Chapter 4: The Counter

Joslyn was waiting at the foot of the cannery steps with two coffees and a face.

She is five foot two, with the sides of her head shaved and the top bleached the color of a lemon.

She has never once let me cry in public.

"The mooring pennant's been cut with a knife," she said. "Clean through, no fraying."

"Who?"

"Take a guess whose launch was out at four a.m."

She sniffed.

"You smell like cedar," she said. "We'll talk about that."

"We will not."

"We will in the truck."

The Trust office stood at the head of the town pier, a grey shingled building with a brass plaque.

A hundred fishing families came to its counter every month to pay what they owed.

At seven in the morning the line already ran out the door.

I walked past it.

A man in a yellow slicker said, "Henley," quietly, and stepped out of my way.

I knew him.

His name had been read on the dais two Novembers ago.

The clerk was a girl of twenty-two with a pencil in her hair.

"Miss Pascoe, I'm so sorry, you'll have to wait for the manager."

"Where's my father's boat?"

The line went quiet behind me.

The clerk's eyes slid sideways, toward the glass office at the back.

"I'm not able to say."

"You don't have to say."

I raised my voice so the whole line could hear.

"I want a paper with a signature on it that says why the Ada P. is not on her mooring this morning."

"Or I want her back where she was by eight."

"A paper?" a voice said.

Linwood stood in the doorway of the glass office with a cup of tea.

He wore a camel overcoat and the gold-buttoned blazer under it, and he looked rested.

"Good morning, Miss Pascoe. I hope the guest room suits."

"Where is my father's boat?"

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