Based on the overpopulation situation most every year, the state allowed anglers at Rimrock to keep 16 kokanee—called silvers by the locals—a day. And they were allowed to chum for the fish. Chumming was used to attract the feeding fish, and a good chum recipe consisted of eggshells, bran, powdered milk, and some salmon egg nectar. Every few minutes, an angler, either from the bank, or an anchored boat, would send a couple heaping scoops of chum into the water. It worked surprisingly well.
McCain took the Tieton Reservoir Road off Highway 12 at the east end of the lake and stayed on it as it followed the southern shoreline of the big reservoir. He saw several rigs parked up ahead in the gravel shoulder and wasn’t surprised to see Jim Kingsbury’s truck among the few other pickups and SUVs. He was guessing that Dugdale was with him down near the shoreline, fishing off the giant boulders that bordered the lake.
McCain parked his truck and got out to watch the anglers for a bit. Most were paying no attention to him, but two men saw him coming and started getting a little fidgety. McCain was climbing down the rocks to get to the group of anglers when he saw Kingsbury set the hook and fight a small, silvery fish to the bank.
When he turned around to put his fish in an ice chest, he saw McCain and said, “Cool it everyone, it’s the law!”
“Looks like you’re going to be able to satisfy that hankerin’ for smoked silvers,” McCain said as he kept an eye on the two jittery guys a ways down the bank. Suddenly they seemed like they needed to be somewhere, anywhere else. McCain walked right on by Kingsbury who was trying to tell him about the fish he had caught and made it down the bank seventy-five yards to where the two men were hustling out of there.
“Excuse me, guys,” McCain said to the two. “Can we chat for a second?”
The two men stopped, and McCain caught up to them.
“Can I see your driver’s licenses and fishing licenses? And before you start with some story about how your wife washed your fishing license with the laundry or you left it in your other pants, I can look on the computer in my truck and know within about thirty seconds if you purchased one or not. I’m feeling benevolent today, so don’t lie to me, and I’ll give you a warning.”
Both guys couldn’t get their driver’s licenses out fast enough, apologizing immediately. McCain wrote their names down and told them he would share them with the other WDFW police officers in the area, and if they got caught again without a license their fine would be doubled.
As McCain returned, Dugdale asked, “Are you going to ask me if I have my license?”
“No, because I already checked on you and Jim,” McCain said. He looked over at Kingsbury who was wearing a white t-shirt with DON’T TASE ME BRO! written in bold black letters on the front. “So I found the guy in the silver Honda. Have you guys seen him or the gal with the black hair around town again?”
“Yeah, I saw the guy once more,” Dugdale said. “I was going to call you, but you said not to. He was at the hardware store in Naches. I didn’t see what he was buying. I was in there to get some replacement pieces to one of my toilets and—”
“He doesn’t care what you were buying,” Kingsbury interrupted. “And to answer your question, no, I haven’t seen him or that cute gal again. Too bad too, she was a looker. By the way, that was pretty nice of you to let those guys off with a warning.”
“Yeah, well don’t tell anyone,” McCain said. “I might get a bad reputation.”
About that time Dugdale set the hook on a fish and brought it quickly to shore. He took it off the hook and tossed it into the same cooler that Kingsbury was using.
“We’re two short of our limits,” Dugdale said as he shoveled another heaping scoop of chum out of a five-gallon bucket and tossed it into the lake near where their bobbers were standing erect on the water’s surface.
After a quick thanks and a goodbye, McCain was back to his truck to finish his tour around the lake. He checked a few other bank anglers and stopped and checked a couple guys at the boat ramp on the north side of the lake to see how they had done. They too had caught their limits.
As he was driving back down the mountain toward Yakima he thought more about Chad Burke. McCain wondered what his shoe size was, and that reminded him he hadn’t heard from Sinclair on what she had found out from the photos of the boot print he took up at the bones. And he thought about the woman with the long black hair he had seen only so briefly on the sidewalk in Naches that night. He wondered where she was right now.
The next morning, as McCain was getting ready for work and watching the morning news for the weather forecast, his phone started ringing. It was Sinclair.
“We have the identity of the woman found on the trail,” she said. “Her name was Tandy Miller, and she was from Enumclaw. They ID’d her with dental records.”
“Okay, that’s different,” McCain said. “She’s not from the valley.”
“No, but she had long black hair and was dumped on our side of the Cascades,” Sinclair said. “Enumclaw is just over the hill, so definitely could be the same guy.”
“Yeah,” McCain said. “But why not dump the body on the west side of the mountains, or at least on the Highway 410 side? Enumclaw is a lot closer to this side via Chinook Pass.”
Sinclair
