The River Killers (13 page)

Christine had fished her own gillnetter for three years and it showed. The point is not that she is tough, although she was, but that she was realistic to the point of fatalism. And I admired her for it.

“Here we are, folks.” Mark landed the skiff in front of
Sexy Sue
, a dilapidated old yacht whose stays were slumping and makeup was peeling. But someone still cared. Pots of flowers graced her stern deck and the tie-up lines were almost new. A live-aboard, unless I missed my guess.

The three of us walked briskly up the dock, thinking lunch-like thoughts. Seated in the restaurant, doing the waitress wait, I took note of the other customers. At two adjacent tables, a group of fishermen engaged in one loud conversation. And in the corner were two guys I took to be locals. I wondered why I assumed that, and decided it was because they were about as laid-back as you could get without being laid out. One of them, a sixty-five-year-old belt and suspenders type, was slowly stirring his coffee. The other, sporting the full Stanfields set, in classic grey, was examining a well-used toothpick.

Belt and Suspenders: “That bloody McTaggart! Hey?”

Mr. Full Set: “Damn right.”

B & S, shaking his head: “What are you gonna do, eh, eh?”

Mr. FS: “You're damn rights.”

B & S: “Had the nerve! Had the golderned nerve.

Mr. FS: “There you go, eh, there you damn well go.”

I missed the denouement because the waitress arrived, left to get her pad, and arrived again.

“Soup's good today.”

“Special?”

“No, but it's not bad.”

“No, is there a special?”

“There was yesterday. Probably some leftover. It wasn't very good.”

“That's okay.” I felt the urge for a large chunk of dead animal. “I'll have the steak, medium rare. Green salad.” Comparison shopping. How would Shearwater's green salad stack up against Bella Bella's? The implications of that decision overwhelmed me. “Make that fries.”

Christine decided on a clubhouse while Mark dithered. “Tell me about the soup again.”

“It's pretty good.”

“No, what kind is it?”

“Hang on, I'll check.”

We stared at each other until she returned. “Clam chowder.”

“Local?”

“No, I'm from Cache Creek.”

I put my forehead on the table. “Wonderful,” I heard Mark say. “I'll have the clam chowder then.”

When her footsteps had gone away, hopefully taking her with them, I raised my head and looked at Mark. “I'm glad you didn't discover page two of the menu. We'd still be waiting for you to make up your mind.”

Christine slapped the table with glee. “He knows all about page two. Remember that year we were in here and he lost a bet, and he had to eat page two? What was the bet?

I laughed as the memory flooded back. “Billy bet him he couldn't chug a beer no hands in ten seconds He got beer up his nose and sneezed all over my sweet and sour mystery balls. Waitress wouldn't bring me new ones.”

“I'm just glad I had to eat page two and not page three.”

Christine nodded eagerly. “Yeah, desserts versus appetizers. You could have died from piella.”

“You mean paella. That's a Spanish food, not something you get from eating pie, you idiot.”

“Who're you calling an idiot? If you ever need to call on my professional capacities, I will be the searcher and you'll be the searchee. That's why I have a pension plan. I'm much more likely to need it.”

Mark was still sputtering when the food arrived. After we'd taken the edge off our appetites, I nudged Mark. “Tell Christine about the abalone license policy.”

Mark's eyes lit up. “You'll love this.” He orchestrated the story properly, as fisherman do, using his knife and fork as twin batons while building toward the climax. He concluded with a timpani roll and a clash of cymbals. “And then we signed that nonsense with Fleming Griffith's name.”

Christine had to cover her mouth so as not to expel food as she laughed. “Jesus, I should have known you delinquents were behind it. We've been sort of following it and it's the only comic relief we've had.”

“But don't forget, Christine, we only contributed one small piece to the grand strategy. The rest is all straight from the policy group.”

“When Griffith finds out he'll freak!”

“Oh, I don't know. He might be happy to take credit for our brilliant ideas.”

“I bet they shut the site down. Or at least password-protect it so the barbarian hordes can't deface it.”

She was right. When we got back to the
Racer
, Christine's shipmates had all turned in, so we kept our voices low. Even so, we eagerly linked to the
SPLAG
website, where we found that Griffith's supposed contribution had been deleted and there was a sign-in process that demanded a password to access the site.

“I'm sure there's a way around that,” I said. “I'll have to consult my geek friends.”

Mark asked Christine if she'd heard about Crowley.

“That was sure a shock,” she said. “I never figured Crowley as a suicide type.”

“Maybe he wasn't.”

Two pairs of eyes locked onto me. I was unsure of whether or not to unburden myself, but in the end, what it came down to was just the need to share something with friends. I thought about limiting the story to Crowley, but everything came out. It had to. I couldn't talk sensibly about a murder without some motive, and that led to the West Vancouver lab and Igor and Billy.

After my twenty-minute monologue ended, there were several moments of silence. Finally Mark stood up. “Let's take a ride. I don't feel comfortable talking in here.”

We climbed into his skiff and he idled slowly away from the
Racer
. “I've always felt that Billy was dead,” he said. “But I figured he was probably rolled while trying to score some coke. This means he was murdered by someone at the lab, or at least connected with the lab. Were they worried about that fuckin' fish, trying to cover it up?”

Christine shook her head. “No, lots of people saw that fish: us, guys that walked past the boat while we were doing network. Billy showed it off like a sideshow geek. He must have seen or heard something at the lab that was supposed to be a secret.”

She looked at me. I shrugged. “There were some dodgy things going on there, but Christ, nothing worth killing someone over. Let's concentrate on this end of the thread. If we can link the
Kelp
to its owner, we might have the last person to see Crowley alive.”

“In other words, his murderer. And maybe Billy's murderer.” Mark looked almost angry as he guided the skiff through the maze of anchored boats. We were getting the odd wave from people on the boats, and I waved back unconsciously as I concentrated on the significance of Crowley's visitor. Crowley had obviously expected him, having made what I now realized were several references to the
Kelp
in his journal. And the visit was late. Why?

“Here's something we can do,” Christine said. “Whoever owns the
Kelp
obviously used it to visit Crowley, probably on a semi-regular basis. Someone at the dock may have seen him on the boat. Let's go ask around.”

Christine and I staggered back a step as the skiff surged ahead. Mark had rammed the throttle wide open and we were heading for Bella Bella.

We surged toward the fishermen's
dock, our broad bow casting aside three-foot furrows of water. Mark was obviously deeply preoccupied because he broke the most basic rule of boating courtesy; he didn't slow down to minimize our wake, and boats were crashing and banging all around us as we tied up. We looked around sheepishly but there was no one present to chastise us.

When we were a hundred feet down the float, a window flew open and Cecil Brown stuck his head out. “I didn't know it was going to blow today. It feels like it's blowing fifty but there's no wind. Hey, maybe it's one of those tsunamis. It couldn't possibly be some ignorant twit's wake, could it?”

“Tsunami. It was on
CBC
. Predicted to hit right about now.”

“Oh, that's all right then. Long as it wasn't some ignorant twit. Hey, Christine, long time no see. Who's that with you?”

“Two ignorant twits.”

Mark made as if to push Christine in the water. “Sorry, Cecil, I was trying to think and drive at the same time.”

“Think? You're forgetting you're a fisherman. Chase things around and sometimes catch them. But think? Be serious.”

“Sorry. Lost my head. Where is everybody?”

“Canucks are playing. Who are you looking for?”

I looked up and down the dock before I spoke. “Cecil, you need to keep this under your hat. That boat I was curious about earlier, the
Kelp
, it might be connected to Alistair Crowley's death.”

As the operator of a packer, collecting fish from a variety of highly competitive fishermen, Cecil kept more secrets than a priest or a beautician. And he didn't ask questions, which would only have increased his burden of secrets. So he didn't ask any questions now, merely pondered the implications of what I'd said. “We're trying to find someone who might have seen the owner, or anyone on the boat or connected with it in any way.”

“I'm down here twenty-four hours a day, at least until fishing starts, and I know everybody. If anyone knows anything, I'll find out and let you know.”

“We're just going down to look at the boat. See you later. And thanks.” He nodded and shut his window, and we continued down the dock. When we got to where the
Kelp
was moored, I was pleased to see Louise standing on her stern.

“Glad you're here, Danny. We're going over this boat for clues. You can help us spot anything unusual.”

Christine patted my shoulder. “And you're asking a
DFO
employee? They're known for being clueless.”

I introduced Louise to Mark and Christine, and explained how they were involved with the case. The boat's back door was open and there were two guys inside, one taking pictures and one doing something that may have been lifting fingerprints. Not wanting to appear too eager, I tried to keep my voice casual. “Find anything yet?”

“No. You guys take a look and tell me what you think.”

Mark was busy looking through the windows into the cabin. Christine had strolled slowly up to the bow, and was strolling slowly back, scrutinizing every exterior detail of the boat. I asked, “Is there a logbook on there?”

“No.”

I looked at my watch. “Holy shit! I've gotta get back for the test boat updates and then the eight o'clock conference. I'll talk to you later.”

As we walked away, Christine observed, “Gee, Danny, I think she likes you.”

I ignored her. “Did you notice anything unusual about the boat?”

“You saw the towing bridle, right?” Christine replied, “Brand new half-inch double-braided poly. That stuff is very popular with the gillnet fleet. Either the boat's just been towed or someone expected to have to tow it.”

“There's a fairly new plotter on there,” Mark added. “I'd love to have a look at it. It might show everywhere that boat's been in the last while.”

“Unless someone's erased the waypoints,” I said.

“On that model, even if it's just turned on for a reference, it'll record tracks automatically and store them,” Mark said. “A lot of guys don't realize that.”

“Wow, that could be very interesting.” I thought for a moment. “After the cops are through with the boat, maybe we can have a look at it.”

“If we fish tomorrow . . .” Mark's voice trailed off.

I considered the options. “You know, guys, if fish stuff starts happening, we're not going to have any more time to play detective with that boat. Maybe I should ask the
RCMP
to impound it so we don't lose whatever information might be on the plotter.”

Mark nodded. “Louise seems pretty bright. Explain to her about the plotter and make sure they get an expert to retrieve the info. You don't get a second chance if you screw it up.”

“I'll go see her tonight,” I said in what I hoped was a resigned voice.

Back on the
Jimmy Sinc
, I walked into the wheelhouse in time to hear the start of the test boat reports. In North Spiller Channel, most of the tests were around twelve to thirteen percent, with one at sixteen percent. Farther south, the percentages were down around ten, but things were definitely percolating. There were at least fifteen thousand tons of fish in Spiller and ten to fifteen miles of light spawn along both shorelines. It was getting uncomfortably close to decision time. If it was a gillnet fishery, we'd probably wait a day or two until more fish moved into the beach, but that wasn't necessary for the seine fishery. Theoretically, things were good enough to fish tomorrow, although some might want to wait for the roe percentage to go up a bit. I looked at Pete in an interrogative manner.

He looked equivocal. “Let's hear what the company guys have to say.”

I didn't really like letting the company guys have too much input, but they were the ones buying the product and naturally they wanted the best possible quality, which meant the biggest roe.

“Well, guys, biologically speaking, there's no reason not to fish tomorrow. But we're not the ones paying the license fees. As much as possible, I'd like to let the fleet make the call. If we get any sort of consensus on the eight o'clock conference, we'll just go with it.”

George looked up from the radar. “Consensus? I thought we were talking about fishermen. Gillnetters don't like seiners who don't like trollers, but northern gillnetters hate southern gillnetters more than they do seiners, who aren't too fond of west coast seiners, and everybody agrees that draggers are Satan's spawn except the draggers, who consider themselves beneficent providers for a hungry world, and sports fishermen look down on everyone unless you tie your own flies out of Tibetan monk whiskers, and everyone absolutely detests anyone who ever caught one more fish than they did.”