Lie Catchers (15 page)

“Chet guesses Parker’s boss is holding him back.”

“Putting pressure on SAC Newcastle to allow Parker to return to Petersburg might backfire.”

Liv nodded. “Can I write a cogent, convincing argument about why Parker should return?” She rubbed the skin on her forehead. “For its own mental health, this town needs to discover what happened to Ev and find the guy who shot me. We don’t want more people hurt.”

Ivor slapped his hand on a stack of folders and growled in exasperation. “We’ve hit a wall with Ev’s case. When Parker was here, I felt like we were progressing, but Nilson’s got every person in town drawing their heads in like turtles so they won’t even talk to me.” He huffed. “And join the club on the self-serving angle. I won’t get re-elected if we can’t solve this crime, Liv. I’m sure of it.”

****

Liv opened the door to Lito’s Landing and stepped in, the smell of stale beer, French fry grease and sweat so strong that she propped open the door to air the place out. She’d come an hour early for the 2:00 p.m. meeting, assuring the bartender she’d pay for the wine and beer her group drank. She convinced the guy Tuck didn’t need to know until afterward how much business she’d brought in at a time when the bar was lucky to have a dozen patrons. After making fifty phone calls to friends and acquaintances in Petersburg, and asking each person to call at least two more people, Liv wondered how many men and women would show up for her meeting. She’d said: “You’ll get a free beer or glass of wine. Bring a couple sheets of stationary with your name and address on it. We’re going to write to the Feds and we want our letters to look and feel personal but serious.”

She stood at the bar, sipping a glass of chardonnay and talking to the bartender, when people started trooping in, dropping paper and pens on the chest-high tables in the bar area. Liv smiled at them and with a dry-erase marker, pointed to a table full of glasses and bottles of wine. “Serve yourselves. Welcome.”

At precisely 2:00 p.m., Liv asked for everyone’s attention and went over the talking points she’d listed on the dry-erase board set up on a bar stool. “To: SAC Bertrand Newcastle” “Areas of focus: Fear, Safety, Urgency. S. A. Nilson needs S. A. Browne’s help.”

“I’ve got extra paper and pens, people. Be sure to personalize your letter. Tell SAC Newcastle about your kids or your grandkids and how you’re frightened for their safety. The issue is urgency. S. A. Nilson isn’t our favorite person, but let’s not get into that, okay?” Liv paused. “We think Parker Browne was getting somewhere in the investigation and might be able to assist Nilson. The point is, Nilson needs help finding the turkey who shot at me
and
the creep who killed Ev.”

****

His face cherry-red, Oldshack roared into Parker’s cubicle, waving papers. “What the hell is this all about?”

“Sir?” Parker motioned for his boss to sit down, but got an impatient hand gesture in response.

“How much are you communicating with Nilson?”

“I’m reading his daily reports and sending Intel to him whenever I find something. Why?”

“These are faxes from every Olaf, Leif, and Harriet in Petersburg. The pages are vomiting out of my Fax machine at five minute intervals, for Christ’s sake.”

Frowning, Parker reached out to take the papers from Oldshack.

His boss pulled them to his chest. “I swear to God, Browne. If I find out you’re behind this campaign, I’ll demote you.”

“Sir, I don’t know what those papers are.” He stood, his adrenaline pumping.

“The Treasury Department does not allow citizens to influence an investigation, God dammit. I’m in charge of who gets assigned where.”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“So when you get to Petersburg, tell them I ordered you to return to the God damned town yesterday, before these faxes came, do you understand?”

Parker hid a smile.

“Get a message out, fast. Tell them you’re coming, that you already had plane reservations to Petersburg. Then order them to stop sending these things.”

“Nilson?”

“He stays. I don’t want him back here until he learns how and why he fucked up this job. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You two find Everett Olson’s killer and the shooter.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you get control over the situation. These Petersburg women think they’re running the show, and I want you to make it clear they
aren’t
.” He rattled the papers for effect.

“They’re all women?”

Oldshack stared at the faxes. “Mostly. Variations on ‘we’re all alone here while our men are fishing and how can we protect ourselves and our children when two killers are on the loose?’”

Pursing his lips to hide his mirth, Parker conjured Liv bustling door-to-door, standing over her friends while they wrote their protests. Oldshack had probably figured out most of the letters were faxed from The Smiling Coho, but he might not know Liv Hanson was the organizer and sender of the faxes.

When Parker didn’t respond, Oldshack shook the letters. “Make them stop this, God dammit.”

“I will, sir.” Parker made a show of pulling his papers into a pile. He looked at his watch. “I’ll be on the plane this afternoon.”

Oldshack nodded. “I’m calling Nilson. He takes orders from you, understand?”

“Whatever you say, sir.”

Another shake of the faxes. “This is not a God damned popularity contest.” Oldshack waited for a gesture of assent from Parker. “But we need to ramp up the investigation. So you lead.”

“Yes, sir.”

Oldshack pivoted, then turned back and barked, “We’ve got a whole town threatening me they’ll go higher up if we don’t send you back.
Threatening
me.” He shook his head. “I swear to God, Browne, if you don’t handle this situation cleverly and quickly,” he bellowed, “I’m kicking both you and Nilson downstairs to clerking.” Oldshack grinned evilly. “And that’s not a threat; that’s a promise.”

The amber pill shone like a jewel when Liv held it up to the light. “It’s so pretty,” she said. “Almost too pretty to swallow.”

Chet leaned against the table in The Smiling Coho workroom, witness to Liv’s excitement over the arrival of her prototype pills. “How difficult are they to process?”

“Not bad. The oil has to be steamed out of the fish, then pasteurized, filtered, and placed in the capsule. I wonder if I bit down on the pill, would it taste like salmon and feel oily on my tongue?” Liv mused. She crushed a pill between wax paper and touched her finger to the squeezed-out juice.

“Sweet,” Liv announced. “And not heavily fishy. Try it.”

Chet tasted the concoction and nodded. “Not bad.”

“But more Omegas per pill than what’s on the market. We accomplished that by super-concentrating the oil, eliminating most of the water and straining it through tiny micron filters.”

“Expensive.”

“True, but we cut the price by using Chum and Pinks, the fish people are least likely to eat for meals, and the salmon species so plentiful up here. They can be purse-seined in bulk and processed, with the good, meaty sections changed to salmon oil pills and the leftovers sold for pet food.” Liv took a breath. “I’m hoping my family’s new industry will provide a welcome extra shift at an existing cannery. We bring the product to a certain level of purity locally, then we ship the oil to a company in Seattle to make the pills.”

Chet asked, “Will you sell it yourself?”

Liv winced. “That’s the tricky part. If Mom and I market it, we’ll get all the profit, but probably won’t have a big enough clientele to make money. If we get a company to sell it widely, the lower percentage profit makes sense. I have more research to do before I make a decision.”

“But you haven’t found a cannery here to help you?”

“And I don’t have a backer or two or three, yet. We’re all so preoccupied by Ev’s death and a shooter on the loose. Hell, I’ve alienated my biggest potential backer; both he and the manager of the Cannery I hoped to use, are high on the suspect list. Sources are drying up while Mom’s knees are getting worse. Has she complained to you?”

Chet folded his arms, his eyes sad. “She’s not one to whine but she takes the stairs so slowly, it’s painful to watch. She says she can’t exercise like she wants to.”

“I’ve got half the money she needs for the operation, stashed away in Sitka so I don’t touch it.” She bounced a salmon pill in the palm of her hand, the need to shake up something, anything, filling her with urgency. “Which doesn’t leave a penny to get this little baby on the market.”

****

Parker pushed back his wet hood, rubbed rain-soaked hands on his jeans and settled into Ivor’s warm car. “Thanks for the pick-up.”

“Figured you’d need help with readjustment.”

Parker swiped water off his cheek. The wet wind wafted processed salmon and jet fuel to his nostrils, making him cough. “Off the plane and into another universe.”

“November’s one of the worst months.”

“Seventy in Fresno.”

“Shit.”

Parker smiled. “How’s Nilson?”

“I found you guys a room in the Municipal Building. He’s there, working sixteen-hour days and getting nowhere.”

“Is he aware of Liv’s letter campaign?”

Ivor slowed down for a stop sign and studied Parker. “He
should
be, but it’s amazing how much he misses.”

Parker nodded. “Petersburg is a tough nut to crack.”

“It’s my nut.”

“And Liv’s.”

“She’s got buyer’s remorse,” said Ivor, his eyes on the watery windshield.

“Really?”

“She’s becoming aware of her power in this town,” Ivor pulled his car into the parking lot. “She developed a phone tree and had a hundred women gathered within, say, four hours.”

“She’s got a way with words.”

“That she does.”

“But buyer’s remorse?”

Ivor turned to Parker. “Now that she got you back here, she doesn’t know what to do with you. She’s scared.”

“Of me?”

Ivor shook his head. “Of how she might have set you up; of how this might hurt your career or get you shot at again.”

The sinking feeling Parker had when the plane landed came back full-force. The talk with Nilson was going to be uncomfortable, and frankly, he had no idea what to say to Liv. Sitting sheltered from the rain in Ivor’s car seemed the safest, warmest place in all of creation.

Ivor went on. “Of how she’s going to have to come clean with you as well as the town.”

“Uh-oh.” Parker’s chest tightened. “That sounds ominous.”

“Look,” Ivor said, straightening his back. “She’s tough, but…”

Parker rested his hands on his wet jeans, worried about what Liv would come clean with and how that would affect his feelings for her. If he even knew what the fuck he felt about her. “Listen, I—”

Ivor interrupted, opening his door to the cold and the rain. “You’d think I’d know how to advise you, Parker. After all, she’s my sister and we’re close.” He let out a breath. “But she’s complicated.” At the Municipal Building, Ivor stepped out of the car, but when Parker emerged from the passenger side, Ivor drilled Parker with a tense expression. “Point is: You hurt her, I’ll kill you.”

****

Nilson sat at a metal desk, staring at a bulletin board, his back to the door. The smell of corn tortillas from empty wrappers on Nilson’s desk gave evidence the agent had wolfed down dinner on the job tonight. How many meals had he eaten alone in this room, empty except for two chairs and Nilson’s desk, the slate gray walls somber witness to his failing investigation?

“Nilson.”

“Browne,” he acknowledged without turning around.

Parker took a deep breath, imagining how Nilson must feel. The man was a veteran investigator, famous for his dogged pursuits of international criminals, now brought to his knees by Petersburg, Alaska.

“I’ve read your reports.”

“Ditto.”

“All stones turned over.”

“Yes,” Nilson answered wearily.

“At least you haven’t been shot at.”

He sighed. “In some ways, I wish I had.”

Parker pulled the other chair up to the table and straddled it, hands on the chair back. Nilson gave him a sideways glance, enough to acknowledge Parker’s presence, but the man had no words of welcome. How the hell could Parker play lead with a guy like Nilson? The recession had arrested future plans for both of them, but Parker had lost CIS status and salary while Nilson’s position and pay remained the same. True, Nilson had been slated for a promotion before cutbacks, but at least Nilson could continue with the position at which he excelled. Uh…
used
to excel.

Be creative
. Oldshack’s advice had been on Parker’s mind all afternoon.

“You’ve picked Barber.”

Nilson nodded.

“Tilly Grant in second position.”

Slight tilt of the head.

“But nothing solid on either one, right?”

A shoulder rose.

“Be me, coming into this case to lead, by order of the old guy, when we’ve already turned the thing inside out twenty times. What would
you
do?”

Nilson blinked at the notion and laid his hand on the stack of papers, as if by touching them, he’d figure out how to respond to Parker’s question. “Fuck protocol.” Nilson cast a baleful eye Parker’s way. “They call me ‘Say.’”

Parker frowned at the term. “Say?”

“For Special Agent.”

“Oh.”

“And it’s not complimentary. As in ‘Oh Say, can’t you see, you fuckface?’”

“Ouch.”

“Your woman is the worst. She’s the voice of the people but won’t talk to me.”

So Nilson
was
aware of Liv’s letter campaign, now trolling for a reaction from Parker. The case might have stymied Nilson, maybe even blinded him somehow, but Parker knew better than to lie to the man. “She’s a leader in the town, worth keeping on our side.”

Nilson’s eyebrows went up. He focused on Parker with interest and a frisson of surprise.

Parker said, “We keep her safe and we learn all we can from her. For one thing, we aren’t sure who the shooter wanted to take down, Liv or me. So she may still be a draw for the perp. Second, she’s our conduit into the minds and hearts of these folks as we figure out what happened to Olson.” He shrugged. “We keep her in the tent, but we watch her movements carefully and critically.”