Murder at Fire Bay (28 page)

“I better get it back in the same shape it was.”

“Don’t worry, Princess, if anything happens to it, I’ll buy you another one.”

Emily eyes opened in surprise. All her life she had thought of herself as a wallflower type, or I guessed she had. Now, because of Sam, she had to learn a little about being a regular girl. She became red in the face and smoothed her hair back. A little flustered, she said, “Well, just make sure you do!”

Jim winked at me. He was having fun. I sighed. Humans—they never quit being human.

“All right, you guys, here is what we’re going to do.”
 

I went on to explain that Emily would stay with me while Jim would disable the engine on Ralph’s plane by pulling a couple of magneto wires. Then he would hide out across the strip from us close to Ralph’s plane. With the wires pulled on the engine we should hear it grind as Ralph tried to start it. Even if we were asleep, the noise of the starter would wake us. I would be the one to tell them to disarm if in fact they were and then to lay down on the ground, etc. Emily would stay in our hiding place. If anyone were to get hurt, it would be me. Coming here was my idea and therefore my pain.

While Jim went to the plane and pulled wires, Emily and I found a log about fifty yards away and made a nest behind it. No sense in being uncomfortable. We had our sleeping bags and a thermos of coffee I had thought to bring to ward off the chill. This set me to thinking about the bottle of Jack Daniel’s sitting on the shelf back at the B & B. But that thought had to be set aside, alcohol and chasing robbers don’t mix. Emily watched as I poured myself a small cup. I motioned at her, “Want some?”

She shook her head. Probably thinking about my germs on the cup. I shrugged and drank the whole cup, making all the appropriate noises of satisfaction. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her wilt.

“Uh . . . Leo, would you pour me a cup?”

“Sure, Princess.”

Whereupon she turned red and smoothed her hair back. I had to struggle to maintain a straight face as I handed her a cup.

“I hope black is okay?”

While she was busy gulping it down, I felt my cell phone vibrate in my pants pocket. After a few fumbles, I managed to retrieve it. Of all times to have a phone call.

“What?”
 

“Sir?”

“Yes, Sam.”

Emily looked up, eyes full of warm glow. She started to reach for the phone, but I gently moved her hand away.

“I tried Emily’s phone, but some guy answered. Is . . . is Emily okay?”

I managed to let him know she was when I heard a beep. This meant somebody else was trying to call. Sam was not a happy camper about not being able to talk to Emily. I had a hunch who the caller was and I was not disappointed.

“Bronski?”

“Yes?” I said, pretending I didn’t know who it was. But he knew I knew. That voice was unmistakable.

“Where are you?”
 

He was still playing it gentle, like to an errant child. I decided to be direct.

“I’m at an airstrip.”

“Where is this airstrip, Leo?” he asked.

“North of Fire Bay.”

I loved doing this to the Boss. Giving him just enough so as not to be legally insubordinate. Of course, the strip was north; south would have been in the ocean. There was a moment’s silence, a gathering of the storm to come.
 

“Damn it, Bronski! Of all the times I have to put up with you! Now where is that airstrip?”

I grinned. This was more like the old Boss.

“About twenty miles north.”

“And just what in hell are you doing there?”

“It so happens Ralph, who is a janitor at the P.O., has a plane here, and I’m betting on Ashley and Ralph showing up sometime after dark.”

“Leo, don’t you think that’s the local law’s job, to chase criminals?”

“Boss, I want Ashley to know that it was me that caught her, not some cop. She probably thinks everyone is too dumb to think about the plane. The local law was busy with witnesses so they couldn’t come. This isn’t Anchorage, you know.”

“Leo! You’re letting your ego get to you. Besides, aren’t you endangering other people in the process? Don’t you have a Postal Service employee with you?”

I sighed. Well, I had told Sam to be truthful, hadn’t I? The Boss went on.

“Leo, I’d like for you to go back to the post office and take care of things there.”

“What did you say, Boss? My phone seems to be on the blink. My battery must be low. Sorry, I’ll get back to you when I can.”

Whereupon, I clicked off. It was an old trick, but it was the only thing I could think of. I looked over at Emily, now looking pensive.

“You can go back if you wish, Emily.”

Even as I said it, I knew she wouldn’t. And I was right. She simply shook her head once. The die was set and the bed made. She was there to stay.

Chapter 35

By seven o’clock that evening, the sun’s rays were poking through the trees. After the phone call from the Boss, things settled down with only a call from Jim every half-hour. Emily looked up from making her notes.

“Do you really think they’ll come?”

I peered over the log at Ralph’s plane for maybe the hundredth time.

“Yeah, I think they will. By road, there’s only one highway out of Fire Bay and the Troopers will have checkpoints set up. That leaves boats or planes and, since Ralph has a plane and not a boat, then I think we’re in the right place.”

Emily continued making notes. I was beginning to think I should stick to one-word answers.

“You writing down every word I speak?”

She tapped her pen against her chin, a smile slowly forming in her eyes.

“Uh huh, just in case you’re right about the plane.”

My eyebrows raised with the first inkling of self-doubt.

“And if I’m wrong, then what?”

“Then we’ll have a good laugh,” she said.

Yeah, on me, I thought. But it wouldn’t be the first time. After that exchange, we became quiet again. The sun’s rays became an orange glow higher up in the trees as the day descended into twilight. Unlike the tropics, twilight lasts a long time in the North. Instead of an inky black as soon as the sun sets, the long twilight phases you into darkness, letting you and your eyes adjust to the night. This is especially helpful when you’re on the hunt. And we were definitely on the hunt.

Emily stopped her writing, whether because of the twilight or whether she had run out of words, I couldn’t say. But I sure as hell was not going to ask. My cell-phone vibrated again. Thinking it was Jim checking in, I answered more brusquely than I should have.

“Yeah?”

“Leo, it’s Jeanette. How’s it going?”

I whispered that it was going okay, that we were in a “wait mode.” She said the Boss had called and wanted her to “talk some sense into that guy.” So she was doing her wifely duty. Good old Boss. He knew and used all the angles to get me to come in. Except I wasn’t going to. Ashley owed me—big time—for that picture and I was going to whip her, one way or the other. But I didn’t tell Jeanette that.

“No, Hon,” I said, “We’re all set up here, so I think we’ll stay. Maybe they won’t come,” I said, hoping to erase some of her fears.

“I told the Boss I didn’t think you would go back to Fire Bay. It would be so unlike you.”

She was right. It would be unlike me. I whispered to her not to worry and we clicked off.
 

The temperature was starting to cool, maybe down into the upper thirties. Emily was starting to shiver and so we broke out our sleeping bags.

Time passed. It was dark now. I could see the outline of Emily sitting by the log, but not much more. So we sat there by the log, each lost in his or hers thoughts.

“I forgot my flashlight,” Emily said.

I smiled. “I guess you weren’t in the Girl Scouts or some such organization?”

“Nope, I couldn’t see the sense of it. I was going to be a writer. Besides, who wanted somebody like . . . ”

I didn’t prompt her to complete the sentence. I knew what she was going to say.

Because of her teeth, nobody wanted her around, or at least that was Emily’s feeling. I sighed. Kids can be cruel, and I probably would have been one of those kids that taunted her about her teeth.

I checked my watch with my flashlight. It was ten-thirty. They should be showing before long I reasoned. But, again, they might not.

“Emily, would you mind taking the first watch until say . . . twelve-thirty.”

I yawned. “Hope you don’t mind.”

There was a pause. I’m sure she had entertained the thought herself, but here the old fella had beat her to the punch.

“No, I guess not,” she said.

“Good,” I countered, and I rolled over in my nest of spruce boughs. Even if she fell asleep, Jim across the strip probably would remain wide-awake. He was used to waiting, first as a soldier, then as a hunter waiting on some moose to poke its head out of the trees.
 

I crashed, and was asleep before I could count to ten. Later Emily said I tossed and turned and shouted a couple of times about throwing a grenade on that machine gun nest. One of my old Vietnam dreams. Sometimes I don’t even know I have them. She asked me if I would be willing to give her an interview sometime. I could only shake my head no. Let the dead stay in their graves was my motto. One thing I did do was give her the phone with an admonition to use it sparingly. I could imagine Sam calling her every half-hour to make sure she was okay. She said that time really dragged when I went to sleep and would have gone to sleep herself except that Jim called a couple of times.

I came to when I felt something hit my foot.

“Bronski!” came a harsh whisper. “There’s something out there!”

“What?” I said.
 

“I said, ‘There’s something out there!‘“

I woke up, my mind whirling. It could be only a moose doing its nightly browse. I sat up, fully awake, and checked my watch. Well, what do you know, it was the bewitching hour.

“Bronski!” she whispered again.

“Okay, I hear you.” I whispered back. “Listen, and be quiet.”

For that, I received another kick. I suspect she rather enjoyed doing it, a payback for making her stay awake. Then I heard a clank with the sound of a muttered curse. I grinned. I recognized that voice. It was Ashley. Immediately, I rang Jim’s phone. For a few seconds I was beginning to think he had fallen asleep. Finally, he answered, and I told him to get ready, and to remember the fact he was to act as backup only.

“Uh-huh,” he muttered.

“Jim, are you awake?”

“Uh-huh,” he muttered.

“Well, try to wake up, I’m moving in.”

“Uh-huh,” he muttered again.

Some people take forever to wake up, I thought, and clicked off.

“Emily,” I whispered, “You stay here.”

It was light enough for me to see her head nod up and down.

I took a deep breath. Just like in the old days of Vietnam when we were going out on a night patrol. We members of the patrol knew it was likely that one or two of us wouldn’t be coming back. And each of us asked the question of himself: is it my turn to die?

One of the things I had done while it was light, was to make sure of the lay of the land, especially how to sneak around to Ralph’s plane from our hiding place. So I stood up, took the safety off on my shotgun and proceeded to make my way to the plane. Although I wasn’t sure why they hadn’t tried to start the engine. Maybe I could catch them standing together, then I could make them lay down on their stomachs while I used the tie-wraps to bind their hands. Sounded like a plan to me.
 

I began sneaking from tree to tree in a crouch, which was an automatic reflex learned from Vietnam. It may have saved my life, because at that moment a shot sounded and a piece of bark from the tree I was hiding behind flew down on me.
 

“Asshole!” I yelled, and I moved back behind the tree just as the ground at my feet spurted up. I stood there, knees shaking and breathing hard, wondering if I had enough strength to lift the shotgun.

“Give it up, Bronski! We have you covered! You can’t go anywhere!”

It was a man’s voice I heard; the same as that night at the party, asking, “Is he out?”
 

Good old Ralph. An actor if I ever saw one. By day a Postal Service milquetoast, by night a genuine killer. My battle blood lust was up and I resolved not to say a word until I had killed the son-of-a-bitch or he had killed me. I was curious how he had seen me since I could maybe see only a tree away, ten feet at the most. Well, the time for thinking was over. I shoved the shotgun around the side of the tree and let go with a blast in the general direction of the voice. A second after that I was moving to the next tree, another spurt of dirt behind me with an accompanying sound of a high powered rifle. Again the shaking of knees and the weak feeling of barely being able to hold onto the shotgun.