The Maine Mutiny by Jessica Fletcher

anything I could do before but get in your way. Don’t be angry at Evan. I just wanted to be able to say I helped, at least in some small measure.”
    Levi frowned at me and held out one hand. I stripped off the gloves and laid them in his palm. “You’re making me feel like a naughty child,” I said.
    “Not blamin’ you.”
    “I know that, but don’t blame Evan either. It was my idea.”
    “You’re a guest.”
    “And guests should know their place. I’m terribly sorry for overstepping my bounds. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
    He grunted but didn’t argue further, taking the scoop and bending over the hatch.
    I smiled at Evan and he winked back at me, both of us pleased we’d escaped the tongue-lashing that had surely been awaiting us had I not apologized so quickly.
    “What are they goin’ for, Pop?”
    “Ten cents a pound less than yesterday,” Levi ground out, resting the scoop on the edge of the tote. “And he’s blamin’ the big companies down in Boston this time. When the price goes up, it’s all his doing. When he’s cheatin’ us, it’s Boston’s fault.”
    “Why don’t we form a co-op?” Evan asked. “They’ve got them in Stonington and South Bristol and Swan’s Island. No reason we couldn’t do it, too.”
    “It’s hard for the men to change what they know,” Levi said. “But a little more of this may convince them. You keep researchin’ it on the computer.”
    “Is ten cents a pound a big drop?” I asked.
    “It’s more than forty dollars out of my pocket. You multiply that by all of Cabot Cove’s lobstermen, assumin’ he’s payin’ us all the same price, and I’ll bet it’s almost two thousand bucks a week to him. That’s a big incentive to cheat us, don’t you think?”
    “It’s a lot of money, yes. But haven’t you been working with Mr. Pettie for a long time? Why would he jeopardize his relationship with you?”
    “If he can get away with it, he will. That’s human nature. But we have ways of finding out what other dealers are payin’.”
    “I can find out on the Internet,” Evan put in.
    “They can’t hide it from us anymore,” Levi said, ignoring the interruption. “And if we see he’s living off what he steals from us, I can make the case to change dealers or start up a co-op.”
    “It won’t be that hard, Pop. I know I can find it on the Internet,” Evan said. “I’ll get everything we need to start a co-op.”
    “You’re talkin’ a lot of work, son. It’s not as simple as all of us deciding to sell the bugs on our own. We need a manager, someone with the right connections in the market. Someone with the experience of a dealer, but working for us instead of himself. And somebody who doesn’t gain anything unless we all gain.”
    Levi and Evan dropped the topic while they filled two more bins, four altogether, and part of a fifth—over four hundred pounds of lobster for the day—and took the totes to be weighed. Pettie’s assistants gave Levi a chit and dropped the buoyant bins into an area of the water that was cordoned off by floating booms. On shore, three large trucks waited to take their live cargo to market, and a gaggle of tourists surrounded one of the drivers, trying to bargain for some lobsters to take home.
    I followed Levi into the shack, where Henry Pettie leaned back in an office chair, resting his cowboy boots on a scarred table, and argued with someone on the other end of the telephone. The room was large and mostly bare. In addition to his office furniture, Pettie’s shack contained three stacks of lobster traps in one corner and boxes of what looked like replacement parts for them. Alex Paynter’s sternman, Maynard, was sifting through the boxes, looking for something.
    “We’ll be there by six. That’s what I promised and that’s what I’ll deliver. They’re coming in right now. I can’t make the boats go faster. Don’t tell me what I’ve got in the lobster pound. That’s not for you anyway. You’ll get