by P W Ross
Norval exited to the stern and hoisted the fish trap onto the deck. He unwound the copper wire loop that held it shut and opened the top. Returning to the cabin where the blonde watched helplessly, he picked up Anthony in a firemans' hold, carried him to the fish trap and lowered him in. The muscle spasms had stopped and his eyes were becoming lucid.
He was close to speaking and trying to get a bodily response to his brain's commands. Norval, dispassionately, almost matter-of-factly, stunned him one more time and returned to the girl. He leered down at her, surprised by his sexual arousal but suppressing the urge. Instead, he lifted her gently off the bed and took her to join her lover. Placing her softly in the trap, they were once again face to face. He secured the top hinge, rewound the copper wire loop and threw a musty canvass tarpaulin over top of them.
Taken by surprise, the stun gun had done the rest. Not a word had been spoken. No sound uttered, except for her abbreviated scream. Norval was exhilarated. Empowered. Adrenalin pumped furiously, though he knew he must keep his wits about him. Cutting both the fishing boat and the Chestnut loose, he allowed them to drift back into the recess of the bay. They would be found soon enough. It would not matter.
He cast the lines off and started up the houseboat, powered by a quiet twenty-five four stroke. The Coleman remained gently swinging from the roof, though the only light now came from the dials on the dash. Standing at the controls and heading south in the darkness, Norval made for the middle of the channel. Shutting the motor down and now drifting, he made his way to the stern. He tore back the tarp and saw they were still dazed and realised their altered state was not only the result of the electrical charge, but the dope he had smelled in the cabin. They truly did not understand what was happening, and the surrealism of it all made the scene even more terrible, more unfathomable.
Norval bent over with his hands on his knees, staring remorselessly into the trap. They gazed at him. Helpless, their faces and eyes filled at the same time with terror, disbelief and confusion. He thought it curious they did not struggle or cry out, seemingly resigned. Perhaps in their stupor they thought this was some kind of a cruel joke or an unreal dream, not really happening. Norval spoke for the first time.
“Well, you know something is happening here but you don't know what is it, do you Mr. Jones?”
As he pushed the trap toward the edge of the deck the girl made no plea, but her lover started up softly.
“Man, please... What is this? Let us out of here... Let her go... We’ll do anything. I’ll do anything... Quello che sta accadendo? What's happening? Just stop... Help us! Please, please, please, please... Just stop. Let us go... Please, please... Oh Madre di Dio... ”
Remorseless, Norval slid the trap over the edge and into the lake. It seemed to hover and for an instant he thought it actually might float. Yet, slowly and steadily the mesh coffin began its decent. The couple turned toward each other and embraced. The last thing Norval heard was the girl.
“Anthony, Anthony, Anthony,” she gurgled as they drifted down into the frigid darkness.
Sardonically, he thought they must have been smoking some pretty good shit. He lowered himself into the canoe and stroked off into the night, leaving the houseboat to drift where it may.
Chapter Three
“Jack, we can’t just sit here like a couple of zombies,” “You best call Rummell.”
He retrieved the cell phone from a weather-beaten Umco tackle box and dialled the local constabulary. The phone was never on for incoming calls and aboard only for an emergency. Hard to call this an emergency. It was a mite late for those two. The northeast arm of the lake touched the Trans Canada Highway that was lined with communications towers. The service was spotty but the call went through.
“Give me Inspector Rummell, it’s an emergency.”
“Jack Alexander. Any idea where he is?”
“How long till he gets back?”
“Jill, is that you?”
“Well... look Jill, Bob and I... Well... Uh... We’ve got ourselves a bit of a situation out here on the lake and the two of you are going to have to get out here now.”
“No... Not maybe after lunch... I mean now!”
“No... No... NO!... For Christ’s sake... Worse!”
“Listen, damn it!”
“We just brought up a downrigger from the bottom and it had... uh, well... uh... it had two corpses attached to it.”
“Yes, two! I said corpses Jill, of course they're dead.”
“Man and a woman.”
“I dunno, maybe twenty-five or thirty. What difference does it make now?”
“Yes, for Christ’s sake, on one downrigger!
“No! ... How the hell would I know their names? You think they came up wearing tags... like they were at some sort of convention?”
“Look, trust me. Just stop with the twenty questions and listen. They're in some sort of cage and I'm not bringing them in... you guys are going to have to deal with this. It's goddamned unbelievable.”
“It's ten thirty now. How long?”
“I'm in the Lund probably seventeen miles from town, dead centre of the North Arm channel. Bob's here with me and we're gonna tie up to the floating red marker five miles directly north of the Bear Island Reserve.”
“Right... you better call Will MacKenzie. Have him come over from Bear and take a look. He's a lot closer than you folks.”
“For sure... and step on it before the lake starts to kick up.”
“Yes... Right... Yes... Just make it fast.”
Jack tossed the cell back into the tackle box and took another pull on the brandy. “Over and fucking out.”
“You know those two pretty well. They know their asses from page one?”
“Parsons is new on the force, green as grass, just finished training, been here maybe six months on her first posting. Shit, worse thing she's probably seen is a moose get smacked by a transport on the highway. She'll spend the next twenty years on the force and she ain't ever gonna see another thing like this. Eugene Rummell's an old hand, seen just about everything up here and pretty much ready to retire. Patrolled the lake for a couple of years when he was younger but ready to pack it in, just finishing off his time and waiting for the pension. Only reason he got posted up here again is because he's in the penalty box.”
“How do you mean?”
“Beat the daylights out of a dealer down in North Bay for peddling drugs to his daughter — thought arrest and suspended sentence wouldn't be enough.”
“Our kind of guy. Jill says the boss is ten minutes out of town in the cruiser, so by the time he gets back and they get the launch revved up it should be a little less than an hour.”
“Hell, there's not a mark on them and they can't have been in the water very long. There's no blue at all, not even on the lips. If anything, they just look pale. Except those damn eyes, Christ they're spooky, almost like if we opened the top they could just swim away.”
“Jesus... get a grip. They're not going anywhere, probably stiff as a couple of marble statues. Goddam it, I wish I'd cut that cable.”
Overhead, about a hundred feet, gulls were beginning to circle and two hundred feet higher a pair of bald eagles plied an early morning thermal.
Bob glanced upward to the squawking. “Well, it doesn't take them long and they sure as hell know something's dead. You heard of anyone missing on the lake?”
“Nope”
“Well, if we hadn't hooked 'em, these two would have been permanently missing persons.”
“You know it doesn't matter how good any of the local cops are, how in the hell are they gonna figure this one out? You'd have to be Sherlock Holmes.”
“More like Edgar Allan Poe.”
“Hercule?”
The idea of lifting the trap into the boat was unimaginable so they guided the craft skilfully to the floating ship-buoy and tied on. Its solar powered light, red as a loon's eye, blinked at them every fifteen seconds. They were probably five hundred yards f
rom the spot where they had lifted the pair.
They sat, smoked, drank and waited in silence.
Fifteen minutes later they made out a Stanley boat, the sun glistening off its aluminium hull, bearing down on them from the direction of the indigenous reserve of Bear Island.
Whatever these two had gotten themselves into, Will hoped it would be short and sweet. It was a family day for him and he didn't take kindly to being called out on his day off. He had never had a run-in with either of these two and knew them only as nodding acquaintances; however, both were well known in these parts and their friendship was respected. If you crossed one, you crossed the other. Bob Goodenough’s family had been around since the founding of the town and he now owned the Miniwassa Hotel and Bar at the northeast tip of the lake. Nice piece of property.
Jack Alexander was a different kettle of fish. He had spent his summers on the lake all his life and was said to know every inch of it, top to bottom. It was well known that he had made a fortune in the dot.com boom, sold out before it crashed, retired early and now spent half the year in Temagami and some other place down in México. He never flaunted his wealth, pretty much acted like a regular guy and was well liked around town. So, other than what everyone else in town knew about these two, MacKenzie knew nothing. Well, he thought, time to see what the two amigos have been up to.
“Okay Bob, fill me in on this guy MacKenzie before he gets to us.”
“Well, guess it's been five years now that the reserve has had its own policing operation — the OPP couldn't wait to be rid of the responsibility and regardless, that was the right move. Will's had the job now for a couple of years. Used to be a cop in New Liskeard. Smart guy, bit of a temper... I wouldn't want to get in his way.”
“What else?”
“Interesting sense of humour.”
“What the hell's that supposed to mean?”
“Hang around him long enough and you'll find out.”
As MacKenzie narrowed the gap, Jack motioned to him with a palm pushing down gesture, signifying to slow right down and cause no wake. Will circled the Stanley around the buoy once, eyeing the cage supported by the downrigger. He came along the opposite side, tied on and came aboard the Lund.
“Hey Jack... Bob,” he nodded, “ Don't know what the big deal is but it better be good. Jill's in a goddam panic. It just happens to be my day off but says I should get my ass out here ASAP to see what you two are up to. ‘Be prepared for something a little different”, she says.”
“When I should be playing with my kids, my butt is out here and I'm duly prepared. So... what is it that’s so fucking important?”
After the morning they'd been through, Bob and Jack didn't much care that Will had a burr up his ass. They tilted their heads toward the downrigger.
“Try that on for size, wise guy.”
Will nonchalantly leaned over the side and after one glance stumbled awkwardly backward. Regaining his composure, he studied the cage.
“Je... sus... Christ!
What have you guys 'bin doin? How the hell did you hook something like this? God Almighty. Where were they?”
“Five hundred yards south,” Bob offered.
“You bring' em up off the bottom?”
“Yup.”
“How deep?”
“’Bout a hundred feet.”
“Any idea who they are?”
“Nope.”
MacKenzie took a long look into the cage, bravado abandoned. “Well... I... will... be... goddamned! Boys, I thought I'd seen just about everything, but when it comes to mans’ cruelty to man, perhaps the end is never in sight.”
“Poetic, I'm sure they're touched.”
Turning their collective heads northward, they could make out the sound of the police launch closing in on their location. The Ontario Provincial Police had a presence on all of the large lakes and canals in the Province and outfitted their officers well. They pulled up in a 25-foot, steel-hulled inboard launch painted white and sporting the unmistakable OPP logo with blue and gold trim. Three boats were rafted together.
Parsons took one look at the victims and promptly threw up his breakfast on the top of the cage.
“Christ’s sake, Will, get on the other side,” barked Rummell as he began taking photographs.
“Will, toss a bucket of water and get that vomit out of there — the coroner's going to have a shit if we tell him someone puked on his corpses.”
Now they all sat huddled in the Stanley while Jack and Bob replayed their morning. Rummell said little, eyeing them stonily, wondering if he was getting the whole story. Not that he had any reason for suspicion. It was simply the nature of the job. Notes complete, Rummell, Bob and Will boarded the OPP launch while a queasy, waxen-faced Parsons manoeuvred the Stanley out of the way.
“Let's get 'em up out of the water. Try to keep it level.”
Rummell expertly navigated the launch into position opposite the cage. Bob and Will snagged it with poled grappling hooks and Jack released it from the downrigger ball. The Inspector came off the helm.
“Careful boys... easy... I said easy! We've got three hundred pounds there and I don't want them banged around inside.”
The combined strength of all three was just enough to lift the trap and its’ cache into the launch.
“Jack, Bob, better come into town and make out formal statements.”
As the boats were separating, Will winked at Jack, a sly twinkle in his eye.
“Hope you had a special license for those folks, Jack, 'cause they're definitely out of season.”
Chapter Four
Jack ran the Lund flat out on the way back to the cabin, wind in his face. The morning had been incredulous and he was numb, sensibilities anaesthetised. He simply did not know how he felt, how he should feel, or how you're supposed to feel with something this heinous.
Rummell’s report could wait and he raced in front of the cabin to circle into the back bay.
The dog waited on the corner of the boathouse walkway. A white, smooth-haired Jack Russell, Duff sported large brown patches on each flank that spread up over his back to form a perfect saddle. Brown ears sprung from two surrounding brown patches. Slightly larger than most Jacks, Duff carried a large barrel chest, one eye slightly larger than the other that only Jack noticed and had a constantly wagging tail. He answered only to Jack.
Easing the Lund into the left slip, he secured the boat and trudged along the bay path, past the workshop and up the trail, one hundred yards toward the cabin. He turned right and descended green-railed steps directly to the front dock, where he stripped off and stood naked with his hands on his hips and face to the sun. At fifty, he was blessed to be slim, still firm and well proportioned, probably better than he had been at twenty-five. Pretty boy, Ivy League looks had given way to a rugged cragginess. Of Scots and German heritage with a touch of Ojibwa salted in from old 'aunt' Louise, his metabolism was such that he had no trouble maintaining his weight at one hundred and eighty-five pounds distributed over a six foot one inch frame. His sandy blonde hair retained a wavy fullness. Piercing blue, deep-set eyes arched over a strong nose flawed only by a slight twist at the bridge where it had been broken in his youth by an errant hockey stick. A full chin with a small cleft centred a large jaw.
He was born with a touch of ADHD and the curse of a racing mind. When afflicted, he had a predilection to self medicate. He had to be vigilant.
Curling toes over the edge of the dock Jack made a shallow dive, swam straight out to the island that sheltered the cabin from the channel, turned and came back to hang his arms and head over the dock. The rest of his body dangled in the water while he re-ran the mornings’ events on the screen of his mind. He could make no sense of it. Shit happens didn't cut it. He had been here all his life and murder wasn’t part of the equation; never even part of the discussion. He felt violated, or more accurately, that his space had been violated. He gave his head a shake and pulled himself out, collected his clothes and returne
d dripping to the cabin.
The layout of the property was perfect for his needs, as if nature had allowed him to design it. By a long-ago decree, all cabins on this lake were deemed to be on islands and he had this five-acres to himself. On the lakeside, the cabin faced northwest where two small islands offshore protected him from the channel and provided a very private front bay through which boats rarely traveled. Fifty yards north of the front dock a narrow forested spit hooked out into the lake. At its tip he had built a large fire pit where he and his cronies had spent hours drinking, watching meteors, the northern lights, telling tall tales and discussing the summer constellations. He himself knew little of astronomy. But, what he knew for sure, and what he had always known since he was five years old, was that on a summer evening, if he sat on the front dock and looked up, the Big Dipper was always right there in front of him. Right there. Always. He had thrived in, and left, a business world of constant change, yet he was most comfortable knowing that some things truly did not change. In this place, the Big Dipper was an astral ‘pied-a-terre.’
To the southeast, the island almost met the shore and depending on the water level he could easily wade off the island. Unfortunately, it was just as easy for the bears to wander onto the island. The proximity to shore however created a very quiet back bay sheltering the boathouse and workshop, minimising the effect of winds and shifting winter ice.
It was not yet noon but exhausted, Jack sprawled out on one of the couches, pulled a throw over himself and dissolved into a fitful sleep. Awakening an hour later to the sound of coaxing woofs from a hungry Duff, he rolled reluctantly off the couch, poured out some dog chow and dressed for the trip to town, pulling on crisp blue jeans, a faded blue corduroy shirt, and last, Kodiak boots, softened and darkened by countless applications of mink oil. The long tail of the shirt hung outside his jeans and the cuffs rolled not on the outside, but carefully tucked up inside the sleeves above.
Anticipating an outing, Duff eagerly trailed him past the workshop to the boathouse. With two large slips, it was constructed not to require central support so the centre walkway was free from columns. A 15-foot cedar strip craft lay in the slip opposite the Lund. Preceded by a Lakefield and a Peterborough, this latest model was built by the Geisler brothers just seventy-five miles down the highway. Jack and his father had always customised them with additional sanding, multiple coats of spar varnish, eighteen-inch acrylic windshield, and custom floorboards along with chrome and brass hardware transferred from previous boats. Steering was a clever but rudimentary clothesline pulley system that ran to a worn Bryden Boy wheel in the bow. Powered by a 1957 Evinrude Fleetwin seven and a half horsepower, it was used to go to town and fishing walleye close to the cabin. It was never taken out or left in the rain and three coats of blue marine paint on the hull ensured it never leaked.
