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

by Barry Knister

  “That’s not how it was,” Heather said. “Brenda told me everything, I just stood there.”

  The screen door opened. Marion came out holding a towel. “My God.” The door flapped shut. Wiping her hands, after a moment, she came forward. “That’s one damned big fish. I feel angler-challenged. Good for you, Brenda.”

  “Not me, Heather.”

  “You caught that?” Marion stared at Heather. “I get it, you’re a ringer. You’re a pro from the bass tour.”

  Good. Marion knew her cue and what to say.

  “I’m not.” Heather was obviously pleased. “It was beginner’s luck.”

  “Yes, well, we’re going to ice it and take it home,” Marion said. “Brian has to see this. You can have it mounted. You can put it in the breakfast nook.”

  “I tried that,” Brenda said. “She doesn’t want to.”

  “I wanted it to live,” Heather said. “Catch and release, they call it. That’s what I wanted, but this guy killed it, he—”

  “What guy?” Marion looked to Brenda. “Charlie?”

  “No, just some guy. He tried to get the hook out, but it caught his hand.”

  “The fish bit him?”

  “No, the lure. He didn’t know what he was doing, he just wanted to impress us. He hooked himself trying to get the lure out. It made him angry.”

  “Very,” Heather said. “Kill-something angry.”

  “Anyway, we have fish for dinner.”

  Arms aching, she shuffled with the fish, reached out and laid it on the bait box. The lid was fitted with a cutting board. “Now you have to clean it,” she said. “Everyone has to clean her own catch.”

  Heather shook her head. “I can’t. It wasn’t supposed to die, it fought so hard. It’s wrong.”

  “What would be wrong is wasting a fish like this one.” Tina braced on the handrail, and worked her way to the cutting board. “I’ll do it. You catch, I’ll clean. I’ve done a few in my day. Someone get me a filet knife.”

  Brenda climbed back down into the Lund. She rinsed her hands over the side, knelt and opened Drew Ross’s tackle box. The knife was in a leather scabbard. She stepped back up and laid it on the cutting board.

  “This is good.” Marion handed Tina the towel. “We’ll have a choice of entrees, surf and turf.”

  Tina draped the towel over her arm, and reached for the knife. She drew it out and gently tested the blade against her thumb. Sonny had stopped barking. When Brenda looked, the dog was coming toward them, down the slope.

  “I can’t watch.” Heather turned away and moved to the door.

  “Come back,” Brenda said. “First a picture. There has to be a record of this.”

  “Oh, I don’t—”

  “No, this is important.”

  Heather rolled her eyes but stepped back next to the bait box.

  Brenda started up the ladder. “We have to have documentation, to bear witness to the alter ego of Heather Reese.” She went up quickly. In the cabin, she got her point-and-shoot from her duffle bag and turned it on. A poster could be made of the photo. Heather Reese, Native Guide.

  She went back down. They arranged themselves, and after many protests, Heather was at last persuaded to hold the fish. Making faces, almost dropping it, she stood between Tina and Marion. Brenda got behind the ladder. She rested the camera on what looked to be the right step, then checked them in the LCD panel.

  “Perfect,” she said, straightening. “This will be good. Everyone squeeze together.”

  “You have to be in it,” Heather said.

  She checked the image one last time, and set the timer. Carefully she took her hands away, came from behind the ladder and stood close to Tina. After a second, the shutter clicked. Everyone applauded. Heather turned and dropped the fish on the bait box, then knelt to rinse her hands. When done, she went inside and Marion followed.

  Brenda turned back to see Tina steadying the fish. Now she placed the knife at the anus, and began sawing, tracing a neat incision up the white belly.

  “Sharp enough?”

  “Very sharp. A good knife.”

  “I can do it.”

  “No, it’s therapeutic.” Tina concentrated. “It’s real, isn’t it? Fish, pigs, little lambykins. We eat them every day. This is probably something we should see now and then, don’t you think?”

  “You’re a vegetarian?”

  “Pure carnivore. But I think there’s something wrong about not knowing how all these little packages end up in the supermarket.”

  Fascinated and repelled, Brenda watched the knife’s forward motion, the belly skin pushed and pulled, the pike’s long jaw barbed with teeth.

  “I never thought of it,” she said.

  “Why would you? Things being as they are lead me to some odd ruminations.” Tina withdrew the knife. She looked over and smiled. “If we’re going to eat everything that moves, we might at least have some respect.”

  “Have you had a good day?”

  “I’ve had a great day, Brenda. One of the best in a long time. I’m truly grateful to be here.”

  “So am I.”

  “Yes. But probably not like me.”

  “No, not like you.”

  Very focused, Tina used the knife. “I think you saw what I came up here to do,” she said quietly.

  “Look, Tina—”

  “It’s all right, not to worry. I was being selfish. I thought this would make a good end. At some point you’d all be off fishing. Hiking. I’d get myself down into this beautiful brown water. Serve some useful purpose in the great scheme of things.” She shook her head. Repositioning the fish, she worked the knife under the gill flap and began sawing. “Very selfish of me.”

  “Because of what it would mean for us.” Brenda watched the knife, amazingly sharp, cutting laterally.

  “Something like that. Romantic Wordsworthian nonsense about being ‘rolled round in earth’s diurnal course with rocks and stones and trees.’ But it would never happen that way, would it? Even if I timed it for the end of the week, you’d still be tied up with police and medical examiners. I confess as well to aesthetic concerns. Dying out here would mean an autopsy. Some stranger doing to me pretty much what I’m doing to this fish. Weighing my organs with Musac in the background. It put me off.”

  “If you can have a day like this, why not more of them? As many as possible.”

  With some difficulty Tina now slid the fish forward and turned it over. She began sawing under the right gill, the pierced eye gray and mangled.

  “Not likely,” she said. “Look at that eye. My own are next. I can sense them starting to go. I can’t walk Sonny anymore. Oh, I roll down the block with him, but it’s not fair. He deserves better. Heather would take good care of him, she loves that dog. No, first it will be big-print issues of the Times, and whatever books they do that way. Not probably my kind—best sellers, inspirational trash. Or Sonny and me in front of the Sony. Someone in to make meals. A version of Blanche Dubois and the kindness of strangers. Friends like Heather who more and more feel obligated. If Bert hadn’t died, this might be a different story. He did, so that’s it. My problem, not yours.”

  “Heather told me he left you.”

  “He did, and that hurt. He came back after two months, or would have. Heather chooses to forget that part. He came back, he said he was wrong, there was no life without our being together. I never blamed him. He wasn’t a reader, he was very physical. Active. He died bringing boxes down from his apartment to the U-haul. The day he was moving back.”

  Tina worked the knife through bone to the cutting board. Now she pushed the severed head from the body, raised it by the lower jaw and flung it out into the water. She rolled the body back, raised the flap of severed flesh and began to clean it.

  “Read me something.”

  She motioned with her head to the wheelchair. Brenda stepped to it and picked up the volume lying on the seat. New and Selected Poems, by Mary Oliver. She had read some Oliver in college,
and turned it over. The poet sat before a beach, small craft at anchor behind her. She was dressed in a white sweatshirt and jeans. The day was bright, her hair windblown, eyes behind big glasses.

  “I read a lot of poetry in college,” Brenda said. “Not now, just what’s in The New Yorker. I remember Oliver being very good. She doesn’t look the type.”

  “She doesn’t, does she? More like a jock than a poet. Read ‘Peonies.’”

  She opened to the table of contents, found the poem and leafed forward. She spread the book.

  This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready

  to break my heart

  as the sun rises,

  as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

  and they open—

  pools of lace,

  white and pink—

  and all day the black ants climb over them,

  boring their deep and mysterious holes

  into the curls,

  craving the sweet sap,

  taking it away

  to their dark, underground cities—

  and all day

  under the shifty wind,

  as in a dance to the great wedding,

  the flowers bend their bright bodies,

  and tip their fragrance to the air,

  and rise,

  their red stems holding

  all that dampness and recklessness

  gladly and lightly,

  and there it is again—

  beauty the brave, the exemplary,

  blazing open.

  Do you love this world?

  Do you cherish your humble and silky life?

  Do you adore the green grass, with its

  terror beneath?

  Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,

  and softly,

  and exclaiming of their dearness,

  fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

  with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,

  their eagerness

  to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are

  nothing forever?

  She looked up. Tina’s shoulders were bowed. The lowered sun shone bright on her wet hands as she scraped the pike’s glossy vitals from the cavity. Brenda read the poem once more to herself. She looked out on the inlet. Everything you needed to know seemed here just now. Love and death, delight in a moment of beauty. Peonies and persons, a pike worthy of love, and all of it in the present. In the eyeblink before turning from something to nothing. It was as if the poem had been written for her, for them both to share, in this moment.

  “Thank you, Tina. It seems perfect to me. A perfect poem.”

  “She’s good, isn’t she?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Keep the book. Oliver gets some of the credit for changing my mind, and so do you. I want you to have it.”

  “Only if I can send a book to you.”

  Tina nodded. “As long as it’s not a large-print vampire or zombie novel. Now I’m going to fillet this thing. I’ll need a plate.”

  Closing the book, Brenda stepped next to her. She kissed Tina on the right temple. “One plate coming up.”

  ◆◆◆◆◆

  “I had no idea they fought so hard. It was like I could feel every move in my hands—”

  Brenda eased the door shut, and stood in the passage. There was triumph in Heather’s voice, floating from the lounge.

  “At first it was very disturbing. Unnatural. Then it changed. I was telling Brenda I wanted to stop, but I didn’t. Not really.”

  “You wanted to land it.”

  “I did. I felt guilty, but I wasn’t going to stop, either.”

  “It’s like that for me in court,” Marion said. “Sometimes you know your client’s guilty as hell, and you feel guilty. But it doesn’t matter. You just charge ahead, you want to win.”

  Brenda smiled and moved down the passageway. Ahead, the oval table was set for dinner. A vase of plastic daffodils, discovered that morning at the back of a cupboard, now served as the centerpiece. Each stoneware dinner plate was topped with a peaked paper napkin, no doubt thanks to Heather and Martha Stewart. The wine glasses glinted. The waiting table, the poem she had just read, Tina’s story, and Heather’s—in the moment, Brenda felt an odd, profound respect for the makeshift scene before her. People seeking pleasure. Connection. Doing it against odds, in the unruly mix of days. She reached the lounge, and saw Marion cutting a cucumber over a wooden salad bowl.

  Heather had the refrigerator open and looked over. “Is Tina finished with it?”

  “Almost. She needs a plate.”

  Heather closed the door and opened an overhead cabinet. She brought down an oval platter. “It’s my fish. At least I ought to be able to see it filleted.”

  Brenda stepped aside, and seconds later, the back door slapped shut.

  “Nice work.” Marion said. “Tell me what actually happened.”

  “That is what happened. I just wouldn’t let her quit.”

  “What an accomplishment. The other—peeing off the boat—that’s a huge leap. A triumph. You’re in the wrong racket, Bren. In the next life, you can open a de-programming camp up here for uptight housewives. Your followers will be legion.”

  “Too much schmoozing and stroking. A little longer, and I’d have given her one upside the head. What can I do here?”

  “The steaks are marinating in the fridge. You could give them a turn.”

  She got them out. Thinking of everything, Marion had brought a glass casserole dish. Brenda carried it to the counter and peeled back the tinfoil. Six delmonicos were stacked two deep, brown with teriyaki sauce.

  “I don’t see any garlic.”

  “It’s teriyaki.”

  “Marion, get with the program, these are men coming to dinner. Don’t you watch TV? The ads for beef always show men loading steaks with garlic.”

  “Well, load them up, the garlic’s right here. We’re keeping this simple and heavy. Shrimp cocktail, twice-baked potatoes with sour cream and butter, salad and pie. And rolls. They’re in the dry-ice chest. You could get those out.”

  After using the press and adding garlic to the steaks, Brenda wiped her hands and stepped to the door wall. Outside, Sonny was looking up hopefully. He was covered with burrs, legs wet with sand.

  She slowly eased open the door—”No, you don’t—” and slipped through. Blocking the way, she grabbed Sonny’s collar and tugged. “Not tonight, off you go. You’ll get yours later.” Tail banging chaises, he backed from her, turned and trotted out along the plank. He stopped and looked back, one final mute appeal. Brenda shooed him again, then knelt and opened the chest. She found a package of brown ‘n serve rolls, went back in and closed the door wall.

  “Speaking of skills…” Marion was holding up a measuring cup, pouring olive oil. “Is my jury-selection radar getting rusty, or did something register when Charlie was here?”

  “You need to get back to full-time work. You’re losing it.”

  “Am I?” Marion cocked an eyebrow, still pouring. “We were being very attentive, Brenda. We were being very anxious to learn everything the man had to say.”

  “Were we?” She peeled back the cellophane on the package of rolls. “And could this not mean that we would rather fish than parboil all afternoon in a hot tub?”

  “Yes, Brenda, it most certainly could.” Marion was now employing her fake, unctuous lawyer voice. “We just thought the great skill with which you took instruction on casting and boat handling demonstrated an exceptionally keen level of interest. That’s all.”

  “We did, did we?”

  “Yes. ‘Your Honor’—” Marion set down the olive oil and got the bottle of vinegar “—Permission to treat Miss Contay as a hostile witness. Permission granted.” She uncapped the bottle and poured. “Were you or were you not, Miss Contay, even last night, on a strange road in the middle of nowhere, especially attentive to Mr. Schmidt? L
ong before any prospects for fishing surfaced, did you not hand him the tire iron with a certain—what shall we call it—familiarity?”

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” Brenda said. “All right, he has a definite field-and-stream charm.”

  “I’m not arguing.”

  “He’s also a nice guy.”

  “You know this already?” Marion finished pouring and set down the vinegar bottle. “You have great confidence in first impressions.”

  “I try not to, but there it is. If I were on trial, I think I’d want Charlie Schmidt on the jury. But if you want familiar, you should meet the klutz who ‘helped’ with Heather’s fish.”

  “She said he made her nervous.”

  “There was something about him, I felt it, too. But it could have just been the circumstances. We were both peeing, then all at once Heather’s fishing rod starts jumping all over. I was so much on Heather’s case I forgot to put my jeans on. Then I hear someone coming. No, I take that back, he was weird. Looked weird. Acted like he knew us. He came over from one of the islands, straight over, as though he’d seen us. Mr. He-man coming to help the struggling women.”

  “A local?”

  “No idea. He had a boat like Charlie’s. He made this move, jumping into our boat like he knew what he was doing, and fell on his ass.” Brenda laughed. “Very comical. It messed up his big scene.”

  Marion nodded. “Believe me, I know the type.”

  “Yes,” Brenda said. “I’m sure you do.”

  Rohmer had said to wait an hour, then to follow in the utility.