The Inspector Put A Price On My Right To Work

Roland Crewe waited until I had folded the last shop towel before he named his price.

“Four hundred eighty dollars,” he said. “Then I can finish your inspection today.”

I set the towel on the bench. Its edges met in an exact square. The cloth was thin enough to see light through, but I had used it for twelve years.

“Send the district an invoice,” I said.

“This is separate.”

We stood aboard the school ferry Mercy Bell, tied up in Rockland, Maine. Across the harbor, gulls fought over something near a bait barrel. The ferry carried eleven children from Alder Shoal, a small island out in Penobscot Bay.

I was forty-seven, a Japanese American woman with a broad face, brown skin, gray threads in my black braid, and a pale scar across my left thumb.

My name was Naomi Takeda. I fixed ferry diesels for a living. That morning, I had replaced the Mercy Bell's failing alarm relay for $612, parts included.

Crewe was a white man of fifty-nine, with a soft red face, silver hair combed flat, and clean brown shoes that never seemed to touch bilge water.

He worked as the marine inspector for our island school transport district. His signature controlled the district permits that let independent mechanics repair its boats.

“Everybody wants service,” he said. “Nobody wants to cover the time it takes.”

“Your posted inspection fee is ninety dollars. I paid it Tuesday.”

He sighed as if I had asked him to row eleven children to school.

“You contractors make public service very hard.”

I looked at his shoes. “Who receives the four hundred eighty?”

“Don't make me explain something simple.”

The alarm cover wore my numbered seal, C184. I had tested oil pressure, coolant temperature, and the horn. Captain Ben Marr had watched. At 6:41 that morning, I had closed the panel and signed the repair sheet.

Ben had left to help arrange a mainland bus. The ferry had no school run until the inspection cleared it.

“Write down the fee,” I said.

Crewe stopped sighing.

“I need you off this boat.”

I carried my tools onto the dock. He stayed aboard. I watched his shoulders fill the wheelhouse door, then turned toward my shop before I said something that would cost me more than $480.

By nine, his notice came through the shop fax.

ALARM SAFETY CIRCUIT FOUND DISABLED FOLLOWING REPAIR.

Below that sat my permit number, MT-214, and the words SUSPENDED PENDING REVIEW.

He had also written that I had refused to provide complete service records.

My notebook lay beside the fax. Grease had darkened its cloth cover. Inside were relay numbers, wire colors, tide notes, and every hour I had worked aboard that ferry.

Crewe had tapped it once when he asked for money.

“A little book like that won't stand up against an inspection report.”

I read his notice twice. Then I called the district office.

The clerk sounded close to tears.

“Naomi, I can't assign you anything while this is active.”

“I have three jobs booked.”

“I know.”

Those jobs were worth $2,740. Rent on my shop came due Friday: $1,160. I had $803 in the business account after buying that relay.

I folded another towel. One corner kept curling. I smoothed it flat with my thumb.

The Mercy Bell had something Crewe had never asked about. Three years earlier, a local training trust had paid for an independent engine recorder so apprentices could study real faults. I had helped install it.

When the district canceled its cellular plan, the recorder had kept sending data through a dock cable. Its own battery kept watch even with the engine off.

The trust owned the archive. A blue envelope in my locker held its agreement, with my name on the last page as the working data custodian.

I took that envelope out.

Then I filled in the district's appeal form. I attached my $90 receipt, the repair sheet, and a request that no one remove the alarm parts or erase the ferry's records.

At the bottom, I wrote one plain sentence.

I deny disabling this circuit and request an independent inspection.

I delivered it before lunch. The clerk stamped my copy at 11:52.

When I got back, two customers had left messages canceling work. One asked whether his boat was safe after I had touched it.

I sat down before returning that call.

The phone rang again.

“Don't call him yet,” Etta Blanchard said.

Etta ran the harbor radio desk. Her voice sounded like gravel being poured into a steel pail.

“Call who?”

“Whoever wrote that notice. Come see me first.”

“Why?”

“Because I've got Mr. Crewe asking permission to board your ferry at twelve minutes past seven.”