Chapter 30
Jerry Baugh
Jerry startled himself awake with his own snoring as morning light spilled in through the portholes of The Old Eileen’s salon. He had been zonked out on the couch, his blanket long kicked aside. As he sat up, he felt a rumbling weight on his
belly. It was the cat, pleased as pudding and curled up over Jerry’s navel.
“Stupid cat,” he mumbled, but he lifted the creature, careful not to wake it, and set it on a stray couch cushion.
Madden had left the night before when the storm started clearing up. Her empty gin bottle rolled on the ground past Jerry’s
feet. Lainey was still asleep, tucked behind a galley counter.
The forty-eight hours of the hurricane ran together in Jerry’s mind. The drinking, crying, TV dinners, reheated fish for breakfast.
It had been a storm unlike any he’d experienced in thirty years, because this time he hadn’t been alone.
Jerry stooped to grab his discarded blanket and, on second thought, draped it over Lainey.
The two of them had hardly gotten a wink of sleep last night after Madden left, too busy drunk and raving about dead brothers and whale songs.
Jerry couldn’t remember the half of it. He picked his way over the empty beer cans and crumpled paper towels to the companionway.
The hatch had been spattered with rainwater that rushed to flow on deck when he pushed it open.
He blinked in the sunlight. The Old Eileen, always so pristine and pearly white, was littered with broken palm fronds and trash. Beside her, Sheila 2.0 had borne the brunt of the storm, her already-battered hull showing new scars from bumping up against the dock. The loose
dock line floated in the water like a dead fish.
“Hell’s bells,” Jerry sighed. He shuffled below deck to find a broom and returned up top to start cleaning.
Around him, the world emerged from its hibernation to do the same. The few ship owners who had stayed aboard their vessels
during Ida’s wrath were hosing down the decks and carrying loads of blown-around garbage to the dumpster. Jerry worked in
silence, sweeping and hosing and dragging loads of wet fronds and plastic bags until The Old Eileen began to shine again. Outside the bars of the marina, shop owners drove up to their stores and unnailed the boarded-up windows.
A stop sign arched in a permanent backbend.
Jerry fished the dock line from the water and wrung it out. He wondered if Madden was back at the station, drying the rainwater
from the carpet or getting straight back to work.
He glanced out at the sea, which still shifted listlessly.
This hurricane’s gonna hide any evidence we mighta found if we had more time, Madden had told him.
“Whoooa . . .” Lainey climbed out of the companionway of The Old Eileen, scanning the world around them.
“Never seen the aftermath before?” Jerry retrieved his broom and worked to rid the scuppers of sopping cardboard and grime.
“My family usually flies to Colorado before they hit and stays a few days after they’re done.” She shielded her eyes and grabbed
the hose. “Need help?”
“It’s mostly done. Just make sure there isn’t any salt clinging to the rails.”
Jerry did his best to erase the stains and scrapes, but between the stench of rotting fish and soggy garbage, she was a far
cry from the beautiful, white sailboat he’d found. He heaved his cooler of fish to the dumpster and got rid of the ones that
had gone bad. He rinsed the cooler and poured the bloody water into the marina.
Damn, he missed fishing. He hadn’t gone since the night he found The Old Eileen. Maybe a quick trip to a nearby fishing spot was just the thing he needed to set his head right. Hurricane Ida would have
the fish more active than usual, teeming beneath the surface and ready to be harvested.
“Hey, Lainey, you interested in going fishing?” Jerry could barely believe himself even as the question tumbled out. He hadn’t
invited anyone to fish with him since, well, since he’d been married to Sheila, who had agreed grudgingly and spent the entire
morning complaining about her wet shoes and slurping her Starbucks drink loud enough to drive Jerry to leave her. Maybe that
was an exaggeration, but between the grating iced pistachio latte straw and soaked ballet flats, Jerry had determined to never,
ever go fishing with another human being again.
He was half relieved when Lainey hesitated.
“Uh, I don’t know if I’m much of a fisher.”
“S’alright. Forget I asked.” Jerry busied himself with taking a rag to a nasty streak of something on Eileen’s stern. Darn thing wouldn’t budge. He spit on the rag for good measure and rubbed at the spot again.
“Actually, maybe I should go with you. I’ve never given fishing a fair shot.” Lainey looped up the hose quickly. “I think
I left some clean clothes in one of the cabins.”
“Sounds fine,” Jerry said. “Get dressed and we’ll head out?”
Lainey nodded. She disappeared down the companionway.
Jerry found himself whistling. Jerry Baugh with company on a fishing trip. Who would have thought it? He was suddenly excited,
even eager, to show Lainey some of the ropes. Steve had been squeamish about fishing, and Jerry had been too young and stupid
to have patience with him. But with Lainey, Jerry felt sure he could explain it all right. Hell, by the end of this, the kid
would be on her way to catching her own dinner.
Jerry whistled the tune of “Wellerman” and stood to cow hitch the rag on the lifeline so it could dry. Down the dock, a few
people were milling about. Deckhands scurried to aid their captains with the cleanup effort. A pair of sunglass-wearing ladies
sat on a bench, soaking up the sunshine. And a man strolled down the dock toward them.
Jerry squinted. Was the guy wearing a suit?
He was. Iron-pressed white shirt, black jacket, and slacks complete with a red-striped tie. What kind of bizarre asshole went
on a walk the morning after a hurricane in his finest formal wear?
Jerry snorted to himself and tied up the rag. He considered changing for the fishing expedition, but he hadn’t gone to the
laundromat in weeks now, and if his faded T-shirt and jeans had lasted two days in a storm, they would do the trick for a
quick jet to a fishing spot. He adjusted his cap and went onto the dock to undo the remaining lines that tethered Sheila 2.0 to land.
The man in the suit walked over, but instead of going past, he stopped in front of The Old Eileen, hands deep in his pants pockets.
He was Asian, lean and tall with gelled hair and dimples on both cheeks. He offered Jerry a friendly smile that Jerry did
not return. Usually the people who came to gawk at The Old Eileen were held back by the coded fence. You had to be a member of the marina to get inside.
“She’s a lovely ship,” the man said conversationally.
“Mmm-hmm.” Jerry unlooped a dock line.
“Yours, I take it?” he asked.
“Why would you think that?” He didn’t bother to sound polite. He knew how he looked to people like this. Why didn’t the guy
just go to his own yacht already? Jerry had some fishing to do.
The man pulled something—a black leather wallet—from his pocket. “Are you Jerry Baugh, sir?”
Jerry eyed the wallet, not liking where this was going one bit. “Who’s asking?”
The man flipped open the wallet, and Jerry’s jaw went slack.
“Special Agent Koshida, sir. I’m with the FBI.” He flashed his paper-white teeth at Jerry, who was rooted in place.
“With the . . . But . . . You’re here to talk about Eileen?” This didn’t make any sense. Jerry had been holed up with Madden for days. If there was a break in the case, she would have
told him. Unless even she didn’t know. And since when were the feds tied up in a missing persons case?
“I’m not here about the ship, Mr. Baugh. At least, not directly.” Agent Koshida slid his badge back into his pocket.
“What, then?”
The agent smiled once again, this time sympathetically, as if he knew what he was about to say was going to split Jerry’s
life in two.
“I’m here to talk about Steven Baugh.”