Death in the Off-Season

by Francine Mathews

  “Del—you can’t think like that.”

  “Then I guess I can’t think at all.”

  Merry was silent for a moment. She’d known Del for twenty-odd years. Despite the distance that had grown between them, she was prob­ably Del’s closest friend on Nantucket. And she knew that if their roles were reversed, she’d have felt the same way. Never mind that Joe Duarte hadn’t called his daughter in years; he’d had the last laugh. He’d died, the ultimate upping of the ante in a war of silence.

  “It’ll be over soon,” she said, reaching for Del’s hand. “You’ll be home in New Bed before you know it.”

  Del squeezed her f ingers in response, released them, and drew a deep breath. “Well, yeah, that’s what I’d like to talk to you about,” she said. “I’m thinking of staying.”

  “Here?” It was the last thing she’d expected. “So you’re not selling the house. From the way the real estate talk is going, you’ve got at least ten buyers in the living room alone. Do you want your old job back?”

  “With Tom?” Del shook her head. Three years ago, she had been Tom Baldwin’s personal assistant, and was, by all accounts, invaluable. She was smart, eff icient, and organized—the last something Tom had struggled and failed to be.

  Del reached for a napkin to wipe Sara’s face. It was smeared with egg, like the sunrise smile of a clown. Sara pursed her lips and leaned away, her hands balled into f ists.

  “He hired a sub for me when I left, and he’s not gonna f ire her just because I’m back in town.”

  “Even if you could stand it,” Merry said.

  Del grinned. “Yeah, there’s that,” she said. “I’d probably go nuts. Too much a part of the past, you know?” She looked at Merry, weighing her words. “I’ve got a better idea. I’m going to take Pop’s boat out and f ish.”

  “You? Fish?”

  “Swordf ish, actually. You know what they’re getting for harpooned ones? It’s like a yuppie craze. Somebody f igured out that a harpooned f ish dies quicker and tastes better than one caught by the long-liners’ nets. Whole Foods pays through the nose for it, all over the country. So do restaurants.”

  “And God knows we have enough of those.” Nantucket’s restaurants were expen­sive, trendy, and geared to a moneyed crowd. “But Del—a harpoon?”

  “I’ve thrown one before,” she said, smiling. “You know how Pop was. He wanted a son and he got me. So he tried his best to turn me into a boy. I’ve been throwing a harpoon with him on the weekends since I was ten. He’d leave the Lisboa Girl at dock and take out the Praia—his thirty-footer—with me in the bow to spot. We caught a bunch over the years. You learn the knack. And you never forget the thrill.”

  “Aren’t swordf ish pretty scarce?”

  “Used to be,” Adelia said, “but lately the stocks have been recovering. Some of us think that’s due to the shift from longline to harpoon f ishing—swords aren’t being overf ished as badly as they used to be. My cousins in New Bed harpoon on the side. I went out with them a couple of times to get my arm back in shape, and it reminded me how much I missed being on the water. Pop used to say the harpooner’s arm was passed down through the blood, you know, ever since the whaling days. Knowing the sea and loving it is something Duartes are born with.”

  She paused and looked at Merry soberly. “Pop’s dead. I can’t bring him back. But now he’s gone, I miss a lot of things I thought I’d forgotten. Like hard work and cold spray and the f ight to the death. I want Sara to grow up a Duarte.”

  “You think you can make a living?”

  “I hope.”

  “If the swords play out, you can always switch to tuna.” The Japanese paid exorbitant prices—up to twenty thousand dollars a f ish—for prime bluef in tuna at auction.

  Del shook her head. “They’re even scarcer than swords.”

  Merry ran her f ingers through her blonde hair—still damp from the rain and the persistent humidity that came with it—and decided to concentrate on essentials. “Who’s going to crew for you?”

  “I haven’t f igured that out,” her friend admitted. “I’ll think about crew to­morrow. There has to be some guy on the island who’s strong enough to work for a woman.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Merry said carefully. “Precious few are willing to take orders from one.”

  “Nothing’s changed down at the station, eh, f ilha?”

  Merry was one of the few women on the Nantucket police force.

  Adelia’s sudden smile was like a snapshot of childhood. “Come f ish,” she said. “We could be the only girl crew on Nantucket. Think about it. We’d be a tourist attraction.”

  “We Folgers like to say that police work is handed down through the blood. Something we’re born with.”

  “I was afraid of that. Got any ideas about crew?”

  “I might. Give me a few hours.” She paused, and eyed the baby. “You’ll need child care.”

  “I know.” Adelia lifted Sara out of her chair and straightened the hem of her dress.

  “She’s beautiful, Del,” Merry said, squatting down to Sara’s eye level. She had the meltingly soft skin and the faint flush of rose in her cheeks that come with the two-year-old’s territory. Her eyes were Merry’s exact shade of green. She smiled slowly at Merry and reached a hand out to squeeze her nose.

  “Yeah. She’s a sweetheart. Gives nobody trouble,” Adelia said soberly. “Hard to believe she comes from me.”

  Merry rose and brushed off her skirt. “What are you doing tonight? After this crowd clears out, I mean.”

  “Having dinner at your house, if I’m lucky.”

  “Good. I know just the person to take care of Sara.” She gave her friend a swift kiss, touched a hand to the child’s head, and was gone.