by D. F. Bailey
When they passed the tip of Clatsop Spit the coastal current pulled the bow to port. Gruman turned the wheel and within five minutes he spotted the first buoy. His were painted with red and yellow stripes and he’d tied each one to a six-inch flag that caught the light offshore breeze. The fog had completely dissipated now and in the moonlight the visibility was excellent. He cut the engine to an idle and set the transmission in neutral.
“I can’t believe how bright it is out here,” Donnel said as he followed Gruman onto the deck.
“Don’t talk, Donnel.” He sucked in a lungful of air. “Just feel it. Can you feel it?”
“You mean like the air. And the way the boat rolls on the waves.”
He nodded. The boy had it now. The feeling of the universe pouring into your body.
He made his way to the side of the boat, pulled the electric pull-reel from the hold and mounted it onto the gunwale and locked it in place. “See that gaff strapped to the deck over there? Grab it and stand beside me.”
Donnel raised the pole above his head. It was at least ten feet long. One end was fitted with a six-inch brass spike that curled into a three-quarter turn, perfectly designed to snag a tow line from the water. When he mastered the balance, he walked over to Gruman and set the mid-point of the gaff on the gunwale.
“Now look. I’m going to bring the boat alongside the buoy. As we pass, set the gaff into the water, then catch the line under the buoy with the gaff and draw it on board.” He looked him in the eyes. “Got it?”
Donnel tested the heft of the gaff in his hands and nodded. “Bring the buoy right on board?”
“Exactly. All right. You’re on your own.” Don’t fall in, he almost added, but thought better of it as he walked back into the wheelhouse.
Donnel felt The Gold Coaster shift as it slipped back into gear and the engine nudged the boat forward. He set his feet and re-established his balance, then dipped the gaff into the water as they neared the first buoy. When he saw the line just below the belly of the buoy he angled the gaff under the line, felt it pull tight and lifted it into the air. The heaviness dragged through his hands. He pulled the line tight and when the buoy hit the gunwale, he snagged it with his left hand. For a moment he felt the gaff slip from his right hand but secured it before it fell into the sea. “Got it!” he called. An exhilaration filled him and he turned to the wheelhouse and smiled at Gruman.
Gruman glanced at him from the cabin, disengaged the transmission, and cut back the throttle. By the time he made it back to the pull-reel, Donnel had set the gaff on the deck and secured the buoy and the line that ran from it over the gunwale and down to the prawn trap on the seabed.
“Give me the line,” Gruman said and coiled a length of the cord around the circumference of the first wheel of the pull-reel. Two grooved wheels, like the reels at the ends of a clothesline, were shackled together on a steel frame, one on top of the other. He adjusted the prawn line around the twelve-inch wheel and then fed it onto the smaller six-inch reel. Once the power was engaged, the pull-reel could haul a hundred-pound catch onto the boat within five minutes. He fiddled with the wiring and in a moment he had the system up and running. It turned through two rotations and Gruman sat at a stool beside it, feeding the wet cable into a circular coil on the deck as the line came off the second wheel.
“When you see the prawn trap break the surface, lean over and haul it onto the deck. Understand?”
“Got it.” Donnel gazed into the water, mesmerized by the rope pulling strands of slimy green seaweed into the boat. “Look at that.”
Gruman nodded. The kid was getting it. He could say with certainty that Donnel had tasted a little of reality. That the boy’s life wouldn’t be completely wasted.
“There it is!” Donnel anchored his feet to the deck when the prawn trap broke the surface. “I got it.” He leaned over and hauled the circular aluminum frame onto the lip of the gunwale. He shook the trap and a small eel slithered out of the netting into the ocean. “Man, it’s full!” With a second heave he dumped it onto the deck. He leaned over to inspect a copper tag attached to the frame. It took a moment for him to piece together the series of letters stamped onto the tag. Mark Gruman.
Gruman clicked off the power supply to the pull-reel and examined the catch. At least a hundred prawns squirmed in the net, their spiky hairs twitching madly from their pink shells. On average they looked to be two to three inches in length, and fat as his thumbs. A good catch, especially if the three remaining traps held this bounty. He lifted the trap onto the stern platform and showed Donnel how to empty the mesh into the the big plastic hold, remove the collateral catch — a small octopus and a dogfish — rinse the prawns down, re-bait the bait tub, close the netting with the two bungee cords and cast it back into the sea.
※
Donnel was fascinated by the whole operation. Over the next hour they retrieved the second and third traps. Now he stared at the fourth buoy in the distance. They were back in the wheelhouse, trying to warm their backs against the propane heater under the clock. “Anyone ever steal your catch?”
“Hard to tell. Sometimes I’ve hauled up an empty trap or two.” He shrugged to suggest it was not common. “On the whole, I think fishermen respect one another. Not like people you find elsewhere,” he added. Better not to belabor the point, he decided. Especially now that they were down to the last twenty minutes or so. “Okay, let’s snag this last buoy, and then we’re done. But first, I’ve got something for you.”
Donnel turned from the window to look at the sheriff. “What?”
“What you were asking for.” He reached into his satchel and drew the Glock into his hand.
Donnel stared at the gun. It was wrapped in a sealed plastic bag, the sort of thing you’d see on a cop show, he thought, to ensure the fingerprints weren’t messed up. Funny, since he’d stepped on the boat, he hadn’t considered it. Part of him hated the gun. Another part was obsessed by it.
“You paid your dues.” Gruman opened the seal so that the handle faced the boy. “Take it.”
Donnel lifted the pistol in his hand. His again. And he belonged to it. Ben Argyle could keep the iPhone; this is what he wanted. He set his teeth and aimed the gun at the fourth buoy, then tucked the pistol under his belt at the back of his jeans and zipped his jacket so the Glock was secure.
“That would count as concealing a weapon.” Gruman looked at him and smiled at this little joke.
“Not if you know where it is,” Donnel shot back.
Gruman tipped his head and frowned. The kid’s old attitude back with a vengeance. There’d be no reforming Donnel Smeardon, he knew that much. Best to nip this thorn at the stem.
“Let’s get this last float up,” he said and cut the throttle and turned the wheel so that the starboard side of the boat would glide past the buoy.
Donnel stepped onto the deck and closed the wheelhouse door. He felt the tension of the gun against his spine. What could stop him from taking out Gruman right now? He’d have his gun and be free and clear of any more intimidation. Of course, he didn’t know how to run The Gold Coaster, so until they made it back to the harbor, he’d be at the mercy of the currents and tides. Best to wait. Bide some time. Besides, likely the old man was packing his own heat.
He put these thoughts aside and dipped the gaff under the line and pulled the cable over the gunwale. “Got it,” he called to Gruman, and then lifted the float onto the deck.
Gruman cut the engine and set up the pull-reel again and began to furl the trap line onto the deck. “You’re starting to get the swing of that thing. Too bad.”
Donnel gazed into the slate-gray water, eager to spot the rising trap before it broke the surface. “Why too bad?”
“It’s a shame to see a man with a useful skill fail to use it.”
Donnel bit into his lower lip. He could barely contain the fury rising through his chest. Gruman had completely lost it now. Who even knew what the fuck he was talking about?
“Yo
u ever had a woman, Donnel?”
“What?”
“Sex. With a woman.”
“Course I have.” He turned his back and yelled, “Fuck!”
“Just wondering. Just wanted to be sure of that.” He glanced over the gunwale. The rising trap was now visible. “Have an eye. Thar she blows.”
Donnel grabbed the frame and hauled the trap on board. Like the previous three traps, it shuddered with hundreds of plump, writhing prawns. He lifted it over the gunwale, then set it on the stern and began to release the prawns into the plastic hold. All told, they must have over six hundred prawns. He couldn’t figure how much money that might draw in. Maybe six hundred dollars?
“Okay, rinse that out and reset the bait. But don’t toss it overboard until I tell you.” As he stood next to the pull-reel, Gruman studied the boy’s lean back and shoulders as he worked. He lit a Lucky and took a long easy drag on it. “And pass me the gaff, would you?”
“What am I — your slave?” Donnel knelt down, picked up the gaff and passed it to Gruman. Then he turned his attention to the trap, baited it and closed the netting with two bungee cords.
The sheriff snugged the end of the gaff under his armpit and continued. “Since this is the last trap, I want to unhitch the reeler before we let her go. So wrap the line around your wrist four or five turns before you cast it off. Just to secure it.”
Donnel pulled the nylon rope tight above his wrist. “Like this?”
Gruman glanced at the line. “Yeah.”
“Just tell me when you want me to toss the trap in.” He turned to the sheriff and watched him disassemble the pull-reel and wait for his signal. It would be the last time he would see Gruman.
“Okay. Throw it over.”
He braced his knees on the gunwale and heaved the trap back into the ocean. At the same moment, Gruman pressed the curled brass tip of the gaff into the middle of Donnel’s back, at a point a few inches above the bulge formed by the Glock pistol. With one deft jab he shoved the boy overboard and into the water. In his panic Donnel grasped for anything that came to hand. He tugged wildly on the nylon rope. With the trap line wrapped over his forearm he imagined that he might be saved, that Gruman would grab the unfurling cable and haul him to the surface. But in his last, frantic seconds he realized that the line was secured only to the sinking prawn trap. As the trap dragged him down to the seabed his lungs expelled his last breath in an explosion of tiny, almost invisible bubbles that dissipated into the gray abyss.
Gruman flicked his cigarette over the side and gazed into the open ocean below the boat. He checked his watch and forced himself to wait five minutes before he moved. When Donnel failed to reappear, he dipped the gaff under the buoy, pulled it onto the deck, cut the cable with a fillet knife and let the line slip into the sea. He set the orphaned buoy next to the prawn catch and shook his head.
An hour later he made a point of tracking down Toby Pearson, the wharf manager, and lured him alongside The Gold Coaster.
“Somebody stole one of my traps,” he said to Pearson with a look of disbelief on his face. He held the two-foot length of rope in his hand, one end still attached to the buoy, and fingered the edge where it had been cut. “You can see where they sheared it off. Clean cut, like from a filleting knife,” he added. “No accident, that. Work of a damned poacher, I’d say.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Will Finch stopped the Ford Tempo at the side of the gravel road and studied the surrounding landscape. This must be it, he told himself, the exact spot where Toeplitz had parked his Mercedes. He stepped out of the car, slung his courier bag over his shoulder and stood a moment to listen to the overwhelming silence. Even in the faint amber glow of the mid-afternoon, the ridge seemed bleaker than when he’d driven up the switchback with Ben Argyle. A light wind swept up the desolate slope and a shiver ran down his spine. He zipped his jacket to his throat and tugged his cap onto his head.
With an even, measured step he paced the distance to the spot where Toeplitz’s remains had been found. Sixty-five steps. Then he stood on the edge of the wide hill where the bear had escaped and disappeared. Somewhere down there the beast had hidden away for several days. A good place to conceal almost anything.
He dug through his courier bag and withdrew the ziploc baggie where he’d stored the two brass shell casings from the Argyles’ rifles. He took one of the brass into his hand and swept the ground for a stone of the same size. He tested the heft of two or three rocks against the weight of the brass and when he found a good match, he drew an X across the face of the rock with a yellow highlighter pen. Then he placed the brass back in the ziploc and dropped it into his bag.
Directly below him he spotted a break in the trees and scrub. He swung his arm back and forth, thinking of his days in Little League baseball and the tight pitches he could fire across home plate when he was fourteen. After a crisp wind-up, he threw the rock toward the break. He watched it disappear into the weeds and then heard the sharp knock as it tagged a tree stump. Maybe fifty feet. The arm’s not quite as good as it once was, he conceded.
As he walked down the hill toward the break, he assessed the landscape more closely. The bank dropped at a ten-degree angle, he figured. Dozens of scrub trees, mostly alders, were just beginning to green. Compared to the lush forests on the coast, the alpine vegetation seemed delayed by a month, maybe two. Only the grass was in full bloom and it waved in the breeze, the tight buds slapping at his thighs as he pushed forward.
When he reached the clearing he stood a moment, his eyes sweeping the ground for the small rock. Nothing. Then he spotted a broken sapling that had been snapped in two leaving a three-inch stump still rooted in the ground. Perhaps in his fury the bear had crashed against the young alder on his flight down the hill.
Again, his eyes raked the ground and there — about two feet to his left — lay the rock with the yellow X painted on its face.
“So from here,” he said, lifting his left arm in a line parallel to the gravel road above, “is where we might find … something.” He marked a half-dead cedar in the distance. If he made it to that old tree without finding anything of value, then he’d give up the search.
He spotted an inch-thick stick on the ground and broke away the small stems and loose bark that still clung to the wood. With one, two, three passes of the stick he swept the grass around him and began to step toward the distant cedar tree, walking parallel to the switchback and adjusting his distance from the road to match the fifty feet he’d thrown the rock. He moved in half steps, slowing to ensure that he cleared the grasses underfoot before he took a new step forward. After thirty minutes, he reached another clearing and there his eye caught a glint of light.
“Wouldn’t you know.” He kneeled next to the brass cylinder, marveling at his luck. He drew his cellphone from his bag and took several pictures of the bullet casing where it lay. He tugged on his latex gloves, then lifted the brass into his palm. “Hmm,” he whispered aloud. “What have we here?”
Finch sealed the shell casing in a second ziploc and continued his search. Ten feet along he found the second piece of brass. He took three more still pictures, then stood up and captured a three-hundred-sixty degree sweep of the entire ridge with his video camera. Then he stored the second bullet shell in the ziploc, nestled it in his courier bag and plodded directly up the hill in a perpendicular line to the road.
When he reached the gravel track he looked back toward his car to determine where he stood in relation to Toeplitz’s body and his abandoned Mercedes. “Maybe half a mile,” he whispered and tugged his jacket collar over his neck. The wind kicked at the grass and tree limbs. Time to head back.
He set his bag on the ground, took another picture of where it lay and then walked back to the Ford Tempo. As he turned the car around he set the trip meter on the odometer to zero. When he retrieved his bag from the side of the road, the tripmeter read zero-point-six miles.
“So, Sherlock,” he said as the car began the long descent
down Saddle Mountain, “after the shooter pumped two nine-millimeter bullets into Raymond Toeplitz, he collected the brass from the crime scene. Then a little over half a mile into his escape, he stopped, got out of his car and tossed the evidence into the scrub. Smart. But not quite smart enough.”
※
Will glanced around the Three Cups Coffee House and wondered how to convince Jennie Lee to confide in him again. Just dive in, he told himself. This woman isn’t receptive to nuance and subtlety.
“Look. I’m going to show you something. And if what I have to show you has any relation to the bullets I saw you and Manfred extract from the guts of that bear, I simply want you to acknowledge it. Okay?”
She paused to scratch her head. A distraction. “All right.”
Finch lifted the leather flap on his courier bag and pulled out the ziploc he’d used to store the nine-millimeter brass that he’d found up on the switchback.
Her eyes narrowed as she studied the bullet casings. “And those are what, exactly?”
“Nine-mille brass,” he said. “And my bet is they will match the slugs you found in the bear.”
“Where did you get them?”
“Just below Lookout Point on Saddle Mountain where Raymond Toeplitz was murdered.” He clicked the photo gallery icon on his phone and swept through several images until he reached the sequence of pictures he’d taken on the mountain.
Jennie studied the photographs in silence and returned the phone to Will. She set her eyes on the Columbia River as it slipped under the bridge toward the Pacific Ocean. After another moment she said, “All right, it looks legitimate. But what does it get us?”
Will’s face flushed with surprise. He laughed, an incredulous gasp. “Are you serious?” He shook the ziploc just enough to make the brass ring together. “I’m literally holding half the puzzle in my hand. You’ve got the other half back in your office. If they match, it will tell us something.”