Secrets Haunt the Lobsters’ Sea
Published by Charlene D’Avanzo
Copyright 2018 Charlene D’Avanzo
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Also by Charlene D’Avanzo
Mara Tusconi Mysteries:
Cold Blood, Hot Sea and Demon Spirit, Devil Sea
Praise For Cold Blood, Hot Sea
(Foreword INDIES 2016 Finalist)
Sleuths will have to figure out who done it, but the real crime is the backdrop here: the endless heating of a fragile planet.
—Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth
A great read that gives us more to think about than just the plot twists.
—Gary Lawless, co-owner of Gulf of Maine Books
Paddlers will love this book’s hero—an oceanographer who uses her kayak to thwart climate change deniers.
—Lee Bumsted, Maine Sea Kayak Guide, author of Hot Showers! Maine Coast Lodging for Sea Kayakers and Sailors.
Praise For Demon Spirit, Devil Sea
(2018 IPPY Silver Medal Winner)
Another great read…D’Avanzo writes compelling novels that take you to wonderful ocean-side places where terrible things happen.
—George Smith, outdoors writer for the Bangor Daily News
A fine entry in D’Avanzo’s oceanography-themed series, which fills an unusual niche in the mystery genre.
—Kirkus Review
Demon Spirit, Devil Sea is a mysterious, fast-paced novel that immerses the reader smack dab in the wild.
—Mary Woodbury, curator at Eco-fiction.com
This series is dedicated to scientists struggling to better understand the exceptionally complex phenomena associated with climate change.
Author’s Note
This novel includes numerous references to climate change research and to scientists who study lobsters in the Gulf of Maine. I attempt to represent the science as accurately as possible in a fictional story. I note, however, that remotely operated vehicles, not manned subs, have been used for deep-sea coral research in the Gulf of Maine. Similarities between Matinicus Island and the fictional island Macomek are coincidental. Scientists who recognize their research discussed by characters in the story will find appropriate journal references on my website, where I also list several books about Maine lobsters and lobstering I found especially useful.
What is past is prologue.
—Shakespeare (The Tempest)
1
Nature favors loops, twists, and turns. All corners and straight lines, Gordy’s mussel aquaculture raft looked like a soggy oversized matchbox riding the swells off Spruce Harbor.
From my office window at the Maine Oceanographic Institute, I eyed the thing through binoculars. Bobbing up and down, my cousin’s raft called to me. Damn. Back-to-back fall research cruises had left me with zero free time. Folders labeled “Data for analysis,” “Grant proposals to write,” and “Research papers to review” called for attention from my computer’s screen.
I dropped the binocs and rubbed my eyes. Despite the piled-up work, I absolutely should have checked out Gordy’s pet project. The office phone interrupted my guilt riff. I reached over the desk and picked it up.
The man himself was at the other end. “Mara,” Gordy said, “I need ta talk with you.”
“Now?”
“Since I’m standin’ ten feet away, ayuh.”
The door was ajar, and Gordy strode in before the phone had settled into its cradle. He wore his usual warm-weather attire—tan canvas shorts fringed at the hemline, brown, ankle-high leather boots with white socks, white T-shirt.
“Good to see you, Cousin,” I said. “Weren’t we getting together for beers at the Lee Side tomorrow afternoon? Did I get the day wrong?”
“Nope. I said tomorrah all right.” He pretended to study the framed photo of his lobster boat Bulldog on my bookcase.
“So what’s up? Are you okay?”
It came out in a tumble. “I’m wonderin’ when you’re gonna look at my mussel raft. I think it’s goin’ real good, but you might see somethin’ that needs work.”
“Actually, I was just checking out the raft with my binocs,” I said. “It’s really amazing what you’ve done. I’ll paddle out there in a bit to see it up close. Okay?”
Gordy answered with a grin and added, “By Godfrey, that’s terrific. See ya tomorrah.”
I stared at the door my cousin had left ajar. An independent lobsterman with Irish stubbornness thrown in, Gordy Maloy rarely asked for anything. Getting the right permits, never mind learning how to grow mussels, was a big deal. Still, his urgency that I check out the raft seemed over the top.
Gordy and Bulldog had saved my life when a madman tried to dump me into icy Maine waters the previous spring. Needless to say, I owed him. On top of that, he was my closest—really my only—blood relative. Over corned-beef dinners, drinking green beer on Saint Pat’s day, filling in as sternman on his lobster boat, I’d done everything I could think of to express my affection and gratitude. Could he really think I wouldn’t check out his mussel raft when I had a moment?
For the second time in minutes, a visitor interrupted my musings.
My grad student Alise stuck her head through the half-open door and said, “Mara, can I come in?” Reminded as always that the future was in capable hands, I took in Alise’s message of the day. The bold green lettering of her “Earth Is the Only Mother We Have” T-shirt nicely complemented the colored snake tattoos running down her arm.
Smart and sassy, once she got her PhD, Alise was going to shake up the male-dominated realm of oceanography. I couldn’t wait to watch.
She handed me a stapled document. Since the woman didn’t print anything that could be electronically sent, I knew something was amiss.
“Thought it’d be easier for you to critique my proposal if I printed it out,” she said. The anxiety evident in Alise’s eyes was painful to see.
“I know you’re worried,” I said. “There’s nothing worse than having a grant proposal you really need get turned down.”
She shrugged. “I know it comes with the territory, but if Sea Grant doesn’t fund me this time, I’m in big trouble.”
I wanted to assure her that she would get her funding and her doctoral research wasn’t in jeopardy. But we both knew that scientists decreeing who got money and who didn’t sometimes made inexplicable decisions.
“When can you get it back to me?” she asked.
The promise to Gordy poked my conscience. “I have to do something that will take about an hour. Then I’ll come right back and read your proposal.”
She nodded, but the shrug was there was as well.
I stared at the door after Alise closed it. During the last Sea Grant go-round, I had been fifty miles off the coast of British Columbia investigating an international law of the sea violation. Events during the trip—including the inexplicable death of a young Haida man who had prevented me and my sea kayak from drifting into the frigid Pacific—had consumed me. I hadn’t given Alise’s proposal the attention it deserved and felt the sting of its rejection almost as much as she did.
“First Gordy, then Alise.” I said aloud. “I really owe them both.”
The computer’s chime announced a new email message. Annoyed at my usual inability to ignore this electronic summons, I leaned in to check it out. Harvina—called Harvey—Allison, my best friend, sister o
ceanographer, and Watson to my occasional Sherlock, had sent a missive entitled “#!!!Grr.” There was no note above the signature that identified her as a chemical oceanographer at MOI.
I powered off my computer, refused to look at the to-do list on my whiteboard, locked the office door, and glanced at the nameplate—“Dr. Mara Tusconi.” I had been hired right from my post-doc three years earlier and still couldn’t believe my good fortune. Jobs for oceanographers, especially females, were scarce. That I could do my own research and work with terrific students like Alise on my home state’s coast was a gift from the science gods.
I was halfway down the stairs to Harvey’s floor when Seymour Hull, MOI’s Biology Department chair, rounded the flight on his way up. There was no way to avoid him.
Seymour directed his pointy chin at the life jacket in my hand. “Going kayaking?” He rotated his wrist and glanced at a special-edition sports smartwatch that looked ridiculous on his scrawny arm. “Now? With the Sea Grant deadline so soon?”
The man was exceptionally skilled at pushing people’s guilt buttons, including mine. I guessed the behavior grew from insecurity about his outdated research. That his position was endowed in honor of my dead parents, both renowned biological oceanographers, meant he had particular antipathy for me.
If Alise’s proposal hadn’t required Seymour’s support, I would have slipped by with an “Enjoy your day.” Instead I plastered on a smile, touched his arm, and lied. “Department of Maine Resources asked me to examine the aquaculture raft floating off Spruce Harbor. I’m sure you’ve seen it out there. They need to make sure the mussel density isn’t too high.”
I left before the man could ask why Marine Resources didn’t monitor the raft from one of their own boats.
The door to Harvey’s lab was open. I stepped in, looked around, and saw no one. “Harve?”
The voice was muffled. “Back here. Behind the AutoAnalyzer.”
I crossed the room and stood before the instrument environmental chemists loved to hate. Harvey mainly used it to study ocean acidification from fossil fuel combustion, a looming problem in the Gulf of Maine for shellfish—including big-business clams, oysters, and mussels. But, like a cat, the AutoAnalyzer could purr along nicely one minute and let you know who was really boss the next.
The top of Harvey’s head appeared behind the analyzer before she stepped out into the lab. Whether she’s fixing pesky instruments or hosting a visiting scientist, Harvey always looks well turned out and unflappable. Besides that, her high cheekbones, classic nose, and gray eyes give her an aristocratic look, not far from the truth since she grew up in a wealthy family. Confident in her abilities as a marine scientist, Harvey isn’t afraid to be feminine in a male-dominated profession. I couldn’t wait until she challenged Seymour when his stint as department chair was up for renewal in a couple of years.
Today Harvey’s layered, blond bob kissed the collar of a lab coat that would’ve made Mr. Clean proud. As usual, my ponytail had transformed itself into an unruly mess. I tucked wayward locks behind my ear.
“Hey, girlfriend,” she said. “Did you get my email?”
“Figured you needed a little break from the horrid machine.” I pointed at the screwdriver in her hand. “The monster’s acting up again?”
“Yup. One of the tubes is leaking. I just started to work on it.”
I pictured the AutoAnalyzer’s guts—yard after yard of clear plastic tubing with bubbles that separated samples from one another. An aqueduct tangle in a metal box.
“How about stopping at the house after work and maybe staying for dinner? Connor would love to see you,” she said.
I considered Connor Doyle, Harvey’s live-in partner, a special friend. Funny, generous, and Irish to the core, Connor was the uncle I’d never had. He didn’t hesitate to tell me when I was full of crap or that my auburn hair and green eyes left a “trail of Irish magic” behind me—sometimes in the same sentence.
Harvey and I blinked at each other for a few awkward seconds. The last time I’d had dinner at Harvey’s house, I’d gone with Ted, another MOI scientist and Harvey’s half-brother. That was before my relationship with Ted fell apart. Harvey hadn’t wanted to pry back then—or now—but it felt, well, lonely not talking to my dearest friend about my confusion, resentment, and all the rest.
“Dinner with you both would be a treat,” I said. “Let’s see how the day goes. Good luck with the monster. I’m off to paddle to the aquaculture raft I promised Gordy I’d check out weeks ago.”
“Be careful. There’s an unidentified shark reported out there.”
Compared to what I encountered, I would have happily hugged the shark instead.
A half hour later, I slid into my sea kayak, pushed off from the public boat launch, and glided by the stern of MOI’s research vessel Intrepid. Two days earlier and dozens of miles offshore, I’d watched our half-ton observation buoys dangling from the ship’s massive A-frame off the rear deck. Now, the hinged metal frame was pulled toward the bow like a mighty mousetrap ready to spring. I hurried by.
Humming, I paddled quickly as my seventeen-foot-long, twenty-inch-wide kayak sliced neatly through the water. Not bad for a thirty-one-year-old who spent way too much time in front of her computer. While my spirit always soars when I’m on the water, today it skyrocketed. September is my favorite month on the Maine coast. The water was plenty warm for paddling and the days perfect for hiking. Along the roads and on the hills, maple and oak leaves tipped with red and gold foretold a fall riot of color.
I hadn’t told Harvey—or even Angelo, my godfather and stand-in parent—that I’d recently started meditating on the word “gratitude” as I picked my way along the beach in front of my house or leaned against the granite boulder on top of Spruce Harbor Hill to take in the sunset. The practice had grown out of a harrowing event. A month earlier, I’d been kidnapped and left for dead in the Haida Gwaii archipelago out in the Pacific off Vancouver. After I’d figured out how to make a fire, keep warm, and cook mussels, my panic had subsided. I felt instead that I was not alone—that something or someone was watching over me.
For a scientist who believed that every so-called mystical event had a physical explanation, the Haida Gwaii experience was unnerving. So I’d translated what happened into something I could understand. National Institutes of Health research showed that gratitude—in my case for food and warmth—fostered feelings of wellbeing and connectedness. I put that understanding to good use when I got back to Maine and Ted announced he wanted to be “just a colleague.” After weeks feeling hurt and angry, I decided to focus on my good fortune—Angelo, Harvey, Gordy, Alise, and a career I was passionate about.
So far, the tactic was succeeding pretty well. My fury toward Ted made working on our shared research projects awkward, to say the least. I’d decided to take each day as it came and appreciate what I had. I’d even dropped by Ted’s office to go over some water temperature data. The exchange had gone well.
Thank goodness, angst was a thing of the past.
Gordy had anchored his raft between two islands where a fast-flowing current carried an abundance of microscopic plankton to the filter-feeding mussels. The kayak slid to a stop just as the tide turned slack. Up close, Gordy’s contraption was pretty impressive. Fifty-odd feet square with a steel I-beam frame, wooden cross members, and oversized polyethylene floats, the thing could easily weather a major blow.
I circled the raft a few times, looking for a way to explore beneath the platform. That’s where the excitement was—for a marine ecologist, that is. I had all sorts of questions. What were the mussels attached to? Were they big or small? How many were there?
One place looked as good as another to begin my investigation, so I maneuvered my boat parallel with the raft and secured the paddle under a bungee. Still in the kayak, I leaned over the boat’s deck and peered into the gloom below the platform. Slits of light from above danced across row after row of swaying rope that looked creepily alive. Each r
ope was attached to the bottom of the platform, and I could just make out a foot of exposed line before it plunged down into the water out of sight. Seawater sloshed over mussels the size of my fist encasing the visible rope. Mytilus edulis, the blue mussel, had been cultivated by the French way back in the thirteenth century. Now, aquaculturalists were giving it a try in Maine’s cold, clean marine waters. I reached out and touched the closest one. Smooth and blue-black, the mollusk slowly closed.
Hand over hand, I traveled down one side of the raft, stopped at intervals, flattened myself across my deck, and peered into the gloom for a better look. Water slapped against the platform—and my face.
At the corner I straightened up, ran a hand across my eyes, patted the raft, and said aloud, “Gotta give it to you Gordy, this is one wicked piece of engineering.”
I really, really wanted to examine the mussels. Maybe they were bigger on the outside edge because they grew more quickly there with better access to seawater. Or maybe the inner ones were fouled with barnacles or invasive sea squirts—not so good for an aquaculture business. I blinked at the sky. There would be more light on the opposite western side. I tried the same flatten, crank my neck, and squint routine over there but still could see squat.
I pushed back from the raft to consider a different maneuver. “Time for a frontal attack,” I announced to the gulls overhead. I released the paddle from its bungee hold, and a couple of quick strokes sent me bow first under the platform. The skinny boat slipped between two rows of drop lines. Leaning over the front of my vessel, I plowed further in. Surrounded by a tapestry of dangling, dancing mussel-rope, I closed my eyes and let other senses take over. Pop, slosh, and gurgle enhanced the slap-slap-slap melody. Sharp, briny perfume tickled my nose, sea life exhaling.
I reached out to gauge the thickness of mussel growth. Stacked atop one another, they completely surrounded the lines, so many that my two encircling hands didn’t come close to touching. Hardly any barnacles or other encrusting critters disfigured the mussel monopoly.
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