Away with the Fishes

by Stephanie Siciarz

  “Have they found her?”

  “Madison didn’t say anything about bodies. But they must have something on him. He sounded pretty shook up.”

  “He didn’t do it, did he? What’s he worried about?”

  Luckily Madison reached the bakery right then and Randolph was spared any further efforts to answer Trevor’s questions.

  “Good night,” Madison said as he nodded to Randolph and extended his hand to shake Trevor’s. “’Night, sir. I’m in a bit of a jam. Did Randolph tell you?”

  “He told me bits and pieces, but none of them seem to fit together too well. Tell me what you know.”

  Madison began at the beginning. He told Trevor and Randolph about his missing lunches and his drive around the island to look for Rena. He told them of his despair, his nap, and his rude awakening when the police arrived. He relayed the officers’ questions and repeated his alibi, said the last straw was when they claimed he placed the ad for a lonely heart. “They think I’m advertising for a new girl ’cause I killed my old one!” he screeched. He described May’s demeanor after that and how she threw the officers out, then he ended his account with the callaloo soup and May’s brainstorm. He concluded with “and so here I am.”

  Madison’s tale told, the bakery was silent. Madison and Randolph looked expectantly at Trevor, who didn’t say a word right then but was clearly thinking furiously. After a minute, or maybe two, Trevor fired a rapid round of questions at Madison.

  “Do the police have any real evidence to implicate you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Do they plan to arrest you?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  “Do they know for certain that Rena and the girl on the bike are one and the same?”

  “They seemed pretty sure.”

  “Do they know for certain that Rena or this other girl is dead?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Or that you killed either one?”

  “They implied it.”

  “How so?”

  “May was asleep, so they think she can’t vouch for me.”

  “Is that it?”

  “That, and the ad.”

  “Is there a body? Is there even one dead body, let alone two?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do,” Trevor announced. He stood and delivered his assessment, punctuating his words with fists on the bakery’s counter. “Of course there’s no body or you’d be sitting in jail right now. They want a quick solution and they’re stabbing in the dark. Until they find some real evidence, they can’t touch you.”

  “What if some evidence turns up?” Randolph looked for holes in his father’s theory.

  “Did you do it?” Trevor asked Madison sharply.

  “No, I didn’t do it!”

  “Even so,” Randolph said.

  Trevor thought for a minute. “I see what you mean,” he agreed, looking at his son. “On Oh they solve the crimes first and then find the clues they need after. Heaven help you if they decide you’re guilty.”

  Madison breathed a desperate sigh.

  “Now, now.” Trevor patted his shoulders. “Finding clues is one thing; finding dead bodies is another.”

  “What if that missing bike lady turns up dead?” Randolph asked.

  Trevor counted his rebuttal on his fingers. “There’s no proof that the missing bike lady is even a lady. There’s no proof that she’s dead or gone. There’s no proof Rena is dead or gone. And there’s no proof Madison placed any ad.”

  “True.” Randolph and Madison said in unison, not sounding entirely convinced.

  “’Course, it would help if that silly girlfriend of yours turned up from her mysterious walk.”

  Randolph and Madison looked at each other helplessly.

  “Here’s what we do,” Trevor continued. “Madison, get yourself home now and have a good night’s rest. Tomorrow, you and your sister wrack those brains of yours. Try to figure out where Rena could be, and you go get her. Randolph, you keep your eyes and ears open when you’re out with the truck making deliveries. Somebody knows something. Look for clues and listen for talk.”

  The boys nodded their consent.

  “I’ll have a go at Bruce,” Trevor said. “I don’t believe him for a minute. He knows who placed that ad. We get him to say so and maybe that clears Madison, if the police are so sure the ad points to the killer.”

  As if in agreement, the bakery fridge jolted to life just then, its noisy pulse filling the room. They all turned to look at it, as if they expected it to speak, to comment on their plan or to suggest another.

  “Well?” Trevor said finally, his eyes back on the two young men. “What are you waiting for? Madison, go home. Randolph, give him a lift.” The boys nodded and moved toward the door.

  “I’ll get Bruce over straightaway,” Trevor continued. “Go on, off you go.”

  Heading home in the bakery van, Madison felt more and more like himself. Trevor had made good sense. His advice, and Randolph’s help, dissipated the loneliness of his walk earlier that evening. Madison felt hopeful. Cheerful, almost, as they rode under the stars that waved and winked at him. The night was loud now, the frogs awake, the crickets in song, the leaves rustling in chorus. The moon shone brightly still, though its light washed away the despair it had previously revealed. Perhaps May was right. Perhaps in the morning, in the light of the rested sun, Madison’s future would look brighter and clear.

  Back at the bakery, Trevor, too, hoped this would be the case. Reluctant, however to rely on the sun’s good graces alone, he contrived to employ the island paper. He rang up Bruce, apologized for involving him at such a late hour, summoned him to the bakery, and promised him a front-page scoop. Bruce, home in his favorite chair, feet propped, watching two moths dance on the rim of a light fixture, hid his excitement poorly as he vowed to rush over right then.

  Next, Trevor phoned his wife, Patience, to tell her he would be late. Then he leaned on the bakery counter, his forearms pressed to the glass, and waited for Bruce to show.

  On the other side of Port-St. Luke, while Bruce made his way to the bakery by light of the moon, Officers Tullsey and Smart were in conference. From Raoul’s house they had gone straight to the Police Station (stopping only for flying fish sandwiches and chips on the way), where they requested a meeting with Chief of Police Lucas Davenport. Chief Davenport was a commanding and (mostly) serious man, his temperament reflected in the shine of his uniform’s brass buttons, his moral fiber in the well-pressed cloth of his stark black uniform. His fingernails were as trim as his waist and filed as precisely as his case dossiers. He believed in (mostly) by-the-book law enforcement and showed no mercy once he had convinced himself of a criminal’s committed crime.

  For this reason, when Arnold and Joshua presented their case, they emphasized Madison’s guilt and minimized their own less-than-by-the-book interrogation. It was a lucky strike indeed that May had kicked them out of her house. Heaven knows the trampled protocol, had she endured them longer than she did! Though neither officer would admit it, each was thinking just this as he sat opposite the imposing chief, whose disposition was as dark as his lapels. He looked from Joshua’s eyes to Arnold’s and back, speaking in a ferocious near-whisper.

  “Am I to understand that you as much as accused this suspect without a shred of physical evidence? Without so much as a footprint to put him at the scene of the crime?”

  “May I point out the fishing boat, Your Honor. I mean, sir,” Joshua corrected.

  “What of it?”

  “The man who placed the ad in the Morning Crier owns a fishing boat,” Arnold said.

  “So do half the men on Oh, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Yes, sir, but half the men on Oh have not just lost a girlfriend under mysterious circumstances,” Joshua said.

  “Mysterious circumstances?”

  Joshua continued. “Yes, sir. The suspect’s known girlfriend, Rena Baker, is gone. Her whereabouts are, th
erefore, a mystery.” (He paused after “therefore” for dramatic effect.)

  The police chief was confused. “I thought we were discussing the case of the missing lady cyclist and the hit-and-run. Who is Rena Baker?”

  “Sir,” Arnold explained, “we believe that Rena Baker is the cyclist, done away with by her boyfriend, Madison Fuller, who then placed an ad in the newspaper for Rena’s replacement.”

  Chief Davenport rubbed his chin. “It’s an intriguing theory, I admit.” He thought for a moment then went on. “Have we found the girl’s body?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “No, sir.”

  “A single clue?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then it seems to me like you gentlemen are playing a parlor game, not conducting an investigation.”

  Joshua opened his mouth to speak but the Chief silenced him with a raised hand and went on. “What’s more, a guilty man may walk free because of your clumsiness.”

  “Sir?” Joshua said, offended. “Clumsiness?”

  “Clumsiness,” the Chief repeated. “Thanks to you, our prime suspect has been tipped off. He knows now to get rid of the evidence. And, thanks to you, he has all the time in the world to do it. While we sit here chatting, he’s probably burning her clothes and tossing her body into the sea.”

  “What do you suggest—?”

  Before Arnold could finish his thought, Chief Davenport had ordered the officers to write up a full report and to complete the forms for a search warrant. He wanted them back at the Fuller house by sunrise.

  15

  I did say that Raoul Orlean was known for his eccentricities. The night Officers Tullsey and Smart pleaded their case to Police Chief Davenport was a case in perfect point. Although Raoul, for years, had refused to entertain the notion of island magic, he was starting to re-think his position on island luck; it struck him, as he connected the missing Rena Baker to the R. Baker on his wall who needed finding, that had the police shown up at his house any earlier than they did, there may well have been enough daylight for them to catch sight of the incriminating message on his two-hued cottage wall. If such a thing as island luck did exist, then, Raoul didn’t want to push his. Wasting not a minute, he abandoned his dinner plate, changed his shirt, and strapped a bright light onto his head.

  Were Raoul married to anyone but Ms. Lila, this sort of behavior would have triggered no end of marital discord and culminated, no doubt, in a trip to the psychiatric hospital at the edge of Port-St. Luke. Ms. Lila knew better, and when she saw Raoul emerge from their bedroom like a miner from a hole, all she said was, “I’ll feed your pigeon to Fragile.”

  Fragile was Ms. Lila’s dog, the third one to be named so over the course of nearly two decades of married life. Like her predecessors, Number Three (as Raoul liked to call her) was small and fearful and rarely made a peep (let alone a bark) or left Ms. Lila’s side. Most days Fragile accompanied Ms. Lila to work, where she (the dog) watched her (Ms. Lila) from the vantage point of a low Medieval European History shelf (which, as a rule, the islanders rarely consulted), and where Ms. Lila had placed a satin pillowcase stuffed with feather down and stitched tightly shut.

  While Ms. Lila used her fingers to separate the meat from the tiny bird-bones and Fragile panted anxiously at her feet, Raoul collected his paint and brushes and went outside to cover the anonymous message painted on the house. He decided that, if it were indeed evidence, he was better off to cover it up than to let the police get the faintest wind of it. They would turn his house into People’s Exhibit heaven-knew-what and make a terrible mess of his yard, all the while failing to decipher the message’s true intent. Not only that, they might somehow twist things around and turn him into a suspect. He could never find Rena Baker if he landed himself behind bars.

  Raoul couldn’t help but wonder if just on Oh, or if everywhere, innocent men were forced to take up paintbrushes in the night to protect their innocence. Surely somewhere, on Killig maybe, they were more civilized than this! As he painted by the light of the moon and the lamp on his head, Raoul thought again about Rena and Madison and, especially, about the police. Raoul knew he wouldn’t get to sleep unless he got some answers first, and there were only two places on Oh to find those: the bakery or the Belly. Tonight, though, the answers Raoul was looking for had “BAKER” written all over them.

  As Raoul cleaned himself up to go to sniffing for clues at Trevor’s, and Chief Davenport finished up with Arnold and Joshua and their witless policing, Trevor found himself in a battle of wits with Bruce. He told Bruce what he had learned from Madison about the officers’ bogus investigation, based on which they had decided Rena Baker was the missing girl from the bike.

  “Rena Baker? Who’s she?” Bruce looked up from the notepad where he was jotting down Trevor’s every word.

  “She just happens to be from Glutton Hill, right near the bike accident. She also just happens to be missing, stupid girl. And she happens to be the girlfriend of Madison Fuller, who, as you know, owns a fishing boat, which is why the police have decided that he killed Rena and put an ad in your paper to find a new girl.”

  “Fancy that!” Bruce exclaimed, genuinely delighted. He chuckled to himself, sure that no rainbow would grace his front page for a good long while.

  “Don’t you see what this means?” Trevor tried to reason with him.

  “It means I might sell a few papers is what it means.”

  “What about Madison?”

  “What about him?” Bruce asked.

  “He’s the most honest man in Port-St. Luke,” Trevor argued. “I don’t believe for a minute that he killed Rena Baker or anyone else.”

  “You’re probably right,” Bruce said, not sounding as though he cared either way.

  “Will you say that in your story?”

  “It wouldn’t be much in the way of journalism if I did, would it? Im-par-ti-al-i-ty,” he said. “That’s the key.” He wagged his pencil smartly at Trevor.

  “You? Impartial?” Even as the words crossed his lips, Trevor knew he had crossed a line. Bruce was very defensive of his unique variety of news reporting.

  “I don’t have to take this!” Bruce flipped closed his notepad and started to leave.

  “Wait!” Trevor grabbed Bruce by the forearm. “I didn’t mean it. It’s just that this Madison business has me a little upset. The man is scared to death and the police seem hell-bent on making the charges stick.”

  “So you insult me? How does that help matters?”

  “Sorry for that. I was just implying that the tone of your story might sway public opinion. You know how highly respected you are on this island. If a hint that the police were off-base slipped into your story, it might go a long way in displacing some already misplaced guilt.” Trevor held his breath. Would Bruce fall for such obvious flattery?

  “It is true that I’m very highly regarded,” Bruce replied. He would!

  “I’m not saying I’m prepared to distort the facts,” he went on, “but I suppose it would be a shame to slander the character of a man like Madison.”

  “Good man.” Trevor clapped Bruce on the back with a heavier hand than necessary. “There is one other thing you could do, you know.”

  “I’ve just said I won’t distort the facts.”

  “No, nothing like that. I mean the ad.”

  “What ad?” Heavens, Bruce was slow to catch on sometimes!

  “The lonely hearts ad. If you reveal who placed it, then that might clear Madison’s name.”

  “I already told you all, I have no idea who placed it.”

  Trevor was impatient, but treaded lightly. “Are you sure you couldn’t do a bit of fishing around and figure it out? You still have the man’s letter? You have the envelope he pushed under the door?”

  Bruce thought for a minute, then uttered, “I’m not too sure.”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t mind having a look,” Trevor suggested. “It might save Madison’s life. You, Br
uce, might single-handedly save Madison’s life.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. It’s late now. Let me go.” And off he went.

  “Don’t forget, Bruce,” Trevor shouted, following him as he left the bakery. “A matter of life and death.” Bruce kept walking and, without looking back, waved his hand in the air.

  Randolph pulled up in the bakery truck right then and saw Bruce leave. “Any luck, Dad?” he asked, as he slammed the door of the vehicle.

  They entered the shop together just as Raoul reached the bakery in a taxi. (All the drivers knew Raoul and drove him for free, trips he repaid at the Belly with rounds of rum or beer.)

  “Raoul!” Trevor said, surprised. “What are you doing here at this hour?” Though it wasn’t ever too late to find company or comfort at the bakery, it was unusual for Raoul to seek either at this time of night. Twice in three days meant something was up. “Trouble with the missus?”

  “No, everything’s good,” Raoul said. Without explaining his private interest in the bicycle case, he added, “The police have been to see me. I was just wondering about this murder talk. What’s the word?”

  “Good question,” Trevor said. He proceeded to recount to Randolph and Raoul the conversation he had had with Bruce. He told them he harbored little hope of learning the truth about the ad, but he hoped he had made Bruce feel important enough to use his news story to Madison’s advantage. If not, however told, the story would serve its purpose. The islanders, at least those in town who knew Madison, would be outraged to see such an honest man accused. And, too, spreading word of Rena’s disappearance could only help Madison’s case. Somebody might have seen her, might know what happened or where she was.

  Flimsy hopes, these, but maybe Bruce would surprise them.

  There was little else to do, they all agreed, but await the morning edition, so Trevor and Randolph locked up the bakery and drove the bakery truck home, dropping Raoul at his cottage on the way. Tired and tense, Raoul crawled into bed and—lucky again!—succumbed to the still-awake and amorous Ms. Lila. When they had finished canoodling, he dozed in the crook of her arm, until at last even the moon succumbed to morning.