Murder at Fire Bay

by Ron Hess

  “Did she have a boyfriend?” I asked.

  The old man snorted and raised an eyebrow. He pulled the pipe from his mouth. “Now there’s a question.” He started to repack his pipe.

  I took a deep breath and waited.

  “Nope, none that I know of,” he said.

  “She was a loner, then?”

  He scratched a match on his Carhartts and lit the pipe. Great columns of smoke trailed upward and I moved a step away. Satisfied the furnace wasn’t going out, he wiped the air with his match. “Nope. She wasn’t a loner. Sometimes her woman friend was with her.”

  By now the smoke had settled down into a small curl and I stepped back closer. “Do you know her friend’s name?”

  “I think her first name was Martha, but I ain’t sure.”

  I rocked back on my heels, a cold chill tickling my backbone. “Were they lovers?”

  “Lovers? What kind of question is that? You mean like queers and lesbians?” He grimaced. “I wouldn’t know. I ain’t into that kinda stuff! That’s about it, Mr. Postmaster!”

  “One more question and then I’ll go. Did the Troopers ask about her friend?”

  He sighed. “Nope.”

  The pipe found its way back into his mouth and I knew that was the end of the audience. I said my thanks and moved off down the boardwalk. Here and there, I saw other skiffs tucked between larger boats. The old man’s skiffs were not the only ones at the dock. Were they all listed with the harbormaster? That might be something to look into, but the Troopers and postal inspectors were sure to have done that.

  I checked my watch and was surprised to see a couple of hours had gone by. I had spent enough time on the dock. People would be asking why the postmaster, with all his problems at the post office, was wasting time hanging around the dock talking with an old man.

  On the way back to the post office, I speculated about Martha. Had there been a lovers’ spat? Was it that simple? Martha was a good-sized woman. She could have killed the supervisor easily enough. But she didn’t strike me as a person who lost her temper. Nope, she seemed too much in control of herself to do that. I had to find out, and soon. But how did I ask her about her whereabouts without her realizing what I was up to? A long, heavy sigh escaped my lips as I parked the Jeep back at the post office.

  Chapter 10

  There are times when you walk into a room and you just know something is wrong. People were working, but it was too quiet—the kind of quiet that tells you there’s a bear on the trail behind you. As I made my way up front to my office, I found out why.

  “Where’s my boat part?” the gentleman demanded. This time it was not George Grosse facing Ashley across my desk. He was another charter boat skipper, judging by his black fisherman’s cap with the gold braid stitched on the bill. He stood taller than I did— maybe about six feet two—and I could tell he was used to getting answers. The crinkles around his eyes did not look friendly.

  “May I help?” I asked.

  He looked from Ashley to me. “Yeah, maybe you can. I ordered a prop from Seattle two weeks ago. They say they sent it out the next day, and it isn’t here yet!” He poked my chest with his finger.

  I looked him in the eye, real . . . steady like, and braced myself. He didn’t look angry enough to hit, but one never knew.

  “Sir, do not poke me,” I said quietly.

  He’d been around long enough to know the sound of authority. Authority that said, “I mean what I say.”

  He dropped his hand and nodded. “Fine, but where’s my prop?”

  I looked at Ashley, who shrugged. I turned my head back to look him straight in the eye. “Sir, if that package is in this station, we’ll find it. Was it insured?”

  He looked away and sighed. “No, I think insurance is a post office scam. It’s just a way to get more money out of people!”

  I chose to let him have his mad. No need to tell him the Postal Service handles millions of packages every day.

  “Well, we’ll do all we can, sir, to find your package. Where did it come from?”

  “Oregon.”

  Something clicked in my mind. “From a company that deals in boat parts?”

  “Yeah, it’s a big place down there in Portland.” He went on to tell me the name and address.

  I cast a quick nod to Ashley, who immediately wrote it on a sheet of paper. I knew the name well, but writing it down made us look like we knew what we were doing.

  I held out my hand. “My name is Leo Bronski. And yours?”

  There was a pause while he figured out whether a handshake was the right thing to do. I waited patiently. Sometimes it’s hard to shake hands with someone you’re angry with. Finally, with another sigh, he put out his hand. “Bill Stevens,” he said as we shook.

  “Okay, Mr. Stevens, we’ll see what we can do.”

  He nodded and left the office, his face full of resignation. There was no doubt what was in his mind. He wasn’t going to get his part. It was lost, and he would have to order another one right away.

  As soon as the door closed, I turned to Ashley. “All right, Ashley, you and I are going to turn this place upside down.”

  “Yes, sir. And may I say, sir, you handled him well.”

  I gave her a small smile. “It’s what I get paid the big bucks for. Now, let’s go out to the package shelves and start looking.”

  She gave me a dazzling smile of admiration that made me feel about ten feet tall. We spent the next two hours verifying packages. Of course the one we were looking for wasn’t there. I didn’t think it would be, but we had to check.

  “What’ll we do now, sir?” Ashley asked.

  I smiled. It was nice being called sir, but when it came to employee relations, I decided to stick to my name. “It’s Leo, Ashley, remember? You can call me “sir,” but Leo is better.”

  She gave me another one of those smiles. That must be how she got promoted. Who could resist?

  “You want me to spread the word about the package?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  On the way back to my office, I rounded a corner and ran into the janitor that looked like Mr. Clean.

  “Oops! Sorry!”

  I looked down at my Wellington’s now covered with floor wax, sighed, and remembered to smile. “It’s okay, uh . . . Ralph. These things happen.”

  His face reddened. “Really sorry, sir.”

  I again told him it was okay and left him standing there, hopefully reassured his job was safe. The incident reminded me of another time when I was on R & R in Okinawa at the Kadena BX when I backed up from looking at a display case directly onto a two-star general’s shoes. I had practically fallen to my knees. I sighed again. Old memories like that I didn’t need.

  Back in the safe confines of my office, and after making sure the window blinds were closed, I put my feet up on the desk to relax and think, all the while trying to ignore the white stain of floor wax on my black boots. Was something shady, going on with the Oregon firm, or was someone in their shipping department simply being sloppy? Just when I realized I was getting nowhere, the phone rang. Without thinking, I picked it up.

  “Bronski.”

  “Yes, boss, ” I answered in a voice meek and mild.

  “What the hell is going on down there?” In a quiet voice I could barely hear. A voice that I knew to be the quiet before the storm.

  “Going on?” I asked.

  “Now, Bronski, don’t get coy with me. I get enough of that stuff around here! I’m talking about that missing prop!”

  There was a moment of silence when I again was privileged to listen while the Boss lit up his cigar. Then came the long drawn-out whoosh of air. I waited for the cough, but none came.

  “You see, Bronski, I just got off the phone with a guy down there in Fire Bay. He was mad, and when a customer gets mad at me, somebody else is gonna catch hell. Get my meaning . . . Bronski?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What are you
going to do about it?”

  “Well, we’ve started turning the place upside down.” I went on to tell him the boat part came from the same company in Portland as the boat part that Mr. Grosse was missing.

  Then came a long silence. Just when I was beginning to think the Boss had fallen to sleep, he spoke in a tired voice. “Keep at it, Bronski,” he said, and hung up.

  I slowly hung up the phone, dropped my boots down to the floor, and walked over to the window that looked out on the lobby. I eased the blind open ever so slightly and looked at the people standing, waiting patiently for a window clerk to handle their respective problems. Some were mailing packages; some were receiving packages too large to fit in a PO Box. It was my responsibility to make sure everything went smoothly and I wondered if I was up to the task. I slowly shut the blind and regained my chair. It was time to do more input to the computer.

  Come five o’clock I was out the door. I had my hand on the Jeep’s door handle when a hunch about the missing package occurred to me. I slung my briefcase onto the passenger seat, closed the door, and walked over to the outside garbage bin. Taking a deep breath, I opened one of the lids and peered down, looking for actual garbage. No need to get slime all over myself. Seeing none, I crawled over the side and started shuffling paper and old envelopes around. Talk about a needle in a haystack. I looked back over my shoulder to see if anybody had seen me. Since everybody else stopped work either at four o’clock or five-thirty, there was little chance anyone had. I dove back into the trash, determined to inspect the whole bin. I knew it as soon as I saw it: a large package, two feet on a side, with writing all over it, naturally at the very bottom of the bin.

  It was my first inclination to haul the box out and call its owner. It was not just its weight—probably better than forty pounds—that made me pause. There was no way it had been put in the bin by mistake. Not a box that large. I laid it back down on the bottom of the bin. Garbage pick-up was not due for the next two days. Did I play amateur detective, or did I hand the “case” over to the postal inspectors? There was no way they could get here before morning, and meanwhile the culprit might make off with the package.

  I climbed out of the bin without the package. If we had a stolen parts ring here in Fire Bay, then it was up to the US Postal Service to solve it. But I had to cover my rear. I knew the Boss wasn’t a great admirer of John Crouch, the postal inspector, so he might support me for a day or so.

  I climbed into the Jeep and hustled to the B & B. Maybe I could catch the Boss before he left work.

  Chapter 11

  “Who’s this?”

  “Boss, it’s Bronski. I’m here at the B & B.”

  “Oh, I shoulda known by the exchange number.”

  Poor Boss. Another number for him to know. I went on to explain about finding the lost package in the garbage bin.

  “Good going, Bronski! You got a plan on how to handle this situation?”

  I took a deep breath. He probably wasn’t going to like my plan.

  “Well, even though it’s not standard procedure, I think I have no choice but to involve the local cops. We need somebody to sit on that package until the postal inspectors can get here from Anchorage. It can’t be me, because in the daytime I have to be on the job, you know, putting up a front.”

  I heard the lighter flick a couple of times. That meant the Boss was thinking as he lit that brown protuberance in his mouth.

  “Have you told anybody else about this?” he said.

  “Nope.”

  “Okay, Bronski, here’s what you do. Call the cops and speak only to the chief. Then give Ashley a call and let her know. Nobody else. You got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “For cripes sake,” he went on, “a parts-for-boats operation. It has to be somebody local. Who are they selling the parts to? That’s what I’d like to know. But I guess that’s for the local cops to figure out. Okay, Bronski. I’ll explain to our favorite postal inspector what the situation is. Uh . . . Bronski, be careful. This could be a simple two-man operation, or it could be something more. I’d hold things close to my chest if I were you and trust no one.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  With that he hung up. I sat back on the only chair in my room and ruminated about the box. Then I remembered I was supposed to call Ashley. I glanced at my watch and realized she still might be at the office. It was only six o’clock. It usually took that long to close up the day’s books.

  She answered on the second ring.

  “Ashley, it’s me, Leo.”

  “Oh!” she answered.

  “Good, you’re still there,” I said.

  I went on to explain to her about finding the part and how we were going to run the operation. And that she was not to discuss this with anyone but me and the postal inspectors. She said she understood and we rang off.

  My next phone call was to the local cops. I did not relish doing this, mostly because this was a small town and, despite themselves, cops talk. I punched the numbers for the cop shop.

  “Fire Bay police,” a voice answered. But it was not just any voice. I’d heard that voice before out west at Howes Bluff.

  “Trooper Wattle?” I asked.

  There was a moment’s hesitation and then a simple one-word statement that said it all: “Bronski.”

  I could imagine his head lowering and asking in a silent prayer, “Why me, Lord?”

  But there I was, and he had to deal with me. We’d had a run-in or two at Howes Bluff, but I had developed a respect for the man and I think he had for me. I knew him to be a straight arrow.

  “Whoops,” I said, “I guess I must have rung a wrong number.”

  “No, not actually. I’m now Chief Wattle.”

  “You left the Troopers?” I could not believe it

  “It’s a long story, Bronski. So don’t ask. Why are you calling?”

  I took a deep breath. “Well, we have a problem at the post office.”

  “Huh, why am I not surprised? What is the nature of your problem?”

  I explained the problem and what the US Postal Service needed from him. “It’s only temporary,” I went on, “just for a couple of days and uh . . . nights.”

  “Yes, I figured “night” was in there somewhere. Listen Bronski, this is on federal property, so it’s really out of my jurisdiction.”

  “I understand your concern, but this isn’t Anchorage, and it might involve a parts ring of some sort here in the area. You’d have to get involved anyway.”

  “All right, Bronski. Where do you want to meet?”

  “There’s a knoll back of the post office with a lot of high grass. We could slip in there after eight o’clock and watch through the night. In fact, I’m willing to take the first shift, say eight to midnight.”

  “Bronski, you’re all heart. All right, we’ll do it for two nights. I’ll do the second shift myself. We haven’t been all that busy since the tourist season is coming to a close, so I should be able to come up with an excuse at the office.”

  We hung up after a few more arrangements were made. I grinned in the sunlight coming through the window and noted it wouldn’t be long before the sun went down. I wasn’t surprised that Chief Wattle volunteered to pull the midnight shift. I knew him to be a man of action. He was probably bored stiff. Besides it would look good on his resume, and the local newspapers would love to hear about their chief being ever vigilant and on the job.

  I had just lain back on the bed when the phone rang. For some reason I knew whom it was before I picked it up.

  “Jeanette?”

  “Leo?”

  “Yup, babe, it’s me.”

  “I . . I hadn’t heard from you for a couple of days.”

  Oh, oh, I thought, of all people. My own wife. I went from feeling good and confident to feeling like hell. “Sorry, Jeanette. I got busy.”

  For sure I’d blown it!

  She said it was okay, but I could tell she was being brave about it. We discussed her p
roblems first, and then I launched into mine. I hung up feeling better, but I realized I’d better call her every evening. Life is complicated.

  I got up off the bed and began pacing the floor. It would be another hour or so before the sun went down. I needed to take a walk to relax.

  When I passed through the downstairs dayroom, Mrs. Mordant grabbed me and asked if I’d take her father up to the bluff. I nodded, even though I really needed to be out on my own. It was hard to say “no” to the old duffer, so after a quick bundle-up, we were off.

  After arriving at the bluff’s top, I set his wheelchair’s brakes and sat down on the bench beside him. We sat in silence for a while with me wondering when he would start his “wue” sounds. Finally, I gave up wondering and sat back, enjoying the warm breeze coming off the ocean. I could do with a warm night lying in the weeds above the post office. This thought set me to wondering what type of person might be involved. Was someone at the post office in cahoots with an outside person? Or was he or she on their own? And what were they doing with the boat parts? A lot of boat parts would have to be sold to make the operation worthwhile.

  My thoughts were interrupted by the old man’s claw hand pointing out to sea. “Bo . . .bo . . . ”

  I looked to where he was pointing. Yep, sure enough, there was a ship, a tanker, steaming its way into the bay. Beautiful, majestic even. I looked back to the old guy, half expecting to see a tear dropping down a cheek. To my surprise, there was a pleasant expression on his face. I reached over to wipe the spittle from around his mouth and then put the cloth back in the wheelchair’s side-pocket.

  “It is a beautiful sight. Isn’t it, sir?”

  He slowly turned his head to face me and gave a slight nod. It was the first time I had really looked into his eyes, and what I saw was a real intelligence. I also saw sadness and, for some reason, this affected me, and I wiped away the tear from in my own eye. It wouldn’t do for the old man to see me drop a tear. After all, I was the postmaster, a calm and deliberate person, not some alcoholic just one step above breakdown.