Fire in the Stars (7 page)

The skipper sank onto the stool by the wheel and yanked off his cap to rub his bald head. “Can't you at least let my kids go home? They been days on the boat and hours without food or rest.”

“I'll arrange for some food. We have to take their statements before they go.”

“What statements? We all saw the same t'ing! We pulled up the net, this foot near falls out, and we called to shore. You know the rest!”

Chris sympathized with the exasperated skipper. What the hell had Biggs and his detachment been doing since they got here? He'd seen shock take many forms in his career. As a seaman, Norm had probably experienced his share of drama and tragedy over his lifetime, but pulling a dead man up in his net was likely a first. Worrying about his children was a natural reaction.

“I can take their statements if that helps, sir,” he said.

“Good idea. Take Constable Leger there with you. One by one, so they don't contaminate each other's stories.”

Contaminate!
Chris nearly laughed aloud as he descended onto the pier. Their stories had all been well contaminated during their wait in the car, if not on the twelve-hour trip back to port, but he held his tongue. More than once, a smart quip had landed him in trouble with his superiors, and if he ever wanted to make it up the career ladder in a police force with no sense of humour, he had to learn to behave.

It appeared the entire contingent of St. Anthony RCMP officers was at the scene, but since it also appeared the entire town had turned out for the drama, Chris didn't suppose it mattered. He opened the cruiser door and peered at the expectant faces gazing back at him. Two men and a young woman. They all looked a pale shade of green, but perhaps that was the light.

He picked the woman and ushered her to a quiet corner of the pier. She hunched over against the wind. Her thin frame didn't begin to fill out the huge wool jacket that she hugged around herself, but the dark eyes that appraised him were shrewd and sure.

“He's not a local, you know,” she said before he could even record her name.

“You saw his face?”

“No, but not wit' 'dem clothes. Nudding on him but a plaid jacket, pants, and running shoes. You don't go out to sea like that.”

“Maybe he was on the land.”

“What? And swam 250 kilometres out to sea? Some trick, that!”

He laughed and asked her name. “Liz Parsons. My dad's the skipper. Me and my brothers crews for him when we're not in school. But we'll all tell you the same. This time of year, none of us locals would be wearing thin clothes like that. Don't keep the wind out at all. Most likely a tourist. You check whale-watching tours, I bet you'll find someone fell overboard.”

Chris suspected those had already been checked, but he nodded appreciatively. “Good idea, Liz. What can you tell me about the area he was snagged?”

“It's prime shrimp waters, about 250 kilometres northeast of St. Anthony. Also has lots of other ground fish. It's about a hundred metres deep 'dere, but I can't tell you if we caught 'im on the bottom or in between. We didn't know he was 'dere until we hauled the net aboard.”

Chris cast about for more questions. He knew nothing about the sea or the behaviour of bodies within it. The closest he'd come was Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories, where fishermen and unlucky tourists were occasionally caught out in a deadly storm. He knew that in fresh, warm water lakes, bodies sank to the bottom immediately and began to rise again after about a week as they bloated with gas. But the salt water and frigid temperatures of the North Atlantic could change all that.

“Is it possible to guess — say, from the prevailing winds or the current — what direction he likely came from?”

“Labrador current comes down the coast,” she said, gesturing with her arms, “and the gulf current comes up the strait, so it can be tricky, but mostly easterly. So he could be from anywhere on the coast of Labrador to the open North Atlantic.”

“Did you see any other boats around the area of your net?”

She snorted. “We was out there four days, towed miles with that net. That's prime fishing, so lots of boats going to and fro. But none of them hires on townies wearing running shoes and plaid jackets.”

“Did you see any non-fishing boats?”

“You sees all kinds of t'ings. Trawlers, tankers, even cruise ships. And I don't spend all my days peering out to sea. I'm down in the hold sometimes too.”

“Come on, Liz. You know what I mean. Anything odd? Suspicious? It would be a big help to our investigation.”

The flattery worked. She shrugged in her nonchalant way, but narrowed her eyes as if thinking. While he waited, a vehicle turned off the road onto the pier to the murmur of the crowd, and the guard constable moved his cruiser to allow it access. Chris watched as it drove along the pier and pulled up beside the boat. A man climbed out, carrying a small suitcase. The medical examiner, Chris hoped. Liz watched him too, as he disappeared on board and then turned to Chris with a shrug.

“Maybe a couple of sailing yachts I was surprised to see out that far, some offshore trawlers.”

Chris felt a quiver of interest. “Did they have names? Numbers?”

“Couldn't see.”

“Would you recognize them if you saw them again?”

“Maybe.” She pointed to the large ship moored in front of her father's boat. “Could be that one, but I couldn't make out the name. Lots of ships from places I never heard of. If it floats, that's all that matters.”

The cabin door of the boat opened and Corporal Biggs stuck his head out. “Hey, Tymko!” he shouted. “You got a decent camera on you?”

Chris nodded. “In my truck.”

“You any good with it? Low light and all?”

Chris was already moving, after a hasty thank you to Liz. Within two minutes he was up on the deck, fighting off the stench of fish as he stared at the seething ball of shrimp and netting that was still suspended from the frame above. Bits of foot and arms, and, incongruously, a vividly patterned jacket, were just visible amid the mass.

The doctor was already backing away, pressing his hand to his nose. “Put the biggest tarp you can find underneath, and we'll empty the net on it. That way, if there are parts of him … ah … loose, we'll get them all. Then use the hoist to move the whole thing off the boat. Once you get the tarp down on the pier, I'll have a better look.”

Both the skipper and Biggs went in search of a tarp, leaving Chris alone with the body. He circled it, photographing it from all angles and scrutinizing it for hints as to its identity. He wracked his brains. Would Phil wear such a brightly coloured jacket? Possibly. Many of his clothes had been bought in Asia or Africa. The one visible running shoe was filthy and frayed, providing little protection or comfort.

Chris had just finished photographing when the men arrived back, hauling a large tarp, which they unfolded beneath the net. Chris watched in fascination as they worked the pulleys and tugged the net onto the centre.

“Try to release it slowly,” the medical examiner said. “I don't want any fingers or toes going flying off the edge.”

A complicated-looking knot held the ball in place. Once released, the bottom of the net burst open, spilling its contents of wriggling pink shrimp all over the tarp. Then came the body, jackknifing open from the ball onto the tarp, its limbs hitting the metal floor with a clunk. Chris had switched to video to capture the whole process, pausing only briefly when the head snapped back and long strands of coarse black hair fell back from the face. He raced forward for a close look at the perfectly preserved face, the Roman nose, high cheekbones, and sunken, nibbled eyes.

Not Phil! He nearly cheered aloud.

“That poor bastard's been down there no time at all,” said the skipper. “The sea critters have barely started their dinner.”

Corporal Biggs poked the foot gingerly. “Not much rigor mortis, either. Of course, the sea is damn cold. We'll let the boys in St. John's figure out —”

He stopped in surprise when a length of thick yellow rope came into view through the cascade of shrimp, one end of it peeking out from the waist of the coloured jacket. A second later the rest of the rope plunged through.

They all stared as a stone anchor crashed to the tarp with a thud.

W
ithin seconds, Corporal Biggs was on the phone to the RCMP Major Crimes Unit in Corner Brook for advice on how to proceed. Judging from his tense, red face, Chris suspected Biggs had never faced a murder investigation in which the trail of blood did not lead straight to the perpetrator in the next room.

It was remotely possible that the deceased had not been murdered but had died instead from some misadventure or illness on the boat, and his companions had attempted a primitive burial at sea. If so, of course, they should have reported the death the moment they landed ashore. That was Biggs's first question to Corner Brook. No such deaths had been reported, Corner Brook replied, and advised him to sit tight until they could mobilize the Major Crimes Unit.

While Biggs was on the phone, Chris rummaged carefully through the man's pockets, finding nothing other than a sodden paper with some illegible printing scrawled on it. He knew the search went against protocol, but he doubted much forensic evidence would be left on the body after its watery travels. He stuffed the paper back and busied himself taking close-up shots of the body, particularly elements that might help with identification — the garish jacket, the dirty shoes, and, most importantly, the man's face.

He suspected they were in for a long night. Amanda had already texted him multiple times to ask whether the body was Phil. He was finally able to reassure her.

“Whew!” she replied. “Then who is it?”

“Don't know yet,” he said.

He was just finishing up the photos when Biggs reappeared. The man seemed calmer now that he had sent the problem higher up. “They're sending the helicopter over from Moncton to evacuate the DOA to St. John's, and forensics and major crimes teams will drive up from Corner Brook in the morning to head up the investigation. Meanwhile, they instructed us to bring the body onto the pier so the medical examiner can do a preliminary examination, and to take witness statements from the crew and harbour staff so folks can go home. We're to keep the scene secured.”

Chris stepped forward. “I can take statements, sir.”

“Let's get the poor bugger off the boat first.”

It was almost midnight by the time the officers managed to hoist the body, wrapped in the tarp, off the boat deck and onto the pier, where they laid it out under the bright RCMP spotlights. Chris took more photos while the medical examiner, who had been keeping warm in his car, re-emerged for a closer look. He lifted the clothing, moved the body carefully from side to side, and probed it for broken bones and lacerations. Then he took a temperature reading and used a powerful flashlight to look into the man's eyes, ears, and mouth. Finally he pressed hard on the victim's chest. Only a faint gurgle and a trickle of foam escaped his lips.

As he worked, he dictated into his iPhone and Chris bent close to catch every word. “Victim is an adult white male estimated age twenty-five to forty years, approximately six feet, thin build. There are no obvious broken bones or signs of trauma, only superficial lacerations on his exposed flesh that appear consistent with marine feeding. He appears malnourished and has had several teeth pulled. Health and dental care seem to have been poor.”

“That goes along with the shoes and clothes,” Chris said to Biggs, who was observing beside him. “This is not a rich guy.”

“Not a tourist, either,” said the skipper. “Look at his hands. Calloused, nails broken off. This feller did hard, dirty labour.” He held out his own hands. “Just like my hands. You never get the dirt and slime out of them.”

“A fisherman, then?” Chris asked.

“Not in them clothes.”

The doctor cast them an annoyed glance before resuming his dictation in a louder voice. “Body temp is five degrees, probably about the same as the ambient water temperature where he was. Where was that?”

“We was 250 kilometres northeast. I gave Biggs here the coordinates.”

“There's no visible mud or ocean silt in his mouth or ears, and rigor is minimal. At those temps, that's not unexpected, but those two facts taken together, I'd say he wasn't in the water too long.”

“Can you tell how he died?” Biggs said.

The doctor sat back on his heels. “No water in his lungs. Now, cardiac arrest or laryngeal spasm could have killed him when he entered the cold water …”

“But he could have been dead before he hit the water?”

“That's one possibility of several.” He straightened with a creak and a groan. “Well, I've done what I can. The autopsy in St. John's should tell us more, but meanwhile you can treat the death as suspicious.”

Chris looked over at the ring of townspeople still pressed against the tape. A few had departed but most waited for news, worried about family and loved ones up and down the coast.

“How about I show the photos to the boat crew and the locals, sir. See if anyone recognizes him or has any relevant information. Then they can go home.”

“Good idea.” Biggs gestured to the constable on guard. “Send the photos to Leger too and we'll split up the interviews. It's going to be a long night.”

People crowded around as Chris approached. Relief showed on their faces as one by one they shook their heads. They didn't know who the dead man was, but a few echoed Norm Parsons's belief that he was not a fisherman, indeed not likely even a native Newfoundlander.

“He don't look like one of us,” said one elderly woman swathed in scarves and shawls. Chris knew that of all Canada, Newfoundland had the most homogeneous population. It was 95 percent white and Christian, comprised mostly of immigrants from southwestern England and southeastern Ireland. Many Newfoundlanders had the sturdy, compact frames, round faces, and blunt features of that gene pool, and Chris suspected the homogeneity, indeed, the shared bloodlines, was even greater in the remote fishing villages, some of which had been founded by a single family or two.

Like these Newfoundlanders, he had grown up in a fairly homogeneous community in rural Saskatchewan, settled by immigrants who had fled Europe at the same time and been granted land in the newly developing Prairies. In his case, however, they had been from the Ukraine. His mother could spot a kinsman at a single glance.

He studied the photo carefully, trying to see what the woman saw. The subtle differences that would set him apart from the locals. The dead man's features were sharper, his nose finer, and his skin, although grey and mottled from the sea water, looked darker. Not at all the British and Irish stock on which Newfoundland had been built. Italian, perhaps? Or Middle Eastern?

Either way, he was a long way from home.

Amanda woke the next morning revelling in the soft mattress and the warm duvet. Outside, the surf ebbed and flowed against the rocks and sunlight slanted in through the motel window. Her languid stretch woke Kaylee, who crawled up to snuggle, her exuberant tail thumping the bed.

Amanda felt a warm thrill. She had slept without interruptions or dreams, without an all too familiar backdrop of formless dread. She sat up, wishing the feeling would never end, and headed into the shower. Only when she was sitting in the breakfast room with her first cup of coffee did she pull out her cellphone. To her surprise, she had a signal. One bar, but she would take it.

Chris had texted three more times during the night, first to tell her the man was likely not a local, second to say the death looked suspicious, and third to say a major crimes team would be arriving in the morning. “Sh-h!” he'd added. “Don't repeat that!” The last text had been at 3:00 a.m.

She smiled. How she wished he were here, with his teasing banter and crinkly grin, helping her figure out their next steps together. Poor Chris. It appeared as if he hadn't slept all night. In the hope he might finally be resting, she decided not to reply until later. She had nothing urgent to report yet anyway. Phil had had a drunken argument with a stranger, Tyler had explored a fishing stage, and they may or may not have gone off with the stranger at the end of the night.

The motel owner approached to refill her coffee and take her order of eggs and toast. “Where's your friend?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye. “His bed wasn't touched last night.”

Amanda laughed. “No, he was called away. He's a cop.”

The twinkle vanished. “Oh, that dead body down S'n Ant'ny?”

How news travels
, Amanda thought. Of course, even here in this land where cell signals could evaporate in a strong wind, there were probably tweets and videos all over the Internet. “What are people saying about it?” she asked.

“From away. Off a boat, most likely. One of them big foreign freezer trawlers that's always sneaking into our waters. Some of them gots thirty, forty workers on 'em, paid next to nudding. Poor bugger probably fell overboard. Or jumped, hoping to swim ashore.”

Mindful of Chris's admonition, Amanda said nothing about the major crimes unit. “Factory freezer trawler. That sounds ominous.”

“It is. They's killing the local fishing industry all along the coast. Not just here, but in coastal communities all around the world. Big international corporations that can take in a haul of five hundred tons of fish at one go, freeze it on the boat, and ship it all over the place. Strips the fish right out of the water. First the cod, and now they're doing it to the shrimp. Most of it goes to Asia.”

Amanda thought about the argument Phil had had with the stranger in the pub, who'd said he just wanted to go home. “What countries are these foreign ships from?”

“Oh, all over d' world, my dear. The United States, Norway, Korea, you name it. Mind you, the government's tried to put a few limits in place since all the cod disappeared. They tossed a bone to the Newfoundlanders here that were losing their livelihoods by extending Canadian waters to two hundred miles offshore and banning foreign-owned ships inside that — Jaysus b'y, dat was a helluva fight — but there's a lot of ocean for Fisheries and Oceans to patrol to keep the foreign boats out, and even the Canadian trawlers ship their catch to Asia. Still cuts the local fisherman out of the lion's share.” He rolled his eyes and turned away. “Oh, don't get me started on Ottawa! Let me get them eggs on for you instead, darlin'.”

Once he'd disappeared into the kitchen, Amanda browsed through news and Twitter updates. The official news reports made no mention of possible murder, and apparently the lighting had been poor enough that none of the spectators and cellphone addicts had seen anything suspicious. Speculation was along the same lines as the motel owner — a foreigner off a trawler. From the tone of most of the comments, little sympathy was being wasted on him.

Her phone buzzed, startling her. She glanced at the call display and her breath caught with hope.

“Hi, Sheri!”

“Any news?” Sheri sounded tense and focused.

Amanda wished she could be more reassuring. “Chris and I have picked up his trail on the northern peninsula,” she said, avoiding mention of Phil's black moods and heavy drinking. “The good news is, he's still following a plan.”

“He sent me a letter.”

“When?”

“It arrived yesterday.”

Who sends a letter?
Amanda thought.
Not an email, but a letter!
“What did he say?”

“It was a thank-you letter. I know that sounds crazy, but that's what it was. Short and to the point. Thank you for giving me twelve great years and the joy of Tyler, thank you for taking a wreck of a man back and being so patient.”

Amanda's breath caught. This was not a thank-you letter. While she was searching for the right words, Sheri supplied them. Her voice filled with tears. “He's saying goodbye, Amanda. He says he hopes I find a better life. Sweet Jesus! What about Tyler?”

Amanda pictured Phil with his son as she remembered them. Phil clowning, Tyler laughing — an intense, intellectual boy made playful by his father's infectious nature.
Phil, what the
hell
are you up to?

“Sheri, it's time to report —”

“Jason's on it. He was so worried when he saw the letter that he's gone looking himself.”

“What do you mean, gone looking?”

“I mean, he's booked off work, packed his truck, and gone looking. I wanted to go with him, but he said I had to stay here, in case Phil or Tyler got in touch.”

“Sheri, you need to make an official report!”

“Jason did. The alerts are out. But one angry husband taking off on a bender? Jason says that'll be nothing but a little footnote on the police blotter.”

Amanda scrambled for an answer. She thought of how quickly news had spread about the dead body. How Twitter and other social media had changed communication, even here.

“Get his picture out on Facebook, Sheri.”

“I don't know how —”

“Then learn!”

A shocked silence fell. Anger, frustration, and fear roiled in the gulf between them. Amanda resisted the urge to apologize for her outburst. Sheri was a capable, resourceful woman, but she needed to be shocked into action. Finally Sheri drew a deep breath. “I will,” she said. “And please! For the love of God, keep me in the loop, Amanda. I don't care what you think of me, that's my son out there.”

Amanda felt a twinge of shame as she hung up. Sheri was right; she
had
been blaming her. But who was she, Amanda, to pass judgment? To hold herself above reproach? Who knew for sure how nobly they would react when desperation stared them down?

She was poring over the map with renewed urgency when the motel owner returned with her eggs still sizzling on the plate. His smile faded at the sight of her.

“Bad news?”

Amanda managed a wan smile of thanks as she took the plate from him. “I'm not sure. My friend is doing some worrying and puzzling things. He met another man at the pub where they went for dinner. Did he bring anyone back with him afterward?”