Death Takes Passage #4

by Sue Henry

  “There’s no way this guy could have made his escape alone. Somebody got him out of those handcuffs, and it took a key. You can’t use bolt cutters on the new ones like you could on the old kind. There wasn’t time to do anything but unlock them. Somebody hit Ray, then got Carlson loose, and that somebody’s making sure he isn’t found. He had help, and still has, I think. Who? Why?”

  The officer from Petersburg nodded slowly, holding his cup for Carla, who was providing refills from a second fresh pot of coffee. They had emptied the first so fast that she accused them of carrying canteens.

  “I agree, but we haven’t found him. Where the hell is he? Could he possibly have made it off the ship somehow?”

  “I don’t believe it. I know he’s here someplace. Know it! We’ll start with staterooms next, but I think it’s a waste of time. We’ll give it an hour or so before we start, and catch some sleep ourselves. I hate to bother the passengers again. Let them wake up and go to breakfast, so Captain Kay can make an announcement to keep them from getting too rattled about it. I really didn’t think he’d try to hide in a stateroom—too much risk of an accidental outcry but we’ve looked everywhere else. At least he doesn’t still have that knife.”

  “Unless whoever turned him loose gave him another one.”

  “Yes, damnit. That’s possible. He knows how to use it, too.”

  They had looked everywhere they could think of, almost foot by foot—every stateroom, linen locker, generator room, on every deck—including crew quarters, and all their lockers. They took particular care in the engine room, with its huge, powerful engines, so noisy that they put on protective earmuffs before peering into, over, under, and around each and every corner and cranny. They searched it all, then went forward to the bow, where they did the same with the chain locker for the anchor. Even the bridge was thoroughly searched, and, through it all, no sign of Glen Carlson did they find.

  Jensen decided they would next have to look at the passengers’ staterooms. But a respite was definitely in order. He found an empty bed for Torenson in the crew quarters; when Jensen left him, Torenson was taking off his shoes, but leaving his firearm firmly buckled on as he lay down with a relieved sigh.

  On his own way to snatch an hour’s nap, Alex made another quick inspection of the engine valve—it had given no trouble during the night—then went back up the engine room stairs and stuck his head in to check on Ray McKimmey. He found him sitting up in his bunk, with a tray of breakfast on his knees, courtesy of Carla. From the color that had returned to his face and the hungry welcome he was giving his food, Alex could tell a little rest had done him a world of good.

  “Feeling better?” he asked, going on into the engineer’s quarters, which were narrow and included their own head with bath. They also had two bunks—one a Pullman that folded down from above.

  “Yes, thanks.” A forkful of eggs followed a large bite of jam-covered toast.

  “How’s your head?”

  Ray reached up one hand to gently prod the bandage on the back of his skull.

  “Not too bad, considering. The pills Doc Richards gave me helped, but spaced me out. I’ll stick with aspirin for now, unless it gets really bad. Everything aches, of course. For some reason, I feel like I fell down a flight of stairs.”

  “No kidding. Chin?”

  “Pills took care of that, too. Stitches pull a little. No big deal.”

  “You look like you’d been through a Golden Gloves exhibition, and you’ll look worse before you look better. But, you’ll be glad to hear that your valve behaved like a champ all night.”

  “Good. Maybe I finally managed to get it fixed yesterday.”

  Tired, Jensen slumped onto the single chair the room had to offer, and he leaned an elbow on a small dressing-table-chest-of-drawers piece of furniture across from McKimmey’s bunk.

  “Listen, Ray,” he said. “We’ve gone over every foot of this ship, except for the staterooms—which we will do next—and there’s no sign of Carlson. Got any ideas of a place we could possibly have missed? Some small corner, just large enough? You know the Spirit better than anyone aboard, even Captain Dave. I’m at my wit’s end, and I really think he’s still aboard somewhere.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do I think so?”

  “No, why would he still be on board? He could have gotten off in Petersburg as soon as we docked. Be a dope not to, given the chance. It’s possible. Cold swim, but short and possible. Did you check the outer doors on this deck, the lowest one?”

  “No, and at least one of them’s been opened and shut since then, but I’ll look.”

  The door was immediately outside the engineer’s quarters, so Jensen was only gone a minute or two. When he came back, he was shaking his head. The door was closed tight, and it was impossible to tell anything from it, except that it would have been difficult to close from outside and away from a dock. An accomplice, however, could have taken care of that.

  “I assumed he wouldn’t want to strand himself in a place he knew he’d have trouble getting away from—where everybody would know he was there and be on the lookout for him.”

  “How would he know that?”

  “Isn’t the crew familiar with the stops you make, even the places you usually pass?”

  “You’re forgetting, he’s not one of us. He’s a replacement. Never made this run, as far as I know. Might not even realize it was an island.”

  He was right. Alex sat staring at him and inwardly cursing his own tired forgetfulness and stupidity.

  “Dumb, dumb mistake,” he said shortly.

  “How could you know?”

  “You mentioned it when we caught him, for one. And I seem to remember it being referred to once before by somebody.”

  “Oh … well, something in passing …”

  “Confusion—none of this seems to fit together, but I don’t believe in this much coincidence. There’s got to be a link between some of the things that have been happening on and around this ship. I’ve never had a case where every piece is singular, isolated, making no picture at all—no edges to fit together.”

  “All the pieces for the thefts in the staterooms fit, now that you’ve caught Carlson, don’t they? Well, sort of caught him … I mean we know who the thief is.”

  “Maybe. But there has to be more than one person involved, from the look of it. We were assuming Carlson was the thief and that he was trying to get rid of the evidence.”

  “Would’ve been easier to toss it overboard. Why risk putting it back?”

  “That’s what the captain said … and Jessie. I have to agree. There has to be a reason that makes it important to put it back. And who beat up that guard? Is it related? Oh …” he stopped, thinking hard.

  “What?”

  “I’m so tired I’m stupid. I said just a few minutes ago that someone else had to let Carlson loose, because it had to have been done with a key to open the handcuffs. People don’t generally go around with the key to law enforcement cuffs. So, who would be most likely to carry that kind of key?”

  “Someone who also carried that kind of handcuffs?”

  “Right. And who on this ship?”

  “Got any kinky passengers?” Ray grinned.

  “I’m gonna ignore that one, thanks. Who else?”

  “Well, the captain has restraints, but I think they’re those new kind of plastic ones that lock by putting one end through a grip on the other, not real handcuffs. They’re unbreakable, and once you fasten them they have to be cut off.”

  “No good … who else?”

  “Oh … I see … yes. The guards for the gold. I’ve seen them on their uniforms, when they were wearing them,” Ray said slowly.

  Jensen nodded. “The guards of the gold. Anyone else you can think of?”

  “Not unless there’s another kind of officer aboard, undercover?”

  “Not likely. And who would know where we secured Carlson?”

  “Those of us involved in catching and tryin
g to question him?”

  “Well, unfortunately not just us. The whole crew must know—Carla did. And anyone else that we told—I told Jessie, for instance—or whoever they told. Anyone—crew, passengers—who saw us bring him down from the bridge. Could have been a number of people, too many to identify now.”

  “Including one of the guards from the gold room. There was one in the gangway when we came down.”

  “Where?”

  “The gangway … the hallway on Four Deck—this deck.”

  “Ah, insider names.”

  “Sorry. All the passageways are gangways to us. The decks that you call the Bridge, Upper, Lounge, or Main Deck, are One, Two, Three, or Four Deck to us, in that order, One Deck being the highest.”

  “So, there was a guard in the gangway on Four Deck?”

  “Right. The one that wasn’t beat up.”

  “Interesting. Guess I’d better have a talk with them. Now, again … any hiding places you can think of that we would have missed?”

  “Steerage?”

  “Got it.”

  “Chain locker?”

  “That, too.”

  “Linen storage on the upper decks?”

  “Yes.”

  McKimmey smiled. “Bet you even searched the captain’s quarters.”

  “We did.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Deadly.”

  “Let me think a while. I’ll let you know if … wait. This’s a long shot, but there’s a laundry chute.”

  “Laundry chute? Where?”

  “Starboard—all the way down from Two Deck to the hold. Comes out next to the gangway—stairs—that go down from the galley to food storage below, close to the laundry …” Unable to resist a bit of needling, “… that’s washer and dryer to you.”

  “Right!” Jensen grinned.

  “There’s also a port-side dumbwaiter that goes up to the galley.”

  “That, we got. But the laundry chute, we missed. Would he have a chance of hiding there? How big is it?”

  “Twelve, maybe eighteen inches wide. But it goes straight down. The only breaks are the doors to the chute on Two and Three. He couldn’t hide without something to hold onto … a line of some kind … and, then, only temporarily.”

  “But he could slide down and avoid us as we searched decks around him, right?”

  “Possibly. Wouldn’t be able to climb back up once he’d gone down, though.”

  “We started at the top, thinking he would get out of the hold as fast as possible, and might be inclined to go up. So, he could have waited, holding on at the doors, resting until he heard us coming, then going down another deck?”

  “Maybe. Or he could have climbed out on Two, while you were searching Three, or waited, holding that line, taking the chance you’d miss the chute, till you finished Two, or Three, and come out when you were gone. Let’s go see what we can find.”

  “I’ll go. You’re on sick call.”

  “The hell you say. Who came up with this?”

  “You did, but …”

  “No buts. I’m tired of being an invalid. When we’re through, I’ll go sweet-talk my engines. They get cantankerous when they miss me.”

  Already out of the bunk, Ray was pulling on clean coveralls.

  Jensen gave up.

  24

  6:30 A.M.

  Wednesday, July 16, 1997

  Spirit of ‘98

  Clarence Strait, inside Passage, Alaska

  IT WAS THERE—A LINE, TIED TO A BRACE ABOVE THE DOOR to the laundry chute—a thin piece of strong nylon cord of a kind that Jensen would have expected to see on a much smaller vessel. Hanging inside the narrow shaft, it disappeared into the dark. They hauled it up and found there was enough to reach the hold, but, of course, there was no way of telling if Carlson had gone down that far.

  “How the hell did you know? If I didn’t know whose side you were on …” Alex said to Ray, as he untied the line and took it to the rail, to examine it where the light was better.

  McKimmey just grinned. “Well, you said you’d looked everywhere else. At least now you won’t have to search the staterooms.”

  “Damn. He did it. Slipped around us, didn’t he?”

  “Sure looks like it.”

  “But staterooms or not, now the ship’s got to be searched all over again. Where did he get this?” He thought briefly of the blue and pink line they had found on the woman in Tracy Arm, and he reminded himself that he needed to call Commander Ivan Swift when they reached Ketchikan.

  “There’s some like that in a rope locker below. We’ve got all kinds for different uses. You never know what you’re going to need and it’s a long way to the nearest hardware store.”

  It certainly was.

  Jensen thought of the thousands of square miles of wilderness between the small points that constituted communities on the Alaskan and Canadian coast. It was no surprise that boats, even ships, vanished at times without a trace—nothing to mark their passing. The Pacific shores of some of these islands were periodically littered with flotsam that washed ashore; all that was left of disasters at sea. The old, traditional Japanese fishing floats—delicate green glass caught in a knotted web of slim line—that were picked up less and less frequently, now that the fishermen had discovered the modern magic of petroleum for ugly, shocking-pink replacements to support their nets-were a testament to the distance such things could travel. There were reasons for the courageous reputation of sailors, and many of the haunting tales of disappearances that they told were based in fact, not fiction.

  He glanced up at the engineer, who was standing casually, hands in the pockets of his coveralls, looking out across the water at the rounded shapes of distant island hills, deep green with morning sunlight on them, and waiting, comfortable in his silence. McKimmey was perhaps not obsessed with his engines, but one of the few who quite naturally fit the work they had found to do for themselves.

  He seemed focused on whatever subject he chose to talk about, and there was an appealing sense of humor that ran below his quiet, competent surface. But if you studied him for a few minutes as he went about whatever he was doing, you might notice that he had a slightly distracted air, a sense of being elsewhere, and might come to understand that this was an awareness with purpose. For he was always, subconsciously, listening to the voice of the Spirit—to the pulse of her engines speaking through the surface of her decks—to each sound and vibration of her structure in motion that was an indication of her welfare. He heard, felt, them all, and automatically filed them away. But let one beat of her regular rhythms reach his ears, the soles of his feet, or—if he was sleeping—shudder his bunk, off its timing, and he would be wide awake and listening intently, almost before he knew he was on his feet. He was, Alex thought, one of the true Sons of Martha: “… it is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock …”

  Where had that come from, and what was the rest of it? He couldn’t remember, but the phrase lingered and haunted him.

  This was not a totally unusual occurrence for Jensen; partly as a result of his father’s encouragement and appreciation of literature, he loved the cadences of some of the traditional poets—Service, Burns, Kipling, Keats, Longfellow, among others—and, thanks to his mother, many old ballads and folk songs, but he seldom clearly remembered more than a few lines, and those not always in the correct order.

  I am too tired to go at this any longer, he thought. I’m simply wandering around in my head—quoting Kipling, for God’s sake.

  “I’ve got to get some sleep, Ray, even a little.”

  “You’ve been up all night?”

  “Yeah, except for an hour or so before Petersburg. I’ll catch you later, okay? Don’t do any more than you have to, and get someone to spell you, off and on.”

  “I’ll do that, but let me give you one thing to think about. We’ll talk about it later. All right?”

  “Sure. Go ahead.”

  “Well, here�
��s an idea I can’t seem to let go of. I’m beginning to wonder exactly how and why Carlson got on board in the first place—at the last minute—no one else available. He volunteered—was right there handy to say, “I’ll go.” Could be that Steve’s accident wasn’t really an accident? But why? I can’t figure why, and it’s all reaching, a lot. Paranoia?”

  They looked at each other, both considering this concern.

  “Let me sleep. Then, yes, we’ll definitely talk about that one,” Alex told him. “It’s a whiz-bang of a thought and worth checking out. Let it ride long enough for me to get my brain back in gear. But it wouldn’t hurt to tell Captain Kay that I’d like to find out more about that accident, if you see him.”

  McKimmey nodded and headed for the engine room.

  Jensen walked slowly around to the port side of the ship, heading for the stateroom and a horizontal position on his bed, when he was stopped by Chuck Lovegren, who appeared suddenly, as if from nowhere.

  “Hey,” he demanded, laying a hand on Jensen’s arm to detain him. “I hear you got the guy that stole my money clip. Any cash on him?”

  “Mr. Lovegren,” Alex said to him, trying to think. Last night seemed so long ago, and he could feel a headache beginning just behind his eyes. There hadn’t been much sleep in the last forty-eight hours. “We’re not completely sure, sir.”

  “Not sure? About the cash, or the crook?”

  “You know we caught a man in your stateroom, with the clip. He had no cash on him at all. And we aren’t sure he was the actual thief, he seemed to be trying to put it back.”

  “Where is he? Maybe I’d recognize him.”

  “Ah … well, right now that’s a problem. You see …”

  When Alex woke and pulled the curtains aside to look out the window, they were coming into Ketchikan along the Tongass Narrows. It was almost ten o’clock—two hours later than the schedule had called for—and he was alone in the stateroom. Jessie, presumably, was on deck, watching the southernmost community of Southeastern Alaska grow in size as they approached. He quickly shaved, took a shower, and dressed to spend some time in town. There were things he had to do, and fast.