Murder at five finger light (30 page)
“We found him yesterday, but it’s not Curt. Curt’s one of
them
. We’ll tell you about it, but we need to find Whitney. He put us down there and he had a gun, but Whitney hasn’t been with us.”
them
. We’ll tell you about it, but we need to find Whitney. He put us down there and he had a gun, but Whitney hasn’t been with us.”
“Two people took off in a boat that showed up just over an hour ago,” Cooper told them. “They were too far away to identify, but I saw them go.”
“Where were you?” Alex asked, turning to look him in the eye for an answer.
“Watching from the edge of the trees. I heard the boat engine on its way in and came from the south end to see what was going on. One of them was on board and another came out of the basement carrying something in a cardboard box and joined him in a hurry. When they left, I took my boat and followed. They were headed toward Petersburg—fast.”
“Where was your boat?”
“Off the rocks on the east side, where it is now.”
Alex nodded, satisfied with that answer. “Can you identify the other boat?”
“Yes.”
“But you came back.”
“Yeah—of course. There were people here who needed help.”
“We’ll talk,” Alex said shortly, turning back to help Sandra out of the tank.
“We need to find Karen too,” she reminded him. “She’s the other person who’s missing besides Whitney.”
Alex, who was helping Cooper to lift her up through the manhole in the pavement, noticed that at Sandra’s mention of the woman’s name, Cooper froze for a second or two and gave Sandra a questioning glance before leaning to help Laurie up into the daylight. He made a mental note to find out why the man had reacted as he did. Who was he anyway? Evidently not part of the work crew. So why and how had he managed to show up and be in the right place to rescue the work crew from their prison? Someone had killed the man at the other end of the island and Cooper was as good a candidate as any until he knew more.
Tank trotted in anxious circles around the group that grew larger as person after person came up from their dark underground prison, until he was finally rewarded when the one person he wanted to see was next to last in being lifted out. The affectionate greeting he received was brief, however, as Jessie was swept aside by Alex into an enormous hug of affection that was accompanied by murmurs of relief and assurances. Finally he held her away to grin and say, “Figured I’d better find out why you hadn’t called. Are you really okay?”
“I knew you’d be worried, but I’m fine. Just a bump on the head that may need a stitch or two, but a cleaning and some tape will probably take care of it.”
“Let me see.”
“It’s stopped bleeding and will keep for now. Let’s go up where there’s water and food. Then I want to wash at least my hands and face in the worst way. But there are still questions to be answered, and a couple of people are missing who were not down there with us.”
“Let’s take care of these folks first, you mean?”
“Yes. Water first, please, and some Tylenol.”
But, when asked her preference, it was a Killian’s she selected to go with the sandwich Alex threw together for her from whatever supplies eager hands snatched from the refrigerator and spread out on the table of the common room.
When she was provided for and the rest were busy with their own lunches, he went with Knapp, made his call to Ketchikan, and was assured they would come as soon as possible and forward to the Coast Guard, the information he gave them on the boat Cooper had seen but it would take time for anyone to arrive at Five Finger Light.
Understandably, none of those rescued from the dark wanted to eat within the confinement of four walls. Instead, they took their food to the helipad, where they washed it down with plenty of liquids, while soaking up the heat and light they had feared they might not see again. Between bites, in no particular order, they gave their rescuers a brief and rather disjointed account of their abduction and subsequent captivity, the finding of Tim Christiansen’s body, their problems with communications, and the discovery of the sunken Seawolf the day before.
While they talked Cooper listened in silence, saying nothing. He paid close attention, however, to the notice of Alex, who was quietly watching
him
—with growing interest and curiosity. No one, he thought to himself, had yet answered to his satisfaction the question of
why
they had been imprisoned between the tanks, and none of them seemed to know, or be willing to say.
him
—with growing interest and curiosity. No one, he thought to himself, had yet answered to his satisfaction the question of
why
they had been imprisoned between the tanks, and none of them seemed to know, or be willing to say.
They were a grimy group, coated with mud and the dirt that had covered the walls and floor of the maintenance space between the tanks. Some had scrapes and bruises collected on their way in, or in falls or collisions with the rough cement walls during their internment. But soon, in twos and threes, everyone, including Alex, Knapp, and Cooper, spread out to mount a concerted search for the two members of the crew who were still missing.
Bill Knapp went with Don and Aaron to search through to the other end of the island and back for Whitney and for Karen, whom Jessie had identified as the person she had helped to hide under Tim Christiansen’s body.
“Leave his body where it is,” Alex told them. “There’ll be an investigation and enough disturbance has already been done to that scene already. But Jessie says that Karen was frightened and may be reluctant to trust anyone. She and Whitney have to be out there somewhere, so make sure you’re thorough.”
Jessie went to take a look around the north end of the island and under the helipad. After a fruitless search, she was coming back when she noticed that Alex and Joe Cooper were standing together on the lower platform in earnest conversation. Alex nodded in answer to something, added a comment of his own, then tipped his head back in a hearty laugh at Cooper’s response. They seemed to have reached some kind of understanding that eluded her, but they were both serious again when Jessie trotted down the stairs to join them, Tank close beside her, unwilling to be separated from his mistress.
“Good,” Alex said to Cooper. “We’ll work that out. It won’t be a problem. I’ll call . . .” He hesitated and turned to Jessie as she slipped in under his arm.
“Hi there. Find anything?”
“Nothing. Let’s go up and see how Laurie’s doing.”
“Sure. Coming, Joe?”
Joe?
Jessie considered the apparent change in the relationship between the two men as the three climbed the steps. Something had transpired that she didn’t understand, but she was sure Alex would clarify later, and let it go as they entered the lighthouse.
Jessie considered the apparent change in the relationship between the two men as the three climbed the steps. Something had transpired that she didn’t understand, but she was sure Alex would clarify later, and let it go as they entered the lighthouse.
Laurie and Sandra had decided to once again examine every closet and storage space in the lighthouse where Whitney might have been incarcerated.
“Alex.” Laurie stopped him, as he, Jessie, and Cooper came in the door. She went to the nearby half-sized freezer and lifted its lid to rummage through the packages of frozen food. “We found a handgun in Karen’s things and Jim put it in here, but it’s gone, so someone took it out—probably Curt, from what Jessie says.”
“Who knew it was there?” Alex asked sharply.
“All of us,” Jessie told him. “We were all together when Jim put it there.”
“Not all. Karen was in the bedroom,” Jim reminded her, coming in from the common room.
“That’s right, she was. But I think the door was open.”
They looked at each other. It could have been anyone of them—or not.
“So Curt
could
have taken it?” Alex questioned. “Or Karen—or Whitney, for that matter?”
could
have taken it?” Alex questioned. “Or Karen—or Whitney, for that matter?”
Yes, that was possible.
“You know,” Jim said, frowning at his own lack of attention, “I’d like to have a look at the space in the basement behind the wine—just to see if those packages Sandra told us about are still there.”
“What packages?” Alex asked.
“Drugs,” Jessie told him. “Someone had two good-sized packages of cocaine stashed down there. It’s probably what this is all about.”
Thinking back to what he had learned in Whitehorse about drug smuggling across the international borders of Southeast Alaska, British Columbia, and the Pacific Northwest, a nasty picture was beginning to take shape in Alex’s mind.
The cocaine, when Sandra, Jim, and Jessie showed Alex where the packages had been, was gone. But in its place they found an unexpected and unpleasant surprise. Curt’s body lay there on the cold cement floor. He had been killed by a shot to his left temple.
There was a more welcome surprise when they were back upstairs and had gathered around the table to answer a few more questions from Alex.
The outside door was suddenly opened and Bill Knapp came in. After him, followed by Don and Aaron, Whitney limped into the kitchen, damp, dirty, and bedraggled, with dry leaves and grass in her hair and a bloody scrape across one muddy cheek.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“IT WAS CURT,” WHITNEY TOLD THEM FROM A SEAT AT the far end of the table, where she was drinking the water Jim handed her, while Laurie attempted to treat the cut on her cheek. She had pulled off the filthy sweatshirt she had been wearing over a T-shirt, now also stained, but not quite so dirty.
“When he woke me up, Curt told me he wanted one hostage within reach, just in case, and since I was the last one, he would keep me upstairs. He tied me up, gagged me, and left me on the bed. I had no idea where anyone else was, except that Jessie had gone out earlier to look for Karen. But after a while I heard Karen here, talking to Curt.
“Later someone else came in a boat. I heard it come into the cove and then heard them talking in the common room, but I never got a look at them. I struggled till I got loose, and then took off out the kitchen door when the three of them went to the basement. I heard a shot as I went up the boathouse stairs, but I didn’t stop—just booked.”
“Where did you go?” Alex asked.
“To the east side, where there are lots of deep spaces between those big rocks. It was a mess going through them in the dark. I was in a hurry, so I slipped and fell more than once—that’s where I did this,” she said, putting a hand to her cheek. “Once after that I landed knee-deep in a tide pool. Ugh! Awful standing water that smelled rotten. Finally I found a good place between a big rock and the roots of a tree, crawled into it, curled up, and stayed there. I think I even went to sleep for a while.
“Later, I heard the boat motor start, so I stood up enough to see and watched it leave.”
“Why didn’t you come back then?”
“Well, there were only two people in it, so I figured it was possible that one of the three was still here and probably had a gun. What would you have done? I crawled back into my hiding place.”
“Did you see anyone else—hear anything else—any other boats?”
“Nope. But when I heard Aaron and Don shouting my name just now, I figured it was safe to come out. So here I am—what’s left of me. And I need a shower and something to eat. I’m starving.”
Alex glanced across the table at Joe Cooper, who had been casually leaning back in his chair, but now slowly sat up to place both elbows on the table, fold one hand over the knuckles of the other, and rest his chin on them. Jessie, next to Alex, with Tank curled up under her chair, saw him give the trooper a quick inquiring look, which Alex answered with a slight nod of his head.
“So,” Cooper asked Whitney in an offhand, indifferent tone, “you didn’t hear my boat—or see me tie it up and come ashore on that side of the island? Then when the other boat left, come to take it and follow them out?”
She turned to assess him questioningly, stiffening enough so that Laurie paused in her application of disinfectant to say, “Sorry. Did I hurt you?”
Whitney didn’t answer, simply stared resentfully at Cooper. But something alert and wary moved in her narrowed eyes as she answered him.
“No. And I think I would have
if
you’d
been
there,” she snapped and continued with a challenge. “Who the hell are you anyway? The third person in this charade, I’ll bet. Did Karen and Curt leave in the boat without you on purpose?”
if
you’d
been
there,” she snapped and continued with a challenge. “Who the hell are you anyway? The third person in this charade, I’ll bet. Did Karen and Curt leave in the boat without you on purpose?”
Cooper lifted his chin off his hands, and his cold smile in response was an expression more predatory than sympathetic and held no more humor than the answer he snapped at her across the table.
“Nice try. But I
was
there—my boat is
still
there and was seen to be by others. Clearly, if you didn’t see it, or hear it, you
weren’t
where you say you were. Care to explain that?”
was
there—my boat is
still
there and was seen to be by others. Clearly, if you didn’t see it, or hear it, you
weren’t
where you say you were. Care to explain that?”
Giving him a look of disdain, Whitney turned to Alex. “Who
is
this guy?” she asked. “Do you know that he’s been stalking Karen Emerson practically forever—that he beat her, frightened her half out of her wits, enough to drive her out of Ketchikan? Why don’t you arrest him? Do you know him?”
is
this guy?” she asked. “Do you know that he’s been stalking Karen Emerson practically forever—that he beat her, frightened her half out of her wits, enough to drive her out of Ketchikan? Why don’t you arrest him? Do you know him?”
Alex stared at her in silence for a few seconds, waiting to see if she would say anything else.
“Yes,” he said finally. “I know him. And you will too, very shortly, if what I think is true. Where’s the cocaine, Whitney? You might as well give it up. Did they leave you here because you’ve made some bad mistakes?”
“Wha—” she started to say, rising from her chair.
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