So sure of death by Dana Stabenow Read Free Book Online Page A

Liam said. He turned to look toward theMary J,moored to the third slip over from theMarybethia,and beckoned. Larry, legs dangling in the hold as he spliced an eye into the end of a line, nodded acknowledgment. “Dad! I'm going next door for a minute. There was a muffled assent from inside theMary J's cabin and for a moment Liam saw Darrell's face pressed whitely against the porthole. TheMary Jwas a white, thirty-two-foot Bristol Bay gillnetter with a hot pink trim line, fancy lettering in matching pink spelling out her name on both sides of the bow and across the stern. Her home port, Newenham, was listed on the stern, too, also in pink. Darrell's wife had insisted on the trim being that particular shade of pink, right before she kicked Darrell out and took up with a seiner from Togiak.
    Larry, Darrell and Mary's only son, was a taller, fitter edition of his father, with more hair and a nose less bulbous in shape and less red in color. Like his father, Larry did his share of drinking, in tandem with lifelong friend Kelly “Mac McCormick, but Mac had gotten out of the hospital just in time to go to jail for shooting up the Newenham Post Office, which charge he had not contested in exchange for a shortened sentence. Fortunately, he hadn't put holes into anything except a couple of windows, and also fortunately, at the time of his sentencing the postmaster was in the middle of resigning and had no time to testify against him. Mac would be out in six months, and in the meantime, his incarceration did Larry's liver no harm.
    “Larry, Liam said, nodding. The people in Liam's world were divided into those he had arrested and those he hadn't. The former he addressed by their first names, the latter by their surnames. Sometimes the former worked their way back up to being mistered. More often they did not.
    Larry Jacobson was still on probation, and he knew it. “Trooper Campbell, he said formally. “Are we done here? There's an opener in Togiak tomorrow and we need to take on fuel.
    “Sure, Liam said. “I'll be in touch if I have any more questions. Anything else you can think of to tell me? Anything you saw, no matter how trivial, could be important.
    Larry shrugged. Liam was glad to see that while maintaining his decorous manner Larry was neither defensive nor hostile; he'd apparently come to terms with the events of the previous May, and with Liam's part in them, and had moved on. “Not much else to tell. We saw her drifting and went after her. There'd been a fire, we saw that right off. The plugs had been pulled, and she was about half down in the water. If the drains hadn't plugged up with fish guts she probably would have gone right down to the bottom. Lucky.
    Liam could have thought of other adjectives to describe the fortunes of the crew of theMarybethia,but he held his peace.
    “Anyway, the bilge turned over first thing. After that, we took her in tow and brought her into Kulukak. No luck this period, anyway, he added parenthetically, leaving Liam to understand that if theMary Jhad been fortunate enough to fish her limit, they would have been well on their way to the cannery, and theMarybethiaabandoned to her fate.
    “Did you go inside?
    “No. I got as far as opening the door. I could see the bodies from where I stood. I didn't want anything to do with them. He shifted a wad of chaw from one cheek to the other and spat over the side. “Death at sea is bad luck.
    Violent death is bad luck anywhere, Liam thought. “You see any other boats in the area?
    Larry shook his head again. “Not by then; most everybody had headed back in after the closing. It's a little run thereabouts anyway, we don't usually fish it, but this time Dad had a wild hair there might be some late reds hanging off the point. Wasn't, though. He seemed more resigned to their bad luck than bitter about it.
    “Go ahead, then. And good fishing.
    “Thanks. Dad's smelling an early run of silvers. Price is always higher on the first run. He strode