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“Loud and clear on this end,” he assured her.
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Christina and Ally spent the night at Amygdaloid Ranger Station. Chris took the bed. A
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Finding Scotty wasn’t difficult. He liked to be on hand when the Ranger III or the Queen set sail. When A
For a long time, she sat aboard the Belle Isle trying not to look like a cheap detective on a stakeout. She wasn’t watching Scotty, but trying to think of a way to get answers to her questions without appearing to interrogate a fellow officer. Till she had more conservative proof than Tinker and Damien’s testimony, she would not go to Ralph or Lucas.
When inspiration did not come, she decided to play it by ear. As she walked down the pier to where Scotty stood, one booted foot on someone’s gunwale, talking to a red-faced man in an orange tractor cap, she could hear the tones that usually heralded tall tales. “I kid you not, that son of a bitch was at least…”
“Hey ya, Scotty,” she said and sauntered up beside the two men. The fisherman took the interruption as an opportunity to escape, made a quick excuse, and trotted away. “How was Houghton?”
Scotty looked a little shamefaced. “To tell you the truth, I never made it,” he said with a dry chuckle. He laughed through tight lips. He always laughed like that, as if at an off-color joke he’d tell if it weren’t for the presence of a lady.
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“I was a little under the weather. Holed up a few days,” he told her.
“Flu?” A
“One hell of a bug. I was flat on my back.”
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That scared up Scotty’s Wile E. Coyote look, half embarrassed, half proud. A
“I’m getting tired of this,” Scotty snapped. “Those little shits better not fuck with me.”
“Pardon?”
“You heard me. Tell them to stay the hell away from me and Do
“What little shits?”
“Look, you can pull that i
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“You got something to say to Do
She had a few calls to make. Checking the egress from Isle Royale wasn’t difficult. The Voyageur, Queen, Ranger III, and the seaplane from Houghton were the only ways out of Rock Harbor.
Do
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NINE
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Ralph Pilcher seemed singularly unmoved by the information. His mind was occupied with the imminent arrival of Frederick the Fed on the next morning’s seaplane, plans for recovering De
The body recovery and investigation created an interesting problem. It all had to be done in twenty-five minutes of bottom time. More than that and the ascent time began to creep upwards of an hour and a half to decompress. Even in a dry suit, a diver was faced with hypothermia if exposed too long in frigid waters.
Ralph pointed out that Do
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As A
Scotty and De
But Scotty drank and alcohol changes character. Had there been a drunken fight, as Jim had said? Not impossible. There was no denying Butkus had retained his upper-body strength. It was evidenced in the line of muscle under his lightweight summer uniform shirts.
If Scotty had killed De