Hook, Line, and Homicide

by Mark Richard Zubro

  “Why was that?”

  “Ralph Bowers wasn’t the only one to beat the shit out of Scarth.”

  “What happened?” Turner asked.

  “Five years ago, the day before he won that stupid championship game, and then screwed up his leg for the rest of his life. I cheered when I heard about that. I thought, at last the son of a bitch is getting what is coming to him.”

  “How’d you wind up fighting?” Turner asked.

  “I was in the woods checking some traplines. We have the right to hunt on our land. My traps had been messed with. I’d gotten there earlier than usual to try and catch who was doing it. I saw fresh tracks. I followed quickly and very quietly. It was bitter cold that afternoon but the wind was dead calm. I found him at the last trap as the last rays of the sun were touching the tips of the pines. A small rabbit was caught in the trap. The animal wasn’t dead. Scarth twisted its neck and killed it. I’ll never be sure if he was being cruel or merciful. Then he used a tire iron to start bashing my trap. He’d brought the tire iron with him. You don’t bring a tire iron with you to walk through the woods. It was deliberate. I waited until he was at the top of a swing. Then I jumped him. Scared the piss out of him. Literally. He stank. He tried to hit me with the tire iron, but I got it away from him. I tossed it yards away in the snow. Then I started hitting him. I bashed him in the head, throat. He was choking. It’s hard to get good hits in when you’re both in parkas and layers of clothing, but I got in a few solid blows. I busted his nose, I think. He’d had it busted in hockey a few times. At the end I rubbed and pushed his face so hard into the snow that it created a hollow through the drift down to bare ground. By the time I was done, his nose was scraping on bare earth. I told him if he ever got near me or mine again, I’d kill him.”

  “Nobody noticed his injuries?”

  “I don’t know if he ever told anyone what happened. I guess they were the kind of thing that would be easy to pass off as wounds from hockey.”

  “Who’d you tell?” Turner asked.

  “My friends. They know. They’d never say anything.”

  “Did you know the other kids who drowned?”

  “Nope. I didn’t go to college. I don’t go to the downtown drinking establishments much. I prefer places closer to home. Do the cops really think it was murder?”

  Turner said, “It’s hard to tell in this town. Some people want to connect all seven deaths. That seems a stretch.”

  “I’ll be a suspect.”

  “Why?”

  “Prejudice. The cops don’t know we fought, but everybody knows we were enemies. We were leaders of our groups. It’s like rounding up the usual suspects, but in a very West Side Story kind of way.”

  “You guys ever do out-and-out gang war?” Fenwick asked.

  “It’s too cold most of the year for that,” Morningsky replied. “It was more simmering prejudice that got let out at opportune moments or maybe when one side or the other got bored.”

  “What can you tell us about his buddies?” Turner asked.

  “Followers. Kind of useless mini-Scarths. I sometimes wonder if without Scarth, they might have been okay guys.”

  “What about his girlfriend, Evon Gasple?” Turner asked.

  “That girl has a mouth on her. She would egg them on. She would shout the loudest at us. She’d use words nobody used in polite company. She’s hard and tough. If she’s the town slut, she must have a cast-iron pussy. I can’t see anybody finding warmth and affection there.”

  Turner decided he kind of liked the kid. He also didn’t think he was a murderer.

  “Do you know Ralph Bowers?”

  “Yeah, he’s weird. I used to be scared of him when I was little.”

  “You ever pick on him?” Fenwick asked.

  “I guess, sometimes I did. Not like Scarth. As I got older, I realized Ralph was doing the best he could. I stopped. So did my friends. A lot of kids who should have known better never stopped. Still today even adults who should know better use him to scare their kids. He doesn’t have a lot of friends. Scarth hated him, but Scarth steered clear. Ralph has a very short temper. I wouldn’t cross him. He leaves us First Nations kids alone.”

  “Anybody else who you think might have wanted Scarth dead?”

  “A lot of people probably, but most of them keep their mouths shut. There are only a few of us who spoke up and we became targets. Krohn might not have accosted us openly, but like my traps, sometimes things got broken or disappeared.”

  “Were Scarth and his friends into drugs?” Fenwick asked.

  “No more than any kid in the North Woods.”

  “He wasn’t a dealer, distributor?” Fenwick asked.

  “Not that I know of.”

  The detectives could think of no other questions. They thanked him.

  Morningsky said, “You stood up for us. I wish I could help. Do they really think it might have been murder?”

  “Hard to tell,” Turner said.

  Morningsky said, “If I get arrested, I’ll need help.”

  “We’ll do what we can,” Turner said.

  They left.

  “Hell of a thing,” Fenwick said, “cops working on prejudice instead of facts.”

  “Billy Morningsky certainly thinks so. Can the police up here be that unprofessional?”

  “Are there police that unprofessional in Chicago?” Fenwick asked.

  “Yeah,” Turner admitted.

  “There’s your answer. Who’s next?” Fenwick asked.

  “His buddies? His hockey coach?”

  “Are the buddies going to talk to us?” Fenwick asked. “We were not their friends the other night.”

  “We can give it a shot, I suppose.”

  They grabbed burgers at the Dairie Delight and then drove back into town.

  19

  It wasn’t hard to find Scarth’s buddies. A few questions downtown and Turner and Fenwick were on their way. The dead boy’s cronies were encamped at the Frosty-Freeze ice cream drive-in. Compared to the Dairie Delight, the Frosty-Freeze was a remnant of fifties décor: outfits on the carhops, parts of dead flies encrusted on screens, dirt strewn on the floors and caked in the corners. Not much changed in decades. Music blasted from several cars and boom boxes as Turner and Fenwick pulled up. Three of Scarth’s buddies clustered near the driver’s-side door of the red Ford Mustang. They leered at and ogled passing carhops, slouched and swaggered, smoked cigarettes, made loud, caustic comments to the people nearby. The fourth member of the group sat in the backseat of the car. He was eating a burger.

  “You guys are the cops from Chicago,” said a solidly built kid. Turner had given descriptions of the crowd from the other night and had gotten names from Coates and thought he could identify which one was which. This one was the shortest and blockiest. He had to be Frank Doran. He stood with an elbow on the driver’s-side mirror.

  Turner listened to the sound of traffic, the murmuring of people on the waterfront walk, and the bugs zapping themselves to death on the traps outside the drive-in.

  “Where’s the tough lady?” Doran asked. He cracked his knuckles in a way Turner guessed must have driven his teachers nuts in school.

  Fenwick said, “Waiting with a baseball bat behind the drive-in.”

  “You serious?” Doran asked.

  “Do I need to be?” Fenwick asked.

  Turner said, “We’ve got some questions about Scarth.”

  Doran said, “Why should we answer you? Why are you even talking to us? We were going to beat the shit out of you the other night. You weren’t scared.”

  “Should we have been?” Fenwick asked.

  “You guys are really cops?” asked one whose face was dominated by a nose that had been broken more than once, Turner guessed. Coates had said the nose kid’s name was Abel Verinder.

  “Detectives,” Fenwick said.

  “Like on television?” Verinder asked.

  “Fuck you guys,” said the third. The acne-encrusted skin led
Turner to guess that this was Gordon Nagel.

  Turner said, “If it was murder, wouldn’t you want to help us find who killed him?”

  “Was it murder?” Doran asked.

  Verinder said, “I know who did it then.”

  “Who’s saying it’s murder?” Nagel asked. He scratched a yellow zit and drew pus and blood. He wiped the residue on his jeans.

  “It’s a rumor we’re getting,” Turner said. “My son found the body. I’m interested. The police weren’t real helpful.”

  “Cops,” Nagel said. “Screw ’em. They’re nice to you one minute, then they hassle you. It’s always, ‘Move along. Get a job.’”

  Turner understood the cops’ impulse.

  “I was kind of curious,” Fenwick said. “Whose idea was it to attack us?”

  General shrugs. “We do whatever we want, whenever we want,” Doran said.

  “Does anybody really do that?” Fenwick asked. “You must need money for food and clothing and essentials. It just falls from heaven like manna?”

  Nagel laughed. “Dude, we do what we want. Anytime we want, anyplace we want.”

  Turner said, “You couldn’t prevent Scarth’s death.”

  They glanced sideways at one another. Nagel said, “Our buddy is dead. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “We could help find his killer.”

  Verinder pointed at Fenwick. “How come you’re friends with a gay guy?”

  Fenwick said, “How come you’re friends with these guys?”

  The kid actually seemed to think for a minute. “I just am.”

  “Friends are friends,” Fenwick said. “Doesn’t change, no matter what country you’re in or what sexual orientation you are.”

  Nagel asked, “Why didn’t you call the cops on us after we came back?”

  “Would you have liked us to?” Fenwick asked.

  “That’s a dumb question,” Doran said.

  “You want to argue about it?” Fenwick asked. “I suppose I could call now if you want.”

  Doran looked at Fenwick’s bulk, back at his buddies, and at the crowds of people lounging inside and outside the restaurant. “I guess not right now,” he muttered.

  Turner said, “We didn’t call them because we weren’t sure it would do any good. We’re going back to our own homes in a few days. If you attack tourists that can’t come back to testify, maybe you’re getting away with more than you should. We knew we could defend ourselves.”

  Turner wasn’t sure what the reply would be to his blunt answer.

  Nagel said, “Yeah, tourists are easy marks sometimes.”

  Verinder said, “Was it really maybe murder?”

  Turner said, “We figured you’d care if you thought Scarth had been murdered. You don’t have to like us to want to help track down a killer.”

  “Didn’t he drown?” Frank Doran asked. “That’s what the cops are saying.”

  “Maybe they’re wrong,” Fenwick said.

  “Schreppel’s wrong about almost everything,” Verinder said.

  “You guys give him trouble?” Fenwick asked.

  “We’ve never spent the night in jail,” Verinder said. He sounded like he was bragging. “We just have fun sometimes.”

  Nagel added, “Nobody’s ever caught us and nobody would mess with us. They know better.”

  Doran said, “Nobody would put Scarth in jail. He’s the town sports hero, and his dad’s rich.”

  “Yeah,” Nagel said. “He was a great guy.”

  The fourth, who had been sitting in the car listening, got out and stood behind the other three. He was the heavyset one with the hurt arm from the other night. Turner knew his name was Cory Dunsmith.

  Turner said, “We wanted to ask a couple questions about Monday night.”

  Doran said, “Schreppel said we didn’t have to talk to anybody.”

  “Warned us not to,” Nagel said.

  “Why?” asked Fenwick.

  “You gonna beat it out of us like Chicago cops?” Nagel asked.

  “Only if you want me to,” Fenwick replied.

  Turner said, “We were wondering why you weren’t with your friend all night. I got the impression you always hung around together.”

  Gordon Nagel said, “Scarth did what he wanted. We hung around with him a lot. He hung around with us a lot.”

  “What happened that night?”

  “We all got high.” Snickers and nudges with elbows.

  “Just booze?” Fenwick asked.

  “Anything we wanted.”

  “You guys into a lot of drugs?” Fenwick asked.

  Verinder said, “Less than some, more than others.”

  “Was Scarth into selling? Any of you guys?”

  Smirks all around.

  Verinder gave them the lie Turner expected. “Nah, he wasn’t our source.”

  “When was the last time you saw Scarth?”

  “He left the bar about ten.”

  “By himself?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where was he going?”

  Shrugs.

  “Did he go off by himself a lot?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Scarth was his own guy.”

  “Who would want to hurt him?” Turner asked.

  “Ralph Bowers,” Nagel said.

  Doran said, “Ralph is a whack job.” The others nodded.

  Abel Verinder said, “Ralph is violent. Nobody gets in Ralph’s way. Him and Scarth used to have fights when we were kids.”

  Fenwick said, “The way we heard it was that you guys picked on him unmercifully.”

  “Ralph didn’t mind our teasing,” Nagel said.

  “He say that?” Fenwick asked.

  Doran said, “He never said anything.”

  Turner said, “We were told that you guys reduced him to tears nearly every day.”

  “No way,” Doran said. “We’re not like that.”

  But Turner knew they were. As sure as he was that he was on the planet Earth, he had pegged these guys as heartlessly cruel and very much unable to have the insight to know they were. Certainly they showed no evidence that they would have been capable of such insight in grade school.

  Turner asked, “We heard Scarth was pretty rough with the girls.”

  “Bullshit,” Nagel said. “All the girls wanted to date him.”

  “What’s the story with Evon Gasple?” Turner asked.

  “She’s great,” Doran said. “She and Scarth were mostly friends. She’s hung around with us since we were ten. She always had ideas on stuff to do.”

  “The rest of you ever date?” Fenwick asked.

  “Sure, we’ve all had girlfriends,” Verinder said. “We’re not—” He halted then tried again. “We’re all—” He took refuge in silence.

  Turner asked, “Anybody know where she is at the moment? We’d like to talk to her.”

  They all shrugged.

  “She and Scarth were close,” Turner suggested.

  Doran said, “Sometimes. Other times not. She just hung around with all of us.”

  Fenwick said, “She friendly with everybody?”

  “What does that mean?” Doran asked.

  Nagel said, “He means did she have sex with all of us. What do you think?”

  Fenwick said, “That would have been convenient as long as Scarth didn’t beat the crap out of you.”

  Nagel leered. “Evon enjoyed every bit of attention we showed her.”

  “Did he date any of the other girls for very long?” Turner asked.

  “Nah,” Verinder said. “Scarth was a love ’em and leave ’em kind of guy.”

  “There weren’t hurt feelings about that?” Fenwick asked.

  “Why would there be?” Verinder asked.

  Fenwick said, “Maybe some girls would be interested in a relationship.”

  Verinder said, “So? Scarth got what he wanted. He could get any girl he wanted. Girls want to be friends with
us.”

  “Was he out looking for sex that night?” Fenwick asked.

  Verinder said, “Isn’t everybody all the time?”

  “Was he drunk?” Turner asked.

  “We all like to drink,” Doran said. “We like to stop for a few beers. It’s no big deal. Nobody is going to stop us.”

  “Was Scarth driving that night?”

  “I guess he had his dad’s car.”

  “Who else might have wanted to hurt him?” Fenwick asked.

  “His brother, Trent, is weird,” Verinder said.

  “Weird how?” Turner asked.

  “He’s always off by himself. He’s probably a—” He caught himself again. “He acts like he’s gay.”

  “How’s that?” Turner asked.

  “He’s always reading books. He never dates girls.”

  “Does he date boys?” Turner asked.

  They all shrugged. If shrugging, slouching, swaggering, leering, and ogling ever became virtues, these guys would be candidates for sainthood.

  Verinder said, “Talk to Ralph. People should be afraid of Ralph. He’s nuts.”

  Turner said, “We heard Scarth and Evon had big fights sometimes.”

  “Nah,” Doran said. “Don’t believe that shit. Sure, they’d yell and scream sometimes, but that was normal. Hell, you’re with some woman, and they give you a hard time, sometimes you gotta take action. It was never serious.” The others nodded.

  “You guys give the First Nations kids a hard time,” Fenwick observed.

  Doran said, “Don’t start with that bullshit. They give us a hard time. First Nations bullshit, man. That is so bogus. They get preferred treatment for everything.”

  Verinder said, “Billy Morningsky was always in everybody’s face about his heritage, and how we were shits.”

  Turner didn’t see a reason to disagree with Morningsky’s analysis. Turner found their misogyny and ignorance appalling.