“Ducks,” said Culver Rundell. “A whole flock.”
“They thought it was food,” the deputy explained.
“It looks like pickerel weeds, hair does. Especially hair like Bobby’s,” Rundell went on. “In the water it looks like weeds.”
“This time of year ducks’ll eat anything,” the deputy added.
Dr. Pembroke felt queasy. Sometimes he wished he’d gone into radiology like his dumb cousin. With heavy stainless surgical shears he began to cut Robert Clinch’s clothes off, a task made more arduous by the swollen condition of the limbs and torso. As soon as Clinch’s waterlogged dungarees were cut away and more purple flesh was revealed, both Culver Rundell and the sheriffs deputy decided to wait on the other side of the counter, where they took a booth and chatted about the latest scandal with the University of Florida football team.
Fifteen minutes later, Dr. Pembroke came out with a chart on a clipboard. He was scribbling as he talked.
“The body was in the water at least twenty-four hours,” he said. “Cause of death was drowning.”
“Was he drunk?” Rundell asked.
“I doubt it, but I won’t get the blood tests back for about a week.”
“Should I tell the sheriff it was an accident?” the deputy said.
“It looks that way, yes,” Dr. Pembroke said. “There was a head wound consistent with impact in a high-speed crash.”
A bad bruise is what it was, consistent with any number of things, but Dr. Pembroke preferred to be definitive. Much of what he knew about forensic medicine came from watching reruns of the television show Quincy, M.E. Quincy the TV coroner could always glance at an injury and announce what exactly it was consistent with, so Dr. Pembroke tried to do the same. The truth was that after the other two men had left the autopsy table, Dr. Pembroke had worked as hastily as possible. He had drawn blood, made note of a golf-ball-size bruise on Bobby Clinch’s skull and, with something less than surgical acuity, hacked a Y-shaped incision from the neck to the belly. He had reached in, grabbed a handful of lung, and quickly ascertained that it was full of brackish lake water, which is exactly what Dr. Pembroke wanted to see. It meant that Bobby Clinch had drowned, as suspected. Further proof was the presence of a shiny dead minnow in the right bronchus, indicating that on the way down Bobby Clinch had inhaled violently, but to no avail. Having determined this, Dr. Pembroke had wasted not another moment with the rancid body; had not even turned it over for a quick look-see before dragging it into the hamburger cooler.
The pathologist signed the death certificate and handed it to the deputy. Culver Rundell read it over the lawman’s shoulder and nodded. “I’ll call Clarisse,” he said, “then I gotta hose out the truck.”
The largemouth bass is the most popular gamefish in North America, as it can be found in the warmest waters of almost every state. Its appeal has grown so astronomically in the last ten years that thousands of bass-fishing clubs have sprung up, and are swamped with new members. According to the sporting-goods industry, more millions of dollars are spent to catch largemouth bass than are spent on any other outdoor activity in the United States. Bass magazines promote the species as the workingman’s fish, available to anyone within strolling distance of a lake, river, culvert, reservoir, rockpit, or drainage ditch. The bass is not picky; it is hardy, prolific, and on a given day will eat just about any God-awful lure dragged in front of its maw. As a fighter it is bullish, but tires easily; as a jumper its skills are admirable, though no match for a graceful rainbow trout or tarpon; as table fare it is blandly acceptable, even tasty when properly seasoned. Its astonishing popularity comes from a modest combination of these traits, plus the simple fact that there are so many largemouth bass swimming around that just about any damn fool can catch one.
Its democratic nature makes the bass an ideal tournament fish, and a marketing dream-come-true for the tackle industry. Because a large-mouth in Seattle is no different from its Everglades cousin, expensive bass-fishing products need no regionalization, no tailored advertising. This is why hard-core bass fishermen everywhere are outfitted exactly the same, from their trucks to their togs to their tackle. On any body of water, in any county rural or urban, the uniform and arsenal of the bassing fraternity are unmistakable. The universal mission is to catch one of those freakishly big bass known as lunkers or hawgs. In many parts of the country, any fish over five pounds is considered a trophy, and it is not uncommon for the ardent basser to have three or four such specimens mounted on the walls of his home; one for the living room, one for the den, and so on. The geographic range of truly gargantuan fish, ten to fifteen pounds, is limited to the humid Deep South, particularly Georgia and Florida. In these areas the quest for the world’s biggest bass is rabid and ruthless; for tournament fishermen this is the big leagues, where top prize money for a two-day event might equal seventy-five thousand dollars. If the weather on these days happens to be rotten or the water too cold, a dinky four-pound bass might win the whole shooting match. More than likely, though, it takes a lunker fish to win the major tournaments, and few anglers are capable of catching lunkers day in and day out.