A Killing Tide (10 page)

"Would Gary pull a stunt like this?" Chapman asked abruptly.

"Of course not!"

"It makes sense. He has the training, and he knew he wouldn't hit you, so he fires a warning shot, hoping to get you to go away."

She shook her head. "You're so far off base—"

"He has a history of run-ins with the police, and a record for assault. Just how well do you really know your brother?"

She barely managed to contain a wince. Chapman had hit on her greatest fear—that she didn't really know her brother as well as she thought. That Gary might have turned into someone capable of doing exactly what Chapman was suggesting. She folded her arms. "The man Gary punched out that night wouldn't even press charges—Sykes was the one who prosecuted. And Gary and Sykes have history. But why bother explaining? You've already got Gary tried and found guilty."

Chapman made a dismissive motion with his hand. "What about Chuck?"

She thought about it for a moment. "I don't know," she admitted. "Chuck's…well, weird. I think he's got some CIA stuff in his background."

"He's sure as hell got something spooky going on—his records are sealed."

"Gary, Ken, and Chuck were all in the Army together. There's no way Gary or Chuck had anything to do with Ken's death—they were all too tight."

"They could've had a falling out. You haven't been around much lately, so how would you know?" When she didn't answer, he continued. "You came out here hoping to talk to your brother, didn't you?"

She tensed. "Chuck and I just talked about what happened last night." That much, at least, was the truth.

"Does he know where your brother is?"

She shrugged. "If he does, he isn't saying."

"If Gary asked, Chuck would help him. And that could've been what they were arguing about in the tavern last night, am I right? That Gary wanted Chuck's help," Chapman pressed. "And that's why you drove out here, isn't it? To see if Gary was hiding out here."

"Yes, all right?" she snapped, feeling goaded. "But Chuck refused to tell me anything, other than he'd had a date with Sandra after he left the tavern. So I guess you can cross him off your list of possible suspects."

"Who's Sandra?"

She realized he'd have no way of keeping the locals straight at this point. "The waitress at the Redemption."

"I'll check into it." Chapman rocked back on his heels, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, a stance that emphasized his lean hips and wide shoulders. His gaze was far too perceptive for her peace of mind.

"If you believe someone is shooting at me, that means I can't be on your list of suspects anymore, right?"

"Maybe not, but you're sure as hell on my list of uncooperative witnesses."

She shrugged; she could live with that. "Sooner or later, you'll have to consider that whoever killed Ken might not be Gary—that Ken could've met someone else on the
Anna Marie
for some reason we haven't yet uncovered."

"I'm keeping an open mind."

She doubted it, but the conversation was getting her nowhere. Yanking open the door on her SUV, she got inside. With the kind of winds they got on the coast, taping plastic over the broken window would last about five minutes—she'd have to drop the car off at the dealer's to have the window replaced. Which meant dealing with another insurance claim.

She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. The adrenaline was beginning to wear off, leaving her punch-drunk with fatigue.

As if on cue, it began to sprinkle. More weather was moving in; the sky to the southwest looked dark and threatening.

Pushing the door shut behind her, Chapman leaned both arms on the edge of the window. The man appeared to get a kick out of invading her personal space, a habit that should've annoyed her. "I'll follow you to the police station so that you can report this," he said.

Which would put her in the position of being questioned by the cops, and delay her even further. "It's a waste of time to bother the police with this."

"They should fill out an incident report and have it on file, in case anything else happens to you, so that they can establish a pattern."

She didn't like the sound of that, but she shook her head. "I prefer to keep this to myself."

He watched her for a long, silent moment with those silvery blue eyes, then nodded once, the movement abrupt. "I get it. You don't want to put your friend Lucy in an awkward spot about what you were doing out here." He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You people really do stick together, don't you?"

"Okay, yes, you're partially right." She wished he weren't quite so astute. "Lucy's been my friend since grade school. She doesn't need Jim Sykes breathing down her neck about a conflict of interest."

He shook his head. "Why don't I follow you to the mechanic's and give you a ride home? That is, if you don't give me the slip between here and there."

Narrowing her eyes, she reached down and started the engine, putting the SUV into gear. "Don't bother. The dealership is less than a mile from my house—I can hoof it."

"I'll give you a lift," he repeated firmly. "If you're at home and without transportation, I figure that limits the amount of damage you can do to my investigation for the next few hours."

She was amused. "You forget that I've lived here most of my life. I won't be without a car for any more time than it takes to make a call or two."

Gunning the engine, she pulled onto the highway, gravel and dirt spurting from beneath her tires. When she glanced in the rear view mirror, he was still standing there, his hands in his pockets and his dog at his side, watching her.

~~~~

Chapter 8

Lucy hung up the phone and eyed the Kleenex box on her desk, which Ivar judiciously moved out of reach before she could hurl it at the far wall of the squad room.

"Tell Papa," he said.

"I could've used the stress relief," she pointed out.

Ivar merely waited.

"Okay, fine. We've got no exact time of death." She picked up a pencil and tapped it rapidly on her desk blotter. "The heat from the fire makes it impossible to pinpoint by body temperature any closer than a range of about two hours."

Ivar flipped through his notes. "Ken left the bar around 8:00 last night. Kaz found him on the boat a little over one hour later."

"So that's our timeframe for the murder," Lucy agreed, then held up a hand. "But wait, it gets better. Ken had bits of concrete embedded in one cheek, and mud and grass on the heels of his boots."

"Hmmm."

"Not a lot of boats are made of concrete," she offered up.

"Body was moved."

"Give the man a gold star." Lucy flopped back in her chair, causing it to squeak in protest. "We don't even have a murder scene."

Ivar's long, narrow face took on a brooding look, which meant he was headed into his silent mode. She
hated
his silent mode. For long stretches of time, she couldn't even get monosyllabic responses out of him. Unrewarding in the extreme. Not to mention that she was convinced it wasn't healthy for any human being to be
that
quiet.

She drank warm soda out of the can that had been sitting on her desk for…she couldn't really remember how long. Hopefully, the caffeine didn't disappear along with the carbonation.

Jim Sykes chose that moment to walk in the back door carrying a latte, which he took into his office. She wasted a couple of seconds fantasizing about forcibly removing the java from his office, not all that concerned for the consequences to her career.

Heaving a sigh, she forced herself back to the subject at hand. "Okay, I've got a theory: The killer did him on the boat, then dragged him off the boat, hunted around for some concrete to scrape his cheek with, then dragged him back on the boat." Ivar snorted, and a new thought occurred to her. "Dammit! This whole thing—"

"—doesn't make sense." She swiveled around in her chair. She'd last seen Chapman around 2 A.M., right before she'd headed off to the hospital for the preliminary autopsy. There were deep grooves of exhaustion bracketing his mouth, indicating he hadn't gotten any more sleep than they had.

"The killer knew what he was doing when he started the fire," Chapman said as he settled into the chair beside her desk, propping one boot on his knee. He gave them a quick run-down on the ignition method. "Who in this town would have that kind of knowledge?"

"Half the men in this town have military or Coast Guard background," Lucy replied. "There aren't a lot of options growing up here—signing up for a stint is pretty common. Get three squares, play with lots of neat toys, and then get your schooling paid for after. I considered it myself." Ivar rolled his eyes, and she kicked his foot.

"Jorgensen would know a thing or two about setting a delayed fire," Ivar said. "So would Chuck Branson. Both are ex-Rangers, and Rangers are trained in diversionary tactics."

Lucy shifted uneasily in her chair. She'd been having a hard time—throughout the long night and all morning—wrapping her brain around Gary as a possible suspect. She didn't like the fact that that her loyalties were impossibly divided. And knowing Gary, he'd be amused by her moral dilemma. The jerk. "I could say the same about anyone with a stint in the military police or the Coast Guard," she argued. "They both have to be able to spot and investigate arson." She looked at Chapman. "What about your own backyard? Arsonists, many times, are volunteer firefighters, right?"

"I'm checking that out, but none of them have an obvious motive. Do you know the cause of death?"

"Not officially. Unofficially, someone bashed his skull in from behind." She drank the last of her soda while she brought him up to date on the forensics.

"Interesting."

"Yeah. Why kill him elsewhere, then move the body onto the
Anna Marie
when there's a perfectly good river with the Current from Hell a few steps away?"

"I'd wondered the same thing." Chapman steepled his fingers. "On the one hand, we don't know that he was killed close to the river, so we can't assume that it would've been convenient to dump him there. Still, going to the trouble to put him on the boat doesn't compute."

"Need to take soil samples and concrete scrapings," Ivar said.

Lucy cocked her head. "Ken usually walked home from the Redemption," she said, thinking out loud. "So we start at the tavern and work in a radius out from there."

"What about insurance money as a motive?" Chapman asked. "Maybe Jorgensen burned the boat for profit."

"Nuh-uh." Lucy had no doubts on that score. "Gary loved that boat—he'd never burn it. Besides, he left the tavern at least a half hour after Ken did, so if Ken was killed and then moved to the boat, Gary didn't have the time to do the crime."

"Unless the murder occurred close to the mooring basin," Ivar pointed out.

"So you're suggesting what?" Chapman asked Lucy. "That there's a possibility that someone might be framing Jorgensen?"

Lucy sighed. "I don't know
what
I'm suggesting, because I can't think of a reason for anyone to frame Gary, either."

"As theories go, it's farfetched." Chapman dropped his foot to the floor and leaned forward. "You know these people, grew up with them. What would get Jorgensen to the point that he'd be desperate enough to kill?"

"If you'd asked me that question up until six months ago, I would've laughed you out of the room," Lucy answered. "Gary's been acting weird for awhile now. And, yeah, I've been wondering why. But I still can't believe that he'd kill someone."

"He's got the training."

She shook her head. "Since he came home from the war, he's renounced violence. That bar fight was an exception."

"He didn't strike me as the passive type when he was getting ready to bash Ken's face in last night in the Redemption."

Chapman was right, and it bothered the hell out of her. "The point is," she said stubbornly, "I'd stake my reputation on the fact that Gary wouldn't kill anyone."

"What reputation?" Ivar rumbled.

"Shut up," she suggested, then gave the matter some more thought. "We're nowhere on this unless we can find the real murder scene."

"Evidence collection from the boat is almost complete," Chapman said. "And if Lundquist really was killed elsewhere, that suggests we won't find much else. The galley and forecastle were pretty much trashed by the fire."

"I can pull together a list of people who might have the knowledge to start a time-delayed fire and check their alibis," Ivar offered.

"Good." Chapman stood, looking down at Lucy. "You ever going to impound Jorgensen's truck?"

"It's still at the wharf?" She swore under her breath. "Brenner!" A uniformed officer stuck his head into the squad room. "Try to pick up Gary's truck sometime this century, will you?" She turned back to Chapman. "Anything else?"

"Only that this guy is no slouch in the brains department. He made damn sure the area on the boat where Lundquist would've been found burned both from above and below. He left the hatch open to ventilate the fire, and soaked the decking with gasoline, which ensured that the entire deck in that area would collapse."