turned to leave.
“Nasty,” she said to my back.
I turned back. “Excuse me?”
“That woman who got killed. Nasty business.”
She stepped back into the darkness. The door closed.
8
I PARKED BESIDE A rusted dumpster in the gravel lot on the opposite side from the silver-shingled shack that was the marina’s office. I noticed a pay phone on the outside wall, the one from which Marc Winter had called the police the night he found Maggie’s bludgeoned body. An orange-painted steel mesh walkway led out across one hundred feet of sparse-growing marshgrass to the complex of floating docks where the boats were moored.
I once asked Des why they didn’t construct a nice boardwalk to replace the esthetically offensive steel gridwork. “Ecology,” he said. “Can’t keep the sun off the vegetation. It’d disrupt the delicate balance of things.” Des pointed down at the sere grass that sprouted up around the beer cans, empty potato chip bags, and discarded bait containers. “The brainstorm of some desk jockey in Washington, no doubt.”
The marina was constructed like a T that had been crossed a dozen times. I guessed that fifty boats were moored there. Bertrams, Egg Harbors, Grady-Whites, Makos, and Chris-Crafts, serious ocean-going vessels for serious fishermen, along with Boston Whalers and ballistic-shaped speedboats and a variety of sloops and yawls. Constance, Des’s Bertram, was moored in her usual slip, I noticed. There seemed to be no sawhorses or signs or ribbons to indicate that she was out of bounds. The police, evidently, had completed their forensic research on her.
Snooker Lynch was crouched at the very end of the long central pier. His bicycle lay beside him, its handlebars upturned, its front wheel cockeyed, so that it looked like a huge wounded insect. I approached him quietly. He sat on the edge, dangling his legs. A plastic bucket and a cardboard container like the kind for leftover chow mein sat on the dock beside him. The latter contained his bait, I guessed.
His body was arched tensely forward. He held the line in his fingers like a flute, his wrists cocked delicately beside his ear as if he might hear the nibble of a fish. I stood behind him for a minute without disturbing him. I lit a cigarette. He sat as still and rigid as a statue. The wooden dock rolled rhythmically under my feet. The tide was pushing upriver. It was good to fish the incoming tide, I knew.
I coughed and said, “Mr. Lynch?”
He swiveled his head very slowly and peered at me for a moment. Then he returned his attention to his line. I moved forward and sat beside him.
“How are they biting?”
He shook his head without looking at me.
“I want you to tell me about the man you saw with Maggie.”
He shook his head again.
“Did that man kill her?”
He twitched the line he was holding, pretending, I figured, to be more interested in the fishing than our conversation.
“Did she kill him, then?”
He hauled in his line with an awkward hand-overhand motion. His hook and the one-ounce oval lead sinker came in festooned with seaweed. He plucked it off with the patience of an old woman undoing a mistake in her needlepoint. When he had cleaned off the hook, he reached into the cardboard container and plucked out a sandworm, an ugly lizardlike creature with cruel pincers and lots of legs. He placed it on the dock beside him, produced a knife from a sheath at his hip, and sliced the critter neatly in half. Both halves writhed and wriggled. He picked up one half and deposited it in the Chinese food container. The other half he impaled on his hook, which he lowered between his legs into the river. The line made an upstream arc as the accelerating tide bowed it.
Without looking at me, Snooker began to make sounds, a series of false starts that I had the sense not to interrupt. Finally he came out with “Wone talka please,” which I understood to mean that he wouldn’t talk to the police. It was amazing how much easier
“Nasty,” she said to my back.
I turned back. “Excuse me?”
“That woman who got killed. Nasty business.”
She stepped back into the darkness. The door closed.
8
I PARKED BESIDE A rusted dumpster in the gravel lot on the opposite side from the silver-shingled shack that was the marina’s office. I noticed a pay phone on the outside wall, the one from which Marc Winter had called the police the night he found Maggie’s bludgeoned body. An orange-painted steel mesh walkway led out across one hundred feet of sparse-growing marshgrass to the complex of floating docks where the boats were moored.
I once asked Des why they didn’t construct a nice boardwalk to replace the esthetically offensive steel gridwork. “Ecology,” he said. “Can’t keep the sun off the vegetation. It’d disrupt the delicate balance of things.” Des pointed down at the sere grass that sprouted up around the beer cans, empty potato chip bags, and discarded bait containers. “The brainstorm of some desk jockey in Washington, no doubt.”
The marina was constructed like a T that had been crossed a dozen times. I guessed that fifty boats were moored there. Bertrams, Egg Harbors, Grady-Whites, Makos, and Chris-Crafts, serious ocean-going vessels for serious fishermen, along with Boston Whalers and ballistic-shaped speedboats and a variety of sloops and yawls. Constance, Des’s Bertram, was moored in her usual slip, I noticed. There seemed to be no sawhorses or signs or ribbons to indicate that she was out of bounds. The police, evidently, had completed their forensic research on her.
Snooker Lynch was crouched at the very end of the long central pier. His bicycle lay beside him, its handlebars upturned, its front wheel cockeyed, so that it looked like a huge wounded insect. I approached him quietly. He sat on the edge, dangling his legs. A plastic bucket and a cardboard container like the kind for leftover chow mein sat on the dock beside him. The latter contained his bait, I guessed.
His body was arched tensely forward. He held the line in his fingers like a flute, his wrists cocked delicately beside his ear as if he might hear the nibble of a fish. I stood behind him for a minute without disturbing him. I lit a cigarette. He sat as still and rigid as a statue. The wooden dock rolled rhythmically under my feet. The tide was pushing upriver. It was good to fish the incoming tide, I knew.
I coughed and said, “Mr. Lynch?”
He swiveled his head very slowly and peered at me for a moment. Then he returned his attention to his line. I moved forward and sat beside him.
“How are they biting?”
He shook his head without looking at me.
“I want you to tell me about the man you saw with Maggie.”
He shook his head again.
“Did that man kill her?”
He twitched the line he was holding, pretending, I figured, to be more interested in the fishing than our conversation.
“Did she kill him, then?”
He hauled in his line with an awkward hand-overhand motion. His hook and the one-ounce oval lead sinker came in festooned with seaweed. He plucked it off with the patience of an old woman undoing a mistake in her needlepoint. When he had cleaned off the hook, he reached into the cardboard container and plucked out a sandworm, an ugly lizardlike creature with cruel pincers and lots of legs. He placed it on the dock beside him, produced a knife from a sheath at his hip, and sliced the critter neatly in half. Both halves writhed and wriggled. He picked up one half and deposited it in the Chinese food container. The other half he impaled on his hook, which he lowered between his legs into the river. The line made an upstream arc as the accelerating tide bowed it.
Without looking at me, Snooker began to make sounds, a series of false starts that I had the sense not to interrupt. Finally he came out with “Wone talka please,” which I understood to mean that he wouldn’t talk to the police. It was amazing how much easier
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