Death in dutch harbor, p.4
Death in Dutch Harbor, page 4
“Suit up and get on deck for cargo transfer. And make sure the oil rig crew are out of their staterooms and ready to move to the rig.” He hung the microphone on its hook and slowed the boat to five knots.
The sun hugged the northern horizon. It wouldn’t be long before it didn’t show itself again until February. The perpetual night would swallow the oil rig into three months of darkness. Only the crackling whip of the northern lights across the sky and the ignited gas burps of oil rigs would lighten the winter’s polar eclipse.
Seeing that the crew was on deck outfitted in insulated, tractor-red work suits, he reached for the overhead microphone again.
“After we transfer the oil rig crew, we’ll start with the machinery modules in the stern and work our way forward, so check the strapping and prepare them for the rig’s crane.”
The phone rang.
“Cape Chirikof wheelhouse, Stokes here,” he answered, expecting it to be a call from the oil rig.
Instead, it was the police chief, Ray St. George.
“Yes, Chief St. George, this is Rob Stokes…” Perspiration dampened his hairline. “No, I’m not in Dutch. I’m in the Chukchi Sea pulling up to an oil rig.”
He slowed the vessel to three knots.
“Is something wrong?”
Listening to the chief’s response, Rob’s face relaxed. “My brother? What’s Ben got himself into now?”
He was used to his brother spending the night in jail. One-Eye had long ago transitioned from being a deckhand to a hopeless addict. But when the Cape Chirikof was in town, he generally showed up for a meal and some cash.
“Dead?” Rob choked it out.
He’d been bracing himself for this possibility for years, but he felt dizzy now as if slammed in the head.
His chin quivered. “What happened?”
Rob slowed the engine to an idle. The boat began to drift in the swells as he learned the fate of his younger brother, Benjamin One-Eye Stokes, found dead on the beach with sea lions.
He stood up. “Murdered?”
When Ben was younger, he’d worked as a crew member on the Cape Chirikof. Those were the days when king crab was king and ruled the docks from Dutch Harbor to Kodiak. But king crab had fallen from its throne, losing its feisty grip on thick wads of cash and gold nugget watches. Specially designed, the watch clock faces were framed by carefully crafted fourteen-carat gold king crabs. Those monied days, like gold strikes, were gone now, making the storied watches a rare sight.
Rob still owned his gold nugget watch but had nearly lost the Cape Chirikof to a wave of debt. So far, he hadn’t had to sell the watch or the boat. The oil rig charter had been the life ring that saved the boat. But debt still strained its ability to stay afloat.
Rob could see the oil rig crane poised to reach down and secure the cargo from the approaching Cape Chirikof. He could see the crew on the rolling deck below looking up at the wheelhouse.
“Chief St. George, I’m gonna have to call you back after I make this delivery.” He hung up the satellite phone and engaged the engine to move the boat under the rig deck high above.
The transfer of cargo progressed smoothly and oil rig crew heading back to Dutch Harbor boarded the boat. All the time he wondered why his brother had died. Ben, who had lived so far out on the edge for so long, murdered. Why?
Rob’s attention moved to a module that had been lowered onto the deck. It was loaded with garbage destined for the Dutch Harbor landfill.
Still wearing a work suit, a crew member climbed the deck ladder to the bridge and swung open the metal door. Cold air rushed into the wheelhouse. Rob turned toward him.
The thuggish man closed the door and studied Rob’s face before speaking.
“You look bad,” he said, using words thick with a Russian accent. Not waiting for a response, he reached into his coverall pocket. “Here.” He threw a brown bag at the captain.
Stretching his hand to grab it in midair, Rob’s eyes never left the man.
“Ben is dead, Viktor.”
“Drugs kill, yes?”
“He was murdered.”
Viktor said nothing.
Rob’s eyes grew dark. “Did you kill him?”
Viktor walked with the hunched shoulders of a surly boxer until he was in the captain’s face. His meaty forefinger poked Rob’s chest. “Not kill brother.”
He stepped back and folded his thick arms. “No more drug debts to pay for One-Eye,” he said, looking at the brown bag. “More money for you.”
“Get out!”
Giving Rob a mock salute, Viktor headed downstairs to the galley.
Standing at the array of wheelhouse windows, pain contorted Rob’s face. Tears blurred his vision as he moved the vessel from beneath the rig toward the open sea. Clear of its shadow, Rob leaned out the starboard window, grabbed his wool cap, and tossed it toward the sea. It fluttered in an updraft of wind, then fell to land on a disc of ice. The cap lay limp, rising and falling with the motion of the sea.
Chapter 5
The morning sun was barely up when Maureen and CoCo stopped to catch their breath after a run that ended at Azalea’s Café. The parking lot was already packed with pickup trucks, most bearing rusty bruises where they’d been battered by bad weather and salty air. Azalea’s had the best eggs in town, pancake stacks a mile high, and homemade yogurt. And it was dog friendly, like most places in town.
Pushing the door open, she saw Blackie Maguire, the harbormaster, sitting in the far corner where he held court most mornings. He waved her over.
CoCo ambled ahead of Maureen, eager to find her place under Blackie’s hand. He gave her ears a warm rub. “You are one big dog, CoCo.” He patted her back and looked at Maureen, who’d pulled up a seat.
“Why is your shepherd so much bigger than mine?”
“Born in a place where they’re bred to be big.” She showed him the tattoo on CoCo’s ear, indicating she’d been trained in Budapest. “A police dog with a mysterious past.” She laughed. “But she understands English, even your brogue, Blackie.”
A waitress swung by with two mugs of coffee. She looked at Maureen and Blackie. No order pad, just hands on her hips. “The usual?” she said, looking from one to the other.
Their heads nodded. “Thanks, Sparky,” they said in unison.
Blackie blew on the steaming cup of coffee. “So, water temperature?”
“Yeah, you know we found One-Eye Ben washed up on the beach last week. I’m trying to get a better read on when he died. To do that, I need a solid read on water temperature in Captains Bay.”
Blackie sipped coffee from beneath a handlebar mustache so white it looked like walrus tusks. Then he pulled a folded paper from his chest pocket. He pushed it toward her. “Forty-one degrees,” he said. “We monitor the air and water temperature regularly. Big tides flush the bay with incoming ocean seas, so the temperature is colder than you might think.”
Maureen nodded. “I thought he’d been dead at least two days. But with a water temperature of forty-one degrees, I’m inclined to think it was longer.”
“I suspect you’ll be wanting me to think about the comings and goings of boats around that time. And I have. The troopers called me yesterday and asked what I might have seen two days before he was found.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I had Marcus send them the manifest of vessels that were in town two days before you found him.”
“Is it too much to ask for a list of vessels in town four days before we found him?”
He set his mug on the table and folded his arms across his chest.
She shrugged, knowing it was a big ask.
“Templeton sends his best, by the way,” Blackie said.
The black and tan shepherd was almost always at the harbormaster’s side but not today. He was recovering from a broken leg Maureen had set last week.
“Glad to hear it. He’s a youngster and should be running up and down the docks in no time.”
Sparky swung by, dropping off their breakfast. She slipped CoCo a Milk Bone.
Blackie perked-up when a plate of eggs and bacon nested in a mountain of home fries came to rest on the checkered tablecloth in front of him. He frowned at Maureen’s plate. “Yogurt and fruit, eh? Are you some kind of health nut, Mo?” He looked at her as if he found this difficult to believe.
“Got to balance out my beer consumption, Blackie.” She looked at his paunch and smiled.
He laughed and rubbed his belly. “Glad to see you’re acknowledging the beauty of it.”
They were flirting with the third cup of coffee poured when Maureen asked whether there was anyone she might speak to about goings-on at the far end of Captains Bay.
“Well, there’s Mrs. Pynchon, who lives out on Levashef Island. She’s not as daft as they say. But she’s not got a phone and doesn’t much care for company.” He stirred his coffee slowly, looking at it like he was weighing whether or not a third cup would do more harm than good.
“She’s got a small dock that’s barely big enough for that monster skiff of hers.” He dropped the spoon in the mug. “And there’s a couple of tender tie-off buoys down at that end of the bay.”
When Maureen started to speak, Blackie raised his hand and interrupted her. “I know. I know. You want the name of any cargo vessels tied to the buoys for the four days preceding the date you found One Eye. Come by the office and work with Marcus. He’ll get you what you need.”
Maureen was about to thank him when his hand flew up again. “Yes, I know. I’ll send a copy to the chief too.”
That’s when Marla Mancuso entered the café. With an MBA earned at an East Coast university, she’d managed the Amchitka Shipping Company for several years. People wondered what brought a woman like Marla to Dutch and kept her there.
There’s a joke played on greenhorn fishermen shipping out to Dutch for the first time. They’re told there’s a woman behind every tree. It doesn’t take long for them to notice that the vast expanse of ocean and mountains are unobstructed by trees. Only a handful of Sitka spruce remain standing from a Russian colony’s tree planting effort in 1805. The six stunted trees comprise a small city park just up the road from Azalea’s. So, yeah, there’s at least a woman for all six trees in Dutch, and Marla is the most striking.
Standing at the front counter sporting a red parka, blue jeans, and cowboy boots, she smiled at them. Maureen heard she’d dated Arlo once but that it had ended long ago. When she asked Arlo about it, he shrugged it off.
“Smart girl,” Blackie said, waving Marla over to join them.
When she arrived, he gestured toward an empty seat at the table. “Pull up a chair,” he said.
Noting they both seemed done with their breakfast, Marla said she’d come for just a scone and coffee. “Please don’t let me hold you up. I have brought my reading material.”
Marla dropped a copy of the Anchorage News on the table and pointed to the headline above the front-page fold. “The price of oil jumped to over one hundred dollars a barrel this week. If it holds, I expect we’ll see more interest in exploratory oil drilling in the Chukchi Sea.”
A change in oil prices affects pocketbooks everywhere. But in Alaska, where most of state operating budget is funded by oil royalties, those revenues build roads and schools, fund agencies, and generally keep the lights on around the state.
“Hey,” said an energized Blackie. “All that new revenue to state coffers might translate into an expanded city dock.” He turned to Marla with a mischievous grin. “With all your oil rig support vessels we’ve had to accommodate this year, we could use more dock space.”
Without bothering to take an order, Sparky delivered a mug of coffee and a blueberry scone to the table.
Marla was quick to bring the mug to her lips. She looked first at Maureen and then at Blackie. “So, what are you two up to? I hope I’m not interrupting a meeting?”
“Mo’s helping the chief investigate the murder of One-Eye. She asked me for the water temperature readings in Captains Bay so she can better estimate his time of death.”
Marla set her mug down. She looked at Maureen, who was doing her best to conceal her agitation with Blackie for sharing this information.
“Really?” said Marla. “I didn’t know you were involved in police work, Mo.”
“I’m not. The chief asked me to help him out on this small task. Nothing I’d call police work.”
“I heard around town that One-Eye may have been murdered. Any clues about who might have killed him?”
“The investigation is just getting underway.”
Marla’s lips opened as if she were considering another question but fell shut as if knowing another query was best left alone.
Blackie looked from one woman to the other. “Whoa, I haven’t stepped in it, I hope.”
“Nah,” said Maureen, making light of it. “But I’m the vet lady, not the lady detective.”
They all laughed. Then, like everyone else in the café, they complained about the unseasonably warm weather.
“It truly sucks,” Blackie said.
****
Nights later, the ocean rolled beneath a starry sky. A boat rode with it, its planks sighing in the gentle breeze. Above the boat, shimmering sheets of sapphire trailed off to meet the black horizon. Casey lit a cigarette and strode toward the stern. To him, the northern lights made the desolate ocean buffer between Alaska and Russia seem less empty.
A gust of wind caused sea spray to pelt his orange rain gear jacket and blue jeans. Passing a crane, Casey stopped alongside a crab pot that provided some shelter. He licked the salty sea spray from his lips. It was gritty and sweet. It felt romantic and, somehow, heroic. Yes, he thought, nodding his youthful bearded face, he was heroic.
He’d stumbled into a thicket of crime. It was not the environmental regulatory violations he’d hoped to uncover with his investigation. That would take more time. It was a tangled mess that had ensnared him personally. It was toxic enough that it might launch newspaper headlines and a public relations nightmare for the oil company. That excited him, but he would not use his discovery to make headlines. He took a long drag from his cigarette. He had a better plan, even if somewhat tarnished by blackmail. He’d use the money to help fund an end to offshore drilling and overfishing. Heroic stuff. Letting loose a trail of smoke rings, he grinned at the prospect. He knew he wouldn’t be the first to do good by doing bad. His smile broadened beneath the starry sky as he turned to see whose hand had reached for his shoulder.
The smile slid from Casey’s face when a fist rocketed toward him. He raised his forearm to block the punch and threw one of his own that landed on the chest of his attacker. Another punch came at him, an uppercut that rocked his chin skyward and sent him reeling until he hit the railing.
The man in green rain gear, a hood obscuring his face, walked purposefully toward Casey. He threw a punch to the right side of Casey’s bearded face, followed by a pounding blow to the left side. It sent Casey down to the deck fast and hard. His head slammed back onto the base of the crane. Crack. His body went limp.
The man in green gear bent down and grabbed Casey by the collar. Yanking the kid’s face toward his own, he shook him. He cursed the kid and hollered at him to wake up. But when the body responded like a rag doll, he dropped him. He felt for a pulse. Nothing. Looking out from beneath his hood, the man’s eyes settled on the six-by-six foot crab pot.
The body was heavy. The man struggled to drag it to the pot’s edge. Opening the pot door, he stuffed Casey inside and latched it closed. His fingers grabbed the pot webbing to take a last look at the kid’s battered face. Finally, he turned away to take charge of the crane controls. The crane lifted the six-hundred-pound cage easily. The metal arm carried it high above deck and lowered it into the pot launcher on the starboard side. He watched it heave the pot over the side until the kid in the cage was swallowed by the sea.
Unknown to him, a face watched from the wheelhouse window above.
Chapter 6
Marcus was peculiar. Dressed in the clothes of a mechanic, he looked up from behind the counter when Maureen pushed open the door to the harbormaster’s office. Running a hand through his rangy, carrot-red hair, he mumbled out of the side of his mouth.
“Morning, Doc.”
“Hey, Marcus.”
Everyone called him Marcus because he’d once worked in the Marcus Shipyard in Seattle. He talked about the vessels he helped build like they were his kids and checked up on them when they were tied up in town.
“Blackie told me to have our skiff waiting for you.” He reached for one of the keys hanging on the wall behind him. “I’ll walk you down.”
They stopped at the first finger of the dock, the one closest to the harbormaster’s office. Tied to the dock was a skiff with a large console at its center. Marcus stepped into it and reached to give Maureen a hand.
“Blackie says you know how to use it.” He opened the console and held up a radio. “Give me a holler if you get stuck.” Then he handed over the keys, giving her a squirrelly look.
“Thanks, Marcus,” she said, dropping her knapsack under the seat.
“Gonna see the witch, huh?”
Maureen turned on the ignition. Marcus leaped onto the dock. The engine rumbled to life.
“Yep.”
****
Maureen’s hair whipped in the wind as she powered past the harbor buoy and steered the skiff toward the head of Captains Bay. Blackie had lent her the boat after a skirmish of words about it being a reckless venture for her to tangle with Mrs. Pynchon. But persistence pays off, she thought. She throttled the boat up to fifteen knots, allowing it to skim across the cobalt surface of gentle waves. Ben’s time of death was a tangled mess that needed fixing. And she wanted to be the one to sort it out because the state police didn’t seem to be giving the death of a drug addict much priority. And, yeah, it was personal too. She thought she was right.
As she drove deeper into the bay, she heard sea lions barking on Swallow Reef. A buoy on its east side would guide her away from the dangerous shoals. Levashef Island would be a short hop from there.
