Page 4 of Baby, It's Cod Outside
“Killing it, Ben,” he mutters at his own reflection. “Absolutely crushing it.”
Chapter 4
Jackson
The walk from the diner to the marina isn’t long, but the wind makes sure it feels like punishment.
He nears the boat Billy pointed out to him. On deck, lines of snow are being scraped overboard with a shovel, wet clumps arcing off the gunwale before slopping gracelessly into the bay below. The guy watching it go is a fortress of fleece and flannel, scarf up, hat down. Only his eyes and ruddy cheeks show.
Jackson clears his throat and calls up, “Excuse me!”
The man stops shovelling, resting an elbow on the ship’s railing. He doesn’t say anything, just gives the kind of jerk of the head that could be ‘Hello’ or ‘Get lost,’ depending on how you read it.
“Are you the captain of this ship?” Jackson flips open his notebook, stopping on the name Billy practically punched into the soft paper in his childish scrawl. “Eli?”
The response comes slow but the guy’s eyes are sharp, like he’s measuring Jackson for ballast. “Who wants to know?”
“Jackson James, Silver Shoals Gazette.”
His shoulders square; he plants the shovel hard. “No story here,” he says, cold as the ocean behind him.
Jackson forces a short laugh. Around here, people usually clamor for a column inch, especially if they’re being featured for a nativity built entirely out of recycled lobster traps or their third straight victory in the church holiday bake-off with their grandma’s molasses crinkle recipe that ‘won the war,’ allegedly.
This guy, though? Not so much. And his accent is definitely not small-town Massachusetts. West Coast, maybe.
He glances at the boat’s name,TheTrans Atlantic, and something clicks into place: last year’s piece,Holiday Hero Saves Mayor’s Nephew.Jackson had tried digging into that night—the details hadn’t added up under even the slightest amount of scrutiny—but his editor, Mort, nixed any further investigation in favor of the feel-good angle. He could still hear the exasperation in his voice. “It’s the goddamn holidays, Bernstein! Let people have something nice. A man fell down. Let’s not act like the fucking mob was involved.” This year, he might have pushed back. Last year, he was fresh from the city desk, still nursing his wounds.
This mountain of a man is not the even-tempered captain Jackson interviewed for the article, though. He must be the other half of that story Jackson had always suspected was bigger than reported.
He’s still deciding how hard to push when another voice floats from the cabin, lighter, friendlier: “Alex, babe, is everything okay?”
The door pushes open, and out comes the captain Jackson remembers, battered neon beanie clinging to his bronze curls, face ruddy from the wind, expression pulling tighter like a net mid-haul when he sees they’re not alone. Not unfriendly, exactly, just wary. “Oh, hey! You’re from the Gazette, right? Jackson?”
“Guilty,” Jackson says, relieved that it’s not just Tall, Dark, and Surly onboard. He moves a few steps up the gangplank sohe’s not yelling over the wind. “Nice to see you again, Eli. Sorry to bother you both, but I heard you saw something strange with the fish near Scrimshaw Cove. I wanted to ask you about it.”
Alex just grunts, arms folded across his chest, but Eli bobs his head earnestly, waving Jackson closer. “It was weird. Haven’t seen anything like it before. Spooked my last charter group so bad they wanted to pack up and fish somewhere else. I actually took a video.” A flick of his thumb, and he’s got it. He passes the phone across, footage already playing.
Rainbow iridescence swirls across the water’s surface. Gulls scream over glittering fish, some whole, some in the process of being pecked apart, all dead and lazily bobbling belly up. In the back of the frame, mostly obscured by frostbitten pine, stands a complex too notable to ignore. Jackson zooms in, careful to not drop Eli’s phone overboard. “Is that Whitaker Seafood?”
Eli ducks his head, like Jackson just saying the name out loud was a physical blow. “Y-yeah,” he says. “But we’re not… I mean, it’s probably not related.”
“I’m just gathering info,” Jackson reassures him, handing him back the phone and slipping his notebook from his pocket. “Do you mind if I take down?—”
Alex cuts him off, stepping in just enough to remind Jackson of his size. He gets the sense he’s more protective of Eli than defensive. Jackson is both deeply annoyed and a little jealous. “We’re pretty busy. Got a charter in a couple hours. Way behind schedule.” He keeps it civil, the way you might thank someone for a flyer you’re about to toss.
“Sorry.” Eli offers a helpless little shrug. “It’s just… we’ve got gear to check, fuel to top up, all that stuff.”
“No worries,” Jackson says, swallowing the dozen questions piling up in his throat. “Thanks for your time. I appreciate it.”
Alex puts a giant hand on Jackson’s shoulder, guiding him firmly off the boat. “Glad to help,” he says, clear that he means the exact opposite. “We’ll let you know if we see anything else.”
Eli tries for damage control and good intentions, his grin showing up a hair too late. “Good luck with your piece. Hope you find, uh, whatever it is you’re looking for. I’ll be reading!”
Jackson calls out a “Thank you,” before descending the gangplank. Once he’s back on the dock, he glances over his shoulder. Eli gives a polite little wave, while Alex has already resumed shoveling snow, every muscular motion radiating regret that he hadn’t tossed Jackson’s notebook into the ocean.
The dynamic onboardThe Trans Atlanticis somewhere between comedy duo and light criminal conspiracy. He doesn’t begrudge them their secrets, although he definitely should have investigated more last year. But he’s on this now and if Whitaker’s name alone is enough to spook those weirdos, he must be swimming toward something big.
Jackson rubs his fingers together until the clingy cat hair comes free from his sweater, flicks it into the void, and knocks the same two knuckles against his editor’s open door. Mort looks up slowly, the red pen resting in his mouth like he’s forgotten it’s not a cigarette. Mort is always in here either smoking or quitting smoking, and his mood vacillates wildly depending on which one you catch him doing.
