Beer number three, then beer number four. Then Eddie stood up and took a leak off the stern. He had a buzz going; some food was probably in order.

As if reading his mind, the Chief said, “Let’s motor over toward Sankaty Head and have some lunch and try our luck there.”

“Good idea,” Eddie said. He flipped the top off a fifth beer and settled back on the cushioned bench, basking in the sun. He had caught dinner. He loved that idea.

He must have dozed off, because he woke up a while later as both the Chief and Eric were reeling in fish. Two striped bass—and the one on the Chief’s line put Eddie’s to shame. Eddie stood up to see if he could help, but he was afraid he would only be in the way, so he sat back down again, then realized he had to pee again, so he went back to the stern, and by the time he returned, both fish were up on the deck, and Eric was cutting them off the line.

“This is it,” the Chief said. “We’re done. Let’s have some lunch, and then we’ll head back.”

Eddie nodded, but his heart was heavy. The bluffs of Sankaty were right in front of him. This was the island where he had lived for more than half his life, but for the past six hours, he felt like he’d been lucky enough to escape to another planet.

The Chief had made Italian subs with salami, ham, capicola, hot soppressata, provolone, olives, and cherry peppers. Eddie was so hungry, he devoured the whole sandwich without thinking—the peppers and the soppressata stung his lips and tongue, but he put out the fire with cold beer.

“So, how’d you like it?” the Chief asked.

“Great stuff,” Eddie said. “I couldn’t imagine a day better than this.”

The Chief packed up the lunch trash and finally cracked open a beer for himself. Eric was now snoozing on the cushioned bench, and so the Chief pulled the anchor, then said to Eddie, “Come sit with me as we motor back, would you? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

Eddie felt as if his heart were pumping a mixture of habanero sauce and snake venom. Here it was, then: the real reason for the invitation to fish. It had nothing to do with a budding friendship, nothing to do with Eddie being a good guy or the kind gesture of ordering littlenecks with the Chief at Cru because his longtime buddy was dead. Eddie grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler. He needed to sober up, pronto. Predictably, the capicola and soppressata repeated on him, and his heartburn started its low smolder.

He had come out on the fishing expedition without any Tums.

“Sure thing,” Eddie said, his voice higher than normal. The Chief was at the wheel, and Eddie took a seat next to him. “What’s up?”

The Chief was silent, his eyes unreadable behind his sunglasses. Another boat passed them—someone the Chief seemed to know, because he waved—and Eddie, although he didn’t know the person, waved as well. He was so flustered that he had defaulted to indiscriminate waving. The Chief stood up and peered over the console. Eddie realized he was checking to make sure Eric was still asleep.

The Chief settled back down behind the wheel. “I’m only telling you this because I like you, Eddie. I think you’re a hell of a guy.”

Telling me what? Eddie thought, but he couldn’t eke the words out.

“And I’m sure you think that because I’m the chief of police, I believe myself to be morally superior, but I do not think that, and I do not judge. I deal with people who make mistakes every hour of my working day—some of them are big, ugly mistakes—but most people, I find, are decent. Scared, lonely, bored, and misdirected at times, maybe—but decent.”

Eddie sucked down half the bottle of water. He would basically trade his big toe for a handful of cherry Tums. “What is it you want to tell me, Ed?”

“People talk on this island,” the Chief said. “You can’t fathom the way people talk. The gossip, the rumors—it’s absolutely insidious, and most of it I ignore. None of my business, I don’t care, ninety-five percent of it is not even true.” The Chief throttled up, and the boat jumped over waves and slapped the surface of the water with a force that rattled Eddie’s teeth, jaw, and skull. It was almost as if the Chief were trying to physically punish him. “But then I saw that phone call come in, and so I thought I’d better speak up.”

“Phone call?” Eddie said. He couldn’t even remember whom the phone call had been from. All he cared about was that it hadn’t been Nadia. It had been…

Before the Chief could respond, the wind lifted Eddie’s Panama hat off his head. By the time Eddie realized what had happened, his precious Panama hat was whipped away. It danced across their wake, fifty, then a hundred, yards behind them. Gone.

He turned to the Chief, wondering what kind of absurd request it would be for the Chief to swing the boat around so Eddie could fish for his hat—it would mean another $375 dollars and six weeks to replace—but the Chief’s eyes were focused straight ahead on the blue, watery road between them and Nantucket Harbor.

The Chief had to raise his voice in order to be heard over the motor. “There’s a rumor going around,” he said. “I’ve heard it three times now.”

“Rumor?” Eddie said. His second hat. Goner than gone.

“A rumor that you’re having an affair,” the Chief said. “With Madeline King.”

Eddie shook hands with the Chief and with Eric and stumbled off the North Wharf holding a sturdy gallon ziplock bag containing five pounds of striped-bass fillets.