Hook, Line, and Homicide

by Mark Richard Zubro

  “Teachers didn’t try to put a stop to this?” Turner asked.

  Foster said, “When they saw it, sure. Usually. All the athletic coaches at the school loved Scarth. There was pressure on them to let him succeed for the sake of the local hockey team. It was disgusting.”

  “Why would he do all this?” Fenwick asked. “He’s rich. He’s athletic. He’s Mr. Success.”

  Jenkins said, “Why does any bully do it? And ultimately what difference does it make why they do it? They do bully you, and it goes on and on, and you think it will never end, and you wonder why you go on. And sometimes you don’t. And you think of killing the bully or yourself.”

  Turner said, “Are you claiming that the six who died were suicides because of bullying?”

  “No, no, no,” Coates said. “We’re creating a picture for you.”

  Turner said, “Anybody specific in town who made actual threats against Scarth?”

  Coates said, “I hate to admit it, but we’ve got to mention everybody. That’s why this has gone on too long, all kinds of silence and secrecy.”

  Foster said, “Silence, secrecy, and death. This is no goddamn Eden up here. This is hell on Earth. I’m moving as soon as I make enough money to get myself the hell out of here.”

  Turner asked, “Who are you talking about?”

  Coates said, “Our local Boo Radley.”

  Jenkins said, “Ralph Bowers is not that bad. He’s a good boy.”

  Foster said, “A good man. He’s twenty-one, the same age as Scarth Krohn and me. We were in school together as long as Ralph Bowers attended school.”

  Jenkins told the story. Ralph Bowers was the son of two local truck drivers, a male and female couple. They took him and his brother on the road with them starting only a month after he was born. When he finally started school, in the first grade, after no preschool, he was far behind his peers. Then early on the teachers found out he was not right. The other kids made fun of him mercilessly. Scarth Krohn led the charge. He was cruel and drove Ralph to tears numerous times. The truck driver couple confronted Krohn Senior. The town expected violence. Didn’t happen. Like usual, everyone assumed money changed hands. Ralph got a job at the local hardware store starting when he was thirteen. He was too loud and too friendly. At that time, he didn’t know how to tone himself down. A few of the people of the town understood and were kind. He’d startle the tourists and some of them were rude. He got the job because the manager, Jerry Scarianno, lived next to the Bowers, and he felt sorry for him. Jerry was kind and stuck up for Ralph. As Ralph got older, his parents would go out on their cross-Canada trucking expeditions and would leave him alone. This was when he was eleven and twelve. The kid would exist on cereal for days. He’d get himself ready for school. The parents gave him minimal sustenance, minimal affection. It was a crime.

  At the end of the backstory, Foster added, “Ralph could be violent. He had a temper. When they picked on him, he would fight back with the kids at school. Or try to. There’s something wrong with his coordination. He’d throw a ball, but it wouldn’t go in the direction he wanted it to. He’d try to hit his tormentors, and he’d miss, and he’d get more angry.”

  “No adult,” Turner said, “no teacher stood up for him?”

  “He had one champion,” Jenkins said. “Beverly Fleming, his third-grade teacher. But there was only so much she could do. Beverly is a good person.”

  Foster said, “It got worse over the years. There was one time when he was chasing Scarth Krohn down Main Street at the height of the tourist season. Ralph was swinging a hockey stick. If he’d connected, he’d have killed Scarth right there.”

  “How old were they when this happened?” Turner asked.

  “Thirteen or fourteen.”

  Turner asked, “Where were the police, the authorities, school personnel, social workers?”

  Coates said, “Schreppel did nothing except protect the Krohn family. Nothing but protect. Vincent Schreppel is little better than a Nazi goon.”

  “I’ve met him,” Turner said. “He wasn’t pleasant.”

  Jenkins said, “As Ralph got older, if there were petty, unsolved crimes, Schreppel would lock Ralph up in a cell overnight and try to get him to confess. Ralph would scream all night. It was as if Schreppel enjoyed having him scream.”

  “Does the man have a conscience?” Turner asked. “He feels no guilt?”

  “That’s Schreppel,” Jenkins said, “the Nazi of the North, and I use that word deliberately.” Her eyes glittered with tears. “I’m sorry,” she said. “What he does makes me so angry. I get so upset. Cruelty is one thing. Needless cruelty to a harmless creature is unconscionable.”

  Turner asked, “Are you saying that Ralph would be able to plan seven murders?”

  Foster said, “He’d be angry enough to kill Scarth Krohn. As Ralph got older the townspeople turned even more against him. He was ‘not right.’ He was violent. He’d become enraged.”

  Turner said, “Enraged violence is not an acceptable response in anyone, but it is very understandable coming from a frustrated child.”

  Coates said, “I agree, but Ralph scared people. Parents told their kids to stay away from him. The crueler ones used Ralph to scare their kids. You know, like, ‘Do you want Ralphie to get you?’ That kind of crap.”

  Jenkins said, “Such cruelty from children or adults is inexcusable. Adults should know better.”

  Foster said, “He takes walks at night along the waterfront. He has for years.”

  Turner said, “At the least he could have seen something Monday night.”

  “Schreppel claimed to have talked to him,” Jenkins said.

  “He confided in you?” Fenwick asked.

  “His secretary is my sister. She said Schreppel kept Ralph for six hours last night, but he let him go this morning. Even in this town you need some kind of evidence, and they didn’t have any.”

  “Ralph has been real quiet since the murder,” Foster said.

  Coates said, “Before he was picked up, when I was in the hardware store, he wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes.”

  “He knows something,” Foster said.

  “Why wouldn’t he tell?” Jenkins asked.

  “It’s obvious,” Foster said. “He did it.”

  “Or he’s protecting who did,” Turner said.

  “Does he have the wherewithal to do that?” Coates asked.

  Jenkins said, “I’ve always wondered how smart he really is.”

  “These are young people,” Fenwick said. “Were Krohn and his buddies into drugs?”

  “Not in an organized way,” Foster said. “They weren’t a particular source that I know of, but I’m not into drugs that much. Sometimes they had them, like most of us.”

  “Anybody into hard drugs?” Fenwick asked.

  “Nah, it was mostly dope and booze. Normal kid stuff.”

  A woman in her early twenties entered the bar. She had flowing golden hair, a patch of freckles on her nose, and eyes so dark blue Turner thought they must have been enhanced by contact lenses. She walked up to Foster and said, “I heard you were meeting here.” She eyed the two Chicago cops and Ian. “Who are they?” Her voice grated like Jean Hagen’s character, Lina Lamont, in Singin’ in the Rain.

  Foster introduced her as Marilyn Gwinn. Foster explained, “They’re going to help. They’re going to find out who killed all seven of those people who drowned.”

  Gwinn said, “Why find out who killed Scarth Krohn? He was a menace to all decent people everywhere. I hated him. When I heard he was dead, I wanted to do a dance of joy. I’m sure every woman who’s ever dated him felt the same way. He was a pig.”

  “Why did women date him?” Fenwick asked. “This is a small town. Didn’t his reputation precede him?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Gwinn said. “Rich, good-looking guy asks you on a date. Everybody says he’s impossible. But you figure with you, he’ll be different. You want to catch him, or change him, or tame him, or some other empty
-headed notion. He’s a sports star. He looks hot no matter what he’s dressed in. All the popular, athletic boys are his friends. You want to be popular, too. So you date him. Then you find out he’s total slime. Total. From the first minute, his hands are all over you. Then you go to your friends to complain and they all say, ‘I told you so.’”

  “And no one said no?” Turner asked.

  “How would we stop him?” Foster asked. “Do you know of a teenager who would dare stand up to a popular, big, strong, athlete? Nobody does that. Nobody. Not in Canada. Not in the States. Athletes have their own rules.”

  “So he got lots of dates,” Fenwick said.

  “Yep,” Gwinn said. “Turns out he was a lousy lover. His breath was always foul, whether from booze, cigarettes, or lack of breath mints. He didn’t take showers often enough. He would have his orgasms within minutes, sometimes seconds, and you were supposed to be happy about it. I figured it out early on. I preferred to turn him on so he came in his pants. Better his underwear getting soaked than for me to touch his flesh. He’d brag to all his buddies about what a stud he was. Ha! We girls might not have been able to stop him, but we knew enough to talk to each other. A hand job early in the evening would generally keep Scarth quiet for most of the night as long as the date was over before he got too drunk.”

  “He get drunk often?” Turner asked.

  “Night after night in establishment after establishment or out in the woods, or driving around in his car. The bars loved having him around because then his buddies would be around and there would be singing and laughing and people would buy lots of beer.”

  Turner said to Gwinn, “They were telling us about him and Ralph Bowers.”

  “Ralph is the town loon. We were warned against him when we were kids. He was the one your parents told you not to get near. Ha! He was probably the safest one to be around. And Mr. Screwed-Up Popular Scarth Krohn? We should have run from him. Ralph was odd, sure. I wouldn’t want to be alone with him for too long, but he was always gentle, always.”

  Foster said, “Except when Scarth made him mad.”

  Gwinn said, “You think Ralph killed him? All those other six guys died. Why is this one murder? I didn’t know any of them. They weren’t locals. Ralph wouldn’t have killed them. He might have killed Scarth, but the list of people who would have happily murdered Scarth is miles long. You’d have to interview everybody in this province and then start on the major cities on both sides of the border. He was internationally slimy.”

  “Won’t Schreppel have talked to key people?” Turner asked. “Won’t he be angry that we’re interfering?”

  “Do you care?” Ian asked. He’d been silent, listening while standing more than companionably close to Coates. The leather-clad barkeeper had not moved away.

  Turner said, “He may not be extending professional courtesy to us, but I’m going to extend it to him. If he was in our jurisdiction, I’d be polite and helpful at the least. He’s a cop.”

  Coates said, “He’s an asshole. A first-class asshole. He’s one of the bullies in this town. He was the Scarth Krohn of his day.”

  Fenwick asked, “If things are so awful, then why do people stay here? Why do people put up with this? I thought this was the rugged North where men were men and women were women and everybody had too many shotguns to put up with any crap.”

  Jenkins said, “So many of the women who weren’t his victims said that it wasn’t their problem. They didn’t want to get involved. They didn’t want to believe there was a problem if they weren’t having the problem.”

  Foster said, “Lots of people think that if a problem doesn’t directly affect them then everything must be fine.”

  Coates sighed. “It’s an atmosphere made for the tough and rugged, but there are basically some pretty nice people. They’ve got a decent living. They are not boat rockers.”

  “So to speak,” Fenwick said.

  “I want to start with background,” Turner said. “Let’s talk with that teacher who helped Ralph.”

  Jenkins said, “I’ll call Beverly Fleming. She did wonders with him. Scarth and Ralph were in the same grade until Ralph quit. I think that was when he was fifteen.” She took out her cell phone and pressed the numbers. She spoke briefly then looked up and said, “She’ll talk to you.”

  16

  Ian made as if to come along. Turner said, “No. Fenwick and I are going to do this. You are not official.”

  “Neither are you. You planning to tie me down? That hasn’t happened in a few years.”

  “Not often enough,” Turner said.

  Fenwick stuck up for the reporter. “Let him come. We probably won’t get anywhere anyway.”

  Ian said, “Why be pessimistic?”

  Fenwick said, “Obviously you weren’t a cop long enough.”

  Turner was adamant, however. Two strangers asking questions would be a lot; three, too many. Leaving Ian behind, they picked up Turner’s SUV from the houseboat rental’s parking lot. Beverly Fleming lived in a log house at the edge of a small stream that fed directly into Lake of the Woods. The trees surrounded the cabin and extended right down to the lake. When they got out of the SUV, Turner could not hear sounds from the town about a mile away. He heard birds chirping and leaves rustling.

  Beverly Fleming met them on her screened-in porch. She was a diminutive woman Turner judged to be in her seventies. She had on a flower-print blouse, deep-indigo blue jeans, and flat sneakers. She wore a chain around her neck that held her glasses. Everyone except Fenwick sat on wicker rockers. As he put it, his bulk and wicker weren’t likely to get along well. Turner never did understand why people purchased wicker. It was uncomfortable and wasn’t particularly pretty. Fleming had placed comfy, green-leaf-patterned cushions on the wicker. She offered them tea. They accepted.

  She returned moments later with a polished-silver tea service. She had dainty plates with bits of cookies and cakes and scones on them. Turner wondered how she could have put together a tea service so quickly. Did she have high tea ready for casual visitors? Instead of questioning his host, he accepted his cup and saucer and bit into a homemade scone. It was delicious. Fenwick contented himself with a small finger cookie. In the center of the tea service was a small pedestal topped with a two-inch-long wooden carving of a muskie. The detail was magnificent and the coloring exquisite.

  Turner summarized what they’d been told about Ralph. When he was done, Fleming took another sip of her tea, sighed, smiled, and said, “Howard Coates is a fool.”

  “How so?” Turner asked.

  “He convinces people to go along with his silly theories. He’s determined to prove that there has been murder going on, and now poor Ralph Bowers is caught up in his madness. Is he telling you that all of these are murders and that Ralph committed all of them?”

  “No,” Turner said. “You don’t think Ralph did it?”

  “If I was picking murderers for the first six, I’d have picked Scarth and his cronies.”

  “Why would they do it?”

  “Why not? Just to be mean? Because they could? Because they’re ignorant bullies? Ralph is a gentle soul. I don’t care what those crazed semisuburban moms want to believe.”

  “What was that?” Turner asked.

  “They would try and scare their kids and themselves with comments such as, ‘If you don’t behave Ralph Bowers will come and do any number of bad things to you.’ Children were told not to play with Ralph. When he was in first grade, he had no friends. Bullies seemed to accumulate around Ralph. This community can be pretty unforgiving. So can children. A few teachers tried to help. His fifth-grade teacher tried to get Scarth expelled.”

  “Why?” Turner asked.

  “The only reason you expel someone that age is if they are a danger to others. Scarth was.”

  “What happened?”

  “For some reason with Scarth Krohn, the paperwork that year went slower than ever. Meetings were postponed or never happened. Eventually nothing happened.
The torture went on and on.”

  “What did he do to Ralph?” Turner asked.

  “Even in third grade, when he was in my class, I couldn’t shelter Ralph completely. He begged to stay in for recess every day. He always offered to help me in my classroom. If it saved him from even a few minutes of playground hell, I was glad to have him. Then over the years he’d stop in to talk, to get away from the yammering. Many a time he would come in sobbing from lunch or recess.”

  “Is there actually something physically wrong with him?” Fenwick asked.

  “He was always a skinny kid and terribly uncoordinated. He had a slight limp from a childhood birth defect. His IQ was at the very low end of the normal range.”

  Turner said, “We were told he could become violent.”

  Fleming said, “What do you think a sane response to years of abuse would be?”

  “I’d be pissed,” Fenwick said.

  “Exactly,” Fleming said. “He’d flee from recess in tears. He’d walk home in tears. I’d see him. I did my best. Of course, his tears only encouraged the bullies. It was so sad. I could control them in my classroom, but outside, oh my. And some of the teachers were part of the problem.”

  “Beg pardon?” Fenwick said.

  “They’d let the other children’s cruel comments go on in class. I found out it was happening one year. I marched the teacher down to the principal’s office. He quit at the end of that year. Ignorant fool. I didn’t blame Ralph for being angry. He’d sob so hard. He just didn’t understand. He was always so mild and so polite. He’d say, ‘Mrs. Fleming, I didn’t do anything. Why do they hate me?’ Sometimes when he left, I would weep for him and for all of Scarth’s silent victims who didn’t have at least a teacher to go to for a few minutes of respite. It is so, so sad.”