Big Dave might have considered the case closed but it hadn’t even been officially opened yet. At Pembroke we heard all about it Monday. Although I was able to serve the two subpoenas in Tranquility and San Joaquin Saturday morning, I never was able to find anybody in Cantua Creek. I told Maria the damn place looked like nobody had lived there for months so she called Tolbert & Renfroe to find out how Varoosh wanted us to proceed and found out he’d never made it into the office. By Friday it was on the front page of the The Bee and all the local TV news.
The next week Jack Pembroke called me into his office and introduced me to Detective Shinaver of the Fresno City P.D. He was here concerning the Donabedian investigation, Jack said. He’d just leave us alone and to take all the time I needed.
First we talked about Friday, July 26. I told him everything except the part where I shot those two guys in the shack and dumped them and their car in the aqueduct. I just said nobody was home.
“Why didn’t you finish the rest of your work while you were out there?”
“Well I knew I’d just have to drive back out to Cantua Creek the next day anyway…it was getting late so I figured I’d have a better chance the next morning.”
“So you drove straight back and got home around…?”
“No, I stopped at the Red Robin and grabbed a bite to eat and a drink. Then I went straight home. It was around 12:00. Letterman was on.”
Next he wanted to hear about my relationship with Donabedian. I told him about our first meeting at the Country Club. I detailed him hitting on my wife and our little altercation. I also told him that we’d all met again several months afterwards and patched things up.
“When was the last time you saw Mr. Donabedian?”
“Oh man, probably two – three months ago at a CARMA conference.”
“KARMA?”
“California – Adjusters and – Risk – Managers – Association.”
“Oh CARMA…so you’d describe your relationship with Mr. Donabedian as strictly professional then.”
“As long as he keeps his hands off my wife, yes.”
Shinaver loved that part. His voice became even more official and he leaned forward in his seat. “Mr. Winslow you realize these questions are part of a missing persons, possibly a murder investigation?”
“So you guys really think he’s like gone? Dead?”
“What do you think?”
” I think he’s in Vegas, knee deep in hookers. Or shacked up on a sailboat in Catalina. I really don’t know. I just figure he’s a rich, horny lawyer, he could be having all kinds of fun and not want to come home.”
“Did you know he was seeing your wife?”
“What?”
“Did you have any idea that Varoosh Donabedian was with your wife that Friday night?”
I thought back to that night sitting in my truck when I realized that Jen was with Donabedian at the Landmark. First cold then numb then suicidal. I let my shoulders sag and just stayed quiet. I didn’t want to overdo it.
“Look Mr. Winslow, we know that she was one of the last people to see him. We also know Donabedian had called her cell phone several times that week prior to meeting her at The Landmark Friday night.”
“She said she was with Denise…”
“I’m sorry to be the one to break all this to you. Now you understand why I’m here talking to you?”
“Yes. Yes I do. Maybe I should talk to a lawyer.”
“I don’t think we’re at that point yet, but you certainly have that right”
“Is all this going to be in the news too?”
“I can’t promise you anything there.”
“OK, well I don’t want to be disrespectful or anything but I think I will talk to an attorney just to get some advice here.”
After Shinaver left Jack took me back into his office. ”How are you doing Luke?”
“I’ve seen better days Jack. I guess you know what’s going on here”
“There’s not much that goes on in this town that I don’t know a little bit about. I’d heard Donabedian was at the Landmark drinking and dancing with Jennifer before he disappeared. I also heard she sent him packing when he tried to get…fresh. I’ll bet detective Shinaver failed to mention that part.”
“He didn’t say anything about that.”
“It’s in the best interests of his investigation to have you and Jennifer at odds with each other. I think you should take the rest of the day off and go home and talk to Jennifer I’m sure the police have. She’s probably pretty upset.”
“I’m sorry the company has been dragged into…”
Jack held up his hand “No I’m sorry you two got tangled up with this Donabedian guy. I want you to call Jim Stevenson, he’s a friend of mine and he wants to talk to both of you, you listen to him and do exactly what he says.”
Jim Stevenson was the best (and most expensive) criminal attorney in the valley.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Well then don’t say a damn thing. And don’t worry so much, You need to realize a lot of people all over California would be pleased as punch if Varoosh never turns up. The police have a long list of suspects to work through. You go home and talk with Jennifer and then call Jim.”
So that’s what I did and we never heard back from detective Shinaver. The TV still talked about Donabedian now and then. Turns out the guy had some ties to the Armenian mob down in Glendale. Jim Stevenson told the police if anything about Jennifer and Donobedian showed up on the news, we’d sue the city to kingdom come and our names never came up in any of the media.
Jennifer tried to explain about meeting Varoosh and the phone calls but I told her not to ever mention it again, it was all water under the bridge. Of course that really made her feel guilty just like I hoped it would. I didn’t want her to suffer or anything, but I was tired of taking shit from her about Claudia. Maybe she’d give it a rest now that the shoe was kind of on the other foot.
By September I was feeling pretty good about things. Donobedian was old and dead news. Jennifer and I were getting along great and Michelle was starting Jr. High. Jack Pembroke decided I needed to be inside more and started to show me how computers were changing the investigations industry I even got a raise.
I picked up Big Dave and his son little Dave on the opening day of dove season. It was Little Dave’s first hunt and we had permission to hunt on some private property out around Kerman. Dave told me to bring my catfish pole too because he knew a surefire spot.
I don’t like dove hunting. I can’t shoot a shotgun worth beans and doves are known to drive even good wingshots nuts. I always go though, because opening day is an annual ritual that signals the beginning of hunting season in general. It’s where you renew old friendships and meet new people and dogs.
At age twelve, Little Dave was shaping up to be a fine predator just like his dad. I’d burned through a box of shells before 9:00 in the morning and only had three doves to show for it. Little Dave was just two shy of his limit and had plenty of shells left. ”Dad! Can I give uncle Luke some shells? He’s all out.”
Shit! He’ll be telling that story at my funeral.
“Oh give him some shells son and if you’re lucky maybe he’ll show you how to shoot a pistol one of these days.”
The kid looked at me then gave me a handfull of 12 gauge shells. “Is that enough uncle Luke?”
“I doubt it.”
“Can you really shoot a pistol?”
“I used to be pretty good. I was the San Diego Sector Champion three times in five years.”
He looked at me again. “What happened?”
The birds quit flying by noon, so we decided to try our luck over at Dave’s honey hole. We drove a little further out to the Mendota Wildlife Refuge, way around back and parked by an old bridge. There was a sandy beach on the west side of the bridge and soon we had our ice chest and chairs all set up. I began to rig up with my regular catfish setup but Dave said it was best to use a slip boober rig because of all the snags. He had all the floats and hooks to go along with his secret catfish dip that had been fermenting in his backyard since July.
West of the bridge was a flooded gravel pit. Dave said it was at least 80 feet deep with lots of rip rap over by the bridge. The small jagged rocks held a lot of bait and fish but were hell on tackle, hence the slip bobbers. Dave opened up a one gallon plastic tub of his secret dip and we all threaded the gooey mess onto our hooks and cast out by the bridge. Within the first 15 minutes we’d caught three nice channel cats.
“Damn Dave what do you put in this dip?”
“It’s a family secret. After I’m gone, if you’re still around you can get some from Little Dave.”
Big Dave said it wasn’t so much the bait as it was the spot. The fish would wait downstream in the calmer, deep water as the river brought their food to them.
We caught so many 15-20″ channel cats we decided to bait up for bigger fish. Dave had another tub with some cut up pig chunks, kidneys, liver and heart and god knows what else all marinating in a thinner, blood based recipe. We tied on bigger, 2/0 hooks, impaled the bloody entrails on them and flung the whole mess out into the pit. Then we waited…and waited some more.
Occasionally we’d get a little twitch on the rod tips, small fish trying to eat the huge chunks. Little Dave would get up and set the hook with a big strong upward sweep of the rod on nothing but water. ”Been watching too much Roland Martin there Little Dave”
He was a good kid, it was getting kind of boring and damn hot but he just sat there focused on those three rods, while Dave and I told stories he’d heard many times before.
“Dad! We’re getting a good one!”
Dave and I looked over at the rods. Nothing…then the middle rod slowly dipped. Out in the pit we could only see two bobbers.
“Go on and get him David!”
Little Dave set the hook hard just like before, but this time the rod didn’t come up near as far. Big Dave and I each grabbed a rod and reeled in so Little Dave’s fish wouldn’t get tangled. Dave was big for a twelve year old, but he was having a hard time getting the fish in. “Just keep your rod up son, hang on and let the rod tire him out.”
Little Dave did just that and after ten minutes or so he had the fish swirling near the beach. We hadn’t brought a net and this fish was huge, at least 25 pounds. Finally Little Dave reeled up almost all the line and dragged the great flopping beast up on the sand.
“Now what do we do dad?”
That was a good question, it certainly wouldn’t fit in our icebox. Little Dave was afraid to go anywhere near the thing. I couldn’t blame him, but we couldn’t just leave it there gasping for air much longer.
“Why don’t we let it go?”
Both Daves in unison, “What?”
“Let’s just turn it loose it’s too big to eat, what are you going to do with it?”
“But no one will believe I caught it.”
“We’ll believe you Dave and you’ll know for yourself. You’ll know he’s still swimming around out here. Maybe you’ll catch him again one day and he’ll be even bigger.”
Little Dave thought that sounded good so I put a knee on the fish’s back and pulled the hook out of his upper jaw with my pliers. I grabbed the fish by the gills and carried it back into the water but it just rolled over on it’s back. Now Little Dave was very concerned. “Is he dying?”
“No he’s just tired. He needs some air.”
I waded in deeper and began to move the fish through the water to force some water through it’s gills so it could breathe. Eventually the fish rolled over and began to respond. I held it now with just one hand down by his tail and ran my other hand gently along it’s sides to get all the sand off. It was a beautiful animal with a grayish black body with white tips on translucent fins. I was in up to my waist gliding the fish back and forth at my side when I felt a surge of energy pulse as the fish shot out of my grasp down into the dark green water.
What do you do after that? It was hot and we’d all been up since 4:00 AM. We decided to call it a day. On the way home we stopped at Bill’s Bait and Beer on Whitesbridge for sodas. Bill the owner was in and he wanted to get a picture of Little Dave and our stringer of fish. “The Bee just loves pictures of kids and fish”, he said.
There were two old guys in the store, a black guy and a white guy. They made a big fuss over Little Dave, asked if they could buy the great fisherman an RC cola. Big Dave was very proud and was telling them what a great dove hunter the kid was too. I walked over to the gun cases. Bill’s was a great place to find a good deal on a used handgun. “See anything you like?” Bill asked.
“That Model 13 looks nice except for those plastic pearl grips.”
Bill looked around and then whispered “I put em on a lot of the guns, the Mexicans love em. I keep the originals though and sell them to collectors for 40-50 bucks.”
Dave had come over to the gun counter, “That’s a fine pistola there.”
“Not many people appreciate these old six shooters nowadays” Bill said “but they point so well and if you know what you’re doing there’s nothing faster.”
Bill knew his shit when it came to guns. He was the only guy I knew personally that had shot more people than I had. But that’s another story. I made a deal to buy the .357 if Bill would throw in the original walnut grips. Bill and I got to working on the paper work, Dave found some old crawdad traps. Little Dave was on his second RC, telling the old guys about his big fish.
Man what a day! The best I’d had in a long time. I don’t know, maybe some things do work out in the end. I know happy endings aren’t very fashionable these days, but seeing those two old guys back at Bill’s made me think of a time when you could almost always count on one.
I thought of a creed I had known once.
Hoppy’s Creed For American Boys and Girls
* The highest badge of honor a person can wear is honesty. Be truthful at all times.
* Your parents are the best friends you have. Listen to them and obey their instructions.
* If you want to be respected, you must respect others. Show good manners in every way.
* Only through hard work and study can you succeed. Don’t be lazy.
* Your good deeds always come to light. So don’t boast or be a show-off.
* If you waste time or money today, you will regret it tomorrow. Practice thrift in all ways.
* Many animals are good and loyal companions. Be friendly and kind to them.
* A strong, healthy body is a precious gift. Be neat and clean.
* Our country’s laws are made for your protection. Observe them carefully.
* Children in many foreign lands are less fortunate than you. Be glad and proud you are an American.
The End
