Page 19 of No One Aboard

Jerry Baugh

Jerry’s phone vibrated on the dashboard in the cockpit. He had turned off his ringer two mornings ago when the press had gotten ahold of his number—God knew how—and they’d hounded him like piranhas for a statement, any statement.

What was he supposed to say? They knew everything he did.No, Jerry thought,they don’t want facts. They want emotions. They want me to say how scared I was thatnight,how unpredictable the seas are even after thirty years of mefishin’ them. They want a good story.

Just like when Steve died.

Jerry picked up his phone with half a mind to let it sit in the chum bucket for the rest of the day, but he paused when he saw the most recent text.

Come to The Old Eileen.

Jerry’s heart made an uncomfortable trip to his throat. What the hell kind of ominous, cryptic shit was this?

His phone vibrated again.

This is Detective Madden.

Jerry mopped his forehead with his sleeve. He heaved himself out of his chair and made his way up top where Detective Madden was waiting, standing tall over him andSheila 2.0from her vantage point on the dock.

“Could’ve just hollered,” Jerry said, but if Madden heard him, she paid no mind.

She was a dark-skinned, trim woman with triangle earrings and a face that was achingly familiar to Jerry. In fact, now that he was no longer in the heat of discovering a ghost ship in the middle of the Atlantic, he had time to really look at her and sort out where he knew the detective from.

Cherrywood.

It was an unpleasant memory, the one of the neighborhood where Jerry and his ex-wife, Sheila, used to live. He could picture Madden perched on a barf-pink sofa with a glass of lemonade in her hand, sandwiched between other neighborhood women. But what was her first name...?

“Brandy?” Jerry guessed.

The detective blinked at him. “Brenna.”

“Right. Neighborhood Watch?”

“Book club,” she said, and he faintly recalled being relegated to the garage while Sheila and the ladies ate key lime pie and mooned overThe Lovely Bones.

“Book club,” he repeated. “Must have been twenty damn years ago.”

“Twenty-four.”

Jerry scratched his head. “Guess that makes us old, then.”

Brenna Madden snorted. She hadn’t aged a goddamn day. “I’m younger than you. How’s Sheila? We stopped talking when I moved to the city.”

“We’re divorced. Twenty-two years ago, I guess it was. And how’s...” Jerry racked his brain. Was Madden married? All those ladies seemed to be, but then again he hadn’t reallytalked to them directly. He cheated and glanced at her left hand. No ring.

“Ida,” Madden offered, after allowing him to flounder for a minute.

“Yeah. Ida.” Jerry found himself at a momentary loss. “How is Ida?”

Madden folded her arms. “Dead.”

“Oh... uh...”

“If we can get back to work, Jerry, I’m here to update you about your new property.” Madden turned on her heel and boardedThe Old Eileen, expecting him to follow.

He did, guilty and relieved that she’d given the conversation a merciful death.

The sailboat looked untouched from when Jerry was last aboard two days ago. It was as peaceful yet unnerving as it had been that night. Jerry thought it would have looked less...wrong... in the light of day, docked and tied down, but he was mistaken.