Bitch Creek (26 page)

“The fella that deputy was askin' about? The old guy with the funny ears? Sure. Hell, I'm on the desk all the time. Roland, he's got better things to do than sit around this shitty place all day and night. He says it's the only useful thing a fat old pregnant girl can be expected to do.” She patted her belly. “Mr. Green was the fella that deputy was askin' about. He showed me a picture.”

“Yes,” said Calhoun. “I'd like to talk with you about Mr. Green.” 

“You bet,” she said. “Nail the sonofabitch. String him up by the nuts. I keep tellin' Roland we gotta get one of them automatic creditcard checkers, but he'd rather spend our money on his boat. That guy stayed here two nights, and now they're sayin' they ain't going to pay us. Hell, it ain't my fault that card was stolen.” She shook her head. “Well, that's not your problem. What'd he do, anyway? Besides stiff us with a stolen credit card, I mean?”

“He's under suspicion for several serious crimes,” said Calhoun. “Not that stealing credit cards isn't serious. So you checked him in, then?”

She nodded. “I guess I told that other deputy everything. He checked in Sunday, early evenin', and he checked out first thing Tuesday morning. Seemed polite enough. Elderly fella, but he had a bounce in his step.” She looked sideways at Calhoun. “He gave me the old onceover, he did. Imagine. A fat old thing like me.”

“Oh, you can't blame a man for lookin' at a pretty girl,” said Calhoun. “Did you have any conversation with him?”

“Well, the usual. TV, towels, check-out time.” She shrugged.

“Did he have luggage with him?”

“I don't know. I gave him the key—it was number eleven, out back—and he drove around. I don't carry bags, you know. This ain't a fancy place, in case you didn't notice.”

“So other than checking him in and out, you didn't talk to him?” 

“Well, he did drop in the office the next morning. Monday, that would've been. Asked where he might get a good breakfast. I suggested a couple places up the road, and that seemed to satisfy him.” She hesitated. “Oh, yeah. He asked about fishing.”

“Fishing?”

“Well, I don't know if he was interested in fishing, exactly. Said he was lookin' for a guide. Truth is, he didn't actually mention fishing at all. I just assumed. I sent him over to Blaine's. Know where that is?”

Calhoun shook his head.

“Right over the bridge, on the left.” She gestured in a vague northerly direction. “Head on into town and just stay on Route 1 where it hangs a right there at the lights. You can't miss it. Sits right there at the marina. Kinda rundown, like most everythin' around here, but Blaine's the only fishin' guide I know of. Couldn't tell you if Mr. Green actually went there or not.”

“When he asked about a guide,” said Calhoun, “can you remember exactly what he said?”

She shrugged. “I don't know. A guide.” She wrinkled her brow as if she was pondering a difficult problem. “Oh, well, now that I think of it, what he actually said was, he needed a guide because he wanted to do some exploring. Whatever that meant. I guess it was me who mentioned fishing. And he said, Yes, that's what he wanted. A fishing guide.” She looked at Calhoun with her eyebrows arched. “I mean, what else is a guide for except fishing and hunting? And it sure ain't legal hunting season.”

“Did he actually go fishing, do you know?”

She shrugged. “He was gone most of the day. I happened to see him drive in sometime in the afternoon, and I guess he drove out when I wasn't lookin', because I seen him drive in again, oh, sometime in the evening.”

“What kind of car was he driving, do you remember?”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then shook her head. “Sorry.”

Calhoun nodded. “Did he use the telephone?”

“We don't have phones in the rooms,” she said. “That's another thing I keep tellin' Roland. But no, he needs new brass or somethin' for that damn boat. Guests can use this one here for local calls, or if they got a credit card” —she waved her hand at the telephone on the desk—“but Mr. Green, he didn't use it.”

Calhoun chatted with Amy Sousa for a few more minutes, but learned nothing else. So he thanked her and scratched his name and phone number on a scrap of paper.

She looked at it. “Where's this?”

“Dublin.”

“Wherever that is.” She frowned at the piece of paper, then looked up at him. “That other deputy, he gave me a business card.”

“I ran out,” said Calhoun.

“Well, that's okay. I'll sure call you if I come up with something. Maybe if you catch that old man, we can get paid for them two nights, huh?”

“We'll sure work on it, ma'am,” he said. He gave her a nod and turned for the door.

“Keep me posted, mister,” she said. “You come by any time. Any time at all. I'm always here.”

He hesitated, then looked back at her. “Good luck with your baby,” he said.

Back in the truck, Calhoun blew out a long breath. “I don't know what's worse,” he told Ralph. “Not knowing anything about what's happened in your life up to now, or having a clear picture of everything that's going to happen to you for the rest of it.”

Ralph was staring intently at a couple of gulls that were pecking at some trash alongside the pool. He apparently had no opinion on the subject.

Calhoun started up the truck, pulled onto Route 1, and headed north. He crossed the long bridge that spanned a tidal river and turned off on a gravel road that curved back down to the river, where a dozen fishing boats were parked at an H-shaped dock and, out in the river itself, several moored sailboats were facing downriver into the flowing tide.

A few picnic tables were scattered in front of a small, square, shingled shack near the water where, according to the sign, you could get fried clams, boiled lobsters, and cold beer. Alongside the paved boat ramp sat another somewhat larger shingled shack—no doubt the work of the same builder. Its sign read
BLAINE'S CHARTERS, DEEP SEA FISHING, WHALE WATCHING, BAIT AND TACKLE.

“Sit tight,” Calhoun told Ralph, who was peering out the side window, scanning the skies over the river for more gulls.

He got out of the truck and went into the shop. It was cluttered and dirty and dimly lit, and it smelled vaguely of dead fish and wet seaweed.

A middle-aged man with a bushy black beard sat behind the counter reading a newspaper. Without looking up, he said, “Bait's out back. You git it yourself and pay for it here. All we got left is eels and sandworms.”

“I need some information,” said Calhoun.

The man lifted his eyes. “Mostly what we got is bait and tackle here.” He dropped his eyes to his newspaper. “See where the Sox lost another one, huh?”

“Are you Mr. Blaine?”

“Depends on who needs to know.”

“Do you remember a man named Fred Green, came in maybe a week ago looking for a guide?”

“Nope.”

“White-haired guy in his late sixties, early seventies? Big ears. Southern accent.”

Blaine turned a page. “Eels and sandworms,” he said. “That's all we got today.” He continued to squint at his paper.

Calhoun placed his elbows on the counter and leaned close to Blaine. “I'm talkin' to you, sir,” he said.

Blaine glanced up. “I heard you, pal. You're botherin' me. If you don't want to buy somethin', I'm busy, okay?”

Calhoun reached across the counter, grabbed Blaine's beard, and pulled him up from his chair. “I ain't got time to fart around,” he said. “A friend of mine got killed and I'm in no mood. Understand me?” 

Blaine reached up and gripped Calhoun's wrist. “Let go, man.”

“I'd be happy to hurt you,” said Calhoun. He gave Blaine's beard a sharp tug.

“Okay, okay. Jesus. Whaddya want?”

Calhoun released his grip on Blaine's beard and patted his cheek. This was the second time in the past couple of days he'd bullied somebody. The other one was the bartender at Juniper's restaurant. He wondered where in his training, or pre-lightning personality, that came from.

“Sorry about that,” he said to the bearded guy. “I'm pretty upset, my friend getting killed and all. I just need to know, did you talk to a guy named Fred Green about a fishing guide? It would've been on Monday, a week ago today.”

Blaine sank back into his chair and stroked his chin. “I don't know that name”—he glanced up at Calhoun, who was staring hard at him—“but maybe I remember an old guy with funny ears and a southern accent.”

“What'd he want?”

“He was lookin' for a guide. Told him we did charters, but that ain't what he was after. He wanted someone to help him find some damn pond. Near as I could figure, it was down around Sebago somewhere. I told him pond fishin' ain't worth spit these days, but he seemed to know exactly what he wanted. So I told him he better find someone else. I even give him a recommendation.”

“Who did you recommend?”

“Hippie college kid down in Portland. Works out of a shop down there. Kid name of Lyle McMahan.” Blaine peered up at Calhoun. “Maybe you know Lyle?”

Calhoun nodded. “Might've heard of him.”

“That boy knows them woods down there better'n anybody,” said Blaine. “There's another guy, supposed to be pretty good, works in the same shop. Not as good as McMahan, I hear. Don't know him personal. Calhoun's his name.”

“Did you mention this Calhoun to the old guy, too?”

“Ayuh. Told him either one'd prob'ly suit him.” He gazed up at the ceiling for a minute. “Funny thing,” he said. “That old fella, he didn't seem much interested in fishin'.”

“How so?” said Calhoun.

“Well, I asked him what he was lookin' for, and he kinda shrugged, and when I mentioned brook trout, he got this look on his face, like that was some kind of brilliant idea I had, and he goes, Yep, that's what he's after, all right. Brookies.”

“And did Mr. Green indicate he was going to look up Lyle?”

“Oh, sure. I give him the address of the shop down there. Kate's Bait and Tackle.” A grin glinted from inside Blaine's beard. “If you ain't done it before, worth droppin' in, just to catch a look at Kate, if you know what I mean.”

T
HE IMAGE OF
B
LAINE
'
S LEERING BEARDED FACE
stayed with Calhoun as he drove back down Route 1 to Portland. It made him want to drive directly to the shop, enfold Kate in a big hug, and tell her the hell with all of it, he just wanted to be with her.

What had gotten into him, yanking on the man's beard? He didn't know where that sudden, angry aggressiveness had come from. It made him realize that he was still learning things about himself. He didn't like everything he was finding out.

On the other hand, it worked. The man had talked. Now it seemed clear that Fred Green had come to Maine specifically to find the millpond in Keatsboro. He'd known exactly what he was looking for, but he needed someone to help him find it. He hadn't actually cared about the fishing.

If Calhoun had it figured right, Mr. Green had come to Maine to dig up something beside the Potters' old cellar hole on the hilltop in the woods. It must've been something important and valuable—gold, if Calhoun wasn't mistaken. Green had needed a guide to find it, but he felt he couldn't leave the guide alive afterward. So he'd killed Lyle.

And when Calhoun had persisted in snooping around, Mr. Green came in the night to kill him, too.

Calhoun had been wracking his poor excuse for a brain, trying to think of a jeweler he knew and trusted. The closest he could come up with was Stanley Karp, who owned a pawnshop on Route 9 in the Stroudwater section of Portland. Stanley was an unskilled but enthusiastic fly fisherman whom Calhoun had guided a few times.

Calhoun had begun by calling him “Mr. Karp.” It was his rule to address all clients his age or older formally unless they instructed him otherwise, although he didn't remember ever warming to any of the few who didn't quickly correct him.

Mr. Karp had turned to him and said, “For goodness' sake, call me Stanley. How would you like to be called some kind of ugly fish?”

He had insisted on calling Calhoun “Stonewall.”

When Calhoun had asked him how much fly fishing he'd done, Stanley had grinned and said, “You'd probably call me an aspiring novice.”

 It was a little after one in the afternoon when he pulled up in front of Stanley Karp's little shop. When he went inside, Stanley plunked his elbows on the glass-topped counter, leaned forward, arched his eyebrows, and said. “Well, bless my soul, if it isn't Stonewall Jackson Calhoun. I hope you have not come here to transact actual business with me. My clients, unlike yours, are desperate, pitiable souls, for which reason I do not like my friends to become my clients, and I never allow my clients to become my friends.”

Calhoun grinned, went over to him, and held out his hand, which Stanley engulfed in both of his. “Actually, I need your expertise, Stanley,” he said. “I've got something here I can't identify.”

Stanley Karp was a tall, gaunt, absolutely bald man, with a long, beaked nose, pendulous ears, bushy gray eyebrows, and a wide, lopsided smile. He knew very little about fly fishing, but he knew everything about fly-fishing equipment. “You would be astounded,” he'd told Calhoun the first day they fished together, “at the wonderful stuff people find in their cellars and attics and garages and closets. They come in here with armloads of bamboo fly rods, and they ask me if I'll give them anything at all for this old junk. They bring me gorgeous Paynes and Leonards, even an occasional Garrison or Gillum, genuine treasures, and when I tell them what they're worth, Stonewall, they laugh at me.”