Deeper (8 page)

The people
around me were academics.
 
They'd gone to
colleges and universities, the whole nine yards.
 
While not one of them had acted deliberately
condescending, a few of them still had a slight air of superiority.
 
That changed a bit when I cleaned the fish
right there on the deck.
 
I've been
fishing for my entire life, and I can say without hesitation that I can scale,
gut and clean a fish in less time than damn near anyone.

I didn't even
think about it, I just grabbed the knives and went to work, tossing the
leftovers into a bucket to be dumped after the divers came back up.
 
Why tempt any sharks into the area?

When I was
done, Ward and Parsons were looking at me like I'd just scored the winning
touchdown.
 
It was nice having them
looking at me with a little awe, because, honestly, I kept looking at them the
same way.

Ward was
skinny and meek, but he still had something about him that made his students
pay attention when he spoke.
 
Parsons was
a sad looking man with a very sharp mind who had managed what should have been
impossible and gotten himself a very lucrative career by chasing after ghosts.

Me?
 
I owned a few boats and just made ends
meet.
 
Weird how that stuff works, I
guess:
 
I'm sitting there, feeling
inadequate without even realizing it, and just like that, a stupid thing like
gutting dinner makes me feel better.
 
I
guess it doesn't matter what you're good at, as long as you're good at
something.

Not long after
I'd finished cleaning the deck — well, to be truthful, having Tom Summers swab
it down, that's what I was paying him for — the divers were coming back
up.
 
They were learning very quickly why
I was dubious about doing a dive in October.
 
Most of them were shivering so hard their teeth were clicking like
castanets.

Tommy took
care of setting them up with hot coffee and cocoa as well as towels.
 
I have a total of four showers on the
Isabella
.
 
They got to use three of them.
 
The last one is in the captain's quarters,
and I'm not all that good about sharing with people I barely know.

None of them
came out of the water looking too blue for their own health, but they might
have if it were any colder out there.
 
Charlie came out of the shower looking refreshed.
 
His skin was warm enough that he steamed as
he walked out onto the deck, still toweling his hair dry.

"Everything
go alright?
"
I asked the question as casually as
I could, but he noticed that I was worried.

"Yeah.
 
Why
wouldn't it?"

"No
reason.
 
I just like to make sure."

"You
afraid I might have seen another ghost?
 
Or maybe a sea monster?"
 
His voice was teasing, and he had crow's feet
around his eyes, even if there was no sign of a smile anywhere else.

"Did
you?"

"Nah."

"Listen,
I had a talk with the Parsonses about what happened last night."

"Figured you would."

"Well,
just so you know in case they approach you about it."

"What did
you tell them?"

"The truth.
 
I
spotted the girl, you rescued the girl, and she disappeared."

"They say
they were gonna talk to me?"
 
He
tossed the towel into the hamper that Tommy would be handling later.

"No, but
I figure it's what they do, right?"

"So if
they do, I'll tell them the truth."
 
He shrugged and turned away.
 
It's
a gut thing, I know, but I could tell he was still pissed at me.
 
Not because of my telling the Parsonses, but
because he was honor-bound to sty on the
Isabella
.

I'd given him
an out and he hadn't taken it.
 
I refused
to feel guilty.
 
Well, mostly I
refused.
 
There was still a little guilt.

We went back
out on the deck together, and sure enough, Mary Parsons looked ready to tackle
Charlie, and not for the usual reasons that women wanted to.
 
She asked him aside and he went, suddenly all
smiles and charm.

If I thought it
was safe, I was mistaken.
 
Jacob caught
my arm and pulled me aside.

"Listen,
Joe, is there any way we can stay on board tonight?"

"Of
course you can.
 
Hell, you're paying for
the trip, right?"

"Well,
yeah, but I didn't know if that meant nighttime accommodations."

"Well,
they probably aren't the most comfortable, but I've got a few extra cabins I
had set aside, just in case."

He nodded, his
sad face looking as close to happy as I'd seen.
 
"They'll do, as long as there's a bed."

"Why the change from the hotel, Jacob?"

"Mary and
I want to be here tonight and maybe a few more nights depending on what
happens."

"What
happens?"

He nodded his
head.
 
"Yeah.
 
We want to see if you have a repeat
performance with the girl from last night."

"Be my
guest."

"We'll
have a little equipment along."

"Long as
it doesn't sink the yacht, we're in good shape."

After that, it
was time for a late lunch and I cooked for a change of pace.
 
The fish was damned fine and while we ate,
the professor regaled his students with tales of my fishing prowess that left
me ready to blush.
 
Some of them
listened, but most of them were ready to call it a day after doing their best
to accurately map out the reef.

I cooked.
 
Tommy got to clean up again.
 
He didn't seem to mind too much, except for the
part about not hanging around with the college girls.
 
Before we raised anchor and headed for the
docks, I went for the slop bucket I'd used to gut our dinner.
 
The bucket was still there, but was knocked
on its side.

There was
nothing left inside it but a little fish blood.
 
It wasn't unsettling so much as it was weird.
 
No one on my crew would have been careless
enough to dump the bucket and not put it away.
 
I wouldn't have hired them if they were the sort to do that.
 
A bluefish is a damned big animal, and I'd
cleaned and scaled one and left the nasty bits in that damned bucket.
 
If what I took out of the thing weighed less
than fifteen pounds, I'd sell the
Isabella
to the first bidder.
 
There hadn't been
any waves, and I knew the wind hadn't caught the bucket and knocked it
over.
 
Besides, the deck was clean.

It was
possible that one of the passengers had done it, but I didn't think so.
 
I don't think any one of them would have
considered it, seriously.

But the bucket
was empty and the evidence was right in front of my eyes.
 
So was a sign of the culprit.

There was a
thick trail of seawater that spilled over the side not far from where the
bucket lay.
 
I wouldn't have given it
much thought, would have probably just taken for granted that it was a spill
from earlier, but first, I saw Tommy take care of swabbing the deck and second,
the divers had come up on the other side of the yacht.

In the end I
decided to let it go.
 
I rinsed the
bucket and stowed it where it belonged and barely gave it another thought.

Remember what
I said earlier about Belle liking mysteries?
 
I would have never made a detective in one of her novels.

6

Charlie wasn't
thrilled about the idea of having a couple of parapsychologists hanging around
on board the
Isabella
.
 
He didn't have much say in the matter.
 
Way I looked at it was that they were paying
the bills and that meant they could stay on board if they wanted to.
 
He'd just have to deal with it.

I called Belle
after we docked.
 
I'd only been gone for
a day and was already missing the hell out of her.
 
One of the things I have always loved about
my chosen profession is that I seldom had to stay out overnight and I had never
had to commute across the country in order to get any business done.
 
I know people who spend half of their time on
airplanes and in hotels.
 
They make a
pissload more money than me, but they're never home.
 
My idea of wanderlust involves going out in
the morning and being home by dinnertime.
 
I mean, what's the point of working yourself half to death for extra
money if you never have the time to enjoy it?

We didn't talk
for too long.
 
Belle had her reading
group to attend to, and it was her turn to host.
 
That part made me glad that I was out on the
ocean instead of at home.
 
Most of the
women in her group seem to find more excitement in a book than they do in the
real world.
 
That would be okay with me,
if the books they chose weren't normally whatever crap Oprah suggested to
housewives all around the world.

After the
phone call, I set up the Parsonses in a room near mine.
 
It was nice enough as cabins go, but
small.
 
I figured they'd be asleep in no
time, but I was wrong.

I found them
up on deck, sipping coffee and watching the waters out toward the reef.
 
They were engaged in quiet conversation and I
left them be, perfectly content to sit a ways off and enjoy the chilly night
air.
 
It was cold enough that I wore a
sweater, and the air was the sort of dry that only seems to come around when
it's
autumn and the leaves are changing.
 
Golden Cove was behind us, and the few lights
that burned in the town were just enough to illuminate the waves with a golden
counterpoint t the silver of the moon.
 
It was nice and peaceful, just the way I like it.

I must have
spent a good half hour out there, just sitting and thinking about as little as
possible before the fog started coming in.
 
You expect fog on the ocean, especially when the weather changes
drastically.
 
But there's fog and then
there's the pea soup that came spilling over the entire cove, rolling in with a
gentle breeze that shouldn't have been able to move the thick layer of mist
that fast.

If I'd been
driving a car, I'd have pulled off to the side of the road and left my hazards
going.
 
There are times when the fog
along the shoreline can seem like a living thing, and this was one of those
times.
 
In a matter of seconds the reef
was lost.
 
Off to the north, about a half
mile or so away, I could see the Cove Point Lighthouse, a long spire that sat
in the middle of nowhere and worked to keep anyone from running into the things
they weren't supposed to hit.
 
The light
was automated, and only came into play when the visibility was bad.
 
From this distance all I could really make
out was the flash of light that marked where it was whenever the rotating beams
cut through the darkness.
 
The fog was so
heavy that it stole everything but the illumination.
 
There was nothing out there to see otherwise,
just like with the moon far above.

The
temperature dropped a good fifteen degrees when the fog crossed over the yacht
and onto the shore.
 
I let the heavy mist
wash over me and stayed where I was, ignoring the increased chill as best I
could.

Mary Parsons
moved closer to me and settled into the chair next to mine.

"Does the
fog always come in this fast?"

I shook my
head.
 
"Now and then, but this is
one of the worst I've seen."

She looked out
at the water and I studied her for a few seconds.
 
I was struck again by the notion that she
went out of her way to look unattractive.
 
I guess it takes all types, but I was still a little puzzled by it.

"Your
first mate doesn’t like us much, I think."

"Honestly?
 
I think you scare him a little.
 
Charlie's a bit superstitious."

She sighed and
shook her head.
 
"He should join the
club."

"Probably
would, depending on the dues."

"Do you
think you saw a ghost last night, Joe?"

I thought
about it, but in the end I didn't really have an answer.
 
"Maybe.
 
I think it’s a possibility."

She sat
silently for a few minutes, comfortable with where she was sitting, which was
kind of nice.
 
There aren't too many
women I've met who were at ease with a relatively unknown man.

"What
made up your mind about it?"

"My mind
isn't made up, if you want to know the truth.
 
There could always be a different explanation, but I think the most
likely thing is that I saw a ghost."