Always Ready (17 page)

“Tell us what you heard,” Aven said.

“Spruce Waller’s not the main one you want. It’s his brother, Clay.”

“He’s running drugs into Alaska on his boat,” Aven said.

Terry’s eyes widened. “Yeah. I mean, that’s what I heard. He goes out to sea and meets a boat coming in.”

“Where from?”

“I don’t know. Hawaii? Mexico? All I know is they don’t want to touch land, so Clay goes to meet them and gets the stuff.”

“He pays them in cash and passes the stuff on to street dealers?”

Terry frowned and flicked a glance at Eliot but continued to address Aven. “I really don’t know what he does with it. And if I’d known he was mixed up in drugs, I never would have gone with him to try to get a job. But I didgo with him, and. . .well, I heard that sometimes he sends things out of Alaska when he picks up the drugs.”

Aven studied his face. “What kind of things?”

Terry looked over his shoulder toward the kitchen. “Look, Crystal doesn’t know this. I didn’t tell her. She’s got friends. . .her brother’s married to a Native Alaskan, you know what I’m saying?”

“No.” Aven glanced at Eliot, but the deputy marshal shook his head. “What
are
you saying, Terry?”

Herman lowered his voice and leaned toward him. “They’re sending out Alaskan art. Bootleg art. Trading it for cocaine. That’s what I heard. Don’t know if it’s true. But I did see Spruce grab a piece of plastic tape off a buoy one time. Another guy—Rowe, I think it was—said it was a signal that someone on the mainland had some stuff for him.”

“What kind of stuff?” Aven asked.

Terry shrugged. “Stuff to trade, I guess. Spruce would tell his brother, and they’d go get it. Captain Andrews found out, and he told Spruce that if he didn’t get his boat back for him he’d turn in his brother.” He jumped up and walked to the kitchen doorway. “That coffee ready, Crystal?”

Eliot said softly, “There’ve been several big heists on the Kenai Peninsula. Some high-end art galleries and shops have been hit.” He started to rise.

“We have to drink the coffee,” Aven hissed.

“Okay, but the quicker the better.”

Crystal came into the room carrying two steaming mugs. Terry followed with a plastic half-gallon milk jug and a sugar bowl with a spoon sticking out of it.

“Just milk,” Aven said. He accepted a mug from Crystal and poured as much milk into it as he could to cool it down.

Crystal walked over to Eliot and handed him the other mug. “Did he tell you?”

“He’s been very cooperative,” Eliot said. “We’ll try not to let anyone know, though.”

“Good.” She went to the playpen and leaned over it for a moment, watching the baby. She straightened, glanced at her husband, and walked out of the room.

“Look, that’s it,” Terry said. “I really don’t know anything solid. It’s just rumors.”

“That’s right,” Aven said with a smile.

“And you didn’t tell us anything,” Eliot added.

Aven gulped down half his coffee and held the mug out. “Thanks. Keep your head down. Hey, I think my CO knows someone at the cannery. I’ll ask him if he can put in a word for you.”

He and Eliot hurried out to the deputy marshal’srental car.

“Waller’s house first?” Eliot asked.

“Yes.” Aven gave him directions to the apartment building. They arrived a few minutes later, but no one answered the door at Spruce Waller’s place.

“Now what?”

Aven said, “Last time I went looking for him, he was at his cabin at Anton Larsen Bay.”

“How far is it?”

“You can drive it in twenty or thirty minutes.”

Eliot checked his watch. “You up for it? It’s almost four o’clock.”

“Let’s do it.”

Aven navigated Eliot over the same roads he’d taken Caddie on earlier. His thoughts flew to the
Wintergreen
, and he prayed for her as they passed the riverside where they’d watched the bears. Another thought occurred to him as he recalled the tip his commanding officer had received about the boat they’d pursued. “You know what?”

“What?” Eliot asked.

“Greer said it was a woman who called in reporting that the boat—which we now know was Clay Waller’s—was picking up a drug shipment. It wouldn’t surprise me if the one who made that call was Crystal.”

At Waller’s cabin, they drove into the yard and got out, looking around. Aven looked first for Clay’s cabin cruiser, but the slip in the cove was empty. A small aluminum boat lay upside down on shore a few yards from the dock. Spruce Waller’s SUV was parked beside the cabin.

As Eliot approached the door, Aven slipped around the side of the building. A back door opened into a lean-to woodshed. Eliot knocked on the front door, but the sound reverberated through the cabin with no response.

After fifteen seconds, Eliot pounded on the door again. Nothing.

Aven stepped into the woodshed and lifted the latch on the back door. It swung wide, and a musty smell of dust and old ashes greeted him. He drew his sidearm. “Eliot?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going in the back.”

Eliot yelled something, but Aven didn’t hear it. He was already inside, peering past the muzzle of his pistol into the dim interior of the cabin. He looked all around the back room, which seemed to be Waller’s bedroom, then walked through the larger front room. He opened the front door.

Eliot stood on the step outside, a pistol in his hand.

“He’s not here,” Aven said.

Eliot exhaled and pushed his hair back. “Don’t do that again. He could have blown your head off.”

“He didn’t.”

“Yeah, well, there’s also the little technicality about search warrants.”

Aven blinked as he considered that. “Yeah, true.”

Eliot peered past him, looking beyond Aven into the dim interior. “You sure he’s not hiding someplace?”

“Pretty sure.” Aven turned back into the cabin.

Eliot hesitated, looked over his shoulder, and followed. He did a more thorough search than Aven had with no more results.

“So now what do we do?”

Eliot threw him a resigned glance. “Lock the front door and leave.”

“He could be anywhere out here.”

“Yes, and he could be watching right now through the scope of a rifle.”

Aven squeezed his mouth shut tight and waited for further instructions.

“On the other hand,” Eliot said, “he could be out in the boat with his brother. Come on. We might as well go back to Kodiak and have dinner.”

They got into the car, and Eliot drove in silence. Several times, Aven started to speak, but thought better of it. He’d definitely broken some rules. Had he come down a notch in Eliot’s opinion?

As they neared the shopping district in Kodiak, Aven’s phone rang. “Hello.”

“Mr. Holland? That is. . .Aven Holland?”

“Yes?”

“This is Brett Sellers. I don’t know if you remember me, but I made the dog harness for your sister.”

“Of course I remember you.”

Eliot looked over with raised eyebrows.

Aven shrugged in apology.

“Yeah, well, I hope she likes it,” Sellers said.

“She does. She’s very happy with it.” Was this going to be a sales pitch for more equipment?

Eliot parked in front of a seafood restaurant, and Aven reached to unbuckle his seatbelt.

“Well, I saw something that could be related to a crime. I didn’t want to call the police, but it’s been bothering me all day. Then I remembered you and how you have some sort of law enforcement job. I thought maybe I could run it by you, and you could decide whether the police ought to know.”

Aven hesitated with his hand on the door latch. “Okay. What is it?”

“There’s a shop next to mine that sells souvenirs. You know, plastic totem poles. Plush polar bears.”

“Yeah, okay. What about it?”

“I stopped in there this morning before opening time to see if I could borrow a coffee filter. The owner was packing up some merchandise, but it was way better quality than what he usually carries.”

Aven frowned. “So? Maybe he’s upgrading his inventory.”

“No, listen. He wasn’t unpacking it. He was wrapping it and putting it in crates. I saw carved walrus tusks and whale baleen.”

Aven’s heart skipped. “Is the owner a Native Alaskan?”

“No way. His hair’s blonder than mine. He claims he has Russian blood, but I’m skeptical.”

“Okay. It’s possible he bought the things legally. Tell you what.” Aven shot Eliot a glance. The deputy marshal was watching him keenly. “There’s a man from the U.S. Marshal’s office in Anchorage here in Kodiak right now. Can I bring him to your shop in about twenty minutes?”

“Uh, well. . .it might be better if you just went straight to his. I wouldn’t want him to know I ratted on him.” Sellers sighed. “He’ll know anyway, I suppose.”

“It could be perfectly innocent,” Aven said.

“Could be. Doubt it. He tried to cover it all up quick when I walked in.”

Aven took the name of the souvenir shop and signed off.

Eliot leaned against his car door, waiting. “Well? What was that?” he asked.

“Maybe a wild goose chase. Head down the street. We’ve got a tip on allegedly stolen artwork.”

Twelve

When the
Wintergreen
docked in Kodiak three days later, Caddie went straight to her apartment. She would have only one day off before she was expected back on duty to help ready the ship for their long deployment. The wind held the bite of autumn, and the bitter winter of Alaska would come hard on its heels.

Her dreams of a relationship with Aven seemed to slip away with the summer. Would they ever seize enough time together to get to know each other better? Even though his ship was in port, he might not be able to see her. His last e-mail had told how busy he’d been helping the U.S. Marshal’s office track down some smugglers.

She didn’t even know how long Aven would be posted in Kodiak. What if he were transferred away? Although his family lived in Alaska, he might be transferred thousands of miles away. She would have to ask him about that.

She dropped her sea bag on the rug and wearily sorted the mail she’d picked up. Her spirits lifted when she opened an envelope from the
Oregonian
. The check for her travel story was a nice bonus and would cover most of the Christmas gifts she wanted to buy this year. Already she’d looked over mukluks for Mira and snowshoes for Jordan.

When she came out of the shower half an hour later, the phone was ringing. She ran to answer it, hoping Aven might be on the other end of the connection.

“Hey, you’re back!” Jo-Lynn’s cheery voice floated to her.

“Yes. How are you doing?”

“Fine, after eleven every morning. Not so good before that. I’m eating like a horse once the morning sicknesspasses, though. I’ve got to be careful. Want to come for supper tonight?”

“I think I’d better stay in and get to bed early. How about if I come see you tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Jo-Lynn said.

“So. . .I guess Mark’s home, too. I saw the
Milroy
at the docks.”

“Yeah, they’ve got a few more days.”

I will not ask about Aven,
Caddie resolved.

Jo-Lynn saved her the trouble. “Hey, Aven’s been tearing into this smuggling case. Did he tell you about it?”

“Not much. Just that he’s been busy. I’ve hardly heard from him in the last week.”

“You’ll have to get the details from him, but it has something to do with an art theft.”

Caddie caught her breath. “When I was in Homer a few days ago, people were talking about an art gallery being robbed. That probably has nothing to do with what you’re talking about, though.”

“I don’t know,” Jo-Lynn said. “But I gather there have been a lot of these thefts, and the stolen artwork is being smuggled out of Alaska and sold in Japan and. . .well, like I said, I’m not up on the details, but Mark and Aven were talking about it yesterday.”

Caddie slept late the next morning and awoke grumpy and discouraged. Would her relationship with Avengo anywhere or not? She sat on the bed in her flannel pajamas and opened her Bible. Her schedule of reading took her to the last chapter of I Timothy. “But godliness with contentment is great gain,” she read. The simple words convicted her.

She had so much—a good job, a loving family, godly friends in Jo-Lynn and Mark, and a new friend in Lindsey. She was thankful for all of them, she realized, and for Aven, too. But was she content?

Lord, thank You for all You’ve given me,
she prayed.
If Aven and I never move beyond friendship, he is still a wonderful gift from You. Help me to treasure each moment we’ve had together without demanding more. If You want us to grow closer, I’ll cherish the time You give us. If not, then help me not to poison my heart with discontent.