* * *
The interior of Hatch’s “office” smelled of sardines, damp hemp, dead fish, and motor oil. It was uncomfortably warm and stuffy inside, as though the shack couldn’t provide enough oxygen for three men because it was usually occupied only by one.
The limited floor space was crowded with trunks of fishing and diving gear, coils of rope, maps and charts, maintenance supplies and equipment, a vintage metal file cabinet in which Hatch rarely filed anything, and his desk, which had been salvaged from a shipwreck and bought at auction for thirty dollars.
The kid who’d crashed his boat had heaved twice into his toilet, but Hatch figured the nausea was more from nerves and fear than from the shot of brandy he’d sneaked him when no one was looking.
Of course, the kid had had a lot to drink prior to the brandy, and that wasn’t just an assumption. He’d admitted as much to the Coast Guard officer who was currently questioning him. Key West police had had their turn at interrogating him about crashing the boat into the marina. He was then turned over to the Coast Guard officer, who wanted to know what had happened onboard that had caused his two companions to wind up in the Atlantic.
He’d provided their names and ages, their local addresses. Hatch had checked the information against the rental agreement the two young men had filled out before embarking. He confirmed the data to the officer.
Hatch resented having to share his private space with strangers, but he was glad he hadn’t been asked to wait outside while the laws interrogated the kid. The marina was now swarming with onlookers who’d been drawn to the scene of the drama like flies to a pile of manure. And you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting some breed of uniformed personnel.
Having intimate knowledge of jails in numerous ports on several continents, Hatch had an aversion to uniforms and badges. He would just as soon avoid authority of any kind. If a man couldn’t live by his own set of rules, his own sense of right and wrong, what was the good of living? That attitude had landed him in paddy wagons all over the globe, but that was his philosophy and he was sticking to it.
But, in all fairness, Hatch had to hand it to the Coast Guard officials and local policemen who’d questioned the young man and organized a search-and-rescue party: They hadn’t been assholes about it.
It was clear that the kid was on the brink of total breakdown. The badges had been savvy enough to realize he might crack if they applied too much additional pressure, and then where would they be? In order to calm him down and get answers, they’d gone pretty soft on him.
He was still wearing wet swim trunks and sneakers that leaked seawater onto the rough plank flooring whenever he moved his feet. In addition to giving him the brandy, Hatch had thrown a blanket over him, but he’d since discarded it, along with his tattered T-shirt.
Outside, running footsteps and an excited voice brought the kid’s head up. He looked hopefully toward the door.
But the footsteps ran past without stopping. The officer, who’d had his back turned while helping himself to Hatch’s coffeepot, came around and correctly read the kid’s expression. “You’ll know something as soon as we do, son.”
“They’ve got to be alive.” His voice sounded like someone who’d been outyelling a storm for a long time. Every now and then it would crack over a word. “I think I just couldn’t find them in the dark. It was so damned dark out there.” His eyes bounced back and forth between Hatch and the officer. “But I didn’t hear them. I called and called, but… Why weren’t they answering me? Or calling out for help? Unless they…” He was unable to say out loud what they all feared.
The officer returned to Hatch’s stool, which he’d placed near the chair in which the boy sat with his shoulders hunched forward. For several weighty minutes, the officer did nothing but sip his hot coffee. Schwoop. Schwoop.
It was irritating as hell, but Hatch remained quiet. This was the law’s business now, not his. His boat was insured. There’d be paperwork out the wazoo, and a suspicious, seersucker-suited adjuster to haggle with, but in the long run, he would come out okay. Maybe even a little better off than he’d been.
He was less optimistic about how this kid would fare. No amount of insurance was going to make his life easier after this. As for the two who’d gone into the water, Hatch didn’t hold out much hope. The percentages were stacked against them.
He had known a few men who had foundered and lived to tell about it, but not many. If you went into the water, drowning was probably the most merciful way to die. Exposure took longer. And to predators you were just another source of food.
The Coast Guard officer cradled the chipped coffee mug between his palms and swirled the contents. “How come you didn’t use the radio to call for help?”
“I did. I mean, I tried. I couldn’t get it to work.”
The officer stared into his swirling coffee. “Coupla other boats heard your SOS. Tried to tell you to stay right where you were. You didn’t.”
“I didn’t hear them. I guess…” Here he glanced across at Hatch. “I guess I didn’t pay much attention when he was showing us how to operate the radio.”
“Costly mistake.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fair to say you’re not a seasoned sailor?”
“Seasoned? No, sir. But this is the first time I’ve had any trouble.”
“Uh-huh. Tell me about the fight.”
“Fight?”
This drew a frown from the officer. “Don’t bullshit me now, son. Your eye’s all but swollen shut. You’ve got a bloody nose and busted lip. Your knuckles are scraped and bruised. I know what a fistfight looks like, okay? So don’t play games with me.”
The young man’s shoulders began to shake. His eyes streamed, but he didn’t even bother trying to stem the tears or to wipe his dripping nose.
“Was it over the girl?” the officer asked in a gentler voice. “Mr. Walker here says she was a looker. A party girl, best he could tell. She belong to one of you?”
“Like a girlfriend, you mean? No, sir. She’s just a casual friend.”
“You and your buddy fight over her favors?”
“No, sir. Not… not exactly. What I mean is, she wasn’t the reason it started.”
“Then what was?”
The boy sniffed but remained mute.
“Just as well tell me now,” the officer said, “because when we find whatever we’re going to find out there, we’ll keep hounding you until we get the truth of it.”
“We were drunk.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And… and…” The kid raised his head, looked over at Hatch, then back at the officer, and said earnestly, “He’s my best friend.”
“All right. So what happened?”
He licked mucus off his upper lip. “He got mad. Mad as hell. I’ve never seen him like that.”
“Like what?”
“Crazy. Violent. Like he snapped or something.”
“Snapped.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’d you do to piss him off, cause him to snap?”
“Nothing! One minute he’s down below with her. I gave them some privacy, you know?”
“For sex? They were having sex?”
“Yeah. I mean, really going at it, having fun. Next minute, he’s back up on deck, coming at me.”
“For no reason? Just like that?”
The kid’s head wobbled up and down. “It was supposed to be a party. A celebration. I don’t understand how it went to hell so quick. I swear to God I don’t.” He lowered his battered face into his hands and began to sob again.
The officer looked over at Hatch as though for consultation. Hatch stared back at him, wanting to ask what he was looking at him for. He wasn’t a counselor. He wasn’t a parent. He for damn sure wasn’t an officer in the Coast Guard or a cop. This was no longer his problem.
When he failed to volunteer anything, the officer asked if he had anything to add to the boy’s story.
“No.”
“Did you see or hear them fighting?”
“The only thing I saw them doing was enjoying themselves.”
The officer turned back to the young man. “Best friends don’t fight for no reason. Not even when they’ve had too much to drink. They might swap some harsh words, maybe throw a punch or two. But once it blows over, it’s over, right?”
“I guess,” he replied sullenly.
“So I want you to come clean with me now. Okay? You listening? What brought on the fight?”
The kid struggled to swallow. “He just attacked me.”
“How come?”
“All I did was defend myself. I swear,” he blubbered. “I didn’t want to fight him. It was a party.”
“Why’d he attack you?”
He shook his head.
“Now, that’s not true, is it, son? You know why he attacked you. So tell me. What caused your best friend to get mad enough to start beating up on you?”
Silence stretched out for about twenty seconds, then the kid mumbled a single word.
Hatch wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly, mainly because the first clap of thunder from the predicted storm rattled the small square window in his shack just as the boy spoke, and also because what he thought he heard the boy say was a strange answer to the question.
The officer must have thought so, too. He shook his head with misapprehension and leaned forward to hear better. “Come again? Speak up, son.”
The young man raised his head and took a swipe at his nose with the back of his hand. He cleared his throat. He blinked the officer into focus with his one functioning eye.
“Envy,” he said gruffly. “That’s what this is all about. Envy.”
P.M.E.
St. Anne Island, Georgia
February 2002