Black Tide Rising

by R. J. McMillen

  “Uh, thanks. That’s great.”

  Dan grimaced as he replaced the microphone. Between finding Leif Nielson and learning of Sleeman’s and Rainer’s disappearance, he had completely forgotten about his request to check out Reverend Steven. Not that it mattered. The reverend was another issue entirely, and Dan already had enough on his plate to worry about: Jared and his group were wandering around Nootka Island somewhere, and Walker was out there paddling up some godforsaken creek. He couldn’t contact any of them, and he didn’t know if or when they would contact him. He gave a snort of derision. Two days back on the force, with two major crimes on his docket, and all he had done was send civilians into danger and make phone calls. Reverend Steven could wait.

  Hunger pangs drew Dan down to the galley. He hadn’t eaten lunch, and breakfast—a cup of coffee and a handful of granola—had been a long time ago. He would have liked nothing better than to sit down to a full meal, but he didn’t have the time or will to raid the freezer. A peanut butter sandwich would have to do. In a couple of days he and Claire could cook up a real dinner and sit down together in the salon with glasses of wine. Her hair would gleam in the light from the old brass lantern he had salvaged from his father’s boat, and which hung from the cabin ceiling above the table, and she would smile across at him—unless, of course, he hadn’t found Margrethe and the guy by then and had to spend all his time looking for them. And unless Claire decided she couldn’t cope with the idea of him being a cop. Why the hell hadn’t he told her? Because he was an idiot, that’s why, and he would have to explain to her why he had delayed.

  He threw the jar of peanut butter back into the cupboard and slammed the door. The latest volume of the tide and current tables was on the bookshelf, and he grabbed it and took it with him to the wheelhouse. It might not be much, but at least he could do something to get this case moving.

  It was late when Dan finished his research. He had checked every parameter he could think of, going back and forth from the chart to the current tables, adding in the wind directions and velocities he had received from the coast guard weather station, checking them against the probable time Nielson had gone into the water and figuring in the height of the tides that could either allow passage or block it completely. He leaned back in his chair and stretched his shoulders. His eyes stung and his head hurt—probably from low blood sugar as much as fatigue—but the maze of pencil lines he had created converged into a satisfyingly small circle. He had been lucky. The tide was rising when Nielson left the marina in Tahsis and the current would have been running east, flooding north into the inlets. If the engine on the boat had been switched off or in neutral when Nielson went overboard, the boat would have been pushed back in, rather than out toward the open ocean where it could be impossible to find. Even if he had fallen off with the engine still running, the current would have caught the bow of the boat and pushed it north and east. Either way, the boat would end up somewhere around Graveyard Bay or Espinosa Inlet. If Dan grabbed a few hours of sleep and left early, as soon as it was light, he had a good chance of finding it. Unless, as he suspected, Nielson’s injury had been no accident. Then he would have to search in an entirely different area, and that could take all day.

  He set the alarm for 4:30 AM and climbed into his bunk, his mind full of lines and angles, circles and contours, which spun and merged as they dissolved into sleep, but it was only three hours later, and still full dark, when he was woken by a loud noise. Struggling up through the layers of sleep, he thought first that Dreamspeaker had dragged her anchor and was on the rocks.

  “Shit,” he yelled as he fought his way free of sheets and blankets to fumble for the light switch. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

  He hadn’t checked the anchor when he’d gotten back on board yesterday. Hadn’t thought he needed to. He should have known better. It was always the things left undone that came back to haunt you. Hadn’t his father taught him that? And hadn’t his years in the RCMP reinforced it? If he lost Dreamspeaker through his own negligence …

  His hand was reaching for the electrical panel, fingers searching for the switch that would turn on the spotlights up on the mast, when the noise came again, and he froze. That wasn’t the scrape of rocks. That sounded more like something—or somebody—knocking on the hull. Surely it couldn’t be happening again. If that was Walker, arriving again in the middle of the night …

  Dan grabbed a pair of jeans as he passed his cabin and took the time to put them on. The sweater he had been wearing when he went to bed was lying on the chair, and he pulled that on too. Whoever it was, Walker or Jared or some other nocturnal visitor, they could damn well wait till he got dressed.

  It was Walker, of course. He was sitting in his canoe, one hand on the swim grid, the other shielding his eyes as he stared up into the beam of the flashlight Dan was holding on him.

  “You want to turn that off before it ruins my night vision entirely?”

  “Night vision, hell,” Dan answered. “You’ve got to stop doing this. Can’t you just paddle around in the daytime and sleep at night like the rest of us?”

  Walker shrugged. “Doesn’t work that way for me. I sleep when I can, where I can. Sometimes I can’t.”

  Dan sighed, and his anger evaporated as he reached down to take the rope Walker had held out to him. “Fine, but do you think you could at least let the rest of us get some sleep? I work better when I’ve had at least a few hours in the sack.”

  Walker’s only answer was the infuriating grin that Dan had come to recognize as the end of any further conversation.

  “I guess I’ll go and put on some coffee,” Dan said, resignation in his voice, as he started back to the cabin. “No way I’m going to get any more downtime tonight.”

  —

  The coffee was brewing by the time Walker made his way to the salon. He stopped in the doorway to take off his jacket, then sat down on one of the settees and slid along it till he reached the table. Dan poured two cups and then joined him.

  “You find anything, or are you just here for a social visit?” Dan asked as he pushed one of the cups across the table to Walker, his smile taking the sting out of his words.

  “A little of both, I guess,” Walker answered. “I was kind of hoping I could get one of those fine frozen meals you make so well.” He grinned at Dan, waiting to see if he would take the bait, but Dan let it go, simply staring at Walker over the rim of his coffee cup.

  Walker shrugged. “I’ve got some news,” he continued. “I didn’t find anything, but a couple of Jared’s people found me. They said they hadn’t seen anyone on the trail itself, but the other group—Jared split them into two teams of three—has found a track. Seems someone came off the trail and headed east through the forest.”

  Dan stared at him. “Only one person?”

  “That’s what they said.”

  “I guess there’s no way of knowing who it was—or where he or she is headed?”

  “Not yet, but whoever it is might not be heading anywhere. Might just be lost. On the other hand, if he—and the boys said ‘he,’ not ‘she’—knows the island, he might be trying to find one of the logging roads. Guess there’s a lot of them. That’s how Jared and the boys get around—they follow the old roads. Either way, it shouldn’t be too long till Jared figures it out. I’m going to go back over there and wait. One of them will come and tell me when they’ve caught up with him.”

  “One person.” Dan was talking to himself as much as to Walker. “So maybe we’re wrong thinking Margrethe and the killer are together. Maybe she went on the trail by herself, and whoever killed the kid came and left by boat.”

  “Maybe.” Walker looked doubtful. “Or maybe he’s killed her and it’s him on the trail. Sounded like a pretty tough trail for a woman who’s scared of the water. Sanford says a lot of it is along the beach.”

  Dan nodded. “Yeah. That’s what it says on the computer too. But maybe that’s why she left it. She’s scared of the ocean, so she figured the bus
h would be better.”

  The alarm sounded and Dan went to turn it off.

  “Going somewhere?” Walker asked when Dan returned to the cabin.

  “Yeah,” Dan answered. “But I might have to leave a little later than I’d planned.”

  He hated the idea of getting back on the phone instead of going out and doing something concrete, but he needed to talk to Markleson again and ask him to have someone contact the logging companies, tell them to be on the lookout for anyone on one of the roads. He also needed to check with Gold River to see if they had come up with a definite ID on the boat that had been found on Bligh Island and to find out whether they had found any fingerprints on it. If it had been Darrel who stole it, it didn’t tell him any more than he already knew, but if they could put Jerry Coffman on board, Dan would at least know for sure that Coffman had been—and probably was still—on Nootka Island.

  “You planning on coming back? I don’t want to spend hours paddling around waiting to give you Jared’s information if you’re not going to be here.”

  “What?” Walker’s question had interrupted Dan’s train of thought. “Oh, sorry. I’m going to take the inflatable and go out and look for Leif Nielson’s boat. Shouldn’t take too long.”

  “Who the hell is Leif Nielson?” Walker asked.

  Dan laughed. He was usually the one asking Walker questions. Now it was the other way around. “Hang on. I’ll go get us another cup of coffee and then I’ll fill you in. It’s been a pretty busy day.”

  —

  “So Nielson is the guy who identified Darrel?” Walker asked when Dan had finished bringing him up to date.

  “Yeah. He’s a fisherman, or at least he used to be. Now he works as a fishing guide. Guess he’s lived in Kyuquot all his life. Seems like everybody knows him.”

  “You think he’s going to make it?”

  Dan shrugged and mentally added yet another call to his growing list.

  “Claire still going up there?”

  “Claire?” Dan asked, confused by the sudden change of topic.

  “Yeah, you know. Blond. Cute. Lost her boat last year to those guys in the black ship. I think she spent some time with you for a few months over this past winter.”

  “Very funny, Walker. I know who you’re talking about. I just wondered where you were going with your question.”

  Walker smiled. “Kyuquot’s a pretty small place. Remote. Seems like there’s a lot of bad stuff going on, and with you busy down here, she’ll be on her own. She okay with that?”

  Dan let the question hang in the air between them as he thought about it. What were the chances he’d be finished down here in time to go and meet her? Right now he didn’t even know who he was looking for, let alone where to find him—or her—or them.

  “You haven’t told her, have you?”

  Dan’s eyes met Walker’s across the table and he shook his head.

  “No.”

  “Not even about you being back on the force?”

  “No.”

  It was Walker’s turn to shake his head. “For a guy who talks so much, you’re sure a lousy communicator.”

  • TWENTY-ONE •

  Walker left as soon as the first faint glimmer of light seeped into the dark sky. He promised to return as soon as he heard or saw anything. Dan gave him a key and made him promise to call on the radio if there was any news.

  It was too early to contact either Markleson or Gold River. Both detachments were too small to be open twenty-four hours a day, and staff would take turns being on call at night. This wasn’t an emergency, and the information Dan needed would be in the office anyway. That left him with almost four hours to spare. Not enough to catch up on sleep—assuming he could even get to sleep again, which was doubtful with Walker’s comment reverberating through his brain—but plenty of time to make himself a good breakfast. And he could do with one. He hadn’t had a decent meal for a couple of days—since his breakfast with Gene and Mary before he left Yuquot, now that he thought about it. No wonder he was hungry. He opened the freezer and pulled out hash browns and bacon, then dug in the storage locker below the floorboards to find the eggs that one of Claire’s friends had given him. Unwashed and straight from the farm, they would stay fresh for weeks.

  Claire. Her image flooded his brain. He could see her out on the farm, the sun lighting her hair and warming her shoulders as they walked across the field, the smell of newly mown grass rising around them. He could almost hear her voice, soft and slightly husky with sleep, calling from the stateroom to ask him if the coffee was on yet. She would be curled under the down duvet, her hair tousled on the pillow … Dan grimaced as he hacked off a thick slice of bacon and dropped it into the pan. He knew why he hadn’t called her. It was a mixture of cowardice and fear—with maybe a little guilt thrown in. He had to tell her he was back with the RCMP—it wasn’t fair not to—and he had no idea how she would react to that. Nor did he know how she would react when she found out he was looking for another missing woman. Certainly it would bring back memories of what had happened to her last year, of the men who had sunk her boat and hunted her. No way that wouldn’t be painful. And, to make it worse, there was now the very real possibility that he wouldn’t get up to Kyuquot in time to meet her when she arrived. Shit!

  He carried his breakfast out on deck and balanced his plate on the wide mahogany cap rail at the stern. As he ate, he watched the sun slowly paint in the details of the forest: dark cedars, green firs, the graceful drooping branches of the hemlocks, the bright flash of new leaves on the maples. The shore emerged from night, barnacle-encrusted rocks slowly taking form, and the first minks and otters appeared and started to scavenge for food. Overhead, two gulls flew by, screaming a welcome to the dawn, and somewhere close by he heard the sharp tapping of an oystercatcher as it broke open its first catch of the day. Life out here was simple, immediate and straightforward. It was only humans who made it so damn complicated. Or was it just him?

  Sighing, he scraped the last remnants of his meal into the water for the fish and gulls to fight over, and headed back inside. Like him, Claire was an early riser. She would be up by now, getting ready for the road. It was time to call her. She answered on the third ring.

  “Hey,” he said, relishing the sound of her voice even as worry tightened his throat. “Good morning.”

  “Dan! Where are you?”

  “Louie Bay. Where are you?”

  “Campbell River,” she answered. “I should be able to launch the boat this afternoon; then I’ll stay in Fair Harbour tonight and head for Kyuquot in the morning. We can have lunch at that little place on the wharf—if it’s still there.”

  Her voice was eager, excited. It made it even harder for him to say the words he needed to say.

  “Dan?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  He took a deep breath, found both his courage and his voice, and told her. He told her about the totem, the blood, Margrethe, the boy’s body, Mike’s phone call, the guy he thought was on the trail. The only thing he didn’t tell her was his fear that she might not want him if he was back on the force. The silence that filled the air after he had finished echoed in his head as he stared blindly out the window, waiting, hoping, praying, for her to say something. Anything.

  “So when did all this happen?”

  At the sound of her voice, Dan felt himself start to breathe again. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, but perhaps there was a glimmer of hope. At least she was still talking to him.

  “It started four days ago when I arrived in Friendly Cove. I wasn’t sure about the cop part until the night before last—and it’s still hard to believe.”

  The silence deepened. It writhed and stretched between them, twisting every nerve until he heard it scream inside his head. When she finally spoke again, it was in a monotone.

  “Wow. I … I don’t know what to say. Four days. And you’re back on the job? I guess—there’s a lot to think about.”<
br />
  “Hey, it’s still me. I haven’t changed, but I can’t just walk away from this.”

  “No. You can’t. I understand that. I just … It’s a lot to take in.” She paused. “Look. I have to go. I have to get the boat organized.”

  “Wait!” Dan struggled to hold back the panic rising in his chest. “Why don’t you call me tonight. Or in the morning if you like. Or maybe it would be better if I call you.” He knew he was rambling, but he couldn’t help himself. “I might still be able to get there, but if I can’t—if I’m still here in Louie Bay—you could come down and join me. Check out the otters at Nuchatlitz.”

  He cringed at the pleading tone he could hear in his voice, but he couldn’t help that either. He had to make her understand. He couldn’t lose her. Not now. But there was no answer.

  “Claire?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was flat. “I’ll—I need to think about it. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” There was a click and suddenly all he could hear was emptiness.

  Dan stared out the windshield, his fingers white where they clutched the microphone. If he had lost her, it was his own damn fault. How could he have been so stupid? He had to go up there and talk to her, face-to-face. Explain what had happened and why he hadn’t told her right away. But how could he, with Margrethe still missing, maybe out on the trail with Jerry Coffman?

  The day seemed to grow darker after that. Perhaps some clouds had moved in and shadowed the sun, but he didn’t want to go outside and see. What the hell was it about him that kept attracting this kind of shit? Normal people didn’t get called on to find missing women everywhere they went, or find blood on some piece of driftwood when they were walking along a beach. Hell, if he’d left the marina just a few days later, the whole thing would have been solved and he would be just another Nootka Island lighthouse visitor. Maybe Walker was right. Maybe that lightning snake he talked about had chosen Dan to fix whatever was happening. It was crazy, but it made as much sense as anything else. And it didn’t matter anyway. Coincidence or lightning snake, the reality was that it was all on his plate now, and if he didn’t get it sorted out quickly, more people could die. With or without Claire, this was one he couldn’t screw up.