Walleye: An Eco Thriller in Temagami

by P W Ross

  “Nice sentiment Gene, but who knows what the hell you were going to find?”

  “Guess not... know that part of the lake Jack?”

  “You know I do... what do you want to know?”

  “Fishing.”

  “With a gill net?”

  “Gene, natives here have trapped fish in weirs or netted them for hundreds of years. Just southwest of that marker is a small, bald rock island with a couple of scruffy pines clinging to it. The marker keeps you off the shoal that runs straight north from the island. It’s only about fifty yards from shore and most likely the boy was running the net from the island to the shore.”

  “Jack, gill netting has been illegal here for years, native or not.”

  “Spare me. No matter what they may say, the native community does not acknowledge or accept many of our laws. They simply tolerate them to survive. For native teenagers, poaching is like a game. Catch me if you can.” Jack was always surprised at the naivety of the local police.

  “What do you think killed him?”

  “I want to hear what Brautigan has to say, but from the position of the head, I’d say he’s been strangled or his neck was broken, maybe both. Did you notice the life preserver under the head?”

  “Yeah... think it’s a coincidence?”

  “Don’t believe in them. It was like someone put it under his head to make him more comfortable.”

  “Should have thought about that before he snapped his neck. What do you think?”

  “I think he knew him and left in some sort of anguish.”

  “Any sign the boy wasn’t alone when he went out?”

  “Never thought about that, why?”

  “Usually if you’re going to net fish you don’t go alone.”

  “Well, I didn’t see anything to indicate there was anyone else with him but Will should be able to get that information.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. ‘Cause he’s native doesn’t mean he always gets the straight goods. Some natives think aboriginal policing is a sell out.”

  “My point here Gene is that it’s possible there was more than one victim or that maybe someone escaped. If they escaped, they saw the killing and the murderer.”

  “So why wouldn’t they come forward?”

  “Firstly they were poaching and secondly, maybe they’re going to take care of it themselves.”

  “You’re really making my day Jack.”

  “Just make sure Will finds out if the boy took off by himself.”

  Both were silent, contemplating the possibilities when Jack asked, “So why does he tie them to the marker?”

  “Drama Jack, drama. He wanted the kid to be found and he made it easy. Friscolanti is right. He’s some kind of a terrorist. How big you figure that boy is?”

  “Dunno... maybe six feet, one-eighty.”

  “So, how does someone get close enough to snap his neck?”

  Jack realized where he was going. “Like you said, he knew this guy.”

  “For sure. Maybe he offers to help or could be he’s some sort of authority figure the boy’s going to submit to.”

  “You figure he was killed in the boat?”

  “No doubt. I’ll have Will scour that island but I don’t think he’ll come up with much. Let’s go down and see what Brautigan’s got to say for himself.”

  The tarp had been replaced and tied down. Conrad was slipping out of the overalls.

  “Conrad?”

  “I’d say he’s been dead around twelve hours. Neck’s broken from behind, left arm around the neck, right hand to the left of the skull and then snapped like a twig.”

  “No struggle?”

  “Nope, I don’t think he suspected a thing.”

  “What about the eye?”

  “Birds.”

  “So, what do you want to do? Put him in a bag and take him back solo or pull the whole thing up on a trailer and take it back to the Bay?”

  “I can’t do a proper exam here. I’ve basically got another floating crime scene but this one’s fairly portable so I’m going to take the whole kit and caboodle back to North Bay and go over it with a fine-tooth comb. I don’t think we’ll get much but we need to dust the whole boat and I have to unravel every inch of that net. Never know what we’ll find. Other than what he had for dinner, I don’t imagine the autopsy will tell us much more than we know already.”

  “He’s going to be pretty ripe before you get there.”

  “Eugene, ripe is when they’ve been in the water two weeks and fall apart at the touch. Let’s just get it to town, up the ramp and outta here. This is number five Eugene. I’ll try to keep it quiet from my end, but that boy’s off the reserve and it’ll leak out for sure, at least that he’s missing and that’ll be enough.”

  Jack waved them off and ambled up to the cottage for a sandwich and a beer. He felt a certain guilt when he realised that the parade of bodies no longer put him off his food.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Jack leaned back in an old kitchen chair, rested his feet on a stained wooden box, nicely dovetailed, that had once held CIL dynamite. The shed was cluttered to say the least but it made no difference, it simply added to a rustic charm somehow romantic. He knew where everything was. If you needed a hose clamp for two-inch plastic plumbing pipe, give him a minute and he’d find it.

  The bench held two projects. He was refurbing a couple of reels. One an ancient Luxor and a Quick, two of the earliest spinning models ever made. The Luxor had been his fathers’ and the Quick was the first spinning reel he owned. Beside them lay a canoe paddle. He had burned a stylised representation of a lake trout on one side of the blade but the pickerel on the other side remained half done. He enjoyed having more than one thing on the go, balls to keep in the air. The joy of these projects now was that there was no great pressing need to get them done. Like his canoe, they would be finished probably later than sooner at a time not so distant as to make the wait uncomfortable but in fact somewhat delicious in anticipation.

  The floor adjacent to the walls supported heavy items; batteries, anchors, a dozen hydraulic oil jacks for levelling the cabin or boathouse when the ice was in and a fifty-year-old water pump with a cracked casing. The thought that he might need the motor at some time was an excuse for the fact that as a boy, he had loved the sound of the flywheel and simply couldn’t bring himself to throw it out.

  His grandfather’s toolbox held one hundred and twenty-year-old tools, some of which he still used on occasion. Wooden block planes, full sets of chisels, braces and bits were all crafted with the finest Sheffield steel; levels, rules of every size and description, a plumb and an ebony scribe with brass inlay. The first order of business for any apprentice carpenter or cabinetmaker of the day had been to build your toolbox and Jack revered this one.

  Along with a couple of chain saws, the rear wall was lined with five rickety wooden stands that supported antique outboard motors. Two green Johnson 10 HP, two blue Evinrude Fleetwins and one faded Johnson Seahorse. Underneath them were a half a dozen dented five-gallon red gas cans. All had been used as a boy and most were in, if not close to, good working order. With a minor tune up, they’d be ready to hum. Not exactly environmentally friendly or gas efficient, they were kept for the same reason as the old pump and because, who knew, perhaps at some time there would be another youngster that might want to give them a whirl.

  The rafters held those items least used, some not for fifteen or twenty years. At hand were tarps, camping gear, an array of ropes, an ancient Coke cooler (a collectors’ delight), minnow nets, odd sizes of lumber that just might come in handy some day, shingles, nails of every size and twist, an old boat windshield and Brydon Boy steering wheel. There were two Coleman lanterns, one with a double mantle, the original Coleman Stove, copper tubing and a plethora of plumbing parts and hose.

  The exposed walls had two by four exposed studs spaced at eighteen inches and between them on half the wall space, horizontal two by fours wedged between them and toe-nailed,
acted as narrow shelves. Every shelf spilled over with items new and old but all visible for easy identification. Oils of every type (including neatsfoot), spar varnish, marine paints and enamels, bug dope, reels, goggles, flippers, steel wool, sandpaper, brushes, jars of nuts and bolts (never know when you're going to need one that looks like that), patching kits, a circular brass carriage horn, a WWI bayonet, boat hardware, a set of horseshoes and a propped up bar sign of a seductive looking woman who winked at you when you walked by.

  Hooks protruding from the studs supported a further collection; axes, picks, a coil of canvas fire hose, shovels, rakes, a scythe, a come-along, the blade for a two-man saw, old coats, overalls and hats of various description. Even if they hadn't for some time, all would be useful at some point. Save for that portion of the wall space reserved for the retrieved lures, everything provided insurance against real, or more often than not, imagined and as yet unknown tasks. All of the paraphernalia in the shop, along with whatever fluids that had seeped into the tongue and groove floor melded to produce that unique aroma familiar to all men who work with their hands. It was a mélange of gas and oil, dusty hemp rope, paints and varnishes, grease, sawdust and waxed canvas.

  Snapping out his reverie, Jack slipped off the rubber bands, carefully unrolled the chart paper he had purloined from the police station and hung it on the wall opposite the workbench. Opening and sorting through the small two door cabinet above the workbench he retrieved a tattered old lake map along with a couple extra felt pens, one red and the other black. He positioned the map adjacent to the flip chart paper and secured it to the wall with push pins.

  Using the red marker to indicate the location of each of the murder sites he stood back, arms over his chest, the marker hanging out of his mouth. The first X was at the Bay in the North Arm across from the derelict fire tower. The second was in the North West Arm within easy shooting distance of Widow's island. The third was inked somewhat inland on the trail leading to the timber cut. For the most recent in the South Arm, he was unsure exactly where the boy had been killed so he simply drew an oval using the small poaching island and the green marker as outside co-ordinates.

  Not knowing what the hell he was doing, Jack was at least pleased he had started the exercise. It was the only way he knew to problem solve. Hang some charts on a wall, put up the information you have, keep working it until you made some reasonable assumptions and then hopefully make some decisions with which to go forward. In business, no matter how grave the problem, he had always felt the pressure wane when the actual process began. It held out the hope of solution and perhaps kept one from sinking into a malaise of overwhelming desperation.

  At least, that’s what Jack hoped.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Somewhere there had to be a rationale, a pattern, or a common thread had to emerge, clues as they say in the business of crime detection. The only ‘clues’ he knew were on the board game.

  Lurching back into the chair and replacing his feet on the box he poured coffee into a cup that doubled as the old thermos cap and with his first sip kicked over the box, swore an expletive, stormed out the end of the dock and spit it out.

  “God, I hate that taste.” Somehow those old thermoses always imparted the taste of plastic. So much for the nostalgic days of Melmac. He fired the unit into the garbage with a flourish, went directly to the cottage and came back with a chilled bottle of white and a real glass. On the screen of his mind flashed all those B film noir detective stories in which, for some unknown reason, the constabulary ‘working the case’ was forced continually to imbibe wretched ‘java’ to keep them going. Their hair shirt.

  “No way,” he said, taking a healthy mouthful of the Sauvignon Blanc.

  “Screw that. Not me.”

  Retrieving another marker from the workbench, he approached the map tentatively and connected the Xs to see what sort of shape it made. He felt foolish, admitting to himself that he must have seen this in a movie a dozen times. He was actually surprised as the shape that emerged revealed a fairly narrow yet long triangle, base to the south, the point heading almost directly north. Was the shape significant? An arrowhead? How about the direction north? Was the signal inside the shape or outside?

  “Whoa Jack!”

  Let’s not get ahead of the curve, he chided himself. Just try to get the relevant information together as a first step. Rather than work directly on the chart he began to scribble headings and notes into a workbook at his bench, letting the facts he knew and the ideas flow out.

  He had been at it for two hours when he heard Pony. She moored and approached carrying a wicker picnic basket.

  He rose to kiss her lightly.

  “I brought some lunch,” she said, looking curiously at his notes, the chart and maps on the wall.

  “What’re you up to?”

  “Getting started on trying to make some sense of this. Glad you’re here. Kinda stuck and need a break. What’s in the basket?”

  “Chilli and a bottle of red.”

  “The chilli sounds great but I’m not so sure about the wine,” He motioned to the empty bottle on the bench.

  “Kinda early for a dead soldier dontcha’ think?”

  “Guess so, but no need to suffer on the job. Let’s go fire up the stove, I’m starved.”

  Over streaming bowls of chilli topped with fresh-chopped Spanish onion and accompanied by over-buttered toast and more wine he stoically recounted the mornings’ events. She listened in silence, not surprised.

  “Knew something happened but could never have imagined that.”

  “What do you mean you knew something was up?”

  “I don’t think I was the only one that noticed Brautigan and the North Bay officers put a boat on a trailer, pull it out of the lake and head south. It was covered with an orange tarp and they didn’t waste any time in town.”

  “Who else was around?”

  “One of the newsies shot some footage as it pulled away but I don’t think they knew any more than I did.”

  “See Parker anywhere?”

  “No... why?”

  “Eugene wants to try to keep a lid on this one until he gets the autopsy report, but he’s dreaming. No matter how Will tries, it’ll be all over the reservation and leak out for sure, intentionally or not.”

  “Why don’t you try Parker. Get her to hold it until Eugene can make a statement?”

  “She won’t buy that. It’s just the scoop she’s looking for.”

  “Thought you said you owed her one and that you’d throw her a bone if she played ball. Maybe this is your opportunity.”

  “Thanks Watson, it’s worth a try.”

  Bob was at the bar when he picked up Jack’s call.

  “Bob?... Is that reporter from the Nugget still staying with you?”

  “Where the hell else would she go Jack?”

  “Home, if I had my way. Need you to leave a message for her to call me on the double.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Can’t’ say right now but need to get hold of her.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Bob, not now. Trust me, it’s important, okay?”

  “Hmm... just how badly do you want to speak with her?”

  Bob asked coyly, as he stared across the room to where Parker sat, intensely jawing with a couple of Bear Islanders. She was animated and taking notes.

  “Bob?... ”

  “She’s right in front of me.”

  “Wth anyone else?”

  “Tom Wilson and Bob Porter from the Island.”

  “Christ, that woman’s a real terrier.”

  “Shall I quote you on that?”

  “Just tell her to take the phone and don’t broadcast to everyone that it’s me.”

  Bob cupped the receiver in his hand and shouted, “Parker it’s for you”.

  Looking up, surprised, she came cautiously forward.

  “Thought I asked you to hold my calls Bob,” she winked.

  She
clasped the phone, drew a long breath and started in, cranky. “Look Boss, I told you, stop raggin’ at me and let me do my goddamn job. I’m sitting with two boys off the rez right now and I’ll send you the copy in an hour. It’ll blow your socks off. This thing is out of control. There’s been another one and I’m all over it.”

  Jack swallowed on the other end of the line.

  “Parker... take a deep one, it’s Jack Alexander.”

  “Oh... fuck... guess that’s out of the bag.”

  “Seems our boy has struck again, or did you already know?”

  “I know.”

  “How?”

  “Doesn’t matter, but I need a favour.”

  “Yeah, I bet, didn’t think you’d be calling for a date. Actually Jack, you mean you need another favour. I still haven’t called in the chit from the first one.”

  She enjoyed having the upper hand. “You’re already behind on your payments. Want to add some interest to the principal?”

  “No, I only need your cooperation and I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “Now you’re talking, my room or yours?”

  He understood why she wasn’t yet with the New York Times.

  “I want you to hold what you’ve got ‘till noon tomorrow. Let Rummell and Braxton do a press release and conference.”

  “Alexander, you don’t seem to get it. I’m in the news business. We release news as we get it. It’s called a scoop. It’s what I get paid for. It’s what going to get me out of this shit-hole and into a real paper. There’s nothing in it for me to hold this. I’ve already said I’d send it in.”

  “Play ball with me. Take a time out. I’ll give you the exclusive details, right from the beginning, unnamed but reliable source. My name is never revealed. You’ve barely got half the story and you won’t get much more from Rummell. I’ll give you everything after the press conference. Go with me on this and I’ll still owe you one.”

  Parker eyed Bob’s quizzical face and weighed the benefits of filing half the story now or the entire story later. The boys from the reserve had been short on details. Didn’t want to tell or didn’t know, she suspected the latter. She knew a native boy was found dead on the lake in his boat. He could have died from anything, drug overdose, congenital heart attack, who knew? The initial release would be circumstantial and she knew it. She’d still have to pay the boys the two hundred bucks but the fact she had met them had forced his hand, or had it?