| |
So it was now official: there were three men missing. The two men from Banks Inlet had taken on both shape and substance and thanks to Walker their names were now listed in Dan’s file. Harold Manuel and William Jules had joined Jimmy Fulton.
As he looked at the list, the concern Dan had been feeling grew into an urgent, living thing that coiled through his veins and thrummed on his nerve endings. Three men were out there somewhere and they might still be alive. Maybe lost and hungry, or hurt and clinging to life on one of the islands, but alive. He wanted—no, needed— to find them.
But it was more than that. He could feel the adrenalin building in his bloodstream like a hunger—what the guys on his team down in the city had referred to as “the thrill of the chase”, and it still grabbed him with the same force all these years later.
He leaned in towards the computer screen to read the report Al had forwarded to him, but even before he had finished it he found himself reaching for the phone again. He wasn’t sure what it was about the accident at the fish farm that bothered him so much other than the timing, but he wanted to talk to the Alert Bay detachment himself. The dry words and superficial comments in the report were useless. They couldn’t tell him the way the guy had looked and sounded when he was questioned, or whether he had seemed upset by what had happened. Had he been eager to get away or cooperative? Was he calm or jumpy? How long had he worked that run, and for that company? Had anything unusual happened before or after Farnsworth fell? Dan couldn’t blame the officer taking the report for the lack of detail. It was only preliminary, and referred to what was believed to be an accident, but he needed more.
Even though his call was answered promptly, he didn’t get answers to any of his questions. There had been a shift change in Alert Bay the day before and the constable who had conducted the interviews was not on duty. In fact he was not even on the island. His grandfather had died and he had been granted a compassionate leave. By now he would be down in Vancouver and he wasn’t expected back for a week—and a week was far too long for Dan to wait.
He searched the report again to find the name of the company that owned the barge and then went online to get the phone number for the local office. Maybe he could talk to the crew directly.
A woman answered his call and said the manager was down on the loading dock, but she would get him to phone back when he returned. Reluctant to wait, Dan asked her if she could give him the names and phone numbers of all the crew that were on the barge the day Farnsworth fell off. He expected her to refuse, but her reply was instantaneous.
“Well that’s Reuben Crosbie’s run. He was the captain and he felt just awful about Colin—we all did of course, and still do . . .”
Her voice tailed away and Dan thought she might be on the verge of tears, but she pulled herself together and continued her story.
“I saw Reuben when he came in afterwards and he looked just terrible, like he’d aged twenty years. His face was gray. I tried to talk to him—I mean accidents do happen sometimes and there’s really nothing you can do about them—but he wouldn’t even look at me. Just grabbed his coat and left.”
“And he was the only other person on the barge?” Dan wasn’t sure how many people it took to run something like that but it seemed like there would be more than just two.
“Oh no. There’s always at least two crewmen. The other one would have been Paulie. Paul Benko. He and Colin always worked the weekend run.”
“Worked?” Dan noted both her dismissive tone and her use of the past tense. “Has his schedule been changed?”
“You could say that,” she answered, a note of disapproval creeping into her voice. “He’s disappeared. Hasn’t shown up since he arrived back that day and we don’t know where he is. He’s not answering his phone and his car’s not at his house. Mark—that’s my boss—figures he’s skipped town. He was kind of a weird guy anyway, always talking about spirits and ghosts and alternate dimensions. Stuff like that. Probably got spooked when Colin fell off.”
Dan interrupted her. “Have you reported him missing to the police?” he asked. If she had, he certainly hadn’t heard anything about it and he was pretty sure Markleson would have told him.
“The police?” The woman sounded completely confused. “Why would I call the police? He’s skipped town, that’s all. Mark said when he looked in the window of Paulie’s condo it looked like all his stuff was gone.” Her tone changed. “It’s happened before and I guess it will happen again. Guys come in looking for a job, think it’s going to be real nice being out on the ocean and all that, then they find out it’s not quite as good as they thought it would be. Mind you, most of them give us notice, but some of them just take off.”
Her sniff of disapproval provided emphasis.
“It’s hard work let me tell you. My son did it for a while. You’re out there in all kinds of weather trying to handle those big totes, and that’s not easy. And then there’s the farms themselves. They stink! All those dead fish—morts they call them—in those containers! I’m surprised anyone stays long. Hell, I wouldn’t stay myself except the pay is good and Mark’s been a friend of the family for years.”
“Sounds like a tough job,” Dan said as he tried to absorb the flood of chatter. Was Paulie yet another missing person, or was there something else behind his disappearance?
“Is there a way I can get hold of Reuben Crosbie?” he asked. “I need to talk to somebody who was on that barge when Farnsworth fell off.”
“Got his phone number right here,” the woman said. “But I don’t think you’ll be able to reach him before the weekend. He’s a real avid fisherman—wild fish, not those farmed things.”
Dan heard another sniff of disgust before she continued.
“Usually takes his boat out as soon as he ties up the barge and doesn’t get back until he’s got another shift scheduled. Been like that ever since his wife died, and with Colin’s accident I bet he took off even quicker than usual. He’s probably way up around Hakai Pass by now. That’s his favorite spot.”
She gave Dan the number and he thanked her for her help. She sounded more like a mother than a secretary, but it took all kinds and up here in these small communities everyone knew everyone else. It made the need for the kind of tight-lipped formality normally found in the bigger centers almost non-existent. The resulting openness should have made investigations a little easier, but even with the information he had been given, he still wasn’t any further ahead.
***
AS PREDICTED, REUBEN Crosbie didn’t answer his phone and Dan left a message asking him to call when he returned. Now what? He went back to the report Al had sent him and noted the name of the fish farm. Maybe he would have better luck talking to some of the staff at their office. People that worked together often talked together.
That attempt turned into another brick wall with the receptionist proving to be much more the big city type: well trained to not give out any information at all. In fact her reply to his request was so predictable Dan could have recited the words himself.
“That would be the Personnel Manager, but I’m afraid he’s not at his desk right now. Would you like to leave a message?”
Dan slammed the microphone back into its holder. No, he damn well would not like to leave a message. What he would like was to talk to someone who could give him something useful. Something relevant. Something that might help him figure out what the hell was going on. He had wasted well over two hours on phone calls already. It was time to act.
He thought about going over to the fish farm in the dinghy, but it was over thirty miles and while there might still be a full crew working when he arrived, that was far from a certainty. What was certain was that it would be late by the time he was ready to come back and if the weather changed he would be out there with no protection. He was not averse to risk-taking, but he wasn’t crazy either. The prospect of having to spend a night huddled in the bottom of the dinghy or crouched under a tree was not appealing, especially when there was a good chance the people he wanted to talk to wouldn’t be available anyway.
He peered out the window to check the sky. The sun that had been so much in evidence early in the morning was hidden behind scudding clouds moving in from the southeast, a sure sign of bad weather. Taking Dreamspeaker would make it a much slower trip, but also a much more comfortable one. He could anchor overnight and do the interviews first thing in the morning. Not only that, but it would give him a chance to get a good look at the farms as he went by. He had never really paid much attention to them.
***
IT FELT GOOD TO BE doing something physical, but by the time he had the boat squared away, the engines warmed up, and the tie-up lines released, it was late afternoon and the first drops of rain were falling from a solid gray sky. As he rounded the end of the breakwater and felt a swell lift the hull, a wave broke against the bow and spray flew up onto the deck. The trip was going to be even slower than he had thought.
Two crew boats passed him as he was entering Fife Sound, both travelling fast and both headed west towards Port Hardy. He wasn’t sure what the shift schedule was on the farms, but he thought it likely these boats were taking daytime crew back home. That would leave just the security staff on board and as Farnsworth had fallen off early in the day it was probable that none of them had seen it happen. His decision to wait until morning to do the interviews had been a good one.
He slowed the boat as he approached the first fish farm, studying the design and trying to make sense of the various pieces of equipment he could see. It looked simple enough. An outside float formed a rectangular perimeter, and the inside area was subdivided into twelve pens by a series of narrow walkways. At one end, the outside float widened and a series of small buildings stretched across almost the full width. A couple of stainless steel hoppers sat off to one side and pipes ran down from them and out along each float before disappearing into the water. In the middle of each pen another pipe rose up like a fountainhead with a rotating arm.
Although he was too far away to be sure, Dan guessed the arms were scattering fish food pellets. He couldn’t see any sign of human presence, but he assumed at least a couple of workers were inside the building monitoring what was going on. His assumption was confirmed when a man stepped out of the doorway and lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes, clearly checking out Dreamspeaker as she passed.
The next farm was much the same although it looked considerably older than the first: Painted metal bins replaced the hoppers and there were no pipes sticking out of the water. A third consisted of circular pens, each separate but linked by a series of hoses and pipes. Two of the farms had a row of what looked like septic tanks lined up along an outside float. The third had a couple of big plastic totes. None had any active crew that he could see. He had definitely arrived too late. Mentally he kicked himself for wasting all that time on the phone. He should have known better.
He nosed Dreamspeaker into a protected cove and lowered the anchor. He barely had it set when the radiophone pealed its shrill call.
“Where the hell are you?” Markleson’s mood had obviously not improved over the last eight hours, but Dan no longer had the patience to humor him. His day hadn’t been great either, and dealing with frustration had never been one of his strong points.
“I love you too,” he said. “And I’m over in Tribune Channel trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Where are you?”
Even as he heard the words leave his mouth he knew he had gone too far. He and Markleson might have forged a casual and friendly relationship, but the man was still his boss. Dan braced himself for the rebuke he was sure was coming, but it never arrived. Instead there was a long silence. When it was broken, Markleson’s voice was quieter.
“Sorry. It’s been a tough day.” There was another pause, followed by a sigh. “You were right. The fourth guy, Farnsworth, is part of the case.”
“Farnsworth? The fourth guy?”
The reference to the fourth guy caught Dan by surprise. Up until now he had been the only one even thinking about a link between the three missing men and the man the coast guard had been searching for. Now it seemed that Markleson agreed with him.
“Yeah. They found him a few hours ago. A trawler snagged his body in their net.”
Dan thought about Markleson’s words for a few seconds, confused by the apparent contradiction. “Okay—but how does that make him part of the case?”
Markleson sighed. “The coroner just called. The guy was dead before he fell off the barge. He was murdered.”