Water Dogs (23 page)

Bennie pulled on a sweater and sweatpants and hopped around the corner from his bedroom into the living room. Gwen was staggering from the purple couch to the front hall closet, where she rummaged for a baseball bat. She gripped it in both hands and went to the front door. Without hesitating, she flung it open and there was Vin Thibideaux. Ronald continued to bark. Bennie stayed out of view, far enough from the light of the fire.

“Mr. Thibideaux?” asked Gwen.

“Hey, Gwen. I’m on police business,” he said. He was wearing a black wool cap but no jacket—just a Patriots T-shirt and jeans. The dog stopped barking.

“I’d like you to quiet down, Mr. Thibideaux,” she said.

“Where’s your brother?”

“My head hurts,” she said. “Please quiet down. Do you know what time it is?” The bat rested on her shoulder, but she still held it with both hands. “It’s the middle of the night.”

Bennie was standing in the corner of the room with his back pressed against the wall so he couldn’t be seen.

Vin tried to take a step inside the door, but Gwen poked him in the belly with the bat. She didn’t put much into it, but her aim was impressive. He stumbled back.

“Let me talk to Benjamin,” said Vin.

“Wow, you stink,” said Gwen. “Is everybody in this town drunk?”

“Everybody in the goddamn world,” he mumbled.

“I’ve got a question for you, Mr. Thibideaux,” said Gwen, poking him again with the end of the bat. “Did you send Jamie Swensen over here?”

He smiled, then pushed the bat away with a quick swing of his forearm and stumbled into the kitchen. It was dark enough that Bennie just saw his thick outline, a big bear up on hind legs. When he made his way into the living room, Gwen jumped on his back and put him in a quick headlock. Ronald went crazy, grabbing Vin’s pant leg, tugging it back and forth. Vin tried to shake Gwen off his back but couldn’t, and
they tumbled onto the floor, near where Bennie was hiding. It wasn’t long before Vin was on top of Gwen, pinning her arms while Ronald snarled and tugged. Gwen thrashed her head back and forth, but Vin held the rest of her body still, and then Bennie jumped from the shadows and hurled himself at Vin, cast and all, bashing him to the floor. Vin knocked over the long line of empty beer bottles. “What?” he cried. The only light in the room was from the smoldering fire.

Swensen was in the back hallway, dead asleep on the runner carpet.

“Grab the bat, Gwen,” said Bennie.

They were grappling on the wood floor—Bennie had one of Vin’s arms and was trying to crank it toward the middle of his back, but with his other arm Vin was pulling Bennie’s good leg up toward his chest. Bennie told Gwen to hit Vin with the bat if he wouldn’t let go.

Gwen had the bat held high. “You guys are too tangled up,” she said. “Want me to call the cops?”

“I’m the cops, you assholes,” said Vin, who was now on his back, everything tensed, his face a reddish purple. He turned his head to the side and vomited on Bennie’s hand. A hot, raw smell filled the room, like the carcass of a freshly slain animal.

Gwen said, “You’re not a cop. You’re a fat, gross, pigheaded turd. You went to school with my father and I know how stupid you are. Rosebud whiskey? Is that what you’ve been drinking, Mr. Thibideaux?”

Vin stopped struggling. His face was slack, still purple. He burped, then relaxed on his back. He was winded. Ronald let go of his pant leg, walked up to the puddle of puke, and sniffed it.

“No!” yelled Gwen.

Ronald scampered over to the purple couch, hopped up, and curled into a ball on the far end.

“I’ll get some paper towels,” said Bennie, pushing himself up from the floor, workmanlike, shaking the warm puke off his hand.

“I’ll get them,” said Gwen.

“No,” he said. “You stay and break Vin’s kneecaps if he tries to get up.”

She held the bat like a samurai sword. “You used to have a crush on my mom,” she told Vin.

As Bennie hopped out of the room, Vin retched again, curling onto his side.

Coming back from the kitchen, he flipped on the overhead light. They all squinted in the brightness. He tossed the paper towels at Vin. They bounced off his chest and rolled into the fireplace. Bennie stared down at him, disgusted by the old, drunk cop. He felt some relief, too. For the moment, he had no reason to fear him.

Vin got to his knees while Gwen kept the bat cocked and ready. But he crouched down and vomited a third time, a small amount that spattered the puddle he’d already made. “I’ve got to get home,” he said.

“Run along,” said Gwen.

Vin tripped on the door jamb, then struggled to his feet and ambled through the mudroom, through the door, and out into the yard. He stumbled in the deep snow and fell on his side. He pushed himself up, glanced back at the Manse, then walked in a curved line to his cruiser. As soon as he started it, he revved the engine, spinning in the snow, and nearly sideswiped the stone wall. When he made it out of the driveway, though, his headlights disappeared quickly. The house felt calm again.

Swensen stumbled into the living room wrapped in a blanket, rubbing his swollen eyes. “Who was that?” he asked.

“Your buddy,” said Gwen. “Mr. Thibideaux.”

“That guy knows how to party,” said Swensen.

16

W
hen Bennie left in the morning, Gwen was asleep on the purple couch. Swensen was snoring in the hallway, lying on his stomach, his arms and legs spread wide.

Bennie arrived at Helen’s house just after nine. She was peeling an eggplant and Martha was sitting next to her at the kitchen table. Helen didn’t say anything when Bennie pulled a chair up next to her; she just continued to peel. He knew Helen was expecting news—perhaps even good news. But all he said was “Hi.” He took off his hat and scratched the top of his head.

“They’re due in sometime tomorrow,” said Helen, slicing a long thin peel from the fat eggplant.

“Who?”

“The fucking urchiners,” said Martha. “That’s when Ray was supposed to get off the island.” She was hunched over, holding her hands in her lap. She looked exhausted.

Bennie suggested they go down to the docks, ask around, see what kind of information they could gather. It was possible they’d find someone who’d seen him, heard his plan. If he wasn’t lost in the snow, maybe there were other answers. It was a desperate idea, and Bennie could tell Helen was upset that he’d even suggested it, but without Littlefield or any other leads, there wasn’t much to do. He could tell Helen knew by then that Gwen had been wrong: Ray LaBrecque was not alive and well at the Manse. She put the eggplant down. Martha said, “Let’s get going.”

Bennie called Julian to see if he wanted to come along. He said it was a dumb idea, but if they were going he wanted to captain the boat. “We need to get the heat off your brother,” Julian said. “Where is he, by the way?”

“I haven’t seen him for a few days. Gwen saw him yesterday, though.”

“Maybe he took off?” asked Julian.

“I doubt it,” said Bennie, but earlier in the morning he’d been concerned enough to call Skunk Gould’s trailer—which is where Littlefield always spent his drunken nights—and Skunk hadn’t seen Littlefield for a few days, either.

Bennie and Martha and Helen arrived at Kearney’s Lobster Cooperative a few minutes before Julian, and stood in the cold beside the stacked green wire traps. Bennie had called Handelmann from Helen’s house about using his outboard, and Handelmann consented immediately, though he warned Bennie to bring a shovel, because the boat would be full of snow. Handelmann kept his boat at the lobster co-op;
a few of the guys who fished out of Kearney’s had pets that Handelmann cared for, and they let him tie up to their wharf in the off-season.

Julian arrived in his Silverado, which had dents in the front panels and the hood from driving into the back of his barn, which is what he’d done a few times late at night after drinking at the restaurant. Julian was carrying fishing lines—hand lines—and while this annoyed Bennie, he realized it was probably not the worst idea. Looking for information about Ray’s whereabouts and trying to find the urchiners was likely a fruitless mission; at least they could troll for mackerel along the way, which, during the wintertime, would also be fruitless, but it would give them something to do. Again, it looked from the color of his face as though Julian had recently swilled a few beers, though he wasn’t drunk, just slightly subdued. He hadn’t seen Martha in a while, and though Bennie feared he might say something inappropriate, Julian didn’t; he just said hi and bowed his head.

Then everyone became businesslike, getting the boat ready to go. Martha carried the shovel as they walked down the hill to the wharf. She told them that even though she’d been working in the area for a long time, she’d never spent time on the ocean. She was from Maine, of course, and she’d been to Old Orchard Beach, and out on the Peak’s Island Ferry in Portland, but that was it. She had always liked to make comments about how different she was from them—she hadn’t grown up in a house on the water, she’d never gone to college, she didn’t have family money to fall back on.

Julian didn’t seem to know what to make of Helen outside the restaurant; he was careful with her. It was hard to make small talk with her in general, but at the restaurant especially, she was focused on her job. And Julian was her boss. Julian was wearing an Eskimo jacket with a fur-lined hood; even though Helen was tall, Julian looked like a giant next to her. When he took out his cigarettes and offered her one, she shook her head. He handed Bennie one without offering first, but he shook his head, and Helen caught the exchange. She said, “He doesn’t
smoke,” though she knew he did on occasion. Julian didn’t say anything, which surprised Bennie—Julian was normally a loudmouth, especially given an opportunity to tease Bennie.

After Martha finished shoveling, Bennie started the engine, which needed a few pulls and a lot of choke. Once it fired up, it revved obediently. They let it idle for a few minutes. Julian took his seat behind the wheel, folding up his long legs between the thwarts. It was a small aluminum boat, the kind in which balancing weight is important—too much on one side, when the chop was coming at a bad angle, could flip it over. They all stayed in the middle, Martha and Helen on the forward thwart, facing aft; Julian at the helm with Bennie beside him. As soon as they got moving, the snow that Martha hadn’t been able to reach under the thwarts, beside the riveted seams, swirled up around them and off the stern.

Julian didn’t need to ask; he steered a course to Riverneck Island. Two miles would take them twenty minutes. They picked up speed between the long swells, but there was chop coming from the north, which brought big wings of spray over the bow. Whenever Julian slowed to lessen the spray, it seemed they weren’t making enough headway. But then he’d speed up and they’d get soaked again, although they were already wet, so it didn’t much matter. Bennie used an old Clorox bottle cut in half to bail seawater out of the bilge, off the stern.

They were halfway across the channel when Bennie caught up with the bailing and Julian asked him to take the wheel. Shifting weight while at full speed in a heavy chop crossing a deep body of water in a tin boat is tricky, but they moved slowly; he scooted over to sit where Julian had been sitting while Julian reached behind the seat to get the hand line. He said he wanted to troll. They were going much too fast, the water was too deep, the chop was too rough, and mackerel were scarce in wintertime—but Julian thought it was a good time to cast a line. Bennie wondered if Julian had swilled more than just a few beers. Bennie kept his hand on the throttle and didn’t slow down.

After letting out enough line so that the bright-colored tackle was no longer dancing on the surface, Julian tried to tie the other end to the boat, but Martha reached over and tapped him on the shoulder, putting out her hand to take the line. Julian seemed glad to know Martha was interested in fishing, too.

There were two lobster boats tied to the stone pier in the deep-water inlet on the eastern side of Riverneck Island. As soon as the pier was in sight, Martha started hauling in the mackerel line. It was almost flat calm once they got inside the northern point; the wind was still blowing, but there were no swells and the tide was nearly high.

Riverneck Island didn’t have many trees; its shore was all loaf-size granite rocks leading up to the field. A developer from Boston owned the island, though he never visited. He left a few head of sheep there to keep the grasses short, and for a few years he’d been letting urchiners stay in the shack at the top of the island—the change in usage gave him a deal on his taxes.

At first, Bennie planned on scouting out the shack on his own, but Martha and Helen climbed off the boat onto the pier and started walking up the well-worn sheep trail, brown in the snow. Bennie was slow on his crutches, and Julian hung back with him. The islands in the area didn’t usually get much snow, but Riverneck had plenty. They were making their way uphill to the only stand of spruce trees, at the top of the island, beside the shack, and they saw one of the men in the far distance sitting down between two trees in an orange rain jacket. When they got closer they saw he was naked from the waist down except for his boots, shitting. His back was to them. He wiped his ass, stood up, and walked into the shack.