by Stan Jones
“Nope, Filipino. It’s a real common name with them.”
“So did the Creekview guy know where she is?” Active said it casually, forcing it past a tightening throat.
“Not a clue.” He was starting to relax a little when Dennis added triumphantly, “But the computer did.”
Active sighed. “Go ahead.”
Dennis explained that he had found Angelina Ramos in the Oil Dividend records. She had skipped the dividend for a year after Grace Palmer’s death, then applied from Dutch Harbor. Her most recent application, filed only three months earlier, listed her in care of Elizabeth Cove Seafoods in the Aleutian fishing port. A call to the Alaska Department of Labor, Dennis said, had confirmed that unemployment insurance premiums were being deducted from the paychecks of one Angelina Ramos at Elizabeth Cove Seafoods in Dutch Harbor.
“And it was Cullars who knew to call the labor department,” Dennis concluded. “I guess he’s got something on the ball, even if it’s not much. Maybe it’s all the sugar.”
Active thought it over. “So where does this leave us?”
“I’m turning it over to Homicide,” Dennis said. “Ramos drops out of sight after Grace Palmer dies, turns up in Dutch Harbor. Why would she skip the Oil Dividend for a year unless she was trying to lie low? Nobody in their right mind gives up free money from the state of Alaska.”
“I still don’t see why you have to get the files now. Why can’t it wait ’ll tomorrow?”
“I want to go over them again tonight, see if she pops up anywhere but the Creekview,” Dennis said. “Then I’ll write up some kind of report and give it to Homicide in the morning, try to get ’em interested no matter how busy they are. And then I can go back to my real job and forget about this beauty queen of yours.”
“Yeah, right,” Active said.
“Yeah, right.”
“OK, come on over. I already bundled it all up for you, anyway.”
They hung up and Active got the files from atop the briefcase, figuring he’d go downstairs and wait on the steps for Dennis, enjoy the evening sun and try not to think about anything.
It didn’t work. He put his head back on the steps and closed his eyes and there was Grace Palmer’s face from the mural. The fox eyes veiled, no flash of silver there now. Dead eyes.
He trudged back upstairs with the files, flopped onto his bed, pulled off the rubber band, and opened the first folder.
Fifteen minutes later, just as the doorbell rang downstairs, he closed the last file and looked at the three sheets of paper he had extracted during his search. One was the Oil Dividend printout, showing Grace and Angie living together at the Creekview. Another was from the file on Grace Palmer’s arrest for obstructing traffic. Someone named “A. Ramos” had bailed her out for fifty dollars. The third sheet was from the file on the window-smashing spree on Fourth Avenue. Officer Tedrow had diligently recorded the names of everyone at the scene, including an “Angie Ramoth,” who admitted knowing Grace Palmer but denied any knowledge of the window-smashing.
So what, he told himself. Whether Angie Ramos did or didn’t serve time for killing Grace Palmer, the dead eyes would stay dead. So what? Not his jurisdiction, not his case, not his problem.
He heard Carmen go to the door and let Dennis in, heard his friend clumping up the stairs, and had the files shaped back into a neat stack, the rubber band in place, by the time Dennis filled the doorway to his room.
“That them?” he said.
“That’s them,” Active said. “But I need to keep them for a while.”
Dennis frowned, looked like he was trying to figure out what the joke was. “Yeah, for your scrapbook, right?”
“No, for Dutch Harbor.”
“Dutch Harbor?”
“I’m going down there.”
“You are? When?”
“Friday night after my class ends, Saturday morning, whenever I can get a seat.”
“I don’t know …”
“Come on, you said yourself Homicide might not be interested. How soon are they going to send somebody down there?”
Dennis looked thoughtful, tugged at his lower lip. “Look, man, a couple of street people get into a drunken squabble over a bottle and one of them ends up sucked into a snowplow - - how much does it matter? It’s more of an accident than a murder if you think about it. Let it go, let our Homicide unit handle it. It’s their job.”
Active shrugged.
“You know, you’re getting pretty close to the edge here.”
Active shrugged again.
“Yeah, OK.” Dennis rolled his eyes and pulled a sheaf of papers from inside his jacket. “You better take these, too, then. I got a copy of Cullars’ Heavenly Doe file when I saw him today.”
Active took the papers. “Even the pictures?”
“Even the pictures.”
Active tossed the sheaf on top of the other files. “Thanks, Dennis. I … well, thanks.”
Dennis rolled his eyes and clumped down the stairs.
PART III
DUTCH HARBOR
CHAPTER ELEVEN
No seats to Dutch Harbor were open after noon on Friday, so it was Saturday morning when Active handed the Aleutian Air agent his driver’s license and a credit card, and heaved his bag onto the scales beneath the counter. His head throbbed from even this mild exertion, a consequence of the previous night’s service on Dennis’s hockey team, when two players from the opposition had checked him into the sideboard so hard he lost consciousness for a few seconds.
The agent, a prim-looking man in a white shirt, blue tie, and steel-rimmed glasses, eyed the bag, then Active. “That it?”
“That’s it, except for my briefcase here.” Active held it up for inspection by Mr. Jenkins, as a name tag identified the ticket agent.
“That bag would fit in the overhead,” Jenkins said. “You might want to carry it on, too.”
Active shook his head and said he’d rather not have to bother with it.
Jenkins looked at him and raised his eyebrows significantly. “You still might want to carry it on.”
Active asked him why and Jenkins leaned over the counter with a confidential air.
“We’re not supposed to say this, but …” He paused, looked at Active, and waited expectantly.
“Oh,” Active said, realizing what Mr. Jenkins expected. “I won’t tell. Your secret is safe with me.”
Jenkins nodded and continued with the same confidential, even conspiratorial, air. “Once, one of our planes was trapped on the ground in Dutch Harbor three days by a storm. Ever since, our crews have tended to expedite the turnaround there whenever the weather is inclement.”
Active’s lack of comprehension must have shown, for Mr. Jenkins elaborated. “And today the weather is very inclement.”
He paused, looked at Active, and apparently detected no sign of enlightenment. “There may not be time to unload the baggage,” he whispered.
He straightened and watched approvingly as Active pulled his bag off the scales and said “Thank you very much” and asked himself how any woman, however dead or beautiful, could take him where the weather could ground a jetliner for three days.
The flight to Dutch Harbor was two hours long. That’s what the ticket from Aleutian Air said, but it might as well have been twenty minutes. That’s how long it took Active to fall asleep after he got two aspirins from the cabin attendant and opened the Peer Instruction Training Manual on his lap. It was his usual response to the noise, the smell, and, especially, the helpless immobility of air travel.
He awoke as the cabin attendant launched into her lecture on the need to raise his seat back to the full upright and locked position. The moment she finished, a deep confident male voice clicked on.
“This is Captain Ross,” the voice said. “Dutch Harbor is experiencing a little weather just now, so we’re in a holding pattern north of the island. We’ve got enough fuel to do this, oh, maybe forty-five minutes, then we’ll have to head back to Anchorage.�
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But, Captain Ross went on to explain, the “weather” consisted of a series of squalls moving through, with pretty decent breaks in between, so they would probably - -
Suddenly, the deep voice clicked off, then came back on, tense now, no sign of the lazy verbal grin that had been in it before.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Dutch Harbor has opened up and we’re cleared to land,” said the now all-business Captain Ross. “Please check to see that your seat belts are securely fastened. Cabin attendants, prepare for landing.”
He clicked off and the 737 rolled into a bank steeper than Active had ever experienced in anything larger than a Super Cub. Equipment groaned somewhere out of sight, the flaps on the wing dropped, and deceleration pushed him forward in his seat.
He peered into the gray murk as Captain Ross rode the bucking 737 down through several thousand feet of cloud that Active hoped was rock-free. They never actually broke into the clear, but he became able to see waves below, then a few seconds of brown crags and gravel slopes, then more water. Then there was a flash of beach and runway lights and the screech of tires on pavement.
The engines roared as the pilot kicked in the thrust reversers and the plane slowed as if it had rolled into a lake of molasses.
Finally the noise and deceleration abated, and the cabin attendant clicked the public address system back on. “Welcome to Dutch Harbor,” she said, “the shortest runway in the world certified for the Boeing 737.”
The plane taxied to a halt and Active lined up with the rest of the passengers at the door near the cockpit. They filed down the ramp into a razoring wind and horizontal rain that evidently qualified as “between squalls” in Dutch Harbor. He was nearly to the terminal door, the carried-on bag bumping safely against his leg, when the soundness of Mr. Jenkins’ advice was demonstrated. Captain Ross hurried past with long strides and bounded up the steps into the terminal.
By the time Active got inside, Captain Ross was up on a chair addressing a crowd in front of the Aleutian Air ticket counter. “That’s what I’m saying,” Ross was telling a long-haired young white man who had evidently just asked a question. “We don’t have time to load the baggage. We haven’t even unloaded the bags we brought with us. Another squall will be here in ten minutes, and I’m taking that plane out ahead of it. If you want to get out of Dutch Harbor, you need to come with me right now.”
Captain Ross jumped off the chair and rushed out of the terminal with the same purposeful, long-legged stride that had brought him in.
The crowd of travelers at the counter looked at each other uneasily, then at the woman behind the counter. “We don’t even have our seats assigned yet,” said the man Captain Ross had spoken to.
The ticket agent shrugged and said, “That’ll take at least twenty minutes.” With that the crowd stampeded after the pilot. For a moment, Active felt the same panicky need to get out of Dutch Harbor and had to fight down the urge to run after them. Well, at least he had his bag, thanks to Mr. Jenkins.
Inside the terminal, he rented a Topaz, barely flinching at the tab of eighty dollars a day, even without the extra collision insurance.
The clerk, a bored teenage girl, gave him a map and swept a forefinger from the airport south to a dimple on the east shore of a body of water called Captain’s Bay when he told her he had a reservation at the Royal Islander.
“Right there at the back of Elizabeth Cove.” She tapped the dimple. “You can’t miss it.”
He bent over and studied the dimple. Sure enough, tiny letters identified it as Elizabeth Cove. He straightened and looked at the girl. “Is Elizabeth Cove Seafoods along there, too, by any chance?”
“Sure.” She touched a pen to the mouth of the cove, just where the shoreline turned south again to run down Captain’s Bay. “If you miss the hotel, that’s what you’ll hit next. Elizabeth Cove Seafoods.”
The girl—Dora, according to her name tag—slipped her headphones back on and picked up a magazine called 6TeeN. Dora was plump and Native, Aleut presumably, as Dutch Harbor was in the Aleutians. The girl on the cover of 6TeeN was white and looked to be about five pounds from anorexia.
He walked outside, found the Topaz, and tossed his bag into the rear seat just as Captain Ross’ 737 roared past the terminal, raised its nose and lifted off, wings rocking in the wind pouring over the island from the west.
Active climbed behind the wheel and studied the map as rain pelted against the windshield and the little car rocked in the gusts. It appeared Dutch Harbor was really two islands. A little one called Akmanak, with the airport and a web of roads at its south tip. To the east, a big one called Unalaska, with a narrow strait separating it from Akmanak.
In fact, the whole place seemed to be called Unalaska. Unalaska Island, City of Unalaska, even Unalaska Lake. Why, then, did they call it - - ah, there it was, an inlet north of the airport that bore the label “Dutch Harbor.”
Well, Dutch Harbor was good enough for him. Any place with weather so bad people abandoned their luggage to get out should certainly not be called “Unalaska.” It was very Alaska, in his opinion. Perhaps the quintessential Alaska.
He ran his finger along the route from the airport to Elizabeth Cove and started the Topaz. Elizabeth Cove was on the Unalaska side, a mile or so south of the strait between the two islands. He glanced at the bridge spanning the strait, then held the map up to the window for more light. Yes, the tiny letters really did say, “Bridge to the Otherside.”
He smiled and put the car in gear, thinking this was very Alaska, indeed, and that Dutch Harbor might be likable enough, the panicky stampede out of the terminal notwithstanding.
Dora’s prediction was accurate. It was impossible to miss the Royal Islander, a sprawling new structure with a four-story English manor in the center and less grandiose three-story wings to either side.
This, he realized with a sinking feeling, was not going to be cheap. Just as he was wishing he had put a little more effort into shopping around for a better deal before leaving Anchorage, he noticed a cluster of buildings two hundred yards down the beach, with a sign identifying it as Elizabeth Cove Seafoods. Easy walking distance, meaning his eighty-dollar-a-day Topaz was pretty much superfluous. Maybe he should just cancel the room and sleep in the Topaz?
He pushed away the thought, took his bag inside, through a lobby with a huge stone fireplace, and up to a counter where the clerk confirmed his worst fears. The room was one-seventy-five a night.
Well, at least there’s the fifty-seven channels of satellite television and the Jacuzzi, he consoled himself a few minutes later as he started the Topaz for the two-hundred-yard trip to Elizabeth Cove Seafoods.
He probably wouldn’t be around long anyway. Maybe Angie Ramos would be gone now, or maybe she would somehow be another Angie Ramos. Surely mistakes were possible, even likely, in something like this.
Maybe she would be the right Angie Ramos, but would say she hadn’t seen Grace Palmer for a month before the snowplow accident and would have a plausible explanation for moving to Dutch Harbor. Then it really would be over and he could let Jason Palmer’s daughter rest in peace.
Or maybe some word, some look, would tell him Angie Ramos had pushed Grace Palmer in the way of the snowplow. And then what? Unless she actually confessed and put out her wrists to be cuffed, he would be stuck with a three-year-old murder case, no evidence to speak of, and the agency with jurisdiction—the Anchorage Police Department—not likely to put much effort into it. One homeless person kills another, leaves town, somehow puts herself back together, and lives quietly in the northern version of Dodge City—why should any cop shop care?
Why, in fact, should he? He was tempted to switch off the Topaz, go back to the Islander, and watch the fifty-seven channels of satellite TV until the next flight out of Dutch Harbor.
Go back to Chukchi, patch things up with Lucy, and either marry her or do the honorable thing and break it off. What the hell was he looking for anyway? If it wasn’t Lucy, he had no
business dragging her around by the hair until he found it, which he might never do, anyway.
Until he knew how Grace Palmer had died. He leaned his head on the steering wheel and sighed. This was like a cup of coffee with one more swallow left. He had to drain it and look into the dregs. He put the Topaz in gear and pointed it at Elizabeth Cove Seafoods.
At first, the two women at the counter at Elizabeth Cove Seafoods told him they had all the hands they needed, what with the yellowfin sole starting to thin out now and the rockfish not in yet.
Then, when he said he was not a job applicant but an Alaska State Trooper and he needed to talk to one of their workers, a woman named Angie Ramos, they looked skeptical. One moved over and put her hand on a phone and he realized he was not only in civilian clothes, but also somewhat rumpled after the flight from Anchorage.
They relaxed when he pulled out his badge and told them his bag was at the hotel and he hadn’t thought to unpack and put on his uniform before coming over. The older of the two picked up a clipboard and ran her finger down the page, stopping a few lines from the bottom.
“Yep, she’s here today. She’s on the slimeline.” The woman pointed at a door leading back into the depths of the building. “Down that way, second set of double doors on your left. Ask for Mr. Phan, he’ll find her.”
The other woman said, “She do something?” as he turned for the door. He pretended not to hear.
He walked down a long hallway with coat hooks on the walls, some of them hung with fish-smelling orange overalls and rubber gumboots underneath. At the end, he pushed open the double metal doors and stepped into the factory.
It smelled of the sea and of spoiled fish, so strongly that he had to pause to let his breathing adjust. The room was alive with activity, such a blur of it that he couldn’t detect the organizing principle underneath.
His main impression was of many people in pale mesh hair nets and orange overalls working with a stream of white filets that poured out of a machine at one end of the room and flowed across it on a network of conveyor belts, like a river breaking into meandering channels upon reaching its delta. Why the channels of filets separated as they did, what the workers—the slimeliners, he assumed—did to the filets at various points along the channels, and what happened when the channels converged at the far end of the room, these were all mysteries to him amid the maddening throb and clang of the machinery that drove the process.
