“Oh, I’m used to it,” sighed Lucy, who had tasted plenty of bile photographing everything from slimy, half-rotted giant squid tentacles caught in fishing nets to bloated whale carcasses that washed up on the beach.

“Trust me. The stench alone . . .”

She was already beginning to feel queasy. “You’ve convinced me,” she said, guiltily replacing her camera. Any photo she took would probably be too disgusting to print, she rationalized, and she could call him later in the day and find out what it was. Meanwhile, her interest had been caught by a handful of people gathered outside the Bilge, on the landward side of the parking lot. Tucked in the basement beneath a block of stores that fronted Main Street, the Bilge was a Tinker’s Cove landmark—and a steady source of news. It was the very opposite of Hemingway’s “clean, well-lighted place,” but that didn’t bother the fishermen who packed the place. It may have been a dark and dingy dive, but the beer was cheap, and Old Dan never turned a paying customer away, not even if he was straight off the boat and stank of lobster bait.

Lucy checked her watch as she crossed the parking lot and discovered it was only a little past ten o’clock. Kind of early to start drinking, she thought, but the three men standing in front of the Bilge apparently thought otherwise.

“It’s never been closed like this before,” said one. He was about fifty, stout, with white hair combed straight back from a ruddy face.

“Old Dan’s like clockwork. You could set your watch by it. The Bilge opens at ten o’clock. No earlier. No later,” said another, a thin man with wire-rimmed glasses.

“He closed once for a couple of weeks, maybe five or six years ago,” said the third, a young guy with long hair caught in a ponytail, who Lucy knew played guitar with a local rock band, the Claws. “He went to Florida that time, for a visit. But he left a sign.”

“What’s up? Is the Bilge closed?” she asked.

They all turned and stared at her. Women usually avoided the Bilge, where they weren’t exactly welcome. A lot of fishermen still clung to the old-fashioned notion that women were bad luck on a boat—and in general.

“I’m Lucy Stone, from the Pennysaver,” she said. “If the Bilge has really closed, that’s big news.”

“It’s been shut tight for three days now,” said the guy with the ponytail.

“Do you mind telling me your name?” she asked, opening her notebook. “It’s Dave, right? You’re with the Claws?”

“Dave Reilly,” he said, giving her a dazzling, dimpled smile.