Restless in the Grave (39 page)

“Call me Kate,” she said. “I’m always on a first-name basis with my co-brawlers after I’ve been in a fight with them.” She smiled at the captain. “It’s a little rule I have.”

The captain’s eyes went to the scratch on Mason’s cheek. The struggle to ask was almost visible. Again, admirably, Kate thought, professionalism won and he refrained.

“The trawler?” Mason said as they rose to their feet.

“Impounded,” the captain said. “Engineering is running a quick-and-dirty check to see how seaworthy it is, after which I’ll have a prize crew deliver it to Kodiak, along with its crew. Kodiak’s expecting them, and will wait to hear what you want done with them.”

“Send them to Anchorage, probably,” Mason said, thinking out loud, “although they’re bound to be little fish.”

“The ship’s ours,” the captain said, glad to find some means to exercise his authority. “We seized it.”

Mason waved an airy hand. “Nothing to do with me. Let’s let that battle be fought on land, by the lawyers for our respective services.” His smile had a soothing effect, and Kate bet he knew it.

The captain exerted executive privilege to drive them to the airport, mostly, Kate thought, because he was hoping to hear a little more of the story. In that he was disappointed, but when the Gulfstream landed and Gabe McGuire got out, he was well repaid if the dumbstruck expression on his face was any indication. At any rate, he stalled out the car twice before he drove away.

Kate herself was not best pleased on any number of fronts. “You’re my ride?”

McGuire grinned down at her from his rarefied Olympian heights. A ray of sun found a way through the gathering clouds to gild his hair, darken his eyes from chocolate to espresso, and make his teeth that much whiter against his—probably sun bed—tan. “I am.”

Boyd and Shorty gaped at him. Jean turned beet red and looked like she’d swallowed her tongue. Mason was made of sterner stuff. “Special Agent Mason, Mr. McGuire. The FBI appreciates the assistance. If you’ll give me a receipt, we can at least make a stab at getting you reimbursed for fuel.”

“I appreciate the offer,” McGuire said. “Av gas isn’t cheap.” He looked at Kate. “You ready?”

Kate had never been on a private jet before and it was difficult to remain unimpressed. The interior surprised her by its lack of ostentation. There were about a dozen overstuffed chairs and one plush couch and a lavatory that looked like any other bathroom on a plane. The windows were a little bigger than she was used to, the cabin a lot smaller, and there were no middle seats. Nothing looked new. “Where’s the wet bar?” she said.

“Left it in L.A., along with the pole dancers,” McGuire said, closing the hatch. “Lester?”

Up front, Lester leaned out of the left seat and looked down the aisle.

“Wind ’er up, we’re good to go.”

Lester nodded and leaned back. The engines, which had never been all the way shut down, began to whine louder.

“Welcome aboard,” McGuire said. “Our flight time to Newenham will be one hour and forty minutes. We have six emergency exits, four window exits, the forward door and the aft baggage door.” He pointed. “In the event of a loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop out of the overhead. Put yours on first before helping anyone else. There is a life vest under each seat and two life rafts under the couch. Please read the safety briefing cards.” He pulled one out of a seat pocket and held it up. He made eye contact with each of his passengers, even the ones in handcuffs. “Everybody fasten your seat belts. It was a little bumpy coming in but nothing to worry about.”

“Make one hell of a flight attendant,” Kate said, not quite under her breath.

He ignored her, and nodded at Shorty and Boyd, already strapped into the last row, Mutt sitting guard between them. “We have any problems, you’re responsible for getting them out,” he said to Mason.

Mason nodded. “Understood.” Mutt wagged her tail.

“You two,” McGuire said to Shorty and Boyd. “You want to make a break for it, wait till we’re back on the ground. Start anything in the air on my plane and I promise you you will have the privilege of personally experiencing downward velocity at thirty-two feet per second, without benefit of aircraft. Understood?”

Boyd and Shorty nodded, dazed expressions indicating they thought they might have somehow wandered into the middle of a major motion picture.

“Let me take that,” McGuire said to Jean, and buckled her pitiful amount of luggage into an empty chair. Jean stared up at him, rapt. “Here, let me help you with that,” he said, and buckled Jean in, too. He eyeballed everyone one more time and nodded. “You saw the head on the way in. I’ll tell you when it’s okay to use it. There are soft drinks in the cooler”—he pointed again—“help yourself.”

“Sorry, how long to Newenham again?” Kate said.

“An hour and forty minutes.”

She had to grin.

“What?”

She nodded at Boyd, who scowled. “Took us four hours in the other direction yesterday.”

“Smaller plane?”

“Much.”

He smiled. “Sometimes it’s good to be king.”

He went forward, and everyone in the passenger section craned their necks to watch him climb into the right seat, including Kate and Mutt. Except Mason, who was thumbing notes on his smartphone.

They taxied out onto the runway, the engines wound to a scream, and the craft lunged forward as if launched from a pad at Cape Canaveral. They were airborne and climbing steeply a few seconds later. Maybe it was the size of the plane that gave the illusion of excessive speed, but Kate felt she had never slipped the surly bonds of earth more rapidly. Through her window she watched Adak drop away.

She felt a touch on her elbow, and looked around.

“I didn’t think I’d ever get out of that shithole,” Jean said. “I owe you.”

Kate shook her head. “Paid in full.”

The other woman was still a little befuddled. “Doesn’t seem like enough.” She ran wondering hands over the cream leather arms of her chair. “I’ve never been on a plane before in my life.”

Kate, that compleat Alaskan, was incredulous. “Where are you from, anyway?”

“Anacortes. I came up on a crab boat. The skipper, he seemed to think … Anyway, I jumped ship in Adak.” Her smile was more a grimace. “Been trying to get out ever since.”

“How long were you stuck there?” Kate said.

“Eighteen months, thirteen days,” Jean said. “And about twenty hours.”

Kate took note of the averted eyes, the tightened mouth, and let it be. Jean hadn’t struck Kate as the victim type, but then she’d met a lot of women in Jean’s situation who fit that description, both personally and professionally. “I don’t know that you’ll like Newenham any better than Adak, but it’s closer to Anchorage and cheaper to get out of.” She paused, thinking. “If you feel like staying, I might have a job for you.”

Jean looked around again at that. “You’re kidding.”

“No guarantees, but I think so. It’s bartending, something you know how to do. Pay’s not bad and the tips are good. Boss seems like a good person, a little cranky, but fair. Her boyfriend—” She rolled her eyes. “He’s obnoxious but good entertainment value. No promises, but I might also know a place for you to stay, too.”

Jean’s eyes filled with tears, embarrassing them both. Kate turned in some haste and tapped Mason on the shoulder. When he looked around she jerked her thumb at the front row. He followed her and took the seat across from her, and they put their heads together. “A few things you should know,” she said, and filled him in on the events of the past week, including two instances of B&E, which she thought was deserving of some praise for her candor, considering the Fifth Amendment and all.

The special agent did not appear to share her sentiments. “I don’t even know where to start,” he said.

“Then don’t,” she said. “I hear the rule on this aircraft is no fighting at forty-five thousand feet.”

He was steaming. “You do understand fruit of the poisoned tree, right?”

“I’m a private investigator,” she said. “It was mostly a favor for a friend of a friend, and all I did was follow my nose. I wasn’t looking for an international arms-smuggling ring. It’s just what I found.”

“What about him?” He nodded toward the cockpit.

“Campbell wouldn’t have sent him if he thought he was involved.” Kate thought about it. “Or maybe he would. So what? We needed a ride. We got one.”

Twenty-nine

JANUARY 22

Newenham

An hour and forty minutes to the second later, they touched down at the Newenham airport. Mason spent the first part of the flight trying to bring Kate to an appreciation of the error of her ways, and abandoned the attempt only when she pretended to doze off in her very comfortable chair. Mason sighed and moved to the rear of the cabin, where he played
Let’s Make a Deal
with Boyd and Shorty.

She did fall asleep then, and didn’t wake up until McGuire touched her shoulder.

“What?” She blinked around. “We’re there? Wow. I didn’t even feel us land.”

McGuire’s smile was beatific. Kate looked at Lester, standing behind McGuire, and said, “If I’d known you were going to let him fly, I’d have spent the entire flight holding the plane up in the air by the seat cushion.”

“When you know Gabe better, you’ll know nobody lets him do anything,” Lester said.

“Sadly, I have no intention of getting to know him better,” Kate said, and brushed past both Lester and the twinkle in his eye.

They were parked in front of Finn Grant’s old hangar. Campbell was waiting. So was the ninja master, with his truck, Kate hoped only for the necessary extra transportation services.

Kate heard the scraping sound of a hangar door opening, and turned to see Tina Grant standing in the opening, Oren Grant standing at her shoulder. She thought she saw a third figure in the shadows behind them, probably Fred. On the facing wall between the door and the roof, the Bristol Bay Air Freight logo was still faintly visible beneath the overlay of the more flamboyant Eagle Air’s.

She nudged Mason. “Grant’s wife and son. And brother back of them, I think.”

Boyd and Shorty were being put into Campbell’s vehicle. They didn’t yell to Tina and Oren for help, and Tina and Oren didn’t come bustling out to offer any.

Mason turned his back to the hangar and spoke to Campbell in a low voice. “You got anybody at the terminal will tell you if any of the Grants buy a ticket out of town? Or roll out an airplane, I hear nearly everyone in the family’s a pilot.”

“I can make a call,” Campbell said. “But the only Grant pilot left is Evelyn, and she’s in the hospital.”

“What about Fred?” Kate said.

Both men looked around. “Finn’s brother,” Kate said.

Campbell looked chagrined. “Forgot about Fred.” He shook his head. “Everybody always forgets about Fred.”

“Look pretty foolish if the whole family was in on it and we let them get away.”

Campbell sighed. “Okay. I’ll make a call to Naknek, too, just to be on the safe side. Fred lives in Naknek, although he’s been in Newenham every other day since his brother died. I know the trooper there pretty well, and he owes me a couple.”

“Thanks, Liam.”

“You two do know each other,” Kate said. “How?”

They got into Liam’s vehicle without answering and drove off.

“Irritating,” McGuire said.

Kate jumped. “Could you at least clear your throat or something to let me know when you’re standing right next to me?”

“How else am I supposed to find out anything, you being so forthcoming and all?” he said.

“Nothing you need to know,” Kate said, and started for Moses’ truck. Jean was already sitting in it, and Mutt was in the back.

McGuire caught her elbow, bringing her to a halt and, did he but know it, lucky to escape with his hand still attached. Kate did not take kindly to being manhandled. “I just let you thumb an eight-hundred-mile lift,” he said mildly, although his eyes were beginning to spark. “I figure the least you can do is be civil to me.”

“I am civil to you,” Kate said.

It surprised a laugh out of him. “God help me if you ever start being rude.”

“Mr. McGuire,” Kate said, “I appreciate the ride, really, I do. We would have been stuck in Adak for four days waiting on the next commercial flight, or the next Coastie Herc, whichever came first, if you hadn’t flown down to pick us up. Either way, it would have been a much slower and much less comfortable ride. But I’m not going to be here much longer, and there isn’t much point in furthering a friendship that isn’t going to last a day longer than necessary.” She started toward the truck again.

McGuire caught up and stood in front of her, forcing her to a halt. “Okay,” Kate said, glad to feel her temper flare, “just who the hell do you—?”

“You wanna know what I think?” McGuire said, leaning down so that their noses almost touched. “I think you’re terrified. I think you’re just as attracted to me as I am to you, and because you think of me as a face on a magazine cover, and in spite of that self-confidence you clank around in like a suit of armor, I think you don’t know what to do about it. So you act hostile so I won’t make any moves and you don’t have to deal with it.”

She looked him firmly in the eye and said what she should have found a way to insert into their first conversation. “Mr. McGuire, flattered as I am by your star-studded attention, as any red-blooded American female would be, I’m in a relationship.”

His eyes stared into hers. She set her teeth and wouldn’t blink no matter how much her eyes stung.

He straightened up but he didn’t move away. “So you say,” he said.

Nothing got Kate’s back up faster than when she was accused of lying. Especially when she was telling the truth.

She was pretty sure.

She marched around him and over to Moses’ pickup and wrenched open the passenger-side door. Mutt was already in the back. Jean took one look at Kate’s set expression and scooted over to the middle of the seat, saying absolutely nothing that might direct any of that her way. Moses, looking his usual pissed off, said, “You done playing patty-cake with the movie star?”