"Just a feature story," Ott said. "Bobby's friends say he was quite a fisherman."
"You saw the coffin," Clarisse said. "And you saw his friends." She clapped her hands twice loudly. "Hey! Watch the ottoman, Pablo, unless you want to buy me a new one!"
The man named Pablo mumbled something obscene.
Clarisse turned back to Ott. "Do you fish?"
He shook his head.
"Thank God there's at least one of you," she said.
Her eyes flickered to a bookcase in the living room. Ott noticed that there were no books on the shelves, only trophies. Each of the trophies was crowned with a cheap gold-painted replica of a jumping fish. Bass, Ott assumed. He counted up the trophies and wrote the number "18" in his notebook. One of the movers unfolded a big cardboard box and began wrapping and packing the trophies.
"No!" Clarisse said. "Those go in the dumpster."
The mover shrugged.
Ott followed the widow to the garage. "This junk in here," she was saying, "I've got to sell."
Bobby Clinch's fishing gear. Cane poles, spinning rods, flipping rods, bait-casting rods, popping rods, fly rods. Ott Pickney counted them up and wrote "22" in his notebook. Each of the outfits seemed to be in immaculate condition.
"These are worth a lot of money," Ott said to Clarisse.
"Maybe I should take out an ad in your newspaper."
"Yes, good idea." All Harney Sentinelreporters were trained in the paperwork of classified advertising, just in case the moment arose. Ott got a pad of order forms out of the glove box in the truck.
"Twenty-two fishing rods," he began.
"Three pairs of hip waders," Clarisse said, rummaging through her husband's bass trove.
"Two landing nets," Ott noted.
"Four vests," she said, "one with Velcro pockets."
"Is that an electric hook sharpener?"
"Brand new," Clarisse said. "Make sure you put down that it's brand new."
"Got it."
"And I don't know what to do about this."From under a workbench she dragged what appeared to be a plastic suitcase with the word "plano" stamped on the top. "I can't even lift the darn thing," she said. "I'm afraid to look inside."
"What is it?" Ott asked.
"The mother lode," Clarisse said. "Bobby's tacklebox."
Ott hoisted it by the handle, then set it down on the kitchen counter. It must have weighed fifty pounds.
"He has junk in there from when he was ten years old. Lures and stuff." Clarisse's voice sounded small; she was blinking her eyes as if she were about to cry, or at least fighting the urge.
Ott unfastened the clasps on the tacklebox and opened the lid. He had never seen such an eclectic collection of gadgets: rainbow-colored worms and frogs and plastic minnows and even tiny rubber snakes, all bristling with diamond-sharpened hooks. The lures were neatly organized on eight folding trays. Knives, pliers, stainless-steel hook removers, sinkers, swivels, and spools of leader material filled the bottom of the box.
In a violet velvet pouch was a small bronze scale used for weighing bass. The numerals on the scale optimistically went up to twenty-five pounds, although no largemouth bass that size had ever been caught.
Of the scale, Clarisse remarked: "That stupid thing cost forty bucks. Bobby said it was tournament-certified, whatever that means. All the guys had the same model, he said, so nobody could cheat on the weight."
Ott Pickney carefully fitted the bronze scale back in its pouch. He returned the pouch to Bobby Clinch's tacklebox and closed the latches.
Clarisse sat down on the concrete steps in the garage and stared sadly at the bushel of orphaned fishing poles. She said, "This is what Bobby's life was all about, Mr. Pickney. Not me or the kids or the job at the phone company ... just this. He wasn't happy unless he was out on the lake."
Finally a decent quote, Ott thought, and scribbled feverishly in his notebook. He wasn't happy unless he was fishing on the lake.Close enough.
It wasn't until later, as Ott Pickney was driving back to the newspaper office, that it hit him like a fist in the gut: R. J. Decker was right. Something odd was going on.
If Bobby Clinch had taken the tacklebox on his fateful trip, it surely would have been lost in the boat accident.
So why had he gone to Lake Jesup without it?
Skink's boat was a bare twelve-foot skiff with peeling oars and splinters on the seat planks.
"Get in," he told R. J. Decker.
Decker sat in the prow and Skink shoved off. It was a chilly night under a muffled sky; an unbroken mat of high gray clouds, pushed south by a cold breeze. Skink set a Coleman lantern in the center of the skiff, next to Decker's weatherproof camera bag.
"No bugs," Skink remarked. "Not with this wind."
He had brought two fishing rods that looked like flea-market specials. The fiberglass was brown and faded, the reels tarnished and dull. The outfits bore no resemblance to the sparkling masterpiece that Decker had seen displayed so reverently in Bobby Clinch's casket.
Skink rowed effortlessly; wavelets kissed at the bow as the little boat crossed Lake Jesup. Decker enjoyed the quiet ride in the cool night. He was still slightly uneasy around Skink, but he was beginning to like the guy, even if he was a head case. Decker had met a few like Skink, eccentric hoary loners. Some were hiding, some were running, some just waiting for something, or someone, to catch up. That was Skink, waiting. Decker would give him plenty of room.
"Looks like no one else is out tonight," he said to Skink.
"Ha, they're everywhere," Skink said. He rowed with his back to Decker. Decker wished he'd take off the damn shower cap, but couldn't figure a way to broach the subject.
"How do you know which way to go?" he asked.
"There's a trailer park due northwest. Lights shine through the trees," Skink said. "They leave 'em on all night, too. Old folks who live there, they're scared if the lights go off. Wild noises tend to get loud in the darknessyou ever noticed that, Miami? Pay attention now: the boat is the face of a clock, and you're sittin' at midnight. The trailer park lights are ten o'clock"
"I see."
"Good. Now look around about two-thirty, see there? More lights. That's a Zippy Mart on Route 222." Skink described all this without once turning around. "Which way we headed from camp, Miami?"
"Looks like due north."
"Good," Skink said. "Got myself a fuckin' Eagle Scout in the boat."
Decker didn't know what this giant fruitcake was up to, but a boat ride sure beat hell out of an all-night divorce surveillance.
Skink stopped rowing after twenty minutes. He set the lantern on the seat plank and picked up one of the fishing rods. From the prow Decker watched him fiddling with the line, and heard him curse under his breath.
Finally Skink pivoted on the seat and handed Decker the spinning rod. Tied to the end of the line was a long purple rubber lure. Decker figured it was supposed to be an eel, a snake, or a worm with thyroid. Skink's knot was hardly the tightest that Decker had ever seen.
"Let's see you cast," Skink said.
Decker held the rod in his right hand. He took it back over his shoulder and made a motion like he was throwing a baseball. The rubber lure landed with a slap four feet from the boat.
"That sucks," Skink said. "Try opening the bail."
He showed Decker how to open the face of the reel, and how to control the line with the tip of his forefinger. He demonstrated how the wrist, not the arm, supplied the power for the cast. After a half-dozen tries, Decker was winging the purple eel sixty-five feet.
"All right," Skink said. He turned off the Coleman lantern.
The boat drifted at the mouth of a small cove, where the water lay as flat as a smoky mirror. Even on a starless night the lake gave off its own gray light. Decker could make out an apron of pines along the shore; around the boat were thick-stemmed lily pads, cypress nubs, patches of tall reeds.
"Go to it," said Skink.
"Where?" Decker said. "Won't I get snagged on all these lilies?"
"That's a weedless hook on the end of your line. Cast just like you were doing before, then think like a nightcrawler. Make it dance like a goddamn worm that knows it's about to get eaten."