Hook, Line, and Homicide

by Mark Richard Zubro

  Paul said, “You could swim along behind for a week. Or as the old joke goes, ‘How long can you tread water?’”

  Fenwick emerged from the passenger-side door of his SUV. He wore a pair of sunlight yellow shorts. Turner hoped there wasn’t another pair either matching or brighter. If it was brighter, it would make the sun blush. Fenwick called them his “lucky fishing shorts.” Madge had less pleasant sobriquets for them. Fenwick had been wearing them while on fishing trips for five years since he’d found them in a thrift ship in International Falls. Turner had regretted that stop. He noticed the fish-cleaning stain on the butt of the pants had faded over the years by about half. The color had not. Fenwick’s pullover shirt was an electric blue.

  Turner knew that many fishermen wore the same hat or shirt they’d had success with before. One of the things he discovered about Ben was that he wore the same gray boxer shorts out fishing every morning, but changed them to black briefs for night fishing. Turner stopped mentioning this oddity when Ben pointed out a few of Turner’s peccadilloes.

  Upon catching sight of Fenwick’s garish garb, Ian said, “You planning to scare the fish to death?”

  Ian wore his slouch fedora, a black T-shirt, khaki shorts. His shins were pale. His muscular calves had a dense covering of hair from the hem of his shorts to the top of his sandals. Fenwick looked him up and down and said, “You’re going to be cold.”

  “It’s summer,” Ian said.

  “This is Canada,” Fenwick reminded him. Fenwick claimed the cold never bothered him. Normally, during their trips the temperature was Midwest warm and occasionally Midwest sweltering, but it could get Canada cool in a big hurry, especially after a few thunderstorms and the passing of a cold front.

  Turner wore faded blue jeans and a gray pullover sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off. Jeff wore his new black jeans and a T-shirt snug over one of his older brother’s much larger flannel shirts. Brian wore a sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off and old baggy khakis. It would cool off as evening neared.

  Ian said, “You’ve come to Canada to kill fish.”

  “You’re the one who wanted to see what a family vacation looked like,” Turner said.

  “I wanted to see the new gay paradise. So far, it’s cold and rainy. With ten minutes of sun since I landed and this wind is cold.”

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  “Get used to it? I’ve been on a floatplane. Do you know what the pilot said?”

  “You wanted to fly here. You told me you picked him to fly with because, when you saw his picture on the Internet, you thought he was hot.”

  Ian said, “The last thing the hunky idiot told me after we were airborne was, ‘You might want to hold on to your door.’ Silly me asked why. He said…do you know what he said to me?”

  “I’m going out on a limb here, but my guess is that what he said was something that bothered you.”

  “He said, ‘You’ll want to hold on to that door because it tends to come open when we’re up in the air.’ A plane with a door that just pops open. Now you expect me to kill fish, sweet, innocent little fish, who have never harmed anyone?”

  “I don’t care if you fish or not. Maybe the pilot was kidding.” Paul doubted this. He’d been on enough floatplanes to know that more than a few of them flew on even less than the proverbial wing and a prayer.

  “I don’t even eat fish,” Ian said.

  Jeff said, “It’s good for you.”

  “Do you eat everything that’s good for you?” Ian asked.

  “No, but Brian eats everything that’s good for him. He does enough for all of us.” Going into his second year now on a total health diet, Brian wasn’t as sanctimonious about it as he used to be.

  Paul said, “What did you expect to do while you were here?”

  “Stare at burly lumberjacks and studly Mounties.”

  “You’ll have to catch those for yourself.”

  Fenwick said, “Ian, you might learn that all the decisions you make don’t revolve around your prick.”

  Madge whacked his upper arm and said, “That is not an appropriate comment in front of children.”

  “Neither is making decisions that way,” Fenwick said.

  Madge said, “Not appropriate in the North Woods or in Chicago?”

  Ian said, “It’s the only criterion I use whether in the North Woods, Chicago, or anywhere else. This is the North Woods?”

  Ben said, “There’s a lot of woods and it’s north of Chicago. How much more north and woodsy do you need?”

  Ian said, “Adventures. Vistas. Nature. Puke.”

  Turner said, “I’ve got my complaint-index scorecard here somewhere. Let me get it out. I promised all our friends I’d keep track. I’ve got you in the pool at over seven hundred.” He pulled a notebook and pen out of the air and proceeded to thumb through the nonexistent pages. “Let’s see, grousing while still on the dock. I think there’s extra points for that.”

  Ben said, “Done while here less than an hour. Don’t forget points for that.”

  Ian glared at Ben. Ben said, “I’ve got you as good for over eight hundred.”

  “Less than an hour in Canada or less than an hour on the dock?” Turner asked.

  Ben said, “It is also not fair for Fenwick to goad him on. He’s got an even higher number in the pool.”

  “What do you get if you win the pool?” Jeff asked.

  “Peace and quiet,” Turner said.

  Ian said, “I may like fishing after all.”

  “Why?” Madge asked.

  “The fish will like me because I leave them alone, and I will like them because they don’t make snarky comments.”

  4

  After purchasing supplies, it was nearly five. For an hour they fished from the side of the boat, or, in Ian’s case, napped. Ben and Paul swam in the lake. Brian took a turn on the Jet Ski that had a nest on the back of the houseboat. Paul and Ben took showers after their swim and made quiet love in their room while the boys wrangled on the dock about the best bait to use for catching lake trout.

  For the evening the Fenwicks’ eldest daughter was taking her younger siblings and Jeff for pizza, a movie, and ice cream in Kenora. Brian was going out with Kevin and some of his local buddies until late. Ian chose to stay on the boat and read. He was halfway through C. A. Tripp’s The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln.

  This year the adults decided to eat at the Naked Moose, which advertised itself as serving five-star Canadian cuisine. Turner had heard last year that they were planning to erect a gigantic concrete quadruped out front as a tourist lure. Rumor was it would rival Saskatchewan’s gigantic moose. The thing to be built had been nicknamed Mel in a local schoolkid competition. Fenwick had strongly suggested they name it Bullwinkle after his favorite television character of all time. Turner appreciated the show’s humor, the few times he’d seen it in old reruns. He also didn’t care what they named the soon-to-be-constructed monstrosity. He wasn’t about to mention it, however. The moose incident earlier had called forth a plethora of puns. Fenwick would only add to the ghastly word games.

  The restaurant’s food had turned out to be a perfectly ordinary fusion of Denny’s and Cracker Barrel.

  After dinner Turner and Ben were near their car waiting for Madge and Fenwick. Madge always teased Fenwick about taking forever in the john after having a meal. Fenwick always just said, “Digestion.” Turner was glad he left it at that.

  The long Canadian twilight continued to bathe the world about them in gentle hues of green and gray. A few dim lights had begun to attract the first bugs of the evening. If Fenwick took much longer, they’d have to get the bug spray out of the car. You didn’t want to be unprotected when the nightly infestation of Canadian insects closed in.

  A cluster of First Nations young men huddled near the back of the parking lot. They were as close to the woods and as far away from the meager light as they could be. The tips of lit cigarettes occasionally flared. If there were recreational chemicals
connected to the smoking, Turner didn’t want to know. It wasn’t his city. He wasn’t on duty. No cop he knew thought the so-called antidrug wars made sense, nor did they think most of the drug laws or campaigns were remotely close to realistic. He couldn’t imagine arresting someone in Chicago for smoking pot, although if they puffed away brazenly, he’d get himself interested. In this parking lot, these looked like young men who didn’t have much to do and were doing it quietly here. Most seemed to be in their late teens or early twenties. He sensed no interest in him and Ben, and they were not near his SUV. He wasn’t automatically suspicious of clots of idle young people, but he was always careful about his surroundings. He checked every space he entered, noting how many people were present and where anyone was. It was second nature to any seasoned cop.

  A second clump of young people drove up in a flame red Mustang. One of the passengers in the backseat favored Ben and Paul with an extended middle finger. A young woman was scrunched with her copious butt on the lap of the shotgun-side passenger, with her enormous tits rubbing against the right arm and chest of the driver. Paul knew her breasts must be of gargantuan proportions for him to pay attention. Mostly he noticed the ass and crotch of hot men. Something on a woman had to be truly extraordinary for him to notice. Paul also thought the gearshift must be digging painfully into unseen tender parts of her anatomy.

  The car spurted to the back of the parking lot. Stones flew, several of them thudding into Paul and Ben. The car screeched to a halt with the left front tire an inch from a skinny young man’s foot. Obscene gestures and shouts were exchanged. Turner took out his cell phone. They didn’t work at a lot of places this far away from large cities, but he’d noted he usually got a signal in and around Cathura. As the doors of the Mustang opened, he called the local police to report a disturbance.

  As the call was being answered, the inmates of the Mustang piled out and hunkered down next to the driver’s-side door. This new crowd consisted of five men and one woman, their skin much paler than the original crowd’s. Muttered words formed a rapid tattoo in the night. Turner couldn’t catch what was being said. Moments later shouts began to punctuate the confrontation. Shoves were exchanged. A cop car with CATHURA POLICE printed on the side drove into the parking lot. It had its Mars lights rotating, but the siren was silent.

  Turner glanced at his watch. Less than five minutes for the cops to arrive. Not bad. The car crunched gravel as it eased past them.

  Fenwick and Madge arrived. Fenwick eyed the Mars lights. “We got good guys and bad guys? Or the local entertainment writ large?”

  “Writ large?” Madge asked.

  “I’m a poet,” Fenwick reminded her, “I can say ‘writ large’ anytime I want.”

  “Yes, dear, but try not to do it in public.”

  “And I read books,” Fenwick said.

  Madge said, “Blow it out your ass.”

  Turner said, “The crew nearest the red Mustang came in looking for a fight.”

  Fenwick peered at the aggregation. He said, “The First Nations guys have been here about half an hour.” Fenwick had used the Canadian designation for people who in the United States were often referred to as Native Americans. “You had your backs to them when they drove in. They met some of the employees.”

  Two cops emerged from their vehicle. One slouched over to Turner and his companions; the other moseyed toward the incipient problem. Turner thought he recognized several of the young people in both camps from seeing them hanging around town or helping with the tourists at the marinas.

  The cop who approached them said, “You call this in?”

  Turner nodded.

  “Kids,” the cop said. Turner and Fenwick identified themselves as police officers. The cop didn’t seem interested.

  They watched the other cop deal with the small group. From what Turner could see, the six from the Mustang seemed to be doing a lot more strutting and swaggering than a chagrined group of youngsters should be doing in the face of a cop.

  Turner said, “The five from First Nations were standing there minding their own business. The other kids showed up and started giving them a hard time.”

  The cop said, “We get this all the time. First Nations kids causing trouble.”

  Turner said, “They were not causing the slightest bit of trouble.”

  The cop narrowed his eyes at him. “You from the States?”

  Turner’s group heard raised voices and turned to the sound. The tallest one from each group was shouting at the other. They must both have been above six feet tall, with the First Nations kid being at least fifty pounds lighter than his opponent. The cop who had been talking to Turner hustled toward his buddy. Turner and Fenwick followed, trailed by Madge and Ben.

  The extremely skinny First Nations kid with brush-cut hair looked ready to take on the entire North Woods. The other tall kid was fresh faced with a muscular figure and blond hair but the same brush cut as the other. Both had fists clenched, jaws taut, and lips pursed.

  As Turner and his group arrived, the skinny kid was shouting, “We were just standing here! We weren’t doing anything! We weren’t bothering anybody!”

  Before anyone else could speak, Turner said, “That is exactly correct.” The assemblage turned to him. The kids from the Mustang gaped. The cops looked annoyed. The First Nations crowd looked astonished. Turner was not about to put up with prejudicial bullshit no matter where he was. The cop who had been talking to him had pissed him off. Plus, he had Ben and the Fenwicks to back him up. “They were chatting peacefully,” Turner said.

  Ben added, “Absolutely. The kids in the Mustang were the ones who came in looking for trouble.” Fenwick added, “We didn’t see anyone in the First Nations group do a thing wrong.”

  The cops looked from them to the young adults. If there was going to be prejudice tonight, now was not the time for it to happen. The First Nations kids had a set of respectable adults to back them up.

  The cop who’d been talking to Turner’s party said, “Let’s break it up. Nobody’s hurt. There’s no blood or broken bones. Nobody wants to press charges.”

  The teenagers and twenty-somethings from both sides shook their heads. The Mustang crowd got in their car. At the edge of the parking lot they squealed their tires and then headed on the road out of town. Those of the First Nations got into two trucks and took off in the opposite direction. Their vehicles were late-model Chevies scored with dents and covered in dirt.

  The cops got in their car and left. They said nothing to Turner and his party. “That was odd,” Madge said.

  Fenwick said, “There are articles in the papers sometimes about problems between First Nations people and the police. I wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t been here.”

  They returned to their SUV. The Mustang roared back into the parking lot. The driver sped straight at them. The adults scattered. The driver stopped a layer of paint’s distance from Turner’s left leg.

  The large blond male stuck his head out the driver’s-side window and said, “You’re the fags who rent the houseboat. Those your little boy toys?”

  Turner said nothing. Car doors slammed. Six hulking teenagers stood in front of them, five men and one woman. This time as they got out of their car, two had sawed-off baseball bats in their hands. Two others flicked open switch knives. The woman wore pink-framed glasses on her bulbous head and a stunningly yellow and orange blouse over the epic endowments of her torso.

  Turner and Fenwick moved in front of Madge and Ben. Fenwick said, “This could be fun.”

  Turner said, “Perhaps we have a different definition of fun.”

  Neither detective was currently armed.

  The young men came on silently. Two yards away, the five men formed a semicircle around them. The woman stood to the right of the blond. She snapped her gum, then said, “Who the hell are you fags to interfere?”

  Fenwick laughed. “This is going to be way more fun than I could possibly imagine.” Turner flashed on the fight s
cene in the excellent movie Secondhand Lions. He smiled at the memory of the Robert Duvall character taking on and defeating four muscular and snarling teenagers at once.

  The blond male with the brush cut said, “What are you smiling at?” He feinted at Fenwick, then shoved at Turner. Turner caught his wrist and twisted it back.

  “Hey! Ow!” The other four made a move toward Turner, who let the teenager go and faced them. The woman didn’t move.

  Fenwick stood next to Turner. One teenager waved his knife and said, “Keep out of this, fat man.”

  Madge said, “You left me out.”

  “Back off, lady.”

  Ben stepped to the other side of Paul. They caught each other’s eyes. Turner sighed. He loved watching bravado-infested assholes of any age get the shit beat out of them. If they were homophobic bravado-infested teenagers and got the shit kicked out of them, all the better. Madge was maybe half the size of her husband. Without a gun, she was just as lethal. The most heavyset one in the group made a lunge for Madge and attempted to shove, slap, or hit her. Turner was never sure which. Several deft moves and seconds later, she had broken his wrist. He screamed and fell to his knees.

  Fenwick said to her, “I’ve told you to be more gentle with them. How many times have I told you, don’t break the wrist first thing? It leaves less time for torture.”

  The attacker bellowed in agony. He sank to the ground.

  Madge said, “I left the rest of them for you.”

  The most muscular one with one of the baseball bats suddenly swung at Turner. The kid might as well have sent snail mail to let him know the attack was coming. Turner dodged and grabbed the bat, then swung at the hand of the man with the other bat. In seconds Turner had both weapons.

  The teenagers backed toward their car. One assisted the kid with the injured arm, who was still howling. They jammed themselves into the car. With another squeal of tires, they roared off.

  Fenwick said, “Ben and I didn’t get to hit anybody. You guys are supposed to share.”