No, sir.
So far, Capo's testimony has been damning. Brown altered the vessel without consulting a marine architect and then launched her without a single stability test. To anyone but a swordfisherman or a marine welder this would seem unusual—negligent, in fact—but it's not. In the fishing industry, it's as common as drunks in bars.
How would you characterize the Andrea Gail compared to other vessels? Ansel finally asks, hoping to put the last nail in the coffin. Capo doesn't hesitate.
Oh, top of the line.
Ansel's line of attack has been blunted, but he has other avenues. For starters he can talk to Doug Kosco, who walked off the boat with six hours to go because he got a bad feeling. What did Kosco know? Had anything happened on the previous trip? Kosco works for the A.P. Bell Fish Company in Cortez, Florida, and when he's not at sea he's usually crashing at one friend's apartment or another. He's a hard man to find. "It's—how can I put it—a nomadic existence," says Ansel. "These guys don't come home for dinner at five o'clock. They're gone three or four months at a time."
Ansel finally tracks Kosco down to his parents' house in Bradenton, but Kosco is uncooperative to the point of belligerence. He says that when he heard about the Andrea Gail he went into a three-month depression that cost him his job and nearly put him in the hospital. At one point Dale Murphy's parents invited him over to dinner but he couldn't deal with it; he never went. He'd known Murph as well as Bugsy and Billy, and all he could think was: That was supposed to have been me. Had Kosco gone on the trip, it's possible that he would've spent his last few moments pleading for his life—for this life, the one he's now leading. His wish was granted, in a sense, and it destroys him.
Ansel's case is fraying at the edges. He can't use Kosco's testimony because the man's too much of a mess; the Coast Guard says the EPIRB tested perfectly—although they won't release the report—and there's no hard evidence that the Andrea Gail was unstable. By the standards of the industry she was a seaworthy boat, fit for her task, and sank due to an act of God rather than any negligence on Bob Brown's part. The alterations to her hull may have helped her roll over, but they didn't cause it. She rolled over because she was in the middle of the Storm of the Century, and no judge is going to see it otherwise. Ansel's clients know that and decide to settle out of court. They probably won't get much—eighty or ninety thousand—but they won't run the risk of having Bob Brown completely exonerated.
Ansel starts negotiating a settlement, and the other suits are also settled in private. The relative stability of the Andrea Gail will never be debated in court.
ABOUT a year after the boat goes down, a man who looks exactly like Bobby Shatford walks into the Crow's Nest and orders a beer. The entire lineup of regulars at the bartop turn and stare. One of the bartenders is too shocked to speak. Ethel, who's just gotten off her shift, has seen the man before, in town, and explains to him why everyone's staring. You look just like my son who died last year, she says. There's a photo of him on the wall.
The man goes over and studies it. The photo shows Bobby in a t-shirt, hat, and sunglasses down on Fisherman's Wharf. His arms are folded, he's leaning a little to one side and smiling at the camera. It was taken on a day that he was walking around town with Chris, and he looks very happy. Three months later he'd be dead.
Jesus, if I sent this photo home to my mother she'd think it was me, the man says. She'd never know the difference.