Free Erasing Memory by Scott Thornley Page B

Aidan wondering what the fuck!
    “Ah, Tim, don’t be messing with me now. I’ve got Walter here and I don’t want any guff—or foul language—from you. Over.”
    “No guff, for chrissakes, Kath! Walter, get a unit out here—just off the leeside near the end of Billings Island. Look down, twenty feet. There’s a guy in a fuckin’ boat! Over.” Looking over to his son he mouthed another apology for the swearing. The boy had never heard these words before, so the apology was somewhat lost on him.
    “You mean on the bottom? Over.”
    “I mean he’s lying in a cedar-strip, one of Gibbs’s, I think. It’s got a tank, a freakin’ motor—and this guy. He’s waving his right arm, waving! Over.” Tim slowed to six knots.
    “Walter here. I’ve radioed the marine unit, but you’d better not be messing around, Tim. This is some serious shit. They’ll charge you and me with mischief and I could lose my licence. Over.”
    “Do me a favour, Walt. Call my wife, tell her we’re coming in. Ask her if her mother could come over this afternoon and take Aidan to the movies. Over.”
    Hearing this confirmed it—Aidan
was
having the best day of his life. He began his happy chant: “Oh yay, oh yay, oh yay.”
    —
    “H ANGDOG TO
Book’s Boat
. Over.” It was Walter again, sounding more sober than Tim had ever heard him.
    “It’s me, Walter. Over.”
    “Well, there’ll be a uniform waiting for you when you dock. I let your wife know. She wanted to know what was wrong. I didn’t say. She’s on her way over too. Over.”
    “I’m fine with that, Walter. See you soon. Ask Kath to grab an Eskimo Pie out of the freezer for Aidan. Actually, I’ll take one too. Oh, and last thing, maybe call Old Man Gibbs and ask him if he’s missing a runabout. Over.”
    “Roger that, Book. Over and out.”
    The marina’s slips were coming into view on the port side. Tim looked back but could no longer see the island, and he began to breathe easier. He reached over and tousled his son’s hair just to hear the practised big-boy response, “Dad … stop!”
    Aidan couldn’t believe his luck. Usually he had to beg for an Eskimo Pie. “Did you ask Mr. Doolittle for Eskimo Pies?”
    “Yep. After all, we’ve run out of animal crackers.” As Tim reduced his speed for the no-wake zone, they both focused on the marina directly ahead, for different reasons.
    “U SUALLY WITH A FLOATER , they float.” His thermal diving suit rolled down to the waist, the burly young firefighter from the marine unit showed no sign of being impressed, either by the orange body bag being lifted out of the large idling aluminum-hulled cruiser or by the cedar-strip runabout that swung gently from the cantilevered arm above the stern deck.
    “This guy was tethered, and not just by the neck to the motor lock. His feet were tied to the oarlocks. I can’t tell you whether he drowned or was strangled, but when that ten-inchhole got punched in the bottom, that boat just floated down with him in it. As for the waving that freaked out the dad, that was caused by the current coming around the island. His other arm was pinned behind him by the gas hose, or it would have been waving too.” He made a crazy stop-the-train, two-arm wave to mimic what Tim and Aidan Bookner might have seen had both arms been free.
    “It pretty much did the same for the diver who went down first. He’s in the cabin forward, sucking up ginger ale and trying not to puke.” He motioned with his head to the bag being laid on a rolling stretcher by the paramedics. “That guy had his eyes open, looking up and waving.”
    Vertesi closed his notebook and climbed onboard, steadied by the firefighter’s grip on his arm. He walked aft and stood directly under the cedar hull. Just off the left side of the beam in the centre of the boat was a neat hole with blue sky showing through. It wasn’t a bashed-out “oh shit, we hit a rock” hole but looked as if it had been cut by a very large