Fish Fry and a Murder

by Kathleen Suzette

  He sat back down and put more bait on his line. “It’s okay. You don’t have to look at the fish. I’ll handle it. We can go get pancakes for breakfast when we’re done.”

  He sounded a little disappointed, and I felt bad. I had put a damper on things. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m not good at this kind of thing.”

  “It’s okay. I may dress in a suit for work on most days, but I’m an outdoorsman at heart. Everyone isn’t, and that’s fine. I do appreciate you coming with me this morning.”

  “I like spending time with you,” I said and shivered as a breeze blew across the lake. The cold was starting to sink into my body and my feet felt numb in spite of the wool socks and special boots. I didn’t want to be a spoilsport; I just wasn’t an outdoor kind of woman. I decided that if I moved around a little, I might be able to get warm, so I got to my feet.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, putting more bait on his hook.

  “Just trying to wake up my feet.” I took a couple of stiff steps away from my chair. My feet felt like blocks of ice and my joints protested the cold.

  “Be careful about not falling through the ice,” he said without looking at me.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “I thought you said it was safe?”

  He shrugged. “You never know,” he said innocently.

  I ignored him and took several more steps away from my ice hole. I was beginning to adjust to the fact that I was able to see beneath the ice and it was fascinating. Three fish came to the bottom of the ice where I was standing, then darted away. I wondered if they were cold. Did scales protect them from freezing? Did some of them hibernate in the cold? I was clueless.

  I took a few more steps and there was a large school of fish that formed a dark shadow beneath the ice. When I got closer, they scattered, revealing murky water and what looked like seaweed.

  “What is seaweed called when it’s growing in fresh water?” I called over my shoulder.

  He chuckled. “There are all different kinds of weeds that live in lakes. But no seaweed.”

  “I’d hate to swim in this lake in the summer,” I said, carefully watching where I was stepping.

  “Why?”

  “I never swim in water I can’t see clearly into. You never know what lurks in the depths. And the fish might bite,” I said. The lake was huge, with public access in the area where we had come onto it. On the far side of it were a handful of houses that had docks. The owners usually had small boats anchored during warmer weather, but with winter in progress, the boats were nowhere to be seen.

  “The fish will only nibble your toes. There’s nothing to worry about. Are you going to walk across the entire lake?”

  “Maybe. You said it was safe,” I pointed out.

  “Why don’t you come back?” he said casually.

  I stopped and looked over my shoulder. I had gone farther than I realized. Watching the fish scatter as I walked had been mesmerizing. “Why? It’s safe, isn’t it?”

  “It’s safe over here. I haven’t gone out where you are to check the ice. I’d hate for you to fall through and freeze to death. It can happen in less than fifteen minutes, mind you.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. He did have a point though. Did lakes freeze from the center out, or from the edges near the land and spread inward? I had no idea and suddenly the thought of the center of the lake not being frozen as solidly as the water near the bank where we had entered sent a chill down my spine. I carefully turned around so I could slowly make my way back toward Cade.

  As I turned, I saw something red beneath the surface of the ice from out of the corner of my eye. It was off to the side and not directly beneath my feet. My first thought was that it was a fish. My second thought was that the color was too bright to be a fish. I took a few steps toward it, wondering what it could be. When I was over the top of it, I realized that it had to be an article of clothing, but I wasn’t sure what kind. Maybe someone had lost a swimsuit or towel during the summer and it had been brought to the surface by some rambunctious fish.

  I bent over to get a better look. “Hey Cade, there’s something down here.”

  “What?” he called, his eyes still on his fishing pole.

  I squinted my eyes. “There’s something over here,” I said, but the wind blew my words away.

  “What?” Cade shouted. “What did you say?”

  “There’s something in here—.” And that was when I screamed.

  Chapter Three

  I’ve got to hand it to him—Cade can really move when the situation warrants it. He was by my side before I could catch my breath and scream a second time. I felt him more than I saw him because my eyes were glued to whoever was beneath the ice.

  “What is it—oh,” he said as he peered through the ice. He squatted down for a closer look.

  “Is that what I think it is?” I asked, taking a step back. The shock of seeing a body beneath the ice made me hope I was imagining things in spite of what was obvious.

  “Looks like it,” he said slowly, not taking his eyes off the red beneath the ice. He brushed some loose snow away to get a better look.

  “I told you the ice would break! I told you! Someone fell through the ice, didn’t they? Is it a man? It’s a man, isn’t it?” I was suddenly babbling as panic set in. I kept backing up, unable to take my eyes off the red shirt beneath the ice. The ice had cracked and some poor soul had slipped beneath it, unable to pull himself out of the freezing water. I was sure that was it.

  Cade looked up at me. “Rainey.”

  “I told you we shouldn’t have come out here on this ice! You can freeze to death in cold water in less than fifteen minutes! I told you! I told you!” I continued backing away.

  “Rainey,” Cade repeated calmly. “Rainey, will you stop?”

  “I want to go home! How are we going to get him out of there? Is it a him? I can’t tell. How are we going to get him out of there? Oh my gosh, what if it’s a her? What if she has children sitting at home and wondering where their mother is?” I was in a full-blown panic now and all I could think of was how awful it must have been to fall through the ice and freeze to death. What goes through your mind when you know you’re about to die?

  “Rainey,” Cade said gruffly. “Rainey! Stop! Do you want to fall through the ice, too?”

  That brought me to my senses. Sort of. I looked down at my feet, sure I was going to see an enormous crack already forming in the ice, but it was solid beneath my feet. I looked at Cade again. “Are we going to fall in?” I whimpered.

  “No, but you’re backing up without looking where you’re going. Walk back toward me. You shouldn’t go that far out.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and made a call to the police department.

  I walked forward, trying not to look at the red shirt, but I couldn’t help myself. I stood next to Cade and looked with one eye open. Thankfully, whoever it was, was face down. All I could see was short dark hair, and I was guessing it was a man from the person’s build. I shivered. What a terrible way to go. I hoped it didn’t take the full fifteen minutes for him to die. The thought of the things that must have gone through his mind in his last minutes made me light headed and I looked away.

  When Cade finished calling the incident in, he hit end on his phone and tucked it into the front pocket of his overalls. He pulled a dark blue handkerchief from his other pocket and laid it on the ice over the body. “Come on, let’s get our equipment and put it in the car.”

  He took my arm, and we carefully made our way back to our fishing rods. “Have there been any reports of missing people lately?” I asked him.

  “Not recently that I can recall, but I don’t usually handle that kind of thing unless they think there’s foul play involved,” he said as he braced me when I slipped a little on the ice.

  “Do you think he could have been in the lake long? Maybe he hasn’t been missed yet,” I wondered. My mind was turning with possibilities as to what might have happened.

  “It’s possible
. The ice is pretty thick, but he might have found a spot that wasn’t as solid as the area we’ve been walking on.”

  “How terrible. Maybe he’s been in the lake for months. Or years. Is that possible?” I asked, horrified.

  He shrugged and chuckled. “That imagination of yours. Let’s take one thing at a time. We’ve got to get him out of there before we know anything conclusive.”

  “No, seriously. Is that possible? Could he have been in there for years?”

  “I don’t know all the particulars on dead bodies in water and decomposition rates, but the lake has been frozen for a couple of months, so I would think the body has been pretty well preserved if it’s been in there awhile.”

  We went back to our chairs and equipment and began collecting everything. I looked into the bucket at the single fish Cade had had time to catch. It swam around in the water in the bucket, seemingly none the worse for wear after having been caught and hoisted rudely from his home. And then I had a gruesome thought. I gasped and turned to Cade. “Throw that thing back!”

  “What? Why?” he asked as he closed the lid on the tackle box.

  “Because it’s probably been feasting on our friend in the red shirt!” I stared at him wide-eyed. The thought was enough to make me lose my breakfast if I had had any.

  He tilted his head back and laughed uproariously.

  “What’s so funny? Why are you laughing?” I exclaimed.

  “You! You have a wonderful imagination, Rainey,” he said, shaking his head.

  “I’m glad you think this is funny, but it isn’t. I am not eating that thing!” I insisted. “Throw it back!”

  “You don’t have to eat it,” he said and picked up the fishing rods.

  “You’re not eating, it either! That’s disgusting!”

  “Stop it, Rainey. It’s just a fish,” he said, still chuckling.

  “I can’t believe you would even consider eating it. If you do eat it, you can’t kiss me, for like, a couple of months,” I warned.

  He shook his head. “Oh Rainey, it’s better that we don’t know what our food has eaten before we eat it. Honestly, you have no idea what the meat in the grocery store has done before it was turned into meat.”

  “Don’t make me get mean about it,” I warned.

  He laughed again and went to the bucket. “Goodbye, breakfast.” He poured the contents of the bucket including the fish back into the hole he had pulled it out of. Then he turned to me. “There. Happy?”

  “Immensely,” I said and picked up the chairs. We headed back to the car to wait for the police to show up.

  “One of these days I’m going to catch some fish that I don’t have to throw back and you’re going to fry them up for me,” he said wistfully.

  “One of these days,” I promised.

  “Will you make me some fries and coleslaw to go with them? And hushpuppies?”

  “I love hushpuppies. I haven’t made those in years,” I said as my stomach growled. I needed to get something to eat.

  ***

  “So, what do we know?” I asked as I handed Cade a cup of cocoa and sat beside him on my sofa. There was a fire roaring in the fireplace and the room was nice and cozy. My Dog, Maggie, lay snoring in front of the fire, her side rising and falling with each breath. Maggie was a Bluetick Coonhound, and she had rescued me from a killer several months ago. She could laze around all she wanted after that.

  With the help of my mother, I had bought a cute little cottage several months earlier and Cade had helped me restore the hardwood floors to their original beauty. And by helped, I mean that he did nearly all the work. They gleamed in the firelight and I pulled a throw blanket over the two of us. “Now, this is what I call a day off.”

  He took a sip of his cocoa and one eyebrow arched upward. “Day off? I spent most of it out in the freezing cold, watching as a team of police officers cut a huge hole in the ice on the lake and pull a dead man out.”

  “You weren’t worried about freezing weather when you were killing fish,” I pointed out.

  “I killed zero fish. And we don’t know much yet. Greg Barnes said he thought the dead guy is Rob Zumbro, but he was pretty blue in the face so we’ll need next of kin to identify him.”

  The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t come up with a face. “Was a missing person report filed?”

  “Nope. I stopped by his house to speak to his wife, but no one was home. I’ll try again when I leave here, and if she still isn’t home, I’ll try in the morning. He lives in one of those houses on the far side of the lake.”

  “Ah, that might explain a lot. I bet he had a habit of going ice fishing and he fell through. It’s weird his wife didn’t file a missing person report, unless it happened within the last day or so.”

  “He looked like he had been in the water for a while,” Cade said. “And he wasn’t dressed for ice fishing. That red we saw was a light nylon windbreaker.”

  “Ew,” I said. “I told you that fish had been feasting on him. He didn’t have his wallet on him?”

  He shook his head and took another sip of his cocoa. “No personal effects on him.”

  “Hmm, that’s odd,” I said thoughtfully. “Don’t you think that’s odd? Men usually carry their wallets when they leave the house.”

  He snorted. “It’s odd that he died out in the cold and no one reported him missing. And I do have my wallet on me when I leave the house, but I don’t know if every man does. It might not have been unusual for this guy. Or his wallet may be at the bottom of the lake.”

  I nodded. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if his wallet had slipped out of his pocket while he was in the lake. It would be lost forever.

  “Well what about his house? Did it look abandoned? Who is he married to? Maybe she left him and that’s why no one knows he’s missing. Maybe he’s been in the lake for months and if she left him, maybe there wasn’t anyone to report him.” I thought I was becoming a good detective if I do say so myself. Cade wouldn’t admit it, but I was his ace in the hole.

  “That imagination of yours is in overdrive,” he said and turned the television on. “Let’s watch pro-fishing.”

  I groaned. He was going to have me stinking like an old dead fish if it was the last thing he did.

  Chapter Four

  Cade squinted his eyes at me as I headed up the walkway to the Zumbros’ house. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  I smiled at him. “I came to assist you. I’ve been thinking about Rob Zumbro all night. I couldn’t sleep a wink, so I stalked his social media profiles. There are pictures of him with a woman I assume is his wife. She looks familiar, but I can’t place her. I just don’t understand why someone didn’t report him missing.”

  He glanced at the house, then looked at me. “This is official police business. You don’t belong here, Rainey,” he hissed.

  “I know, I know. I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t be here, but you know how I am. I need to know.”

  “You’re nosy,” he said emphatically. He was dressed in a casual wool suit today. The sun was up and shining, and it was surprisingly warm when it was directly on me, but a cold breeze sent a chill thought my body. A wool suit was a good choice.

  “I am not nosy. I want to help,” I whispered.

  Cade opened his mouth to protest again, but the front door to the Zumbros’ house swung open, interrupting him. We both turned and looked.

  The woman standing at the door had blond hair and was a little taller than my 5’4” height. She was the woman I had seen in the pictures online. She looked to be about my age, but I wasn’t sure where I had seen her before.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, looking at us uncertainly. Mrs. Zumbro, if that was who she was, looked like she kept herself fit. The leggings and t-shirt said we had interrupted her workout.

  Cade forced himself to smile. “Good morning,” he said and headed up the three porch steps, one hand extended.

  Before he could get anything else out, she shook her head. �
�I’m sorry. I’m not buying anything, and I already have my own religion. I don’t like solicitors.”

  She began to shut the door when Cade cleared his throat. “Mrs. Zumbro?” he asked. She hesitated, and I took that moment to follow Cade up the steps. I stood beside him like I belonged there.

  “Yes, I’m Mrs. Zumbro. Why? Who are you?” Her eyes went from Cade to me and I smiled what I hoped was a comforting smile. She was about to get some terrible news and I hoped she wouldn’t hate us for it.

  “Mrs. Zumbro, I’m Detective Cade Starkey. I’m with the Sparrow police department,” he said, sounding business-like. “I need a moment of your time to speak with you.”