Dana Stabenow - So Sure Of Death

“Would being high boat generate bad feelings among the rest of the fishermen?”

Ballard looked surprised. “Hell no. Look, Officer, you have to understand, as smart as you are, as quick as you are, with the best boat and gear you can buy and the best crew you can hire, a fisherman, any fisherman, can still get skunked. The weather can come up, the fish can be late, you can set in front of the wrong creek, you can snag a deadhead in your net, another boat can run over your cork line, you can get hung up on a sandbar, your impeller can blow out, your engine can blow up. There's fifty ways to fail at fishing in Alaska for every one way to succeed.” Ballard looked pleased with this aphorism, and sat back, preening a little.

Liam said nothing.

Awareness dawned. Ballard sat up straight and said sharply, “Why do you ask? Is there something you're not telling me about their deaths?”

Liam put his notebook away. “I'll need that spreadsheet.”

Ballard held it out but wouldn't let go. “Is there?”

Liam tugged the document free, folded it into careful squares and pocketed it. “There are questions, but there usually are in deaths of this nature. I really can't say anything more at present.” He hoped he sounded just pompous enough to quell further questions, and stood up. “Will most of the fishermen listed on this summary be in Newenham? I might need to talk to some of them.”

“There are twenty-two names on that list,” Ballard pointed out.

“Yes.”

Ballard rose to his feet, his face troubled. “A lot of them are from Outside: Washington, Oregon, California. They're in town for six, eight weeks, however long the fish last. Some of them shack up on shore, some rent rooms, but most stay on board.”

“Will Tanya know who does and who doesn't?”

Ballard's expression lightened. “Tanya knows everything.”

“Okay if I talk to her?”

Ballard waved a hand. “Sure.” He hesitated. “Can you let me know what's going on? I mean, I knew the Malones, I liked them. Dave was a damn fine fisherman, and Molly…”

“What about Molly?” Liam said with studied indifference.

“Molly.” There was a wealth of meaning in that one word. “You know how some women can rub up against every nerve ending you've got from across the street? Molly was like that. But she was nice, too. Good mother, good homemaker, good deckhand.” He paused, and admitted, “I didn't have much use for Jonathan, Dave's brother.”

“Why is that?”

“It was pretty obvious that he would have been unemployable by anyone else other than a family member,” Ballard replied with heavy irony. “If you get my drift. Whatever trouble he could get into, Jonathan got into. It was like he was keeping score or something.”

“Misdemeanor or felony trouble?”

Ballard hesitated. “I don't know that anything ever actually came to trial,” he said cautiously. “There were rumors, nothing specific.”

He let his eyes wander off, and Liam knew he was lying. Could be Ballard was keeping quiet out of respect for Jonathan's brother. Could be he was close to someone else involved in Jonathan's shenanigans. It was a small town.

Ballard said, “David Malone did come in once and tell us never to let Jonathan pick up any checks David had requested on his account.” He paused. “You see that a lot, you know? Good brother, bad brother. It's almost a cliché. I'd liked to have met their father.”

“Why?”

“Because it's all about fathers, isn't it?” Ballard said, sounding surprised that he had to explain it. “A man is what his father makes him.” As an afterthought, he added, “And his mother, of course.”

Liam thought of his mother and managed not to wince. “I like to think a man is what he makes himself.”

Ballard's smile was kind. “You're young. You'll learn better.”

No more than the next man did Liam enjoy being patronized, however kindly meant. Hand on the doorknob, he said, “Oh, one more thing. Have you ever heard of a deckhand named Max Bayless?”

Ballard's smile vanished and he looked wary. “Yes.”

Liam waited, and when Ballard didn't volunteer anything, said, “Well? What have you heard?”

“Just that he's for hire,” Ballard said.

He was lying again. “Do you know who he's working for this summer?”

Ballard shook his head, tight-lipped.

Liam could have pushed it, but as with the elders in Kulukak, he believed in letting witnesses stew a little, so long as they weren't a flight risk. “If you do hear who he's working for, would you let me know?”

“Certainly.” Ballard came around his desk and held out his hand, bringing the interview to a close. “If I hear anything at all, I'll certainly pass it on.”

In the outer office, Liam paused beside Tanya's desk, watching the blur of her fingers as they tapped information into the keyboard and letters and numbers appeared on the screen in front of her. “May I speak with you, Tanya?”

“Of course,” she said, her fingers not missing a shift key. “Let me finish this entry and save my work and I'll be right with you.”

Liam found a chair and placed it next to her desk. He pulled out the tender summary and unfolded it. He was aware that although he had closed the door to Ballard's office behind him, it was now open a few inches.

The computer hummed and Tanya inserted a floppy into a slot. Something clicked and she replaced the first disk with a second. “I back everything up twice,” she said with a bright smile.

“Very wise,” Liam said.

“Are the troopers computerized yet?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “It's very useful, being connected to other law enforcement agencies around the state, even around the nation.”

“You can run but you can't hide?” she said, her archness a bit forced.

He smiled. “Nope. We always get our man.”

“Isn't that what they used to say about the Mounties?”

Liam thought of Frank Petla and smiled to himself. “I think they still do.”

“There,” she said, replacing the disks in a box and putting the box in a drawer of her desk. She folded her hands on her blotter and looked him straight in the eye. “How may I help you-is it Trooper? Officer Campbell?” She smiled again. “Or just plain sir?”

“Officer is fine,” Liam said. “Sir makes me feel like my grandfather.”

Her smile warmed a trifle, but she was still on edge. He said, holding out the tender summary, “It would be very useful if you could tell me which of these fishermen live on board their boats, and which don't.”

She took the summary and began marking names with check-marks from a red pen. It took about thirty seconds, and when she was done she'd marked all but eight names and provided phone numbers for many of them.

He blinked.

“Hold on,” she said, “and I'll get you the contact numbers I have for the rest of them.” Her hands stilled when she saw his surprise. She smiled at him, queening it a little in her superior knowledge. “We're in the business of buying fish. Fishermen sell us their fish. If they don't know when the periods are, they won't be fishing, and they won't be selling us fish. When the Fish and Game announce a fishing period in a particular district-say the Kulukak-we have a list of all the fishermen who deliver to us and who have permits to fish that district. We make sure they are aware of the opener, and the only way we can do that is to keep track of their whereabouts.”

She paused, very cool, very smooth, from the sweep of her short, fine brown hair to her big brown eyes. Liam felt like someone should applaud.

“Usually we don't have to bother,” she added. “The fishermen want to catch fish as much as we want to buy them, and they are standing by their marine radios, waiting to hear. But sometimes, one or two of them have been out for a night on the town and haven't heard. So I call them all, or I send Benny down to their boat. They know to check in with me now.”