Caught in the Net

by Jessica Thomas

  “He is not my Maynard, or my anything else, dammit!”

  “Oh, I keep forgetting. I thought it was finders’ keepers. Anyway, she advised Stonington that he stayed in whatever city with his girlfriend, who may possibly be named—get this one—Jane Peaches!

  “Or Suzy Strawberry,” I added.

  “Or Eloise Eggplant.”

  “Or Calliope Cantaloupe.”

  Sonny giggled and then deepened his voice. Someone must have come into his office. He cleared his throat. “So-oo-o, things are beginning to move a little. We hope to have somebody up in Hyannis Monday to make a positive ID.”

  “Won’t fingerprints do it?” Then I realized maybe he was one of the many who’d never had reason to be fingerprinted.

  “Can’t get any, the flesh is too decomposed and too nibbled by the itty bitty fishies in the gweat big pond.”

  “Aaargh. But surely they’re not going to bring that poor nutty mother up here to ID him after he spent four days in that pond!”

  “No way. Anyhow, he’s unrecognizable, even to a mother. They’re trying to see if he’s got a dentist down there, and they’ll bring him up. Be a shame to pull the poor bastard away from an eight-hundred dollar root canal, wouldn’t it? Well, just thought I’d update you. Hug Fargo. I gotta go, I’ve got another call.” He rang off.

  Janet had come back into the kitchen about halfway through the conversation and started straightening things up. “More news?” she asked. Once again she seemed a bit pale to me, but I put it down to lack of makeup. Makeup or no makeup, she was lovely to look at.

  “Yeah. They think our footless man is now identified as one Maynard Terrence O’Malley from Connecticut.”

  “Well, faith and begorrah! What a good Irish name! They just do keep cropping up in this little mystery.”

  “Don’t they! The more I think about it, the more sense it makes. McKinney or someone hires O’Malley and his buddy to ‘steal’ his boat and deliver the arms to a ship. While they’re killing time around Plymouth, waiting for the storm to blow out, they pick up a little extra cash from the robberies. Then they head to sea and, as the tabloids will say, to their fatal rendezvous.”

  I had a delicious thought. “Do you realize we may just have solved a mystery that about five law enforcement groups are running in circles trying to get a handle on?” I exclaimed.

  “Wouldn’t that be perfect! The women do it again! And amateurs, at that! Oh, I do hope you’re right,” I raised my coffee cup in a toast.

  We both laughed and parted affectionately, and I was torn between feeling a little bereft and a little liberated. I wasn’t particularly happy with either feeling, so I collected camera and gear plus dog and headed for the piney woods.

  I parked by the side of the road. Fargo and I walked in along one of the bike paths, our footfalls silent on the cushion of fallen needles, looking for scenes or natural vignettes that I could turn into pictures. I got a great one of Fargo, standing on his hind legs with front paws leaning against a tree trunk, stretched to his full sleek, muscular height. Above him, head-down on the tree was a squirrel, nose not two inches above Fargo’s. I swear they were both laughing. I may blow that one up and give it to Sonny for his birthday. Or I may sell it. More likely both.

  We strolled on and I made another shot or two. A bunch of grackles gathered ominously on the limbs of a dead tree like the crows on the Capitoline steps, a pair of late-staying rosy grosbeaks scratching for food by an ilax bush, their pompous round breasts and short busy beaks reminding me of two matrons gossiping over tea. I was quite pleased, but you can never really be sure until they’re developed.

  We circled back to the road and Harmon careened by in his old rattletrap truck, waving furiously. I waved back and was immediately thirsty. We drove back into town and parked on Commercial Street. You can do that easily this time of year and I relish it while I can. I gave Fargo his drink in the car and he allowed me to go in and get mine.

  I picked up a beer at the bar and walked over to the table that was my ‘other office.’ It was fun to eavesdrop on the other drinkers, as usual. Today, of course, the conversation was all about the body brought in by the Ocean Pearl. According to the local pundits, a full-scale drug war was breaking out. It would not be safe for boats to leave the docks. It would not even be safe for people to walk the streets. The FBI was coming en masse to protect civilians.

  Just to add a little fuel to their fire, I solemnly recounted Janet’s recent IRA gun-running theory. It was kerosene on a smoldering ember. Some of them went running full tilt after this new, intriguing flame, while others vigorously defended the ever-popular traditional drug theory. It should keep them going happily, long into the night.

  In a few minutes Joe brought me another beer. As he plunked it before me he shook his finger in a pretend-warning. “Now, lissen here, Alex, you got to stop beating up on my male customers. Looks bad—a woman whomping on a man.”

  “Better than the other way round, Joe. Anyway, that was no man, that was just a brat. Brats are open season.”

  He tucked his bar cloth in his belt. “Well, I’ll let it go just this once, if you promise to lay off that Women’s Lib with Billie. She’s hard enough to live with as it is.”

  “Billie is a jewel beyond value, Joe. You should treasure her with every breath. Anyhow, she makes the best crab cakes in Massachusetts.”

  “Now you finally got it right.” He patted me on the shoulder and walked away.

  Real good ol’ Amurrcan bar humor. I was relaxed and happy, without a caveat anywhere in my mind, which I find is often a mistake.

  I figured two beers had better be it, since I was shortly going to my mother’s. So I downed the last of it and settled up. As I went up the alley toward the street an apparition of arms and fists and elbows leaped out at me from behind Jacobs’ Gift Shoppe. Instinctively I jumped back and therefore avoided the first clumsy onslaught of Ray Miller and was well prepared for the second.

  “I’ll fix you for fucking up my life!” he screamed, aiming a wobbly punch at my chin. Ray was not a pugilist.

  I simply grabbed his arm and swung, using his own momentum to spin him around and into the wall of the Jacobs’ store. His back hit it with a resounding thud, and I hoped they had left no glassware on the shelves when they closed for the winter. He slid slowly down to a sitting position and stared fixedly at his left shoe. I stood over him till he tried to get up, at which point I kicked his feet out from under him, just to get his attention.

  “Stay down, Ray, or we’ll have to do this again and the second time it might hurt. Are you hearing me?” He gave a small nod and I continued. “First of all, I didn’t fuck up your life, you did. Secondly, just answer me one question. Do you want a divorce?” He stared up at me with his mouth open and eyes wide with amazement. “Not from me, you idiot, from Diane!”

  “Yes. No. I don’t guess so. I don’t know.”

  “Typical of incisive male thinking when it comes to anything involving the emotions, Ray!” I found that I was getting angry, not so much at his trying to hit me, but for his treatment of Diane that had resulted in his attack on me. “Uncross your eyes and listen to me, Romeo.”

  He made a face and lifted his hands palm-up in surrender.

  “Ray, do you know that Diane spends all day everyday with one kid who wets his pants and another who thinks she’s Salvador Dali? These are her only companions! Her only intellectual stimulation. You, on the other hand, put on a nice suit every morning and toddle off to solve the world’s financial problems, go to lunch with a client or friends, kid around with two secretaries or assistants or whatever they are and then finally wander home, where your shirts are clean and ironed and another suit is pressed for tomorrow. The house is a mess, Diane is a mess, the kids are clean enough but edgy and whiny. But your fucking shirts are ironed and your fucking dinner is on the table so you can eat and go out drinking with your buddies or go drool all over Marcia and tell her how misunderstood you are.”


  I was obviously getting madder by the minute, and Ray was looking up at me with some alarm. “Ah, Alex, I didn’t mean to cause so much . . . you know I would never hurt Diane . . .”

  “The hell you wouldn’t! Shut up and listen to me, you miserable slimy slug. You’ve got a good business. It certainly supports your nights out with the boys and your expensive little gifts to Marcia.”

  That was a shot in the dark, but his face told me I hit the mark. “So you just take some of that money and hire Diane a part-time sitter or housekeeper so she can get out of that house and have her hair done or have lunch and shop or something. And then you get another sitter and take her out to dinner or away for a weekend. And pay some attention to your kids. For all I know, they might even be cute if the whole household wasn’t too depressed and angry to notice they’re alive!”

  I leaned over and tapped his chest with my forefinger. “Do it, Ray, or so help me, I’ll fake a photo that looks like you sneaking out of Peter and The Wolf’s at five a.m., and I’ll nail it to every phone pole in town!” With that cheery thought I left him. He’d gone back to staring at his shoe.

  I got to the car to find that Fargo had slept through the entire scene, which made me wonder what he might do if Ray came by to burn the house down at midnight. But I was too pleased with myself to dwell on it. I had struck a mighty blow in the cause of womanhood. And maybe I’d get those business cards reprinted after all. Huzzah!

  I went home and showered and dressed to go to Mom’s, but realized I was a little early. So I said the hell with it and had another beer and thought about how clever I was while I watched Tiger Woods start to blow another tournament away.

  Then Fargo and I began our walk over to my mother’s house. He was pleased, either at the walk or because he knew where he was going. He knew he’d be coddled and cuddled and fed to the gills. Well, I thought, we were both following our horoscopes for the day. He’d been with his squirrel-friend earlier and didn’t seem to have a care in the world now that he had me to himself. Uh-oh, was that his nagging problem? Well, it was solved for tonight, anyway. And I’d been with Janet earlier and would be with Mom, and there you were. Whoever said horoscopes were garbage?

  Horoscopes. Zodiacs. What was it with the damn Zodiacs? What was wrong with them? Then my dream came back to me, as clear as the instant replay in a televised football game. Yes! Janet had said it in my dream. “I should know what a Zodiac is. I was an admiral in the Coast Guard.” Of course! It was the night I had met Janet and Sonny had come into the Rat to tell me they had found the Bertram cruiser, but the Zodiac that should have been in tow was missing. Janet had seemed not to know what a Zodiac was—the boat Zodiac, that is. In fact she had made some silly reference to a horoscope at the time.

  My walk slowed almost to a halt as I thought. God, the Coast Guard used Zodiacs all the time, probably had dozens—maybe hundreds—of the damn things. As an ex-Coast Guardsman, how could she not know what they were? Well, now slow down, Alex. At that time, she had just heard about a murder and a messy death, had just come to from a faint in a strange place, surrounded by people she had never even seen before, one of them a cop in full regalia. Doubtless she was confused, embarrassed, maybe even a little frightened. She just got it garbled up at the moment. She probably just said it to have something to say.

  I was sure that was it. Coincidence was all. But I didn’t think Maynard Terrence O’Malley’s name was a coincidence. Now that had possibilities! I wondered if Sonny had learned anything during the day. I hoped he’d be home for dinner so I could hear the latest.

  Fargo pulled on the leash and I speeded up. Both of us were hungry, as we approached the house. Like most Ptown houses and yards, Mom’s was neat and well kept. The straight-up two-story house was a New England style in pale yellow with maroon shutters. The front yard was tiny, with just enough room for some flowers in season and enclosed by a picket fence and gate—painted white, of course.

  Like most people I ignored the front door and went up the driveway, past the small side yard with its shade tree and picnic table and benches, and into the larger backyard. I opened the backdoor to my mother’s house and called, “Hi, Mom, I’m here!” as I had done so often all my life. Wherever I lived, I knew this house would always, on the bottom line, be home.

  I caught the marvelous aroma of sausage and kale soup and fresh-baked homemade rolls. I love my mother, of course, but somehow my feelings seem even more affectionate at times like this. I gave her a kiss. She was edging toward sixty. Her once-auburn hair now had enough white in it to appear ash-blonde. But her figure was still good. She had on jeans and a man-tailored lavender shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She seemed younger than her years. And a splash of flour on one cheek simply gave her a rakish look.

  “There’s my big baby boy!” she crooned to Fargo. “Is he a hungry fellow? Well, he shall have his own special bowl of soup.”

  “How about me?” I asked.

  “Oh, you, you’ll eat anything.” She smiled and patted my arm with a trace less enthusiasm than she had patted Fargo. I tried not to be jealous.

  “I’m an adult, I can take this,” I pouted.

  “Now, darling, don’t be silly. You can have your special bowl of soup, too. Are you hungry? It’s all ready. And I made an apple pie.”

  Already I felt better. “Should we wait for Sonny? Is he coming home? He said he’d try to make it.” I hadn’t seen his car in the driveway.

  Mom glanced out the kitchen window. “He’s pulling in right this minute.”

  He walked into the kitchen shedding his jacket and tie and draping them over a chair. Mom gave me a roll-eyed look and handed them back to him. Sighing, he put the tie in the jacket pocket and hung the jacket in the hall closet. Then he opened us both a beer and we sat at the kitchen table as we had on so many evenings of our childhood—minus the beer, of course—facing each other across the waxed white oak table while Mom busied herself at the stove.

  Dining rooms were for birthdays and holidays and company. We sipped our beers in silence for a few minutes, while I gave him time to start to relax.

  Then I said, “Hey, Sonny, Janet came up with an intriguing point regarding Mr. Footless, a.k.a. Mr. Maynard Terrence O’Malley, good Irishman that he is . . . was. There are getting to be several Irish involved here. It seems really possible to me that McKinney made his boat available in some way to the two thugs. Either O’Malley and friend got into a fight before they ever got to the ship, or maybe somebody on the ship didn’t want to pay them or maybe O’Malley doubled the price at the last minute. Perhaps even the FBI was on board the ship and now everything is a big cover-up. It makes sense, you know.” I stopped, out of breath.

  Sonny leaned back in his chair as Mom served the yummy-smelling soup. He swallowed a spoonful and winced at the heat and took a gulp of beer. “It’s a thought. Usually, though, the IRA does-n’t do or even talk much in America about guns. It’s pretty much only the political wing of the IRA over here, and they like to come across as gentle, peace-loving fellas who just raise a little money to help the orphans and widows left by the mean, cruel Brits. Of course they take the money they collect in America and buy the guns from Syria or Libya, but we aren’t supposed to know about that.”

  “They never ship guns from here?” I couldn’t believe it.

  “Well, hardly ever,” he grinned.

  “And now you are the master of the queen’s nav-vee,” Mom interposed. “Eat your soup before it’s cold.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am. Actually, Alex, we should know more very shortly. Chief Wood said he’d stop by about now on his way home from the station.

  “I think Janet and I were quite clever to think of it. Don’t you?”

  “Yeah. Clever, indeed. I wasn’t thinking along those lines at all. Mom, was that apple pie I smelled when I came in?”

  One thing you could say about Detective Sergeant Peres, his priorities were always in order. At that moment a car door slammed, followed by Chie
f Wood’s solid tread across the back porch.

  “Come on in, Carl,” my mother called.

  “Jeanne, you get prettier every time I see you!” He gave her a peck on the cheek.

  “Liar. How’s Martha?”

  “She’s fine. So are the kids. Eileen’s expecting her first. Carl, Jr. graduates the Academy this June if God is very good.” My mother laughed. “Don’t laugh, Jeanne, last year he had the dubious distinction of being eighty-two in a class of eighty-seven.”

  Sonny stood and the two men shook hands. “Don’t worry, Carl, until he’s eighty-seven in a class of eighty-two. Then you got a problem.”

  Mother offered coffee and a slice of pie and was accepted all around.

  “Well, Carl,” Sonny said between bites, “If you have any news, don’t be bashful. Alex is positive we’ve stumbled onto some big-time arms deal here. Have we?”

  Chief Wood gave me a wink. “Well, I suppose we might have. There were five ships in this general area at about the right time that night. One was a little coaster headed from Bridgeport to Portsmouth, so I crossed her off. One was a big Exxon supertanker. I didn’t think she or her captain fit the bill for a side business of running arms. Neither did a Moore-Mack container ship. That left a small tanker out of Venezuela, headed for Scotland and a Swedish freighter headed home to Malmo.”

  “Those two sound interesting,” I put in.

  “Yes,” Wood nodded. “Actually either of them could plan to secretly put into a small Irish harbor en route to their published destination or have a meeting set up near the coast of Ireland to off-load easily enough. They’re not on the kind of schedule and set course the big tanker or container ship would be. The Venezuelan tanker especially interests me. If she met the Bertram the night of the storm, she could have dumped some oil when the Bertram was alongside, which would have smoothed out that sea for her.”

  He wiped his mouth almost delicately. “That sea bothers me. Transferring cargo from the Bertram to any other vessel would have been a real bitch—excuse me, Jeanne—in that weather. A twenty-eight-footer would have been bouncing like a ping-pong ball. If they had any sense they wouldn’t have tried.”