Raoul had stopped at his office, and there he had gotten a terrible call. The official results of the blood analysis were in and they weren’t good. As it happened, they weren’t bad, either. They were inconclusive, which was worse.

  “Are you sure?” Raoul asked Betty Grewber’s supervisor.

  “I’m one-hundred percent sure of inconclusiveness, sir,” she answered. “I have the technician’s report right in front of me. Perhaps you sent us an insufficient sample. If you’d like to send another, we’ll be happy to run the tests again.”

  Raoul hung up, cursing Fred Nettles. Bloody builder must have shaved the samples too thinly, Raoul thought. Poor Fred! His shavings were perfectly proportioned. The blame lay with Betty and her lemongrass. She needed her job, you see, and couldn’t admit to her spilled cup of tea, which as it turned out hadn’t contaminated the sample all that badly. Betty was almost positive the blood wasn’t human but fish. Still, she dared not say so to a scientific certainty, lest her lemongrass lead her to wrongly rule out a murder.

  With a shake of his head, Raoul imagined the field day the Prosecution would have with the results, and he hoped his chat with Bruce would bring better news.

  It didn’t. Bruce told Raoul—off the record—that the two lonely hearts ads were placed by two different lonely hearts. Or so he thought. One of the ads was hand-written, the other typed. One on graph paper ripped from a schoolbook, one on writing paper pulled from a box. One was tucked in an envelope with cash, the other was clipped to one of Oh’s rainbow bills.

  “In other words,” Bruce summed it up, not seeming terribly concerned, “Madison is technically not in the clear, and they told me this morning that I have to testify tomorrow.”

  “For the Prosecution or the Defense?” Raoul asked.

  “Both,” he said cheerfully. “But don’t worry. I know just what I have to do.”

  “You have to tell the truth,” Raoul said reluctantly. “What else can you do?”

  Bruce didn’t answer. He flashed Raoul a knowing grin and harrumphed.

  When the trial reconvened the next day, lawyers for both sides champed at the bit to put Bruce on the stand and address the new lonely hearts ad. First, however, Raoul whispered something to the judge, who motioned for Monday and Glynray to approach the bench, where the judge whispered to both of them in turn. Then the lawyers whispered to each other, whispered to the judge again, and finally took their seats—all of which sent whispers rippling through the crowd. What was going on? everyone wanted to know.

  Judge Samuels pounded his gavel and announced that the results of the blood found on Madison’s fishing boat were inconclusive. This meant the blood and boat meant nothing, he instructed the jury, and he ordered the lawyers not to mention them again until closing arguments. Judge Samuels was cranky and impatient that morning, for his previous day off had, by contrast, reminded him of the trial’s tedium. He was tired of exams and cross-exams, of directs and redirects, when it was plain enough where the trial was headed.

  In light of the ruling regarding the results, Glynray requested that Judge Samuels have the boat’s photo removed from the center of Monday’s corkboard, but the judge, angered that Glynray had mentioned the boat against express orders not to, punished him by denying the request and allowed the photo to stay.

  Because the Defense had the floor, Glynray was the one who called Bruce to the stand. After necessary but banal questions concerning his full name (Bruce Kandele), domicile (Bishop Street, Port-St. Luke), and occupation (the Morning Crier’s editor-in-chief, copyeditor, reporter, and special correspondent), Glynray brought up the subject of the classified ad.

  “Please tell the court how the ad that appeared in your newspaper yesterday differs from the ad you published nearly a month ago, or Exhibit A,” he said, holding up the first ad in its plastic bag.

  “They’re identical. Yesterday’s ad contains one extra word, ‘still,’” Bruce answered.

  “Is it your opinion that both ads were placed by the same person?”

  “I couldn’t say, but it would be quite a coincidence for two different people to place identical ads.”

  “Both of the ads were placed anonymously, that’s right?” Glynray asked.

  “Yes, sir. Found them both slipped under the exact same door.”

  “You are no doubt aware that the Prosecution is convinced my client placed the first one,” Glynray said.

  “Exhibit A? I’m aware.”

&n
bsp; “You said it was unlikely that two different people placed the two ads in question.”

  “I said it would be quite a coincidence, yes.”

  “Assuming that the party responsible for Exhibit A and the party responsible for yesterday’s ad are one and the same, do you have an opinion as to whether or not my client is that party?”

  “I don’t see how he could be, unless they let him out of jail to slip a note under my door.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Kandele,” Glynray said. “I wish to state for the record, Your Honor and members of the jury, that Mr. Fuller was not at any time released from custody to deliver correspondence to Mr. Kandele or to anyone else. I have no further questions.”

  Monday Jones pensively rubbed his palms together as he approached Bruce on the witness stand.

  “Mr. Kandele,” he began. “I would never cast doubt on the veracity of your testimony, but, if it pleases the court, I would like to ask that you produce the original ads that were slipped under your office door.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mr. Jones.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I don’t have the first one. I threw it out after it was typeset.”

  “And the second?”

  “Yes, sir, I did keep that one.”

  “Yet you can’t submit it to the court?”

  “No, sir, Mr. Jones. I’m a journalist, and therefore my sources are privileged. If I started revealing every piece of information I got, what kind of reporter would I be?”

  “You’re a man of principle,” Monday nodded. “I like that. Surely, though, as a reporter, you can appreciate the potential fact-finding significance that this second ad would afford us.”

  “I can. But that doesn’t change the fact that a journalist never reveals his sources.”

  “Then tell me this, sir,” Monday said, changing direction. “How can I be sure the second ad exists at all? Maybe you invented it. Maybe you slipped it under the office door yourself to influence the jury in Mr. Fuller’s favor.”

  “That’s absurd!” Bruce cried out, insulted. “Why would I slip an anonymous ad under my own office door? I am in possession of a full set of keys to the newspaper office.”