“I do?”
“Yep. Figured it had something to do with your sister.”
“I found it in her things at the hotel where she’d been staying. It was an earring. I only found the one. I took it to all the jewelry stores in Kodiak, then to the Alutiiq Museum. No one recognized it.”
“Take a photo of it with your phone and send it to me.”
“Okay.”
“I’m having the Anchorage police send me a copy of your sister’s file.”
“Okay.” This time it came out a squeak.
“Hey, and listen. Be careful. Three people connected to this case are dead.”
“I will. Bertie, now that Zinkerton is dead, do you still want me to report everything to you? You’re no longer needing to watch over your shoulder.”
“I do. I want to stay in even closer touch with you. I’m really worried about you. And now it’s you who has to look over your shoulder. Be safe.” She disconnected.
“Safe,” Murphy whispered. She stayed on the bed hugging the pillow for a few moments, then jumped up. Elin would be arriving soon to pick her up for the cannery visit. She needed to change out of the jeans-and-flannel-shirt uniform into something Elin had brought her, still downstairs in the paper sack behind the bar. She slipped from the room and tiptoed down the stairs.
Denali and Ryan were in the dining room.
“So,” Ryan said, “I couldn’t help noticing the Distinguished Service Medal on the wall around the corner. That was given to your dad?”
“Yes.” Denali’s voice was low. “He was a war hero. Built the lodge here but never lived in it.”
“World War II?”
“Yes.”
She pressed against the wall and listened.
“What did he do to earn the award?”
“Long story, and some of it is still classified, but it was awarded by express approval of the president.”
“Is he buried around here?”
Silence grew until she thought they’d moved away.
“There’s a family cemetery. If you’ll excuse me, I have some business to attend to.” His wheelchair squeaked, growing closer.
She dashed up the stairs before Denali came around the corner and could see her eavesdropping. She stayed out of sight in the hall until he passed, with Lucas following. Why did he end the discussion?
Once again she trotted downstairs and grabbed her sack of clothes. The morning air still smelled of freshly brewing coffee, pancakes, and maple syrup.
Ryan was standing in front of the wall of photographs. He spotted her. “Good morning.”
“Good morning.”
“I was just asking Denali about these photographs. Didn’t get very far. Do you know who they are?”
She fetched the paper bag holding her clothes and joined him. “Denali said that’s the only known photograph of his dad.” She pointed. “That’s his daughter and son-in-law, the parents of Lucas.”
“How did you find that out? I couldn’t get Denali to say ten words about his family.”
“I guess he was in a talkative mood.” She ducked her head and ran back up the stairs before he could ask any more questions.
Elin had brought her everything from clean underwear to a zip-up brown hooded sweatshirt with a Kodiak logo on the front. “Thank you, m’friend,” she whispered around the tightening of her throat. She found a pair of jeans and an off-white sweater that looked like they’d fit. As Murphy took off her uniform jeans, the key to Elin’s SUV dropped from the pocket. She placed it on her dresser. She’d return it today.
Taking off her necklace, she placed it on the bed to take a photo. She snapped several, then scrolled back to be sure the images were clear. She stopped. Three photographs before the necklace were images of the skull and the round metal object from the Quonset hut.
I need to tell Bertie I have these. And Elin.
Safe, her sister whispered in her mind. Think about this for a moment. Everyone connected to that island is showing up dead.
“You’re right,” Murphy said aloud. “Bertie doesn’t even trust Jake now.”
You need to be cautious. You’re dodging whoever killed Vasily and Irina. You know Zinkerton was murdered for the evidence he had. And Clinton could be out there as well. He may even be the person who killed your landlady.
She lifted her necklace and put it on. “I’m not running from Clinton. I’m ready to defend myself. Kill him if I have to.”
You can’t exact revenge on Clinton if you’re dead yourself. No one knows you took these images, Dallas whispered.
“So you think I shouldn’t tell anyone? Even Bertie?”
I think you need to be careful. You don’t know who your enemies are.
Murphy forwarded the photos of the necklace to Bertie. Someone softly tapped on her door.
She spun, almost dropping her phone, then checked her watch. Where had the time gone? She unlocked the door.
“Ready to go interview the guy at the cannery?” Elin said. “Hey, are you all right? You’re as white as a ghost.”
“Yeah, sure. You startled me. Did you hear the news?”
“About Zinkerton. Yeah. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “That wasn’t nice.” She headed down the hall without waiting.
Murphy grabbed her jacket and trotted after Elin’s retreating back.
“Joshua drove me over to get my car,” Elin said over her shoulder. “He told me about it.”
“Is he still here? I mean . . .”
Elin stopped. “No. He left to take care of his boys.”
“Okay.”
Elin stared at her for a moment, then started walking again. “Anyway, I guess I left my cell in my car. No one could call me.”
“I have a confession to make.” She caught up with Elin as they reached the front door. She told Elin about taking the call, driving her car, and identifying the body. “I still have your spare key. Do you want me to get it now?”
Elin paused at the door and put her hands on her hips. “No. We’ll be late. But I have to say, you’re starting to worry me. As of now you’re on the witness list for the murders of Vasily and Irina, the arson—”
“Arson!”
“It’s official. I guess you hadn’t been told yet. The fire marshal found an accelerant in the rubble. Now you’ve identified Zinkerton and were at that crime scene. You’re a one-woman crime wave.”
“You don’t think I had anything to do with any of those events!” Murphy grasped the doorframe to keep from falling.
“I don’t. But a lot of folks just might.”
CHAPTER 15
Murphy and Elin got into Elin’s SUV. “Tell me about the witness at the cannery.” Murphy snapped her seat belt.
“Technically, it’s called a processing plant. Carl Alavaren is the man we’ll be interviewing. He’s the office manager.” Elin maneuvered out of the parking area and headed downtown along Spruce Cape Road. The fog had lifted, though in places it was still snagged by the velvety olive-green hillsides. Clouds were rolling in, casting the day into dappled shades of silvery gray. “He’s worked at several onshore facilities for over seventeen years. He thinks he recognizes the composite you did.”
They reached the center of town and turned toward the marina, home of one of Alaska’s largest and most productive fishing fleets. From there they turned onto Shelikof Street, driving past the bar where Zinkerton had been murdered. Yellow crime-scene tape blocked the alley.
“I told Detective Buchanan that I didn’t think Zinkerton’s murder was random,” Murphy said as they passed. She continued to stare at the cheerful yellow tape.
“His personality would certainly bring out homicidal instincts in others.”
“I didn’t mean that. I think he was murdered for the evidence from Ruuwaq Island.”
Elin signaled a turn just up the street from the Shady Lady and pulled into the parking lot of a seafood store. She didn’t speak until she’d put the SUV
into park and turned off the engine.
“Have you ever heard the saying, ‘When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras’?”
“Of course. It means look for the simplest explanation of events. It’s often used in the medical field.”
“It’s also useful in law enforcement. Leave the investigation on this case to Detective Buchanan. She’s thorough, tough, and persistent. She’ll get answers.” She got out of the car.
Yeah. And I’m just a kid, a civilian, an amateur, a waitress, and a bartender.
Oh, and don’t forget: a Rhodes Scholar with a master’s degree.
Murphy had seldom thought of her education before all the murders started. She’d been content to work on her mission to find her sister, paint and sell small acrylics, and make sea glass jewelry. Maybe all Bertie’s comments on joining the crime lab had triggered her thinking of what she’d put on a résumé.
The odor of fish was almost palatable. Seagulls or bald eagles perched on every streetlight or squawked overhead. Around them, men and a few women bustled about dressed in waders or coveralls, Xtratuf boots, and hooded sweatshirts. The seafood store was a one-room attachment to a larger metal building painted a flat azure blue. Inside were large refrigeration and freezer units holding stacks of king or Dungeness crabs, cod, salmon, and halibut. Two young men were behind a tiny counter. “Help you?” the older one asked.
“Carl Alavaren?” Elin asked.
“Go outside, around the corner, up the stairs.”
Like the seafood store, the stairs seemed to be an afterthought attached to the side of the building. At the top was a door leading to an open warehouse filled with bales of cardboard boxes with lockers lining one side. The women followed the yellow and black markings painted on the cement floor to a glassed-in office in the rear. A long counter separated Elin and Murphy from the two women working at computers. Before they could ask for Carl, a short, black-haired man approached the counter. “Detective Olsson, good to see you. Come on into my office.”
They strolled around the counter, past a wall of file cabinets under statistical fish-and-game charts and colorful seafood posters, into a small room overlooking a rooftop. In the distance, the ocean sparkled under the breaks in the clouds, and the islands rose like emerald gems from the water’s surface.
After Elin introduced her and they took their seats, Carl said, “My memory is hazy, but when you mentioned the timing and that there were as many as six men involved, I thought I’d give you a call.” He licked his lips. “The article I read mentioned a reward?”
Elin glanced at Murphy. “Yes, if this leads to an identification.”
He nodded, then opened a drawer, pulled out a file, and opened it. “Eddie Pelino.” He handed Elin a photograph. She held it so Murphy could see. The image was startlingly close to the composite. “Age twenty-two. From Manila. Philippines. He wasn’t a greenhorn.” He looked at Murphy. “A first-timer. He’d worked at the facility on Akutan.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m not familiar with—”
“An island in the Aleutian chain, about 750 miles southwest of Anchorage,” Elin said.
“The largest seafood production facility in North America,” Carl added. “It employs over fourteen hundred employees during peak season. Eddie transferred from there to work here.”
“Why would he do that?” Murphy asked.
Carl grinned. “Let’s just say Akutan is . . . remote.”
“How many employees do you have here?” Elin asked.
“We’re pretty small. About sixty-five day workers. Roughly half that at night. But we’re still the third-largest processing plant in the US.”
Elin straightened. “Can you make copies of all the employee records between—”
“Nope.” Carl shook his head. “We destroy records older than seven years.”
“Then why did you still have material on Eddie?” she asked.
Carl shifted in his chair, hummed a moment, then licked his lips. “I knew him. Sort of. We were both from Manila.”
Carl’s answer set off warning bells in Murphy. Carl sounded like her—when she lied.
“But Eddie was a get-rich-quick kinda guy.” Carl finally looked back at her. “And you don’t get rich processing seafood.”
“I see.” Elin gave him an encouraging nod.
“You’re on your feet for long hours, all day or all night. It’s noisy, smelly, cold, and wet. You clean, trim, cull, and grade fish. Nope. No real money in that.”
“So how was Eddie going to get rich?” Elin prodded.
“He got it in his head to become a fisherman.”
“Fisherman?” Elin shoved a lock of hair from her face. “But he’d need a boat and permits and—”
“Details, legalities.” Carl waved his hand. “He didn’t care about such things. For all practical purposes he could just as easily have panned for gold or bought a lottery ticket.”
“But he was going to fish . . . how?” Elin asked.
Again Carl broke eye contact. “Um . . . get a group together and . . . um . . . steal a boat.”
“And he did.” Murphy took off her glasses and stared at Carl.
Carl blinked and tried to look away. “Um. Well. Yes. Even then, instead of stealing something like a Chignik seiner, he took a sport fishing boat.”
No one spoke for a few moments. The bang and grind of machinery filled the air. Finally, Elin said, “That’s the dumbest harebrained scheme I’ve ever heard.”
“You didn’t know Eddie. He was always full of plans. He had this dog—”
“Tell me about the dog,” Murphy said.
Carl glanced out the window. “I don’t know, kind of a terrier. About this big.” He held his hands a foot apart. “He was gonna get a female, breed these dogs, start a new line of super rat killers, and make a fortune.” The phone rang and Carl answered.
She gave Elin a questioning look. “Rat killers?”
“Rat terriers, probably. Rats can be a huge problem in Alaska,” Elin said. “They can totally change an entire ecosystem. They eat birds, eggs, seeds, contaminate everything they come into contact with, damage buildings and wires . . . and cost billions of dollars in damage. Not just here, but around the world.”
“I found what I think was part of a small dog collar on Ruuwaq Island, and I saw a rat in the buried Quonset hut.”
“I’m not surprised. A number of islands have been infested with the rodents since before World War II.”
Carl hung up after muttering a few words. “I gotta get back to work.” He slid Eddie’s file across the desk to Elin.
Elin and Carl stood, but Murphy stayed seated. “Tell me, Carl, when you told Eddie about a boat he could steal, why didn’t you go with him that day?”
CHAPTER 16
Carl dropped to his chair. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t, but there had to be some reason you kept his file,” Murphy said.
Elin sat down and leaned forward, her gaze going from his face to Murphy’s.
“I didn’t tell him to steal it.” Carl’s voice went up a notch. “He just asked if I knew of a boat that wouldn’t be missed right away.” The phone rang again. Carl ignored it. “I guess he couldn’t get the seiner, so he took the sport boat.”
Elin pointed at him. “But you knew his plans.”
Carl wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I might have suspected.”
Murphy figured he knew more than that but couldn’t prove anything at this point. “When was this, the date he stole the boat?”
Carl licked his lips again. “I don’t know exactly. He quit in May of that year, but I saw him around for a while afterward.”
“Who were the other five men?”
“I don’t know. There’s a fair-sized Filipino community in Kodiak. He may have asked some of them. Maybe he played cards with them or something.”
“Cards?” Murphy asked. “Is that how you knew Eddie so well?”
Carl’s tongue snaked out a
nd wet his lips. “Nothing wrong with a game or two of poker.”
“As long as you win?” Elin asked. “Is that why you called this in? Needed some reward money?”
Carl threw up his hands. “I just know he took a boat and was never heard from again.”
“And even though you knew who had stolen that boat, you never reported it?” Elin asked.
“No.” He looked at her, then out the window. “I never planned on telling anyone anything. Ever,” he muttered.
This time Murphy stood when Elin did. “I may have more questions later,” Elin said. “So don’t plan on taking any trips.”
Carl leaned back in his chair and wiped his face. “You’ll let me know about that reward, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll let you know.”
They didn’t speak until they’d reached Elin’s car. “You interview people very well. I’m impressed. What do you think?” Elin asked after sliding behind the wheel.
“You seem to know at least one person who died on Ruuwaq Island ten years ago. I’d say you need to know why. And how.” She thought for a moment. “You know it was after May, the year, and the type of boat stolen. You could find the date it was reported missing, which would narrow down the timeline—”
“Not as narrow as you’d think.” Elin started the car. “A lot of big sport boats are owned by rich people who seldom take them out. It could have been missing for some time before it was reported. I’ll look into it, of course.”
“Maybe you’ll get lucky,” she said.
They pulled out of the parking lot. “Maybe.” Elin turned toward the lodge. “This case could have a simple explanation. Six inexperienced men get into a small boat and run into trouble. They land on Ruuwaq Island with no food or water. Not even wood to start a fire. They become desperate, fight, but one of them finds and hides in the Quonset hut. Maybe the rest of them resort to attempted cannibalism like the Donner party or the Andes flight disaster.”
Murphy grimaced. “Nasty, but possible. But I don’t think they were on that island that long.”
“But . . .”
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