So Sure Of Death

by Dana Stabenow

  Ballard, still numb, nodded.

  “It is also my understanding that your tender, theArctic Wind,was taking deliveries in Kulukak Bay yesterday.”

  Ballard nodded again.

  “Did they take delivery anywhere else?”

  Ballard pawed through the paperwork on his desk in a haphazard fashion. “I don't think so.” He raised his voice. “Tanya!”

  The rollers of a chair protested, footsteps sounded, the door behind Liam opened. “Yes, Mr. Ballard?”

  “Are you still working on the fish tickets from theArctic Wind?”

  “I just finished the tender summary.”

  “Could you bring them in here, please?”

  Tanya hesitated. “Did you want a printout?”

  Ballard stifled a curse. “Oh hell, I keep forgetting.” To Liam, he said, “I'm used to everything being done by hand, in triplicate, one for us, one for the Fish and Game, one for the Seattle office. With carbons, no less. Unfortunately, we have now moved into the Information Age.” To Tanya, he said, “Yes, please, bring a printout.”

  There was a whir and a click from the outer office, followed by the sound of an ink cartridge going back and forth on a carriage. Ballard shook his head with admiration. “That Tanya, she can make those electronic bastards sit up and beg. I don't know what I'd do without her.”

  Moments later Tanya was back, carrying a sheaf of flimsy yellow tickets, letter-size, and a spreadsheet, white and legal-size and read sideways.

  Ballard indicated the yellow sheets. “Those are our copies of the fish tickets. The originals go to Seattle, one copy to the Fish and Game, the third stays here.” He held up the spreadsheet. “This lists all the tickets written by theArctic Windduring the last period in Kulukak.”

  Liam picked it up and scanned it. “So anyone who was fishing that period who delivered to your tender would be on this list?”

  “Well…” Ballard said.

  Liam looked up. “Well, what?”

  “The ones who caught enough fish to deliver are the ones who delivered,” Ballard said. “Sometimes, if they get skunked, or maybe only pull a dozen reds, they'll head for home and can them for their own use.”

  Liam repressed a sigh. “So the boat skippers sign the tickets?”

  “Yeah, or one of the deckhands.”

  TheMarybethiawas on the tender summary list, in theM's under Malone, David A. His name was followed by a series of columns headed with salmon species, “King,” “Red,” “Coho,” “Pink,” “Chum.” Each of these columns was divided into two, “Number” and “Pounds.” TheMarybethiahad delivered one thousand seven hundred and fifty reds, for a total of fourteen thousandpounds. He sifted through the tickets to find theMarybethia's. It had been signed by Jason Knudson, with a signature formed of large, almost childish loops. Jason Knudson, 18, of Bellingham, Washington; just another statistic the insurance companies would incorporate into their databases to help them calculate rates for term life policies. Just don't be a fisher, and you'll be eligible, Liam thought.

  Jason Knudson, 18, of Bellingham, Washington, no longer had a choice. “Is that a lot of fish?” Liam said.

  “It'd be a three-cherry jackpot for anyone else,” Ballard said, “but for a twelve-hour period, with a boat the size of theMarybethia,that big a crew and a skipper of Dave's experience, it's just pretty good. He's-” Ballard halted. “He had done better,” he said, sounding out the past tense with doubtful care.

  “Fourteen thousand pounds seems like an awfully even number.”

  Ballard nodded. “It's generated by an average weight. The tenders take an average at the beginning of every period, weighing a batch of whatever's being delivered and dividing by the amount of fish they are weighing. It saves time.”

  “The fishermen agree to this?”

  Ballard gave a short laugh. “Absolutely. Our tender captains always make sure there is someone right there watching.” He leaned forward. “There is no one on earth as pigheaded and as ornery as an Alaskan fisherman. You screw with one of them, you screw with them all. He-or she-will never forget and he'll never forgive. He tells his friends, too. If we want their fish, not just this year but next year, we deal fair and square.” He leaned back and shook his head, repeating, “Fair and square, or a processor can just pack it in.” He ran a hand over his bald head. “The infighting that goes on over the price negotiations is bad enough. This year it's even worse because for the second year in a row the catch is coming in at below half of the projections. In one way, it's good, because when they do catch them, they're getting a good price, so guys like Malone make out okay.”

  He sighed. “In the obvious way, it's lousy for the guys not like Malone. I've already had some in here wanting to settle up.” He saw Liam's eyebrow go up, and explained, “Year-end accounting. We add up the price of all the groceries and gas they've bought through us, price out their fish tickets, subtract one from the other and hopefully write them a check. This year, they're taking their checks and financing a change of profession.”

  “It looks like Malone delivered the most fish this period.”

  Ballard scanned the spreadsheet. “Looks like it. He was high boat a lot.” This time, the past tense came more easily to his tongue.

  “Would being high boat generate bad feelings among the rest of the fishermen?”

  Ballard looked surprised. “Hell no. Look, Officer, you have to understand, as smart as you are, as quick as you are, with the best boat and gear you can buy and the best crew you can hire, a fisherman, any fisherman, can still get skunked. The weather can come up, the fish can be late, you can set in front of the wrong creek, you can snag a deadhead in your net, another boat can run over your cork line, you can get hung up on a sandbar, your impeller can blow out, your engine can blow up. There's fifty ways to fail at fishing in Alaska for every one way to succeed.” Ballard looked pleased with this aphorism, and sat back, preening a little.

  Liam said nothing.

  Awareness dawned. Ballard sat up straight and said sharply, “Why do you ask? Is there something you're not telling me about their deaths?”

  Liam put his notebook away. “I'll need that spreadsheet.”

  Ballard held it out but wouldn't let go. “Is there?”

  Liam tugged the document free, folded it into careful squares and pocketed it. “There are questions, but there usually are in deaths of this nature. I really can't say anything more at present.” He hoped he sounded just pompous enough to quell further questions, and stood up. “Will most of the fishermen listed on this summary be in Newenham? I might need to talk to some of them.”

  “There are twenty-two names on that list,” Ballard pointed out.

  “Yes.”

  Ballard rose to his feet, his face troubled. “A lot of them are from Outside: Washington, Oregon, California. They're in town for six, eight weeks, however long the fish last. Some of them shack up on shore, some rent rooms, but most stay on board.”

  “Will Tanya know who does and who doesn't?”

  Ballard's expression lightened. “Tanya knows everything.”

  “Okay if I talk to her?”

  Ballard waved a hand. “Sure.” He hesitated. “Can you let me know what's going on? I mean, I knew the Malones, I liked them. Dave was a damn fine fisherman, and Molly…”

  “What about Molly?” Liam said with studied indifference.

  “Molly.” There was a wealth of meaning in that one word. “You know how some women can rub up against every nerve ending you've got from across the street? Molly was like that. But she was nice, too. Good mother, good homemaker, good deckhand.” He paused, and admitted, “I didn't have much use for Jonathan, Dave's brother.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It was pretty obvious that he would have been unemployable by anyone else other than a family member,” Ballard replied with heavy irony. “If you get my drift. Whatever trouble he could get into, Jonathan got into. It was like he was keeping score or something.”

 
; “Misdemeanor or felony trouble?”

  Ballard hesitated. “I don't know that anything ever actually came to trial,” he said cautiously. “There were rumors, nothing specific.”

  He let his eyes wander off, and Liam knew he was lying. Could be Ballard was keeping quiet out of respect for Jonathan's brother. Could be he was close to someone else involved in Jonathan's shenanigans. It was a small town.

  Ballard said, “David Malone did come in once and tell us never to let Jonathan pick up any checks David had requested on his account.” He paused. “You see that a lot, you know? Good brother, bad brother. It's almost a cliché. I'd liked to have met their father.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it's all about fathers, isn't it?” Ballard said, sounding surprised that he had to explain it. “A man is what his father makes him.” As an afterthought, he added, “And his mother, of course.”

  Liam thought of his mother and managed not to wince. “I like to think a man is what he makes himself.”

  Ballard's smile was kind. “You're young. You'll learn better.”

  No more than the next man did Liam enjoy being patronized, however kindly meant. Hand on the doorknob, he said, “Oh, one more thing. Have you ever heard of a deckhand named Max Bayless?”

  Ballard's smile vanished and he looked wary. “Yes.”

  Liam waited, and when Ballard didn't volunteer anything, said, “Well? What have you heard?”

  “Just that he's for hire,” Ballard said.

  He was lying again. “Do you know who he's working for this summer?”

  Ballard shook his head, tight-lipped.

  Liam could have pushed it, but as with the elders in Kulukak, he believed in letting witnesses stew a little, so long as they weren't a flight risk. “If you do hear who he's working for, would you let me know?”

  “Certainly.” Ballard came around his desk and held out his hand, bringing the interview to a close. “If I hear anything at all, I'll certainly pass it on.”

  In the outer office, Liam paused beside Tanya's desk, watching the blur of her fingers as they tapped information into the keyboard and letters and numbers appeared on the screen in front of her. “May I speak with you, Tanya?”

  “Of course,” she said, her fingers not missing a shift key. “Let me finish this entry and save my work and I'll be right with you.”

  Liam found a chair and placed it next to her desk. He pulled out the tender summary and unfolded it. He was aware that although he had closed the door to Ballard's office behind him, it was now open a few inches.

  The computer hummed and Tanya inserted a floppy into a slot. Something clicked and she replaced the first disk with a second. “I back everything up twice,” she said with a bright smile.

  “Very wise,” Liam said.

  “Are the troopers computerized yet?”

  “Oh yes,” he said. “It's very useful, being connected to other law enforcement agencies around the state, even around the nation.”

  “You can run but you can't hide?” she said, her archness a bit forced.

  He smiled. “Nope. We always get our man.”

  “Isn't that what they used to say about the Mounties?”

  Liam thought of Frank Petla and smiled to himself. “I think they still do.”

  “There,” she said, replacing the disks in a box and putting the box in a drawer of her desk. She folded her hands on her blotter and looked him straight in the eye. “How may I help you-is it Trooper? Officer Campbell?” She smiled again. “Or just plain sir?”

  “Officer is fine,” Liam said. “Sir makes me feel like my grandfather.”

  Her smile warmed a trifle, but she was still on edge. He said, holding out the tender summary, “It would be very useful if you could tell me which of these fishermen live on board their boats, and which don't.”

  She took the summary and began marking names with check-marks from a red pen. It took about thirty seconds, and when she was done she'd marked all but eight names and provided phone numbers for many of them.

  He blinked.

  “Hold on,” she said, “and I'll get you the contact numbers I have for the rest of them.” Her hands stilled when she saw his surprise. She smiled at him, queening it a little in her superior knowledge. “We're in the business of buying fish. Fishermen sell us their fish. If they don't know when the periods are, they won't be fishing, and they won't be selling us fish. When the Fish and Game announce a fishing period in a particular district-say the Kulukak-we have a list of all the fishermen who deliver to us and who have permits to fish that district. We make sure they are aware of the opener, and the only way we can do that is to keep track of their whereabouts.”

  She paused, very cool, very smooth, from the sweep of her short, fine brown hair to her big brown eyes. Liam felt like someone should applaud.

  “Usually we don't have to bother,” she added. “The fishermen want to catch fish as much as we want to buy them, and they are standing by their marine radios, waiting to hear. But sometimes, one or two of them have been out for a night on the town and haven't heard. So I call them all, or I send Benny down to their boat. They know to check in with me now.”

  Liam just bet they did. “Tell me, Tanya, how long have you been doing this job?”

  “Three years. I'll only have one more summer here, though. I'm putting myself through the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and I'm in my senior year.”

  It might have been Liam's imagination, but it seemed as if she raised her voice, not to any blatant pitch but just a little, just enough to be heard in her boss's office. “I see,” he said. “What's your major?”

  “Business administration.”

  Liam couldn't stop the smile from spreading across his face. “A natural choice.”

  “I thought so,” she said, and referred back to the summary. “All the checkmarked names live on their boats. However, some of the guys on the crews have girlfriends in town, so they won't be every night on their boats.”

  “Mr. Ballard mentioned that.”

  “I've put the phone numbers of the skippers who maintain apartments in town next to their names. I don't often have to call them, because there is usually always at least one deckhand on board overnight. You know. Standing watch.”

  “I understand,” Liam said gravely, and refolded the summary and pocketed it. “Have you met a deckhand called Max Bayless?”

  “I have.”

  “Do you know which boat he's on this summer?”

  She thought. “Not on one of ours, not so far as I know. I think I heard he was working for someone out of Togiak.”

  Liam looked at the map on the wall in back of her. “That's on the coast southwest of Kulukak, right?”

  She rose to her feet in a smooth, economical movement and pointed first at Newenham, then Kulukak, then Togiak, tracing the coast between them with one slender forefinger, calling off the names one at a time.

  Great. Yet another plane trip in his future. For some odd reason, the prospect did not terrify him as much as it once would have. Maybe bailing out in midair had burned out his nerve endings. “You sound like you know pretty much everything there is to know about the fishing fleet, Tanya.”

  Her steady gaze met his, with the merest lift of an eyebrow to indicate acknowledgment. Not susceptible to flattery, Ms. Tanya Bernard. Liam plowed on. “Do you think you could find out which boat Max Bayless is on this summer, and where that boat is at the moment?”

  “I think so.” She paused. “I could put it out on the schedule in the morning, if you like.”

  “The schedule?”

  “We keep a radio schedule with our tenders every morning at ten.”

  “No.” His voice was abrupt and he saw her eyes widen. He moderated his tone. “I would prefer that my looking for him is not broadcast over the air. Is there another way you can find out?”

  “Several, although it'll take longer.”

  “That's fine. Thank you. Here's the number of the post.”

/>   She inclined her head in the same gracious gesture as before, with all the dignity of the queen of England and none of the pretentiousness.

  “Have you met Mr. Bayless?”

  “A few times.”

  “Do you know anything about him?”

  The brown eyes regarded him steadily. “Such as?”

  “Such as a report of a blowup he might have had with David Malone, after Malone fired him from his job on theMarybethialast summer.”

  “I remember. He was angry. He made a lot of threats.”

  “Such as?”

  She hesitated. “Well, he said he was going to kill David. He also said he was going to blow up his boat.”

  “Did you hear him say this?”

  She shook her head. “No. One of the fishermen who was in the harbor was telling me about it when he came in to settle up at the end of the summer. Daniel, Daniel Walker.”

  He jotted the name down, and the name of Walker's boat, theAndrea W.Notebook folded and restowed, he looked at Tanya, her sleek cap of hair, her steady gaze. An intelligent and composed young woman. “Did you know the Malones?”

  Her face closed up again. “Yes. David Malone came often to the office, to draw an advance, to get copies of his tickets. And of course he came in every fall to settle up.” She swallowed, and said, steadily enough, “Is it true that he is dead?” She saw his look. “I knew something was wrong by the expression on your face. I made a couple of calls. Is he dead?”

  “Yes. Along with his wife, his two children, his brother and both deckhands.”

  She put a hand over her eyes in an involuntary gesture.

  Liam took a chance. “Forgive me, Tanya, but did you know Mr. Malone on a personal basis?”

  She dropped her hand. “No,” she said, with determined composure. “I knew Dave only from the office. Well…” She hesitated for a moment. “He did sit with me at Bill's once, when I was having dinner there one evening, he and his brother.” The curl of her lip told Liam that Tanya shared Ballard's opinion of Jonathan Malone.

  “You liked him.”