Blodgett lit a cigarette, blew the smoke into Jim’s face. “I make an albacore run on my night off, and you follow me. I’m starting not to like you very much, Weir.”
“Funny albacore run, Blodgett. Can’t catch much in forty minutes with no rods, no tackle, no bait. The pole racks on Duty Free were empty. You didn’t catch any fish. You weren’t even trying to. What was under the tarp? Official police secret?”
Blodgett smiled, a wholly vicious exercise. He clasped Jim’s shoulder with a heavy, powerful hand.
“Step outside Weir?”
“Love to. And take that thing off my shoulder.”
They stood on the sidewalk outside the big house, up next to the seawall, staring out at the dead fish bobbing on the shoreline. The bodies stretched up the bay as far as he could see. The smell had risen in pitch.
Blodgett drew on his cigarette. “You ask too many questions that aren’t your business. You insult me. But I’ll tell you what we were doing, because you’re Virginia’s son, and because you’re the kind of guy who needs things spelled out real clear. That’s okay — your mother’s the same way. Weir, trichloroethane isn’t new here. The levels have been rising since last spring, when Fish and Game came out to test salinity and find out why the fish were croaking off. Not enough for anyone to notice — strictly trace. Virginia got the EPA on it, and they came back out every two weeks, figured the dumps were being made once a month or so. City council got the news in session; they budgeted Dennison an extra five hundred a month out of the general fund to have someone out there once in a while. That five hundred barely covers the gas for my boat, not to mention the wear and tear, or the head gasket I blew that night, or my precious goddamned time. I do it because it needs being done. I’m the entire goddamned Toxic Waste patrol, Weir — me and whoever I can get to lend a hand. We were on the bay, watching for whoever dumps that shit in my backyard. We missed them. One boat isn’t enough. Dennison can’t get any more money from the city, and he won’t budget us for another boat because a few dead fish don’t mean squat to him when he can get a new chopper or a few new uniforms on the street. That’s one of the reasons Becky Flynn should be the mayor of this town. And that’s the whole reason I took off fishing that night with no gear. My gear’s at home. When I fish, I fish, man, I go for days — down to Mexico. I wouldn’t eat anything out of the local ocean if you paid me, anyway. Nobody’s going to for a long time, now.”
“What was under the tarps?”
“Oh, for chrissakes, Weir — my fighting chairs. What else do you find on the stern deck of a fishing boat?”
“Who’s your buddy from Cheverton Sewer?”
Blodgett jammed his finger into Weir’s chest. Jim leaned a little into it, gave no ground. “None of your business. It varies, though. Some nights, my buddy is Virginia Weir.”
Jim said nothing. He’s been expecting this. What he really wondered about was something else. “And some nights, it was Ann.”
Blodgett showed his equine teeth again. “Some nights, it was Ann and Virginia. Never Ann alone. Not once.”
“Was she with you when Virginia took the samples?”
“That’s part of what we do, and we do it every week. Annie was there for that a couple of times.”
“So Annie knew there were trace levels, someone dumping — out in the open ocean probably?”
“Ann knew that.”
Weir tried to figure Ann’s place in all of this. Had she found something more than what Blodgett and Virginia were looking for? “What else did she know? Why hide the tubes in her refrigerator?”
“She hid the tubes because Virginia told her to. What else did she know? I’ve got no idea.”
“When was the last time Ann went out with you?”
“Month ago or so.”
“Was it the night you took the samples?”
Blodgett looked hard at Jim. A tight smile came and went. “No. We got distracted. We saw the boat.”
“The dumpers?”
Blodgett nodded.
“What did it look like?”
“Not much in the fog. We couldn’t catch it.”
“Where?”
“Two miles straight west of the harbor mouth.”
Jim watched a halibut, eyes paired by eons of evolution, flipping disconsolately on the sand. “Did Ann see it, too?”
“We all did. Ann, Virginia, and me.”
It suddenly made sense, why Virginia hadn’t been forthcoming with what she’d seen. “You reported it all to Brian, but he wouldn’t go public with it because it makes him look asleep on watch.”
Blodgett nodded and grunted. “My watch, too, Weir.”
“He was hoping the problem would go away. Virginia was hoping it would get worse. Trace levels in the bay don’t get headlines. This does.”
Blodgett pointed his cigarette out to the dying harbor. “Now it’s a matter of who plays it best. My money is on Becky.” Blodgett eyed him silently for a long moment. “You’ve got an untrusting mind. I like that. But it’s not focused. You should get clear on some things.”
“Like what?”
“Like who your friends are, for one.”
“That’s supposed to make you a buddy of mine?”
“It’s supposed to let you back off and get to the heart of the matter.”
“Which is what?”
“Your sister was cheating on Ray. That’s where she was the night she got cooled. Find him, you find the perp. It doesn’t have anything to do with this ocean here.”
“How do you know she was cheating?” Jim said it and listened for the how.
“How much evidence do you need? Dressed up like that, driving around late at night? Some guy with flowers and a diamond fucking tie tack? No struggle getting her down there. No struggle later. Come on, Ann didn’t go down there with some freak like Horton Goins. She didn’t go down there with some cop working with Raymond, I don’t care what Mackie Ruff thinks he saw. Don’t you know your sister any better than that? I barely knew her but I could tell she was decent enough. Ann had a foot in another world. That’s the world that got her dead. It doesn’t have a thing to do with that Goins kid. The DA’s along for the ride with Dennison, for now, but things will look different after June fifth. Don’t forget, Frank D’Alba’s been district attorney here for eight years, and he’s up for reelection, too. It’s all just a fuckin’ headline grab for him and Dennison. They’re all after a piece of your sister.”
“What about the pictures Goins took? What about the girl in Ohio?”
Blodgett sighed and looked out across the dying bay. “I’m just saying what I think is right. I don’t think it was Goins.”
“I don’t, either, but he was following her. That’s more than just a coincidence.”
“Maybe you’re not as dumb as I thought.”
Blodgett leaned forward on the seawall, still looking across to the mainland. “What a fucking shame,” he said. Then he turned to Weir. “Jim, if I catch you doggin’ me, hanging around, I’ll bust you up real good. I don’t care who’s kid you are. Nobody follows Dale Blodgett, nobody sneaks around, nobody calls what I do into question. I got a sense of right and wrong that does all that for you. Back off and stay off. Other than that, I’ll help you with Ann, all I can. She seemed like a real good woman. It’s a goddamned shame — all of it. Everything.”
They looked for a moment out to the bay. Blodgett popped his cigarette into the water. For a moment, Weir was aware of the man studying him. Finally, Blodgett spoke. “That boat I saw? The dumpers? I haven’t told anyone this, because I figure I’m wrong. I want to be wrong. I figure it’s a coincidence, you know — lots of boats in Newport Harbor.”
Jim waited.
“It was a thirty-foot Bayliner, set up just like that one.”