Primary Storm (38 page)

But we never made it there.

This is how it happened.

By now I was drowsy, for having been up so early, and having taken the anti-motion sickness pill, and I stretched out on the padded bench in the wheelhouse to rest my eyes.  Bert had gone forward, to sun himself from the squat bow of the boat, while Jack worked the steering and listened to the radio.  The idle chatter on the radio from other fisherman out there, the drone of the diesels, and the gentle rise and fall of the boat made my eyes heavy, so I stretched out, pulled my baseball cap down over my eyes, and dozed, though at one point, I made out a change in the pitch of the engine, as he adjusted the speed.  Still, I kept my eyes closed.

I know, dozing while doing a story.  Probably grounds for being put in front of a firing squad of opinion columnists from the
New York Times
, if any of them could be bothered to put their precious hands around a firearm, but I was tired, I had taken scores of photos, and filled a half notebook with my interviews with Jack and Bert.  I had enough information to write a novella, no matter a newspaper story, and about then I was really falling asleep, and –

A thump.

Jack’s voice, “What the --?”

And then a slam, as he pulled open the sliding door and I heard him yelling, “Bert!  Bert!  Where the hell are you?”

Now I was sitting up, rubbing at my face, as Jack flew back into the wheelhouse, slammed the throttles to neutral and looked at me, face white.  “Bert’s fallen off.  I can’t spot him!”

I scrambled off the bench and came out to follow Jack, as he moved around the bow, leaning over, and he turned to me and said, “He stood up and we hit a wave.  He fell off.  I think he hit his head on the way over.  Hey, Bert!  Bert!”

No answer.

I didn’t know what to say, what to do, and Jack looked to me and said, “Run aft, grab a life ring, tell me if you see anything.  Hurry!”

I made my way back to the stern, as quick as possible, taking an orange life ring off the side of the wheelhouse – it said F/V Helen H Tyler N.H. in big black letters – and looked along the side, and to the rear.

Nothing.

Just swells of dark gray water.

A yell from up forward.  “Do you see anything?”

“No!” I yelled back, the life ring heavy and awkward in my hand, still looking out onto the waters, part of me thinking, nope, this can’t be happening, this so cannot be happening, Bert has to pop up in a second or two, wave in my direction, so I can toss the ring out, nope, this cannot be happening.

He couldn’t be gone, just like that.

I heard Jack moving back into the wheelhouse and I dropped the life ring on the stern and joined him, as he brought down the microphone to his radio, spun the dial to a certain channel, and started speaking in a slow, clear voice, “Porter Coast Guard, Porter Coast Guard, this is fishing vessel
Helen H
., fishing vessel
Helen H
., we have a man overboard at coordinates –“ and then he looked at another display, a little GPS screen by the fishfinder, and Jack read off the longitude and latitude, and repeated his message “- Porter Coast Guard, Porter Coast Guard, this is fishing vessel
Helen H
., fishing vessel
Helen H
., we have a man overboard…”

Then the Coast Guard came back to him, acknowledging the message.  Jack put the microphone down for a second, reached under the console, slapped a pair of black binoculars in my hands.  Jack looked again to me, face still pale, and said, “I’m going to motor in a slow circle, keep within the coordinates… go out on the bow and keep a sharp eye.  Okay?  Damn it, maybe I ran him down, chewed him up with the prop, damn it… Look, yell out if you see something, anything, even if it looks like a scrap of cloth.  Go!”

So there I was, no longer a newspaper reporter, but an unwitting member of the
Helen H
. crew, and I stood out there on the bow, binoculars in hand, looking out at the slowly moving but oh so unforgiving ocean.

Nothing.

My heart was hammering so hard I thought my throat would choke up, as Jack moved the fishing boat in a slow circle, as I scanned the waters, seeing nothing, nothing at all.

After a while other boats began to appear, lobster boats and stern trawlers like the
Helen H
., and even a couple of fishing party boats, chock full of scores of tourists, leaning over the railings, all of us looking for poor Bert.   No doubt the other craft had heard Jack’s message, and had motored over to help, for at least out here on the ocean, the basic rules of survival and assistance still ruled.

The binoculars seemed to grow heavier with every passing minute, and still, none of us could find a thing.  Despite it all, I took photos after photos, while still using the binoculars to scan the waters.  In a while a bright orange and white helicopter from the Coast Guard station up the coast at Porter arrived, scanning from overhead, and eventually it was joined by a small patrol boat, but even the intercession of the Coast Guard couldn’t help.

Bert was gone.

And as the day dragged on, Jack in his wheelhouse with his thoughts, and me out on the bow with my own, I looked down and against the dull white fiberglass, saw a smear of brown.

A bloodstain, where poor Bert had struck his head while going overboard.

I stood there, legs trembling, knowing that somehow I would have to write this story up, and not sure if I had it in me.

As dusk fell, we motored back to Tyler Harbor.  I sat on the padded bench, exhausted, legs and hands trembling, and Jack kept quiet, just staring ahead.  Only once did he say anything, when he shook his head and said, “God… at least he has no family… nobody I have to tell… sweet Jesus…”

We went through the channel to the harbor, from where we had motored out more than twelve hours ago, and I suppose I should have been hungry or thirsty, but I was just so damn tired.  I just wanted to make it to the dock, climb in my Kia, and drive to my little one room apartment and just collapse.

But other people had other plans.

There was a crowd at the dock as we approached, and the flashing lights of police cruisers, and the harsh glare of a camera-held light that meant a television crew had arrived.  I was with Jack and he just muttered, “Shit,” as we motored up to the dock.  He looked to me and grabbed my hands and said, “Look, usually… Bert, he handles the lines.. but I’m going to need your help.  Just hold the wheel steady and when I yell out, ‘Now!’, pull the throttle back to here, neutral.  Got it?”

What I got was a strong feeling that I wished the entire day hadn’t happened, but I nodded and he went outside, and I held the wheel and I saw him toss out mooring lines to eager men on the dock, wanting to help.  Then I heard him yell out, “Now!” and I pulled the throttle back to neutral, just like he said.  Jack came back and his eyes were red-rimmed, like he had been quietly weeping on the way back into the harbor.  He just stood there for a moment, shook his head, and said, “Now the real fun begins.”

By now there was a scrum of people on the boat, talking, questioning, hugging Jack, and I saw a familiar face, a woman I had never met before, but the woman in the photo in the wheelhouse, one Helen, whom the boat was named after.  She gave Jack a big hug and I saw his shoulders shake, and I couldn’t wait to get the hell off that boat.  I grabbed my gear and stepped up out onto the dock, my legs quivering as I was on stable land, and I went to my Kia and opened the passenger side door and tossed my gear in, and I closed the door and was going around to the other side, when I was stopped,

By a Tyler police officer, in a dark green uniform.

He was quite polite.  “Ma’am, you were on the boat, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, I was.”

“Then my detective wants to talk to you.  Will you come here, please?”

“Sure.”  I was too tired to do almost anything else.

He led me through the thinning crowd of people, to a dark blue Ford LTD with a whip antenna that was parked next to the Harley Davidson that was Bert’s… and God knows who would ride that motorcycle again, and though I had just met him that day and hadn’t particularly liked him much, I still found myself tearing up some.  The guy had been alive just a few hours ago, and now he was probably dead, and I had been through it all, and I was the last woman he had ever seen, or spoken too, and I had a flash of regret, that maybe I should have been nicer to him.

At the rear of the LTD, writing notes on a paper-cluttered metal clipboard, was a woman about fifteen or so years older than me.  She had short brown hair down up in some sort of bobbed haircut that looked a decade or two out of date, and she was wearing black slacks, white blouse and a short brown leather jacket.  She looked up at me and I spotted a thin white scar on the bottom of her chin.

“You’re Jenny Wilson, right?  The intern from the
Chronicle
?”

“Yeah,” I said.

She held out her hand, which I shook.  “Detective Diane Woods, Tyler police department.  You were on the boat when Bert Comstock fell overboard, am I right?”

So far, two for two, but her face was set and she didn’t look like one for joking.  So I nodded and said, “That’s right.”

“I need a few minutes to talk to you.”

And I needed a few days to put this whole bloody day behind me, but I just wanted to get it over with, and I nodded again.

“Good.  About what time did he fall off?”

“About ten a.m.  It was after they had gotten their first load of the day.  Jack was heading out to another fishing area when Bert… when Bert fell in.”

She made a few notes and said “unh-hunh,” and asked, “And where were you when he fell in?”

“In the wheelhouse.”

“And Jack?”

“He was in the captain’s chair, steering the boat.”

“Did you see Bert fall in?”

“No, I didn’t.”

She stared at me.  “But you were in the wheelhouse.”

“Yeah, but I was… damn, I was tired.  I had been on the boat since four a.m., I had taken some anti motion-sickness medicine, and I got sleepy.  There’s a padded bench in the wheelhouse.  That’s where I stretched out.”

“So you didn’t see anything.”

I bit my lip for a moment.  “That’s what I said.  I didn’t see anything.”

“Did you hear anything?”

“Yeah, I did,” I said.  “There was a thump I heard from up forward.  And then I heard Jack start yelling, and he went out to look for Bert, and I followed.”

“And did you see anything in the water?”

“No, not a thing.”

“Really?  He wasn’t wearing a life jacket?”

I rubbed my hands together.  Damn, I was tired.  “They’re fishermen… I think… I think it’s a point of pride for them, that they don’t wear lifejackets.  And Jack thought… well, he thought maybe he had run him over, that the propeller had struck him.”

More scribbles in the clipboard.  “I see… anything else you think I should know?”

I thought for a bit and said, “Blood.”

“Blood?”

“Yeah, there was blood on the bow.  Where he hit his head when he fell off.”

“Thanks, that’s good to know.”

I yawned.  “Look… I’ve had a hell of a day.  All right if I head out?”

She went back to her clipboard.  “Sure… oh, one more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you take any photos while you were out there?”

“Sure.”

“And took notes, I’m sure.”

I was quickly becoming more awake.  I didn’t like where this was going.  “Of course I took notes.  Lots of notes.”

Her face was set.  “I’m sorry.  I’m going to need to look at your notes, and your photos.  As part of the investigation.”

I spoke without thinking.  “No.”

“Excuse me?”

I shook my head.  “No.  No way.  You’re not seeing my notes, or my photos.  First Amendment and all that, detective.”

It seemed like the white scar on her chin was getting whiter.  She said, “And this is a serious business, and I’m investigating an untimely death, and all that, Miss Intern.  So I want your notes, and your photos.”

“You’re not getting them.”

“I could arrest you, you know.  For interfering in a police investigation.”

“Do what you have to do,” I said.  “Because I’m going to do what I have to do.”

She smiled, a not-so-friendly smile that chilled me.  “Your choice, then.”

I guess so.

And you know what?

They really do say, “watch your head,” when they’re putting you in a police cruiser, after having put those very heavy and very cold handcuffs on your wrists.

An hour later I was in a cell on the first floor of the Tyler police station, about a five minute drive from the harbor.  I was put in the rear of a police cruiser and brought over, and through the entire booking process, they were quite polite, taking down my name and personal information, taking my fingerprints and a mug shot.  It seemed like a big giant joke until it came time for the strip search.