Dead catch, p.30
Dead Catch, page 30
I met several excellent fellow writers in Peter Geye’s year-long novel writing course. After the course ended, four of us met for a time as an impromptu writing group: Amit Bhati, Brian Duren, and Drew Miller. When I shared some of Dead Catch with them, they had several excellent ideas for improving it, and convinced me to keep writing. While our group no longer meets, some of their helpful input survives in this book.
Novels cannot see the light of day without numerous friends willing to read flawed, early drafts. Many thanks to Steve Sauerbry, Laurie Sauerbry, Eli Nemer, Anne Torrey-Nemer, Bill Torrey, Anna McCourt, Noah Griffith, Doug Johnson, and Heidi Hammond. I appreciate all of them taking the time out of their busy schedules to both read the early work, and to provide invaluable feedback. In particular, Doug Johnson is not only a voracious reader, great writer, and a world traveler, but he is also an engaging conversationalist whose wide-ranging conversations have entertained and edified, especially when hiking in the woods. I first met him years ago while fishing a pond on Arlo Vanscoy’s western Iowa farm. Ever since, I have been fortunate to have his critical perspective and friendship.
The Sam Rivers Mystery series has been significantly improved by Mary Logue’s careful, judicious, rapier-red-pen. Mary is a well-known writer and writing teacher, as well as an award-winning poet, children’s book author, mystery writer, and more. I highly recommend her recent historical mysteries: The Streel and The Big Sugar. Pick them up; you won’t be disappointed. She has made every Sam Rivers novel better, and Dead Catch is no exception. If you enjoy this novel (and the others), Mary deserves mounds of credit.
My publisher, AdventureKEEN, produces some of best outdoors books in the world. Before I ever had a chance to work with them, I acquired and used several of their outdoors guides, which accompanied me on my trips into the woods to learn more about the trees, birds, cacti, mammals, wildflowers, and just about anything else you can expect to encounter in wild places. While their usual genre is nonfiction, they decided to take a chance on the Sam Rivers Mysteries, and I am so glad they did. I cannot imagine working with a better partner. At every turn AdventureKEEN has gone out of its way to offer important guidance and support. In particular, thanks to Publisher Molly Merkle for believing in and continuing to support the Sam Rivers Mysteries; Chief Product Officer Travis Bryant for his help on book covers and much more; Developmental and Managing Editor Holly Cross, as well as additional editorial assistance from Emily Beaumont and Jenna Barron; and Annie Long, for her design and typesetting expertise. I would be remiss if I failed to give a special callout to Marketing and Media Relations maven Liliane Opsomer, who has assisted with this series in general, and Dead Catch in particular, in more ways than I can enumerate here. Her support in promoting and marketing these mysteries to numerous media outlets, bookstores, presenting venues, and more has been indispensable. I am profoundly grateful for her assistance.
When I was a boy, my buddy Steve Sauerbry invited me up to his family’s recently acquired rustic cabin on Northeastern Minnesota’s Lake Vermilion. For a kid who loved to roam the forests and fields of Eastern Iowa, experiencing Minnesota’s pine woods and clear waters struck me like a hammer blow (but in a good way). Ever since, I have considered this region a spiritual landscape, albeit also one of recreation.
My friend’s Pine Island cabin sits in a stand of beautiful red pines in Canfield Bay. You can only get there by boat. Over the years, Steve, myself, Jim Gray, Eli Nemer, Mike Reeve, and Drew Skogman began visiting the place for an annual fishing trip, a journey that has happened for more than five decades. Many have joined us off and on over the years. But these five guys have provided me with invaluable friendship, comradery, and laughter. We often remark, “What happens up north, stays up north.” That said, I don’t think it’s a violation of that edict to recognize that what we have experienced and shared on Vermilion has had a profound impact on my life, and taught me what it means to be a friend over time, sentiments which I hope made it into this book. I am thankful for their continued friendship.
Finally, no one hears more about a book, from its inception to the conclusion of a final draft, than my life partner, Anna. She is a sounding board for plot twists, character developments, and more, and patiently listens and gives advice when it is painfully needed and when it is not. Her advice is informed by more than three decades of service in the mental health industry, and I am so lucky to be the beneficiary of her wisdom, perspective, and aplomb.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning author Cary J. Griffith grew up among the woods, fields, and emerald waters of eastern Iowa. His childhood fostered a lifelong love of wild places.
He earned a BA in English from the University of Iowa and an MA in library science from the University of Minnesota.
Cary’s books explore the natural world. In nonfiction, he covers the borderlands between civilization and wild places. In fiction, he focuses on the ways some people use flora and fauna to commit crimes, while others with more reverence and understanding of the natural world leverage their knowledge to bring criminals to justice.
About Dead Catch and Discussion Guide
On the first full day of whitefish netting season, Holden Riggins is passed out in the bottom of his boat, less than 30 yards from a murdered Minnesota conservation officer. The officer’s body is tangled in Holden’s net. Holden has apparently secreted a second net nearby, in the hopes of poaching walleye.
From the looks of it, Holden has consumed more than a bottle of whiskey, which is why he’s passed out and nearly dead from hypothermia. When he returns to consciousness, he claims he knows nothing about the CO nor the illegal walleye net, though both nets are clearly his.
To complicate matters, the population of walleye, Minnesota’s most prized game fish, has been unaccountably dropping throughout a handful of the state’s most picturesque northeastern lakes. Has Holden resurrected his illegal netting ring, cashing in on the state’s $25 million walleye industry? Or is he as innocent as he claims?
When county and state law officers begin to question Holden, he stops talking. Rather than prove his innocence with the help of local law enforcement, the only person he is willing to speak with is his boyhood buddy, Sam Rivers.
Holden and Sam have not seen each other since a tragic event separated them when they were 12 years old. Holden is a known scofflaw, poacher, and ex-con. Sam Rivers is a special agent for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. In the past, Holden has used wilderness and everything in it for his own nefarious purposes. Sam puts people like Holden in prison.
Now both men must work together to solve the CO’s murder and figure out why walleye stocks in some of Minnesota’s most picturesque and best fishing lakes are falling.
1. How large is the walleye fishing industry in Minnesota, and why could it be a possible inducement to crime?
2. Why would netting walleye be illegal, while netting whitefish is not? Why is it important to the story?
3. What are some of the points of evidence that lead law enforcement to believe Holden Riggins is the obvious murderer?
4. Holden Riggins has asked for Sam Rivers to investigate his case and the death of CO Charlie Jiles. Are there any other reasons Sheriff Dean Goddard agrees to go along with Holden’s request? Are the sheriff’s reasons for recruiting Sam reasonable? Ethical?
5. Discuss some of the reasons Sam Rivers decides to take on the informal investigation of Charlie Jiles’s death.
6. Why is Lake Vermilion a good setting for the story?
7. Why did Cray Halverson believe Holden Riggins would be a good fall guy for their crimes? Why did he believe Holden would be exonerated?
8. When Rowena Melnyk confronted Charlie Jiles the second time, at the mouth of Smugglers Creek, do you think her actions were justified? Do you think she should have been charged with murder?
9. Was the ultimate punishment of Cray Halverson and Rowena Melnyk justified? Should it have been harsher?
10. Why did Holden burn and sink his birchbark canoe on Pine Lake? Why did he invite Sam Rivers to accompany him?
READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM CARY J. GRIFFITH’S NEXT NOVEL
RATTLESNAKE BLUFF
Praise for Dead Catch
“Dead Catch captures your attention from the opening sentence, and then, like Griffith’s first victim in the poacher’s net, you’re caught in a trap that’ll keep you flipping pages until the final twist.”
—Jeffrey B. Burton, award-winning author of The Dead Years and the Mace Reid K-9 Mysteries
AVAILABLE SUMMER 2025 WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD
CHAPTER 1
Julio Vargas Ortega loved Minnesota’s Driftless.
Ever since he was a young boy Julio—Jules to his friends, colleagues, and especially Izzie—rose before dawn. Even with the windows shut to birdsong and the blinds pulled, Jules could feel first light. It didn’t matter if the previous evening he and Izzie had been out past midnight at a tequila fest, doing the Marimba two-step, and then home to bed, beating out a rhythm all their own. When the eastern horizon grew pale, Jules shuffled into their galley kitchen to brew coffee, his tighty-whities tented by his tumescence and the memory of Izzie’s charms.
At 27, Jules liked his coffee black. Not that he needed the caffeine buzz, being someone who took care of himself. He was five foot eight, built stout and thick-muscled, with jet black hair and a tan patina he claimed was from his mother, Esmerelda, who was one quarter Mayan. Apart from a taste for occasional tequila, Jules and Izzie lived clean. And even though Jules missed Esmerelda, who he had not seen in nearly three years, there wasn’t a morning that passed without Jules feeling lucky he lived in Minnesota’s bluff country.
He stared at the kitchen calendar, admiring the photograph. It was a morning shot in July, looking out across the only place in Minnesota that escaped the Ice Age glaciers. It featured green land undulating in sweeping ridges all the way to the horizon. The verdure hung in mists like the treetops of an Amazonian rain forest.
Today was Tuesday, July 11, 2023. He had always believed Tuesdays were the most productive day of his week. Similar to his instinctual sense of first light, he felt certain today was going to be something special.
He was usually on a construction site an hour before anyone else, especially on a Tuesday. He enjoyed sitting in the company’s F-150, sipping double-strength. By 7 a.m. the sun was off the horizon, turning the fields of bluestem golden. And on this morning, his first on Alta Vista, a new construction site, he loved watching the goldfinches flash their yellow regalia, trolling for mates, getting ready to nest when, later in the month, the mullein and thistle seeds would start to come in. Whether they were calling for the chiquitas, or just because the morning was blue, clear, and warm, it didn’t matter to Jules. Things were going great for him and Izzie. The beautiful midsummer morning in the heart of resplendent country filled with birdsong and sunlight seemed like the perfect accompaniment to his mood, which on this day was ebullient.
Yesterday, Leslie Warner, owner of Warner Construction, made him foreman on this site.
“You’re the best man for the job,” Leslie said.
At 40, she had been in the business long enough to recognize an excellent worker when she saw one. With an equally excellent demeanor. Jules always did exactly what she asked. And despite Leslie being what men considered attractive—in face and bearing—Jules had always been respectful. Unlike most men, whose eyes wandered over Leslie’s body like magnets caught in a forcefield, Jules always looked her in the eye.
The previous afternoon she and Jules had walked to the tree edge of the proposed Alta Vista development, where scrub brush was perched atop a limestone bluff. They’d bushwhacked through 10 feet of undergrowth until they were right at the cliff edge.
The limestone-topped escarpment dropped more than 100 feet to the valley below. When they stood on its edge, the panorama unobstructed, they were blessed with a view as fine as the one on Jules’s kitchen calendar. The hills, undulating in front of them, took their combined breath away.
“I’ll be bringing out some potential partners this week,” Leslie said. “The first one tomorrow, over the lunch hour. Can you make sure and clear out some of this brush. Doesn’t have to be a lot. Just enough so he can see this.”
“Of course,” Jules said. “I’ll get the Bobcat this afternoon and start on it first thing in the morning. I’ll make sure there’s a view by 11 a.m.”
“Perfect,” Leslie smiled, already thinking about the words she’d use to sell the site to her new investors. From here you can see across the Driftless to the Mississippi River. And you’re only 45 minutes from Rochester.
The setting was bucolic, the vista magnificent, and its proximity to the medical complex practical. Her potential partners were doctors who wanted all three. Leslie had a feeling about this, her most ambitious project. It was going to sell out fast. And it was going to be lucrative, providing they didn’t run into any snafus.
Unfortunately, Leslie had been working in construction long enough to know unexpected issues always arose. Her first issue had been getting the county to agree the site could be developed. She hired a surveyor to mark off the site. Then she worked with an architect to address the potential issue of building on an area bluff. If everything went as smoothly as the site’s start, she could expect clear sailing.
But she knew bumps in the road were inevitable. She just hoped they didn’t slow her down.
On Monday afternoon, Jules drove 45 minutes to the Warner Construction Equipment lot outside Winona. The yard was near the Mississippi, and like everything in bluff country, Jules liked to pause and admire the flow of big water. He was back at the bluff site by 5 p.m. It took another 15 minutes to position the flatbed on the gravel shoulder and unhitch it, making sure the cat was still chained to the bed and secured for the night. The trailer had a rear black metal gate that doubled as a ramp. Jules unhitched the rear gate and dropped it to the ground, making it ramp-ready for his early morning work. Then he returned to his truck, anxious to tell Izzie the good news, and to celebrate at the tequila fest.
Before Jules pulled away, a pickup came up beside him. A man rolled down his passenger side window, nodded to Jules, and said, “What’s goin’ on?” indicating the trailered equipment.
He looked like a local farmer, Jules thought. Maybe in his 70s, with what sounded like the hint of an English accent. He seemed friendly enough, but you could never tell.
“Doing work for Warner Construction,” Jules said.
“What kind a work?”
Jules knew enough to play dumb. Leslie Warner never wanted others knowing her business, until it was well enough along for them to figure it out on their own.
“Clearing land.”
The man seemed to think about it. Then, “I always thought, remote as this is, but still being close to Rochester, it’d be a bonny site for a row of townhouses, or maybe a big house,” the man said. “Providing you’re a multimillionaire.” He smiled.
Jules smiled back. “I guess,” he said. “Definitely a nice view.”
“Once you get beyond those trees,” the man said.
Jules agreed. “You live around here?”
Jules knew he’d tell Leslie about the man, and his questions. He knew she’d be curious.
“Down the road about a mile. Name’s Joe Smiley. Got a dairy farm in the valley.”
“Jules,” Jules said, shaking Joe Smiley’s hand.
In the winter, when Warner Construction work slowed, Jules sometimes worked dairy.
The two talked cows for a while. The man was interested to know Jules knew dairy. It was hard work, and he was always looking for help, which he didn’t mention, wondering if the man with tan skin and an accent was legal. Must be, he guessed, working for a construction company. He didn’t know Warner Construction, but he made a note of the name, and would look it up when he got a chance.
They finally said their goodbyes, and Jules headed back to Rochester, excited for the evening’s entertainment.
Tequila and dancing always made Izzie frisky.
By 7:30 a.m. the next day, Jules stepped out of his cab, fully caffeinated and ready to take on the day. It felt like he could lasso the sun and ride it into the heavens, if need be, so much was going so well for Jules these days. His work as a foreman meant more money. And Izzie was in her last year at the university. She was working as a teacher’s aide. But if all went well, by next year she’d have a classroom of her own, and a big raise in pay. There’d been talk of marriage, but Jules was waiting until he put away enough money for a proper ring.
Thinking about marrying Izzie reminded him of his mom. He had not seen her for three years, and it was hard. Super hard for Jules, who loved his madre. If he was worth anything, it was because of her. And his father. But his father had passed when he was a boy. And his madre had never remarried. Though thankfully, there was plenty of family around Llanos, a dirt-poor community less than two hours southwest of Ciudad Juarez. The area was destitute, with little work and no future.
So, Jules came north.
He sent his mother money and Facetimed her the Sundays she could borrow a phone. But it was a poor substitute for being at her table and enjoying hot tortillas off the stove with huevos, queso, frijoles, and pimientos out of her garden.
It was hard not giving his madre a hug or being hugged by her. But it was one of the sacrifices you made when you crossed the border in search of better fortunes north.
Jules walked down through the bumpy pasture, thinking about how his raise would give him enough money to send his mom a bus ticket, to get her up here for their wedding—providing he bought the ring, asked the question, and Izzie said “yes.”
Before offloading the Bobcat he scanned the tree line ahead of him. He walked down to the bluff and stepped into the brush, surveying the work he was about to begin. He paced off what he figured was about 10 feet. When he fired up the Bobcat and began pushing forward with the front loader, he’d have free reign with the first 5 feet of brush. Then he’d need to be careful. The last edge he’d need to cut by hand. And he needed to hustle.
