Secrets Haunt the Lobsters' Sea

by Charlene D'Avanzo

  A low murmur rippled through the audience.

  “People who did the survey separated out lobstermen from different states. When asked if they’d noticed that waters where they trap are warmer now, more than six outta ten lobstermen from Maine said yes.” She pointed the laser at the next line. “And, about eighty percent of them said climate change is the cause of the warmin’ they see.”

  A guy in the middle of the audience wearing a green baseball cap shot to his feet. “What you’re sayin’ ’bout Maine lobstahmen an’ global warmin’? That doesn’t add up.”

  Nonplussed, Barbara said, “Explain what you mean.”

  “Not one single lobstahman I know thinks that. And I know a whole lotta lobstahmen.”

  Here and there, men in the audience nodded.

  “Sure,” Barbara said. “I get that. You need to understand that the people doin’ this study couldn’t get opinions from every single lobstahman ’cause there’s too many. It’s a sample, like they do for political elections.”

  Still on his feet, the lobsterman said, “That went real well in the president’s election, didn’t it?” He turned left and right for effect.

  Hands on hips, Barbara fixed a killer stare at the lobsterman. “That’s enough out of you, Richie Woodman. Sit down and lemme finish this talk.”

  Without another word, Richie did what he was told.

  Barbara outlined some next steps, answered several questions, and returned to her seat in the front tow. Laurie Culligan strode across the stage and waited as her talk’s title—“Repeated, Year-round Sampling of Juvenile Lobsters in the Intertidal Zone.”—appeared on the screen behind her. Then she stood away from the podium and spoke directly to the audience with the confident and unhurried cadence of an experience presenter.

  “For this talk I’ll focus on how my team and I assess the number of recently settled juvenile lobsters and show you some recent data. For over ten years, our goal has been to identify lobster nurseries so we can protect them. The juvenile lobster data are also useful for predicting numbers of adult lobsters that could be trapped in the future.”

  Laurie went on to explain that throughout the year she and her field team returned to the same sampling sites at the very lowest tides. “We turn over rocks and count the juveniles in the same one-meter-square quadrants in each month. That way, we avoid all the difficulties of trying to count lobsters in the subtidal zone with scuba gear.”

  About halfway into her talk, Laurie showed a graph that made many in the audience gasp. With the laser pointer, she drew a long downward line as steep as a ski slope. “As you can see, the number of juvenile lobsters in all our sites has dropped dramatically over the last ten years.”

  She faced the group again. “This is real puzzle because this steady downward trend in juvenile settlement has taken place when both lobster egg production and commercial catch are high. So what’s going on?”

  A photo of tiny lobster in the palm of a hand appeared on the screen. The miniature lobster looked about a half inch long.

  “Here’s a fourth-stage lobster, the juveniles we count. We think food availability for earlier stages may be the problem,” she said.

  Laurie went on to the next graph. “As you know, for several weeks newborn lobsters float near the surface and go through several molts. During this time they must eat and avoid being eaten, and it’s the fourth molt survivors that settle on the bottom and hide. Some of our colleague’s plankton tows show a sharp decline in copepods that closely mirrors the decline in fourth-stage lobster larvae. Tiny planktonic crustaceans named Calanus finmarchicus are the staple of the lobster larval diet. We don’t know why the copepod numbers declined or whether that trend will continue.

  Laurie pushed a bottom on her remote and the screen went blank. “I think I’ll stop here folks and take your questions.”

  Hands throughout the auditorium shot up in the air. Both lobstermen and scientists were anxious for answers. “Does this mean that our lobstah catch will go down sometime soon?” “Could increase in predators explain the decline in lobster larvae and copepods?” “What about other places? Maybe you’re just not lookin’ for baby lobsters in the right spot?” “Could decline in juvenile settlement be related to rise in water temperature?”

  Laurie addressed each question as clearly as she could, but she didn’t have the definitive answers many wanted to hear. I left the auditorium and headed back to my office as people stepped onto the stage to talk with her.

  “You still working?”

  I rubbed my eyes and looked up from the computer. Harvey stood just inside my office door.

  “Hey. Didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I knocked, but you were in concentration mode.”

  Harvey teased me about my ability to tune out the world and completely fix my attention on work. Rolling my shoulders I said, “Think I’m finally caught up. What time is it?”

  “Nearly six.”

  “Laurie and some lobstermen here for the meeting are going to the Lee Side for dinner. Think I’ll go. Want to come along?”

  Harvey shook her head. “The Auto Analyzer continues to takes its toll. I’m pooped and heading home.”

  “I’m pretty tired myself but don’t have the energy to go food shopping or cook.”

  “When was the last time you ate at home, Mara? I thought Italians liked cooking.”

  I shut down my computer and stood up. “Ever since I found Buddy’s body things’ve been, I don’t know, batty.”

  “Batty?”

  “You know, weird, funky, dotty.”

  “I could use any of those words to describe you at one time or another, Mara. Especially the last one.”

  The Lee Side bar didn’t bother with marine bric-a-brac because its customers, people whose livelihood depended on the sea in one way or another, gave the place its identity. Crewmembers from MOI’s research vessel Intrepid sat in booths along one of the walls. In howling wind and dripping with sea spray, those guys had stood right by me, more times than I could count, as we deployed instruments off the ship’s stern. Just as important, they knew when we needed to get the hell off the lurching deck. One of the crew tipped his black cap. I waved back.

  Joey, Lee Side’s longtime owner, was polishing the already shiny long slab of oak that was the bar. I climbed onto a stool.

  “Haven’t seen you in here for a while,” he said.

  Ted and I sometimes stopped in the Lee Side after work. For obvious reasons, I didn’t explain my absence.

  “Got any white wine, Joey?”

  “Not many requests for that. Gimme a minute.” He ducked down behind the bar and quickly came up with a bottle of Pinot Grigio. “Good?”

  “That’s great.” I looked over my shoulder while he poured. “Has the crew from Macomek gotten here yet?”

  “Some of  ’em are out on the deck an’  two guy are in the back are playin’ darts.”

  Joey had wisely set up the dartboard in a back corner where stray missiles were unlikely to hit an unsuspecting customer. Wine in hand, I walked the length of the bar, rounded the corner, and stopped. Calvin Ives held a dart in his right hand and stared at the board, unblinking. Utterly still, the man looked like a statue. To Calvin’s side and back a step, Malicite regarded Calvin with raised eyebrows. When he saw me, he winked.

  Like a cat ready to pounce on an unsuspecting bird, Calvin’s complete focus was on that board. Then, with a lightning fast snap of the wrist, he released the missile and followed through until his arm was fully extended. The dart landed solidly in the middle of the board.

  He applauded himself and yelled, “Ha! Got ya.”

  While Calvin gathered darts for another game, I took a seat at an empty table against the wall. Sipping my wine, I watched the game and ordered and ate a burger and fries. If Calvin noticed I was there, he didn’t let on.

  I was used to competitive guys who worked out, bragged about how fast they’d run the weekend’s marathon, and let everyone know wh
en their grant proposal had been funded. But Calvin’s behavior—fist pounding his palm, hoots when he won, all of it—put him at the far end of the cutthroat line Since he was Macomek’s highliner, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. Even so, I was.

  The dart game was still going strong when I decided to thank Laurie again for the scuba dive and head on home. Malicite caught me before I left.

  “Tomorrah’s Buddy’s memorial at the Macomek’s school. There’s a get-together for Abby on her beach aftah. Her seventieth birthday. She was gonna cancel but thought people could, ya know, celebrate Buddy too.”

  “Thanks, Malicite. I probably won’t make it but appreciate the invitation.”

  The Lee Side’s deck, which faced the harbor, was cold even with the windows closed. I rubbed my arms and scanned the tables.

  “Well, look who’s heah.”

  I turned around and for a moment didn’t recognized Patty. Mascara was smeared around her eyes like she’d been rubbing them, and her greasy hair stood straight up. The slack jaw told me what was wrong. Patty Burgess was stone drunk.

  She elbowed the man next to her and waved a finger at me. “Richie, this lady heah,” she slurred. “She keeps tellin’ me it’s not Tyler who offed Buddy. But she don’t know squat.”

  Two guys sat on either side of Patty and a third directly across. I assumed they were all Macomek lobstermen. Each one sized me up like questionable bait. Richie put an arm around Patty’s shoulder and snarled, “Out on Macomek we don’t like outsidahs tellin’ us nothin’. ’Specially ’bout what happened ta our good friend, Buddy. Get the message?”

  Backing up a step, I said, “Excuse me,” turned, and returned to the bar area. I stood next to the cash register by the exit to pay my bill when Ted and lovely Penny Russell walked in. After Ted and I exchanged extremely awkward hellos, he ushered her toward the bar. She gave me a hesitant smile before she left.

  Outside, I shuffled down the hill to my car. What the hell had just happened? One moment I was enjoying my dinner watching a dart game, and the next I was being ridiculed by Abby’s drunken daughter and her lobstermen pals, then forced to acknowledge Ted and my replacement.

  At home, it took another glass of wine to moderate my mental state to only mildly feverish. As a distraction for my emotional side, I decided use my brain to review what I’d learned in the last few days and see if any insights into Buddy’s murder emerged.

  When field or lab data made little sense, I often sketched ideas, questions, and words on the whiteboard in my office. For some reason, the visual display helped me recognize patterns and put together seemingly disparate pieces. Lacking a whiteboard, I spread a big piece of white drawing paper across the kitchen table. In black marker, I listed factual information items such as the day Buddy died and where I’d found him. Questions like “Why is Patty so insistent it’s Tyler?” and “How and where did Buddy die?” I listed in red.

  Next, I wrote, “Why would someone on Macomek kill Buddy?” Under that question, I listed Betty’s words: “power,” “money,” “love.” Leaning over the table, I realized that two critical reasons needed to be added. Next to “money” I wrote “greed” and to “power” the word “ambition.”

  I stepped back and frowned. Something was missing. I went out on the deck and studied the stars. The Pleiades—the Seven Sisters—were clearly visible, including the star Electra, who in one Greek legend, was killed in an act of revenge.

  “Of course,” I said aloud.

  Back inside, I wrote “revenge” at the bottom of the list.

  For the next hour, I stared at the sheet, paced around the kitchen table, returned to the deck, walked to the living room and back, lay on the couch, and got up again. The kitchen stove clock read 10:49 when it came to me. I wrote the name next to “ambition,” turned off the kitchen light, and climbed the stairs.

  16

  The phone rang once, twice, three times.

  “Hello?” Harvey sounded like she had marbles in her mouth.

  “You up?” I asked.

  “I am now.” The phone made muffled crackles. “Christ, Mara. It’s just five.”

  “You’re an early riser.”

  “Sure.” She yawned. “But this is a little extreme. Is something wrong?”

  “I’m fine. Actually, I wanted to talk to Connor.”

  “He’s still asleep. Wait, his eyes just popped open. I’ll have him call you back.”

  I poured a second cup of strong black tea, splashed in some milk, and climbed onto a stool by the pub table overlooking my deck. In the early morning light, fog had transformed trees, rocks, and ocean beyond into a wet, grey, sameness. Cradling the mug, I sipped the comforting brew until the phone rang.

  A retired cop from Augusta, Maine’s capital city, Connor Doyle had also been a first responder. A five a.m. call from a friend was nothing to him.

  “Top ’o the mornin’,  Mara. What’s up?”

  “I’ve got a pretty good idea who killed Buddy, and I’m hoping you’ll take me out to Macomek to poke around.”

  After digesting this for a moment with a “hmm” he said, “If you’re really onto somethin’  Mara, won’t who you’re talkin’ about get suspicious? You only left the island a few days ago.”

  “I’ve got a good excuse. Yesterday, Malicite Dupris—he’s a lobsterman out there—invited me to a double-do on Macomek. People want to do something to honor Buddy, and it’s Abby Burgess’s seventieth birthday. An odd combination, but we are talking about Macomek. It’s this afternoon.”

  “I guess that sounds okay. My boat’s too small so lemme work on borrowin’  one. I’ve got an idea on that. We’re comin’  back this evening?”

  “Yeah. What I need to look into won’t take long. We should be able to head back to the mainland around sundown.”

  “I’ll call you in a couple hours.”

  I stared at the silent phone in my hand. I’d set the wheels in motion, and it was up to me to keep them running smoothly. My business was deadly serious. A mistake or two and things could go very badly for me. Besides that, a dear and lonely man who’d saved my life might well never know what happened to his only grandson and why.

  No way could I screw this up.

  I returned the landline phone to its cradle—cell phone service was spotty this close to the ocean—with a “Thank you, Connor.” What a terrific guy. He didn’t question my sleuthing ability or demand to know what the hell I was talking about. The previous spring, Connor and I had worked together on a complicated case. A colleague and friend had died on a research cruise in what MOI claimed was an accident. Since the victim had been an outspoken climate scientist, I’d suspected otherwise and found evidence that supported my assumption.

  Connor now trusted my instincts for which I was deeply grateful. It was also a huge plus that he’d be out on Macomek with me. Given the island’s reputation, an experienced ex-cop with an uncanny ability to interpret people’s behavior would be the perfect partner.

  As Connor sidled Money Pit up to Spruce Harbor’s town dock, I threw my backpack onto the stern deck and jumped aboard.

  Space in the harbor was tight, so I waited until he had woven through a cluster of moorings before speaking. “What’s with Money Pit? It’s the same boat Gordy borrowed when we went out to Macomek.”

  Connor grinned. “Poker game. Guy’s rich but a terrible player.”

  He waited until we were well past the harbor’s headlands before he gave the boat her head. Money Pit shot forward like a frustrated filly. Grinning, Connor said, “This boat’s got lots of pep. In a former life she ran drugs, so I hear.” He reduced the speed to just below fifteen knots and checked our bearing. “We gotta a good day. Should be at the island ’round ten.”

  I’d settled onto one of the cushy bench seats in the wheelhouse. “I really appreciate you taking the time to do this, Connor.”

  “You kiddin’? I’m runnin’ a fine boat out on the watah, and you laugh at my jokes.” He checked th
e bottom sonar and nodded. “Good. Okay, now tell me what this is all about. Take your time. We got it.”

  “I assume Gordy filled you in after we got back from the island?”

  “Ayuh. Had a couple beers with ’im in the Lee Side. He hadn’t talked to the Marine Patrol guys yet.”

  “What’d Gordy say?”

  “He couldn’t stop talkin’ about this Tyler guy.”

  “Right. Gordy’s fixed on Tyler Johnson because his girlfriend Patty Burgess is.”

  Connor scanned the waters ahead and to port and starboard, making sure we weren’t about to run over debris he hadn’t seen earlier. One hand on the wheel, he partly turned toward me. “And what do you think?”

  “When someone’s so positive they know the killer, you have to wonder why.”

  “I get your meanin’ Mara, that’s smart. But let’s back up. Tell me who’s who, what makes ’em tick, all that.”

  I went more or less in chronological order—Abby, Patty, Angel, Lester and Buddy, Malicite, Calvin, and Tyler. “There’s some other lobstermen I haven’t talked to as well.”

  “I think I got the picture,” he said. “Now what makes you think you know who wanted Buddy dead?”

  “It’s about revenge. When I was super angry with Seymour, Angelo told me an Italian saying about revenge that made sense.”

  “Huh. What was it?”

  “Wait for the time and place to take your revenge, for it is never well done in a hurry.”

  “I get it. Keep going.”

  “Last night, I made a big sketch of questions and ideas related to Buddy’s death like I do when I’m stuck on a research question.”

  “You’ve explained that to me. Police do somethin’ similar.”

  “Well, I hit on the words ‘revenge’ and ‘ambition,’ and the rest came from that.”

  It took the remainder of the trip for me to explain my idea, answer all of Connor’s questions, look at the issue from different angles, and come up with a workable plan.

  I was on deck as Connor slowly circled Macomek’s harbor looking for a good place to anchor for the day. Malicite, who was piling traps near the lobster shacks, spotted us.