It wasn’t a letter. It was a computer printout of the front page of the Anchorage newspaper from eleven years ago. The headline screamed “Anchorage Serial Killer Caught!”
The room receded around her. A buzzing started in her head. Blackness lapped at her brain. No! She tore the printout and envelope into tiny pieces and dumped them into the trash.
Clinton had been called a thrill-seeker serial killer, one who enjoyed outsmarting the police. He toyed with his victims. Like he was currently playing with her. He wanted to frighten her even more.
This time he’d made a mistake. She was older now, and stronger. And she’d soon be armed.
In fact, once she had that gun, maybe she shouldn’t wait for his next move.
Elin drove up, followed by the priest. Murphy raced back into the kitchen. She knew her face would be pale, but Olga didn’t seem to notice. She was soon serving the meal.
“How goes the investigation on Vasily and poor Irina?” Father Ivanov asked Elin.
“Irina?” Denali asked.
“His caretaker.” Elin took a bite of sausage.
Murphy rearranged some dishes on the sideboard so she could stay and listen.
Elin finally swallowed. “Good news and bad news. The bad news is someone took the time to wipe down all the surfaces in Vasily’s home. The good news is he or she missed one spot and we have a set of prints. We’ve submitted them through IAFIS—”
“What’s that?” Lucas asked.
“Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System.” Elin picked up her fork, speared another piece of sausage, and began chewing.
“Could I have some more coffee?” Ryan asked.
Rats! Murphy wanted to hear more. She scurried into the kitchen, returning with the coffeepot as Elin was speaking. “. . . criminals and terrorists. We’ll need to take fingerprints of you, Murphy, and of course Father Ivanov, to eliminate both of you along with others. In fact, Murphy”—Elin turned to see her—“we can do that later today. We’ll drop by the station on the way back from the island.”
“Okay.” Murphy knew she shouldn’t worry about her fingerprints. It wasn’t as if she’d broken any laws. It wasn’t illegal for a law-abiding citizen to drop out of sight.
“I have some news on the identification of the bodies on Ruuwaq.” Father Ivanov beamed at the diners. “A woman at the local Filipino church has come forward with a possible identification.”
“That’s outstanding, Father.” Elin smiled. “But I spoke to their pastor and no one brought any details.”
“I’m afraid she’s what you would call a reluctant witness. I’ll need to be with you when you talk to her. Could the two of you”—he nodded at Murphy and Elin—“meet me at Christ’s Table, our interfaith soup kitchen, this morning?”
“Not this morning,” Elin said. “I arranged to fly out to Ruuwaq Island with a friend of Bertie’s. We’re going to recover the supplies and tools and possibly do some work there. Maybe later this afternoon?”
“Sure, call me after you land. You know my number.”
“Perfect. And that’s wonderful news about the new information,” Elin said. “I’d love to make some progress identifying those bodies.”
The lodge phone rang and Denali picked it up. “Yes. That’s fantastic. When? You’re kidding. No, nothing turned up. I’ll send someone.” He disconnected. “That was the vet. He’s releasing my dog today.”
“I’m waiting for Murphy to finish up,” Elin said. “In the meantime, why don’t I go pick him up? What was the final diagnosis?”
“It was as he suspected. Poison. Arsenic.”
Elin tugged at her hair. “Denali, that doesn’t make sense. He’s a trained therapy dog. He wouldn’t take food from strangers or anything left on the ground.”
Denali’s face hardened. “We didn’t find a source of the poison in the equipment shed. That means someone put poison in his food.”
Murphy kept her face down as she collected dirty dishes. She entered the kitchen and focused on scraping the dishes and loading the dishwasher, but thoughts kept poking into her brain. That stupid newspaper article where they took her photo at Vasily’s house must have led Clinton to Kodiak. How he found where she lived below Myra was a mystery, but she would bet he’d burned the trailer, hoping she was sleeping inside. He easily could have followed her to Salmon Run Lodge when Elin drove her here. The poisoned sandwich was evidence of that, and the message on the whiteboard, and the letter.
Maybe he was worried she was getting close to the truth of her sister. He knew she could get anyone to talk. He knew because she got him to talk.
Her sister, Dallas, disappeared while Murphy was traveling on her summer vacation. She grew concerned when Dallas stopped returning her calls. When she’d arrived at the condo they shared, she found blood. Not a lot, but combined with Dallas’s disappearance, enough to prompt her to contact the police. The police were not interested. After all, they reasoned, her sister was an adult. Even the earring she’d found at the hotel in Kodiak didn’t faze the police.
Murphy dropped soap into the dishwasher and turned it on, then grabbed the necklace hanging around her neck.
She and Dallas had seen Hunter around their condo development in the spring, showing the various properties to prospective tenants. They’d even discussed how good-looking he was.
He’d asked Murphy out on a date three weeks after Dallas went missing. Murphy had already tracked her sister’s trip with Hunter to Kodiak and needed to find out more. She agreed.
The kitchen was clean. She headed up to her room to change into clothes suitable for Ruuwaq Island. She still clutched the necklace.
Over dinner with Hunter, she’d asked him about her sister, but he said they broke up in Kodiak. She’d removed her glasses and stared at him. He seemed startled but mentioned he’d been reading about all the missing women, wondered if her sister could now be one of them, then casually commented on all the properties he’d managed. It was a long shot, but something about the combination of names and his work as a rental agent just struck her wrong. She excused herself and made a phone call to the police. They arrested him before he had a chance to run.
And they’d found the bodies.
CHAPTER 21
After pulling on the same clothes from her last visit to the island, Murphy debated on adding the name Olga had given her, Leif B., to her list hidden behind the canvas.
No. She’d do it later. After pocketing the spare key to Elin’s car, she grabbed her coat.
Hunter had buried the women, or in some cases just left them as rotting corpses, at different houses he’d managed outside of town. The police found all but her sister. Before they could take him to trial, he escaped and came for her. With a knife. The Lord only knew how she’d survived. They promised her he would never get out again.
Now he was loose.
A gentle tap on Murphy’s door was followed by Elin’s voice. “Ready to fly out?”
She was more than ready to leave her thoughts behind and work on another puzzle. She handed over Elin’s spare key.
“Thanks.” Elin dropped it into the purse she had over her shoulder, then headed for the stairs.
Lucas sat on the floor of the living room hugging Quinn. The Lab seemed content to lap up the attention, not even giving his tail a thump as they passed.
They got into Elin’s SUV and she drove toward town.
“Are we heading to Lily Lake?” she asked.
“Butch Patterson operates out of Near Island.”
Murphy slid down in her seat even farther as they passed through the center of town, a movement Elin didn’t seem to notice. Near Island was accessible by a bridge, and the floatplane business was on the side of the island opposite downtown Kodiak.
A tall, lean, mustached man waited by the floatplanes tied up at the dock. His smile lit his face, making his startlingly blue eyes almost disappear. “Any friend of Elin is a friend of mine,” he offered after introductions.
Once again Murphy was placed in the front seat, this time looking up the Trident Basin where seaplanes regularly took off and landed. After putting on the headphones, she relaxed and watched as they taxied past the cobalt-green Crooked and Holiday Islands. Sunlight dappled the teal-blue ocean. The scene made her wish all her art supplies hadn’t gone up in smoke.
Turning south, they paralleled the breathtaking snowcapped peaks of Kodiak’s mountain range, which rivaled the Canadian Rockies.
“How hard is it to fly a plane?” she asked to keep her thoughts at bay.
Butch grinned. “Once you learn how, it’s like walking or breathing. You’re up here, just you and God, looking at the most beautiful landscape He ever created.” He pointed to the different dials and switches, explaining each one. She listened, asked questions, and relaxed slightly. No unpleasant memories demanded her attention.
Butch finally nodded straight ahead. “The island’s just ahead.” He was silent for a few moments. “I was surprised when Elin told me she was interested in finding an island named Ruuwaq. A friend of mine wrote a book about Kodiak legends. I called him up and asked about the name. He said the word meant ‘arrow’ and was in his book.”
“Do you think I could get a copy of this book?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s out of print, but you could try the library.”
“What’s the title?”
“I don’t know, but his name is Jonathan Wilson. Just look for a skinny little book no wider than this.” He held his fingers about five inches apart.
“I’ll check into it,” she said.
“Yeah, do that. I’ll circle around the island first before landing.”
The tiny speck of brown-black cliffs grew. Butch turned the plane to the left, then banked it in a circle so they could survey the island.
It took a moment for what she saw to register in her brain.
The mountain that had risen behind the Quonset hut was gone. Only a massive pile of boulders remained.
Elin’s voice came through the headphones. “Where did you say the Quonset hut was buried?”
Wordlessly she pointed.
“But I don’t see anything. Are you talking about that rock pile?” she asked. “How did you get inside?”
She cleared her throat. “Someone blew it up. The whole mountain. Without heavy equipment, you’ll never be able to recover anything from the Quonset hut.” She glanced at Butch. “Do you have any binoculars?”
“Under your seat.”
She pulled the case free and took them out.
“What are you looking for?” Elin asked.
“Just confirming what I suspected. The metal detector we left behind is gone, as are the crime-scene kits, probes, all of it. And I don’t see any sign of the rope ladder. In fact, all the vegetation looks dead.” She put down the glasses. “Every scrap of evidence has been stolen or destroyed. The island’s been wiped clean.”
“Do you want me to land anyway?” Butch asked.
“No,” Elin said. “Whatever is going on here, it’s bigger than the case I started with. Head back to Kodiak.”
After returning the binoculars to the case, Murphy straightened and licked her dry lips. “It seems that someone is going to a great deal of trouble to make sure we don’t find out the secrets of Ruuwaq Island.”
“That it does,” Elin said.
The flight home seemed to take an eternity. As they landed, Elin called the priest. “We just landed.”
A half hour later the women pulled into a small, older strip mall with Father Ivanov’s soup kitchen at one end and a thrift shop at the other, near the Walmart shopping center. A few battered and rusty cars and trucks were parked across the cracked asphalt parking lot. They parked near the thrift shop. Elin opened the rear of the SUV, put her Glock into her purse, then placed her purse next to a blanket, Kevlar vest, raincoat, and emergency go-to bag. She made sure the doors all locked. “Father Ivanov doesn’t allow guns inside Christ’s Table. Says it disturbs the diners.”
“Diners?”
“The homeless who eat here.”
They walked to the soup kitchen. The door was locked, but Father Ivanov spotted them through the front window and let them in. Red-checked tablecloths covered the long tables neatly lined up around the spacious room. At the far end was the serving counter, and behind that a few individuals were preparing the meal. Soft voices, an occasional clang of a cooking pot, and the mouthwatering scent of baking bread drifted to their part of the room. Windows on the front and side allowed plenty of sunlight through the partially open blinds. Father Ivanov indicated a table, then asked, “Coffee?”
“Absolutely.” Elin nodded and took a seat.
“Sure. Let me help you.” Murphy followed the priest to a large urn surrounded by thick, cream-colored coffee mugs. He poured three cups. Murphy knew he took his coffee black, and she prepared hers and Elin’s the way they both liked. She brought them to the table and took a seat next to Elin.
“Before we start”—Father Ivanov took a sip—“how did it go on your excursion to the island?”
“A disaster. Nothing is recoverable.” Elin played with the mug’s handle.
“What do you mean?”
“Someone made sure the rest of the mountain covered that Quonset hut. Only airlifting major heavy equipment would help. Maybe not even then.” She shoved some of her white-blond hair off her face, then drummed her fingers on the table. “And I have to say I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.” She looked at Ivanov. “You mentioned a lady who had some knowledge . . .?”
“I asked the pastor of the Filipino church if he knew of anyone who disappeared around ten years ago—”
“He said no when I talked to him,” Elin said.
Ivanov held up a finger. “Yes, but I asked him about relatives.”
“Same difference.”
“No. He said when you inquired, he’d been thinking about whether any members of his congregation were missing. I figured anyone hanging around Eddie Pelino probably didn’t spend a lot of time in church, so I asked him again, this time about any missing relatives. He has a Friday night service, and he brought it up during the sermon.”
“And?” she asked.
Ivanov pulled out a piece of paper and slid it over to her. “Ten years ago, three brothers and their cousin came to visit their aunt here in Kodiak. They were on their way to the processing plant in Akutan. They were here only a few days, and the aunt believed they made it to their job safely. But many months later she learned from relatives that they had disappeared.”
Elin took the paper with four names neatly printed in a column.
“Only four?” she asked. “Not five?”
“Four plus Eddie,” Ivanov said. “Vasily said he found five bodies. It appears that the skeleton you discovered in the Quonset hut is unrelated.”
Murphy studied her mug of coffee so he couldn’t read anything on her face. If she hoped to get more money from Ryan, she’d need to protect information before it became common knowledge.
“I’d like to speak to the aunt,” Elin said.
Now it was Ivanov’s turn to drum his fingers on the table. “She’s not exactly hot on the police, if you catch my drift.” He thought for another moment. “Tell you what. Let me call her and see if she’ll agree to a meeting. If she will, we can go over and talk to her. We can take my car so she doesn’t panic when she sees a police vehicle. She lives very close to here. Will that work?”
“Sounds like a great plan.”
He stood and moved to the other side of the room, retrieved a cell from behind the counter, and made a call.
The women workers continued to bustle around the kitchen, now adding the scent of melting butter and hamburger to the air.
Murphy was starving. She drank half her coffee and wished for a doughnut. Or a hamburger. Or both.
Elin took a sip of her coffee. “Mmm, you must have made this, Murphy.”
“Watch out, Starbucks. I’m on my
way up.”
Elin picked up the paper with the names. “With this connection that Father Ivanov made, we might just make some progress in spite of the sabotage.”
“I hope so.” Murphy’s phone rang. Bertie. “Hang in there.” She signaled Elin that she needed to take the call, then stepped outside. Traffic noise was horrible. She had to raise her voice and push the phone to her ear to hear. “Yeah, Bertie, you’ve been on my mind. I have a lot to share.”
Elin stuck her head out the door. “We got the go-ahead. I’m riding over with Father Ivanov to meet the aunt. I shouldn’t be long. Wait here?”
“Sure.” She waited until Elin shut the door. “Our trip to the island was a disaster—”
A motorcycle, minus any indication of a muffler, drove by.
“Just a minute, Bertie, let me go back inside. I can’t hear you.” Father Ivanov and Elin were just leaving by a side door. She waited until the door shut, then continued updating Bertie on their trip.
Bertie listened without interruption.
Still talking, Murphy wandered to the table they’d been sitting at and automatically gathered up the used mugs. Next to the coffee urn was a brown tub that held dirty dishes. She strolled over and placed the cups inside.
Boom!
The side windows exploded inward, spraying the room with shards of glass.
CHAPTER 22
Floor? What was she doing on the floor?
Murphy blinked at the smoke around her. An acrid odor burned her nostrils. Glass shards sparkled like orange mica chips around her.
No sound.
Raising her arm, she saw red freckles . . . no. Blood. Bloody cuts. Her head hurt. Why couldn’t she hear anything?
A woman wearing an apron and a hairnet knelt beside her, mouth moving.
What was she saying? Why didn’t she speak up?
The woman reached for Murphy’s bloody arm, pulling her to her feet.
She snatched up her phone from the rubble and stuffed it into her pocket.
Formula of Deception Page 15