Still Water (2 page)

At first there was nothing but shadows, but then a shape to her right gained substance. A figure stood motionless on the path, no more than six or seven feet away from her. A gust of wind moaned softly in the branches of old trees and moonlight seeped into a revealed space. Ella recognized Kate Little and drew in her breath.

For an instant they stared at one another, then a cloud passed across the face of the moon and the path was cloaked in darkness again. Ella heard footsteps fading, and once again the path was empty.

Seconds passed that seemed more like minutes. Ella remembered to breathe and she exhaled in a soft whoosh of breath. Her heart was beating like a hammer against her chest. At last, not knowing what else to do, she reached for the bundle at her feet and once again commenced dragging it through the trees towards her boat.

The Osprey was making seven knots through the swell, heading north-east from Sanctuary Harbor. She was a dragger, one of several that worked from Sanctuary. She was an old steel hulled vessel, forty-eight feet long and built on the Cape in the fifties for working the once rich cod fisheries of Stellwagen Bank. Now she fished mainly for bluefish and stripers, working in the waters ten to fifty miles off the island. Her sides were rust streaked, and her forecastle was so coated with grime it was hard to tell what colour she had once been painted.

Her skipper, Carl Johnson, was in the wheel-house listening to a radio station playing country music down low. Suddenly, over the twang of steel guitars and the mournful voice of Tammy Wynette, he heard what sounded like a rifle shot above the steady but muted thump of the diesel engines. He looked towards the island, and the faint white smudge of the reef that protected the entrance to Stillwater Cove. He reached for the throttle to drop the engine revs, but as he did so, Billy Pierce started up the winch on the deck and for nearly a minute Carl couldn’t hear a thing except the clank and grind of machinery. When it was over, the Osprey was riding the swell, the engine just idling.

“How come we stopped?” Billy shouted from the deck.

Thought I heard something.”

Billy looked across the water where Carl was gazing. “What was it?”

“Dunno. Nuthin maybe.” Carl shrugged.

He turned his attention back to their heading, and as he did his eye fell to the bottom sounder. A cluster of black dots showed that a large school of fish was moving eastward off their bow. He cranked up the throttle, watching the screen while he altered course.

“We got something’ down there,” he called out.

Billy looked up at him. “What is it?”

Carl frowned, his eye on the screen. “Could be mackerel.” He wasn’t certain. The readings looked as if the fish might be big. It was all mixed up. Maybe mackerel and something else.

The Osprey was at full throttle now and she ploughed through the water, the bow waves glowing in the dark. Carl had completely forgotten about the shot he’d heard earlier. He called down to Billy to start putting out the net. He glanced at his watch. It was a little after two.

At three seventeen Ella took the Santorini out of the cove. She was in complete darkness, running without lights against all sense and marine codes. Overhead the promised cloud had at last begun to thicken and drift in from the east, and now and then the moon was obscured. Ella hugged close to the southern shore, moving slowly, her eyes on the white foam of the reef. On a night like this, with the weather clear and calm, she was safe, but even so she was aware of the muted crash and roar of the ocean as it pounded the reef and the distant cliffs. A memory of her father’s boat flashed in her mind, wrecked on the rocks here six months ago during a storm. It had broken up, battered by ferocious seas. She gripped the wheel tightly, and bit down on her lower lip, shoving the memory of that night from her mind.

Once clear of the cove she picked up speed. She watched the lights of a fishing boat briefly, but it appeared to be heading away from her. The looming mass of the island receded, though when she looked Ella could see a faint yellow glow from a house on the point. Maybe it was Kate Little’s house. When she was a quarter-mile out from the island, over the channel, Ella cut the engine and the night settled into silence. Her eye fell to the shape lying in the dark shadow of the railing, and dismissing all thoughts of Kate, Ella went to work.

It was some time before she became aware of the sound of an engine. She snapped to, aware she’d been lost in thought. A dragger with its running lights on approached out of the darkness off her bow. She wiped away tears that had run silently across her cheeks.

The note of the dragger’s engine changed pitch and slowed and Ella knew that she’d been seen. As it came closer she recognized the Osprey, and she could even see the silhouette of Carl Johnson in the wheel-house. In her own wheel-house the radio crackled.

Ella hesitated, then ducked inside and switched on her mast light. She picked up her radio mike.

She took a breath and hoped her voice wouldn’t sound shaky. “Hi Carl. Is that you there?”

“Yeah, Ella. Everything okay with you?”

“Sure, no problem.”

There was a pause. “You weren’t showing any lights. Thought something might have happened.”

His curiosity was edged with concern, and she did her best to lighten her tone. “It was just a loose connection. I fixed it. Everything’s fine now.” She clicked off the mike, watching the Osprey drifting closer. She glanced towards the davit and the hauler, and waited to see what Carl would do. A couple of seconds went by and then she made a decision and clicked on her mike.

“See you later Carl.” She started up the engine and turning the wheel brought the Santorini about as if she was heading back towards the harbour. Carl held his course for a couple more seconds, then the pitch of his engine altered and the Osprey turned eastward.

“Have a good night,” Carl said.

“You too.” She clicked off the mike and released her breath, her heart thumping. Only when she was sure that the Osprey was well away did she cut back her engine.

This time she worked quickly. She took a knife and severed the line that ran to the hauler, and there followed a splash, and then silence, and the water was black and still again.

The smell of wood smoke drifted over the fence. Henry came out on his porch, and called over. “You there Matt?”

Henry was Matt’s neighbour. He was around seventy, a little dark-skinned guy with Portuguese roots. The day Matt had moved into his house three months earlier, Henry had come over with a present of a bluefish he’d caught from the little fifteen-foot crabber he went out in most days, and ever since he’d been convinced Matt liked fish as much as he did himself. “Got some mackerel smokin’. You want one for your breakfast? They’re good eating.”

“I already ate,” Matt said from his porch. The two houses occupied a clearing on a steep part of the hill overlooking the town. Henry appeared where the fence ended. A strip of grass separated the two properties. A dusty road led down between the trees and eventually came out on to Valley Hill which was the main route into town. “I’ll save a couple of fat ones for your supper.” “Thanks Henry. You want anything from town today?” “Maybe some tobacco if you’ve got a minute.” Henry rarely went into town himself. He kept his boat in a rocky bay on the southern tip of the island, and when he wasn’t fishing he was tending to his orchard and the new cider press he was building, which was mostly funded by the investment Matt had made in the venture. Though the amount was small it represented pretty much all the money Matt had. Henry’s cider was the best Matt had ever tasted, and together they planned to bottle it and sell it on the mainland. From small beginnings, as the saying goes.

Henryjoined Matt on the porch. He was wearing jeans and the same shirt with its long faded pattern that he wore on most days. He had kind of a bandy legged gait, and friendly eyes. The lingering whiff of fish and smoke accompanied him wherever he went.

“There’s coffee on the stove if you want some,” Matt said.

Henry went inside and reappeared with a mug. They both looked out on the harbour, and the gulf beyond. The sea was coloured aqua, mottled in shades of light and dark, sometimes approaching emerald, until in the distance it changed, becoming a deeper almost midnight blue where the temperature changed. Already there were boats dotted about, some from St. George and others from nearby islands or the coast. Bass Harbor and Penobscot Bay lay to the north; to the far south; the Cape.

“That’s a nice suit,” Henry observed.

It was dark blue, one of half a dozen usually hanging in the closet from Matt’s days as a prosecutor for the DA’s office in Boston. It was the first time he’d worn a suit since moving to the island and he already felt selfconscious about it.

“I have to see a client today,” he lied.

“Uh huh.” Henry sipped his coffee. “You goin’ to that meeting tonight?”

“I thought I might.”

“Guess you’ll be seeing Ella Young there.”

“I guess I will.” Matt wondered if the suit had been such a good idea after all. If it was so apparent to Henry that his intention was to make an impression on Ella, then he supposed she would see through him as well. “It’s going to be hot again,” he said changing the subject.

“Yep.” Though Henry made no other comment his eyes shone with mild amusement.

The woods behind them were mainly oak and maple, with some firs further up. To the west, over the ridge, it was mainly cedar. Much of the island was covered with woods and cranberry bog. Though there were several villages and a sprinkling of farms in the north, Sanctuary Harbor was the only town of any note. The island attracted a few summer people, some of whom had built big houses on the point. Matt’s own family had once owned a place there, where they had spent summer vacations. The rest of the year home had been Boston, where Matt’s father had run a successful law practice and his mother had occupied herself playing tennis and getting herself elected to the boards of various charities.

The island hadn’t changed much. Its economy was based on fishing and the service industry around it. It was a working town. Unlike some other islands in the gulf, St. George attracted few tourists, and those it did attract came for that very reason. The few hotels and guest houses were clean and comfortable but they were rarely full. The stores in town catered primarily to the local population, and there was an absence of tourist trinkets and home crafts except for some scrimshaw, an art which was still practised, but these days by few. The bones they used to carve their sailing ships and intricate figures were from the occasional dead minke that beached itself somewhere around the island. The cottages on the hillside seemed to sag under the weight of their years and many could have used a lick of paint. Matt’s mother would have preferred a vacation home on the Vineyard or Nantucket or Cape Cod itself; but his father had disagreed. Once a year he liked to get away from it all, he said. To be someplace where he didn’t have to shave every day or worry he was going to meet up with somebody in the yacht club bar who’d want his opinion on some business problem or other. Matt and his brother Paulie had sided with their father, and in the face of so much opposition their mother had capitulated, on condition they build a decent house on the point. And so it had been, and they had joined the small community of summer people who came every year.

Fifteen years had passed since the house had been sold, two more than that since Matt had last set foot on the island, until three months ago when he’d found this house, owned by the estate of a woman who’d died a year ago. Henry claimed she’d been a miserable type and a poor neighbour, though since she’d died he’d missed having somebody to talk to. The house with its views and the woods behind, had appealed to Matt, it was a good place to start over. Somewhere he could try to bury the ghosts of his past.

He tossed his coffee grounds into the bushes. “I better get going,” he announced.

“You have a good day,” Henry called. His eye dropped to Matt’s polished shoes and it seemed he was trying not to grin.

As he drove down the track Matt looked in the mirror at the fine dusty cloud he had raised in his wake, and saw Henry on the porch shaking his head with evident mirth.

Once he hit the blacktop it was a ten minute ride into town to his tiny first floor office on a street off Founders Square. Two paths bisected the square, cutting across the yellowing grass from corner to corner, and bench seats had been placed at regular intervals where people could sit and pass the time of day. Around each of them the grass had been worn away to bare earth which in winter became mud before it iced over. The building that housed the town council was opposite the police department, and the fire department lay on the south side, the library and courthouse on the north. These, like most of the buildings in the town looked vaguely shabby, and the flag that fluttered above the courthouse was faded. Everything about Sanctuary looked a little down at heel, like an old dog lying panting in the shade.

For most of the morning Matt read the paper and drank coffee. He was the sole employee of his newly opened practice, and in two months he’d made almost enough money to cover his groceries. It was a slow start, but then he hadn’t expected to make a fortune. Maybe Henry’s cider would pay the rent. During the afternoon he made some calls and settled a land dispute between two farming neighbours in the north.

“I guess you’ll send me your account,” Norton, who was Matt’s client, said grudgingly, implying that he considered Matt’s role in the settlement had been slight and was hardly worthy of payment.

“Maybe you could just let me have some bacon.”

There was a short silence as Norton figured he probably wanted a whole pig. They agreed on a side of ham, but even when Norton hung up he sounded suspicious, as if he thought he was somehow being cheated.

“Don’t mention it, you miserable old bugger,” Matt said after he heard the click.

He was relieved when the day drew to a close. He walked across the square towards the town offices. The mayoral election was due to be held in a few weeks’ time, dominated by a proposal to develop land on the south shore. The issue was a hot one, and had been debated long before Matt’s arrival on the island. The community was almost neatly divided half and half, for and against.