The Hauntings of Hood Canal

The Murder

Not all fishermen are thoughtful, or at least not around here, but the one thoughtful fisherman we do have would put it this way: “If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one around to hear, there may not be any sound. It follows then, if a corpse gets pitched into the Canal when there are no witnesses, maybe there has been no murder.” This particular fisherman says stuff like this all the time, because, while he is thoughtful, most folks claim he isn’t very bright.

And then, there is Sugar Bear. Not all blacksmiths are dear men, but Sugar Bear is; a man who lives in a fairy tale or a poem. His blacksmith shop and tool repair sit in a mossy glade. If his small house sported a little gingerbread it would fit nicely in a children’s book. Or, if in a poem, Sugar Bear would fit with Longfellow’s, “Under a spreading chestnut tree / The village smithy stands; / The smith, a mighty man is he, / With large and sinewy hands…”

Of Sugar Bear’s transgression, if it was a transgression, a few things need saying. There were no witnesses to the dumping of the body but there were three witnesses to the transgression: Chantrell George, Greek Annie, and Jubal Jim, a combination that would make any defense lawyer believe in providence.

One other piece of business needs saying: this road, these trees, these mountains, and the Canal form a setting for people who forgive most mistakes, cut slack for others’ dumb opinions, but who will not budge the thickness of a sheet of paper when it comes to essentials. Some things here are not done, or if they are, the doer had best run to the nearest cop.

When it developed that a man who messed with children started hanging around the school, and when one kid came home crying, no one said a word to Sugar Bear because that’s the kind of thing Sugar Bear can’t stand. No one said anything to Bertha because everyone is fond of her. Besides, if she went to jail who would tend to Beer and Bait?

Talk happened among the men. The kid’s father was told to stay away and establish an alibi. The mother was told to say nothing. A couple of loggers cornered the guy in the woods behind the school. They managed to keep most of the bruises from showing. The loggers told the guy to get out of town or they’d set his pant cuffs on fire and watch the sparks rise upward. That should have done it. End of story. But, the man didn’t have a dab of sense. He enjoyed the attention, and kept hanging around the school.

This sort of thing had not happened here since days when the state was still a territory. Always before, bad men took the hint. This bad guy couldn’t get it through his head that boats leave these parts for open ocean every day, and he had a one-way ticket to the waters off Cape Flattery.

He lived in a never-never land more goofy than Chantrell’s visions. The guy was chubby of face, red of permed hair, skinny of frame, and survived by running his mouth. No vacuum cleaner salesman ever born had such confidence in a talent for weaving in and out of tight places. This guy’s mouth motored about a thousand miles an hour.

On the fatal day, and two days before his scheduled cruise, the guy sat in Beer and Bait complaining about loggers. Petey and a fisherman shot pool, and Sugar Bear sat drinking a bottle of pop while waiting for the next pool game. Light music played from a radio. Beyond the windows rain patted on the Canal which lay black as macadam. Trees seem darker on such days, conifers nearly ebony, and alders brushed with streaks of darkest gray. The guy nursed a beer, heckled the pool game, and spun fantastic scenes. His puffy face swelled and his mouth looked pouty. His imagination included complaints for assault, loggers busted, entire logging operations shut down, media attention, police photographs in evidence of scrapes and bruises, lawsuits; he was having a dandy time. He acted like an exhibitionist dropping his drawers in front of a Sunday school class.

Bertha stood confused as Bertha ever gets. This customer talked about something she knew she should have heard about, but hadn’t. Bertha knows guys do not get roughed up around here for things like bank robbery, so it had to be something serious. She turned on more lights against grayness of the day. She turned volume on the radio to a murmur.

The guy sparked and fizzed. He threw up roman candles of speech and skyrockets of self pity. His chubby face reddened with indignation. He spoke of how wronged he felt, and all because… at which point Petey stepped in with a busted pool cue and suggested the guy take a walk. The guy took one look at Petey’s face, and skedaddled.

“You just run off a customer,” Bertha said to Petey. “I expect you had a reason.” Her voice carried a hint of indignation. Bertha is not used to being kept in the dark about important stuff. She leaned on the bar, elbows firmly planted, and ready for a scrap. “Tell me.”

It turned into a great moment for both of them. It was, at least, Petey’s second-to-greatest moment in his whole life, probably. Bertha and Petey had danced around each other so long they had settled into a warm groove of friendship. Both had about given up hope of ever becoming lovers.

“We need you here,” Petey said, and his voice carried warmth that surprised Bertha, and Sugar Bear, and the fisherman; and it especially surprised Petey. “This is a tough one. This ain’t jail stuff, this is prison stuff. It’s not too tough for you. I don’t mean that, but it’s already handled.” The warm tone, the truly loving tone, sounded in his own ears and the magic stopped as his blush started; but, had Bertha been asked, she’d have said the blush was what she’d expected. “…tell you when it’s over,” Petey said, and, by heaven, there were still remnants of warmth in his voice. It seemed like he couldn’t shake ’em.

“I wanta talk to you,” Sugar Bear said to Petey.

“You don’t,” Petey told him. “Go home and bend some rebar, or weld something, or build a windmill…”

“Outside,” Sugar Bear said. “I wanta talk to you now.”

“C’mon,” Petey said to the fisherman. “Maybe the two of us can handle him.”

Bertha, who by rights should have insisted on coming along, just stood behind the bar and glowed. Tough as she is, Bertha still has warm feelings, and Petey had just brought hope back into her world. If matters with Sugar Bear had not been so serious, Bertha and Petey might have gotten together, right then. It would have saved a world of trouble. As it was, Bertha stood and glowed. For the moment she was a woman first, a bar owner second.

Gravel in the parking lot lay polished with rain and puddles collected in low spots. On the Canal a Navy minesweeper poked along, heading seaward. Drizzle glistened in Sugar Bear’s hair and beard because he never has enough sense to wear a sock hat. As the fisherman explained the situation, Sugar Bear started to heat up.

“Leave it be,” Petey said. “It’s dirty business. The fishermen can handle it.” Petey is a hustler, but this was a day when his hustle gave way to deeper feelings. “You got this bad temper,” he told Sugar Bear. “Save it for some time we’re gonna need it.” Sensible advice. Respectful, too.

“Go home and stay home,” the fisherman said. “If you need groceries or beer give me a call.” This was the fisherman who looks like a sea eagle, the thoughtful one. “And keep quiet as a dead mouse. The fewer who know, the better.”

“Because,” Petey said, “cops got no sense of humor.”

“If Bertha gets to asking,” Sugar Bear said, “we gotta think up something good to tell. Say the guy’s been robbing crab pots.” Then he stopped to think. “The guy ain’t the type. Tell her it’s not a mushroom kind of deal. Tell her he’s pushing bad stuff.”

“That’ll work,” the fisherman said. “Stay on ice. Do nothin’ indiscreet. Someday this will all be just a sea story.”

The fisherman would have been right except the victim interfered, which with him was a main talent. Either that, or he had an instinct for saving time. Instead of being seasick for a day and a night, and drowning after a cold, fifteen-minute swim, he walked right up to Sugar Bear like a bunny strolling in front of headlights.

During midafternoon on the day of transgression, the weather turned deep gray. Chantrell George showed up at Sugar Bear’s place to see if anything could be mooched. Sugar Bear sometimes comes up with completely worn out lawnmowers, or nicked up bars from chainsaws. He lays back a store of rusted and broken bolts, gears with stripped teeth, and odds and ends of the blacksmith business. Chantrell sells them for scrap, sometimes earning as much as six bits to a dollar.

And Greek Annie was there as well, accompanied by Jubal Jim who often tags along. Annie is more interesting than Sugar Bear’s transgression, because the transgression turned into one of those ragtime affairs that are over before everyone has taken seats.

Annie, whose rich parents live in the housing project, migrated to the Canal shortly after high school. She appears, and winsomely, at the blacksmith shop some days. Even witches need a social life beyond reptiles and spiders. A joke around here says that when Annie wants a date she kisses a frog, and that, in fact, Chantrell George is one of Annie’s frogs who never changed back.

Such jokes are cruel. As lonely men know, and especially if those men are also scared of Annie, there’s more to Annie than there is to most witches. Her black hair falls long and almost Indian as it covers thin but prettily rounded shoulders. Her form is slender, mildly athletic, and her face, when smiling, makes men think thoughts warm and sweet. When her face clouds, or is puzzled, men wish they could make things right for her, but she’s the one with special knowledge. If she can’t fix her confusion, others can’t.

For another thing, there are weeks and weeks, sometimes, when nothing weird happens in her presence. A tourist once asked if she was a white witch or a dark one, but no one, maybe even Annie, knows.

So Annie shows up at Sugar Bear’s place. She hangs out, bakes cookies, sweeps the floor, sits in the shop and weaves spells; but none of her spells work on Sugar Bear who can’t get motivated.

On the day when the bad man went west, a gentle scene progressed at Sugar Bear’s shop. Sugar Bear fiddled around changing a magneto. Outside, mist sailed in the trees and the temperature dropped, but inside, what with woodstove and forge, felt warm as mittens. Tools hung along the walls. Pots and pans hung from rafters. Sheets of boilerplate stood on edge like books between bookends. Annie sat on a bar stool salvaged from Beer and Bait back when Bertha remodeled, and Annie discussed world and local news with a spider. Chantrell George polished a busted piston from a rototiller on his sleeve. Jubal Jim snoozed beside the woodstove, but, asleep or awake, Jubal Jim has a hound’s nose and a hound’s sensitivity. He raised his head. Growled.

The guy came in without knocking. He looked around, concentrated on Annie, licked his lips. His hair glowed permed and red. His lips remained pouty as he checked the premises, pretended to hide a sneer, then stopped dead as Jubal Jim growled and Chantrell began trembling. Chantrell fought for control. He rubbed the piston against his cheek and whispered something untranslatable.

“Get out,” Sugar Bear said, and he spoke soft as a man can when he’s trying to stay in control.

“Or what?” The guy spoke halfway between a sneer and a giggle. He looked at Annie. “You open for business, or is this what I think it is?”

Sugar Bear’s gaze stayed fixed on the guy, but his hand searched around a tabletop as he felt for tools. “Get out or I’ll kill you.”

The guy had probably heard that line too many times before. “I got a loose bumper on the car,” he said. “Let’s you get your welder thing and do it.”

“Please,” Annie said to the guy because she caught Sugar Bear’s tone of voice, “go away quick. This is serious.”

The guy looked at Annie, rubbed thumb and forefinger together. “…while I take care of the shop…” and those were the guy’s last words. Sugar Bear let drive and put a ballpeen hammer deep into the guy’s skull. The guy’s eyes didn’t even have time to flicker. He didn’t even know he was dead before he was dead. The body fell just inside the doorway and Chantrell screamed. The body twitched a little, lay silent. The head had a hole that sort of oozed, but nothing spectacular.

In Chantrell’s vision a cartoon hammer started tap, tap, tapping around the room. The hammer did a song and dance, humming to itself, then began squashing spiders. Spiders appeared from everywhere, and little splashes of spider goo sizzled on the woodstove. Sugar Bear dashed madly about the room attempting to capture the hammer, but the hammer jumped through an open window and escaped into the world.

“It’ll rust out there,” Chantrell moaned. “You just know it’s gonna rust.” He fell silent, his head down and eyes closed. He turned and leaned against the wall.

Jubal Jim strolled over, sniffed the body, and sat on his haunches as much as if to say “What the hell?” Sugar Bear stood above the body. His shoulders tensed, his hands trembled, and tears spread down his cheeks. He brushed tears, got under control. “You okay?” he asked Annie.

“Of course not,” she said. “I’m scared. I don’t know what’s going on. Are you okay?”

“I’ll get past it. Can you take care of the mushroom kid? I’ll be back in a minute and explain.” Sugar Bear picked the body up by its belt, like he carried a suitcase. “I’ll stick him in the trunk of his car. Think of what to do next…”

That night Sugar Bear drove car and corpse to the Canal. The only way anyone ever knows the Canal has taken a car is through skid marks on the road, or broken shrubbery along the roadside. Sugar Bear picked a place where the grade is steep and with few plants. He set it in gear and let it cruise into the dark waters. Bubbles rose as the car sank, and as Sugar Bear bowed his head and said a few words. Then Sugar Bear walked away, down the dark road beside the dark water. He did not see the Canal start humping, the swell moving just beneath the surface, moving toward the burial site and then quickly away; spreading like the burp from a giant carp.