The Fisher Boy by Stephen Anable Page A

“Beautiful night,” I started to say, but got only as far as the first syllable. I stopped when I saw his forearm—it was soaked in something thick, not the cold guts of bait…
    He had a startled look, his eyes were open. So was his mouth. His throat was leaking streams of blood from a deep, ragged gash.
    For an instant, I actually wondered whether he was still alive. That was before I realized who he was. His shirt was matted with blood, all but obliterating the Izod insignia. Instinctively, I reached out to touch his shoulder, but there was no place to touch, no part of his clothing or flesh not wet with thick arterial blood.
    So, instead of touching him, I said his name out loud…

Chapter Eight
    “…Ian.” I said his name in a whisper, as if frightened to confirm it.
    Because, without a doubt, it was. I’d recognized the Rolex watch and the bodybuilder’s shoulders swelling the Izod shirt. I’d recognized those things before I’d admitted I recognized his face. I’d been postponing the decision it was him.
    I couldn’t see his beach things, his hamper and towel and book on wartime Greece, but his killer could have taken these. The man who had saved my life had now lost his, and not to something impersonal like the sea or a car crash or a retrovirus. Someone had killed him. Someone had done this. Someone had stopped his existence.
    I’d never seen so much blood. It was everywhere, gleaming in the light of the full moon. Blood had run down his bare legs, then dripped onto the granite slabs to collect in the grooves the stonecutters had drilled in the quarry. It looked as though someone had taken a saw to Ian’s throat and cut it through to the bone. There were wounds to his chest too; the fabric of his polo shirt was torn.
    Nausea seized me like a tackle in football. I knew I was going to vomit, the way Miriam had at Arthur’s. But then I knew I couldn’t, that I’d be contaminating a crime scene. I’d also be leaving a clue that I’d been here. Because I knew, without a doubt, that I would not report this horror to the police. Everyone knew about my fight with Ian, my public brawl in the audience at Quahog. I would be Suspect Number One, or at least high on the list of people to question.
    I pressed my arm against my mouth as bile rose then caught in my gut. To distract myself, I looked at the moon. Somehow, the spasms in my stomach eased. Then I covered my face with my fingers and began to cry, deep, ragged sobs until I bit my knuckle to make myself stop.
    Someone had killed Ian, someone had cut his throat. I had to get out of here as soon as possible, but first I had to be sure that I didn’t touch anything, that I hadn’t touched anything.
    Had I touched the stones? Had I braced myself against them in my shock, leaving fingerprints behind? I couldn’t remember. I stared at my hands. Thank God they were clean, thank God there wasn’t any blood on my hands.
    Then I noticed my beach bag. I’d dropped it and scattered some of its contents: one towel, my sunglasses, the swim trunks I’d brought in case the National Seashore rangers came patrolling…A wind had risen, and the towel was whipping along the breakwater, as if to evade me. I stamped it down, then snapped it up. Then I grabbed my sunglasses and swim trunks.
    Had I picked up everything? Yes, this was it. Had I touched anything else? Not as far as I could recall; I’d been careful. I bent to check a crevasse between the stones. Was that my comb in there? I reached…Then as I did, I felt something dislodge from inside the beach bag I’d wedged under my arm, something bright that caught the moonlight as it fell, hitting the stone then exploding into hundreds of incriminating fragments.
    I swore, then wept. It was the vodka, the bottle Ian had given me. It had broken and fallen into the space between two chunks of granite. I picked up the neck of the bottle, still with its cap…For God’s sake, don’t cut yourself, I thought, don’t