Old School Bones (27 page)

“SHE really loved it here on Lighthouse Beach,” says Ronnie. “I’m glad you could come. I wanted to thank you for everything you did for me and my sister.”

“I just tried to help.” What else can I say? I’m goddamn dying inside?

“Aquinnah was ground zero for her. But this beach, Chatham, she never got enough of them when we were living out here as school kids. She adored the seals in the winter and spring.”

He nods, tries to keep pace with the big Indian striding south at water’s edge. Thinks about when he lived over Alice Patterson’s liquor store on Main Street, used to walk this beach. “Me too.”

He feels the hot sun, southerly breeze on his cheeks, thinks about when he was last here to clear his head. Back in March. The pair of gray seals basking together on a pillow of sand, nuzzling. Nipping. How he felt the urge to bark at them. Feels it again now. Even though the seals are long gone. Following the herring north to colder waters … It’s late June, after all. The solstice. Summer people—couples, families, teenage
au pairs
with toddlers—replacing the play of seals here on the beach.

“What are you going to do now that the feds dropped your case, Ronnie?”

The Indian shrugs. “I’ve hauled my pots. Since I got no house anymore, I figure I’ll go fishing for a while. I got a site on a sword boat out of Hyannis. We leave Wednesday afternoon with the tide.”

He pictures the
Andrea Gail,
her crew. Lost at sea.
The Perfect Storm.
Not George Clooney, not actors in a movie. The guys. Real fishermen. Pros. His father and Tio Tommy met them once at the Crow’s Nest in Gloucester when the
Rosa Lee
had come in from fishing Jeffries to repair the ice machine.

“Tough guy, huh, longlining?”

“Oh yeah. Maybe it will keep me out of trouble … They’re starting up a twelve-step thing for Iraq War vets in Hyannis. I’m going to try it out when I get back ashore.”

“I hear it can help.”

The Indian shrugs. “You fishing again?”

“We just got back. Sold off the catch at Friday’s auction. I’m rich for a week. Then we go back out. Summertime. Fish when you can.”

“Going to stick with it? Take over your old man’s boat?”

“He’ll never give it up. And my Tio Tommy’s mate-in-perpetuity. So … I don’t know. I got to find something. You and I got this cop friend says I ought to stay away from the law, claims it’ll kill me sooner or later.”

“What do you think?”

“I got a pretty toxic score card the last couple of years.”

“She wouldn’t have cared.”

“What?”

“Awasha. She would have stuck by you. Lawyering, fishing, whatever. You were the one she had always been looking for. I could tell!”

He’s stuck for words again. Can’t say the crazy shit running through his head.
If only I had brought the cops in sooner as Lou had

suggested. Maybe the lab would have found Danny Pasteur’s prints on the can of Red Bull earlier …

Maybe the cops would have searched her apartment at Beedle Cottage and found the vial of GHB she hid under the bathroom sink …

Maybe before anybody else got hurt, some real detective would have found a way to prove Denise lured Liberty into Awasha’s apartment with an offer of Red Bull and sympathy. Then killed her to keep her quiet.

Maybe I wouldn’t have to live with this riptide in my chest. This
saudade.
This compulsion to bark until my voice is gone …

“You believe in ghosts, Michael? What the old Wampanoags call
tcipai?”

Suddenly she’s there. He sees her.

Almost close enough for shouting. Down the beach fifty yards, where the tide pools are filling with the silver sea. Her cheeks sparkling with brine. The wind lifting strands of black hair off her back. She stands in the bright sun balancing between land and sea … in her yellow fleece pullover. Jeans. One hand on her waist, her eyes fixed on a collage of black shapes slewing, tumbling in the waves in Pleasant Bay. Seals. A congregation of seals …

“Michael, ghosts?”

“I carry my share.”

“You think they’re ever any good? You know, any use to us?”

He can hear the shudders of pain in Ronnie’s voice. But his eyes are still on the seals, on her.

“Yeah … I have to. Have to believe ghosts are not just here to torment us. Why? Why do you want to know if I believe in ghosts?”

Ronnie stops. Shuffles his feet in the sand. Looks out. Maybe sees the seals. Smiles. “There was a girl once …”

“Tell me about it.”