Black Tide (2 page)

Other work and other cleanups continued, done by other people, and the news media blitz began to drift away. And in what was politely called the "global view," Tyler and its neighboring beaches had done fairly well. The oil had at least been refined, and wasn't the sticky crude horror that Exxon had so thoughtfully deposited in Alaska's Prince William Sound some years back. Only a few weekends were lost to the tourist season, and a long stretch of hot weather had brought them back. They had to be careful, though. While some beaches were littered with tampon dispensers or hypodermic needles, these sands were soiled on occasion by the smell of oil. Still, the tourists came. Just the price to pay for living in our wonderful modern society.

So I had been busy these past weeks. But on this July Sabbath day, no work was to be done. The hours were hot and I was tired, and the beer tasted just fine, thank you. From the north came another rumble of thunder. I turned and looked and saw a flash of lightning flare through the dark clouds. Rain this afternoon, maybe in less than a half hour. I scanned the waters again and saw a couple of sailboats and a charter fishing boat, out from Tyler Harbor. Near the shore I made out a dark lump just under the surface of the ocean, washing in to the beach. In the binoculars it looked like another lump of seaweed, or maybe a petroleum souvenir from the
Petro Star
, jostled free from the sandy bottom near North Beach. Marvelous. Something else for the tourists to take pictures of, and something that I was sure wouldn't make it in the Chamber of Commerce's advertising campaign for next year.

The binoculars came down and the bottle of Molson came up, and as I took another swallow I kept an ear open for the telephone. For the past few weeks I had screened all of my calls through my answering machine, for while I was in the mood to sit in my office or on the deck, I wasn't in the mood for playing Mr. Conversationalist. There had been a couple of calls from Diane Woods, detective in the Tyler police department, and I had returned one of those and had lied about wanting to have lunch with her soon. There had also been about a half dozen from Felix Tinios, a resident of North Tyler and a former resident of the North End in Boston, and one whose job was listed on his tax forms --- or so he told me --- as a "security consultant." I had returned a few of those, and made similar promises about noontime meals sometime in the future.

There had been no phone calls from the
Tyler Chronicle
, the town's daily newspaper, or its best reporter, Paula Quinn. And though I knew Paula's home and work numbers by heart, I had made no moves to punch out those numbers on my phone.

Instead, I sat. Here on my deck and upstairs in my office.

I checked the moving blob again. It was getting closer, and seemed to be more defined. Not like a lump of seaweed.

The binoculars felt heavy for a moment and I put them down, and then I lifted up the Molson and finished it off. I eyed the empty green bottle for a moment. This afternoon there were many things, which could be done, from continuing my
Petro Star
project to thinking about writing my next monthly column for
Shoreline
magazine to emptying the trash. But emptying the trash meant a drive to the town landfill (read: dump) and I was at a momentary dead end on the
Petro Star
. The column was due in a few days, and although the terms of my employment were quite secret and quite liberal, I would hate to miss that deadline. I had never done it before, and I didn't want to start a trend.

Or so I hoped. While the column should be worked on, another beer did sound pretty good. I replaced the empty with the binoculars and looked south again, to the outcropping of land that was Weymouth's Point and where an old friend had once lived, and out to the ocean. The object was about fifty or so feet from shore, and as I was getting up the energy level to go inside for another Molson Golden Ale, the dark shape was caught in a rolling swell that was heading to the sands, and a fin popped up.

In a second or two I was standing at the south end of the deck's railing, resting my elbows against the stained wood. The fin was and distinct, a triangular shape, and I was thinking: A shark, a shark attack at North Beach? And were there lifeguards there at the beach, to sound the alarm? And did those swimmers to the north and south of the shape see that it was even there?

Those thoughts and others tumbled through my head as another rolling swell came by, tossing the shape, and a pair of fins popped up, and I realized two things at once: that the fins were made of rubber, and that they were attached to a pair of legs.

Chapter Two

Within a few minutes I had parked my dark green Range Rover illegally on Atlantic Avenue, having stopped in front of a fire hydrant, and I went across the street and through a stairwell built into the shoulder-high concrete seawall and down to the sands of North Beach, with binoculars in hand and a coil of rope around my shoulders. I had expected the beachgoers to be curious about what was going on, about why a tall thin man with brown hair was scanning the waters with binoculars while muttering to himself, but no one paid me any attention. In a small way I was almost disappointed. There were families and couples and groups of young men and women, lying on blankets and chairs, drinking and eating and reading, and many of them were lined up like a grove of sunflowers, all facing the sun to the southwest, their eyes and thoughts hidden by dark glasses, and all listening to metal noise from their radios and tape decks. No one seemed to see what I saw, and no one seemed to care about the darkening clouds and the sound of thunder to the north. For a moment it made me wonder if the shapes were even human.

As I looked across the waters I made out the twin fins poking up again through the swells, and I recalled the quick phone call I had made to the Tyler police dispatch. Even with sirens and lights blaring and lighting the way, it would take ten or so minutes for the first cruiser or fire truck to fight its way through the Sunday beach traffic to get here. And what might be here when they arrived? He might disappear by then, be tossed back under the waves or caught in a fast-moving current, and that was not acceptable.

Having gotten dressed a few minutes ago back home, I now got undressed, dropping my worn topsiders on the sand, placing the binoculars on top of them and covering it all with a T-shirt that said NASA in red and blue letters. I started running into the ocean and grimaced as my feet went into the cold salt water. I tried not to groan as the water splashed up my legs. This is one of my deepest and darkest secrets: though I love living by the ocean, and love the sights and sounds of the seacoast and the ever-changing weather, I can count on the fingers of a half hand the number of times I've actually gone swimming here. The water is too damn cold, and today was no exception. Within seconds the nerve endings in my feet there had gone to sleep, and it was as if I were walking on two granite blocks. Even in the shallow stretch, it was hard going, for the bottom was littered with rocks and stretches of gravel, and I stumbled a couple of times, the weight of the 3/8-inch rope on my shoulders not helping one bit.

I think I yelled three times as I plowed into the water. The first time was when the cold water reached that nether area above the knees and below the waist. The second time was when a wave broke upon me and the cold salt water soaked the healing wound on my side. And the third time was when I immersed myself and began swimming awkwardly to the black shape.

There were strands of seaweed floating about me and I smelled something thick and pungent as I approached the dark shape. The flippers rose up again from another passing swell, and I saw that the legs were enclosed in a wet suit. A diver, no doubt, who was out here drunk or alone or inexperienced, and who had drowned less than a hundred yards from shore. A not too uncommon story, and even as I swam toward the diver, puffing and cursing at the weight of the rope on my shoulders and the weakness of my legs and the sharp pain in my side-the old phrase "rubbing salt in a wound" seemed appropriate at that moment I thought that this might end up as a column in
Shoreline.

When I reached the diver I was well over my head and I treaded water as I tugged the rope coil free. I made a quick slipknot of a noose, and as I got closer to the diver's body, the sound of sirens to the south became louder. I paddled closer and another movement of water came by, and in a slight panic, I realized I was too close. I bumped into the stiff rubber flippers just as they were rising up, and one of them caught me in my mouth. I nearly gagged from the smell and taste of the rubber, and my hands were shaking as I passed the rope around the two flippers and pulled it tight. I then looped the rope a few times around my right arm and began paddling back to shore.

By then some people were standing at the water's edge, shading their eyes from the glare in an odd type of salute, and as I swam in, I tried to do it at an angle, for the flippers were striking my back with each push toward shore, and the slimy touch of the rubber against my skin almost made me drop the rope a few times. The odor was of rubber and salt and decay, and I saw the flashing lights of a fire truck and a police cruiser, on the street side of the concrete seawall, and the movement of people.

In another minute or two my feet touched the rough bottom and I began wading ashore, pulling the soggy rope now with both hands. I looked back quickly and saw that the diver didn't seem to have an air tank on him, which made sense. In times of panic, when a diver believes he or she is only seconds away from drowning, they tend to drop everything in a desperate attempt to reach the surface.

This one's attempt hadn't succeeded.

I was coughing and shivering as I walked past the surf line and onto the moist sands of the beach, dragging the diver behind me, and the crowd of people there came toward me, hands outstretched, a couple of them carrying cameras, all of them wearing bathing suits. There was an old man with dark, leathery skin, and a white fringe of hair around his sunburned skull.  A fat woman in a pink suit with a skirt, holding the hands of a boy and a girl, both looking about age four or so.  And a group of three teenage girls, huddled together, wearing sleek one-piece suits, whispering at each other from behind manicured hands held up to their made-up faces.

And in a brief moment, they scattered, and some of the women --- and even a couple of the men --- started screaming and yelling. Up on the seawall a couple of cops and some firefighters began jogging toward me across the sand. The police had radio microphones in their hands and the firefighters were carrying a Stokes litter.

I dropped the rope and looked behind me, and then quickly looked back up at the seawall, knowing that I didn't want to get sick in front of all these people, though it seemed to be a marvelous idea.

For the diver had no head.

Or hands.

In about twenty minutes I was sitting against the concrete seawall, still on the beach side, and the overhanging curve of the concrete provided some shade. I had my T-shirt back on but my shoes were at my side, next to my binoculars. I was hot and my legs and feet were crusted with beach sand, and I could feel sand working its way up the wet openings of my shorts. The body of the diver was at the water's edge, now covered by a blanket, and a group consisting of Tyler police officers, firefighters, Diane Woods and another guy I didn't recognize were down there. One of the uniforms was busy taking pictures as another lifted up the blanket, and two other members of Tyler's finest were holding back the crowds. I was by myself, which was fine. I had talked a bit to the first uniforms at the scene and I waited for Diane Woods, the sole detective for Tyler, to come over to talk to me.

In the north the clouds were quite dark and I made out a bright flash of lightning. I started counting to myself, one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, and when I got up to ten, the low and long rumbling of thunder seemed to echo along the sands of the beach. About two miles away, and the clouds seemed to be heading south, toward these people and my resting place. I looked over and Diane was coming toward me, along with the guy in civilian clothes. She carried a clipboard in her hands and so did the guy. Diane had on workout sneakers and was wearing light green shorts, which I guess were long enough to be called culottes. She had on a white pullover shirt and she was wearing her detective's shield on a chain around her neck. I knew without asking that underneath that shirt and against her slim body was a holster and her revolver, a Ruger .357. Her thick light brown hair was cut shorter than its usual wedge shape and her skin had tanned nicely over the summer, except for the short white scar across her chin. That came from when she was a uniform and a drunk banged her head in the booking room at the Tyler police station.

Diane once told me that when no one was looking later that night in the police station, she had broken one of the drunk's fingers, and although she later laughed and told me that she had made the story up, I didn't believe her. Didn't believe her making the story up, that is.

When the guy came closer I realized who he was. Roger something. A State Police detective from Massachusetts, up to Tyler for a few weeks to see how their little neighbor to the north handles crime. For the first time in a long time, the governors of New Hampshire and Massachusetts were actually cooperating with each other --- instead of snarling about tolls, border liquor stores and out-of-state taxes --- and this detective's trip was one of the little exchange programs that were going on between the Granite State and the Bay State. When I last talked to Diane she had said, "The selectmen didn't like the idea of another detective coming aboard, Lewis, especially one from Massachusetts, but when they found out he was going to work for free, they practically offered him a full-time job. And don't laugh, but he's told me he likes it in Tyler so much he's thinking of applying for the chief's job. Jesus."