Murder over Kodiak

by Robin, Barefield

  Gant paused for a moment, looking uncertainly from Morgan to me. “I’ve been wanting to tell you that I’m sorry about your assistant. I know how I would feel if something like that happened to one of my assistants.”

  I was touched. I could tell that Gant was not comfortable sharing his feelings, which made his offer of condolence all the more special. Only a couple of my other colleagues had said anything about Craig’s death, and now it struck me that maybe they hadn’t said anything because they didn’t know what to say or how to say it.

  I reached up and grasped Gant’s left hand. He started to step back, but stopped himself. His palm was sweaty. “Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate you saying that.”

  I dropped his hand and he stepped away. His wife, a small woman whom I had met at the marine center Christmas party, smiled at me and then grasped her husband’s arm and pulled him toward the restaurant. I watched them walk away and then returned my gaze to Morgan. His head was tilted, and he was watching me curiously.

  I wiped my eyes, embarrassed when I realized they were wet. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Where was I?”

  “Twenty-one different toxins,” Morgan said. He sat forward, reached across the table, and squeezed my hand. I lingered under his touch for a few seconds and then slowly withdrew my hand and gripped the handle of the coffee cup.

  I cleared my throat. “Twenty-one toxins that can change forms, much like a chameleon changes color as it moves from one background to the next.” I sipped the coffee. “For example, a person’s stomach acid can change the original saxitoxin to another form that is six times more toxic.”

  Morgan’s eyebrows lifted. “Wow,” he said.

  “That’s the main problem, but not the only problem that’s keeping us from developing a field-test kit.” I folded my hands on the table, feeling as if I were giving a lecture. “Some species of bivalves are able to hold higher levels of toxin than other species are, and some species, such as butter clams, have the ability of binding the most highly toxic forms of saxitoxin. Butter clams can also hold the toxins for up to two years after initial ingestion.” I took another sip of coffee. “That’s why I think it’s so important to get out to the small villages and communities in Alaska and educate people. If someone insists on digging and eating clams, at least the person should know which species of bivalves are the least likely to be toxic.”

  “And do you know what species those are?” Morgan asked.

  “Well,” I smiled, “a steamer clam would be a better choice than a butter clam, and mussels should be avoided at all costs.”

  “I’m not sure I understand. Why is a steamer clam less toxic?”

  “For some reason, a steamer is able to transform saxitoxin into one of its less toxic forms.”

  Morgan drained his brandy. “This is beyond me,” he said.

  “Sometimes it’s beyond me, too. It’s a complicated puzzle, and I love puzzles. But, I’m not a chemist, and understanding the intricacies of a complex organic molecule requires all my brainpower.”

  The waitress appeared to refill my coffee and asked Morgan if he would like another brandy. He shook his head and asked instead for coffee.

  “If people know the bivalves are dangerous, why do they eat them?”

  I looked into my steaming cup of coffee. “For some reason, the incidences of PSP have increased in recent years. Native Alaskans who grew up eating clams and mussels are suddenly getting sick. Everyone knows there’s a risk, but until recently, the risk was small. Until someone dies in their own village or town, people don’t believe there’s a problem.”

  “Is that what happened in the most recent case?” Morgan stirred a heaping teaspoon of sugar into his coffee.

  “Doris Cycek,” I said, nodding my head. “She and her husband, Jim, lived in a remote cabin in Uyak Bay. Doris was sixty-four.” I sipped my coffee while I thought about the case.

  “I think the Cyceks used to fish, but for the last few years, they’ve lived like hermits, rarely coming to town.” I shrugged. “It’s a simple story, really. Doris loved clams and Jim didn’t. He dug clams for supper, Doris ate them, and about twenty minutes after supper, her lips began to feel numb and her fingers and toes started to tingle. Soon, she was dizzy and sick to her stomach, her breath coming in short gasps. Jim called the Coast Guard, and forty-five minutes later when they arrived, Doris couldn’t walk or talk and was barely breathing. She stopped breathing on the way to town and was pronounced dead at the local hospital. I was called to the hospital, where I met Mr. Cycek.” I shook my head. “The poor guy was in shock; it all happened so fast.”

  “Was there anything he could have done to save her?” Morgan asked.

  I shook my head. “Other than talking her out of eating clams, no. Maybe if they’d lived closer to town or Mrs. Cycek had been younger and stronger....” I shrugged. “It’s hard to say. Most people survive paralytic shellfish poisoning, but Mrs. Cycek was the third person to die this year, and extremely high levels of toxins were found in the bivalves that provided the final meals for the other victims. The first death was a young man near Kodiak, and the level of saxitoxins in the mussels he ate was the highest ever recorded. The second case happened only a few miles from the Cyceks’, but that’s the interesting part of all of this.”

  “What?” Morgan asked.

  “The second victim, a forty-five year old fisherman, dug his clams in an enclosed lagoon that had four freshwater streams emptying into it. The small organism that carries saxitoxin blooms under those conditions, and we’ve known for a long time that stagnant lagoons are hot spots for PSP. We warn people that if they must eat bivalves, dig on beaches that face the open ocean.”

  I leaned toward Morgan and lowered my voice, as if imparting a secret. “Jim Cycek’s beach faces the open ocean. It should be one of the safest beaches on the island. If the bivalves are toxic on his beach, they could be toxic everywhere on the island, or everywhere in this part of the state. Now, we have to figure out why, what’s causing this bloom.”

  “Is the water red?” Morgan asked. “I haven’t noticed it.”

  “There’s a slight red tint in places, but we’ve found that red tides are not the best indications of high PSP levels.”

  “I see why you’re anxious to get out and collect more samples.”

  “Yes,” I said, “and then I need to gather bivalves from as many locations on the island as I can. We could learn a great deal about paralytic shellfish poisoning this summer. My boss at the marine center wants me to hire another assistant to help me, but I don’t think I will. I don’t have the heart for it.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for this, Jane.” Morgan’s voice was low and soothing. Why couldn’t I find somebody like him to lean on? I wanted to be taken care of, and I wanted to be held. I gulped hot coffee.

  “You’re flying out to Uyak on Thursday?”

  “Yes,” I said. “On the third.”

  “Will you stay at Cycek’s?”

  I laughed. “No, although Mr. Cycek did offer to let us stay with him when we collected samples.”

  “You’ll take a tent, then?” Morgan frowned.

  “Sure,” I shrugged.

  “And stay by yourself?”

  I smiled at him. “I’m used to that.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of bears?”

  “I’m more afraid of strange people. I think I’m safer in a tent on Kodiak Island than I would be in an apartment in New York.”

  Morgan’s frown dissolved into a smile. “Point made,” he said.

  The waitress returned with her coffeepot, but I put my hand over my cup and Morgan shook his head. I looked at my watch and was stunned to see it was ten fifteen. I couldn’t remember an evening passing so quickly or pleasantly.

  Morgan insisted on paying the bar tab, and then he walked me downstairs and through the lobby of the hotel. I thanked him for a nice evening, and he held out his hand. I hesitated and then gripped his warm, firm flesh.

  “Thank
you.” His voice was low and husky. “Be careful, Jane. I’m not certain what’s going on here yet, but I think you should take any threat seriously.”

  I nodded, concentrating more on the heat of his hand than on his words.

  “Call me any time, day or night, if you need me.”

  He let go of my hand, and I smiled as I backed toward the door. I didn’t trust my voice to speak, so I waved at him, turned and trotted toward the parking lot. I barely noticed that the rain had stopped.

  I felt lighter as I drove home. Hours had vanished while Morgan and I had talked. It had been better than a therapy session. I had unburdened myself by sharing work and personal problems with a man who truly seemed to listen. Okay, I was physically attracted to the guy, but I could handle that. He was a married man, and I would not have an affair with a married man, no matter how tenuous his relationship with his wife. I thought we could become friends, though, and right now I needed a friend more than a lover.

  Beneath the bubbling in my head, something nagged at me. Something Morgan said had alerted all my senses, but we’d talked about so much, I couldn’t pinpoint the comment that tugged at my mind. I shook my head. I would remember when the time was right.

  I parked in my allotted space and walked up the stairs to my apartment. I unlocked the door, thinking about the way Morgan folded his arms across his chest and tilted his head as he listened to me.

  I flicked on the light. Why, why, why couldn’t I find an unattached guy like Nick Morgan?

  I walked toward the kitchen and dropped my purse on the counter and then pulled it toward me and removed my phone from the front pocket, I turned it on and called voicemail. Maybe things wouldn’t work out between Morgan and his wife. Yeah, right, and then he’d quit his job and move to Kodiak. I laughed out loud and started to take a step away from the counter, but then I froze and slowly turned around. A computer-printed note sat on the end of the counter. The note hadn’t been there earlier.

  Chapter Nine

  I reached a trembling right hand toward the page and then remembered fingerprints and pulled back. Instead, I leaned my face toward the note to read it.

  Please place Mr. Justin’s briefcase on the backseat of your car and leave your car unlocked tomorrow morning when you go to work. We know everything about you. If you do as we say, you will not be harmed. Do not contact the police.

  Too many cups of coffee burned in my stomach. Sweat streamed down my face as I ran toward the bathroom, and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. I stumbled through the door, grabbed the edges of the porcelain bowl, bent forward, and retched. I sat on the floor for several minutes, forcing myself to breathe slowly. I then pushed the handle and watched as the remnants of an enjoyable evening twirled out of sight.

  How had someone gotten into my apartment? I looked up. Could the intruder still be here? I sat for a moment, listening, and then pulled myself to my feet.

  I felt shaky and unsteady, and I kept a hand on the wall as I wandered through the rooms of my living space, flipping on lights as I went. I checked closets, behind curtains, and under beds. When my search was finished, I latched the deadbolt on my door and sat stiffly on the couch.

  My head pounded. Someone had invaded my home. I didn’t know whether to be angry or frightened. Tears poured down my cheeks, and I fought to gain control. I knew I should call Morgan, but I couldn’t until I calmed down. The author of the note warned me not to contact the police, but what else could I do? I didn’t have a briefcase to leave on the backseat of my car. My life was in danger no matter what I did.

  I closed my eyes, leaned back, and concentrated on breathing evenly. Jack Justin apparently had offered up my name to the people who had threatened him. Did he really believe I had his father’s briefcase, or had he panicked and blurted out my name so they would leave him alone? When I’d seen him that morning, he had been terrified of someone. He believed the people who wanted the briefcase were responsible for the bomb. I was beginning to believe he was right.

  Suddenly, I remembered what Morgan had said during dinner that had bothered me. At the time, it was an unformed idea that my mind didn’t want to accept, but now the full force of it smacked me in the face.

  I sat forward and wiped my eyes with the toilet tissue I still gripped in my right hand. I stood, wobbled a couple times, and then marched toward the telephone.

  I called Morgan’s cell. By now, I had the number memorized. He answered after three rings. His voice sounded groggy and muffled.

  “Did I wake you?” I asked. I couldn’t believe he had gone to sleep so quickly. I looked at my watch and was surprised to see it was almost midnight.

  “Jane, what’s wrong?” His voice was suddenly alert and clear.

  “I’m sorry to bother you; I know you’re tired.”

  “What is it?”

  “A note,” I said. “Waiting on my kitchen counter when I got home.”

  “Don’t touch it. I’ll be right there.” The phone clicked in my ear and then went dead.

  I wondered how he would find my apartment. I hadn’t told him where I lived, and I wasn’t listed in the phone book. I expected him to call back and ask directions and then remembered he didn’t have a car.

  I walked to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and combed my hair. My bangs were pasted to my forehead with sweat. I fluffed them until they dried, and then went to the bedroom and slipped into an oversized sweatshirt and jeans. I returned to the living room couch and sat hunched over, elbows on my knees. A few moments later, my door buzzer sounded.

  I pulled open the door and fought for control when I looked into Nick Morgan’s worried eyes. He set down his briefcase and opened his arms. I accepted his comfort, and then he grasped my arms and gently held me in front of him, studying my face.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Fine.” I pulled away and hugged myself. “I didn’t touch the note.”

  “Good. Where is it?”

  I led him to the counter and pointed at the printed page. He read it and studied it for a few minutes. Then, he opened his briefcase, pulled a latex glove onto his right hand, slipped the note into an evidence bag, and then dropped it into his briefcase.

  “Was there any other sign that an intruder had been in your apartment?”

  “No.”

  He walked to the door and opened it, examining the lock and the door frame. “You should get a better lock,” he said. “This would be easy to open.”

  Fatigue poured over me. What was happening to my life? I lived in a small, safe community in Alaska, not New York City or Los Angeles. Would I have to chain myself in to stay safe at night?

  “If the author of this note wants to harm me, locks won’t keep me safe,” I said. “I don’t have the briefcase, but I can’t seem to convince him of that.”

  Morgan sat on a kitchen stool. Under his long black coat he wore a dark-blue-and-white FBI sweatshirt and blue jeans. “Why did you say he?”

  I perched on the other stool and took a deep breath. “Tonight at supper, you said that the criminal often returns to the crime scene. That bothered me, but I didn’t know why. After I got home and saw the note, I remembered that Jack Justin braved terrible weather to fly out to the crash site.”

  “Are you saying that you think Jack Justin planted the bomb that killed his parents?”

  “Yes.” Morgan’s disbelieving tone irritated me. “It wouldn’t be the first time a child killed his parents, and anyone callous enough to kill his own parents wouldn’t blink an eye at taking out a few more people in the process.”

  “Maybe.”

  “It makes perfect sense,” I said. “There’s no conspiracy or terrorists running around threatening him. “There’s just one guy who wanted to bump off his parents and now needs to get ahold of the documents his father was carrying with him. Maybe the Justins disinherited their son, and Jack wants to get his hands on the latest copy of the will.”

  Morgan rubbed his eyes.

  “Y
ou don’t think that’s possible?” I asked.

  “Oh yes. It’s possible.”

  “But you don’t believe it,” I said.

  “I didn’t say that.” He held his hands up. “You may be right, but I don’t think we can afford assumptions at this point. We need to be careful.”

  “So what should I do?”

  Morgan remained motionless for several minutes while he thought. “Drive to work tomorrow. Park the car in the lot, and go to your office.”

  “And then what? Justin, or whoever wrote this note, isn’t going to be happy when he doesn’t see a briefcase on the backseat.”

  “Place a note on the car seat saying you don’t have the briefcase.” Morgan’s voice was low and calm. “With the help of the local police force and a few other agents, I will stake out your vehicle and watch who approaches it.”

  “What if he sees you?”

  “We’ll be careful, Jane. We’ve done this before.”

  The knot in my chest loosened. It couldn’t be this easy, could it?

  “What time do you get to your office?” Morgan asked.

  “I’m usually there by 8:30, sometimes earlier.”

  “Go in at 9:00 tomorrow. It may take me awhile to get this organized.”

  I nodded.

  “Will you be alright here?” he asked as he stood.

  I wanted to say no; I didn’t want him to leave. I could see he was exhausted, though, and I had too much pride to let him see my fear.

  “I’ll be fine. You need to get some sleep.”

  Morgan nodded and started toward the door.

  “Did you drive here?” I asked.

  He turned his head toward me and smiled. “No. I hitched a ride with one of Kodiak’s finest.”

  “That explains how you found my apartment so easily.”

  “Lock the door after me,” he said, as he stepped into the hallway.

  It was unnecessary advice. I planned to lock it and then sleep on the living room couch, where I could keep an eye on the door.