Away with the Fishes (12 page)

“She just happens to be from Glutton Hill, right near the bike accident. She also just happens to be missing, stupid girl. And she happens to be the girlfriend of Madison Fuller, who, as you know, owns a fishing boat, which is why the police have decided that he killed Rena and put an ad in
your
paper to find a new girl.”

“Fancy that!” Bruce exclaimed, genuinely delighted. He chuckled to himself, sure that no rainbow would grace his front page for a good long while.

“Don’t you see what this means?” Trevor tried to reason with him.

“It means I might sell a few papers is what it means.”

“What about Madison?”

“What about him?” Bruce asked.

“He’s the most honest man in Port-St. Luke,” Trevor argued. “I don’t believe for a minute that he killed Rena Baker or anyone else.”

“You’re probably right,” Bruce said, not sounding as though he cared either way.

“Will you say that in your story?”

“It wouldn’t be much in the way of journalism if I did, would it? Im-par-ti-al-i-ty,” he said. “That’s the key.” He wagged his pencil smartly at Trevor.

“You? Impartial?” Even as the words crossed his lips, Trevor knew he had crossed a line. Bruce was very defensive of his unique variety of news reporting.

“I don’t have to take this!” Bruce flipped closed his notepad and started to leave.

“Wait!” Trevor grabbed Bruce by the forearm. “I didn’t mean it. It’s just that this Madison business has me a little upset. The man is scared to death and the police seem hell-bent on making the charges stick.”

“So you insult me? How does that help matters?”

“Sorry for that. I was just implying that the
tone
of your story might sway public opinion. You know how highly respected you are on this island. If a hint that the police were off-base slipped into your story, it might go a long way in displacing some already misplaced guilt.” Trevor held his breath. Would Bruce fall for such obvious flattery?

“It is true that I’m very highly regarded,” Bruce replied. He would!

“I’m not saying I’m prepared to distort the facts,” he went on, “but I suppose it would be a shame to slander the character of a man like Madison.”

“Good man.” Trevor clapped Bruce on the back with a heavier hand than necessary. “There is one other thing you could do, you know.”

“I’ve just said I won’t distort the facts.”

“No, nothing like that. I mean the ad.”

“What ad?” Heavens, Bruce was slow to catch on sometimes!

“The lonely hearts ad. If you reveal who placed it, then that might clear Madison’s name.”

“I already told you all, I have no idea who placed it.”

Trevor was impatient, but treaded lightly. “Are you sure you couldn’t do a bit of fishing around and figure it out? You still have the man’s letter? You have the envelope he pushed under the door?”

Bruce thought for a minute, then uttered, “I’m not too sure.”

“Maybe you wouldn’t mind having a look,” Trevor suggested. “It might save Madison’s life. You, Bruce, might single-handedly save Madison’s life.”

“I’ll see what I can do. It’s late now. Let me go.” And off he went.

“Don’t forget, Bruce,” Trevor shouted, following him as he left the bakery. “A matter of life and death.” Bruce kept walking and, without looking back, waved his hand in the air.

Randolph pulled up in the bakery truck right then and saw Bruce leave. “Any luck, Dad?” he asked, as he slammed the door of the vehicle.

They entered the shop together just as Raoul reached the bakery in a taxi. (All the drivers knew Raoul and drove him for free, trips he repaid at the Belly with rounds of rum or beer.)

“Raoul!” Trevor said, surprised. “What are you doing here at this hour?” Though it wasn’t ever too late to find company or comfort at the bakery, it was unusual for Raoul to seek either at this time of night. Twice in three days meant something was up. “Trouble with the missus?”

“No, everything’s good,” Raoul said. Without explaining his private interest in the bicycle case, he added, “The police have been to see me. I was just wondering about this murder talk. What’s the word?”

“Good question,” Trevor said. He proceeded to recount to Randolph and Raoul the conversation he had had with Bruce. He told them he harbored little hope of learning the truth about the
ad, but he hoped he had made Bruce feel important enough to use his news story to Madison’s advantage. If not, however told, the story would serve its purpose. The islanders, at least those in town who knew Madison, would be outraged to see such an honest man accused. And, too, spreading word of Rena’s disappearance could only help Madison’s case. Somebody might have seen her, might know what happened or where she was.

Flimsy hopes, these, but maybe Bruce would surprise them.

There was little else to do, they all agreed, but await the morning edition, so Trevor and Randolph locked up the bakery and drove the bakery truck home, dropping Raoul at his cottage on the way. Tired and tense, Raoul crawled into bed and—lucky again!—succumbed to the still-awake and amorous Ms. Lila. When they had finished canoodling, he dozed in the crook of her arm, until at last even the moon succumbed to morning.

16

L
ittle Dagmore Bowles proved himself as resourceful a lad on sea as he had on shore. In no time he had endeared himself to his father’s crew for his skillfulness in ridding their ship of its rats. He achieved this remarkable feat by trapping the little pests in an equally remarkable web of homemade piping and tubes, and smoking them to near-death. Then he collected their dizzied bodies and flung them into the sea.

Captain Thomson Bowles couldn’t have been prouder. He immediately recognized in his brand new son the heir that his sea-searching heart had desired, and his little Dagmore’s rearing became the order of every day. The captain enlisted Enoch Bell, a scientist on board, to furnish the rudimentary elements of Dagmore’s education: reading and writing. It seemed implausible to the boy that Enoch’s markings in his leather notebook could have any correspondence to the words they spoke every day, but Dagmore played along, fearing it might be as easy to become
un
adopted and
un
-christened as it had been to become so. Dagmore enjoyed being a pirate son on the captain’s ship much more than he enjoyed being an orphan boy on an island.

Before long, his lessons with Enoch, which had begun as obligatory curiosities, became genuinely fascinating and pleasurable. Not only did Enoch’s markings begin to make sense under Dagmore’s pen, but Enoch himself was a wellspring of unimaginable tales. Enoch had been a seaman for a very long time, searching the corners of the globe for undocumented animals and plants. He was a prolific artist, too, and showed Dagmore all sorts of biological sketches with arrows and annotations and cross-sections colored and magnified. His stories were so engrossing that Dagmore happily practiced his alphabet and grammar, for it was his secret hope to assist Enoch in his note-taking at the ship’s next stop.

While Enoch sharpened Dagmore’s language skills, the deckhands honed his mathematics. They taught him all their favorite card games, which demanded that he count and add and subtract. They would have let him win, of course—he was the Captain’s son, after all—but this particular charity was not long required of them, for the boy showed an innate talent for calculations, both of the men’s hands and of their bluffs. Though he readily outsmarted them at cards, they trumped him in matters of life, about which he was only too eager to listen, peering into the men’s bragging faces with such awe and admiration that each felt as important as a king of hearts or diamonds.

To supplement the deckhands’ arithmetic and Enoch’s anatomical poetry, Captain Thomson Bowles took Dagmore under wing in the fields of geography, astronomy, navigation, and the sea. With spyglass, sextant, and globe, Thomson taught Dagmore about the earth and the heavens, following each lesson with a cup of tea and a lecture on men. He explained their whims and humors, their weaknesses and strengths. Whether it were easier to
dominate a man or a mountain (he told his son), he wasn’t sure. And a woman? Well, that was a different conundrum entirely.

Dagmore didn’t know women and conundrums from whisky and codfish, but no matter. Evening tea with his new father was the best part of the day. The Captain shared with him his finest stash of crumbly biscuits and allowed him to sweeten his tea with sugar or honey, according to his mood. He felt a right gentleman in the Captain’s quarters, with his leather shoes and china cup. He could hardly believe his luck.

One night as Dagmore and Thomson sat down to tea, Dagmore asked him, “Father, when can I be a pirate like you?”

“What are you talking about, son? I told you I’m not a pirate,” his father replied.

“What are you?”

“Some days I’m a merchant, some days an explorer. Mainly it’s this wretched sea that keeps me out here. Heaven knows what she hides from me, but I’d scour her very depths if I could.” He gazed out at the water through the porthole in his cabin, for what felt to Quick, or rather Dagmore, like a very long time.

“Sir?”

The Captain turned his eyes back to those of his son. “But of course, I can’t do that,” he smiled. “Instead, I’ll just cross her end to end and find what I find.”

“So you’re a seaman?” Dagmore suggested.

“Yes, you could say that. And when I get back home every so often, people like to hear about all the marvels I’ve come across and the riches I’ve found.” His eyes drifted away again.

“Will I be a seaman, too, father?”

“For a while. But you’re a smart boy, son, and you have to study. We’ll have to send you to school. You might want to learn
about engineering or biology or history. A smart man like you can’t spend his life arguing with the wind and the waves, can he?”

“No sir,” Dagmore agreed, his little heart sinking into the pit of his stomach. He didn’t know exactly what school his father had in mind, but he didn’t see how attending one could mean anything short of separation from this man he had already grown to love. Dagmore could simply not allow it.

While his father’s tired gaze drifted back to the sea, Dagmore got up and poured him some brandy. Captain Thomson downed the shot in one gulp, then patted the boy on the back and gently pulled him onto his knee. In silence they both watched the black water, and Dagmore reached a decision: to be the best seaman ever. From that moment on he would make himself so useful—no, utterly indispensable, he planned to be—that not only would the captain never agree to his going off to some lonely school, but he would forget the idea altogether!

The next day Dagmore put his plan into action. Always an obedient and helpful child, he became as if possessed by an unrelenting will. He swabbed the deck and assisted the cook with breakfast, then he washed and dressed and met Enoch for his daily lessons. Only on
this
day, he had little interest in calligraphy and spelling. He wouldn’t give Enoch a moment’s peace until the man agreed to explain to him every last one of his biological annotations, even the ones in Latin. Dagmore knew that, sooner or later, the ship would have to land somewhere, and when it did, he intended to be the pride of the landing party, observing more astutely than anyone else. He would even ask the Captain for his very own book in which to take notes and draw sketches.