Riptide

Suddenly Hatch had heard enough about Claire. 'I'm holding up the line,' he interrupted.

'You sure are. I'll see you later.' Donny waved his fork with another grin, expertly flipping open more layers of seaweed to expose another row of gleaming red lobsters.

So Donny needs a job, Hatch thought as he headed back toward the table of honor. Wouldn't hurt for Thalassa to hire a few locals.

He found a seat at the table between Bill Banns, the editor of the paper, and Bud Rowell. Captain Neidelman was two seats down, next to Mayor Jasper Fitzgerald and the local Congregational minister, Woody Clay. On the far side of Clay sat Lyle Streeter.

Hatch looked at the two locals curiously. Jasper Fitzgerald's father had run the local funeral home, and no doubt the son had inherited it. Fitzgerald was in his early fifties, a florid man with handlebar mustaches, alligator- clip suspenders, and a baritone voice that carried like a contrabassoon.

Hatch's eyes traveled to Woody Clay. He's obviously an outsider, he thought. Clay was, in almost every way, the opposite of Fitzgerald. He had the spare frame of an ascetic, coupled with the hollow, spiritual face of a saint just in from the desert. But there was also a crabbed, narrow intensity to his gaze. Hatch could see he was ill at ease being part of the table of honor; he was one of those people who spoke to you in a low voice, as if he didn't want anyone else to overhear, evident from his low-pitched conversation with Streeter. Hatch wondered what the minister was saying that was making the team leader look so uncomfortable.

'Seen the paper, Malin?' Bill Banns interrupted Hatch's thoughts with his characteristic lazy drawl. As a young man, Banns had seen The Front Page at the local cinema. Ever since, his views of what a newsman should look like had never altered. His sleeves were always rolled, even on the coldest day, and he'd worn a green visor so long that today his forehead seemed lonely without it.

'No, I haven't,' Hatch replied. 'I didn't know it was out.'

'Just this morning,' Banns answered. 'Yup, think you'll like it. Wrote the lead article myself. With your help, of course.' He touched a finger to his nose, as if to say, you keep me in the pipeline, and I'll keep the good words flowing. Hatch made a mental note to stop by the Superette that evening for a copy.

Various instruments for lobster dissection lay on the table: hammers, crackers, and wooden mallets, all slick with lobster gore. Two great bowls in the center were heaped with broken shells and split carapaces. Everyone was pounding, cracking, and eating. Glancing around the pavilion, Hatch could see that Wopner had somehow ended up at the table with the workers from the local Lobsterman's Co-op. He could just catch Wopner's abrasive voice drifting on the wind. 'Did you know,' the cryptanalyst was saying, 'that, biologically speaking, lobsters are basically insects? When you really get down to it, they're big red underwater cockroaches....'

Hatch turned away and took another generous pull on his beer. This was turning out to be bearable, after all; perhaps more than bearable. He was sure that everyone in town knew his story, word for word. Yet—perhaps out of politeness, perhaps out of pure rural bashfulness—not a word had been said. For that, he was grateful.

He looked across the crowd, scanning for familiar faces. He saw Christopher St. John, sandwiched at a table between two overweight locals, apparently contemplating how to dismantle his lobster while making the least degree of mess. Hatch's eyes roved farther, and he picked out Kai Estenson, proprietor of the hardware store, and Tyra Thompson, commandant of the Free Library, not looking a day older than when she used to shoo him and Johnny out of the building for telling jokes and giggling too loudly. Guess it's true what they say about vinegar being a preservative, he thought. Then, in a flash of recognition, he saw the white head and stooped shoulders of Dr. Horn, his old biology teacher, standing on the outskirts of the pavilion as if not deigning to soil his hands with lobster ruin. Dr. Horn, who'd graded him more toughly than any graduate school professor ever did; who told him he'd seen roadkill that was better dissected than the frogs Hatch worked on. The intimidating, yet fiercely supportive Dr. Horn, who more than any other person had fired Hatch's interest in science and medicine. Hatch was surprised and relieved to see him still among the living.

Looking away, Hatch turned toward Bud, who was sucking lobster meat out of a leg. 'Tell me about Woody Clay,' Hatch said.

Bud tossed the leg into the nearest bowl. 'Reverend Clay? He's the minister. Used to be a hippie, I hear.'

'Where'd he come from?' asked Hatch.

'Somewhere down around Boston. Came up here twenty years ago to do some preaching, decided to stay. They say he gave away a big inheritance when he took the cloth.'

Bud sliced open the tail with an expert hand and extracted it in one piece. There was a hesitant note in his voice that puzzled Hatch.

'Why'd he stay?' Hatch asked.

'Oh, liked the place, prob'ly. You know how it goes.' Bud fell silent as he polished off the tail.

Hatch glanced over at Clay, who was no longer talking to Streeter. As he examined the intense face curiously, the man suddenly looked up and met his gaze. Hatch looked away awkwardly, turning back toward Bud Rowell, only to find that the grocer had gone off in search of more lobster. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the minister rise from the table and approach.

'Malin Hatch?' the man said, extending his hand. 'I'm Reverend Clay.'

'Nice to meet you, Reverend.' Hatch stood up and took the cold, tentative hand.

Clay hesitated a moment, then gestured at the empty chair. 'May I?'

'If Bud doesn't mind, I don't,' Hatch said.

The minister awkwardly eased his angular frame into the small chair, his bony knees sticking up almost to the level of the table, and turned a pair of large, intense eyes on Hatch.

'I've seen all the activity out at Ragged Island,' he began in a low voice. 'I've heard it, too. Banging and clanging, by night as well as by day.'

'Guess we're a little like the post office,' Hatch said, trying to sound lighthearted, uncertain of where this was heading. 'We never sleep.'

If Clay was amused, he didn't show it. 'This operation must be costing somebody a good deal,' he said, raising his eyebrows to make it a question.