Part 3 — Inside Bos Collar
The last line on the back of the paper said, The papers he wanted me to sign are hidden in Bos collar. I read it out loud to a hall full of shrimpers, and every head in the room turned toward the parking lot.
Bo was in the bed of Russells truck, tied to a tailgate with a short rope, where he had been for two weeks. The deputy walked out with me, and the two old shrimpers who had blocked the door followed behind. Bo saw me and thumped his tail against the metal so hard the truck shook.
The collar was an old leather thing Dad had restitched himself, with a thick fold along the buckle. I ran my thumb along it, and I felt paper. The deputy photographed it, then let me cut the stitching with a pocketknife, and out came three folded sheets sealed in a sandwich bag.
They were loan documents. Russell had borrowed a large sum from a lender in Savannah, and when he could not pay, the lender had offered him a way out. If Dad signed over the boat and the dock, the debt would disappear. Dad had refused, and he wrote that refusal on the very top of the page.
Underneath, in Dads capitals, were the names of the two men who had come to the dock. He had written their first names, the make of their truck, and the last four numbers of the plate. He did not trust anyone to look after the evidence except his dog.
The deputy took the papers and the lure box to the sheriff that night. By morning the state bureau had the plate, the names, and the dock cameras at the marina on Ladys Island, which showed a white pickup on the Saturday before Dad was found.
Dad was seventy-nine, and the sheriff came to see me with the medical examiner. They said it plainly, without anything graphic. The two men had confronted him on the water that morning to make him sign, and in the struggle he had gone overboard. They had left him there and made no call. My father did not fall, and he did not leave this world alone and unnoticed, because his dog sat in that bow until someone came.
The two men from Savannah were arrested within the week and charged with extortion and involuntary manslaughter. The lender who employed them was investigated for illegal collection practices. The medical examiner amended the ruling from accidental drowning to death during a criminal confrontation.
Russell was charged with forgery and fraud, since the shaky signatures on earlier papers were his own hand copying Dads. He cried in the courtroom and said he had never meant for anyone to be hurt. The judge told him that was precisely the trouble with debts like his.
He took a plea and testified against the lenders. The court ordered restitution on every dollar, and the buyer in Savannah, a decent man named Mr. Pickett, sold Dads boat back to me at exactly what he had paid, plus a hand-shake.
Bo rode home in my truck with his head on my knee. My wife made him a plate of shrimp and grits, and he ate it as if he had never been hungry in his life.
The first Saturday after the sale I put in at daybreak on the Coosaw with the same boat, the same thermos, and the same old dog in the bow. The river lay flat and gold, and I raised my cup to the water and said, Morning, Dad.