Fisherman's Bend

by Linda Greenlaw

  “Heroin in Cobble Harbor.… Can you believe it?” I asked.

  “Don’t take it personally. That shit is showing up everywhere. You’ve got as good a chance of stopping that as you do finding the kid’s old man,” he said. I would have loved to contradict him by informing him that I intended to do both, but kept my cards close and hoped for more insight. “Talk about a needle in a haystack. It’s a big ocean. That’s why I didn’t join the Coast Guard. These guys on the Quest”—the officer jerked a thumb over his right shoulder toward the public dock—“they’re conceited enough to guarantee they’ll find the body if it’s there. Some guarantee. If it’s there. So, if they come up empty, they claim the body wasn’t there, right? Hey, maybe they’ll hire a psychic!” The officer laughed.

  I joined him with a smile as an attempt to firm up my membership in the Maine law enforcement club. “I thought the research vessel was in town to do a survey for an aquaculture company. Now they’re talking about towing for Parker Alley?” I asked.

  “Yep, that’s my understanding. The captain offered to do a search, hoping that would get him through the blockade unscathed. We were briefed, and I mean brief. The local fishermen are split on aquaculture, the Indians are mostly against it, reps from shipping companies that transport up the river here are fighting it.… The plastic company has yet to enter the ring. Hey, these are your people. You tell me how it unravels. In the meantime, let’s hope that your fishermen stay aboard their boats. That would keep us staties from returning to this godforsaken outpost.” The tone of this implied to me that the staties believed foul play might be a factor in the disappearance of Parker Alley. Though maybe I was reading too much into it. Or, more likely, he was. It would take something far more daunting than a bunch of fishermen barricading their home port and a possible knuckle sandwich to get state troopers to travel this far from their usual beat. Before I could ask, the officer’s partner was beckoning him to get into the cruiser. “Brrr.” The man shivered visibly as a drop of rain fell from the end of his nose. “We’re heading back to civilization now.” I assumed he meant some town north of Route 1. “I’ll bet you even have a Grange hall here. Do you?” He was in the car before I could tell him that I didn’t know.

  Intrigued with who the deep pockets were and why they had sicced the state police on Cobble Harbor, I approached the only man remaining in the pier’s parking lot. Someone had to fill in the blanks for me. Now that what had looked like an impending debate had been averted, and there was no need for me to think about jumping into the middle of a confrontation, I saw no reason to act as an authority or official of any kind. I could just be Jane Bunker. Civilians are more prone to chat with visitors or tourists than with the police. Yup, I would just be Jane Bunker from Green Haven. Maine locals also have great suspicion of anyone “from away,” which is how they refer to those not born and bred in their state.

  The man, who looked like a block of granite, must have heard me coming up behind him. He turned quickly, with his hands raised and curled in loose fists at his chin. “Whoa,” I said as I fell back a step, creating a safety zone between me and this man whose nose appeared to have been broken several times. He lowered his hands slowly, closed his eyes, and exhaled a huge sigh that I took as one of relief that he hadn’t flattened an innocent woman. His physique was impressive. Even in heavy, ill-fitting foul-weather gear, his body was an almost perfect rectangle. Not much of a neck, and a flattop hairdo made it impossible for me not to think of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants. When he opened his eyes he hung his head in shame, shaking it slightly. Placing his right hand over his heart, he tapped his chest repeatedly and mumbled something that could have been a prayer, but could just as easily have been cursing me for startling him. This tough guy was a wreck, I thought. I had to let him off the hook. “I often get that reaction from men. But usually not this early in the relationship.”

  My words had the desired effect. He looked directly at me. His eyes were deep brown and liquid. He smiled, and I felt the sun. He began with an apology in a voice that contradicted my first impression of a nightclub bouncer gone to seed. Soft-spoken and articulate, his accent was a strange combination of Down East and clipped guttural. He was, he said, George Paul—one of the tribal chiefs of the Passamaquoddy Indians. If I hadn’t been so immediately taken with him, I would surely have come up with a wisecrack regarding his name and half of the Beatles. But I was bowled over by him; not in a smitten sort of way, just impressed. He struck me as genuine and kind. George Paul seemed delighted to have someone listen as he talked, which he did. Unprompted, George Paul launched into an explanation of who his people were, what their situation was, and how they stood on all the issues most hotly debated in the state. He was open and honest, insisting that his people had nothing to hide, nor anything to be ashamed of. The more he talked, the more questions I had for him. He was thorough and thoughtful in answering them. Maybe a little too thorough, I thought, as he hit the fifteen-minute mark of a soliloquy in response to the question I should have asked first, namely: “What’s going on here?” It had finally occurred to me that George Paul knew a lot about a lot—and the fact that he was so willing to talk was a great gift.

  George Paul had begun his explanation in some year B.C. Still, he was so passionate and interesting that I barely noticed the activity aboard Quest behind him. He had my almost full attention as he gave the time line of the history of Native Americans in this part of the world; and when his narrative approached the present date, he did tie in the reason for his being in the parking lot. Although the information he gave didn’t shed any light whatsoever on the questions I had about who was bringing heroin into the area, he did provide background I thought might ultimately be helpful to me in the performance of my day jobs. I had been sent here to keep the peace and to assist in finding a missing person and, perhaps, to determine if Parker Alley had committed suicide or, in light of what the state cop had implied, been done in. Anything I could gather from George Paul might be useful to those ends.

  The first evidence of human life in this area, George Paul said, was in the Maritime Archaic period, when there were Red Paint People, so called for the large amounts of red ocher interred with their dead; tools from that era showed stains of similar red. Archaeological digs in shell heaps provided evidence that the Red Paint People hunted swordfish, which, according to a very proud George Paul, was evidence of sophisticated hunting and seafaring skills. “They were a progressive group. They went well beyond picking shellfish from the shore.” Most of George Paul’s ancestors were presumed wiped out in a series of tsunamis at a time when the ocean was rising and earthquakes were common. This jibed with the information that I had been told by Quasar yesterday, I realized. Just as George Paul was explaining the genealogical connection between the remaining Red Paint People and the “natives” first encountered by European explorers, I caught a glimpse of Dane Stevens, the handsome captain, as he paced the Quest’s work deck. I got briefly distracted as I tried to figure out how best to greet the captain so that he would want me to remain in his company after the greeting. When I turned my attention back to George Paul, he had advanced to the Abnaki and Etchemin divisions of the Algonquin nation.

  What was not just fascinating but relevant to my tasks at hand was that George Paul was explaining the case for Indians having exclusive rights to a wide area of sea and seabed, including where the aquaculture farm was to go. George Paul told me that the Etchemins were seagoing peoples, and so were the Passamaquoddy, his own tribe. (George Paul was no ordinary member, he added—he was the chief.) Passamaquoddy, he explained, means “People Who Spear Pollock.” The Passamaquoddy fished up and down the river, but always pitched their base camps on the east side, where, he was quick to point out, we now stood. The Etchemins inhabited the west. Prior to 1820, when Maine became a state, treaties were signed between Native Americans and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and included the “grant” of plots of land that would become reservations; one
such plot was Pleasant Point, where George Paul had lived since he was born. George Paul had been fishing since the age of eight—sixty years. He didn’t look it, so I remarked on how well preserved he was. He took the compliment in stride, never wavering from the topic. Although the Supreme Court had given Native Americans tribal sovereignty, George Paul’s opinion was that it hadn’t amounted to anything significant. My new friend ran down the list of rights his people were being denied; behind him, a parade of lobster boats was leaving the harbor. As uniform as a string of pearls, the boats slowly filed out through the channel—a sobering funeral procession. George Paul continued. I couldn’t help but be distracted as my eyes and thoughts followed the train of mourners.

  George Paul fervently believed that his tribe of Passamaquoddy should enjoy the right to harvest from the ocean as they saw fit, unencumbered by federal and state rules. I admired his conviction and courage. I found remarkable his ability to speak so passionately, and yet without anger, about all the ways his people had been wronged. This was not a rant. But I knew his cause was futile. Too much time had passed and too many foes were arrayed against him. When he pointed to a bird that soared high above and said that the osprey needed no license to feed itself, I felt the need to steer George Paul to the meat of what I wanted, and away from his haunting and romantic plea for a return to the way that things were, the way he felt they should now be.

  “Did you know Parker Alley?” I asked, more or less out of the blue. I had given up trying to find a good segue.

  “I knew of him, yes.” Then silence. Maybe I would get somewhere, I thought. The loquacious chief was suddenly a man of few words.

  “Well, what did you know of him?”

  “Off the record?” he asked, making me wonder what record he thought I might be keeping.

  “Of course.”

  “He was their ringleader.… The Alley family couldn’t make a move without his okay. That’s the way it is around here with all of us. We look to someone to guide us, but Parker Alley was a bad man. He and his family have been brutal about keeping others out of what they consider their own private fishing grounds, which happen to be the most productive for lobster and also where North Atlantic Shell Farms are proposing to lease from the state. He was spearheading the challenge to the oyster farm proposal.”

  “Rallying a few dozen fishermen is not going to stop big business,” I said.

  “There’s more behind him than fishermen. Shipping oil and cargo is big business, too. And Pine Tree Plastics will be put out of business if aquaculture gets a foothold. They’ve been polluting the river for decades. Toxic algae blooms caused by their discharges run right through my community. They’ve decimated the plant and fish life that once sustained us. It’s part of aquaculture’s appeal to the green world—they’ll be responsible for forcing Pine Tree Plastics to adhere to regulations. ‘Plastic’ is a dirty word these days. Must be quite a quandary for the Greenies,” he chuckled. “Aquaculture is no bargain, either.” The sky grew suddenly darker and the rain was swept horizontally in the wind. I wanted to ask George Paul what he knew of Jason Alley, but suspected that, because of his age, he wouldn’t offer anything useful. Thunder rumbled in the distance. It was getting difficult to hear him when the wind gusted.

  Just as I was getting ready to excuse myself to head for shelter, a pickup truck pulled into the parking lot. “There’s my ride,” George Paul said. “Do you need me to sign a release or something?”

  “A release? For what?” I thought that I had probably misheard.

  “I assumed you might need my permission to quote me in your article. You didn’t even take any notes. I’m impressed!”

  “I’m sorry. You obviously have me confused with someone else. I’m not a reporter,” I said with a bit of embarrassment, as I wondered briefly if I had inadvertently misrepresented myself. I was fairly sure that I hadn’t. “It was nice speaking with you, though.”

  George Paul laughed—I assumed at his own mistake. “Another dress rehearsal! Figures!” Now the driver of the truck honked the horn to hasten George Paul’s goodbye. “We never get any good press. Remember the casino referendum? November fourth, 2003, is forever etched in my memory as Black Tuesday. The best economic development plan Maine has had in a century, and even Governor Baldacci renounced it. We couldn’t get the papers to talk to us so we never got to make our case.” Another blast from the truck’s horn got his attention. He thanked me for listening and turned toward his impatient ride.

  The fact that he had mistaken my identity was useful in that it resulted in his providing me essential background and a glimpse into the intricately woven fabric of the Cobble Harbor community. I wondered how long George Paul would have lingered in the inclement weather had he not been trying to get his story into print. Nice accidental ploy, I thought. Now I needed to get out of the squall that was rapidly approaching. Rain I could handle, but I always felt uneasy in an electrical storm with a hunk of metal strapped to my midsection. I didn’t want to give new meaning to the phrase “packing heat.”

  The two figures aboard Quest, which I had been observing intermittently since I had first stepped out of my car, had reappeared on the back deck of the boat. They were now appropriately attired in rain suits. The bright yellow forms were hunched over and appeared to be working on some kind of a project. The forms grew and gained contour as I neared; they finally looked human as I hustled across the aluminum gangplank and landed on the deck with a hollow thud. Both men looked up from their work. Smiles from beneath hoods were welcoming. Even with the hood ties limiting the portions of face exposed, I could easily distinguish the two as Quasar the scientist and Dane Stevens the captain. As I knew they were not expecting me, and I, too, had a hood cinched tight, I felt a reintroduction was in order. “Hi! It’s Jane Bunker, from yesterday. The insurance lady, remember?” Before either man could speak, a flash of lightning lit up the sky and a sharp crack of thunder loud enough to split atoms shook us all to attention. Simultaneously, the men dropped shiny chrome tools at their feet and beckoned me to follow them into the fo’c’sle.

  I scurried behind them through the open door and to the ship’s galley, where a teakettle spat at the cast-iron stove, forming tiny puddles that hissed and then vanished, leaving behind a fine rusty residue. The captain secured the door behind me, cutting off the sounds of the storm that was now full upon us. My fingers were so numb from the cold I could barely find the loose end of my hood string. When I did, and pulled it, a thin stream of water was squeezed from the knot and ran across the heel of my hand and up my sleeve, one of the only parts of me that had, until then, remained dry. The men removed their jackets. I followed suit, exposing a four-inch-wide dark stripe along the front of my sweater where the zipper had not even pretended to be watertight. “So much for the state-issued rain gear,” I said softly.

  “Cup of tea, anyone? Miss Bunker? Tea? How about a hot cup of tea?” asked Quasar in his nervous way, as he opened a cupboard and pulled out an assortment of teas from Red Rose to exotics that smelled like sweet pipe tobacco.

  “Thanks. I would love one.” I slid onto a bench seat across from Dane Stevens, who, with a hand gesture, invited me to sit.

  “I see that you met Chief One Big Loon today,” Dane said with a playful grin.

  “Dane! That’s so disrespectful,” admonished Quasar from the counter, where he prepared three cups of tea. “He has a name. And you know it. It’s George Paul. Don’t be rude.”

  “Maybe. But he is crazy.” Dane circled an index finger around his ear, the schoolyard symbol for “loopy” and something I hadn’t seen anyone do since, oh, third grade.

  “You are a bigot. You truly are a bigot.”

  “All I’m saying is that he’s a nut.”

  “He’s eccentric,” Quasar corrected.

  “Okay, you win,” Dane said with a smile that showed off impeccable dental work or good genes. “But, if there was a Wal-Mart in town, they’d be missing a shopping cart.” I really w
anted to laugh at this, but Quasar hadn’t. I certainly had not regarded George Paul as a lunatic, and had to consider the possibility that these two men were putting on an act to discredit something they assumed he said to me.

  Quasar served the tea with a quart container of nondairy creamer and a plastic bear of honey—a contrast to the fine teacups I was surprised to see aboard a boat. “I assume that FedEx found Cobble Harbor,” I said as I pulled the hat off the plastic bear and squeezed a spoonful of honey from the hole in the top of his head.

  “Yes, they did. They did indeed,” Quasar said as he removed his steamed-up glasses and rubbed them back and forth on his shirt front; the lenses rattled as they crossed buttons. The extent of his squint indicated that he was probably legally blind without the aid of eyeglasses. He pushed the glasses back on, forcing the earpieces through the tight mass of red curls, and opened his eyes, seemingly delighted to have regained his sight. “Yes, FedEx delivered late yesterday afternoon. We’re nearly done fixing the damaged equipment.”

  What followed was a long awkward silence. The three of us sat sipping tea, smiling at one another, and each of us wondered whose turn it was to say something next. I was certain that it was not mine, and I couldn’t for the life of me think of anything intelligent, witty, or interesting to say. Even sarcasm had abandoned me. So we sat quietly sipping for quite a while before I thought I noticed the men sharing a strange look. As soon as they saw I had noticed, they severed eye contact and concentrated on their teacups again. The next time I caught them sending signals across the table, I gave Quasar my patented “What?” look, which no one could misinterpret. But just to make sure, I raised my hands and pulled my neck into my shoulders. “Are you going to tell her?” Quasar asked.

  Dane nodded. “I talked with your boss,” he said, raising his gorgeous black eyebrows and waiting for my reaction to a statement I was accustomed to hearing just prior to the filing of a formal complaint about my investigation methods.