Dead catch, p.15
Dead Catch, page 15
Last Thursday, after finding Rowena bloodied and adrift and nearly catatonic, a plan entered Cray’s mind whole cloth. Charlie Jiles had once told Cray he had tried to recruit Holden Riggins before enlisting Cray, but that Riggins had begged off. Charlie assumed it was because Riggins already had some kind of poaching gig in play. The man, Charlie told Cray, was competition, and if they ever got the chance—if they found out where Riggins was setting illegal nets—they should alert the authorities and turn him in. Or set him up.
Given Rowena’s rape, Cray wished Charlie Jiles had partnered up with Holden Riggins when he’d had the chance. But now Charlie was gone, and Cray had the chance to use Riggins to throw the authorities off their scent. It was a sudden, perfect plan, and they had followed it.
Seeing the nearly finished birchbark canoe had been a hiccup. Cray admired the unexpected craftsmanship. But like a thief who was already too committed to back out or change his mind, there had been no other way forward than the one he had taken. He and Rowena.
It had been late, and he was alone, so he hadn’t worried about intruders or being seen at this end of the lake. He hurried because there had been much to do.
Rummaging through work bins along the wall, he found what he was looking for. There were two nets in the bottom of the bin. He considered taking both, but at the time he only needed one.
That night, so much had happened he’d been forced to return Holden’s keys to his pocket. He hadn’t wanted to raise suspicions about someone burgling Holden’s cabin, or have Holden alert the authorities about his missing keys.
But that meant tonight, he had no keys.
Cray circled the building, his light flashing over the clapboard sides. The flagstone steps ended at the building’s door. There were two windows in back and two on each side. Like the door, the windows were closed and locked.
A burglary, then. Someone taking advantage of a vacant cabin and shed. Cray knew eventually someone would discover the break-in, but time was short and options were few.
He kicked, hard, planting his foot to the left of the knob. The thud and crack reverberated through the dark.
Cray waited, but the night remained still.
He kicked again and the jamb splintered. The door eased open.
The canoe still stood in the center of the room. Cray’s red light flashed over it, and then turned quickly to the near bin. He walked over to the bin and opened it. Its bottom was covered with the bulky net, buoys, and weights, all neatly folded. He gathered the net in his arms and hoisted it out of the bin.
If someone had broken in, had taken advantage, they would have stolen more than nets. What else, Cray wondered. But when he looked around the room, he knew he didn’t want to be weighed down with tools, or a birchbark canoe, for God’s sake.
He turned and hurried out the door, careful to close it behind him and re-affix the lock, at least enough to hold it in place and make it appear, from a distance, as though the premises were secure.
Discovering the break-in would take time, Cray hoped. Figuring out what, if anything, was missing, would take longer. By then, his walleye should be safely fileted, boxed, and sitting in garage freezers, waiting for Char to arrive with one last fat envelope of cash.
Cray was looking forward to ice over, when they’d take a page from the area’s bears and burrow into a dark hole until the weather changed.
CHAPTER 23
Tuesday, October 17
When Sam awoke, the first thought he had was about Carmel. He remembered her recitation of the logical steps involved with Holden’s proposed version of events. She’d left out the first step: Holden being drugged. Sam hadn’t found definitive evidence of drugging, but as Carmel noted: “It was possible.”
Whenever Sam shared case details with Carmel, she shared insights he sometimes hadn’t considered. She had natural instincts about people and animals. Which doesn’t explain why she’s involved with me, Sam thought.
They still needed to have the conversation about their future. But he felt no clearer about the subject and timing of that conversation than he had last Sunday. For Sam, illumination in matters of the heart always took time.
He turned to his emails.
He hadn’t heard from the sheriff or Deputy Barnes, but he assumed he would be able to see Holden this morning. He had an email from Conservation Officer Jennie Flag:
This afternoon should work. If you also need to speak with Bernie Olathe, we can meet you at the same time. We’re at our annual meeting in Duluth, at the DECC, but we have some free time from 1–4. Text me with a time and we’ll figure it out.
The DECC was the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center. Sam had been there once before, down in or around Duluth’s canal park. He hadn’t heard from Conservation Officer Olathe, but he quickly responded to Jennie Flag and told her he was planning on being in Duluth later today and it would be great to meet and speak with both of them. Could she let CO Olathe know? He’d text her later with more details.
He turned to Gray and said, “Ready for some chow and a morning walk?”
Gray was born ready.
Around 8:30, Sam and Gray walked through courthouse security and greeted Deputy Smith Barnes.
“No word yet,” Barnes said.
“From the Medical Examiner?”
Barnes stared for a moment. “No. From the sheriff. About the kid.”
“Oh God, yes,” Sam said. “Of course. Nothing?”
“Not a goldarn thing. He left a message with dispatch around midnight. They were headed to the hospital. I gotta believe that boy’s popped out by now.”
“I’m sure we’ll hear about it soon,” Sam said.
“The whole department’s on pins and needles.”
Deputy Barnes was wiry and tough, with rugged features that could have graced the advertisements of everything from Harleys to Marlboros. “You don’t strike me as a ‘pins and needles’ kind of guy,” Sam said.
Barnes seemed to think about it. “Others in the department,” he said.
Sam smiled. “Did you get my note about Holden?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s in the room. Same room as yesterday.”
“Any word on the ME report?”
“Nope. I sent her a note this morning, after I saw your email. Was supposed to be last night, so I’d be surprised if we didn’t have it by end of day.”
Sam told Barnes to keep him posted.
“As soon as we get it, I’ll send you a copy,” Barnes said. “And I’ve already got an email set for when the kid arrives.”
“That’s excellent.”
“I know you’ve got Deputy Harju helping you on this, but the minute you need reinforcements, let us know.”
“Will do,” Sam said.
“That whole being drugged story is fake news.”
While Sam was trying to honor Holden’s request, about keeping knowledge of his investigation limited, as the lead investigator and acting undersheriff, Deputy Barnes was aware of many of the details surrounding Holden’s case. Including, apparently, the suspect’s claim he may have been drugged.
“Way I see it,” Barnes said, “he started to worry about the evidence he’d left at the scene, boated out to do some cleanup, and when he was done, he had a few. Had a few before he got there, no doubt. When he passed out and got caught, he made up that cockamamie story to cover himself.”
Sam couldn’t disagree. “Sounds like he was pretty sick when the COs found him.”
“One and a half bottles of whiskey will do that to you. A real binge, even for a drinker like Riggins. He can be three sheets to the wind and look more sober than a church mouse.”
“He claims he doesn’t drink much anymore,” Sam said.
Deputy Barnes snorted, a cross between disgust and disbelief. “He’s a drunk,” Barnes said, definitive. “No doubt he can hold his liquor. Problem is he had two bottles of whiskey in his boat and almost all of it was gone. I don’t care how much you can hold, that’s going to put you down.”
With his prints on the bottle, Sam thought. But all he said to Barnes was, “Definitely.”
When Sam and Gray entered the interrogation room, Holden stood up from the other side of the table. The skin under his eyes was dark and puffy, signs of a sleepless night. But he nodded, cordial.
Sam stepped forward to shake his hand. Despite his tired appearance, his grip was firm.
Holden turned to Gray and said, “And morning to you too.” Gray was standing at Sam’s side. Holden moved his hand forward, palm up.
Gray peered, sniffed, and wagged his tail twice.
Deputy Barnes wasn’t warming to the suspect, but Gray was.
“Gotta meet with an attorney later this morning. When she found out we’d talked, she was pissed. Told me to keep my mouth shut until I met with her.”
Sam considered it. Holden’s face was serious, his brown eyes intent.
“So,” Holden shrugged, “what did you want to know?”
Sam thought he saw Holden grin. Regardless, he appreciated Holden’s willingness to cooperate. He glanced through his notes from yesterday’s interview. “You said the last thing you remember at the casino was dinner?”
“Yeah. I sat down to dinner. I had a drink. I remember gettin’ my steak, and a second drink. I finished. That’s when I started to feel . . . sick, I guess. It came on pretty fast. Like, I might blow chow. Then I don’t remember nothin’.”
“Do you remember stepping away from the bar and going into the nearby hallway?”
He thought about it. “I think so. But I don’t remember much else.”
“Do you remember going to the bathroom?”
“Nope. I know there’s a head down there. But I don’t remember hitting the head.”
“What about going out that side exit?”
“Got nothin’,” Holden said. “Don’t remember anything until I woke up about froze to death.”
Sam made a note.
“You looked at the casino’s video?” Holden said.
Sam nodded.
“You didn’t see anybody slip me anything?”
“Nothing obvious, that I could see. And I looked through a lot of video. More than once.”
“Well, somebody slipped me somethin’. Somehow. Somewhere. I’ve put my body through a lot a’ shit. Lots of stuff. But nothing ever made me black out quick like that and wake up 12 hours later. What about my blood tests?”
“Maybe today. Or tomorrow.”
“I gotta believe something strong enough to put me down for 12 hours would still be in my blood.”
“Probably,” Sam said. He returned to his notes. “They said you sometimes have dinner with a woman?”
Holden looked surprised. “You mean Ruth?”
“Bartender said you normally eat alone, but sometimes there’s a woman. From the high school?”
“Yeah,” Holden said. “Ruth. Only woman I seen in the last eight years. She lets me buy her dinner. Maybe once a month. But . . . it’s nothing serious.”
“You weren’t with Ruth last week, were you? Or anybody else?”
Holden paused. “It’s not that way with Ruth, if you’re thinking we spend nights together. I wish. There was a time we hooked up. For a few months. But I fucked up, and that was a while ago.”
“What about others? Others who might have seen you since last Wednesday?”
“My boss,” Holden said. “Check with him. Jim at White Pines Marina. Jim Aho.” Holden thought about it. “I worked Wednesday and Friday, 8–5. Do you know when that CO died? Jiles?”
“Not yet. The ME report is due in today. That should tell us.”
“Well, like I said, after work on Friday I boated to the casino.”
“But if he died Thursday?” Sam said.
Holden shrugged. “I was mending and setting my whitefish net. Thursday, before dark. I set it where they found me. But just the one net. For whitefish. I got a license. That other net was mine, but I didn’t put it there. And it wasn’t there when I set for whitefish.”
“And you didn’t work Thursday?”
“No. On Thursday I was getting my whitefish nets ready. It takes a while to fix all the tears and holes, from mice and stuff. I got three nets and I always start with the worst, to fix it. That takes a while. I fix all of them, just in case.”
“Is that out at your place?”
“My work shed. Over at my place on the back side of Temple.” That reminded Holden. “What did they do with my nets?”
“I don’t know. But I can find out.”
“I want the nets back,” Holden said. “I set that legal whitefish net. Somebody took that other one from my shed. I told the sheriff to check my place. If whoever did it stole the one, they might have stolen the other.”
Holden told Sam where to find the key that worked for his cabin and his shed; hanging on a nail under the front top stair. The whitefish net was in a bin along the back shed wall.
Sam knew the sheriff’s department would have confiscated the nets they found in Vermilion. Also, Holden’s boat, the .45. Everything.
“Right now, I don’t think you should worry about your nets.”
“Maybe. But when they figure out I had nothin’ to do with this, I need those nets back. I’ll go right back out there and set it. It’s a good spot.”
“For walleye too?” Sam said.
Holden’s eyes flashed. Then he shook his head. “In the spring and summer, if you’re using a pole and fishing legal. Lot of people fish off those cedars for walleye. Usually pretty deep. But this time of year, lakes turn over. The water changes and fish move shallower to breathe. Another reason setting that poaching net there was stupid. No way in hell I’d ever set one there and expect to catch anything. I mean, if it was legal, which it ain’t. Truth is, nobody with any lake sense, or fish sense, at least for walleye, would have set a net there. And hoped to catch anything. I bet when they hauled up that net it was empty.”
Sam made a note. He suspected the COs retrieved the nets. He would check on the catch in the illegal walleye net, for what it was worth.
“But it’s a good spot for whitefish?” Sam said.
“Whitefish are different. All year they stay at the bottom in deep water. In the fall they go to shallows like the ones close to those cedars. To spawn. You can’t be deeper than 6 foot if you’re netting whitefish. I was in about 4 foot.”
“So do you think your whitefish net was full?”
“Not with a dead man in the middle of it. Would’a scared off most of the whitefish.”
Sam made a note to ask the COs about the whitefish net too. Just in case. “Why whitefish?” he said.
“Lots of reasons. For starters, they’re the best eating.”
“Better than walleye?”
“I think so. Lots of people think they’re the best. But they’re not easy to catch. That’s another reason I like ’em.”
“You can’t catch them the usual way? With a fishing pole?”
“Nope. You can try. Some people get lucky. But they’re finnicky. I been fishin’ walleye my whole life,” Holden said. “But I never caught a whitefish with a hook, line, or sinker,” he said.
“Other than netting,” Sam said.
“Yup. Netting is about the only way. And it’s the best way. In two or three catches you get enough whitefish for the year. And it ain’t easy. There’s DNR regs. But you also gotta know when they spawn and where to find ’em.” He paused. “When we were kids it was all about catching the biggest and most. Now I let the biggest go. So they can make more fish.”
“You’re a conservationist,” Sam said.
“Whatever,” Holden said. “I just been fishin’ long enough to know the big ones make a lot more fish. For next year.”
A conservationist, Sam thought, but he didn’t push it.
“That tattoo near your eye? What is it?”
“Split shot.”
“A split shot sinker?” Sam remembered them from when they were kids. They were different sizes of lead spheres with slits for fitting and clamping down on the line. They weighted the fishing line, so your bait sank to where the fish swam. And hunted.
“Yeah,” Holden said. He looked away. “Ruth says it’s ‘crude.’ I was gonna try and get it removed, but the ink’s too deep.”
Sam wondered why anyone would tattoo a split shot sinker next to their eye, like a teardrop.
“Was a time I wanted a reminder,” Holden said, anticipating Sam’s question. “Keep my eyes straight, or sink.”
“Eyes straight?”
“Stay clean. Put it here too,” Holden said, holding up his left hand. “I see it in the morning. I see it at night. And I see it when I work.”
“And F-I-S-H?” Sam said.
“Did that later. To remember why I stay clean.”
“So you can fish?”
“Fishing feeds me. Not just the food part of it, but it’s something I always liked. F-I-S-H. Maybe crude, like Ruth says. But people do all kinds of tattoos for all kinds of reasons.”
True enough, Sam knew. When Sam was working on the Florida Key deer case, he’d gotten a barbed wire tattoo around his neck and a large alligator up his right arm. Made him look like an Everglades hunter. But they had been henna tattoos. Eventually, they wore off. But for a time, Maggie, his ex-wife, said she kind of liked the look.
Sam and Holden talked for a while about fishing. For a backwoodsman, Holden Riggins had a complicated perspective about the activity. He talked about how he had always loved throwing a line in water, letting the lures or bait sink below the surface, and then seeing what came up out of darkness. The way he talked about it was metaphoric, though he didn’t say that. He talked about getting to know the fish and their habitat. He didn’t explain it with those words, but his comments, when punctuated by his tattoos, told Sam that, for Holden, fishing was a spiritual practice. Sam had read about Naturalism and Animism. From what he remembered, Holden’s perspective seemed like it was grounded in some kind of -ism. But again, Holden never used those terms. Sam suspected, despite the way he talked about fishing, he had never thought of the practice in spiritual terms.
