Dead Jitterbug by Victoria Houston Read Free Book Online Page B

way.

nine
    Now, who can solve my problem, And grant my lifelong wish, Are fishermen all big liars? Or do only liars fish?
    —Theodore Sharp
    “Okay , ladies, pay attention now—” said Ray with a wave of his knife. The words were unnecessary: his students were transfixed.
    “To remove the gills on this bluegill, you start with a cut here at the throat connection, then slip your knife along both sides of the arch … and voilà! See how easy the gills pull out? Now insert the point of your knife into the vent right here … and run that tip riight up to the gills—but be careful you don’t penetrate the intestines. Like this … then push your thumb into the throat … and pull the gills and guts toward the tail. Just … like … that.”
    Ray had already demonstrated his “soup spoon” scaling method and dropped two sticks of butter into the frying pan. At the moment, the butter was just starting to froth over a low flame on the camp stove.
    “Will you do another one?” asked Carla. “Like show us how you fillet? How ‘bout that big walleye that I caught?”
    As Ray reached for the walleye, the women groaned but their eyes never left his hands. Who knew evisceration could be so fascinating?
    “First, with the walleye, we go for the gold,” said Ray. “We want the cheeks, and they are … a delllicaacy. …” Piercing two soft spots near the head, he popped out the coin-shaped nuggets and with a flick of the blade slipped off the skin. The disks glistened on the waxed paper.
    “Those, Carla,” said Ray, “are your reward. You will never forget your first walleye cheeks.” Carla appeared to melt. For the first time that day, she dropped her hard-bitten attitude to grin like a little kid.
    Keeping up a steady banter, Ray worked his knife through the fish until boneless, skinless fillets of blue-gray walleye, exquisite as marble, slid into the melted butter.
    “I’ll never be able to do that,” said Molly with a sigh. Osborne had to agree. He never tired of watching Ray whip through his limit or more of fish caught fresh just hours before. In his lifetime, he’d known maybe one or two men who, like his neighbor, could wield the fillet knife as if it were an artist’s tool: deft, quick, and accurate.
    With the fish sautéed and every morsel devoured, the homemade potato salad long gone, and only two of a dozen “homemade-from-scratch” brownies remaining, Ray poured fresh-perked coffee from his battered pot into foam cups. The women leaned against logs set back from the fire pit—legs extended, hats off, faces lifted to the sun. Even Osborne, who had managed to find a spot out of Carla’s line of sight, was relaxed.
    “Molly,” said Julia, as Ray handed her a cup of coffee, “you haven’t told us about your new husband.”
    “Right,” said Molly, holding her cup out for a refill. “And I haven’t asked about yours either—have I.” She smiled as she sipped the hot coffee, but her eyes were serious.
    “I don’t have one,” said Julia. “An ex, of course, but that doesn’t count. So who is he?”
    “Do we have to talk about this?” asked Molly. She looked around for support but all eyes were interested, waiting. She shrugged and said, “Jerry O’Brien. He just retired as publisher of the Loon Lake newspaper. He was a friend of my dad’s.”
    “You married a friend of your old man’s?” asked Carla. “Why would you do that? I know that guy. My god, he must be thirty years older’n you.”
    “Thirty-one,” said Molly. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.” She took a deep swallow of her coffee and tossed the rest into the bushes. Then she stood up, dusted off her hands, and started up the path towards the latrine.
    “Wait a minute,” said Carla, the sly look creeping across her face. “You gotta tell us—what’s it like, you know, with an old geezer?” Her mouth twitched.
    Molly turned to look straight at her. No smile this time. “I wouldn’t know. He had prostate