Deep North (A Brenda Contay Novel Of Suspense Book 2)

by Barry Knister

  “Please don’t talk about bears,” Heather said. “We’ve had enough warnings.”

  He held up both hands.

  “We have Old Style and Heineken, or gin and scotch. And there’s wine, too, chardonnay, cabernet—”

  Brenda smiled at the missing vodka.

  “Don’t insult him,” Tina said. “Norsemen don’t drink white wine or mixed drinks.”

  “An Old Style would be good,” he said.

  “Would you like to see our private yacht?”

  Marion doffed her captain’s hat and motioned with it to the door. She opened it and Charlie stepped aside, waiting for Tina. She rolled past, into the passage. The others followed. Brenda waited until last and held the door for him, seeing he was slightly nervous. She followed. Charlie moved straight ahead, not looking into rooms. Maybe he wasn’t a Norse god, but he had manners.

  In the lounge they made him sit, brought the beer, asked about his friend.

  “He was there when I got in,” Charlie said. “Flew in yesterday afternoon. I have to get back soon, but thought I’d look you up.”

  “Can you stay for lunch?” Tina asked.

  “Thanks, but they’re waiting on me. I launched my boat and was just testing it. I should head back.” He pointed to the houseboat’s instruments. “Are those charts?”

  Brenda stepped to the control panel and brought them back. The others sat as he unrolled one. Marion held down one end, Tina the other.

  “Here’s the Ash River.” He pointed. “Then you came up through the channel. We’re here now. This is all park, the least used in the national park system. This in-and-out pattern here is Canadian water. You don’t want to fish there without a Canadian license. The fines are steep.”

  “We bought Minnesota licenses from Gus,” Brenda told him.

  “You all have the Canadian visitor’s card and the Remote Crossing pass?”

  “We got them by mail.”

  “Good,” Charlie said. “You can’t fish, but you can visit the Canadian waters.”

  “It looks very confusing—” Marion moved a finger from their site to the islands. “On our way, it all started to look the same.”

  “It’s a problem,” he said. “People get lost out here, and not just tourists. But your Lund is a good boat, and I see you have a trolling motor. That’s a big advantage.”

  Marion looked to Heather. “Do you know how it works?”

  “I’ve been along, that’s all. Brian sits up front and uses a foot pedal.”

  “That’s really all there is to it,” Charlie said. “You’ll need to charge the battery every so often. There’s a hookup in back, to the generator. With a trolling motor, you can compensate for drift and maintain your position along the walls.”

  “Gus mentioned something about Kettle Falls,” Brenda said.

  He tapped the chart. “There. It’s pretty, you should see that. I’ll take you. All in this area here is pretty tricky—” Again he tapped. “And Johnson Bay, you don’t want to go home without seeing that. In some places, you might see white bobbers. Chlorox bottles. This would be at the entrance to bays. They mark gill nets. Give those a wide birth, they belong to the Indians.”

  A minute later, he let the chart roll up. “Before I go, why don’t you show me the tackle you brought.”

  Heather and Marion went to their cabins and came back with tackle boxes borrowed from their husbands. They opened them on the table.

  “Okay, you have some weedless spoons here,” he said. “Some jigs and spinners.”

  “You told us to get Rapalas,” Brenda said. “We bought some at Northern Lights.”

  “That’s good. Some run deep, others close to the surface. If you aren’t having luck with one, try a different color until you get a strike.”

  “I strongly doubt that will happen,” Marion said.

  “No, you’re going to catch fish.” Charlie smiled at her. “Around here, you can hardly help it. Even this early.”

  “I appreciate your optimism.” He looked up at Brenda. “You have way too much confidence in this bunch.”

  “We’ll see.” He stood. “Thanks for the beer.”

  “Dinner.” Marion got her cap from the table and put it on. “This is the captain speaking. Charlie Schmidt will report to the officers’ mess this evening.”

  He smiled and looked at them. “I’d like to. Let me see how things are at my place.”

  “Bring your friend,” Tina said.

  “Promise us.” Brenda folded her arms. “Night falls on the forest. Moose mass on the shore. All we have to defend ourselves are cooking spatulas and trail mix.”

  “Forgive her, she’s a journalist,” Marion said. “But we also have some nice Delmonicos and a decent cabernet. I think some kind of frozen pie, too. Which you will be doing us all a favor to eat most of.”

  Before leaving, he explained how to use the trolling motor, and what to look for when fishing. Then he stepped out on the transom with one of the rods. Brian Reese had seen to it they had plenty of line and swivels. Charlie attached one of the new Rapalas and made a cast.

  “Don’t get discouraged,” he said, reeling in. “Just practice. Let your lure hang off the rod about five inches. Release the bailer and use your forefinger.”

  He flipped his wrist and the filament sailed out again, the lure plopping seventy feet into the inlet. He repeated this, and made Brenda try. He stood close, guided her arm. Then again. On the fourth attempt, feeling his hand on her wrist, she managed a crude version of what he’d shown her.

  “See?” he said. “It’s simple. Now you’re in charge.”

  He untied the bowline, shoved and jumped. Soon, he was headed toward the channel.

  It was eleven when he got back. Near shore, Louis was in the aluminum utility, casting toward the point. He waved. Schmidt slowed, looking down into the amber water. Granite boulders glinted below the surface. He used the lift to tilt the engine several inches. Schmidt’s son Andy said the Stratos worked like a Corvette with girls, making them nervous, screaming. He neared the utility and put the motor in neutral.

  “Any luck?”

  “One strike,” Rohmer said. “A nice northern, eight or nine pounds. He took my lure.”

  “Where’s Jerry?”

  “Inside. Listen, Charlie, again, I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “I found the ladies.”

  Louis put down his rod and stood. He waited for the Stratos, grabbed the gunwale and held on. “How many did you say?”

  “Four. Listen, Louis, I want your help on this. They asked us to dinner and I don’t want Rizzo along. I’m sorry he has trouble. He’s here and that’s fine, but he’s not handling it. I don’t think he’d be good company.”

  Louis nodded. “It won’t be a problem. He’s not interested in fishing. We’ll just tell him we’re going out and take our tackle boxes. He doesn’t have to know.”

  “No, Louis, he may meet them later. He’d know we lied. I’m going to tell him straight. If he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t like it.”

  Schmidt put the half-raised motor in reverse and backed away. He felt angry. The more he knew about Rohmer, the less he wanted to know. He swung the boat in a slow arc and motored slowly toward the dock. It was probably how Rohmer always operated. You wouldn’t know it right away, in Cabo or New York. You would get a taste of it when he handed you a bottle of wine and told you what it cost, coming out of his plane with it, no handshake first. Okay, maybe that was just how they did things where he came from. But with something like this—suggesting they lie to Rizzo, ashamed of him and ready to dump him—that’s when you would know.

  He neared shore, shut down the engine and raised it fully. When the hull touched the sand beach, he stepped forward and jumped, then pulled the boat up more firmly. All right, he was here, time to deal with it. He moved up the grassy incline. The door wall was closed and he again heard music. Rohmer would come with him to dinner with the ladies. He would do a co
uple more days, and that would be it. Goodbye, Louis, he would tell him. Take care of yourself, but don’t call again. It’s just the way it is.

  He reached the porch slab, pulled open the door wall and stepped in. Rizzo was seated on the couch, playing solitaire.

  “Morning.”

  “That’s what it is,” Rizzo called.

  “You guys find some breakfast?”

  Rizzo looked up from the cards. He turned down the radio.

  “I asked if you had some breakfast.”

  “None of that fucking chili, I can tell you. I was in the crapper twice this morning.”

  Schmidt opened the refrigerator. He got out a Beck’s and used the opener. “Some women I met on the road,” he said. “I think Louis told you. They asked us to dinner.”

  “That’s cool, you and Louis go.” Rizzo slapped down cards. “Women are on my shit list right now.”

  Good, easy enough. Schmidt sipped his beer. “I have some work on the roof,” he said. “Screens to put up. You and Louis take the Stratos. He knows the channel from last time, you won’t have a problem. Fish or just look around. Maybe go up the Ash River. You might find a tavern open.”

  “A bar would be good.” For the first time, Rizzo looked up and smiled. “Some neon. After too much woodsy shit, I get spooked. Your boat looks like a righteous pussy magnet.”

  “According to my son.”

  Schmidt finished his beer and crossed the big room to the front entrance. He stepped out, then moved toward the pole barn. Bigger than needed, he and John Nielson had put it up the summer before Lillie died. The corrugated steel was still shiny. Reaching it, he got out his keys, worked off the big Yale lock, and shoved open the sliding door. Inside were the snowmobiles and jet skis, gas and kerosene tanks, the big rotary field mower.

  It was windowless, with a dirt floor. On the back wall hung an aluminum ladder. He got it down, swung it clear of his son’s dirt bike, and lugged it out into the sun-dappled front clearing. At the house he settled the ladder against the roof. He went back to the barn, got out a metal brush and a broom, went back and started up.

  It was something he did every spring, and enjoyed. Broom and brush in one hand, he now stepped onto the gently sloping roof. Carefully he began working his way up the cedar shingles. The opposite shore slowly appeared, then the lake. At the top of the roof he straddled the peak and enjoyed the view. Jack pines rose on all sides, blue sky above, puffy clouds.

  On the lake in direct sun it was warm. Up here, a little cooler. Schmidt looked down on the greensward that would soon need mowing. At the shallow beach, the dock. Rohmer’s plane.

  And felt what was missing. Always when he did the roof, Lillie painted the Adirondack chairs on the greensward. It was one of many paired tasks formed over the years. Looking up to check on him, making sure he didn’t break his neck, she’d have on old sweats, be wearing work gloves, holding the paint can. The chairs would be turned over, so she could paint them on the underside. That was Lillie all the way, painting where no one could see. It had not been necessary for them to talk. When they did, it was mostly in code. In the last years, as often as not they would be thinking the same thing, life grooved and smooth without words.

  He edged down the lakeside slope, seeing the luminous blue-green of the lichen at the base of the chimney. It was stone, capped with chicken wire to keep out squirrels. He braced against it, and began working on the fungus. It came off easily, and now he used the broom. Roughing up the shingles gave him better footing. He stood in the cleaned area and worked left to right. The shingles changed color to a honey brown.

  Working, he saw himself changing the tire on the Suburban. There she was next to him, smelling of coffee, and something feminine. Powder or cologne.

  “What’s wrong with staying close to the houseboat?”

  “Nothing.”

  Brenda cranked the lure close to the end of her rod. She set the bail on her spinning reel. “But this is just our practice pond. I want to see what’s around the point.”

  “We just got here. What about currents? It’s nothing but rocks down there. It’s dangerous.”

  As Charlie Schmidt had showed her, she tautened the line on the tip of her forefinger. Not at the first joint. Do that and you’ll miscast, he said. She had tried it that way and now knew what he meant.

  “I wish Brian were here,” Heather said again.

  “Come on, it’s a great day.”

  “I’m freezing.”

  “It’s sixty-one degrees, Heather. This could be a cool day in June.”

  True enough. The sun felt warm on her shoulders. There was little or no breeze. She raised the rod, whipped and released, watching the lure sail out into the sunny cove. The Rapala landed with a satisfying plop, and she began reeling slowly. Here in the inlet, it was shallow, the clear water topaz-colored. Ribbed sand and smooth boulders blinked on the bottom.

  She glanced again at Heather. She was still bundled in her parka, looking bleak. Following lunch, after much coaxing and many false starts, she had finally stepped down awkwardly into the Lund. Once she was seated, Brenda had pushed off and used the paddle to move them into the center of the inlet. An hour later, Heather was still seated behind the boat’s controls, hands under her arms.

  As she worked the reel, Brenda looked back to the houseboat. Tina hadn’t moved in twenty minutes. She was on the stern, hatless, with her head back, taking the sun. A book lay face down on the white bait tank. Topside, Marion mimicked the pose, head back, arms draped along the sides of the hot tub. She was still wearing the captain’s hat, arms shiny with sunscreen.

  Oh yes, Brenda thought. This will do.

  She looked again to the water, still cranking. Her lure was visible now, silver, with three treble hooks. It wiggled as she brought it in, looking alive. Twice a fish had followed, darting away as the Rapala neared the boat. It got you excited knowing they were interested, making up their minds.

  “Are we having fun yet?” she called.

  Tina and Marion raised up and waved, then settled back in their separate reveries. Brenda looked back to her lure. When it reached the stern she lifted it out, lowered the rod. Careful of the hooks, she inserted one in the top guide as Charlie had shown her. She rested the rod on the gunwale.

  “Let’s crack a brewskie.”

  She had taken off her windbreaker and now felt hot in the flannel shirt. She stepped to the back of the boat and popped open the small cooler, got out two Old Style and straightened.

  Hands still clamped under her arms, Heather shook her head. “Not if we’re going away from the boat.”

  “What’s this? You can’t fish and not drink beer. I think it’s on your license.”

  “It’ll make me go. Anything cold makes me go.”

  “Heather, we have a whole national park to pee in. Look around.” Brenda faced the lake, the shore, turning in an arc. “No one’s here. No spies or neighbors. No hall monitors. In an hour we’ve seen one boat.” She turned back, holding the cold beers. She had to get those hands loose. So she tossed a can.

  Heather snatched a hand free and caught the beer. She held it away from her. “Why do they always have to be frozen?” She brushed off the water. “They can’t be cool, they have to be like this.”

  “It’s part of the sportsman’s code.” Brenda popped open her can. “Cold as possible.”

  “Brian says that. It’s ridiculous.”

  “When you’re with him and have to go, what do you do?”

  “He takes me to shore. I use the marina, or go to one of the restaurants.”

  “Truly? You never peed in the great out-of-doors?” She drank, feeling the beer slip down her throat like an icy minnow.

  “Only swimming, but I’m certainly not doing that here. I’m sure Brian does it when I’m not along. You know, over the side.”

  Brenda drank again and studied Heather. Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet. In the middle of nowhere, Heather Reese wanted her oak toilet seat, her bluebird
-patterned bath mat. Already she was forgetting last night’s honesty.

  “I’ve decided something,” Brenda said. “I’ve decided you’re my project out here. My mission. Remember last night?”

  “What about it?” Perhaps the memory plugged into the need for a drink. Heather popped the can, holding it out.

  “You were candid. Honest. You said serious things, smart things. You weren’t just killing time.”

  Heather drank and lowered the can. “I shouldn’t have come. If Tina didn’t need this, I wouldn’t have.”

  “There’s no wind. They can probably hear us.”

  Heather looked quickly to the houseboat.

  “If we go around the point, they won’t hear.”

  Heather went on looking, making up her mind. Nothing was simple for her. Like everything else, leaving sight of the houseboat was loaded with risk. Like a pike following a lure.

  “Come on, start the motor. We’ll go slow.”

  “I have agoraphobia.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I mean it,” Heather said. “I hate being outside. When I go with Brian, I do what I did last night. I make a thermos of Bloody Marys. If we’re going anywhere, you have to drive.”

  Progress. Heather moved and Brenda sat at the controls. She used the cupholder for her beer, put the throttle in neutral, and turned the key. The motor whinnied and caught. She edged the control to Forward and throttled gently. They began to move.

  Happy, feeling in charge, she stood to see. She kept to deeper water, eyeing the bottom.

  “See? Nothing to it. I promise, Heather. We won’t take chances.”

  She left the throttle where it was and watched the sandy bottom. Very gradually the rocks and boulders darkened as the yellow water turned to brown. They neared the point where inlet merged with lake. Once there, Brenda spun the wheel and began a slow, gentle turn. The motor chugged, she looked at Heather. She was gripping the boat’s gunwale with her left hand, the beer in her right.

  “Look, if this—”

  “Go on, get it over with.”

  More progress. As they edged forward, the shoreline behind the point came into view. It was like throwing a switch, from feminine to masculine. A hundred feet ahead, sheer rock rose in dark shade. It formed a perfect wall of shale, or maybe granite, twelve to fifteen feet above the waterline. This extended for perhaps two hundred feet, and ended at another point. At the base, fallen slabs jutted from the surface. Charlie Schmidt called it structure. Protected, rocky pools or weedy hiding places where fish felt safe. It was along such walls he said the trolling motor would be needed, to keep the boat steady.