Catch As Cat Can

8

The rattle of the key in the lock quickly brought Shadow to the door. He did his usual circuit around Sunny’s ankles, checking for odd smells and marking her with his personal scent. She reached down and gave him a quick pat on the head, then walked into the living room, calling to the Old One. But he wasn’t in.

Often when Sunny was alone with Shadow, she’d get down on the floor and play with him. He rolled on his back, hoping that would happen now. Instead, Sunny went to a chair and flopped down with a sigh.

Shadow immediately got to his feet. Was Sunny sad? He’d caught some traces of Sunny’s He when he checked her ankles, so Sunny must have seen him today. Shadow knew that when male and female humans got together, sometimes they were very happy—and sometimes not.

He scaled the chair, not going for Sunny’s lap but instead climbing up onto the arm, stretching so that he could press his forehead to hers and let her know that he thought she was special, even if that stupid He didn’t.

But as he brought his face close to hers, he caught a scent that made his nose twist and his eyes blink. Shadow drew back in disgust. This was another of those crazy two-leggity things he’d never understand. With all the foods humans enjoyed, why would Sunny eat something that smelled like that?

Sometimes, in his wandering days, hunger forced Shadow to eat food that was old or tasted odd. Even so, he wouldn’t put something that smelled so bad into his mouth. Shouldn’t Sunny know enough not to do that?

Annoyed, he jumped back to the floor, stalking away with his tail lashing the air. She always yells at me when something I eat comes back up, he thought. I’m going to stay away from her. She’s a lot bigger than I am, and I don’t want to be around if she gets sick. That will be a real mess.

He headed for the room of food and a quick bite from his bowl. The box that kept things cold loomed over him. That would be a good place to go, somewhere that would let him look down on everything.

It’s even taller than Sunny, he thought. So if that bad-smelling food comes back up, I’ll be well out of reach. Safe.

*

Mike came into the living room, rubbing his hands together after being outside in the cold. “I’m surprised to see you sitting,” he told Sunny. “Usually when you’re here alone, you’re romping around on the floor with the furball.”

She smiled. “Yeah, well, he went to do that Vulcan mind-meld thing he likes to do, bopping his forehead against mine. It’s called bunting. But I’m afraid the ghost of the garlic bread I had for lunch put him off. What’s the matter?” she asked as an inquisitive gray-furred face poked around the entrance to the room. “Are you a vampire?”

“Well, he’s got the fangs for the job,” Mike said as Shadow yawned, revealing an impressive set of chompers.

Sunny glanced at the wall clock and got up. “Guess it’s time to start supper—which I’ll do after I brush away the offensive garlic breath.” She headed upstairs, brushed, and then went to the kitchen. Dinner was simple—and bland. Boiled potatoes, frozen veggies, and baked pork chops. She put a pot on to boil, preheated the oven, and got out the jar of unsweetened applesauce. Spooning out a few ounces into a bowl, she sprinkled some powdered ginger on top and set to mixing. That should give it a little taste without setting off Shadow’s finicky nose.

He sat by his bowls, watching Sunny but still not coming close.

Arranging the chops in a pan, she topped them with the spiced applesauce and put them in the oven, setting the timer. Then came the potatoes. After a half hour, she checked the meat and stepped into the living room, where Mike was watching the news. “About five minutes,” she reported. She went back in to microwave the vegetables.

Mike came into the kitchen and helped set the table. Sunny stepped over to the pot and stuck a knife in one of the potatoes, testing for doneness. “Should be ready any time now.”

The timer bleeped, and a moment later the microwave joined in, not exactly in harmony. Sunny took one more look at the chops and then began moving things onto plates.

Mike immediately attacked his chop with knife and fork, putting a bite into his mouth. “Nice,” he declared after he’d chewed and swallowed. “Do you think His Nibs over there will approve of your breath after this?”

Sunny shrugged, mashing some potato under her fork. “Jane Rigsdale tells me some folks use ginger when a cat or dog has an upset stomach.”

“Well, she ought to know, being a vet.” He glanced over at Shadow, who still sat regarding them. “Should we have given him that when he tried to eat that frog?”

Sunny shuddered at the memory of that epic disaster. “Only if he ate the ginger instead of the frog,” she said. Slicing off a bit of pork, she asked, “How was your day?”

Mike shrugged. “Pretty quiet. Went up to outlet-land and got in my walk, ran a few errands, and stopped in to say hello to Helena. That was a pretty weird visit. She and Abby seemed so distracted, I wondered if they’d had a few drinks with lunch.”

Probably no lunch, Sunny thought, although they had a lot to chew over mentally.

But that was nothing to talk about. She’d promised both of the Martinsons she’d keep quiet about Abby’s little secret and asked them to do the same. Remembering her own lunchtime conversation with Will, she decided to try and steer the conversation in a new direction. “You know a lot of the fishermen around here, Dad. Did any of them get particularly friendly with Neil Garret?”

“Friendly?” Mike frowned in thought. “I wouldn’t go that far. A lot of guys were glad he opened that shop, though. Neil offered a better price than they’d been getting, and if a guy had a small catch, he could sell it all here and not have to hump it over to Portsmouth or one of the other big wholesale markets. Guys who managed to get a prime item would do deals with Neil before taking the rest of their catch elsewhere.”

“You make Neil sound like a big deal.”

“He was, to the guys still shipping out from here.” Mike’s frown deepened as he tried to explain. “Remember that movie, The Perfect Storm?”

“Sure,” Sunny replied. “George Clooney going down with his ship.”

Mike nodded, his face grim. “The only thing worse for our local fishermen is that they didn’t drown. The story they based the movie on happened in 1997, and catches were falling even then. Foreign trawlers were coming into our fishing grounds, huge factory ships, and a lot of locals jumped in, upgrading their ships to compete. A lot of areas got overfished. And when there are no fish, that kills jobs for a lot of fishermen.”

He sat for a moment. “You know, years ago, before your mother and I talked about getting married, I thought I might go out on the fishing boats. It seemed a pretty manly way to make a living. Shows how much I knew.” Mike laughed, but there was a lot of bitterness in his voice.

“Instead, I went to work hauling salt—which turned out to be the better call. Every winter, it snows somewhere, and the folks need road salt.”

They both sat in silence for a moment. That might be true, but it meant that Mike was out of town when the ice storm of the century hit Kittery Harbor . . . and a fatal car accident took Sunny’s mom.

Mike cleared his throat. “Funny thing. The company started out providing salt to preserve all the fish coming out of the waters around here.”

“I know a lot of your buddies only do sportfishing now, or they find other ways to make money, like Ike Elkins and his floating tours,” Sunny said.

“A lot of fellas pay for their boats by acting as fishing guides,” Mike told her. “That’s okay during the tourist season, but nobody in their right mind pays to go out in the Gulf of Maine during wintertime. So the boat owners head down where the water is warm—Carolina, Florida—and take people fishing for bass. Pretty much everybody does that now.”

He frowned for a moment, going over a mental list. “The only guy who goes out regularly from these parts is Charlie Vane.”

“I don’t think you ever mentioned him among your fishing buddies,” Sunny said.

“He’s not a buddy. And for him, fishing is business, not pleasure. He’s the only fisherman who works the winter months around here. Of course, he’s a bit of a nut.” Mike shook his head. “Charlie claims to be a direct descendant of another Charles Vane, a pirate who got hanged about three hundred years ago. Maybe there is something to his claim, if stubbornness is something that sticks in people’s DNA.” Mike leaned forward, in storyteller’s mode. “Here’s something they don’t usually mention in those pirate movies. There was a point when the British government offered pardons for past bad behavior to the pirates operating out of their colonies, provided they knocked it off. The 1700s Charles Vane rejected the deal—and ended up at the end of a rope. Our Charlie Vane refuses to stop fishing, although from what I hear, he’s at the end of his rope, too—financially speaking.”

Sunny looked at her dad. “You don’t sound as though you’ve got much sympathy for him.”

“Oh, I have a little sympathy,” Mike protested. “Charlie’s family has fished these waters for generations. It’s not his fault, what’s happened to the business. But I don’t like what Charlie does to keep his head above water.”

“You’re not telling me he’s a pirate—are you?” Sunny asked in disbelief.

“No, that would be more honest. Charlie cuts any corners he can. Some areas have been declared off-limits to fishermen to let the fish population grow back again. But Charlie will sneak in to get a catch. Or he’ll finagle when he’s caught more than the allowable quota.” Mike scowled. “You’re supposed to dump any overcatch back into the water. But it’s not as though those fish are going to go swimming off, thinking, ‘Whew, that was a lucky break.’ They’re dead, and dumping them back isn’t going to make them alive again. It’s the law, though, and that’s what fishermen are supposed to do.”

“Sounds like a stupid kind of law, with so many people around here struggling to put something on the table,” Sunny argued.

Mike nodded. “I’m not saying you’re wrong. But that doesn’t make it right for someone to slide around the law because he’s supposed to be protecting his birthright as a fisherman.”

“So is that why you never mentioned Charlie Vane to me?” Sunny asked. “Because he’s a crook?”

“Not a crook.” Mike hesitated. “But he is crooked.”

“What’s the difference?” Sunny wanted to know.

Mike gave her a shrug and a grin. “I guess he hasn’t been caught yet.” He got a little more serious. “I have heard, though, that Charlie’s been thick as thieves with your friend Neil Garret.”

Sunny sat a little straighter. “You make it sound as if they’ve been up to something together.”

“Well, they’ve gotten in trouble together,” Mike said. “When Garret began cherry-picking local catches, he disrupted the usual way of doing business.”

“What was that?”

“Boats brought their catches to the wholesale fish market in Portsmouth, which is just a long-winded way of saying they dealt with Deke Sweeney.”

Sunny frowned. “So this Sweeney guy owns the operation?”

“No, but he might as well. Anyone who buys or sells fish in Portsmouth knows Sweeney. They call him the Shark of the Fish Market.”

Sunny laughed. “Nice nickname.” Then she got thoughtful. “You think this shark might have tried to take a bite out of Neil Garret?”

“No need,” Mike replied. “Sweeney already cut him—as in cut him off. I hear he put out the word. Several of the guys who did deals with Garret couldn’t sell their fish in the Portsmouth market. And Garret can’t even buy a sardine there.”

Maybe that explains the lack of variety in Neil’s store lately, Sunny thought. It sure didn’t help the drop-off in business. “Do you think that really hurt the fishermen?”

“It’s more than half an hour, driving to Kennebunkport, and an hour, hour and a half getting to Boston or Gloucester,” Mike said. “Going by boat makes the trip even longer. When you’re racing the clock to bring in your catch as fresh as possible, that can become a factor. And if you land in a market where no one will buy from you, the wasted time may make for a spoiled catch.”

Sunny frowned. “So that’s it—all those fishermen are ruined?”

“Oh, when they come back around the beginning of tourist season, Sweeney will probably let them off the hook. He’s a businessman.”

And the way things are going, by then Neil’s store should be bankrupt and safely out of Sweeney’s way, Sunny added silently. “But what about Charlie Vane?” she asked. “You told me that he’s still up here fishing, out in the cold—in more ways than one.”

Mike only shrugged. “He’s played it cute with Sweeney and the other guys in the fish market for years, hornswoggling them whenever he can. Sooner or later, that was going to catch up with him. If it hadn’t been his side deals with Garret, it would have been something else.”

“You think maybe he’s angry with Neil Garret for dumping him in it?” Sunny didn’t quite bring off the nonchalant tone, because Mike shot her a sharp look.

“If you’re going to ask him that, I’ll have to come along,” he told her. “Frankly, I’d prefer if Will went with you, but I don’t think Charlie will say anything if there’s a cop around.”

“I don’t—” Sunny began, but Mike cut her off.

“Of course you’re pumping me about the local fishing scene—probably because Will asked you to do it.”

“He may have suggested that I talk to you, but I thought of that in terms of getting background, not expecting you to come up with a possible suspect.” She gave her dad a look.

“Charlie may be crooked, but I don’t believe he’s a killer,” Mike said. “Just in case, though, I do intend to be there when you talk to him. Let me make a couple of calls and see if I can find out where Charlie is supposed to be.”

“Tell him I’m trying to sell a piece to the paper.” The moment Sunny said it, she realized it might be more than just a cover story. If she got some interesting quotes, Ken Howell might actually buy it.

They did the dishes together, and then Sunny left her father in the kitchen to use the phone. The doorbell rang as she came down the hall, and she answered it to find Will Price.

“Figured I’d check in and see what your dad had to say,” he explained.

Sunny passed along what she’d learned from Mike about Charlie Vane. “Dad’s working the phone to see if he’s in town and whether we can talk to him.”

The phone rang, and Mike came into the living room, trailed by Shadow.

“Was that someone calling with info about where to find Charlie Vane?” Sunny asked.

“No, that’s already set up,” Mike replied. “Charlie’s coming in to port tomorrow morning and he’ll see us—but no cops,” he added with an apologetic glance at Will. “The call was from Helena Martinson, inviting us over—and she’d be happy to see you, Will.” Mike smiled. “I believe cake is involved.”

“Sounds good to me,” Will said, ignoring the look Sunny sent his way. It had been hard enough drawing the whole story about Neil Garret/Nick Gatto out of Abby, and harder still deciding to tell Will after promising to keep Abby’s secret. It wouldn’t be easy, socializing with the Martinson women—more like walking on eggshells. But now Will wanted to go waltzing into the Martinson place, face-to-face with Abby and Helena . . .

Will leaned toward Sunny, lowering his voice. “Do you know how much of my job involves playing dumb?”

“I guess I’ll find out,” Sunny muttered, following Mike to get her coat.

A brisk walk through the cold air brought them to the Martinson house. Sunny braced herself for a big welcome from Toby, but the overgrown pup was nowhere to be seen. Mrs. M. caught it immediately. “Toby is downstairs in his dog crate. Abby’s working with me to train him better.”

Muted woofs and whines came from beneath their feet.

“You can’t let him out because he’s crying, Mom,” Abby scolded. “That’s just rewarding bad behavior. He’s got a nice blanket and toys, and soon enough he’ll realize it’s his safe place—his den.”

She gave the guests an apologetic smile. “I may not be a dog whisperer, but I was a dog walker, and I saw how people got their puppies to grow up into good dogs.”

“Well, if I can’t give Toby a treat, how about you folks? Who’s up for coffee cake?” Helena gave Will an admiring glance. “You must have come straight from work. That’s a very nice tie you’re wearing.”

Yeah, interesting design—except for the spot, Sunny added to herself. Will was wearing her Christmas present again. He obviously didn’t have many ties in the rotation, and he hadn’t gotten it cleaned yet.

This wasn’t some polyester cheapo tie. It was embroidered silk, handmade and expensive, even though she’d managed to snag it in outlet-land. Sunny had started shopping as soon as she learned Will was getting out of uniform. It had been a long and difficult hunt, and she’d been proud to present him with something appropriate and nice for Christmas.

Less than a month later, the spot had appeared, and it had just seemed to grow every time she looked at it, although Sunny had pretended not to notice.

Abby was a lot more blunt. “Yeah, it’s a shame you got something on it.”

Will winced. “I’m afraid I’m still getting used to the whole jacket-and-tie thing, although I have learned now that ties and pens don’t mix well.”

“Could have been worse. I had an audition for a part but had to get through half a shift first. So I wore my good silk blouse in to work. Somehow, some ink transferred from a pad—” She moved her hand chestwards. “To my left boob.”

Abby shrugged. “Lucky thing I knew how to deal with that.” She turned to her mom. “Do we have any rubbing alcohol?”

Mrs. M. was still getting over the location of Abby’s ink stain. “I—I think so.” She headed to the bathroom as Abby stepped into the kitchen, returning with a wad of paper towels. “You’ll have to take off the tie.” She grinned. “Not as embarrassing for you as it was for me. I spent the lunch rush in a suit jacket pinned together up top so I didn’t show off too much while my blouse dried.”

Helena Martinson reappeared with a plastic bottle of clear liquid and some cotton balls. “I thought these might be useful.”

“Just what we needed. Thanks, Mom.” As Will took off his tie, Abby put the paper towels down on a table. She put the tie facedown and soaked a cotton ball in alcohol. Then, checking the position of the ink stain, she pressed the wet cotton to the rear of the tie.

After a moment, she lifted the tie and pointed to the toweling—and a big splotch of ink that had appeared. “See? The alcohol soaks through, taking some of the ink with it.”

She moved the tie to fresh sections of the toweling, applying new alcohol-soaked cotton balls until the stain had all but disappeared.

“Thanks,” Will said when she handed the tie back. “That’s pretty amazing. How did you know that?”

“Welcome to the wonderful world of acting,” Abby told him with a laugh, “where the people have to look perfect while scraping by on a waiter’s salary. Trust me, you learn to take care of your clothes.”

“But you’re not doing that anymore,” Mike said.

“It still comes in handy.” Abby’s smile turned impish. “I had to use that trick for a partner who had a disaster right before heading to court. That twenty minutes probably did more for me with the firm than the year of paralegal stuff I’d been doing.”

They enjoyed coffee and cake, with Abby telling some stories about her adventures on the Left Coast. Will just sat back and relaxed, barely asking any questions at all, and Sunny tried to do the same, although curiosity led her to dig a little deeper when Abby mentioned a catering job where she met George Clooney.

Finally, Mike looked at his watch. “I hate to be a party pooper, but we have an early morning tomorrow.”

“I usually hear that when the weather’s warmer and you want to catch fish,” Mrs. M. told him.

Mike shrugged. “Close. Tomorrow we’re trying to catch some fishermen. Sunny’s thinking of interviewing a few of them over a cup of coffee and selling Ken Howell on a story for the Courier.”

“Good luck with that,” Helena said. “From what I remember of my Vince’s fishing buddies, having coffee with them won’t be like cocktails with George Clooney.”

They got their coats and walked back home. Mike zipped ahead to the door. “I’ll say good night here, Will. Darned coffee.”

That left Sunny and Will together for a proper good-bye kiss. She was still smiling as she came through the door, to find Shadow on guard in the hallway. He wound his way around her ankles, his tail flicking about in displeasure.

Is he catching a whiff of Toby? she wondered. Or is this just general annoyance?

Shadow was very much a creature of habit. He didn’t like the human members of the household gallivanting off after dark, and he took a dim view of Sunny and Mike preparing for bed hours before their usual time.

Still, he shouldered his way around the door and into Sunny’s room as she turned down the sheet, blanket, and quilt. A quick leap brought him into bed with her, but he didn’t settle down in her arms as he usually did.

Instead, Shadow brought his face close to hers.

“Checking for garlic again?” Sunny teased. “I brushed my teeth just now—promise.”

Shadow slowly closed his eyes, then opened them again. Sunny had read somewhere in her cat research that this behavior was a sort of air kiss, a sign of trust and affection.

“So all is forgiven, huh?” Sunny brought her own eyelids down in a slow blink. Shadow gave her his double-barreled wink again and then snuggled against her.

Yeah, yeah, very affectionate, Sunny thought. But we both know that as soon as I’m really asleep, you’ll be off patrolling the house.