A Shooting at Auke Bay Read online

  Robert watched the live performance on the television in his bedroom. Kline played his part well. Robert didn’t like hearing the chief’s words either. But he listened. He watched.

  In his condo on Second Avenue, Jim Segal’s day was starting out well from his point of view. He poured himself a second cup of coffee, sipping it contentedly. He had switched his television on to the national news network he watched each morning. He was surprised when the local television station interrupted with live coverage of Chief Kline’s press conference.

  Finally, as they often say in a different context, he felt closure. Now he knew. Apparently, Marshall had not died immediately. He had been brought to Anchorage but the specialists in brain surgery available here appear unable to save him. It’s clear they expect him to expire without regaining consciousness.

  Events were moving in the right direction for him. It was shaping up to be a Bastille Day worth celebrating.

  Segal was feeling quite pleased with himself. When he made the decision to get into what he liked to think of as the import business, he sought out a different way to bring goods into the country. It was Alaska’s secluded coves and small bays that set him on the path now proving to be successful. Traditional smuggling methods were risky. Large vessels unloading at commercial docks required too much in the way of personnel and bribes.

  Ironically it was the Nanuq that gave Segal the idea of using “chartered” luxury yachts. The Hannigans pioneered that business a few years ago and, by all appearances, were doing quite well. They had no competition.

  Segal wasn’t interested in competing with the Hannigans. They could have the luxury charter business. He saw a strategy for bringing fake goods into the country with far less risk than traditional methods. Any competition with the Nanuq was nothing more than illusory.

  At 82 feet, Captain Place’s Dancer was the smallest of the luxury yachts working for Segal. Place was grateful to Segal for gifting him the yacht after its previous owner was killed. Place had changed the name and the flag under which it sailed. When Segal contacted him and offered his proposition, the grateful seaman agreed to establish Dancer as the flagship of Segal’s illicit fleet. It was also the fastest. The only one, in fact, that could outrun a cutter, most of which could reach a top speed of twenty-eight knots, or about thirty-two miles per hour.

  In addition to Dancer, the small fleet included Integrity, Bounty, and Justice. Segal found all three vessels’ names amusing.

  Integrity was a 175-foot yacht with five guest cabins and a crew of eleven. It was the second fastest but still could only reach a top speed of fifteen knots, or a little over seventeen miles an hour.

  The Bounty, at 137 feet was even slower. It, too, had five guest cabins but a smaller crew of seven.

  The slowest of all was the one named Justice. He thought the name appropriate as it was owned by a woman who got it in a divorce settlement. Her ex-husband originally named it after her. After the divorce she changed the name. With five guest cabins, it required only a crew of six.

  He was considering offering to buy the Justice himself. It was a beautiful, old-fashioned vessel built in 1927 with lots of wood and brass and glass. He hoped the Coast Guard never took it.

  All four vessels had passed Coast Guard cutters several times. The Coast Guard saw pot-bellied middle-aged men with their half-naked, young wives or girlfriends having cocktails on the deck when the weather was good or sometimes trolling for salmon or jigging for halibut. The guests on the yachts always waved at the passing cutters.

  The Coast Guardsmen smiled and waved back, unaware that hidden compartments below all the decks were filled with smuggled goods, or soon would be. They were also unaware that the “guests” were all on Segal’s payroll. Their job was to play the role of people with sufficient wealth to charter their own private cruises through Alaska waters.

  The Coast Guardsmen were also unaware that the crews, and some of the “guests,” were armed with Colt AR-15s, the semiautomatic, civilian version of the M16. The AR-15 was a legal weapon in Alaska.

  The rifles were for defense against some of their less than trustworthy suppliers. The skipper and crew of each vessel understood they were to avoid getting into a shooting match with a Coast Guard cutter. The yachts would be seriously outgunned. Segal’s worst nightmare was the vision of tracer rounds from the heavy machine guns of the cutters arcing over the water to stitch holes at the waterline of one of the beautiful vessels in his service.

  The crews and “guests” of all four boats were under orders to surrender if the Coast Guard demanded it. If they couldn’t outrun the cutters, they certainly couldn’t out fight them.

  Captain Hannigan called while Robert was driving Christopher to the airport to catch the flight to Seattle that Darcey had booked for him. He was calling to see how Trent was doing. Robert told him about Chief Kline’s press conference.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Hannigan said. “Trent is a decent man.”

  “Are you still in Juneau?” Robert asked.

  “No, we’re not far north of the San Juans. Have to get back to Seattle and pick up another group of passengers. Had to cancel one trip because the Juneau PD wouldn’t let us leave. I can’t afford to have that happen too often.”

  “Is your business that competitive?” Robert asked.

  “It is now,” was the reply. “It didn’t used to be. We were the only luxury yacht booking cruises through Southeast Alaska until about a year ago. Now there are at least four others doing the same thing. But we’re holding our own against them.”

  Once again the fleeting thought Robert had been trying to retrieve flitted through his mind and out again.

  The man who delivered their grocery order every day had just arrived when Hackett wandered through the kitchen. Ivy was in charge of preparing the evening’s dinner. She was going through the items as the man unpacked the box to be sure she had everything she needed. She was planning Atlantic croaker, a popular salt water fish that thrived in the waters off the Louisiana coast, in a caper sauce. Hackett hadn’t eaten so well in years. He might never want to leave New Orleans.

  As she supervised the unpacking, Ivy spoke to Betty.

  “I was busy this morning when Darcey called. Did you talk to her? Any changes up there?”

  “Only that their friends Captain Booth and Sergeant Patrick arrived from San Francisco,” Betty replied. “They’re both good cops. I feel better with them there to help Darcey and Robert.”

  Hackett was salivating as he imagined the spectacular meal to come. He listened to the conversation with only half an ear. The delivery man was paying more attention but likely out of concern for the size of his tip.

  Robert mixed gin and tonics for the cocktail hour, appropriate for the warm weather the city had experienced again that day. Conversation was muted. For dinner, they did something hardly ever done in the Marshall-Anderson household. They ordered delivery. A box of barbeque from a local restaurant popular with locals and visitors alike.

  The delivery driver would have been alarmed had he known that when he answered the door, Robert’s small but deadly Glock was in his pocket where he could easily bring it into play. To the right of the door, Nancy lounged with her .357 magnum close at hand. To the left, Darcey’s single shot .410 handgun was nearby. Caution was the motivator in the Marshall-Anderson household.

  July 15th

  Christopher Booth had landed in Seattle late in the afternoon the day before. He checked into a hotel near the waterfront before going out for a stroll around the neighborhood. His real purpose was to become familiar with the territory in the event he was forced to make a quick fight or flight decision. It was an experience every cop knew and and dreaded. It was a decision that had to be made in seconds. Or less.

  He located the Caduceous, the waterfront bar in which Warren Perkins had been known to spend his evenings when his ship was in its home port. Satisfied he had learned enough about the surroundings, he returned to his hotel. He called
Robert to report in before ordering a room service dinner. He watched a mystery movie on television and fell asleep with the television on.

  He awoke early to a clear blue sky. A pretty weather girl dressed more for a first date than a morning news show was predicting that it would be in the mid seventies. A beautiful day in Seattle.

  And a beautiful day on the waterfront when Booth walked the short distance from his hotel. He was dressed in faded jeans, pullover shirt and deck shoes. It was too warm for a jacket. Fortunately, his shirt was long and heavy enough to conceal the Glock on his hip.

  He found a cheap restaurant across the street from the Caduceous. Like the dive bar itself, the restaurant was a hangout for seagoing men. He ordered biscuits and gravy with sausage and asked the waitress to keep the coffee coming.

  Booth took his time over a leisurely breakfast. It wasn’t that the food was good. It wasn’t. He ate slowly so he could watch the people coming and going from the Caduceous, which apparently began serving its own version of liquid breakfast early.

  Having extended breakfast as long as he could without attracting unwanted attention, he left a decent but not extravagant tip for the overworked waitress. He spent the next two hours walking around the waterfront.

  He saw the Nanuq, which had arrived some time during the night, and spent a few minutes studying it. It was a beautiful vessel. Booth had difficulty envisioning Trent lying wounded on the deck. It was a picture he didn’t want in his mind.

  He returned to his hotel intending to visit the Caduceous in the evening. Until then it was time to stay out of sight.

  As was his habit, Segal arrived at the restaurant just before noon. After greeting all the guests as they streamed in for lunch, he headed toward the stairs and his office on the floor above. This time when he passed the kitchen, he stopped.

  The girl with the multi colored hair looked like a new person today. He was right. She had been purposely dressing to hide a very feminine, very desirable body. So much so that the first time he saw her he thought she was a boy. That mistake wouldn’t be made today.

  She was wearing makeup, which he had never seen her do before. She was still in jeans but they were form fitting, showing feminine curves, and a tight-fitting top, displaying more curves.

  She looked directly at him for the first time, showing her large, brown eyes and a smile that could be interpreted as seductive. Segal didn’t know what prompted the change but he was drawn to her. He was also relieved. Segal had few phobias but, like many men in middle age, he feared becoming unattractive to young women. While he had never been interested in marriage or even in a long-term relationship, he did enjoy his lifelong success at seducing any woman he chose.

  He smiled back at her, then continued on toward his office. It wouldn’t do to act too quickly. He enjoyed being in control of the occasional trysts in which he became involved. An immediate response would give her the mistaken idea that she would be in control of whatever relationship developed between them.

  Jayne Colombo looked like herself again. Whatever had bothered her the day before now seemed under control. That pleased him. He needed her at peak performance. While he didn’t want to send her out on a hit he did need her to handle other business matters.

  One of her responsibilities was the transfer of funds to pay the suppliers of their fake products. Jayne had experience in finance and was better with computers than was he. At least she was sufficiently proficient to use the machine to move money around. Along with her other talents, it was one reason he had brought her to Alaska.

  When he went into the “import” business, he set up a system as he had learned from watching the late Scott Douglas. Douglas handled transfers for Rossi’s alliance until he realized that one of the members was funneling money to radical Islamic terrorists. He refused to make the transfer. Rossi foolishly ordered the kidnapping of Douglas’ husband, Miles Diaz-Douglas, to pressure the financier into adhering to his obligation to follow orders. Even more foolishly Darcey Anderson was caught up in the kidnappers’ net. It was that mistake that led finally to the complete destruction of all four gangs that made up the Rossi criminal coalition.

  Robert mixed the cocktails this evening. Rum and coke. The trio remained subdued, still reacting to Chief Kline’s press conference.

  Leaving Robert alone on the deck with his second cocktail, Darcey and Nancy went to the kitchen. They decided to divert their attention with making excellent food. The kind of food that Trent loved.

  This evening it would be tapas. A wonderful Spanish dish called gambas al ajillo. Shrimp with garlic. Large shrimp cooked quickly over moderately low heat in a pool of excellent olive oil with a large handful of garlic, a hot pepper, and other spices. Nancy sliced a long, thin loaf of crusty bread into rounds and toasted them while Darcey kept an eye on the shrimp.

  There was more of a chill in the air this evening. Robert joined them in the dining room for dinner.

  It was again late in New Orleans when his contact there called. Segal was pleased to know that the infiltration of Trent and Darcey’s New Orleans home continued undiscovered. Speaking softly, he asked the contact about the general mood in the house. Did the occupants appear sad? Did they appear to be grieving?

  The knot that was beginning to grow in his stomach felt larger when he heard the answer. All seemed to be well, the caller reported. As far as his contact could see, the inhabitants of the house were relaxed, even enjoying themselves.

  Segal felt the fury raging within when he ended the call. What was going on? If Marshall was dead or at least not expected to live, why wasn’t his family grieving? Would Darcey have not told her mother, at least, that Marshall would not survive? Perhaps she didn’t want her daughter to be told until she was there. Kelli would want her mother when she was told her father was dead. But no, that couldn’t be it. Someone was playing him for a fool.

  It was a game that two could play. He stared out the window as one idea after another thumped through his mind like the Gregorian chants he endured in the Catholicism of his youth.

  Booth waited until nine o’clock to enter the Caduceous. He wanted to allow time for the regulars to have a few drinks. They might talk more freely if their tongues were oiled.

  He ordered vodka on the rocks from the woman tending bar. He would have preferred a martini but this wasn’t the kind of place for that. The seamen who hung out at the Caduceous wouldn’t trust anyone ordering a martini.

  The bartender slapped the glass down in front of Booth, splashing some of the clear liquid onto the filthy bar, and walked off without bothering to wipe it up. It was going to be a long night.

  He spent the next hour nursing the drink. In that time, he learned only that the bartender’s name was Sharon. She didn’t tell him. He heard one of the regulars call her Sharon. He learned that she didn’t like anyone, especially Christopher, and that if he pressed her, she might be able to whip him. Booth was a big man. Sharon was bigger.

  He tried to talk to her. He told her he was new in town. He said he had an old friend he was hoping to meet up with. Warren Perkins.

  “Warren told me about this place,” Booth lied. “He said if he was in port, he’d be here. Do you know him by any chance?”

  “I don’t ask people their names,” was the burly bartender’s only reply.

  An old man two stools over at the bar showed Booth a toothless smile after the bartender walked away.

  “Don’t mind her,” the old man said. “She don’t like nobody.”

  “Yeah, that’s what she said.”

  The old man looked down at his empty glass, then looked at Booth again hopefully. Booth got the hint.

  “Can I buy you a drink?”

  “Thanks,” the old man said, happily accepting. He waved his empty glass at the unfriendly bartender as he moved over to occupy the stool next to Booth. Sharon shot an angry look at the old man but poured another shot of amber liquid into his empty glass. Booth held up his glass for a refill as well.

>   “I’m Chris,” Booth said, holding his hand out to his new drinking buddy. The old man shook hands with fingers so fragile Booth was afraid he might break one or two.

  “You can call me Disher,” the old man said.

  “OK, Disher.”

  “Are you a cop?” Disher asked.

  “What? Why would you ask me that?” Booth scoffed.

  “I don’t know. You just look so healthy,” Disher said, the thin skin of his face crinkling as he tried a nervous grin.

  “That’s what happens when you work the docks for a living. It’s a healthy life.”

  Disher looked over at Sharon. The bartender was flashing a warning with her eyes. Disher looked down at the bar. When she went to the far end of the bar to pour another drink, he spoke softly without looking up.

  “Finish your drink,” he said. “Wait twenty minutes, then meet me outside. I might be able to help you.”

  Disher tossed back his drink, draining the glass. Sliding off the stool, he stood on shaky legs, steadying himself with one hand on the bar.

  “I gotta be going, Chris,” the old man said. “Sure nice to meet ya. Thanks for the drink.”

  “Anytime, Disher,” Christopher said. “Maybe I’ll see you here again.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Disher said as he shuffled out the door.

  When Booth turned back, he was surprised to see the bartender slipping a semiautomatic from her back pack and stashing it under the bar. Another Glock. A little smaller than Booth’s own.

  Booth nursed his second drink for what he judged to be another twenty minutes. He drained the glass and slid off his own stool. He walked to the end of the bar to the filthy restroom. Inside he reached for the Glock on his hip to slide a cartridge into the chamber. With the safety on, he slid the weapon back into its holster, making sure to leave it loose in the event he needed it quickly.

  “Guess I’ll be going. Nice talking with you, Sharon,” he said, with more than a little sarcasm, as he walked toward the door leading to the street.