The Marine’s Little Secret

Chapter 1

LUKE

The crowd at my father's funeral has thinned to a dozen people standing in the wet grass, and most of them are already drifting toward their cars.

I stand at the grave with my weight on my good leg and my hands in the pockets of a suit I bought at a department store in San Diego three days ago.

It still has the creases from the packaging.

Dad would've had something to say about that.

The rain has tapered to a mist that hangs in the air without really hitting the ground.

It's already soaked through my jacket and chilled me to the bone.

My left leg has stiffened up from standing on the uneven ground, and the rod in my femur makes it painful to stand for so long.

I shift my weight and the mud gives under my shoe.

Bandon in January is rain, wind, and a gloomy sky looming over gray water. I've been gone more than a decade outside of a few visits, but I haven't forgotten the way the moisture seeps into your clothing and weighs everything down. But it's perfect weather for the situation, I guess.

The pastor shakes my hand to offer his condolences without saying much more. It starts a line of mourners here to pay their respects, including Gary Sullivan, one of the boat captains I know worked with Dad a lot. He stops to offer a firm, callused handshake.

"Your dad was a good man, Luke."

"I appreciate your coming, Gary."

"You gonna be around a while?" he asks, and it's a pointed question, likely because I've been more like the wind than the anchor I could've been.

But life carried me where it would and I followed, too restless to stay still for too long.

The service was good for me in that way—I kept moving but steady at the same time.

"Not sure, Gary. I'll be around long enough, I guess.

" It's the only answer I can give him because I don't know what tomorrow holds.

I'm at that point I could stay or go, but mostly, I want to go.

I gave leave notice, but all it would take is a single phone call to tap out.

A few months and things would be wrapped up.

But for what? No one's here to come home to anymore.

He gives my shoulder a squeeze and walks off across the grass. My eyes track where he walks and catch on a few other folks shuffling away.

When Walt Sudman walks past for a handshake I see his red-rimmed eyes and know how much this'll affect him.

He and Dad were best friends for forty years.

He doesn't say a word, but I don't know what he could say that would change a thing.

Death is final. It's not like words can roll back time.

So I offer a hug and nod as he turns toward his truck.

The rain starts to pick up as soon as the last mourners are gone and the backhoe moves in to begin its job of covering the casket in the ground. I wander off to Dad's old beat-up pickup truck and climb in. I figured the old man had twenty more good years. Who knew his ticker had an expiration date?

It feels lonely pulling out onto the old county road headed toward home.

It's been a long time since I drove this road.

The last time I was here to visit, Dad did all the driving—straight from the airport to the docks and back.

I'll never have that experience again. In fact, I may never visit the Oregon coast again.

With no family left to bring me back, who knows where my feet will wander.

I park next to the pier and climb out, leaving the keys hanging, then make my way up toward the marina office.

Things are dead today, but most of the people who normally frequent the docks were at the funeral.

They'll be going home to change and probably eat their lunch before resuming work, if they intend to work at all today.

When I get up to the office I find it unlocked, the way I left it last night when I was looking for paperwork to see what state Dad's finances are in. And the place is just as messy as it was then. It's heavy, like everything else right now.

I start toward the desk to continue my search so I can finish up Dad's end of life expenses and square things away, and I hear a voice behind me.

"Luke?"

I turn around and see Dennis Hargrove standing a few feet back with a briefcase under his arm. He's Dad's attorney, mid-fifties now, wire-rimmed glasses, a tie cinched tight even in the rain.

"Dennis."

"Well, son, I'm sorry to do this now." He frowns as he readjusts his hat and rain dribbles onto his shoulders. "I wouldn't bother you today if it could wait, but some of it can't." He glances over his shoulder out at the docks. "You have a few minutes?"

He drops a briefcase on the desk buried in stacks of bills and unopened mail and sits down across from me without any of the usual small talk.

I hate that everyone around me is so quiet.

No one knows what to say, but I'm not expecting any magic cure for this empty feeling.

Grief is heavy. It's supposed to be. If it weren't, no one would fear death, right?

I just want someone to be normal and not tiptoe around me.

"Your father left everything to you," he says. "The house, the land, the marina, and the businesses operating on the property."

My chest deflates a little. Of course the old man would leave me everything.

Who else would he leave it to? Walt? No one in this town knows a thing about running this marina or managing the properties on it Dad rented out to folks.

Even if he hadn't left it to me to run, it would've fallen to me to manage the sale.

"Sheesh," I breathe, scrubbing a hand down over my tired face.

"The marina's been in trouble for a while, Luke.

Your dad stopped maintaining the infrastructure years back.

Honestly, there are things that need immediate attention.

" He opens a folder and turns it so I can see the pages, columns of numbers and dates that don't mean anything to me yet.

"The commercial tenants are all month-to-month, and most of them are behind on rent.

Your dad had some kind of informal arrangement with them that I can't find any paperwork for.

Property taxes are current through October, but the January payment is due and the account doesn't have enough to cover it. "

He takes his glasses off and cleans them with his tie, taking his time about it while I peruse the numbers.

So Dad's a little behind, no big deal. I'll handle all of that.

It's the repairs that concern me. If this place is gonna keep running like it should, it has to be safe.

With things changing hands, it'll be a nightmare with city officials wanting to inspect.

"Your dad ordered materials for a dock repair he never started."

"How bad is it, Dennis?"

"It's manageable if someone's there to manage it.

" He puts his glasses back on and folds his hands on the desk, eyeing me. I know he thinks I’m the one who is going to manage this, but I don't know what to think.

My plan as of ten days ago was to file paperwork for eight more years.

No way I can do that and keep this place running.

"Your father didn't have a plan for this. I don't think he believed he'd ever need one."

That sounds right. Dad always assumed tomorrow was coming.

He ran the marina the same way he ran his life—deferred everything, patched what he couldn't ignore, let the rest rot quietly out of sight.

It's probably why he ignored whatever signs his body had given him about a heart condition that led to that massive heart attack.

I could be angry about it, and maybe I will be later, but right now I'm just tired.

I sign what Dennis needs me to sign. Power of attorney transfers, estate acknowledgments, a half-dozen forms that make Dad's problems mine. Dennis watches me work through the stack and doesn't say a word, though I can tell he wants to.

When I'm finished, he stacks all the papers back into his briefcase and stands, putting his soggy hat back on his head.

"Your dad's retainer is paid up for the next six months, son. I'll be here to continue to do my job for you, and as long as you pay up like he did, I'll be your legal counsel in all matters." Dennis still looks a bit glum, but who wouldn't?

I rise and extend my hand to him, sucking a breath of air into my lungs, and nod at him. "I'm sure Dad would be grateful for that, Mr. Hargrove. I'll definitely call you if I need anything."

"Take care of yourself." He tips his hat and walks to the door, though when he walks out, the latch doesn't quite catch.

I wait for a second, thinking he might come back to shut it properly, but he doesn't. A gust of wind off the water pushes it open farther, letting the soggy January chill creep into the warm office, so I limp around the desk, massaging my aching leg.

Another gust pushes it open farther just as I stop with doorknob in hand to shut it, and I see a sight I'm not prepared for.

Hannah Brooks drifts past the open office door with a few well-bundled women, chatting about a party of some sort.

I stand out of sight, with the door not quite shut, and see the back of her thick windbreaker.

In large pink letters on black polyester, I read the words Brooks Party Boats and Tours.

My mind doesn't quite make the connection until I see Hannah open the door to one of the pier offices just three spots down from Dad's office and escort the women inside.

"Oh, Christ," I grumble, ducking back from the door after closing it.

I fumble through the paperwork on the desk left behind by the lawyer to find the ledger he showed me, and sure enough, there at the top, listed among the names of businesses Dad's leasing dock space to, is the name Brooks Party Boats and Tours.

I slump into the chair and let my head loll back against the head rest.

The one woman in this town who hates me more than anything else is now a renter on my property, and I'm not going to be able to avoid talking to her.

This should be interesting.