The River Killers (12 page)

And why had he come here, fifty miles southeast of the middle of nowhere? To hook up with Dr. James O'Rourke? Unlikely, I judged, but worth looking into.

By the time I had pondered these questions to the point that they knew damn well that they'd been pondered by a not inconsiderable ponderer, it was time to shower and get ready for my big date.

As I took advantage of the
Jimmy Sinc
's ample water tanks for my shower, I considered whether or not I should rethink my principle of not sleeping with anyone until the third date: at least, anyone who had been a principal on the date. Play it by ear, I decided.

The sky had cleared before a ridge of high pressure and the temperature had dropped at least five degrees. The water was black and so was the sky. Suspended just below the roof of the sky were countless sparkling ice crystals, and below them the pale glow of a three-quarter moon. I was wearing my
DFO
fleecy and my
DFO
floater jacket, and glad of them. I wished I had worn my
DFO
woollen watch cap. Fortunately, it was a short ride and I still had some feeling in my ears when I arrived at the dock.

I tied up the boat and set off for The Restaurant, more properly referred to as Alexa's. I arrived before Louise, helped myself to a mug of steaming coffee, and sat with my hands cupped around the mug. My cousin Ollie came in, saw me, and sat down. “Danny Boy, what's up?”

“Just waiting for the fish, same as you. Have you got your boat here?”

“No, I'm shaking with Lenny Gravino on the
Seeker
.” Shaking was what herring gillnetters did, literally shaking the net so that the fish fell out and into the bottom of the skiff. It was bloody hard work.

“How's the shrimp business?”

“It's okay. Price isn't great but the stocks seem pretty stable. It's a pretty basic fishery. I cruise out into the Gulf of Georgia, find my favorite spot on the McCall Bank, do a few drags, and head home to Steveston.” Louise approached the table and I introduced her to Ollie. He got up and shook her hand. “Nice meeting you, but I've got to get back to the boat. See you later, Danny.” He limped toward the counter, just another casualty of the in-seine boat wars.

Louise sat down and smiled at me as she waved good-bye to Ollie. “You want the good news or the bad news? Actually, you don't have a choice. The bad news is that the owner of the
Kelp
gave a phony address and probably a phony name. The good news is that this info, plus the lack of powder residue on the body, has persuaded the higher-ups to designate this as a suspicious death. We've talked to the Credit Union and they're finding out where the money orders were bought. The next time Melissa receives a payment for the moorage fees, she'll hand the envelope to us, and we'll try to get some prints off it and trace the mailing origin.”

“You've been busy.”

“We always get our man.”

Before I could think of a clever reply, the waitress arrived to take our order. We both settled on halibut cheeks and a green salad. The salad arrived first, which was about all you could say for it.

I pointed out to the waitress that it wasn't really green.

“Oh,” she replied, “we just call it a green salad. You wouldn't expect us to hire someone Greek just to make our Greek salads, would you?” I couldn't argue with that, and the halibut cheeks more than compensated for the lack of support from the salad department.

“There's something else we could check out. You know Melissa O'Rourke? Crowley was a university buddy of her father's. That may be why he showed up here. The father is practicing in Vancouver now. I'd like to talk to him when the fishery is over.”

“Bit of a problem there, Danny. You're not supposed to be part of the investigation. Hell, technically you're a suspect, even though you've got a really good alibi: namely, you were still in Ottawa when Crowley was shot.”

“If this murder is tied to the science branch of
DFO
, you're going to need me to navigate through that maze, both the bureaucratic and the scientific side of it.” I could hear the ire inflecting my voice. “Crowley's friends and colleagues will open up more to me than you guys. If I'm going to help out, assist you in your inquiries or whatever, you can't just treat me like a trained seal.”

“Danny, I would never treat you like a trained seal. And dammit, I won't let my fellow officers treat you like one either. The first time they throw you a fish, I want you to let me know.” She paused a beat, gauging my reaction. I was too righteously indignant to smile.

“But Danny, we can't have a civilian running around questioning witnesses in a possible murder investigation.”

“Louise, you need my help. I know stuff you don't, I know people you don't, and I can open doors for you.”

Louise gave me a bit of a smile. “You want to be a doorman, you'll have to change your uniform. Okay, Danny, you're right. I need your help on this case. But you're enough of a bureaucrat to know there's protocols involved. We can stickhandle through them but it'll take teamwork.”

“As long as I'm on the team and not in the penalty box. C'mon. Walk me back to the dock.”

Two minutes later, we stood on the float, sheltered in the shadows of some pilings. I desperately wanted to hug her but settled for standing there awkwardly. Finally Louise told me I had to go and I reluctantly obeyed. On the way back to the
Jimmy Sinc
, I reflected that this date was an improvement on my last one. There was a lot to be said for bureaucratic liaison.

In the morning, I nursed
a coffee and gazed inattentively out the starboard porthole of the galley. A sleek red hull was momentarily framed in the opening as the
Racer
slipped into the harbor. The diagonal white stripe amidships on the hull identified it as a Coast Guard vessel. It was Christine's boat, or the one she served on, at least. My spirits rose as I contemplated a reunion.

The anchor chain rattled as the
Racer
dropped its hook about halfway between us and the
Coastal Provider
. I'd give them a little time to get squared away, do their chores and such, then I'd pick up Mark and go over for a visit.

George and Pete wandered down from the wheelhouse where they'd been listening to the radios. Radio chatter, on a harbor day with a large fleet anchored up, can be very entertaining. Even fishermen get bored after awhile with talking about fish. So they start telling jokes, some of which would be repeatable in polite company, or they tell stories or sing “Happy Birthday” to their buddies, or broadcast short spurts of their favorite tunes.

George sat down while Pete rummaged through the fridge. “Did you hear those two Native guys talking a while ago?” I shook my head. “They were talking about the weather and all the signs that they relied on to predict a blow. They talked about the red sky in the morning and the feel of the air and the seabirds heading for shelter and so forth. And then the one guy says, but don't forget to look at the white men's anchor lines. If they've got long anchor lines, you know it's going to blow. You've gotta check all the signs.” He chuckled. “You've gotta check all the signs. I like that.”

A meatloaf sandwich joined us at the table, with Pete hanging off the north side of it. “Too bad all of our cross-cultural relationships can't be that positive.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Cross-cultural relationships?”

“Hey, I always get philosophical on Sunday mornings, but you know what I mean.”

Yeah, I knew. Relations between white and Native fishermen were generally pretty good. They had to be. When you might have to call on a guy to tow you off a rock sometime, you wanted to be sure you hadn't called him a stupid Indian at some point. But aside from self-interest, there was a genuine bond among almost all fishermen that stemmed from the fact that they were all trying to scratch a living in the most dangerous profession in the world. There were some rednecks in the fleet, though, and sometimes tensions rose when a particularly misguided bit of
DFO
policy seemed to favor one race over another. However, most guys realized the Natives had some catching up to do. They just didn't want the entire cost of Native reconciliation to come out of their pocket.

George nodded his head. “My favorite time when I was fishing was hanging around the net floats on the weekend. You'd have Japanese and Natives and white guys and Swedes”—I kicked him under the table— “and they'd all be helping each other with their nets and
BS
-ing and having a great time. I never knew how to make a proper mesh knot until Harvey Scow's wife showed me. And I showed a few Native guys how to throw in a window patch.”

We all ruminated about this for a few minutes. Pete commented, “There should be Natives working with us, on all the patrol boats.”

“Too bad there's not a few Natives in that big
DFO
building in Ottawa,” George said.

“Christ,” Pete replied, “they've got too much self-respect for that.”

We ruminated on that as well. Finally, I said, “I'm going over to the
Racer
for a visit. You guys want to come?” I knew George would never leave the boat, but Pete demurred as well, mumbling something about reports.

Just as I stood up, there was a faint thud and a familiar voice yelled, “Ahoy, anyone awake in there?”

When Mark poked his head in the door, Pete said, “Oh, hi. We were just going to stand down after a fourteen-hour shift. But if there's anything at all you need, we are here to serve.”

“What I need, Pete, you ain't got. But thanks for the offer. Danny, you want to go for a visit?”

I grabbed my coat, waved good-bye, and followed Mark out onto the deck.

His tugboat-like power skiff was moored alongside. We jumped in, and with a roar and a cloud of black exhaust smoke, we set off for the
Racer
. When we came alongside, I made sure we had lots of bumpers hanging over the side. Didn't want to chip the paint; not ours, we didn't have any. Mark took care to make an extra gentle landing and we tied up, bow and stern.

Christine must have seen us coming because she appeared on the back deck and waved us aboard. She looked good in her uniform, trim and competent. I couldn't help but see her in a fresh light. She was no longer our shipmate, swaddled in a sort of brother/sister protectiveness. She was an attractive mature woman, and I wondered if she had a boyfriend.

She beamed at us as she pushed her still uncontrollable hair out of her face. “Hey guys, it's great to see you.” She held out her arms and we hugged and pounded each other on the back. “Rumor has it Fergie's in the area. Have you run into him?”

“Not yet. Some of the gillnet fleet's still in transit. They don't fish until after the seines.”

“Yeah,” she laughed, “same as always. The poor old gillnetters get the leftovers after the seines have creamed most of the quota.”

Mark poked her shoulder. “You rag pickers always got double our price with less expenses, so you gotta let us have a few fish.”

“Well, you can have 'em all now. I've got a real job.”

I pointed at the stripes on her shoulder. “You look real important. Are you an admiral?”

“Just about. Come on in and we'll grab a coffee.” She led the way into the
Racer's
spacious and well-equipped galley. Some of Christine's crewmates were seated at the table and she did introductions all around. By the time we'd all heard and forgotten everyone else's name, mugs of hot coffee had appeared in our hands and we joined the uniforms at the table.

“What have you guys been up to?” I threw the question out expecting Christine to answer, but a guy with one more stripe on his shoulder picked up the ball.

“We've spent the last five days doing a search and rescue operation.
SAR
. Unfortunately, we didn't quite manage the ‘R.'”

I looked at him and belatedly picked up on the prevailing aura of fatigue, and something else—defeat, I guess. These guys had obviously taken the search for Les Jameson a lot more seriously than I had. They'd found his boat but not him. Presumably, he'd been the victim of a
FOTAL
event: Fallen Overboard Taking A Leak. Not a very glamorous way to die, and decidedly unpleasant, but the lot of many a fisherman.

Mark was curious. “Was the boat floating or on the beach?”

Christine answered this time. “It was drifting but it had some hull damage and a badly dinged prop. We think it must have hit the beach, probably after Les had fallen overboard, and then drifted off when the tide rose. We did all the tide and wind calculations, trying to figure out where the boat might have beached relative to where we found it, and where a body might have drifted compared to where the boat did. And of course we cruised every inch of beach in case he'd got ashore.”

I entered the discussion. “If he fell in south of Cape Calvert, there's that strong outflow that comes out of Rivers Inlet, tide and wind. He would have ended up way the hell offshore. No hope of finding him. But I know you guys gave it everything.”

I looked at Christine. “Are you too tired to come for lunch?”

“Not if you're buying.”

“Not me. Mark is. He hasn't spent all his grub money yet.”

“Yeah, and that's from the '91 season.”

We excused ourselves and stood up. I tried to think of some bon mot that would dispel the gloom, but I couldn't. Mark offered, “You guys should catch some zeds.” We left.

Once in Mark's skiff, heading for the renowned dining room of the fabulous Shearwater Hotel, I yelled over the diesel's roar. “They take it seriously, don't they?”

“Yeah, and they beat themselves up over it. We did our best, worked thirty-six hours after we'd been ordered to quit, and we couldn't find him. So that's that and we move on to the next job.”