Close to the Bone by William G. Tapply Page A

was high, and little channels and creeks flowed through the marsh to the Merrimack half a mile away. A pair of black ducks skidded into a pothole in the grass, and seagulls wheeled in the breeze.
    It struck me as a good place to sit and look and think, like my balcony over the harbor. I wondered how much time Paul had spent out here, sitting and looking and thinking.
    The young woman came out a couple of minutes later carrying a pair of plastic glasses. “I’m Maddy Wilkins, by the way,” she said. She handed me a glass. “I live a couple of streets down.”
    “Oh. I wondered…”
    “If I was living with him?”
    I nodded.
    “I’m not, no. Not yet, anyway.” She gestured at the glass I was holding. “Sun tea,” she said. “I made it.”
    I took a sip. It tasted bitter.
    “So you and Paul are—”
    “Are what?”
    I shrugged. “Lovers?”
    She smiled. “That’s a funny, old-fashioned word, isn’t it?”
    “Whatever.”
    “I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” she said.
    “He’s married, you know.”
    “Yeah, I know that. So what? He’s getting a divorce.” She cocked her head. “I get it. You’re his lawyer. The divorce, right?”
    “They hadn’t gotten that far, I guess. I wasn’t representing him on it, anyway. I did other lawyer work for him. Him and his wife.”
    “So you know her, too, huh?”
    “Yes.”
    She took the chair beside me. “Is he really missing?”
    “Yes.”
    “They haven’t—”
    “They found his boat. Nobody knows what happened. You seem to think he might have taken his own life.”
    She hugged herself. “I don’t know. He was always so sad. Except when he went fishing. Then he was a different man. But mostly he was just sad.”
    “Did he talk to you about it?”
    “No, not really. He tried to act cheerful for me. But he wasn’t very good at it. I’d come over, make supper for him, and we’d sit out on the deck and hold hands and watch the sun set over the marsh and all the ducks coming in, and he’d just stare into space, and… it was just so damn sad. I would’ve done anything to cheer him up. I tried every way I knew.” She shook her head. “That’s why I was planting those stupid petunias. Aw, shit.” She tried to smile as the tears coursed down her cheeks. “My mother was right. If you don’t love somebody, you can’t get hurt. Damn it.”
    “Maddy,” I said softly, “did he ever take you out on his boat?”
    She nodded. “Sure. Boy, did he know how to find those fish.”
    “How did he catch them?”
    “Eels, mostly. He’d either drift them or rig them and cast them. He loved eels. I never saw him fish any other way. He said later when the pogies started running he’d use them. But they haven’t started yet.”
    “Did you see Paul yesterday?”
    She shook her head. “I worked till eleven. I’m waitressing at Scandia. I’m in college, see, but we’re done for the summer. So me and some girls’ve rented this place a couple streets down. Anyway, I came over when I got off, but he wasn’t here. I figured he was fishing, even though it was wicked stormy.”
    “Did it surprise you that he’d go out in the storm?”
    “Not at all. He went out in worse weather than that. I mean, I’ve been out with him in some pretty bad weather. We never had a problem. He’d stick close to land, and he was real careful. Always made me wear a life jacket.”
    “Did he wear one?”
    She shook her head. “He said if you respected the sea and understood it, you’d never have a problem.”
    I sat there with Maddy Wilkins, sipping her bitter tea and trying to decide what else I might ask her. But I had run out of questions. So I put down my half-empty glass, stood up, and said, “Thank you, Maddy.”
    She looked up and frowned. “For what?”
    I shrugged. “For the tea. For the information. I hope you’ll keep my card, and if you think of something or hear something you’ll call me.”
    “Oh, sure. Okay.”
    She followed me off the