Page 50 of Smuggler's Cove
“Who goes to a fishing dock in high heels?” he’d said gruffly after they left.
Hannah tried to defend the hapless city woman. “She didn’t know what this place was. I could tell.”
“Whatever,” he said, and shrugged.
But in the new day’s light, he saw that he may have jumped the gun with his opinion. Hannah had a point. Plus, now they had a dead body and all.
“Yep. Nice of her.” He nodded.
“And look! New cargo pants!” Her excitement for something so simple was touching. “Madison, you are one classy lady.” She stuffed the clothes back into the shopping bag. “Come on. Clam sandwiches. On the house!”
Madison’s eyeballs rolled back in her head. This was going to be a lot tougher than she imagined.
Several people were hanging around the front of the food truck. “ ’bout time, Hannah,” one of her dining guests teased. “My stomach is making all kinds of noises.”
“So will the rest of your intestines later,” another angler joked.
“Are you saying there is something wrong with my clam rolls?” Hannah slapped her towel at him.
“It’s not your clam rolls. It’s his belly roll.” People chuckled. Apparently busting chops was a normal occurrence around those parts.
Hannah hoisted herself into the truck. “Come on, Charlie. Hop to it.”
There was a small picnic table nearby, where Olivia, Lincoln, and Madison took a seat. For some odd reason, Madison felt a sense of relief. Madison was a go-getter and get ’er done kind of woman, but in spite of what people perceived, she also knew when it was time to let things go. Everyone was doing what they had to do. The challenge now was being patient, a skill she was still trying to perfect at her age.
Madison finally had the opportunity to drink in the atmosphere. The scenery was magnificent. A large, winding river was surrounded by lush vegetation, high hills toward the south, and the water gently lapping against the shoreline. It reminded her of the Renoir painting,The Skiff. The difference was that the two women in the painting were fashionably dressed, and tranquil. Neither of them was fishing or clamming. She glanced at the group gathered by the food truck. Another painting came to mind. It wasLuncheon of the Boating Party. Again, in the painting, the women were fashionably dressed for an afternoon soiree, but the two men were clad in sleeveless shirts and straw hats and looked more like her immediate circle of characters.
Yes, the people she had encountered over the past twenty-four hours were an interesting lot. There was the button-down Detective, who Madison would bet did not smoke. Then there were the crusty dock people, who smoked, dried their skin to leather, and ate fried food every day. True, they were quirky, but there was a fellowship among them. They looked out for one another.
Madison noticed an exceptionally large bird with a fish in its beak, gliding over the water, when someone from behind said, “It’s an osprey.” Madison blinked. She hadn’t heard the person approach and turned toward the voice.
“Good afternoon. I am Captain Viggo Eriksson, U.S. Coast Guard. You’re the Taylor family?”
“It’s Wainwright.” Madison stiffened.
“Apologies. But you are, were, related to Kirby Taylor?”
Madison held her hand above her eyes to shield them from the sun. The officer stepped up to create a shadow. “Yes. He was our uncle.”
“Sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” Madison replied.
Lincoln stood and shook the captain’s hand.
“I’m working with the town’s local police and the State Police Marine Services in the investigation.”
Madison was hopeful that having the Coast Guard involved would hurry along the process. “Looks like we are keeping you busy.” She smiled. The officer was quite handsome, with classic Norse looks. A full head of wavy light brown hair with streaks of blond from the sun, steel-blue eyes, light skin but slightly tanned, straight nose, high angular cheekbones, with a closely cropped well-trimmed beard. From where she was sitting, she thought he might be five feet ten, maybe eleven inches tall, with a trim, athletic build. Her eyes darted to his left hand. No wedding band.Now why did she do that?she wondered. His raw manliness reminded her of what it would be like to be with one. It had been such a long time.
“Normally we don’t get involved in local situations. We mostly concentrate on smuggling, search, and rescue. That sort of thing.”
“What brings you to Smuggler’s Cove?” Madison laughed nervously. She realized he had already told her. “Sorry. All this fresh air. And the”—she paused—“situation.”
He snickered. “Understandable. Just doing some investigative work. We need to make sure that he was not involved in anything that fell within our authority. But we still don’t know who he was and what he was doing here.”
For the first time, Madison wasn’t in such a hurry to get answers, but she decided to ask a question anyway, even if it was to keep the conversation flowing. “Tell, me Captain Eriksson, do you really get a lot of smugglers here?”
“You would be surprised. Drugs. Contraband.”
