“Like a building? Or a boat?”
“If it’s a boat,” Bertie said, “and metal, it probably isn’t a fishing boat, as they tend to be wood. Maybe something from World War II?”
“What?” she asked.
“The Japanese invaded the Aleutian Islands in 1942.”
“I think I read something about that, but Kodiak isn’t in the Aleutians.”
“Have you visited Fort Abercrombie?”
She shrugged. “No.”
“That was a military reservation put in to guard the naval installation on Kodiak. They call all this ‘the forgotten war.’ There’s leftover bits and pieces all over.” Bertie paused at the end of the slide. “Nothing registering here, so if it is a boat, it’s roughly thirty-five to forty feet long.”
A drop of rain plopped into Murphy’s hair. She pulled up the hood of her waterproof jacket and stared down the length of the rock fall. The section farthest from the water had the larger boulders. The segment nearest the water had smaller rocks but seemed to have piled up higher. It did appear as if the slide was remarkably uniform. “Let’s see what we can find in that end.” She pointed to the smaller boulders on her left.
The women moved to the end of the slide nearest the water.
Bertie’s radio squawked. “Bertie? Jake here. You need to finish up and get moving. Storm’s moving in fast. Over.”
“Will do. Over.” As if to emphasize his words, the sun disappeared completely behind the clouds. “Let’s hurry!”
They’d reached the end of the slide, and Murphy trotted ahead so she could see it clearly. Methodically she examined each section. The jagged rocks were slate gray, black, and dark sepia in color, and ranged in size from baseballs to large stability balls. She was about to give up when one shape took form. The stones seemed vaguely rectangular and about five feet up. Gingerly she climbed up the slide.
“Murph, be careful up there. Those rocks are slick.”
She climbed farther. What had looked like a couple of very black rocks was an opening. “I think I found something.”
“Don’t risk it, girl. Come on down.”
One by one, Murphy removed some of the loose stones. “Look.”
“I don’t want to look. I want to get back to the floatplane.”
Sticking her head into the opening, she waited until her eyes adjusted. “Pitch black.” She looked back down at Bertie. “Do you have a flashlight?”
Bertie glanced toward the cliff, then back at her. “Oh, all right. One quick peek, then we run.” Gingerly Bertie clambered up the rocks to her. “Here.” She pulled a small flashlight from one of her vest pockets.
Murphy snatched it up and turned it on.
Bertie glanced around again. “Just be sure you—”
She crawled through the opening.
CHAPTER 8
Murphy cleared the opening, then twisted around until her feet were hanging down. She played the flashlight around the space. The ground was about five feet below, accessible by sliding down the rocks.
She clenched her jaw. There’s nothing here to be afraid of.
The sharp stones ripped her jeans and tore at her raw hands. Reaching the floor, she swung the light around the space. “This is a building,” she called to Bertie. “You can come down.” Please come down.
“I’m not sure I’ll fit through the opening.”
“Sure you will. Just watch out for sharp stones.”
While Bertie wiggled through, Murphy examined the space. The room was square, about fifteen by fifteen feet with curving walls. The opening Bertie was crawling through was a ventilation opening over a door. Opposite was a partial wall destroyed by the slide. The ceiling bowed downward, with rotting wood sagging under rusting corrugated sheets of metal. The space reeked of moldy wood and stagnant water from the leaky roof.
Something rustled in the corner.
Murphy spun her flashlight and illuminated a rat. “Yaaaahhhh!”
“Ugh.” Bertie joined her on the ground. “Nasty things, rats.” Reaching into a pocket of her vest, she pulled out a set of nitrile gloves. “Here. Put these on before you touch anything.”
Murphy took the gloves and put them on, then threw a rock at the rat.
The stone landed solidly in the rodent’s side. It squealed and scurried behind an overturned table.
“Nice shot.” Bertie’s light followed the rat, then followed the curving walls to the ceiling, eight feet from their heads. “What am I looking at? Submarine . . .?”
“It’s a Quonset hut.”
“Quonset hut?” Bertie asked. “As in World War II housing?”
“Housing, hospitals, dining halls, you name it. These were a prefabricated building developed before the start of the war. I bet I could even figure out when.” She noted Bertie’s expression. “Oh, sorry, when I studied art, I loved art history and architecture. Minored in architecture in my undergraduate degree. Transepts, naves, flying buttresses, all that. And even the lowly Quonset hut.”
“And here I thought studying fly larvae was strange.” Bertie’s light paused at a lockbox on the floor. She bent to examine it.
Murphy’s fingers grew cold in the dank interior. She stuffed them in her pocket. “What do you make of finding a building dating from the forties, which had to have been buried for at least ten years or Vasily would have seen it, and five dead men—”
“Maybe cremated.” Bertie stood. “The possible bone shard I found could have been burned.”
“—possibly cremated, on an island that nobody’s heard of?” She glanced at Bertie.
Bertie shrugged. “I have no idea what the story is here, but I’d say there’s more than enough going on to warrant a full investigation. The ABI will want to get in on this.”
“The Alaska Bureau of Investigation? You think it’s that type of crime?”
Bertie didn’t answer. She held up the box she’d been inspecting and opened it so Murphy could see. Wet paper pulp. “Well, that’s a disappointment. Here, take the camera and get some photos.” Bertie handed over the digital camera, then dumped the water from the lockbox. On the bottom, rust enveloped a rectangle of metal. Bertie waited until she took a photo, then pried up the metal and stuck it in an evidence pouch. “Looks like a campaign medal. Your theory of this being from the forties looks good.”
A round canister split along the seam was next to the box. Inside, shattered glass gleamed in the light. Murphy took digitals of the canister, then shone the light toward the far wall. Behind an overturned single bedspring, the flashlight lit up a white piece of driftwood. She stepped closer. Not a piece of wood. A bone.
Sweat dampened her back. “Bertie.” It came out a whisper. She tried again. “Bertie.”
Bertie’s flashlight joined hers as the woman came up next to her.
Against the wall, under wisps of decaying fabric, was a body. The cranium and mandible were separate but near each other. Bertie pulled the bed away, then rummaged through her pockets until she pulled out an L-shaped metric scale and placed it next to the cranium. “Murph, get a bunch of photographs of this.”
“Is it female?” Murphy’s voice trembled. Could it be her sister?
“Huh?”
“Is that a female body?”
“Nah. I don’t think so. I’m not an anthropologist, but that’s a pretty developed ridge brow.”
Murphy’s hands shook. She tried to hold the camera steady. After several digitals of the skull, Bertie moved the scale to the remains of a shirt. An angular metal object lay on the chest cavity. She aimed the camera, but an error code appeared on the LCD screen.
“Bertie! Come in. Over.”
She jumped at the sound of Jake’s muffled voice. Bertie removed the two-way radio from her vest. “This is Bertie. Over.”
Static followed. Bertie moved closer to the opening. “This is Bertie. Do you read?”
Murphy tried the camera again, then took out her cell phone and snapped a few photos of the skull and metal object.
“Imperative you return to plane immediately! Weather’s in the toilet. Over.”
“Return to plane. Roger.” Bertie threw the radio and scale into her vest pockets. “Let’s boogie out of here.”
Heart pounding, Murphy returned her cell to her pocket, wrapped the camera strap around her neck, and spun toward the opening. It was almost black.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Bertie scrambled up the tumbled rocks and wiggled through the opening.
Just before Murphy climbed out, she used the light to pan the room one last time, committing the scene to memory. Once outside, freezing wind and stinging rain sprayed her face. The sky was deep gray, and the frothing ocean slammed against the rocks.
They ran.
“The equipment!” Murphy yelled.
“Leave it!”
Frigid blasts flattened the sparse grasses. Her eyes burned, nose ran, and fingers stiffened from the cutting cold. Bertie was ahead, charging across the tiny island as fast as they could run.
Could Jake take off in this weather? She shoved the doubt out of her mind. Her ragged breath was as much fear as exhaustion. They reached the rope ladder. Jake was below, frantically waving them down. She grabbed Bertie’s arm and leaned close so Bertie could hear over the wind and rain. “I’ll go down first so I can steady the ladder, then you.” She didn’t wait for Bertie to acknowledge. She grabbed the ladder and swung down. The wind whipped and tugged at her. Her hands could barely feel the rope. She dropped the final few feet, holding on to keep her balance, then clutched the rungs to steady the ladder.
Bertie started climbing down.
One side of the rope snapped.
Oh no! Please . . .
Bertie clung to one rung, legs dangling free. Slowly her white-knuckled grip loosened. Her heavy body swung in the wind.
Murphy gripped her end of the ladder. She tried to steady it. “Hold on, Bertie!”
Bertie’s left hand slipped. She swung in a circle, frantically grabbing for the rope.
A gust of wind jerked the ladder from Murphy, smashing it against the cliff.
Bertie plunged backward.
Murphy lurched for her.
Bertie’s body crashed to the rocks.
Adrenaline surged through Murphy. Her mouth wouldn’t work. She knelt and checked for a pulse. The wind whipped spray across her face. Someone grabbed her and pulled. She screamed and pulled away.
“Easy! It’s just me,” Jake said. “Is she still alive?”
“I think so.” Bertie’s unconscious body stretched across the rocks. Murphy whipped off her coat and covered her. “Call for help! We need a rescue—”
“No time and they’re too far away.” Jake cursed and returned to the plane.
Alive or dead, she can’t stay here. My moving her will probably kill her.
Not getting her to the plane will kill her.
Jake returned, bent down, and lifted Bertie’s shoulders. “Grab her legs.”
She grasped Bertie’s legs and struggled to stand. Step by step, they slowly crossed the rain-slicked rocks to the plane.
Jake had flattened two of the seats, forming a bed between the second and third row. They eased Bertie’s broken body onto the seats, then Murphy crawled in.
Jake started the engines before she could snap her seat belt. She barely got Bertie strapped in before he yelled, “Hang on. We’ll be lucky if we make it.”
The sea buckled and surged under the pontoons. He let out full throttle, pulling up and off the waves as fast as he could. An updraft caught the wings and shot them up, leaving her stomach far below. She struggled to keep Bertie’s body from moving. Her face was sheet-white, making her freckles stand out like a pointillist painting. Her skin was clammy. Murphy tucked her own coat around her.
The plane bucked like an unbroken horse. She braced Bertie with one arm and clung to the seat with the other. Vomit burned her throat. Her head pounded. Her brain looped the words pleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGod.
Jake radioed their position and requested an ambulance. When he hung up, he crossed himself, using three fingers and moving from right to left shoulder.
She would have felt a whole lot better if he’d started singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.”
Jake skimmed across the roofs of houses before landing hard.
She bit her tongue and tasted blood.
An ambulance waited near the dock, lights flashing. Next to the ambulance was Detective Olsson, white-blond hair whipping in the wind. She rushed to the plane as soon as it was close enough, helping Murphy through the door and out of the way of the two EMTs poised to help Bertie.
She wanted to help, but Elin pulled her aside. “What happened?” she asked.
“Bertie fell. I need to go with her to the hospital.” The wind snatched the words from her mouth.
“Let the EMTs do their job.” Elin almost had to shout. “They’re superbly trained. I’ll drive you over and you can tell me on the way.”
She wanted to argue, to be with her newly minted friend, but Elin was right. About all she could do at this point was wring her hands and cry. Spats of icy rain pelted her face. She shivered uncontrollably.
The medical team shifted Bertie to a spinal board. Carefully they maneuvered her from the plane to a waiting gurney, then to the back of the ambulance.
Blinking rapidly, Murphy tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. I did this. I didn’t fasten the rope ladder well enough. It’s my fault. And if she dies . . . She shoved down the thought.
Jake brought her coat over. The lining held a smear of blood. Bertie’s blood. Murphy didn’t want to put it on, but the rain was steady now and she was freezing.
“Come on.” Elin put a hand on Murphy’s shoulder and propelled her to the SUV. Once inside, she started the car, turned up the heater, then focused on Murphy. “You said Bertie fell. How?”
“The . . . um . . .” She cleared her throat. “The rope ladder broke. I went first, then Bertie. She fell on the rocks.”
Elin put the car into gear, then pulled out, following the ambulance. They’d gone a short distance when she asked, “Did you find anything?”
“Yes. Quite a lot.” She told Elin about the burned area, the Quonset hut, and the skeleton.
“So you think there were actually six people on the island?”
The question turned her attention to something besides Bertie’s fate. “Um. Well.” She thought about the lists Bertie had her write in the small notebook still in her pocket. She pulled it out. “I’ll have to add to this, but if we look at what we actually know, we are left with Vasily reporting five bodies. We found a body in the buried structure, and signs that some bodies may have been burned.”
Elin bit her lip. “We can speculate that whoever destroyed the bodies may have put one into the Quonset hut.”
“But Vasily didn’t report the hut, only the rockslide.”
“Right. Maybe one hid in the Quonset hut . . . and . . . got stuck?”
She shrugged. “Died at the same time but whoever burned the bodies didn’t find his? Who knows?”
Elin drove in silence for a time before saying, “There’s no doubt the ABI will want to get involved at this point. The second crime-scene technician arrived, and I have him booked into a motel downtown.”
“Bertie didn’t seem to like him much.”
“He gets the job done.”
The ambulance had pulled far ahead of them, lights flashing and siren blaring. Wind and rain gusted against the car.
Opening and closing her hands, Murphy mentally urged Elin to speed up.
Elin glanced over. “Don’t worry, we’ll get to the hospital in plenty of time.” She returned her gaze to the road. “Is that Bertie’s camera?”
She’d forgotten she still had it. She pulled the strap over her head. “Sorry, yes. Unfortunately we got off the island so fast we left the backpacks, probes, pretty much everything. There are a few pieces of evidence in Bertie’s vest.”
“I’ll get those fro
m the hospital. We’ll pick up everything else when the weather allows.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve been thinking about the timing on all this,” Elin said. “Vasily found the bodies very soon after death, say within a day or two. According to what you learned, someone else found the bodies and deliberately burned them. All but one, at any rate.” She tapped the steering wheel with a manicured nail.
“What if Vasily burned them?”
“We can’t rule that out. Someone didn’t want them found.”
“But short of climbing up that cliff, who would know—”
“Spotters.” Elin nodded. “It had to be a spotter.”
“What’s a spotter?”
“A pilot in a small plane. Jake was a spotter once. It’s impossible for skippers to see fish from their boat’s wheelhouse, so they hire spotters. In the case of herring, for example, the fishermen form an association, called a combine, to jointly hire the plane and radio the location. These planes are flying up to fifty miles along the coastline, and they’re flying quite low. Five bodies on that bare island would be easy for a spotter to see.”
“I don’t get the connection between the death of five people, a pilot seeing the bodies and burning them, and a skeleton in a Quonset hut.”
“Nor do I.” A particularly strong gust rocked the car. “And we won’t be able to get any answers until this storm passes.”
CHAPTER 9
Elin and Murphy parked in front of the salmon-colored hospital, got out, and entered. An older woman manning the information desk wordlessly pointed toward a door marked No Admittance. Beyond that was another small waiting room. They took seats in matching tweed chairs. Shortly a doctor in pale-blue scrubs and wearing a Disney-patterned bandanna on his head entered. “Elin. Good to see you. You’re here about the crime-scene technician, I assume.”
Elin nodded. Murphy stood, fighting fear.
“She’s on her way to surgery.” He glanced at his watch. “She had several broken bones and a conk on her head. We’ll know more . . .” He tugged a beeping pager out of his pocket. “Okay, gotta run. I’ll get back to you.”
Elin’s cell phone started to ring, and she answered. “Detective Olsson.” She listened for a few moments. “Okay, I’ll be there in ten.” She disconnected and turned to Murphy. “I need to go. Need a ride?”
Formula of Deception Page 6