Island of Thieves

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  A squarish lump filled the pocket of Bao’s suit jacket, pinned under his weight. An obliging wave came in, lifting the body a fraction. Shaw dipped his hands into the chill froth to get hold of the jacket’s lapels and heaved, pulling the body from the crevice. Bao’s trapped arm came loose and flopped coldly onto Shaw’s face. Grimacing, he set the arm down gently. The least he could do, after Bao had signaled for help from beyond the grave.

  From the dead man’s jacket, Shaw removed a wallet and a passport folder. Bao’s black wand was clipped to his shirt pocket. His smartphone had been shattered by the fall. It didn’t respond when Shaw tried turning it on.

  The wallet clip held American bills—flimsy after their saltwater soak—and a Chase Bank debit card along with a Washington State driver’s license. That was a surprise. Bao had said he’d never been to the state before, and here was his license with an address in the Central District of Seattle.

  Shaw replaced the wallet and unzipped the passport holder. The deep red cover of the People’s Republic of China. He flipped it open. The photo was undoubtedly the chemist, staring placidly back. The name given, in English lettering below the Chinese characters, was Yuen Si-Lung. Born in Guangdong Province. The issue date for the passport was two years prior.

  Not necessarily odd, Shaw thought. Loads of people from other nations had Westernized names to go with their birth names, and the link between the two wasn’t always obvious. Maybe Yuen had been his father’s last name and Bao his mother’s, and Nelson/Si-Lung had chosen that when he’d moved to the States.

  But combined with Bao’s white lie about his Seattle address, Shaw wondered how deep the man’s secrecy went.

  He rezipped the passport folder—wiping his fingerprints from it—and set it back in Bao’s pocket with the wallet. Another tidal surge filled the crevice. The water lapped over the edges and onto the corpse. Bao stared up with sightless eyes. He looked slightly accusatory at being left in this undignified state.

  “Sorry,” Shaw said to the dead man, and reached for his phone to call Anders.

  NINETEEN

  “You found the body?” said the county deputy.

  “Yes. Nelson Bao.”

  “Did you touch him at all?”

  “I called to him,” said Shaw. “When he was unresponsive, I pulled him out of the split in the rocks to check for breathing and a pulse. That’s when I saw his head wound and how pale he was.”

  They sat across from each other in a small conference room in the north wing. The sun hadn’t breached the horizon, though the world was rapidly brightening outside the window.

  It had taken about ninety minutes from the time Anders had called 911 for San Juan law enforcement to cross the fifteen miles of water from the county seat in Friday Harbor. They had responded in force, four deputies and the sheriff himself in two patrol boats. Another hour had passed while the new visitors goggled at Rohner’s estate, inspected where Bao lay on the beach, and collected the guests, finally landing on the north wing as the best place to conduct interviews.

  Once they learned that Shaw had been first on the scene, he was separated and asked to wait in the meeting room. An officer hovered in the hall, making sure he stayed put. From what Shaw could discern by the movements between rooms and people passing the open door, the sheriff was talking to Rohner and his family in the main house. C.J. walked by with Bill Flynn, the Bridgetrust leader. She gave Shaw a faltering wave hello.

  After another half hour, the deputy had entered the room and begun to question him. Thirtyish, fit, in a black polo shirt with the seven-pointed star of the county embroidered on the left chest and g. parry and deputy stacked on the right. Looking like a man eager to catch somebody at something.

  “And you recognized Nelson Bao,” Parry asked.

  Shaw nodded. “We were at the same table at dinner.”

  “What’d you two talk about? At dinner?”

  “Almost nothing. Hobbies. He said he liked playing backgammon, in tournaments.”

  “Had you and Mr. Bao met before dinner?” he said.

  “No.”

  “Why were you on the beach tonight?”

  “I was taking a walk.”

  “Kinda late for a stroll.”

  “I’m used to night hours,” said Shaw.

  “What’s your job?”

  “Before this I worked at a bar in Seattle. Two-thirty in the morning is quitting time.”

  “So what do you do here?”

  “Mr. Rohner hired me as the facilities manager on Sunday. I arrived Monday afternoon.”

  Deputy Parry made a face. “Tough first week.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’d you walk to? Were you going out or coming back?”

  “Coming back. I walked from the south wing around the southern tip and back, all along the shore, or as close to it as I could.”

  “That’s a long hike.”

  “It’s a small island.”

  “So you were on the beach and you came across Mr. Bao. What’d you do then?”

  “I pulled him out and checked for signs of life, like I said. Not finding any, I called Olen Anders, and he came down and saw the body for himself.”

  “Either of you try CPR?” the deputy asked.

  “No. His head was badly damaged, and he’d lost a lot of blood.”

  “But you couldn’t be sure.”

  “I’ve seen dead people before. He was dead.”

  Parry stared at him for a moment. “What happened then?”

  “Anders called Mr. Rohner and 911.”

  “Rohner first?”

  “He’s the boss.”

  Parry hummed. “Okay. Stay here. The sheriff might want to talk to you.” The deputy stood and went to the door before turning back. “Can I ask you something unrelated? How’d you get that?” He flicked a finger toward Shaw’s face.

  “Afghanistan.”

  “Huh. My brother got glassed in a bar fight, long time ago. Looks kind of the same. I just wondered.”

  Shaw nodded. Parry left and closed the door behind him.

  He hadn’t told the deputy everything about Anders. How the tall man had come from the direction of the main house at almost a lope, as if anticipating the trouble he would find. Anders had shone a flashlight on the body, staring with an intense expression, and then, as Shaw had done, he began to pat Bao down. Shaw had kept silent about his own search of the body.

  Anders had removed the items from Bao’s pockets, then shone his light over the beach, foot by foot, careful not to miss whatever he sought by rushing.

  “I already looked for whatever brained him,” Shaw had said, “if that’s why you’re searching.”

  Anders had turned his light onto Shaw. “Did you find anything else?”

  “No.”

  The tall man had regarded Shaw for a long moment.

  “This was an accident,” he said.

  When Shaw didn’t reply, Anders had returned to scanning the beach. Whatever he was seeking was small enough that the tall man took pains not to miss finding it in the cracks and hollows of the rocky shore. It couldn’t be one of the statues. Any of those pieces would have stuck out like a flag on a football field.

  “We should check the gallery,” Shaw had said.

  “Why?” Anders continued to search the crags.

  “Because we’re only a hundred yards from there. Because maybe Bao interrupted the thief. Morton was inside the gallery earlier. Bao might have been, too.”

  “You were told to stay away,” said Anders.

  “Who gave Morton access?”

  “If I were you, Mr. Shaw,” Anders had said, not glancing up, “I would not ask nor invite questions. Not with your criminal history.”

  Shaw said nothing.

  “I’ll call Sebastien,” the chief of staff had said finally. “Damn it all. This was so long in the making.”

  He stalked off toward the estate. Shaw had stayed behind with Bao.

  While waiting in the conferenc
e room for the sheriff, Shaw continued to mull over Anders’s strange actions. Bao’s death might have been a mishap. Anders clearly preferred Shaw to believe that. But if it had been homicide, odds seemed very good it had something to do with whatever was going on in the gallery and the proprietary secrets Rohner and the rest seemed so anxious to keep under wraps. Maybe they’d been worth killing for.

  The door opened. A man with oval glasses and a black triangle of mustache stepped in. His green baseball cap and windbreaker were both emblazoned with the county star.

  “Mr. Shaw? I’m Sheriff Dayle. Come with me, please.”

  Shaw rose and followed Dayle into the hall, through the doors and passageway leading from the conference center into the pavilion. Most of the island’s guests and staff had gathered there. Nearly all wore clothes that looked like they’d been put on in a hurry. Karla Lokosh, in a tracksuit and with her red hair tamed into a simple braid, gave Shaw a quick nod.

  “Folks,” said the sheriff. “Thank you for being patient while we took your statements.”

  “What happened to Nelson?” said Morton. Shaw noticed that neither Chen Li nor Zhang, Bao’s coworkers, was present.

  “Was he really killed?” said Linda Edgemont. Shaw suspected she might win the prize for the most haggard of any of the rudely awakened guests. Not so much for her clothes or her makeup, which was fresh. She looked stricken.

  “It’s too early for conclusions,” Dayle replied, “but for the moment we’re looking at this as an accident. We have asked Mr. Rohner, and he’s agreed, to clear the island of any nonessential personnel. That means guests and all staff, except for two or three people. Some of my deputies will remain here until we’re sure everything is secure. Mr. Rohner has said he’ll make their boat available to take people to Friday Harbor or down to Seattle in an hour or so.”

  “What about the plane?” said one of the Droma people.

  “You’ll have to ask him about that. Right now he’s tending to his family over in the big house.” Dayle pointed a thumb in that direction. “He’ll be here shortly to talk to you. Until then please stay close and stay inside the buildings. You can go to your rooms to pack your things, but nowhere else.”

  The sheriff’s tone didn’t invite debate, and the small crowd turned their attention to each other. A few took out their phones to begin making arrangements for flights or hotels or, in the case of the household staff, just to return home earlier than expected.

  Karla Lokosh crossed to where Shaw stood, near one of the long troughs of greenery and flowers.

  “You all right?” he said.

  “Stunned,” she said. “It’s . . . surreal. And awful. Are you staying on the island?”

  “I don’t know yet. The cops might want to talk to me some more. I was the one who found Bao.”

  “I heard. We’re all sharing every new trickle of information about what happened, real or imagined. You okay?”

  “Better than him.”

  Karla grimaced, and Shaw said, “Sorry. Old habit, making a joke of things.”

  “Gallows humor, I’m down. It just caught me by surprise. I’ll be on one of the planes to Friday Harbor, I think. If you’re heading in the same direction, let me know.” She handed Shaw her business card, embossed in red and black. “Maybe we can have breakfast.”

  “Flynn won’t have you and Morton working?”

  “Whenever a client turns up dead, I’m off the clock,” she said with a sorrowful look. “How’s that for dark comedy?”

  “You win. I’ll find out if I’m leaving with the rest of you.”

  Shaw headed down the passage toward the staff quarters. One hour until the boat would leave. Packing his bag would take two minutes, tops. He could think of an excellent way to use the other fifty-eight.

  TWENTY

  The morning sun was low and the western side of the estate still dark with shade. Shaw moved fast to take advantage. He threw a few items into his light ruck and left the south wing to jog around the main house to the forest, keeping out of sight of the shore and the county patrol boats at the dock.

  He took the same path through the forest that he’d used when following the men loading the black crates into the gallery. After a quick check to be sure the porches and windows of the house were clear, he ran to scale the glass passageway over the steps and climb to the gallery roof.

  At the first skylight, he took the transceiver from his pocket and switched it on. While it locked on to the alarm’s signal, he removed a climbing rope from his pack and looped it around a stubby vent tube nearby. When the device’s light glowed green, indicating it was successfully imitating the skylight by swapping authentication codes with the alarm box, he popped the external latch on the skylight.

  He propped the hatch open, tossed the coil of climbing rope down, and wormed his way inside, feetfirst. The entire sequence from the moment he’d first touched the gallery roof had taken less than ninety seconds.

  Shaw had pre-tied knots along the rope to aid in climbing. Still, it took all his strength to grip the slim line with his legs with one hand and reach to close the skylight lid behind him with the other. He lowered himself hand over hand into the gallery.

  The scene below his dangling feet was a surprise. The gallery had been rearranged. His rope had fallen amid half a dozen pedestals, crowded together. Each was covered with a white dust sheet. All the artwork had been moved into this end of the gallery, including the wall cabinets, with a narrow path in between the shrouded statuary to the passageway door. Shaw descended, taking care not to swing and knock one of the figurines off its base.

  Two long tables had been set in the cleared space on the opposite side of the gallery. Shaw stepped around the crop of pedestals and the stack of disassembled black shipping crates for a closer look.

  One table held a collection of chemical jars and flasks, some full and others empty and waiting in their racks. Morton had taken a few of the same flasks to his midnight meeting in the pavilion with Rohner and Flynn and Edgemont.

  A complex-looking machine dominated the second table. The central component was a box that looked like a cross between a small photocopier and an electronic safe, complete with keypad and readout screen. The small name at the top read wyvern gpc-ir. Shaw popped the front panel, which swung open on a hinge. The inside of the machine gave him no help in figuring out its purpose. Just a shallow space at the front, with flexible tubes feeding into long steel vials.

  On one side of the big box was a stand holding two large bottles, sealed with red caps and plastic tubes instead of screw tops. A blue-white liquid filled one of the bottles; the other was empty. A computer monitor, also connected to the machine, was the final object on the table.

  At least he knew now why the two chemists had been in the gallery overnight. Setting up this machine. Whatever Rohner’s secret deal might be, it apparently relied on this equipment.

  Drugs? Unlikely. Cooking meth or opioids required more space, more ventilation, and produced a lot more toxic trash than the single plastic thirty-gallon can next to the second table could hold. The Wyvern machine was likely manufactured for use in a university or a corporate lab. Even if Shaw could buy the crazy notion that mountain-climbing business mogul Sebastien Rohner might be starting his own cartel, this was an inexplicable place to put his kitchen.

  What knowledge Shaw had of chemistry was limited to his demolition training in the Army and certain handy applications of acids. The names and symbols on the bottles and equipment were arcane.

  Time was short. The boat would be leaving in ten minutes. He took his phone and used it to quickly snap pictures of everything in the lab.

  The dust sheets draped over the pedestals made the collected art look like a crowd of shy ghosts. From deities to specters in one short day.

  Climbing back out through the skylight was a chore, but the surprise of finding Rohner’s secret laboratory had given him a shot of adrenaline. He heaved himself onto the roof, retrieved the rope and closed t
he skylight, then made a hasty retreat down to the ground.

  Moments later an air horn blared from the dock, its shriek echoing off the island and startling birds from the trees. Shaw hurried to his room to grab his duffel and run for the boat.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Olen Anders nodded along to what Sheriff Dayle was saying, silently willing the man to talk faster. Most of the policeman’s points were painfully obvious. Make sure Anders stayed available in case additional questions proved necessary. Make sure the officers had the names and numbers of all guests and of anyone who might have been aware that Mr. Bao was on the island this week. Make sure to call if any of the staff found anything or remembered anything. Make sure, make sure.

  The only certainty Anders was concerned with was that Chen Li might be boarding one of the floatplanes back to Seattle at that very moment. Anders needed to have a conversation—make sure that Sebastien had a conversation—with Chen before he left. After might be too late.

  Anders shook the sheriff’s hand, complimented him on how adroitly he and his deputies had handled this terrible situation, and strode to the dock as swiftly as his long legs could carry him.

  He needn’t have worried. Chen sat on one of the benches along the stone path outside the south wing, intended for island guests to pause and watch the sunrise if they happened to be up that early. Chen’s man Zhang stood a yard off his superior’s right shoulder. Nearer than Anders thought necessary; Zhang’s attitude practically announced bodyguard.

  Then Anders remembered that Bao was dead. Naturally Chen and Zhang would both be on edge, no matter how little of it showed on Chen’s composed face.

  “Mr. Chen,” Anders said as he drew near, slowing his pace a bit so as not to worry Zhang. “We should talk about what happened.”

  “Yes,” said Chen. “I’ve already called for them.”

  Anders followed Chen’s glance. Sebastien Rohner and Bill Flynn were coming from the main house, Flynn talking in his usual impassioned manner, hands gesticulating.

  “It’s really in our best interest,” Flynn concluded before catching the mood and going silent.