The Big Seven (14 page)

On his seventh cast Sunderson hooked the brown trout, the largest of his life, and thought he was eating his heart. It swirled several times then dove deep in the hole where it bulldogged. His line was too light for him to be insistent so he simply let the fish exhaust itself in the deep while keeping a light tension. He finally beached the fish on a sandbar with trembling hands figuring it was at least five pounds. Twice the size of any brown trout he ever caught. He reached in his vest for a little camera Diane had bought him but found its batteries were typically dead. He stared at the fish to memorize it, then slipped it gently back in the water. It resumed its vigor and shot off for the deep hole. He was drenched with sweat and his flesh tingled in this holy moment in a long angling life. He lay back on the bank and was surprised to doze for a few minutes. He got up covered with mosquitoes and walked slowly the long way home.

At the cabin he poured a big drink and called Marion to tell him about the fish. To his disappointment he couldn’t reach him. Monica called to ask if it was okay if she went to a staff party tomorrow night, the day he was coming home. He said of course, reflecting she would enjoy people her own age for company. He was still tingling from his big catch and the drink when a disturbing memory troubled him. When he had been home he had walked downtown thinking he might enjoy his old favorite bar. Monica, of course, had his car to commute to work at the hotel bar and restaurant. He was sure he had seen Lemuel’s car leaving the hotel parking lot but Lemuel never said anything about visiting Marquette and when Monica got home she didn’t mention it. He had repeatedly forced this from his mind until his will kept it out but this all put the ice of a conspiracy theory in his gut. A defense lawyer would say that there were hundreds of old Subarus around like the one Lemuel drove because they were good in snowy conditions, and Sunderson fully trusted Monica to tell him anything of importance, but the ounce of dread it caused persisted anyway. His detective’s mind wouldn’t let go of the fact that there had been no deaths without both of them being at large.

Until today. He had gone fishing again in the late afternoon and when he got home Lemuel was there to say that Paul had died, also apparently of poison. Paul was Sprague’s son and an incorrigible and destructive young man in his early teens. Everyone out of necessity had to keep an eye on him and he was the only one forbidden to carry a gun. When the truant officer had visited Paul had shot out the tires of his car which caused no end of problems. When Paul was in juvenile court Sprague had raised such a fuss, tipping over the table, the judge had sentenced him to a week in jail. Bert had driven him because Sprague’s driver’s license had been revoked and the cops were watching him. Anyway Bert was so angry over Sprague’s arrest he had rammed a police car parked in front of the courthouse with his own car. This cost him four thousand dollars and thirty days in jail. The sheriff hated to have any of the Ameses in jail saying that they promoted misbehavior among the other prisoners. He was happy when Sprague had died because Sprague had said he was going to “shoot the sheriff” because he liked the song, and the sheriff knew Sprague was perfectly capable of it. Under no condition would he visit the Ames property but always delegated the job to deputies. Paul looked to be following in his father’s footsteps and was cruel to the younger children, especially when he drank.

Sunderson reminded himself that an implicit favoritism was often a stumbling block in the solving of a crime. The simple fact was that he liked both Lemuel and Monica very much which made him less likely to suspect them of anything. He was also aware that certain women could be guilty of the eighth deadly sin with a specific aplomb while men tended to make a two-fisted bloody mess. There did seem to be a corner of his dear Monica’s mind that was cool as a cucumber. She had actually asked him if she might find a man to support her which had disturbed him. He told her that she was better off with a job than trading her pussy for a living. Of course there were lots of women, and men for that matter, willing to loll around being supported. In college a popular guy borrowed money from everyone and it took a year for everyone to realize that they would get nothing back. Most people stopped giving him anything except a few rich kids who didn’t care. Sunderson who had been burned for twenty bucks, a lot for him at the time, asked why he did it. The reasoning was straightforward and simplistic: he didn’t want an onerous part-time job like everyone else. The idea of being kept seemed an atypical question for Monica who liked to work hard but then, he thought, look at her background. One evening she had admitted that Bert had raped her repeatedly when she was twelve, beginning with her twelfth birthday as if it were a magic number. She tried to say it casually but Sunderson was enraged. He should have shot him. Part of him wondered if Monica was trying to find a better father figure with him.

Marion showed up the next day to fish for brown trout which he couldn’t resist in a new Toyota 4Runner Sport model, a vehicle Sunderson had always wanted, built as it was on a truck chassis with a powerful V-8 engine, perfect for the rough rides out of doors that he favored. Marion handed him the keys.

“This is a present from Diane. She’s calling it a loan so you don’t have to pay gift tax.”

Sunderson felt a little dizzy as he had just been thinking about the inequity of the marriage. Marion had brought food which was good as he was down to roots and stems which is what dopers used to call shortages. They fished for a couple of hours well downstream driving the new car through the pasture, hitting a mud hole on purpose just to put it in 4WD and get out. Marion caught three nice browns though none as large as Sunderson’s. On the way home they stopped at the tavern so that Sunderson could refresh his pint. Marion wanted to go in saying that you could judge a town by the character of its tavern. Sunderson didn’t say anything because the place was utterly dismal. On the way into the bar Bert was sitting near the door and sucker punched Sunderson knocking him to the floor. Sunderson looked up to see Marion hit Bert with a right cross that sent him spinning and reeling into the corner table that no one ever sat at.

Bert yelled in a slurred voice, “I told you to stop bird-dogging me!” He drew his .32 from a vest pocket and pointed it at Marion. The bartender leaned over the bar and knocked the pistol out of his hand. Sunderson pocketed it just in case it was the right one ballistically.

“No shooting in here. This is a family place,” the bartender yelled. “Bert, you’re cut off for drawing a weapon. Get out.” Bert staggered around as if looking for his pistol then seemed to forget what he was doing and left. He had plenty. Sunderson looked at the pistol on his lap and was hopeful because it was an older model, which Smolens thought the right gun would be. They looked out the window to make sure Bert was gone but it wasn’t over yet. On the way home down the long driveway they took a bullet in the backseat. Sunderson swerved and turned to see an oak tree about three hundred feet up and stepped on the gas with Marion yelling “no.” He had seen movement and it was the only cover available. On the way they took two more bullets in the front, probably in the radiator. He drew his pistol from his vest and on the way past the oak shot Bert in the hip. He was aiming at his gut but a jounce in the car saved his life. He dropped as if poleaxed. Sunderson was furious that there were bullet holes in his new car. At the cabin he called the county police and poured a drink. The police didn’t want to come if it was an Ames but Sunderson said to bring an ambulance, the man was flat out on the ground. He called Smolens on his cell and luckily he wasn’t that far away in Escanaba. He’d come up to pick up the pistol and help on the Bert affair. Sunderson wanted to call the Toyota dealer to pick up his wounded car but then realized it was evidence and it would have to wait. Suddenly Sunderson was trembling wildly and Marion had him stretch out in the back.

“Nice location you got here,” Marion laughed.

“Sure is for brown trout. We’ll be fishing in the morning. I got rid of the worst one left.”

Smolens and the slow-moving cops arrived at about the same time. Marion pointed out the tree and knowing local history the ambulance driver wouldn’t move without a cop with him. He gave Bert’s .32 to Smolens who was also pleased it was an older model. Smolens counted four bullet holes in the new car.

“Your radiator is fucked,” he said.

“Can I get it fixed or is it evidence?”

“No, I’ve seen it and we would have the mechanic’s testimony. I’m going for attempted murder. Put this sucker away for a while.”

“Good,” Sunderson said. “I really don’t want to see him again.”

“What’s the deal with these Ameses? They’re nothing but trouble.”

“I’m not sure. I heard the mother was good but she died early. The father raised them after that, and he was a mean-minded nutcase.”

Smolens sighed deeply and looked at the sky as if there might be an answer there for the human horror to which he had been overexposed. He had recently got a week off because he had arrested a man for car theft and his wife had attacked with her long nails, digging his face into a bloody mess. He had needed stitches for a flap of flesh she had torn on his cheekbone. He still looked bad but dismissed Sunderson’s concern. “It comes with the job,” he said. “Did you hit her?” Sunderson asked, thinking the claw marks looked terrible. “A right cross,” Smolens admitted, the same punch used by Marion to demolish Bert. Unlike Smolens, Marion was immensely strong from his youth working on farms near the reservation where he grew up. He was barrel-chested with very large arms.

Marion was making a Szechuan stir fry when Sunderson got quite a shock on the phone. It was his beloved Mona who told Sunderson she had been looking into Simon Ames, Sr.’s court activity in the later thirties, early forties. The Ameses by nature were always in court. The bombshell was that Ames wasn’t their real name. It was Arnett. Simon had adopted the name Ames as part of a scam in Frankfort, Kentucky. He was a putative Harvard man and would say, “My family made the shovel that built America.” Everyone had an Ames shovel so he won a great deal of credibility. He was busy selling large tracts of land he didn’t own on the path of progress near major cities. He was an expert at fabricating land deeds and would tell investors they’d end up living in splendor on Chicago’s Gold Coast. This especially enthused wives who were bored with Frankfort, Kentucky, and dreamed of being rich in the big city. He got away with it for two years but of course it caught up with him. A reporter who followed the case referred to him as “dapper” and “likable.” The judge was left wing and announced early that Simon was the sole support of a wife and three sons under eighteen. The judge in general also disliked the investors who had fought against his appointment. Simon got only a couple of years plus returning as much money as possible. Simon managed to squirrel away a quarter of it in a crooked bank over in Cincinnati and it was with this money that they moved north the next year. Mona had unearthed a few other scams in the names of both Arnett and Ames but Simon was gone with his family and they involved dirty politics that no one wanted unearthed.

When Lemuel dropped by after dinner with yet another chapter Marion was fishing and Sunderson was dozing before fishing. Lemuel said Bert’s left hip bone had been shattered by the shot behind the oak tree. Sunderson was pleased and as a joke called Lemuel “Arnett.” Lemuel paled saying that the family was still being sought under that name by the estate of one of the investors. They could lose everything.

“What did the investor lose?” Sunderson asked.

“A lot,” Lemuel said. “Simon was good at it. But it would be a shame to lose the farm to rich people.”

“You couldn’t save your house?”

“Possibly. It’s in my name while the others can be traced back to Big Simon. They would go for that first.”

“Everyone would want to move into yours.”

“Not a chance. They’re out of luck. I’ve got no more sympathy except for two of the wives. I’d help get them settled, maybe in Escanaba. They’d be overjoyed to get out of this place.” Despite this, Lemuel departed with a worried look.

Smolens called saying, “Bingo, that’s the pistol. The charges are increasing. He’ll be locked up forever.”

“As it should be,” Sunderson said. “That is what we’re here for.”

Marion was fishing and Sunderson still felt tired so he hastily read a chapter of Lemuel’s book in which an eleven-year-old girl, presumably Monica, was sleeping with her narrator uncle. She already loved to cook. Sunderson was shocked. It was a novel, supposedly, but Lemuel didn’t seem very imaginative and none of his manuscripts had seemed fictional so far. He recalled finding a shred of paper on the floor of Monica’s room that said, “Love, Lem,” nothing conclusive and likely the end of a friendly note. It had occurred to him that Monica and Lemuel were the only two competent beings in the entire Ames clan. Was it deranged to think that he might be a patsy, or the odd man out in a three-way love hoax? Monica was too young for him, but not of course as young as with Lemuel if fiction was actually fact. Nevertheless it made him uneasy with himself. Why would anyone but a deviant make love to an eleven-year-old even if she was extraordinarily precocious? There was a huge taboo written all over it. He had seen a wonderful movie about a girl who had been abused and then became a famous bandit leader throughout the countryside in vengeance. The old idea of two wrongs don’t make a right seemed wrong in this case. The theory is that the vengeance of the state slows crime. This was likely true for most but not the Ames-Arnetts. Bert didn’t know about the state. He knew cows and vodka. Sunderson had heard that the judge looked forward to the case, having wanted to nail him with something major for years. Sunderson would have to testify and it would be hard to keep a straight face when the sentence was meted out. He was betting on the range of twenty years. At his own age he would be unlikely to see Bert again. It occurred to him that there were never enough good women around to keep them away from the kids. Maybe it was that basic.