Salvage (7 page)

“You should tell your cousin to wear a helmet,” said Scarnum, when he pulled up to a stop in front of the garage. “Them four-wheelers is deadly.”

Donald laughed and walked over and they shook hands. “How's Angela?” he asked.

“Oh, 'bout as well as you'd expect,” said Scarnum. “She's carrying Jimmy's baby.”

Donald nodded. “I didn't know that,” he said. “When's she due?”

“Around Christmas.”

“Must be tough on her,” he said.

“Yuh,” said Scarnum.

Donald led him around the house and up onto a big back deck overlooking a steep gully. Someone had cut all the trees down a few years before, almost to the edge of a stream at the bottom of the hill, and the alders were growing in among the stumps.

A clothesline ran down the hill to one big pine that had been left standing in the chopping. A .30-30 rifle with a scope and big box of ammunition lay on a table at the edge of the deck.

They sat down in plastic chairs overlooking the gully.

Donald called out and a Mi'kmaq girl came out onto the deck. She was slim and beautiful, about eighteen. She wore black leggings and a yellow halter top. When she opened the sliding glass doors, Scarnum could hear Snoop Dogg from inside the house. Donald spoke to her in Mi'kmaq.

She came back in a minute and put two beers on the plastic table. Neither she nor Scarnum looked at each other.

“So, what can I do for you?” said Donald.

Scarnum took the pillbox of cocaine out of his pocket and put it on the table.

Donald lifted it up, took the lid off, licked his finger, and put a bit of the cocaine under his upper lip and swirled it around his mouth. He put the pillbox back down on the table and looked at Scarnum hard.

“I don't know you too good,” he said. “We used to have a bit of fun at the Anchor in the old days, partying with Angela, but come down to it, I don't
really
know you.”

He held out his brown hand in front of Scarnum and pointed to the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, where there were three black, tattooed dots.

“Dorchester,” he said. He pointed to each dot in turn. “One year. Two years. Three years.”

Scarnum looked at him and nodded.

“I'm not going back there,” Donald said.

“I hear that,” said Scarnum.

“You mind if I pat you down for a wire?” asked Donald.

Scarnum stood and held out his arms. Donald stood behind him and ran his hands over him. “All right,” he said, and then they sat down.

Donald cut up the coke and they each did a line.

“Fuck,” said Donald, and he raised his eyebrows and imitated Tommy Chong. “That's some good sheeet, man,” he said.

They both laughed.

“Angela asked me to find out what happened to Jimmy,” said Scarnum. “She got this coke from him. I don't think that's no street coke.”

“No,” said Donald. “That is 100 percent pure Columbian motherfucking marching powder, that shit.”

“Where would Jimmy get cocaine like that?”

Donald got up and picked up the deer rifle and loaded it. “Talkative people don't get old in the cocaine business,” he said.

He took a target — a cardboard silhouette of a man — clipped it to the clothesline, and pulled on the line so the target went down the gully.

“Do you know if Jimmy was dealing coke?” said Scarnum.

“No,” said Donald. “But I wouldn't hear about that, necessarily.”

He brought the rifle to his eye and fired at the target way down at the bottom of the gully. It snapped with the impact.

Scarnum started at the sudden crack of the rifle.

“I think Jimmy might have been bringing in coke off the boat,” he said. “Got mixed up with some people who were tougher than he was and got himself killed.”

Donald fired again, then looked up from the rifle.

“If that's true,” he said, “and I don't know if it is, but if it is, you think you're smart to go around asking questions about it?”

“Angela asked me to,” said Scarnum.

“Fuck,” said Donald and he fired again. This time he missed. “Cocksucker,” he said, then he took a deep breath, let it most of the way out, then fired again, one shot after another, until the rifle was empty. The target twitched on the line as all of the shots hit home.

He sat down and put his face in his hands.

“One thing I know,” said Scarnum, “is how to keep my mouth shut.”

“All right,” said Donald. “I'm gonna tell you something, but if I ever hear you tell anyone else, it's not gonna go too good for you.”

“I know that,” said Scarnum.

“Jimmy came to somebody I know, about a month ago,” said Donald. “Had a brick of cocaine this big.” He stretched his hands in front of him, about two feet apart. “Ten kilos. Same shit as that.” He nodded at the pill bottle of coke on the table. “Wouldn't say where he got it. ‘I found it floating in the fucking water. Musta fell offa boat.' Wanted to sell it. Asked for $300,000. Said it was worth twice that on the street.”

“The fellow you know,” said Scarnum. “Did he buy it?”

Donald shook his head. “If he did, he didn't pay no fucking $300,000.”

Scarnum sat for a minute, nodding his head. “You ever hear of any Mexicans around here?” he asked. “Mexicans dealing coke?”

Donald laughed and got up and pulled the target up the clothesline. “A fellow can be too curious,” he said. “Tell Angela I said hi. Tell her I said I was sorry to hear about Jimmy.”

“All right,” said Scarnum, and he got to his feet.

“Come to think of it,” said Donald, “don't tell Angela nothing. Don't tell nobody you come up here to see me. Don't mention my name to nobody, ever.”

“All right,” said Scarnum.

“Anybody ever ask about me, say, ‘Donald? Is he that fucking Indian used to drink at the Anchor?' ”

“All right,” said Scarnum, and they shook hands.

“And don't be too curious,” said Donald. “It's not good for a guy.”

S
carnum was nursing a Keith's and tidying up the
Orion
when Constable Léger drove down the little lane and stopped at the dock.

Scarnum put on a mesh ball cap that said “d'Eon's Lobster Plugs” on the brow, went up to the cockpit and sat down, stretched out his legs, and watched the Mountie open the door and walk over to the dock.

Léger walked to the edge of the dock and stood looking down at Scarnum.

Scarnum smiled and toasted her with his beer. Léger didn't smile back. She dropped a photograph on Scarnum's outstretched legs.

Scarnum kept smiling until he saw the picture.

It was a picture of a man in orange overalls, lying on his belly on a sandy beach. There were three bullet holes in the man's back. There was black blood on the grey sand under him.

Léger dropped another photo on top of that one. This showed the same man — Jimmy Zinck — naked on a coroner's bench, with three neat holes in the pale flesh of his back.

Léger dropped one more photo. It showed Jimmy Zinck's face, bloated and blue, his open eyes staring, his mouth distorted with pain or terror.

“Do you know what I call this series?” said Léger. “Death of an Idiot.”

Scarnum looked up at her, then sat up straight and flipped through the three pictures again.

“He wasn't the smartest guy to ever walk the streets of Chester,” said Scarnum. “But he didn't deserve to die like that.”

Léger reached out and Scarnum handed her back the photos.

“Why did you go see Doug Amos?” said Léger.

“I wanted to know why Jimmy was out fishing alone that night,” said Scarnum.

“Did Angela Rodenhiser ask you to talk to him?” said Léger.

“She came to see me and asked me what happened to Jimmy,” said Scarnum. “I thought I'd go have a chat with his partner.”

Léger stared at him. There were bags under her bloodshot eyes. Scarnum noticed that her eyes were very pretty.

“You told us you didn't really know Jimmy,” she said.

“Well, I know Angela,” said Scarnum. “She used to work at the Anchor when I was drinking there a lot. She's like a little sister to me”

“Did you like Jimmy Zinck?” asked Léger.

“Well no, I guess I didn't,” said Scarnum. “He was all right, great fun if you're having a few drinks. The girls all liked him. He was funny. Crazy. But he was a loudmouth and a show-off, and I don't think he treated Angela too good. But if I went around killing everybody I don't like, there'd be a lot of dead people walking around Chester. I didn't kill him, Constable, and I think you know that. I just happened to find his boat, is all. I risked my arse to salvage it and now it looks like I might not get paid for it.”

“Was there anything on the boat?” said Léger.

“I already answered that question at the detachment,” said Scarnum.

Léger looked up at the bow. “I see you put your new anchor on,” she said. “What happened to the other one?”

Scarnum sat for a while before answering. “I fouled it last week,” he said.

Léger just looked at him.

“It got caught on the bottom and I couldn't pull it up,” he said. “So I had to cut the line. It happens.”

“When did Angela come see you?” said Léger.

Scarnum got to his feet. “Look, thanks for showing me the pictures, Constable Léger,” he said. “I'd like to chat with you more, but somebody made an awful mess of my boat and I've got to clean it up.”

“If you want, we can come back with a warrant and search your boat again,” said Léger.

Scarnum stopped on the ladder down to the cabin. “I know that, Constable,” he said. “I've tried to answer your questions. If I can help you, I will. I don't like the idea of people with machine guns around here.”

“Why do you think somebody shot Jimmy Zinck?” said Léger.

Scarnum squinted and looked out at the bay. “Doug Amos told me he thought Jimmy wanted to fish alone so he could steal lobsters,” he said. “But I never heard of no one getting killed over lobsters. I've been thinking about it, and I think Jimmy was likely moving drugs.”

“Where' d you get the coke we found on your boat?” asked Léger.

Scarnum looked at her. “Look, I want to help you but I'm not a fool,” he said. “What am I supposed to say? I don't know nothing about that pillbox you found on my boat. Don't know where it came from or what was in it. I don't know nothing about it, but I can tell you for sure it didn't have anything to do with Jimmy Zinck getting shot.”

Léger stared at Scarnum. “When did Angela come see you?” she asked.

“Saturday afternoon, after I got out of jail,” he said. “She was awful upset.”

Léger looked down the bay. “You know,” she said, “it looks to me like Jimmy Zinck thought he was smarter than some bad guys. He's in a drawer in the Halifax morgue right now, and those bad guys are still out there.”

She gave Phillip her card. “If you know anything about this that you're not telling me, those bad guys might come see you and I might be taking pictures of you.”

Scarnum took the card. “I know that, Constable,” he said. “If I hear anything, I'll call you.”

Léger stood looking at him for a minute and then went to her cruiser and drove away.

After she left, Scarnum hopped in his truck and drove to the convenience store down the road. He called Angela from a pay phone.

“How you doing?” he asked.

“Good,” she said, but her voice sounded strained.

“Staying off the liquor?”

“Yes, Phillip,” she said. “You don't have to worry about that.”

“Good,” he said. “I hope you're taking care of yourself.”

“Yeah,” she said. “My mom's here.”

“Angela, a Mountie just came to see me,” he said. “Léger. Did she come see you?”

“No. MacPherson did, the day that they found Jimmy. I had to go in to Halifax to identify his body. Then he took a statement from me.”

“Well, Léger might come see you now. I went to see Doug Amos, to ask him why he wasn't fishing with Jimmy that night. I told him that I was asking 'cause you wanted to know. Amos musta told Léger. So Léger asked me about you. I told her you came and asked me to talk to Amos. I told her about how you came to see me on Saturday afternoon, after I got out of jail, before you went and got yourself shit-faced.”

Angela was silent.

“Do you understand, Angela?” he said. “I told her about you visiting me on Saturday afternoon.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I came to see you before I went to the Anchor. Yeah.”

“OK,” he said. “I'm glad you're doing OK. I'm glad your mom's with you. I'll come see you in a few days.”

“OK,” she said.

SCARNUM LEFT AT FIRST LIGHT
for Halifax, to finish the delivery he'd started on Thursday. On his way out the bay, he steered the schooner into the fishing wharf at Blandford, just as the last of the lobster boats was steaming out to fish. Scarnum dropped his sails at the last minute and steered into the wind to slow the schooner down, then spun the wheel so it came alongside the wooden wharf nice and easy.

He tied up and climbed up onto the dock, leaned on a piling with his ankles crossed in front of him, and lit a smoke.

After a few minutes, an old fellow in green work clothes and rubber boots strolled down carrying a two-gallon plastic bucket full of fish guts. He wished Scarnum a good morning and dumped the bucket off the wharf.

“Feeding the lobster?” said Scarnum.

“Figure something'll eat it,” he said.

“Mackerel aren't running yet, are they?” said Scarnum and the old fellow turned his bucket over and sat on it.

“No,” he said and gave Scarnum a funny look. “Too early for mackerel. Caught a few pollock hand-lining yesterday.”

“Bit of a feed?” said Scarnum.

“Never et 'em in the old days,” said the old fellow. “But with the haddock so scarce, I developed a taste for 'em.”

“Reminds me a something a woman told me on Big Tancook one time,” said Scarnum. “Said the lobster was so plentiful when she was a girl they'd crawl out of the water to get at the fish guts if the boys was cleaning mackerel at low tide.”

“Yes,” said the old fellow. “I heard that too. There was lots of fish in them days. Mind you, them fellows didn't get nothing for 'em and they had to work like devils to get 'em. Fellows used to row they dories out a mile and a half to the mouth of the bay 'fore they'd even put a line in the water.”

“They was tough, them fellows,” said Scarnum.

“You're gol-darned right they was tough,” said the old fellow, and he looked irritated that Scarnum even had to point it out.

“You retired, are you?” said Scarnum.

“Yis,” said the old fellow. “And I should move inland, stop watching other fellows fishing.”

“When my father had to give it up, it was awful hard on 'im,” said Scarnum. “Used to sit in the window and watch the boats go out. Was tough on him 'cause he used to outfish 'em all.”

“Where'd he fish?”

“Port d'Agneau,” said Scarnum. “Across the bay, from where Jimmy Zinck grew up.”

The old fellow nodded then, looked out at the bay, and then looked at Scarnum. “Terrible thing,” he said.

“Yuh,” said Scarnum. “Terrible thing. His wife, Angela, is a friend of mine. She's carrying Jimmy's baby.”

“The little one used to come down here in them shorts?” said the old fellow.

“Yuh,” said Scarnum. “That would be her.”

“Poor thing,” said the old fellow. “Must be awful hard on her.”

“Yuh,” said Scarnum. “She's a tough little thing, but it ain't gonna be easy.”

They sat in silence for a minute.

“What kind of a fisherman was Jimmy?” said Scarnum.

“Oh, he was a fish killer, that boy,” said the old fellow. “Oh my Jesus, that boy loved to fish. From the first day of the season to the end he'd smell like lobster bait.”

“Did he sell his lobsters to the buyer here on the wharf?” asked Scarnum.

“Well, SeaWater owned his boat,” said the old fellow. “Own a few of the boats that fish out of here. They'd send the truck down once a week, weigh 'em up.”

Scarnum stubbed out his cigarette on the dock. “He never took them to town hi'self?”

The old fellow thought for a minute. “Funny thing,” he said. “I seen 'im do it a few times. Load some lobster boxes in the back of the truck and drive off to SeaWater's office in Chester. Seemed funny to me, since the truck come out once a week.”

“Huh,” said Scarnum. “Why do you think he mighta did that?”

“Well, I don't know,” said the old fellow. “Never asked 'im. We minds our own business down here.”

T
he wind was steady from the west, so Scarnum had an easy run through the ledges. He dropped the sails and anchored off Sandy Cove, not far from where he'd anchored on Thursday. The broad green waves smashed on the rocks offshore with all the power in the world, and huge sheets of foaming spray shot up in the air.

Scarnum got into the inflatable and rode a tide rip in to the little kelp-stinking beach and walked back and forth, kicking through the seaweed, peering into the shallows where the waves were dark with roiling sand. He found a dead cor­mor­ant, some fishbones and driftwood, but nothing that made him any wiser, and he regretted the trip as he struggled to row the inflatable through the heavy waves back to the schooner.

It was mid-afternoon by the time he tied
Cerebus
to the floating dock in front of Dr. Greely's house on the Northwest Arm of Halifax Harbour, where stately wooden and brick mansions overlook the long, sheltered cove, and sailboats tack up and down all day.

There was nobody home, and it seemed to Scarnum that it would be a nice surprise for the doctor to come home and find his schooner waiting for him at the dock, so he set about tidying up, packing his little sea bag and deflating the inflatable.

He had just locked the boat when two men came around the side of Greely's big brick house and walked down the lawn to the dock.

They were dark-skinned men, one about fifty and the other in his twenties. The older man had a bushy salt and pepper moustache. He wore a blue golf shirt, a yellow windbreaker, and a blue sailing hat. The younger man had longer hair, parted in the middle, and a thin moustache. He was darker, and his face had an Indian look. He wore jeans and a T-shirt and a blue windbreaker.

As soon as they saw Scarnum, they headed straight for him. Scarnum smiled at them. “Hi,” he said. “Is Dr. Greely around?”

The older man smiled back but the younger man didn't. He stood a few paces behind the older man and to one side. He kept his right hand in his jacket pocket.

Scarnum noticed that the older man had an old, deep scar on the side of his face, running from his jaw up to his forehead.

“We don't know Dr. Greely,” he said. “We're friends of Jimmy Zinck.” The man had a Spanish accent.

Scarnum licked his lips and laughed nervously. He looked back and forth at the two men. Now neither of them was smiling. He noticed then that their windbreakers, hats, and golf shirts all had the same logo: Murphy's on the Water, a tourist operation on the Halifax waterfront.

“I don't know anything about Jimmy's business,” said Scarnum. “I just found his boat on the rocks and towed it into town.”

The older man looked at him with cold black eyes. “Jimmy had something that belongs to us,” he said. “Somebody killed him before he could give it to us. We want it back before anybody else gets killed.”

Scarnum laughed nervously again. “I don't know nothing about that,” he said. “Jesus. I don't know nothing. If I did, I'd tell you. Believe me.”

The older man suddenly had a long black combat knife in his hand. Scarnum didn't see where it came from.

“You're lying,” he said, and he lifted the knife to show it to Scarnum. “And you not a good liar. You took our coca and we gonna get it back.”

The Mexican stepped toward the schooner, moving the knife in a lazy loop in front of him. “Maybe you think you are a tough guy,” he said. “Maybe you are a tough guy. I dunno. But you are not tougher than us. You are going to give us our coca and then we are going to leave you alone.”

Scarnum took a step back on the deck of the boat and lifted up the heavy oak boathook and held it in both hands, like a staff. He was scared.

“I don't know a fucking thing about Jimmy's business and I didn't take anything off that boat,” he said. His knuckles were white where he held the boathook, and he had to grip it tightly to keep his hands from shaking. “I don't want anything to do with you fellows. I'd tell you if I knew anything.”

The older man looked at the younger man, and he pulled a pistol out of his pocket and aimed it at Scarnum.

“Are you a stupid man, Mr. Scarnum?” the older man asked. “Do you know what happened to Jimmy? It was sad. I liked Jimmy. I was sorry for him. I don't like to hear about people getting shot.”

He stepped onto the boat now, holding the knife in front of him. He spoke in Spanish to the man on the dock.

“I just told him to shoot you if you hit me with that stick,” he said.

He reached out with his left hand and took hold of the boathook between Scarnum's hands and yanked on it. Scarnum let go of it and the man rapped him sharply on the forehead with the end of the gaff. Scarnum grabbed the wire sidestay beside him to keep from falling in the water behind him. His forehead hurt. He could smell the man's sour breath. He noticed his long nose hairs and bushy eyebrows.

“Where's the coca, Mr. Scarnum?” the man asked, and he put the end of the boathook against Scarnum's nose, so the steel hook pushed against his skin. He held the knife like a pencil, with the tip inches from Scarnum's eye. Scarnum twisted his head away to the side to try to keep the man from putting the boathook up his nose.

“Now you will tell me and then we will leave. I don't want to stab you in the fucking eye, but I am sure that you will tell me where it is if I do. Do you want me to stab you in the eye?”

Scarnum opened his mouth, then closed it. “No,” he said. “Jesus. Don't fucking stab me.”

When the Mexican laid the knife blade against his cheek, Scarnum pushed himself backwards off the boat and dropped into the water.

It was so shockingly cold that it took his breath away, but he fought to stay under and swam to the stern, pushing himself along the underside of the hull until he was able to surface out of sight of the two men under the schooner's overhang. He pressed his face against the smooth wood and shivered. He could hear the men moving around on the boat and speaking in Spanish, their voices angry.

“You are a stupid man,” said the older man. “You should tell us where the coca is now, and we won't have to shoot you.”

Scarnum shouted back up at him. “I don't know anything about any cocaine,” he said. “But I wasn't going to let you stab me in the fucking eye.”

He held his breath and ducked under the water again and dove below, pushing himself along the underside of the hull to the bow. He tried hard to be quiet when he broke the surface of the water. The men on the boat were silent now, and he couldn't see them.

Scarnum kicked off his seaboots and shook off his pea jacket. He dove again and swam underwater as far as he could toward the mouth of the Arm. It wasn't very far. He came to the surface, took a big breath, and dove again. He couldn't get very deep and he couldn't stay down for long. When he surfaced again, he dove again and started swimming underwater across the Arm, toward the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron on the other side.

When he was about fifty yards out, beyond pistol range, he looked back. He could see the two Mexicans standing on the deck of the boat, watching him.

“I don't know anything,” he called back to them. They didn't say anything, so he turned and swam toward the yacht club on the opposite shore. His clothes weighed him down, and the water was cold, so he was freezing and exhausted by the time he finally pulled himself from the water on a dock in front of the big clubhouse. When he looked back, the Mexicans were gone.

Scarnum was glad he didn't know the middle-aged sailor on the dock who had watched him swim up to the dock and pull himself out.

“Fell off a boat,” he said to the man, who stood, mouth agape, staring at him. “Jesus it's cold. I got to get warm.”

He ran, in his sock feet, down the dock, behind the yacht club building, through the parking lot, across Purcells Cove Road, and into the woods on the other side. He walked through the woods, wet and shivering and footsore, until he came to the backyard of a bungalow. He walked out onto the road and headed inland to Spryfield. He was terribly cold as he walked down Herring Cove Road to the Spryfield Shopping Mall, soaking wet and shoeless. In a store in the mall, he bought some cheap clothes with some wet twenties, changed into them in the bathroom, and called Angela, collect, from a pay phone.

“Angela,” he said. “You know that place you told me about where Jimmy told the waitress she was a stupid cunt? Don't say the name.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Can you meet me there in two hours?” he asked.

“I guess so,” she said. She sounded confused and tired.

“OK,” he said. “Bring an overnight bag, will you?”

“OK,” she said. “Is everything OK?”

“Yeah, more or less,” he said. “I'll tell you when I see you. But tell your mother that you're, um, I don't know. Tell her you're going somewhere other than where you're going. Is that OK?”