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whether it was the ten-minute ferry ride to Quisset Point or a round-the-world cruise.
    Taking a seat on a bench, Lucy opened her lunch and took a bite of ham on rye. She rolled up her pants and stretched her legs out, taking her chances with skin cancer in order to get a touch of tan on her winterwhite skin, and relaxed. It was peaceful and quiet. From somewhere she heard the distant sound of hammering and the thrum of a motor, gradually becoming louder. She wondered if it might be Geoff and Toby, aboard the Lady L, but when the boat came in sight it was Chuck Swift’s Osprey.
    Lucy ate her lunch, watching as Chuck docked and unloaded his catch, neatly packed in plastic boxes. When she’d finished her apple and he was hosing down the deck, she approached him, once again ignoring the sign and keeping an eye out for Wiggins.
    â€œHow’s the fishing?” she asked when he looked up.
    â€œCan’t complain,” he said, grinning. “Not on a day like today.”
    Chuck was a muscular fellow in his late twenties with a ruddy, broad face. He was wearing rubber boots and bright yellow foul-weather pants with suspenders. His stained and worn T-shirt advertised Moat’s Boat Yard: MOAT’S: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO STAY AFLOAT .
    â€œDid you see the Lady L out there?” she asked, shading her eyes with her hand.
    â€œDidn’t see ’em but I heard ’em on the radio. They’re out by Pogey Point.”
    Lucy nodded. She knew the fishermen kept in touch by radio, gossiping over the airwaves like housewives used to do on the telephone in the days when women stayed home.
    Chuck jumped up onto the dock and hoisted a box full of lobsters. “Got my quota today,” he said, referring to a new regulation limiting lobster catches. “But you know, some days I’m still out there at six, seven at night and still not near it.”
    â€œThey’re getting scarce, that’s for sure,” Lucy said. “Maybe this research project will help. I’m going to write a story about it for the Pennysaver.”
    He cocked his head. “And you probably want me to say that it’ll be the salvation of the industry or some such thing, don’t you?”
    Lucy raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You don’t think it will help?”
    â€œMaybe,” said Chuck, dumping the box on the scales and scrawling the weight on the lid. “It seems to me that every time they try to help us they just come up with something that costs us money. Safety equipment, quotas, rules and regulations—it’s sure not the business it used to be. My grandfather wouldn’t recognize it, that’s for sure.”
    â€œI suppose not, but you’ve got to admit that if they can identify this parasite . . .”
    â€œWhat are they gonna do? Vaccinate all the lobsters?”
    â€œUh.” Lucy was stumped. “You got me there.”
    â€œDon’t get me wrong,” said Chuck. “I’m not against the project; I’m just not getting my hopes up. Like that meeting they’re talking about going to, to complain about the new waterways policy. We can go and make a fuss, but you know it’s not going to change anything.”
    â€œWhat new policy?” Lucy was definitely interested. Maybe that was what Geoff and Wiggins had been arguing about earlier.
    â€œYou know, raising the fees and saving the bigger slips for recreational boats.”
    Hearing a blast from a ship’s horn, Lucy and Chuck looked up to see an enormous, gleaming white yacht gliding into the harbor.
    â€œWow,” said Lucy. “What’s that?”
    â€œThat is some rich guy’s private yacht.”
    â€œI never saw anything like that here before.”
    â€œWell, you’re going to see a lot more of ’em. It’s getting too crowded on Nantucket or something, so they’re coming our way. And the waterways commission is seeing green. Charging big