Purgatory Ridge

“This is the deal. I stake you, Chief. I outfit that old boat of yours-we fix ‘er up, make her seaworthy, give her some good sonar. I teach you how to dive and supply the equipment. When we find the wreck-and I guarantee you we will-and when we get the evidence to nail those bastards to the wall, you give me a percentage of whatever the jury awards you.”

LePere looked at him and said nothing.

“Aren’t you going to ask what kind of percentage?”

“You help me find that wreck, you help me prove the Fitzgerald Shipping Company murdered Billy, you can have it all.”

Bridger laughed. “That’s okay, Chief. I’m not greedy.” He shoved his hand at LePere. “Deal?”

“Deal,” LePere said. And they shook on it.

A half mile east of Outer Island, LePere approached a buoy and cut the engine. Bridger woke up, stretched, and yawned. He stepped to the gunwale of the Anne Marie, where he stood a while, studying the lake.

“Tie her up to the buoy,” LePere called as he maneuvered the boat near.

Bridger grabbed the bowline in one hand and a gaff in the other. He hooked the buoy with the gaff, drew the boat up next to it, and secured the line. LePere shut off the engine, and the quiet of the lake settled over them.

“Damn fine day for a dive,” Bridger declared. He threw off his hat and began to undress.

The water of Lake Superior was far too frigid for a wet suit. The men donned dry suits of insulated, vulcanized rubber that kept the water from touching them. The suits had boots and hoods, and under the rubber the men wore sweats to fight the cold they’d encounter one hundred and fifty feet below the surface. LePere strapped his knife to the inside of his lower left leg. He buckled weights about his waist. From his belt hung a nylon bag for collecting things and a powerful Ikelite to illuminate the depths. He hefted his air tank onto his back. An extra hose hung from the regulator, and this LePere plugged into a valve on the front of his dry suit. The hose would feed a layer of air under the rubber to help insulate the suit and keep him dry. He pulled on his mask and, last of all, a pair of insulated gloves. He was left with only a small area of exposed skin on his face between his mask and the edge of his hood. He glanced at Bridger, who’d held off putting on his mask and was staring at a boat anchored a few hundred yards away.

“Third time, Chief,” Bridger said, sounding unhappy.

“Third time what?”

“Third time that white launch has been anchored there when we dive. I thought last time it was just coincidence. Got your field glasses?”

LePere climbed up to the flying bridge and grabbed the binoculars from beside the wheel. He came back down and gave them to Bridger, who put them to his eyes.

“Too far away. Can’t read the name or registration. I don’t like it. Maybe we should hold off diving.”

“I’m not getting this close and turning back. Come on, Wes. So what if they’ve been there before. They haven’t done anything.”

“Doesn’t mean they won’t. Look, Chief, if it’s the Fitzgerald Shipping Company, and you can bet your ass it is, they’ve killed before. Adding a couple more dead men to the roster wouldn’t mean anything to those greedy bastards.”

“Do whatever you want. Me, I’m diving.” LePere lifted the new video camera, a Sony DCR-VX1000 in a Gates aluminum housing. The camera and deepwater housing had set Bridger back more than two grand, but it was absolutely necessary to gather the evidence they needed. “Come on, Wes,” LePere said.

Bridger hollered toward the launch, “Fuck you!” He lifted his hand and gave the distant boat the finger. “All right. I’m ready now.”

LePere went over the side. A minute later, Bridger followed.

The previous summer, Bridger and LePere had begun the search for the Alfred M. Teasdale. Bridger had paid to equip the Anne Marie with sonar and they’d carefully swept the area northeast of the Apostle Islands where LePere believed the Teasdale might have gone down. It took them weeks. Then they found the bow. Unfortunately, it lay in over three hundred feet of water, too deep for scuba. They were forced to abandon the hunt for the stern when the foul weather of November set in. They began again in April. Two months later they finally found the rest of the Teasdale, all in one piece. The propeller had still been turning when the aft section of the ore boat headed off into the storm, carrying Billy away. The stern had traveled more than five miles before it finally sank, coming to rest at a steep angle on the rocky bottom off Outer Island. On the first dive, they’d attached a steel cable to the propeller shaft and spooled the cable to the surface, where they set the buoy to mark the site.