Full Fathom Five - The Homicide Files (A Lincoln Munroe Novella, #1)

by Harrison Drake

fresh hand-made fudges (and just about any other candy one could think of). I walked out with a brick of peanut butter and chocolate about four times the size of Kara’s maple walnut.

  There wasn’t too much left to see on that side, other than the liquor store and a hotel. If we kept walking, though, we’d make it to the end of the harbour where four tugboats had burned and sank many years ago. One, the Alice G, was still relatively intact and only about ten feet deep.

  They were accessible from shore and perfect for beginning wreck divers and snorkelers, a great introduction to what Tobermory had to offer.

  We opted to head back to the north end, to check out the variety of gift shops and to look at some of the boats docked at the harbour. There were days when the harbour had more money in it than I would see in a lifetime, boats worth three times as much as my house (if not more) docked beside ones worth less than a cheap car. It didn’t matter, just about everyone here was here to dive.

  Money didn’t matter a hundred feet below the surface. Or did it? Maybe that was the motive?

  We wandered in and out of nautical-themed gift shops to the pier where the Chi-Cheemaun docks. It’s a very large car/passenger ferry that goes between Tobermory and Manitoulin Island to the north. Its name always amused me, Ojibwe, for “big canoe”.

  On our way back past the gift shops I watched a man pull his wetsuit out of his dive bag and lay it over the railing of his boat. It was getting late, there wouldn’t be any more dive charters going out today so he was either a night diver or just checking over his equipment for the morning. But when he draped it over the railing, I swore I saw a tear in the side of the right leg.

  I pulled out my badge and approached the boat. “Sir, Detective Lincoln Munroe, OPP.”

  Kara tugged gently at the back of my suit. I probably should have told her what I was doing.

  “Oh, um, hi,” he said, turning to face us. He stood about six feet tall, maybe a hundred and eighty pounds, slim but well-built. He was standing forward, on the balls of his feet, as though he was about to lunge forward. There was little expression in his face beyond what appeared to be confusion, no anger or fear in his eyes. His hands hung loose at his side, not reaching for anything, not clenched.

  Threat assessment, minimal.

  “Why don’t you have a seat for a moment,” I said, as I stepped off the dock and onto the deck of his boat. He sat down on one of the worn out cushions on a bench. Unfortunately, this wasn’t one of the floating mansions that probably had massaging, swiveling, captain’s chairs at the back of the boat that reeled your fish in for you.

  “Um, don’t you need, like, um, a warrant or something, you know, to come on here?”

  “Sir, we’re here investigating a homicide. A scuba diver killed while wreck diving. I noticed your wetsuit has a cut in the right leg.”

  “It does? I just took it out of the bag. Haven’t even looked at it yet.”

  “May I?” I said without asking, slipped a latex glove on my right hand and stepped forward, taking hold of the wetsuit.

  “But what about a warrant? Can you guys really just come on here?”

  “If evidence is in plain sight, and I am in a lawful position to view the evidence, such as on the dock, I don’t need a warrant.”

  He leaned back against the seat, defeated.

  My finger slid through the cut in the right thigh of the wetsuit, a clean cut almost three inches in length.

  “Definitely from a knife,” I said to Kara. “Any explanation,” I paused, “what’s your name, Sir?”

  “Steven Northcott. Steve.” He picked up his dive licence from the seat beside him and handed it to me. I didn’t take my eyes off of him, just passed the licence back to Kara.

  “So, any explanation, Steve?”

  He shook his head. He had that look in his eyes, of lost hope, of knowing the end was near. He looked terrified.

  “I don’t know, we got here yesterday but spent the day hiking at Cyprus Lake. And we went for a swim in the Grotto. The suit’s been in my bag for a couple of weeks, I just wanted to check it over. We’re diving the Niagara II in the morning.”

  The Niagara II had been deliberately sunken as a dive site ten years earlier in a stunning pyrotechnic display. Other than the minor explosive damage and some crumple damage when the ship hit bottom, it was very intact and allowed for exploration inside the wreck. And with the wreck lying on a slant from forty-five feet deep to a hundred, it suited all levels of experience.

  But that was scheduled for the next day. The day in question they were at Cyprus Lake, not far from town and part of the Bruce Peninsula National Park. Beautiful hiking trails, and kilometres of them, but it was the rock beach and the Grotto that really brought people in. The Grotto was an open cave, accessible from land or lake—and as far as the lake entrances went, you could swim in at the surface or dive through one of two underwater tunnels.

  “Any alibi?”

  “My wife, she’s just gone to the grocery store. Oh, I signed the guest book in the visitor’s centre.”

  I looked at Kara and she already knew what to do. Thankfully, one of the constables on the boat we were on had given us one of their portable radios. The station, only manned in the summer, was just down the highway.

  “Kara Jameson to Tobermory OPP.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Could you get in contact with Cyprus Lake and see if a Steven Northcott signed the guestbook yesterday? Yes, Steven, with a Victor.”

  “Ten-four. Standby.”

  Victor. Phonetic alphabet for the letter V. This was a Steven with a Victor, not a Papa-Hotel.

  It would be a few minutes at least before we found out, and even then, odds are he wasn’t at the park late enough to completely rule him out.

  “And after that?”

  “We came back into town and went to the Crow’s Nest. They had a live band playing. We were there until almost midnight.” He started to stand up from his seat. I stepped back and pulled my suit jacket back, revealing my holstered pistol.

  “Whoa. Sorry, just trying to get my wallet. I have the receipt in there. It’ll have the time we paid on it.”

  I nodded for him to go ahead, but didn’t take my eyes off of him until the receipt was in my hand. I passed it back to Kara without looking at it.

  “So you have no idea how your wetsuit wound up getting slashed?”

  “No, I really don’t. This is only my second season with it.”

  I looked at the wetsuit again. “Do you dive a lot?”

  “Few times a year.”

  “I think you’d remember something like that happening.”

  I broke his gaze for just a second, looked down into his dive bag and saw a small flash of bright yellow.

  “Do you have a dive knife?”

  “Of course.”

  “Describe it.”

  “I don’t know, about a four inch blade, serrated on one side, bright blue rubber on the handle.”

  “You don’t have a yellow one?”

  “No.”

  “Your wife?”

  “No. Hers was a custom job for her birthday, the shade of pink we had for our wedding.”

  “Why?” He saw me looking back down at the bag. “Is there a yellow knife in there?” He got up, ready to move forward and check the bag.

  “Sit back down, Steve.”

  “This isn’t right. Someone set me up.”

  I waited until he was sitting, then knelt down, my eyes leaving his for only a second as I took hold of the object and removed it from the bag. It looked to be the right size and shape for Lester’s sheath.

  Just as I thought. Diving knives generally have bright coloured handles. Makes them easier to find in the depths or in less clear water.

  “Fuck.” He buried his head in his hands. “I swear to God, that’s not mine.”

  “What’s going on here?” Another voice from behind me, female again. This was happening a lot today.

  Steve was crying now, weeping act
ually. Sobbing? Whatever the word the tears were flowing fast, the snot was coming too quick to sniffle back in and the sound he was making bordered on inhuman.

  “They think I murdered someone. I told them I didn’t but I don’t think they believe me.” It took him far longer to say that, and it was barely intelligible through the tears.

  “It’s impossible, officer. There’s no way. My husband wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  “Steve,” I looked back at the woman, “ma’am. It’s not about me believing you, it’s about the evidence. And right now, the evidence isn’t good. I’m going to need both of you to come to the station with me.”

  Steve buried his head in his hands again and I could swear I heard his wife’s heart, suddenly laden with stone, hitting the ground.

  “I’ll need to hear your sides of the story, everything you did yesterday and get your alibis checked out. Until we can clear you, we have to hold your boat. Anything else in the boat we should know about? We’ll be getting a warrant to search it.”

  “Nothing. There’s absolutely nothing on here.” It was the missus, clearly not happy with the police at this time.

  “There’s a Ziploc bag tucked behind the bed. It’s, it’s got a couple of joints in it.” Steve, the apparent honest one.

  I let out a slight snicker.

  “Not for when we’re on the water, I promise. I wouldn’t drive the boat like that.”

  “That’s it?”

  He nodded, his eyes red-rimmed from crying so hard.

  “Then I think I can let that slide. You won’t be allowed to keep them, of course, but I don’t plan on doing anything else about it.”

  “Thank you, thank you.” It was a pleading tone, like he was asking me to do him a