by Dave Daren
There wasn’t any evidence to suggest a third person had shown up on their own vehicle and then had left with Vann’s jet ski. Of course, this was all under the assumption that she was telling the truth about where she was that night. I planned to follow up on her alibi at the first given chance, but until then, I wanted to get a better understanding of Tash and her relationships with the other suspects.
“Now this conversation is over,” the confident woman announced as she stood up straight.
She walked up to me and waited for me to either climb up the ladder or move out of the way so she could climb it.
I did neither. I stared down at her crown until she looked up and met my gaze with her hazel eyes, and she reduced the gap between us.
“I hope you don’t think your height intimidates me,” she said in a low voice. “It’s the opposite actually.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” I told her with a smirk. “However, I actually still have some questions for you.”
“I have an alibi,” she insisted.
“I know,” I said. “Your alibi doesn’t cover you for the hours Vann would’ve been killed, but I’m not interested in accusing you of murder.”
“So what are you interested in?” she asked as the smirk returned.
“Getting to know Marleen Tash,” I answered. “Her role in this case.”
I tried not to smile when she sighed and rolled her eyes at my answer. Clearly not the response she was hoping for. She turned away from me and sat at the table across from the counters, and after a brief hesitation, I followed her lead and slid into the chair across from her. She planted her elbows on the table and then rested her chin on her interlocked fingers. The position made her appear regal, as though she were awaiting to hear a member of her court speak.
“What have you heard about me?” she asked when our eyes connected.
“Yura told me you hate working on this deathtrap,” I said as I gestured to the room around us.
“Yura is an obsessive mess,” she said in a calm voice. “She’s been that way since we were kids. I told her to stop following me around like a lost puppy when we were in middle school, and I’ve been in her sights ever since.”
“So what she said about you was an exaggeration?” I inquired.
“Not exactly,” she responded. “I do say that, but everyone, including her, knows I’m not being genuine. The fact that she reported it to you as a sincere statement shows how twisted she is. Now, that doesn’t mean this boat doesn’t need some repairs. Did you see the dents?”
I nodded as I added to my journal.
“They’re nothing serious,” she said. “Just some dents from when we were too slow to avoid some small chunks of ice. Because they’re not serious, Austin refuses to have them repaired. However, one of our cables snapped two years ago and struck against the bow. There’s a small crack there now, and Austin insists it’s not worth repairing. But one day, Arctic Wizard is going to split in two.”
“And yet, you still work for Mr. Morris,” I pointed out.
“I’m hoping by the time it happens, I’ll have my own boat and crew,” she said with a smile.
“You want to branch out on your own,” I mused. “Does Mr. Morris know that?”
“Mr. Morris,” she repeated as though pronouncing a word for the first time. “Morris. You’ve really opened my eyes to calling people by their last names. To answer your question, he should know. Every time he makes a mistake, I joke that it won’t happen on my boat.”
“Would you say you two are close?” I asked.
“He’s closer to Luke,” she admitted. “Luke’s obedient and very loyal, kinda like a dog, so of course, Austin would like him more.”
“And you’re none of those things,” I stated as I pointed my pen at her.
“I can be loyal,” she said as she flicked at my pen. “I just don’t blindly follow others.”
“You’re a bit of a rule breaker,” I said. “You were the one who suggested the crew fish in the Arctic Ocean after all.”
For the first time, her poised aura was disrupted by a glare that did less to inspire fear than admiration. Her narrowed eyes added to her sexiness, and when she lowered her interlocked fingers to the table and leaned forward, I caught a whiff of something tropical.
“I can’t believe he told you that,” she whispered. “What does the Arctic Ocean have to do with the murder?”
The question surprised me, and I raised my eyebrows upon hearing it. Vann hadn’t confronted Tash about the illegal fishing after all, but there was still Luke Marniq.
“Vann knew you guys went fishing in the Arctic Ocean,” I answered and watched her shake her head in disappointment. “That’s why Mr. Morris went out to sea to talk to him. He was afraid Vann would go to the police.”
“I knew it was a bad idea,” she groaned.
“Then why’d you suggest it?” I asked.
“I didn’t,” she snapped. “It wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. I tried to change Austin’s mind, but he wouldn’t listen to reason. He was confident we could get away with it, and now look at what’s happened. Do the police know?”
“No,” I answered with a shake of my head. “They think Mr. Morris either killed Vann over the broken fishing net or to eliminate his main competitor.”
“It’s because of this investigation that I know Austin didn’t murder Harrison,” she sighed. “Since Harrison died, Austin has been in the hospital and our hired hand quit on us. That leaves me and Luke to catch fish. There’s no way that’s going to work, but Austin insists we go out to sea.”
“I thought Mrs. Morris was going to help you guys?” I questioned.
“Diana?” she scoffed as her earlier annoyance returned. “She’s about as useful as a dull knife. There’s always a headache, or nausea, or vertigo, or something, and she becomes worse in the summer because the constant daylight makes her suffer from severe insomnia. I think she swallows half a bottle of sleeping pills just to get any rest. Never in my life have I met such a sickly person outside of a hospital. I don’t understand why Austin asked her to help out, and I understand even less about why she agreed to do it.”
The memory of Morris laughing at me for suggesting his wife could be the killer filled my head, and I scribbled the word sickly on Diana’s page. I wanted to meet her before I counted her out as the killer, of course, but if she really was that sickly, it might put her out of the running as the murderer unless the autopsy revealed drugs in Vann’s system. Now that I was aware of her persistent poor health, I found her decision to not be by Morris’ side while he recovered in the hospital even more suspicious. Why would she suddenly agree to go out on the boat?
The sound of footsteps thumping above drew our attention away from the conversation at hand. Tash stood up and strolled past me to the ladder where she placed a hand on a rung and turned to look at me.
“Those heavy footsteps have to be Luke,” she said with a nod toward the ceiling.
She climbed up the ladder to the deck without waiting for a response from me.
I watched her back as she climbed, and then I returned my journal to my pocket before I followed her topside.
On deck, I found her standing across from a man holding a red, rubber bucket by its handle in one hand and some folded clothing in the other. What he lacked in height, Luke Marniq made up for in muscle. Despite the thickness of his coat, his biceps bulged through the sleeves when he moved the bucket’s handle to rest on his shoulder like a bag. His hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail that swung down his neck and ended at his shoulders, and bushy eyebrows rested above dark brown eyes.
His attention immediately shifted from Tash to me when I emerged, but he said nothing. Instead, he chose to give me a small nod of the head, so I nodded back.
“Is Diana with you?” Tash asked as she checked behind him.
“No, I thought she’d be here already,” he said in a soft voice.
A scream emerged from behind Luke, and the
three of us exchanged surprised stares. Marniq placed the folded clothing in the bucket and then dropped the bucket at his feet. He darted around the wheelhouse while Tash and I were still trying to figure out where the sound had come from. We glanced at each other, and then ran after Marniq.
We came around the edge of the wheelhouse to find Marniq leaning over a woman. She was on her hands and knees on the deck, and Marniq was trying to help her stand. Tash made a sound of disgust under her breath, and I guessed that the always ill Mrs. Morris had arrived
“Sorry, sorry,” the woman apologized as she leaned on Marniq. “I thought I had lifted my foot higher.”
“That’s Diana,” Tash stage-whispered to me.
Mrs. Morris looked up, and her piercing blue eyes widened when she noticed me. Her pale, blonde hair was cut into a bob with a sideways part that allowed her bangs to partially cover her left eye. Her skin was so pale that it almost rivaled the white coat she wore. She patted Marniq on the shoulder as she moved to stand on her own, and when she’d recovered from her fall and shock, she stretched a hand toward me.
“Mr. Brooks,” she said as we shook hands. “I didn’t expect to run into you out here.”
“Neither did I,” I said with a polite smile. “I expected to meet you with Mr. Morris at the hospital.”
She gave an embarrassed smile as she rubbed her right wrist.
“Don’t tell me you injured yourself,” Tash complained as she stared at the wrist.
“You know me, Marleen,” Mrs. Morris chuckled as she stopped rubbing her wrist to grip it. “It’s always one thing or another.”
Tash made a sound of agreement, though her expression made it clear that she had no sympathy for the other woman.
“What can I help you with, Mr. Brooks?” Mrs. Morris asked as she turned her attention to me.
“You’re not investigating us, too, are you?” Marniq questioned and then frowned.
“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Morris asked as she looked at him and then Tash. “Who’s investigating us?”
“The police,” Marniq sighed and stared off into the distance. “I don’t blame them. There’s no way Austin killed Vann, so they have to start considering other people. They questioned me today.”
“But you wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Mrs. Morris teased as she touched his cheek.
“Unless the fly tried to destroy our fishing net,” Tash joked.
“That’s not funny,” Marniq responded as he jabbed his finger in Tash’s direction.
The sudden change in his expression and voice caught me and Mrs. Morris off-guard. The neutral, almost peaceful, look he’d worn just a second ago had been replaced with a glare that could have made anyone under it combust. Mrs. Morris had flinched at the newfound edge in his voice, but Tash responded to this shift in behavior with mocking indifference. I found myself observing this odd dynamic with more than a little suspicion.
“What Vann did to our net was reprehensible,” the angered fisherman said.
“Whoa, you pulled out the dictionary for that one,” Tash interrupted as she tried not to laugh.
“But I would never kill him over it,” he continued. “That goes against everything I believe in.”
“Okay, okay,” Tash surrendered as she held up her hands.
His composure returned just as quickly as he had lost it, and I found the change jarring. The way Mrs. Morris furrowed her brow suggested she felt the same way. Tash was the only one apparently unaffected by the dramatic reversal as she graced him with a mischievous smirk.
That was more than Marniq could stand, and he launched into a lecture on maturity and the need for it on a boat. Tash rolled her eyes at him but made no move to stop him as she sauntered back to the hatch with Marniq on her heels.
Mrs. Morris turned away from their retreating forms to smile at me and then motioned for me to follow her. We walked to the bow where Marniq’s lecture could easily be dismissed as background noise.
“Is what Luke said true?” the pale woman asked as she turned to face me. “Are the police investigating us?”
“Yes,” I answered. “I confronted them with clues that suggested a third person was on the boat. They tried to dismiss it, but I think I managed to convince them that they should at least look into other possibilities.”
“That’s good,” she said with a nod. “But also a little sad. It’s bad enough knowing someone killed Vann, but to think they would go so far as to frame Austin for it is just…”
She sighed and shook her head. The action proved too much for her, though, as she winced and rubbed her temples afterward.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she said with a sheepish smile. “It’s just a headache. I’ve been getting a lot of them since the sun returned, and they’ve only gotten worse with this murder investigation.”
“It could also be lack of sleep,” I suggested as Yura’s earlier odd behavior came to mind.
“Oh, yes,” she agreed. “That’s definitely part of it.”
“Ms. Tash mentioned you take sleeping pills,” I said.
“Ms. Tash?” she repeated. “That’s far too elegant of a title for her. But, yes, me and half of Utqiagvik rely on them to fix our sleep schedules when the season changes. At least, that’s the only time they’re supposed to be used. I need mine just to fall asleep in general. It’s really…”
She trailed off as she stared at something behind me. I turned around to see what had caught her attention and found Yura walking onto the dock and toward the boat. She moved out of view, and this forced Mrs. Morris and I to move to the edge of the boat where we could look over its railing. We were now near Tash and Marniq, whose discourse came to an abrupt end when they both spotted Yura as well.
“Oh, look, the whole gang’s here,” Yura mocked from the dock. “Perfect.”
“Do you need something?” Tash called with a scowl.
“Yeah, I need one of you fuckers to admit you helped Austin kill Harrison,” she answered as she darted her finger between Marniq and Tash.
“What!” Tash screamed, but anger didn’t cloud her facial features as they did Marniq’s. Instead, she appeared amused by the accusation.
“Are you out of your mind?” she asked followed by a laugh.
Mrs. Morris grabbed my arm just as Yura was about to respond. Vann’s lover yelled something, but I was unable to decipher what it was because my attention now rested on the woman next to me who suddenly appeared visibly ill. Mrs. Morris clutched her forehead, and I felt her sway against me.
“I’m sorry to ask you this, Mr. Brooks,” she said in a small voice. “Could you give me a ride home? Their yelling is making my headache become a migraine.”
“Of course,” I answered and then jabbed my thumb at the women arguing next to us. “But what about them?”
“Leave them,” she mumbled. “They argue like this all the time. Nothing will happen.”
She knew them better than I did, so I accepted her command and offered her my arm. She held onto it and let me lead her to the dock. At least Marniq stopped glaring at Yura long enough to offer an apologetic glance in our direction.
“I’m sorry you have to listen to this,” he said to the both of us as we passed.
“Don’t apologize,” Mrs. Morris replied. “It’s not your fault.”
Yura and Tash were too busy arguing to notice either of us as we walked down the dock, and for that I was grateful since I was sure they would have heaped a ton of scorn on the woman next to me if they had. We passed people who had been walking along the beach who had stopped to find the source of the yelling, and I even saw a couple of people pull out their phones and dial. I was sure news of the fight would be all over the small town soon, and the police would probably appear as well.
People were coming out of the buildings across the road just to stare in awe at the ferocious exchange of words between the women, and in the time it took for us to cross the road to my truck, for me to help Mrs. Morris
into the passenger seat, and for me to settle into the driver seat, a crowd had formed on the dock near Arctic Wizard. I stared at the growing mass of spectators in my rear-view mirror before I started the engine and backed out onto the road. I just hoped Yura and Tash were still in one piece by the time I returned.
Chapter 7
The Morris house was located across from Middle Salt Lagoon on the corner of Laura Madison Street and Cakeatter Road. I noted how isolated the house was with only one neighbor on the left as I pulled up to the garage. I saw another house further down the road, and another clump of homes beyond that, but it was hard to consider them neighbors, especially in the winter when it would be almost impossible to reach the place without at least a pair of snowshoes.
This feeling of isolation increased further when I realized that no one lived in the house on the left. It was obvious no one had parked there in some time, and when I glanced through an uncovered window, I saw that there was no furniture inside.
When I climbed out of my truck, I discovered a ‘For Sale’ sign laying on the ground in front of the neighbor’s house. It had probably been knocked down by the wind, a common enough occurrence just about anywhere in the state. Normally, I would have tried to stand the sign back up, but I still had a sick passenger to deal with.
But when I walked around the truck, I discovered Mrs. Morris climbing out on her own. She moved quickly, but when she saw me round the truck, she pressed her fingers against her forehead and then massaged the area while wearing a deep frown. She sighed and then dragged her feet toward the porch.
The Morris house was two stories of white walls and windows with blue frames. I was surprised by how pristine the walls appeared given the exposed dirt surrounding the house, but maybe Morris was more careful with his home than his boat.
Mrs. Morris wobbled up the porch steps as she gripped the railing for support, though she waved off my attempts to help her. When she made it to the door, she took a deep breath as she retrieved a key chain from her pocket, unlocked the door, and then held it open for me to enter. The main entrance led into a corridor with a staircase on the right and a closed door on the left. Mrs. Morris opened the door to reveal a closet full of coats. She removed hers, placed it inside, and then slipped off her shoes. They joined the other shoes placed in a cubby located at the foot of the closet.
