Shooting at Loons

through the early years and then, once the practice was generating big bucks, he bought the boat he had yearned for all his life—custom fitted to his specifications.”

“His dream boat?” I murmured.

“Precisely. Right down to a sexy little first mate to swab the deck in a bikini. When the split came, we could have vacuumed his ass-sets, but she was willing to be equitable about it so long as she got the boat. Which she signed over to us almost immediately in lieu of fees since most of the settlement was in real property.”

I was amused by the zest she seemed to take in that element of revenge. “Do you always represent the wife?”

“Not always. And sometimes we go in as amicus curiae on behalf of the children involved. In a way, child advocacy is part of the reason we’ve come to Beaufort.”

“Another amicus case?”

“Not exactly.” She snapped a piece of melba toast in half and put a dab of crab salad on it. “Perhaps I should fill in some personal background because that’s where it began.” She hesitated, choosing her words as carefully as she chose a speck of tomato to add to the salad.

“Claire’s crazy about Lev, of course.”

“Oh?” I said neutrally.

“He’s like an uncle both to my son and to Claire.”

Having only a couple of elderly aunts himself, Lev always did envy my large, and at times smothering, family. But Uncle Levvie?

“As you’ve seen, my sister’s much younger than I. My father died, and Claire was by our mother’s second husband. He was a wonderful father, but not much of a husband, so when Claire was four, there was a bitter divorce and custody fight, which Mother won. The man our mother next married—” Catherine Llewellyn’s husky voice stumbled. “I’ll blame myself till the day I die even though I was already married myself and studying law and there’s no way I could have known. Claire blamed herself, you see, for her own father’s disappearance in her life; and she thought she deserved it when that—that—slime—”

She took a deep breath. “By the time Jonathan and I realized, the damage was done. We took her to live with us, but my bright and bubbly, innocent little sister had withdrawn into borderline schizophrenia. When Lev came into our lives, he was gentle and perceptive. She had an old hand puppet—a kitten—and Lev talked to the kitten, not to her. The first time the kitten answered him, I wept. He brought a half-dozen more puppets the next time he came and Claire seized on the blonde-haired doll like a lifeline back to reality. I know Tuesday may have seemed ridiculous to you, but if you could only know what a giant step it represented for Claire.”

“Then I really am sorry I had to rule against her.”

“Actually, Lev thinks it might be better in the long run. Reinforces the idea that she must begin to speak for herself.”

It was a sad story, but I didn’t see how it related to their being in Beaufort.

“Since we began the practice, we’ve seen the trauma that divorce can wreak on children’s lives. Wealth cannot automatically insulate a child from the guilt and angst when a family breaks apart. Indeed, wealth often exacerbates the situation.”

She seemed to hear her words and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. I get didactic on the subject. Anyhow, to put it simply, we have some funds and we hope to create a center for kids who’re involved in messy divorces and custody fights, a safe and interesting place where they can talk out their fears with children who’re in a similar situation, and get the counseling and decompression that they need to survive while their parents—and, yes, their parents’ attorneys—battle it out.

“North Carolina gives very good tax incentives to locate here and Beaufort itself meets a lot of our criteria. The climate’s moderate, the water’s clean. The library’s adequate, the marine museum has good programs for youth, there’s a hospital in Morehead. Overall, Beaufort’s small enough, safe enough, and still cheap enough that we think we can create something quite special if we can find some commercial waterfront property within walking or bicycling distance of downtown.”

“Ah,” I said, as the light broke. “Neville Fishery.”

“Precisely. Land-use regulations make it simpler if we convert a commercial property already in existence than if we tried to get the permits to build new from scratch on undeveloped property.”

Curious, I asked, “Those funds you mentioned. Are they like a grant or from private backers?”

“Oh, it would be an investment opportunity,” she acknowledged.

“So they’ll cleanse wealthy parents of their own guilt and angst and turn a neat profit, too,” said the pragmatist, busily punching figures into his calculator. “Lev baby really has come a long way from pasta and walk-ups.”

“Would you visit the parents’ iniquity upon their young?” chided the preacher “Surely even the rich are entitled to cushion their children from hurts.”

“That’s what I mean. And hey, betcha the Rainmaker gets to be a business deduction before it’s all over.”

“Lev says you’re a friend of Neville Fishery’s owner,” Catherine Llewellyn said. “Tell me, do you think a personal appeal would help? If we explained to her what we planned for the site?”

“I really doubt it,” I said honestly. “But who knows? Her husband would like it if she’d sell, but there’s been so much rancor and controversy over the future of the menhaden industry that she may well dig in her heels and tough it out. Aren’t there other properties?”

“None quite like this one,” she said regretfully.

At the next table over, a paunchy guy with Grecian Formula hair beneath his captain’s hat spread a chart across the table and began to give a lesson in navigation to a bubbly young thing half his age.

The waiter tried to interest us in his dessert card, but we both turned him down. Nor would I let Catherine get