Murder over Kodiak

by Robin, Barefield

  I sat on my sleeping bag. I wanted to stretch out and sleep, but I knew I couldn’t do that yet. With the heel of my right hand, I turned on the radio and then clumsily gripped the mike in both hands and squeezed the transmit button.

  “WXT890 – KVT04.” I let up on the button and sobbed. My tongue was swollen, and the letters and numbers had sounded like gibberish, as if I had a wad of cotton in my mouth.

  I took several deep breaths and tried again, slowly enunciating each letter and number as clearly as I could. I waited, but there was no reply.

  I checked my watch. It was only 8:30. Morgan wouldn’t be standing by for another thirty minutes. I tried Kodiak Flight Services. I couldn’t remember their call sign, so I just said the name and repeated it three times, hoping someone would understand me. I knew I must sound drunk, and I worried that even if the dispatcher heard me, she would ignore my call.

  I waited, and when there was no replay, I began to cry. I would try one last thing before I gave up.

  I depressed the button. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!” I called. “This is Jane Marcus in Uyak Bay. I’m dying. Help me!” I dropped the transmitter. What was the use? The mumbled mishmash that had rolled over my swollen tongue didn’t make sense even to me. How could I announce that Cycek was the bomber? I couldn’t begin to get my mouth around the name Cycek, and I couldn’t even leave Morgan a note, because my fingers were too paralyzed to hold a pen.

  I rolled onto my sleeping bag. There was nothing else to do, and I was so tired. My chest throbbed. What I before thought was a symptom of exertion, I now believed was a symptom of aconite from the monkshood. My heart raced and then slowed, beat wildly as if I’d just run a race, and then relaxed to a normal rhythm for a few beats. I concentrated on taking slow, even breaths, but my heart continued its dance. My hands tingled, and I began massaging my right hand with my left. They weren’t as numb as they had been a few minutes earlier, and when I concentrated, I could move my fingers.

  I struggled to stay awake, but I finally lost the battle, and I didn’t know how much time had passed when I heard a man’s voice calling my name.

  “Jane, where are you?”

  Hope followed confusion. Had someone heard me on the radio?

  “Jane?”

  Cycek, and his voice was loud. He couldn’t be far away.

  I moved with a speed and agility I didn’t think possible. I rolled off the sleeping bag, stood, looked around in a panic for the shotgun, and then slid through the tent flaps. The shotgun was outside, lying on the ground where I’d dropped it while I struggled to untie the tent flaps.

  I gripped the gun with both hands and looked up. Cycek was watching me. The corners of his mouth twitched into a smile. “You’re a strong woman. I expected to find you passed out somewhere.”

  “You put something in my first glass of wine. A sedative.” I knew the wine had hit me too hard, and not all the symptoms I had been feeling could be attributed to aconite.

  He nodded. “To relax you.”

  Cycek didn’t have a weapon that I could see. What did he plan to do?

  “Get out of here,” I said. I have a gun.”

  He advanced two steps. “You don’t want to shoot me, my dear. I’m the only one who can help you.”

  My hands shook as I fumbled with the gun, trying to chamber a round.

  “How can you help me? There is no antidote for aconite.”

  “Brandy blended with flies that have supped on monkshood.”

  The man was insane. Why hadn’t I noticed earlier, the first time I’d visited him? He must have displayed some signs of mental illness then, but I’d dismissed them as quaint or chalked them up to him being a lonely old man who recently had lost his wife.

  “Leave,” I said. “I will shoot you.” I pushed down on the shotgun, trying to pump a shell into the chamber, but something was stuck. I held the gun up, shook it, and tried again.

  Cycek stepped closer to me and reached his arm out. Did he expect me to hand him the gun, or was he offering to help me pump a shell into the camber?

  I stepped back, still fumbling with the gun. He walked closer, and I kept backing away. My heart continued its erratic beating, and my vision faded from clear to blurry, bright to dim. I knew I was close to fainting, and I shook my head. I rested the barrel of the gun on my boot and pushed down with all my strength. It gave. Click, a shell slid into the chamber.

  I continued backing up, and I lifted the gun to my shoulder.

  Cycek stopped. “You don’t want to do that, Dr. Marcus.”

  I stumbled over the root of a tree and would have fallen if my back hadn’t slammed into the trunk of a large cottonwood.

  Cycek scampered toward me, hoping to disarm me before I regained my composure.

  I braced the gun against my shoulder and aimed in the general direction of his blurred figure. Everything was beginning to fade again. I heard a loud blast, felt a sharp pain in my right shoulder, and then I felt nothing else.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I heard the buzzing of a single-engine airplane, but that was the only thing that made sense. I was freezing and had the worst headache of my life. I opened my eyes and made out the dim outline of trees in the fading light. I was outside and it was evening. No, it must be night. It was almost dark, and in June, twilight didn’t settle in until nearly midnight. I closed my eyes and drifted away. I would worry about the time and where I was later.

  “Jane!” The voice sounded familiar.

  “What?” The reply was just a whisper, but that was all I had. Whoever was looking for me would have to wait until later, after my nap.

  “Jane!” He was closer now, and his tone sounded urgent.

  “Jane, where are you?” Another familiar voice.

  “Oh no. Up here, Steve!”

  “Is she okay?”

  “I don’t think so. Wait, she has a pulse, but she looks terrible.”

  A cool, firm hand gripped my wrist. I opened my eyes and saw the shadowy face of Agent Nick Morgan hovering a few inches above me.

  He took off his coat and draped it over me. Then, he picked me up in his arms.

  I heard panting. “Thank goodness, she’s alive,” the second man said.

  “She’s in bad shape. We need to get her to town right away.”

  “What in heavens happened here?”

  “He’s dead. I guess she shot him.”

  “This is Old Man Cycek. Why would she shoot him?”

  “Because he’s the person who blew up your airplane.”

  “What?”

  “Not now, Steve. We have to get her to town.”

  “We’d better go. We’re almost out of daylight.”

  I drifted in and out of consciousness, aware of Steve helping Morgan carry me down the bank, being pulled and pushed into the two-oh-six, the sound of the engine starting, my head resting in Morgan’s lap, and his hand stroking my hair. Then, I slept.

  The next time I opened my eyes, I squinted into a bright light. I closed them and tried to figure out where I was and why I felt this bad. I reached my left hand to my forehead and lightly fingered the gauze bandage that covered my nose. The back of my left hand burned, and when I peered at it, I saw that an I.V. tube ran from my hand to a bag over the head of the bed. My right hand was wrapped in gauze, and something was stuck to my chest. I looked down to see what it was, but I couldn’t figure it out.

  “Hello, sleepyhead. How do you feel?”

  I looked into the smiling face of a young, blonde-haired man in scrubs.

  “I’m Dave, your nurse,” he said. “Those are electrodes on your chest. You’re hooked to a heart monitor. You gave us a scare last night, but your rhythm is better today. How do you feel?”

  “horrible.”

  Dave laughed. “I hear you. You have a visitor waiting to see you. Shall I show him in?”

  I nodded, and Dave left the room. He returned a minute later with Morgan behind him.

  “Don’t wear her out. I’ll call th
e doctor to let him know she’s awake, and he’ll want to see her as soon as he gets here.”

  Morgan nodded and thanked Dave. Then he walked to the side of my bed and smiled down at me. “That was a close call,” he said.

  “What happened?” My throat burned, and my voice was just a whisper.

  Morgan pulled a chair up to my bed and sat. He touched my right arm. “I don’t know much. A dispatcher at one of the air charter companies heard your radio broadcast. At first, she thought you were drunk, but then she could tell something was wrong. She tracked down Steve, who had gone home for supper after flying me to town, and told him that someone in Uyak Bay was calling Kodiak Flight Services and announcing a Mayday. Steve found me, and we flew to your campsite. We found Cycek dead and you passed out. Your heartbeat was all over the place by the time we got you to the hospital. The doctor wanted to medevac you to Anchorage, but you weren’t stable enough, so he waited and watched, and finally, your heart slowed to a normal rhythm.”

  “I was poisoned with monkshood,” I said.

  “Monkshood.” Morgan nodded. “We knew you’d been poisoned, but we didn’t know what the agent was.”

  “Cycek planted the bomb on the Beaver.”

  “I know. By the time I got back to town, the explosives experts had determined that the trigger was a one-hour timer. I knew the bomb had been placed on the plane at one of the last two stops, and most probably the last stop.” He shook his head. “If they’d given me that information over the radio, I could have gotten you out of there before this happened.”

  “He poisoned his wife with clams from Uganik Bay,” I said, my memory of the previous evening returning in a flood. “He didn’t want us to test the clams from his beach, because then we would know his wife’s last meal hadn’t come from there.”

  Morgan rubbed his eyes, and I saw that they were red and swollen. He had been awake all night. “He murdered six people to destroy some clams? Didn’t he know you’d take another sample?”

  I shook my head. “He thought it would be too late to do a PSP analysis by the next series of low tides. He didn’t know that clams hold the toxin for several months.”

  Morgan’s hand still rested on my right arm, and he gave it a squeeze. “What can I do for you?”

  “My gear?” I said.

  Morgan nodded. “Steve flew two troopers out this morning to recover Cycek’s body, and they packed up your gear and brought it back here with them.”

  “This morning?”

  Morgan smiled. It’s 3:30 in the afternoon.”

  I’d been asleep all day? Had Morgan been here with me the entire time?

  “Could you send the clam samples to the DEC lab in Palmer? I’ll give you the information. I’m sure they are toxin-free, but they need to be tested. I don’t want to have to go back out there and get another sample.” Tears crept from my eyes, and I turned my head away, hoping Morgan wouldn’t see.

  He gently squeezed my arm again. “This is not your fault, Jane. You can’t blame yourself because some crazy old man decided to kill his wife.”

  I lifted my left hand to my face and wiped away the tears. Then, I turned back to Morgan. “He was tired of listening to her complain, so he got rid of her.” I looked into Morgan’s strong face. His eyes were full of compassion, but weary from seeing too much of the dark side of human nature. I doubted much surprised him. “Cycek didn’t have anything to do with the marine center bomb,” I said.

  “In a way, he did.” Morgan withdrew his hand from my arm and sat back. “By blowing up the airplane, he set off a chain of events that culminated in the explosion at the marine center and the death of Jack Justin.”

  “So now what?”

  Morgan shrugged. “I didn’t find the briefcase. I think the people who were looking for it either found it or gave up, but I don’t know that. You could still be in danger.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I said, “but I think they’re gone.”

  Morgan sighed. “We’ll continue the investigation,” he said. “I promise I’ll let you know if we learn anything.”

  “What about Maryann Myers?”

  “I called her this morning, and she admitted she hadn’t told us everything. She said she didn’t want Sturman involved, and that’s why she didn’t tell us about her relationship with him. She didn’t mention taking her package to the dock and talking to Bill that day, because she didn’t want to be at the top of our suspect list.”

  “I hope you gave her what for about withholding information.”

  “I made her cry. How’s that?”

  I smiled. “Tough guy.”

  “I’m flying back to Washington tonight.” He leaned close to me. “Will you be okay?”

  I felt my heart race, and hoped the nurse watching the cardiac monitor wouldn’t think I’d relapsed. “I’ll be fine. Will I see you again?” I usually wasn’t so forward, but what the heck?

  He put his hand on my arm. “I hope so,” he said.

  The door to my room burst open and in strode a heavyset, middle-aged man in a white coat. “Hello, I’m Doctor Hagen, and I would like to examine Ms. Marcus now.”

  Morgan stood. “Goodbye,” he said, his voice soft, and then he turned and walked out of my life.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I settled back in my desk chair and propped my legs on the desk. The new computer had been delivered that morning, and I finally felt as if my life was getting back to normal. The summer and fall had been hectic, borrowing lab space here and office space there, always in debt to someone and feeling like an interloper. I’d moved back into my lab two months ago, but the office wing hadn’t been reopened until last week.

  I circled the date, November sixth, on the calendar. “Today, my life starts again,” I said.

  “Who are you talking to?”

  I spun around and saw Geoff’s lanky frame leaning against my door frame.

  “You’re too quiet. You need to wear taps on your shoes or a bell around your neck,” I said.

  “The new digs look good.” He nodded his head as he glanced around the office.

  “It’s nice to have my own space again.”

  “Just came to check it out and congratulate you on your funding.”

  I laced my fingers behind my head. “Five-hundred-thousand dollars out of the blue. I’m not complaining, but I’ll never understand government funding.”

  “Don’t ask,” Geoff said. “Think of it as the one good thing to come out of this disaster.”

  I shook my head. “No. No amount of money can make up for Craig’s death or for the loss of Barry Gant. I keep expecting to see him walk down the hall.”

  Geoff stepped into my office. “I heard on the radio a little while ago that Alfred Eaton won the New York senate race by a landslide.”

  I shook my head. “The world goes on. Steve Duncan told me the other day that Toni Hunt is attending the University of Alaska in Fairbanks this fall.”

  “Good for her,” Geoff said. “And I suppose you heard that Maryann Myers is engaged to David Sturman.”

  I laughed. “How do you hear all this gossip?”

  Geoff nodded. He was getting warmed up. “What does your friend, Dana, think of her new boss?”

  “She was less than thrilled when Marty Shires was named the new refuge manager.”

  “He’ll be as bad as Simms,” Geoff said.

  “At least Betty still loves me,” I said. “It’s comforting to know some things remain constant.”

  Two weeks later, I just had returned to my office after teaching a class when my cell phone buzzed. I dropped the stack of papers I was carrying on my desk and grabbed the phone. “Marcus.”

  “Jane, how are you?”

  Heat rushed through me, and I dropped into the chair. “Agent Morgan.” I tried to keep my voice level, as if this were just another in a long line of calls I’d answered that morning. I did not want Nick Morgan to know how often I thought about him, how many times I’d wanted to pick up the phone
and call him. I hadn’t heard from him since late August, when he called to see if I’d had any more threatening phone calls and to tell me that the FBI hadn’t made much progress in determining the identity of the marine center bomber.

  We’d talked for fifteen minutes before he told me in a quiet voice that he and his wife were back together, going to give it one more try. I’d congratulated him and wished him well, and then I’d said I was late for a meeting.

  Now I said, “I’m fine, Nick. How are you?”

  “I have some information. It’s highly confidential, and I probably shouldn’t tell you, but after all you went through, I think you have a right to know.”

  I leaned back in my chair and waited for him to continue.

  “Six days ago, a deer hunter found a briefcase about a mile from the crash site of the Beaver. The exterior of the case was discolored, but it was still intact and locked. Thank goodness the guy was honest. He gave the case to the police in Kodiak, and they contacted us.” He paused a moment and then continued, “Our lab got the case a few days ago, and there is no question that it’s George Justin’s briefcase.”

  I sat forward and leaned my elbows on the desk. “What was in it?”

  “Documents and photos positively linking Alfred Eaton with a Mexican drug cartel.”

  “So the briefcase belonged to Margaret, not George Justin. She was the one making the allegations about Alfred Eaton,” I said.

  “No. From what we can decipher from two letters that were in the briefcase, George was blackmailing Eaton for money and political favors. If Eaton didn’t come through, George threatened to give the incriminating documents to his wife.”

  “In other words,” I said. “If Eaton paid up, George would keep his mouth shut and help Eaton win the election.”

  “It looks that way,” Morgan said. “The Justins were a close-knit family, weren’t they?”