Dead_Wood

Eleven

“Jesse Barre,” I said.

“What happened to your hand?” my sister said. Her name was Ellen and she didn’t really care about my hand. As Police Chief, she probably felt like she had to ask. Trust me on this one.

Ellen gave me a bored look that said she knew I was bullshitting her but didn’t care enough to pursue it. She was smaller than me, but still relatively tall at 5’ 10” or so. Dark hair, blue-green eyes. A nice smile she trotted out once a year, maybe.

“Jesse Barre,” I repeated.

“What about her?” My sister looked at me and I knew the expression well. Had seen it in the mirror many times. After all, we looked a lot alike. The only difference was, she was a few years older. A little bit tougher. And a whole lot meaner.

“Was it just a smash and grab gone wrong?”

She held out her hands. “Does the phrase ‘under investigation’ mean anything to you?” My sister had on her I-don’t-give-a-shit look that I’d seen many times.

“Yes it does,” I said. “It means you didn’t answer the question.”

Ellen had been made Chief of Police nearly five years ago. The youngest Chief in Grosse Pointe’s history. It seemed to surprise everyone but her. And me. She’d managed it even with the embarrassment her little brother had brought to the department. In fact, sometimes I believed that my catastrophe such as it was had prodded her to work harder and do better. In the end, though, it didn’t matter. The truth was, Ellen was a great cop. Unquestionably the best cop Grosse Pointe had ever had. She alone had earned the top job. And no one questioned that.

“Who’s asking?”

I took her question as a good sign. If it was a hot case and progress was being made, she probably would have already shown me the door. My sister doesn’t f*ck around. So I took the fact that I was still sitting across from her as permission to plow ahead.

“Her father. He wants me to look into it. Figures there’s more to it than a burglary gone wrong.”

“And his evidence?”

“He loved his daughter. Thinks she was talented. Thinks there’s more to the story. Said something about her boyfriend.”

Ellen nodded. “Nevada Hornsby. Runs a lumber salvage business in St. Clair Shores. Has an airtight alibi.”

“Which is?”

“Which is none of your f*cking business.”

“Come on, Ellen. It’s not like you’re letting out the secret to making a dirty bomb. Tell me what his fricking alibi is.”

Her phone rang and she punched it, not gently, sending the caller either into voicemail or, more likely, oblivion.

“He was visiting his sick mother in a nursing home,” she said. “Half a dozen witnesses.”

I nodded. Night-duty nurses. Other patients. Sounded like a good alibi.

“Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out,” my sister said to me.

“Ellen, I’m not here to figure out who killed her. I just want to know if there’s going to be a problem with me taking the case.”

“What’s the deal with your hand?”

“I told you, a paring accident. A kiwi got away from me.”

She stood and walked around to the front of the desk. The leather from her gunbelt squeaked. She leaned up against the front edge of the rough-hewn wood desk.

“Are you planning on doing anything illegal?”

“No.”

“Are you going to call me with anything you find before you call the father?”

“Yes.”

She looked me over.

“Kiwi, huh?”

I nodded.

“So it jumped right off the cutting board and slapped you around?”

I pretended to be confused.

“I can see the marks on your face from here, you idiot,” she said. “and I can tell by the way you’re sitting you’ve got a couple of sore ribs.”

Why do I ever try to lie to her in the first place? So I told her what had happened.

“Jesus Christ, John. You come in to ask me if it’s okay to take the case and you already did.”

“I still asked.”

She rolled her eyes and said, “The old man gave you the keys, so no breaking and entering. Tampering with a crime scene, however…”

“—there wasn’t any tape on the apartment—”

“And didn’t you learn any self-defense moves at the Academy?”

“It wasn’t a fair fight, Ellen. He got me from behind and from then on, I was just a f*cking punching bag. Until he tried to saw my hand in half, that was enough to clear the cobwebs out.”

“So other than an obvious interest in carpentry techniques, what do you know about this guy?” She looked out the small window with a view of Jefferson when she asked, an interrogation technique, perhaps? Or was she honestly bored with me?

I shook my head. “Nothing. He had on a mask. He smashed me on the head right away, after that, everything was kind of dark.”

“Rough size?”

“Probably around six feet or an inch or two over it. Solid, but not a huge guy.”

She nodded, not bothering to write any of it down. This was all off the record.

“It changes things doesn’t it?”

“Don’t f*cking flatter yourself.”

Her phone rang and she looked at me. Meeting over.

“So I’m going to keep working on it, okay?”

She went back to her desk and reached for the phone. Ordinarily a sister might suggest that her brother be careful, or offer words of encouragement.

Ellen shrugged her shoulders.

“Do what you gotta do,” she said.





Twelve

The Rockne residence is a brick colonial on Balfour Road in the Park. When we bought it four years ago, it was a fixer-upper in the classic sense. Bad carpet, a grungy kitchen, horrid paint colors and pink tile. It took a few years for us to fix it up, but we got it done. Of course, the marriage almost went with it, but we got it done.

My wife’s name is Anna. Imagine the stereotypical Italian beauty, and you’ve got my wife. Big, dark eyes, black hair, full features and a temper that could roast meat. She’s tough, sensitive, argumentative, emotional, loving, giving, quick to anger, slow to forgive, frugal with compliments and sometimes she’s just downright nasty. Naturally I love her like the fool I am and wouldn’t have her any other way. I tell her I love her more times than she tells me. That’s how we are. But she’s tougher than I am, so there you go. We have two girls, Isabel and Nina. Isabel’s seven, Nina’s five. They both look just like their Mom, thank God, and naturally, I worship them like the miracles they are.

I parked the Taurus in the garage and went inside. Instantly, I wished I hadn’t. I could never have an affair because my wife knows exactly what’s going on with me in an instant. Because as best as I’d tried to keep my hand hidden from her, Anna spun me around and held my bandage up to the light.

She was definitely not happy. And when she’s not happy, no one else in the family is, either. It’s a scientific impossibility.

“The doctor said it was one of the worst paper cuts he’s ever seen,” I said.

“A paper cut?” Anna said, repeating my lame improv. The girls were in bed. I was starting to laugh at my wife’s expression, but she was clearly failing to find any humor in the situation.

“Yeah, it was that heavy construction paper. You know...”

“John…”

“…the kind you used to use in school with all the colors? It’s so thick! It’s practically a Bowie Knife. You could cut a T-Bone—”

Anna glared at me and I stopped talking. There was no getting around it. I was going to have to tell the truth.

“Okay, I was in a bit of a…tussle.”

“A tussle?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of a cross between a tumble and a wrestle. A tussle. From the Latin word tussilius. Meaning to—”

“Shut up.”

“Okay.”

She tapped her feet and drummed her fingers. She’s very coordinated.

“A tussle with who?” she said.

“Some guy.”

“Some guy as in some guy you don’t know? Or some guy as in some guy you didn’t get a good look at.”

“I would say the latter.”

“And how did your hand get hurt?”

“Well, we were—”

“Tussling.”

“Right. And a woodworking machine got turned on and we crashed into it and it went right between my fingers. A freak shop accident. Happens all the time. You ever have a shop teacher? Ever notice how they all have part of a finger missing? In high school my shop teacher was the baseball coach and one time we asked when practice was and he held up three fingers but one of the fingers was half-gone so somebody yelled out ‘2:45?’”

I chuckled but as Anna wasn’t laughing, I quickly stopped.

By now, we were in the living room. Anna sat on the couch propped her feet up on the ottoman, grabbed a throw pillow and hugged it to her chest. I gave her a brief overview of the case.

“Did you talk to your sister?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And?”

“She said I should do what I gotta do.”

This brought an eye roll.

“Look, it was a freak accident,” I said. “I’m sure it had very little to do with the case.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t know what to believe right now. I have to keep at it and try to figure out what’s going on.”

I recognized the look on Anna’s face. It was the expression she wears when she wants to tell me to drop this whole P.I. thing, that I got out of law enforcement for a reason. That what the world really needs is another f*cking accountant. She opened her mouth and I knew she was going to launch into the speech I’d heard quite a few times.

Instead she just shrugged her shoulders, indifferent.

Holy Christ, that was even worse.

• • •



The next morning I was back in my office, a fresh pot of Peet’s coffee (I was on the mailing program – a fresh bag every month straight from Portland, Oregon) and the telephone. I looked up the number for St. Clair Salvage and dialed the number.

There was no answer. I left a message letting him know that I was a private investigator working for Clarence Barre and that I would like to talk to him about Jesse.

By lunchtime I had finished all of the filing and paperwork I could find around the office and Hornsby still hadn’t called me. I left another message, this time alerting Nevada Hornsby to the fact that he had just won a year’s supply of a new product called Turkey Jerky – all the great taste of jerky, with half the fat and calories. Now available in three flavors: Ranch, Jalapeño and Lemon Lime! I left my number and urged him to hurry, hurry, hurry!

By mid-afternoon I had searched the Net for as much information as I could find on Hornsby. There wasn’t much. Just a very short human interest story in the Free Press about St. Clair Salvage. Nothing useful that shed any light on Clarence Barre’s enemy number one.

I looked at the clock. It was now dinner time and Hornsby still hadn’t called me. My next message informed him that a distant relative living in Hawaii had died and left him a 48-acre estate on Maui complete with three swimming pools, a cabana and a small population of native island girls who ran the property’s private nude beach. All he had to do was call the number (coincidentally, the same one offering a year of Turkey Jerky.)

I used the other phone, my private line, to call Clarence Barre. He answered on the third ring.

“Tell me everything you know about Nevada Hornsby.”

I listened while Clarence laid out what he had. It wasn’t much. Apparently the guy didn’t talk about his past. He was most likely from Michigan. Didn’t have family to speak of. Ran St. Clair Salvage and had been in love with his daughter. Like I said, not much.

“I think he’s bad. Just a bad, evil person,” Clarence said.

There Clarence went again with his intuition. Weren’t women supposed to have that? Clarence had more than his share. Maybe he had the stuff I didn’t get.

I finished with Clarence and checked the clock. Quittin’ time.

I went home, had dinner, played with the kids and then just before going to bed, called into my answering machine. There still wasn’t an answer from the elusive Mr. Hornsby.

I guess I would have to deliver the Jerky in person.





Thirteen

The Spook stood before the full-length mirror in his suite at the Royalton Hotel in New York City. His Fender Telecaster was slung over his shoulder, its cable trailing out behind him to the small Pignose amplifier propped up on the bed. He had the guitar’s distortion on a medium setting, the juice turned to the first pickup. The settings were designed to create a dense, fuzzy sound that was tight enough to sound like a raucous bouncing romp when he pounded down a blues shuffle.

The Spook put an unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth and looked at himself in the mirror again. He had just flown in from London via Mexico the night before and looked like an exhausted traveler. He saw a pale man in his late thirties, early forties with scraggly black hair and a thin, pinched, slightly pockmarked face. He had on dirty blue jeans, cowboy boots, a short-sleeved black T-shirt and a bone necklace.

On his right ring finger was a large skull ring.

The Spook had two loves in the world: the first was the ecstasy of a perfectly executed hit. There was really nothing like it in the world. Scoping things out, identifying the target, waiting for the perfect opportunity. Selecting the absolutely most pristine time and place. And then delivering the knockout blow with strength, speed and deadly aim.

It was like a beautiful melody to him that ended in a blazing crescendo of blood and violence, capped off by the silent applause of a roaring crowd inside his head.

His second love was Keith Alvin Richardson, lead guitarist for the Rolling Stones. The Human Riff, they called him. The man who constantly carried around five or six new songs in his head. If you stopped him in the street, he’d be in the middle of constructing a new song at that very moment.

He was the heart and soul of the Stones.

Granted, Mick had something to do with it. But common wisdom held that Mick was a cold fish.

They said that while Mick thought it, Keith felt it.

For The Spook, whose own profession required a detached frostiness, he longed to be like Keith, for his job required him to be Mick. Keith’s riffs spoke to the Spook. The sexy wail of “Honky Tonk Women,” the anthemic call of “Satisfaction.” They all kindled a flame in the Spook’s soul. He could relate to those riffs. To those sudden bursts of inspiration.

Now, in his hotel room, he slid the fingertips of his left hand slowly up the fretboard of his Fender. The little Pignose amp responded smoothly and quietly. As much as the Spook would have loved to crank it up, it wasn’t the time nor the place.

In his apartment in London, he had a soundproof studio in which he would sit for hours and play Keith’s riffs, his riffs, over and over again, until he had a welt on his chest from the Fender digging in.

The thought of his London flat brought back wonderful memories for the Spook. When the Spook had first gone to London almost fifteen years ago, after quietly leaving the CIA and going freelance, he’d immediately set out for Keith’s childhood neighborhood. The Spook was supposed to be scouting out his target, some ambassador from Libya who his client had deemed it was necessary to terminate.

Instead, the Spook had gone sightseeing. He had gone down to Corningwall Road. Found the ramshackle little house where Keith had spent his first ten years.

The Spook had soaked it up. Had imagined young Keith running around, his wicked smile and nasty vibrations welling up inside him. It had been a truly glorious, happy time for the Spook. On his own, free of the rules and regulations the CIA had imposed upon him. A free agent. Gun for hire.

Now, back in his hotel room, The Spook bowed his head and slipped into the rhythmic chords of “Beast of Burden.”

As he played, his boots tapped the thick carpet of his hotel room. He lost himself in the beauty of the evocation. In his mind, he was on stage at Wembly. Mick was in front, strutting across the stage. Ronnie was to his right, smiling, strolling. Wyman was in the back, trying to not be noticed. And Charlie was playing with intensity, his face a mask of indifference.

The Spook’s fingers slid carelessly along the strings. His right hand tamped the strings, creating a playful syncopation.

What a thing, the Spook thought. To be born to do something. That was the ticket. Keith had been born to write and play music. God had opened his brain and poured in all the ability he could handle.

The Spook had a born talent. Killing people was his reason for existence. Each and every one had been a virtuoso performance. He knew this instinctively. It wasn’t arrogance or boastfulness. He was the best there was. He knew it. And those who were in the know, knew it, too.

In the middle of the song’s bridge, the phone rang, but the Spook kept playing. If it was important, they’d call back.

Besides, he had an inkling what the phone call was about.

Or, more accurately, who it was all about.

He smiled at the thought.

I’m just waitin’ on a friend.

The Spook closed his eyes, and felt the music in him while his mind raced ahead to the thought of who he would most likely kill next.

His old friend.

John Rockne.





Fourteen

My plan was to be like a desperate prostitute; loud, aggressive and unwilling to take no for an answer. How’s that for a positive self-image?

Nevada Hornsby clearly wasn’t interested in talking to me. After all, what kind of guy would have no interest in nude native island girls and a year’s supply of Turkey Jerky?

I pulled up in front of St. Clair Salvage. A quick visual survey showed that Nevada Hornsby’s business was made up of three parts: the factory, the office, and probably out back, the boat.

I got out of the Taurus and walked over to what I assumed was the factory or the main shop area. It was a relatively narrow, but long, aluminum shed. I peeked in the windows and saw power equipment inside, as well as stacked logs. There were giant fans on each side of the long room, I imagined for sucking sawdust out of the building and blowing it into the air like one long, constant sneeze.

I walked over to the office area, which looked even less impressive. It was a weather beaten structure made of old wood – appropriate, at least – with a cedar shake roof, dirty windows, and a beat-up door. You could pay top dollar at Pottery Barn for that distressed wood look. But here, you just wanted to slap a coat of paint on it.

The door rattled under my knock but when I listened for an answer, all I heard was the howling of the wind off the lake.

The soot on the windows smeared under my rubbing, but soon I’d cleared a space small enough for a glimpse into the place. It looked pretty much vacant. A couple chairs here and there, some cardboard boxes and pieces of wood. There was a doorway that led somewhere, but I couldn’t see far enough. Maybe the real office was back there.

I walked around to the rear of the building and saw a long pier that branched off into a T. At the end I saw perhaps the ugliest boat of my life. It was a rusty tub, maybe thirty or forty feet long, with an enclosed cabin and a thin stream of black smoke coming out the back.

Two men were on the pier, untying the thick ropes and preparing to cast off.

I jogged over, jumped onto the dock and hustled down to the end of the pier. Looking at the water on either side of me, I saw that it was dark brown. Not exactly snorkeling territory here.

I got the attention of one of the men, a reddish-haired guy with a red flannel shirt, jeans, and a wad of chewing tobacco that distended the entire right side of his face.

“Nevada Hornsby?” I asked.

He motioned with his thumb toward the cabin of the boat. It was like a little cubicle that someone had placed in the middle of the boat. It had a little door, and little windows that were black with grime.

In the back of the boat was a giant hook and pulley system, I assumed to help haul logs out of the lake. There was other equipment scattered around the deck: blocks and pulleys, hooks, big, odd-shaped pieces of steel. Most of it looked entirely unfamiliar to me. Then again, I majored in criminology, not mechanical engineering.

The man to whom I’d spoken made no move to get Hornsby for me, but merely went to a different part of the ship and began fiddling with some levers.

I hesitated. The water next to the dock looked cold and unforgiving. I thought briefly of my car, still warm from the heater, a stainless steel coffee mug still half full nestled in the driver’s side cupholder.

Life is full of tough decisions.

I jumped on board.

I made my way across the deck and peeked inside the ship’s cabin. Nevada Hornsby sat at the small Formica table that jutted out from the side of the cabin’s wall.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a thick black sweater, blue jeans, and black boots. His thick, dark hair and beard were neat and smooth, the only sign of age and a hard life were the wrinkles around his eyes.

There was a knife in his hand, a long, crude thing that he was using to cut an apple. He looked up at me, the deep blue of his eyes seeming to leap from the weathered face and dark hair.

“Nevada Hornsby?” I asked.

He looked me up and down, and the look in his eye wasn’t flattering. He seemed to contemplate the knife in hand for a moment. I got the feeling the knife had gutted a lot of fish and that it could do the job on a private investigator just fine. But his expression didn’t come across as anger or violence. It seemed more like…weariness.

“My name is John Rockne,” I said. “I’m a private investigator. I’d like to ask you a few questions about Jesse Barre.”

He got to his feet smoothly, and I quickly saw that he was bigger than I’d imagined. At least 6’4”. His shoulders seemed bigger, too. F*ck, he was just plain big.

I pictured the man who had attacked me at Jesse Barre’s apartment. I suddenly had doubts that it could have been Nevada Hornsby. The guy in front of me was too damn big. If he’d wanted to saw my hand in two, he could have done it. Easily.

“Who you workin’ for?” he said. He still had the knife in one hand, the apple in the other.

I sort of scrolled through my typical responses, the ones I’ve spouted maybe a few hundred times in my career. That’s confidential. An interested party, etc. They suddenly seemed like they would sound hollow and flimsy in this man’s presence. So I went with the truth.

“Clarence Barre.”

His face registered nothing, but he did give a slight nod. He worked the knife through the apple and popped a chunk into his mouth.

“I’m leaving in thirty seconds,” he finally said. “You can talk to me when I get back.”

“How long are you staying out?”

“Eighteen hours.”

“Are you sure you don’t have a minute to talk?”

He shook his head no and stared at me.

“Randy called in sick,” he said. “More work for me and Rollie.”

“What if I came along?” I said. Thinking eighteen hours was a motherf*ck of a long time, but if I had to do it, I would.

Hornsby nodded as if he’d known all along that was going to be my response. “If you stay, you work,” he said.

I didn’t like the sound of that. I had a feeling the lumber recovery profession was a pretty dangerous job, probably second only to road construction workers in Cairo.

Of course, Hornsby could stay out for a lot longer than eighteen hours; days, even weeks, or just motor up to some other harbor in some other town and I’d never see him again. Or at least, not for a long time.

“Ten seconds,” he said. He flipped a few switches and looked back at me.

“Aren’t we going to talk about my hourly rate?”

“Zero dollars an hour. Anything else?” He revved the engines for emphasis.

“Do you have a 401(k)?” I said.

His response this time was to jam the throttle down. I stumbled backwards, knocking his Styrofoam coffee cup off the low shelf next to the table.

“You better have workman’s comp!” I yelled over the screaming engines.

I struggled to my feet to say something to him, but he was gone. My eyes were drawn to a picture on the wall that he had been blocking.

It was old, and hung in a cheap frame, but there was no mistaking the woman caught on film.

It was Jesse Barre.





Fifteen

“There she is,” Hornsby said, his voice a dull growl, not quite as deep as the sound of the ship’s engines.

I looked out through the streaked windshield and saw the second ugliest water vessel known to man.

This beast looked like a giant concrete block with an angled front and square back. Its surface was virtually empty save for the roughly fifteen foot crane standing in the middle. It sat on top of the dark greenish brown water, rocking gently in the three foot waves, the sky a solid sheet of gray overhead. Not exactly a Norman Rockwell scene.

Looking back, I couldn’t see any signs of land. We were a long way out.

It had been nearly an hour since Hornsby’s sudden burst of acceleration had thrown me off my feet. He’d said little more than to tell me we were going out to a barge he used to retrieve sunken lumber. The rest of the ride he’d ignored my questions.

Now, Hornsby and his worker, Rollie, lashed the boat up against the barge. A few minutes later, Rollie emerged in a wet suit. I watched him spit out his giant ball of chewing tobacco. It landed in a little metal pail. He set it against the side of the cabin. Ooh, leftovers.

Rollie then went over the side into the water while Hornsby jumped between the two vessels and immediately began hauling a chain and rigging harness to the side of the barge. When Rollie reemerged from the water, Hornsby fed him the chain.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” I said. After all, he’d given me the big lecture about working.

“Yeah, keep out of the way,” Hornsby said.

Right. I could do that.

So I watched, waiting for the right moment to begin questioning Hornsby about his relationship with Jesse Barre. I was here to get some goddamn answers. I would be pretty pissed if I spent all day on the S.S. Piece of Shit with nothing to show for it but the vague smell of dead carp.

After a few minutes of feeding the chains into the dark water, Hornsby stopped. He stood there, looking down for several minutes. Finally, after Rollie disappeared back into the olive green depths, I took my opportunity.

“So you know, Clarence thinks you killed her.” I figured what the hell, he wasn’t answering my questions, maybe I could goad him into talking.

The wind ruffled his dark brown hair and he smirked. Well, there went that plan. Pissing him off wasn’t going to be easy.

A flock of gulls screamed overhead and Hornsby stepped closer to the edge of the boat.

“He loved his daughter, I’ll give you that,” he said. “But he never understood her.”

“What didn’t he understand?”

He waved me away like it was a question not worth answering. After a few minutes of staring into the water, though, he did give me an answer.

“He thinks she wanted to leave me, right?”

I waited, not wanting to divulge anything he didn’t already know.

“You don’t have to answer. I know I’m right.” He walked along the deck of the barge to the base of the tower, with me right on his heels. He put his hands on some of the crane’s levers and made a few adjustments. Overhead, I heard the creak of old machinery beginning to awaken.

“So maybe you’re right,” I said. “Do you want to deny it?”

“I want to tell you and Clarence to go f*ck yourselves, but I can’t,” he said. “Well, you I can. But not Clarence. She was crazy about him. I wouldn’t want to do anything that would upset him. If Jesse were here, that’s what she’d be saying.”

I took a closer look at him, at his eyes, and for some reason I believed him. Maybe it was the way he said it. Maybe he was just a helluva good actor. Or maybe it was the dark circles under his eyes, the tired, beaten look in his face. It rang true. It looked like the face of a man who’d just lost the woman he loved.

“So why does he think she was leaving you?” I said.

“Who says she wasn’t?”

Okay, he had me there.

“Can we stop playing games?” I asked. “Was she leaving you?”

“She was and she wasn’t.”

I sighed and looked out toward the lake. The wind shifted a bit and a giant wave crashed over the side of the barge. I looked down and the front of my Dockers were wet, like I’d pissed my pants. I glanced at Hornsby. He was dry.

“She was and she wasn’t?” I said. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I walked to Hornsby’s left, trying to get a glimpse of what he was doing. I heard a noise overhead and then Hornsby grabbed me. I thought he was going to throw me in the water. But he pushed me forward just as a large pool of heavy chain dropped onto the deck from the crane overhead. It landed right where I’d been standing.

“Shouldn’t I be wearing a hard hat?” I said. “I’m a bleeder.”

Hornsby appeared not to have heard what I said, nor did he seem to notice the fact that he’d just saved me from grave injury.

“She was taking a sabbatical,” he said. “From the shop. From Grosse Pointe. And from me. But she was coming back. She said so. I think she told the old man, too.” He laughed. “I just don’t think he believed her.”

“What was she going to do on this…sabbatical?”

“I’ll tell you when we’re done,” he said, gesturing toward the water. I looked down, and the first log was ascending to the surface, like an ancient submarine finally coming to port.

“Stay out of the way,” he told me. No problem, Ahab.

The chain around the log was hooked to a winch, and Hornsby crossed the deck, released the chain from the winch and Rollie, in the water, backed away from the log, then disappeared.

Hornsby walked back to the crane’s control center, fired it up, and slowly maneuvered the big arm out over the water. He spread the clamping mechanism open, brought it down on top of the log, closed it, and hoisted the three ton, four hundred year old log onto the surface of the barge.

It lay there, still, like a harpooned whale. It was dark brown with a tinge of green on it. Hard to believe beautiful wood could come from that.

This procedure repeated itself over and over again, so that by the time an hour had passed, I felt like I’d learned all I could about the fascinating world of lumber recovery. In other words, I was ready for a nap.

I walked back across the barge, jumped onto the deck of the ship, and went into Hornsby’s cabin.

Protected from the wind, it immediately felt warmer and I helped myself to a cup of coffee from the pot next to the captain’s chair. I was so tired the caffeine stood no chance of keeping me awake.

I took the opportunity to look around. There wasn’t much for me to snoop through. Some topographic maps of the lake’s bottom. Pictures of Hornsby and his crew. A newspaper article on Superior Salvage Company. A few photographs taped to the wall. In one of them, I saw a grinning Hornsby with his arm around Jesse Barre. They both looked comfortable with each other. Relaxed. Maybe even in love.

I found the head, which was surprisingly clean, and took a leak. I went back to the cabin and drained the rest of my coffee. I looked out over the water and a fine mist was thick in the air. It had gotten colder as well. No time to be out on the deck of a barge, that’s for sure. You know those guys who love to be out and fighting the elements? Looking Mother Nature in the eye? I’m not one of them. I figure my ancestors worked hard to figure out it was safer to hide in caves. It would be an insult to their hard work and dedication to be outside right now.

A small cot lay along the opposite wall of the cabin. I stretched out on it, zipped my coat up all the way to my chin. The coffee had momentarily warmed my insides, and I figured that I wouldn’t miss much if I took a quick nap.

Besides, I reasoned, I’m a light sleeper.

• • •



I dreamed of a nice gnocchi dinner, served by my wife whose attire consisted of fishnet stockings and a jaunty beret. She was just about to suggest dessert when something odd happened. Instead of a pleasant garlic aroma, the gnocchi smelled like gasoline.

My eyes opened and I was suddenly wide awake, scared and disoriented all at the same time.

I was on Hornsby’s boat, in the cabin, and my mind tried to take in the fact that it was nearly dusk and that I must have been sleeping for nearly five hours. Holy Christ, what a f*ckup I was.

The early morning had really done me in. I vaulted over the deck of the ship onto the barge. I jogged to the crane control and the area where the chain and harness were, but I saw no one.

I walked to the edge of the ship and looked into the water.

Rollie was on his back, a thick length of the chain tied around his neck. His face was bobbing in and out of the water. His lifeless eyes were bulging, his mouth an open container. Water poured in, water poured back out. A huge log was in the water next to him, and the chain seemed to be holding Rollie alongside.

I looked around the barge, out toward the water. “Hornsby!” I called.

Just as the last echoes of my voice were carried away by the wind, I heard what sounded like a small explosion. More of a wooshing sound. And then the deck of the barge was a column of flame headed right for me. A motor gunned and I saw a shadow crouched at the throttle of a small outboard and then I was leaping from the barge, out into Lake St. Clair.

I hit and the shocking cold of the water made me nearly want to scream.

I went straight down into the water, the sudden silence shocking me as much as the knifing cold.

My jacket weighed a ton, but I kept it on, instead I kicked off my shoes and pants, holding my breath for as long as I could before I had to surface.

When my lungs were burning and I was on the verge of inhaling a mouthful of water, I broke through to the water’s surface. Smoke was everywhere. It was like night had come and thrown a stinky blanket over everything. As I struggled to get my bearings, a huge explosion rocked the air. I looked, and could just make out through the smoke that Hornsby’s boat was now on fire.

I swam toward Rollie. When I was close enough, I put a hand on the log and tried to get a grip on its slick surface. It was difficult, but at last I found a small notch that served as a handhold.

I tried to think things through.

They had killed Rollie and were trying to destroy the ships. So the question was, where was Hornsby?

Despite the situation, I felt a tug of relief. They, whoever that might be, probably weren’t after me. If they didn’t know I existed, they probably wouldn’t come back to try to kill me.

Which was good.

The bad part was, I had no way of getting back to shore, and my body was already going numb from the cold. I had to get out of the water, and get out fast. Then I had to figure out a way to signal someone back on shore.

And there was still no sign of Hornsby.

Part two of the good news was that I knew the barge was virtually indestructible, unlike Hornsby’s ship. So when I spied the chain leading from Rollie’s neck to the side of the barge, I knew I had a chance. My hands already felt like frozen claws, so I would have to go as quickly as possible. I kicked off from the log, my clothes pulling me under, my body underestimating the strength it would take to keep me afloat and propel me the twenty feet I needed to cross to get to the chain.

I pushed and kicked, the water tugging at me, the cold washing over me. I felt the chain brush my fist. I grabbed for it and missed, immediately going under and getting a mouthful of Lake St. Clair. The parallel with water going in Rollie’s mouth inspired me to panic. I flailed back to the surface and got both hands on the chain. I pulled myself to the barge and tried to lift myself from the water, but my jacket and sweater weighed me down. It was going to be impossible. I was going to die, clinging to the chain for awhile, like Leonardo de Caprio in Titanic, and then I was going to lose my grip and slip to the bottom, landing in a pile of wooden logs.

A giant motherf*cker of a wave knocked me against the side of the barge and I lost any oxygen that was left in my lungs. I gasped for breath, clawed at the chain, and maybe gained a foot or two.

But it was enough.

A red lever hung just below where I needed to get in order to haul myself out of the water.

It was the power switch for the winch.

My body shook with cold, and the exertion of swimming had left my muscles numb with fatigue. I thought of Anna and the kids back home, probably sitting down to dinner, oblivious to the fact that Daddy was hanging on for dear life in the middle of freezing cold lake, clinging to a boat that was on fire.

The lake seemed to surge beneath me, pushing me toward the winch’s control panel. My hands slid up the chain. I grabbed the lever and brought it down, instantly sending the chain into action. The winch pulled it to the surface of the barge, me along with it. I rolled onto the deck and gasped for air. I couldn’t believe I’d made it. That I was alive. No life insurance check for Anna. She’d be pissed.

A sudden loud thud made me get to my hands and knees and peer over the side of the barge.

It was the log that Rollie had been attached to. The winch, still winding, had brought it all the way to the side of the ship.

But Rollie was nowhere to be seen.

Something was pinned to the bottom of the log, had been trapped out of sight beneath the water.

Nevada Hornsby.