Friday harbor, p.26
Friday Harbor, page 26
FORTY-SIX
Miles and Floyd caught the first steamer to Friday Harbor the next morning—which that day happened to be a vessel called the SS Rhododendron, running an irregular route that included stops at Langley and Coupeville on Whidbey Island. It was a longer ride, but would still get them to Friday Harbor a full hour before the later-departing Bangor. As always, Floyd sat facing an inner wall and tried to imagine that he was somewhere else.
They made good time as far as Coupeville. But their luck ran out with the steamer entering a dense fogbank as it skirted Swinomish tribal waters and began its turn westward toward the Juan de Fuca Strait. A sudden softening of the engine noise got both men's attention as the captain slowed the vessel down.
"Fog," Floyd muttered, having allowed himself a brief and fearful glance over his shoulder and out the window. "Holy hell."
It was the worst possible spot to hit fog, as they were approaching Deception Pass—a treacherous, narrow channel in which countless vessels had wrecked throughout the years. So named by the great British explorer George Vancouver himself, it was barely 400 feet wide, lined on both sides with jagged cliffs and submerged reefs. The ever-dark, ever-cold ebb and flood tides raced through it with such speed that there were visible rapids, roiling eddies, and whirlpools one might expect to see on a wild river pouring out of the Cascade Mountains. In short, Deception Pass could be a challenge to navigate even on a clear day.
Miles's wounded skull still throbbed with a pain made worse by the deep vibrations of the ship's engines. He was still light-headed, and his mind whirled with dark and anxious thoughts of the two young Chinese girls whose corpses awaited their examination, of who might have sent the men who'd attacked them in Seattle, of the imminent danger of a foggy passage through Deception Pass, and of Marion's looming departure to New York. His heart suddenly pounding, he felt an overwhelming need for fresh air. He rose, slow and ponderous, to his feet, then made his way to the nearest door to the outside deck, leaving a visibly terrified Floyd doubled over on a bench with his hands clasped over the back of his head, no doubt praying for a swift end to their predicament.
The steamer had slowed to a crawl, with crewmen taking up lookout positions on either side of the bow and flying bridge. The captain began to sound the ship's whistle every twenty or thirty seconds. Miles knew that in doing so, a captain who was familiar with the route could, in theory, determine his position through echolocation. He also knew that, in general, Puget Sound steamship captains were renowned for their great skill in navigating blind. But echolocation wasn't an exact science—given variations in how echoes bounced off cliffs, low shorelines, trees, and whatnot—and ships trying to navigate by it were wrecked in the Pacific Northwest every year.
The whistle blew and Miles counted in his head—one, two, three—knowing that sound travelled at just over 1,000 feet per second at sea level, so that an echo that took two seconds to return meant the shore was roughly 1,000 feet away. So far, so good—the echo took over three seconds to bounce back. But as they steamed on, the echoes came back fast and faster. Two seconds. A second and a half. Miles strained his eyes to see through the dense fog, but couldn't make out a thing through the wall of white. That meant the crewmen couldn't either.
All at once, Miles realized that he'd completely lost his bearings. The vessel could be heading north, south, east, or west—toward a beach, a reef, or open water. He had no idea. It was an unnerving sensation, and he realized, with a surge of despondency, that it more or less mirrored how he felt about the investigation. It seemed everything that happened—every witness interview they conducted, every scrap of evidence they found, every bit of news they received—brought confusion instead of clarity. No answers. Only more questions.
In a brief telephone conversation with Bill that morning, he'd come to learn that the two dead Chinese girls had washed ashore at Hanbury Point, near Roche Harbor and just across Haro Strait from D'Arcy Island. According to Bill, Dr. Boren's initial examination of the bodies indicated that they'd been in the water for several days. Each had been shot in the chest and had their bellies slashed open with some sort of blade.
So now they had three men and a mentally deranged child gone missing, as well as three bodies washed ashore, all in the span of a single week. It was beyond unprecedented in Miles's knowledge of San Juan Island history. It was freakish.
His focus was shattered by indecipherable shouting between an officer on the flying bridge and the port side bow lookout. The Rhododendron's whistle rang out once more, and was this time answered by an echo barely half a second later. More shouting. Louder shouting. And the vessel turned hard to starboard.
"Holy cow," Miles said out loud, grabbing for the deck railing to steady himself as the ship listed with the turn. He stared and stared, expecting to see a massive rock formation looming in the fog. A reef that might tear the hull open and sink the ship. Might end his life. Might send his remains to the cold, dark bottom to slowly decompose or serve as food for Dungeness crab. Then, as suddenly as they'd seemed destined for disaster, the ship emerged from the fogbank and into the clear air of a sunny autumn day. A small rocky island stood a couple hundred feet off the port side. And the chasm of Deception Pass itself loomed maybe half a mile off their bow. The tide was slack. The water calm. The ship's engines rumbled as she resumed her normal speed.
Realizing he'd live to see another day, Miles took a deep and satisfying breath of the crisp marine air and returned to the passenger cabin where he found Floyd still doubled over on his bench.
"Floyd, you doing alright there, buddy?"
"Yuh."
"See that little island off the port side? That Seattle-Bellingham boat, SS Kulshan, ran aground there about ten or twelve years ago. Remember? What a mess that was."
His story drew a miserable glare from Floyd.
"For that matter, you ever heard of Ben Ure or Pirate Kelly?" Miles asked.
"Nuh."
"Years ago, Ure and Kelly used that island as a base for their notorious smuggling operation. They made a fortune bringing in illegal Chinese laborers."
Miles recalled that Ure, in particular, was known to be a cold-hearted son of a bitch who would tie the Chinese up in burlap sacks, claiming it was to hide them in case they were boarded by the Coast Guard. But in truth, if pursued, Ure would just toss the bags overboard to get rid of the evidence. A few days later, the drowned Chinese, still in their burlap sacks, would start washing up on the nearby islands.
Miles gazed out the windows at Deception Pass. "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
"Whuh?" Floyd mumbled.
"It's an expression I learned in France during the war. 'The more things change, the more they stay the same.'"
FORTY-SEVEN
The next thing Miles knew, he was blinking to clear his blurry eyes, laying on his back in what appeared to be a doctor's examination room, his head cradled in Sylvia Rosen's lap.
"Hold still," she said, bent over him, seeming to concentrate on his forehead.
"Where am I?"
"You don't remember getting taken off the boat?"
"What boat?"
"You're in Dr. Boren's office."
"What?"
"Ashton says you started looking pale and dizzy while you were crossing the Juan de Fuca Strait. Then, when you stood up to go to the lavatory, the ship rolled on a big swell and you fell on your face. Out cold. You had to be carried off the boat, while the aquaphobic Floyd, looking like he was going to have a coronary, nearly knocked an old lady off the gangplank trying to get to dry land. An impressive pair, you two."
"What's that smell?"
"They wheeled you up here in a fishy wheelbarrow."
"Jeez!"
"All the while, your bug-eyed, terrified populace was shouting questions at you about the bodies that washed ashore."
"While I was being carried home in a dirty wheelbarrow. How considerate."
"They're just scared. Anyway, I don't suppose you remember repeatedly asking me what Marion's issue was as we rolled you up here."
"Oh, no!"
"Oh, yes. What's her issue, Sylvia? Tell me, Sylvia. Please. What is it? Over and over again, like a drunk."
"Just let me die here."
"I'm afraid you're destined to survive. But you lost a fair amount of blood out of this head wound. And you probably have a mild concussion from your dramatic fall, if not from your tussle in Seattle. Anyway, I'm sewing you up, so stay still unless you want a needle in the eye. If you're a good boy, you can have a cookie afterward."
"Really?"
"No."
Miles moaned weakly. "Please don't tell Marion."
She smiled. "I won't. But listen—when we're done here, I actually do recommend you eat something with a bit of sugar. And salt. Then drink water. We can't have your blood pressure dropping on you again. Heaven knows what compromising position we might find you in the next time this happens."
"At least they didn't find me in the lavatory."
"That would have made for a good story. Sheriff Scott found on the pot, the San Juan Islander reports."
If he weren't so troubled and miserable, Miles might have smiled. "Where does Boren have the two bodies that washed ashore?"
"As a matter of fact, they're in tin livestock watering troughs full of ice in the next room, patiently awaiting your examination. But you're not going anywhere until I finish closing this wound, so just hold your horses. How did you get into a tussle, anyway? Insult one of those barrel-chested longshoremen?"
"We got jumped by goons."
"Whose goons?"
"An excellent question. Unfortunately, circumstances dictated that we race home before being able to investigate."
"You've had quite a week, Miles."
"You said it." Miles tried to relax as she pulled another stitch through the loose flaps of skin on his head. Her face hovering directly over his own, he found himself studying her. He wasn't a fan of short hair on women. And there was nothing he would describe as particularly delicate about her features. But her face nevertheless exuded something he could only think to regard as lovely strength. Indeed, she was, in her way, undeniably beautiful. Strong, poised, and beautiful. It might have been her poise that most impressed him.
"Sylvia, are you real?" he asked.
"What on earth do you mean?"
"You seem so normal."
"Ha. Wrong."
"And undisturbed."
"Well, thanks, I think. But I'm not quite sure I understand what you're—"
"You worked in a surgical field hospital during the Battle of the Marne."
"Oh, now I get it. You're wondering whether I'm pretending that I'm not a traumatized, shattered soul. Well, for similar reasons, I could probably ask the same question of you."
"Definitely an act in my case."
"It makes you feel so utterly powerless, doesn't it? Seeing it up close. War and disease and death in such magnitude. You feel so completely insignificant in the face of it all."
"And yet, having seen the worst of war, how is it that you're so—I don't know—sound?"
"Women have stronger minds than men. Everybody knows that."
Miles smiled. "I don't doubt it. But that doesn't really help me."
"You're asking for my help?"
He shrugged. "Why not?"
"I told you before, you should talk about it."
"What do you mean? Talk about it how?"
"Articulate exactly what happened. Tell the story of your trauma."
"Why? Why would I ever want to revisit it?"
"Because, Miles, every time you tell the story, the memories lose a little bit of their power over you. They become a little less overwhelming. A little less frightening. A little less painful. This is an oversimplification, but you can sort of think of it like diving from the high platform at the pool. At first, it's terrifying. But do it enough times, and it becomes less and less of an ordeal."
"You're desensitized," he said.
"In effect, yes. And you don't even have to tell the story to people. You can tell it to the wind. You can tell it in your mind. But tell it, every day. Then one day you'll wake up and realize that it doesn't have quite the same grip on you as it once did. That you're starting to feel better. Starting to feel human again."
"It's just that easy, huh?"
"Easy? No. It takes a long time. It takes courage and dedication. But it works. It worked for me."
He looked doubtful. "You come up with this on your own?"
"No. My father is a professor of psychology at Brandeis."
A quiet moment passed as Sylvia put two more stitches in his head.
"When I was giving you the tetanus serum injection the other day," she said, "you were about to tell me about something that disturbed you profoundly."
"Was I?"
"It was about unloading a box and carrying it to an enclosure out behind a field hospital, wasn't it? Out the back door, by the garbage bins and incinerator?"
Miles met her eyes, then gave a reluctant nod.
"Well?" she asked. "What did you see?"
A crate, he thought without speaking.
The room seemed to darken around him. As if he'd entered a long tunnel.
A crate, he thought again as his memories took flight.
The image was crystal clear in his mind's eye. A muddy, roofless area enclosed by a tall, leaning wood plank wall. A distant column of black smoke rising into the darkening orange-grey sky. Air that smelled of blood, burning wood, kerosene, black mud, and rotting garbage. A blood-smeared leather apron of the sort used by butchers, hanging on a hook by the back door. A half-empty can of fuel oil on the ground below the open hatch of the incinerator that glowed red from within. A hospital window smashed out and boarded over. The wood at the bottom of the back door frame already rotting. Everything in a state of decay. Especially the contents of the crate. The large wooden crate standing next to the incinerator. The crate full of amputated body parts. So many that they were overflowing. Mutilated arms and legs. Hands. Feet. Smashed and shattered and torn. All of them covered with swarming blackflies. Thrown away like offal in a butcher shop. Like garbage. Waiting to be burned in the incinerator. And there was one, in particular—a colorless, amputated arm, its hand leaning out from the top of the crate, its index finger extended and pointing at the ground. At the deep, dark, soggy mud. As if it were trying to tell him something. Warning him that inevitably, one day, his own remains would be burned and scattered upon or buried under the mud. Or that maybe, in the end, all he was was mud.
Then, a dirty, gaunt, expressionless orderly had come out the back door. And with a brown cigarette hanging from his mouth, wearing his own bloody brown leather butcher's apron, with no apparent emotion at all, he'd started throwing the limbs, one-by-one, into the incinerator like it was nothing to him.
Miles had seen human carnage before. But this time it had been different. He didn't know why. He remembered not being able to breathe. Feeling as though he'd just been told some dark and terrible and undeniable secret. A secret that he'd always known, deep down, but had been able to ignore until then. And with it had come a terrible surge of anxiety, so powerful and enduring that it still haunted him, years later.
"Don't want to tell me?" Sylvia asked, still waiting.
He smiled a sad smile. "Maybe another time."
She nodded. "Okay."
He looked away from her, then said, "I'm glad to know you, Sylvia."
"I'm glad to know you too, Miles."
FORTY-EIGHT
"You sure you want to do this right now," Floyd asked as Miles, holding a small cloth-wrapped block of ice to his head, lumbered into the examination room where Floyd and Dr. Boren were already scrutinizing one of the girl's bodies on a stainless steel gurney while the other waited in a tin trough full of ice. Bill stood back in a corner of the room, looking disgusted but doing his best to stay out of the way.
"At least take a chair, Miles, won't you?" Dr. Boren said.
"I'm fine. A little dizzy is all."
"You look like death," Floyd said.
"That makes three of us," he said, nodding at the bloated and colorless bodies as he approached for a closer look, grabbing the corner of the gurney for support. Both bodies still had fragments of seaweed stuck in their long, dark hair. Their mouths were trussed with cheek retractors to reveal poorly cared for teeth and blackened tongues. The eyelids of the body on the gurney were held wide open by ophthalmic speculums. Its irises were clouded over. Milky.
What struck Miles first was how young they were. And how slight and fragile-looking. They were just girls. Boney, malnourished girls. He wondered what sort of diseased slum or starving village they might have come from. Wherever it was—assuming they hadn't been kidnapped or sold into slavery—the poverty or hardship or terror had been bad enough to drive them from their families, friends, and country, clear across the vast and merciless Pacific Ocean, in an attempt to settle in a completely foreign and sometimes hostile land on the far side of the world. Probably not unlike what drove Miles's own ancestors to the New World. But now here they were, shot and sliced open, discolored and rotting. They hadn't made it. Everything they and their descendants could have been in America was lost.
"My thoughts drift back to our interview with the Chinese Peace Society," Miles said in a slow and somber voice. "Those old men staring at us. Impassive. Feigning ignorance. Feigning innocence. Playing us for fools."
"A deceitful race," Bill muttered from his shadowy corner.
Miles took a deep breath. "Fill me in, Doctor Boren, if you'd be so kind."
"You're looking at two East Asian girls in their mid-teens," Boren said. "Their bodies were spotted out near Hanbury Point by the crew of a workboat heading into Roche Harbor. They'd washed up about forty yards apart. Dead at least three days. Probably longer. Assuming they've been in the water most of that time, the colder temperatures would have slowed the rate of decomposition."
