Murder at five finger light (15 page)

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Authors: Sue Henry

Tags: #Mystery, #Alaska

BOOK: Murder at five finger light
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“No, Whitney,” Jim told her. “He’s being facetious.”
“Don’t count on it,” Curt responded. “Jim said he had it fixed yesterday and it was running fine. But when he went down to start that thing this morning? Besides me, who but a ghost was in the basement last night?”
“Probably one of those awful bug things.” Sandra shivered. “What
are
those things anyway? They look like some kind of cockroach.”
“They’re not,” Laurie assured her. “Cockroaches are insects and have hard shells and six legs. These are isopods and they have sixteen legs. We took one to Bruce Wing, the biologist at the Auke Bay NOAA Lab in Juneau, and he told us all about them. He said they’re invertebrates, related to things with sections, like pill bugs and centipedes. They usually come out at night or on overcast days and live mostly in the rocks above the high tide line, where they stay moist in the ocean spray and find algae to eat, right, Jim?”
“Yeah, and this is just one kind. There are dozens of different kinds that live both in salt- and freshwater. If they get dry and the rain leaves a puddle, they crawl right in, but they also like dark, damp places. There’s a horde of them down in the old fuel and water tanks under the cement platform out there.” He waved a hand toward the windows on the east side of the room.
“There are tanks under there?” Don asked with interest.
“The fuel tank’s been emptied and cleaned, but we still use the one for water. It’s huge. Full, it holds thirty thousand gallons. We can climb down and I’ll give you a tour tomorrow, if you like.”
“Not me!” Sandra flatly stated. “If those evil
pod
things live down there and like it, I’ll take your word for it, thank you very much. I hate creepy-crawlies.”
“Me too,” Aaron agreed. “Can’t
stand
’em! Give me lizards, mice, even snakes. But you can have the bugs. Even if these aren’t bugs, they seem like ’em. Yuck.”
Jim laughed. “They won’t hurt you. Kids chase them, like Sally Lightfoots, but these don’t fight back when they’re caught.”
Karen, who had said almost nothing since they arrived that afternoon, was quietly listening to the exchanges from her seat to Jessie’s left.
“What do you do, Karen?” Laurie asked in a moment of silence.
“Oh, a lot of things, but not necessarily well,” she answered. “I’m a pretty good cook, though.”
“Terrific. You can help me in the kitchen then. But listen up, people. Those who cook do
not
clean up. Got that?”
As a chorus of groans and laughter answered her, Jessie saw Jim assess Karen’s unrevealing answer to Laurie’s question with an inquisitive look, which Karen, attention elsewhere, didn’t notice.
Tucking it away in her mind for the moment as the conversation turned back to the renovation projects, Jessie leaned close to Don and said quietly, “I can’t come to Southeast Alaska without remembering your cousin.”
Sawyer’s cousin, who had been part of the crew aboard the
Spirit of ’98,
had been murdered and thrown from the stern of the ship during the voyage.
He nodded. “I think about Donna too—especially in Peril Strait, where she went over. I’ve been through there a couple of times since.”
“How’s her boy doing?”
“Josh?” A smile spread across his face. “He’s great. He’s in third grade this fall—plays soccer and loves video games. I went down to Vancouver and kept Christmas with him and Donna’s mother this year. He’s a pistol, that kid.”
“Hey Jim. Do we start on that boathouse roof tomorrow?” Aaron asked, having emptied his plate for the second time and pulled his chair back to the table.
“Thought we might, unless it rains.”
“Rain is not allowed,” Sandra solemnly announced. “I have propitiated the weather gods with burned offerings tossed into the sea, begging their compassion in providing good weather.”
“But only after you forgot to make offerings to the gods of memory to remind you to remove those cookies from the oven
before
they were
burned,
” Whitney reminded her with a grin.
Curt leaned back in his chair. “They were probably gobbled up by that sea lion we saw this afternoon.”
“Where
are
those cookies?” Jim asked Laurie.
“Coming up. Anyone want coffee? Tea? More wine?”
Preferences were voiced and Whitney, Aaron, and Jessie stood up to clear the table while Laurie went to make coffee and get the cookies. Karen started to help, but Jessie waved her back into her chair. “Three’s enough. You can take a turn tomorrow.”
Laurie brought a large Ziploc bag to the table for the leftover green salad. “Sandra, would you fill this and take it to one of those shelves downstairs where it’s cool? Just put it in that box with the rest of the veggies.”
“Sure.” She rose and came around the table. “Anything else to go down?”
“Something to come up,” Jim suggested, holding up the empty wine bottle. “Another one of these would be good. Look for a box to the left of the door in that storage area.”
Sandra disappeared down the inside stairs, passing Jessie who was collecting a last stack of plates and silverware for the kitchen sink, where Aaron was already up to both his elbows in soapy water. Jim got up and came around the table.
“See you outside for a minute?” he asked quietly, passing Jessie.
“Hey! You’re stealing my cleanup crew,” Laurie chastised him.
“Plenty of replacements,” he told her without pausing on his way out the door.
Jessie followed, knowing she would now be called upon to provide answers to his questions concerning Karen.
Just outside the door was a waist-high, L-shaped cement wall that formed a sort of open porch perhaps ten feet wide and somewhat longer. Anyone going around the left end of it would immediately arrive at the top of the stairway leading to the lower level platform onto which they had climbed from the rocks upon landing. Instead of going down it, Jim strolled across to a set of wooden steps that led up to the helipad. Sitting down on one of them, he pulled a pipe from a pocket and proceeded to pack it with tobacco and light it with a wooden kitchen match. The fragrance of the tobacco caught Jessie off guard, as it was the same blend Alex periodically smoked. She sat down on a lower step, closed her eyes, and inhaled appreciatively.
“Familiar, huh?” Jim’s voice held a smile. “It should be, I guess. Alex turned me onto it on the centennial trip. Wish he’d been able to come along.”
“Me too,” Jessie said, thinking she would call Alex later.
“Now, tell me about this friend of yours,” Jim said, but was interrupted as Sandra appeared at the lighthouse door with the bottle he had requested.
“Jim,” she called hesitantly, a frown of concern on her face. “Here’s the wine, but . . .”
“That’s it, Sandra,” he told her. “Would you ask Curt to open it?”
“Sure, but . . .”
“Something wrong?”
“Ah—well—just a question about something in the basement, but it’ll keep.”
“I’ll be in soon,” he told her, and turned to Jessie as Sandra vanished into the kitchen. “There’s something familiar about Karen that I can’t quite put a finger on. What’s her story?”
“Familiar?”
“Yeah. Like I met her somewhere, casually—maybe. But I can’t think where or when. And I keep feeling that, if I had, I’d remember that hair easily enough. Where’d you find her?”
Jessie could just see his frown of puzzlement in the dull glow from the pipe as he drew on it.
“She’s a puzzle all right,” she agreed. “Actually, she sort of
found me
—joined me for dinner last night at the Northern Lights in Petersburg. Came right up and asked if I’d mind, since she was by herself and in trouble.” She went on to tell him the whole of Karen’s story, as she knew it, right up to her asking Karen to join them at the lighthouse and their collecting her off the beach as they left town in the Seawolf.
Jim was quiet for a few moments when she finished, reflecting on the tale. She waited without further clarification for his response, which came slowly.
“A stalker? Hm-m. No wonder she wanted out of Petersburg. Hard to hide in a town that small.”
“Yes. And she seems genuinely terrified of him.”
“What she
seems
is pretty hard to read,” he rejoined, thoughtfully. “Lot going on in that head and she’s pretty cautious about what she reveals.”
He took another draw on the pipe and puffed smoke into the air over his head. “You ever see him?”
“Not once.”
“You believe her?”
It was the question Jessie had been asking herself—one that stifled her answer for a moment or two. She leaned back, raised her face, and took a deep breath, hesitating, considering.
It was full dark. Here and there, through a break in the clouds, a star would twinkle through, disappearing quickly as another cloud floated in to conceal it. Every ten seconds the light that had come on automatically overhead in the tower was now sweeping its long beam across the underside of the low cloud cover that had drifted in. It would, she knew, be only a flash in the distance, but next to the lighthouse she could see its full circle.
Warning
, she thought,
warning. Here be dragons
.
Finally—the danger unidentified, unsubstantiated in her mind—she spoke, still tracking what Jim had told them was a solar-powered aerobeacon as it cast its slim line of caution around above their heads.
“I—think so, but I just don’t know. There’s something . . .” She let this thought trail off unfinished.
“Yes,” he said pensively. “There is, isn’t there.”
What had crossed Jessie’s mind more than once earlier now came together in words. “She could bear watching.”
“She’s
doing
a lot of careful watching. And she doesn’t seem to like Curt for some reason. You notice how carefully she stays away from him?”
“I hadn’t, but I’ll pay more attention.”
“Good. So will I.”
Neither of them took what they had shared any further, for the moment. In unspoken agreement they rose and headed toward the lighthouse where, inside, they could hear that Aaron, finished with the dishes, had retrieved a guitar and was trying to elicit a sing-along from a group too satisfied with food to dredge up much vocal energy.
“Keep me up to speed, if there’s anything?” Jim asked as they reached the door.
“Sure. And you.”
“Of course.”
Jessie found her uneasiness somewhat alleviated by having Jim’s company in an evaluation of Karen Emerson.
Sandra was snuggled next to Don on the sofa, her question seemingly forgotten in listening to Aaron’s music and humorous lyrics.
And there were cookies—
unburned
—on the table.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
 
 
 
 
IN DAWSON CITY, ALEX HAD BEEN UP BEFORE THE SUN, ready early to cross the Yukon River on the ferry on Tuesday morning. He had enjoyed spending time with Del and Clair Delafosse and was more than pleased with the amount that had been accomplished in organizing the plan between the Alaska State Troopers and Royal Canadian Mounted Police in a joint effort to improve border security between the two countries. But he had been glad to be heading home with Jessie’s lead dog Tank, head on paws, drowsing beside him on the seat of the pickup truck, both satisfied with the breakfast Clair had insisted on feeding them before they left.
“You can’t make a run to the border on an empty stomach, or just coffee,” she had told him, brooking no argument as she bustled around in the kitchen over sausage, eggs, and Del’s favorite buttermilk pancakes.
“For heaven’s sake don’t discourage her,” Del had begged. “I could eat them every day. But soon she and the twins won’t be able to reach the stove, let alone that skillet, and I’ll be out of luck until they’re born because when I make pancakes they just don’t turn out the same. After that, with three mouths to feed, it’s anybody’s guess.”
Alex had grinned as he drove away from the river, remembering that Clair had also packed him a lunch that he probably wouldn’t need to break into for hours yet.
“Even you were fed a hearty breakfast, weren’t you,” he asked, reaching over to rub Tank’s ears. “Going to be strange going home to an empty house, though, isn’t it? Jessie won’t be back until Sunday, so we’ll have to make do with each other’s company.”
Recognizing the name of his owner, Tank had raised his head to give Jensen a questioning look. He and Jessie went almost everywhere together and were seldom separated for more than a day or two at most. But Jensen knew that if the dog had been able to make a list of favorite people, he would have come in second. It was good to know that he’d been missed during the months he was away in Idaho, as he was very fond of this canine friend and glad of his being along on this trip.

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