by Sue Henry
SUE HENRY
DEATH TAKES PASSAGE:
An Alaska Mystery
For Toni Croft, who believed in the first place. A true friend is a real treasure, especially one who appreciates the value of playing hooky now and then for movies in the afternoon.
And for all those along the route of the Ton of Gold Centennial Reenactment, and their dedicated efforts to recreate the historical journey from Dawson to Skagway and down the Inside Passage to Seattle in July 1997, a hundred years after the original tons of gold arrived at Schwabacher’s Dock in July 1897 aboard the ship SS Portland, starting the great Klondike gold rush.
Contents
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Acknowledgments
About the Author
Author’s Note
More praise for Sue Henry’s
Books by Sue Henry
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
1:30 A.M.
Friday, July 11, 1997
Juneau/Douglas, Alaska
THE MOON WAS ALMOST FULL, BUT CLOTS OF CLOUDS SCUD ding darkly overhead persistently obscured it, allowing only infrequent and mottled patches of pale light to relieve the blackness of the waters of Gastineau Channel. It had risen just after midnight, from behind the tall, sharp peaks that rose on the eastern side of that slim arm of the sea like a wall. It would soon disappear, along with the few stars that slipped in and out of view.
The late breeze had quickened into a wind, which sighed through the evergreens on a small hill that stood between the Douglas Island boat harbor and the channel. The hill sheltered the small marina from the winter gales that frequently whipped the confined seas of the channel to an icy froth, driving injudicious vessels desperately toward any possible berth. This July wind, however, would more gently blow itself out under the curtains of rain promised by the threatening clouds. It was not unusual weather for the Southeast Alaskan Panhandle—lush, green, and intensely alive, home to rain and fog.
Within the harbor, no one noticed when one ketch began to slowly, silently swing away from the dock. It gradually came about and headed toward the channel like a dark ghost, or the shadow of a huge waterbird.
The soft splash of a mishandled oar and a muffled curse revealed a man in an inflatable dinghy, rowing ahead at the end of a towline. As this smaller boat—conveniently borrowed from another vessel—gradually cleared the harbor, its oarsman became a brief silhouette against the navigation light that marked the harbor’s entrance. His outline showed shoulders too broad to be hidden by the bulk of a dark slicker and a baseball cap with a brim that dipped and rose as he leaned to pull strongly against the weight of the water. He cast a glance over one shoulder to be certain that his line of exit from the marina was as direct and efficient as possible.
A second darkly clad man stood at the wheel in the stern of the ketch. A wiry knot of muscle, he was spare of flesh and small of frame, and the wind rugged contemptuously at the straggle of beard that thinly disguised a weak chin. Shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot, he turned once to assure himself of the continuing emptiness of the dock that fell slowly astern.
As the dinghy moved into the channel, the wind hit with enough force to make it slip southward, but the rower put more of his back and strong arms into the endeavor and managed to maintain a route that was mostly crosswise to the southerly flow of wind and tide. Ever so slowly, he pulled the boat away from the shore into open water, until the stern was completely clear. Then, with rapid and less cautious strokes of the oars, he rowed quickly back to the ketch, swung himself aboard, and left the purloined dinghy to drift away. Riding empty, high, and light, it quickly became a toy for the wind to toss, disappearing instantly into the dark.
The engine came abruptly to life, as the first man encouraged the heavy boat away from the shore and swung it to starboard, into the deep waters of the channel. Within ten minutes the two men had managed to raise a single sail. They killed the engine and were gathering silent speed, still without lights, driven south before the wind toward the confluence of Gastineau Channel, Taku Inlet, and Stephens Passage. Beyond this, if all went as planned, it would be easy to lose themselves in the giant maze of the straits, sounds, bays, arms, harbors, and inlets of the Inside Passage, making pursuit an impracticably, except, perhaps, by air.
They fully expected it would be a long time before anyone learned there was any pursuit to be mounted. The boat they had commandeered was not local. Its home port, painted on the stern below its name, was Nanaimo, British Columbia, though, with traditional courtesy, the Hazlit’s Gull flew a small United States flag on its stern. It had been chosen from among the many boats that occupied the southernmost marina in the area, more than two miles from the tall bridge that connected Douglas Island with Juneau to the east, across the channel.
The two men had masqueraded as acquaintances in search of the Gull’s passengers, and they had gleaned, from the harbormaster’s registry, the intended length of its stay—two weeks. Several days of careful but seemingly casual observation of the boat had told them that a young married couple owned and sailed the ketch, and that one of them—a factor in making it their vessel of choice—was no longer on board.
Clued by a duffel set onto the dock and a scene of affectionate leave-taking, one of the men had followed the young man to the Juneau airport and watched him catch a plane. From a casual question to the gossipy owner of a nearby boat, its watchers knew it would be several days to a week before the husband would return. By the time he reported his boat—and wife—missing, both would probably be as abandoned as the stolen and discarded dinghy.
Though making good time, the Gull rolled and pitched rhythmically in the rough waters of the channel. The heftier of the two men controlled it with an expertise that revealed prior experience. The older man joined his friend in the cockpit. Lowering himself into a seat, he turned to watch the lights of Juneau and its island neighbor, Douglas—a soft reflection of light to the west—fade in the distance.
“Can’t understand why anyone would want to live in a place you can’t get out of except by boat or plane,” he said, cupping his hands against the wind to light a cigarette. “How long till daylight?”
“Oh, we got three … four hours yet. With this wind, we could be clear the other side of Taku and into the lower part of Stephens Passage by then.”
“It’s gonna rain.” He looked up to assess the clouds that had now vanquished any sign of the moon.
“Yeah, looks like it, but it won’t slow us down much. Besides, we could go half this fast and still have lots of time. We got a long way to go. We’ll sail as long as we can, till it gets light, then put up somewhere till tomorrow night. But if this weather keeps up we could go longer. Won’t too many people be out in it. Makes good cover.”
As he spoke, the first few heavy drops spattered around them.
“Better go down and see if you can find some rain gear, Nelson. You’ll get soaked without it. Should be a locker somewhere at the bottom of the ladder,” he said. “And while you’re down there, ta
ke a look at her. Make sure she hasn’t worked her way loose somehow or got the blindfold off.”
“Can I turn on a light now?”
“Yeah, should be all right. But turn it off when you come back up.”
Tossing his cigarette overboard, Nelson moved forward and disappeared through the companionway. In only a minute or two he came scrambling back up, holding a pair of waterproof pants and wearing both a slicker and a frown of concern.
“She don’t seem to be breathing, Rod.”
“What?”
“I said, she ain’t breathing. Still tied up good, and gagged with that duct tape, but I … ah … can’t see that she’s breathing. I … ah … I think she might be … you know … ah … dead?”
“Goddamn it!” the other exploded. “Get your skinny ass back here, Nelson, and take this damn wheel.”
“Aw … you know I can’t do that.”
“Idiot. You can Goddamn well hold it like it is. I’ll just be a minute. She’s probably passed out. You just didn’t check her right. How could she be dead?”
He vanished into the interior of the boat, leaving his partner fearfully clutching at the wheel as if it might suddenly come alive under his hands and send them crashing onto some hidden rock.
2
8:30 P.M.
Saturday, July 12, 1997
Skagway, Alaska
“IT MUST HAVE LOOKED A LOT LIKE THIS A HUNDRED YEARS ago,” Jessie Arnold said to Alex Jensen, as they paused in front of the Red Onion Saloon to look up Broadway, Skagway’s main street.
It was just after dark on a clear evening, and there were few modern streetlights in the historic gold rush town. Most of the warm glow between blue shadows came from the doors and windows of the small shops and boutiques lining the street. Several of these had false fronts, and a couple—including the famous Golden North Hotel, where Jessie and Alex had registered—sported round tower rooms on one corner, but most were boxy, single-story frame structures intended to look as if they had weathered a century, as many of them actually had. Most of the businesses that occupied them had already closed for the day, and the rest would soon follow suit.
A few tourists were still wandering the boardwalks, heading slowly back toward their giant tour ships at the town docks, or looking for some appealing place to have a late dinner. Silhouetted against the lights, they could have been gold rush stampeders from the late nineteenth century.
A pair of women laden with bulky plastic bags walked past, discussing their purchases with enthusiasm. Alex thoughtfully watched them head west toward the harbor, his mind still drifting back to the old Skagway, jumping-off point for the Klondike.
Someone whistled. A laugh rang out from down the street. The muffled ragtime rhythm of a piano drifted from the saloon, growing abruptly louder as someone flung open the door, releasing the sounds of conversation and the music.
“It’s like stepping back in time,” Alex agreed.
Jessie looked up and down the street again. “If you add a few more people, some horses and muddy streets, this would seem pretty much like 1897.”
“Like it?”
“Even more than I expected. It makes me feel connected. Just imagine coming all the way from Seattle, or Portland, or San Francisco, ready to start for the Klondike, dreaming of excitement and fortunes in gold. It’s no wonder they called it gold fever.”
Alex agreed. “It was contagious all right. But they hadn’t a clue how hard it would be to make it to Dawson, only to find out all the claims had been staked for over a year. A lot of them turned right around and went home.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have quit and neither would you. I still think it would have been great.”
“Yeah, but you—who think nothing of thousand-mile sled dog races—would have fit right in. I’d probably have been at the top of the pass, freezing my tail, and helping the Mounties make sure everyone who went into Canada had enough equipment and supplies for a year.”
Jessie laughed and turned toward the Red Onion. “Well, speaking of supplies … come on, trooper. Let’s get something to eat before we die of starvation.”
Closely followed by Jensen, she moved through the door into the immediate contrast of a large and well-lit room, full of cheerful sounds and the mouthwatering aroma of hot pizza. Aside from its thoroughly modern crowd of local and visiting customers, not to mention its twentieth-century cuisine, the Onion would have been right at home in the gold rush. In fact, it had been built in 1898 and was later moved to its current location. In the process, the movers had somehow turned it around, so that the back of the structure now faced the main street.
A long antique bar, backed with large mirrors and carved with scrolls of fancy woodwork, extended along well over half of one side of the long room, accommodating twenty-some people on tall stools. Another thirty or forty souls were seated on a collection of mismatched chairs at square tables only a little larger than checkerboards. The walls—except for the large windows facing the street—were decorated with an interesting assortment of artifacts from the 1890s.
“During the gold rush the second floor of this place was a bordello,” Alex informed Jessie, as they quickly claimed the only empty table in sight. “It’s supposedly haunted by Delilah, one of the former working girls.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Nope. She has a reputation for not liking men—scares them if they try to go upstairs. I guess she sticks around to take care of the place.”
A piano player in a collarless shirt, gartered into puffs at the elbows, teased an infectious honky-tonk from the yellowed ivory keys of an old upright piano, keeping patrons’ toes tapping on the scuffed wood floor as they sang along with his old-time tunes. Jessie and Alex did some toe-tapping of their own, but there was little singing as they hungrily worked their way through a combination pizza and drafts of pale Alaskan ale in thick glass mugs.
When nothing remained but crumbs, they moved to tall stools at the bar, where they had a better view of the piano player, who paused now and then to add humorous comments to his music Contented, they sat, enjoying the entertainment and sipping the last of their ale.
Alex drained his mug, lit his pipe, and looked questioningly at Jessie in response to the bartender’s suggestion of another brew. She nodded. Then her attention was caught by a woman claiming the empty stool next to hers. Jessie smiled at the woman, who responded with only the slightest of nods and a twitch of her lips, and turned quickly away to lay a ten dollar bill on the bar.
The newcomer was short and had dark eyes and dark hair combed tightly into a knot at the back of her head. Small unruly curls of it escaped and stood out vigorously in a not unbecoming frame for her oval face. She was delicately built, and her expression was not particularly welcoming. Her thin lips were set narrowly together and she looked tired or worried—it was difficult to tell which.
Before Jessie had time to ponder the all but nonexistent acknowledgment she had received, the bartender set two ales before them with a flourish.
“Hey,” he demanded with a self-satisfied grin, “Jessie Arnold—the Iditarod—right?”
“Right.” Jessie reached to accept the hand he extended to her across the ancient, scarred surface of the bar, skillfully avoiding a collision with the full frosty mug he had just set down.
“Welcome to Skagway. We all cheered you into Nome a couple of years ago in the gutsiest-ever finish, and another in the top ten last year. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” she smiled, pleased with his enthusiasm and the recognition of her effort.
“You going along on this big centennial boat run to Seattle?”
“Yeah,” she confirmed, turning to introduce Alex. “This is Alex Jensen. He’s the formal representative for the Alaska State Troopers on the trip.”
“Don Sawyer,” he offered, as the two men shook hands. “I’ll be going along, too, as a bartender. So stop by Soapy’s Parlour on the dining room level and say hello.”
“We’ll d
o that. It’s really a vacation, since I’m just along to show off the uniform in the ceremonial parts, and not assigned to chase bad guys this trip.” He laid a bill down to pay for their drinks.
“Naw.” Sawyer shook his head. “These are on the house. Nice to have you both in town. Running this year, Jessie?”
“Planning to.”
“Good luck then.”
As he moved away to mix a drink for the woman sitting next to Jessie, Alex couldn’t resist a comment.
“Glad we aren’t supposed to be undercover. Why didn’t I make you wear that fake mustache? Is there anybody in this state who doesn’t know you?”
She grinned. “It’s kind of nice that a few Alaskans know who I am—sort of a reward for all the work that goes into running the race. Besides, a fake mustache would make me look like a trooper. Right?”
Alex’s reddish blond handlebar mustache was one of his few vanities. It was wide, with a half-curl at each end and he had worn it for so long he couldn’t imagine what his face would look like without it. Periodically, Jessie waved a pair of scissors and offered to cut off half, so he could compare and see if he liked himself better without it. Pressed, however, she cheerfully admitted that she liked it and would prefer that he keep it.
They made an attractive couple. He was tall and slim, with the beginnings of smile lines around his mouth and eyes. She was a bit shorter, tan and fit from days spent running dog teams through the Alaskan wilderness, her hair a short honey-colored tumble of waves and curls, her eyes a calm gray.
The piano player stopped for a break, to the vocal disappointment of the impromptu and semi-harmonious chorus surrounding him. Eventually a quieter hum of cheerful conversation filled the room. The chess players didn’t even glance up.
Don returned with a drink for the dark-haired woman and was reaching to pick up her money when a new voice interrupted him.
