Coldwater Revenge

by James A Ross

  Luke moved his head up and down again, a giant grin stretching his face.

  “I’ll make him wear a life jacket. I promise.”

  Bonnie hesitated.

  “Trust me.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Luke sprinted to the end of the dock and dipped a bare hook into the blue/black water, staring expectantly after it. Tom checked the marina office and found it locked and shuttered. The only sign of life appeared on the deck of a thirty foot Penn Yan tied to the end of the dock. Tom walked over and asked the man mopping the stern if they were too late to rent a boat.

  “Season’s over,” he said, spilling soapy water from a bucket onto the deck. “I’m just getting ready to haul this one.”

  Tom admired the oiled mahogany and polished bright work. “She’s a beauty. Ever take her out for salmon?”

  The man brushed the soapy water toward the stern. “Don’t have the time. I’ve got an old downrigger in the locker, if you’re looking for used tackle.”

  Tom laughed. “I need a boat first. I made the mistake of telling my nephew here about this place where the fish are as big as he is.”

  “That’d be out past Pocket Island in about a hundred feet of water, if they’re there today.”

  Tom touched the pocket that held his wallet. “Anyone who could get us there could name his price.”

  The man smiled. “What’s the boy’s name?”

  “Luke Morgan.”

  “Any relation to our sheriff?”

  “His son. My brother.”

  The man’s face grew thoughtful. “We might be able to work something out, Mr. Morgan. I’m Jack Thompson, by the way.”

  Tom held out his hand. “Tom Morgan.”

  “That’s right. Tell young Luke there to step on board. We’ll see if one of those monster fish is out there cruising around.”

  Tom felt the flush of relief. He’d been cooler in the face of a busted mega-deal than in the prospect of disappointing Luke on their first outdoor adventure. “What do I owe you for saving my life, Jack?”

  Thompson grinned. “I’ll let you know later.”

  The Penn Yan kept to the middle of the channel until it cleared the cove, then Thompson opened the throttle for the twenty minute run to the trench west of Pocket Island. Over the noise of wind and motor, he shouted to Luke, “Go below and say hello to Brutus! He likes company!” Luke disappeared into the cabin and emerged with his arms wrapped around a large black Labrador. Thompson handed the boy a biscuit. “Give him this.”

  Overhead, long, v-shaped lines of geese and mallards dotted the pale blue sky. It was good that the lake was calm. Luke wasn’t big enough to take a pounding, and the deep water beyond Pocket Island could get rough.

  When the depth-finder registered an abrupt drop from thirty to a hundred forty feet, Thomson eased the throttle. “We’re here.” To Luke he added, “Take Brutus up front. He likes to sun himself up there. Take these, too.” He handed Luke a baggie of dog biscuits. Then he turned to Tom. “Do you know how to set up a downrigger?”

  “It’ll come back to me.”

  Thompson disappeared into the cabin and came back with an old Cannon hand crank, a seven foot Loomis rod and a single red and white J-plug. It took Tom longer than he remembered to get the drag and clip set right. But eventually everything was ready. Thompson held the boat in the center of the trench and kept the throttle at one and a half knots. Tom took the mate’s chair and turned it to face the rod. If a salmon hit, the line would pull free from the downrigger, and the rod would snap upright signaling a fish was on.

  Thompson turned the captain’s chair to face his passenger. Soft and matter of fact, his voice blended easily with the throaty murmur of the inboard engine puttering just above idle. “So, who killed William Pearce?”

  Tom looked at the Lowrance. Depth 120 feet, water temperature 51 degrees Fahrenheit. “You a good swimmer, Jack?”

  Thompson smiled. “Coldwater hasn’t gotten any bigger since you left, Tom. Everyone knows the sheriff’s business.”

  Tom looked toward the bow where Luke lay curled with the dog. At one and a half knots, the boat moved through the water at the pace of a brisk stroll. He calculated the permutations of possible trouble with Thompson. None worried him, as long as Luke kept out of the way. “What makes you think I know who killed Billy Pearce?”

  Thompson smiled. “My niece is the receptionist at NeuroGene. She called to tell me her boss recognized the picture in the Gazette of the man they pulled from the lake yesterday, and that our sheriff and his brother were out there asking questions.”

  “Your sheriff would say that’s police business.”

  “It’s also news.”

  “Are you a reporter, Jack?”

  “Reporter, photographer, printer, publisher. I own the Coldwater Gazette.” He raised his chin toward the boy and the big black dog dozing in the sunlight. “You said I could name my price. I just did. An interview. About the murder of William Pearce.”

  Tom released a stoppered breath. “You should really talk to my brother.”

  “Maybe I should do an article about him?” Thompson’s voice was mock thoughtful. “That would be some juicy reading.”

  Tom assumed his boardroom face, alert and expressionless.

  “Do you know how hard it is to keep a weekly newspaper alive on a diet of school events and county politics?” Thompson asked. “A home-town murder is a gift from the gods. Pardon my cold heart. I’ve got a stack of bills on my desk that’d choke a moose. A juicy local murder could mean a couple of months of extra readers and ads that could put a dent in that pile of bills.”

  Tom looked up at the bow where Luke lay with his arms around the Labrador. It was dead calm and there were no boats in any direction. “How much revenue could you get from the story you’re looking for, Jack?”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “No. You were talking about unpaid bills. How much revenue?”

  “Enough to keep the doors open.”

  “And your biggest cost is payroll?”

  “Ha!” Thompson spat. “I’m it. The paper can’t support more than one person, even if he is getting kind of long in the tooth. Printing and newsprint are the big tickets.”

  “Suppose you could cut those bills in half?”

  “I’d sell my soul… for that or a Pulitzer.”

  Tom reached for the binoculars tucked into the pocket on the back of the captain’s chair and focused them on the horizon. Ten miles away, the dark shoreline of Quebec was broken by the thumbnail smudges of Sainte Foy, Pont Rouge and Grand-Mere. He handed the glasses to Thompson. “From here you can see three towns with newspapers just like yours. If it were clearer, you could see more.”

  “So what?” said Thompson, not bothering to look. “That’s Quebec.”

  “And the papers are French,” said Tom. “So they don’t compete with you for the same readers. If you went to any of them and offered to co-buy and co-publish—paper, ink and everything else, you could all cut your operating costs by an amount a whole lot larger than a temporary bump in ad revenue from a one-time murder story. You could even print cheaper over there and bring the papers across duty free under NAFTA.”

  Thompson looked at him hard. “Is this what you do for a living?”

  “On a different scale. Yes.”

  Thompson handed the glasses back. “The brain drain around here…” He shook his head. “It’s a wonder this town survives. Every one of you bright boys should be made to come back and do a year of public service to repay the free education that launched you.”

  Tom laughed. “Take this as a down payment. A six-month ad bump from a murder story is just that. But the savings from co-publishing with one of the French papers across the lake would be permanent. And you don’t have to compromise a murder investigation to get it.”

  “So it is a murder?” Thompson leapt.

  Tom shrugged. “Unless Billy Pearce put himself into that bag and tried to play Houdini.
”

  * * *

  Thompson turned the boat at the end of the trench, shifting the sun to the stern. The big Labrador followed the sunlight and Luke followed the dog. Thompson whistled and waved at Luke to move to the stern. “Go sit behind the rod, son. If you see it pop or if Brutus starts to bark, crank the reel as fast as you can. There’s fifty feet of slack and you’ll need to get all of it back before the salmon throws the hook.”

  Luke nodded and climbed into the chair behind the downrigger. The dog sat on the deck and watched the rod. Tom took a turn asking questions. “So what do you know about Billy Pearce? You must hear things in your line of work.”

  Thompson shrugged. “I do. But why should I tell you, if you’re not going to help me?”

  Tom waved toward the shoreline of Quebec. “I just balanced your checkbook for the next ten years. I could give some thought to that Pulitzer, too, if you let me know what you left out of the obituary.”

  Thompson’s eyes widened, but his mouth remained firm. “Rumor and innuendo. None of it news. I played bridge regularly with the father years ago. Hell of a card player. But always whining about his idiot son. Of course, the boy got in trouble when he got older: shoplifting, graffiti, that kind of thing. I take it you never met him.”

  “I used to coach his little league team. He was a bright kid. No idiot at all.”

  “Well, the father had some pretty high standards.” Thompson checked the depth finder and turned the wheel to bring the boat about. A hundred feet below, the J Plug slowed to a halt as the bow swung to port, then accelerated as the stern swung back in line. As the wheel straightened, the dog barked and the rod popped. “Fish on!”

  Tom wrapped his hand over Luke’s on the handle of the fishing reel as the rod tip plunged and line began to tear off the reel. “Crank, buddy, crank! He’s hooked!”

  Luke churned his arm. The bail spun like a fist-sized dynamo. Tom squeezed the boy’s hand. “Wait. When he’s taking line like that, just hold tight and keep the rod tip up. When he stops, start cranking.”

  Luke nodded and kept his eye fixed on the reel.

  The rod began to straighten. “He’s coming up,” said Thompson.

  Thirty feet behind the boat, the blue/black water erupted in foamy spray and rainbow prism. A gray cylinder the size of a man’s leg broke the surface and whipped the water into foam with a tail as wide as a catcher’s mitt.

  Thompson whistled. “That’ll go forty pounds.”

  Don’t jinx it.

  Tom held out a hand. “You got a net?” Thompson disappeared into the cabin. The rod plunged again and the reel began to scream. “Let it run,” whispered Tom. “He’ll tire himself out.”

  Luke nodded.

  The fish rose and the boy took line. It sounded and he gave it back, the drag putting pressure on the fish. When the reel stopped turning, Luke cranked again, Tom’s whisper steady in his ear, “Crank, buddy, crank.”

  Then a boy-sized fish rose to the surface, tailing behind the boat, momentarily exhausted.

  “I’m going to take the rod out of the downrigger and hand it to you,” said Tom. “I want you to stand and grip it above the reel. Tuck the butt into your hip, then crank and lift steady. The rod will bring the fish to the net and then Mr. Thompson can grab it.”

  Luke nodded.

  “You ready?”

  He nodded again.

  “Here goes.” Tom took the rod out of the holder and placed it in Luke’s hands, putting one above the reel, settling the butt on the boy’s left hip and placing his other hand on the handle. “Okay, lower it. Slowly.”

  Luke dipped the rod with Tom’s hand underneath acting as a brake.

  “Reel in the slack.”

  The boy turned the big, knobbed handle while Tom guided the rod from upright to nearly horizontal.

  “Now lift again. Slowly.”

  “He’s coming,” shouted Thompson. “Keep it up!”

  “Lower and lift,” said Tom. “Lower and lift.”

  Luke nodded and did what Tom said.

  Thompson leaned over the stern and waved the net over the water. “Closer,” he shouted. “Two more feet.”

  Luke lowered the rod and reeled in the slack. Tom held a hand under the rod and placed the other on the boy’s back.

  “Six inches,” shouted Thomson. “God, he’s the size of a duffel bag!”

  “Just a little bit more,” Tom whispered.

  Luke lowered the rod, reeled in the slack and lifted steadily. Thompson thrust the net into the water. “Got him!” he shouted. “Got him!”

  As Thompson shouted, the Loomis plunged. The rod ripped from Luke’s hand, slapping him across the face and then disappearing over the stern. A small white tooth landed on the deck.

  “Oh shit!” said Thompson. “Oh, God.”

  Tom moved his hand to Luke’s shoulder. Blood oozed from the boy’s chin and the skin around it turned the color of eggplant. He didn’t notice the tooth until later. “Are you okay, buddy?”

  Luke moved his head up and down.

  “You’re going to have a shiner. Me too, when your mom and grandma get a look at you.”

  Luke stared at the spot behind the boat where rod and fish had disappeared into the blue-black water. His right arm trembled at his side.

  “You okay?”

  The boy nodded slowly.

  “So what do you think about salmon fishing, now? Like it?”

  The boy made a sound, but Tom couldn’t make it out. He rested his chin on top of Luke’s head and stared at the spot where the big fish had disappeared. “I didn’t catch that, buddy. What did you say?”

  The boy whispered again.

  Tom kept his chin on the top of Luke’s head. “That’s right, buddy. That’s right.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Billy Pearce’s funeral was held at the local United Church, a merger of the former Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian churches whose congregations and collections had dwindled over the years to the point of overlooking doctrinal differences. It was Tom’s first time inside the simple clapboard structure and, he suspected, the first for Billy as well. The dark wood and white plaster interior was eerily Spartan compared to the lakeside Catholic church where the Morgan family had spent the soporific Sundays of Tom’s youth. There were no statues, no pictures, no candles and no gold. The attendance that morning was equally sparse: fewer than a dozen mourners, including himself, Joe and the minister.

  Susan Pearce sat alone in the front pew next to the closed casket, her charcoal tailored suit and silver jewelry more understated than severe, and her shoulder length hair the golden focal point in an otherwise colorless gathering. Her small straight nose, thin upper lip and rounded cheekbones were exactly as Tom remembered. He couldn’t see more without changing seats, and Joe’s orders had been to remain inconspicuous.

  The lone occupant of the pew on the other side of the casket was a dark complexioned, forty-ish looking man wearing an expensive herringbone suit. Tom guessed Armani and noted, too, that despite the absence of other visual distractions, the man never looked in Susan’s direction. Or if he did, he was extremely discrete. When the service began, his movements copied hers, with a second or two delay at the kneeling parts as if he was unsure whether these might be gender specific.

  The heavy, brooding figure at back of the church came from the other end of the fashion spectrum. The feet were hidden, but muddy boots most likely completed the outfit. Tom had no trouble putting a name to the pugnacious profile. The extra forty pounds on Frankie Heller did nothing to soften the menacing image seared on Tom’s memory.

  One of the more painful and humiliating incidents of Tom’s youth had been a confrontation with Frankie Heller at a Coldwater High School dance. Tom had spent most of the evening on the basketball court turned dance floor, absorbed in the company of a vivacious young woman who he had known casually for some time and who he hoped to get to know better, as occasionally happens at high school dances. The only impediment to his plan
was another dancing couple who kept crashing into Tom and his partner, and who neither apologized nor seemed to make any effort to avoid doing it again. By the end of the evening, Tom had had enough. When the dervishes careened into Tom and his partner one more time, Tom planted a polished wingtip in the backside of the twirling trousers, connecting solidly.

  Before his foot returned to the ground, Tom realized he’d made a mistake. The butt he’d kicked in a moment of pique looked, on quick assessment, to be easily capable of kicking him back and then some, thoroughly, and over a long period of time.

  Frankie Heller’s assessment was the same and quicker. Before Tom had even finished his pirouette, Frankie crashed into Tom’s torso, knocked him to the hardwood floor and mounted his chest. Grabbing a hunk of hair, he bounced Tom’s head on the parquet floor like one of the basketballs the hardwood was meant for. For what happened next, Tom had to rely on the account of others, because by then, he was out cold.

  Some accounts had Joe and a few of his teammates from the Coldwater High School football team pull Frankie off, drag him out to the parking lot and beat the bejeezus out of him. Other accounts had Joe doing it all by himself right there in front of everybody. In any event, alone or with help, Joe did a thorough job. Tom recovered his senses in a few minutes and the softness and ache at the back of his head disappeared in a few days. But Frankie Heller lay in the Coldwater Hospital for a week and did not return to school for a month. Joe escaped assault charges only because the sheriff who investigated the incident (their dad) claimed to be unable to find a witness.

  After that night there was an unspoken realignment in the Morgan family constellation. Tom began to draw away from his former circle of friends, from sports and everything else that had defined him until then, including his family. Joe grew closer, rapidly becoming their sheriff father’s heir apparent and, as between the brothers, the acknowledged muscle. Frankie Heller made no move to exact revenge, demonstrating a wily intelligence generally thought to be absent. The girl Tom had danced with at the dance that night was Susan Pearce.