Chapter 21
Barry listened to the audio from last night for what felt like the hundredth time. He hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. Every time he’d shut his eyes, all he could see was Mac’s look of betrayal that he was going out with Annabelle.
Barry had nothing to be guilty about. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He wasn’t cheating. He and Mac weren’t even in a relationship. The woman had even taken sex off the table, something he hoped to rectify, but going out with Annabelle wasn’t going to score him any points.
Instead of dwelling on it, he focused on work. He tuned out all possible background noise to focus on the other person. Barry couldn’t tell a lot about the person by the few sentences other than they were money-hungry.
There had to be a paper trail. Miles wasn’t going to make it easy for him to follow it, and he didn’t think Annabelle was going to give him any help in that department.
The man sounded to be in his forties to fifties. Decently educated. Not college, but they had schooling based off their cadence and word structure.
Again, not a lot to help him. What he needed was a list of all the fishermen and to cross-check the captain with what he knew about the voice, and try to limit the possible number.
Part of the problem with that was there were hundreds of boat captains that matched his criteria.
If only he had more than a few-seconds-long audio.
He didn’t even have a visual. So he didn’t know skin tone, if they had tattoos or scars. If they had facial hair. He knew nothing about this person.
Were they rich, looking to get richer or poor, looking to make more? What was their motivation to trawl the ocean floor?
Barry looked up the people Mac had suggested who could be responsible. On paper, they all looked like good, upstanding people. Brought in a decent number of fish. Not an overabundance to raise eyebrows but routinely made their quota.
He delved deeper to look into their financials. When in doubt, follow the money trail. He couldn’t do that from Miles’s side, but maybe he could do that on the other end. Nothing stood out though. At least not working with Miles wise. Not even any off-shore accounts.
He had to think about facts. The person would need a decent-size boat capable of trawling. The only problem was, he knew next to nothing about it or the boat size needed to do it, but he knew someone who could help.
Barry grabbed his phone and headed down the road for Jacques’ stand. Elsie saw him passing by and waved him over.
“Barry, I thought you left already. I haven’t seen you in a while,” she called out to him. Her grandson, Jalen, who was cleaning dishes, looked up to glare at him before looking back down at his work. The kid was just as friendly as last time.
“Hi, Elsie. I’ve been busy taking in all the sights,” he said, stopping to talk to her. “It’s better than overstaying my welcome, right?”
Elsie shook her head, knowing whom he was referring to without saying Miles’s name. “You, I’d welcome. Him, he can leave on that jet he came in on.”
“Grandma,” Jalen hissed in a low warning whisper.
“What?”
“We’ve talk about this.”
Elsie waved him off. “Have you seen that monstrosity up there?”
“I haven’t.”
“That place will bankrupt this island if it doesn’t sink into the earth first.”
“Grandma, enough.”
“And how are you liking the island?” she asked, finally taking the hint and changing the subject. Barry would love a few minutes alone with Elsie, without her grandson shushing her all the time.
“It’s incredible,” he replied honestly.
“And Mac?” she inquired with a coy smile.
“Incredible as well.” He wasn’t about to go into detail with this sweet woman he hardly knew.
Elsie smiled knowingly. “She is a special girl. Many people care for her here.”
“I can see why. She’s very passionate about the people and wanting to save the sharks here.”
“Has she taken you out on her boat yet?”
“No, it hasn’t come up.” Nor had he thought about asking. Maybe he should give it a try. When he saw her later, he’d ask her about it. He wanted to see firsthand what she did.
“You should ask her,” Elsie suggested as if reading his mind.
“Have you been?”
Elsie’s eyes widened in fear. “Goodness no, I prefer my feet on land and not with those creatures.”
“Fair enough,” Barry chuckled because at one point, he’d had the same opinion. Mac had changed that though. He didn’t think of sharks as just mindless killers now, even though he had never seen one.
“Can I interest you in a conch salad or something else?” She waved around at the array of food she already had prepared for customers today.
It was tempting. It looked and smelled delicious. “I’d love to, but I’m actually on my way to see Jacques about a boat. Maybe next time.” Barry stepped away from the hut. “Have a good day.”
“Bye, Barry.” She waved him off excitedly while Jalen glared daggers at him.
Barry continued down the path to Jacques, not at all surprised to find the man asleep in his chair with his feet on the bucket. “Jacques,” Barry called out to him as he came down the slope.
Jacques didn’t move.
“Jacques,” Barry called out again, this time louder.
Jacques snorted awake and lifted his hat to squint at him as if he couldn’t see his face clearly. “Ah, you again. What do you want?”
“I need to ask you a question.”
Jacques settled back into his seat and put his hat over his face. “Mac hasn’t taken a boat out,” he said, interlacing his fingers over his belly.
“That’s not what I was going to ask.”
Jacques pushed his hat back up with one finger, giving him the stink eye as if upset he was disturbing his sleep. “Then what do you want?”
Barry squatted down next to Jacques’ side. “Do you know what’s happening on the southeast coast where Mac was yesterday?”
“No,” Jacques replied quickly. Too quickly to Barry’s thinking.
“You didn’t know someone was hunting turtles there?”
“It’s called trawling, not hunting, and there aren’t turtles there.”
“I thought you said you didn’t know what they were doing,” Barry countered. Jacques glared at him for having gotten caught in a lie.
“Maybe I do.”
“Mac is going to get hurt digging into this.” Maybe he could appeal to his conscience.
“I told her to leave it alone.”
“What they are doing is wrong.”
Jacques shrugged as if it didn’t make a difference to him. “It helps fishermen catch many more fish that much faster to feed more people.”
“And when the fish are gone, how is that going to affect your little business here?” Jacques advertised fishing boats. Hard to fish when they were gone.
Jacques pushed his hat up further on his head and lowered his feet to the ground, sitting up to look down at Barry. “The ocean will still be here whether there are fish in it or not. Doesn’t stop someone from boating.”
Barry pulled out a fifty from his wallet and held it up. “So, who’s doing it?”
Jacques took it and pocketed it. “No idea,” Jacques said in a bored tone, leaning back into his seat.
That had been a waste of money. “Then how do you know there is trawling there?”
“Rumors.” Jacques shrugged. “A lot of fish were being sold at the market. More than normal from previous months.”
“What kind of boat would you need to trawl?”
“Why? Thinking of going into the business?” Jacques asked, cocking his head to the side to study him.
“No, but I want to stop this person, and I need to know how to find them. The problem is there are a lot of fishermen in the area. I can start narrowing down my search by the type of boat needed.”
“A trawling boat.”
“And that would be?” Barry questioned, striving for patience but finding none.
“A trawling boat. That’s what they are called.”
“I got that, but what kind though? What size?”
“Depends on the number of fish you want to catch and the number of crew. I can’t answer more than that.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
Jacques sighed heavily, indicating he was getting bored with this conversation. Well, tough, Barry still had questions. “Take your pick.”
“Do you know any of the fishermen on the north shore who would be involved in trawling?”
“All of them do trawling in some shape or form.”
“What about bottom trawling?” Jacques gave Barry a look that said he was done answering questions. “One last thing. Do you recognize this voice?” Barry pulled out his phone and played the recording.
“Who is that?” So the answer was no. Barry wasn’t going to get any more help from Jacques.
The only thing left to do was go to the north side and inspect the fish. Jacques said a large number had been sold recently. The person with the greatest number of fish to sell would be the prime suspect.
The fishermen would still be out on the water and wouldn’t return until later, so he couldn’t go to the bar to listen to voices before seeing Annabelle.
Barry headed back to the hotel and found an outfit that he thought would help him blend in, and then he used his knife to cut holes into it and fray the shorts to made them look old.
He took them outside and threw them into the dirt, stepping on them for good measure.
He put them on, feeling he now looked the part of dirty old fisherman.
Barry parked farther down the road than the last time, closer to the bar. He walked down the path to the local fish market. Many of the local fishermen had staff that sold fish throughout the day.
He could ask some questions and learn about their fishing methods to help narrow down the search.