Riverwatcher

by Ronald Weber

  Fitzgerald waited through several games, the hospital-corridor hush alternating with shrieks and moans when cards were decided, until an intermission was declared. When Burt rose stiffly from the table and made his way in the direction of the bar, Fitzgerald intercepted him.

  “Burt Berry?”

  “Yup.”

  “Thought I recognized you from Rainbow Run.”

  Burt peered back

  “Fitzgerald. Mercy Virdon and I—”

  “Yup,” Burt said. “Mercy’s friend. You won the lottery.”

  “One of the small ones,” Fitzgerald said. “A while ago now.”

  “Maybe you got some luck left. You want to move by me?”

  “How about a beer first?”

  “Now you’re talkin’, ” Burt said.

  In the bar, crowded now, they found a small table off to the side. Burt brought a bottle of Budweiser with him, Fitzgerald another draft. “Here’s to you,” Burt said, and tipped back his bottle. “Cheers,” Fitzgerald said.

  After he had wiped his lips, Burt looked closely at Fitzgerald. “Haven’t seen you here before.”

  “First time, to be honest.”

  “Mercy won’t let you out?”

  “It’s not exactly that.”

  “Is with me,” Burt said. “Billie don’t believe in gambling.”

  Fitzgerald couldn’t hold back a smile. “It’s only bingo.”

  “Had my choice, I’d feed the slots.”

  “There’s the Indian casino in Traverse City.”

  Burt shook his head. “Too far. Couldn’t get over and back without Billie knowing. Here’s the best I can do.”

  “Bingo, you mean?”

  “Yup.”

  “On Wednesday nights?”

  Burt gave Fitzgerald a close look. “Between you and me?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Other nights, too.”

  “You move around town, you mean?”

  “Yup.”

  “Monday through Friday?”

  “Unless I’m under the weather. Or Billie is.”

  Fitzgerald sighed and said, “Get you another beer, Burt?”

  “Now you’re talkin’.”

  *  *  *

  WHEN FITZGERALD RETURNED from the bar, a look of caution had appeared on Burt long face. He leaned close across the table. “Wouldn’t want it getting back to Mercy.”

  “About bingo? She wouldn’t care.”

  “Wouldn’t want it anyway.”

  “I won’t say a word.”

  “Wouldn’t want her thinking I’m a booze hound, neither. Two or three’s my limit. Have a sandwich and coffee before I leave. Come home snockered, I’d catch holy hell.”

  “Billie’s against drinking, too?”

  “Her book,” Burt said, “one’s same as the other. She was brought up strict. Lot of things got stuck in her head. When we was first married, she wouldn’t even drink coffee. Not that I’m complaining. There’s a lot I owe to Billie. She kept my nose to the grindstone.”

  Fitzgerald tried a smile. “Except for sneaking out for bingo.”

  Burt smiled back after a moment’s indecision. “Got to sow a few oats.”

  “Trust me,” Fitzgerald said, “I won’t say anything to Mercy. But there’s something I don’t understand. This time of night, doesn’t Billie wonder where you are?”

  Burt kept smiling. “You hunting for tips?”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “I’m out fishing, Billie thinks. Got my gear in the truck. Night fishing, when the big ones move around.”

  “My problem would be,” Fitzgerald said, “that Mercy likes to fish, too.”

  “I got you there,” Burt said. “Billie don’t care for it. What I do is pick up a rainbow and some ice at Glen’s, leave the fish in the frig when I get home, Billie figures it’s one I caught. We got ourselves a freezer full of rainbows.”

  Fitzgerald nodded. “Idaho rainbows.”

  “Yup.”

  “Farm raised.”

  “Yup.”

  “And Billie believes they’re Borchard trout.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “But the water along Rainbow Run is catch and release. Billie knows that. So how do you explain bringing home fish?”

  “She thinks I’m below Stump Road. Creel limit’s five down there.”

  “You’ve got everything figured.”

  “Yup.”

  Fitzgerald nodded again, finished what was left of his beer. “Tell me one thing, Burt. Do you ever really fish?”

  “I get the urge,” Burt said. “But not late night. Pitch dark, I got no interest being in the river. Evening rolls around, I haul into town.”

  “Clean, well-lighted places.”

  Burt looked blank.

  “Bingo in Ossning.”

  *  *  *

  WHEN FITZGERALD CREPT into bed, Mercy turned over and said, “I sent coffee. You smell like beer.”

  “It’s a long story,” Fitzgerald said.

  “I was asleep. Give me the bottom line.”

  “We were lucky. Burt left the campground in his truck.”

  “And?”

  “But we were wrong. He’s a dead end.”

  “For sure?”

  “Believe me. Burt had nothing to do with Charlie’s death.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  “Where we were before.”

  “Nowhere.”

  Fitzgerald kissed her hair, rolled on his side. “Let’s talk in the morning. Maybe things won’t seem so bleak.”

  “You believe that?”

  “No.”

  24

  IT WAS AFTER nine o’clock when Fitzgerald rolled over, awake, a ladder of sunlight edging through the Venetian blinds. It took him a few moments to realize Mercy wasn’t beside him, another to realize—whatever the weather beyond the windows—that looming ahead was a bleak day.

  In the kitchen he found fresh coffee and a note on the trestle table. Call me—office. Heaps of work. Fitzgerald poured a mug of coffee, took it through the A-frame to the deck overlooking the river, settled himself in a sling chair.

  It was a time of morning to be at work on his novel, the laptop balanced on his lap, concentrating, making progress. It was equally a time to be on the river, working an attractor pattern, alert as birds for the first trico lifting into warming air. The decision, in the normal course of events, would be difficult. Wrenching.

  This morning the decision had been taken out of his hands, for which, admittedly, he wasn’t entirely ungrateful. The decision, in any event, had been postponed. He had things to do, the first of which being to call Mercy. Then the two of them ought to confer with Stroud. Then . . . Fitzgerald sipped coffee, drew in the sweetness of the morning. Soon enough the bleak reality of the day would settle in.

  With a second mug of coffee he called the DNR office from the phone in the kitchen. “She’s been waiting,” Fern Lax confided.

  “Tough night,” Fitzgerald said to her, trying for a breezy tone. “You wouldn’t believe.”

  “She won’t either.”

  “Well?” Mercy said when she came on the line.

  “I slept in. Just got myself in motion.”

  “I meant last night. Why Burt Berry’s a dead end.”

  “It’s comic, in a way.”

  Mercy let silence hold between them before she said, “I’ve been waiting, Fitzgerald.”

  “I followed him—way we planned. Except Burt didn’t head to the South Branch for a night of poaching. He went to Glen’s in town, where he bought himself a fat farm-raised Idaho rainbow trout. Then he went to the Eagles to play bingo and drink beer. It seems there’s bingo around here every weekday night. Billie doesn’t believe in gambling or drinking, so Burt sneaks off, telling her he’s going fishing down below Stump Road. The rainbow from Glen’s—Billie believes it’s one he caught. She believes Burt’s one helluva fisherman. Now you don’t think that’s comic?”
r />   “Good Lord.”

  “I gave Burt my word I’d keep his secret. He doesn’t want you knowing, let alone Billie. You might not think it proper, a bingo-playing, beer-drinking campground host.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “That’s why Burt’s a dead end. If a poacher killed Charlie, Burt’s not the poacher.”

  “I suppose,” Mercy said without conviction, “Charlie could have learned about the bingo and beer. He might have discovered what Burt was up to.”

  “If he did, he’d have laughed his head off. Face it. We got it wrong. Burt Berry didn’t kill Charlie.”

  “It just seemed—” Mercy sighed into the phone before she said, “Brace yourself, Fitzgerald. My guess is the whole poaching thing is a dead end.”

  *  *  *

  AS SOON AS she had gotten to the office that morning, Mercy explained, there was a message from Calvin on her voice mail. Calvin had called at six-thirty. He always thought the rest of the world was up and functioning as early as he was. When she called him back, Calvin told her he’d had only a couple hours sleep. A visitor had come to his cabin in the middle of the night.

  “You don’t know him,” Mercy told Fitzgerald. “The visitor was Stanley Elk.”

  “Say again?”

  “Pal of Calvin’s. He’s an Ojibway from around Roscommon. Pal of Verlyn’s, too. They all go way back together. You do know him?”

  “Heard of him.” Fitzgerald cleared his throat. He didn’t like hiding things from Mercy.

  “Stanley used to be a big-time poacher. Now he’s small-time, a fish is all. Keeping his hand in, so to speak. Well, Calvin gets the bright idea of having Stanley scout around the South Branch, seeing if any poachers are talking about Charlie. Poachers will tell all to other poachers, especially an Ojibway poacher. That’s Calvin’s brainstorm. As incentive, he tells Stanley about the reward. So last night Stanley sets up shop on the river, and darned if he doesn’t run into a poacher who knows about Charlie. Stanley grills him. And the poacher, he grills Stanley in return. All the while the poacher seems familiar, and finally Stanley figures out who he is. Ready for this, Fitzgerald?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Kit.”

  “Say again?”

  “Kit was pulling the same thing Stanley was, and for the same idiotic reason. The reward. So he dresses up the way he thinks poachers do, buys worms, wades the South Branch. Kit forgot, though, one thing about his outfit. His cap, one Calvin brought him from New Zealand, said Slowdne Inn on the front. That’s how Stanley got wind of who he was. He knows the Slowdne is an angling hotel on the South Island that Calvin guides from. Kit probably thought poachers would take the name for some new beer hangout. Anyway, there the pair were, Kit and Stanley, hunting for poachers and finding each other.”

  Fitzgerald sipped coffee, said, “Comic, you might say.”

  “You might,” Mercy said in a rising voice. “I’d say frightening. You realize what could have happened? They were alone in the wilderness section of the South Branch looking for Charlie’s murderer. Stanley’s a grown man, so maybe he could have taken care of himself. But Kit? He could have been killed, Fitzgerald.”

  “You’re right, of course.”

  “So as soon as I finished talking to Calvin I called Kit. I wanted to go over to the Kabin Kamp, give him a piece of my mind in person, but I didn’t want Verlyn to know what he’d done. I called—and got Jan. She took her sweet time, but she found Kit and, believe me, he got an earful. Know what he told me? His excuse? He was trying to get the reward so he’d have money to go back to college. It’s unbelievable. I’ve told him about a million times he already has the money if he wants it.”

  “I know you have.”

  “I made him promise to forget about the reward. He said he didn’t need to promise. He’d already forgot. One night on the South Branch, wasting his time with Stanley, was enough. The reward wasn’t worth the aggravation. Calvin told me Stanley feels the same way.”

  “That takes care of Kit and Stanley Elk,” Fitzgerald said after a moment. “But you said, before, you thought poaching itself was a dead end.”

  “I know I did.”

  “So you think Alec Proffit’s wrong? Charlie wasn’t killed by a poacher?”

  “It’s the only thing we’ve got to go on,” Mercy said. “I realize that. But it just seems, after last night, so—”

  “Last night was a mix-up, Kit and Stanley Elk running into each other. A poacher still could have killed Charlie. Kit and Stanley might have been on the right track. One night just went wrong.”

  “So what are you saying? We suit up somebody else as a poacher, put him on the South Branch, wait to see what happens? Night after night?”

  Fitzgerald nodded into the phone, said, “It’s more nutty than comic.”

  Mercy sighed. “Proffit may be right. But doing anything about it, that’s the dead end.” Then Mercy said, “Hold on. Fern’s got somebody on another line.” A moment later she said, “I’ll call you when I’m done. Stay exactly where you are.”

  *  *  *

  “GUESS WHO THAT was? Theona Orr. Calling from Big Rapids.”

  “What about?”

  “Charlie’s things arrived from the campground, and Theona and her daughter were going through them. Planning a garage sale, I’ll bet you anything. They found three books from the Ossning library. Theona was miffed I’d sent them to her. They should have been returned to the library.”

  “You didn’t have anything to do with removing Charlie’s things.”

  “But I was the one who came to see her. And I left her my card with the office and home phone numbers. She wanted me to drive right down to Big Rapids, pick up the books, return them to the library. She was a school librarian, if you remember. Library books floating around seem to bother her more than the loss of Charlie.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “To mail them, of course. I gave her the address of the library. By the time we were done talking she was mightily miffed.”

  Fitzgerald waited before he said, “Could you get away for lunch? I could grab a bottle of wine, make us some sandwiches. It’s a terrific day, if you can forget everything else.”

  “I haven’t done a thing yet except talk on the phone. I’ll try to get home early this evening. Make me a huge drink.”

  “All right. But should I mention anything to Stroud?”

  “Lord, no. He’d have a fit if he knew about Kit and Stanley on the South Branch. I told him, the last time we talked, I thought we’d hit a dead end. Nothing’s changed.”

  Fitzgerald waited again before he said, “Just for my information, if Stanley Elk is a known poacher why haven’t you—”

  “Arrested him? Or why hasn’t Vic Laski? We did, a few times way back. Now we leave him alone. Like I said, he only kills fish every now and then.”

  “In other words, Stanley’s a special case with the DNR. Like Charlie was.”

  “Damned right. Charlie could camp at Rainbow Run and pay when he liked, and Stanley can kill fish. That’s what running this office is all about—knowing when to bend, when not. It wouldn’t be worth the trouble, clamping down on an Ojibway schoolteacher who is an ideal citizen in every other way. It would probably cause more people to take up poaching, as a protest.”

  “I’m convinced,” Fitzgerald said. “But I doubt Gus Thayer would be.”

  “He knows. But if he ever prints anything in the Call, I’ll wring his neck. He knows that, too.”

  “You’re a tough lady.”

  “And,” Mercy said before hanging up, “thoroughly tired of talking on the phone.”

  25

  SOME MORNINGS FITZGERALD found it impossible to get through breakfast, alone at the trestle table, a mug of coffee, a defrosted bagel, a glass of orange juice set out before him. He would switch on the kitchen radio, listen to the news on NPR, but nothing could obscure the deep, burrowing silence of the A-frame. On such mornings he half wished he were back
in the newsroom of the Free Press, aware of the muted music of computer keys, drawn out of his isolation. The rough equivalent, in Ossning, was the morning rush at the Six-Grain Bakery.

  Ordinarily, he would have coffee and a sweet roll in the bakery, glance at a morning paper, chat with Bonnie, then drive back to the A-frame, clean the dishes from the breakfast he hadn’t eaten, put some music on the CD player, turn the volume low, and get down to work on his laptop. Or go fishing. Either way, he could get on with his day.

  But this morning was different. It wasn’t the silence of the house that froze him over his breakfast—an agreeable silence, actually, after the long conversation with Mercy. It was something Mercy had told him, something that stuck in his mind yet refused to clarify itself. Burt Berry hadn’t killed Charlie—and searching for a killer among South Branch poachers was a hopeless task. The only new development was what Mercy had said about Charlie’s books. That Theona Orr was annoyed they hadn’t been returned to the library.

  But why couldn’t he get that minor matter, library books, out of his mind? It seemed to have something to do with the fact that there were three books.

  Fitzgerald left the kitchen, walked through the house, stepped out into the sunshine of the deck. He glanced down through the trees at the river, then turned his back to the view. If he watched the river he would only concentrate on it, wondering whether tricos were coming off the water.

  When he wasn’t fishing, Charlie was always reading, and always books from the Ossning library. Charlie didn’t buy books, as far as Fitzgerald had ever noticed, which was probably understandable if your wife was a librarian—school librarian, as Mercy had reminded him—and it was natural to patronize the local library. So there was nothing unusual about Charlie having library books in his tent at the time of the killing, and nothing unusual about Willard Stroud’s deputies not bothering to check the books, finding they were from the Ossning library, before sending them to Theona Orr. But there had been three books. Charlie had checked out three.

  And that day at the library, when examining the computer catalogue, he saw that two Will Woodsman books had been checked out.