Seven
Carlyle was standing in the conference room of the lodge at 2:00 p.m. studying a stack of computer printouts when Marshall walked in. “What the hell’s all that?”
“DEC accident reports going back two years.”
“What do you expect to find there?”
“To see if you’re the only outfitter he’s after.” Carlyle, known as a quant guy by his colleagues, had earned his reputation through a meticulous analysis of crime statistics.
“You going to keep me waiting for an answer?”
“So far, looks like you’re his only target.” Carlyle dropped the files into his briefcase and sat down at the head of the table. “By the way, what ever happened to Katz?”
Marshall sat to Carlyle’s left. “He had two operations on his leg, but the infection spread. They had to amputate just below his knee.”
The door opened and Nash, Hernandez, and Betts came in, followed by Bognor and Pierce.
Carlyle looked across the table. “Ryan, you said something else happened last fall.”
“I never said it was connected to Sanders and Blake.”
“Why don’t you let us decide that?” Bognor said. The sheriff still had a black mourning band wrapped around the left arm of his uniform.
Marshall pushed his chair back. “It was the third week in September. Betts called me on Saturday at dawn to say the Hudson had erupted overnight. It was up to 8.5 and he wanted to know if I was going to cancel the trip.”
“And?”
“I told him to mind his own business. He knows I don’t cancel trips.”
“Why didn’t you change your plans once you heard that the Hudson was busting loose?” Carlyle said.
“We’d filled eight boats. I can’t afford to turn people away in my busy season. I told Betts that if he was afraid to do his job, Nash could run sweep.”
Bognor made several entries in a small spiral notebook. “Anything else you remember about that morning?” Carlyle said.
“Blake had just begun his second year with us. He said he wasn’t sure he could get a boat through Mile-Long when the river was near flood stage.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said this business is about guts, not brains.”
“You really let inexperienced people go out there like that?”
“That’s how we train rookies. They either survive or they look someplace else for excitement.”
Carlyle knew that Marshall, not understanding that his comments would get him in trouble later, was showing off in front of Bognor. “Anybody in particular give you problems that day?”
“There were six people I was keeping my eye on,” Marshall said. “They were butting helmets and pounding their paddles into the ground like year-old bulls. The usual macho shit, but there was something about them that I didn’t like.”
“Was that the end of their shenanigans?”
“I wish. One of them, a dude wearing a tricked-out new wetsuit, asked me what to do if he had to take a leak when he was out on the river.”
“And you told him the usual?”
“Right. I said we get two kinds of people here. Those who piss in their wetsuits and those who lie about it.”
Bognor said, “Since you thought that they might make trouble, what did you do?”
“I put them in Hernandez’s boat. He would never take any shit from people like that.”
“You regularly let troublemakers like that on the river?”
“If we turned away every asshole who showed up, we’d have no clients.”
“Anyone else in that bunch give you problems?” Carlyle asked.
“A tall dude,” Marshall said, “maybe six-two, six-three, dressed like the Terminator. Expensive wraparound sunglasses, new wetsuit, black diver’s watch, and a knife fixed to his life vest. You don’t see that often.”
“How do you remember all this?”
“If you hold on a minute, I’ll tell you. As we walked toward our bus, I said I didn’t think he’d need that knife today. He says, ‘I needed it on the Rogue. You can never tell when you’re going to get into trouble.’”
“That’s it? Just a guy with a big mouth?”
Marshall shook his head. “He had another knife strapped to his leg. Bigger than the first one.”
When Carlyle had worked here, he’d carried a small, black, saw-toothed Spyderco on his life vest, but he’d never seen a client wear a knife. “You remember the guy’s name?”
“I knew you’d ask, so I looked it up. Morgan Price. A Wall Street big shot with an attitude--paid cash for his entire posse. He started mouthing off again when our bus broke down on the way to Indian Lake.”
“You remember your driver that day?”
“Ben Albert, a cook with the school district. Been with me for a decade. Nothing wrong there except he smokes and is seriously overweight. His wife died of emphysema recently. Lives on a half-acre just outside of town.”
“You get along with him?”
“He drives just fine. But last December, he asked for two hundred and fifty bucks because he was short on rent money. I turned him down.”
“You think he might hold that against you?”
“What if he did? He couldn’t be involved in all this.”
“Why’s that?” Carlyle said.
“Ben Albert can hardly walk a hundred feet.”
“So what happened when the bus finally got going again that morning?”
“Price interrupted my safety talk. I’d just warned everyone that if they fell out, they should assume the safe swimmer position—on their backs and feet together. He shouted, ‘Come on, skip the pussy stuff.’”
“And you told him what?”
“I walked back to where he was sitting and told him this talk was for his own good. He said, ‘I’m not looking for someone to hold my hand.’ After his buddies stopped laughing, I gave them the never-stand-up-in-moving-water lecture and said their guide would give them specific instructions when they got to the Indian. And I made the usual joke about my spiel being part of our parole agreement with New York State.”
“Price continued to give you trouble?” Bognor said.
“Ryan put that bunch in my boat,” Hernandez said. “I had trouble with
