Stormy Cove

by Bernadette Calonego

  She opened the fridge.

  “You’re back on shore pretty early today.”

  “Yes,” he said, rubbing his cheek. “Had to come in. Sudden strong northeast wind in the afternoon.”

  Lori looked out the window, and it was indeed windy. How quickly the weather could change here! And other situations too.

  “What have you got there?” she said, peeking into the bag. The fish was already filleted.

  “Cod, naturally.”

  He still hadn’t sat down but leaned against the china cupboard somewhat awkwardly, beer can in hand.

  Lori brushed her hair back, but some recalcitrant strands fell into her face.

  “Would you like to stay for supper?”

  “So you want me to show you how to fry fish, eh?” He smiled mischievously.

  “We catch fish on the West Coast too, mister. I’m no amateur.”

  “We? How many have you caught?”

  She laughed as she set the bag on the counter.

  “Wait, I’ll wash it again,” Noah intervened.

  They stood beside each other at the sink, and Lori watched his strong hands carefully hold the fillets under the tap, dry them with paper towels, and salt and roll them in flour while she peeled potatoes. There was something strangely intimate in sharing tasks, a naturalness that made her both calm and nervous at the same time.

  It felt like her body was electrically charged when she was near him. She only had to shift an inch or two and their hips would have touched.

  She peeled in slow motion, to make the magic last. Maybe it’ll never be like this again, she thought.

  He fried the fish while she made a salad—which he refused, calling it rabbit food.

  “What was it like on the Barrens?” he asked when they were at the table.

  Lori ate her fish ravenously; it was superb. Noah looked on with evident satisfaction.

  She briefly described her excursion but wondered if she should mention the rumors about Robine, or her exchange with Beth. He sensed she was holding something back and looked at her expectantly.

  So she simply unpacked it all; she wanted to involve him in everything that affected her.

  At first he said nothing. Then he placed his fork on his plate.

  “Why did you tell her that?”

  “Because . . . probably because I wanted to see how’d she react. I mean . . . I don’t have to beat around the bush.” She crumpled up the napkin beside her plate. “If Jacinta actually did witness Robine and another woman neck—kissing—and gabbed about it and a few days later she disappears without a trace . . .”

  “You think that . . . if that’s true, Beth Ontara was the other woman?”

  “I don’t know. Her reaction was rather strong, don’t you think?”

  He started to eat again without answering. Lori looked straight at him.

  “Did you hear those kinds of rumors at the time?”

  He put down his fork once more.

  Leave him alone, Lori. You’re spoiling the lovely mood.

  “Yes, of course. Rumors spread like wildfire here.”

  He drank some more beer and put the can down slowly.

  “And anything coming from the Parsons family was mostly mischief. Or even worse.”

  Noah stared out the kitchen window, as if collecting himself.

  “Jacinta’s father, Scott Parsons, is . . . he’s often up to no good. My dad fished with him for years. Had no choice. Lost his boat in a storm, no insurance, couldn’t afford it. All he had was his fishing license. Parsons had a boat but no license. So the two paired up.”

  “Like a partnership?”

  “Yes, more or less.”

  Lori saw his face growing tense.

  “Father didn’t find Scott easy to work with. Some mornings he was late and kept him waiting. And Scott always wanted to take the wheel, so father had to work the fish out of the nets and gut them. Much harder than being a helmsman. What Scott really wanted was the fishing license. Often tried to buy it off Father—for peanuts, of course. But Father always refused.”

  Noah drained his beer, and Lori got another out of the fridge.

  “Father was knocked into the water when he was hit by the metal rake for catching scallops.”

  He sketched the mechanism on the table with his hands.

  “The rake hangs from a framework of two poles forming an A. Weighs about half a ton. Scott was at the wheel and made a sudden, violent swerve and the rake swung like a super heavy pendulum sideways and . . . and it knocked father overboard. My brother Coburn was on the boat and yelled at Scott to cut the engine and put it hard astern. He could see father surface, and he had the gaff ready for him to grab onto. But either Scott didn’t understand Coburn or . . . or he didn’t want to. He did everything wrong until Coburn couldn’t see him anymore.”

  Lori felt a tightness in her chest.

  “Didn’t he have a life jacket?”

  “No. Water was bitter cold. Death always comes real fast.”

  He cleared his throat. “But he still could have been pulled out. Coburn could have pulled him out if Scott hadn’t been such an idiot.”

  “Scott did it on purpose?”

  “Nobody on earth could act as stupid as he did. In any case, he got Father’s fishing license because they held the boat and everything in common. Didn’t bring him any luck.”

  “How so?”

  “Because we all suspected he had let father die. But he blamed my family for the vicious gossip about him that went around everywhere.”

  “So your families have hated each other’s guts ever since,” Lori concluded. And after a slight hesitation, she added, “And Glowena became your girlfriend?”

  “Big mistake,” he admitted. “But you make them when you’re young. I think I was just rebelling against my family.”

  And Glowena was apparently very pretty, Lori thought to herself, and what a challenge to win her heart against Scott Parsons’s will.

  “Back to your question,” Noah said, suddenly looking tired. “We didn’t believe a word Jacinta said. She was easily manipulated and gossiped about everything. On top of that, she was always hanging around with Una, and Una had a loose tongue.”

  “But now, looking back . . . could there have been some truth in it?”

  Noah shrugged. “So what would that mean? That one of the women archaeologists killed Jacinta and buried her in a strange grave because she was a gossip? You really think that?”

  Lori laid her hands in her lap. Now that Noah had said it out loud, her little theory sounded crazy. Absurd.

  “Did the police ever follow up on it?”

  “They probably followed the wrong clues, or they’d have caught the killer.”

  Lori thought it was time to drop it. She wanted to enjoy the rest of the meal at least. But Noah asked, “What was the thing they found in Jacinta’s grave like?”

  “It looked like a fish or a bird, depending on how you looked at it. It was in the first burial mound, but it’s really a projectile, an arrowhead. Somebody put it in Jacinta’s grave.”

  She mashed a potato before going on.

  “I also found a duplicate of it in this house, between the washing machine and the dryer. And another one under the seat of your snowmobile.”

  He gave a start, then seemed to remember. He blinked, and his eyes looked off into the distance in search of an answer.

  “I bought that snowmobile from Selina Gould. She wanted to get rid of it after Cletus died. Found some small tools in it.”

  They both reflected on that as they finished their food. Lori cleared the plates.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up that business,” she said. “It was supposed to be a fun evening, and instead I’ve upset you.”

  Now Noah got up as well, took the plates out of her hand, and put them on the counter.

  “Don’t give it another thought. It’s important for me that we can talk about these things. I want you to tell me everything. Any c
hocolate ice cream in the fridge?”

  “It’s vanilla, but with chocolate chips. I . . .”

  Noah put his hand on her arm and gave her an imploring look. She responded without moving, and he pulled her toward him. She felt his arms around her back, pressing her against him. She let it happen, didn’t resist when he laid his rough cheek on her neck, his face very near hers. She melted in the warmth of their two bodies. This was the point of no return, she thought.

  They stayed like that for a while, without speaking, overcome by their emotions.

  She heard her name called from far away. But it wasn’t Noah. They separated, flustered.

  Molly’s voice reached them as if from another world.

  She stood on the landing, holding up a seashell.

  “I painted it for you,” she shouted.

  Lori saw it was a conch, pink, speckled with white.

  From outside, Patience called for Molly, who turned around in a snit but wasn’t about to leave.

  “Thank you, Molly! I’ll find a perfect place for it,” Lori said. “But your mom’s calling, you ought to . . .”

  Patience appeared in the doorway, her face all red.

  “I told her she should wait, but she just ran off.”

  She took Molly’s hand firmly and smiled apologetically.

  “I saw you’ve got visitors, so I didn’t want to bother you . . .”

  “No problem, Patience. By the way, Molly said a woman came here to see me the other day. Do you know who it was?”

  “A woman?” She thought for a minute. “Must have been Selina Gould. I saw her go by.”

  “Oh! I have to pay the rent. Totally forgot.”

  Molly tugged at her mother’s hand.

  “I smell good, Lori. Want a sniff?”

  “Later, Molly. I’ll come over soon. Thanks for the pretty shell.”

  Patience shoved her daughter out the door.

  The phone rang. Noah was at the kitchen window. He turned toward her with a grin.

  She sighed and shook her head. “A little more privacy wouldn’t hurt.”

  “People here can smell when something’s up, and they don’t want to be left out. Don’t you want to pick it up?”

  Before she could think of a rejoinder, the answering machine clicked on.

  “Hi, Mom, Andrew here. Give me a call. I’ve got something to tell you.”

  Her mood changed instantly. She looked at the time. Midnight in Germany. Andrew had never called her here; it was always she who reached for the receiver first. He texted if he wanted something.

  “It’s my son. He’s with his dad in Germany. I wonder why he called.”

  She knew she looked worried.

  Noah understood immediately.

  He shyly reached out his big, worn-out fingers for her hands.

  “I’d better leave. Got to go to the boat anyway, a few things to take care of. Coming fishing tomorrow? Just you this time.”

  Once again, that mischievous look she liked so much.

  “Sure, love to, when?”

  “Six o’clock. We can phone about the weather.”

  “Fine.”

  He hugged her, and she felt his surprisingly soft lips on her neck for a second.

  Her eyes were glued to him as he walked across the kitchen with that firm fisherman’s step and disappeared from sight. She didn’t snap out of her daze until she heard his truck’s motor.

  Then she called Andrew’s cell phone. He sounded wide awake despite the late hour.

  “Hi, Mom, how’s it goin’?”

  “Andrew, did something happen?”

  “Nope, why?”

  “Because you called me at midnight, my dearest boy.”

  “Midnight? . . . Oh, I didn’t realize it was that late. We don’t have school tomorrow—some holiday, whatever. Can finally sleep in!”

  “How did you do on your last exams? I haven’t heard a thing. No news is good news?”

  “Oh, yeah. They were OK. Near the top of the class in math. Though I’m not that into it. I like biology better—dissecting mice and all that.”

  “What? You dissect mice? Isn’t that cruelty to animals?”

  “Mom, they’re dead when we cut them up. And when dead dolphins wash up on shore, they get dissected too. How else you gonna know what killed them?”

  He was right, of course, but she had to get used to imagining her son at a dissecting table.

  “How’s it goin’ out there in the sticks?”

  “Did you see the pictures of the whales and the tortoise? And the shark?”

  “Yeah, cool. The shark especially. Can you take a shark jaw back home for me?”

  Back home! So Andrew was thinking about coming back to Vancouver, but she knew better than to press him on it.

  “I’ll try—assuming it’s even legal. I’ll ask one of the fishermen.”

  “You don’t have to kill one to get it. They probably got something like it stored in a shed.”

  “So nice you’re for protecting sharks, sweetie. They’re having a rough time of it these days.”

  “Some people came here the other day,” Andrew suddenly changed the subject. “Wanted to know where you were.”

  “Who were they?”

  “Dunno. I thought maybe people who knew Rosemarie and Franz. A man and a woman.”

  “Does Volker know them?”

  “Dad wasn’t home. But they asked me . . . I didn’t have a clue, but they just kept asking stuff. I was outside with Rainer on my skateboard, and they were talking to us and wanted to know about Canada. Like where I lived, in the East or West—they were just asking, so I said Newfoundland in the East and Vancouver in the West, and they asked if you could go whale watching in Vancouver, and I said yeah, in the East too, and my mom’s in Newfoundland right now and there’s twenty species of whales there.”

  Right after this torrent of words, the line went quiet.

  “Mom, you still there?”

  “Yes, I’m here . . . I’m just trying to make sense of it. Were they young or old?”

  “Hmm, older. Rainer just had to blab about it at supper. He can’t keep his trap shut. Dad wanted to know what they asked about and said if I’d told complete strangers what town you’re in, then I had to let you know right away. I told him I’d said Stormy Cove. No clue why they kept asking dumb questions. I forgot about it for a few days until Dad reminded me to call you and tell you about it.”

  “What else did they say to you?”

  “That some friends were traveling in Newfoundland and might come by to see you.”

  “Did Franz or Rosemarie say . . . Did you ask them who the people might be?”

  “Dad asked, but they didn’t know.”

  “Is Dad still up?”

  “Nope, why? Can he call you?”

  She heard the hope in his voice that he could wiggle off the hook and out of an obviously embarrassing position.

  “Maybe I’ll call him tomorrow. Andrew, sweetie, don’t worry about it. How could you know what they were after? But I’ve told you before not to give any personal information to strangers . . .”

  “Yeah, on the Internet, but this wasn’t the Internet.”

  “I know, but you’ll be more careful from now on, right?”

  “Mom, why’s Dad making such a big deal about this?”

  “Because . . . because he probably wants to teach you a lesson. But you’ve learned now, right? I don’t even tell my old friends personal things about you either.”

  “Sorry, Mom, it won’t happen again.”

  Do you miss me? she wanted to ask.

  “I miss you, my dearest boy. And I’m proud that you’re getting so good at German.”

  “Yeah, German’s real cool. I’ll blow away the guys in Vancouver.”

  She laughed in delight. He said Vancouver!

  “I’ll look into the shark jaw situation—that’s a promise. Sleep well, Andreas.”

  “Mom, you can forget about Andreas. It’s all English
names over here, Kevin and Brian and . . . like, Patrick. They think it’s awesome.”

  “Here the popular names are biblical things like Noah and Ezz, for Ezekiel, and Nimrod.”

  “Nimrod—whoa! Hot! I’ve got to tell the guys about that one. Talk to you later, Mom.”

  Lori thought about the phone call while doing the dishes. Well, that and Noah. She was filled with an intoxicating feeling somewhere between ecstasy and fear.

  She recalled every gesture, every glance, and replayed their conversation sentence by sentence.

  We’ve got to be able to talk about everything, he’d declared.

  Why in the world had she mistrusted him for so long?

  Falling asleep, she suddenly realized who had stolen the arrowhead from her home.

  CHAPTER 32

  Later, when events came thick and fast, a shadow fell on that day when she’d gone out to sea with Noah. But she made a solemn vow to preserve forever the beauty and magic of everything from those hours—to enshrine them. She printed out the photographs and stuck them in an album; the happiness in those pictures suppressed the memory, bit by bit, of the dark hours that were to follow.

  The smell of the ocean was thrilling that morning—fresh and slightly fishy. She heard the gulls screaming and the waves gurgling against the waiting boats; saw the houses on the cove in the clear morning light, and felt the promise of a new day that would be utterly unlike any other. Noah—he stopped puttering around and watched her walking down to the wharf. She could read the pride and desire in his eyes, and relief too, that she hadn’t changed her mind.

  He simply smiled at her without revealing anything to the other fishermen who were busily loading colored plastic crates on board.

  “Sleep well?” was his light-hearted greeting, while not taking his eyes off her. His curiosity trumped his shyness.

  “I was a little keyed up, kept waking up,” she confessed, flashing him a knowing smile.

  He grinned in return.

  “Ocean makes you nervous?”

  “Not the ocean.” Her smile broadened.

  Ah, but the ocean exerted its pull on her with all its might as Nate steered for open water. The waves glittered like a kaleidoscope, silver and green and white and blue. She let her hair blow in the wind and tried to imagine the marine animals that dwelt in the depths of the sea. She’d grown up by the Pacific, but she’d never experienced the ocean the way she did in Stormy Cove. Here it seemed more majestic and mysterious.