what this area is to be.”
“—but I don’t see why the whole of Taylors Creek’s got to be a no-wake zone. Why
“Oh, they’ll
“—one thing to stick up for your constituents but for Basnight to bring the legislature into it when—”
“Yeah, but if Marine Fisheries would just use the power they already have—”
I stepped back to let two chamber of commerce types pass (green blazers, plaid pants) and landed myself between a passionate young social scientist and the owner of a tackle shop.
“Commercial fishing’s had its day,” the tackle man was saying. “Carteret County gets a hundred times more money from tourism than—”
“Only because upstate pollution’s killing the estuaries and the recreation industry’s driving traditional watermen off the water,” the sociologist interrupted. “If you’re an uneducated black or white blue-collar worker, your only slice of the tourism pie’s going to be cleaning motel rooms or clerking at the local Seven-Eleven for minimum wages. We’ve got to have better-paying blue-collar jobs if we’re ever—”
She paused to snag a glass of white wine from a passing tray, and the tackle shop owner jumped back in. “Look, if they’re so almighty anxious to work, how come the crab houses have to hire Mexicans to pick the crabmeat?”
“Don’t you reckon that’s because Mexicans’ll work like slaves under slave-like conditions?” drawled a tall white-haired man who looked like he just stepped off a plantation veranda.
Goes to show you about stereotypes.
I edged past and out onto the terrace, which was less crowded. The air was cooler, but laced with cigarette smoke and something else.
“Uh-oh, the wind’s shifting,” someone said, as the homely smell of cooking fish drifted lightly across the grounds.
It wasn’t an unpleasant aroma, but I had to admit that it did take away something of the bucolic sophistication of Linville Pope’s cocktail party.
I hadn’t yet seen the Llewellyns, Mr. and Mrs. Docksider; but down by the water, Claire Montgomery sat on the grass like Alice in Wonderland, with her full-skirted blue dress spread out around her. From this distance, it appeared that her hand puppet was also dressed in blue and it seemed to be carrying on a lively conversation with some of the younger male guests.
Across the terrace, raucous laughter centered around the wildlife officer who’d testified in my court this afternoon. I recognized a couple of attorneys and one of the ADAs, but as I began to thread my way over, I was delayed by a man who gave a friendly smile of recognition. “Judge.”
“Good evening, Mr.—um—”
“Hudpeth,” he reminded me. “Willis Hudpeth. And this is my brother, Telford.”
The family likeness was unmistakable. Both men appeared to be late thirties or early forties. Dark brown hair and the tanned faces of outdoorsmen. Rather handsome faces now that I looked twice. (Never hurts to check.)
Telford Hudpeth’s handshake was nicely firm as his brother said, “Those bounced checks—the guy from Kinston that bought two rods and then came back the next day and gave me another rubber check for a sixty-dollar reel? Judge Knott here heard the case today and got me a little justice.”
Now I remembered. Hudpeth owned a fishing pier over on Atlantic Beach.
“I guess it’s hard to remember every case,” said Willis Hudpeth.
“No, I remember yours. I gave the defendant a suspended sentence conditional upon his working out a repayment plan with you and paying a fine. You must get a lot of that in season.”
“Not as much as you might think. Most sportsmen are pretty honest.”
I shook my head. “Practically all I’ve heard since I got down here is the controversy between recreational and commercial fishermen. I suppose you want to get rid of netters, too.”
“Well, no, ma’am, not particularly,” he answered, surprising the hell out of me.
“But I thought pier owners—”
“Look,” he said patiently. “Drive onto Atlantic Beach and the first pier you come to, Sportsman’s Pier, the first thing you see is that big sign, ‘You Should Have Been Here Yesterday.’ The reason it’s there’s because fishermen always grumble when they don’t catch fish. Maybe they don’t have the right rigs, maybe they don’t know the first thing about fishing, or maybe the fish just aren’t biting that day. You spend a couple of hundred to come down to the coast and you don’t catch anything but pinfish, then you can get mad at yourself or mad at the fish or mad at the pier owner. But if the pier owner says, ‘Hey, pal, it’s them netters out there that’s catching all your fish,’ who you going to blame?”
“But stop nets do stop fish,” I said, enjoying the novelty of his position enough to play devil’s advocate.
“Well, of course they do. But if they stopped all the fish, crews on the east would be richer’n Midas and those working the westernmost part of Bogue Banks would be poorer’n Job’s house cat.”
“You’re a most unusual pier owner, Mr. Hudpeth. I’m surprised you’re here this evening.”
“Because I don’t agree with Linville Pope’s solution to every problem? Know thy enemy’s what they preach in my church.”
“Is she the enemy?”
