Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) Read online

  The Sea Foam was one of the old ones. Fifty-eight feet long and painted in blue and white. I found Captain Joe Guilfoyle in the galley, drinking a Seven-Up through the hole in his beard. He was reading a book and looked up when I came in.

  Guilfoyle said, “I thought I’d never see you again.”

  I said, “I was hoping for the same. But here we are.”

  “Yes, here you are standing in front of me. You must have missed the cooking.”

  “Don’t remember you cooking.”

  “Well that’s true enough. Didn’t say my cooking, just said the cooking.”

  I said, “People cook all over. It’s a common occurrence. I had a burger for lunch, someone cooked it.”

  “Fair enough. The salient fact is that it wasn’t me.”

  I sat down across from Guilfoyle and leaned back. “Does the name Lawrence mean anything to you?”

  He said, “The long version of the diminutive Larry. Usually Lawrence comes first, and then someone whittles it down to Larry.”

  I said, “Lawrence as a last name, as in Mister Lawrence.”

  “Means nothing to me.” He put the paperback face-down on the galley table. I could see a man on a horse with a gun, upside down. “Thought you’d lost interest in Alaska. Thought there was a girl in Seattle with a plan.”

  I said, “Yeah, there was and there is. But something came up.”

  “Mister Lawrence.”

  I nodded. “That’s right.”

  Guilfoyle shook his head. “Haven’t heard of a Mister Lawrence. There’s a guy called Larry works at the fuel dock. Not sure anyone ever called him mister—or Lawrence, for that matter.”

  I knew Larry. He was the guy who pumped diesel into the boats. I said, “Not Larry from the fuel dock.”

  Guilfoyle said. “Didn’t think it was. Is this Mister Lawrence supposed to be from Port Morris?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Why don’t you ask June? If anyone knows, it’s June.”

  I said, “You planning on using the bike?”

  “I’m not. Help yourself.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  Guilfoyle said, “You’re welcome to stay aboard as long as the boat’s here, but I’m thinking of taking her down to Seattle day after tomorrow. If you’re done with Mister Lawrence by then, you can drive her down with me.”

  Guilfoyle went back to his paperback and soda. I went down the ladder and stashed my backpack on the bunk I’d vacated only a few hours earlier. The berth was just rear of the engine room and had the oily smell of diesel. I came up on deck and removed the mountain bike tied down with bungee cords behind the smokestack.

  By the time the rubber hit the road it was late afternoon. The bike’s fat tires hummed against the blacktop. There were no other vehicles in sight so I had it all to myself. To my left, the rainforest. To my right, the Pacific Ocean. Eagle Cove down to Port Morris is a twenty-minute ride if you’re going easy. During the season, the boats docked up at the cannery every couple of days. I would take the bike into town and get dinner. Guilfoyle hadn’t worked the galley, that had been another guy, and that guy hadn’t been a cook either.

  When I got into town I biked along the port to the SEAS office, Southeast Alaska Seiners Association. The building was an unglamorous two-story walk-up on the edge of the long dock in front of town. It was part of a messy cluster serving administrative functions to the maritime activity that made the existence of Port Morris possible. That included the cruise ship and charter offices. The big boat loomed on the other side of the buildings, omnipresent for the past few days.

  June was at her desk, as usual. But she wasn’t alone when I looked in. There was a man leaned against the filing cabinet holding a wrapped gift. They both looked at me when I put my head around the door.

  I said, “Cappuccino from the New York Cafe?”

  She said, “I ever say no?”

  “No.”

  “Never going to change, Keeler. Even when you’re done and gone, which I thought was yesterday.”

  I said nothing and let the door swing shut.

  Twenty minutes later I was sitting across from June and the guy was gone. His gift was in front of June, unopened. June poured sugar from two paper packets into her coffee cup. I watched her stirring the beige liquid with two nub-nosed plastic sticks. I sipped my coffee, black no sugar.

  I said, “What is it, your birthday?”

  She looked up from the coffee business and made a face. “Freaking Steve. He forgot my birthday is tomorrow, not today.” She touched the gift. “I don’t mind, it’s the thought that counts.”

  June was planted in her chair. Part of my job on the boat had been to bring the catch reports to June each week for the past four months. I’d never seen her out of that chair. I asked her about Mister Lawrence.

  She said, “Mister Lawrence. Sure. Everyone knows who he is.”

  “Everyone except me.”

  “I meant everyone who actually lives here. No offense, but you guys from outside don’t count. What do you need to know about Mister Lawrence?”

  “Start at the beginning.”

  June’s fleshy arms were laid out on either side of her keyboard. She was looking at me through thick glasses. On the other side of them were watery blue eyes, magnified in the frames. Her hair was lank and brown. Strands of it were stuck to her forehead. She said, “Mister Lawrence owns the property up past the old fire tower. Some kind of business person, I guess. Other than that, he’s a big contributor to the town. Paid for the library refurb', plus the new police car upgrades. Donates to us at SEAS.”

  “The town rich guy.”

  She nodded. “There are a couple, but yup.”

  I said, “Made his money in fish or something?”

  June said, “No idea. He might be First Nations. Maybe he was here back when the tribes incorporated. So, it might be something like that, but you wouldn’t know it to look at him.”

  “What does he look like?”

  She stared up at the ceiling for a moment. “I’d say, he looks like a frog.”

  “A frog.”

  “Yup. First off, he’s small and doesn’t have a beard. In fact, he doesn’t have hair at all. I heard he was born with zero hair, like not even eye lashes. Nothing.” June was staring at me, and I knew that I was now swimming in the muddy waters of a small town rumor mill. She said, “And no pubes either, according to Randy Pearson.”

  “How would Randy know?”

  “He married a hooker. She heard it from another hooker. Mister Lawrence goes for hookers.”

  I said, “Past the old fire tower huh?”

  June nodded. “Yup.” She sipped at her drink. “But you won’t even get close. He’s got dogs and fences and all kinds of security stuff like that. Mister Lawrence is a very private individual. He moves by helicopter, hummer, and yacht.”

  “You ever actually see him?”

  “You mean in person?”

  I nodded.

  She said, “Saw him once at bingo. He wasn’t playing, but his wife was doing a charity draw.”

  “He’s got a wife.”

  “That was a while ago. Maybe he’s still got a wife. Maybe it wasn’t a wife. Maybe a girlfriend. Put it this way, it was a female woman type of person with tits and long hair and earrings and a necklace in a dress. She was picking out the ping-pong balls from the hopper for about ten minutes. Then he picked her up and put her in the hummer.”

  “He’s got a hummer.”

  June nodded. “Yup. Drives a big gold hummer.”

  I said, “You saw him in the hummer, not necessarily up close and personal.”

  “You want to get picky about it, I saw him through the window of the bingo hall, which is actually the high school gym, and then through the window of his vehicle. That’s as close as I ever got to Mister Lawrence. Me. Air. Window. Air. More window. Mister Lawrence.”

  “Okay.”

  “Steve says his boat is filling up.”

&
nbsp; I said, “Who’s Steve?”

  “Guy who was just here talking to me. Manages the booking office next door.”

  “His boat is filling up. What does that mean?”

  June said, “Filling up with passengers I guess, which is a good thing for Mister Lawrence, since he owns it, in case you think that’s relevant. That’s all I meant.”

  That was interesting. I said, “So, all those tourists walking around. They’re coming off a boat owned by Mister Lawrence?”

  “Boat hasn’t left yet. Those tourists are getting a load of Port Morris while the boat gets ready and fills up. I guess they’ll be leaving in a day or two. Not much more than that.” June thought of something else. “You can see the place from the top of the fire tower. Save you getting bit by the dogs or electrocuted by the fence.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Can you now?”

  Eight

  The old fire tower was a five-mile bike ride through the woods, the last two of them uphill. Good exercise. By the time I got up there it was as late in the afternoon as you can get without being technically evening.

  The tower had nine flights of stairs, framed in a rudimentary steel cage. The bottom started off wide and thick, and by the time I made it to the top, the cage was tight enough to touch on all sides. Up top was a cabin built from split spruce. The stairs came out the floor facing north and west. The sides were open to the air. If you wanted, you could jump out. Nothing to stop a person from falling all nine flights to smash themselves on the bald hilltop below.

  The setting sun was bathing the treetops in gold. It was a great view. About a half mile away I could see some kind of a structure poking up out of the woods. A large modern house, with wood and glass glinting in the light. A couple of hundred yards west of that I could glimpse a piece of a lower structure, like an industrial building.

  Then the wind died down, and everything got still and quiet, which is how I heard the breathing.

  It was coming from the other side of the cabin, the side facing south. I stepped around the stair cage. The cabin was built square, around five paces across any way you chose. Stepping around the stair cage ate up two of those paces. Then I stopped. I was facing out the south side.

  If the view north had been interesting with the sunset and architecture, the view to the south was stunning. The edge of the South East Alaskan archipelago faded off into the Pacific Ocean, hit by the late sun. But that was outside. Inside the cabin was a woman. She was cross-legged on the floor, facing me, with her eyes closed. She looked harmonious.

  The woman was in her forties with long gray-streaked hair roped in a braid down her back, dressed pragmatically in a wool shirt, jeans, and hiking boots. I figured she was doing something spiritual, like deep meditation, or a special form of yoga. She opened her eyes and looked at me, but said nothing.

  I said nothing in return.

  Then she spoke. “Nice view, huh?”

  I said, “I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am, I’m leaving.”

  She said, “You just got here.”

  Which was the truth. I said nothing again. Walked back around to the other side and looked out at the other view. The house wasn’t far from the water, maybe another quarter mile to the west. Because the fire tower was so high, a rocky cove was exposed to view.

  The woman stepped next to me. She said, “So you’ve come to look at that?”

  We were side by side looking out over the trees, arms rested on the thick spruce railing.

  I said, “House looks new.”

  “Maybe seven years. Brought in their own people. Outside labor, outside architects, rammed it through the planning commission.”

  I said, “Sounds like you’re an expert?”

  She shook her head. “An interested neighbor.”

  I said, “What else about it is interesting?”

  “Well now.” She turned to face me. “Built on disputed land, which is always interesting.”

  “Disputed how?”

  The woman pointed. “You see the cove?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just to the south of the cove is a small island that you can’t see because the trees are in the way. It’s called Bell Island. They built a Navy installation there in the sixties, but it only really got going in the seventies. Became some kind of research installation by the end of the eighties. By the mid-nineties it was hell bent for leather, all kinds of thinking and calculating and measuring going on in there, not that we know what about exactly. Scientists and experts coming in from the lower forty-eight. Hotels were filled up, restaurants had to up their game for more sophisticated customers. Then by the end of the noughties they didn’t need it anymore and the Navy quit the island.”

  I said, “And how does that relate to a dispute about the house?”

  She said, “It relates because the property is connected. The Navy requisitioned the island and all the land in proximity. When the property was sold to the present owner, the island came with it. The tribal authorities disputed the sale because it was originally tribal land. It should have reverted to the tribe instead of to a rich guy.”

  “The rich guy isn’t First Nations.”

  “No, he isn’t.”

  I said, “Where’s he from then?”

  The woman’s eyes were the color of the sea. She was smiling, which made a few lines crinkle around them. It was attractive. She said, “What do I look like, the town ordinance clerk?”

  I thought about June in her chair. I said, “No.”

  “Right.” She leaned her hip against the timber cabin framing. “I don’t know where the guy’s from.”

  We both looked at the view some more, for maybe two minutes. I looked sideways at her. I already liked the fact that this woman was capable of being in silence. I said, “Sorry to disturb your meditation.”

  She smiled. “I wasn’t meditating. I was sitting down and I had my eyes closed.”

  “I’m Tom Keeler.”

  “Lavinia Stone Chandler.”

  “I don’t know if I can say all that.”

  “Debatable whether it’s seven or eight syllables. In any case, people here call me Ellie.” I got a chance to sneak a look at her in profile. The light was flattering. She turned to face me again. “Why are you interested in Mister Lawrence?”

  I said, “Somebody asked me if I worked for him today.”

  “Asked in what context?”

  “The context was unpleasant, partially physical. Emotionally violent.”

  The skin around Ellie’s eyes went taut, and I had the feeling that she’d shifted in her character. Pragmatic and watchful. She said, “I see.”

  “There was something else. When they came to the conclusion that I did work for Mister Lawrence, they were satisfied. The issue being, these weren’t the kind of guys whose satisfaction is valued, broadly speaking. In terms of civics. So, it left me wondering. What kind of work would a person be doing if he worked for Mister Lawrence?”

  She looked alerted to the subject. “Yes, that would be the right question to ask. I guess you concluded that it would not be pleasant work.”

  I nodded. “Most likely not.”

  She examined me in the same way as Jane Abrams had, up and down, and then up again. “Fisherman. But not a fisherman.”

  “Was a fisherman for a minute. Now I’m just a guy.”

  Ellie shook her head. “Not just a guy.”

  “And you?”

  She hooked a finger in the hem of her wool shirt and lifted it a couple inches. Under the wool, an olive green undergarment was tucked into jeans. The badge clipped to her belt glinted in the light.

  Ellie said, “Chief of Police, Chilkat Tribal Authority.”

  Nine

  Ellie saw something down below and waved. I looked over the railing. A man and a woman had walked into the clearing from a forest trail.

  She said, “My friends. I have to go.”

  We came down from the fire tower stairs together, taking our time. Ellie said, “You k
now the difference between a puzzle and a mystery?”

  “I have the feeling you’re going to tell me regardless.”

  She said, “That’s what my son always says. With a puzzle, you know there’s something to solve. You just need to find that one piece to complete the picture. With a mystery you don’t know what the final picture is going to be. You don’t even know if there is one. Solving the mystery means finding the puzzle.”

  I said, “I was thinking more like I got my foot into someone else’s dog shit.”

  Ellie said, “Another way of putting it.”

  We came to a platform three or four flights from the ground. I could see her friends now, an older woman and a teenage boy. Ellie turned to me with her hands in her back pockets. “If you’ve still got your boot heel stuck in dog shit, come see me. Might find something lying around that can help you scrape it off.”

  I said, “Might come see you anyway.”

  She smiled. “You do that.”

  Then we walked down the remainder of the stairs. At the bottom, Ellie made a brief introduction. The woman was Helen, and the boy was Hank. Mother and son. Helen was a distracted, academic type. Tall and thin with her hair wound up around a pencil. Hank looked about fifteen or sixteen, weedy, with yellowish skin and black hair hanging below the ears.

  Hank looked at me with a famished gaze. I wondered where the father was in this story. The boy wore a leather jacket over a quilted plaid hunting shirt. I figured it might be tough being a teenager in Alaska. Not much to do except hiking and hunting.

  The three of them were going for a sunset walk. The fire tower had been the meeting point. I watched Ellie walk away. Striding downhill. She had long legs and the boots made them even longer. Older than me by a decade maybe, but looking good. The sunlight kicked off against her plaited hair, bobbing as she went.

  I was going the other way, to Beaver Falls. I figured I would check in on Jane Abrams and see what that was all about. It would be good to surprise her. Maybe I would learn something.