Always Ready

by Susan Page Davis

  “Yes. It’s darling.” Lindsey tilted her head back to look at the wildly painted teacups and saucers on the roof of the little building. “We’ve got to eat here. Let me snap your picture under the sign first.”

  After she took the photo, they went inside and paused just inside the door to exclaim over the stained glass panels and handcrafted objets d’art throughout the crowded room.

  “There they are!” Caddie had spotted Dee and Vera at a table in a far corner, waving frantically. “Let’s join them. I don’t see any other free tables.” She and Lindsey squeezed between the diners and reached the other two young women.

  “Imagine, the entire female contingent of the Wintergreen here at the same time,” Dee said with a laugh. She gestured to the ornately decorated dining room. “Like it?”

  “Love it,” Caddie said.

  “We’re about finished,” Vera told her, “but you two can have our table.”

  “Thanks.” Lindsey picked up a glass-beaded napkin ring. “I think I want to live here.”

  “Order the Cobb salad. It’s great.” Dee slid out of her chair. “We’ve got to head back now. See you later.”

  As the lunch traffic in the café thinned, the chatter quieted, and Caddie and Lindsey picked up the conversation they’d begun that morning on the way into town.

  “I read the last two chapters of Matthew this morning,” Lindsey said. “I couldn’t stop reading. It was so. . .powerful.”

  “The Crucifixion and Resurrection?”

  “Yes. I wish I knew as much about the Bible as you do. I can’t believe I’ve lived this long assuming I knew what it was about but never read any of it. When do I get to the part about the Ten Commandments?”

  Caddie chuckled. “That’s in the Old Testament, way back near the beginning. You’re reading about the time when Jesus lived, which was much later than Moses.”

  “Oh.” Lindsey’s brow puckered in a frown. “Why did you have me start reading near the end?”

  “Because I wanted you to read about Jesus. You had so many questions about why He came to earth and how His death could help us.”

  “Mmm. I get it. And what I read this morning. . .I mean, if the part we talked about before is true, about Jesus being God, then”—Lindsey’s eyes shone with unshed tears—“it makes sense to me now. He had to be the one to pay for our sins.”

  Caddie reached over and squeezed her hand. “Just wait until you read John. There’s so much there about Jesus’s nature and His ministry. Oh, I’m going to ask the waitress if there’s a bookstore near here. I want to get you a Bible of your own and see if I can find a good, basic study book. That will help answer your questions.”

  “You’re teaching me a lot. I appreciate it.”

  “Thanks, but I seem to be going at it in a haphazard fashion. I keep wondering if I’ve skipped over something important. Maybe we should start reading Genesis at the same time. Begin with creation. A chapter each of the Old and New Testaments every day.”

  Lindsey’s laugh burbled out. “I was sure you were a fanatic of the worst kind. Do you know, I avoided being alone with you in our cabin because I was afraid you’d try to preach to me?”

  “Really.” Caddie swallowed hard. Thank You, Lord, for helping me not to have that impulse.

  “Yes. But now I can’t wait to have an hour free to talk about the Bible with you. It’s crazy.”

  “Not crazy. It’s God’s doing.”

  Lindsey nodded, her eyes glinting. “I believe that now, but a week ago I’d have used that statement as proof that you were off your rocker.”

  The waitress came to take their orders, and for a minute the friends turned their attention to the menus. When they’d made their decisions and learned where to find a bookstore, Lindsey looked across the small table at Caddie. “I never thought I’d say this, but would you ask the blessing, please? And. . .I’ve decided to call my folks when we get back to Kodiak. Would you please pray for me, that I’ll know how to talk to them and what to say?”

  “Of course. And when you think of it, maybe you can pray for me. I’ve started a new correspondence course for the next rating.”

  “Still figuring to follow in your dad’s footsteps?”

  “Unless I feel God’s leading me otherwise. So I need to keep with the program—you know, keep studying and learning.”

  “How will you know if God wants you to do something else?”

  Caddie pursed her lips. “Well, I know He wants me to stay with the Coast Guard for at least another year and a half, because that’s the obligation I have left. But afterthat. . .who knows? I’ve decided to keep on as though this is my career for the next fourteen years or so. I want to be ready if it is. And if He has something else for me, He’ll show me how to prepare for that.”

  “Like going to work for a magazine, maybe?”

  “I doubt it, but. . .you just never know, do you?” Caddie wondered if Lindsey longed for a family and a real home. The question was on her list for the article, but she hadn’t quite had the nerve to ask it yet. Voicing the question would force her to face her own yearnings, and they seemed to be stronger since she’d met Aven.

  A woman bustled into the restaurant and joined a young man at a table near Caddie and Lindsey. Her smart black jacket and pants, paired with a lavender silk shirt, pegged her in Caddie’s mind as a businesswoman, not a tourist.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said to the man.

  He jumped up to hold her chair. “You’re not late. I got here a few minutes early. I was going to stop at the Hailey Gallery down the street, but they’re closed. I thought they were staying open this fall.”

  “Didn’t you hear?” the woman asked. “They’ve been robbed.”

  Caddie raised her eyebrows at Lindsey to see if she had overheard. Lindsey pulled a sympathetic face.

  “That’s awful,” the man said. “What happened?”

  “It was in the paper. Someone hauled over twenty thousand dollars’ worth of scrimshaw and carvings out of there sometime Sunday night.”

  Lindsey leaned toward Caddie and whispered, “That’s fifty of those necklaces I modeled for you.”

  Caddie nodded. It wouldn’t take long for thieves to snatch up a valuable inventory in this neighborhood.

  “Hey,” said Lindsey, and Caddie snapped back to attention.

  “You said something?”

  Lindsey grinned. “Yes. Dessert is on me.”

  ❧

  Terry Herman’s face clouded and he scowled at his wife. “Shut up, Crystal.”

  Aven wished he were elsewhere.

  “No.” She stepped forward. “This is what got you arrested in the first place.”

  “How do you figure?” Terry asked.

  “You knew stuff was going on, but you kept quiet. So instead of getting arrested for drugs, you got pinched for assaulting fisheries cops.”

  “I couldn’t rat on guys I worked with.”

  Crystal scrunched up her face and shook her head. “You could have just quit and tried to get on a better boat. One where they did things legal.”

  “I told you to shut up.”

  Eliot held out one hand in supplication. “All right, folks. Let’s stay calm.” He sent Terry a meaningful look. “Mr. Herman, as I said before, if you have information that could help our investigation, now is the time to speak. Because withholding stuff like that is a crime.”

  Terry lowered his head into his hands. “Man, oh, man. Why can’t you shut up, Crystal?” He looked up at Eliot. “If I talk to you, Spruce Waller and his brother will find out. No telling what they’ll do.”

  “They won’t do much if they’re in jail,” Eliot said.

  Aven glanced over at Crystal. “Mrs. Herman, would you have any coffee?”

  She stared at him as if he’d asked for champagne, but after a moment her tight features relaxed. “Sure.” She crossed the room and laid the baby on a blanket in the playpen. He stirred and whimpered, then lay still. Crystal went into the kitche
n, and Aven heard water running.

  Eliot arched his eyebrows at Aven, as though inquiring if he wanted to speak.

  Aven nodded and said quietly, “Terry, your wife is right. Talking to us is the best thing you can do right now.”

  “What if I say no? Are you going to arrest me again?”

  Eliot sat down again and let out a breath. “Not today. But I can make it difficult for you to find work, and I’d really like to see you working again. You’ve got a nice family. You should be bringing home a paycheck, not bouncing in and out of the court system.”

  Terry stared at the threadbare carpet for a long moment, his lips twitching. At last he looked to Aven. “Listen, you gotta believe me. I don’t really know anything, just things I heard the other guys say on the boat, you know?”

  “Tell us what you heard,” Aven said.

  “Spruce Waller’s not the main one you want. It’s his brother, Clay.”

  “He’s running drugs into Alaska on his boat,” Aven said.

  Terry’s eyes widened. “Yeah. I mean, that’s what I heard. He goes out to sea and meets a boat coming in.”

  “Where from?”

  “I don’t know. Hawaii? Mexico? All I know is they don’t want to touch land, so Clay goes to meet them and gets the stuff.”

  “He pays them in cash and passes the stuff on to street dealers?”

  Terry frowned and flicked a glance at Eliot but continued to address Aven. “I really don’t know what he does with it. And if I’d known he was mixed up in drugs, I never would have gone with him to try to get a job. But I didgo with him, and. . .well, I heard that sometimes he sends things out of Alaska when he picks up the drugs.”

  Aven studied his face. “What kind of things?”

  Terry looked over his shoulder toward the kitchen. “Look, Crystal doesn’t know this. I didn’t tell her. She’s got friends. . .her brother’s married to a Native Alaskan, you know what I’m saying?”

  “No.” Aven glanced at Eliot, but the deputy marshal shook his head. “What are you saying, Terry?”

  Herman lowered his voice and leaned toward him. “They’re sending out Alaskan art. Bootleg art. Trading it for cocaine. That’s what I heard. Don’t know if it’s true. But I did see Spruce grab a piece of plastic tape off a buoy one time. Another guy—Rowe, I think it was—said it was a signal that someone on the mainland had some stuff for him.”

  “What kind of stuff?” Aven asked.

  Terry shrugged. “Stuff to trade, I guess. Spruce would tell his brother, and they’d go get it. Captain Andrews found out, and he told Spruce that if he didn’t get his boat back for him he’d turn in his brother.” He jumped up and walked to the kitchen doorway. “That coffee ready, Crystal?”

  Eliot said softly, “There’ve been several big heists on the Kenai Peninsula. Some high-end art galleries and shops have been hit.” He started to rise.

  “We have to drink the coffee,” Aven hissed.

  “Okay, but the quicker the better.”

  Crystal came into the room carrying two steaming mugs. Terry followed with a plastic half-gallon milk jug and a sugar bowl with a spoon sticking out of it.

  “Just milk,” Aven said. He accepted a mug from Crystal and poured as much milk into it as he could to cool it down.

  Crystal walked over to Eliot and handed him the other mug. “Did he tell you?”

  “He’s been very cooperative,” Eliot said. “We’ll try not to let anyone know, though.”

  “Good.” She went to the playpen and leaned over it for a moment, watching the baby. She straightened, glanced at her husband, and walked out of the room.

  “Look, that’s it,” Terry said. “I really don’t know anything solid. It’s just rumors.”

  “That’s right,” Aven said with a smile.

  “And you didn’t tell us anything,” Eliot added.

  Aven gulped down half his coffee and held the mug out. “Thanks. Keep your head down. Hey, I think my CO knows someone at the cannery. I’ll ask him if he can put in a word for you.”

  He and Eliot hurried out to the deputy marshal’srental car.

  “Waller’s house first?” Eliot asked.

  “Yes.” Aven gave him directions to the apartment building. They arrived a few minutes later, but no one answered the door at Spruce Waller’s place.

  “Now what?”

  Aven said, “Last time I went looking for him, he was at his cabin at Anton Larsen Bay.”

  “How far is it?”

  “You can drive it in twenty or thirty minutes.”

  Eliot checked his watch. “You up for it? It’s almost four o’clock.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Aven navigated Eliot over the same roads he’d taken Caddie on earlier. His thoughts flew to the Wintergreen, and he prayed for her as they passed the riverside where they’d watched the bears. Another thought occurred to him as he recalled the tip his commanding officer had received about the boat they’d pursued. “You know what?”

  “What?” Eliot asked.

  “Greer said it was a woman who called in reporting that the boat—which we now know was Clay Waller’s—was picking up a drug shipment. It wouldn’t surprise me if the one who made that call was Crystal.”

  At Waller’s cabin, they drove into the yard and got out, looking around. Aven looked first for Clay’s cabin cruiser, but the slip in the cove was empty. A small aluminum boat lay upside down on shore a few yards from the dock. Spruce Waller’s SUV was parked beside the cabin.

  As Eliot approached the door, Aven slipped around the side of the building. A back door opened into a lean-to woodshed. Eliot knocked on the front door, but the sound reverberated through the cabin with no response.

  After fifteen seconds, Eliot pounded on the door again. Nothing.

  Aven stepped into the woodshed and lifted the latch on the back door. It swung wide, and a musty smell of dust and old ashes greeted him. He drew his sidearm. “Eliot?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going in the back.”

  Eliot yelled something, but Aven didn’t hear it. He was already inside, peering past the muzzle of his pistol into the dim interior of the cabin. He looked all around the back room, which seemed to be Waller’s bedroom, then walked through the larger front room. He opened the front door.

  Eliot stood on the step outside, a pistol in his hand.

  “He’s not here,” Aven said.

  Eliot exhaled and pushed his hair back. “Don’t do that again. He could have blown your head off.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s also the little technicality about search warrants.”

  Aven blinked as he considered that. “Yeah, true.”

  Eliot peered past him, looking beyond Aven into the dim interior. “You sure he’s not hiding someplace?”

  “Pretty sure.” Aven turned back into the cabin.

  Eliot hesitated, looked over his shoulder, and followed. He did a more thorough search than Aven had with no more results.

  “So now what do we do?”

  Eliot threw him a resigned glance. “Lock the front door and leave.”

  “He could be anywhere out here.”

  “Yes, and he could be watching right now through the scope of a rifle.”

  Aven squeezed his mouth shut tight and waited for further instructions.

  “On the other hand,” Eliot said, “he could be out in the boat with his brother. Come on. We might as well go back to Kodiak and have dinner.”

  They got into the car, and Eliot drove in silence. Several times, Aven started to speak, but thought better of it. He’d definitely broken some rules. Had he come down a notch in Eliot’s opinion?

  As they neared the shopping district in Kodiak, Aven’s phone rang. “Hello.”

  “Mr. Holland? That is. . .Aven Holland?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Brett Sellers. I don’t know if you remember me, but I made the dog harness for your sister.”


  “Of course I remember you.”

  Eliot looked over with raised eyebrows.

  Aven shrugged in apology.

  “Yeah, well, I hope she likes it,” Sellers said.

  “She does. She’s very happy with it.” Was this going to be a sales pitch for more equipment?

  Eliot parked in front of a seafood restaurant, and Aven reached to unbuckle his seatbelt.

  “Well, I saw something that could be related to a crime. I didn’t want to call the police, but it’s been bothering me all day. Then I remembered you and how you have some sort of law enforcement job. I thought maybe I could run it by you, and you could decide whether the police ought to know.”

  Aven hesitated with his hand on the door latch. “Okay. What is it?”

  “There’s a shop next to mine that sells souvenirs. You know, plastic totem poles. Plush polar bears.”

  “Yeah, okay. What about it?”

  “I stopped in there this morning before opening time to see if I could borrow a coffee filter. The owner was packing up some merchandise, but it was way better quality than what he usually carries.”

  Aven frowned. “So? Maybe he’s upgrading his inventory.”

  “No, listen. He wasn’t unpacking it. He was wrapping it and putting it in crates. I saw carved walrus tusks and whale baleen.”

  Aven’s heart skipped. “Is the owner a Native Alaskan?”

  “No way. His hair’s blonder than mine. He claims he has Russian blood, but I’m skeptical.”

  “Okay. It’s possible he bought the things legally. Tell you what.” Aven shot Eliot a glance. The deputy marshal was watching him keenly. “There’s a man from the U.S. Marshal’s office in Anchorage here in Kodiak right now. Can I bring him to your shop in about twenty minutes?”

  “Uh, well. . .it might be better if you just went straight to his. I wouldn’t want him to know I ratted on him.” Sellers sighed. “He’ll know anyway, I suppose.”

  “It could be perfectly innocent,” Aven said.

  “Could be. Doubt it. He tried to cover it all up quick when I walked in.”

  Aven took the name of the souvenir shop and signed off.

  Eliot leaned against his car door, waiting. “Well? What was that?” he asked.

  “Maybe a wild goose chase. Head down the street. We’ve got a tip on allegedly stolen artwork.”