Murder at five finger light Page 7

  “Not bad, huh?” A low comment from the man behind the leer on the bar stool on Cooper’s right. “And the legs go all the way up under those jeans.”

  “And how would you know, Perry?” A well-padded woman in coveralls on the left leaned forward to speak disdainfully around Cooper. “In your dreams maybe! You guys never quit, do you?”

  “You’d just bitch about that if we did.”

  “You like to trade places?” Cooper asked her.

  “Naw. You’re better looking than he is—probably more interesting too. I’m Sylvia. You gotta name?”

  But Cooper was already on his feet and switching her blended margarita with the beer and shot the bartender had just delivered.

  “Okay—okay!” She gave him a resentful look. “Sorry to have inconvenienced you.”

  She slid over and Cooper took her abandoned stool, staring straight ahead to discourage further conversation.

  In the mirror behind the bar, he watched Perry hook a sympathetic arm around her shoulders and snuggle her up to him. “Hey, who loves you, babe?”

  Tossing a last indignant glance toward Cooper, she gave Perry an exhibition kiss that drew whistles and cheers from one of the tables in the room behind the pair.

  “Hey, man. Don’t count your loose change in public!” someone called.

  Disinterested, Cooper tossed down the shot and chased it with a swallow of beer. Catching the bartender’s attention, he pointed at the shot glass and she brought the bottle to pour him a refill.

  “Seen a redhead you didn’t recognize in here tonight?” he asked casually.

  “Not one I didn’t know.” She nodded toward a table across the room, where a woman with carroty hair was part of a group. “But it’s been busy, so I could have missed one or two.”

  “Buy yourself one,” he told her, laying a bill on the bar.

  “Thanks. I’ll drink it later.”

  When a stool nearer the front of room became available, Cooper moved closer to the window and his duffel, where for the next hour he nursed another beer, patiently watched local people come and go in usual patterns, and glanced occasionally at passersby on the street, but learned nothing of value.

  The only thing of interest was an attractive, honey-blond woman in a green slicker carrying a weighty plastic bag from the liquor store next door. She stepped up to the bar and waited for a word with the bartender, who nodded, then handed her a small black suitcase from behind the bar where she had evidently been holding it. He was too far away to hear the exchange between them, but noticed a look of puzzlement that crossed the blonde’s face at something the bartender said before she shrugged and turned away. The suitcase was similar to one he thought the redhead carried, but so were a thousand others used by travelers these days.

  Still, knowing his quarry had at times used other people as cover, he was unwilling to let the incident pass without investigation. As the woman left the Harbor Bar with the bag, he drained his beer, left enough to cover his bill, collected his jacket and duffel, and followed just a minute or two behind her. By the time he reached the street, however, she had vanished into the dark as completely as the redhead he had glimpsed at the ferry terminal.

  This meant one of two things: either she had gone somewhere very close, or she was out there beyond his line of sight, still moving away to wherever she was headed. With long-legged strides, he reached the nearest corner and glanced quickly up and down the street. Nothing. As fast as he could without being forced to run with the duffel, he circled the block with no result, then hiked to the lower end of Dolphin Street, thinking the woman’s goal could have been a boat in the harbor.

  Everything there was calm and quiet.

  He stood for a few minutes looking out at the dark water and the lights that glimmered over its small waves, two on an incoming fishing boat moving slowly back to safe haven. The sound of some kind of machinery working inside the seafood processing plant to his right drifted into his ears, mixed with the growl of the homing boat’s engine and a car passing on Nordic Drive behind him. Someone shouted something unintelligible in the distance. The briny smell of seawater rose from below the barnacle-encrusted pilings of the dock, along with hints of the petroleum fuels that drove and oils that lubricated the boats.

  Looking to the east, he wished for a moon, but the sky was still heavy with clotted cloud. How fine it would have been, he thought, to have a full moon rising over that long, crystal white range of coastal mountains, to have illuminated that great barrier cast up by the tectonic movement of unfathomable plates beneath the ocean into sharp peaks with deep valleys full of never-melting ice age remnants.

  With a sigh, he turned, knowing he had a phone call to make and still needed to find shelter for the night. Suddenly he longed, not for just a temporary place to recharge his body and mind, but somewhere that belonged to him, somewhere quiet and solitary where he could rest and not be obsessed as he had been for a long time now. With a consuming grief he yearned for . . . Sucking air through his teeth like an accident victim in deep pain, he reminded himself that particular loss belonged to another life and time. But the specific yearning immediately stirred a renewal of hot anger at the circumstances that had made such an existence untenable and had driven him so far. Directly, he blamed the woman he was determined to find tomorrow. Tonight, she had eluded him and the chance was slim that the suitcase had belonged to her anyway.

  Remembering that he had passed a hotel as he circled the block, he climbed back up Dolphin Street to the Tides Inn, where he took a room for the night on the upper level. Long habit reminded him to ask if a redhead had checked in that day, but the answer was negative.

  CHAPTER TEN

  IT WASN’T RAINING AT JUST AFTER EIGHT O’CLOCK THE next morning, when Jessie left the room and started up the hill to the hotel office to take advantage of their coffee.

  Noticing that there was some blue sky between clots of the heavy-looking clouds that were floating steadily seaward overhead, she stopped on the corner and looked down at the harbor, where a band of sunshine brightened the white and blue of a fishing boat that was moving away from the dock of a processing plant at the foot of Dolphin Street. A few hopeful seagulls circled shrieking in its wake, ever optimistic at the possibility of snatching a meal. A member of the crew stepped out and tossed a few of what might have been breakfast scraps over the stern from a bucket, bringing the scavenging hoard diving down to land and bob on the water as they gulped up anything edible before it could sink.

  Jessie took a deep breath of the cool salty air and raised her face to sunshine that swept suddenly across the corner on which she stood. The day looked promising for a smooth afternoon boat ride across Frederick Sound. Not particularly caring for heavy seas in combination with small boats, she hoped so, as she turned back to her errand.

  In the office she dropped a handful of sugar and creamer packets into a pocket, filled two paper cups, added lids, and turned away, both hands full, to find the same woman she had met the day before behind the desk.

  “You must feel the same way I do about your morning coffee,” the woman said with a smile. “Takes me at least two cups to get going.”

  Feeling a hint of guilt at taking more than one cup, Jessie found herself making an unnecessary justification. “A friend of mine stopped by to visit last night,” she said hastily, knowing she shouldn’t explain why Karen had shared her room. “Ah—it got late and she stayed over. I hope that’s okay. If there’s a charge—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” the clerk interrupted. “What’s one extra person anyway? Did you sleep well?”

  Jessie agreed that she had and took the coffee back to the lower level room, feeling slightly conspiratorial.

  Karen, in the shower when she left, was now dressed in the same jeans she had worn the day before, but had replaced the yellow-and-white shirt with a green one. She turned from brushing her auburn hair and gratefully took the coffee Jessie offered.

  “Thanks. You are a honey.
Now I can get my heart started.”

  “Here’s sugar and creamer,” Jessie said, emptying her pocket. “No real cream or milk, I’m afraid.”

  “Not a problem. I take mine black anyway.” She sat down on the tangled sheets and blankets of a restless night and sipped appreciatively at the dark brew. “Ahhhh—at least it’s not weak as dishwater.”

  Jessie mirrored the action from the opposite bed.

  “Have you decided what to do today?”

  Karen’s pleased expression faded into concerned frustration.

  “I thought maybe I could risk a flight out of here and go back to Seattle,” she said, shaking her head. “While you were upstairs I called Alaska Airlines and there are only two flights out of here, one at noon and one just after five in the afternoon. Both of them have at least two stops, in Juneau, Wrangell, or Ketchikan, and none of those are places I’d want to be seen. But it’s immaterial anyway. If he’s here and watching, this tiny airport would be a total trap. I should have gone on to Seattle yesterday, but how was I to know . . . ?” She looked up, clinging to the warm cup with both hands as if it were a lifeline. “What the hell am I going to do, Jessie?”

  “Well,” Jessie said thoughtfully, “if we assume, as you say, that he is here . . .”

  “I have to assume that. It’s too dangerous not to.”

  “Well, if he is and is just covering the bases, he can’t know for sure that you’re here, can he?”

  “I don’t think so, but . . .”

  “But he can’t know where you are right now anyway. True?”

  “I guess not, but he’s very good at finding things out. Wig or not, I was seen at both the bar and the restaurant last night. If he asked—and he would—someone could tell him I’m here. You and I were together at the Northern Lights, so the waitress could describe you too.”

  “No one saw you come in here last night.”

  “Did you tell anyone where you were staying—like at the restaurant?”

  “No . . .” Jessie hesitated, frowned, and remembered her conversation with the bartender the evening before. “Wait—she did ask me where I was staying when she gave me directions to the restaurant. I might have mentioned the Tides Inn.”

  “Dammit. Then he’ll figure it out—may have already.”

  Standing up so fast the coffee she was holding sloshed over onto the carpet, she set the dripping cup down on the bedside table, rubbed coffee from her hand on her jeans, and began to toss belongings into the suitcase. “I gotta get out of here.”

  “Whoa!” Jessie set down her own coffee. “I think we’d better have somewhere else in mind to go before hitting the street, don’t you? There’re not many places to disappear in a town this small.”

  “Any place else will be better than this. You don’t know him.”

  She’s right, Jessie thought, I don’t.

  “Karen!” She demanded attention. “Stop what you’re doing and think! ”

  “I am thinking,” Karen said, without pausing in her panicked rush to collect her things.

  As she snatched up her jacket from a chair by the television and slipped her arms into the sleeves to yank it on, Jessie stood up and grasped the collar so the half-on jacket confined Karen’s arms and she was forced to stand still and listen. She struggled but, realizing she couldn’t free herself, stopped and looked over a shoulder to face Jessie, tense and resentful, still ready to bolt if given an opportunity.

  “You can’t just dash out of here without a plan,” Jessie told her in what she hoped was a calming, steadying voice. “That’s crazy and will only lead to trouble. Sit down and let’s make one. If he’s here, he’ll be looking for you. What if you run right into him?”

  Slowly the fight went out of Karen; she sighed, gave in, and allowed Jessie to move her to a seat on the bed before letting go.

  They sat looking at each other for a long moment without a word.

  “I’m sorry I got you into this,” Karen said finally.

  “Well, I’m not overjoyed myself,” Jessie admitted. “But it looks like we’re together in this situation, one way or another, now. Can’t cry over spilled—coffee?”

  A tiny glint of amusement reached Karen’s eyes and the corners of her mouth turned up slightly as she glanced at the liquid pool around the cup that she had awkwardly set down.

  “Well, I can’t say I’m sorry to be with you, instead of on my own,” she said, looking back. “Okay—you’re right—a plan.”

  At first it seemed to Jessie that they were safer staying where they were—behind a locked door, in a room with a telephone connection to the Petersburg police, should they be necessary. “It would at least buy you time while they sorted it out,” she suggested.

  “They couldn’t get here fast enough,” Karen disagreed. “Besides, you’ve got a cell phone.”

  Jessie nodded, knowing also that if Karen’s stalker broke in they might not be able to reach the phone in time to make a call.

  “You’ve got to tell me more about this guy,” she said.

  “What’s his name? What’s he look like? What’s he liable to do if he shows up? I need to know what to expect if I’m going to be any help, and you haven’t told me much.”

  “First, he’s liable to kick in the door,” Karen told her, anxiously glancing at its lock, which suddenly seemed inadequate protection.

  As she went on to describe Joe Cooper, Jessie began to picture a wide-shouldered construction worker of average height, but more than average strength and determination. According to Karen he was clean-shaven, had pale blue eyes—“so light they sort of look right through you”—short brown hair under a habitual baseball cap, and usually dressed in jeans and sweatshirts. Used to the rain of Ketchikan this time of year, he would probably be wearing a canvas jacket, she said, or some other waterproof coat, and leather boots.

  “Okay. I’ve got an idea what this Joe Cooper looks like. Now, what’s he act like?” Jessie asked.

  “Silent and watchful—notices everything. And I mean silent—not just quiet. It was a large part of our problem—I could never get him to talk—about much of anything. He gets very still and you haven’t a clue what he’s thinking. But he’s got a hot temper, which I guess you’ve already figured out. He’s like a bulldog—never lets go of something he’s got hold of and thinks belongs to him—me, for instance.”

  “There must be some nice things about him. You did have a relationship.”

  “He can be very appealing at times,” Karen said, remembering sadly. “He’s almost like a little kid when something pleases him. He loves presents and he’ll give you the moon in terms of things. But he just doesn’t get it about emotional support. It’s like somebody in high school told him what to do to make girls like him. You know: give her presents and flowers, take her to dinner, be nice to her mother, remember her birthday. But he doesn’t see that a relationship doesn’t work because of a one-size-fits-all checklist. When it didn’t work for me, when I needed things he didn’t understand, he got mad. When he got mad enough he started hitting me. He’s big—and strong. Put me in the hospital once.” She raised her chin so Jessie could see a two-inch scar on her jaw-line. “There’s another on the back of my head where I hit the refrigerator handle. He was always sorry—but insisted it was my fault when he hit me. Please, Jessie. Please, can we go now?”

  They went.

  Before leaving, Jessie called to arrange a late checkout with the office, explaining that she wasn’t sure when Jim Beal would arrive in his boat to take her to Five Finger Light. She also asked about transportation to meet him at the dock, when she knew which one.

  “Not a problem,” the woman at the desk told her. “We have a van and can take you there with your luggage as soon as you know where he’ll come in. Or we could bring your luggage down and meet you, if you’ll give us a call. Will he call you here?”

  “No,” Jessie told her. “I gave him my cell phone number, so when he calls I’ll let you know what time and where. We’l
l be away from the room this morning anyway.”

  “No kidding,” she heard Karen mutter, from where she was impatiently waiting by the door, suitcase in hand.

  “Leave that bag here,” Jessie suggested as she put down the phone.

  “It’s everything I own right now. What if I can’t get back here to pick it up?”

  “Then I’ll bring it to you—wherever. Or the hotel can hold it for you.”

  Karen agreed. Rather than wear her wig, she had carefully wrapped her revealing auburn hair with a large green-and-brown scarf, crossing the ends in back and tying them over her forehead in front, then added a large pair of dark sunglasses. Slipping a wallet into a pocket of her denim jacket, she was ready.

  Jessie shrugged on the green slicker over the clothes she had worn the day before, slung her daypack over one shoulder, and stepped out the door first to give the corridor a careful look. It was empty and quiet.

  “It’s okay. Come on.”

  Together they hurried along it to Dolphin Street, turned left, and went downhill to cross Nordic Drive toward the harbor beyond it. As they walked, Jessie was aware that Karen was once again glancing suspiciously at everything and everyone they passed, as she had in the restaurant and on their walk to the hotel the night before. It was as if the woman’s whole body had assumed a fight-or-flight stance and at the first sign of a perceived threat she would dart off in whatever direction seemed most likely to offer escape.

  How the hell did I get myself involved with this? Jessie asked herself. It was certainly not what she had planned as a leisurely morning of wandering through Petersburg’s shops and galleries after breakfast. Breakfast—we haven’t had breakfast. One cup of coffee hadn’t been nearly enough and the idea of eggs, bacon, and hash browns made her regretfully aware of the empty feeling in her stomach.

  “Aren’t you hungry, Karen?” she asked.

  “Starving. But I don’t want to be cornered in a café or restaurant, so there isn’t much choice, is there?”