A Killing Tide (13 page)

"Do I? I'm asking a lot of questions, but no one's giving me any answers."

"You were gone a long time."

"I'm still part of this community, dammit."

"Give it time—the guys will come around. You've already made a difference on the insurance and other stuff you've helped the guys with, and they know it. But people are slow to trust around here in recent years."

Kaz stared out across the river, her hands on her hips. "Yeah, well, time's up. Gary needs help
right now
, and you guys aren't exactly riding to his rescue."

"Has it occurred to you that the best thing you can do is to stay out of it?"

"I don't believe that."

Bjorn fiddled with the netting on a crab pot, then seemed to come to a decision. "The rumors are true," he said in a low voice.

Kaz felt a chill ripple down her spine. "What rumors?"

"Some of these guys are involved. You've got to stay out of it, Kaz. You could be in real danger. Let the cops handle it."

"Who's involved?"

"No way. Even if I knew for sure, I wouldn't tell you. I won't be the cause of you ending up badly hurt, or worse, dead. Ken was
killed,
Kaz. And these guys think he was murdered to send a message."

"Is Gary involved?" she asked, her voice harsh with urgency. "Do you know what Ken was into?"

Bjorn shook his head. "Look, I've already said more than I should have. I'll check your crab pots for you, if you want. That's all I can do, for now."

She stared at him, frustrated, then shook her head. "I'm scheduled to go out tomorrow, but thanks for the offer."

Kaz turned to make the return trip to Lucy's 4x4, then veered toward the
Anna Marie
instead. When Chapman noticed her approach
,
he came over to the dockside railing. Silhouetted against the late afternoon light with his face in the shadows, he looked every inch the tough investigator—hard, maybe even a little dangerous. This was a man who kept going until he got the answers he wanted, no matter how long it took or who got in his way. Normally, she appreciated—even respected—that kind of tenacity. Normally.

Something stirred within her at the sight of him. She ruthlessly squelched it. No sane woman would ever get involved with a man like Chapman. He was carrying around a boatload of baggage, just like she was. That alone made him someone she should be wary of. And if he decided to, he could put Gary away for life.

"I need to come on board to start assessing the damage, make a plan for repairs," she told him, taking the offensive.

He shook his head. "Not an option. The boat is still a crime scene."

She stared across the river, trying to control her runaway emotions. So far, the day had little to recommend it. And she was having a hard time, all of the sudden, holding it together. Maybe she was still suffering from the effects of smoke inhalation. That might be why she was exhausted and felt…fragile. God! She hated feeling this way.

"I've spent the last ten years creating solutions to problems and implementing them." She tried to control the tremor in her voice. "It's what I'm good at. Waiting, on the other hand, is something I don't do well."

"Imagine my surprise."

She gave him a sharp look, her tolerance for sarcasm at an all-time low. "The business can't afford to have one of the trawlers out of commission for any length of time," she said through gritted teeth. "I need to get on the
Anna Marie.
Now. And I don't think you have the authority to keep me off her for very much longer."

Chapman studied her thoughtfully; she really, really hoped he couldn't see how tightly she was strung. He seemed to come to some kind of decision. "I could use a helper for gathering evidence. That would get you on board—but not give you totally free rein. How's that sound?"

"Do you even need to ask?"

He held up a hand to stop her from jumping on board. "You'll do
what
I say,
when
I say it, and you'll do it
exactly
the way I tell you to. Agreed?"

"Deal."

#

An hour later, they were standing on soggy, blackened carpet in the galley of the
Anna Marie,
working as quickly as they could to beat the approaching darkness. Zeke was watching from the burned upper edge of the deck with what Kaz could have sworn was an expression of self-pity. He wanted to be involved.

"What are we looking for?" she asked Chapman, poking through bits of charred timbers and ashes.

She needed a distraction, so that she didn't break down and cry. She'd never considered herself the sentimental type, but seeing the destruction on the
Anna Marie
up close was hard. Huge sections of the deck had burned through and collapsed into the compartments below. Netting from the spool resembled a melted mass of goo on the floor of the hold. And the beautiful woodwork that she'd hand-sanded and painted in the family colors, now resembled charred sticks.

The wheelhouse was still standing, but the floor of the flying bridge above was buckled and unstable. All the equipment—radar, short-wave radios, sonar—was gone. And that was just the inventory of what had to be repaired and replaced. Who was going to restore the essence of the
Anna Marie?
She'd been a companion on thousands of trips, part of so many of the good memories Kaz and Gary shared.

Chapman straightened and held out a shiny object. "This is the type of item I'm looking for." She struggled to remember what they'd been talking about. "It's the padlock from the door between the engine room and the galley, correct?" he asked.

She leaned closer, then nodded. It was in remarkably good condition—she would've thought it would've melted in the high temperatures.

"It was probably protected by the falling wood to some extent, and the fire would have burned with less heat down here than up top where the accelerant was," he said, reading her mind.

She examined the padlock more closely in the waning light.

"What?"

"See these scratches?" She pointed to the marred surface around the keyhole. "Those weren't there before." The significance of those scratches hit her. "Wait. That means whoever opened it didn't have a key. So it couldn't have been Gary."

Michael nodded slowly. "Possibly. Unfortunately, it doesn't exonerate him."

"What do you mean, it doesn't? It's clear proof!"

"Ken could've done this—he didn't have a key. Correct?"

"But what possible reason did Ken have to get into the hold of the boat late at night? And for that matter, what reason could he have that he didn't want Gary to know about? All he had to do was ask to use his keys."

"Not if they'd been fighting. And these scratches could've been put here any time in the last several weeks—maybe on a day when Gary forgot his keys. But it certainly opens up the possibility that someone was after something."

Perhaps the same
someone
who had broken into the Lundquist home. She started to tell Chapman her suspicions about the burglary, then held back. She was afraid he would think Gary had done it. This could all be used against him to build a case against him. Her shoulders sagged.

Chapman bagged the padlock and put it in a briefcase he'd brought to the boat. His tone holding a hint of sympathy, he said, "I'll have it checked for fingerprints; maybe we'll get lucky." He turned to study the area surrounding the berths. Most of the decking had fallen onto that area. "Which berth did you find Ken in?"

Kaz thought back, reliving those first moments as she'd tried to find Gary, choking and blinded by the thick smoke. She shuddered. "I landed about here," she said, pointing. "Then I crawled…" She turned, her finger following her path of the night before. "…it has to be the starboard berth. I pulled him out of the bunk and he fell against that storage locker."

Chapman paused, then nodded. "That matches my memory of where I picked him up." He picked his way around the winch, which had landed in the center of the galley when it had fallen through the deck, and started removing burned timbers from the berth.

Kaz moved over to help him, but he waved her back. "Stay back—I'll hand wood out to you, and I need you to stack it neatly in one pile. Then I'll get the lab guys back out here to go over everything."

She huffed a little but did as he directed. They worked for several minutes in surprisingly companionable silence, with Zeke whining every once in a while, becoming more and more impatient with his inactivity.

After Michael had cleared the worst of the timbers, he knelt down and surveyed the area without touching it. "We're in luck," he said quietly. "A lot of the berth is still here—just scorched. And I could be wrong, but I'm not seeing any obvious bloodstains."

Kaz craned her neck to look over his shoulder. Why did he think bloodstains were so important?

"Head wounds bleed a lot," he said, answering her unspoken question. "And there was a lot of blood on Ken's clothing. If there are no correspondingly large bloodstains on the berth, then it confirms the cops' theory that Ken was killed elsewhere and moved onto the boat. And that's premeditated arson."

Kaz stared at him, her throat closing. "No matter what else Gary could've done, he's incapable of planning to burn the
Anna Marie,"
she managed. Chapman looked at her, his expression both grim and…pitying.

She turned away, walked over to the stairs, and sat down among the soggy debris. "I know you don't believe me, but deep down, Gary has a good soul. What he had to do in the Army tore him apart inside. He didn't do any of this—I
know
it."

Chapman opened his mouth to speak, but his cell phone chirped. He reached into his pocket, pulled it out, and flipped it open. "Chapman…yeah, I'm down at the boat right now…interesting. I'll come by in a bit—I want to see for myself." He disconnected and turned to Kaz. "Let's get moving. I've got to drop by the police impound lot, and we're done here until I can get the lab guys back."

She wanted to ask him about the call, but seeing the closed expression on his face, she didn't even bother to try. "When can I dry-dock the
Anna Marie?"
she asked instead.

"Not yet."

~~~~

Chapter 11

By the time Kaz pulled into her driveway, twilight lurked on the edges of the clouds. The wind had picked up, splattering occasional raindrops against the windshield. Below her in the downtown district, the outlines of old brick buildings stood silhouetted against the fading light. Out on the river, running lights glittered on the fishing trawlers, illuminating their wakes as they chugged upstream. Two large freighters were anchored for the night off the waterfront, their towering hulks dwarfing the other vessels.

A car door slammed, and she glanced in the rear view mirror. Lucy had driven up and parked behind her. Kaz climbed tiredly out of the Jeep and followed her into the kitchen.

Lucy hunted through the refrigerator, pulling two bottles of beer out and handing one plus a pizza box to Kaz. "I figured you'd forget to eat. Where're the paper towels?"

Kaz pointed to the far counter and then sat down, placing the pizza box in the middle of the table. She propped her elbows on the table and scrubbed her face with both hands, attempting to get her brain to function. "I need to keep the Jeep for a couple of days. Don't ask why."

"Why?"

"If I tell you, you'll yell."

"I've just spent two hours scraping concrete and digging in the mud. Make my day—I could use someone to yell at right about now."

Kaz sniffed. "I'm no punching bag."

"Yeah, but as my friend, it's your duty to be there for me." Lucy handed her a slice of pizza on a paper towel. "Rumor has it that your SUV is at the dealer's, missing a window. Since you're still among the living—though not necessarily sounding like it—I won't ask if you were in danger."

"That would be good."

"Kaz…" Lucy shook her head. She took a large bite, and her eyes closed. "There
is
a Higher Being, and she believes in the sanctity of junk food. Don't you want to know
why
I was digging in the mud?"

Kaz stared at her slice of pizza, trying to work up an appetite. "Is it okay to tell me?"

"Of course not—I'll have to kill you right after dinner." Lucy gave her a quick rundown. "My big find of the day was a snow globe."

Kaz shot out a hand, grasping Lucy's arm before she could take another bite. "Describe it."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Geez, Jorgensen. It was a little glass ball—you know, with the little bits of snow inside?"

"A white fishing trawler on a blue sea?"

"Whoa." Lucy quickly sobered. "Tell me how you know that."

Relief flowed through Kaz, almost making her giddy. "I gave it to Ken last week, for Bobby."