Demon Spirit, Devil Sea

by Charlene D'Avanzo

  “I’m on my way to the airport and don’t have much time. Could you quickly show me what’s here?”

  “Of course. I’m Marion. I volunteer here.”

  “Mara Tusconi. I’ve been kayaking around Kinuk with friends and I’m on my way home to the States.”

  She pushed aside a chair and walked to a wall decorated with traditional clothes. One item was a poncho-like cape. Next to it hung a skirt. Both were made of animal skin. A pair of moccasins lay on a little table along with beads and other small artifacts.

  “This year we’re focusing on Haida women. This little display gives us a chance to talk about the Haida matriarchy.”

  “I’d be very interested in that. What are the clothes made of?”

  “Deerskin. These are replicas, of course.”

  The cape was particularly striking. The cream-colored garment was decorated with hundreds of white shells, attached with bits of red ribbon. White fringe ran along the cape’s border.

  Sharon fingered a piece of fringe. “We’re doing this display because most historical depictions of First Peoples—what you call Native Americans—only show men in celebration garb. But women wore such clothes as well. Haida are a matrilineal people. The chiefs were men, but even that title was passed through the female line. The Eagle and Raven groups, they were matrimoieties.”

  A bright red V-shaped inset gave color to the cape’s front. I pointed to a large blue bead at the bottom of the V. “Wow. That’s a gorgeous blue.”

  “In the 1800s, bright beads from Venice, places like that, were highly prized along the Northwest coast. Especially blue ones.”

  “How did the beads get all the way out here?”

  “Traders. Back then, traders valued beads, furs, metal.” She laughed. “Now, traders deal with intangibles like stocks.”

  The room tipped sideways for a moment.

  Marion cocked her head to the side. “Are you okay?”

  I blinked. “You’ve been very generous with your time. I really appreciate it.”

  I passed through the visitor’s center, stepped outside, and checked my phone. In fifteen minutes, I absolutely had to head up to the airport. But before that, I needed to think. On one side of the building a bench beneath a tree was empty. A quiet spot. Perfect.

  I dropped my duffle onto the bench and sat next to it. The word “trader” echoed in my mind. Marion said fur traders had brought beads to the archipelago. Interesting. But someone else had used the term in a different way, one that was vitally important.

  I whispered it aloud. “Trader. Trader. Trader.” Glancing down road, I knew who it was. The waitress. She’d said William’s brother Richard was a trader. Okay. So what? I closed my eyes and tried to calm racing thoughts. Trade. Trade what? People traded things like the Haida did with their beads. No, not right. What else? Trade. Trade deals. I shook my head. Not even close.

  It came to me in a flash. Carbon Trading. Right after he had described William’s brother as rich banker, or something similar, Caleb had explained that carbon credits were traded on the international market like pork bellies, wheat, corn and all the rest. I didn’t make the connection then but did now.

  Richard was a trader and very competitive. He had to win. He and William were very different, and Richard probably saw William as a tree-hugger. But the iron project, that was something right up Richard’s alley. Lots of money to be made and an aggressive American entrepreneur to work with. Canada would be out front on carbon credits, a leader in international trading. Richard would make a ton of money

  I could see it all in my mind’s eye. Richard had heard about businessman Roger Grant’s geo-engineering scheme and saw the waters off BC as Canada’s chance to get the jump on marine carbon trading. Richard contacted Grant and told him about the Haida’s anger toward outsiders who’d taken everything from them. He explained that Grant could sell the iron project as the Haida’s alone, a way to make money for their people selling carbon credits with the added bonus of bountiful salmon runs. Richard had convinced William with praise about Roger Grant’s forward-looking ideas. The Haida would be seen as leaders in international carbon credits with a new way to fight climate change.

  I imagined that things went well at first. Tutored by Richard, Grant knew how to approach the Haida leaders, what to say, what not to say and do. William stepped forward as champion of the project. The first slurry experiment was a success. The ocean greened up. People on the archipelago were excited. But time went by and salmon runs were still thin. Then the UN sent in a team of scientists who questioned the whole idea of iron geo-engineering, carbon credits, and all the rest. William was swayed by the experts’ arguments, and it looked like he would vote against continuing the iron project.

  If he did, the iron fertilization project off Haida Gwaii would be dead.

  Dead. Could it possibly be that Richard had killed his brother to keep this scenario from playing out?

  Detectives apply three criteria in murder investigations. Motive. Means. Opportunity. I considered each one.

  Wildly lucrative carbon-credit trading could be Richard’s motive. Knowledge that his scheme was in jeopardy required inside information, but with all the family connections on the archipelago that wouldn’t be difficult. Means? Richard had fished off Haida Gwaii and could easily get out to the islands. He’d have visited Kinuk and knew the layout. Opportunity? That was more difficult. To do the deed Richard needed help. Someone he knew. Someone with access to William.

  I glanced at my watch. My suspicion of Richard was probably a crazy idea. Even if it wasn’t, I was about to leave the islands and couldn’t act on it. Sergeant Knapton seemed interested in false hellebore. Maybe he’d also be intrigued by the idea that Richard might be behind William’s death. I had nothing to lose by suggesting it.

  I picked up my phone, found his number, and went right to his voice mail. “Sergeant Knapton, it’s Mara Tusconi. I’ve got something important to tell you. I’m on my way to the Sandspit airport and will call again from there.”

  I was walking past the marina when my phone buzzed. Text message. I reached into my pants pocket and pulled it out.

  A message from Queen Charlotte Air.

  The plane scheduled to leave from the Sandspit airport at twelve noon had maintenance trouble. We arranged for a floatplane to fly you from Skidegate to Vancouver. Go to the Sandspit marina. A water taxi will pick you up and transport you to Skidegate.

  Skidegate was minutes away on the other side of the strait. But a floatplane all the way to Vancouver? I hoped the trip wouldn’t be too bumpy.

  Just as I arrived at the marina, a powerboat with a small cabin pulled up to one of the floating walkways. I was surprised to see Bart jump out and tie it off. He looked around and waved at me. I walked toward him.

  “Bart. Are you the water taxi? Pretty fancy boat.”

  Still in his T-shirt with cut-off sleeves, Bart wore jeans that weren’t ripped or dirty. It looked like he’d made an effort.

  The words came out rapid-fire. “Ah, it’s my cousin’s. He’s got the taxi business in Skidegate. I was there and knew what you looked like. He asked me to get you.”

  Cousin. Of course. Everyone had relatives in the archipelago.

  “Climb aboard. You can toss me the duffle.” He looked behind me.

  I glanced back. We were alone on the dock. “I’ve got it. Thanks.”

  Bart stood at a console in the middle of the boat, started the motor with a key, and pulled away. In the cabin, what appeared to be a man in a red jacket looked forward. Probably another passenger. We motored out of the marina and were well past any other boats before Bart kicked into high gear. The water was pretty calm, and I leaned back against a side railing.

  Bart swung the boat in the direction we’d come from early in the morning.

  I yelled, “Bart, isn’t Skidegate to the north?” I pointed over my shoulder. “Behind us?”

  The passenger turned around, slowly removed his sunglasses and poc
keted them, and strode toward me. “It is, but that’s not where we’re going.”

  21

  The guy studied me with cold, piercing eyes, like a raptor’s. Stunned, I knew the terror of a trapped animal.

  With a toss of my head, I stepped toward him. “You’re Richard.”

  “Ah. The brilliant Mara Tusconi figured that out. Thought you would.”

  What appeared as a graceful outline on William’s face was sharp and stone-hard on Richard’s. William’s chocolate eyes invited you in. Richard’s were unreadable, dirt-brown. With long, manicured fingers he stroked a beard so patchy I could see blotches of red where his skin showed through.

  “Richard, what are you doing?”

  “Taking care of business.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Actually, I think you do. That’s the problem, the business I have to take care of.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Where no one will find you.”

  He was deadly serious. My throat tightened. I had to keep him talking. That’d worked for me in the past when I’d faced a dangerous man.

  “Why?”

  He looked skyward. “Please. I’m not stupid, Dr. Know-it-all.”

  “I don’t think you are stupid,” I said. “But why you don’t you assume I am and tell me what’s going on here.”

  We’d reached open water, and the boat slammed through waves. Spray soaked my ponytail, and icy water ran down my neck.

  Out in the open, it was hard to converse. I raised my voice. “Could we talk up there in the cabin?”

  “Worried about getting wet? You’ll be plenty wet soon. Suppose so. Try anything, you’ll end up with a broken neck. I’m a black belt.”

  I held onto the gunwale and picked my way forward. The ocean was a confusion of green, white-capped waves. I considered jumping overboard. With no boat in sight and fifty-degree water, I’d die from hypothermia in minutes. Bad option.

  I reached the cabin.

  Richard said, “Stop there.”

  I lifted my chin. “Like I said, could you tell me what’s going on?”

  “Let’s not play games.”

  “You think I know something.”

  “I’m afraid you know pretty much everything.”

  “But how would—?” It hit me in a flash. Bart. Of course. How could I have been so incredibly dense! “Bart told you.”

  “Dr. Tusconi gets an A.”

  “Bart’s been spying on us?”

  “The longhouse has great acoustics. You can hear what people say from pretty much anywhere.”

  The night before last—when Ted, Harvey and I had tried to figure out who might want William dead—Bart would’ve heard an earful. Words and phrases ran around my brain.

  “Bart told you we’d figured out William was going to change his vote. We wondered if someone might care enough to stop him. So what?”

  He rubbed his stubby beard and cracked his jaw. “Besides that, you said your visit might’ve triggered William’s death. You had to figure out what happened to him. Said you owed William that.”

  “But—”

  “I read all about you, Dr. Tusconi, on the internet. How you solved the murder of that scientist in Maine. You’re clever, smart. Bart tells me you’re fierce, like a raven, he said. How you went after him with a vengeance over that kayak rudder. Even when you left the islands, you wouldn’t let this go. You’d easily find out who I was, what I did for a living. It’s not a big leap to the rest.”

  “But William had his whole life in front of him. He was your brother.”

  Richard looked past me. Coal black hair, skin pulled tight against the spectral face, empty eyes—this was malevolence.

  “William was weak, no vision, no spunk. Mamma’s boy. Dad despised him. The Haida fantasies—ancestral spirits, children’s myth stories—William bought all that crap.”

  Bart’s hands clenched the steering wheel. Nostrils flaring, he fixed steely eyes on Richard.

  “Think about it. The ocean’s huge,” Richard said. “Billions to be made in carbon credits. I had to be out front on it.”

  His indifference toward his flesh and blood sickened me.

  Richard swiveled around to look through the cabin window. “Bart. Turn here.”

  Bart hesitated.

  “Now,” Richard snapped.

  Bart clenched his teeth and turned the wheel hard. The boat raced toward a narrow inlet. Unlike the rest of the archipelago, we approached what looked like a low-lying swampland. It reminded me of the Everglades where I’d canoed. There, boaters who failed to exactly follow signposts got helplessly lost in a maze of intersecting mangrove-bordered rivers. If the Haida swampland was anything like that, a lost soul would never be found.

  Richard acted the guide. “Different from the rest of Haida Gwaii, isn’t it? Unless you know where you’re going, you get completely turned around.”

  We entered the swamp maze, and the boat skimmed over flat water. Richard went out on deck and barked directions. Bart turned to port at one intersection, port again at the next, starboard, port. The route was as twisted as Richard’s mind.

  Bart called out, “Gas is gettin’ low.”

  Richard snarled, “You should’ve put more in.”

  “Didn’t know it was so far in here.”

  The forest was like nothing I’d ever seen. Tall, straight, skinny trees along the water’s edge sprouted only a few stumps of branches, each shrouded in bright green moss like gangrene limbs. Behind them, yellow-green hummocks cloaked with more moss appeared to be smoldering remains of dead trees. The forest beyond looked dense and impenetrable.

  A soggy landscape as foreign as any I’d experienced.

  In his fancy red offshore jacket, jeans, and boat shoes, Richard took in the scenery like this was a nature trip. But I knew this was an enemy with a mission, certain he could carry it off without a hitch. There would be no flaws in his plan to get rid of me. Only luck and my cunning would save me. I sent a prayer to my parents.

  Richard looked me up and down. The hair on my neck stood at attention “You’re clever, Dr. Scientist, and persistent as hell. You’d make a good trader.”

  I gave him the best pique I could muster. “I don’t care about money.”

  “Then you’re a loser, just like William. Save nature, save the world.” Richard pointed to a beach on a point ahead. “Bart. There.”

  Bart steered in that direction. Richard squinted down at the water for a minute, then ordered Bart to cut the motor and throw out an anchor. I stepped onto the deck and scanned the scene. We were at least a thousand feet from shore, a straight shot ahead. Roughly the same distance to starboard, a volcanic rock dome stuck out of the water and blocked the view of the shoreline beyond.

  The anchor caught, and the boat stopped swinging. Richard looked skyward. “It’s getting darker. Wind’s picking up. Bad weather’s coming faster than I thought. First bitter storm of the year. Big storm. Without protection, the cold will kill you.”

  Cold. Why did it always have to be cold?

  “Bart, check her pockets for a phone or anything useful like that.”

  Bart patted my pockets, reached into the left one, and pulled out my phone.

  “Toss it overboard.”

  Bart threw the phone far off the port side. I nearly let out a squeal as it disappeared beneath the water.

  “Pat her down again so you don’t miss anything.”

  Bart winced but did what he was told. “Nothing.”

  Richard smiled like the Cheshire cat. “Mara, overboard. Do it, or Bart will throw you in.”

  Straight ahead to the beach was a fairly easy swim—in warm water and a bathing suit. Of course, Richard would watch to make sure I didn’t make it.

  22

  I jumped into the Haida sea and rocketed down.

  The vicious cold hit me like a bare-fisted punch. I was encased in water so intensely frigid it felt red-hot. Bitter spikes pierced my naked face.

&n
bsp; Despite the pain, or maybe because of it, I didn’t black out. Feet on the bottom, I forced myself to focus and look up.

  Forget the cold. Beat the bastard.

  The boat loomed overhead, motor in the back, starboard to my right. Richard would assume I’d take the shortest route to shore—straight ahead in front of the bow. Instead, I would turn away from the boat in the direction of the rock outcrop—and swim underwater most of the way.

  Soaking wet, my fleece pullover and pants were weights that pulled me down. I swiveled and breast-stroked underwater.

  Adrenaline kicked in.

  The water was gin-clear. Scattered clusters of thick kelp lay across the surface. After a half-dozen strokes, I kicked to the surface directly below a kelp clump, stuck my face in seaweed, sucked in some air, submerged, and breast-stroked again. Clothed, I pulled through molasses.

  Surfacing through the kelp the fourth time, I took in air with gasping gulps. Petrified Richard could hear, I twisted to check out the boat. The motor was going. Good. No way they’d hear anything over that.

  I went under again but came up after only two strokes, panting like a panicked dog. My heart thumped so hard and fast I was sure it’d burst through my shirt.

  Hypothermia. Get the hell out of the water.

  The rock loomed directly in front of me. I kicked to it, grabbed attached kelp, and hand over hand, pulled myself to the other side. Out of Richard’s sight.

  I sucked air in quick gasps. My pullover made treading water harder. I pulled it off and threw it to the side. Land was a direct shot.

  I pictured Angelo on the beach. Had to get to him.

  I lay on my belly and tried to swim. My tennis shoes kept my feet afloat, so that helped. But with all four appendages frozen stumps, I could only manage to shove my arms forward, one at a time. Sloggy dog-paddle.

  Shove right. Left. Right. Left.

  A little closer to shore.

  My limbs were heavy weights. Seawater pulled at my arms like they were in glue. Warmth spread across my body. I desperately wanted to lie on my back, look up at the sky, and sleep.