Friday Harbor, page 15
"It's good to drink something warm," Miles said. "We can't be letting you catch pneumonia."
Marion came charging through the front door, collapsing her umbrella and shedding rainwater all over the floor.
"Oh, sorry about that," she said.
"Not to worry," Miles said. "It's nothing."
"Could one of you possibly give me a ride home? Now that I have a big box of perishable groceries, my mother's car of course refuses to start."
"I'd be happy to," Miles said, putting his wet shoes back on and hopping to his feet. "Want me to look under the hood too?"
"I already had Stieg Albertson come down from his garage. He says the magneto is rusted. But he doesn't have any in stock, so he'll have to order it from Seattle."
"Well, I'm happy to drive you. Shall we?"
Miles led her to his truck, parked half a block up the street, as she held her umbrella above the both of them. "What's in the box?" he asked.
"Two chickens, a dozen eggs, celery, onions, and a box of salt crackers. Sylvia is going to make my grandfather a pot of soup she says they call ‘Jewish medicine' back east. Some sort of chicken soup with cracker crumb dumpling balls. She claims it will cure anything."
"Sylvia is Jewish?"
"With a name like Rosen? Of course."
"I wouldn't know. I've only ever known one Jewish person. In the Army."
"Sorry. Living out east, you hear a lot more variety in names. Not everybody is named Andersen or Olsen or Larsen like they are around here."
"Can I talk you into a drive out by Pear Point?" he asked as he started the engine.
"In the pouring rain? Sounds lovely, Miles. But I need to get this raw chicken into my mother's ice box."
"Oh, of course."
Miles racked his brain for something interesting to talk about. Nothing came to his oddly agitated mind. Then Marion beat him to it.
"I hear you like jazz," she said.
"Jazz. Yes, jazz."
"Jazz, yes, jazz? Illuminating, Miles."
"Well, I mean—"
"What jazz do you like?"
"Do you know jazz?"
"I live in New York."
"Ha. Yes. Well, my all-time favorite is a saxophone player named Bechet. I saw him at this little hole in the wall in London after the war."
"Sidney Bechet."
"You've heard of Sidney Bechet?"
"I've seen him play."
"You're joking."
"No. He plays with Will Marion Cook's Orchestra. Saw him play an improvised solo at this incredible Harlem joint, Club Deluxe. That was when he still played the clarinet. He's wonderful."
By now Miles was smiling from ear to ear. "You amaze me, Marion."
"I am amazing."
Miles gazed at her until he almost missed a turn. "Oh, hell," he said as he hit the brakes and swerved, his face flushing red. "Sorry about that."
*****
Miles parked in Marion's driveway. "Take a look at this," he said, taking his Buescher from behind the seat.
"Miles Scott," Marion said. "Don't tell me you play the saxophone."
"After a fashion."
"I must say, you amaze me too."
"See if you recognize this one." He played her a couple of minutes of a tune, then paused. "Well?"
"It's a beautiful song," she said.
Miles wondered whether by calling the song beautiful she was trying to avoid commenting on his playing of it. The bottom fell out of his self-confidence.
"Sad, but beautiful," she added. "Is it Sidney Bechet?"
"He plays it. But it was written by the late, great Charles McCarron. 'Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me.
"I'm going to have to buy the record. Or I'll just take you back to New York so you can play it for me."
His confidence came charging back.
"Why don't you just stay here?" he said.
"Ha."
"Really, though."
"I'm a city mouse, Miles."
"Since when?"
She gave him a sad smile and shrugged.
"I'll play Bechet for you every day. Every night. I'll practice and get better."
It seemed to Miles that, for a split second, a look of not quite entirely concealed apprehension flashed across her face. It confused him. Was it just his imagination? Or was she just trying to be nice when, in fact, she disliked his playing?
"And I'd take you fishing anytime you want," he went on, trying another tack, his speech quickening. "Just like before the war. We could throw the baseball until our arms fall off, then listen to Red Sox games on your mom's radio. Have bonfires. Everything you love."
"It's certainly a lovely vision."
A quiet moment passed between them.
"Are you free for dinner this evening?" Miles asked.
"Dinner. Well, I have Sylvia."
"Sylvia. Yes, of course. I meant are you both free for dinner?"
"Tonight. I . . ."
"You have plans already?"
"Ah, no. Nothing that can't wait, I suppose. We'd be delighted."
"Excellent. Morgan's? Say seven o'clock?"
"Yessir."
"Pick you up just before."
She got out, and he sat there a moment wondering at Marion's odd tone of voice.
*****
The phone was ringing as Miles got back to the station.
"County sheriff," Bill said, answering. "It's for you," he told Floyd. "A Sergeant Clark from Seattle."
"Ah!" Floyd said, grabbing a notepad and pen. "Our research section. Hopefully, they'll have some answers for us." He took the phone. "Hello, sir. Yes. Yes, I see."
The conversation ran barely a minute before Floyd rang off.
"Anything interesting?" Miles asked him.
"Oh, yes," he said, smiling. "Hugely interesting, in fact. For starters, the symbol on the bulkhead of the Lucky Lena is indeed Chinese. Cantonese, in fact."
"Cantonese, like the tongs."
"Exactly."
"What does the symbol mean?"
"It means death."
"Death? How appropriate."
"There's more. The diving suit we found aboard is a Kretchmar Model VI, manufactured in Hamburg for the Imperial German Navy. Probably sold off as surplus after the war."
Miles stared at Floyd for a moment, then took a sip of hot coffee. "A Chinese symbol for death and a German deep-water diving suit. Damnation, Floyd. Instead of bringing clarity, the information we gather just seems to make things that much more confusing." He gulped down the rest of his coffee. "Well, maybe rummy Rupert Hawkins can tell us something useful. Bill, we're going to run out to Roche Harbor to see if we can find him at the Smokehouse, drunk or not. If you have time, I'd be grateful if you stayed to cover the phone."
"You bet."
TWENTY-SIX
"I can't believe you allow a speakeasy to operate on the island," Floyd said as Miles drove them northeast, toward Roche Harbor, after swinging by the hotel so Floyd could retrieve his raincoat. "You're the sheriff, for heaven's sake."
"Seattle has speakeasies up the kazoo."
"Yeah, but . . . Never mind."
The windshield of his truck began to fog, so Miles cracked his window open despite the rain. "You know something that's strange about the United States?" he said. "You can get opium from your doctor and take it until your brains melt out of your ears. Yet you can't have a glass of Bordeaux with your steak. Where's the sense in that?"
"The law is the law."
"That it is. But it makes you wonder about the politicians who make it."
Miles swerved to miss a possum that had wandered, half blind, out of the tall grass and onto the pavement. The road led through gently rolling, largely forested terrain, sometimes passing a pasture or small farm where animals of all sorts—sheep, goats, pigs, cows—crowded under the inadequate tin roofs of their various pens and corrals, looking uniformly miserable, trying to find a bit of shelter from the rain.
Eventually the road emerged into a vast area of enormous stumps, the land on both sides clear-cut of all trees, harvested for fuel in lime kilns. They soon began curving down toward Roche Harbor—a company town of limestone quarries, kilns, warehouses, docks, rooming houses, a hotel, a Methodist church, and, a bit separated from the rest of it, the speakeasy folks referred to as the Smokehouse.
"That's Jap Town, over there," Miles said, pointing to a detached cluster of cottages at the north end of the harbor where colorful textiles hung wet and heavy from laundry lines strung in the adjacent trees. "I'm going to park up the road a bit in hopes that we aren't noticed."
"By whom?"
"Don't worry about it. The Smokehouse is on an old pier on the far side of the lime works. We'll just tiptoe through the edge of town, take a look in the speakeasy, then sneak back out."
"Why sneak? You're the sheriff."
"That's the second time you've reminded me of that in the past half hour."
"My point is, you can go where you please."
Miles took a breath. "Floyd, right or wrong, this place is sort of a town apart. The lime works brings a lot of money into the county. It employs hundreds. In general, the company doesn't cause us any trouble. But the owner is rather territorial. Man by the name of Errol Buchannan. You've probably heard of him."
"I don't think so."
"He's another hotheaded highland Scot, and a robber baron if ever there was one. Has legislators down in Olympia in his pocket. Fires any of his employees who don't vote for the senators and congressmen he approves of. Entertains Seattle power brokers on his lavish private yacht. And he rides the property on horseback with a shotgun slung over his shoulder like Pancho Villa, usually with a couple of goliath security henchmen in tow, all to keep a tight leash over his workforce."
"Again, so what? You're the sheriff."
"Acting sheriff. Put it this way: maybe it's beneath him, but for whatever reason, Buchannan has, so far, not involved himself—or his vast sums of money—in local island politics. And the county councilmen, who are my bosses, have made it abundantly clear since I took over as acting sheriff that they do not want me to rock that boat."
"Money and politics," Floyd said, shaking his head. "Same old story. Even way up here in the middle of nowhere."
"Anyway, with any luck, we don't run into the son of a bitch."
"I take it you have a history with this guy."
"A history of not recognizing him as God, which does seem to stick in his craw."
They parked against a dense, roadside thicket of second-growth maples and hoofed their way down to the harbor. A three-masted schooner was moored at the end of a long service pier, and thick-necked men in work clothes were rolling large barrels out to it from a warehouse on shore. Miles and Floyd walked at a deliberately casual pace, keeping close to the various waterfront buildings, hardly seeming to draw a glance. They heard harsh laughter coming from within the elegant Hotel de Haro. Miles pictured fat, drunk, besuited tycoons sitting on red velvet chairs and puffing on huge cigars as they swapped stories about robbing their employees of their dignity.
Further on, they passed the great lime kilns—at least half of which were running, billowing smoke from their chimneys, putting off a tremendous heat that could be felt from many feet away. Miles found their bone-penetrating warmth comforting on the otherwise cold, wet day. It helped cut the tension between his shoulder blades. By the time they passed the last kiln, he was as relaxed as he'd felt in days.
The pier—which was once a service dock and auxiliary tie-up for cargo ships—was a high, narrow, and crumbling affair with warped, partially rotted planks, popped nails, and patches of slippery green algae. Someone had sprinkled its surface with gravel to help with traction. Still, it had no railings. A misstep or a good slip, and a person would drop 20 feet to the bone-chilling water. Watching where they put their feet, the men slowly made their way out toward a rickety cedar shanty that stood on the much wider far end of the pier, well over 200 feet out from the shore. A curl of white wood smoke leaked from its tin chimney, then dissipated without rising in the still, heavy air over the rain-rippled surface of Roche Harbor.
"Welcome to the Smokehouse," Miles said.
It wasn't the type of place to ever be bothered with by federal officials, and local officials had always looked the other way, so there was no security or even so much as a lookout. Miles and Floyd simply walked up and opened the front door. A thin but aromatic haze of warm smoke enveloped them as they entered. Inside, dozens upon dozens of bright red salmon filets hung from dowel racks like drying laundry while a fresh handful of green alder branches smoldered over a small brazier of hot coals in the corner.
"Needless to say, the front half still functions as a legitimate smokehouse this time of year," Miles said. "You can always tell who's been out here sipping hooch by the smoked salmon smell on their clothes. It's a dead giveaway."
Floyd glanced around, his mouth watering. He loved smoked salmon. Then he took a peek into a big garbage barrel that stood next to another door. "Take a look at this," he said, pointing down into it. Bending over for a look, Miles saw that it was full of empty liquor bottles, three of which were for Glenfiddich Scotch whiskey. The men gave each other puzzled looks. Then they opened the second door and stepped into a somewhat larger back room with a short bar, four empty barstools, and eight small tables jammed in so tight that they touched. As they entered, the half dozen customers and solo barkeep looked up with faces frozen in utter surprise. Nobody said a word. Miles scanned the room for Rupert Hawkins. If he'd been there, he was gone now.
"Looking for Rupert Hawkins," Miles said to no one in particular.
Silence.
"Hawkins, I said. Anyone seen him?" Miles turned to the barkeep. "Who are you?"
"Nobody," the shiny bald-headed man said as he gripped a bar towel in one white-knuckled hand and continued to rub a highball glass that was already dry.
"Your name, fella. Or I'll frog march you right out of here and take you to the woodshed."
"Davis."
"Are you the owner, Davis?"
"No. Mr. Chiu is the owner."
"Who's Mr. Chiu?"
"A Chinese."
"No kidding?"
"He's not here."
"I can see that. You serve Glenfiddich Scotch whiskey. Where did it come from?"
Davis's eyes began to blink with an odd frequency. "Look, I just tend bar. Hawkins, you said? Right? Rupert Hawkins? He was just here."
"How long ago?"
"Maybe fifteen minutes. He got a phone call, then left."
"You have a phone out here?" Miles asked, his tone betraying his surprise.
The barkeep pulled an ancient Kellogg candlestick phone from under the bar. "Party line we share with the Hotel de Haro," he said. "Comes in handy when people need help getting home."
"It was you who answered the call for Hawkins, I assume."
"Yessir."
"Recognize the voice?"
"No, sir."
"Describe it."
"A man. Regular sort of voice. Just asked for Hawkins, so I handed it over."
"What did Hawkins say while he was on the phone?"
"Nothing really. Just hello, and a couple of okays. Then he hung up and left."
"Where did he go?"
"I don't know, sir. That's the God's honest truth."
Miles took the phone, picked up the handset, and tapped the cradle. It took a moment for the operator to answer.
"Switchboard. How may I direct your call?"
"Hello again, Mrs. Hampton."
"Sheriff. I didn't expect to hear your voice on this line."
"I'm sure you didn't. I need you to tell me who you last connected to this number."
"Now, Sheriff. We've been over this."
She reiterated her demand for a court order. Miles hung up, ground his teeth, and glared at the barkeep with a look that made it clear he was looking for someone to take out his frustration on.
"I can tell you that he owes Mr. Chiu money," the barkeep offered.
"Hawkins does? Why?"
"Mr. Chiu extended him credit."
"How much credit?"
"It's up over $52 now."
"$52? For whiskey? You're feeding me a line."
"No, not for whiskey. For cards."
"Gambling?"
"Well, yes. The regular Friday stud game."
"Hawkins is $52 in the hole from a poker game? That's a serious debt. Is he overdue on making payments?"
"Yes."
"And I imagine Mr. Chiu is extremely eager to get such a large sum of money back."
The barkeep just stared.
"If you're looking for Rupert, why not just ask his old lady," an obese, bearded man slurred from the shadows of a far corner of the room.
"Who's his old lady?"
"That's her right there," he said, pointing to a slouching, filthy creature Miles had mistaken for a man. Her hair was in tangles and the skin of her face was terribly weathered.
"Mannix, you bastard," she said to the obese man. "Why can't you mind your business?" Her hands gripped a half-empty tumbler of a clear, colorless spirit. She stared down at her table, refusing to make eye contact with Miles or Floyd.
"What's your name?" Miles asked her.
"I ain't his old lady. Jane."
"Jane what?"
"Hill."
"You aren't his wife?"
"His wife left him years ago."
"You work for the company?"
"I wash dishes at the hotel, don't I?"
"Where did Rupert go?"
"Like I said, I ain't his old lady."
"Look at me, Miss Hill." She did. "Give me something, or I'll haul you right to jail, and you can drink nothing but water for the rest of the week. How does that sound?"
"What can I give you when I don't know nothing?"
Miles gave her a hard stare. "Have you ever seen what happens to a boozer when they're cut off from booze, Miss Hill? It's ugly. Usually kicks in on the second or third day."
"But Sheriff, like I told you—"
