Wicked Eddies Page 6

  “I’m thinking positive and bought them both seasonal licenses, too,” Rob replied. “Want to see them?”

  “I trust you. Had to ask, though.” Steve donned his PFD.

  Mandy cinched her fanny pack with emergency medical supplies around her waist and picked up her PFD. “Well, I wish you all luck.” She watched Gonzo fling a lopsided cast and grinned. “Looks like you’ll need it.”

  “I’m not giving up on these two,” Rob replied. “If we had some trained fishing guides other than myself, we could have gotten more guiding business from this tournament. A lot of the competitors came in a week early to fish the sections of the river that weren’t blocked off for the competition.”

  With a wave and shouts of encouragement to Kendra and Gonzo, Mandy and Steve launched their raft and settled into a steady paddling rhythm. While they steered the raft in and out of the shade of cottonwood trees flanking the burbling river, Mandy’s thoughts turned to her Uncle Bill. Whenever she was on this section of the Arkansas since he’d died in June, she was drawn to the memory of scattering her uncle’s ashes at Big Bend just downriver. She felt his presence here almost more than when she visited his house, which had been her home for ten years.

  As if reading her thoughts, Steve said, “Thinking of Bill?”

  Manning the front of the raft, Mandy could feel that he had stopped paddling. She glanced back at him and nodded. “Yeah, I really miss him.”

  “We all do. He was an institution in the valley.” Steve returned to his paddling, his silence respectful.

  She and Steve continued this way through the long slow turn of Big Bend and past the County Road 166 bridge, which marked the end of the tournament competition section. The only sounds that broke the silence were the plunks of their paddles in the water and the nearby chittering of an irritated tassel-eared Abert squirrel. A cool, fresh breeze tickled the hairs on Mandy’s forearms, but the warm sun kept her from getting chilled. They passed a section of river bank clogged with red-tipped willow and green alder bushes growing right into the water.

  Up ahead, where the sandy bank was clear of bushes, two men in waders stood about thirty feet apart in knee-deep water over cobble bars of smooth, multi-colored river rocks. Their yellow fly lines sliced through the air in rhythmic arcs when they cast back and forth across the current. With a clear blue sky and sunlight strewing sparkling diamonds across the water, the scene would have made a perfect postcard advertising Colorado as an ideal fly-fishing destination.

  Mandy noticed that one man’s casts formed consistently perfect ovals in the air, letting the two flies tied to the end of the line drift to land with a light touch on the water’s surface. The other man’s casts, while still a good effort, were inconsistent, sometimes resulting in the flies plunking in.

  “That one of the competition teams?” she asked Steve.

  “The balding, middle-aged guy with the excellent form is Ira Porter,” Steve answered. “I don’t know the young guy, but I bet Ira recruited him to take Howie Abbott’s place on his team.”

  While they drifted closer, Mandy wondered why, if Ira was so talented, he would resort to cheating with Howie Abbott, as the rumors said. She wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity to talk to the man, though she knew better than to telegraph to him what Detective Quintana’s questions would be.

  “Could you introduce me to Ira?” she asked Steve.

  Steve sat with the paddle across his lap, obviously admiring the beauty of Ira’s casts. “Man, he’s soft on the rod. I almost hate to disturb them.”

  Just then, Ira signaled to his partner to move downstream and pointed at a couple of small eddy pools there, likely spots to find lurking trout. The younger man pulled in his line, then took some tentative steps on the slippery rocks. He stepped in a depression, plunging into deeper water. He lost his balance, and with arms windmilling, fell to one knee. While he struggled to regain his footing, he held his chest high to keep water from pouring into his waders.

  “There’s a reason to disturb them now,” Mandy said. “That guy could probably use a warning to stay in shallow water if he’s so unsure on his feet.”

  “You do it,” Steve answered. “I’d like to see how you handle the situation. And, if he has a problem with it and asks for your supervisor, I’ll be right here to back you up. Paddle in real slow and easy.”

  By the time they had beached their raft on a high point on the cobble bar upstream of Ira Porter, the younger man had righted himself, and Ira had reeled in his line. The younger man’s face was red. Ira was glowering, though Mandy wasn’t sure if it was at his partner’s slip-up or the intrusion of the rangers.

  “Howdy, Ira,” Steve said. “How’s the fishing?”

  “Not so good now,” he said with a harrumph, “with your raft scaring them away.”

  “Sorry about that, but we’ve got to patrol the river. We tried to slip in quietly. The fish’ll return after we leave.” Steve pointed to Mandy. “I don’t believe you’ve met Mandy Tanner, one of our new river rangers this year.”

  Ira gave a curt nod to Mandy’s hello.

  “Who’s your partner?” Steve asked.

  Ira signaled to the younger man, who started slogging his way upstream toward them, “Wally Dixon, hails out of Silverthorne.”

  After Wally reached them and introductions were made all around, Mandy had a chance to study him. Red-haired and freckled, his looks were quite a contrast to Ira’s darkly tanned middle-European features. Wally also had a pasty softness about him that made her think he wasn’t a practiced outdoorsman.

  “It’s good to see you’ve found a new teammate for the tournament,” Steve said to Ira, who frowned.

  “Unfortunately,” Wally replied. “I’m not as familiar with this river as the Blue. Ira’s been giving me a crash course today.”

  Mandy heard an opening and took it. “Speaking of crashing, we couldn’t help but see your fall. These cobble bars can be awfully slippery. Do you have a telescoping walking stick that you can use as a third support while you’re moving around?”

  “No.”

  “You might find one at one of the fishing supply stores in Salida,” Mandy said, trying to keep her tone light. “In the meantime, I’d strongly suggest staying in water no deeper than your calves. Those waders can be awfully dangerous if they fill up with water.”

  Wally pursed his lips, obviously unhappy being given advice by a woman in front of the two other men.

  Mandy turned her attention to Ira, the man she really wanted to talk to. “I’m always being asked by tourists where the good fishing spots are on the upper Arkansas. Got any suggestions?”

  Ira pshawed. “You think I’m going to give away my secret spots to any yahoo from New York or Chicago?”

  Mandy forced out a light laugh. “Of course not. I’m asking where you would tell them to go, where they might have a good chance of hooking a fish, but not disturb your secret spots.”

  “In that case, I’d say Stone Bridge, where you two probably put in, or Vallie Bridge downriver. Vallie also has the benefit of the campground if they want to stay overnight.”

  “You ever camp there?”

  Ira gave her a sharp glance, but Mandy kept her face impassive. “Yeah, the campsites aren’t bad. You get some shade from the willow trees. The section upstream from there that’s in the competition has some good holes. But I usually fish well downstream of there, and I ain’t telling you where.”

  Downstream of the campground was outside of the competition area, but who’s to say he didn’t venture upstream, too? “I found Howie Abbott in one of those campsites.”

  Ira’s mouth opened in a little “o”, then he clamped his lips shut and started fiddling with his reel. “Didn’t know you were the one who found him.” He shook his head. When he looked up, his eyes were red-rimmed. “I sure hope he didn’t suffer much. He was a good fishing buddy.”

  An overall sense of awkwardness settled on the group, with none of the men looking at anyone els
e.

  “I think his death was quick,” Steve said, filling the silence. “Sorry for your loss.”

  “Did you know Howie well, Ira?” Mandy asked.

  “Fished with him off and on for the past six years,” Ira replied. “He’s a hard man to get to know, very private, and kinda gruff most folks would say. He was sure fishy, though. May not have been able to read people real well, but he had a sixth sense about where fish were likely to be biting.”

  “I’ve heard he could rub people the wrong way. Did you ever have any problems with him?” When that question drew a suspicious glance from Ira, Mandy smiled. “I’m just trying to get a handle on his personality.”

  “Well, when we disagreed about something, like where to fish or when to move on to another spot, his temper could flare up, but I could hold my own. At the end of the day over a few beers, everything would be forgotten. I’ll miss him.” Ira shook his head and gazed off into the distance. “One thing’s for sure, Howie could tie beautiful flies. I wonder who’ll get his fly box. I hope that person will know the value of the contents.”

  After a respectful moment, Wally cleared his throat. “How about if you show me exactly where those eddies are that you were talking about, Ira?”

  With admonitions to be careful, Steve and Mandy pushed their raft off the cobble bar. Giving the fishing duo a wide berth, they paddled quietly downstream. Mandy thought back on Ira’s reaction. Was the man’s grief genuine or was he faking it?

  Five

  Let your hook be always cast.

  In the pool where you least expect it, will be fish.

  —OVID

  Thursday was Mandy’s day off, so she threw a load of laundry in the washing machine and took a nice long run with Lucky. After showering and breakfasting, she phoned Detective Quintana to tell him about her encounter with Ira Porter.

  She ended with the question that had been niggling her all night. “Do you think Ira’s really grieving over Howie’s death, or do you think he might be the one who killed him?”

  “Could be both,” Quintana answered. “Ira’s a much smaller man than Howie. If they got into an argument and it got out of hand, Ira could have resorted to the hatchet and then sprayed Howie with pepper spray if it looked like Howie would get up. And now he’s regretting his rash actions and missing his fishing partner.”

  “But if they were arguing, why was Howie lying on top of his sleeping bag?”

  “Maybe that’s where he fell. Or maybe he was sitting there when Ira hatcheted him, or maybe Ira’s temper simmered until Howie fell asleep and Ira got him then. Or maybe I’m just blowing smoke. Hopefully I’ll find out something when I talk to him this afternoon. He’s agreed to come in for questioning.”

  Mandy’s dryer beeped, and she started unloading the clothes while cradling her phone against her shoulder. “Were you able to confirm Newt Nowak’s alibi?”

  “Gonzo confirmed that he spent Saturday evening with him,” Quintana said, “but when I took Newt to his campsite, no one else was around. I almost wonder if they saw us coming and high-tailed it out of there.”

  “You going to go back there?”

  “Yeah, sometime tonight. Though in the meantime, Newt could have concocted a story with his buddies. I would have preferred to talk to them last night.”

  Taking a break from folding her clothes, Mandy shifted the phone to her other ear. “Did Newt’s fingerprints match any of those on the hatchet or beer cans?”

  “No, but he could have worn his work gloves while doing the killing. Some of the prints on the hatchet were smeared. That could have happened when Howie tried to get it out of his neck with hands that were already slippery with blood. Or, a killer wearing gloves could have smeared the prior prints.”

  Mandy shuddered at the image of Howie clawing away at the hatchet. “Did you see any blood on Newt’s glove?”

  “Not from a visual inspection, but we sent the glove off to CBI. They’ll see if it has any minute traces of Howie Abbott’s blood or the pepper spray on it.”

  “And I suppose they’ll try to confirm that it’s Newt’s glove by doing a DNA match on skin cells or hairs inside.”

  “Yep.”

  Mandy tugged on her ponytail while she mulled over the two suspects. “You know, I don’t see how either one of these guys has a motive.”

  “Just because we haven’t found one yet doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist.” The sound of pages flipping came over the phone, as if Quintana was reviewing the case file. “From what I’ve been able to find out about Howie Abbott so far, he wasn’t well liked. He tended to piss people off and didn’t seem to care.”

  While stowing socks in her dresser drawer, Mandy said, “Yeah, he sure angered other fly fishermen with his cheating. But besides family and friends, did he piss off other people, too?”

  “Some people he used to work for. He hasn’t been getting as many calls for his carpentry skills in this economic downturn, so he owed money to a couple of folks. They aren’t too happy he died before he paid off his debts. Something could have happened between him and Newt or Ira or one of his creditors that made one of them want to kill him.”

  “Or Howie pissed off someone else we don’t know about yet.”

  “Agreed. I have a feeling there’s a lot more to the Howie Abbott story than we know already.”

  At that point, Mandy heard the call-waiting beep signal on her phone. She figured she and Quintana were about done anyway. “Oops, I’ve got another call. I’ll check in with you later.”

  “Thanks for the information about Ira. You’ve been real helpful on this case, Mandy.”

  Feeling a glow of accomplishment, Mandy said goodbye and hung up on Quintana, then picked up the other call. It was the dispatcher from the ranger station.

  “Sorry to call you in on your day off, Mandy, but we’ve got a body search situation where we need all hands.”

  Mandy stowed her laundry basket back in her closet and sat on the bed to scratch behind Lucky’s ears. “What’s going on?”

  “A woman reported her husband missing last night. She said he told her he’d be camping and fishing at Ruby Mountain for a few days, but she noticed after he left that he’d forgotten his box of flies. When she drove to Ruby Mountain to deliver the box, his truck was parked there, but she saw no sign of him. He didn’t respond to her shouts either. She searched for him along the banks for a couple of hours before it got pitch black, then she called in the report.”

  Damn, Mandy thought. Ruby Mountain was just upstream from Brown’s Canyon, a rushing series of Class III and IV rapids that was the most popular whitewater rafting run on the upper Arkansas River. If the man’s fishing waders filled up and he was washed into the canyon, his chances were slim to none. Worried it might be someone she knew, Mandy asked, “What’s the man’s name?”

  “Arnold Crawford. You know him?”

  “No. Did anyone try his cell phone?”

  “His wife said he left it in his truck. He doesn’t carry it when he’s fishing.”

  “’Course if he had and it got wet, it wouldn’t work anyway.” Then Mandy realized that it was too early to start a search. “Why are we searching for him now? Don’t we usually wait a couple of days on missing person reports?”

  “A rafting guide picked up a Bronco’s Super Bowl ball cap in lower Brown’s Canyon this morning. It had Crawford’s name written inside, so the guide brought it into the station. When it was shown to his wife, she burst into tears.”

  _____

  When Mandy drove into the parking lot at the AHRA headquarters, the two search and rescue trucks from the Salida and Buena Vista fire departments were parked there as well. Steve stood in the hot sun, consulting with the Salida fire chief and making notes on a clipboard. When he spied Mandy, he raised his hand in a wave to acknowledge her presence.

  Mandy joined a group of her fellow river rangers who were milling about in the parking lot, readying gear and swapping stories. None of them seemed to know anythin
g more about Crawford than what she’d already been told. The lot’s black asphalt was

  already throwing off shimmers of heat waves under the blazing

  mid-morning sun. Only a few small cottonball clouds punctuated the clear blue sky. Beads of sweat had appeared on many foreheads, and some of the searchers crouched in the shade of the parked trucks.

  After popping the cap on her sunscreen, Mandy started slathering it on the areas of her skin that weren’t covered by her knee-length shortie wetsuit. She had figured there was a good chance she’d have to spend a long time in the river’s cold water, so she’d worn that and wetsuit booties under her Teva river sandals. The rest of her gear was stashed at the ready in the trunk of her car.

  Frank Canton, tall and thin with a shaved head, gave her a playful nudge with his elbow. “No hard feelings about Tuesday night, I hope?”

  Mandy glanced at him, then at his companion in the pool game betting scheme, Lance Weston. Lance was a burly guy with a well-groomed mutton-chop mustache that had earned him the nickname Walrus. “As long as the fishermen were happy after the round of drinks you bought them, I guess there was no harm done.”

  Lance grinned. “By the end of the night, they were laughing about it, and we still went home with money in our pockets.”

  “Just don’t do it again.” Mandy poked Lance’s beefy arm to emphasize her point. “Kendra and I don’t take kindly to you two using us to scam tourists out of money.”

  “Aw c’mon, Mandy,” Frank said with another elbow nudge. “It was all in good fun.”

  “You can still have your fun by suggesting that folks play us,” Mandy said. “Kendra kind of liked showing off. Just leave the betting out of it.”

  Frank put a hand to his chest, while Lance mimed a swoon with the back of his hand to his forehead. “Cruel, cruel woman.”

  Before either one could say more, Steve hollered, “Listen up, folks.”

  The general chatter among the rescuers in the lot died down, and air thickened with tension. Everyone moved closer to the two men in charge. Steve and the fire chief divided their whitewater rescue-trained personnel into two search teams, each consisting of two AHRA rafts and six people. Mandy’s team included Steve, Frank, Lance, two firefighters—one of whom was a familiar-looking female—and herself.