Murder at Fire Bay (23 page)

“What story?” I asked. Something was beginning to smell.

“Oh . . . how a certain postmaster became stranded out in the bay.”

“Emily!”

“Sorry, Leo,” she said, studying her nails, as if it were a minor issue. “But a story is a story. Don’t worry, it will be good for community relations. It might even make the Anchorage paper.”

That she said this with a Cheshire cat’s grin didn’t help much.
 

“Bye, Leo,” she said, and she was off.

“Waitress,” I bellowed, “you have another piece of that pecan pie?”

Chapter 30

I drove back to the High Bluff B & B in a reflective if not somnolent mood, made the more so by that second piece of pecan pie, which hadn’t tasted nearly as good as the first piece. That Emily was going to write up my stupid error out on the bay bothered me not at all, Anchorage paper or not. I had too many other more worrisome irons in the fire.

No, I was thinking about how I was going to approach the old fella, a man I had developed a lot of respect for. As I turned into the half-mile lane that led to the B& B, I decided I would simply ask him if he had witnessed the murder that late summer day. It was my belief he knew something about it. His continued struggle to say a couple of words had to mean something important.
 

I parked my car and, instead of going into the house, I walked the hundred feet or so up to the bluff’s edge and took another look out to sea. Arness must have seen something.
 

A squeak and a footfall behind me interrupted my thoughts. Mrs. Mordant was pushing the old man up the hill.

“Could you watch him for a while?” she asked. “I have to run an errand.”

“Sure,” I answered. Thank the Lord for Divine Providence! Now I could ask questions without Mrs. Mordant hanging about and maybe letting slip to her friends that the postmaster was onto something about Gloria’s demise. I pushed him the rest of the way up to the bluff and locked his wheels before sitting down on the bench.

“It’s a beautiful fall day, isn’t it, sir?”

My hope was that I could let one subject flow into another, but the old guy beat me to the punch.
 

“Blue . . .”

“Yes, sir, the sky is blue, but that’s not what you’re trying to say, is it?”

He turned slightly in his seat to face me. A tear followed a crevice down his face. He shook his head.
 

I heaved a sigh of relief. So far, so good. “Okay, sir. I think you saw something happen out there on the bay the day of your stroke, something that had to do with Gloria Plinski’s death, right?”
 

He smiled a big toothy grin and nodded. I could sense what he was thinking; at last, the kid finally got his brains put together!

“Okay sir, I think we’re going to do fine. What goes with the word “blue?”

“Co . . .oat,” he said, his eyes searching mine.

“Coat.” Of course, the person must have worn a blue coat! But just to make sure, I asked him anyway. “Did the person who wore the blue coat hit Gloria?”

He slumped in his seat.
 

Oh, no, I thought, now what? I decided to follow another tact. “Let’s back up a little, sir. Did you see two skiffs that morning?”

He nodded.
 

Great, I thought, we’re back on track. “Gloria was in one skiff, and did you know the other person?”

He hesitated a moment before shaking his head.

“Okay, was it a man?”

He shook his head.

“Then it was a woman,” I said. I watched to make sure he nodded. “She wore a blue coat?”

He nodded. All this time he had been trying to tell me something and I was too dumb to guess it concerned the murder.
 

Another question came to mind. “Have you seen this other woman in town?”

He nodded.
 

Now we were getting somewhere. It was going to be tough, going down a list, but maybe I could at least break it down to what kind of place. “Was it at the supermarket?”

He shook his head and then he pointed at me with his shaking hand.

What did that mean? I sat back for a moment on the bench, giving the old man a rest. But then what was the second most used institution in town? The post office. Scores of people passed through every day, saying hello to friends and avoiding ex husbands and wives who were there at the same time.
 

Seeing the old man looking at me, I went on with the questioning. “Was she a customer?”

He shook his head.
 

It was at that moment the hair started to rise on my neck. Was it Ashley? “It was someone behind the counter?”

He nodded. I was thunderstruck. Could it really be? I decided to forego asking if she had blond hair or wore glasses. Women have been known to change hair color and glasses.
 

I leaned toward him and took his hand. “Thank you, sir, I’m sorry it took so long for me to figure out what you were trying to say. Would you recognize a picture of her?”
 

He hesitated and then shrugged his shoulders.
 

There was one more question I had to ask. “Did you see her actually murder Gloria?”

He shook his head. Crap! This was going to take more work. He pawed at my sleeve. Getting my attention, he dug his binoculars out of their case and scanned the bay. He stopped scanning and put the binoculars down, then lifted them back up for a moment. He then made a buzzing sound and extended a quivering hand like it was a boat going through water. Or that’s what I guessed he was trying to say.
 

Then a thought occurred to me, but it was a bit of a leap.

“Okay, sir, you saw them in the same boat?”

He nodded.

“But your attention was diverted elsewhere?”

He smiled and nodded.

“And when you looked again the woman was already speeding away?”

He nodded, and I bowed my head. At last, we had nailed it down. All I had to do was follow something like a flow chart. We sat quietly for a few more minutes. A cold wind came up. I shuddered, either from the wind or from the ideas running through my brain.
 

I stood up. “Time to go, sir, and thanks, you’ve been most helpful.”

I turned him around and smiled as he leaned forward, hands grasping the wheelchair’s arms. He was ready for that descent down the hill.
 

“Ready, sir?”

He nodded and we were off. I have to say Arness got a real thrill on that ride and I wished him many more.
 

Later that evening I took a long time telling Jeanette about the day’s adventures. She wasn’t happy about hearing that my life could have been in jeopardy. Being who she was, and being much more in tune with spiritual things, she speculated Gloria or her ghost might have had something to do with the boat’s engine refusing to start.
 

“However, Leo, I have heard of people accidentally kicking loose the fuel line to the gas tank in a small boat.”

She was happy to hear about the old man and his story. Unlike some people, she had no trouble crediting the communications of an old man who had had a stroke. I went on to tell her about Arness and me sharing chocolate cookies from Mrs. Mordant’s bottomless cookie jar. I learned that if I inserted the cookie into his claw hand he could do a fair job of eating it by himself. So we sat there munching on cookies while I related to him the problems down at the post office. His right eyebrow would rise from time to time in surprise. Another little step on his road to recovery.
 

“Jeanette, you ought to have seen the tears in Mrs. Mordant’s eyes when she walked in the door. Her gratitude was almost embarrassing.”

“Good for you, Leo. I am a firm believer that God places us in the right spot at the right time. You are his instrument in all this.”

“Maybe so,” I answered. I believed in God, but I wasn’t sure what part he played in the daily affairs of people. Theology was not my forte and I tended to stay away from such things. I heard a chuckle from Jeanette. She knew my feelings. We said our good byes and hung up.

I spent Sunday doing Sunday things, like laundry, reading the newspaper, drinking coffee and stealing cookies from the cookie jar.

Chapter 31

After a quick bowl of granola, I was off to work early on Monday morning. Pulling up to my parking space at the post office, I noted the shipping van was gone. Good, one less thing to worry about. I rechecked my watch. Only six a.m. There shouldn’t be another person in the building, and after a quick walkabout, I determined that no one was hiding in the various nooks and crannies.

Well, first things first. I got the stepladder from its spot and went into Ashley’s office. Within seconds I had pulled the tape recorder out of its hiding place behind the heat register and changed out the tape. I put the stepladder away, went to my office, and listened to the tape.

“There’s something you should know. This Thursday there will be a big shipment. You remember what we talked about . . .? Well, it is happening this Thursday. I don’t know what they look like. But there will be two of them, as usual. You remember . . .? Yes, that’s right.”

I would have given anything to hear the other end of the conversation. The rest of the tape, as far as I could tell, dealt with ordinary post office stuff. I turned off my recorder and sat back in my chair. What shipment? It must be a shipment of drugs, but what the hell was she referring to when she said there were two of them? Two boxes was my guess, but that was pushing it, and it didn’t make sense.
 

I heard a clang out on the floor; the early morning person was on the job. Without further speculation I dialed John Crouch’s number and played the tape to his answering machine. I added that I wasn’t sure what Ashley meant, but I assumed she meant two packages of some kind. I set the phone back in its cradle. Well, I had maybe four days to find out what she was talking about.
 

I was starting to have caffeine withdrawal symptoms, so I decided a little rest and relaxation was in order. After tossing off a cheerful good morning to the morning person, I went out back to pick up the Anchorage paper, which was flown to Fire Bay on the 4:30 plane and delivered to our back door by the local paperboy. Thanks to the airplane, I could enjoy the same-day news just like anyone in Anchorage.
 

I sat down with a cup of coffee, and scanned the paper. I was just beginning to think my boating incident had escaped mention when I got to the Alaska local news section. And there I was, looking very relieved as I climbed out of the boat with a helping hand from the good chief of police.
 

I sighed. That I was due for some ribbing was an understatement.
 

The accompanying article, written by a certain Ms. Jems, alluded to the fact the engine wouldn’t run because the fuel line was disconnected, a reason even the most seasoned boatman should go to a refresher safety course. Of course, mention was made that Leo Bronski was employed by the U.S. Postal Service.

My hand automatically reached for the telephone, which rang right on cue.
 

“Bronski!”

“Yes, sir,” I said, very respectfully.

I could almost hear him smile, when he said, “You, ah, know you made the Anchorage paper.”

I sighed, and wondered how the rest of the day was going to go.

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, sir, other than being embarrassed.”

“Well, Bronski, even O.I.C.‘s are human.”

I decided to change the subject. “Sir, I think I have a lead on the murder of Gloria Plinski.”

“What? My God, Bronski, that is great news! Who do you think did it?”

“All I know so far is that it was a woman.”

“Oh . . .well, how do you know that?”

I told him the skiff motor quitting out there on the bay had been a blessing in disguise, that the only witness had had a stroke and could barely talk, but that I had a plan for further identification. What I didn’t tell him was that I thought the guilty party was going to be a member of the Postal Service.
 

I heard a suck of air. No doubt a new cigar was being savaged in the Boss’s mouth.

“Well, keep at it, Bronski. Keep me posted. And stay out of those boats! I’m short on O.I.C.‘s right now.”

There was a click on the other end of the line. My audience was over.

I hung up the phone, my belated “Thanks for calling,” echoing back at me. I sat back in my chair and chugged down the rest of a cold cup of coffee. After a minute or so, I heard voices out on the floor. I checked my watch: seven o’clock. It was time for the early morning crew to be at work.
 

As I headed out onto the main floor, I stopped to talk with the janitor, already busy mopping the floor. I told Jim I thought he was doing good work and to keep it up. He reminded me that hunting season was coming on, that he had a Cessna 185, and asked whether I would like to take a few days off to go hunt moose. The invitation was a real temptation for me, because I loved to be in the great outdoors, walking through the woods, on the hunt for moose. Call it a primal urge or romantic inclination; it didn’t matter. All I knew is that it was one of the things I lived for: to hunt, to bring home the meat.