by Margaret Kay
“Yeah,” Katie agreed. She motioned them to the table that could accommodate six people near one of the windows.
Mother looked around the diner. There was a table the same size in the back corner with only one window near it. He pointed to it. “Can we take that one?”
“Sure,” Katie said. She led them over to it and sat the placemat menus in front of them each as they took their chairs.
Katie came back with the coffee pot and filled everyone’s cup. She took their orders and then rushed away. Annaka glanced at the other patrons. Many stared at her or tried to conceal that they did.
“Try to ignore them,” Mother whispered to her.
She gazed into his eyes and forced a smile. She was glad he sat beside her.
“People are going to talk. It’s what they do everywhere,” he added.
Shortly after their food arrived, another customer came through the door. Annaka recognized him. It was Joe Lewis. He worked at the grocery store she shopped at in Homer. He was the butcher. Recognition registered on his face. He walked up to the table.
“Annaka, thank God you’re okay. My cousin works at the hospital, said the police brought a body into the morgue last night with gunshot wounds. We were worried it was you.”
Annaka set her fork down, shocked by his statement. “Thank you for your concern, Joe. As you can see, it wasn’t me.”
“Are these the federal agents I heard about?” He glanced around the table at the unlikely grouping of men with Annaka. “We all know you’re in town and why.”
Mother’s lips tugged into a scowl. Yep, gotta love a small town. “Joe, is it?” He asked. The man nodded. “I’m sure the local police will release a statement sometime today and then you’ll all know everything. Until then, can you please respect Annaka’s privacy and let her finish her meal? She’s had a really rough couple of days.”
Joe’s facial expression registered surprise. His eyes went to Annaka. “Sure, yeah, sorry Annaka. I’m just glad you’re okay. I’ll um, leave you to your breakfast,” he stuttered and then he moved back to the counter and took a seat facing away from them.
A startled smile spread over Annaka’s face. “I’m not sure if I should thank you or yell at you for that.”
“Thank me,” Mother said with a smile and a wink.
“Once the report is out and everyone knows about Patrick, that’s the least of what I’ll face.” Annaka cupped her hands over her face. She shook her head.
“Was Patrick a well-liked member of this community?” BT asked quietly.
“I think he pretty much kept to himself. On the rare occasions I saw him out in town, he didn’t seem overly friendly with anyone.”
“So, of the two of you, would you say that you’re friendlier and engage with the people in this town more than he did?” BT asked.
“What kind of question is that? Are you implying that the people will be more supportive of me assuming the worst of Patrick?”
“Unfortunately, yes, that’s exactly what it will mean,” Mother answered. “But the good news is that people like you, so they will empathize with you as the victim. Trust me, that’s the scenario you want.”
Annaka shook her head again. “This is just unbelievable. I didn’t kill him. You guys did, but people will be looking at me, wondering if I did, or if it was my fault that you did.”
Mother laid his hand over hers on the table. She still hadn’t picked her fork back up. “Like it or not, that’s what is going to happen. It’s how people are, how they think and react. You need to prepare yourself. But remember, you were the victim. It’s your choice if you want to try to protect Patrick until all the facts are in, or just put it out there and let people make their own decisions about what went down.”
“I don’t want to tell anyone anything. It’s none of their business.”
“Then that’s how you play it,” Lambchop spoke quietly. “Now let’s finish up. After we drop you at the research center, we have a long drive into Anchorage.”
Annaka picked her fork back up and finished her breakfast even though she was no longer hungry. She was the last to finish again. Lambchop paid the bill on the way out. They drove directly to the research facility. Lambchop put the SUV in park in front of the front door to the building. Annaka glanced around the lot. Four cars were there, including hers, right where she had parked it on Christmas Eve. She recognized the others. They belonged to Ayla, Sonia, and Claude Renault.
“I won’t even pretend I’m not feeling anxious about going inside.”
Mother reached his hand to her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Hey, I’ll be right there with you.” He pointed to himself. “Consider me your personal bodyguard.”
She forced a smile. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“We’ll fill you in on anything we discover,” Lambchop said, his eyes in the rearview mirror focused on her.
“Thank you,” she repeated.
Then Danny opened the door, and she slid out behind him into the dark, cold morning. She watched as he opened the front door into the facility, her mind replaying being pulled out of it that night and being forced into the backseat of the pickup truck that was parked right up alongside the building, near the door. How come she hadn’t seen its headlights through the blinds when it pulled into the lot?
She took a deep breath and then entered the building.
“Annaka!” Ayla called, unable to contain herself. She rushed from her desk to Annaka and engulfed her in a hug. “Oh, dear God! I’m so glad to see you.” After a lengthy embrace, she released her and took a step back. “We were so worried about you. Is Patrick okay? Will he be in today too?”
“No, he won’t,” Mother answered a few seconds later. “Has the State Trooper been in to talk with you this morning?”
“No, but he did call to ask everyone’s work schedule today. What is it?” Ayla asked. Her eyes went back to Annaka. “What happened? Were you with Patrick?”
“You know, I’d prefer to not talk about it,” Annaka said. “I just need to get to work and review data from the last few days.”
“I’m sorry, of course,” Ayla stammered.
Mother came in close to Ayla as Annaka went to her desk and took her coat off. “Inspector Alfrejd will tell you all when he gets here, I’m sure. Until then, it’s probably best to leave Annaka alone.”
Ayla nodded and moved back to her desk.
Annaka walked over to the worktable that was along the far wall where the monitoring equipment sat. Dr. Claude Renault was there with his research assistant, Sonia Petrovy. They both greeted her as well, in a far more subdued way than Ayla had.
Mother sat at Patrick Keeling’s desk and watched Annaka work at her own desk. He noticed that Ayla kept glancing at both of them. Renault and Sonia were behind him at the worktable, so he couldn’t see if they had a similar curiosity. He glanced over his shoulder. They were both focusing on the equipment, not Annaka.
“There it is again,” Renault said. “Annaka, come take a look at this.”
Mother watched Annaka join them at the worktable. He swiveled his chair to view them.
“What do you make of these vibrations? Have you seen it before? The belugas are moving out of the inlet again.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen this.” She went over to several other pieces of equipment and viewed the results. “Patrick has said repeatedly vibrations of this low magnitude aren’t quakes, but rather it is the sensors picking up the drilling operations in the inlet, but I’m not so sure because it is so sporadic.”
“None of the other seismology equipment near Kodiak or further out in the bay are reacting. Certainly, if it were seismic activity, they would register it too,” Renault said.
“Clint isn’t so sure,” Sonia said. “He said he and Patrick have discussed it several times.”
“Well, Patrick is the one with the PHD, and twenty-five years of experience,” Renault said in a tone that struck Mother as snobbish.
“What significance wo
uld it have if it were seismic activity over drilling activity?” Mother asked.
“With the frequency of the tremors, it could mean the fault is becoming more active,” Annaka said. “It could mean that the drilling operations could cause a major spill if a big quake hits.”
“Could the drilling be causing the fault to get more active?” Mother asked.
“Do you mean to ask if the removal of the oil from the ground could be causing the fault to become unstable?” Sonia asked. “That’s exactly what Clint suggested to Patrick.”
“It is theoretically possible, I guess,” Renault said.
“Clint told me it’s called induced seismicity. The drilling alters the stresses that hold the faults together, causing tremors,” Sonia said.
Mother nodded. “Good to know.” His eyes went to Annaka. “And your whales swam out of the inlet when these tremors happened?”
“Right before, actually,” she said. She looked over a few other pieces of equipment. “There is no activity on the glacier though. Nor are there any tidal or water level shifts. Worst case scenario is a major slip of the plates along the fault lines creating a tsunami.”
“No, worst case scenario is an earthquake or tsunami that causes a major oil spill that will devastate the ecosystem in the inlet,” Dr. Remi Ipsen said from just within the door. A smile spread over her face. “Hi Annaka. I’m glad you are okay.”
She crossed the room and gave Annaka a hug. “That State Trooper called and told me to come to the office for a briefing by ten. I think he’s called the entire office in.” Her eyes went to Mother. “Where is the rest of your team?”
“Taking care of other matters,” he replied.
Hotel
One by one, the other members of the research facility arrived. A few asked Annaka where she’d been and about Patrick Keeling. She told them the State Trooper would answer all their questions, that she was not at liberty to discuss anything until after he gave them his report. It satisfied everyone.
Mother wanted to have a private conversation with Clint Ames for multiple reasons now. There was no private room in the building, except the bathroom. Mother could smell the cigarette smoke on him. He’d eventually need to take a smoke break. He’d follow him outside and have that conversation then.
At ten hundred hours, State Trooper Alfrejd arrived. He greeted each person. When he came up to Annaka and Mother, he dropped his voice down to a whisper. “What have you told them?”
“Nothing, we told them you would answer all their questions,” Annaka said.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “So, nothing at all?”
Annaka shook her head no.
“You have a leak at the morgue in Homer, though,” Mother whispered. “A man came into the diner we were eating breakfast at and told Annaka he was glad the body brought in with multiple gunshot wounds wasn’t her.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Alfrejd repeated a bit louder, getting the attention of everyone in the office. “Sorry folks,” he said. “The investigation is not complete yet, so I cannot give you all the information we have. But what I can tell you is that yesterday, Agent Trio and his team followed leads that led them to a cabin on the mountain. There, Patrick Keeling fired at them. They returned fire, killing Dr. Keeling. They found Dr. Annaka Sanchez locked in a room, where she says she had been held since disappearing from this building on the twenty-fourth.”
The room was silent. Annaka realized everyone’s gaze was on her. Hearing the way Investigator Alfrejd reported it, was sobering. He said it as if she wasn’t standing right in front of him. She felt her bottom lip quiver and felt the burn of tears filling her eyes. “Two men came in here Christmas Eve, holding a gun to Patrick’s head.” She felt the need to explain.
“Evidence gathered at the scene confirms Annaka’s statement. We do not have a motive for Dr. Keeling’s actions yet,” Mother reported.
“The report?” Remi asked after several long, silent seconds.
“They made me enter the fields I did. They had the data they wanted entered. They held a gun to Patrick’s head.”
If everyone wasn’t already confused, they surely were now.
“The investigation continues,” Alfrejd said. “I do not believe any of you to be in danger, but I do urge you to exercise caution. I’ll keep you updated as information becomes available.”
Shortly after State Trooper Alfrejd left, Clint Ames put his coat on and headed outside. Mother figured it was smoke break time. He was sure that Ames had to be pretty stressed, hearing his boss had been killed. He grabbed his coat and followed him out.
“What do you want?” Ames asked as he approached. He leaned against the building.
“To ask you a few questions about Keeling.”
“You and your team killed him,” Ames charged.
“Regrettably, yes. We announced ourselves as federal agents. He chose to grab a shotgun and fire on us, knowing who we were. We were defending ourselves. I think the bigger question is why he did that? Why he had Annaka locked in a room for four days? And why he, we assume, faked his own kidnapping with her? She thought he was locked in another room in that cabin. She didn’t know he was the one holding her.”
Ames shook his head. “I can’t answer any of those questions.”
“The other day when you talked to my colleague, you indicated that you thought there was a personal relationship between Dr. Keeling and Dr. Sanchez. Did Keeling ever confide in you that there was?” Mother asked.
“No.”
“Then why did you think that?” Mother pressed.
Ames blew a plume of smoke into the chilled air. “It was more of what his behavior conveyed. He always scheduled our shifts after the remainder of the office scheduled theirs. There were seven of us who could be here alone overnight to monitor equipment, everyone but Ayla. We each pretty much took one night. I always got stuck with Friday nights, well, me or Sonia. I’m married with a kid, so it’s not like I wanted it off to go out. But Dr. Keeling would never take a Friday night because he wanted to go to game night at Ayla’s. I think it was because Dr. Sanchez would be there. She rarely took a Friday night, either. And all his shifts overlapped with hers, I noticed. I also noticed that he watched her in the office, a lot.”
“Did you ever notice Annaka watching him? Or notice any overfamiliarity between them?”
Ames took another deep drag of his cigarette. “No, but I figured she was just better at being chill about their relationship.”
“Did Keeling ever mention a cabin up on the mountain to you?”
“No. Look, Patrick Keeling and I weren’t buddies. I was his assistant. Our relationship didn’t go much further than that. He was a very private person, kept to himself. I don’t think he planned on being here long.”
“Why do you say that?” Mother asked.
Ames shook his head. “I could just tell. It was obvious he wasn’t passionate about this project, not like the others.”
“Thank you,” Mother said. “If you think of anything else, I’ll be around for a few days.”
“These two other men who had a gun to Keeling’s head, you haven’t identified them yet, have you?”
“No, but we will.” He knew that they should show the two renderings to the entire staff at the research center soon. Maybe one of them had seen them talking with Dr. Keeling, or maybe one of them could identify the two men. “Hey, one more thing. Sonia said you and Dr. Keeling had different opinions on the minor ground tremors that have been registering on the seismology equipment.”
This question got Ames’ attention. “We do, or we did.” He paused and shook his head. “But he was the PHD, so it was his opinion we went with.”
“Tell me your thoughts,” Mother prompted.
“Drilling has been proven to create minor quakes along fault lines. It’s called induced seismicity. I believe that was what was happening, but Patrick thought the tremors were just the result of the drilling operations.”
“What differen
ce does it make?” Mother asked.
“If the drilling activities truly were creating real earthquakes, that proves that the fault lines were being stressed and no more drill sites should be approved. It might even mean that the activity at the existing wells should be dialed back. Last year, production in the inlet averaged over fourteen thousand barrels per day. The Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas approved Carstairs Inc., the owners of platform C-Three to be allowed to drill to bottom-hole depths between seven thousand and sixteen thousand feet. They also recently approved Carstairs to move forward with a three-D seismic survey for exploration in currently untapped federal waters in the lower Cook Inlet. If these are actual earthquakes, that survey needs to be put on hold. There is no way that new drilling of exploratory wells should take place.”