Always Ready (15 page)

Her pulse picked up as she wondered what to say. Why was it so hard? Maybe because she’d always figured Lindsey would sneer if she tried to talk to her about spiritual things.

“You know,” she said at last, “you’re absolutely right. Even though my dad had some faults, and even though he never spent as much time at home as we all would have liked, he wasn’t bad as fathers go. And I miss him a lot.” Tears welled in her eyes. “These past few years, I’ve had to rely on my heavenly Father for security.”

Lindsey’s eyebrows shot up and that “Here it comes” expression crept over her face.

Caddie plunged on. “I’ve never said much to you about my faith. . .”

“I’ve seen your Bible on the desk in the cabin once or twice.”

Caddie started to speak but caught herself. Her impulse was to apologize. But should she? She’d tried hard not to make an issue of her faith on the assumption that Lindsey would be offended. Had she instead erred in keeping quiet?

“We never went to church or anything when I was a kid,” Lindsey said.

“We always did.”

“Is that why you read the Bible? Because you were brought up that way?”

“I suppose it was at first. But now I read it because I want to. It tells me what God expects and how I should live. Best of all, it tells about Jesus Christ, and how He died for my sins.”

Lindsey shook her head. “I never understood any of that—how people think that one person somehow took care of all the evil in the world. You only have to look around to see that it’s still there. How did Jesus’s dying help?”

Caddie inhaled slowly. She tended to sort all that she knew into mental pigeonholes. Which one should she reach into? “Okay, first of all, Jesus didn’t die to clean up the world.”

“He didn’t? I thought everybody’s sins were supposed to be wiped out somehow when He died.”

“Well, in a way. . .” Caddie glanced at her watch. “You know, I have to report for duty in about twenty minutes. I’m not trying to get out of this conversation. I really want to discuss it with you. But I need to be where my Bible is when we talk about it. That way I can show you what God says in the Bible about sin and forgiveness.”

“I don’t know.” Lindsey shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

“But you’ve never read the Bible, have you?”

“No. I saw the Charlton Heston movie.”

Caddie smiled. “There’s a lot more to it than that. Look, tomorrow morning we’re both free. Let’s talk then, okay?”

“I guess so. What about the article?”

“Oh, I’m going to finish it. I’ll work on it some tonight, and I’ll need to ask you some more questions, but this is really important. About God, I mean.”

Lindsey nodded slowly. “All right.” She stood and reached for Caddie’s coffee mug. “Just, please, if I tell you to stop, you won’t keep on and on about it, will you?”

“No. I’ll quit talking about it if you want me to.”

“Great. See you.” Lindsey walked away toward the window where they left the dirty dishes.

Caddie let out a breath.
Lord, help me to do better tomorrow. Let me get it right the first time so she doesn’t tell me to shut up. Please?

Eleven

Aven stared at the computer screen and scowled. No matter how he worked it out, Caddie couldn’t get enough time off to go to Wasilla with him for at least two months. The
Wintergreen
would dock next week while he was at sea, but only for a few days, and then the ship would head out on a six-week cruise. Caddie would have to be back in Kodiak in time to join her ship for that cruise. No excuses.

He had so much leave stacked up that he really should take some anyway. He ran a hand through his hair, unable to decide what to do.

His cell phone rang, and he pulled it out. “Yeah, Holland.”

“This is Lieutenant Greer. A gentleman is here from the U.S. Marshal’s office, wanting to speak to you.”

“Me?” Aven cast about the recesses of his mind for a reason.

“Affirmative.”

A few minutes later, Aven boarded the
Milroy
and entered the wardroom.

Greer stood and gestured toward a lean, middle-aged man wearing a suit. “Holland, this is Deputy U.S. Marshal Ralph Eliot.”

Aven shook his hand.

“You remember I told you about the
Molly K
being auctioned?” Greer asked as they all sat down.

“Sure,” Aven said. “And the former owner bid on her.”

“That’s right. Have a seat. Eliot, here, has more news about that.” Greer nodded to the deputy marshal.

“Jason Andrews bought his boat back,” Eliot said. “Paid cash for it. Forty-seven grand.”

Aven gave a low whistle. “I thought he filed for bankruptcy. How could he have that much socked away?”

“That’s the question.” Eliot reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out a small notebook. “This summer, Andrews was practically going bust. You know how all the fishermen have complained that the catch is poor this year.”

“Yeah,” Aven said. “They have to go farther to fill their quotas.”

“Uh-huh. Well, Andrews was falling behind on his house payments. He told his bank in June he couldn’t make the regular payment. They cut him some slack and let him refinance. Then he loses the boat. Financial disaster, right? But then he comes up with all this money for the boat on a couple of months’ notice.”

“He didn’t sell the house, did he?” Aven asked.

“Nope. He and his wife are still living in it, along with three daughters and one grandkid.”

“Okay, I give up. Where did the money come from?”

“That’s what we’d like to know. The scuttlebutt is that the men of his crew scraped it up for him.”

Aven pulled back and frowned. “That doesn’t make a lot of sense. His men were worse off than he was. How could the six of them come up with that much money?”

“That’s a good question. And did they just do it out of the goodness of their hearts?”

Aven thought about it, but it still didn’t add up. “Six men pass the hat because they feel bad for their boss and come up with forty-seven thousand dollars in cash? I don’t think so.”

Greer tapped a pen on his desk. “Maybe some of them had some assets. Or some connections. I wonder if they all felt guilty. After all, from what Holland tells me, it was their fault he lost his boat.”

“That’s right,” Aven said. “I gave Andrews a citation, but then the men started a brawl. That’s what clinched it. If they hadn’t assaulted us, we never would have impounded the boat.”

“That’s what I thought.” Eliot studied his notebook for a moment then slid it back inside his jacket. “I wanted to check the details of the confrontation with you before I talked to Andrews’s crew.”

“You’re going out and talk to them all?”

“Going to try. Most of them live in the Seward area. That’s where Andrews lives. But two of them live out here on Kodiak.”

“Spruce Waller being one,” Aven said.

Eliot’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah. Do you know something about him?”

“Not really. Just that his brother, Clay, has a boat and someone gave us a tip a few weeks ago that he was running drugs.” He looked toward Greer. “Our cutter chased him, but he outran us and ducked into a channel we couldn’t navigate.”

The lieutenant nodded in acknowledgement. “That’s right. The tip came in as an anonymous call to our communications center. I learned later that a woman made the call.”

Aven continued, “A few days after we tried to run that boat down, I saw Spruce Waller and his brother repaintinga boat over at Anton Larsen Bay. I think it was Clay Waller’s boat, tied up in front of Spruce’s cabin. But I wasn’t a hundred percent sure.”

“Did you do anything about it?”

“I told the state police, but they didn’t seem to give it high priority. They did enlarge the pictures I gave them and confirmed the two men doing the painting were Spruce and Clay Waller.”

Greer scratched his jaw. “We speculated that after we impounded the
Molly K
, Spruce Waller may have started working with his brother, but we don’t have any hard evidence.”

Aven nodded. “So what if the Waller brothers are running drugs, and some of that drug money went to buy Captain Andrews’s boat back?”

Eliot drew in a deep breath. “That would be hard to prove.”

“But if you
could
prove it, you’d put the drug runners away,” Aven said.

“Yes, and we’d get to auction the
Molly K
again.” Eliot smiled. “Any ideas on how we might do that?”

Aven’s adrenaline surged. Finally, he could
do
something. “I’d be happy to go with you when you interview the two crewmen who live near here.”

“Great.” Eliot brought out the notebook again. “Spruce Waller and Terry Herman. Both live in Kodiak.”

“I’m free this afternoon. Let’s try Herman first,” Aven suggested. “He may be easier to catch up with than Waller.”

Half an hour later, Aven stood back and let Eliot knock on the door of a weathered duplex.

A baby was crying inside. The door swung open, and the wailing increased in pitch.

A young woman gazed at them. “Yes?” Her plain features hovered between curiosity and fear. Aven took in the ragged flannel shirt she wore over a tank top and faded jeans. No makeup. Her only jewelry consisted of a wedding ring and a cheap digital watch.

“I’m Deputy U.S. Marshal Ralph Eliot, and this is Petty Officer Aven Holland with the Coast Guard. We’d like to speak to Terry Herman.”

The young woman looked them up and down, eyeing Eliot’s suit and Aven’s uniform. Aven wondered if he should be watching the back door. The baby’s wails became screams.

“Come on in.” She swung the door wide open and turned to scoop the baby out of a mesh playpen. “Terry, you got company.” She and the baby disappeared through a doorway, and the crying stopped.

A lanky young man in jeans and a faded black T-shirt unfolded himself off the sofa and stood eyeing them. Eliot again made the introductions.

Herman nodded at Aven. “I recognize you. Am I in trouble again? Because I paid my fine.”

“We just want to ask you some questions,” Aven said.

Herman hesitated then shrugged. “As long as I’m not in trouble.” He plopped back down on the sofa and nodded toward a ragged armchair. “Have a seat.”

Eliot crossed to the sofa and sat on the end farthest from Herman. Aven took the chair.

“Mr. Herman,” Eliot said, “what are you doing for work now?”

Herman huffed out a breath. “Nothing at the moment. I’ve got a lead on a job. Got to do something when you have a family.”

“How have you been living for the last couple of months?”

“Off our savings. It’s gone now, though. Crystal’s folks helped us some, but I’m probably going to start at the cannery soon.” He wouldn’t meet Eliot’s eyes.

“You’re not going to work for Jason Andrews again?” Aven asked.

“Not hardly. He lost the boat.”

Eliot said, “You didn’t hear? He bought it back at auction a few days ago.”

“Huh. No, I didn’t know.”

“I heard a rumor that his crew had got up the money so Captain Andrews could bid on the boat.”

“Maybe so.”

“Did you help raise the money?” Eliot asked. “Is that where your savings went?”

Herman rose and walked over to the window. He stood with his hands on his hips, his back to them. “No. I didn’t have anything to do with that. We didn’t have much put away, and we’ve spent it mostly on food and rent.”

“Do you know who did get the money for Andrews?”

Herman turned and shook his head, staring at Eliot. “Look, I paid my fine. They said if we hadn’t gotten into that fight, nobody would have been arrested and the skipper would have kept the boat. Well, it wasn’t my fault.” He looked over at Aven, his dark eyes anxious. “I’m sorry about what happened. It wasn’t my idea to jump you and your men. If it was up to me, we wouldn’t have done it. But Spruce was riled, and all the others said they’d back him up. I felt like I had to take part. I got a few licks in, I admit it, but I paid my fine, and I’ve got a record now. And no, I don’t want to go back to working with them again. I want to stay out of jail. Like I said, I’ve got a kid now. I need to be working a steady job, not mixing it up with the Coast Guard.”

Aven caught his gaze and held it for a long moment. “Apology accepted.”

Eliot took out his pocket notebook and jotted in it. “Are you saying you think you’d get into trouble again if you went back to work for Captain Andrews?”

“I dunno.”

“How long had you worked for him?”

“Just since spring.”

“And before that?”

The young man walked back to the sofa and plunked down on it. “I used to go out with Ned Carson’s crew. But he died, and his widow sold his boat to someone off the island. So when I heard this Andrews fella needed men last spring, I jumped at it. Needed a berth on a boat, and I didn’t ask questions.”