by Marc Cameron
“True.”
“I wish I had seen them,” January said. “I really do.”
“What do you think happened to Carmen Delgado?” Cutter asked.
January leaned back in her seat and sighed. “I have no idea,” she said. “But like I said, I really wish I did. Absent that stupid television show, Carmen can be a nice enough person.”
“People on this island don’t seem overly fond of her show.”
“They either love it or they hate it,” January said. “It’s making some people rich, some people famous, and some people pissed—but I think it’s making everybody crazy.”
“Sounds like it,” Cutter said. He picked up the large video camera and turned it over in his hand. “Do you get a lot of underwater footage of the whales?”
“Some,” January said. “They’ve gotten accustomed to the boat so they stop by for visits once in a while. They have a habit of spy hopping off the aft rail and scaring the crap out of me while I’m on deck having my morning coffee.”
“Spy hopping?”
“Kind of like treading water,” she said. “You’ve seen it before if you’ve been to a commercial-type whale show. It’s when a whale or porpoise sticks its head out of the water so it can look around.”
“I’d like to see that out here in the wild,” Cutter mused.
January shot him a smile. It didn’t seem like the smile of a killer. She picked up the clear plastic housing. “As a matter of fact though, I need to get this back on the brackets next to the keel. Problem is, the zipper on my dry suit separated on me the last time I went down.”
Cutter shuddered. “That had to be uncomfortable.”
“Like a full-body ice cream headache,” she said. “Nearly broke my own back writhing around under the boat. I have another suit onboard that I was going to try. It’s way too big for me so I’m sure it would leak. It would probably fit you. Maybe you’d consider hooking this up for me tomorrow, after the storm passes I mean.”
Cutter shrugged. “It’s the least I could do.”
“That would be super-duper cool.” She began to rummage through the pile of shop towels on the table. “A guy in Craig designed the bracket for me and fixed some bolts to the hull near the keel so I can mount it. It’s a Frankenstein’s monster type of deal so there are about three different sizes of bolt.” January found what she was looking for. Cutter’s stomach tightened when she held it up in her left hand, her right still under the table and out of sight. “He made this special tool to put on the bracket,” she said. “See, it’s pretty ingenious—a flat wrench with cutouts for the bolts all along this one side.”
CHAPTER 37
SAM BENJAMIN TAPPED HIS PEN AGAINST THE BLACK BASKET-WEAVE leather cover of his trooper notebook. The only thing enjoyable about interviewing Bright Jonas was watching Deputy Fontaine dish it right back to the obnoxious woman.
Bright sat across her living room, lounging with one leg draped over the arm of her overstuffed chair, swirling a glass full of ice and something else. She wore a loose gimee T-shirt with a silkscreen of her own photograph from the show, and a pair of gray yoga pants that made the trooper happy her shirt hung all the way to midthigh. She wasn’t really a heavy woman, more full-figured, like Marilyn Monroe, but the overabundance of guile and self-importance added to her weight. Her husband, Fitz, sat beside her in a shabby recliner, leaning slightly away as if he didn’t want to catch anything she might have. A big man, his full beard did little to hide the clenched jaw and sickened look of a man who wanted to cut his own throat.
Sam Benjamin couldn’t blame him. He could easily have listened to Deputy Lola Fontaine talk for hours, but he had all he could stomach of Bright Jonas after a minute and a half. The trooper had known Bright since he’d come to this island, and she’d never been particularly easy to get along with. But now, as a preeminent member of the FISHWIVES! cast, her nose was so high in the air she would have drowned had she stepped outside in this rain. Benjamin forced himself to slow down and ask the questions that needed to be asked, though he’d rather be at the production company’s apartments interviewing some slightly less dysfunctional souls.
He took a long, focusing breath and decided to gut it out and get through this if it killed him. He reviewed his notebook for the questions he’d already asked, then looked up at Fitz.
“Did Carmen or Greg say anything to either of you about going with them on a remote shoot?”
Fitz shook his head and opened his mouth to speak but Bright cut him off.
“I’ve already told you, dear,” she said, affecting a mid-Atlantic whine. “We have no idea where they went.”
Benjamin nodded and asked Fitz again. “How about you?”
Bright wallowed herself up straighter in her chair. “I just told you we do not know.”
“I’m asking your husband,” the trooper said.
“I said ‘we.’ ”
“I get it now,” Fontaine said, nodding as if she’d finally caught on to something important “I thought you were using the royal ‘we.’ ”
Fitz Jonas looked at the floor, stifling a chuckle. Bright shot him a withering stare before wheeling on Fontaine. “My husband and I have a good enough relationship that we can speak for each other. We are like one person.”
“You must do that a lot,” Fontaine said. “Since I’ve not heard him speak at all.”
Bright Jonas leaned forward, staring daggers now. “I can see what you’re doing, Deputy Fontaine. It’s obvious from your tight clothes and über-fit body that you think you’re some kind of God’s gift to men.”
Benjamin shut his notebook and got to his feet. “We should go.”
“A little word to the wise, sweetie,” Bright said, turning up the heat. “A real man enjoys a woman with a little meat on her bones, not some gym rat with muscles as hard as a metal road grate.”
“Maybe so, Meaty Bones.” Fontaine chuckled. “But I can do a handstand and the splits at the same time. The men I know don’t seem to mind that at all.”
Trooper Benjamin herded Fontaine to the door, standing strategically between her and Bright Jonas as they left.
He turned to face her when they were both in his Tahoe and buckling their seat belts. “It’s none of my business,” he said. “But can you really do the splits while you do a handstand?”
Fontaine batted her eyes, doing a poor job of looking innocent. “All damned day, Sam. All damn day.”
The radio on the console squelched, rescuing him from saying something he would surely regret. It was the swing-shift dispatcher at the Craig Police Department.
“You on the radio, Sam?”
The trooper put the Tahoe in gear and pulled away from the Jonas house, just in case Bright decided to shoot the person she saw as her bony competition. He scooped up the microphone when they made it down the street a ways. “Go ahead, Shirley,” he said.
“Sam, call the station please,” the dispatcher said.
Benjamin fished his cell phone from the pocket of his vest carrier and punched in the speed dial number for the PD. “What’s up?” he said.
“I didn’t want to put it out over the radio,” the dispatcher said, “but I got Lin Burkett standing outside in my lobby. She’s in pretty bad shape, but who can blame her, ya know? I’m pretty sure she’s intoxicated but no one deserves to get arrested on the day their kid’s body is recovered.”
“I agree,” Benjamin said. “Is there someone she can call?”
“She wants to talk to you personally,” Shirley said. “Says it’s something really important about Gerald. Life or death type of deal.”
Should have led with that, Shirley, the trooper thought, ending the call and returning the phone to his pocket.
* * *
Lin Burkett sat with her face buried in her hands in the Craig Police Department lobby. She rose unsteadily to her feet when Benjamin and Fontaine came in through the door. Both stood for a moment, letting the rain drip off their jackets onto a large rug left t
here for that purpose.
Burkett shook her head. Her bloodshot eyes pleaded for help. “You gotta stop him, Trooper,” she said. “Before he does somethin’ stupid. He found her book. I’m sure he read it, and now there’s no telling what he’ll do.” Her nose was stuffed from crying and she sounded like she had a bad cold.
“Slow down, Lin,” Benjamin said. “We can get you a safe place to stay if you’re afraid for your safety.”
She looked at him, blinking and shaking her head. “What are you talking about?”
“You and Gerald have to be under a lot of stress,” Benjamin said. “Did he threaten you?”
“Not me,” she said.
“Who then?”
She shoved a well-worn spiral notebook at the trooper.
Benjamin opened the book and gave it a quick glance before passing it to Fontaine and turning back to Mrs. Burkett. “Millie’s journal? I looked through her room. Where did you find it?”
“It was layin’ there in the living room when I got home,” she said, her face stricken. “Right next to Gerald’s recliner. I don’t know where he got it from.”
“And you think he read something in Millie’s diary that’s going to make him do something stupid?”
“He’s gone,” Lin sobbed. “I checked the drawer and his gun is gone too. You gotta help me, Trooper. I want that son of a bitch dead as bad as he does, but I can’t lose Millie and Gerald too. Please stop him.”
“What son of a bitch?” the trooper asked.
“The one on that show!” Lin spat.
Benjamin thought of the FISHWIVES! camera operator he’d interviewed at the bonfire the night before. Something about the guy had seemed off—and he’d admitted to having a working relationship with Millie Burkett. “Are you talking about Tucker Jackson?”
Lin shook her head, sniffing back tears. “Who?”
“It’s not Jackson,” Fontaine said, holding up the notebook so Benjamin could see the entry. She gave a slow shake of her head. This made sense. “Millie Burkett was having an affair with Kenny Douglas.”
“That’s right.” Lin Burkett nodded. “And I’m positive Gerald’s out drinking up enough courage to kill the bastard while we’re here talking about it.”
CHAPTER 38
JANUARY STARED AT CUTTER, THEN LOOKED BACK AND FORTH AROUND the cabin. “Did I say something that offended you? You look as though you just saw a ghost.”
Cutter’s hand hovered near, but not on, his sidearm. He gave a nod toward the flat “Frankenstein” wrench. “Can I take a look at that?”
“Sure.” January handed the thing over, and then lifted her right hand out from under the table. It held only the microfiber cloth she’d been using to clean her camera lenses. “I always get the weird ones,” she said under her breath.
Cutter held the wrench by the end, letting it hang while he looked it over. Where the weapon used to strike Millie Burkett had to have had two cutouts to leave its distinct pattern, this one had three. Cutter gave an audible sigh. “Do you have any other wrenches like this one?”
January shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “I think one’s enough. Like I said, my friend made it so it’s all I’ll need.”
“I’d be happy to mount the housing for tomorrow,” he said. He gave her back the wrench. “Seems like I remember you saying you were hungry before I borrowed your phone.”
“I’m starving,” January said. She slid out from between the dinette and the padded bench and went to the small galley where she began to look through the various lockers there. At length, she held up an onion. “I bought a bunch of groceries yesterday, but I swear, I can’t find anything that goes together to make a meal.”
“How many onions?” Cutter asked.
She turned to look at the bin over her shoulder. “Four.”
Cutter gave a thoughtful nod. “You have butter?”
“I do,” she said.
“Beef stock?”
“Boullion,” she said.
“That works. How about bread?”
“Yep.”
“Wine?”
“I have that too.”
Cutter rubbed his hands together. “It just so happens that you have all the ingredients for one of the ten recipes my granddad taught me.”
“I’d like to hear more about this grandfather of yours,” she said. “We Tlingit revere our elders. It’s nice to hear of someone who feels the same way—especially in this day and age when everyone seems to shove their grandparents in a home. Did I hear you call him ‘Grumpy’ earlier.”
“I couldn’t say ‘Grandpa’ when I was young,” Cutter said. “So I called him Grumpy. It stuck, I guess, and by the time I was in high school everyone I knew called him that. It suited him since he didn’t smile much.”
“Like someone else I know,” January said.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said. “I think most people smile too much. Makes them look silly.”
“Grumpy would have liked you,” Cutter said. “So, back to our meal. According to Grumpy, King Louis the Fifteenth wanted something to eat after a long day of hunting but could find nothing in his chalet but some onions, bread, and champagne.” Cutter held up the onion. “You have more than King Louis did to make a French onion soup. Grumpy used to make it for my grandmother.”
“Was she a good cook too?”
“She died before I was born. Could be why the name Grumpy stuck so well.” Cutter sighed. “Anyway, I could make us some soup if you’d like.”
“That would be most cool,” January said. “I’d help, but Tide Dancer has what my navy father would have called a ‘one-butt’ galley.”
“No worries,” Cutter said. “It’s kind of a one-butt meal.”
The rich smell of butter and frying onions soon filled the cabin. The boat’s gentle rocking combined with the steady drum of the rainstorm seemed to stimulate deep conversation. The pair were soon talking about things they would have never dreamed of touching in less heady circumstances. January went into great detail about her job, getting out thick albums packed with photos of each orca in the pod. She spoke of their individual personalities and idiosyncrasies as though they were her own children. But when Cutter asked about her time teaching and why she’d quit, she fell silent.
He decided to cook and let her be quiet. He was, after all, her guest.
“You know,” she finally said. “It takes a brave man to stay on board a boat with a murder suspect.”
He looked up from the loaf of bread he was in the process of slicing. “What makes you think you’re a suspect?”
“Come on,” she said. “I saw your face. There was something about that wrench that made you nearly shoot me.”
“You don’t have much faith in me as a copper,” Cutter said. He found a bottle of poultry seasoning and gave it a generous shake over the sautéed onions, and then stirred the pot before pouring a cup of red wine over the mixture. He let this simmer a minute, then followed up with several cups of beef stock.
“I’m right though,” she said. “Aren’t I?”
“You are,” he said. “But your wrench is the wrong kind of wrench. I go where the evidence takes me, but I’m a pretty good judge of character. You don’t seem like you’re hiding something as big as a murder.”
January cocked her head to one side. “But you do think I’m hiding something?”
“Like you said, we’re all hiding something.” Cutter went back to slicing the bread. He made the pieces thick so they wouldn’t dissolve when he floated them in the soup. “But yes, I think you in particular are hiding something. It might not be any of my business or have any bearing on the case, but you’re hiding it nonetheless.”
“It’s not, you know,” she said. “Any of your business, I mean.”
“Okay,” Cutter said. He put the bread on a cookie sheet and slid it into the oven to toast. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Is that what Grumpy would have done?”
“
Have you got any cheese?”
“What?”
“Cheese,” Cutter said. “Swiss if you have it. Gruyère would be best, but mozzarella will do in a pinch.”
She nodded toward the small refrigerator in the corner. “I don’t think I’ve ever even tasted Gruyère, but there’s some Swiss in the door.”
Cutter looked through the shelves and found the cheese behind a bottle of mustard. “Got it,” he said. “And no, Grumpy would have resorted to bright lights and thumbscrews to find out what your secret is.”
“Really?”
“Nope,” Cutter admitted. “Despite his gruff demeanor, Grumpy was mostly a ‘live and let live’ kind of guy.”
“Like you?”
“I’m not half the man my grandfather was.”
“You know what I think?” January said. “I think you already know my secret, but you’re too much of a gentleman to say it.”
Cutter gave a contemplative nod. Instead of speaking, he took the toasted bread out of the oven, putting one slice in each ceramic bowl before he ladled the rich soup. He crowned each bowl with a second piece of toasted bread, sprinkled this with cheese.
“Two pieces of bread?”
“Grumpy’s secret,” Cutter said. “He liked a little soup with his toast and cheese.”
“That smells incredible,” she said.
“It’s the poultry seasoning.”
“And the butter,” January said. “And the onions, and the wine . . .”
Cutter put both bowls on a cookie sheet and slid them into the hot oven to melt the cheese. It really did smell amazing.
He threw the hand towel over his shoulder and leaned against the counter. “So,” he said. “You want to talk about it?”
“What?”
“I only ask because it seems like you want to talk about it.”
January put her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. She gave a little shrug. “I . . . guess I kind of do.”
