Taking Liberty (5 page)

___________________________

The Gulfstream jet climbed at a steep angle into thunderous skies. Wintry Missouri dropped away, shrinking into a spider web spangle of Christmas lights.

I looked back inside the dimly-lit cabin. Rae was busy setting up a laptop on a fold-down table. Its icy glare turning her freckles blue.

“I’m not sure I’m ready to face the wrath of Stone just yet,” I said.

“Then I guess it’s a good thing we’re heading out to Alaska instead.” She saw my surprise and added: “We’re going to Kodiak Island, to a fishing village called Akhiok.”

I hadn’t heard the name in years, or thought about it in longer.

“Why Akhiok?”

“It’s our assignment.”

My freedom had been short-lived.

I sat up straight. “Wait a minute, Rae. What about my agreement with Stone? With Fillmore dead our deal’s off.”

“Not according to Mason. You’re still under contract with the Bureau until he says otherwise.”

There it was: no escape. Stone had every intention of keeping me on a short leash, where he could keep an eye on me, indefinitely.

“So what’s so special about Akhiok?”

“They found a body.”

“Who?”

“Does it matter who exactly? I believe it was a young girl, from the village.”

“The body?”

“No, the person who found the body. That is what you asked, isn’t it?”

“I guess. Let me be clearer, then:
why
are we going to Akhiok?”

“I told you: they found a body.”

“That doesn’t answer my question, Rae.”

She made a wounded face. “Gabe, it’s as much as I know right now. A girl from the village found an unidentified body. No driver’s license or fishing permit. Everyone accounted for in the village and no missing persons reported on the island. As far as I know, the Kodiak Police have made attempts to contact trappers and hunters in the area, but I guess it’s proving difficult with the weather and all.”

I was looking at her with an
I’m still waiting
expression.

“What?”

“If the local police have this covered, why is the Bureau sending agents to Akhiok? Scratch that. Why are they sending
us
and not agents from the Anchorage field office?”

“The truth?”

“It always helps.”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. I’m following orders, just like you.”

“You mean Mason Stone’s orders.”

She nodded. “And we’re flying straight into Kodiak because that’s where the body is.”

I didn’t hide my astonishment.

I made her explain. And it went something like this:

An unidentified body had been found in a remote Alaskan village on the southwestern tip of Kodiak Island. Signs of foul play. The local cops had flagged the suspected homicide up to the FBI field office in Anchorage as a matter of courtesy. Somehow that information had found its way south to California and, more importantly, to Mason Stone’s office. At his behest, the Kodiak PD had kept the body on site, breaking protocols and any number of city ordinances. The body should have been shipped out to the ME’s office in Anchorage – no questions asked – while both it and any preserved evidence were still fresh and collectable. The fact that Rae and I were going to see it in situ wasn’t just unorthodox, it was concerning.

It was Sanibel all over again.

And it still didn’t answer any of my questions.

___________________________

Exactly five hours later, the Gulfstream jet landed at Kodiak Airport in a squall of sleet. Snowy vortices swirling in its wake. The plane skewed on wet tarmac, jolting our teeth. I could see mounds of filthy gray snow plowed high to the sides of the runway. Everything bleak – backend of the world, bleak. A tomb lid sky, with yellowy perimeter floodlights revealing a steady veil of big snowflakes falling lazily toward an undulating landscape of white tundra.

An unearthly chill crept through the fuselage.

My wristwatch said it was a little after two in the morning, Christmas Day, Central Time. I set it back by three hours as the jet taxied toward the terminal building.

Neither Rae nor I had spoken much in the preceding five hours – a little more about our unconventional assignment and even less about Rae’s twenty-year-old upset. She’d kept herself busy doing paperwork on a notebook, leaving me to sit in awe at the vast lightning storms unleashing electric mayhem over the Pacific Northwest. It seemed, for now, she’d had her fill of bone picking. But I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d have to face the inevitable and explain away my actions of yesteryear.

The jet came to a shuddering halt.

Rae broke out a pair of overnight bags stowed behind the seats and rolled one my way. “You’ll be needing these; it’s colder than a witch’s tit out there.”

I peeked inside. Saw a thick parka coat and a pair of stout hiking boots, together with thermal gloves and knitted socks, plus other last-minute essentials.

“It’s a woman thing,” she said with a smirk. “We’re great anticipators. Speaking of which, this is also for you.” She placed a small cloth-covered parcel in my hand.

I unwrapped it to reveal a holstered firearm, a cell phone and an FBI badge with my photo ID attached to the wallet. Same FBI badge I’d used four months earlier, chasing down
The Maestro
in sunny California. Not the same gun.

I checked the clip in handle. It was full of shiny .40 caliber bullets. I fastened the holster to my belt. “Have Glock will travel. We expecting trouble out here, Rae?”

“I sure as heck hope not. But there’s no sense taking  unnecessary chances either way.” She flashed me a reassuring smile. Not sure if it was for my benefit or hers.

___________________________

A white Ford Expedition with Kodiak Police decals was waiting to collect us on the glistening apron. Snow flurries dancing in its headlights. A KDP officer with a mop of dark curly hair and a thick moustache was leaning against the hood, hands buried deep in the pockets of his padded jacket. I detected a hint of mild aggravation in his face – like we’d dragged him away from beers and a game in a bar with his buddies.

We hunched into our parkas and clattered across the wet asphalt.

Breath smoking, the local cop introduced himself as Officer Glenn Hillyard; pleased to make our acquaintance.

“If it’s okay with you guys,” he said as he loaded our bags in the trunk, “we’ve organized a flight out to Akhiok at first light. The forecast is for heavy snow overnight. It’s too dangerous flying out there in these conditions. Meanwhile, your SAC has provisionally arranged accommodation at the Kodiak Inn.”

In other words, we were grounded for the night.

We crowded inside the police vehicle and headed out of the airport at a brisk pace.

Immediately, cloying darkness closed in as the road curled northeast through the bleak landscape. It was cold, even with the heater on full. The Expedition’s headlights offered up brief glimpses of dense spruce forests capped in snow, stretching away into impenetrable darkness on either side. Mile after mile of trees and black-bottomed snowdrifts. Like something out of a Stephen King novel.

Not for the first time since leaving Missouri, I pictured the image of Trenton Fillmore slain on the cell floor. Already, I had a mental list of mental suspects – just about every nut and bolt in Springfield. Plenty of motive, but not a whole lot of opportunity. For the life of me I still couldn’t figure out why he’d begged the warden to keep us separated. The last time I’d spoken with Fillmore I’d been on the butt-end of a bad joke, with no hint of any fear of me or of my half-assed rebuttal.

How could I go about finding his murderer now that I was four thousand miles away?

The domineering presence of a rocky mountain loomed up in the headlights, scuffed with scree slopes.

“This isn’t run-of-the-mill for us,” Officer Hillyard was telling Rae over his shoulder. “Homicides are a rare occurrence out here. I think this is a first for Akhiok.”

Reflective road signs warned of wildlife, camping sites and rock falls.

I could see the glow of a nearing town. Sodium streetlights pushing back at the dark to reveal wooden buildings stacked against a hillside and huddled around a harbor. All at once the forest gave way to civilization, to storefronts decked out with festive themes, to frontier businesses providing vital services. Variegated Christmas lights snaking around lampposts and strung across the roadway.

Through the windshield I saw an illuminated Best Western sign coming up fast. Hillyard braked at the last moment and slid the Expedition into a small parking lot adjacent to the Kodiak Hotel.

We climbed out into frosty air.

The building was a gray dry-stone affair with staggered floors stacked against the slope. Mortuary slabs piled high. Big windows and an equally big iron anchor staked out front. Across the street, just visible in the wan street lighting, I spied rows of unmoving boats, lining long jetties, queued up like bleached skulls, disappearing into the blackness of the bay.

Impossible not to shiver.

Hillyard handed us our bags. “Sun-up’s around ten-fifteen. I’ll be back here to pick you up at ten-thirty, sharp. Be ready.” He got back inside the Expedition and tore away up the main drag.

“Someone’s in a hurry.”

Rae was shaking her head. “Gabe, show some compassion. Sometimes you’re about as dumb as a bag of hammers. It’s Christmas Eve right now; he’s probably got a wife waiting at home and toddlers tucked up tight.”

There was a glass partition next to the main doors. Behind it, a preserved fully-grown brown bear was positioned in an alert pose. An over-enthusiastic hotel employee had slung a prickly Christmas wreath around its neck and hung glittery baubles from its ears.

 “Do you think there’s room at the Inn?” Rae asked as we pushed our way inside.

“Who cares so long as they have coffee.”

The lobby had been designed to resemble a hunting lodge. Varnished pine walls rising to an open-plan gallery, complete with mounted deer heads and hung skins. There was a bushy Christmas tree in a corner, already shedding needles. Fake Christmas presents and limp candy canes underneath. Mariah Carey’s
All I Want For Christmas Is You
warbling in the background.

A kid in a red Santa hat smiled at us from behind the reception counter. “Welcome to the Kodiak Inn! Long journey? Can I interest you in a complimentary Christmas candy?” He motioned to a glass bowl on the counter, filled to the brim with candy canes.

Rae helped herself. “Don’t mind if I do. Gabe?”

I shook my head.

She flashed the kid her badge. “I believe we have a reservation.”

“Let me check that out for you guys.” The kid tapped keys.

I gazed around the brightly-lit lobby. It felt strange, cluttered. I’d gotten used to seeing the same simple rooms and plain walls over the last few months. Oddly, it felt claustrophobic.

“Here we go. Mr. and Mrs. Federal Bureau of Investigation. The charge for your stay has already been taken care of, I see.” He slid a pair of keycards on the counter. “The honeymoon suite awaits. You can either take the elevator to the second floor, or follow the stairs.”

I looked at Rae. She looked at me. We were both thinking the same uneasy thought.

“Twin beds?” Rae speculated.

The kid shook his head. A bell tinkled at the tip of his hat. “Sorry, folks. We’re fully booked for the Holidays. It’s the best I can do.”

“How about other hotels in town?”

The kid answered with a shrug. “You’re welcome to try. But the thing is, everywhere gets kind of really booked up this time of year. The honeymoon suite is only available because of a last minute cancelation.” He smiled, as if his outstanding dentistry would finalize the deal.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll put my feet up here in the lobby. There’s a nice big sofa by the window. Plus, it’s warm. I’ll be fine.”

“Alternatively,” the kid said, “the room comes with a recliner.”