Precious Cargo

by Clyde W. Ford

  “I love you,” I said.

  The words vibrated against my throat. Raven spun around as though he’d heard them too. He stopped, stared into my eyes, put a hand on my shoulder, and pointed up. I shook my head and pointed down. He nodded and began swimming. I took slow, easy breaths and followed. Quietness filled my senses. The sensation of floating freed my body.

  A few small fish swam by as we descended. Once we reached the bottom, I saw that Raven had laid out a rectangle of rope ten feet wide and a hundred feet long. I squinted to see the far end but the turbid water prevented me. Three ropes traveled the length of the grid. He’d run a weighted jackline down the middle with two search lines on either side. Lead balls held down the lines. He’d also attached the white float to the far end of the jackline.

  Raven grabbed hold of the jackline with one hand, the outer line on his right with the other. I did same only to his left, grabbing the jackline just behind his hand. Rescue and recovery divers call this a “jackstay search,” and it would have been my choice, too, when faced with the low visibility we had here in Eagle Harbor.

  In the muck beneath me I saw several Dungeness crabs skittering along. Raven stopped, checked his compass again, and pointed. We headed away from the boat along the jackline. Fifty feet later Raven’s hand flew out to hold me back. Like a magician plucking an object from the air, he pinched a crab-trap line between his fingers. I hadn’t seen it. Raven held it out of the way as we swam by.

  Suddenly, Raven tapped me on my shoulder, hard. He made exaggerated pointing motions down and to his right just outside the grid. I followed Raven as he swam. The bottom dropped off slightly. At first it looked like we headed toward a rock.

  Then I saw it too.

  five

  I fought hard to keep my mind and breathing in check. We swam in close and came upon the body of a young woman resting on the seabed. Her eyes and mouth seemed shocked wide open. In the murky water, her skin shimmered a ghastly dark green color. Rocks tied to her ankles and wrists weighed her down. Her dark hair trailed up toward the surface. A small crab crawled out from between her lips.

  Raven whipped an underwater marker from a bag tied to his waist. He fastened a line around the dead woman’s wrist, then pulled a cord, which inflated a small balloon that shot to the surface. He motioned for me to follow him up.

  We ascended slowly. I ripped off my mask when I broke the surface. Raven lifted his above his eyes. Fog shrouded Eagle Harbor. I couldn’t see the dive boat or the shoreline. The marker noting the dead woman’s body bobbed in the water several feet away. We treaded water.

  “Are you okay?” Raven asked.

  I spit out water. “I am.” I motioned down with my finger. “We should go back.”

  “You think we’ll find more bodies?”

  “I’ve got a sickening feeling.”

  I refitted my face mask. When we reached the bottom, we grabbed hold of the jackline and an outer line, resuming our search pattern. Ahead of me and slightly off to my left, I caught a glimpse of a dark object resting on the bottom. When we reached it, I pinched the crab-trap line between two fingers. Three large Dungeness crabs writhed in the trap. We swam ten yards farther and I spied another crab trap, this one resting on a large rock. Dozens of crabs clambered over the rock and the trap.

  Then I saw hair floating up from the rock. I jerked the jackline. Raven stopped. I jabbed his shoulder, then pointed. We let go of the lines and swam in that direction. When we got to the trap my stomach heaved. The crab trap lay atop the body of another young woman. She also had rocks tied to her, assuring that crabs would have their fill. I swallowed hard.

  Crabs had eaten away the left side of her face, neck, and chest, exposing bone in places. She wore a thin blouse, shredded now, through which the crabs had ripped chunks of flesh from her left breast. Raven pulled a knife from his ankle sheath and flicked away the crabs. He moved the trap from the woman’s chest. Then he tagged her body and yanked on a small cord, sending another marker balloon jetting to the surface.

  I stared at the upper body of this woman, one side bone, the other side pale flesh. The disturbing image brought to mind a painting I’d seen of a beautiful young woman looking in the mirror at her reflection, which had become a skeleton. I shook my head. I saw a dark patch on the remaining skin of her chest. I brought my head in close. My face mask touched her flesh, and before my eyes a tattoo of the Virgin Mary came into focus.

  When we reached the far end of the jackline, we moved it and the search lines ten feet to our right, then we swam back toward the boat along the lines. This meant I’d cover the same ground that Raven already had covered. But it also meant we wouldn’t miss any bodies or evidence in our search. After two hours of searching we found nothing more. Raven tapped my shoulder and hiked his thumb upward. We rose slowly through the cloudy green water. Once at the surface, we swam the short distance to the boat and hoisted ourselves onto the swim step. We sat there without speaking, reaching down to slip off our flippers. The fog had thinned in places, revealing dark green patches of trees along the shore. I don’t think either of us knew what to say.

  Suddenly, just as Raven pushed up from the swim step, about to stand, two loud pops broke the silence. Two bullets bit into the stern. Simultaneously, we both keeled over into the water. We grabbed our flippers from the swim step just as two more bullets dived between us with dull, watery zips.

  “Move to the front of the boat,” Raven said. “And stay there.”

  Raven had already slipped into his flippers. Before I could respond, he disappeared under the water. I worked myself forward along the side of the hull. I strained to see through the fog, but I couldn’t locate Raven. I waited. And listened. I heard only the gentle rush of water against the shore. I treaded water for another ten minutes. No more gunshots came, but then neither did Raven. So I moved to the back of the boat and hoisted myself onto the swim step. I slipped off my flippers and dashed inside the cabin. I ripped the microphone from the side of the VHF radio to call the Coast Guard. But I hesitated.

  If I got the Coast Guard involved, they’d claim jurisdiction, homeland security, and god knows what else, which would make it a lot harder for me to work this case. Raven might not be thrilled to see Coast Guard either. On the other hand, I could get the overworked Bellingham Police Department involved. They might make an obligatory call to the Coast Guard, but by the time all the bureaucratic wrangling over turf died down, maybe I’d know why a popular anchorage had suddenly become a gruesome killing ground.

  I rummaged through my gear bag and wrestled my cell phone free. I brought up Ben Conrad’s number. But before I could hit Send, the back of the boat tipped low. I ran outside. Raven sat slumped over on the swim step.

  “I made it to the shore. Tried to work my way around the shooter. He took off before I got there.” Raven ran a hand down the side of his wetsuit. “Too heavy. Couldn’t catch him in all this gear.”

  Raven breathed hard. I helped lift his tank from his shoulders.

  “Did you see who took the shots?”

  “No.”

  “See which way he ran?”

  Raven shook his head. “Not a lot of ways to run. Probably took the trail up to Reed Lake.”

  “One gunman? Two?”

  “Don’t know. But I did get this.”

  Raven held a bullet between his thumb and index finger.

  “Where?”

  He pointed down. “Right underneath the boat.”

  “Someone didn’t want their killing ground discovered,” I said.

  “Why use Eagle Harbor?” Raven asked. “It’s not that deep. Boaters and crabbers are here year round. Last place I’d dump a body.”

  “Me too. . . . It doesn’t make sense.”

  While Raven dressed, I called Ben Conrad. Ben sounded impatient.

  “Can’t talk. I’m in the middle of monitoring one of Janet’s goddamn demonstrations.”

  “Then listen,” I said. “We just dived at Eagle Harbor
. There are at least two more bodies of young women down there. And when we came up someone fired a couple of shots at us from shore.”

  “Shit,” Ben said. “What’d I do to deserve a day like this? Two more bodies in Eagle Harbor?”

  “Uh huh. They’re tagged and flagged. Maybe you should call the marine unit. Get them out here to raise the bodies before the crabs leave nothing for the medical examiner to examine.”

  “Maybe I should call the marine unit? . . . Fucking funny, Noble. I am the marine unit. You know that. Can you wait there?”

  “How long?”

  “Let’s see . . . Eagle Harbor . . . Have to call the chief and get him to relieve me from monitoring this line of traffic . . . Get the police boat ready . . . Say two and a half to three hours?”

  “I’ll check with the fellow I’m diving with.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Guy named Raven.”

  “Dan?”

  “Raven.”

  “Native guy? Short? Muscular? Used to be a navy diver?”

  “Uh huh. He used to be a SEAL.”

  “That’s Dan. Dan Ravenheart Washington. Has a problem with authority. Minor run-ins with the law. But he knows the diving and salvage business. Tell him we could use his help recovering the bodies. We’ll pay him of course.”

  “He said the Coast Guard hadn’t cleared him for government work.”

  “Hell, if you don’t tell the CG, I won’t.”

  “I’ll ask Raven.”

  I stepped outside and called to Raven.

  “Can we sit tight until the police marine unit arrives? They want to hire you to help retrieve the bodies.”

  He leaned against the railing, looking forlornly out over the water. He didn’t answer, so I tapped the railing lightly. He turned around. I asked again. He nodded slowly. I took that to mean yes.

  “We’ll be here when you get here,” I said to Ben.

  I snapped my cell phone closed and walked back out on deck. Raven turned to me. “Bad business, Noble. Many troubled spirits here in Eagle Harbor. Now two more souls need to find their way home.”

  I didn’t need to ask. I stepped back into the cabin and grabbed the half-burned bundle of sage. A shiver rippled through me. I couldn’t shed the image of that young woman’s crab-eaten body. Something needed to be done, if not for the dead, then for the living. Raven already had his drum out by the time I returned. So for the second time in a few short hours, he drummed while I cleansed the air.

  The fog had burned off by the time we completed this ritual. Behind us, two marker flags bounced gently in the water, aligned in a nearly perfect row off our stern: one flag a hundred yards away, the other double that distance. And beyond that, the park ranger’s aluminum boat still sat between two old wooden pilings.

  I touched Raven on the shoulder and pointed to the shore beyond the ranger’s boat. “Take a walk with me.”

  We lifted the inflatable dinghy off the roof of Raven’s boat and lowered it into the water. We pulled it around to the swim step. After we grabbed life vests and stepped into the inflatable, Raven popped the oars from their holders and rowed us toward a tiny beach on the far shore.

  With his head bowed while he rowed, Raven reminded me of a monk passing contemplatively through sacred ground. We hadn’t reached the beach yet when I grabbed an oar in the middle of a stroke. Raven cocked his head up and squinted, a bewildered but calm look on his face. I pointed to a small red and white crab-trap float we’d just glided past.

  “Aren’t crab-trap buoys supposed to be numbered?”

  Raven nodded. I patted my pockets.

  “Do you have a pen, pencil, something to write with?” I asked.

  Raven patted his pockets. He shook his head. I pointed off our starboard side.

  “Take us back to that buoy.”

  Raven dipped his right oar into the water and pulled hard. The dinghy spun around and he pulled with both oars. I leaned over the side and swung my arm out.

  “Got it,” I said.

  Raven stopped rowing. I twirled the float around.

  “3-4-7-4-2-8,” I said.

  Raven looked around the harbor.

  “Lots of floats in here. You’d need a photographic memory for all the numbers.”

  “I don’t have a photographic memory, but I do have a feeling.”

  “What feeling?”

  I pointed. “Take us over to that one.”

  I grabbed the float when we got there and raised it from the water.

  “This,” I said. I held the float so Raven could see the number.

  “Same number. Maybe all the floats belong to the same crabber,” he said.

  “Uh huh. Let’s see.”

  We hopscotched around Eagle Harbor. Eight of the ten floats had the number “347428” scrawled on the white portion with an indelible marker.

  “Do we need to go back to the boat so you can write that number down?” Raven asked.

  “No. It’s easy to remember.”

  Raven frowned. “How?”

  “Three plus four is seven. Seven times four is twenty-eight.”

  “Strange mind, Noble.”

  I smiled. “Lucky for us.”

  Raven rowed us to the pocket beach. When our bow scraped the sand, I jumped out and pulled us in. A highly varnished wooden lapstrake dinghy lay tilted to one side at the top of the beach. Two long wooden oars were tucked partially beneath the center bench. A hand-carved plaque on the dinghy’s stern read, “Dept. of Natural Resources.” The ranger must have used it to ferry between the skiff and the shore. We hauled our dinghy next to it, then tied it off to a large piece of driftwood.

  A rough-hewn road from Eagle Harbor led up to Reed Lake. Within half a mile, we must have climbed several hundred feet. To our left, the view looked east over Sinclair and Lummi Islands and Bellingham Bay, and beyond that to the snowcapped peak of Mount Baker and the bare tops of the Sisters poking into a dazzling blue sky. Dark green ebb waters racing south down Bellingham Channel swirled outside the entrance to Eagle Harbor, giving the sea a herringbone texture. A tug pulling two barges filled with wood chips made a sweeping turn just north of Sinclair Island.

  “Brronk. Brronk. Brronk.” A raven’s deep, sonorous call echoed through the forest around us.

  Raven scanned the trees, then raised his hands to his lips. He rounded his mouth. “Brronk. Brronk. Brronk,” he called. The raven answered his call, and he smiled.

  About a mile up, the road leveled off, and several hundred yards from there, a group of signposts described in pictures and words the fauna and flora of Reed Lake for visitors who’d made it this far. In a clearing to the left of the signs, a pickup truck sat in front of a large building. Through dirty windows I could barely make out the shapes of heavy equipment—a dump truck and maybe an earthmover—housed behind the wide doors of the structure. A woodpile sat to one side of the building. Next to it, a woman wielding a chain saw worked her way through a large log. Chips and wood dust flew in all directions. The buzz of her saw competed with the rush of a nearby stream.

  Suddenly, the saw stopped and the stream grew louder. The woman bent down and scooped up an armful of cut wood. She took a few steps toward the pickup. Then she saw us. She put the wood down and laid her gloves on top of the pile. She walked our way, smiling. She had a short, compact, and rounded body. Her arm muscles bulged under her T-shirt. She stopped a few feet before reaching us and stared at Raven. Then she squinted.

  “I know you, don’t I?” She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead with her fingers. Then she opened her eyes and snapped her fingers. “Raven”—she pointed at him—“you dive. Five years ago you helped us secure the mooring buoys off Pelican Beach.”

  Raven nodded, the recognition apparently of little concern. The woman seemed nonplussed by his lack of enthusiasm. She turned to me and thrust her hand out. “Hi, I’m Carol. Carol Jenkins. But most people call me CJ.”

  I shook her hand. “Charles Noble. Most people call
me Charlie. Do you work here?”

  “Only when I have to.” She chuckled and pointed to her T-shirt, where the large bold letters A-W-O-L followed the buxom contours of her chest. “No fancy uniform or Smokey Bear hat. But I’m the live-in ranger, park manager, trail whacker, mechanic, plumber—you name it—for the summer months. Come winter, look for me in Patagonia, the Yucatan, the Outback. Out in nature. Far away from people. Someplace interesting, exciting, challenging. What can I do for you, Mr. Noble?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Raven had wandered over to the signposts.

  “A young woman was pulled from the bottom of Eagle Harbor by an anchor about a week ago,” I said.

  “It’s horrible isn’t it? It made me ill when I heard the news. Men treat women like disposable commodities. I see it all the time around the world. I see it here, too.” CJ pointed down the hill toward Eagle Harbor. “They anchor their big party boats here. I’ve watched them with binoculars. Men with women young enough to be their daughters. It makes me think some guy got tired of this young woman and threw her overboard.”

  “Women,” I said.

  “Women?” CJ’s head jerked. “I don’t understand.”

  “Raven and I went diving this morning and found the bodies of two more women.”

  “No.” CJ shook her head. “My god, this is terrible. The bodies of three women found here in Eagle Harbor?”

  “Uh huh. Someone also took a few shots at us with a rifle.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “I’m not. Did you see anyone else come this way?”

  She pointed to the woodpile alongside the building. “I’ve been cutting wood most of the morning. People come and go all the time without me seeing or hearing them.” She shrugged her shoulders. “You’re the first people I’ve seen today. Who do you work for?” CJ asked. “The Coast Guard? FBI? Local police?”