“Neddie Hacker has been pulling traps as long as I can remember,” Jake said out of the blue. “Long, long time.” He shook his head back and forth. “The dead man’s name is Liam O’Reilly. You were right. He’s been tending bar over at the Trap about six months now, working for Gussie Murphy. Damn, Herbie, this is a tough one.”
I was quiet, which is often a wise move to make. You can learn a lot if you just keep your mouth shut.
“And that tattoo, damn it’s distinctive. Irish as Irish can get. Liam O’Reilly.” He shook his head again, angrily, wiping one hand over his mouth as he steered with the other.
“Personal friend, Jake?” I asked quickly.
“No. Why do you ask?” he snapped at me, his whole face reacting as though he’d been caught at something. But he had been caught — in an unusual burst of emotion.
“Nothing, Jake.” I said back just as swiftly, deciding to play stupid. I looked down, thrust a hand into the wax-paper bag between my legs.
“I barely knew him,” Jake went on, trying to shrug, act nonchalant. “Worked for Gussie. Neddie and Gussie used to run the Lobster Trap together, back in the sixties. Bet you didn’t know that, did you, Mr. Smart-guy?”
“Yes, sir, I did.” I tried not to look at him, failed. He was giving me a real strained, impatient look. “He told me, out on the boat. He said he and Gussie Murphy used to have traps together and when they split up Mr. Hacker took the boat and some property they owned out on the point, and Mr. Murphy, he kept the restaurant.”
“He told you all that?”
“He did.” I shrugged, doughnut in hand. I would have offered Jake one, but he didn’t look very hungry. “We were just talking... a little. He said they had a big fight and—”
“They sure did. Back in ’68 or ’69, had a regular feud. I was up in Boston then, just starting out, so I missed most of it. A regular brouhaha from what I heard. Gussie bought Neddie out, and they haven’t spoken since.” He shot me a quick but probing look across the front seat of the car. The coffee I’d bought Jake wobbled unsteadily in the plastic carrier that fitted in front of the stick shift. It hadn’t been touched. “So maybe, Mr. Herbert Sawyer, you know everything that I know... plus a little that I don’t know. What happened out on that boat this morning?”
I took a quick bite of doughnut, thought a moment, then said, “I got up early, like I said, and went down to the river. I met up with Mr. Hacker — his boat’s the Sister Mary Margaret — and we went out to check his pots. He’s got about thirty out in the bay. He does it for spare cash, according to Mr. Hornton.”
A sidelong glance at me. “So it was Elmer Hornton who put you up to this?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Because little Brucie Hacker’s got himself in jail again?”
“Yes, sir.” I paused, mouth open, full of doughnut. I swallowed, said, “Mr. Hornton told Mom that Neddie... that Mr. Hacker is okay, and just because his son’s in jail—”
“I’ve got Little Brucie Hacker, all two hundred sixty pounds of him, locked up in the county jail for assaulting his girlfriend.”
“Yes, I know that.” I took a quick bite, tried to ignore his expression, his reaction. I could almost see what was going to happen: a confrontation with my mother? And Mr. Hornton? How could you let a thirteen-year-old kid go out on a boat with a man whose son is always in trouble? For beating up his girlfriend? Or drunkenness and disorderly conduct in public? And wasn’t there a lewd and lascivious conduct in there somewhere, too?
“So I know what you were going to tell me, Herbie, back at the river.” He glanced at me as I pushed a button to lower my window, get a bit of fresh air. The car had suddenly grown stifling. How much of this would my mother find out? Probably all of it, eventually. That wasn’t good; my mother was the extremely sensitive — and easily frightened — type.
“The arm in the pot,” Jake went on, “Liam O’Reilly’s arm, maybe it was there for Brucie Hacker to discover. Maybe. I mean, if it’s not just some sicko getting his kicks by spreading Liam O’Reilly all over the bay. And Brucie Hacker would have found it, too, if he weren’t in jail. That’s what you were going to tell me, isn’t it? He usually helps his father pull those traps?”
“Yes, sir.” I guess it had been kind of obvious. I took another bite of doughnut.
“Brucie Hacker was brought in on Friday night. This is Sunday morning. When did Neddie put out those traps? Were you with him then?”
“No, but I think he baited them on Saturday morning. He baits them one morning, checks them the next, or sometimes skips a day, I think.”
“You think. So Neddie might have baited his traps on Friday morning?”
“You’re not suggesting Mr. Hacker, or his son, killed Mr. O’Reilly and put his arm in that pot, are you? For what reason, Jake?”
“Listen, Herbie, I’ve been doing this kind of work almost twenty years. Not everything’s got a reason to it, but I think you know that, too, don’t you?”
“They’re getting all this same information — the staties — from Mr. Hacker, aren’t they?”
“I suppose they are,” he said with that same deep frustration I’d detected earlier. But still, there was more to it, to his voice and expression. Was it pain? And if so, why would Jake feel pain? Anger, yes; resentment, even animosity, most certainty. But why did I continue to sense an emotional hurt from him?
He moved to turn on his car radio, changed his mind, unrolled his window instead, and leaning his left arm on the door, drove with his right.
“It’s not your case, is it?”
“No, it’s not,” he answered.
“Cripes.” I looked down into my lap, into the bag holding my other two doughnuts. One for later. One for Oscar, maybe. Then I looked up and watched as we sailed past the entrance to Upper Cape Technical Institute.
“When do you meet your tutor?” he asked me.
“Usually around—” I turned in my seat, watched as the gold and black sign with “Founded 1955” on it disappeared behind us. “Twelve. One. I told Oscar I might be late today, and anyhow, he’s got a couple of projects he’s working on. I usually go find him.”
“So we’ve got plenty of time. I want you...” he swung wide, leaving the main highway to turn onto the coast road, a long, fairly deserted stretch of road that ran along the bay for nearly twenty uninterrupted miles “...to tell me everything that happened this morning.”
“I like Mr. Hornton,” I began, “but Mr. Hacker, he’s different. He’s what you might call a colorful character.”
“Colorful? As in his language?” Jake said with a wry smile.
“Yeah, partly.” I was working on my second doughnut. “I think he was maybe expecting someone different from me because the first thing he said when he saw me was, you’re thirteen, boy? You don’t look more’n ten years old. But I ain’t got much choice, do I? Not with that worthless son of mine up in jail for what they call assault. Assault!” I stopped, chewed a moment, swallowed. “Then he kind of laughed and threw a coil of rope up onto his boat. It’s an old fishing galley he calls the Sister Mary Margaret, but about the only thing saintly about that boat are those words written right across the stern. Mr. Hornton did that work; he told me so.
“But the rest of the boat? It’s just an old hulk, all peeling paint with a line of barnacles showing along the waterline. Still, Mr. Hornton said it was a safe boat, and he told Mom that Mr. Hacker’s a good man, if a bit short-tempered. Said maybe he’d teach me a thing or two. He’s got about thirty lobster pots, and he nurses them like a mother hen. Can’t make more than a few hundred a month, and probably has twice that in expenses, but Mr. Hornton said it gives him a reason, yes it does.” I took another bite, time enough for Jake to ask: