Rogue Wave (22 page)

He had lied about hiring Delaney. What other fictions had he created, what errant paths had he suggested? She remembered their first meeting about the case. Olsen had been so earnest. She couldn’t believe he was a good enough actor to stage a scene like that. And couldn’t think of a reason why he should.

But if he hadn’t hired the thugs and chosen to disappear—and those options didn’t make sense—then there was no getting around the fact that Skip Olsen was missing against his will. Kidnapped in a city where he’d made enemies on the dock and maybe worse ones on the police force.

She climbed back up the staircase to the Jeep, picturing Olsen tied up, lying on his bad hip, his sciatic nerve shrieking down his leg.

The phone was ringing when Kiernan opened the motel door twenty minutes later.

“This is your office calling,” Tchernak announced. “You know there’s no point in leaving call-back messages if you don’t answer your phones.” After Cummings’s down-home voice, Tchernak’s deep tones sounded bearlike. She could hear Ezra’s groan of canine pleasure in the background. Tchernak must be scratching behind his ears.

“He
misses you. He spent all day moping in your office, your
former
kitchen. And you know he doesn’t approve of that reconstruction.”

“That modem and printer buy his dog food. Or they would if you hadn’t spoiled him so he turns up his snout at kibble.”

“Hey, hey. You wait!” Tchernak snapped. “Sorry, I was talking to
him.
But you probably figured that.”

“It was one of the options.” She laughed. “You did good, Tchernak. If you weren’t destined to be a media star, I’d co-opt you for the world of crime.”

“Always willing to help. Macho presence at your back.”

Kiernan hesitated. Tchernak had been intrigued with the idea of investigating since the day he moved in. Her job had been a major selling point of his agreeing to be employed by her. No case had been concluded without his eager offer to stake out, to infiltrate, to intimidate with his looming presence. A houseman’s place is in the home, she’d insisted: cleaning, cooking, shopping, dog walking! You don’t spend all night cramped in the Triumph watching an entryway door that never opens, and come home and create a decent soufflé! She’d said it all before. Now she sighed and said, “Okay.”

“Okay?” He was clearly amazed. “Does this mean you’re hiring me on?”

“Tentatively. I’m going to need a bodyguard.”

“You’re in danger!”

Kiernan laughed at the outrage in his voice. “Tchernak, what kind of work do you think I do? There’s always danger. But it’s not me I need guarded. It’s Olsen,
if
I can find him so you can guard him. See if you can get here first thing in the morning. Now let me speak to
him.”

The great slurp told her Ezra was on the phone.

It was 8:35 when she hung up. The motel room seemed emptier, shabbier. Like a cell, locked. “Damn,” she muttered, as she realized how relieved she vas that Tchernak was coming. “Damn, damn!” She missed him. She missed the easy comfort of his presence. And she resented his hold on her emotions. She wasn’t likely to fall into the hole Maureen Brant had, but by wanting Tchernak here, she wasn’t free either.

She tried to push thoughts of Ezra from her mind. She didn’t want to think of Tchernak dropping
him
off at a cell. Tchernak always swore Ezra didn’t mind the kennel, but Kiernan knew otherwise. When she got home Ezra would rush up, licking her cheeks and arms, wagging his tail, and leaping like a Chihuahua. But in those big brown eyes would be the unmistakable sign of hurt.

She dialed Olsen one last time. Again his machine answered. Slowly she put down the phone. She had done nothing but complain about him, but in an odd, baffling way she was fond of the guy. He reminded her of the old, overstuffed chair she’d moved from house to house. It ruined the look of her living room in La Jolla; she couldn’t make a good case for keeping it, but she couldn’t bring herself to haul it to the dump either. As for Olsen, she didn’t feel quite the fondness for him as she did for the chair, but she didn’t want to think of him lying helpless in pain somewhere either. He’d insisted on going to the Wharf yesterday. There’d been ample time for him to come home. Now she was going to have to spend the night tracking him down.

T
HE AREA AROUND
F
ISHERMAN’S
Wharf was uncharacteristically deserted for quarter to ten at night. Cold and rain were never attractive qualities to tourists, and only the hardiest would still be considering the T-shirts or souvenir shops. With the rain and fog closing in, few regulars would head out into the Pacific tomorrow. It was the perfect place to hide a kidnap victim.

In the dim light, the wharf looked even shabbier than it had before dawn yesterday. Across the street the rain beat discarded bags and paper plates into gray slime. Behind it, the tacky shops seemed drabber than usual. Brine from the salt air had caked onto their plastic signs; it gave a scabrous look to the red and orange letters. The rain ran down the signs in rivulets, leaving a trail of dirt from the gutters above.

Kiernan pulled up the hood of her slicker and headed across the street to the wharf proper. The restaurants and huge storage building that enclosed the acre of docks loomed larger and the docks looked more out of place than ever: reality consumed by its own hype. To imagine the wharf as real meant keeping her head down, looking at the gray, seasoned planks, smelling the briny water, and listening to the soft whine of mooring lines pulling taut and the single sea lion baying in chorus with the foghorn.

The center dock was slippery. Most of the berths were dark. If the deckhands were on the boats, they were sleeping. But Ben Pedersen was awake and on board. Odd for ten at night. Through the misted-over window, Kiernan could see him sitting in his luncheonettelike cabin, writing on a yellow pad.

“Hello, Ben! Can I come on board?” Kiernan called through the steamy window. Pedersen looked more bearlike than she remembered—a wily bear, one who’d survived many winters and outwitted more than a few hunters.

Pedersen wiped clear a circle of glass. He squinted through it, his bearded face wary. “So what have you found out?” It was more of a challenge than an inquiry.

She climbed onto the boat. From the radio came the rumble of desultory conversation. The cabin was little warmer than the open deck behind it. Pedersen was seated on the bench farthest in, his back to the wheelhouse. He turned the yellow pad facedown, and without asking filled a second mug of coffee and slid it toward her. “So?” he insisted.

Taking off her slicker, she slipped onto the bench facing him, pleased to be closest to the door. “I need some help and some advice.”

“Yeah?” he said, clearly making no commitment.

“Skip Olsen—plump, pallid guy with a limp—was on the dock asking question a few weeks ago. He talked to Robin until she wouldn’t talk anymore. After she died, he was back asking about her. The last time he was here he got someone angry enough to smash his windshield. This time he didn’t come home.”

Pedersen leaned against the bench, staring down at his cup. The coffee sloshed back and forth against the sides, mimicking the rock of the boat. “You working with him?”

“He’s working for me. Do you know him?”

It was a moment before Pedersen said, “I heard there was a gimp getting pushy. Word I got was your friend used to be a cop and he’s still got a cop’s sensibilities. Not everyone on the dock sees the cops as protectors of the peace.”

Olsen’s ability to annoy was impressive. “He’s missing. I’m worried about him.” When Pedersen didn’t respond, she said,

“He said he was coming down here yesterday. What do you think happened to him?”

“Skip, that his name? I haven’t heard anything.” The lines of his face were pulled downward. And the expression in his eyes? Not just suspicion, but fear. Pedersen was lying, she was sure of it.

She took a swallow of coffee and said, “But what do you think? I don’t want him lying tied up inside that storehouse over there for days.”

Pedersen laughed. “No chance of that. The restaurants store their nonperishables in there, guys on the dock got gear in there. Guys are running in and out all the time.” He shook his head. “Look, a while back I got the newest temperature indicator, good to a tenth of a degree; I didn’t mention it to anyone—if it didn’t work out I wanted to be able to return it without anyone ribbing me about ‘electronic captains.’ I stored it in that warehouse overnight, and before dawn half the guys were offering to help me install it
and
get a free look. That’s how private it is. So don’t imagine you could hide a man there.”

The boat lurched to the right and back again. Kiernan grabbed for her cup and looked out behind her at the dark, deserted slips, across the wharf to the empty sidewalks. In the silence the foghorn seemed louder, the radio chatter sharper. “I’m relieved,” she said. “Or at least I think I am. If he’s not there where could he be?”

“Who’d he have the blow-up with?” His eyes took on that same wary look.

Who was it Pedersen suspected—and feared? She’d seen enough of him to know a direct question would be useless. Instead, she said, “No clue. Skip knew he’d been treading on someone’s arches when he saw his shattered windshield. But isn’t that the type of tale that would make the rounds here?”

“You’d think.”

She waited, looking through the misted window at the shifting gray shapes outside.

Pedersen was running his fingers down his beard again.

Decision hair, she thought. “Like I said, Kiernan, I haven’t heard anything. But maybe it’s not as bad as you’re imagining. Your line of work, it must lead you to suspect the worst.”

“But if the worst is true, where would he be?”

Pedersen pointed down.

“If he’s
alive,
where?”

“I can’t help you with that. Good advice is: be careful. If an ex-cop can’t protect himself, what chance do you think you have? His windshield got smashed; if I were you I’d keep my Jeep out of here.”

She stood up and braced her feet against the sway. “Ben, how’d you know I had a Jeep?”

He smiled stiffly. “Saw you get out of it.”

She looked across the docks to the street. “It’s not visible from here.”

I

“I’m not padlocked to the boat.”

“You’re also not wet. So how did you know?”

His thick hands tightened on his mug. He shrugged. “Okay, you got me. I made it my business. I asked around. I like to know who’s on the docks.” Smiling, he added, “Particularly if they’re pretty ladies.”

She smiled, one as forced as his. “Okay, just let me ask you one more thing. If I told you Carlos Delaney was a PI, what would you guess he was trying to uncover?”

Pedersen sat back. “Sonuvabitch! Delaney? He was nosing around here, too? Did he work for you, too? What are you, the biggest employer in town?”

“No.” Unbidden she pictured Delaney on the slab. “If I’d known him before I saw what’s left of his face, I’d be a whole lot more upset about his death.”

The boat rocked. Kiernan looked outside, checking for a passing boat she missed, but no one on the wharf was leaving port this late on a cold, rainy night. She said, “Ben, now that you know about Delaney, think about Robin again. Did you notice any recent changes? Was she all of a sudden more nervous? More rushed?”

“Robin was rushed all the time. But, wait, I was talking to her a couple of days before she died. She was angry, scattered, complained about her deckhand, but”—he sighed and shook his head—“I just laughed it off. Bitching about her deckhands was Robin’s way of blowing off steam. I used to think she always picked a donkey so she’d have an ass to kick.”

“Were her complaints different this time?”

He didn’t answer. Finally, he said, “I’ll have to give that more thought.”

“Would you be surprised if she knew about Delaney then?”

“No. I’d be surprised if a guy worked with Robin for a month and she
didn’t
know.” He slammed his foot to the deck. “Look, I don’t know anything about it. I saw Delaney every day and didn’t catch on to him.” He turned momentarily and stared out at the empty docks. “Sorry. It’s just that you’re a little like Robin, and I still wake up nights thinking of her lying there on the bottom. But Kiernan, if I do get any good ideas, I’ll let you know. You got a card?”

“At home. Here, I’ll just write down Olsen’s number. You can reach me through him.”

“Or so you hope?”

She handed him the paper, put on her slicker and made her way across the rough gray surface of the boat.

“Be careful,” Pedersen called as she stepped from the boat to the stairs. “Water’s cold this time of year.”

She pulled up her hood and headed along the slip. Rain was beating down on the pier and the hood protected only part of her face. Knowing it was ridiculous, she eyed each boat for signs of Olsen as she passed, stepped under the restaurant overhang at the inside end of the pier and looked suspiciously at the storage building. The block-long, gray, windowless structure might be Grand Central Station during the day, but at ten-thirty on a rainy night they could hide a train the length of the California Zephyr in there.

Despite Ben Pedersen’s protest, it looked like a perfect place to stash Olsen.

T
HE BOAT WASN’T ROCKING
, was it? Skip Olsen was too numb to tell. But it was cold, Jesus, cold as a witch’s tit. He opened his eyes, but he couldn’t see anything except blackness dotted with points of light.

His throat was wadded with dust, or sand, or … He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t yell up at the specks—stars?—for help.

Car tires squealed in the distance. A horn blared. Where the hell was he? Not inside a boat any longer, that was for sure.

He couldn’t feel at all. He wasn’t dead, was he?

No. He could still smell. They said that was the last sensation to go. The smell of pigeon shit, brine and rot clogged his nose. He was going to retch. But he couldn’t move his throat. Christ, he was lying in it, in water up to his collarbone.

Icy rain was running down inside the collar he couldn’t adjust, down into the freezing pool in which he lay.