Read Online Fox Island by Stephen Bly - Free Book Online Page B

her head back as a delicate sea
breeze drifted against her tanning skin. “It’s sort of sad.”
    “About there being no more crime?”
    “No, about Mr. Bennington, an old man who
knows he’s dying and tries to find a former girlfriend.”
    Melody jingled long gold earrings and her
black hair shone with gold highlights in the evening sunset.
“Sounds romantic, doesn’t it?”
    Price eyed Tony. “I wonder ... when you’re
old, will you go and look up all your old girlfriends?”
    “All I have to do is look across the kitchen
table every morning and I see all my old girlfriends.”
    Melody choked on a bite of salad and began
to cough.
    “Are you all right?” Tony asked.
    “Dr. S. was the only girlfriend you ever
had?”
    “Yeah.”
    “How can that be? Were you raised in a
monastery or something?”
    “I guess I’m one of those rarities ... a
one-woman man.”
    “Anyway, that’s what he tells me.” The
dimples deepened in Price’s grin.
    “That is so cool. And how about you, Dr. S.?
Would you ever go look up your old boyfriends?”
    “Eh... no.” Price retrieved a navy cardigan
sweater and pulled it over her shoulders. “I wouldn’t know where to
begin.”
    “Me either,” Melody added. “Besides, most of
my old boyfriends are a bunch of jerks.”
    Price turned back and looked at a stack of
papers in a box next to Tony. “Well, what did you discover at the
museum?”
    “I’ve got quite a bit of stuff on organized
crime in Tacoma, but I haven’t found a Fox Island connection yet.
I’ll keep searching. And Harvey Peterson keeps making news from
time to time. You know, those local eccentric kind of stories they
use for filler on the evening news? Looks like I’ll need to do that
interview pretty soon.”
    Tony sorted through the papers in the box,
then looked up at Melody. “Hey, kiddo, I did find an old article
about a ferryboat wreck... which involved your aunt Jill.”
    Melody leaned forward. Her dark eyebrows
tensed close together and almost overlapped. “You did? Are you
sure? I never heard about that.”
    Tony spread the yellowed copy in front of
her. “It’s all right here... ‘The Fox Island to Tacoma ferryboat,
called the Arcadia, rammed the Sixth Street dock during a storm,
and several people were injured, including high school freshman,
Jill Davenport, who suffered fractures in both legs.’”
    Melody grabbed the sheet. “Auntie Jill broke
both legs? Why didn’t Grandma ever tell me that story? I wonder if
Mother knows?”
    “Price, how about opening the book with a
ferryboat scene?”
    “You don’t mean, ‘It was a dark and stormy
night....’ Do you?”
    “Some sort of variation. Think of it. The
drama of a child on a rough ferryboat ride to school. It might add
the drama... and sense of distance and separation... that the
Island portrayed back then.”
    “Perhaps,” Price mused. “But they didn’t
have to take the ferry until high school.”
    “Okay, maybe it was a shopping trip... they
could be traveling back home....”
    “Wishing they had never left the Island?”
Price suggested.
    Tony ripped off another hunk of bread.
“Yeah, that would work. Sort of the way we opened Promontory with
the railroad scene.”
    “Let’s scout around and talk to folks who
used to ride the ferries. I’ll review my notes.”
    Melody looked up from the papers she was
reading. “My mom. Talk to her. She rode the ferry until she was
about ten.”
    Price gathered the leftovers on a wide
wooden tray. “Great, why don’t you call her? Maybe we could run
over tonight. We need to go to a supermarket anyway. This is the
last of the deli salads.”
    “Well, one of you ought to call her,” Melody
stammered. “She... we... well, see... she sometimes has friends
over... and, you know, she doesn’t like to be disturbed. I mean,
that’s why I didn’t stay with her. And, well... it would just be
best if you called.”
    Price patted Melody’s shoulder. “Maybe we
should wait ’til