Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) Read online

  She came up, gripping onto the side of the zodiac, and made her way to the seat. It began to rain a little. Nothing heavy, just an unpleasant drizzle. The motor was behind the seat, so I was squeezed between the girl’s back and the stern. The outboard was a very clean-looking Yamaha 250. I got the housing off and found the starter. Crossed the long screwdriver shaft against both contacts and the engine started right up.

  It was time to get out of there. I went back to the pilot podium and hit the throttle. The boat surged into the darkness. The light drizzle was suddenly transformed into a painful storm of needles against skin. I took a look at the girl. She was rigid and squinting, her mouth and eyes tightly closed against the wind. We hugged the coast until Mountain Point. Then I brought the boat out mid-channel and idled.

  I turned around and examined her. She was shivering and hugging herself.

  I leaned my back against the podium.

  She said, “How do you know I didn’t do it?”

  “You were in the sauna when it happened.” She nodded. I said, “Are you alright? We need to keep going awhile. Then we can talk.”

  She said, “I’m okay.”

  I said, “You look cold.”

  She smiled weakly. “I’m cold. But I’m okay.” She was hugging herself tightly, and released her arms. Maybe to show me that she wasn’t that cold. She was wearing an oversized Harvard sweatshirt, like the one that Jane Abram’s son, George, had been wearing in the photograph she had flashed me. I went back and checked the fuel. Full, with a couple of spare cans locked down against the hull.

  Good to go.

  I didn’t want to pass through the channel by town. The other option was around Carolina Island, which was not a short trip, but worthwhile, if I didn’t want anyone to see us.

  I hit the throttle and motored the zodiac southwest out of the channel in the direction of the Three Bears Entrance. Twenty minutes later I turned the boat north around the island. I gunned the engine and the 250 roared. It was impossible to speak. The wind was cruel, whipping around us, but the rain had ceased. The girl was hunched over, clutching herself. I couldn’t help the fact that she was cold.

  It took another hour to get up around Clover pass, about a quarter mile from the coast on the other side. One of the good things about Alaska is that it is very easy to get secluded, quick.

  I gunned it to Carolina island and found a cove that could protect us from both the wind and line of sight from the mainland. I brought the boat around and cut the motor. Then I threw down the anchor. We would be good there for a while. The blonde girl looked at me with wide eyes.

  I said, “Let’s start with who the hell are you?”

  Twelve

  The blonde girl said, “I’m Amber Chapman, and you’re Tom Keeler. The high plains drifter.”

  I came around and leaned against the pilot cabin. “Okay, Amber Chapman, what did you see, back at the house?”

  Chapman said, “I was in the sauna. I didn’t see anything. I heard Jane shout.”

  I said, “Through the door from the sauna to the vestibule, and then the other door to the hall. She must have shouted loudly.”

  She nodded. “Maybe to warn us.”

  I said, “And then?”

  “Then I stayed in the sauna. I didn’t know what else to do.” Chapman said, “Her shout was bad, like there was real trouble. You know what I mean? I was scared. She shouted once. Then I heard other stuff but it was unclear, coming from the house while I was in that sauna room, I couldn’t hear much. It was like being underwater.”

  I said, “What kind of other stuff?”

  “Maybe something falling. You know. A low bang.”

  “And then?”

  “I waited. I got my clothes on, and I came out. I saw the guys first, dead, in the games room. Then I found Jane.”

  “And then what did you do?”

  Chapman looked at me uncomprehending. “Do? I got out of there. I didn’t even think. I came down to the boat house and then you found me.”

  “How long were you down there in the boat house?”

  “I don’t know. Less than an hour, I guess. I had nowhere else to go and I was flipping out, Keeler. To be honest, I’m still flipping out.”

  Not really, I thought. But I said, “So you didn’t see whoever killed them.”

  “No.”

  “What were you drinking, before you went into the sauna?”

  She said, “Huh?”

  “In the games room. You were there and you were drinking with the others.”

  Chapman nodded. “Yes. Jack on the rocks. That’s what I drink. Why?”

  I said, “No reason.” She looked at me weirdly. I pointed to the sweatshirt. “Harvard. That where you went to school?”

  “No. I went to MIT.” Then she understood. She said, “Yes. This is George’s sweatshirt. He’s still at MIT. It’s close to Harvard, you know.” Chapman pulled her knees into her chest. “Jane told you about George. This is all about George, Jane’s son. He’s missing.”

  I said, “She told me. Who are you to George?”

  “He’s my boyfriend. Or at least he was, before he just disappeared.”

  I looked at Chapman. She was wearing just the sweatshirt and nothing much else. I said, “You’re uncomfortable and cold. It isn’t going to get better.”

  She said, “I know that.”

  I stepped over to the free seat and sat myself down, right next to Amber Chapman. I turned to her. “Alright, take it from the top and go slow. Tell me the story so far. Beginning with your arrival in Alaska.”

  She took a deep breath, then looked me straight in the eyes. “Keeler, I know what Jane told you. She discussed it with me before going out to the airport to try and get you on board. But I don’t mind telling it again.”

  “Thank you.”

  She nodded. “We flew out here from Boston. Me, Jane, and the guys. Jane is a money person, affluent. She took care of the car and the house from back east.”

  I said, “Take it slow. You arrive on an airplane. They don’t do direct flights from either Boston or New York, so you transferred through another city. Portland or Seattle, or maybe Chicago.”

  Chapman bit her lip. She said, “Seattle-Tacoma. Then up here to Port Morris.”

  “And what did you do first? You went out to eat, you started asking questions?”

  She said, “No. First thing we did was go to his apartment building. He wasn’t there, and we couldn’t get in touch with the super or the landlord. Still can’t.”

  I said, “Alright. What then?”

  “We were hungry. Jane refused to eat on the plane because she said the food sucked, so we were all starving when we got here. First thing we did was go eat at the New York café, because Jane liked the name. She’s a snob, okay?”

  “No doubt. And in the New York café, did you start asking around? Showing photos of your boyfriend to the locals?”

  Chapman looked at me for a moment, like a deer caught in the headlights. “Yes. Shit. Jane had a bunch of pictures printed out. We showed them to the people in the restaurant. Then we went straight to the police station, me and Jane. The guys went down to the waterfront. Same thing, they had copies of the pictures.”

  I said, “What time was this?”

  Chapman said, “Late afternoon. I think we landed at 4:00 p.m. The flight was really long.” She looked down at the zodiac deck. “That’s it, right? We started poking around too obviously, so the bad guys got wind of us right away. So stupid.”

  I said, “Only problem was you weren’t prepared for them. It wasn’t stupid. In some ways it was smart, because now you know. You brought them out of the woodwork.”

  “Know what?”

  “That something happened to George. He didn’t have any kind of an accident. Didn’t get eaten by a grizzly bear in the woods, or fall into the water while pissing from a boat.”

  “Right. But Jane and the guys are dead.”

  I said, “Yes, and now you move on. What hap
pened next?”

  Chapman spoke slowly and carefully, as if recounting what had happened was important. She said, “The morning after we arrived, we went to the New York café for breakfast. When we came back to the car, the front left tire had a flat. While we were changing the tire, two men came. I think they punctured the tire in order to delay us.”

  “A reasonable assumption. Describe the men.”

  “One guy had a mustache, the other guy didn’t. The mustache guy did the talking. He assumed that Jason and Adam were in charge, not me or Jane. Typical macho asshole. He straight up ordered us to get back on a plane and get the hell out of town. Said that if we didn’t, then things would go badly for us. Then our men sort of reacted, you know, aggressively. But the two guys knew more about fighting than Jason and Adam. So, the guy with the mustache got Adam’s arm behind his back and broke the finger.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that, like dry wood. And after that we got back in the car, but they were laughing at us because the tire was still flat.”

  “Nice guys. You and your crew were like fish out of water. That’s for sure.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  The night had cleared up. The light rain had blown out to sea and now the water was still. The cover on Carolina Island was rocky, with big trees swarmed in thick greenery. Giant trunks leaned over the waterline. Over on the other side of a spit of land was Port Morris, a haze of electric light above the trees.

  I said, “So what do you want to do now?”

  Chapman looked down and examined her bare feet. She said, “It isn’t right that they just kill three people and win like that.”

  “No. But the police will investigate.”

  She looked up at me. “I don’t think so, Keeler.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Only that we were already in touch with the police. They were not interested. I believe that whoever killed Jane and the guys is a professional killer, and that the police will find nothing useful to investigate. Except …” She paused.

  I said, “Except what?”

  Chapman said, “Except maybe you and me.”

  Which was pretty much what I had been thinking. Smart girl.

  I said, “What was the plan, before this. What were you going to do next?”

  She said, “Seeing as you were supposed to be on the plane. We knew how vulnerable we were to the men harassing us. The plan was to fly under the radar if possible. George has an apartment in town. We haven’t been able to get in because we don’t have the key and it’s owned by an absentee landlord. So, the plan was to try and break in, see if there’s anything there that can help, like his phone or his computer or something.”

  “The police haven’t looked there yet?”

  She shook her head. “Like I said, they weren’t interested in our problem. Maybe now that Jane’s dead they will be.”

  I said, “So maybe we want to get there first.”

  “Now?”

  I nodded. “Now. But first we need to do something about this boat.”

  Chapman said, “What do you mean?”

  “Best case scenario, we simply have nothing to do with what happened at Beaver Falls. No connection at all. You weren’t there. I wasn’t there. Which means that this boat needs to be gone.”

  “Which means what, exactly?”

  I said, “Couple of things, first of which is a question: can you swim?”

  “Sure. I was on the swim team in high school.”

  Sometimes you get lucky.

  I had Chapman pull the anchor. We cruised away from the island and swung south and east. I cut the engine when we were a quarter mile from town, across the channel and above Carolina Island. I stripped two wires from the outboard battery and cleaned up the exposed parts. Then I detached a spare gas can and poured a little pool of it into the engine well.

  Chapman was watching me. She was concerned, but she hadn’t asked any questions. I turned to her.

  I said, “We’re going to get wet. That includes our clothes, but since you’re a swimmer you can appreciate that it’s best if we aren’t wearing them and swimming at the same time.”

  She looked at me for a few moments then she nodded. I showed her the way. I got my boots off first and then the socks. Then the pants and the underwear and the t-shirt. Socks, underwear and valuables like my wallet and my knife went into zipped jacket pockets. So did my t-shirt. The jacket got rolled into a fat tube, tied around my waist by the arms. I tied the boots onto the jacket tube with the laces. I got it pretty secure. Chapman followed my lead and pulled the sweatshirt over her head. She was only wearing the sweatshirt, over panties and a t-shirt. No pants, no shoes, no socks. The t-shirt went into a sweatshirt sleeve and that went around her waist. Made her look like one of those Japanese pearl divers, except blonde.

  I said, “Good to go?”

  She said, “Yup.”

  The girl was a trooper.

  One of the stripped wires got tucked around each terminal, then I crossed them above a little pool of fuel. The spark set the gas on fire. By the time the boat exploded in full force and fury, we were a hundred yards away, treading water. Hadn’t done much of that since pararescue induction. I figured Amber Chapman never had. I looked at her. In the hot light of the burning boat, Chapman was grinning broadly. She glanced at me and I caught sight of a kind of crazed pleasure at being in harsh circumstances that only people like me are supposed to feel. So, maybe she was someone like me.

  Closer to shore we lay on our backs in the water. The swim had been tough. I wanted to clear my head. Up in the sky there were stars. Bright and sharp, with no moon yet.

  Time to take it to the next level.

  Thirteen

  We came out of the water on the far side of Lake Road. Where the creek begins, but away from the footbridges and tourist spots. The place was rocky and the waves were pretty strong, which made it hard to get a foothold. I had to help Chapman out of the water. She was having trouble with her balance initially. I told her to sit down and get her equilibrium back. Look at the horizon. Her skin was pale against the dark water. Small breasts, and a long, spare body. But this was no waif, she was athletic and strong and had the figure of a high jumper.

  At first we both lay there against the rocks, spent. But it was cold, and we had things to do, places to be. There was not much to say just then. We unwound the clothes from around our waists and did the best we could to squeeze the sea water out of them. Our best was not very good, but it would have to be good enough. Chapman was in bare feet and I had my boots. It would be tough going for her, but I figured we might find a pair of shoes in her boyfriend’s apartment.

  We scaled the rocky shore and got up onto the road. Then started walking. Each of my steps was a noisy squelch, hers a soft, almost noiseless pad. That part of town was deserted. It was Port Morris, Alaska. There would be action in a few bars and restaurants, but behind the closed curtains of residential houses, only the flicker of television screens betrayed the existence of metabolic life. One after the other, each house the same, but different.

  We trudged up the road. Side by side. Chapman said, “We don’t have the key.”

  I said, “We won’t use a key.”

  The place was up the hill on the north side of town.

  We came around the corner. The building took up a whole block and was painted in cream with turquoise window trim. Nothing moved in the street. Nobody walking, nobody in windows looking out. Everybody was home, maybe watching TV, or eating delivery pizza. A sign above the arched front door had ‘Edna Bay Apartments’ in gold curly letters. The front door was locked. There was a panel of buzzers to the right.

  I was going to say something, but stopped myself. A man was walking down the sidewalk in our direction. A big guy, wearing a long coat and carrying a bag, like he’d just come from a convenience store. I couldn’t see his face, but I saw the silhouette. He had a shaved head and pointy ears. When he got closer I saw the face, he was looking at me and s
miling, then he looked away and kept on walking. I smelled tobacco. The bag bulged with the outline of a six pack and a bag of chips.

  I got back to the task at hand. “You know which apartment?”

  Chapman said, “Forty-six.”

  I figured forty-six would correspond to the fourth floor. I counted five stories. The buzzer panel was laid out in a grid. Each row corresponded to a floor, which made it easier to simultaneously depress buttons for the third, and fifth floors at once. I got some static through the intercom, and a couple of garbled words from various people all at the same time. Then there was a buzz and we were in.

  The lobby was a spacious area with speckled cream tiles on the floor and a wall grid of mailboxes on one side. We took the stairs. Fourth floor was carpeted, a long colorless tongue laid out in the dark.

  A black plastic square was glued to the door, with forty-six in white letters. I didn’t have any kind of plan for picking the lock, just planned on getting into the apartment one way or another. I took a look at the door. But it wasn’t any kind of Fort Knox lock either. The wood was old and cracked. The keyhole was embedded directly into the round brass handle. Which meant that the latch was inside.

  I unclipped my knife and slid it through the gap between door and door jamb. There was enough play, but the knife came up against a security plate on the other side. The plate is supposed to prevent someone jimmying the lock, exactly what I was doing. But it was only as secure as the support was strong.

  I was going to have to use force to push the screws out of the support surface. The plate was probably something decent, like steel, but it might be screwed into something softer, like sheet rock or soft wood. I was hoping it would work on the first try, so the neighbors don’t get curious. In my experience, people generally want to stay on the sofa, or in bed, rather than go back out into the cold world investigating a noise. The rule of threes is usually correct. First time, it’s a statistical accident. Second time, a coincidence. Third time, maybe something is going on.

  I held the knife point inside the gap between door and jamb, tip pushed against the security plate. I gave it a good hammer with the heel of my hand. The plate moved slightly, but it wasn’t enough.