Tomlinson said, "Do I look like a cop to you?"
"You look like just one more damn Yankee tourist to me."
"I was with him at the hospital. When he died. That's why we're looking for Hannah."
"Hannah, huh? Tell me somethin'—did he suffer real bad. At the end, I mean. Jimmy?"
"It didn't last long. If you were a friend of his, you can take comfort from that."
"I don't need no comfort, not from you I don't. Common sense gives me all the comfort I need." Judging from Futch's tone, his expression, I got the impression that he hoped Darroux had suffered, and was irritated that Tomlinson didn't offer more details.
"Jimmy Darroux made a request of me on his deathbed," Tomlinson said. "I'm determined to honor it."
Futch thought for a moment, stared along the dock where the commercial fishermen had returned to work but were still keeping an eye on us. "You looking for Hannah," he said finally, "that would be Jimmy's wife, Hannah Smith." In reply to my sharp look, Futch added, "I won't call her by her married name. She was always Hannah Smith to me, still is to this day."
"Do you know where we can find her? If she doesn't want to talk, considering what she's been through—-"
"Hannah ain't no prissy, mopey kind'a woman. She doesn't want to talk, she'll tell you plain enough. I ain't the one to make her decisions for her. She lives down the road a couple hundred yards, the yellow cabin up on the Indian mound." Futch pointed vaguely. "The cops've already talked to her, so if you're here to ask more questions she'll figure that out quick enough, too."
"So it's okay to tie up?"
"Didn't say that."
"We . . . can pay you."
"Don't want your money. You boys just ain't clear about the way things stand, are you? You own this here boat?" He was talking to me. I nodded. "Let me explain the way it is. You paid more for this fancy boat then some a these men make in a year. Boat with a fancy platform over the motor so you can stand up there, dressed real nice, and look for fish when you got the time. Well, mister-man, those used to be our fish. Used to be our bay until the rich sports got their lawyers together and found a way to push us out.
"Time was I'd see only one or two of these here boats in a month. Helped 'em out many a time, too, tellin' where I saw the tar-pawn schoolin' or when the tripletail was around the traps. Tarpon and tripletail weren't nothin' to me, and it was the neighborly thing to do, I figured. Now'days, though, there're hundreds, hell, thousands'a these boats ever' where you look. Can't hardly strike a mess'a mullet without one'a these here flats boaters blastin' through givin' us their dirty looks." Futch hacked, spat, hacked, and spat again. "What you think it does to our boys, see a boat like yours? They got the whole world comin' down on their heads, sick kids, payments to make, banks yammering for their money and not a cent comin' in after the nets is banned in July. A lot of 'em didn't even finish high school, figuring they could always make a livin' fishin'. Now what they gonna do? You sports in the fancy boats got it all. You sports in the fancy boats took it all. Now you come in here lah-de-dah-de-dah askin' to tie up?" Futch had his face squinched into a thoughtful frown. "I reckon I jes' couldn't be responsible, you tie your boat here. One of the boys might mistake her for a two-holer and poot his mess on the deck. Or maybe worse. Lines might break and it'd drift off and catch fire, nobody's fault. My advice to you fellas is get the hell out an' don't come back. Hannah wants to talk to you, that's her business. But my docks ain't got no room for a boat like yours."
Chapter 4
Tomlinson seemed surprised when I beached my skiff in the mangroves south of the fish house so that we could look for Hannah Smith Darroux on foot. He'd been scolding me for skewering Julie on the cleat— "Violence is like a boomerang. It always comes back at you"—but he paused when I swung toward shore, favoring me with his you're -growing-as-a-human-being, expression—a look, happily, that I seldom receive. But I didn't beach my boat out of sympathy or to please Tomlinson. The way Arlis Futch had behaved interested me . . . interested and angered me both. I admired the fact that he empathized with the younger men, and he had summed up the inequities of the net ban accurately. Yet he also seemed to take perverse pleasure in being defiant and intractable. That kind of belligerence enjoys a mythos to which every region lays claim: the flinty Yankee, the bow-necked mid-westerner, the resolute cowboy. It is a character standard from folklore in which "good old common sense" is an essential bedrock ingredient. But too often, "common sense" is the safe harbor of ignorance and an excuse for intellectual laziness. They don't need the facts because they already know the truth—their common sense has spared them the effort of investigation or thought. It was precisely that attitude which too many cottage industry netters brought to the fishery, and, in doing so, they helped destroy their own way of life. Arlis Futch was an intelligent man. Stupid people don't build successful businesses or earn the respect of their peers. So why would he cloak himself in stupid indifference?
But that's not the only reason I swung into shore. The way Futch had reacted to Tomlinson's story piqued my interest. He had asked about Jimmy Darroux hoping to hear that the man had suffered. I was sure of that. It was in Futch's tone, his eyes. He hadn't approved of Darroux as a husband for Hannah Smith—a woman he spoke of with a degree of respect he certainly didn't show the men who worked around the docks. Tomlinson says my best quality and my worst quality are the same: an orderly mind. I think he's half right. Tomlinson is mystical, I am methodical. He believes in the Great Enigma, I do not. The behavior of any organism should be understandable once external influences are deciphered. When an otherwise predictable animal behaves oddly on the tidal flats—or on the docks—a little alarm goes off in my head. The inexplicable attracts me because there is nothing that cannot be explained. When the explanation is not readily apparent, I become compulsive about isolating the external influences. It attracts me in the same way that jigsaw puzzles and chess draw in similar types of people. Assemble enough pieces, make the right moves, and the reward is clarity.
The alarm had gone off when Arlis Futch asked about Jimmy Darroux, and when he spoke of the wife. Not a loud alarm, just a gentle chime of suspicion. But that, connected to the experience of holding a charred body in my arms, was enough. I wanted to meet Hannah Smith Darroux. I wanted to see for myself why Futch held her in such high regard.
I idled in close to shore, looking up at the lights ofhouses built on Indian shell mounds. When I judged we had gone a couple hundred yards, I tilted the engine and poled us toward a patch of mangroves. I didn't want to leave my skiff unattended in the open. There was no moon, but the night sky was star-bright, and Julie andJ.D. were out there cruising. I stern-anchored so that we could haul the boat off when we got back; then we waded through muck and oysters to the road that ribboned between the houses and the bay.
Tomlinson stood in the middle of the road, fingering a braid of his hair. There was no traffic. It was quiet but for crickets and the whine of mosquitoes. "I have a feeling it's that one. I don't know why, man, I just do." He was pointing to an old cottage with an open board porch. The porch light showed peeling, colorless paint. "I'll walk up and ask."
"No," I said, "we stay together. We'll start with the first house. If they don't know where Hannah Darroux lives, someone at the next house will."