Day One Without Butternut
The day was slow. I cleaned up the litter box, changed the linens and picked up the cat toys and stuffed them in a closet. I'd forgotten to drop them off at the shelter. By the time that was done, I'd had to leave to make another delivery, and declined to smuggle a person into Canada. I figured that Canada had done nothing so evil as to deserve that piece of filth. I don't deal with rapists.
I did a shift at the Gull, and then stuck around for a while to see if anyone interesting came in. Bob Cider had finally figured out that his wife's affair was for him, and he felt the need to tell me about the grand time they had the previous evening. Steve came in and asked me if I could get him a couple of real Cuban cigars. Upon hearing my fees, he decided that the regular ones he could get at The Smoke Signal were good enough. Eleanor accused me of sulking, as if I ever sulked.
Audrey got off work at 5, and at 6:30 I went to Over The Way to pick her up. The night was the best kind. It was the height of summer and it was nearly 85 outside, but despite being on the ocean, the humidity was low. I pointed down at the water between the Gerty and the pier. It took Audrey a moment to see them, but when she did she let out an exclamation of surprise. "I didn't know there were jellyfish in New England!"
I laughed and replied "Didn't spend much time down at the wharves in Boston, did you? They are fairly common there. These guys are Moon Jellies and they make wicked snowballs in the middle of summer."
"What?" Audrey looked completely confused at the idea of using a jellyfish as a snowball.
"First, you declare war on someone, particularly someone like Nathan. Then you go find some preferably dead jellyfish. You collect as many moon jellies as you can and then huck them at your enemies. Victory goes to the one with the most ammunition. The thing to be careful about is to grab the moon jellies. There are some stinging jellyfish around here. They are usually bigger though, and have long tendrils."
"Why do I think that there were a lot of dead jellyfish flying through Haven when you were younger?" Audrey chuckled at the question.
"Probably because you know Nathan and me, met Bill and Jeff, and there were a lot of UFOs," I replied, helping her up over the railing.
"Wait, now, UFOs?" She paused, turning slightly to look me in the eyes.
"Underwater Flying..."
"Object," we both finished.
"Maybe the Troubles are caused by the ghosts of angry moon jellies," Audrey proposed. I just grinned and shrugged.
I unwound the lines and carefully maneuvered Gerty away from the dock. When we got out of the harbor and past the shipping lanes, I opened up the engines. Audrey was a little worried about me not being at the helm but I reminded her there was little chance of me getting lost at sea so close to Haven. If I did, all I had to do was head east and I'd find the shore quickly enough.
Audrey came with me up to the pilothouse and I briefly gave her a rundown of how the ship functions, how to call the shore on the radio. She, of course, decided to use the ship-to-shore radio to call Nathan. I just rolled my eyes. She asked how to navigate and I pointed out the GPS, and offered to teach her dead reckoning, but it had to be at a later date.
We got to Portland and I secured Gerty to the slip I had been assigned. We had no set plans, for which I was roundly teased, but instead wandered the waterfront and pedestrian areas of the city. Eventually we found a likely looking restaurant and ordered our meals. Audrey got some shrimp dish, and I got a pasta with white sauce.
"You've been rather quiet this evening, Duke. I was expecting more..." She paused searching for a word for flirting without using flirting itself. I decided to make use of her pause.
"Your own private cruise up the coast of Maine with a private tour guide is not enough? Man you are a tough audience." I rolled my eyes, and sat back in my chair.
Audrey just shook her head. "I didn't mean that, Duke. That has been absolutely lovely. You are just usually much more talkative than you've been tonight. You OK?" Audrey lent forward, and looked closely at me.
"I'm Ok. It's been a rough week. I'm just tired, that's all." I tried to wave off her concern.
"Oh, that reminds me, there was another death yesterday. This one was really odd though. You ever meet Enoch Gertwood? He appeared to be mauled by something. There were no animals in his house, though, and no signs that any had broken in. The Chief thought that maybe it was a mountain lion, but said that there hadn't been one in Haven since the 1800s." Audrey obviously thought Old Enoch was connected to the deaths she had been trying to solve when the chief chased her out of town.
"Enoch was a miserable old man, mostly because he lived with nearly chronic insomnia after his wife and kids died. He seemed to resent most of the people in Haven for some reason or other. Most of us stayed out of his way. His was the house where if you ball went into his lawn, you left it there and were grateful to get away with your life." I thought for a moment about Enoch. He'd been about fifty then, and hadn't been a nice guy for more years than I'd been alive. "Come to think of it, the wife and kids died in their sleep. I want to say they thought it was carbon monoxide poisoning at the time. They suffocated."
"Do you think he was troubled?" Audrey asked.
I didn't answer immediately. "It would have made sense, if he was. I mean, he had a history of not sleeping. When he did sleep he'd be found all over town because he'd sleepwalk. He used to streak through town. The selectman eventually asked that he wear at least underwear to bed because he was scaring off the tourists wandering around in the buff. The kids in the houses he went by always complained of nightmares when he was around. The parents just thought it was the kids not liking Enoch."
"I wondered what killed him."
"Bad dreams, I would guess," was my reply.
We enjoyed each other's company as friends, neither of us up to the more serious flirting. I was too tired, and she to caught up in the mysterious deaths that had happened. Oddly enough, she didn't ask me about Lucy, even though I would have told her whatever I could. We spent a little more time in town but eventually retired to Gerty, and we started back to Haven.
Alone in the pilot's house, I wondered what Butternut was doing.
"Probably missing you. Nathan said that you two got quite close," said Audrey, which startled me. I hadn't realized I'd spoken aloud, nor had I realized that she'd come up as the summer night was turning brisk.
"He only says that because Butternut attacked him. Twice. He's a good cat. He deserves a good home." I smiled, but it felt more like a grimace.
I brought out my phone and showed Audrey the pictures of our week together. She thought I threw the cat into the sink, and refused to believe that a cat got willingly into water. I had to show her the video of Butternut swimming in the sink before she believed me.
"Did you ever come up with a new name for him?" she asked, curious.
"Yeah, but he was gone before I got to try it out and see if he liked it," I answered. I looked down and away.
We made our way back to Haven and I docked in my normal slip. I drove Audrey home, and at her door, we did the obligatory I had a really good time exchange. I drove back home to Gerty and listened to the sound of the sea and her hull. I dreamed of an orange kitten racing across the floor.