Hook, Line, and Homicide

by Mark Richard Zubro

  Evon Gasple Senior lived in a trailer park on the road to the Trans-Canada Highway. The parking lot was in the front. A hand-painted sign announced NORTHERN LIGHTS TRAILER PARK. Many modern mobile homes might be close to luxurious or at least be the equivalent of a real house. Gasple lived in a collection of trailers, sad lumps of tin, that might have been new in the thirties. Most were aluminum gray. A few had flower pots with desperate flowers trying to make a dent in the assorted gloom. Someone had cut down all the trees within a hundred yards and replaced them with concrete, which was now cracked and crumbling. Shade was at a premium. There would be nothing to break the howling winds of winter. Enquiring at the manager’s office gave them the information that Mrs. Gasple lived in the last trailer on the left down the main thoroughfare of the camp.

  Turner and Fenwick walked down the cement drive to the back. A few kids clustered in the dust that inched out a foot or two from the front of most of the trailers.

  Mrs. Gasple was on her patio—or at least Turner thought of it as such. The portion of concrete she sat on was on the shady side of the trailer. It was near the door and two aluminum fold-up lawn chairs sat next to her. She had her shoes off, her feet up on a lump of log that looked like it was only a few years short of petrification. She wore a waitress uniform, and she was smoking a cigarette.

  Turner introduced Fenwick and himself.

  She spoke in a whiskey snarl. With no preliminaries or prodding, she said, “That boy killed my girl.”

  “Why do you say that?” Turner asked.

  “Scarth Krohn had his way with my daughter when she was not of age. He was evil, and now she’s gone. She was my baby.”

  She wiped her tears away with the hand that held the cigarette. Turner feared she might set fire to the front of her dyed-blond bangs.

  “Back then why didn’t you call the police?” Turner asked.

  “They were both thirteen. How was I going to have my own kid arrested? I walked in on them in there.” She jerked her head at the overgrown heap of metal behind her. She took a drag on her cigarette.

  Turner mused. How do you tell a mother that they’d heard her daughter was the town slut starting at eleven?

  Mrs. Gasple motioned them to the other chairs. She leaned forward. “It was that boy’s fault that my daughter had the reputation she did. He spread it around. He made up things.”

  “Why did she still date him?” Turner asked.

  “He had a hold over her. Some men can do that especially to impressionable youngsters. They have ways. I told her and told her to stay away from him. I tried to break them up. I told her she’d be sorry.” She lit another cigarette from the first one. She flipped the still smoldering butt of the first into the square of dirt that passed for a yard. He noted a huge cluster of yellowed butts in her ersatz ashtray. “I know what this town said about me. The usual gossip crap about an idiot controlling mother driving her daughter into the arms of the local boob. Her father never took an interest.” Turner and Fenwick endured five minutes of an anti-ex-husband diatribe. She finished with, “That son of a bitch hasn’t been around since she was five. He was useless. Most men are. No offense.” She flicked her ash into the slight breeze.

  “Do you know where your daughter was Monday night?” Fenwick asked.

  “She left around six. I have no idea where she was going. Six months ago she was supposed to get her own place and leave me out here in peace. She could never hold a job. I don’t know where she got her money.” She glared at them. “She was not selling drugs or herself. I’m her mother. I know my own daughter.”

  Turner wasn’t ready to bet the ranch on this mother’s level of insight.

  “Did your daughter have any enemies?”

  “Not a one. She had tons of friends. Everybody liked her. There were always kids around. She always had places to go and people to go out with. You go talk to her best friend, Matalina. She’ll tell you. I’m not making any of this up. You ask her. She’s a good girl.”

  “Did you know Scarth’s brother?”

  “Kid’s got to be homosexual. He’s always quiet. Lives by himself. Isn’t friendly with anyone. He never came around here. You’d see him around town with his nose in a book or going to the library or coming back from the library with stacks of books. I never heard of him dating girls.”

  “How about the mom and dad?” Turner asked.

  “You must already know J. T. Krohn owns this town. He controls what gets developed and who develops it. He sold that mill at a convenient time. He owned tons of property before that. For all I know he owns the entire western end of the province.”

  Turner figured they could listen to her numerous ill-founded insights until the next Ice Age. He decided to forgo the pleasure. When she drew sharply on her cigarette in the middle of her third repetitive tirade about Scarth, Turner stood up. Fenwick followed immediately.

  As they neared the exit, the manager accosted them. She was an older woman, maybe in her late seventies or early eighties. She used a cane. She jerked her head at them. They followed her lead into the office. She said, “You can’t be coming in here in daylight. I won’t have it.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Fenwick said.

  “Those Gasples can get away with their two-person cat-house at night. I can’t stay up at night. I fall asleep. Since my Harold died three years ago, there’s not much I can do. Even he couldn’t do that much. Those two are out of control. I won’t have it during the day. You keep your filth out of here.”

  Fenwick said, “We’re police detectives from Chicago. We were here on vacation.” He pointed to Turner. “His son found the body of Scarth Krohn.”

  “That boy was always nice to me, always. Used to help out sometimes. Taking the garbage out or doing some cleaning. Never asked to get paid.”

  “He didn’t come here for service from the Gasples?” Fenwick asked.

  “He tried to make that girl respectable.”

  “Mrs. Gasple didn’t seem to like him much.”

  “Some people liked him. Some didn’t. I did. Mrs. Gasple is more of a slut than her daughter, but that girl was catching up, fast. The mother works at the diner at the intersection with the Trans-Canada Highway. She brings all kind of strangers in here. We only have thefts after she’s entertained some of her temporary friends.”

  “Why don’t you kick her out?”

  “You see this place? We get all the dregs and dirt and riffraff of this town. You don’t get a lot of folks who keep up their rent on a regular basis. She does. I do know mother and daughter had a huge fight Monday before she left. They have huge fights most nights. They both used that trailer to turn tricks. I’m surprised they didn’t have to give out numbers like they do at the meat counter in the grocery store.”

  “Would Scarth come to visit Mrs. Gasple when Evon wasn’t here?”

  “He was a good boy. He came sometimes to help me. He’d visit a few people as well.”

  In the SUV Fenwick said, “He was banging mother and daughter?”

  “And anything else that moved,” Turner said, “if we are to believe the local gossip.”

  Fenwick said, “I’m willing to be pretty progossip by this point.”

  “You’re such a pushover,” Turner said.

  26

  Turner and Fenwick visited Matalina McMahon, Evon Junior’s best friend. She lived above a dry cleaner in downtown Cathura.

  She greeted them with a baby in her arms. Turner thought the infant might have been three months old. McMahon wore the same waitress uniform as Mrs. Gasple. She chomped on a large wad of gum. The kid was sucking on a bottle.

  Turner introduced them. She let them in. When they were seated on a plastic-cushioned couch, he said, “We’re trying to find out who would want to kill Evon.”

  “Scarth Krohn, or her own mother.”

  “Did you get along with Scarth?” Turner asked.

  “I hated him.”

  “Why’s that?” Turner asked.

  “He rape
d me.” She nodded toward the baby. “This is his.”

  “Did he support the baby?”

  “Money? I didn’t want shit from him.”

  “How did Evon feel about all this?” Turner asked.

  “We used to be best friends.”

  “Her mother left the impression that you still were.”

  “Her mother is clueless. We still talked sometimes. It’s a small town, but we weren’t friends anymore.”

  Turner said, “I thought she and Scarth were dating.”

  “Love-hate. All the time. Fights. Make-ups. Screaming. Carrying on.” She shifted the baby’s weight.

  “Did they ever hit each other?” Turner asked.

  “All the time. Evon was tough. She didn’t put up with shit from him.”

  “She hit him?” Turner asked.

  “It was like wrestling matches and boxing matches and then they’d do sex again the next minute.”

  “People saw this?” Turner asked.

  McMahon said, “They’d do sex at parties, and they didn’t care who they did it in front of. I’d tell Evon, ‘Get some respect for yourself. He’s just using you.’ She wouldn’t listen. Of course, he was just using her. Like he used all the girls in this town.”

  “Even you?” Turner asked.

  “Yes.” She chuckled. “Before I got pregnant. I bit Scarth’s ass once. I hope I left a scar. I know I drew blood.”

  “How long did she and Scarth have this kind of relationship?” Turner asked.

  “Since forever. I told Evon to at least be more selective. She bragged about doing Scarth and all of his buddies at once. I didn’t believe her.”

  The baby gurgled and McMahon shifted the child in her arms.

  “There was one strange thing,” McMahon said.

  “What’s that?” Turner asked.

  “Evon claimed she had sex with all those guys who died in the lake. You know the ones they’re saying got killed by a serial killer? Them.”

  “Did you believe her?”

  “Evon tended to brag.”

  “On the night they died?” Turner asked.

  “I don’t think so. She never claimed that. She’d say a lot of stuff. Starting in eighth grade, every few months she’d claim she was pregnant.”

  “Was she?”

  “Not until the end of high school.”

  “What happened to the baby?” Turner asked.

  “She had an abortion. Evon claimed Scarth’s father paid to get that swept under the rug. She never looked pregnant to me. It could have been true. Hard to tell. Evon was a good liar.”

  “We heard the guys were into making porn tapes.”

  “I never heard about them making movies. They were always horny. Boys have only one thing on their minds.”

  “Was Scarth into drugs?” Fenwick asked.

  “He made Evon become a dealer. I told Evon not to.”

  “Evon was the local pusher?”

  “Well, you could get drugs from her, but it was Scarth’s fault. Always Scarth’s fault. Everything that has gone wrong in my life was Scarth’s fault. Everything that has gone wrong in this town is Scarth Krohn’s fault. He was an awful, terrible shit.” A tear escaped down her face and the baby fussed a moment.

  “You said Mrs. Gasple didn’t have a clue. Did Evon have fights with her mother?”

  “All the time. Evon used to come over here to get away from the shrew. That woman never let up. I hated to go over there when we were kids. I finally refused. If Evon wanted to see me, she’d have to come over here, or we’d meet someplace else.”

  “What did they fight about?”

  “What didn’t they fight about?”

  “Did Scarth get along with his parents?” Turner asked.

  “No. He hated them. He wanted them to get a divorce. He was desperate. If they split up, he could get his hands on all kinds of money and be a rich, worthless piece of trash.”

  Fenwick said, “Mrs. Gasple claimed she tried to break them up.”

  “She tried to screw everyone up. Hell, she screwed Scarth.”

  “Evon?” Fenwick asked.

  “The mom.”

  “You have proof of this.”

  “Scarth loved to brag.”

  “Did Scarth get Mrs. Gasple pregnant?”

  “If he did, she had an abortion. She never had any kids besides Evon.”

  Back in the SUV Fenwick asked, “Am I missing something? Did anybody in this town like this kid?”

  “His buddies, his coach, the manager at the trailer court.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Fenwick said, “easy to forget. Evon was the local drug connection?”

  “Maybe she was her own little Canadian cartel,” Turner said. “Abortions. Sex with mother and daughter. My view of Canadians is changing.”

  “From what to what?”

  Turner glanced at Fenwick. “I’m not sure.”

  “What do we do with all this information?” Fenwick asked.

  “Nothing yet,” Turner said.

  “Who do we try next?” Fenwick asked.

  “The porn guy? We’ve got wild sex all around this town. Might as well dip our feet in it. I should probably go by myself. If he’s doing porn, he’d be less likely to talk to two guys. Especially if he’s doing gay porn. What do you think?”

  “Are you saying you’re an expert on gay porn?”

  “Enough of one to hold up my end of a conversation. I hope.”

  27

  Turner strolled down to the Cathura Photo Shop. The picture windows on the outside were filled with wilderness photos: grizzly bears rampant, glaciers calving, moose rutting, forest fires burning, prairie wheat blowing in the wind. He entered. A tall, slender man in his late twenties stood behind the counter. He wore a gold, short-sleeved seersucker shirt. His arms were covered in thick black hair, a matt of which sprouted beneath his shirt opened to the last button above the large belt buckle of a cast-iron beaver. His black jeans were neatly pressed and tight at the crotch. They clung to his thighs and calves. He wore silver thin-framed glasses. His hair was dark black and cut short. Turner walked up to him. He said, “I’m looking for Nick Broder.”

  The man said, “You found him.”

  Turner said, “I’m Paul Turner. I’m a detective from Chicago here on vacation. My kids fished up Scarth Krohn’s body.”

  “That’s terrible. Are they okay?”

  “Yeah. I heard you knew Scarth Krohn.”

  “Everybody knew Scarth Krohn.”

  “That you were friends.”

  “I wasn’t in that crowd.”

  “But they came to your photo shop.”

  “I’m the only photo shop in town.”

  “Scarth Krohn didn’t own a camera.”

  Broder said, “I heard you were here with your partner. A guy. You’re gay with two sons.”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s kind of brave.”

  “How so?”

  “This is rural Canada.”

  “We’ve never had any problems.”

  “Not to your face.”

  “And that means?”

  Broder said, “Rural anywhere is not safe for gay people. We all know that. And before you ask, yes, I’m gay. No, I don’t hang out with Howard Coates and his ineffectual human-rights clutch of desperate fags. They want to change things. Ha!”

  “So why do the local boys come here?”

  “Somebody must have told you.”

  “I heard rumors.”

  “I make straight-guy porn. It’s called Wilderness Studs on the Internet. All the guys are supposedly straight, and I don’t ask, and they don’t tell. I make more from my Internet porn sales than I do from this store.”

  “And why aren’t you discriminated against?”

  “Because I pay these local studs lots of money. And I probably pay more in taxes than half the businesses in town. Hell, since the mill closed, I might be in the running for biggest employer in town. You got bored guys who don’t mind p
utting out a little.”

  “Is that why they perform for you?”

  “I don’t care why they perform for me. I act straight. I talk in a deep voice. I’m masculine. I can play their sports games better than most of them.”

  “How do you recruit your subjects?”

  “Word of mouth.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous? What if the wrong person found out?”

  “What I’m doing isn’t illegal. They’re of age.”

  “How did Scarth Krohn get involved?”

  “Daddy and Mommy weren’t keeping him in the style with which he wished to become accustomed. He needed money. They all do in this no-job town. You have the fishing and hunting seasons. Every kid claims he’s a guide. A few are good and make decent money. In winter you don’t get enough skiers up here to pay the bills. Along about February you get really bored. Scarth was somewhere around my twentieth model.”

  “These guys all put out?”

  “Sure. Some of the guys wouldn’t appear with another guy. Some of them would permit another guy to sit next to them, and they’d beat off together. Some guys would permit themselves to give each other hand jobs. A few let themselves get blown. Two of the guys really got into each other all while watching straight porn and talking about how into women they were.”

  “Into each other?”

  “Kissed, took it up the ass. It’s my biggest seller. Two of Scarth’s buddies. I’m sworn to secrecy. Why they haven’t figured out all you have to do to identify them is check my Internet site, I don’t know.”

  “How’d you convince them to do all this?”

  “Money. The more they did, the more cash they got. Kissing straight guys who suck and screw could get a few thousand.”

  “Lot of money.”

  “It’s a fraction of my cost. I make a lot.”

  “Why haven’t the police shut you down?”

  “It’s an Internet porn site. Like a live show but with archives. I don’t actually have to ship much of anything. Somebody looks at my site, likes the preview, and then subscribes with their credit card.”

  “And the guys around here haven’t beat the shit out of you?”

  “I have a studio out in the woods. They don’t know where I live. Only a few of them actually come from around here. I get guys from as far away as Thunder Bay, Saskatoon, and even a couple from Minnesota. Lots of them are rural guys who just don’t give a shit. Some are married. It’s a little fun and a little money.”