Feeding Frenzy (Aristotle Soc Socarides) Page 4

  We set more trawl and took a break in the shade of the wheelhouse. I gulped down a gallon of water to replace what I had lost and squinted up at the pale sun.

  “Y’know something, Sam, the old Greeks thought the god Apollo used to ride around the world and that the sun was the blazing wheel of his chariot.”

  Sam puffed out his cheeks. “Wouldn’t mind if Apollo got himself a flat tire.”

  I chuckled. “It’s weird, isn’t it, Sam? We complain when the sun doesn’t shine, and we complain when it does.”

  Sam gurgled a swallow of coffee out of his Thermos. “Nothing weird about it, Soc. People are just naturally crazy. Look at us. You think any sane man’d get out of bed before dawn so they could be out here busting their backs on a day like this?”

  “Guess you got a point, Sam. But look on the bright side. We’ve got a waterfront view.”

  He grinned and removed his trademark tan cap with the long duckbill visor. “We sure got that, Soc. And lots of it.” He wiped the sweat off his forehead and glanced toward the fish hold. “We’ve done pretty good today. What say we head home after this set? Millie asked if I’d get in early for a change and I’d like to oblige her.”

  “No problem,” I said, trying not to appear too eager.

  The last set turned out to be the best. Even with a short day, we’d brought in a good haul. Practically every set had come up with a full catch, mostly cod, some haddock, and a big chunk of pollock. By late afternoon, when we pointed the Millie D.’s bow homeward, she sat low in the water from the weight of the fish.

  I radioed the catch info into the fish company office at the pier and said we were on our way.

  A couple of hours later, we jounced through the cut again and slithered into the harbor. Noisy gulls followed the Millie D. like groupies at a rock concert. We were the first boat in and didn’t have to wait in line to unload. We pitchforked the fish out of the hold into the loading bucket, then moored next to the pier and got the boat ready for another day of fishing.

  The florid orange sun lowering in the western sky augured another hot day tomorrow. The air was even heavier on land. The short walk to our pickup trucks was like a trek across the Sahara.

  I was worried about Sam. He looked really beat. During the winter, Sam wears a down vest and flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up on days that would make a polar bear shiver. He’s definitely a cold-weather person; heat does him in. His face looked haggard. Still, I was surprised when he said, “Soc, you don’t mind if we take tomorrow off, do you?”

  “No problem, Sam. Give me a chance to catch up on a few things.”

  “Finestkind,” he said. “I’ll call you tonight and we can talk about the next trip.”

  “Finestkind, Sam.”

  Both of us were too stubborn to admit the heat had beaten us.

  I stopped at a Cumberland Farms convenience store to buy Kojak some food. He’d sulk if he had to eat the dry stuff. I picked up a copy of The Cape Cod Times and scanned it while I waited in line. The banner headline at the top of the front page read: Mysterious Death at Quanset Beach Baffles Officials.

  The story said that the victim was Jean LeBrun, a forty-two-year-old dentist from Montreal. Hundreds of French-Canadian tourists come to Cape Cod in the summer, and most of them spend their entire vacation at the beach. I ran my finger down the column, looking for an explanation of the death.

  The medical examiner said the autopsy showed LeBrun died of shock and loss of blood. Hell, I could have told him that. The question was how he got that way. The story was pretty accurate, describing how Gary saw the man in apparent trouble. How he was rescued and transported to the hospital. How he was pronounced dead upon arrival. I returned the paper to the rack and paid for the cat food.

  Kojak heard my truck rattle down the drive and was at the front door to greet me. I fed him immediately rather than endure his pitiful sniffs and reproachful feline glances. Then I peeled off my fishy work clothes and stood under the gloriously cooling spray of the outside shower for about fifteen minutes. I toweled myself dry, got into my denim cutoffs, T-shirt, and flip-flops, popped a brew, and went on the deck. Pleasant Bay was as still as a birdbath. With no breeze to stir their lifeless sails, boats sat as motionless as if they were frozen in time. The purist sailors waited for a breeze. At least one of them had given up and was motoring in.

  I looked beyond the beach toward the Atlantic. The Greek poet Homer described the ocean as the source of all. No argument there. Life began in the sea, and people like Sam and me depend on its bounty. But the sea can just as easily spawn death. As it had for Jean LeBrun. If I hadn’t been at Quanset, I would have read about him in the paper, come up with some ridiculous theory after a few beers, and promptly forgotten about LeBrun. But I couldn’t wipe the terrible bleeding wounds from my mind or forget the sobbing of the woman and the hysteria of the crowd.

  Something had happened out there, but what?

  The straggling sailboats had furled their sails and were motoring back. The sailboats without motors would have to paddle their way home. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be a purist.

  I went inside and rummaged through the fridge. Just the usual gray-furred penicillin cultures, but nothing fit for human consumption. There was a Baggie with codfish cheeks in the freezer compartment. I defrosted the bag in a pot of hot water and boiled some linguini. I rolled the fish parts in Italian bread crumbs and flour, threw them in an iron frying pan with vegetable oil, added onions and green peppers, and heated up a sauce-pan of Ragú spaghetti sauce. I opened a cold can of Bud to keep me company while I cooked, and spilled some into the cooking fish.

  Kojak’s gourmet nose told him culinary history was in the making. He came over and rubbed against my legs. I scraped some cod and linguini into his white porcelain dish with the kitty face on it and added a little romano cheese. Kojak devoured the fish, lapped the cheese off the pasta, then waddled happily off to lick his whiskers.

  The food was okay, but I lost my appetite after a few bites. Reruns of the scene at Quanset Beach kept going through my mind. It was too hot to eat, anyhow. I put my plate on the floor for Kojak, who dashed over as if he were just ending a hunger strike.

  I went out to the pickup and drove to the ’Hole. The parking lot behind the bar was packed with out-of-state license plates. Between Fourth of July and Labor Day, the summer crowd takes over and the townies do their drinking at home. The kid checking ID’s at the door hardly looked old enough to drink himself. The air inside was thick with loud conversation, and cigarette and kitchen smoke. Little Feat was banging out “Feat Don’t Fail Me Now” on the juke. Young shiny-faced tourists with serious tans were playing dating games three deep at the bar. I held a fiver high above my head. The new kid tending bar must have thought I was doing an imitation of the Statue of Liberty because he kept ignoring me. Kojak and a six-pack of Bud were beginning to look pretty good.

  I was pondering whether self-immolation would attract the bartender’s attention when somebody yelled my name. Gary was waving at me from a corner table. I went over and he pulled out an empty chair. He was with Mo and another lifeguard he introduced as Tony. A passing waitress noticed the desperate gleam in my eye and brought over a frosty beer mug without being asked. I told her to bring me refills at five-minute intervals.

  “Sorry I didn’t get to look at that outboard,” Gary said.

  I chugalugged the beer. It tasted wonderful. “You had other things to worry about. You can check out the motor anytime.”

  Gary cupped his chin in his hands and stared at nothing. “It’s the first time we’ve ever lost a swimmer in all the years I’ve been there.”

  “That’s rough. Anyone figure what killed him?”

  He shook his head and gave me a cheerless smile. “All I know is that I was talking to you when I saw this guy in trouble. I’d been watching him because he was so far from the beach. It’s something you do automatically. But I wasn’t worried. I could tell he was a good strong swimmer. Turned out I was right about that. His girlfriend said he’d been a lifeguard. I look again, and he’s stopped. Two reasons why he’d stop. Either he’s taking a rest, treading water, or he’s got a problem. That’s when I grabbed the binoculars for a closer look.”

  “I remember that.”

  “He started swimming again, really hard. Then he stopped, threw his arms in the air and went under. He came up and I saw his mouth open. Even at that distance I could tell he was screaming. That’s when I hit the water. I had a little trouble getting through the surf, but I was on my way real quick. He was staying afloat. As I got away from the sound of the surf, I could hear him yelling. Shrieking at the top of his lungs, actually.”

  Mo leaned into the conversation. “Gary’s right. I was behind him, and I heard the poor bastard, too. Still gives me the shivers.”

  Gary continued. “Anyhow, when I got there, just the top of his head was sticking out. I grabbed him by the hair and got the Peterson belt around his waist to keep him afloat. Then I hung on. Mo showed up with the other belt hooked to the towline, and the guys started pulling us in.”

  “It was a pretty damned impressive rescue, Gary.”

  He shrugged. “Thanks. Anyhow, guy’s unconscious, so we signaled to shore to call the rescue squad. I was still pretty hopeful, going through the resuscitation plan in my head while we rode in. Figured we can keep him alive long enough for the EMT’s to get at him. Jesus, Soc. We had no idea he was in such tough shape. I mean all that blood and those slashes on his legs. I think he was gone before I got to him. We hauled a dead body in.”

  “It was bad, man. I don’t ever want to do something like that again. The guy was bleeding quarts, for godsakes.” Mo downed his beer.

  “Look, guys, you did the best you could.”

  “Yeah, Soc, I know. It was a picture-perfect rescue. But maybe we shouldn’t have let him go out that far.”

  “Don’t blame yourself. Nobody could have done it better. Notice anything else?”

  Gary pondered that. “Nothing, except there were a lot of birds hanging about.”

  “I saw that, too.”

  He nodded. “The water was all bubbly. I was just wondering if it had anything to do with the guy being hurt.”

  The two other guards pushed their chairs back. They said they had to meet their dates. When they left, I said to Gary, “How about a refill on that screwdriver? My treat.”

  He looked at the glass. “No, thanks, Soc. This is straight orange juice. I’m going to go to a meeting at Town Hall.”

  “What meeting?”

  “The selectmen called it. Everybody’s really upset about this thing. Especially the business people. Bad for Quanset’s image. Want to come?”

  “Think I’ll pass.”

  “You might miss some fireworks. Town Hall wants to hush this beach thing up, but there’s no way they can do that. The story’s in all the papers. Scuttlebutt making the rounds is the town fathers will try to whitewash it somehow. The park commissioner told me to stay away. Which makes me want to go all the more.”

  My ears perked up. “On second thought, maybe I will come along. Official interference always brings out the antiauthority tendencies in me.”

  Gary stood and handed me my ball cap. “Thought you’d say that.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Town Hall is a hundred-year-old converted schoolhouse on the beach road. The basement hearing room of the rambling white clapboard building doubles as a gallery for the local art association. This month’s featured painter was seriously into the Earth Mother theme. The paintings were heavy on the nudes and the nudes were heavy in the thighs. But from what I could see, nobody was interested in art tonight. The crowded rooms buzzed like a nest of yellow jackets stirred up by a hurricane. Heads nodded, fingers jabbed at chests, and fists pounded invisible surfaces.

  The metal folding chairs lined up in neat rows were all occupied, and people jockeyed for standing room. Gary and I elbowed out space between a couple of thunder-thighed paintings and leaned against a side wall.

  The five selectmen, actually four men and one woman, sat behind a long oak table facing the audience. The board’s executive secretary was at the far end with a steno pad and tape recorder. At center stage was Stan Roberts. The chairman of selectman, Stan is a smooth-faced man with a politician’s hair-trigger smile. He looks like a poor man’s Tip O’Neill. But the only thing he’s got in common with Tip is a white mane and a big red nose.

  He wore a tan suit and a blue rep tie even though the room was hot and the press of bodies made it hotter, but he wasn’t sweating. Maybe he didn’t have any glands; I knew he didn’t have any backbone. Stan was a retired PR flack in the car rental industry who was smart enough to marry a rich wife. He ran uncontested for selectman and became chairman because nobody else wanted the job. He considers himself a Man of the People.

  To his right was Marge Parker, a plumpish woman with a twinkle in her eyes. She was wearing her white R.N. uniform. Beside Marge in a blue chambray shirt and chinos was a middle-aged man who blinked out at the world through thick glasses. Charlie Dumont, a freelance financial writer. On Stan’s left was Mike Spofford, a sixtyish man in a neatly pressed mechanic’s uniform. Mike ran the local Mobile station and was respected for his common sense. Next to him, in jeans and T-shirt, his blond beard going to gray, was Deeb Stuart, an aging hippy. He was a carpenter who’d saved his money, bought real estate cheap, and was probably worth a couple of million. He says he’s still a flower child at heart, but no one believes him.

  Stan glanced at his watch, palm-brushed his side hair back, and called the meeting to order with a smile he must have practiced in front of a mirror.

  “This is something of an unusual proceeding. The selectmen called this emergency public hearing at the request of some concerned townspeople. We didn’t have time to post it forty-eight hours in advance as required by the open meeting law, but we did our best to get the word out over the radio stations.”

  He solemnly lowered his voice. He sounded like a country preacher delivering a eulogy.

  “I guess most of you know about the incident yesterday at Quanset Beach, the tragic death of Mr. Jean LeBrun from Montreal. We have Park Commissioner Eddy Fuller here to give us the details.” He nodded to a bald man with a white scalp, pink face, and khaki uniform who sat in the front row with his arms and legs crossed. Ed got out of his seat, hitched his belt up over his pot belly, and faced us.

  “Well, there’s not a lot to tell you. Our lifeguards spotted a swimmer in trouble. They got him in real quick, and a hell of a job they did, but the gentleman was dead.” Eddy was through as far as he was concerned. He sat down.

  “Could you tell the folks what was unusual about the accident?” Stan coaxed.

  “Oh, sure.” Reluctantly, Eddy got back to his feet. “First of all, the accident itself was pretty unusual. Maybe we’re tooting our own horn, but our lifeguards are the best on the Cape. They’ve never lost a swimmer before and we’re pretty proud of that record.”

  I nudged Gary. “He likes you.”

  Gary whispered back, “Eddy’s covering his ass. This is an election year. He doesn’t want voters thinking he’s hired a bunch of dickheads at the beach.”

  The park commissioner continued. “Well, they got that gentleman in, but he was cut up real bad, as if—” He paused, realizing he just crawled out on a limb.

  “Go on, Eddy,” the chairman said.

  Eddy shrugged and wiped the sweat off his brow Knowing Eddy’s liking for the juice, I would have bet he was wishing he had a cold beer; I knew I was. “Well, it looked as if something bit him, bit him a lot.”

  The comment triggered a hubbub. Stan smashed his gavel down like a kid with a hammer and peg toy.

  “Thanks, Eddy,” he said. “Would Fire Chief Raymond fill us in on what happened next?” Raymond, a skinny guy with a Roman nose and an imposing Adam’s apple, got up and read from a sheaf of papers.

  “The call came into the station house at eleven twenty-seven A.M. The ambulance was on its way by eleven twenty-nine. EMT’s Eldridge and Powell arrived at Quanset Beach at eleven thirty-six and found an individual, male, with serious contusions of the lower body. They applied electro-cardiopulmonary resuscitation at the scene, then transported the individual to Cape Cod Hospital, continuing to apply treatment on the way. They arrived there twelve-sixteen P.M., at which time Dr. Frederick Lally pronounced the subject dead.”

  He sat down. Joe Jordan, the police chief, got up without being asked. The chief is a heavy-set pie-faced man with a perpetual mournful expression. He read in a grim monotone from a notebook in the baroque lingo cops use in the mistaken belief multisyllabic words make them sound smarter than they are.

  “Detective Crowell, accompanied by Officer Daley, was dispatched to Quanset Beach. Upon which time they made an examination of the body of a male Caucasian. They determined that the subject’s lower body and extremities appeared to be covered with blood, and that he suffered from multiple lacerations, contusions and abrasions. The officers had conversations with approximately a dozen witnesses, but were unable to ascertain as to how these injuries were sustained.”

  The more people talked, the less they said.

  The chief wasn’t a bad guy. I coached his kid once in Little League, and the old man got a little overzealous sometimes. But I was getting impatient with this dilly-dallying. Say it in English, not in flatfoot talk: The guy was pulled from the ocean bleeding like a sieve and nobody knows what the hell happened.

  The chief sat down. Stan said, “I’d like to thank these gentlemen for their concise and informative reports.”