Deceived - Laura S. Wharton Page 0,16

town turned out for the funeral, though only Hale’s body was found among the wreckage. The case was dismissed as a maritime accident, and no charges were filed.

Sam remembered reading that Johnson’s son Tripp took over the fishery. Tripp was the first of his family to go to college, and he had some grand ideas about how to improve an already decent business. But as most of the established fishing and shrimping families were used to doing it the way it had been done for generations, they were none too pleased about the changes and new rates. They took their business down the waterway to Calabash and the equivalent of “turf wars” ensued among the local fishermen, forcing Tripp to change his rates to favor the local fishermen again in order to support his other marketing ideas. He opened a bigger retail outlet to the delight of locals and tourists, started an island delivery service ferrying goods to weekly renters and islanders on Bald Head Island and Oak Island, and also wooed out-of-state wholesalers to move his goods through interstate truckers.

To Sam, it looked like the new owner’s efforts were paying off. The fishery looked clean and sported a fresh coat of red paint, and on its exterior walls hung brightly painted crabbing buoys and netting, reminiscent of Mystic Harbor.

Too bad the rest of this stretch of the road lags in vision, Sam thought. Beside the face-lifted fishery was a run-down restaurant, the Sea Enchantress, that was often the site of police calls, and the locals who wanted the town to stay local were proud of it. Tourists usually walked on the opposite side of street, making the Enchantress’ clientele gleeful. Further up the waterfront was a small boardwalk that straddled the short dune on the river and led to a spit of beach where young couples tried for a little romantic privacy from time to time. From this beach, the roar of the Bald Head Island ferries could be felt. Their wake often made it to shore, rippling waves occasionally washing up surprises.

Lee had once found a small packet of marijuana floating when he and Jenny had walked this beach after an early meal at the other riverfront restaurant at the foot of Howe Street. They stopped to take in the view for a moment, he had said, when the biggest of Bald Head Island’s three ferry boats, the San Souci, came to the no-wake zone sign where the open part of the Cape Fear River meets the narrower Intracoastal Waterway.

The twin engines roared and slipped, one slowing and the other racing as it failed to make a gear. The captain deftly maneuvered the passenger vessel to slow it down gradually with power from only one engine. By the time it had reached the entrance to the ferry landing down the river a few hundred yards, he had managed to bring the boat to a slow glide and bumped off the pilings to make it turn into the marina. Lee told Sam he heard later that the boat rammed the dock, but it was moving at such a slow speed that damage was minimal. The powerful wake made by the fish-tailing boat pushed up debris onto the beach, and a neat little watertight package landed practically at Lee’s feet. He had told Sam that when he opened it, he grinned and took it to his buddy, Chief Richard Gossett of the Southport Police Department. The two had known each other a long time, and Lee said that the chief would take care of things.

Wonder what ever came of it, Sam thought, surveying the river. He made his way back over the sand and continued his walk along the river’s edge. He passed by the watchtower, Lois Jane’s Inn, and then up to the parade grounds atop a hill overlooking the riverfront and beyond to dredge spoil islands, and to Bald Head. The tree-lined streets of Southport, laid out in a grid pattern, held quirky names like Howe, Dry, I, and Am. The last two were added in jesting remembrance of Prohibition days. But the tidy, picturesque town was the jewel of Brunswick County, and real estate prices reflected this heightened state of awareness. Bald Head Island developers had carved out a new ferry landing rimmed with condos just up the river road near the Fort Fisher-to-Southport ferry landing, and other developers were snatching them up as fast as they could talk the longtime landowners out of their assets and