I was more tired than I ever could remember being, but I couldn’t sleep. The couch was not as comfortable as my bed, and every noise required examination. My usually quiet apartment seemed alive with unfamiliar sounds. I tried to read, but couldn’t concentrate. I paced, but that only heightened my apprehension. Sometime after four, exhaustion finally won out, and I slept for three hours.
I awoke slowly to my buzzing alarm. My head throbbed and my neck felt stiff. I was confused. Why was I sleeping on the couch? Was it the middle of the day? It seemed so bright. I’d shut the curtains, but sunlight streamed through them. Slowly, I remembered the events of the preceding night, and my headache worsened. I swallowed two aspirin and stumbled into the shower.
As my senses returned, so did my unease. I had planned to take a long, hot shower, but I thought I heard noises through the pounding water. I scrubbed my head and body as quickly as I could and stepped out of the shower stall. The apartment was quiet; I had imagined the noises.
I dressed in black jeans and a grey sweater. I didn’t have a class today, and except for two appointments with students, I planned to spend the bulk of the day closed in my office, catching up with paperwork. I liked to wear comfortable clothes when I planned a day of sitting at my desk.
I made coffee and ate a bowl of cereal. The morning seemed to be crawling by. I wanted to get going and get this over with. After eating, I went to the spare bedroom that I used for an office and rummaged until I found a marking pen. On a piece of computer paper, I wrote in block letters: I DO NOT HAVE MR. JUSTIN’S BRIEFCASE.
I looked at my watch. It was only 8:30, but I couldn’t sit still any longer. I took my purse, jacket, and the note, and walked downstairs to the parking lot. The temperature was only in the sixties, but the day felt warm and inviting. A few fluffy clouds dotted the brilliant blue sky. I inhaled crisp air. The sight of the sun after several stormy days was a relief, and my spirits rose despite all the threats and apprehension over what I was about to do.
I unlocked my Explorer and climbed in. I knelt on the front seat and carefully placed the note on the backseat. The Explorer’s windows were tinted lightly, so a person could see through the windows only by walking up to the vehicle and cupping his hands to the glass. If Morgan was watching, he couldn’t miss seeing someone do that. But why would Justin or whoever had left me the note be so foolish? The person must know he would be observed approaching my vehicle.
Maybe he or she believed I wouldn’t contact the police, or perhaps the person was so focused on getting his hands on the briefcase that he wasn’t thinking clearly. Justin had not been rational when he had approached me at the marine center the previous morning. I could believe he would plan something this careless, and I hoped he would follow through, and Morgan would catch him. I was ready for this to be over.
I drove slowly through the streets of Kodiak. The sidewalks hummed with activity. Kids played, skated, and bicycled, and two young mothers walked together, each pushing a baby stroller. I drove past a baseball field, where a girls’ softball team practiced on the sodden diamond. After the long, stormy stretch, islanders embraced the sun, determined to enjoy every minute of it. As I sat at a stop sign, I saw one ambitious man stirring paint, a ladder propped against the side of his house. It was no wonder paint jobs deteriorated so quickly here. The wood never had a chance to dry out.
If only I could shed my fear and enjoy the beautiful weather. I took a deep breath and looked around me. The colors were vibrant, as if a veil had been whisked away to reveal a sparkling gem. On a day like this, it was no mystery why Kodiak was nicknamed the Emerald Isle. Verdant mountainsides gleamed beneath the lapis sky, and the ocean glinted, reflecting sunlight like a diamond. Beautiful flowers, both wild and cultivated, were struggling to recover after being battered by the wind. I saw a few broken tree limbs, but the Sitka spruce are hardy trees and used to storms much worse than the one we just had experienced.
My heart thudded when I pulled into the parking lot of the marine center. I parked at the edge of the lot, hoping my vehicle would be easier to watch there. I checked the note again, making sure it was still propped in the rear seat. I gathered my briefcase and purse and climbed out of the Explorer. I fought the urge to lock the doors, and after one quick look back, I hurried away from the vehicle and into the building.
I stopped at the office, and Betty, in an awkward attempt to be cordial, informed me I had no messages but that my box to Craig’s parents had been mailed. I walked to my office, unlocked the door, turned on the light, and closed the door behind me. I stood with my hand on the doorknob and felt as if the room was closing in on me. I pushed the door open; I didn’t want to be alone today.
I looked at my appointment book. Except for 10:00 and 2:00 meetings with graduate students, the day was my own. I wished for a change that I had a crowded schedule, anything to get my mind off Jack Justin and his briefcase. I wondered if Morgan and his assistants were in place, watching my Explorer. I hadn’t seen any sign of the police when I entered the building, but I wasn’t supposed to see them; their goal was to remain hidden.
I grabbed my coffee cup and returned to the central office, relieved to see that neither Glenda nor Betty were at their desks. I filled my cup with the thick black brew and retreated down the hall. I set the cup on my desk and began sorting through papers. I read, sorted, and made notes for the next forty-five minutes. I was beginning to settle into a routine when my 10:00 appointment knocked on my door.
“Hi Cassie. Come in.” Casandra, a petite, shy, first-year graduate student entered my office and edged onto the chair in front of my desk. She held her head down, her long black hair nearly covering her eyes.
“Sorry about Craig,” she mumbled, her voice so low that it took me a moment to decipher what she had said.
“Thanks, Cassie. It was quite a shock. I’m going to miss him.” My voice cracked, and I shook my head. “Let’s see, we need to go over your class schedule for next fall.”
The meeting lasted for thirty minutes, and after Cassie left, I summoned the energy to work on the exam I had scheduled for my class the following week. I had trouble mustering enthusiasm for summer classes. The students were tired and less focused. For the most part, they weren’t interested in learning what I had to teach and only wanted to get the class over with before the fall semester. The temptation to give them a test from a previous semester was strong, but I knew I couldn’t do that. Copies of all my earlier exams were out there floating around. I had to devise something new and original.
A gurgle from my stomach caused me to look at my watch. It was 11:55. I had forgotten to bring something with me for lunch, and I couldn’t go anywhere. I was certain Morgan would tell me as soon as they apprehended someone peering through the windows of my Explorer. Until then or the end of the day, I had to stay put.
I stood and stretched. I wandered out of my office, shutting but not locking the door. I took several steps down the hall and stopped. I returned to my office, grabbed my purse, and locked the door. This was no time to be careless.
I looked for Geoff in his lab, but he must have been at lunch. I flipped on the light in my lab and began reviewing the procedure and making certain the equipment and chemicals were ready for the high-performance liquid chromatography I would perform on the bivalve samples I collected from Uyak Bay. Lab preparation had been one of Craig’s jobs, and he had been so good at it that I hadn’t supervised him closely. I took inventory of my supplies, making certain I knew where he kept everything.
At 12:40, I was making notes in a spiral notebook, when a muffled blast shook the building. Bottles of chemicals rattled in the cabinets and a stack of books slammed to the floor. An earthquake. I’d felt tremors before, but nothing like this.
Two Korean graduate students peered into my lab, their eyes wide.
“I think it was an earthquake,” I said. “Are you okay?”
A second loud thud sounded from the floor above, and this time I knew we weren�
�t dealing with a force of nature. “Get out of here!” My voice shook.
The two young men stared at me. “Go!” I yelled. “Something is wrong. Get out of the building!”
They paused only a moment and then they both ran. I was on their heels.
Chapter Ten
We sprinted up the stairs and through a thin layer of smoke that became thicker when we reached the lobby. Two of my coworkers barreled through the lobby doors in front of us. I pushed outside after the graduate students and sucked gratefully at the fresh air.
I stopped, hands on my knees, head up, gulping air.
“Keep moving!” someone yelled. “Get out of here!”
I wasn’t certain the order had been directed at me, but I didn’t question it. I ran toward the parking lot, panic closing over me. The world became a blur around me, as I concentrated only on moving my arms and legs.
I stopped when someone grabbed my arm and held me.
“Thank heavens! Are you okay?” Morgan asked.
I wanted him to let go so I could keep running. I never had been so scared in my life.
“Calm down,” he said. “Come on, I’ll walk with you.”
“What happened?” I spit out the question between gasps.
“We don’t know yet,” Morgan said. There were two explosions in the building. As soon as it’s safe, we’ll send in a team to investigate.”
I turned and looked at the marine center. I felt my knees buckle, and only Morgan’s firm grip kept me from falling. A large hole gaped in the wing of the building that housed the offices, and the section where my office had been was the most badly damaged. If I’d stayed in my office over the lunch hour, instead of going down to the lab... .
“Did everyone get out?” I asked.
Morgan dropped my arm and shook his head. “We don’t know yet. Luckily, the explosion happened over the noon hour, so most of the staff and students were out to lunch.”
I felt sick to my stomach and light headed. I wouldn’t have been here if I could have moved my vehicle.
Someone called Morgan’s name, and we turned around. A police officer approached him. “I’ll be back in a minute,” Morgan said to me, and walked toward the policeman.
My senses were numb. I wandered toward my Explorer, not knowing where else to go. When I reached my vehicle, I leaned against it for support, as if receiving the consolation of an old friend. I opened the driver’s door and glanced at the backseat as I climbed in. I froze and backed out of the vehicle. The note was gone.
I saw Morgan still talking to the policeman. I hurried toward him, but he seemed so far away, and I couldn’t make my legs move fast.
He finished his conversation and looked around for me. When he saw me, he ran toward me. “Are you okay, Jane? You don’t look well.”
I reached him and leaned against him. He put his arms around me. “What happened?” he asked.
“The note,” I said. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. I felt as though I was falling apart, and I couldn’t allow that to happen. I pushed away from Morgan and stood, feet apart. I was determined to be strong.
“What about it?” Morgan glanced toward my Explorer.
“Did you see who took it?”
“It’s gone?”
I nodded my head
Morgan leaned his head back and stared at the blue sky. “Dang it!” he said. “I assumed that focusing our attention on your vehicle was an attempt to divert our gaze from the marine center, but now it looks like the explosion was the diversion.” He sighed. “We rushed the building and forgot about your vehicle.”
“So you mean all of this,” I gestured at the ruined structure, “was caused so that Jack Justin, or someone, could look in the back of my car?”
Morgan nodded. “And he didn’t find what he was looking for.”
My head thudded. Was this somehow my fault, too? I’d only done what I’d been told, but I felt responsible. I prayed that no one had been hurt in the blast, but as I looked at the damage, I knew that anyone who had been in an office near mine could not have come through this unscathed. I tried to recall if I’d seen anyone’s office door open when I’d walked to the lab. I remembered seeing a couple of people in the hall, but they were headed toward the lobby.
Morgan walked me to my Explorer. “Don’t touch the rear door handles,” he said. “I doubt our friend was careless enough to leave fingerprints, but we have to check.”
I opened the front door and sat in the driver’s seat. “I don’t know what to do,” I said.
“I want you to stay here, and I’ll assign a police officer to keep an eye on you.” Morgan’s voice was firm, discouraging dissent.
I nodded, because I did not want to go anywhere else until I knew if any of my coworkers had been harmed or killed in the blast.
“I don’t want to scare you more than you already are,” Morgan continued, “but I’m sure you know your life is in danger. You can’t go home, and you can’t stay alone.”
I felt my head nodding in agreement again. I was exhausted and my brain screamed. I’d lost my capacity for fear, burned it out. I watched Morgan walk away and then leaned back against the fabric seat. I needed an aspirin, but I’d left my purse in the lab. I thought about my office and knew everything would be gone: all my files, my briefcase, and my computer. At least I’d backed up most of my computer files on my home computer, so I still had my research. Only the work I’d done in the last week would be gone. My class would get a reprieve from their exam.
A young policeman, dressed in blue, took up his position a hundred feet from me and stood staring at me. Morgan must have given him strict instructions, because he stood nervously at attention, hands crossed in front of him. His gaze did not waver from my Explorer.
I closed my eyes and tried to think. Who usually stayed in their offices during the lunch hour? I didn’t know. I didn’t have many friends at the marine center, so I rarely socialized when I was there. I had meetings and conferences with my associates, but I paid little attention to their work schedules.
The secretaries. My eyes burned from the smoke. At least one of them would have stayed at the center over the noon hour. They rotated their lunch schedules so that the main office was always open during office hours.
I looked at the damaged section of the building again, smoke still billowing from it. My trachea sizzled and my sinuses closed up, reinforcing my already pounding headache. If the secretary had been sitting at her desk, she might have escaped with only minor injuries. The focus of the blast appeared to be near my office, which was fifty feet from the main office. I wondered which secretary had been on duty, and then shook my head and tried to banish the wish that it had been Betty and not Glenda. Betty and I did not get along, but I did not wish her injured.
I gripped my temples in my left hand and leaned forward on the steering wheel. Distant sirens came closer, and I lifted my head to watch as three lime green fire engines pulled into the parking lot. The fire crews moved with speed and efficiency, grabbing equipment and rushing into the building. I hadn’t seen flames, and the smoke seemed to be thinning. I wondered how much of the building would be damaged by smoke. Peter would have a heart attack when he saw this.
Where was Peter? I stretched my neck to see if I could see his car in the parking lot, but the lot was too crowded, and my head ached too much to make sense of it all. News travels fast in a town the size of Kodiak, and in addition to citizen gawkers, newspeople and their cameras were beginning to arrive. I’d hoped that most of the national reporters were gone, but apparently the networks and larger newspapers had left crews behind, just in case anything else happened. They hadn’t been disappointed.
More police cars arrived, sirens wailing. They set up a barricade at the entrance to the parking lot and announced that everyone except police or emergency workers would have to stay outside the secured area.
A police officer saw me sitting in my vehicle and began to approach but was intercepted by my guard. After a b
rief discussion, the older officer nodded to my guard and left.
I heard more sirens that I assumed were either additional police cars or fire engines, but when two white-and-blue ambulances pulled to the front of the lot, I sat forward, heart thudding.
I yanked open the car door and left it gaping as I hurried toward the front of the center.
“Ma’am, excuse me. Where are you going?” My guard stepped in front of me.
“Someone must have been in there.” I pointed at the building.
“I’m sorry, you can’t go in there,” he said.
“I have to.” I took two steps and was stopped by his firm grasp on my arm.
“No ma’am. I have direct orders.”
I could see there was no point in arguing with him. I turned slowly and returned to my Explorer, feet dragging with each step. My arms, legs, and head all felt numb, and I had the odd sensation I was floating and that none of this was real. I wanted to sleep.
I crawled into the Explorer and slammed the door. I sat still, eyes fixed on the ambulances. Time crawled. Sirens and yells faded together into the background, replaced by a loud humming in my ears.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the clock in my Explorer. Twenty minutes passed, and then thirty. Why didn’t Morgan come out and tell me what was happening? Firemen and policemen continued to rush in and out of the building, but still the ambulance crews did not return. Perhaps the scene was still unstable, and the EMS crews had not been allowed inside yet. Maybe there was no hurry, because no one was seriously injured...Or, maybe there was no hurry, because the victims hadn’t survived.
Finally, I saw a gurney, and I sat forward, squinting to see who was on it. I couldn’t make out the patient, but I thought I saw one of the emergency workers look down, say something, and then nod her head. I rubbed my eyes. If the injured person was conscious, maybe he wasn’t seriously injured.
A few minutes later, a second gurney rolled through the front doors, and I watched as the emergency crew lifted the second patient into the same ambulance where they had lifted the first victim. The door slammed shut and the ambulance sped away, lights and sirens blaring.
Murder over Kodiak Page 15