Finding Justice (A Rescue Alaska Mystery Book 1)

by Kathi Daley

  “Harley’s always been nice. I was happy to see Hollywood hadn’t changed that. He’s even donating a warehouse for us to use as an animal shelter.”

  “He mentioned that. Such a generous gift, although I suppose he can afford it. Would you like a cup of coffee and a piece of ginger cake?”

  “I don’t have long.”

  “I’ll send some cake with you,” Mary offered. “I know Harley’s fond of the cake and I seem to remember gingerbread is one of Jake’s favorites as well.”

  “Thank you. That would be very nice.”

  “So, what are you young people up to?” Mary asked as she sliced three pieces of cake and transferred them into a plastic container.

  “Jake and I are helping Harley with a project.”

  “Harley’s been asking around about Tim Maverick’s death. I do hope he finds out what happened. Tim sometimes helped out at the church. He was such a nice young man. Didn’t always use the sense God gave him, but I can’t believe he was back on drugs again. He seemed to have turned a corner, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do. Tim and I didn’t run into each other often—probably because I spend most of my time in a bar and he was a recovering addict—but the few times I saw him, he seemed alert and happy. Harley thinks he might not have taken the drugs voluntarily, and I have to say I agree.”

  “I do hope you can find out what happened to that poor boy.”

  Tim had been thirty, so not really a boy, but Mary was at least in her fifties, so I imagined it was all relative.

  “Can you think of anyone we can talk to? Maybe someone Tim hung out with who might know what had been going on in his life in the weeks leading up to his death?”

  Mary paused. “I suppose you should speak to Jared Martin. They seemed pretty close. And I noticed Tim with his eye on Teresa Toller at services. I think they might have been sweet on each other.”

  “Thanks. I’ll speak to them.”

  Mary handed me the plastic container with the cake inside just as Jake and Harley came downstairs to the main floor of the inn.

  “What’s next?” I asked them.

  “I need to call my agent,” Harley answered. “He’s left twenty messages in the past two hours. I’m assuming we need to do some negotiating on the Italy project. Can I meet you later? Maybe for dinner?”

  I glanced at Jake.

  “Fine with me,” he answered. “You have the night off. I’ll take you to get your Jeep.”

  “Thanks.” I held up the plastic container. “Mary sent cake.”

  “Then I’ll have some of that when I drop you.”

  I said good-bye to Mary and Harley and followed Jake out into the cold Alaskan day. “Did you find anything interesting in the letter?” I asked.

  “No. It was just as Harley said: a few sentences stating he felt he was in danger and that the man in the photo might kill him.”

  “I wonder why Tim didn’t go to the authorities.”

  “I guess he didn’t feel he could trust them. I hope we can help Harley find his answers, but I have to be honest: It’s a long shot. We don’t even know who the man in the photo is, or when he was in Rescue.”

  I opened the container, tore off a corner of one of the pieces of cake, and popped it in my mouth. I hadn’t taken time for breakfast and I was starving. “It does seem like we’re up against a brick wall. I thought I’d talk to a few people this afternoon, show the photo around, and see if anyone has seen the man. Last I knew Landon had the photo, so I’ll stop by his place to pick it up.”

  I checked on all my animals and let the dogs out for a quick run before I headed to Landon’s. He’d already scanned it into his computer and was seeking a match from his facial recognition database. It was another long shot the man would even be in the database, but eliminating that possibility seemed the best place to start.

  I picked up the photo and headed to the pharmacy, which Tim’s friend, Jared Martin, ran. He was a recent transplant to Rescue, having moved here only two years before. In a way, it seemed odd that Jared, who was steady and serious and had an advanced degree, would be friends with Tim, who, even after he got sober, was spontaneous and irresponsible and tended to get into difficult, complicated situations. Still, Tim was friendly and outgoing, and he’d always had a joke to tell and a smile on his face, so I imagine that for Jared, who lived a serious life, he was a nice change of pace.

  “Afternoon, Harmony. What can I help you with today?” Jared asked.

  “Information,” I answered. “Information about Tim Maverick, to be precise.”

  Jared bowed his head. “I still can’t believe he’s gone. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I guess you heard Harley Medford is in town.”

  “Everyone’s heard Harley Medford is in town. The guy’s the biggest thing to come to Rescue in, well, forever.”

  “I’m not sure if you know this, but Harley grew up here. In fact, he and Tim were best friends all through high school.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Harley, understandably, is upset about Tim’s passing and is looking in to the details surrounding his death. He’s of the opinion Tim hadn’t fallen off the wagon and wouldn’t voluntarily shoot up.”

  “I agree, to a point. Right before his death, Tim seemed distracted, even somewhat depressed. He never would tell me what was on his mind, but I wasn’t totally surprised when he chose to end his own life.”

  “So you think he intentionally overdosed?”

  “That would be my guess, although I suppose an accidental overdose is equally as likely.”

  “Do you recognize this man?”

  Jared took the photo I held out. “No. Who is he?”

  “I’m not sure, but it seems to be someone Tim was in some way involved with. Did he say anything to you that would lead you to believe he had a project he was working on before he died?”

  Jared pursed his lips, then shook his head. “Not really. He did say he’d gotten a part-time job. He didn’t tell me who he was working for, but it sounded like he was a courier of some sort.”

  “A courier?”

  Jared shrugged. “I didn’t dig for details. You know how Tim could be. Once you got him off on a tangent, he could talk your ear off.”

  “Can you think of anyone with whom he may have shared the details of his job?”

  Jared put his hand on his chin as he thought about it. “I suppose you could have a chat with Gill Greenland. I don’t know for certain he spoke to Tim, but Gill usually chats with his customers while he’s filling them up, and if he caught Tim on the right day, he might have discussed what he was up to.”

  “Thanks. I’ll head over there now. If you think of anything later that seems like it could be important, will you call me?”

  “Sure thing. I hope you figure this out.”

  The gas station Gill owned was only a few blocks away and I needed gas anyway, so I pulled up to the pump. Gill seemed distracted as he looked up into the sky, which was dark and heavy, and the temperature had come up a bit, so I thought we were in for another storm.

  “Storms coming,” he said when I rolled down my window.

  “Yeah, it looks that way.”

  “Fill ’er up?”

  “Please,” I said and stepped out of the vehicle.

  “Could be the first of many. Heard we’re in for another series of strong storms.”

  “Hopefully, there’ll be enough warning with this one, so we won’t have skiers trapped out in the storm like we do when things blow in real fast.”

  “Yeah, that’d be nice, but the people who come up here to ski don’t seem to bring the common sense God gave them with them. It’s not right we have to put our own folks in danger to rescue them.”

  I tucked my hands into my jacket pockets for added warmth as the wind began to pick up. “I guess you heard Harley Medford donated a warehouse for us to use as an animal shelter.”

  “Yup, I heard. That was right nice of him.”

 
; “It was.” I nodded. “In return for his generous donation, I’m helping him look in to the specifics surrounding Tim Maverick’s death.”

  Gill pulled the gas nozzle from my Jeep and returned it to the pump. “I remember Harley and Tim were friends. It was a real shame what happened to Tim. A real shame indeed.”

  “Had you spoken to Tim in the weeks before he died?”

  “Sure. Tim came in for a top off a couple of times a week. We’d chat for a minute while I pumped the gas.”

  “How did he seem?”

  “Seem?”

  “The official cause of death was a heroin overdose. Did Tim seem stressed or distracted to you? Did it seem as if he may have been using again?”

  Gill looked up and rolled his eyes back, as if searching for the information I required. “He did seem like he had something heavy on his mind the last time I saw him. He was in a hurry, more so than usual, and his tank was nearly empty, even though I’d just filled it up the day before.”

  “Did he say where he’d driven?”

  Gill shook his head. “Nope. It seemed as if he might have been leaving town again, though. He asked about the road conditions on the highway north of here.”

  I said a brief, silent prayer the charge would go through and handed Gill my credit card. “Did it seem as if he’d been drinking or using drugs?’

  Gill handed me back my card, along with a receipt to sign. “No. Just sort of skittish, if you know what I mean. He kept looking around, like he had his eyes open for someone or something.”

  I took the photo out of my pocket. “Do you recognize this man?”

  “No, I can’t say I do. Is it someone I should know?”

  “Not necessarily. I just have reason to believe he’s someone Tim was connected to prior to his death.”

  I thanked Gill for the conversation and climbed back into my Jeep. I still wanted to speak to Teresa Toller, but I needed to get home to see to the animals before my dinner with Harley, so I made a note to follow up with her the next day.

  Chapter 6

  The storm Gill had predicted had blown in with force, so Harley and I decided to just have dinner at Neverland. Even though he’d grown up in Rescue, he lived in Los Angeles now and wasn’t used to driving in the snow, so I volunteered to pick him up rather than the other way around. Even before this storm it had been snowing on and off, and many of the roads in town hadn’t been recently plowed, but thanks to the studded snow tires Jake had given me, I figured I’d be fine as long as I avoided the really deep drifts.

  “Okay, guys, I won’t be gone long. Please don’t destroy the house while I’m away.” I looked at the husky pup who had found her way into my shed a few months back. “That means you, Shia. I still haven’t sewn up the pillow you tore up the last time I left you in the house while I went out. This is your last chance to prove you can respect my space, or next time you’ll find yourself in the barn.”

  Shia didn’t really mind the barn, and I left her there when I was going to be out for long periods of time, but she was a young and beautiful dog I knew could easily find a forever home if she’d just learn some manners. We’d been working on eliminating certain behaviors and she seemed to have made progress, at least when I was at home, but the only way to test her ability to behave while I was away was to leave her alone in the house for short periods of time to see how it went.

  Harley was waiting for me when I pulled up in front of the inn and came out to the Jeep without my having to go in to get him. Marty had strung colored lights around the windows and along the roofline of the three-story structure, which gave the place a warm, Christmassy feel.

  “It’s really coming down,” Harley said as he climbed into the passenger seat.

  “Yeah. We’ve had a system of strong storms coming through as of late. They’re predicting several feet of new snow over the next few days.”

  “I forgot how relentless the winters can be up here. Still, I prefer it to the heat in LA at this time of the year.”

  “Christmas and snow do go together. How’d your talk with your agent go?”

  Harley sighed. “It looks like I have no choice but to go to Italy, as he promised on my behalf. I leave tomorrow, but I should be back before Christmas.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said as I pulled into the parking lot at Neverland.

  “Proving that Tim’s death wasn’t an accident and then finding his killer is important to me, so the timing couldn’t be worse. I tried everything I could to get out of it, but my agent insists I’m obligated to follow though. I did speak to my attorney, though, and he’s drawing up the paperwork to have the warehouse deeded to the town. And I set up a fund at the local bank that can be used to buy supplies and pay for labor for the remodel. It’s fine with me if you want to go ahead and get started right away.”

  I opened my door and slid out of the Jeep. “Again, thank you so much. The town and the animals of Rescue are extremely grateful.”

  “I’m more than happy to help.” Harley took my arm and we hurried to the front door of the bar. Once inside, we chose a table near a window. Jake brought us a pitcher of beer while Harley looked at the menu. Once he’d decided, we gave Jake our order.

  “So, the movie in Italy…is it an action flick?” Harley wasn’t only famous for action films, but he often did his own stunts.

  “It’s an indie film that’s more of a coming-of-age sort of thing. Thankfully, I only have a small part that shouldn’t take long to film. I tried to talk my agent out of agreeing that I’d participate at all, but the producer wanted to use my name as a marketing ploy even though I’m only in a few scenes. It feels sort of dishonest to me to promote it as one of my films, but it’s done all the time. I might have fought harder against doing it, but my agent and the producer are old friends, so I let them talk me into it.”

  “Well, I hope it’ll go smoothly and you’ll be able to get back to Rescue in plenty of time for the holidays.”

  “Hopefully. I already told my agent I’m taking some time off next year. I’ve been doing one movie after another for so long, I’ve forgotten what else life has to offer.”

  I watched as Harley took a sip of his beer. He did look tired, but I supposed he might not have been sleeping well since finding out what happened to Tim.

  “I’m sure you’re asked this all the time, but why did you decide to go into acting in the first place?”

  “I didn’t really choose acting; it sort of chose me. After my dad died, my mom moved us to Los Angles to be near her family. I was halfway through senior year of high school, and I’ll admit the move on top of my dad’s death was hard on me. I joined a gym and began working out to deal with my life. I got in to Parkour, and after a few months I decided to enter some competitions. I was participating in one when a guy came up to me and asked if I’d ever considered being a stuntman. It had never occurred to me, but I was feeling pretty unfocused, so I agreed to meet him to explore the idea. One thing led to another, and I got a few gigs. I was doing a movie and one of the stars got hurt. They asked me to stand in for him until they could find a replacement. The next thing I knew, I was signing a contract to take over the role.”

  “Wow. That’s amazing. Considering you’re now one of the biggest action stars in the world, I’m assuming you did well in your first role.”

  Harley shrugged. “Apparently. So, what about you? What have you been up to since we shared the stage all those years ago?”

  “Maybe you remember my parents died in an accident and I was living with Jake and my sister, Val. About a year after your father’s death, Val was killed in a rescue. Jake took over as my guardian and I started helping out in the bar. I worked in the kitchen until I turned twenty-one, then switched to tending bar and waiting on tables. I won’t say being a bartender was my dream job, but the tips are pretty good and I like spending time here with Jake and the gang.”

  “It’s obvious you’re all really close.”

  I nodded. “Like I said, w
e’re a family.”

  “Have you ever thought of trying something else?”

  I lifted one shoulder. “Sometimes I play with the idea, but Rescue is my home, and there aren’t a lot of career opportunities here. I’m very involved with the search-and-rescue team, and working for Jake gives me the flexibility I need to participate in every rescue. How about you? Do you ever think of doing something other than acting?”

  “Lately, all the time.”

  I was surprised to hear that. Harley was very good at what he did. “Is there something else you’re interested in?”

  “Not specifically, but there are times I think about spending my life doing something that makes a real difference, rather than playing the part of characters who make a difference. Acting has been good to me, but I’m not sure I want to do it for the rest of my life.”

  “I can understand that.”

  Sarge came over with our food and we paused the conversation. Sarge had been a cook in the army and now he did most of the cooking here. He might have a rough and gruff exterior, but he was a genius in the kitchen.

  “This looks really good,” Harley said as he cut into his steak.

  “Sarge is an excellent cook. I think you’ll enjoy everything he makes.”

  Harley and I spent the next few minutes eating rather than talking. As usual, Sarge’s five-cheese lasagna was delicious, as was his homemade bread fresh from the oven. I was buttering my second slice when Teresa Toller walked in with Greta Garbo. They took a seat near the door.

  “See the two women who just walked in?” I whispered.

  Harley turned and looked in the direction of the front of the bar. “Yeah. What about them?”

  “The younger of the two was a friend of Tim’s. Her name’s Teresa. I’d planned to speak to her tomorrow, but I think I’ll scoot over there and say hi after they order.”

  “Do you think she knows anything?”