River Kill

by Ted Begnoche

  "Think back, now. Do you remember ever catching any fish in the Town River?"

  "Shoot," he said. "I have some great memories of that place. We used to fish right off Smith's Beach when I was a kid. You could almost haul the bluefish in with a rake."

  "No, I mean recently. Say within the past few years."

  "Let's see. I remember, oh, it must four or five years ago now..."

  An eighteen wheeler rumbled by about ten feet behind me, kicking up dust and gravel and making enough noise to drown out Whitey.

  I stuck an index finger in my free ear and shouted into the phone.

  "Can you start over, Whitey? There's a lot of noise."

  "I said, maybe four or five years ago the fish really started coming back strong up the river. I remember being in the bait shop one morning, and this kid brings in a good size striper, and he tells the owner he caught it in the Town River. I thought the kid was just trying to throw everyone off, you know, but on my way back through Weymouth Landing I swung by Smith's beach."

  "Can you get to the point, Whitey?"

  "This is the point. There must've been a dozen people out on Smith's beach, and while I watched for ten minutes I saw four bluefish get caught. The kid was right. All that summer, when I didn't have a lot of time on my hands I'd wet a line down there. More often than not, I'd hook up."

  "But it's not like that anymore," I said.

  "No way. Every now and then you hear of a school pushing up toward the yacht club, but it's usually just a quick sighting. The fish don't hang around long enough to let people catch 'em."

  "You got a theory as to why they disappear?"

  "Well, you know yourself that patterns change," said Whitey. "The big fish follow the little fish, so if for some reason the bait doesn't move into the river, it's not very likely the game fish will, either."

  "Makes perfect sense," I said.

  "Why all the interest?"

  "I have my own theory as to why the fish disappeared."

  "Let's hear it."

  "Not now, Whitey. I have another stop to make tonight."

  "Okay. But I'm not letting you off the hook about the fishing trip. Some guy caught a thirty-pound striper in the Canal earlier in the week. If the tide’s right, they're practically jumping onto the bank down there."

  "Soon, Whitey. Soon." I replaced the receiver and retreated to my truck. I scratched some notes into my book and fished around under the truck seat until I found my pants. I worked John's notebook free and thumbed through the soggy pages again, scratching my head.

  Page four showed a barrel or drum of some sort, with a skeleton sitting on top. The number four was neatly printed on the barrel.

  I flipped through the rest of the pages, trying to make a link. Page five had skulls and crossbones. Six had seagulls, five lying dead on a beach, with one circling over them. Page seven had a Grim Reaper, the face obscured by a hood. The number nine was written on his chest.

  Seven pages. The only conclusion I could draw so far was that the first page seemed to be the view from StanMel's parking lot, looking across the river at the apartments. Then there was a very live fish, followed by a very dead fish.

  So something was killing the fish. But what?

  A barrel with a skeleton on it.

  Something toxic?

  Dead seagulls. I had found a gull that was close to being dead a few days earlier.

  I was pretty sure the answer lay hidden somewhere inside StanMel Circuits. I stowed the notebook under the seat and twisted the key in the ignition.

  Time for my own private tour.

  Weymouth Landing was deserted when I squirted through. The clock on the bank building read 8:55. Darkness had descended, but the neon glow from restaurants and pubs pushed back at it. The air was cooler, with no hint of a breeze.

  I should be fishing, I thought, as I passed a new apartment building and headed for Tipton Road. I made a left in front of a tractor trailer and crawled along in first gear until the entrance to StanMel loomed on the left.

  There were no cars in the parking lot. I turned around and parked out on the street. My truck chattered to a stop and I stood beside it for a full minute, listening. There was no traffic on the narrow side street tonight. I started toward the building, then went back and retrieved a flashlight from behind the seat in the truck.

  I made my way back down the alley that led to the parking lot, keeping close to the building. A few feeble overhead lights threw long shadows out into the parking lot. Town River shimmered and danced between its two banks. I held my key ring up to the light and searched for the shiny keys I had made this afternoon.

  The biggest one went into the lock hard, and for a moment I was afraid it wouldn't turn. Finally, I coaxed it enough so that the door swung in, and I stepped into the loading dock.

  I knew there were cameras covering the area outside the loading dock but decided to chance it anyway.

  Light from an overhead fluorescent in the stockroom splashed gently on everything. I padded over to the double doors that opened into the assembly area and slipped through, grimacing when one gave up a shrill squeak.

  I passed by the microscope stations, staying in the aisles that were clearly delineated with black and yellow tape stuck to the concrete floor. The path led the way to the manufacturing area, and I poked my head through the door and swiveled it around.

  All the machines were united in song, imparting an electrical hum that wasn't present, or noticeable, during the day. A few pieces of equipment winked at me with amber and green eyes. I let the door swing closed and found the offices up front.

  The outer door opened easily, but Stepkowski's office was locked. That was one key I didn't have, and I wasn't really sure what to look for anyway. I sat down in Rosemary's chair and took a deep breath, assessing the situation.

  The answer was here. I didn't know where, not yet, but I couldn't shake the feeling.

  I had four keys left, and hopefully one fit the lock to the room that Baby Step was so protective of. I made my way back to the loading dock, making sure I didn't leave any trail that would announce that someone had been poking around and padded down the stairs that had led to John's demise.

  The first key I tried was the wrong one. In the flickering beam of the flashlight, I jammed another one home, and the door to the storage area swung open gently. I flipped the switch on the wall and stepped inside, leaving the door slightly ajar.

  In the back of the room was the other door, the one that Baby Step had told me to stay well away from. The last shiny key on my ring slipped into the lock easily. I twisted the knob and pushed the door open.

  The dingy light barely penetrated the closet. I groped along the wall until I found a switch. A single bulb in an overhead socket cast a feeble glow over a tangle of pipes and knobs and dials.

  A giant sink covered one whole wall, broken up into three separate bays by pieces of Plexiglas.

  I stepped inside and examined all the dials and gauges, reading tags and labels. As far as I could tell, everything appeared to be normal, and I didn't know what I was looking for anyway.

  I leaned on the sink, trying to think about what to do next when the smell hit me again.

  The same smell that always made me wrinkle my nose out on the manufacturing floor. Some kind of weird chemicals. Hugh Gertling

  said you get used to it, but I doubted if I ever could.

  Each separate bay of the sink had its own spigot, with a red-handled valve to control the flow. I reached over and turned one, and the smell became so strong my eyes began to water. A clear fluid issued from the pipe and began filling the bottom of the sink. I immediately closed the valve, wiping at my eyes to clear the tears.

  The fluid was gone in an instant, but the smell remained, and I pulled my T-shirt up over my nose. Underneath the sink, the drainpipes went straight into the concrete floor. I bent down to see if there was anything else that deserved my attention.

  That's the last thing I remembered unti
l I woke up in the back seat of a brand new Cadillac.

  Chapter 20

  The thing that kept poking me hard in the ribs was only slightly less annoying than the buzzing in my brain. The back of my head and neck were on fire, throbbing with a vicious intensity. Things slowly came into focus, then the lights blurred and all the shapes meshed together.

  I was staring at the back of someone's head, looking out over the hood of a big car. Then everything was black again.

  "You shouldn't've hit him so damned hard," said a voice from the front seat. I thought I recognized it, but couldn't place it.

  "What's the difference?"

  "I want to talk to him, is the difference."

  "Talk all you want," I said. My voice sounded like it was coming from inside a metal garbage can, and every word hurt on its way out.

  "Ah, Mr. McCann. I'm so glad you could join us."

  "Who's us?"

  "My name is Stanley Stepkowski, and I think you know my son, Stanley Junior."

  Baby Step poked something in my ribs again, then showed me the nine-millimeter that looked like a toy in his right fist. I twisted my head to look at him, and flashes of light went off in my brain. I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes.

  "We're gonna lose him again," said Baby Step.

  "Not that easy," I said. "Where are we going?"

  "Fishing, Mr. McCann. I believe Hull Gut is one of your favorite spots. I brought along your tackle. My son was clever enough to remove it from your house the last time he visited."

  “Didn't find what you were looking for, though, did you?"

  "At this point, I guess it doesn't matter," said Stepkowski.

  "I suppose somewhere along the line it didn't have to go this far. But once you began snooping around my company property, you became a menace that had to be dealt with."

  "Like John Barcom." I reached up to rub the back of my neck, realizing for the first time that my hands were tied, and Baby Step jammed his pistol into my ribs again.

  "The John Barcom thing was really a shame, Mr. McCann. I truly admired the man. I was in the service myself, you know. Marines."

  "Wasn't there another way?"

  "I'm afraid not. He just wouldn't give up. So Stanley Junior gave him a ride." He chuckled dryly. Beside me, I could feel Baby Step's fetid breath in my ear.

  We were stopped at a red light on Route 3A, near where it passes over the Back River. The dashboard clock said 10:38. I had been fading in and out for over an hour.

  Stepkowski pressed on the gas when the light turned over. I risked a look at Baby Step. A wicked grin split his broad, blank face in two. I noticed a scar in one eyebrow and the iridescent blue of his eyes in the streetlight glow.

  "What about Melvin Addson?" I said.

  "Melvin was a tough one, but in the end, he had to be eliminated as well," said the elder Stepkowski. "His conscience got the better of him, and he threatened to expose our little game."

  "Your 'little game' is hurting a lot of people. Doesn't that bother you?"

  "I have no trouble sleeping at night, Mr. McCann. "It's a brutal old world out there. My motto has always been, 'Do unto others before they do unto you'."

  "You're going to be locked up for the rest of your life, you and your Baby Step." My backseat partner snaked one simian arm around my shoulder and pulled me close to him. I could smell beer and unwashed flesh as his hot breath settled on my neck. He jammed the pistol in my ear and twisted the barrel. I could feel a drop of blood trickle down the side of my face, sliding outward to the point of my jaw.

  “Easy, Stanley. You'll get your chance soon enough."

  Hingham Harbor slid by on the driver’s side. I figured I had about fifteen minutes until we got to Hull Gut if that's in fact where we were headed.

  "Why don't you tell us about the diary, Mr. McCann?" said Stepkowski.

  "You mean the one I gave to the police?"

  "It makes no difference. I doubt they can unravel the babbling of a paranoid old fool like John Barcom."

  "Barcom was fine," I said. "I think it's you that's paranoid, and I'd say it's your little game that's starting to unravel."

  Baby Step used the butt of his pistol to hit me in the temple. I squeezed my eyes shut while flashes of bright light winked on and off in my head.

  When I opened my eyes again, the Hull Bait Shop was directly in front of us. Stepkowski made a left and cruised parallel to the ocean. Up near the carousel, a state trooper sat with his car idling, writing a ticket for a carload of teenagers.

  "You're going to get caught," I said. "Don't flatter yourself. It's not that clever a plan."

  "On the contrary, Mr. McCann. It's so simple, yet so effective. The EPA has so many hot spots, so many real things to do, they can't be bothered with a tiny operation like mine. As far as they know, StanMel is still a ten-person company, generating a small amount of waste that our haulers take away every couple of weeks. In their eyes, we're fully compliant because it's up to each company to upgrade their status when their business grows."

  "So to them, it looks like you generate a fraction of what you really do..."

  "And the rest goes into the river. The closet you found tonight is our dumping station. Pipes from the manufacturing area lead into there. It looks innocent enough, but the drains from those sinks flow directly into an underground pipe that empties right into the water. Even at dead low tide, it's barely visible. And we only pump on the outgoing tide."

  Stepkowski looked into the rearview mirror and our eyes locked. They were smiling. Mine were smoldering.

  "You're a thief and a criminal. You're doing damage to the environment, and who knows what long term effects it might have. What about kids who might live in the area?"

  "For that, I'm truly sorry," said the elder Stepkowski. I watched in the mirror as a wicked grin spread over his handsome face. Beside me, I could feel Baby Step laughing.

  I wanted to throw up. I moved my hands in unison and rubbed them over my face. "You're going down, you bastard. One way or another..."

  Baby Step squeezed the arm that encircled my shoulders and pulled me toward him. He whipped me with the pistol until his father screamed at him from the front seat.

  "Enough, Stanley," he said. “Don't give him any injuries that are inconsistent with those of a drowning accident."

  Baby Step grunted and loosened his hold on me. I drew in a few quick breaths and swiped at my forehead with the back of my hands. They came away bloody.

  "We're not going to get caught, Mr. McCann, because I've planned ahead for my retirement. For the past few years, I've been funneling money to a bank in the Caribbean that's only too happy to accept it without asking questions. Very soon I'll be closing down StanMel Circuits, and living out my remaining years in a tropical paradise.

  "And fucking up even more people's lives. You're a real beauty, Stepkowski."

  We passed the entrance to Spinnaker Island, and I could smell the pungent odor of the sewerage treatment plant on the opposite side of the street. We would run out of road in about three minutes.

  Now was as good a time as any to start thinking about a plan.

  Except all I could think about was how damned mad I was.

  These people were brutal criminals, and it was beginning to look like there wasn't a thing I could do about it.

  Stepkowski rolled to a stop under the lights at the end of the road. Out before us, down the rock and shell covered bank, was Hull Gut. The moonlight reflected off the water, illuminating a few lonely seagulls off to the left, next to the rotting pier.

  Stepkowski let his car creep forward and swung over to the right, rolling to a stop by a tumble of jagged boulders.

  Baby Step was starting to get on my nerves. His voice was high-pitched and whining, a real nerve-scraper.

  "Showtime, chicken dick," he said, swinging his door open.

  He put one foot out on the ground, crunching clam shells beneath his huge bulk, trying to drag my 9 foot Penn surf rod wit
h him.

  "Right behind you," I said.

  And that's when I made my move.

  Chapter 21

  I put my hands out in front of me and pushed with all I had, hitting Baby Step under the left armpit. His muscles felt like coiled snakes. A shriek of surprise escaped his lips as we both tumbled out onto the ground. I hit my knee on the rear door hard enough to make it go numb. Baby Step was tangled with my fishing rod, cursing and waving his pistol in the air.

  I squirmed away from him on my hands and knees, with broken seashells and bits of glass biting into my palms, and regained my feet in front of the idling Cadillac. I heard the elder Stepkowsi put the car in gear. He switched the high beams on, blinding me with white light. His wheels spun furiously in the loose sand while I backpedaled toward the boulders.

  I fell backwards into a crevice just before the nose of the Cadillac crunched against a jagged rock. One of the headlights winked off. The other was pointed out in the Atlantic. I heard a tug somewhere out in Hingham Harbor blow its whistle.

  “Goddamnit, Stanley. Get the hell up here, you shit-for-brains."

  “Where is he?" said Baby Step.

  "He's in these friggin' rocks somewhere. Get in there and find him. And when you do, no more of this cute shit. Kill the bastard."

  I swallowed hard. Baby Step was thrashing around almost right above me, swiveling his head left and right. I heard a good-sized wave break over the rocks at the ocean's edge. It pulled a ton of smaller stones and pebbles back out to sea with it, sounding like bacon sizzling in a hot pan.

  "Come get this flashlight, dipshit," said the elder Stepkowski.

  Baby Step turned away from me, and I figured I wouldn't get a better chance. I wormed my way out of my hiding place and fell onto the other side of the jetty. Now I had tons of rock between me and the Stepkowskis, and a small bit of breathing room.

  My hands were still tied, and the twine was beginning to cut into the flesh around my wrists. I felt around for the jagged point of a boulder and worked the ropes back and forth, trying to saw myself free.