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Authors: Keith McCafferty
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upriver from one of their guide boats while the guide was preparing a bankside lunch, and had caught one trout after another swinging a marabou streamer, much to the consternation of the guide’s clients.
“And then,” she was saying, “when I found your studio and saw that you were a private detective, that settled it for me.”
Stranahan had let that pass and got down to business. What car did her brother drive? A small sedan, if it was the same car he drove back in Mississippi. Blue, or maybe dark green. It had an Ole Miss bumper sticker. What did her brother look like? Auburn hair, like hers. He’d told her he was growing a beard. What did she really want: for him to fish or just have a look around? Both, she insisted.
“Okay, then,” he said.
She stood up.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
She looked at him with a cool expression.
“Your brother. He has a name, I assume.”
“Of course he has a name. He’s Jeffrey Beaudreux.” She spelled it for him. “Jeffrey Jeremiah. We call him Jerry. J.J., sometimes.”
“Thank you. Is that also your name, Beaudreux?”
“It was. A long time ago. Now, is that all?”
Stranahan hesitated only a moment, dreading that he might be the bearer of bad news.
“Miss Lafayette, have you seen today’s newspaper?” he asked. “Or yesterday’s?”
Again, the level gaze.
“Because a body was found in the river the night before last. You say that your brother could be fishing on the Madison. I’m not implying a connection, but it would be derelict of me not to mention it to you.”
“Yes, I heard,” she said, biting off the words. “But that poor man wasn’t my brother, if that’s what you’re asking. That man had blond hair. Long blond hair. And he didn’t have a beard. The paper said so.”
“I’m relieved to hear that,” Stranahan said. But he was looking at her back and she let herself out without turning around.
S tranahan had played the conversation over in his mind when he had driven up the Madison Valley the afternoon before. A part of him had suspected all along that the story about the trout was bullshit, or at least was parenthetical to the real reason she’d knocked on his door. Dutifully looking for a car with Mississippi plates, he’d checked every river access from Valley Garden to the West Fork Campground, where he’d thrown up his tent to spend the night. This morning, he had worked from the West Fork to the Route 87 bridge, which crossed the Madison three miles below the Quake Lake outflow. He had hiked the bank all the way to the lake outlet before starting to fish, to fulfill the second part of his verbal contract with Velvet Lafayette, or Vareda Beaudreux, or whoever she was.
So far, he had failed miserably. He’d caught only two small trout before being interrupted by the sheriff, and another two, slightly better fish, in the next hour. Each he’d brought quickly to hand, examined its fins for scarring, and released. He’d seen nothing unusual and hadn’t expected to. Before the onset of whirling disease, a parasitic infection that had decimated the population of rainbow trout fifteen years earlier, the upper Madison had been home to more than three thousand trout per mile. It still nourished a little more than half that number. The chances of catching fish that anotherangler had caught and marked a year previously seemed ridiculously remote.
L ike any good artist, Stranahan was a sensualist. For two summers during his college years, he had worked as a driller’s helper, taking core samples from sites where the Massachusetts Highways Department sought to build bridges. J.D. Harris, his boss, was a rough, exuberant man who had hands like hams from wielding drill casings all day long, but he could lay two fingers against a rotating drill rod and tell you exactly what the bit was coming up against two hundred feet down.
Something like this sense of touch Stranahan carried to the river. It was a subtle form of
“And then,” she was saying, “when I found your studio and saw that you were a private detective, that settled it for me.”
Stranahan had let that pass and got down to business. What car did her brother drive? A small sedan, if it was the same car he drove back in Mississippi. Blue, or maybe dark green. It had an Ole Miss bumper sticker. What did her brother look like? Auburn hair, like hers. He’d told her he was growing a beard. What did she really want: for him to fish or just have a look around? Both, she insisted.
“Okay, then,” he said.
She stood up.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
She looked at him with a cool expression.
“Your brother. He has a name, I assume.”
“Of course he has a name. He’s Jeffrey Beaudreux.” She spelled it for him. “Jeffrey Jeremiah. We call him Jerry. J.J., sometimes.”
“Thank you. Is that also your name, Beaudreux?”
“It was. A long time ago. Now, is that all?”
Stranahan hesitated only a moment, dreading that he might be the bearer of bad news.
“Miss Lafayette, have you seen today’s newspaper?” he asked. “Or yesterday’s?”
Again, the level gaze.
“Because a body was found in the river the night before last. You say that your brother could be fishing on the Madison. I’m not implying a connection, but it would be derelict of me not to mention it to you.”
“Yes, I heard,” she said, biting off the words. “But that poor man wasn’t my brother, if that’s what you’re asking. That man had blond hair. Long blond hair. And he didn’t have a beard. The paper said so.”
“I’m relieved to hear that,” Stranahan said. But he was looking at her back and she let herself out without turning around.
S tranahan had played the conversation over in his mind when he had driven up the Madison Valley the afternoon before. A part of him had suspected all along that the story about the trout was bullshit, or at least was parenthetical to the real reason she’d knocked on his door. Dutifully looking for a car with Mississippi plates, he’d checked every river access from Valley Garden to the West Fork Campground, where he’d thrown up his tent to spend the night. This morning, he had worked from the West Fork to the Route 87 bridge, which crossed the Madison three miles below the Quake Lake outflow. He had hiked the bank all the way to the lake outlet before starting to fish, to fulfill the second part of his verbal contract with Velvet Lafayette, or Vareda Beaudreux, or whoever she was.
So far, he had failed miserably. He’d caught only two small trout before being interrupted by the sheriff, and another two, slightly better fish, in the next hour. Each he’d brought quickly to hand, examined its fins for scarring, and released. He’d seen nothing unusual and hadn’t expected to. Before the onset of whirling disease, a parasitic infection that had decimated the population of rainbow trout fifteen years earlier, the upper Madison had been home to more than three thousand trout per mile. It still nourished a little more than half that number. The chances of catching fish that anotherangler had caught and marked a year previously seemed ridiculously remote.
L ike any good artist, Stranahan was a sensualist. For two summers during his college years, he had worked as a driller’s helper, taking core samples from sites where the Massachusetts Highways Department sought to build bridges. J.D. Harris, his boss, was a rough, exuberant man who had hands like hams from wielding drill casings all day long, but he could lay two fingers against a rotating drill rod and tell you exactly what the bit was coming up against two hundred feet down.
Something like this sense of touch Stranahan carried to the river. It was a subtle form of
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