by K. K. Beck
“We’ll release a statement about this soon,” she said in a tense, trembly voice. “But I think it’s important to stress that farmed salmon is a safe, natural food, rich in nutrients. We’ll be giving the blue salmon careful scrutiny in the lab to establish a nutritional profile.”
Great PR woman, thought Jane. She’s got a winner and she’s in damage control mode. Somehow, bringing up lab work didn’t sound particularly appetizing.
“They must have put something in the feed,” said Jane. “Like carotenoids but blue.”
Bob nodded his agreement. He didn’t seem to be gloating or anything.
“Blue salmon,” said Don. “That’s ridiculous! How do they do that? Jesus, what a stupid thing! Who wants to eat blue Salmon?” He began to laugh heartily. “It’s really stupid.”
“Yes,” she said, smiling at him. “Maybe it’s some kind of a joke. I think it’s pretty funny. Whoever pulled it off is pretty damn smart.” Come on, Don, she added silently. Confess. There’s twenty-thousand bucks in it for me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Why didn’t you tell me they were turning salmon blue?” Jane was calling from the house phones off the lobby with a report for Gunther.
“How did you find out? Did Putnam tell you that?” Kessler sounded almost excited.
“The whole world found out, Gunther,” she said. “And I think it’s going to be a big hit. I’d say you’ll be able to get a premium price for blue salmon any day. The winning recipe at this little salmon bake was blue salmon all fussed up with some other things, and the foodies adored it.”
“My clients will be horrified,” said Gunther. “Every time a batch of these damn things shows up, they’ve managed to destroy them as quietly as possible. All the research shows people hate to eat blue things.”
“Roquefort cheese is very chic,” said Jane. “And squid ink is sort of navy blue, isn’t it? No one minds that. It seems to me blue potatoes were fashionable a few years back. And there are blue tortilla chips—”
Gunther cut her off. “The clients will be horrified,” he repeated. “It’s more important than ever that the perpetrators be stopped. What about the Putnams?”
“I’m having dinner with Bob in Anacortes this week.”
“Where’s that?”
“North of here. He wants to show me his fish plant. He must be in love.”
“I’ll take you up there,” said Gunther. “We can wire you for sound.”
“Be careful. Anacortes is a pretty small town. Bob has already spotted you in the lobby.”
“I’ll handle it discreetly,” Gunther said with his characteristic pompousness. He cleared his throat to indicate a change of topic. “While you were looking at blue salmon, I was watching the local news. That strange fellow you denounced to the police at the opera yesterday, he’s been arrested. In connection with the plot against the Norwegians. Apparently he’s confessed everything.”
“Everything?” said Jane.
“He’s admitted that he and the girl were trying to kidnap Knutsen. I just phoned my contact at the Norwegian Fisheries Ministry. Their chief antiterrorist operative is coming over here to interview this Jeffers. He’d like to talk to you, too. Do you mind? I told him I could arrange it.”
“All right,” said Jane, thinking that Gunther was trying to take credit for arranging something the Norwegians could have arranged themselves, simply by phoning her up. “Did Jeffers confess to murdering Marcia or anything, by any chance?”
“No. But he is already out on bail, he’s got himself a lawyer and the television says he’s having a press conference at nine tomorrow morning.”
Jane had thought she wouldn’t have a chance to ask Curtis Jeffers any questions. But there certainly wasn’t anything odd about a reporter for a fish magazine covering a case involving a fisheries minister. She was there the next morning, front and center, when Curtis came in, looking thrilled at all the attention he was getting.
With him was his lawyer, an avuncular but driven older man with wispy white hair and a crumpled suit. Jane knew about James Marshall Embree, a fixture around Seattle. He was a headline-grabbing defense lawyer, stuck in a town with a depressing dearth of celebrity crimes.
There just weren’t very many cases in which limo driver witnesses, au pairs and shirttail relatives could retail their stories to supermarket tabloids and Hard Copy. Embree had to make do with the occasional University of Washington football star picked up for shoplifting or a local TV news anchor busted for drunk driving. Curtis Jeffers, by virtue of his eccentricity, was about as spectacular as it was going to get around here, and the old guy was clearly milking the case for all it was worth.
Jane eavesdropped on two reporters in front of her. A woman with big tousled hair said, “How can this little wienie afford Embree? Is he taking it on pro bono?”
Her companion, a young Asian man, laughed. “Word is the guy inherited a bundle from some old aunt as long as he takes care of her cats up in some old pile on Capitol Hill.”
Jane remembered the smell of cat that came from the Jeffers house. Apparently Curtis’s love of animals had paid off.
Embree approached the microphone and said, “I think you’ll find that Curtis is an idealistic young man, an unusual, gentle man who sees nature not as others see it, but as an incredible manifestation of God’s creation, a man who sees the animals who share our planet as brothers and sisters.”
Jane noted Embree was wearing a belt made from one of Curtis’s brothers and sisters, either an alligator or crocodile, and she doubted he’d ever ordered a soyburger in his life. But the old boy had a messianic light in his blue eyes as he discussed Curtis’s spiritual qualities. His face now took on a sorrowful cast, and he said softly, breathing into the microphone, “He was also a young man who fell in love with a young woman, a strong-minded woman, and came heavily under her influence.” Embree put his arm around Curtis’s shoulder and squeezed. The party line seemed to be the guy was well-meaning, and anyway, Marcia made him do it. Marcia, of course, wasn’t around to contradict this.
“What’s he been charged with?” yelled out a reporter, who identified himself as with the Seattle Times.
Embree answered, “False imprisonment,” in a derisive tone. “A ridiculous charge! The alleged victim flew out of Sea Tac Airport the night he was supposedly detained. The whole thing is ridiculous.”
“What about the tape with the ransom demand?” said Jane, shocked at her ability to yell out questions just like the people on CNN, but too embarrassed to preface her question with “Jane da Silva, Seafood Now magazine.”
“I don’t see the significance of any piece of evidence the prosecution wants to wave around, when no crime has been committed,” Embree snapped, and turned to point to a TV newsperson who was combing his hair and checking himself out in a little mirror.
“The police say they have a ransom-type tape,” the TV reporter said, stashing comb and mirror in his pocket while the camerawoman who accompanied him got a shot of his thoughtful face. “Do you deny that the voice on the tape is that of Curtis Jeffers?”
Embree laughed. “Curtis says a lot of things. As I say, he’s an unusual young man. In fact, Curtis is going to make a statement himself later, aren’t you, Curtis?” Curtis nodded happily.
“Did Curtis go to Trygve Knutsen’s hotel room?” yelled Jane.
“The details of the evening in question,” Embree said calmly, “will come out in due course.”
Jane piped up again, “What about the kidnap victim’s slipper? How did Curtis get a hold of it?” The other reporters looked at her with curiosity. A couple of them whispered to each other.
Embree waved his hand as if she were bringing up a trivial point. “My client has already told the police that he drove his companion, Marcia St. Francis, to the Meade Hotel. There’s no dispute about that. He was in Mr. Knutsen’s room. Marcia St. Francis had the key to that room. An item of clothing—a slipper—was removed from that room. We’re not saying
it wasn’t. But none of this is really at issue. The state must prove a crime was committed.”
Just what the hell had Curtis been doing at the hotel? Killing Marcia? Maybe there was some kind of accident with the gun, Jane thought. Curtis was crazy enough to do anything.
“Your client’s lover, Marcia St. Francis, was found dead in the next room later that night,” she said, indignant at Embree’s cavalier manner. “What does he know about that?” There were some gasps around the room.
Embree held up his hand. “My client has not been charged with murder. The issue here is a matter of some alleged inconvenience to a representative of an unrepentant whaling nation.”
He narrowed his eyes. “As for the Norwegian government’s knowledge of the tragic event to which you refer, I cannot comment on an ongoing criminal investigation.”
The implication seemed to be that the Norwegian government had murdered Marcia for trying and failing to fasten a drunken lecher to a radiator. Jane wanted to ask Embree if he thought the Norwegian government maintained a pro-whaling hit squad that they sent around the world to rub out ditzy kids like Marcia and Curtis. The disturbing part was, she thought, that a lot of people would like to buy that. There was an alarming tendency for people to want to believe in complex conspiracy theories rather than in simple, ugly answers.
Embree turned away from her and took another question. A woman wanted to know if Curtis Jeffers was a part of any large, underground animal rights movement.
“No, no,” Embree said with a throaty chuckle. “Curtis got involved in this movement because of his own personal convictions.” He looked grave again. “And of course, he fell in love with a woman whose judgment . . .”
Suddenly Detective Olson appeared at Jane’s side. “Mrs. da Silva,” he said. “I didn’t know you were a member of the press. The first time we met you were singing in the Fountain Room at the Meade Hotel. Next, you’re working for Marcia St. Francis’s family as some kind of investigator. Now, you’re part of the press corps.”
He skipped a beat, and Jane just shrugged.
“I guess you’re also an operagoer. I got your message last night. It was helpful to have Mr. Jeffers located. I’d already arranged to have him picked up on some old warrants so we could talk. But I gotta say, I’m more than a little curious about you. Could we have a cup of coffee after this is over?”
“Of course,” said Jane.
Embree now introduced Curtis, who flapped some papers and began his statement in his flat, monotonous voice. “Many aeons ago, when the first cell divided,” he began, “the first precious strands in the web of life . . .”
In front of Jane, the reporter with the tousled hair muttered, “Jesus Christ.”
Around about the time Curtis described the first creatures emerging from the sea on stubby fins, a voice from the back of the room called out, “Will copies of this be available?” Jane imagined the room would be completely cleared long before Curtis worked his way up the evolutionary scale to mammals. The more off-the-wall Curtis sounded, the happier Embree looked. He smiled down at the press as if to say “What did I tell you? This guy’s just a simple-minded loon. Forget about sending him to the slammer. He’s not scary enough.”
After Curtis finally wound down with a complaint about the lack of availability of a vegan menu at the county jail (“unborn chicken embryos and the mothers’ milk of captive animals may be part of a so-called vegetarian diet to the authorities, but to right-thinking people, they are stolen products”), Jane went across the street with Detective Olson. First the pair of them had to fend off a handful of reporters who wanted to talk to him about the case and to her about the slipper she’d brought up.
Olson managed to deflect them all and took Jane’s elbow, escorting her through the gauntlet. “She’s getting an exclusive interview?” a woman pouted. “Who is she, anyway?”
Once they were installed in a corner table at the nearest Starbuck’s, Olson seemed to want to know the same thing.
“There isn’t much to it, really,” Jane said. “I went over there to Norway and talked to Knutsen, and he accidentally gave me the ransom tape. But I also remembered that slipper.” She leaned across the table. “When you interviewed me, I got a glimpse of Knutsen and noticed that he only had one slipper on.”
Olson nodded as if to say he’d noticed that, too.
“In Norway, he said he’d never found the other one. But Knutsen also told me Marcia wouldn’t go up to his room. She wanted him to get in her car and go with her.” Jane said she thought that after Marcia had ineffectually locked up Knutsen, she had changed and gone back to the hotel to leave that tape. The slipper, Jane felt, was no doubt the “piece of personal property” referred to in the tape. They had meant to take something from his room to prove they held Knutsen—and were no doubt thrilled at its symbolic content.
“But now,” said Jane, “Curtis says he was there, too. He has to say that, because he has the slipper. What does he say happened to Marcia?”
“Jeffers made a complete statement,” said Olson. “We’ve released the basic facts. Jeffers says they were in the room when they heard Knutsen coming back. It all fits. The desk clerk remembered Knutsen coming back to the hotel and saying he’d left his key in his room, and they gave him another one. Curtis says when they suddenly heard him coming back into the room, she was over by the connecting door, opened it and went into the next room. He was by the main door, so he popped into the closet, clutching the slipper.
“Then, while Knutsen was in the shower, Jeffers says he sneaked out the door leading to the hall and waited for Marcia at the car. She never showed, so he finally went home.” Olson shrugged as if to say “You figure it out.”
“Knutsen did take a shower,” Jane said. “His hair was wet. And that’s why I guess you couldn’t check him for powder burns or anything.”
Olson just smiled. “It’s a pretty weird case, to be honest. And you’ve come up with the tape and the slipper. Got anything else you think might come in handy?”
Jane was absolutely delighted. This was the way policemen in books acted, grateful for help from the talented amateur. “Not on me,” she said.
He narrowed his eyes and gave her a this-is-serious look. “But I also want to ask you to keep a low profile. There’s been a lot of media attention because of this animal rights thing. Everyone loves whales, right? And the fact that Jeffers has retained John Marshall Embree makes it a high-profile case. I’d hate to see you get hooked into some media hype thing, because we might need you as a witness at some point.” He leaned across the table and gave her a sincere look. “If there’s a chance you’ll be a witness in any case involving Curtis Jeffers, his attorney will try to get some mileage from the fact that you were at the press conference, grilling Curtis about stuff in the evidence locker.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t want to jeopardize any case you’re working on. If you find out who killed Marcia, I want you to get a conviction.”
“That’s very gratifying,” he said.
She hoped he’d ask her about any theories she’d developed about the case and, in return, share his. Instead he asked for the check and said, “Anything else comes up, let me know. Me, not the press. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
She wondered if she should have told him about the blue salmon. Curtis Jeffers might well have had something to do with all that. It might have been his way of protesting salmon farming. But she decided that first she’d see how far she could get with Gunther’s theory that the Putnams were responsible.
And above all, how close she could get to Gunther’s offer of twenty thousand dollars.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Jane found herself somewhat annoyed that Gunther had organized her mission to Anacortes with Swiss precision. Of course, this was his gig and she was being well paid, but she also realized she liked doing things her own way, making them up as she went along.
Before they set out, he briefed her in
her living room over coffee. Immaculately tailored, legs crossed, relaxed but all business, he snapped open a briefcase and presented her with a neatly typed sheet of paper, describing the stories she would say brought her to Anacortes. A trip to a state-of-the-art seafood plant, owned by the American subsidiary of a large Japanese company. A story on the history of Anacortes, which at the turn of the century had been a big center for fish canning, salt cod, halibut processing and fish rendering. Hardly something she’d want to read in the dentist’s office, she thought.
Gunther’s backgrounder helpfully added the fact that Anacortes was a misspelling of a Hispanic lady’s name, but that the locals had called her Annie Curtis instead of Anna Cortez.
They would drive up in Gunther’s rental car. Jane would stay at an old period hotel, which he assured her had been completely refurbished. “It is really very nice,” said Gunther. “So often these restored old hotels are done up so pretentiously. They must have spent a fortune, and they’ve done a pretty good job. It is like a small European hotel.”
“You sound like a travel agent, not a detective,” said Jane.
Gunther smiled. “My parents ran a very nice hotel in Lucerne,” he said. “I know a lot about the hotel business.”
“Including how to get in and out of hotel rooms,” said Jane. “Where will you be staying?”
He looked pained but brave. “There is a rather grim motel just a block away.”
“I see,” said Jane.
In the hall, the phone rang. She excused herself and answered it. It was Jack Lawson.
“Listen, Jack,” she began, “I’m in the middle of something right now.”
“This won’t take long,” he said in a tense voice. “I just want you to know that you’re a fabulous person. Maybe you’re too good for me. . . .”
This was it. The big kiss-off. “You’re too good for me” was the telling phrase.
