entrance, leaving the rest of the spiny creatures to do whatever they did when they weren’t intruded upon by foraging predators, human or otherwise.
He reached down to his thigh and pulled his urchining knife from its scabbard.
Before getting started, Ricci checked his watch and gauge console, then did some quick mental computations based on the scuba instruction he’d received in the Navy. Though his psi dial showed an ample reserve of air, he was already edging beyond a no-decompression profile and would need to make a decompression stop on ascent. Not atypical for him, but very definitely something to remember.
He swam into the recess, his legs scissoring behind him, taking pains not to scrape his air tanks on the ceiling. Given his imminent plans to kiss his urchin-hunting career good-bye, he found his excitement over the score puzzling, and maybe even a little bit funny.
Ricci went at his newfound bounty, the tote in his left hand, the knife in his right. The urchins crawling slowly over the backs of those on the rocks were easy pickings, and so plentiful that it took him just a few minutes to fill the mesh bag to a third of its capacity. Pleased with his rapid progress, he got down to collecting the others, sliding the flattened tip of the knife under the suction discs at the tips of their tubular feet, then carefully working them loose from the surfaces to which they were anchored. A slower task than the first, it needed to be performed with some delicacy if he was to avoid cracking their shells — which would be an unfortunate waste, since they were worth zilch to him unless brought up alive.
Ricci had been absorbed in his task for about twenty minutes when his thoughts wandered back to the twinkle of brightness he’d noticed from the skiff. Might have been from something left behind by an ecologically challenged sailor, or a bit of shiny flotsam tossed up onto the island by the surf. Might have. But he couldn’t shake the idea that it also could have been the sun glancing off the lens of a pair of binoculars — or a telescopic gun-sight. Maybe his long years of soldiering and police work had lent undue weight to what ought to have seemed an overly imaginative notion, but why discount it offhand?
And it wasn’t just his experience that had to be considered. Pete Nimec, after all, had nailed Cobbs’s personality type right on the head. Ricci had humiliated him, shaken up his confined little world as if it were one of those snow globes people bought at souvenir shops, and Cobbs would be stewing in his own juices until he regained some of his pride. Word spread fast in a small town, and he’d want to be sure he got even with Ricci before the tale of his ass-kicking found its way into local folklore. It might be that he’d take some time to plot out his reprisal, but Cobbs was a hothead, and sort of crazy. The far greater likelihood was that he’d act while he was still worked up — and try something as extreme as it would be rash.
Ricci dropped an urchin into the tote, pried at another with his knife. Okay, he and Pete had Cobbs’s number, but what exactly did that have to do with the sparkle of light on the beach? If he assumed Cobbs was out to take him down, that one was obvious. As shellfish warden, Cobbs was authorized to carry firearms, and had access to a speedboat for patrolling the bay compliments of Hancock County. He also knew where Ricci did his diving. He could pull the boat aground or moor it on the far side of the island, then conceal himself in the brush until he was ready for whatever move he intended to make.
In the water, Ricci was a highly vulnerable target. Cobbs could wait until he was surfacing, then zoom up in his motorboat and clip him like a duck in a shooting gallery. Or if he were good enough with a rifle and had a high- powered scope, he might be able to do it from shore, without ever having to break cover. And Ricci would simply disappear into the vast waters of the Penobscot. Urchin diving was filled with inherent hazards that had claimed several lives in recent years, with the diver’s body having gone unrecovered in two or three of those instances. Between the circulating currents, profuse eelgrass, and marine scavengers, it was a rough environment in which to dredge for a corpse.
After four days and nights of mulling all this over, Ricci had grown convinced Cobbs would be looking to come at him when he was out on a dive. If not this time, then certainly the next. Which had left him to determine where Dex might fit into the picture. Ricci could see how his partner might have gotten drawn into an attempt to scam him out of his percentage of the catch money, and, in fact, had been left with no doubts about Dex’s guilt on that score when the subject of his supposed baby-sitting was raised on the boat. It had been evident in all of his mannerisms — the way he’d nervously rattled on about how lousy he felt because of what happened to Ricci in his absence, expressing a bit too much regret and dismay, fidgeting around and tugging at his beard while never looking him in the eye.
These were textbook signs of deception Ricci had recognized from the countless suspect interrogations he’d conducted during his years as a detective. But there were betrayals, and then again there were betrayals. Ricci didn’t believe Dex had it in him to take an active hand in helping Cobbs settle his grudge. Unless, of course, he didn’t know Cobbs had anything too drastic in mind. Or felt pressed into it. Dex led a difficult, hand-to-mouth existence, and Cobbs and his buddies in badly soiled blue could make it even more difficult for him if they wanted to. Whether suckered or squeezed, Dex could be persuaded to stay mum about anything he witnessed.
At last, Ricci had seen only two options — he could either back away from the situation, or hang tough and go back to his usual routine, keeping his eyes as wide open as possible. He had opted for the latter, and was still confident he’d made the right decision. If it proved absolutely conclusive that Dex had turned on him, was perhaps even willing to let Cobbs get away with killing him, his motivations were ultimately of little consequence. Ricci’s ingrained sense of accountability demanded that there would have to be a reckoning for his breach of trust. And as for Cobbs…
Cobbs would have to be dealt with too. Dealt with very severely.
Now Ricci heard the throb of a motor somewhere above him, and paused for a second to listen. It seemed diffuse, coming from all sides at once — which was how the human ear perceived most lower-frequency sounds underwater — but was recognizable to him as the skiff’s engine being cranked. Nothing out of the ordinary, he thought. Depending on the windage up top, Dex would occasionally open the throttle to keep apace with his drift.
Ricci glanced at his instruments again, noted that he had plenty of air left in his cylinder, and went back to filling the tote, in no particular hurry to get done.
He’d chosen to play a game of
Dex had planned to wait until Ricci’s exhaust stopped bubbling at the surface before turning the skiff hard about — no more bubbles equaling no more breathing and a dead man underwater. But it had got to where the tenseness in him was making his stomach hurt as if he’d swallowed a handful of thumbtacks, and he just couldn’t stand there watching anymore.
Besides, what did it matter? he thought. He’d fixed the needle of Ricci’s air gauge to read like his tank was filled higher than it really was — higher by more’n a thousand psi, a
His hand clenched tightly around the stick, his long hair whipping back from under his knit cap, Dex kept on at full throttle, as if by doing so he could leave his guilt behind him, washed away in the white wake of foam trailing the skiff as it planed upwind toward his meeting point with Cobbs.
His binoculars raised to his eyes, Cobbs squatted in the weeds and bushes behind the strand and watched the skiff approach from his right, northward, Dex driving the little boat so hard that it almost seemed it would take off into the air like a rocket.
