by T. R. Kelly
“So, anybody near the bow or stern could have been surprised by a swell?”
“Easy. Felt like a roller-coaster ride. First couple of rows of cars were sprayed with saltwater. Captain made two announcements for passengers to stay away from all railings.”
“Was Linn’s car found in the middle section or on one of the side lanes?”
“On the rail,” Willie said. “Starboard side. I remember ’cuz the tow truck had little room to work. Took forever to maneuver the rig into place.”
Willie talked of vehicles with all sorts of problems—dead batteries, flat tires, lost keys, empty fuel tanks, slumbering drivers, and goofy kids seeking revenge by locking out their parents.
“How often does a driver leave a car on a boat?” I said. “I mean, it must be a fairly rare occurrence.”
“Happens all the time on these commuter runs. Most of the time, these people walk on, then walk off.” He pointed to dozens of passengers in our vicinity. “Then one day they drive to work—or drink too much and simply forget they drove on the boat. They leave the car and walk off. When they get to the parking lot, it hits them.”
Willie explained that a stalled or deserted motor vehicle on a ferry boat ranks somewhere between inconvenience and annoyance in the job description of veteran ferry workers. When a boat is in port and otherwise off-loaded, an abandoned car simply steals precious time the deckhands earmarked for a break before the loading routine begins again.
“That yellow Subaru station wagon was dusty and dirty,” Willie said. “Interior like a dorm room—soda cans, pizza box on the floor; clothes all over the seats; gym towels and running shoes in the flat back. Had to be a guy’s car. No chick would drive that nightmare. Wouldn’t make that kinda mess.”
“When do the fine folks at the state patrol get involved?” I said.
A wayward, curly-haired toddler laughed down the aisle, thinking she had ditched her mom. Mom hustled a few steps behind, diaper bag in hand. Too late, by my nose. Willie held his. “If we have to tow a vehicle off the ferry, the guys in the parking lot give the owner about two hours to show up. Some have sobered up by then. If they don’t show, we call the state patrol. After that, it could get expensive.”
“Just how expensive?”
“Well,” Willie said, resting his boots on my bench seat, “depends how things unfold. State patrol researches the plate through the computer system and then tries to contact the owner or a family member. Obviously, we’re talking about a well-known family name here.”
“Say they couldn’t find Linn, and his parents don’t answer the phone in Arizona?”
“Then, maybe they try his uncle,” Willie said. “The guy who runs the timber company south of North Fork. Somebody like that often knows where a kid might be.”
“I guess when the state patrol calls a couple of people, word has a tendency to travel pretty fast.”
“Got that right. You know, I’m kinda surprised you weren’t at the top of the list.”
I looked down at the graffiti-like specs in the worn linoleum. They looked like the tiny circles and squares my niece stuffed in my last birthday card, only faded by the sun. I dragged a tired hand over my forehead and felt as if my receding hairline had lost another inch in the past three days. “As you said, lot of Olivers in the area. Big family, certainly bigger around here before most of Linn’s siblings moved away. Anyway, the state patrol had plenty of people to try before getting to me.”
Willie pushed his hands into his WSF jacket pockets and tipped his head back against the top bench cushion.
“Well, if push comes to shove and nobody’s got a clue where Linn might be, the Coast Guard gets involved with search boats,” Willie said. “Maybe helicopters. If the feds put a bird in the air, we could be talkin’ jail time or a big, fat fine. At least twenty-five large. Bad news for a drunk who forgot his car and left town.”
“Ouch, that’s quite a bite,” I said. Harvey Johnston revealed that the license-plate search helped spread the word that Linn was missing. Nothing had been mentioned about the Coast Guard. “Do you know if they sent out boats that night?”
“It’s SOP if nobody answers the call for the car,” he said. “Again, if there’s the slightest reason not to, they wouldn’t. Costs too much.”
“Should be easy enough to find out,” I said. “I’ll follow up with the Coast Guard when I get back.”
“Mighty big chop on the water that night, Coach. And so friggin’ cold. Anybody in that water would have been screwed. Some guy without a lifejacket ... matter of minutes.” He lifted his legs from the bench, placed his boots firmly on the floor, and leaned toward me, elbows on knees. “Good Lord, Coach. Do you have any reason to think Linn leaped off this boat?”
“I don’t. I’m also trying to figure out if somebody else might have been using his car.”
“Entirely possible. Coach, I leech rigs all the time.”
I glanced up at the clock on the back wall of the galley. Soon the skipper would ease back on the engines and slowly float into the dock. “If Linn was on the boat that night, is there anyone you can think of who might want to help him overboard?”
Willie stood up and tucked in his uniform shirt. “Hell no, Coach. No friggin’ way. But I’ll tell you what. The Sound was so rough that night, if he were walkin’ around on deck, he wouldn’t have needed any help.”
Chapter Fifteen
2 p.m., Wednesday, June 2, 1897
Wallace MacTavish glared at Henry Oliver across the polished mahogany table of his spacious upstairs office. “Are you more interested in the man as an investor or do you simply have an eye for his daughter?” MacTavish said as he clicked open his gold pocket watch, checked the hour, then slid the round piece into his vest pocket.
“Probably both,” Henry said. He stood, walked across the room and peered out at the Skagit River and to customers coming and going to their North Fork mercantile below. “Do you think Fredrick has an idea that I am smitten with his Elizabeth?”
“Think! Good Lord, Henry.” MacTavish removed his wire-rim spectacles, gently massaged his temples, and placed the glasses on the table. “Everyone in town has been talking about your involvement with this woman. I need not remind you that she is young enough to be your daughter.”
Fredrick C. Linnbert left the outskirts of London to fund a coal mining operation in the hills of the upper Skagit Valley. Coal was in heavy demand in the 1870s, especially in the cities of Portland and San Francisco and to fire steamships and locomotives around the world. Anyone who could supply and deliver coal stood to make a tidy profit.
“Fools and dreamers seek their fortunes of gold,” Linnbert said. “Wiser men choose the reliable rewards of coal. Coal heats homes.”
After years of coaxing, Henry persuaded Linnbert, the patriarch of a prominent Seattle family and a pillar in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, to fund a series of railroad tracks into the Skagit forests. Through experience, Linnbert discovered coal required too much money and manpower to extract from the hillsides above the river.
Henry held an underlying and guarded excitement that every tree that was felled, every log that was milled, and every board foot of lumber that was produced could find its way to any country in the world.
“Northwest men prefer working in a forest rather than in the depths of a dark mine,” Henry had told Linnbert in the large meeting room above the store. “Enormous trees are everywhere just waiting to be cut. When the region had massive quantities of both resources, why choose the more difficult one to harvest and ship?”
Linnbert’s decision paid off, despite the difficult economic times of the late 1880s and early 1890s. Railroading was proving to be an efficient, cost-effective way to move people and product. North American investors began to flock to this mode of long-distance transportation when the first Canadian Pacific Railroad rolled into Vancouver from Montreal on May 23, 1887. Two years later, the Fairhaven and Southern Railway completed a leg south of Bellingham to two rem
ote towns near Goodman’s Trading Post. Another railroad was busy laying track south of North Fork to Seattle, picking up the growing waterfront town of Everett along the way. Everett was fast becoming a timber center and port, with the Snohomish River delivering logs from cutters in the hills to its front door.
Elizabeth Linnbert, the youngest daughter and the pride of Fredrick C. and Henrietta Linnbert, had failed miserably in two attempts at an East Coast finishing school. She preferred the backwoods, canvas trousers, and brushed-cotton shirts to polished storefronts, wire-rimmed dresses, and parasols.
“She might be a handful, Henry,” her father said. “But like you, she’s logical and loves this land.”
The same year that Henry Oliver asked Fredrick C. Linnbert for Elizabeth’s hand in marriage, the MacTavish & Oliver Logging Company became an official subsidiary of the Linnbert Railroad Company. Wallace MacTavish & Oliver were given substantial equity shares in the new corporation. MacTavish was still comfortable in his cozy office in the North Fork mercantile site and assumed an even greater primary role in the store’s retail operation. Linnbert remained in Seattle to pursue other business opportunities, allowing Henry and his bride to remain free to monitor the logging camps, share meals with employees, negotiate land contracts, and fish the rivers and lakes.
Chapter Sixteen
4 p.m., Friday, February 4, 1982
I drove north on the Seattle waterfront from the ferry en route to the Seattle Tribune and was promptly blocked by a southbound freight opposite Pier 70. A smooth old number softened the setback. It was Old Blue Eyes’ turn on the AM dial. Cathy loved this one.
“Yes, you’re lovely, with your smile so warm, and your cheeks so soft, just the way you look to-night ...”
Good thing Greg Smithson’s work schedule was flexible. Sportswriters worked nights and weekends. Rarely were any games played during the nine-to-five business day, and they usually had some downtime before the reams of game results came pouring in about nine. Smithson had more contacts in the high school sports world than any other journalist in the state. If anyone knew whether Linn Oliver was involved in any goofy extracurricular activities, Smithson was a great place to start.
And, not all of his sources made their living with a clipboard and a whistle. It’s surprising how many successful business people, elected officials, restaurant owners, factory workers, firemen, accountants, dentists, doctors, mortgage brokers, bartenders, and cops felt the need to remain entangled in the web of high-school athletics. I got a taste of that when I was coaching—some people need to be close to those making the decisions. Others loved to read about themselves. I wasn’t one of them. And that’s probably why Smithson agreed to see me on short notice.
Cruising past the Space Needle, I turned right on Boren and found a parking spot on the street outside the 13 Coins restaurant, then jogged across the street to the newspaper. An elf-like rent-a-cop stopped me in the bright entryway. He sat at a long gray metal desk surrounded by black-and-white murals of old presses and Pulitzer winners and eyed me as if I’d just told him he had to work on Christmas Day. He scoffed and dialed up the newsroom.
I sat on a stiff bench and contemplated how much background I was willing to reveal to Smithson—and when. If I spoke off the record, I was confident that material would not show up in the newspaper until we agreed.
Smithson was the conduit to all things prep, and his followers were not shy about leaving him tips, confirming rumors on phone messages, or sending confidential letters about an underrated kid from a tiny school who “did not have the size to play Division One but was extremely coachable and would bite your leg off.” His network included the old Husky underground, plus countless stringers, coaches, statkeepers, and diehard fans from his thirty-five years at the paper. Many of his unsolicited informants were former players who lived to be mentioned in his weekly column. Parents enjoyed his insights and positive suggestions, and old-timers appreciated his trivia and monthly trips down memory lane in his popular Where Are They Now? feature.
Smithson blasted through the double doors at the end of the hall. “Coach Creekmore!” Smithson shouted. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” We smiled and shook hands. “Let’s head to the cafeteria. Find a place to talk.”
He hadn’t changed since the last time I saw him: the ever-present Seattle Tribune cap atop his thinning hair; corduroy trousers, plaid shirt, and blue cotton pullover covering his familiar six-two, two-hundred-and-twenty-pound frame. He held a stack of While You Were Out phone messages in one hand.
We skipped down two flights of stairs to NewsBreak, The Trib’s spartan basement eatery that also could be accessed by the public via a sidewalk entrance. Passersby glanced down into various groups of salespeople, reporters, and delivery drivers. Five grubby pressmen sat closest to the below-street door, commenting on the length of a young woman’s miniskirt as she shimmied to the Metro bus stop.
We grabbed snacks, coffee, and a seat in the corner.
We hit several topics, including a few outstanding players and teams I’d scouted since the first of the year. Smithson whipped a reporter’s notebook from his hip pocket and took some notes. The coaching fraternity appreciated his candor, respected his opinions, and—like his readers—considered him the answer man. A skilled evaluator of talent, he usually could tell immediately if a player was of Pac-10 caliber despite the insistence of a too-proud parent. The man wasn’t easily swayed. He first saw Linn Oliver as a tenth-grader and joked to me that I should invest in an additional phone line dedicated to college recruiters. I twitched when I saw WSP scribbled in his notes.
“Did your guy give you any indication how much time the WSP spent trying to locate Linn before they called you?” I said.
Smithson rested a fist on his chin and squinted slightly, perhaps surprised I got down to business. “The state patrol said they only tried the numbers they had on record. I got the impression it was a short list.”
“I’m sure they were out of date,” I said. “The Oliver family sold the family home in North Fork last year, and I assume Linn’s car was registered at that address. Other than a dorm phone at the UW, I don’t know what other phone numbers the state could possibly have.”
He sipped his coffee. “What about where he is living now?”
I told him about the Dolan place. Smithson sat up in his seat and nodded. “I tried to locate him about this time last year. We were doing a series on Skagit County’s all-time great players. We never connected.”
I pondered the timeframe. “Linn went to Mexico about then to see an old friend from UW. He stayed longer than expected. In fact, his dad was so worried about him that I even thought about making a trip south of the border. He finally surfaced. Just wanted some time to think about things.”
Smithson took another swig and then lowered the mug with both hands. “Maybe we are looking at a repeat performance.”
I shrugged and shook my head.
“Ernie, the last few times I actually spoke with Linn—more than a casual hello—he’s been down in the dumps. After all these years, the first thing out of his mouth is still that he let his team down by missing that shot in the state final. Still frustrated and embarrassed for washing out with the Huskies. Especially after being cleared by the UW docs on at least two different occasions. Tell you the truth, I’ve been wondering how he’s handled those setbacks for a long time.”
I glanced away. “Don’t think it’s as bad as you think. I’ve seen him quite a bit the past several months. Three weeks ago we were at a game--”
“Coach, ten days ago I got a call from a UW sports medicine intern. Linn asked her about getting him a drug she’d never even heard of. The next day, a high-school coach who stopped in for gas at his station asked me if I thought Linn was suicidal.”
Linn Oliver, suicidal? Obscure drugs? The recent lack of communication was starting to make sense.
“Given his background, you’d think he’d be the type of kid who could turn it around by now,”
Smithson said. “Lots of local support. Pressure, too, I guess. But I’ll tell you what. That state tournament week was something else. In fact, I can’t remember a community being more fired up.”
Chapter Seventeen
7 p.m., Friday, February 4, 1982
In my head, I replayed the state title game, especially the last minute, nearly every day. But Smithson’s remark brought back for the first time in several years the surrounding festivities leading up to the main event. I thought about those days as I sat in the bus adjacent to The Trib’s employee square, the park-like setting highlighted by weedless landscaping and a towering fountain that local kids regarded as a wishing well. Other than Cathy, the final moments in that game were the only things I truly wished I could have back.
Nothing beats watching local youngsters represent a one-high-school community in a prep championship tournament. Anybody in North Fork who had been involved with a youth league, or held a remote interest in supporting quality hoops or quality kids, got behind the Fighting Crabs that year before Thanksgiving and stayed with them through February. “Claw ’em, Crabs!” was the cry that rang from cars, pickups, and eighteen-wheelers early and often that season, the school’s first state championship game—in any sport—in sixty-seven years.
Coaching in a state tournament is an absolute privilege. The energy in the crammed gym is genuine; the passion irrepressible. It is a tangible, primal attachment that a kid even at the end of the bench can take with him for the rest of his life. More importantly, the state tourney comes without the threatening cloud brought by big-time endorsements or long-term television contracts. It is four days of too-salty popcorn, off-key bands in ancient uniforms, broken hearts, cold hot dogs, impossible deadlines, buzzer-beating shots, unsung heroes, loyal parents, legendary old-timers, proud administrators, and sugar-crazed students who could not believe they were actually excused from school to attend this annual rite of passage. The week is the highlight of my year. How could I possibly be anywhere else?