Secrets Haunt the Lobsters' Sea

by Charlene D'Avanzo

  Following Connor’s orders I put my head down between my knees. The nausea diminished in a few minutes.

  “You must’ve swallowed some water,” Connor said.

  I knew my dizziness had nothing to do with being in the water. Wanting to change the subject I asked, “So Connor, tell me what happened?”

  “Here’s how I saw it. Calvin’s boat was in front of me. I was trying to catch up. You flipped over the gunwale into the water. Calvin turned around and went right back for you. He jumped into the water and dove down. By the time I idled up, he had you. He swam to Money Pit’s stern. I lifted you aboard and got you settled while he changed into dry clothes.”

  “That’s incredible,” I said. “Calvin, you could have let me drown and what you told me about Buddy would’ve died with me.”

  He shook his head. “No. It was wrong, terr’ble, that Buddy died. Shouldn’t have happened. No way was I gonna let an innocent woman drown when I could save ’er.”

  “Even if I was a nosy, snooping outsider?”

  “Ayuh,” he said with the shadow of a grin. “Even then.”

  Even in my addled state, I sensed a shift in Calvin’s demeanor. He’d never joked before, but the change was much more fundamental than that. After finally acting on an obsession he’d held for so many years, it was as if a burden had been lifted. I’d heard that soldiers who dreaded killing their enemy counterpart became calmer after they actually did the deed. Calvin’s transformation was like that.

  Angelo strode down Spruce Harbor’s town dock as Connor slid Money Pit up to one of the bumpers, flipped off the running lights, and killed the motor. Connor and I walked to the stern. After an appreciative whistle Angelo said, “Connor, isn’t that boat a little above your pay grade?”

  “Fastest boat I ever ran an’ boy did I need it.” Connor patted the aft gunwale. “I’m gonna miss her. Well, here’s Mara safe an’ sound like I said. Striper fishing in a couple days?”

  “Let’s see how they’re running,” Angelo said.

  Angelo reached toward me. I took his hand and stepped onto the dock. “Thanks.”

  Connor asked, “Mara, you all set?”

  “Good as gold. No way in the world I can thank you.”

  “’Twas a great adventure that turned out okay.” With a quick wave he headed back to the wheelhouse

  Angelo put a hand on my shoulder as we walked toward shore. “I got the abbreviated version of events from what Connor could say on the VHF. It sounded pretty bad, and there’s still a lot I don’t know. I’m sure you’re exhausted, but how about stopping at the house for some dinner so you can tell me what happened?”

  The concern in his tone was palpable. Angelo worried about my “escapades,” as he called them, and said I took too many chances. He had good reason. Since the spring, I’d gotten myself kidnapped on a British Columbian island and chased by a crazy man driving a motor boat when I kayaking. And those were just the episodes he knew about.

  I took his hand. Like always, it felt warm, rough in a nice way, safe. “I’m really sorry to worry you. If you want to feed me, I’m more than happy to oblige. But next time I’m cooking, and it’s at my house.”

  When we got to Angelo’s home, I ran upstairs and changed into some clothes I’d left behind earlier. His chicken Parmesan was history when I leaned back against the kitchen chair. “Perfect. That hit the spot,” I said.

  He carried our plates to the sink and asked over his shoulder, “Will coffee keep you awake?”

  “Tonight I’ll be asleep two seconds after I turn off my light.”

  We’d kept dinner conversation light, but I knew questions would come out with the espresso. Elbows on the table, Angelo leaned toward me. Atypically, his curly white hair needed a trim. “Connor filled me in a little but didn’t have time to say much. You’re not too tired to talk about this now?”

  In truth, I was too tired. But I knew that worry and being in the dark had taken its toll on my godfather.

  “I’m okay. Go ahead.”

  He nodded. “All right. Mostly I’m wondering why you suspected this Calvin Ives and what’s going to happen to him.”

  There was some coffee left at the bottom of my cup. Twirling it, I sorted through the critical parts of my story. I described the evolution of my thinking and why I’d settled on Calvin.

  “So you decided that ambition was Calvin’s motivation.”

  “Yes. Laurie Culligan, a scientist who knew Calvin, told me he was obsessed about warming, where the lobsters would migrate to, that type of thing. He really pestered her about it.”

  “She used that word—‘obsessed’?”

  I nodded. “The issue, of course, is that I couldn’t prove anything. Another lobsterman told me he hid a notebook in his cabin with really valuable information about trap location, dates, numbers of lobsters caught, that type of thing. So I thought Calvin might have Buddy’s notebook in his cabin. If he did, that would be solid evidence I could give to Marine Patrol.”

  “But you didn’t find a notebook.”

  “No. Instead, I found a photograph of a woman Calvin planned to marry. She was Lester Crawford’s sternman, and she died in a storm in 1995. Lester was saved, but he’d been drinking. Naturally, Calvin blamed Lester for her death. He’s been bitter ever since.”

  Angelo frowned. “You mean Calvin killed Buddy to avenge a woman who died that long ago?”

  I shrugged. “It’s not that simple.” I went on to explain who Patty was, why she hated Buddy, and why she hadn’t reported him to the police herself. “In the Macomek way, Patty and Calvin took care of island business and went after Buddy together. As Calvin explains it, they confronted him at the harbor and Buddy stepped backwards.

  He fell thirty feet and bashed his head on a rock. So it was an accident.”

  “And what do you think?”

  I stared at the stone cold coffee in my cup. “Calvin’s got his faults for sure. But he did jump in the water and save my life. That says a lot about him.”

  I looked up. Angelo rubbed his eye like it was irritated. But I knew he was wiping away a tear.

  Side by side, we washed the few dishes we’d used. I dried my hands on a dishtowel and leaned back against the slate sink. “Of course, what Calvin did for me brings up some terrible guilt.”

  He stacked a dinner plate on the drying rack and turned toward me. Angelo was taller by a good half foot, and I felt small. “I was wondering when you’d mention that.”

  I looked to the side. “I don’t think about it much now. But sometimes I wake up from a dream where I’m reaching for her and there’s nothing there.”

  “Mara, that was over twenty years ago. You were only eight. The canoe you both were in hit a boulder, and she went overboard. There were adults in your canoe and in the one behind it. Two people jumped in the river to save her but couldn’t swim against the current. There was absolutely nothing you could have done.”

  I met my godfather’s gaze. His warm gray eyes had a way of calming me, and they did. “I know, but it’s good for you to remind me.”

  Angelo walked me to the door. “So what’s going to happen to Calvin?”

  “Connor contacted Marine Patrol. By now, they’ve gone out to Macomek. I’m not sure what they’re going to do, but at the very least they’ll charge Calvin and Patty with withholding information related to a murder investigation. Patty’s got a couple of DUIs on her record, so that might influence their treatment of her. I really don’t know.”

  “And you’ll tell them about Calvin saving your life.”

  “Connor already gave Officer LeClair a heads up. Of course, I went overboard after Calvin took off with me in his boat. Marine Patrol will have to untangle all of this. I’ll call them first thing in the morning.”

  I reached LeClair at eight. The sergeant peppered me with questions, and I promised to drive up to Marine Patrol headquarters and make an official statement. When I asked what’d happened to Calvin and Patty, his response told me not
hing.

  “We’re talking to them.”

  I’d just hung up when Alise walked into my office. She handed me a cup and said, “From the Neap Tide.”

  I pulled off the lid and peered in. “Fantastic. Sally’s making lattes again.”

  She grinned. “Gotta keep my mentor happy. Here’s the final draft of the grant proposal with Harvey. I think it’s in pretty good shape.”

  “Thanks. I need to read it through one last time. Come back in twenty minutes, and we can give it to Seymour together. Good?”

  She saluted and closed the door on her way out.

  Sipping the coffee, once more I read through the NOAA Sea Grant proposal titled “Impacts of Acidification on Mussel Aquaculture in the Gulf of Maine.” If funded, Alise would work with Harvey to monitor pH concentrations in the Gulf of Maine and with mussel aquaculturalists on impacts of acidic waters on mussel growth. Not a thing needed to be changed.

  A half hour later, Alise and I marched down to Seymour’s office. She knocked on his door. He answered with “Come!,” which we did. Seymour was the only US scientist I’d met who used this typically British way to grant entry into an office. He probably thought it sounded erudite. To me, it was ludicrous.

  Alise slid the proposal across his desk. “Here you go Dr. Hull. The second Sea Grant proposal, right on time. As I’m sure you know, I left the other one with your secretary yesterday.”

  He frowned at the tattoo on her arm, snatched the proposal, slid his glasses up his long nose, and flipped the pages. “Well, looks like everything’s here”

  Taking that as our signal to leave, we did. On the way up the stairs, Alise said in a low voice, “He hardly looked at it at all.”

  “Nope.” I agreed. “He’ll give it to his secretary, and she’ll make sure everything—references, budget, vitas, all that—really is there. Hey, you did an absolutely stellar job. I’m sorry I wasn’t around to help out more.”

  We’d reached the chemistry floor. “I’ll tell Harvey the proposal’s on Seymour’s desk,” she said.

  I stood in the stairwell for a moment and watched the door close behind Alise. Smart, hard-working, and a great colleague, she was going to be a successful oceanographer. The woman was politically savvy too, not one of my strengths to say the least. She’d called Seymour “Dr. Hull” when other grad students did not. Harvey was, of course “Harvey” and not “Dr. Allison.” If she called me “Mr. Tusconi,” I’d laugh. Yes, that girl was going to do just fine.

  That evening, Gordy was in my kitchen feeling pretty low.

  “I’m sure it feels lousy to realize Patty was using you,” I said.

  Back against the wall, arms crossed, Gordy looked down at his feet. “I do feel like a total dope. She played me like a fiddle.”

  I’d invited Harvey, Connor, and Gordy for dinner. Gordy had arrived early. Circling the room to get out plates, silverware, napkins, and the like, I offered my cousin whatever solace I could. Unlucky in love, as they say, I was in no position to give advice.

  Connor’s truck came to a stop behind Gordy’s as I stepped out onto the deck. “Hey, you two.”

  Harvey practically ran up the four steps. Holding me tight, she said, “Damn, girl, we could’ve lost you.”

  I stepped back when she let me go. “It already seems like it happened to someone else.” I changed the subject. “Gordy’s in the living room.”

  Connor dropped something wrapped in brown paper on the kitchen counter. It smelled decidedly like fish.

  I patted the package. “This looks big enough to be a tuna.”

  He beamed. “Biggest striper I’ve caught. Got it right off Juniper Ledge outside the habah. Too bad Angelo missed it.”

  “He’s down in Portland with a sick friend.”

  Connor pulled back the brown paper. I leaned in to admire a fillet as long as my arm. “Jeez. I’ve never seen one so big.”

  With his hand, he divided the fillet into sections. “I’ll cut a piece big enough for now an’  leave some for your next dinnah. I’ll even grill it tonight if you want.”

  “I’d love that. You know where the grill is.”

  My Maine cottage is just that—a cottage. The combined living-dining room was the only place a group of people could comfortably sit and chat.

  Feet on the coffee table, beer in hand, Gordy greeted Connor and Harvey with, “Hey, how are you guys?.”

  I slid cheese and crackers onto the end of the table Gordy hadn’t appropriated. “If you all want to talk about what happened on Macomek, please go ahead. I’ll be in the kitchen getting things ready for dinner. After that, I’d like a moratorium on the subject. There’s plenty of other things we can talk about.”

  Gordy saluted, Harvey nodded, and Connor said “Okay.” I was pretty sure they understood why I was tired of talking and thinking about the whole Macomek venture. Even if they didn’t, my dearest friends would give me some slack.

  As I sliced tomatoes and cucumbers for salad and red peppers and zucchini for grilling, I caught snatches of conversation. “So it really was an accident?” “What did Marine Patrol say?” After filling my biggest wooden bowl with fresh salad greens, I scattered cherry tomatoes and cukes across the top and looked around. Everything was ready for my favorite fall Maine dinner—grilled vegetables and fish, lots of salad, and fresh bread from Spruce Harbor’s bakery. I leaned against the doorframe between the living room and kitchen.

  The conversation had turned to a Caribbean-wide calamity.

  Harvey said, “I just can’t believe what’s happening out there. Three category four or five hurricanes in as many weeks? Even those weather guys who broadcast when they can hardly stand up in pelting wind and rain are running out of superlatives.”

  Connor patted her hand. “It’s called The Weather Channel.”

  Harvey—who, of course, only watched PBS—said, “Right. The Weather Channel.”

  “Okay,” Connor said. “I got two eggheads to ask. I keep hearin’ the weather guys say things like ‘record-breaking.’ I look at the storm track, and it’s a huge mothah hurricane. Winds like one-hundred-fifty miles an hour. Lobstahmen get off the watah when it’s, what, forty or fifty? And then there’s the president sayin’ it’s all jus’ a regular storm.”

  Talked out, Gordy looked expectantly at Harvey and me.

  “It’s complicated and it’s not,” I began.

  Gordy rolled his eyes. I ignored him.

  “Take Hurricane Harvey in Texas.” I winked at Harvey. “Sorry, girl. As Harvey roared over that state, sea surface temperatures off the Texas coast were somewhere between three and six degrees Fahrenheit above average. That was one of the highest above-average measurements in the world.”

  Gordy nodded. “I’m with you so far.”

  “Good. Hurricanes happen when weather disturbances like thunderstorms interact with warm water. Heat is energy, right? So in Hurricane Harvey’s case, all that ocean heat made that storm more intense, longer-lasting, and with super-high rainfall.”

  Scientist Harvey jumped in. “The way meteorologists explain it, hurricanes begin when water that evaporates from warm seawater gets dragged up by high-altitude winds.”

  “Since I got all that,” Gordy said, “what you jus’ said must be the easier bit ta understand.”

  I nodded. “Right. Now we get to predicting storm track and intensity. It’s always difficult, but Harvey behaved like no hurricane meteorologists know about in that region.”

  Gordy’s eyebrows raised.

  I kept going. “Harvey got stronger and stronger and was category four when it reached land. There’s no record of a hurricane doing that there.”

  “So why did it?” Gordy asked.

  “Hurricanes churn up ocean water from hundreds of feet down. That water’s usually colder than what’s at the surface, and that cold water weakens the storm.”

  Gordy finished the lesson. “But the deep watah off Texas wasn’t cold.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Pe
ople naturally want accurate predictions about where storms are going and how intense they’ll be. Like I said, that’s always been hard. Now it’s even harder. Weather prediction computer models are based on previous storms, but the game has changed. Those models probably won’t work as well as they used to because climate change has altered so many critical pieces.”

  “We’re all gettin’ the rug pulled out from undah us with this climate business,” Gordy said. “That’s for sure true with fishermen.”

  Connor stood. “Gordy, didn’t you tell me that the lobster biologists found something strange they don’t understand?”

  “Ayuh. It’s the tiny lobsters. They can’t find ’em where they’ve been countin’  ’em for yeahs an’ don’t know why.”

  Hands folded in his lap, Gordy looked as somber as I’d ever seen him. I wanted to say something hopeful but couldn’t think of what that might be.

  We’d just finished my apple crisp with ice-cream dessert when Gordy handed me a present loosely wrapped in tissue paper. “For the scientist snoop,” he said.

  The oval-shaped mystery item felt hard. I anticipated something like a “If You Piss Off the Writer She’ll Put You In A Book and Kill You” mug. Instead, I held up a vintage lobster buoy.

  The wood buoy was faded yellow with a reddish stripe across the middle. “This is great,” I said.

  Gordy reached over and ran a finger across the middle stripe. “It’s a pretty special. A Maloy buoy my granddad used.”

  I carefully laid the buoy on the table next to my empty desert plate. “But Gordy, it’s a family heirloom. You should keep it for yourself.”

  He shook his head. “Nah. You did one helluva a job on Macomek. And, Mara, you are family.”

  It’s awkward for me to show sentiment, even with those closest to me. Blinking, I managed “Damn” and left it at that.

  19

  I padded across the deck and leaned back against the railing to look up at the stars. My home had been filled with happy chatter and good conversation, but now I was ready to relish the quiet. When my spine demanded an upright posture, I sat on the top step, stared into the dark, and smiled at the thought of Gordy’s generous gift. While the buoy itself was a treasure, Gordy’s words were even more special.