by Jack Lively
It was as if the shattered world had suddenly repaired itself.
I told Ellie everything, starting from the beginning, holding almost nothing back. She didn’t interrupt my telling of it, except to nod and grunt. Once in a while she got up to refill her cup, or my cup. The coffee was black and perfectly measured. Ellie had a police radio on the counter, tuned in at a low volume. Once in a while there was a squawk. She had made toast, and bacon to go with the eggs, butter and strawberry jam to go with the toast. When I was done talking, I sat back in the chair.
She said, “You want seconds?”
I said, “Does a bear shit in the woods?”
Ellie took my plate. While she was replenishing it, I could see her thinking, head down, knitted eyebrows. She set the plate in front of me again. Then she poured more coffee. She sat down across from me and started to ask questions.
“Two groups. One looking for the missing boy, the other trying to prevent them from doing so.”
I grunted through a bite of toast, affirmative.
She said, “The girl, Chapman. Any idea where she is now?”
I shook my head, negative.
“So, the missing boy. George. Looks like he is the hinge. Whatever he got involved with. And, as far as you know, there are no demands. It is not a kidnapping.”
I gulped down a mouthful of fresh and hot coffee. “Kid’s missing. Mom comes looking for him, gets pushed around, then winds up killed along with the guys she came with.”
Ellie said, “Pretty extreme response, if you ask me.”
I said, “These people are not playing around.”
She said, “The boy is supposed to be here in Port Morris. He’s a fisherman, or a tour guide or something?”
I said, “From what Chapman and Abrams told me, George is a scientist. Some kind of fancy physics. I had a look at his papers, up in the Edna Bay Apartments. The term non-linear acoustics kept on coming back. I guess that’s a field of research, although I have no idea what it is.”
Ellie said, “Hold on.” She picked up her phone and started tapping into it. I watched her get the results, a split second later. Her mouth opened in an oh shape as she read. Tough reading, the lips were moving slowly, hesitantly getting around difficult-to-pronounce words. Then she tapped a few more times and put the phone down. She said, “Something to do with sound, maybe the kind of sounds that don’t travel in a straight line. But it sure looks a hell of a lot more complicated than that.”
I said, “No doubt. The question is what was George the young physicist doing in Port Morris, Alaska?”
Ellie said, “Yes. That’s the interesting part. Now you remember what I told you up on the fire tower, about the Navy research center.”
I grunted affirmative. Noticed the backpack containing George Abram’s laptop resting on a chair inside the door.
Ellie continued. “The proper name for it was the Naval Surface Warfare Center. I don’t know much about what they did out on the island, but I have heard that it was all about the way they can hear things underwater, detection and stealth.”
I said, “Submarines.”
Ellie said, “Bingo. It wasn’t a sub base, the big one is up north. It was a research outfit looking at ways to hide our submarines, and to find theirs. Maybe that has to do with acoustics.”
I had seen several submarines during the salmon season, along with pods of humpback whales. The big boats were nuclear powered, Ohio class submarines. They were about five hundred and fifty feet long and looked awesome in the sunset. The stealth material sucked in the sound, but also the light. Kind of like a black hole in the ocean. You would see them suddenly sliding up out of the depths. Flat black forms, almost two football fields in length, slipping across the horizon.
I said, “But that’s all closed now, you said.”
“Yes. Closed for some years. I doubt this George kid would have been a researcher for the Navy. But it is a coincidence, don’t you think?”
I grunted.
She said, “What does that mean, that sound you just made?”
I said, “No such thing as a coincidence.”
Ellie tipped her head to one side and smiled. “I’m curious. How did the Jane Abrams people find you?”
I said, “One of their guys was a computer geek. They got a photograph of me and ran it. Found me in the Southeast Alaska Seiners Association database. Then they found my military record somewhere.”
Ellie thought for a moment. She said, “The military record. Is that something that the Abrams people would find attractive, a reason to approach you?”
“I served in an Air Force special tactics unit, pararescue.”
“How did they think to get a picture of you?”
I told her the story about Chapman and the bearded giant in the Porterhouse Bar.
Ellie said, “Makes some sense. No offense, but if they needed muscle, there you were. Efficient thinking, really. Membership in the SEAS is required for anyone working on a fishing boat. Your name would be in the data base with a picture. Standard operating procedures. Have you seen their offices?”
I said, “Yes, and often. Me and June go way back, all the way to July.”
“So you know they wouldn’t actually need a computer geek to gain access to the SEAS files. You could probably pay for it by feeding June donuts, or ice cream. But not the military record. So how did they find that?”
I said, “There are exactly a dozen ways to get authorized access to military records from outside. Each of those requires paperwork and time. So I figure that’s the computer geek part. They must have hacked into a government database.”
“I guess.” She lifted her eyebrows. “That’s quite impressive don’t you think?”
“Yeah. It isn’t bad.”
Ellie was done eating and done drinking coffee. She had cleaned up her plate and was sitting with her legs crossed beneath her on the chair. It looked like a terribly uncomfortable position, like some kind of torture. But Ellie was serene, like someone had given her the secret to a happy life.
She said, “Okay, so it’s about George, as far as you’re concerned. And it’s a missing persons case. According to what you know from the dead mother, Jane. But what about the people who you found following them?”
I said, “Deckart and Willets.”
“Right. Deckart and Willets were actively harassing the mother. You like them for the murders?”
I said, “Possible but not probable, far as I can make out. I took a good look at the bodies. The hits were clean and precise. The shooter used a .22. Triple shots for each victim. I don’t take Deckart and Willets for professionals. I think that they are more likely a lower species of hired freelance muscle.”
Ellie said, “Then there is the Mister Lawrence link.”
I said, “Deckart and Willets were convinced that I was one of Mister Lawrence’s guys. I don’t know exactly what that is supposed to mean, but I do know that they expressed that sentiment only after a tussle.”
“A tussle?”
“A display of controlled violence.”
Ellie said, “On your part. The display. Meaning it would make sense for Mister Lawrence to have a guy like you working for him.”
“Something like that, yes.”
I brought the plates to the sink and started cleaning the dishes. The sink was strategically located in front of a window, with a view. On the left side was the driveway, sloping down. On the right side, the hill continued into the forest, probably going endlessly out into wilderness. When I was finished, I turned and leaned back against the counter. Ellie was still in her complicated pose on the chair.
I said, “So what about all this interests the Chilkat Tribal Authority?”
She unfolded her legs and turned on the chair to face me. “The Tribal Authority is really just an office building in town with a vague jurisdiction. I’ve got two guys in one room working for me, two days out of five. What we mostly get involved with are disputed claims to tribal blood, hunting and
fishing rights. The other areas of jurisdiction are tribal lands, largely wilderness, but there are some populated areas, small villages, and there are some business establishments here and there. We are tuned into the Port Morris Police Department radio frequencies. I heard your name over the radio, before the bodies were found. Actually, I heard your name about an hour after I saw you. Then there were the bodies found. I called Jim Smithson on the phone. He called me back when they had an estimated time of death. So, I knew for a fact that you had not been at Beaver Falls at that time.”
“Smithson the detective.”
“Yes.”
I said, “When did they have a time of death?”
“Not until early this morning. Otherwise I would have gotten you out earlier.”
“I appreciate you speaking up for me.”
She said, “It was just the right thing to do is all.”
“Even so.”
“Well, it isn’t just about you. I’ve taken a personal interest in the question of Mister Lawrence, you could call it a hobby.”
“Because of the place up by the fire tower?”
Ellie nodded. “Yes.” She had a strange look on her face, like she didn’t know exactly how to express what was swimming around in her head. “The land is smack dab in the middle of tribal territory, like a black hole in my jurisdiction. That’s one thing. Another thing I didn’t tell you. Happened earlier this year, late March. We found a body up by the fence. Looked like it had been there all winter long and nobody had come by to find it.”
“What fence?”
“Perimeter fence around the property.” Ellie pointed through the kitchen window to the right. “Up there after the fire tower. Property starts about a hundred yards off. We found the body leaned against the fence. Some old toothless guy.” She put her hand back on the table and curled it around her coffee cup, like it had gotten real cold all of a sudden. “At the time we figured it was some old drifter who froze to death, and that’s probably what it is. But that was early April by the time we’d given up on identifying the body, and we still have no idea who that was because of the lack of dental information. Prints came up clean.”
I said, “Which side of the fence?”
Ellie snapped her fingers. “Bingo. Our side of the fence, which is precisely why I was never able to go up there and ask any questions. So, truth is, we’ve never even been able to go look into that compound. No idea what he does.” She took a sip from her coffee and swallowed elegantly. “It just rubs me up the wrong way is all. So, yeah. When you mentioned Mister Lawrence, and the trouble you’ve been having, let’s just say that the entire situation gets my ears pricked up and alert.”
I said, “So what are we doing here?”
She said, “We’re going to team up, Keeler. You and me. I’ve told you how I see it, what about you?”
I said, “Way I see it, your Mister Lawrence mystery is a sideshow at the moment. From my point of view it’s more simple than that. A mother comes up here looking for her missing son and gets killed. Doesn’t look like anybody’s picked up the trail, so I’ll take it from here. No doubt it won’t be pretty. I wouldn’t mind finding Chapman either.”
She said, “Oh yes, I’ll bet. Apparently the Port Morris PD had a great time with the bed sheets.”
I didn’t rise to it. I continued. “Like I said, what are we doing here?”
“You mean, assuming the Port Morris PD isn’t going to be doing effective work.”
I said, “I’ve got a few reasons to believe that the Port Morris PD will not be sufficient. The first is that as far as they’re concerned it’s a murder, not a missing person’s case. Abrams went to the police and got bounced, hard. Second, someone gave the local cops my name as Jane Abram’s killer, which they accepted without enough critical reflection, far as I’m concerned. I’m operating under the assumption they are constitutionally unable to work in any acceptable manner.”
She said, “Jim’s a good guy, but he’s one guy.”
“Good guy meaning what?”
“Meaning not corrupt, and only drunk in the evenings and weekends.” Ellie leaned back and looked at me coolly. “So where do we start, Keeler?”
I said, “You have to know something Ellie, before we get into it. There aren’t two ways of doing this, and there aren’t any moral equivocations, as far as I’m concerned. The ethical part of this is all wrapped up with a bow on it. My moral compass has only two settings, wrong and right. I’m not the philosophy department. People have done some very bad things, which they are currently getting away with scot-free. No reason why they’d shy away from doing more bad things. Now that I’m here, it’s going to get straightened out. Simple as that.”
She said, “You seem very confident. But things are never simple, Keeler.”
I said, “Every problem looks impossibly complicated when you don’t know the solution.”
Ellie’s eyes were smiling, her mouth too. She said, “You’re like a poet, Keeler.”
“That’s what Deckart said. We’ll see what happens to him. Dollars to donuts he doesn’t last the week.” I glanced at the backpack over by the door. I said, “Two things up top on my list. One, while you were telling me about the toothless old guy, I was thinking that it might be a good idea to get a look at that old Navy research base after all, tangential or not. Two, we need to find a computer geek of our own.”
Ellie cocked her head to the side. “Why?”
“See that backpack over there?” I pointed to it, Ellie followed with her eyes. “George’s laptop, from his apartment. Password protected, so maybe one try left before it triggers whatever security he’s got set up.”
She whistled. “Withholding that from the police?”
I got up and walked over to the backpack, parked on a chair by the door. “Are they investigating the disappearance of George Abrams?”
Ellie said, “No, not that I’m aware of.”
“Right. I am.”
I opened the bag and removed the envelopes that I had taken from George Abrams’ mailbox. I brought them back to the kitchen table. Ellie was watching me carefully. I cleaned off a knife and started slitting the envelopes open. The first two were junk mail.
She said, “I may be able to find a geek. In fact, you met him briefly. At the old fire tower.”
I said, “In regards to the first thing on the list, I borrowed a bike from Guilfoyle’s boat. Need to get it back to him.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Need is a four-letter word.”
“So I hear. But the bike goes back to Guilfoyle. We need to find a boat anyway.”
Ellie shrugged, “A dime a dozen around here.”
I said, “The Sea Foam is a fishing boat. That gives us cover in case there is security at the island.”
I had stopped opening the letters. Five envelopes, all open. Four of them inconsequential junk mail, one of them semi-interesting with potential but unknown consequences.
Ellie said, “What?”
I handed her the sheet of paper.
I said, “Speaking of boats. I took his mail, back at the apartment. Looks as if Abrams rented a boat and didn’t bring it back.”
“Oh.”
The letter was from a boat rental place, Salty Charters. George Abrams had taken out a twenty-eight-foot fishing charter, a Bayliner named the Katrina Flynne. The cost was $175 for the one day, including fish finder, life jackets, GPS, and a CD player. But Abrams hadn’t brought the boat back, so the letter was a warning, and a revised invoice of twenty days, plus the threat of legal action. They wanted $3,500 plus a $200 penalty fee. The date on the letter was fourteen days previous.
Ellie read the letter.
I said, “How long before they send a cop over to his apartment?”
She shrugged. “Depends when the charter company filed a complaint. How long would they give it before they reported the boat stolen. Once they did, it would take a while before the police got the investigation going.”
I said, “Do
you know the place?”
Ellie looked up at me. “Yes. It’s on the way to Eagle Cove.”
I looked at the clock above the breakfast table. The day had started early. It was only seven-thirty in the a.m. I might just get a second breakfast at the cannery.
Twenty
The boat rental guy was large, both ways. He had tousled blond hair and wore a long yellow rain slicker. Salty Charters was a one-man operation run out of an insulated and rain-proofed box set up on the docks out near the paper factory. The guy ran a repair facility along with the charter boat rentals. About a dozen boats were tied up out front. One boat was up on blocks. It looked like it had been there for a while. Maybe the guy would get to it, maybe he wouldn’t.
The office was accessed by a steep wood deck with railings. When we arrived he had just flicked on the coffee machine. He came out to meet us after Ellie knocked. I figured that we’d caught him before the first cup of coffee.
The boat rental man’s eyes were deep in their sockets, crusted from sleep. “Yeah?”
Ellie showed him her badge and the letter. I leaned back against the deck railing and observed. Despite the lack of coffee the man was paying attention. Ellie handed him the letter and he read it conscientiously before looking up at her, confused.
“The guy brought it back a week ago.”
Ellie said, “And paid off the bill?”
“Yeah. Paid the bill. Why are you asking?”
“You have the boat here?”
He pointed to a modest white leisure vessel. Clean, and a new blue and white paint job. Chrome bars around the edge, and an enclosed cabin with a roof to protect against rain and cold. I walked down the dock until I could read the fancy curling script. Gold on deep blue. It read ‘Katrina Flynne’.
I walked up to meet Ellie and the boat man. I said, “Same guy brought it back as rented it?”
“Same guy, different guy. How the fuck should I know? You think I remember?”
I said, “Guy rents a boat, what does he need in terms of ID?”