Murder, She Wrote: Panning For Murder: Panning For Murder (Murder She Wrote) (18 page)

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Authors: Jessica Fletcher

BOOK: Murder, She Wrote: Panning For Murder: Panning For Murder (Murder She Wrote)
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“Where to first?” Kathy asked as we made our way through knots of people in the direction of the main street.
 
 
“Number one on the agenda is to find Maurice Quarlé. I went through every guidebook I could find for Juneau, but there’s no mention of him or his travel agency.”
 
 
“Do you think Susan Shevlin back home might be helpful?” Kathy asked.
 
 
“Good suggestion. If we fail to locate him, I’ll call Susan and see if he’s listed as a registered travel agent. I suppose the best thing we can do now is to ask around town for him. Juneau isn’t very big. Surely he’ll be known to other businesspeople. In the meantime, we have Willie’s Juneau receipts. We’ll follow whatever trail they lead us on. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
 
 
“What about the man who went overboard?” she asked.
 
 
“That’s something else I want to follow up on. I have the names of two Alaska State Troopers. Mort Metzger gave them to me. One is—”
 
 
“Detective Flowers is the one I spoke with when I was here,” Kathy said.
 
 
“That’s right. I forgot you’d been in contact with the police.”
 
 
“He handles missing persons, I think,” Kathy said.
 
 
“Yes, that’s what Mort said. He also has a friend he’s met through law enforcement conferences, a trooper named McQuesten, Joseph McQuesten. Mort says he and Flowers work closely together. We’ll try to reach both of them today. Let’s follow the receipt trail, although I suppose we’ll have to wait until the shops open.”
 
 
I was mistaken in assuming that shops in Juneau wouldn’t open until later in the morning. Obviously, shopkeepers set their hours according to the arrival times of the cruise ships. Every door was open, and the stores were filled with browsers and potential buyers.
 
 
“Look!” Kathy said excitedly, pointing to soaring evergreens behind the row of stores along the main drag. I immediately saw the object of her excitement. At the top of one of the trees was a magnificent bald eagle.
 
 
“There’s another,” she said, pointing to an adjacent tree.
 
 
I laughed. While my purpose in inviting Kathy to accompany me to Alaska was to find out what had happened to her sister, my original intention in taking the cruise had been to see as much wildlife as possible. We were off to a good start in that regard.
 
 
We waited until a Native American officer in a yellow rain slicker stopped traffic and motioned for us to cross the broad avenue, which placed us on a sidewalk teeming with other visitors. I pulled the slips of paper from my pocket and looked at the first one. “Over there,” I said, pointing to a large building with a sign in front that said: TAKU. “It’s a fish store and smokehouse,” I said. “The receipt says that Kathy ordered smoked salmon to be sent to New York. Is that where she last lived?”
 
 
“I think so, although it was always difficult to know where she was living at any given time. But yes, she’d called me from New York on several occasions just before she left for Alaska.”
 
 
“Let’s see if they remember her placing that order.”
 
 
Many yards from Taku, the aroma of smoked fish assaulted our nostrils, a not unpleasant experience. I enjoy smoked fish of every variety and often visit a smokehouse in Cabot Cove to buy thinly sliced salmon for parties. Taku was a large store with a retail counter. To the left were windows through which the smokehouse operations could be viewed. A pleasant middle-aged man wearing a large white apron greeted us.
 
 
“What a lovely shop,” I said, taking in a wide variety of fish beautifully displayed in glass cases filled with crushed ice.
 
 
“Thank you,” he said. “What can I do for you ladies?”
 
 
“The salmon looks wonderful,” I said.
 
 
“Only the best. We feature wild salmon, sockeye salmon. That’s our state fish.”
 
 
“We have pretty good salmon back home in Maine,” Kathy said.
 
 
“I know you do,” the shop’s owner said, “but we like to think that Alaska has the best in the world. Would you like to send some back to your friends in Maine? When you get home, you can do a taste comparison.”
 
 
“I believe we just might do that,” I said. “But we have another reason for visiting you this morning.”
 
 
“Oh? What might that be?”
 
 
I handed him Willie Copeland’s receipt. He studied it, shrugged, and handed it back.
 
 
“It’s my sister,” Kathy said. “As you can see from the date on the receipt, she was here not very long ago.”
 
 
“Was she unhappy with her purchase?”
 
 
“We don’t know,” Kathy replied.
 
 
He looked puzzled.
 
 
“You see,” I said, “the woman who made this purchase has disappeared. She got to Ketchikan but hasn’t been seen since.”
 
 
“That’s terrible.”
 
 
Kathy handed him Wilimena’s photo.
 
 
He smiled. “Her! I remember her very well. Lovely lady, very classy.”
 
 
“Did she come in alone?” I asked.
 
 
He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. “No, she didn’t.”
 
 
“Do you know who she was with?”
 
 
“Sure I do. It was Maurice.”
 
 
“Maurice Quarlé?”
 
 
“You know Maurice?”
 
 
“Sort of,” Kathy said.
 
 
“Did they say what they would be doing while in Juneau?” I asked.
 
 
He shook his head.
 
 
“Where is Maurice’s travel agency?” I asked.
 
 
“He really doesn’t have one,” was the reply. “I mean, the way I understand it, he’s sort of a one-man consultant to the steamship companies. He’s always off on some cruise or another. I think he teaches French on some of the cruises, and he books tour groups.”
 
 
“Do you know where he lives in Juneau?”
 
 
“No. As I say, he’s not home very much. Wait a minute. One of my smokehouse workers might know.”
 
 
He disappeared into the smokehouse and had a conversation with a young man dressed all in white. He returned and said, “Maurice rents a room in a house at the top of Mount Roberts where the tram goes up to the observatory. He doesn’t know the name of the street or house number, but he says there’s a sign in front of the house—Serenity House. People like to name their houses around here.”
 
 
“I’m sure we’ll find it,” I said. “Now, let me order some of the world’s best salmon to send back to our friends in Maine who think
they
have the best salmon.”
 
 
We both laughed, and the order was written up.
 
 
There were four other receipts to follow up on. We visited those shops without learning much about Wilimena’s plans. The four additional shops all featured jewelry. I’d never seen so many jewelry stores in one small area in my life. There were dozens of them, some focusing on Native American crafts, but most offering the sort of pedestrian jewelry found in any store in the Lower Forty-eight.
 
 
In only one of them did we find a salesperson who remembered Wilimena. The woman said she recalled her because they had a long conversation about the price of gold and whether stores like hers purchased unprocessed ore from individuals. “Ms. Copeland told me that she would soon come into possession of a large amount of raw gold and would be seeking an outlet for it. I invited her to come in to talk about it again, and she said she would.” It was more of a snicker than a laugh. “We occasionally have people stop in who claim they have gold for sale, but frankly, we never pay much attention to them. But I will say that Ms. Copeland seemed sincere. Did she ever get her gold?”
 
 
“We’re hoping to find out,” Kathy said. “Thank you for your time.”
 
 
Having exhausted places to check out based upon the receipts Wilimena had left behind, we decided to go into a small coffee shop and make some calls from there. I got the number of the Alaska State Trooper barracks in Juneau and dialed it. The officer who answered informed me that Detective Flowers was out of the office but Trooper McQuesten was there. I introduced myself when he came on the line and mentioned that I was a friend of Sheriff Metzger’s.
 
 
“A pleasure speaking with a friend of the good sheriff back in Maine,” he said. “How is Mort?”
 
 
“Just fine, Trooper McQuesten. He sends his best. I’m here in Juneau with the sister of Wilimena Copeland. Mort told me that you were friendly with the detective working on her case, Detective Flowers.”
 
 
“That’s right,” he said. “I promised Mort that I would keep tabs on it. As far as I know, there hasn’t been any progress. Mort tells me that you’re quite a famous writer of murder mystery novels.”
 
 
“Well, I do write murder mystery novels. Whether I’m especially famous or not is another question. Wilimena Copeland’s sister, Kathy, and I are hoping that by retracing her steps, we might help resolve what happened to her.”
 
 
“Have you had any luck so far?”
 
 
“Afraid not. I’m sure you’ve heard about the unfortunate incident yesterday on the
Glacial Queen
.”
 
 
“Of course.”
 
 
“I admit to having a special interest in the man who went overboard in Glacier Bay.”
 
 
“Why is that?”
 
 
I explained my suspicion that the man, whose name was allegedly John Smith, had been following me ever since we boarded the
Glacial Queen
. I also indicated that I had the feeling that this John Smith might have had something to do with the disappearance of Wilimena Copeland.
 
 
“That’s very interesting, Mrs. Fletcher. Mort told me that you’ve helped him solve some pretty difficult cases.”
 
 
“I’m afraid Mort has overstated it,” I said with a chuckle. “But I have had the misfortune of being involved in my share of real crime.”
 
 
“I’d like very much to speak with you, Mrs. Fletcher, about the death on the
Glacial Queen
. I have a feeling you might have something to offer.”
 
 
“I’d be happy to,” I said. “Just name the time.”
 
 
“Could we meet this afternoon?” he asked.
 
 
“Yes, that would work. Where?”
 
 
“Our offices are at 6255 Allaway Avenue. Say two o’clock?”
 
 
“We’ll be there. And thank you.”
 
 
We paid for our coffee and stepped out onto the busy sidewalk.
 
 
“I think it’s time to see if we can find Maurice Quarlé,” I said.
 
 
Kathy looked at her watch. It was eleven thirty. “I promised Bill we’d meet him back on the pier at noon,” she said. “Besides, I’d feel more comfortable having him with us when we confront Mr. Quarlé. You know, in case there’s some sort of violence.”
 
 
“I certainly don’t expect anything like that to happen,” I said, “but if you would feel better having him with us, then that’s what we’ll do.”
 
 
Bill Henderson was waiting at the kiosk when we arrived. He greeted us with a big smile, gave Kathy a kiss on the cheek, and insisted upon buying us lunch. “I got a recommendation from the cruise director for a restaurant. He suggests the Fiddlehead Restaurant and Bakery, on Willoughby Avenue. Not fancy, he says, but the food is good. They bake their own bread for sandwiches.”

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