The Hook and Gaffe sign Angie had seen in Rachel’s footage still creaked in the sea wind above the entrance to the restaurant and pub, but it had long been replaced by a newer version. She parked in the lot outside, checked into the motel adjacent to the restaurant, and dumped her bags on the bed in her room.
The room smelled musty, as places close to the sea often do. She yanked back the drapes, and dust motes floated down. Across the street, through the salt-crusted windows, stood the row of weathered waterfront stores Angie had seen in the digitized footage, including the old Mariner’s Diner. Behind the buildings a wooden pier jutted out into a harbor. Gulls darted and wheeled above the pier. Clouds boiled low over a sea dark gray and veined with foam.
This was one of the rooms Rachel Hart had booked for her group twenty-four years ago. Angie suspected not much had been done to spruce up the decor since. She felt as though she’d stepped back in time.
Leaving her gear locked in her room and armed with her recorder, camera, and a folder of screenshots, she drove straight for the Sea-Tech Industries compound, where the aquaculture division was run by Jessie Carmanagh. Jessie had agreed to meet Angie in his office at 5:30 p.m.
Her route took her down to the docks and along train tracks and a rail yard with graffiti-covered silos. The tide was low, exposing rotting pylons and a swath of barnacled and seaweedy rocks that stretched out into the bay. Rain came down softly, and mist blew in. The effect was bleak. Cold. Desolate.
Angie turned into the five-acre compound. The entrance bifurcated. A sign on her right pointed to the Sea-Tech Freight division. Another sign on her left indicated the Sea-Tech aquaculture operations. Angie turned left.
She’d looked up the company before coming. While Jessie Carmanagh ran the aquaculture arm, the freight division—which shipped the live fish and shellfish produced by the aquaculture division across the country and south of the border—was run by Wallace, Mr.Toothless, who Angie had discovered was also a Carmanagh and Jessie’s older brother.
She drove toward a long squat building near the water. Men were leaving the building in groups and making for vehicles parked in a lot at the back. It was close of business, and she presumed the men were Sea-Tech employees heading home after their day’s work. She parked and found Jessie’s office at the end of the building closest to the wharf. She knocked on the partially open door.
“Come in!”
Angie entered to find a woman in her forties seated behind a metal desk with a half-eaten burger in her hands, a supersize drink and fries at her side. The place smelled of fast food and diesel from the boats coming in. Metal shelving filled with binders lined the walls.
“I’m looking for Jessie Carmanagh,” Angie said. “I have an appointment with him. My name’s Angie Pallorino.”
The woman swallowed her mouthful and set her burger down. “Oh yeah.” She wiped a napkin over her lips. “He took off down to the wharf.”
She rolled her chair back on its wheels, got to her feet, and waddled over to the grime-streaked window. She pointed. “That’s him down there by that row of painted bollards. He’s fixing the scallop cages.”
Angie peered through the window. A large rangy male wearing a bright-orange visi-vest atop heavy all-weather fishing gear bent over what looked like a tangle of nets.
“If ya want to speak to him, you’d better head on down. He’ll be a while sorting out that tangle.”
Angie exited the building, drew up her rain hood, and walked to the waterfront. A soft drizzle fell, puddles pooled along the concrete paving, and boats jostled along the dock on the rising tide. The place smelled like fish. And diesel engines. Near the dock was a large hangar-style warehouse containing drums. Under cover of the hangar, men in coveralls were busy with the drums.
“Jessie Carmanagh?” she said as she reached the man.
His head jerked up.
A spark of recognition shot through Angie. Although now in his late fifties, Jessie Carmanagh still retained something of the boyish quality she’d witnessed in Rachel’s footage. But his eyes belied the rest of his physical presence. They were lined, watchful, calculating. They told Angie she was not welcome here.
Several of the men in coveralls in the adjacent warehouse stopped working. A few grouped together and watched her from under the cover. One lit a cigarette and leaned back against a drum. Jessie flicked a glance at them.
She proffered her hand and a smile. “I’m Angie. We spoke on the phone earlier. My partner and I had the pleasure of doing a Nahamish drift with your son, Hugh, recently, along with fellow guide Claire Tollet. Hugh’s a fine teacher and an incredible angler.”
“Yeah, I know you were on the river last month. Budge told us.” Ignoring her hand, he returned his attention to untangling scallop cages. “And we saw you on the news.”
Us.
We.
“You’re friendly with Budge Hargreaves?”
“Everyone knows everyone in these parts.”
Angie reached into her pocket and activated her digital recorder, keeping it hidden so as not to agitate him further. She eyed the men in the warehouse. She sensed she had a very small window of time to get Jessie to talk.
“Could we maybe discuss this under cover, perhaps in your office?”
“You got something to say, say it here.”
In full view of his men. In the rain. He’s going to make this as difficult as he can.
