Still Water (4 page)

On the Wednesday morning after the meeting, Baxter was sitting opposite Jake Roderick who had come to file a missing persons report concerning his brother. Baxter scratched behind his ear after Jake had finished talking.

“You haven’t seen Bryan since Monday night. And you haven’t heard anything from him. No calls or anything like that?”

“I told you. He’s just gone.”

“Well, maybe he’s visiting somebody.”

Jake shook his head once, emphatically. “His truck’s at the house. I went over there.”

Baxter picked up a pencil and tapped it thoughtfully against his teeth. The clock on the wall showed that it was about the time when he usually went over to the coffee shop for a late breakfast. Just thinking about it he could smell the bacon cooking. He contemplated telling Jake that he should give Bryan another day. Probably he just went off somewhere and decided not to tell Jake where he was going, or else he forgot. Baxter had to admit it was unlikely though. Bryan didn’t normally do much that Jake didn’t know about. Unless it concerned women of course. Bryan went his own way in that regard. Judging from the dark expression Jake wore he wasn’t about to be put off so easily anyway. Baxter sighed and rose to his feet.

“Okay, we better go out there and take a look.”

They drove to the house in Baxter’s cruiser. Bryan lived in a clearing set back in the woods in Stillwater Cove, reached by a track that came off the main route north. As Jake had said, Bryan’s truck was in the garage. Inside, the house was clean and orderly, nothing out of place.

“Your brother keeps this place pretty good,” Baxter observed. “He have someone come in or something?” He thought of his own place, which was a mess in comparison.

Jake looked around, and his brow furrowed a little. “No, he doesn’t have anyone.”

“Girlfriend maybe? Someone he’s been seeing?”

“Bryan sees a lot of different people.”

Baxter could see how that would be. He wondered if Jake ever got to thinking about how he’d drawn the short straw when it came to looks. The younger Roderick bore little resemblance to Jake, other than a certain dark, brooding quality. Jake was kind of squat and lumbering, whereas his brother was tall and muscular. Bryan had a kind of rough charm which he could turn on if he wanted, whereas Jake was more the monosyllabic type. Baxter guessed women liked all that thick black hair, the wide shoulders and the flashing smile. He sucked in his gut a little, catching sight of himself in a mirror.

He opened the door to the living room. Inside there was a gun rack behind the door. One of the racks was empty and he ran a finger in the groove and it came away free of dust.

“There something missing here?”

Jake looked. “Yeah. A rifle. A Remington.”

“Maybe it’s in his truck.” They went outside to check. On the way Baxter paused by a stand in the front hall where a couple of sets of keys were in a bowl. “These Bryan’s?” he asked, picking one set up.

“Yes. There’s a key for the house and barn, that one’s the cold store and the other’s for the Seawind.”

“What about this other set here.” Baxter picked them up. There was just a key for the house and the barn.

Jake shrugged. “Spares I guess.”

Outside they looked in the truck, but there was no rifle. Baxter closed the barn door and looked up at the house as if it might tell him something. “The door was open when you got here?”

“It wasn’t locked anyway.”

“And you took a look around?” Baxter peered through the trees around the clearing, as if Bryan might appear. “Maybe he went hunting and something happened.”

“I took a look, but I didn’t find anything,” Jake said.

“Well, I guess we better get some people out here.” Baxter headed back to his cruiser. He started thinking about how many men he would need, and how to organize a proper search. The woods went back into the middle of the island, and rose high up into the hills. If a man hurt himself out there, if he couldn’t signal for help, he might never be found. Such things had been known to happen, though not on St. George that Baxter could remember. It was Wednesday. If Bryan was out there somewhere, maybe with a broken leg or worse, how long had he been gone?

“When did you say was the last time you saw him?” Baxter asked.

“On Monday night. After he left Ella.”

“Ella?”

They had a fight.”

“Yeah? What was it about?”

“I didn’t hear it all. She said we fouled her gear or some damn thing.”

Baxter could believe that. It wouldn’t be the first time the Rodericks and Ella had clashed over her accusing them of cutting traps or deliberately dragging buoy lines. Nor was Ella the only one to have had problems with them. The Rodericks were rogues. They had come to the island maybe six or seven years ago, and simply muscled their way into the harbour lobster gang. There were traditional places where people fished, where a family had sunk their traps for generations, and these were generally respected. Kind of unwritten rules. But the Rodericks had made it clear right from the start that the only rules they played by were their own.

“Where’d this fight happen?” Baxter asked.

“At the dock. Crazy bitch pointed a goddamn rifle at him.”

“Ella did that? She threatened him?”

“I said so didn’t I.” Jake narrowed his eyes suspiciously, as if he thought Baxter didn’t believe him. “You don’t have to take my word, there was others saw it too.”

Baxter didn’t say anything. He looked at the empty house again, and unwrapped a stick of gum which he popped in his mouth. “You want some?” he offered.

Jake scowled. “I got work to do if we’re all finished.”

“Yeah, we’re all done.” Baxter got back behind the wheel. He was thinking about Ella pointing a rifle at a man it was well known she disliked, to say the least, who had now vanished. It was probably nothing. All the same, Baxter experienced a vague unease.

Ella manoeuvred the Santorini alongside the dock as her stern-man jumped ashore and she cut the engine. She threw Gordon the bow line. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Dave Baxter at the end of the dock. He was leaning against a shed, chatting with one of the other guys who worked from this dock, but he was watching her. Their eyes met and she raised a hand in greeting and he waved back and smiled, but all the same Ella experienced a quickening sensation inside.

She and Gordon unloaded their catch, which didn’t take long since they’d had a poor day. Almost every trap they’d hauled had contained a couple or three lobsters, but most of them were undersized.

“We’ll do better tomorrow,” she assured Gordon when they were finished. She hoped they would, this time of year they ought to be bringing in plenty of big ones. She saw Baxter approaching from along the dock. “You go on, I’ll clean up.”

“It’s okay,” Gordon said, already dragging over a hose.

“Go on,” she urged.

He straightened and shrugged. “Well, if you’re sure. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Bright and early.”

Baxter said hello to Gordon, and paused to exchange a few words, then came over and grabbed an overturned crate to sit on. He squinted up at the sun, still hot at the end of the day and beating down from a clear sky.

“Ella. Good day out there?”

“I’ve had better. What can I do for you, Chief?”

Baxter wiped his forehead. “It’s probably nothing, but Bryan Roderick’s gone and got himself lost or something.” He waved vaguely towards the point. “Nobody’s seen him around for a couple of days. I’ve got some people searching the woods back there in the cove. You haven’t seen him have you?”

Ella shook her head. “Me? Why should I have seen him?”

“I’m just trying to pin down when he was last around, you know. Got to figure out how long he’s been gone. Thing is, I heard you had some kind of a run in with him on Monday.”

That’s right, I did.”

“I talked to Jake and a couple of other people, Ella. They said you threatened Bryan with a rifle.” Baxter spoke almost apologetically, and the way he squinted from the reflected light off the water gave him almost a pained expression.

“They told you the truth,” Ella said. She grinned. “Chief, you don’t think I shot him do you?”

Baxter’s laugh sounded a little hollow. “Course I don’t, Ella, but you know, I have to ask these things. That’s what they pay me for.”

“I was kidding, Chief.”

“Yeah, I know you were,” Baxter said, but he appeared uncertain. He looked out across the harbour, then back at her. “So you want to tell me about this fight you had.”

“Bryan came by looking for a little fun at my expense. He’d been drinking I think. Anyway I had some trouble with my traps in Little Shoal Bay a few days ago and the Seawind was out there the day before. We got into an argument.”

“Well, I can see how that might happen,” Baxter said. “Threatening him with a rifle though Ella, that’s a little extreme isn’t it?”

“I didn’t do that because of my traps. He tried to come on board my boat. I don’t like people on my boat unless I ask them first.”

Baxter looked at her, and at the distance between him and the Santorini as if he was committing this information to memory.

“Come on Chief, you know what he’s like. The Rodericks and

Howard have this marina thing cooked up between them, and I guess I’m not their favourite person right now. I didn’t like some of the things Bryan was saying. I was just making a point. The gun wasn’t loaded anyway.”

“What kind of things was he saying?”

“Just personal things. I don’t need to repeat it word for word do I?” Ella was used to the comments some people made around her, and sometimes about her on the dock. She’d practically grown up with it, and she’d learned a long time ago to let it go over her head. Those that made them wanted her to react, expected her to because she was a woman. She never did, even when they stepped over the line, which only happened occasionally. She’d had to accept that not everybody was crazy about a woman owning her own boat, and some people let their resentment of her show. They were a minority however, and she ignored them because she knew they hated it that they couldn’t get to her. But Bryan was different. He had a way of looking at her. She could read every thought in his mind, and he knew it. His mocking smile made her flesh creep.

Baxter shook his head. “No, I guess not. So what happened after that?”

“Nothing. He left.”

“And you didn’t see him again?”

“No, not at all.”

Baxter stood and smiled, then spread his hands. “Okay, we’re all set then, I guess. See you later Ella.”

“Bye Chief,” she said, and watched him amble back the way he’d come.

Along the waterfront, Howard leaned against the side of his Cherokee and thoughtfully watched Baxter get in his car. Across the street, on a wall, one of his election posters that bore the same image and slogan as the banner he’d used at the meeting the night before had been ripped down, leaving just a fragment of torn paper. One of Ella’s had been put in its place, and a picture of her smiling wholesomely at him set his teeth on edge. He felt sweat from the heat of the sun running down his neck,

making his collar wilt. This fucking election was going to be the death of him. He watched Ella as she washed down her deck and entertained a brief fantasy about her and that goddamned boat of hers sinking to the bottom of the frigging ocean. Despite his bad humour, and the ulcer he thought he was developing that was eating away at his insides like battery acid, he saw her bend over and appreciated the curve of her ass in her jeans.

It was a temporarily pleasant image. The dark blot of the processing plant which he owned out towards the heads drew his eye to remind him of the corner he was in. His father had built it before the war. There were fish in the gulf then, more than you would believe judging by the numbers that existed today, and the plant had made a fortune. Howard had urged his father to expand the business, maybe start a wholesale operation on the mainland but the old fool had believed St. George would one day rival Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard as the summer playground of the wealthy, and so he’d poured his money into buying up as much land as he could until he owned vast tracts of the island. But fish stocks had declined, and the once prosperous island economy had foundered. The island existed now as a beautiful uncut gem, undiscovered and unspoiled. And Howard hated it with a vengeance.

A passer-by cast him a curious look and belatedly Howard remembered to smile. “Beautiful day isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is,” came the laconic reply.

Howard saw the plant again, an oily curl of smoke rising from its chimney. The place was killing him, sucking him dry. He couldn’t afford to close it down, and he sure as hell couldn’t sell it. Everywhere he looked he saw it and smelt it, the pungent stink of fish oil. If he was voted in he had plans to turn it into a hotel one day after the marina had been built, and the right people had started coming here. Then maybe he could leave this lousy island forever. In his dreams he lived out in California or maybe New Mexico. Anywhere but St. George.

He looked at his watch and wondered where the hell Bryan Roderick was. He hadn’t seen him for a couple of days. The election wasn’t far away and it seemed like it would be a close run thing. Too damn close for comfort. He needed Bryan and that brother of his to do something about it, tip the odds a little more in their favour. Howard frowned, thinking about the parcel of land he’d almost given away to the Rodericks. He’d seen right off that he needed them to have a stake in his plans. Howard had always been confident that he could handle the political side of his fight with Ella, but he’d recognized it was foolish to leave anything to chance, and he’d figured if anyone could make Ella think twice about standing against him it was the Rodericks. So far they hadn’t succeeded. He hoped he hadn’t sold them that land for no reason. But then if Ella won it wouldn’t matter. That land would be worthless and he would be ruined. Despite the heat an icy finger scraped along his backbone. Jesus. Where was Bryan?

In the end he couldn’t wait any longer, and he decided to go and look for Jake. He went into the Schooner and peered around the room. Jake was sitting alone at a table, staring morosely at the beer on the table in front of him. Howard bought him another, and a bourbon for himself and went over. He sat down, wiping the dusty seat first, making sure he didn’t put his arms on the table which was covered in a layer of cigarette ash and a puddle of beer. The place stank of cigarettes and some underlying smell Howard wasn’t keen to identify. Maybe puke.