Dead Float (15 page)

Chapter Thirty-one

The alarm jolted Archie and me awake at four-thirty a.m. A dream I couldn't remember left me with a vague sense of anxiety that only began to lift as I made a double espresso and started pulling my gear together for the day's fishing with Philip. I had nearly finished when I realized I had no fishing knife since Escalante and Dorn had taken
both
of mine. As an afterthought, I put a small pocket knife that had belonged to my dad in the tattered old fishing vest I used as a spare. My newer vest had been impounded. Then I discovered that the old vest was missing a carbon dioxide cartridge, so it was out to the garage, grumbling all the way, to get a spare, the last in the box.

As I finished packing I had to remind myself that fly-fishing with my friend was just what I needed to clear my head. But things had moved swiftly since I'd agreed to the trip, and now a part of me wished that, instead, I was on my way to Portland to try to corner the woman at the martial arts studio. That would have to wait. When I finally backed the car out of the garage, Archie stood watching with a tilted head, and when I didn't offer him the backseat, plopped down on the porch and put his chin on his paws. As I pulled out I called through the open window, “Guard the house, big boy.”

Traffic was light on the I-5 until I turned onto I-84, where I fell in line with a stream of eighteen-wheelers heading into the rising sun. Ordinarily, the Columbia River Gorge acts like a natural wind tunnel, but that morning the wind was calm, the river a dark mirror in the low light. The serenity of the scene made it hard to imagine the violent, stone-carving floods that formed the place an ice age ago. I turned off at the city of Hood River and headed south. Mount Hood was dead ahead, and from this angle reminded me of the bent-thumb silhouette of the Matterhorn.

Following Philip's directions I veered right at a narrow dirt road across from a gas station and descended into the Hood River watershed through a lush pear orchard. I parked in the small gravel lot next to Philip's rig. Ours were the only cars there. I pulled on my chest waders over a pair of sweats, put on my wading boots over neoprene booties, and grabbed my fishing vest and six-weight graphite rod.

I found Philip leaning on a rusted iron railing, watching the river sluice down the sloped narrow spillway of the dam. His fly rod leaned against the railing next to him, and he was sipping coffee from a stainless steel thermos cap.

“Any fish down there?” I called out over the muffled roar of the water.

“Oh yeah.” Philip looked up and shaded his eyes with one hand while pointing at the area where the overflow churned into the river with the other. Suddenly two silvery steelheads leaped from the boil and began fighting their way
up
the spillway.

“Whoa!” I said. The fish were quickly swept back into the river. Another tried and was beaten back as well. Built to divert water to a small power station down river, the dam was tiny by Northwest standards, but large enough to impede the migration of salmon and steelhead to their spawning grounds on the glacial slopes of Mount Hood.

Philip pointed across the river. “Fish ladder's over there. Takes 'em a while to find it. Some never do.” He looked up and smiled. “Get your cup. I've got more coffee in my thermos.”

We talked a little but mostly watched as fish after fish attempted to clear the spillway.

After finishing our coffees, we headed out. I was excited to get a fly in the water but at the same time couldn't get the images of those determined fish out of my head. I found myself wondering how much dynamite would be needed to take the dam out.

We walked downstream on a narrow path, picking our way through pine and scrub oak. After a mile or so Philip stopped. “Okay, I'll start here and fish back toward the dam. There's a trail that tees into this one another mile and a half downriver. Start fishing there. When I finish up, I'll come back down and meet you.”

I gave him a skeptical look. “The water we just passed looked pretty good.”

Philip made a wounded face. “I'm giving you the best water, man. Wait till you see it down there. You think I'd cheat for a lousy free lunch?”

“Yep,” I said, turning to go downstream.

“Remember,” he called after me, “the steelhead have come all the way from the Pacific. They're looking for a break in the current and plenty of dissolved oxygen. Shade's good, too. And keep your belt cinched tight. The water's high, and it's easy to come loose in this river.”

The trail narrowed, and the trees crowded even closer to the bank, which dropped away steeply to the swift water. I knew Philip would give me the best section to fish, and he had. The rub was he would probably outfish me anyway, which would give him even more bragging rights.

At the junction of the two trails a rough patch of water tailed out into a nice, deep boulder garden, ideal holding water for steelies. I tied on a fly, eased down the bank, and worked my way out into the current until I was waist-deep. I gave that boulder garden a good strafing, putting each cast out a little further and then swinging the fly in an arc across the best water. Nothing. Migrating steelhead are mostly on the move, and apparently there were none resting in that stretch of water.

I moved upriver, repeating the process without encountering a single fish. No matter. Dappled by the trees, the morning light moved on the water like levitating silver coins. Noisy crows, nesting tanagers, and a couple of chittering kingfishers seemed to be enjoying the morning as much as me. The tension that had built over the past week began to melt away, reminding me once again why I fly fish.

I came to a wide, deep pool—so deep I couldn't see the bottom through the silt-tinted water. At the top of the pool, the river funneled down between a pair of half-submerged boulders before churning over a short waterfall. As I moved around on the bank hoping to spot a fish, crows in the trees behind me suddenly took flight. I looked behind me but didn't see anything.

Almost immediately I saw a glint of silver as a fish rolled at ten o'clock, maybe forty feet from where I stood. My pulse ramped up. The fish didn't break the surface, but it looked
big
. I took a deep breath and snapped a roll cast out at two o'clock, then gently swung the fly in the fish's direction. Because of the eddy currents in the pool, the fly took a meandering course, and it took a bit of body English to finally hit the target.

They say you never forget a steelhead strike, which is certainly the case for me. The fish, pushing a yard in length, came halfway out of the water, inhaled my fly, and dove like a porpoise. I brought my rod tip up and yanked, setting the hook. The fish reversed course and came out of the water like a chrome missile, thrashing its head to throw the hook. Landing with a smack, it dove again and ran for the center of the pool, line screaming off my reel. I'd spooled off a lot of line before the fish finally stopped running and turned to face me, digging in like a bulldog on a leash.

It was a standoff. I started to take some line back, and the fish yielded grudgingly for a few cranks on my reel. Then it dashed downstream, taking all the line I'd gained and then some. I swung around and we faced each other again, its strength together with the full force of the river threatening to pop my eight-pound leader or one of the knots I'd tied.

I cranked in some more line and the fish responded like a gymnast doing a floor routine. It paused. I took more line. I wanted to land the fish before it became dangerously exhausted. Just as suddenly it broke for the bank and then, sensing the shallow water, reversed course and leaped a final time. A few moments later I had the fish in front of me.

Far from exhausted, the steelhead thrashed about. I bent down, slipped my hand under its belly and lifted gently. The fish became completely still as its speckled, olive green head came out of the water. “Thanks, big fella. You were magnificent. Remember, the fish ladder's on your left.” I slipped the hook free. The steelhead rested in my hand for a few moments, crimson gills pumping rhythmically, and then with a flick of its tail, was gone.

I got out and found a stump further upstream in the full sun. I sat down, feeling more at peace than I had in a long time. I'd landed my first summer steelhead. Claire was safe and on her way home. And I wasn't in jail for murder. Things were looking up.

Behind me a couple of crows lifted out of the trees, cawing with annoyance. “Philip, is that you?” I called. “I need coffee.” No answer.

I started heading upriver. The bank became high and steep, the water deep and featureless. I heard a twig break behind me, and suddenly it dawned on me what those crows were trying to tell me. Somebody was back there in the trees.

But it was too late. An arm clamped around my chest, and a sharp blade pressed against my throat, releasing a trickle of warm blood.

“Move or make a sound and I'll cut you ear to ear.” The voice was irritatingly high, as if originating from a lung full of helium, and his breath reeked of tobacco, a stench I recognized. No trace of an accent. Then just as quickly the knife was gone. I felt a tug at my waist and winced involuntarily. My wading belt fell at my feet, cleanly sliced in two. Then a squeaky laugh and the words, “Enjoy the swim, asshole,” before he shoved me off the bank.

Chapter Thirty-two

Falling into a river in waders without a safety belt is the nightmare of every fly fisherman. I tried to right myself but hit the water chest first. The impact knocked most of the air from my lungs. Fifty-degree water flooded into my waders, filling the legs, which were tightly sealed at my boots. I sank like a brick. Fighting back panic, I reached across my chest and pulled the cord to inflate my vest. The carbon dioxide cartridge fired, and I felt a moment of buoyancy and a flicker of hope. But my inflated vest was no match for the weight of my now flooded legs. I bumped merrily along the river bottom as my vest rose up around my head like a noose.

The pocket knife! It was in one of my vest pockets.

I yanked down on the vest with my left hand, and searched frantically through the pockets with my right. My hand clutched the knife just as I smacked headlong into a large boulder. A supernova exploded in the space behind my eyes. The vest tore free, but I managed to hold onto the knife. I opened it and slashed at my pants legs, releasing the trapped water.

Suddenly buoyant, I started to fight my way to the surface. The water brightened, and I could almost taste the air. But before I could take a breath, the current slammed me into a boulder and pinned me there. Sensing the pull of the current to my left, I frantically swung my legs around and was flushed over the falls and into the big pool I'd just fished.

I went in deep, churning in the boil below the falls like a dead fish. I knew my attacker was on the left bank somewhere, so I decided to go right with the two or three molecules of air left in my lungs. My boots were like cement galoshes, so I pulled with my arms with everything I had until I burst to the surface, giving me a new appreciation for fresh air. I made for a tangle of logs and branches another twenty feet downstream and tried to hide myself.

But my attacker had followed me downriver. He stood directly across the pool, bouncing on the balls of his feet in a little dance of frustration. Sunlight reflected off the long blade in his hand. I could just make him out through a bleary left eye and a right eye nearly swollen shut. When it came to clothes, the guy had no flair. He had on the same outfit he'd worn on the Deschutes—a black hoodie, dark jeans, and a backpack.

I caught a fleeting impression. He was tall and slender, a face with no distinguishing features, definitely Caucasian.

A hot transfusion of rage filled my fast-numbing body. I lifted my arm partway out of the water and displayed the pathetic little pocket knife I'd somehow managed to hang on to. Through stiff, thickened lips I yelled, “Come and get me, you son of a bitch.”

I think he smiled, but I'm not sure. I took my eyes off him for a moment to push a branch out of my face. When I looked back, my attacker was gone.

The bank was too steep to climb out, and setting off downriver would make me a sitting duck. So, I just hung on there for I don't know how long, wondering if my attacker could find a way across the river. Finally, I didn't care where the hell he was. I had to find a place to crawl out or die of hypothermia. I shoved off and cleared the pool okay but realized to my horror I didn't have the strength to navigate the swift water downriver.

My body seemed to shrink down to a point, leaving only my mind. Nancy came to me, her face pinched with worry. I shrugged, as if to say I couldn't help what was happening to me. Then I saw Claire. She was furious, telling me not to give up. The last thing I felt before blacking out was overwhelming guilt.

Chapter Thirty-three

I heard a distant voice, then felt two strong hands pull me out of the water and up a steep bank. I remember wondering where the knife was going to go—into my chest or across my throat? Either way I was too weak to resist. But instead of execution by knife I realized my clothes were being stripped off. My eyelids felt sheathed in lead, but I forced them open and blinked hard to clear them. I hadn't really noticed that Philip Lone Deer's green eyes had tiny flecks of yellow in them, like flecks of gold in a mountain stream. Or at least that's the way they seemed to me as I lay there looking up at my friend.

I coughed up some river water and shivered. “See him?”

“See who?” he said, pulling a deliciously warm, dry sweatshirt over my head.

“The guy…pushed me.”

“
What?
Someone pushed you in?” Philip jumped up and looked around. “Where is he?”

I coughed up some more water and shook my head. “Don't know.”

Philip dropped back on one knee and hurriedly pulled a pair of thermal underwear over my legs. The fog in my brain began to clear, and I noticed Philip was in his skivvies.

“Knife. He's got…knife,” I said, trying to sit up. Philip eased me back down and laid his fishing vest over my upper body for more warmth.

“
Who
has a knife?”

“Deschutes killer. Cut my belt…Shoved me.”

Philip stood up again, hurriedly slipped his waders and boots back on and pulled a knife from a sheath on his belt. It was a lot bigger than my knife. “Well, I've got a knife, too. Where is the bastard?”

I was still shivering, but managed to sit up. “I don't…know.…I was standing on the bank…he was shadowing me, came out of the woods…river noise made it easy.”

Philip glanced over at my waders. They were lying in a shredded heap. “What the hell did you do?”

I'd stopped shivering and begun to warm a little. “Once I hit the water, I fired off a CO2 cartridge. It kept me buoyant just long enough to find a pocket knife I had in my vest. Used the knife on my waders.” I shook my head. “The cartridge and the pocket knife almost didn't make the trip. The knife belonged to my dad.” I looked around, then pointed upriver. “It's somewhere in that deep pool back there.” I went on to describe my submarine tour and the across-the-river, face-to-face confrontation with the killer.

Philip shook his head in disbelief. “I
just
missed the whole thing. I came looking for you and saw your pole on the bank. Figured you'd gone into the woods to pee or something. I poured a cup and waited around for you to show. When you didn't, I began to get worried and started downriver again. At the pool, I saw something swim out from under that snag of branches.” He laughed. “Thought it was a pregnant beaver. Then I realized it was you, partner. I waded in and grabbed your ass as you floated by. You were finished, man.”

I finally made it to my feet, and we started back upstream, moving warily, Philip with his knife still drawn. As we walked, my brain began to defrost. When we got back to the parking lot I reluctantly called the local police to report the attack. I knew it would take a lot of time, and I was worried the story would attract the Portland media. But I wanted the incident on the record, and you never know—the locals might have seen something or picked up our guy on an unrelated charge. By the time we took the officers back to the crime scene and completed the interviews it was two hours later.

We never found my wading belt. My guess was our guy took it with him to make it look like I'd neglected to wear one in the first place. I had a throbbing headache, and my right eye was pretty swollen. I also had a couple of nasty gashes on each leg from the pocket knife. Philip expertly closed them using steri-strips from his medical kit.

I declined the officers' advice to go to the hospital. Philip rolled his eyes at this but knew better than to say anything.

We decided to head back to Dundee. Philip would follow me in his rig and stay the night, even though I tried to convince him I didn't need a babysitter. On the way home I kept turning over the events of the day. How did the attacker know I would be fishing the Hood River? Did he simply follow me this morning? No way. He knew exactly what I was going to be doing. No, it must have been the break-in last night. The e-mail from Philip giving directions and the time of our rendezvous was sitting there in my inbox without password protection. The killer knew something about fly-fishing, too. How else would someone know that a pair of flooded waders would quickly and efficiently drown a person?

Why didn't he just slit my throat and be done with it? I had a good answer for that, too—I was the fall guy for Bruckner's murder. It wouldn't look good for me to turn up murdered. No, much better that I had a convenient accident. Suspected murderer drowns in fishing accident. Case closed.

Another thought occurred to me: The attacker couldn't have known ahead of time that he was going to find the e-mail describing our fishing trip, so what was he looking for? The files I'd lifted from Bruckner's study perhaps? Maybe, but I was sure no one knew about that. Maybe he was just hoping to get lucky, find out what I knew. But would
that
be worth undertaking a risky burglary? It didn't seem probable.

Another thought hit me, one that caused my stomach to tighten—instead of taking something, suppose the burglar left something? Dorn and Escalante had searched my place once, but there was nothing stopping them from looking again, particularly if guided by an anonymous tip.

When we got to my place, Philip called his wife and filled her in on the day's excitement. I went immediately to my study and started searching it. When he joined me he said, “What are you looking for?”

I smiled a little sheepishly. “I haven't the slightest idea, but whatever it is, I'd better find it.”