Island of Thieves Page 14

  TWENTY-THREE

  Shaw walked Karla to the ferry terminal, where she would meet Flynn and Morton. She shook his hand in farewell, holding it for just a moment longer than a business handshake.

  He reversed course down Front Street to the marina. Hollis had sailed from Seattle to give Shaw a lift. The Francesca was already moored in a guest slip just past the fuel pier. Shaw could see the barrel-chested figure of Hollis Brant sitting on the foredeck, leaning back against one of the railing stanchions as he worked on something with his hands.

  “Always liked gingers,” Hollis said as Shaw drew near. “They’ve got spirit.”

  Shaw looked back the way he’d come. No way Hollis could have spotted Karla with him from this distance.

  “Carnac the Magnificent knows all.” Hollis set down the bilge pump he’d been repairing on a towel and picked up a paper cup. “Plus, I went for coffee and saw you and the girl sitting in the restaurant.”

  “Who the hell is Carnac the Magnificent?”

  “Johnny Carson. Before your time. You want to untie that line there, we’ll get going.”

  Shaw looked at the dismantled pump. “If you’re sure we won’t sink.”

  “What’s certain in this life?” Hollis wrapped the pieces of the pump in the towel and stuck the bundle into his open toolbox. He closed the latch and began walking crablike along the narrow side deck toward the stern. “You’re in a fine mood.”

  “The new job went south fast. I found a dead man on the beach last night.”

  Hollis’s toolbox banged against the side of the cabin as he turned around. “That’s southerly all right. For that poor soul most of all. Jesus Mary.”

  “It’s not over. The betting line is that he was murdered.”

  After Shaw had cast off, he joined Hollis on the flybridge above the cabin. Over the steady thrum of the twin diesels, he recounted his time on Briar Bay Island. Hollis grunted with satisfaction at hearing of the scuffle with Kilbane and puzzled along with Shaw at the strange assembly of executives and their lieutenants at dinner.

  It wasn’t until they were almost two miles out from the harbor, far enough to change course and make a beeline for the open water south of the islands, that Shaw got to finding Bao’s sodden corpse trapped in the rocky shore. When Shaw told Hollis the part about breaking into the gallery and finding the hastily assembled laboratory, the older man sat down heavily in the helm chair.

  “You have the strangest days, Van,” he said.

  “The nights aren’t proving much better. I’m not even positive why Rohner hired me. If it wasn’t to protect his art collection, was it because he suspected that a thief was after whatever they had in the lab? There was nothing there that looked worth the trouble. And if his whole story about crazy tycoons filching one another’s valuables was bullshit, why walk me through the gallery? Was Bao a thief himself? Or just an innocent who took a walk at the wrong damned time?”

  “Easy. It’ll sort itself out.”

  Shaw inhaled deeply, willing the salt air to clear his head as well as his lungs. “I don’t like being a witness. It gets me on cops’ radar.”

  Hollis shuddered. “Give me peace. But you can’t be a serious suspect. You said the man was positively exsanguinated by the time you found him.”

  Shaw ticked off the points on his fingers. “I’m not rich like the Rohners. I’m not a corporate exec like the guests, or even an employee. And I’ve got a record. Who would you look hard at if you were Sheriff Dayle?”

  “But why would you kill the poor fellow?”

  “They can invent why. Maybe I tried to mug Bao. Or he hit on me and I’m a gay basher. None of it may ultimately stick, but if they rule it a homicide, it’s me they’ll grill for the next few weeks.”

  “Time to call your lawyer.”

  Shaw agreed. He’d already left Ganz a message. Though hiding behind Ganz’s legal shield wasn’t his first order of business. He had some hard questions for the diminutive attorney about Sebastien Rohner and his own mouthpiece, Linda Edgemont.

  The day had turned out bright and clear, with a whisper of heat on the wind coming from the stern. The mercury would be peaking in the city by the time they arrived in five or six hours. Hollis had the Francesca cruising easily at fifteen knots, her bow high enough to pierce the horizon. Running with the current for the moment. Shaw took a deep breath and sat down, trying to relax.

  “Exsanguinated, huh?” he said to Hollis. “Hooking up with Doc Claybeck is improving your vocab.”

  “Seeing. I’m seeing the lady.”

  “Right. My mistake. Is she well?”

  “Better than. She’s a fine woman.”

  “Good.”

  “And you? Still with Raina?” Hollis said, showing off that he remembered how to pronounce Wren’s given name properly, Rain-ya.

  “Yes. When she’s in town.”

  “How much does she travel?”

  “It’s not so much the time.” Shaw shifted in his seat. “She sees other people. Has since the start. And she plans to keep on seeing them.”

  “And you don’t like that.”

  “I’m figuring it out. I like that she’s up front about what she wants. Or what she needs, maybe. I don’t have to try to decipher anything with her.” He shrugged. “I’ve never been . . . polyamorous before. Not sure I want to be, even if Wren is.”

  “Sounds as confusing as your situation back at the island.”

  “Yeah.” Shaw grinned. “But a lot more pleasant. Like you said, a fine woman.”

  “And the redhead?”

  “Karla. I just met her.”

  “You don’t even have to say hello to like the look of someone. And she is a looker, if you’ll pardon my uninvited opinion.”

  “She also lives in New York.”

  “So? Maybe that’s a boon. Knowing where you both stand. If the girl is going home soon, why not enjoy the time while it lasts? Always been my motto.”

  Shaw laughed. “You could be right about that.”

  “I’ve been told I’m smarter than I look.”

  “Speaking of smart.” Shaw took out the phone he’d used at the gallery. “I need a chemist.”

  Hollis regarded him quizzically. “Not in the Brits’ meaning, I’m guessing. Unless you’re readying for a first night with Miss Karla.”

  Shaw showed Hollis the photographs, swiping with his thumb that held the phone so his other hand could keep a loose grip on the safety rail as the Francesca steadily rose and fell. “I need somebody who can tell me what this machine is and translate the labels on these bottles. There aren’t many ingredients here. Whatever that lab was created to do, it’s something very specific. Maybe a onetime deal.”

  “Then the room transforms back to a museum.” Hollis shook his head. “The rich are certainly odd.”

  “Addy knows a lot of university types,” said Shaw, talking half to himself. “We’ll track down somebody with the right education. What’s in the lab might give me a clue to what’s really going on.”

  “Drugs,” Hollis said. “It has to be, doesn’t it? All this secrecy and paranoia. You said Bao was a scientist. They’ve developed some super-opioid that’ll make the nation’s epidemic ten times worse.”

  “It’s not meth. I could tell that much.”

  “Well, nothing to do about it until we reach home. Take the helm and I’ll find us some food and libations.”

  Hollis disappeared down the ladder. Shaw sat in the captain’s chair. Driving the boat on open water was mostly a matter of not hitting anything, and there was no other vessel within half a mile. Shaw nudged the wheel with his knee whenever the Francesca strayed a few degrees.

  Superdrugs. Damn. That would be just the arsenic icing on the cyanide cake that was this whole week.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The Francesca reached her home berth in early afternoon. Shaw had closed his eyes for a couple of hours in Hollis’s guest stateroom during the passage, but sleep had floated out of reach. With the pr
omise of a dinner with Hollis and Paula Claybeck soon, he excused himself and caught a rideshare to his apartment.

  He made coffee in the French press that had been a gift from Addy and took the carafe to the balcony. He was growing to like living in the heart of the city. Most things he needed to buy were available with a short hike and a willingness to lug groceries home on his back. It probably helped that the howls of sirens and bellows of the drunks and the crazies arguing at three in the morning were thirty stories distant. In his old studio off Broadway, he could have joined their debates by leaning out the window. He pulled the leather wingback chair to the slim balcony and opened the sliding door to prop his feet on the lowest rail.

  Nelson Bao was a problem. Not just the puzzle of the man’s death, though that was troubling enough. The image of Bao’s body, waterlogged and bloodless, persisted in Shaw’s mind. His fish-white skin. The hiss of the tide as it had dripped from the sodden clothes. Shaw could set aside the memory for a few short minutes if he were focused on something—breaking into the gallery or talking to Karla, who was the right kind of distraction—but in every quiet moment in the hours since, the dead chemist had been there.

  His phone rang. Ephraim Ganz.

  “Ephraim,” he said. “I’m back from Rohner’s island.”

  “Oh, I’m aware. I got an earful from Linda yesterday, and today she called to fill up the other one. You assaulted some of Rohner’s employees? Are you shitting me?”

  “Guess you had to be there.”

  “Then you stick around—maybe looking to make a bad thing worse—and some guest turns up dead with you standing over him. I’ve never seen someone screw themselves over so fast. And I’ve known some real headcases. One guy spat a glob of phlegm fifteen feet onto the judge just before His Honor pronounced sentence. You should wish you were that moron.”

  “And now you’ve lost your chance to nail your schoolyard crush.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Shaw gritted his teeth. “Ephraim. You got me into this shitshow. I don’t know what’s going on with Rohner and his plans for world domination, but sure as hell this job wasn’t what Linda Edgemont sold me. Or you.”

  He could hear Ganz’s infuriated breathing over the line.

  “Tell me,” Ganz said finally.

  “Are you on retainer with Droma? ’Cause if you are, this is one whopper of a conflict of interest.”

  “Not yet I’m not. And after vouching for you, I won’t wait for their call. I just want to know what happened.”

  “You and me both.” Shaw laid out the series of events, including his decision not to tell the cops about Rohner’s suspected thief.

  “Well, you adhered to your promise of secrecy. At least Rohner can’t sue you for that.”

  “So. Edgemont.”

  “What about her?” said Ganz.

  “Whatever Rohner’s secret chemistry set is intended for, she’s in on it. She was at a midnight meeting of most of the principals.”

  “You said yourself it didn’t look like drugs. Maybe it’s some trade secret and Rohner made up the bullroar about the art thief because he didn’t want to tell you that part.”

  “I thought about that. Anders’s dog-and-pony show at the gallery might have been to keep me from asking questions about the deal. Anything in Linda E.’s background I should know about?”

  “You mean anything criminal. No.”

  “Ethics violations?”

  “You’re fishing. Linda was ambitious. She wanted a major income and all the perks. Those traits aren’t exactly rare in our profession. Linda left the firm where I met her to become a corporate trial gunslinger. She did okay, but between you and me she never cracked the ceiling on where she expected to be. When Rohner made her an offer six or seven years ago, she went with him. Less pay, but steady. Fewer hours. Lots of attorneys do the same when they . . . mature.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I like running my own ship. And who you calling mature? My advice is be glad to be done with it. You made some money from checking their security at the Droma office. You got a couple days’ free room and board. If Rohner never pays you for the island, what have you really lost?”

  “Sleep.”

  “Yeah, well. Not to make light of a man’s death, but . . . you’ve seen worse, haven’t you?”

  Shaw couldn’t say anything to that.

  He drove to pick up Wren at the house she shared with three other people in West Seattle. Her roommate and business partner, Lettie, lay on a swayback sofa on the porch, texting madly. She pointed Shaw toward the backyard with her nose. He walked straight through the house and out the warped screen door to the yard. Wren was seated on a miniature stool, tending to one of the dozens of container plants arranged in haphazard rows in the small gravel plot.

  “Oregano?” Shaw guessed, looking at the leafy mass.

  “Basil.” She used shears to snip two inches off the center stem of one of the stalks and put the leaves into a toy bucket by her feet. “Doing so well. Another month and I’ll have to repot it.”

  “You still have spare pots?” Shaw made a show of looking around. “I figured the city was tapped after this. We’ll be forced onto the black market for terra-cotta.”

  She smiled and handed him the bucket. It was filled with leaves and sprigs of lavender from one of the troughs along the fence. The whole yard smelled of the lavender vying with a dozen other scents for which could bloom fastest in the new June sun. Shaw was inhaling as Wren rose smoothly into his arms for a long, deep kiss.

  “Would you put that in the kitchen for me?” she said. “I’ll wash up.”

  Shaw carried the foliage inside. The kitchen had a window to the yard. Wren rinsed her hands from the stream of a light hose coiled at the end of the row. She dashed the water from her fingers and walked to the storage bin to put away the shears.

  He liked watching Wren move. They had met when she was working as a trainer for Cyndra’s junior-league roller-derby team. In the months since, he’d seen her sprint and swim and throw a baseball, all with the same agility. Shaw worked out to keep fit and to burn off stress. His time in the Rangers had accustomed him to pushing himself until he dropped and then getting up and continuing. But for Wren Marchand, exercise was fun, an innate human joy like that of a child who’s just mastered how to run and jump.

  “Hey,” she said as she wrestled the crooked screen door out of its frame. “I missed you.”

  “Me, too. And I’m starved. Italy or Korea?”

  “For dinner? Korea.”

  They drove to the northern tip of West Seattle and Marination Ma Kai. The warmth of the day was hanging on tight. They took their plates of pork katsu and fish with house-made pickles to one of the picnic tables on the restaurant’s patio. A water taxi from downtown named the Doc Maynard arrived at the nearby dock. Shaw and Wren ate their meals while watching commuters disembark and a fresh group of passengers board the hundred-foot ferry.

  “You’re quiet tonight,” Wren said.

  “Thinking. There’s something I need to talk to you about, and I’m trying to figure how to start.”

  She rested her chin on her hand. “Start at the end and work backward. Hit me with the final statement.”

  “Okay. I’ve met someone I’d like to date, and I want to know doing that won’t screw up what we have.”

  “That’s two statements.” Wren’s mouth twisted in a polite smirk. “This is someone new?”

  “Yeah. Her name’s Karla. She’ll be in Seattle for a few days.”

  “It’s cool with me if you see other people. As long as you’re safe about it.”

  He nodded. “You’ve said that.”

  “But you’re not sure if you can believe me.”

  “I know you’re telling the truth. I also know that if we didn’t talk about this ahead of time, I’d still feel like I was betraying a trust somehow. And that I’d be setting us up for a fall. Those might be contradictory emotions.”

  She nodd
ed. They sat for a moment. Wren reached across to take Shaw’s hand.

  “You’ve never asked me to stop being with Rebecca or Terry,” she said. “Though sometimes I feel like you want to ask and you stop yourself.”

  “It crossed my mind a couple times. Rejected the idea.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “It was the price of admission. You were straight with me about how much they meant to you. That took guts.”

  “Do you wish I would stop seeing them without you having to ask?”

  Shaw thought about that. The sun had dipped low enough that its beams reflected off the distant downtown skyline, turning the skyscrapers into brief candles, alight and then dimmed within minutes.

  “No,” he said. “Maybe at the start, but not anymore. They make you happy. I’ve had relationships break up because I wasn’t around enough, or because the times I was physically present I was actually somewhere else in my head half the time.”

  She rubbed the ball of her thumb on the back of his hand. “I was engaged to be married once, have I told you that?”

  “No.”

  “When I was twenty-two. It wasn’t for long. When we split up, when I stopped forcing myself into knots, it was such a relief. Not having to be everything that someone needs in a partner, every day.”

  “I guess I don’t mind that. Or trying to be that. But right now I’m good with being part of what you need.”

  “Me, too,” she said. “Very.”

  “And I don’t want to go out with Karla as some sort of half-assed attempt to balance the scales either.”

  “That’s good. That wouldn’t be fair to her. There aren’t any scales, you know.”

  “I get that. It’s not a contest.”

  “If you like Karla, you should see her. I’ll still be here.”

  “Okay.”

  “Just as long as you keep looking at me like you do.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Like you’re still ravenous. Can we stay at your place tonight?”

  “Can. Should. Will,” he said.