Catch and Release

Up before sunrise, I glided across the glass surface of the lake, the only sounds coming from the few remaining aspen leaves quaking in the gentle morning breeze as they floated to the ground in a flurry of autumn gold. The first frost was last week and the temps had been steadily dropping, with snow cresting the peaks surrounding the lake. Soon, it would freeze over for the winter, and since I wasn’t much for ice fishing, I needed to catch as many salmon now as I could while there was time to freeze them before winter.

Morning out here was my favorite time of day. No pressure, no rush, no noise. Only the sound of my thoughts and the voices in my head having animated conversations about the direction my life had taken.

A year ago, I had been the highest ranking female in the Bakerview Police Department when a spate of murders plagued the city. Normally a quiet home to twenty-eight thousand mostly good, law-abiding souls, Bakerview was rocked when the first murder occurred after the high school football homecoming game. Two of the players and their girlfriends, both cheerleaders, were found shot execution style up on the point overlooking the lake.

Before we could wrap up the investigation and find a suspect, an armed robbery out at the convenience store went south and the clerk and a guy who stopped in to buy a Ranier beer and a Slim Jim lay bleeding out on the concrete floor. Two days later, a woman loading her groceries into her car at Fred Meyer was shot six times. The killings went on at random intervals over the next three months with no clear connection between the victims. It became personal when my only sister, Velma, was sitting on her front porch sipping a Coke and took a bullet between her eyes.

I was out on patrol when the radio in my cruiser squawked. Another unit reported shots fired and pursuit of a vehicle fleeing the scene. The address given was my sister’s house. Hitting the lights and siren, I raced there as fast as I could get across town, but it was too late. Two uniforms stood on her porch calling in the medical examiner and a CSI team. My sister sat in a rocking chair with a bright red hole in her forehead, her vacant eyes staring off into whatever realm she now existed in.

When I joined the force twenty-six years ago, I pledged an oath to protect and to serve. The moment I looked at my sister’s lifeless body, I realized I had failed. Somewhere out there was a madman, taking lives from everyday people doing everyday things. Something in me snapped and I knew I would do everything in my power to avenge my sister’s and all these other deaths, even if it was outside the law.

The killings stopped after Velma’s and resources dried up. Top brass spent a few months looking for the killer, but, in the words of the chief, “It appears the Bakerview Butcher has left the area and we have no further leads on the identity of this individual.”

After his announcement, I marched into his office and deposited my service weapon and my shield on his desk, packed my tiny apartment into the back of my SUV and headed to my lake house, determined to find Velma’s murderer without being constrained by a badge.

I spent my days stocking up on food for the winter in the mornings and combing all the evidence from the files I brought with me in the afternoon. I caught a break one day reviewing security camera footage from the convenience store and recognized my ex-brother-in-law, Deke Simpson, in the store just before the shooting. Scouring other photos and videos from the other crime scenes, I caught glimpses of either Deke or his pickup at each one. Velma had divorced Deke six years ago and he’d sworn he’d get even.

Pulling in the last salmon of the morning, I dropped it in the cooler with the rest, giving me enough to fill the freezer for winter. I had plenty of room now that I’d taken Deke’s body out. I dropped his frozen corpse over the side in the middle of the lake. To the Bakerview Police Department, Deke Simpson would always be the one that got away, but to me, he was the asshole that killed my sister.

BIO: Award winning author* Tammy Blakley lives in the Pacific Northwest. She completed her first manuscript with no formal training and a total lack of adult supervision. She has published stories in Punk Noir, Urban Pigs, Stone’s Throw, Pistol Jim Press, Literary Garage, and Mythic Picnic. Find her on Twitter @tammy_blakley and Bluesky @tammywritesbooks.bsky.social

* She won Most Improved Bowler on her office bowling team and in 6th grade she won the 4-H Biscuit Baking Competition and a 5 pound bag of flour. She still has the bowling patch but unfortunately the flour was lost in the Great Weevil Invasion of ‘74.