Murder at five finger light (12 page)
CHAPTER TWELVE
THERE WAS NO SIGN OF KAREN AS JESSIE MADE HER WAY along Nordic, though she looked carefully along the street and into each shop she passed on the way. She found the office a short block away at the foot of Excel Street, easily identifiable by a HARBOR MASTER sign that hung above a profusion of orange and yellow nasturtiums still in bloom in a wide planter. Walking around the corner, on the harbor side she found a bench where she could wait, sip at the now tepid coffee she had bought for Karen, and watch for Beal to arrive at one of the public docks below.
The rising tide, now close to high, had lifted the floating dock until the access ramps lay at a much shallower angle than those she had seen on the other dock from the window of the Northern Lights Restaurant the night before. A few people could be seen on or around the power- and sailboats that were tied up. One sailboat in a slip at the far end of the dock had evidently arrived recently, for Jessie could see that a man and a woman were still working to furl and put covers on its sails.
The sun had come out again and beyond the docks, public and otherwise, waves and the ripples created by the breeze were sparkling bright reflections around a charter boat that was motoring slowly seaward. Dozens of the ever-present gulls soared in circles overhead or perched on the ridgeline of every building in sight.
“Are you Jessie Arnold?” a voice suddenly asked behind her, jerking her from the half-sleepy, sun-warmed state into which she had drifted.
Turning, she found a young man in dark glasses waiting for her answer.
“Yes, I am. And you’re . . .”
“Hammer & Wikan delivery,” he filled in with a grin. “Got a couple of boxes of groceries. You want ’em here?”
“Yes—please,” Jessie told him, jumping up to help, but he had already vanished around the corner of the building. Quickly reappearing with her two boxes on a hand truck, he unloaded them, waved off the tip she offered, and vanished, a cheerful whistle fading behind him.
She was still standing, amused at the speed of the delivery service, when a familiar face came around the same corner—Connie, from the previous day’s taxi, already commenting on the delivery driver.
“That,” she said, “was Jerry from the market. He brought your groceries—yes? I’ve got your luggage. You want it here too?”
“Hey, Connie. I thought the hotel was going to bring it.”
“Well, they were. But I was there with a passenger, so I volunteered. Thought I’d send you off to your island with a friendly Petersburg goodbye and good luck.”
This time Jessie helped carry her personal items around to a spot beside the groceries, along with a small box into which the hotel had packed the whiskey and beer.
Jessie was surprised to find that Connie had not delivered Karen’s bag. “Was there a small black suitcase?” she asked.
“Oh, sorry. Almost forgot. They said to tell you the owner came to pick it up just a few minutes before I got there—jeans jacket, green shirt, green scarf over her hair?”
Jessie nodded, knowing it was Karen. But, again, why would she leave without any kind of explanation?
Well,
she thought,
at least I don’t have to worry about what to do with her bag
.
she thought,
at least I don’t have to worry about what to do with her bag
.
“Something wrong?” Connie asked at her frown.
“No. Not wrong,” Jessie told her. “It’s fine. I didn’t expect it, but it solves a problem. I really appreciate you bringing this stuff.”
Again she reached for her wallet in the daypack, but again the tip was turned down.
Connie bounced back around the car and into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind her.
“Have a great time at Five Finger Light,” she called through the open window, shifting the still-protesting gears and taking off with a wave.
Feeling that everything was happening at once, Jessie walked back around the building to her growing collection of groceries and luggage just in time to spot the long-legged figure of Jim Beal practically loping up the ramp from the dock with a wide smile on his face, two women coming along behind him.
“Hey Jessie,” he called. “Thought that pile of stuff must be yours.”
Though she hadn’t seen him in several years, there was no mistaking slender, six-foot Beal, who had assumed the character, costume, and thin mustache of a riverboat gambler for the Ton of Gold Reenactment celebrating the Klondike Gold Rush Centennial. With an enthusiastic group of crew and passengers, some descendants of the original Klondike miners, she and Alex had sailed from Skagway on the
Spirit of ’98,
Alaska Sightseeing/Cruise West’s flagship, which resembled an antique coastal steamer. An old-time melodrama had been part of the entertainment, with both Jim and Laurie as players. What had not been entertaining was a gang of killers and thieves they had helped to thwart on the way down the Inside Passage to Seattle.
Spirit of ’98,
Alaska Sightseeing/Cruise West’s flagship, which resembled an antique coastal steamer. An old-time melodrama had been part of the entertainment, with both Jim and Laurie as players. What had not been entertaining was a gang of killers and thieves they had helped to thwart on the way down the Inside Passage to Seattle.
Amused that Beal had retained the gambler’s mustache, Jessie teased as she stepped back from his affectionate hug, “Thought you’d be sporting a lighthouse keeper’s scrub brush on your upper lip by now.”
“Naw—this suits me. How the hell are you?”
“Great, but taking a break from running my mutts this winter, due to a bad knee. So I’m all yours as work crew, as long as I don’t have to crawl.”
“Ouch! What happened?”
“Fell down a mountain and twisted it enough to keep me off a sled.”
“Bad luck,” he sympathized, then turned to introduce the two women who had followed him up the dock, both carrying travel bags.
“This is Anna Neumeyer and Becky Galvin, friends of Laurie’s and mine who’ve been visiting from Colorado. They’re a law enforcement duo, so watch your step and don’t say I didn’t warn you. Becky’s a secretary for the FBI and Anna’s married to a Denver policeman. Ladies, this is Jessie Arnold, famous Iditarod sled dog racer who lives with an Alaska State Trooper. So I guess you’re about even-steven with the law thing.”
“Hi,” Jessie told them both, laughing as they all three gave Jim semitolerant glances. “Coming to the island with us?”
They shook their heads and Anna answered, “Unfortunately, we’re headed home on today’s plane. But we’ve been out there since Saturday, so we don’t feel too deprived. It’s a terrific place.”
“Is this your first trip?” Becky asked.
“It is. And I’m really looking forward to it.”
“You’ll love it. Be sure to look for the resident eagle. She has a baby this year.”
“I’ll do that,” Jessie assured her. “When does your plane leave?”
“Not until almost four o’clock, so we’re shopping Petersburg first.”
“Maybe you can leave your bags in the Harbor Master’s office,” Jim suggested. “When you’re ready to head for the airport, there’s a phone here to call a cab.”
“Here,” said Jessie, digging Connie’s crumpled card from a pocket. “Call this number. The driver’s a hoot and the cab not to be believed. You’ll like her and owe it to yourselves to have a laugh on the way to the airport.”
When the pair had given Jim thank-you hugs and left their luggage, they vanished, waving a last goodbye before turning the corner of Nordic Drive in search of gift shops. Jim picked up both boxes of groceries at once. “Let’s get your stuff on the boat. My roofing materials should be along anytime now. Where’s your friend? And have you seen Curt anywhere?”
Not wanting to get into the whole story, Jessie was explaining simply that Karen might not be coming, but could show up, when she was interrupted by a husky voice from behind her.
“Hey you—keeper of the light. Need a hand with that stuff?”
“Curt! There you are.” Jim put the boxes back down and reached to shake hands with the newcomer. “Good to see you! I was just wondering if I was going to have to track you down at the Harbor Bar. Oh, this is Jessie Arnold. Jessie—Curt Johnson.”
“Naw. Did that last night.”
He offered a hand to Jessie with a nod. His thick fingers felt rough with callus that she recognized from people she knew in the building trades—carpenters, mechanics.
If he hadn’t been carrying a duffel over his shoulder, she wouldn’t have remembered this older man as one of the pair she had seen the evening before. “I think I saw you and another man come off the dock by the Northern Lights last night, yes? I was having dinner there by the window around eight o’clock.”
“Nope,” he denied firmly, frowning and shaking his head. “Not me. I was in the bar, like I said.”
Jessie didn’t remember seeing him there, but supposed he could have come in after she left. Odd! The two men had been some distance away and it
had
been dark. Still, she was almost sure it was the same person and wondered, if so, why he would deny it.
had
been dark. Still, she was almost sure it was the same person and wondered, if so, why he would deny it.
Must be mistaken,
she told herself, turning to pick up her own duffel.
she told herself, turning to pick up her own duffel.
Daypack over her shoulder, Jessie carried the duffel and the smaller box that held the lager and whiskey the length of the dock to where Beal’s twenty-five-foot Seawolf powerboat was tied up in the last slip. There, they stowed everything inside the pilothouse and went back to wait for a delivery van to arrive from a local building materials supplier. This soon appeared and the driver assisted Jim and Curt in loading rolls of roofing and the other supplies he would need to install it.
As the van drove away, Jim turned to Jessie. “Let’s go grab some lunch before we leave. My stomach’s gonna be howling before we get back to Five Finger.”
“How long will it take?”
“A little over an hour with this load.”
Still thinking Karen might show up, Jessie suggested that they go for food, while she waited. “She won’t know where I am, or which boat is yours, if I leave, and she doesn’t know you.”
But by the time Jim and Curt returned with a sack full of burgers and fries, there had still been no sign of Karen.
On hearing it, Jim frowned. “Really shouldn’t wait around much longer,” he said. “I need to get back to the island just after high tide, so we can off-load more easily and get the boat secured so it doesn’t beat itself up on the rocks if the wind comes up. We should really get going.”
“Then let’s do that,” Jessie told him, making up her mind. “Karen’ll be fine on her own. Maybe she changed her mind and just didn’t want to say so. Let’s go.”
Nevertheless, as Beal pulled the boat out of its slip, with Curt next to him in the front of the boat, and headed into the Petersburg harbor, Jessie stood in the rear and scanned each dock that they passed, thinking she might see her overnight roommate on one of them. As each slid past empty of Karen, she felt both uneasy, as if she were abandoning someone who might need her help, and disappointed in Karen for leaving with no explanation for her absence. She might have worried that the woman’s stalker had caught up with her if Connie had not told her that Karen had picked up her suitcase from the hotel.
Hoping it was just a case of bad manners, she knew that she was also not totally unhappy to be relieved of the other woman’s problems, though she sympathized with her situation. Her fears had called up old memories and feelings on which Jessie would rather have kept a tight lid. Alex crossed her mind, and she wondered fleetingly if her past experience played a larger part than she had realized in her relationship with him. Refusing to examine that idea in detail, at Jim’s request she opened the sack, handed him and Curt their share, then settled down to her first, and very welcome, hot food of the day—still closely watching the shoreline east of the docks that they were slowly passing at the harbor cruising speed limit.
Which was how, below a large two-story house set back from the water, she noticed the redheaded figure on the shore wildly waving a green-and-brown scarf to attract attention.
“Stop, Jim,” she called, standing up to wave and let Karen know she had been seen. “That’s Karen. Can we pick her up?”
Beal cut the speed of the Seawolf to idle and looked toward shore in the direction Jessie was pointing.
“What the hell’s she doing clear down there?” he asked. “It’s at least a mile out of town.”
“I don’t know, but she clearly wants us to collect her. She’s in some trouble, Jim, and it may be important that we do, if you think we can.”
He agreed, swung the bow shoreward, and took the boat in, cutting power and coasting as close as possible to a shore of rounded stones of all sizes. As they came in he turned the wheel over to Curt to hold steady and came to the stern with a boat hook to fend them off if necessary. As they bumped and grated gently aground, leaving a space of about six feet, Karen grabbed her suitcase and waded in up to her knees, running shoes and all. Reaching the boat, she heaved the case up to Jessie and clung to the side, trying to figure out how to get herself aboard.
“Wait,” said Beal, and used the boat hook to pole the craft around so she could reach the stern, which was lower and allowed her to push off and hoist herself onto it on her stomach. With help from Jessie, she swung her dripping feet inboard and stood up.
“Thanks,” she managed, breathless, as they both watched her pant to regain her wind. Recovering enough to speak, she nodded to Beal. “You gotta be Jim, the lighthouse man.”
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