by Sue Henry
Jessie went out the door, satisfied with her time by herself and the pleasure of finding the quilt. Cheerfully she climbed the gangway, as Alex had instructed her to call it—ignoring her grin—and stopped in the lounge to pick up a cup of hot chocolate. Then she went to the stateroom, where she put down her purchases and settled on the bed to read the newspaper she had bought in the grocery store, pushing open the curtains to let in some natural light, rather than turn on the reading-lamp. First, she looked once again at the photographs she had enlarged. The identity of the second person still eluded her.
Jensen came back to the stateroom just after two o’clock, and he found her asleep with the comics over her face. She woke at the sound of the door closing.
“Hey, I’m the one who was up all night.”
“Well, it was just so comfortable and, coming in from the damp outside, I just got sleepy. Food coma. I ate half a sandwich I found at a grocery store. You have any lunch? There’s the other half.”
“I grabbed a cheeseburger with one of the guys at the office. I’m okay. You went to the grocery?”
“Yeah. Found a little mom-and-pop store. Why?”
In answer, he held up a plastic grocery bag and put it down on the bed next to her. “What’d you get?”
“Apples, oranges, bottled water, and Snickers. You?”
“Couple of apples, some cookies, and a package of jerky. Well, we’re in high cotton now.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You don’t have to bend over to pick it, I think. Slipped into our family from some southern relative. Doing okay—got everything we need.”
“Pass me an orange from that bag on the chair, would you?”
He tossed it across. She caught and began to peel it.
“Find out anything interesting from Ivan?”
“Nothing new. Had a good talk, though. Asked him to check on Prentice and Raymond.”
“Why’d you leave the ship to call him?”
“It seemed easier to call him from there than to use the ship’s equipment. Besides, I wanted to get some help watching for Carlson in case he attempted to escape. You get those pictures developed?”
“Right.” She reached toward the end of the bed, where she had laid the plastic bag that contained the photographs. It was not there. Puzzled, she moved pieces of the newspaper and the bags from the grocery, finding nothing.
“Where the hell is it? I put it right here.” Concerned now, she lifted and shook the sheet, blanket, and bedspread, tossing the pillows on the chair. The bed was empty.
Alex glanced around the rest of the room. Perhaps she had laid them on his bed, or the dressing table. He helped her move the beds and looked behind them, searched every corner of the stateroom. The pictures were not there.
“Are you sure you didn’t leave them somewhere? Did you stop anywhere after you picked them up?”
“Yes, but I know I didn’t leave them somewhere else. I remember looking at the bag as I came aboard the ship, wondering if you were back yet, so I could show you. Then, I looked at the pictures again, just before I ate the sandwich.”
She told him that she had identified Carlson and discovered a second person in her picture.
“I wanted to see if you’d recognize the other one. I just know it was someone here on the ship, but I can’t think who. Damn it, Alex. I did not lose those pictures. I had them here. Someone must have come in here while I was asleep and taken them. They were here, right here, in this room … on my bed. God. Whoever it was had to reach across me to get them.”
“You’re sure?”
“Alex,” Jessie’s temper began to rise, as she swung around to face him, “yes, I am sure. Don’t you believe me?”
“Hey, slow down. Don’t snap at me. Of course I believe you. It just seems so unlikely that someone would risk coming in here. You might not have been soundly asleep. If you’d woken up and seen them, they’d have been exposed and positively identified.”
“They could have seen through the window that I was asleep. I don’t like the idea of someone in here when I didn’t know it. Damned doors that don’t lock. Makes me furious and scares me a lot, Alex.”
She sat down on the bed and scowled at Jensen, who waited till she stopped speculating, then went for a glass of water.
“Here, drink this. You can’t swallow and growl at the same time. Let’s think it through.” He sat down beside her and took her nearest hand in his, gently massaging her fingers. “It’ll be all right, Jess. It just sounds so far-fetched, but maybe that was the idea.”
She leaned on his shoulder as her anger faded somewhat, and she began to let go of her fear and think more clearly.
“So, the picture showed Carlson? Why the hell would he be following you in Sitka?”
“I don’t know. But I wondered … could it possibly have been Rozie, and not me?”
“Now there’s an interesting thought.”
“It was the second person in the picture that concerned me. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman. But it was familiar somehow.” She described the similarity in the motion of the pair portrayed in the photo.
He gave her a serious look and whistled softly.
“So there are two of them.”
“You think so, too. Even without seeing the pictures? It wasn’t just my imagination.”
“Nope. The way you characterize them, it sounds like they were working together, but who the hell is the second one?”
“I don’t know, but I still think it’s someone I’ve seen on this trip.”
“Well, Carlson had to have help getting away from us. This other person could be the associate we’ve suspected.”
“Whoever it is, Carlson gives me the creeps. He probably killed Julie Morrison. And I get the chills thinking about someone in here, stealing things from right next to me, when I didn’t know it.”
“Me too. Don’t like it at all. Keep a careful look at who’s around you, and don’t go off by yourself without letting me know, okay? There has to be a reason for these two shadowing you, and I don’t believe it was Rozie. Carlson did not get off this ship in Ketchikan, and I expected him to at least try. We’ve had six people watching, and there’s no sign of him. He’s still aboard and I’m going to flush him out somehow.”
He tweaked one end of his mustache, which was drooping from the Ketchikan rain, and reached into a pocket for his pipe.
“I’m going out for a smoke. Want to come?”
“Pretty comfortable here, thanks. It’s raining again.”
“That today’s paper?”
Jessie handed it to him. “I’m through. Take it with you.”
“No, I’ll read it later … Hey. Did you see this?”
A headline had leaped out at Alex as he glanced over the front page: “Stolen Boat Burned, Wife of Owner Missing.” Forgetting his pipe, he began to read the story out loud.
“A sailboat stolen in Juneau during the early morning hours of Friday, July 11, was located late last night on the west side of Pennock Island, across from Ketchikan, when it burned almost to a shell. Gutting the cabin, the blaze attracted the attention of residents, who called for assistance and battled to put it out. Arson is suspected.
“The owner of the ketch, Michael Hazlit, an architect from Seattle, returning sooner than expected from a business trip, late Monday, July 14, reported his boat, the Hazlit’s Gull, and his new wife missing from the Douglas marina. The honeymooning couple had arrived in the juneau/Douglas area on July 3 and intended to sail on to Skagway upon his return.
“From the name still visible on the stern, the boat was initially reported to the Ketchikan police as the Harry’s Doll. On examination it was determined that the name had been altered, Hazlit’s Gull unprofessionally painted over with this false name. Matched with stolen boat and missing person reports from Juneau, it was positively identified as the absent sailboat.
“Mrs. Anne Hazlit, twenty-six, formerly Anne Sheffield of Ashland, Oregon, is still missi
ng. An exhaustive examination of the burned sailboat revealed no trace of the woman, and the police suspect foul play in her disappearance. She was just learning; wasn’t good enough yet to have sailed the Gull by herself,’ Hazlit told a Juneau Empire reporter. According to her husband, she is five foot four inches tall, weighs one hundred and twenty-five pounds, has dark hair, blue eyes, and may have been wearing blue jeans and a blue jacket when she ‘left’ the boat.
“Jim Wilkms, bartender of the Sourdough Bar, at the main city dock, informed the police of an angry conversation concerning ‘a boat’ between two men in his establishment at about five o’clock last evening. One of the two is no stranger to the Ketchikan area, Walter ‘Wait’ Burns, a local fisherman, who has had more than one run-in with the law, one concerning a fire that destroyed one of his own boats. The other has not been identified.
“In a bizarre coincidence, a powerboat belonging to William Ballard, temporarily employed in Flagstaff, Arizona, through September, was reported stolen from the downtown Johnstown Marina sometime last night. A connection between the two incidents is suspected.
“Police are requesting anyone who has information concerning any of these incidents, or the whereabouts of Walter Burns, to call Ketchikan Police Dispatch at 225-6631, or the State Troopers Office at 225-5118.”
“Oh, God, Alex,” Jessie said, when he finished reading. “It’s the woman from Tracy Arm, isn’t it?”
26
8:00 P.M.
Wednesday, July 16, 1997
Stolen powerboat
Below Prince Rupert, Inside Passage
British Columbia, Canada
AFTER A FULL NIGHT AND DAY OF TRAVELING SOUTH, IT was almost dark again by the time Rod had piloted the stolen powerboat across the wide waters to the west of Prince Rupert, British Columbia, aiming for three islands—McMicking, Elliot, and Lewis—at the head of Malacca Passage. Here, with an X on the map, Walt had left instructions to wake him for further orders.
The weather, much to Rod’s relief, had remained calm and inspired no seasickness in Nelson, who was also below and asleep. A deep blue twilight had fallen, and the lights of the city to the east twinkled brightly at sea level, miles away, like a handful of jewels on the horizon. That would have almost made the day’s trip worthwhile had it not been for the hours of constant, unrelenting roar from the motors of the powerboat, and the overpowering smell of gas and oil. Rod missed the smooth, silent running of the superb ketch he had been forced to leave in Ketchikan, and sighed as he imagined it burned to the waterline. This stinkpot was not at all to his liking.
He had turned on the running lights and eased off on the throttle slightly when Nelson appeared at the top of the companionway.
“Where we at?” he asked, patting down his pockets in search of a cigarette.
“Prince Rupert’s over there,” Rod told him, pointing.
“Where’s he?”
“Still asleep. You better go down an’ wake him up, like he said.”
“Don’t like him, Rod.”
“I’m not terribly fond of him, myself, but so far he’s the boss, at least of this boat.”
“Not fond of me, huh? As if that made any fuckin’ difference.” Walt put in a sudden appearance from his bunk below, “Just remember who’s boss. Prince Rupert?”
“Yeah,” Rod told him. “Nelson was just coming to get you.”
“Right, I heard. I’m here now. Get down there and get us something to eat,” he ordered Nelson. “You’re good for a lot of nothin’, but you can do that much.”
Nelson disappeared below.
“You may not like it. He’s not much of a cook,” Rod warned, mildly.
“Can’t screw up a couple cans of chili, can he? Hey, old man, heat up some chili and get out that box of crackers. We’ll be putting in here for the night soon. Put some bowls on the table down there.”
The powerboat had guzzled a lot of the gasoline they had loaded in Ketchikan, and its tanks were almost ready to be filled again, another thing Rod hated. A sailboat could make way without all this continual refueling.
“We need gas.”
“We’ll get where we’re going, then fill ‘em up for morning,” Walt told him. “Head for that second island. It’s Elliot. There’s a sheltered spot to anchor up at this end of it. You’ll see another boat there.”
Rod guided them along the east side of the first island, McMicking, and slowed to watch the depth finder give him ever decreasing readings as he turned west between the two. Soon they were solidly anchored in a small, but secure, bay just off the northern end of Elliot Island. For the first time all day the motors were silent. His body remembered the vibrations, to his very bones, but now he could hear the sound of the surf and a seagull scream as it swooped past, and the breeze swept away the petroleum fumes, clearing the air. He sighed and dropped to a seat, stretching his shoulders to relieve the tension created by hours of holding the boat on course.
Close by, another powerboat lay at anchor, rocking a little on the slight swell. As they pulled in, the gangway cover opened, and Rod watched a man rise up in it, a silhouette against the light from the cabin below.
“Hey,” a voice called through the dark. “That you, Walt? Where you been?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Don’t get your nuts in a knot. I’ll be over in a few, when we get anchored up, and I get something to eat. Everything okay?”
“Far as I know. Got a call this afternoon with the details and times. Bring a bottle, if you got one.”
He descended once again into the cabin, leaving the gangway open, and a whisper of music from a radio floated across the water on the still air.
“What now?” Rod asked Walt, who was bending over the navigation maps with a flashlight to double-check their location.
“Nothing now. You fuckin’ wait.”
“For what?”
“For nothing you need to worry about until I come back.”
He wolfed down a bowl of the chili Nelson had managed to heat without burning, leaving them the rest. He tossed the Zodiak in the water, climbed in, and rowed off toward the other boat, taking one of the bottles of whisky from the case he had brought aboard. “Get some sleep,” he called back. “We’ll be here till sometime tomorrow, and I’ll be gone awhile, maybe till morning. When it’s time for what comes next, I’ll let you know, damn it.”
He was, at least, in a more relaxed mood, one that seemed to have nothing to do with the fact that he had slept for most of the afternoon, but rather with the fact that they were now where he wanted them to be, had made up for the delays of the day before, and the pressure was off. Though his language remained foul, he spoke instead of snarling most of the time. Rod was happy to have him off the boat for the moment.
Off and on all day long, he had wondered at what could be behind all the effort they were making. Nothing he could imagine would be worth the trouble of stealing two boats—although one had been sufficient, and he had to admit he shouldn’t have stolen the ketch—and come all this way down into Canada, now to tie up and sit here until “sometime tomorrow.” He didn’t feel like questioning Walt, and he didn’t think the man would welcome it, or enlighten him, if he did. But the whole thing made him uneasy.
It plainly made Nelson more than uneasy, but the old man seemed to have accepted the fact that there was nothing he could do about it and might as well go along, without knowing any more, hoping for the best. He treated it much the same as he had the idea of someone looking for them because of the dead woman … stayed out of sight, refused to get close to it, hid out below.
It was different for Rod. He wanted to know what he was involved in, however unintentionally. He worried about the locked box Walt had carried aboard at the last minute, and he had a feeling that if stealing two boats seemed a reasonable price to pay for whatever the plan was, it must be something pretty big. And big meant bad … if you were caught.
He sat in the cockpit listening to the sounds of Nelson clearing up below, watching
the other boat with the dinghy tied up at its stern, and he chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. It was growing dark. There were no other boats in the anchorage, which would not have been unusual at other times of the year, and truly wasn’t now. People with their own pleasure boats often took most of the summer to motor or sail from Vancouver or Seattle to Alaska, and back. Considering the enormous size of the Inside Passage, boats could pass and never catch sight of each other, sink and never know the other had gone down. But during the day he had seen numerous other boats heading north, more than he would have expected, and it seemed that there couldn’t be that many places to anchor, though he supposed there were.
Stars were coming out overhead in a glittering display, and, far away from any city lights that could fade them, there seemed to be thousands more than usual. He leaned back to look for the Big Dipper, and found it, along with Orion, and two or three more that were the extent of his knowledge of astronomy. Getting up, he went below, to reclaim what was left of his own bottle of whisky, which he started to take back up to the cockpit. Nelson’s hungry eyes on it slowed him, and, in impetuous sympathy, he grabbed a mug, poured a couple of shots into it, and set it beside the gimbaled stove, where the older man could reach it.
“Hey, thanks, Rod. You’re a pal.”
Back on top, he sat down and raised the bottle to his lips for a long pull.
It occurred to him that if Walt had been there, he would probably not have retrieved the whisky. Why the hell was he so intimidated by a man that he hardly knew? He found he was, not without justification, angry, had had more than enough of Walt’s bad-mouthing.
“Hell, I’ve been steering the boat all day, and I’m tired. If I want a drink, I’m going to have one.”
He took his drink. Then, obstinately and because he could, he had another, and it tasted almost as good as the first. Twisting the cap onto the bottle, he leaned back, watching the lights of a fishing boat slowly passing a mile away, heading toward Prince Rupert.
