Secrets Haunt the Lobsters' Sea

by Charlene D'Avanzo

  My armor had gone back up and stayed that way for months. Now this island, these people, this flower, Abby’s home had fed my starved soul. On my feet, I extended both arms toward her house as if it were an animate thing I could hold close.

  The voice behind me was soft. “You think you got it tucked away, then it’s there again somethin’  fierce.”

  Dropping my arms, I slowly turned. Abby was looking across the field toward the graveyard as she said, “I didn’t know a broken heart kept on beating.”

  I followed her line of sight. She was fixed on the old maple tree. “The dead flowers next to the rock. They’re yours,” I said.

  The nod was slow, deliberate. “It’s a keepsake. There’s nothing there.”

  “Baby?”

  Still fixed on the tree she said, “That’s right, deah. Mine and Lester’s. Found somebody off island who took care of it. My husband was dead. Lester, he was married.”

  I reached over, put an arm around her shoulder, and steered her toward the house. “Let’s go sit on the beach and listen to the ocean.”

  Gentle waves carried stones up the beach slope and dragged them back down. Again and again and again.

  Voice gritty, she broke the trance. “My Fred was two yeahs gone. Lester’s wife had the cancer. But Lester an’ me, we had so much life in us, so much love. There was an old shack by the watah. Long gone now. When I told him ’bout the baby, he was horr’fied. Made it too real, ya know. Aftah it was gone, Lester felt guilt jus’ terrible. So that was the end of it.”

  “Abby, it’s obvious he cares a great deal about you.

  She patted my hand. “I know that, deah.” After a minute she said, “What’s his name, the one who hurt you and put a hole your heart?”

  “Ted. And I did the hurting.”

  “Ah. You love each other?”

  “I love him. Not sure what he’s thinking now.”

  Pebbles rose up and back, up and back.

  “I was afraid and couldn’t.…”

  “Give yourself up,” she said.

  I stood, picked up a stone, and hurled it at the water.

  She got to her feet. “I’d bet it’s not too late, deah. But sometime, it will be.”

  My gear was packed and ready to go when Patty walked into the house with Gordy right behind. He had, I was astonished to realize, opened the door for her. Abby had set out a “some snacks” so Gordy and I wouldn’t starve on our trip back to the mainland. The four of us sat around the kitchen table eating while I relayed Tyler’s assertion.

  Gordy finished his beer and set the bottle down hard. “Lemme get this right. Tyler says Buddy’s money was dodgy an’ we should be lookin’  inta that.”

  Patty shook her head. “Yeah right. Tyler’s makin’ this up so we don’t think its him.” She spat out the rest. “Does he really think we’re that dumb?”

  “Gordy,” I said, “let’s say another lobsterman you knew well suddenly bought a real expensive boat and all that goes with it but wasn’t pulling in more lobsters. Would you wonder what was going on?”

  He rubbed his chin. “If I really knew the guy, ’spose I might.”

  Patty turned to him and barked, “Damn it, Gordy, I thought you were on my side heah. Tyler’s guilty an’ we both know it. This ‘what if,’  it’s bull.”

  I waited for the Irish temper to emerge. Instead, Gordy just said, “Patty, take it easy.”

  I added, “It was just a hypothetical question.”

  She swiveled in my direction and slapped a hand on the table. “Right, an’  from someone not from heah who knows squat ’bout a soul on Macomek. You—”

  Abby broke in. “Patty, stop this right now. That’s no way to treat a guest.”

  Patty shoved back her chair so hard it fell over, marched to the front door, yanked it open, and slammed it behind her.

  Three sets of eyes stared at the door.

  Abby reached across the table for my hand. “Mara, I’ve never seen Patty act like that. I am so sorry. ’Course with what happened to Buddy, we’re all on edge. But still, it’s not like her one bit.”

  After Gordy left to get his boat, Abby and I waited on the beach while he motored around the point from the harbor and reached shoal water.

  “It’s been real, real special, you bein’ heah, Mara. Please come back for anothah visit.”

  Blinking back tears, I hugged her. “It’s been more special than you can know. Being here with you is like, um.…”

  She stepped back, her grey eyes twinkling. “Apple pie at Thanksgivin’?”

  “Close enough, Abby. Close enough.”

  Gordy and I kept to boat basics like “Keep your eye on that bottom sounder” and “Mind the block pulley” until Macomek was well behind us. At that point, the winds had picked up to thirty knots, so I settled onto a bench in the wheelhouse and stayed there.

  “Cousin, I feel bad,” I said. “We’re leaving the island with no better idea what happened to Buddy than when we arrived.”

  He glanced at the compass and adjusted his course a tad. “Maybe we know more than we think. There’s somethin’ ya do when you’re studyin’ the ocean if things get real confused. Let’s try that.”

  “You mean when the data are so confusing, I can’t see a pattern at all?”

  “That’s it. What do ya do?”

  I ran my fingers through my hair, got stuck on a couple of tangles, and gave it up. “Let’s see. Well, I go back to the beginning—what I know as factual, what seems clear, no second guessing. Then I ask questions and follow where that leads to.”

  “So let’s do that,” he said. “Start with you finding Buddy.”

  Wishing I had a white board to write on, I said, “Okay. I found him under your raft Wednesday. That’s four days ago.” The image of the face with lifeless eyes flooded my brain. I pushed it away. “He hadn’t been, you know, eaten by a bluefish or anything, at least what I could see. So he probably hadn’t been there that long.”

  “That’s the facts. Okay, so where do we go from there?”

  I looked up at the cabin’s overhead as a hitchhiker fly scurried across it. “I ask the most obvious question. In this case it’s why was he under the raft in the first place?”

  “Good,” Gordy said. “That’s jus’ what I’m thinkin’.”

  “And?”

  “Firs’ thing, whoevah did Buddy must’ve had a boat. Or they knew somebody who had one. So I’m thinkin’ they kilt ’im on the island, or nearby, an’  headed fer the mainland.”

  I jumped in. “And they probably didn’t have a plan for what to do with the body, panicked the closer they got to Spruce Harbor, spotted your raft, and saw their opportunity.” I frowned. “I still don’t get how they got Buddy under the raft. Moving a dead weight like that’s not easy.”

  “I’m thinkin’  there’s more than one of  ’em. You know, one ta keep a look out while the other one slides the body undah the raft.”

  “When you kill someone, disposal of the body is hard,” I said. “Stashing it under an aquaculture raft is pretty smart. Nobody would ever think to look there, it wouldn’t go anywhere, and pretty soon the dead person would be fish food.”

  “Unless you’re unlucky and a nosy scientist goes and finds it,” he said.

  “Gordy, the word’s curious, not nosy.”

  As the Juniper Ledge bell buoy’s clang announced our approach to Spruce Harbor, I pulled out my cell phone to call Angelo. “Gordy and I are nearly back,” I said. “Just wanted to let you know.”

  “Welcome home,” he said. “Bet you don’t have much in your refrigerator. Come over for dinner. You can tell me how it all went out there.”

  “You’re right. There’s just a lonely bottle of seltzer in my empty fridge. But I haven’t cooked for anyone in days. I must owe you a half dozen dinners.”

  “For goodness sake, Mara, I’m Italian. You know I love cooking, especially for you. See you at seven.”

  Gordy helped me upload the kayak a
nd rest of my gear onto my beach. “Monday, I’m drivin’ up ta the Marine Patrol office. I’ll tell ’em what I think  ’bout Tyler killin’  Buddy,” he said.

  “Take me with you so I can explain what Tyler told me.”

  “All right,” he said. “Jus’ don’t let Patty know.”

  It only took me an hour to lug my kayak and gear up to the house, rinse everything off with fresh water, jump into the shower, wash my hair, and change. I stepped into Angelo’s kitchen just as the old schoolroom clock ticked to seven.

  He was wrapping a strong-smelling fillet in aluminum foil.

  “Grilling bluefish?” I asked.

  He turned and held up his hands. “If I give you a hug, you’ll smell like I do. Connor and I caught some blues today.”

  Outside on the patio, Angelo slid the bluefish onto the hot grill and closed the lid. “Be right back with your wine.”

  I settled onto one of his cushioned chairs, leaned back, and closed my eyes. Angelo’s home sits atop a bluff on Seal Point. It’s a spectacular spot where ospreys and gulls circle overhead, all manner of boats announce their entrance into the harbor below, and you can watch the big dipper ever-so-slowly revolve on a clear night.

  Neatly dressed as always in pressed chinos and an oxford shirt, Angelo strode back with two glasses of wine. Stately, with thick silver hair, I’d often thought he could’ve been an Italian movie star. Instead, he’d made his mark in the world of marine engineering, a worthier profession.

  As we clinked glasses he said, “Cento di questi giorni.”

  “And a hundred of these days for you too. Remember when I was little how we’d lie out here at night and watch the constellations move? Or appear to, anyway? We should do that again.”

  We both watched a red-tailed hawk zip through the tree canopy with the speed and grace of a racecar driver. “Can’t imagine how those birds do that. Sure, I remember. You were such a great kid to have around. Interested in anything and everything in nature. Birds, sea animals, rocks, whatever.”

  “Speaking of me as a kid, I had another, um, odd experience on Macomek.”

  He settled into the facing chair, crossed one long leg over the other, and searched my face with slate-blue eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. You helped me a lot when I experienced”—I air quoted the words—“‘all that weird stuff’ a couple of months ago. It’d be good to talk about this now.”

  The lines across his brow disappeared. “So what happened?”

  “I told you I was staying with Abby Burgess, right.”

  “I’ve met her. Smart lady.”

  “She is. Um, I walked into to her guest room and just knew I’d been there before. Everything about it was so familiar—the light, colors, how it smelled, feel of the bedspread.”

  In his experience, mine wasn’t a bizarre incident. “Last year, I wandered around the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice for the first time since I was a boy. It was the scent of warm candles, damp plaster, and sweet white lilies that did it. In an instant, I was a child holding my mama’s hand. A very powerful experience.”

  I leaned over and squeezed his hand. “I knew you’d understand.”

  “Were you able to confide in Abby?”

  Angelo knew I’d long considered being depressed or worried weaknesses a strong person had to overcome alone. I’d never expose such feelings to anyone else.

  “It’s getting a little less painful—admitting my, um, worries to people. And she’s so easy to talk to. When I asked if I might’ve been there as a kid, she told me her father invited interesting people to the house. So Mom and Dad could have visited with me in tow.”

  “Well, Carlos and Bridget Tusconi certainly were delightful guests. Carlos, he told the best stories about men who took ships through U-boat patrolled waters, early days of oceanographic research, all that. And Bridget Shea, with that red hair and green eyes you inherited, she lit up the room when she walked in.”

  I grinned. Angelo’s descriptions of my mother always made me wonder if he’d been a little bit in love with her.

  He finished his wine and put down the glass. “People loved Bridget’s talks about everything from whales to the tiniest shrimp. She had a way of getting folks into the water with her stories about scuba diving, oceanographic ships, whatever it was.” Standing, he added, “So your mom and dad could’ve gone out to Macomek and stayed in Abby’s house. Give me a minute. I’ve got to check the fish.”

  I watched as he pulled up the grill lid, peeled up a bit of aluminum foil, and leaned over for a look. Angelo was my link to my past, the only person alive who could tell me stories about my parents.

  “Angelo,” I said. “Ti voglio bene.”

  He looked over and winked. “I love you too, Mara. And it’s done. Let’s eat inside. It’s getting chilly out here.”

  Over dinner, I narrated the rest of my visit on Macomek—talking with Malicite, Gordy and Patty’s claims about Tyler, my encounter with Tyler in the cemetery. I described my interaction with Lester but downplayed the near wipeout with the gale.

  “I’ve met Lester a couple of times,” Angelo said. “Real nice guy. Can’t imagine him losing Buddy after what happened in that storm a while back.”

  “You know about a storm?”

  “Let’s do these dishes. I’ve got some almond cookies that’ll be good with coffee. Then I’ll tell you all about it.”

  I was dunking my second cookie in espresso when he said, “It was the tail end of a hurricane up from Cape Cod. Eighty-mile-an-hour winds, thirty-foot sea. Blew his lobster boat right over. That Lester got rescued was a miracle. But the sternman, can’t recall the name, didn’t make it.”

  “So when was that?”

  “Probably August or September since that’s hurricane time in New England. Maybe ten years ago?”

  “Abby said something about an anniversary, and I got the idea it was a sad one.” I tapped my cup as the image of a child looking up at the guest window floated through my mind. I blinked. “There’s something about that island that’s, I don’t know—haunting—like unsettled ghosts walking around.”

  “I’ll bet the Rockland Free Press has Macomek news. Not sure you’ll read about ghosts, but it might be interesting to poke around and see what you find about Macomek history.”

  “Good idea. Gordy and I are going up there Monday to talk with Marine Patrol. While he’s off doing errands, I can go to the library and find out if everything is on line.”

  “So Gordy’s convinced that this Tyler killed Buddy, but you’re not.”

  I shrugged. “Patty’s got Gordy convinced. Tyler strikes me as a little off, but Macomek’s got a reputation for unconventional folks. I kept asking Patty if there was evidence linking Tyler to the murder, but she didn’t want to hear it.” I pictured her glare and the feeling she wanted to reach across the table and slap me. “Fierce doesn’t describe the woman.”

  “Well, somebody did it.”

  “On our way back to Spruce Harbor, Gordy and I came up with some good ideas. First, given where I’d found Buddy, whoever killed him probably has a boat. Besides that, it would’ve been a lot easier to get the body onto the boat and under the raft if there were two of them. And I’ve been wondering why in hell anyone would put a dead person under an aquaculture raft in the first place. But maybe they didn’t plan that at all. They could’ve seen the raft as they approached land and realized it was a pretty good place to stash a body.”

  Angelo nodded. “You’re right. If Marine Patrol agrees, that probably gets Gordy off the hook.” He pushed back his chair and crossed his arms across his chest. “So I’ve heard about lots of people except one.”

  I looked to the side. “You mean Ted.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I shrugged. “I haven’t seen him in days. There’s really nothing to say.” I pictured Ted in his office with smart, stunning Penny Russell at his side. In an instant, tears flooded my eyes. “Damn.”

  Angelo leaned o
ver and handed me his handkerchief. “Want to talk about it?”

  Dabbing the corners of my eyes, I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “When you described feeling so melancholy about your parents, I wondered if Ted had anything to do with that.”

  I sniffed. “Maybe.”

  “Being so lonely makes you more susceptible to strong emotions like that.”

  “I’m super busy with my own work and helping my grad student. I see Harvey and Connor a lot.”

  “It’s not the same, and you know it. You’ve got a hole in your heart.”

  I sighed. “That’s exactly the same expression Abby used.”

  “Like I said, she’s a smart lady. Did she say anything else?”

  “Yeah. If I didn’t do something soon, Ted might not be there.”

  12

  I’d just turned off Seal Point onto Route One when the sky opened up. Sideways sheets of rain forced me to crawl the last few miles to the turnoff for my dirt road. As I bumped along under a canopy of tall pines, it felt like I was in a tunnel driving into a fire hose. I leaned forward, squinted, and switched between high and low beams with little effect—which is why I didn’t see the deer jump out of the shrubs until it was in the middle of the road staring into the headlights. I slammed my foot on the brake and stopped within what must have been inches of her flank.

  The expression “deer in the headlights” exists for a reason. The doe—I guessed she was a female yearling—stood mesmerized by car’s lights for a full minute. Then, with a flick of her white tail, she jumped back into the shrubbery and was gone. I rested my forehead on the steering wheel until my heart stopped pounding and soon splashed into my driveway where the wind off the water had turned the storm into a gale.

  As usual, I’d forgotten to turn on the porch light and in the driving rain couldn’t even see the house twenty feet away. Rain pounded my windshield as wind rocked the car and made an unearthly howl.

  Hand on the door handle, I hesitated giving it a push and jumping out. I peered into the gloom, feeling nervous and silly at the same time. There’s nothing out there, I told myself. It’s just a storm. You’re jumpy because of the deer. Finally, silly won out. I gave the door a shove, sprinted for the porch, took the steps two at a time, yanked the kitchen door open, and dove in. Breathing hard, I groped for the overhead light switch, flipped it on, and looked around. No bad creature—living or dead—greeted me. Relieved and a little embarrassed, I locked the kitchen door, grabbed a hand towel from the bathroom, rubbed my hair, and walked around the house to make sure all the windows were down tight and the front door was locked.