The Cove (20 page)

“I don’t mean to be prying into your personal life, Ben. I really don’t. But I understand you’ve been seeing a certain lady.”

Ben was stunned. He drew his head back and looked at Mrs. Appleby with wide eyes. It took him a few moments to shift gears from his mother to Julia. “What are you …? No.
Ahh
— yes. I mean … What does this have to —?”

Mrs. Appleby cut him off by placing her hand on his arm above the elbow and squeezing hard enough to hurt. Her face was earnest and intense as she drew closer.

“It’s your sister —”

“Louise?”

Mrs. Appleby nodded tightly.

“Her husband, Tommy Marshall … He’s been
cheatin
’ on her.”

Ben scowled and shook his head.

“I don’t see where this has anything to do with my — “

But he stopped before he finished the thought. In a flash, something clicked into place, and he thought he caught her drift.

“Are we talking about my sister or Julia Meadows?”

“That woman you’ve been seeing? Miss Meadows? She’s a nice enough person, I suppose, but — well, I saw something out by her house the other night on my way home from work that got me to wondering.”

“You think she —” He wanted to put this as delicately as possible for a woman of Mrs. Appleby’s generation. “She’s been having an affair … with Tom Marshall?”

“I don’t think,” Mrs. Appleby said. “I
know.
”

Ben’s suspicions suddenly became reality. The idea of Julia doing the same things with Tom that she had done with him yesterday on the beach made his stomach churn. And the idea that Tom would have the balls to approach
him
to get a connection to sell the coke so he could take off with Julia and leave Louise ...

A vein began to throb in his temple.

“Are you positive, Mrs. Appleby?”

But Mrs. Appleby stared at him with wide eyes and shook her head firmly.

“He was creeping around outside her house the other night, ’n when I talked to him, he acted like a cat who ate the canary, all guilty and such.” She took a wheezing breath as though winded from telling him all of this. “I’m telling you just
so’s
you can … I don’t know. Do what you have to do. I know if Tommy was cheating on your sister ’n your mother ever found out? T’ would break her heart,
t’would
.”

“You and I both know my mother’s not really capable of understanding much of anything,” Ben said, feeling a stab in his heart even as he spoke the words.

“Don’t say that about your mother,” Mrs. Appleby said, sounding like a Sunday school teacher scolding a child. Tears gathered in her eyes, and it was obvious Mrs. Appleby was sad as much for herself as she was for his mother.

He nodded, chastised, but he was already mentally shuffling through numerous possible scenarios. He wasn’t sure what he should do with this information if it was true.

The first thing he had to do was find out if Julia had been messing around with Tom.

And if she still was …

After that —?

Well, he’d have to see.

But in an instant, his impression of Julia Meadows changed, and not for the better. He had surprised himself, the way he was falling for her so fast, but now he was conflicted t about his feelings for her.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Mrs. Appleby said.

“You didn’t upset me, Mrs. A.,” Ben said, knowing he was lying and hoping she wouldn’t see it. He patted her reassuringly on the shoulder. “I’ll have to see what’s what.”

Blinking back her tears, Mrs. Appleby gave him a sympathetic look as they locked eyes.

“I thought you should know before … you know, before something happens. That’s all.”

“Absolutely. I understand. Totally. Thank you for telling me.”

“You know what good friends your mother and I were …
are
, and I … I don’t want anything bad to happen to your family.”

It’s a little late for that,
Ben thought, but he didn’t say it as he and Mrs. Appleby started walking down the corridor side by side toward the TV room. Before they got there, Ben happened to glance out the large bay window that looked out over the backyard. His mother, wearing a floral bathrobe, was walking across the wide expanse of lawn out behind the nursing home. Not far away was a sloping hill, leading to a bluff that overlooked the ocean.

“What’s she doing out there?” Ben asked. He watched her for a few seconds but then felt a jolt of panic when he realized his mother was unsupervised. As far as he could see, there was no attendant nearby.

Mrs. Appleby looked to where Ben was pointing. When she saw Lilly, her expression froze for a moment and then shifted into one of shock.

“Oh, gosh,” she said, glancing quickly at Ben. Then she started walking briskly toward the nearest exit. “How the dickens did she get out there? The alarm on the door should have sounded the instant she opened it.”

T
he mournful sound of the foghorn on Ram Island carried eerily through the dense fog. Between blasts, an eerie silence prevailed. The air was warm and heavy; the pewter gray sea was calm and flat, scored only by the expanding rings of black ripples the
Abby-Rose
made as she bobbed like a cork in the water.

Capt’n
Wally’s mood had not improved. He’d lost his favorite knife overboard — a knife he’d had for twenty years or more. He’d foolishly left it on the gunwales while he was trying to unsnarl a rope that was jammed in the winch. At least so far, anyway, the day’s catch had been decent. The work sure would have gone better with a
sternman
to help out, but apparently his two sons had better things to do than help out their old man.

Telling himself to stop ruminating over things which he couldn’t control, he started up the engine and headed in a south-easterly direction. He’d haul traps along the way, and if he saw a trawler out near The Nephews, then maybe he’d come aside and see what was up with them.

Wally much preferred being out on the open ocean rather than on land. Here, he didn’t have to answer to anybody or put up with any bullshit. Here, he was master and commander. But it galled him no end to know that he wasn’t really doing what he wanted to do. Being all but ordered out to The Nephews to do grunt work for Richie Sullivan wasn’t his idea of not having to deal with other people’s bullshit.

Finding the trawler in the pea soup fog was going to be a trick. He leaned forward over the wheel, staring at the dense wall of gray in front of him. Looking sternward, he could barely make out his wake in the water. If the rising price of fuel weren’t cutting into his profits so deeply, he wouldn’t be doing this. He wouldn’t be Richie Sullivan’s or anyone else’s errand boy.

He spotted another of his buoys and pulled up alongside it. Cutting the engine, he timed it perfectly so he drifted up close to the buoy and hooked it with a gaff. After running the rope over the winch wheel, he started it up. Beads of water squeezed out of the rope like he was wringing out a sponge as he raised the lobster trap from the ocean floor. When it broke surface, he rested it on the gunwales, glad to see a dark mass flapping around inside the trap.

He had something.

After scraping off the kelp and seaweed that clung to the trap, he opened the door and dug out a solitary lobster. He scowled at the dark mass of eggs on the lobster’s underside.

“
Fuckin
’ berries,” he muttered. It was standard to cut a “V” notch into the end of the lobster’s tail to mark it as a fertile female so no one else would harvest it. As he reached down to his belt for his knife, though, he swore and spit over the side of the boat when he remembered losing it overboard.

Carrying the lobster into the wheelhouse, he fished around in his toolbox until he found a pair of tin snips, which he used to mark the lobster.

“Goddamned good
fuckin
’ luck,” he muttered as he casually tossed the lobster over his shoulder. Just then the Ram Island foghorn sounded, drowning out the splashing sound the lobster made when it hit the water.

Wally re-baited the trap and dropped it over the side, watching it sink slowly into the dark depths. Then he powered up to look for his next buoy. The further out he went, the heavier the seas became. The boat slapped the heaving waves, and every now and then a salty spray splattered against the wheelhouse window.

Wally was surprised when, without warning, the dark bulk of The Nephews came into view on his starboard side. In the heavy fog and the mainland long out of sight, he hadn’t realized he’d already made it out this far. He heaved quickly to port to avoid the rocks on the southern point of the island that appeared in the water like shark’s teeth at low tide. Many a boat had run aground on those rocks and gone under.

All thoughts of
lobstering
left his mind as he scanned the thick fog for any indication of the trawler. He might as well have had his eyes closed, for all he could see. The wall of fog was growing denser. The sound of the foghorn was muffled as though wrapped in cotton.

If the captain of the trawler had any sense, he wouldn’t be out here in fog this thick, but then again, these fishermen were a tough bunch, and they were interested in profit a lot more than their personal safety. If Richie said they’d be here today, they’d be here.

Powering down and motoring slowly, Wally circled the island on the starboard side, giving the point of land and rocks a wide margin of safety. His eyes ached from staring so long into the fog, and he doubted the trawler was anywhere nearby.

Maybe they weren’t coming … or had already come and gone.

Maybe Richie was busting his balls for not making the pickup the other night and sending him on a wild goose chase.

Maybe he should say
Fuck it!
and head back to the harbor.

And maybe he would tell Richie Sullivan to stuff it where the sun don’t shine because he wasn’t going to risk his life and another boat to pick up a fucking bale or two of weed.

But if he did that, his life wouldn’t necessarily be in danger, but things could happen that might make his life and livelihood a lot harder.

Wally was fuming, and not just about his knife as he came around the tip of the island and headed south, keeping the island in sight on the starboard side. The lonely cry of seagulls, unseen on the rocks above the heaving water, drifted to him. Off to port, so close he almost could have reached out and touched them, was a raft of eider ducks, riding the heaving swells. They started squawking and swam out of the way as he motored past them, but they didn’t fly off.

He was rounding the southern tip of the island when the huge, indistinct shape of a ship loomed out of the fog off his starboard bow. Wally eased up on the engine and approached the ship with caution, waiting until he was positive it was the trawler he was looking for, not a Coast Guard cutter, before he hailed it.

There was a flurry of activity on the deck, the indistinct shapes of men moving about. Then a man approached the port railing and called out, “Ahoy there, captain.”

Wally recognized the man’s voice immediately. It was Ernie
Favaza
, a grizzled old pirate out of Gloucester who ran his trawler to the Georges Banks and Flemish Cap only when there weren’t more lucrative opportunities closer to home. Behind him, on the deck, members of his crew — it looked like four people — were moving about.

“Finest kind,” Wally called out. “’S that you, Ernie?” He felt a measure of relief when he finally saw the name
Sally Girl
stenciled on the rusted side of the boat.

“Sure as shit is,” Ernie called back. “You were expecting the Pope?”

He and Wally had done enough business over the years to be friendly with each other, but they had only encountered each other in circumstances like this. It was a good idea, as the seamen said, not to “shit where you eat.” When you’re running drugs from Mexico or Colombia, it’s best not to know your contacts on a personal level. People in government would call it “plausible deniability.” Fishermen called it common sense.

“I understand you have something you want me to deliver,” Wally said.

“Got it for you right
ch’ere
.”

Even as he was speaking, two of the crew, young men wearing heavy-weather gear, shifted two bundles toward the railing. The bundles were wrapped in black plastic that glistened in the moist air. Another man threw a length of rope down to the deck of the
Abby-Rose
, and Wally quickly tied off. Both boats heaved up and down. This far out, the swells were heavier, but the men worked quickly and efficiently. They dropped the bales, each weighing about a hundred pounds, onto Wally’s deck. They landed with a dull thud that sounded like cannons in the distance.

“That it?” Wally called up as he shifted the bales to the stern and placed a few bags of rock salt on top of them.

“’
S’all
for now,” Ernie replied.

“
Catch’cha
later, then,” Wally said.

He quickly cast off, revved his engine, and pulled away, staying clear of the trawler’s bow. The boats had drifted with the current during the transfer, and he was now a considerable distance further south of The Nephews. Still, he didn’t trust the electronic navigation equipment half as much as his own sense of direction as he made a heading for Horse Head Cove, an isolated cove about ten miles north of town where he was supposed to meet his contacts.