The Weedless Widow

by Deborah Morgan

  CHAPTER TEN

  Piscator non solum piscatur (There is more to fishing than catching fish.)

  —Dame Juliana Berners

  “Well, well, look what the cat done drug in,” Sam said around a mouthful of pancakes.

  “He is the cat,” said the Judge. “As in Tomcat.”

  Sam let out an exaggerated meow, then all three men at the table laughed.

  “You could’ve woken me up.” Jeff glared at them halfheartedly, then poured coffee into the biggest mug he could find. “That old alarm clock failed me this morning.”

  “Wasn’t the clock that failed you,” Sam said. “It went off, and you slapped at it a few times till it took pity on you and settled down.”

  “Tell you what,” the Judge said, the corners of his lips twitching. “Tonight, why don’t you share the women with those of us who don’t have any waiting at home? That way you won’t be so tired come tomorrow morning.”

  “I thought you were staying away from questionable women, Judge. Political image to keep, and all that.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” The Judge winked at Sam, making sure Jeff could see the gesture. “It’s pretty remote out here. I thought Kyle and I might take Miz Valentine and the Widow Rhodes out dancing this evening. Unless you have dibs on both of them again tonight.”

  “What can I say? I’m damned irresistible.”

  “If you have to say it,” Sam announced, “then you ain’t.”

  Jeff ignored the comment and went to the stove where he filled a platter with flapjacks, scrambled eggs, sausage links, and fried potatoes.

  He got to the table as the others finished eating.

  Sam started clearing the dishes. “Didn’t I hear last night that Bill’s funeral is this afternoon?”

  “Two o’clock.” Jeff gulped coffee. “Should we meet back here at, say, twelve-thirty? That’ll give us time to get cleaned up and eat lunch. We can ride over together.”

  “Sounds good.” The Judge’s tone left the impression that the vote was unanimous.

  Jeff was having another nonproductive day on the water, despite his efforts to concentrate on his form. It was as if the fish sensed his tiredness, his various irritations, his lack of concentration. He was preoccupied with everything from the truck accident to all the work he had waiting for him back in Seattle to — and he’d fought this one — the mysterious murder of Bill Rhodes. Hell, he had to admit it, he’d consciously tried to squelch his investigative instincts. He hadn’t been asked to help, hadn’t really even been asked his opinion. The sheriff had included him in last night’s visit to Tanya Rhodes because of Bill’s collection — nothing more, nothing less. But something about it bothered him, and as he worried a knot in his fishing line free, he tried to do the same with the tangle in his brain.

  He went over the events of the last thirty-six hours. At first, he’d thought Tanya’s blatant flirting was what didn’t sit well, but after deeper consideration, he realized that that wasn’t it. He didn’t approve of her actions, but he believed they could be chalked up to a Molotov cocktail of booze and pills poured over raw nerves and lingering shock.

  He tied on a dry fly and false cast a few times, the metronomic movements setting his mind into a rhythm that helped unwind his jumble of thoughts.

  He went over his conversations with the sheriff, Tanya Rhodes, even Raven and the three men he shared a cabin with. He thought about the beauty shop gossip that the sheriff’s deputy, Roy Manning, had shared. It, combined with his look at the remodeled interior of the Rhodes’s home, gave a picture of someone who could go through money easily: shopping, golf courses, personal trainers. It took a moment before something else came to him. Then, suddenly, it was there twice.

  Real estate. “Roy-Boy” had mentioned it, then the sheriff had said something about a real estate agent waiting for Bill’s lunch break. Likely, Bill’s refusal to talk to the agent was the catalyst for Tanya’s anger.

  This new realization bothered Jeff, but he wasn’t sure whether it was because the real estate angle shed suspicion on the new widow, or because his own instincts weren’t as sharp as they used to be. What about the sheriff’s instincts? Shouldn’t she have put those two things together?

  He reeled in his line while he thought about his conversation with Val and the information she’d given him that Bill had been upset over something on the Internet. He should’ve done more digging into Bill’s computer when he’d had access to it the night before. All told, however, his experience online wouldn’t fill the toes of his waders. He made a mental note to give Sheila a call for a refresher course. She, like several million others, was hooked on the World Wide Web. And, as strange as it seemed to those who were hooked, many people in the antiques business weren’t.

  Jeff was one of them. Internet surfing wasn’t something that naturally came to his mind when he considered recreational pastimes. And because of that, he’d have to return to the Rhodes house. Tanya’s house.

  That would instigate some major rib-jabbing from his comrades. But he had no choice. He knew he’d get a lot more cooperation from Tanya Rhodes than the sheriff would. The woman hadn’t even questioned his request to check the computer files but had, in fact, encouraged him to come back.

  You go with your strengths, Jeff thought, and his strength in this case was simply that he was a man. And while Tanya was busy flirting, her guard would be down. He would need to be sharper than he’d been the night before, be more prepared, and not allow himself to be flustered by her advances.

  Thank God I have an understanding wife, he thought.

  As he leaned to cast again, he saw the sheriff walking along the bank toward him.

  “You might as well take up fishing, Sheriff.” Jeff made his cast, then turned back to the bank. “You’re making a regular habit of visiting my secret fishing hole.”

  She waded out, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she wasn’t wearing waders. She lifted the lid of the creel on his hip, peered inside. “Yeah, it’s so secret, the fish don’t even know about it. You’d have better luck if you set the creel down, propped open the lid, and waited for a fish to jump in, kamikaze fashion.”

  “I won’t deny that. My spirit wants a relaxing morning on the river, but my mind keeps wandering to things like accidents and murder.”

  “You and me both. Murder, anyway.” She paused. “Listen, you said you had two other friends coming out here. Did they show up?”

  “Sure. Well, one’s a new guy that the Judge invited for the first time this year. But, yeah, they both made it in Thursday. Why?”

  “Just trying to establish when everyone arrived. Do you know what time they got here?”

  “No, but I can ask Sam. He said Kyle was already at the cabin when he pulled up.”

  “Sam’s the one you know.”

  Jeff nodded. “Sam Carver. Known him for years.”

  “Which one is the attorney?”

  “That would be Kyle Meredith.”

  The sheriff jotted the names on a notepad. “So, Kyle Meredith, who was supposed to be giving a deposition Thursday afternoon, arrived early.”

  Another thing I didn’t think of. Jeff kept his face expressionless. “Listen, I can try to narrow down the times of arrival if you want me to. Kyle might be less wary talking to me instead of you.”

  “You’ve got a point.”

  “Did you learn anything else about the real estate angle?”

  “Rumor, mostly. Some of Coop’s regulars are saying that Tanya was putting the squeeze on Bill to sell the bait shop.”

  “I can’t see that happening.”

  “Neither could he, apparently. It gets better, though. Turns out, Bill’s truck wouldn’t start after lunch, so the real estate guy gave him a lift back to the shop.”

  “Uh-huh. Anyone see Bill alive after the Good Samaritan left?”

  “Now, that would depend on whether or not the Good Samaritan killed him, wouldn’t it?”

  “What does he say?”


  “Says he didn’t do it, of course. Does admit to taking advantage of having Bill as a captive audience, though. He’s a high-pressure bastard, I can attest to that. Maybe

  my detective or the M.E. will turn up some tangible evidence soon, so I can stop playing twenty questions with no answers. In the meantime, I’m checking his alibis.”

  The sheriff leaned around Jeff, looked to where the fishing line had drifted. “Hey! I think you just snagged one!”

  Instinctively, Jeff raised the rod and pulled slightly on the line. “I’ll be damned.” He wondered who was more surprised, he or the fish.

  “Shouldn’t you be reeling him in? Come on, don’t lose him!” In one swift move, the sheriff jerked the cap from her head, shoved the notepad inside, and crammed the cap back on.

  She then grabbed hold of the pole with Jeff, and he thought how he hadn’t seen this much excitement over a fish since Sam was sixteen and landed a thirty-pound tarpon.

  Jeff relinquished the rod and reel.

  “Okay, turn the reel a couple of revolutions.”

  Before she could, he heard the high-pitched buzz of the line feeding out. “He’s smokin’! Can you feel him moving? Okay, start reeling, slow and steady. There you go. Now pull him some, then reel in your slack.”

  The sheriff held on, followed Jeff’s instruction, brought the catch steadily closer.

  “Okay,” he said, “reel in more slack. There! You’ve got the hang of it. Now, bring him on in.”

  Jeff couldn’t have been prouder. The sheriff made it look like she’d been angling for years. She was a natural. He locked the reel when she’d finished, then squatted and took hold of the catch. “You’ve got a beauty here, Sheriff. Twelve, maybe fourteen pounds. One of the finest steelheads I’ve seen. Just look at him shine like a silver platter.”

  “Not me. You caught him.”

  “The hell I did. He would’ve nibbled and moved on if you hadn’t been paying attention.” Jeff removed the hook from the fish’s lip then hoisted it by the gill. It wriggled, flipping its tail and sending an arc of water through the air.

  “Here,” Jeff said. “Take hold of him by the gill like this, and he won’t be able to get you with a fin.”

  The sheriff took the glistening silver creature, then whooped like a warrior. “Now I get it. I see why you guys do this. Damn you, Talbot, you’ve got me hooked.”

  Jeff couldn’t wipe the grin off his face. There was no pleasure quite like that of a person’s first catch. “You should have it mounted, put it over your mantle or in your office. Take it to that taxidermist at the edge of town — what’s his name?”

  “Tommy?”

  “Yeah. Take it down there, my treat.”

  The sheriff started to protest.

  “Don’t argue.” He smiled. “Let me do this.”

  She paused a moment, then gave him a decisive nod. “Help me find something to put him in.”

  They walked back to the cabin, where Jeff rummaged around and found an old plastic bait bucket with a lid. He half-filled it with water, secured the trout inside, and told the sheriff to get down to Tommy’s before he closed for Bill’s memorial service.

  After the sheriff drove off, Jeff sat on the steps of the porch and waited for his three fishing buddies to return. He was still sitting there grinning when they walked up half an hour later.

  “Why, you sly ol’ dog,” Sam said. “You finally caught one, didn’t you?” He stepped up on the porch, followed by Kyle and the Judge.

  “Sure did.”

  Sam opened the creel. “Well, where the hell is it? Wasn’t it a keeper?”

  The Judge stepped closer to take a look.

  “Rotten as his luck’s been, we should’ve told him to take a damned picture.”

  “The sheriff has it.”

  Kyle’s eyes grew wide. “The sheriff confiscated your fish?”

  “What? Oh, hell. No, she didn’t confiscate my fish.” Jeff stood. “You see, it was like this. I didn’t know —”

  “Buddy,” Sam said, “you can stop right here. That’s already the damnedest fish story I ever did hear.”

  “If you don’t believe me, go ask her. Matter of fact, you can ask her at Bill’s funeral.”

  Sam shook his head pitifully. “If you can’t do any better than that, I’m giving you canned tuna for lunch.”

  Sam, Kyle, and the Judge went inside, leaving a speechless Jeff behind.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Be Quiet, and go a-angling.

  — Izaak Walton

  The Compleat Angler,

  1653-1655

  Black bunting sagged over the bait shop sign, concealing the business’s name. All that remained visible were the words: BILL RHODES, PROPRIETOR.

  Jeff made the left turn off the highway and pulled in behind a long line of vehicles.

  “Quite a turnout,” said the Judge.

  “Yeah,” Sam said, “I’m glad it’s not raining. Bill would’ve wanted to be on the river on a day like today.”

  Jeff couldn’t argue with that kind of thinking. Indian summer had given Bill a fine one for his final castoff. “Looks like this is going to take awhile.” He turned to the Judge, who was riding shotgun. “Okay if I use your cell phone?”

  “Sure. It might actually work now. Sometimes I think they scramble the signals at night, because that’s when I’m supposed to have the most free minutes.”

  “Wouldn’t put it past them.” Jeff punched his home number and hit Send.

  “Sheila?”

  “Well, this is a surprise. Everything okay?”

  “Sure, we’re doing fine.”

  “What happened? Did you tear into my Better Than Sex Cake and decide to let me know that it is?”

  “Not a chance.” Jeff’s face felt hot. He didn’t want to talk about their personal life while he was in a car with three men.

  “I see. You’re not alone, are you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay, I’ll behave. You must be calling for something specific then.”

  “Yeah. We’re at Bill’s service, waiting to park, so I thought I’d get some computer advice I’m going to need later.” As Jeff took a notepad and pen from his glove compartment, he explained his need to forward Bill’s favorites list to her computer. The Judge held the pad steady while Jeff jotted a shorthand version of her instructions.

  “Kyle,” the Judge said over his shoulder, “you’d better watch him. He’s about to make off with your half of our double date.”

  Jeff said good-bye, then cut the connection. “Nah, I’d rather go to Coop’s after this, toast Bill a time or two.” He eased the woodie into a vacant spot. “I’ll see if I can catch Tanya tomorrow before I leave.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Sam as they crawled out of the car.

  They walked past the bait shop toward the grassy slope that led down to the waterfront, and Jeff noted with relief that someone had thought to remove the yellow tape from around the building. He shivered slightly as he remembered finding Bill on the floor less than forty-eight hours earlier.

  The uncovered dock was primitive but sturdy, and large enough for five or six vessels to tie onto. The Rhodes Torpedo, Bill’s vintage Chris-Craft, was docked there alone, empty.

  Jeff remembered Bill’s excitement at taking ownership of the 1941 mahogany runabout. He’d named it the Rhodes Torpedo for two reasons: most obvious was the coincidence that he shared his name with the Shakespeare Company lure. A bonus came when Bill discovered that the lures with that name that he’d inherited from his father weren’t those produced in the mid-1930s, as he’d originally thought, but rather those of the same name made a quarter century earlier. He’d sold them in order to buy the boat. That’s when he’d begun to collect and study lures in earnest.

  Jeff and the others positioned themselves near the back of the group as the clergyman began the service.

  Jeff looked around, curious whether or not he knew many of the attendees.

  H
e spotted Tanya Rhodes and the doctor he had seen at the Rhodes house the night before standing at the front of the crowd. They were gathered with a handful of others in a half circle near the land’s end of the dock.

  Standing beside Jeff, like so many Back-Row Baptists, was a group of men in blue jeans and dark blue bowling shirts emblazoned with Bill’s shop’s logo. In front of the bowlers was the Rhodes’s maid, along with several of Coop’s regulars, and Coop himself standing beside Vanessa Valentine. Val wore a pink suit and carried a pink handkerchief that fluttered in her hand when she dabbed daintily at her eyes.

  A group of waitresses — Jeff recognized them as employees from Ruby’s Diner by their uniforms of red dresses with starched white collars — formed a row across the center of the crowd as if they were a stripe on the flag. They would have just finished up from lunch shifts, he supposed, and hurried out to pay their respects.

  He spied Sheriff Colleen McIvers, in uniform and cap, and at that instant she turned. Their eyes met, they exchanged a quick, knowing grin, and Jeff suddenly didn’t give a damn whether or not his buddies believed him about the morning’s catch.

  Bill Rhodes would have wanted it this way, wanted people to come as they were, to smile and appreciate the meaningful little things, and in whatever small way be drawn closer to one another as a result of his passing.

  After the pastor finished his remarks, he introduced a man as Bill Rhodes’s brother, Jim. The man, although obviously younger by several years, bore a remarkable resemblance to the deceased. He wore a well-tailored black suit and tie, and Jeff guessed by his apparent comfort in the dress clothes that he was in the type of work that dictated similar attire on a daily basis.

  Jeff would have been dressed much the same way for such a somber occasion but, of course, he hadn’t known that a funeral would be part of the fishing weekend. He was thankful, at least, to have had a tweed sport coat with him from Thursday’s work morning.

  Mr. Rhodes began. “Thank you for joining us today. Your presence shows that Bill was well regarded and, I assure you, that will help us as we try to adjust to life without him.”