The Mountains Bow Down (25 page)

At the teak railing, my mother shivered and stared at ice the size of automobiles. As the ship inched forward, Aunt Charlotte stood between my mother and Claire, a human buffer. Though the morning was sunny, the air felt cold and smelled of crystallized water and silted minerals. The deck was crowded with people, but a reverential silence had fallen.

I stepped back slowly and walked toward the aft, the only person more interested in the small alcove that faced the wrong way for the view. The thin orange rope was now wrapped around the coil of thick gray mooring line, but I gazed around the area, searching for what it was that bothered me so much. Perhaps it was the location, I realized. The door back into the ship was only steps away. The sports court was right there too. And the platform where last night's so-called “memorial” took place. And beyond that, the Sky Bar perched above the wake.

And yet this alcove was almost invisible from every one of those locations.

The perfect spot.

Opening my cell phone, I hit Redial, and was placed on hold again with the ME's office. Leaning over the rail, I stared down at the water whose strange color was created by the persistent glaciers scouring the rock beneath the ice, filling the thin channel with silt and sediment. As golden sunlight shone through the blue water, the minerals made it look green.

“Need any help?”

I turned around.

Jack stood there, holding two cups of steaming coffee.

I took the cup he offered. “I'm on hold with the medical examiner, the office is in Anchorage.”

The ship hit an iceberg, a light
thud
. When I glanced over the rail, the berg bobbed, sending ripples through the water.

Jack stepped into the alcove, looking it over. “I walked Milo back to his cabin last night. He wanted me to have another drink with him.”

“So you did.”

“Of course.” He grinned. “I really should be an actor. I managed not to drink six gin-and-tonics last night. It's not as easy as it looks, even in the company of drunks.”

“Did you learn anything else?”

“Yes, I asked him about the piano player, again. He went into an inebriated rant about AA and people who join it getting self-righteous and who do they think they are. It went on and on. But it made me wonder what beef he's got with her.”

In the silence, his phone rang. It played a theme song from a spaghetti western. “Jack Stephanson,” he answered. Then mouthed one word to me: McLeod.

I turned back to the green sea. McLeod, making sure things were still plutonic.

“Raleigh? She's right here.”

I'd already lost my place in line once with the ME's office and I didn't want to start over again. But if I refused to talk to McLeod, he would get suspicious again. Handing Jack my phone, I said, “When they pick up, tell them we're calling about Judy Carpenter's autopsy. Remind them it's an expedite.”

“Got it.”

I took Jack's phone. “Yes, sir, this is Raleigh.”

“We got him,” McLeod said.

“Who?”

“Ramadan.”

“Ramazan?” I said, making a rare correction. “Where?”

“Sea-Tac airport. Marvin Larsen was told we were searching for a fugitive from Juneau”—Marvin Larsen, a special agent who worked out of Seattle airport—“and when Marvin heard it was for your case, he pulled out the stops. What is it with you, Harmon?”

I connected with Marvin Larsen last fall, on my missing person's case, when he gave me a major break. My mother instilled several useful habits in me, and one was sending heartfelt thank-you notes, particularly for people with thankless jobs. Working airport security for the FBI qualified as truly thankless.

“Marvin's one of the good guys,” I said. “Where's Ramazan now?”

“Larsen stuck him in an interrogation room at the airport.”

“Did he find the bracelet?”

“He's fired off a search warrant for the US attorneys.”

“Oh no.”

McLeod sighed. “Yeah, the guy's already called in a lawyer. And with that Turkish citizenship, we've got a tough row to mow.”

Jack began waving, signaling the call was coming in.

“Go ahead and take it,” I told him.

“Take what?” McLeod asked.

“I was talking to Jack, he's got my phone.”

There was a long silence, full of plutonic implications.

“Sir, when you called I was on hold with the Alaska ME's office. I've been waiting a long time and I didn't want to lose my connection.” The defensive tone in my voice was making the truth sound like a bad excuse. “We traded phones and—”

“Raleigh, you know I never jump to conclusions. With me, everything is strictly
ipso fatso
.”

I didn't even bother with substitutions. I was staring at Jack and the odd expression on his face.

“But if I didn't know better . . . ” McLeod was saying.

If I didn't know better, I'd say something was wrong with Jack. I couldn't hear his exact words because he was over by the shuffleboard court, but I suddenly wondered if Larsen had called. Jack didn't like Larsen. Or was Jack arguing with the morgue? Either way, it was trouble and I started to walk over, vaguely hearing McLeod say something about fraternization.

“My name's Jack,” he was saying into my phone. “That's right, Jack. You need me to spell it? . . . Raleigh? She's busy . . . She can't come to the phone. . . . Why? She doesn't want to, that's why.”

Oh. No
.

Oh no!

I threw Jack's phone at him, McLeod's voice going out into the air, and grabbed my phone out of Jack's hand. Closing my eyes, I put the phone to my ear and prayed.

“This is Raleigh.”

“Who was that?” DeMott asked.

“Nobody.” My heart was racing so fast it hurt.

“Why is he answering your phone?”

I walked across the empty shuffleboard court. My feet felt numb. “He's a colleague. Another agent.”

“From Richmond?”

“No, Seattle.”

“But he's on that cruise?”

“They sent him up. Tuesday. To help out.”

“Help—with what?”

“DeMott, I really can't get into it.”

“You're
working
?” He sounded incredulous.

I dropped my head.

“Raleigh, you said this was a vacation. You
needed
time away. You didn't say anything about working.”

“It is a vacation.”

“But you're working?”

I held my tongue.

“Is this why you're not returning my calls? Because of this Jack person?”

“No, DeMott, listen. I haven't had a chance to call you because something happened—”

“I'm sure it did.”

I opened my mouth, but instead of speaking, I drew a long slow breath.
Slow down, back up
. In the silence I could hear the blood beating in my ears like a war drum. Staring at the mountains and the ocean, I tried to put everything else aside. My mother. Work. Jack. This was DeMott on the phone. DeMott. My fiancé. “I'm sorry I haven't called you back. Really, I'm sorry.”

He was silent.

“I'm standing on the ship's top deck and I'm looking at icebergs. Real icebergs. They're the size of your truck. It's unbelievable. You would love it.”

“Maybe we can go back,” he said, sounding somewhat mollified. “We can go there for our honeymoon. Pick the date and I'll book the tickets.”

I closed my eyes. Wedding, honeymoon. Plans, plans. DeMott always needed plans, and a heavy and familiar weight fell on my shoulders. When I opened my eyes, the glaciated landscape seemed merciless.

“Raleigh, do you miss me?”

“Of course.”

“Do you, really?”

The ship was moving forward even more slowly now. When the hull bumped an iceberg, the sound was as soft as a distant car door closing. I watched the block of ice rolling through the water, tumbling away from us, then bobbing up and down. Each time the iceberg rose, it exposed some of the enormous blue underbelly hidden by the water. That's what made icebergs so dangerous; the greater mass was hidden beneath the surface. What we could see was a mere fraction of the thing's true size, and as I held the phone, trying to think of something to say, I realized how much my relationship resembled these blocks of pale blue ice.

“DeMott,” I said, “we need to talk.”

“About what?”

The line beeped. Call waiting.

“Raleigh, what do we need to talk about?”

It beeped again.

“I'll have to call you back.”

“You can't do this—all this silence is killing me.”

“I have to go, DeMott. I'll call you this afternoon, promise, bye.” I switched lines. “Raleigh Harmon.”

“This is the medical examiner's office.”

I introduced myself in more detail and explained that I was checking on a body shipped from Ketchikan. She told me to wait, putting me on hold again. When I turned around, Jack was walking toward me, the sun at his back so I couldn't read the expression in his eyes.

The woman came back on the line. “Yes, we received a deceased female from Ketchikan. But we haven't processed.”

I explained our circumstances, how the cruise ended on Sunday, and how difficult it would be to pursue the case when every potential witness departed to other parts of the country. “Please, if we could just get cause of death, that would be a huge help.”

“I'm very sorry to tell you,” she said, “but a tourist drove their RV into Cook Inlet last night. Six more vehicles were involved, and State Patrol needs immediate autopsies to find out if any of the drivers were under the influence. I'll put your request right behind that one. And I have your number.”

“Thank you. If anything changes, we'd appreciate a bump up the list.”

“I understand.”

As I closed my phone, Jack opened his. Still holding the coffee, he tapped out the numbers with one finger.

“Yeah, it's me,” he said, moments later. “Your ME's just got a body and we're waiting on the autopsy. Can you press them?” He waited. “I'm doing great. You?”

He listened. Then said, “Terrific,” without conviction. “So this deceased was shipped from Ketchikan and I need cause of death, ASAP.” He looked at me, lowering the phone from his mouth. “Anything else?”

“Toxicology,” I said, thinking of Ramazan's unmarked vials. “Any signs of sexual assault.” If Jack had a way to get this done, we might as well ask for the whole enchilada. I sipped my coffee, listening as he gave our requests, then spoke more empty small talk. “Good. That's great.”

When he closed the phone, the muscles in his jaw were knotting and unknotting.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“My ex-wife.”

I almost choked on my coffee.

“She works in pathology at Providence Hospital in Anchorage. She knows everybody in the morgue.” He lifted his coffee, draining the cup.

I was still staring at him.

He added, “She likes to tell me how great her life is now. And she'll help us out so she can call back and tell me more good news about herself.”

I nodded, still unable to say anything.

“And yeah, that's how I know Kevin Barnes,” he continued, unbidden. “We spent two years together in the Anchorage field office.”

“I thought you guys were at Quantico.”

“We were in the same class at Quantico. His version of being nice was not bringing up my hell years in Anchorage. But he made sure to drop the ex-wife bomb.” He shrugged. “I said,
I do
and one year later she said,
I don't
.”

Flight time to Ketchikan from Seattle. The location of the FBI office in Juneau. The tram. The hidden trail up Mount Roberts. That's how he knew those things.

“She was my high school sweetheart,” he said.

“Jack, you don't have to explain.”

“I thought marrying somebody who knew me that well would mean they would understand what this job means to me.”

“Jack, really, you don't—”

“But she hated it. She hated everything about the FBI. She complained that I worked all the time. She got the idea that I cared more about my work than our marriage. And finally, she walked out.”

I glanced away. I looked at the mountains, the water, the blue glowing icebergs. Anywhere. I looked anywhere but his eyes. Under my feet, I could feel the bow thrusters rumbling. The ship was pivoting, turning in slow motion so that the severe mountains moved to the other side. The crowds came streaming over the deck, trampling across the shuffleboard court, and flowing around us as we stood like two rocks in a river.

“If you marry that guy, Raleigh, make sure he knows. Make sure he understands what this work means to you.”

The ship made its final pivot and Sawyer Glacier swarmed into view.

Nothing could prepare me for such monstrous beauty.

The mile-wide tongue of blue-and-white ice stretched five miles back, reaching up to a mountain peak that pointed straight to God. I heard Jack gasp, then gasp again as the front of the glacier snapped and a falling block of ice the size of an office building plunged straight down into the water, spraying a fountain of water. In the bright sun, the ocean water glistened like jewels.

And the block of ice bobbed, already hiding how much lay beneath the surface.

“I will never forget that,” Jack said.

I looked over. His eyes matched the green-blue water below, and as I stared into them, the landscape seemed to fade away. I could hear the blood again, rushing in my ears.

“And I'll never forget that I saw it with you,” he said.

Chapter Twenty

I
swallowed, trying to breathe. The wind was gusting in bursts of iced air and the people who crowded the deck rail looked like a wall of parkas. I stared at them because I still couldn't look at Jack.

“I need to find my family.” I tried to sound calm.