Maternal Harbor

by Marie F. Martin

  “You’re in a right smart attitude.” Fiona dropped eggshells into a two pound coffee can and glanced at him. “Would you quit watching me like I’m gonna drop dead in my tracks.”

  A long drawn out sigh escaped Bryan. He allowed his disgust with TJ to annoy Fiona. “I’m sorry,” he said and meant it. He didn’t want to give her undue stress.

  She kept her back to him. Shoulders stiff, she flipped pancakes.

  Bryan rubbed the bridge of his angular nose. “Am I going to get the silent treatment from you too?”

  She glanced back at him. “I don’t think TJ is ready to tell us what happened. Give him time. Pressuring won’t help.”

  And what about the pressure you’re putting on me? Bryan pushed away the selfish thought. “I will wait for his confession only because I want it to be his idea.”

  “Confession? See what I mean. You got him strung up already.”

  “Grandma, don’t you realize we’re aiding and abetting a fugitive?”

  “Nonsense.” The hot platter of bacon and eggs clattered when she shoved them to the back of the stove to keep warm. “Go call him.”

  “He’ll come back when he’s ready.”

  “Quit snarling around. You agreed to help him.” Fiona’s snapping eyes conflicted sharply with the lines around her mouth and the pallor of her skin. The veins on the backs of her hands were purplish and appeared bruised.

  Bryan wanted to hold her, fight her disease with his own strength. Instead, he rose and walked out the door to find a kid with . . . what kind of a problem?

  Thoughts of the mouth-watering breakfast cooling on the stove pushed Bryan into a jog. He increased his speed and the crisp fall air burned his cheeks, foggy breath whipped back at him. His footsteps squished into the muddy trail and made sucking sounds each time his heels left the gumbo soil. Casting shadows, the morning sun dappled through the dense forest and strained his eyes. He squinted as the pristine river broke into view.

  TJ wasn’t in the water.

  Bryan stopped, listening to the forest sounds: water lapped on the rocky shore, a pair of ravens cawed in the top of a birch, and a pine squirrel scolded both him and the birds. He strained to hear any sound that didn’t fit, like a snapping twig or clinking against rocks. Nothing. He hurried across the river rocks to the shoreline and searched the bank. The used bar of soap lay on a raised boulder a few feet from shore. The swift current swept downstream, then boiled near a bend.

  “Looking for my floating corpse?” TJ asked behind him.

  “Fiona expects you to bring back the soap and to be at the breakfast table before the eggs freeze.” Bryan strode away before TJ could respond.

  Soon TJ’s footfalls thudded on the trail behind him.

  I should demand to know what kind of criminal I’m harboring, Bryan thought. And how many years in prison it might cost. Fiona’s request to help TJ stilled his tongue.

  “Give me some cash and I’m outa here,” TJ said when he caught up.

  Bryan halted and turned. “You think I owe you something?”

  “I’m your guest, remember?” The cast of TJ’s expression and stature belied the sarcasm. He appeared afraid and bewildered, like he’d stepped into a maze with no idea of how he’d gotten inside, or how to get out.

  “Where’s your family?” Bryan asked in a way that conveyed concern, yet demanded a no nonsense answer.

  “At home.”

  Bryan walked away before he punched him. He’d go check in with Fiona, and then leave her to deal with TJ while he went for a hike. A silent mountainside might keep him from exploding. Might not.

  The moment he opened the cabin door Bryan smelled the sweet smoke of marijuana. Curled in Grandpa’s chair, Fiona was smoking a small clay pipe.

  She gazed at him. “Eggs are cold.”

  “I have a criminal on my hands and you’re smoking pot?”

  “You said to bring my medicine.” She wiggled the pipe at him. “This is it.”

  “I’m going for a hike.”

  “Don’t let the door hit you in the butt.” Fiona leaned back and closed her eyes.

  Caught between the exhaustion written on Fiona’s features and the look of shocked pity on TJ’s face, Bryan collapsed in a chair. “Grandma, I don’t understand,” he finally said. “One moment you’re the sweet grandmother I remember, then you’re like some old hippie or something.”

  She grinned without opening her eyes. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, a little of each generation rubs off. You could use some of the sixties’ mentality right now.” She opened her eyes. “You two better reheat your breakfast and go settle things between you. I need a nap.”

  Chapter 24

  “Erica!” Someone called as she walked away from the computer island at West Precinct. She ignored her co-worker and kept going. Another time she might stop and exchange lies, but now every instinct was geared to locating Teagan O’Riley. The bitch escaped with the boys. Derek’s boys. Not Teagan’s, not Doretta’s, not Pai’s, but Derek’s. The door closed behind her and she strode down the hallway, narrow hips moving like a prime cougar, feline, powerful and on the hunt.

  A deep bite mark stung under the uniform’s long sleeve and she massaged it. Damn that black whore. Yes, Iska, I know what the demon’s of hell are doing right now. She deserves it for marking my face. You know, it took an hour to cover the bruises with Mother’s makeup. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice, or thought it strange to be wearing long sleeves. Late last night, she burned, piece by piece, the panty hose, skirt, blouse, and slip. Father’s eyes watched from the mantel. He mocked her mother’s clothing, making fun of the wig’s honey blonde strands and the jacket’s blood red stains. Tempted to chuck his portrait onto the heap of burning clothes, she flipped it face down instead.

  Outside the precinct, Erica tipped her hat forward to guard against a chilly downpour and ran through the officer’s parking lot. She jumped into her squad car and a cramp hit her leg right under the deep contusion caused by Doretta’s knee jab. Sore, damp and groaning, she stretched back against the headrest.

  “Iska, what am I to do?”

  The unheeding feline was far away.

  Erica licked the tips of her fingers and then preened her fingernails one by one.

  The only lead produced by the computer search was a title for a trawler. Teagan might hole up on board. She was too smart to show her face around the fish market. “Smarter than I gave her credit for.” A bitter smile creased Erica’s lips. She admired any woman owning a business and a child with no man to mess it up.

  Go find the damned boat. Meowing because it was her own thought, Erica cruised for Salmon Bay.

  “Iska, hear me. Teagan ran with Derek’s babies!”

  Iska snubbed her.

  Erica had a half notion to confide to Freyja and let another feline deal with the self-righteous ways of Iska.

  It’s time to see Uncle Ragnar.

  “Well where the hell have you been?”

  Uncle Ragnar.

  “Don’t yammer. I know my great uncle still spends time at the Fishermen’s Terminal.” Erica sped through the exchange onto Emerson and ignored the speed limit until she screeched to a stop in the access area of the loading docks.

  A flock of gulls squalled overhead and the breeze carried the distinct smell of bay water. She straightened her duty belt, adjusted her sunglasses, and focused on a group of old salts checking ships harbored in the port. They stood near a freighter watching a crane lower cargo onto the pier. A huge yellow forklift with enormous tires lifted a container, spun and lowered it onto an empty eighteen-wheeler.

  Uncle Ragnar stood to one side gossiping with a bowed man leaning on a cane. The erectness of Ragnar’s stance told Erica he was rehashing some grand story of his fishing years, and he verified the truth of it by stretching to his full height. He was the only relative she remotely cared about. The others drove her wild with their constant family birthday parties, weddings, or baby showers for some distant cous
ins. She couldn’t abide their insipid chatter and long Scandinavian hair. They needed to toughen up.

  Ragnar noticed her and waved his loose-skinned hand. He clenched the stub of a stogie in his fingers, and the butt of a new one rose from his flannel shirt pocket. He separated from his cronies and ambled to her.

  Erica smelled the cigar smoke when he approached. Her nose wrinkled at the violation of the waterfront air.

  “Which wharf rat you come to arrest?” Ragnar spoke in a crystal clear voice.

  He shouldn’t have a throat left, she thought, let alone a voice box resonating pure tenor. “When are you going to quit?”

  “The cigars? On the same day you turn in your badge and get married. Not much chance of that, huh?” He puffed at the stub and his eyes wandered over to the other men. “Of course, they wanna know what a cop wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day wants with me.”

  Erica followed his glance. Ball caps tipped back and windbreakers stretched across potbellies. They kept their heads turned, looking at the ships, the gulls, or the solid pier, anywhere except at Erica and Ragnar. Her attention returned to her uncle’s weather-checked face that resembled sun-baked clay. “You know Teagan O’Riley?”

  “Know her captain better. Big Irishman called Mac.” Ragnar spit a piece of tobacco leaf from his bottom lip. “Mac left port at sun up.”

  Erica forced her tone to stay level. “Notice any passengers?”

  “Never seen any, but he arrived in some beat-up pickup instead of his Buick. I’ll show ya.” Ragnar lumbered across the docking area and pointed out a Ford pickup in the workers’ lot.

  “That’s Teagan’s truck,” Erica said. “But you knew that.”

  A sly grin spread across his face. “I wanted an excuse to get you away from all those big ears.”

  “I knew they were listening.”

  “Of course, but it’ll drive ‘em crazy trying to figure out what we’re up to.”

  Erica exhaled. “What are we up to?”

  “Driving ‘em nuts.”

  Despite herself, Erica laughed. It had been so long that the mirth tasted strange, like someone else enjoyed it. Startled at the gaiety, she quickly frowned. “Mac have a last name?”

  “Macallister. What’s he done?”

  “If I tell you, can you keep your mouth shut?”

  “No.” Ragnar licked his lips, smacked them a couple of times, and glanced at his cronies. “Think they’ve had enough?”

  “I need info on Teagan.”

  “She used to hang around here as a kid. I remember she worked in Alaska on a salmon trawler. She came back and opened a fish market. Mac sells fish to her.”

  “What about friends?”

  “The gal’s a loner.” Ragnar nodded at his cronies. “They’re gonna be mighty interested in what crime Mac committed.”

  “Aiding and abetting a fugitive.”

  “And Teagan?”

  Erica heard faint high-pitched mewing. It came from a silver movement in the bay water. A pair of seals surfaced and disappeared. Every twenty yards or so, they’d show their happy selves again as they swam north.

  Derek’s playing alone.

  Ragnar touched her arm. “What’s the matter?”

  Erica stepped away from his hand. “Thanks for the help.”

  Ragnar called after her, “Hilda is having a party for her great-granddaughter. We’ll see you tonight?”

  “I have to work,” she called without turning and moved down the dock, listening to the gulls screech; they mimicked the noises that sizzled inside her: Teagan, Buick, boys−where, where, where?

  Find out.

  Deep breaths and zeroing her focus on a crack in the cement cooled Erica’s volatile state. Mania once again controlled, she realized it’d be easy enough to track Macallister’s full name and slip his Buick’s license plate number onto the Attempt to Apprehend order that Detective Lutavosky put out on Teagan. If Teagan stayed on the road, it would only take a matter of time before Jimmy, Levi, and Charlie would be safely tucked away in a foster home.

  What if the Irish bitch went underground?

  “Iska, trust me. I’ll check out Charlie’s father.”

  Erica lifted her hat and swiped her hand through her hot bristly hair to the back of her neck. She flicked sweaty moisture from her fingers.

  Chapter 25

  Detective Lutavosky ambled through the parking garage to the exit. “Billy,” he said to the attendant. “Your boss is making a fortune off people who need to park. Why didn’t you and me build this place?”

  Billy shook his head and clicked the corner of his lips. “Because neither of us have a damn dime.”

  “You have that right.” Lute climbed two steep blocks of Capitol Hill, feeling the effects of restless sleep. Ms. Johnson’s crime scene and Ms. O’Riley’s empty condo ran in his mind like slow motion replay. He just couldn’t set it aside. It still played bit by bit as he shoved through the street entrance of the Public Safety Building and worked his way around the crowd waiting to pass between the security monitor.

  The elevator stopped at the homicide division. Lute checked messages at his cubicle, nothing important, and then he traipsed to the captain’s office.

  “Wondered when you’d show,” Captain Morgan said without looking up from his stack of folders. “Anything new on the Sanders’ case?”

  “Last night another young mother was killed. Her baby is missing. So is Teagan O’Riley, her baby, and the Sanders’ baby.”

  Morgan puckered like he’d just tasted vinegar. “Don’t tell me that. And quit towering over me. Sit down.”

  Lute usually felt humble about his height and tried not to impose it on others, but he paused at Morgan’s remark, wondering what prompted it. The influence of Hal’s constant cynicism might be at work. Lute remained standing. “I believe Ms. O’Riley is on the run or holed up with the infants. We have an Attempt to Apprehend on her.”

  “Possible serial?”

  “Could be. The common factor seems to be O’Riley.”

  “She’s the perpetrator?”

  Lute’s right shoulder twitched and resettled into his natural posture. “My guess is she’s protecting the babies.”

  Hal breezed into the office. “Then why didn’t she bring the kiddies here? I think she has some buyer for them.” He plopped into a chair. “The broad is mixed up in something. Ain’t normal to be friendly with two women and both of them end up dead with their babies missing.”

  “Good God,” Morgan groaned. “Who’s taking care of media relations?”

  “Nobody yet,” Lute answered.

  “You handle it and tell them nothing.”

  “I’ll talk to ‘em,” Hal said.

  “You keep your mouth shut. I don’t want every young mother in this city on our doorstep scared that her baby is going to be snatched.”

  Hal slid into a deeper slump, pouting like a chastised kid.

  “And,” Captain Morgan continued, “I want those babies located before every overworked investigator for CPS is skewered for not watching out for the infants of this city.”

  “That’s my point,” Hal spoke up. “Three infants and a woman are missing. That doesn’t just happen. It’s plain as day that Ms. O’Riley is up to her neck in it.” His brows dove together and he stared straight at his partner.

  Lute’s dander rose at the look in Hal’s eyes, but he bit back some choice words. “Ms. O’Riley probably needs our help.”

  Captain Morgan half rose and braced himself with stiff arms on his desk top. “Stop wasting anger. Use it to find those babies, now.” He focused on Hal. “Remember, keep your opinions among us until we find out what the hell is going on.”

  Hallelujah, Lute shouted silently. Hal being told to shut up was an unexpected bonus in a depressing world. He walked back to his desk with a little spring back in his steps. Still smiling, he punched in the numbers for the King County Medical Examiner’s office, and asked for the assistant assigned to Doretta Johnson’s ca
se. When he heard the throaty voice of Assistant M.E. James, he wondered again, why she chose a career dissecting cadavers. “What’s the prelims on the Johnson case?” he asked.

  “Multiple superficial wounds. Death was caused by a deep cut to the throat. We’re testing residue from the teeth and nails now.”

  “Teeth?”

  “She bit someone real bad. We’re running preliminary DNA.”

  “Let me know as soon as you can.”

  Lute tipped his chair back and stared at the ceiling. He needed more names. Who knew Teagan O’Riley besides her employee at the fish market and Doretta Johnson’s mother? Just a minute, he thought. Teagan said she knew Erica Thorburn. He spun his Rolodex and dialed Erica’s cell phone. He left a message. He also left standing orders with dispatch for her to call him on his cell and strode to the elevators. The doors slid. Just before they closed a hand reached in and held them open.

  Hal stepped inside. “I’m tied up with the DA’s office this morning,” he said as they descended.

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m on my way to see some people. And I’m going to visit with Erica Thorburn. I just remembered she knew the two victims and Teagan O’Riley. Seems they all went to the same birth clinic.”

  Hal pondered that. “No sense talking about babies to an officer who just lost one. Can’t see that she’d know anything.”

  Hal’s apparent compassion surprised Lute. “Maybe not, but she might know names for us to check.”

  The elevator stopped at the third floor and the door whispered open. A harried woman with two teenage girls entered. “Street floor for us,” she said. They huddled together talking as if the men were non-existent.

  Hal leaned closer to Lute’s ear and whispered, “Did you ever learn which officer visited the Sanders’ woman on the day she died?”

  Lute discreetly shook his head.

  Hal snorted. “Didn’t figure you would,” he blurted loudly. “I talked to some of the guys about easy females at the apartment complex, but nobody knew zilch. I’ll bet one of the boys in blue is doing a great job covering up his play time.”