Shadow Watch

tidal band, its long outspread wings a serrate outline against the sky, the untinged whiteness of its head and tail feathers contrasting so strikingly with its blackish body they seemed almost like luminous, painted-on accents to guide the eye across its perfect form.

Megan watched it circle the pilings twice, rise gracefully on an updraft, and then swing out across the shiny waters of the bay. The shore below her was silent. Nothing moved amid the rushes. Nor was there any motion in the tangled scrub sloping off from the deck where she sat with Nimec and Ricci, a cup of strong black coffee on the table in front of her.

“It’ll generally stay quiet for five, ten minutes after she’s gone. Then you’ll see the gulls, terns, and ducks come back, sometimes a few at a time, sometimes hundreds of them at once, like there’s been an all-clear,” Ricci said. “The eagles prefer eating fish to anything else, but when they’re really hungry or nursing a brood, they’ll make a meal out of whatever they can sink their talons into. Smaller birds, rodents, even house cats that stray too far from their backyards.”

Megan reluctantly dropped her gaze from the eagle’s path. Its sudden appearance had given her a thrill of excitement, but Ricci had promised an explanation for the ugly scene on the road, and she was more than ready to hear it.

She shot a glance across the table at him. “How about urchins?”

Ricci smiled a little. “Them too,” he said.

She kept looking at him pointedly.

“I think Megan was offering you a neat little segue there,” Nimec said from the chair beside her. “Might not be a bad idea to take it.”

Ricci paused a moment, then nodded.

“You two want to go inside first?” He gestured toward the sliding door leading back into his house. “It’s getting pretty brisk out here.”

Nimec’s shoulders rose and fell. “I’m okay.”

“Same,” Megan said. “I can use the fresh air after all the schlepping around we’ve done. To use an Irish word.”

Ricci sat there, his face showing not one iota of concern about the headaches he’d caused them. That irritated Megan, and she hoped the expression on her face made it abundantly clear to him. The schlep she’d mentioned had included following his pickup for nearly an hour as he’d led them to a fish-smelling wholesale seafood market on a wharf at the foot of the peninsula, where they’d had to wait while he’d spent another hour hustling back and forth between one saltbox shed and another, haggling with buyers over the value of several large plastic trays he’d been carrying in the flatbed of the truck… or more accurately the layers of spiny, tennis-ball-sized green sea urchins inside those trays, what he’d earlier referred to as his catch. And all that after she and Nimec had traveled three thousand miles across the country by air and ground, and the unexpected confrontation with the warden and deputy sheriff.

“I suppose,” Ricci said at length, “you’d like me to tell you why those uniformed humps were on my case.”

Megan watched him coolly over the rim of her cup.

“That would be nice,” she said.

Ricci lifted his own coffee to his mouth, sipped, and then set it down on the circular tabletop.

“Either of you know anything about urchin diving?”

Megan shook her head.

“Pete?” Ricci said.

“Only that urchins are a specialty item in foreign seafood markets. I’d assume they can bring good money.”

Ricci nodded.

“Actually it’s the roe that’s valuable. Or can be, anyway. You ever been to a sushi bar, it’s what they call uni on the menu. The bulk of it gets shipped out to Japan, the rest to Japanese communities in this country and Canada,” he said. “Its price depends on availability, the percentage of roe in comparison to its total weight, and the quality of the roe, which has to be a bronzy gold color — kind of like a tangerine — if you want to fetch a premium. Those trays I unloaded had about two and a half bushels of urchins each and were worth almost a grand to me.”

Megan looked at him. “If somebody had told me that when I was ten, I’d be worth millions today. My big brother and I would walk along the beach and collect them off the jetties in our plastic buckets. Then we’d fill the buckets with ocean water and try to convince our parents to let us bring them home as pets. My dad would tell us to get those damned sea porcupines out of the house.”

Ricci smiled faintly.

“People have different nicknames for them around here, but they shared your father’s sentiments till recently, when everybody heard about the Asian demand and got a yen for the yen,” he said. “Before that, they were just considered nuisances. Most of the old-time lobstermen still refer to them as whore’s eggs because they mess up their traps. Clog the vents, eat the bait, even chew through the headings and lathe to get at the bait. The nasty little buggers have some sharp teeth to go with their spines.”

“You gather the urchins yourself?”

“Harvesting’s done in teams of at least one scuba diver and a tender, who waits above in the boat,” Ricci said. “I like to do the underwater work alone. Take a big mesh tote below with me and pick the best-looking urchins. When a bag’s full, I send up a float line so my tender, this guy named Dexter, can spot it and hoist it aboard.”

“Tender?” Megan said. “Define, please.”

“It’s the diver’s equivalent of a golf caddy. He’s supposed to maintain the scuba equipment, look out for the diver’s safety, make sure the catch doesn’t freeze, and if time allows, cull the urchins. Something goes wrong, how he reacts can be critical.” He paused. “That’s why the profits get split down the middle.”

Nimec raised an eyebrow. “I heard you mention a Dex when you were facing off with the deputy….”

“That’s him,” Ricci said.

“Didn’t sound like your partnership’s exactly rock solid.”

Ricci shrugged.

“Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “I’ll get to that.”

Megan watched him, warming her hands around her cup. “Is it always your job to bring the catch to market?”

He leaned back slightly in his chair.

“I’m getting around to that too,” he said, and drank more coffee. “The urchins are found in colonies, usually in subtidal kelp beds. Once upon a time they practically carpeted the bottom of the Penobscot from the shoreline on out, so you could scoop them up without dunking your head.” He paused. “Past few years have been slim pickings. Overharvesting’s driven the value of the catch up into the stratosphere, and made people so protective of their zones they’re baring their teeth and beating their chests if you come anywhere close to them.”

“These zones… I presume they’re demarcated by law.”

Ricci nodded.

“There’s a license that costs almost three hundred bucks, and with the conservation restrictions nowadays you have to wait your turn in a lottery to get one. When applying for it, you have to choose the area and season you want to dive in. Wardens inspect it very carefully. Tells them whether you’re legal in black and white.”

“Your trays were packed full,” Nimec said. “Seems to me you’re doing okay.”

Ricci nodded again.

“Also seems to me that would get noticed fast during a period of decline in the overall yield. By other divers, buyers, and the warden if he’s got his eyes open.”

Ricci looked straight at him and nodded a third time. “You won’t find a whole lot of guys who like going out as far, or down as deep as I do… especially not this time of year, when the water temperature can still drop near freezing and the currents are rough. But there are hundreds of tiny islets in the bay, a few of them within my diving area, and I hit on one that’s got a deepwater cove where the urchin count’s wild and wonderful.”

Nimec looked thoughtful.

“Word got around,” he said.