Murder, She Wrote: Panning For Murder: Panning For Murder (Murder She Wrote) (26 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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“I know you are, Jess,” she said, reaching over to give me a squeeze.
 
 
She spent the next half hour extolling Bill Henderson’svirtues, his philosophy of life, his views on myriad subjects, and his aspirations for the future. This time, I restrained from playing devil’s advocate. The more she talked, the better Bill sounded, and I became caught up in her schoolgirlish enthusiasm. I was sincerely happy for her, and we spoke of planning a wedding back home, where it would take place, the sort of reception that would be held—“Small,” she said, “just my closest friends. You’ll be my matron of honor, of course.”
 
 
“You bet I will be,” I said, aware that not including Wilimena in the plans spoke volumes about Kathy’s expectations of finding her sister alive.
 
 
We eventually decided to emulate Bill and make it an early night. We agreed to meet at seven for breakfast and went to our respective cabins. I undressed for bed, turned on the TV, and flipped through the channels until coming upon an old black-and-white movie that looked interesting. The story and characters took my mind off what we might face tomorrow in Ketchikan. So far, we hadn’t gotten any closer to finding Wilimena than we’d been back in Seattle. Hopefully, being where she was last seen would prove more fruitful.
 
 
The movie ended. I turned off the lights, climbed into bed, and closed my eyes. They didn’t stay closed very long. Something—some thing—was rattling around in my brain. I couldn’t identify what it was, was unable to pin it down no matter how hard I tried. Maybe it was the grim expectation that if we did find Wilimena, she wouldn’t be alive. What had kept me going was her past history of disappearing now and then, sometimes for months at a time, and then happily resurfacing with a tale to tell. If that were the case now, we’d all be relieved—and lining up to give her a good spanking. If she was off on some adventure, she’d not only caused concern on the part of her loving sister, but she’d turned my pleasure cruise into a tense search for her, to say nothing of wasting countless hours on the part of law enforcement.
 
 
I gave up trying to sort out my jumbled thoughts and finally allowed sleep to overtake me. But whatever it was that had kept me awake obviously hadn’t vanished. It must have been rattling around in my brain all night because I woke up groggy, out of sorts, and as the saying goes, loaded for bear.
 
 
Chapter Thirteen
 
 
Kathy, Bill, and I came off the ship and stood on Front Street, Ketchikan’s main drag along the waterfront. As in our other ports of call, the
Glacial Queen
wasn’t the only cruise ship docked at the huge pier, constructed to accommodate Ketchikan’s thriving tourist industry. And, as with those other stops we’d made, Front Street was already clogged with tourists seeking bargains in the shops.
 
 
I was about to pull out my cell phone when I saw Trooper McQuesten approaching.
 
 
“I must’ve missed you when you disembarked,” he said, his signature smile on his rugged face. “I ran a little late this morning.”
 
 
“And we were earlier than usual,” I said. “It’s good to see you, Trooper McQuesten.”
 
 
“I see you’ve brought along reinforcements,” McQuesten said, referring to Bill Henderson.
 
 
“I’m afraid I’m no help,” Henderson said. “I’m just along to provide moral support.”
 
 
“You can never have too much moral support in a situation like this,” McQuesten said. “I’ve arranged for us to meet up with Detective Flowers. He’s already contacted the floatplane operators who were listed on that piece of paper we found with the murder victim in Juneau.”
 
 
“Any luck?” I asked.
 
 
“Afraid not,” McQuesten answered. “He showed Ms. Copeland’s picture to all of them. Only one remembered her, but he said she’d never booked any of his planes. Still, I think it might be worthwhile to revisit that company. Sometimes a second go-round results in things being remembered that weren’t the first time. Come on. My car is over there.”
 
 
We drove in McQuesten’s unmarked sedan to a series of small docks to which a variety of floatplanes were tethered. The trooper led us into an office where half a dozen pilots sat around drinking coffee and talking. A man behind a desk stood as we entered and warmly greeted McQuesten. He, in turn, introduced us to the man we were looking for, whose name was Gilroy. “Bob Gilroy owns this floatplane operation,” McQuesten said.
 
 
“Pleased to have you visit us,” Gilroy said. “Grab some chairs.”
 
 
We formed a semicircle around the desk.
 
 
“Detective Flowers showed me the picture of the missing woman,” Gilroy said. “I remember her coming in here asking about renting a floatplane and pilot. I don’t know whether the price was too high, but she said she’d think about it and left. That’s the last I saw her.”
 
 
Gilroy looked up as the door opened. “Here’s Detective Flowers now,” he said.
 
 
The detective was a short, slight man wearing a double-breasted blue blazer, gray slacks with a razor crease, a white shirt, and a regimental tie. If I’d been asked to pick out a detective from a lineup of men, he would have been the last one I would have chosen. Another round of introductions was made, and Flowers pulled up a chair and joined us.
 
 
“I was just telling these good folks about my brief encounter with the missing woman,” Gilroy said to Flowers. “Wish I could be more help.”
 
 
“Did she indicate why she wanted to rent a floatplane?” I asked.
 
 
Gilroy shook his head. At least she hadn’t shared with him her quest for gold.
 
 
“None of the other floatplane operators remembers her at all,” Flowers said.
 
 
“Are the other floatplane operators listed on that piece of paper the only ones in Ketchikan?” I asked.
 
 
Gilroy replied, “The only ones
licensed
to operate here. There are some independent operators who own planes and rent themselves out. They’re not always reliable, and a few don’t keep their equipment up the way we do.”
 
 
“But they’re allowed to take passengers?” Henderson asked.
 
 
“Sure,” Gilroy replied. “When I say they’re not licensed, what I mean is that they aren’t licensed as businesses in Ketchikan, or registered with the steamship companies as official shore excursion operations. But they’re okay as far as the FAA is concerned. They can legally take paying passengers.”
 
 
“Maybe Willie decided to go with one of them,” Kathy offered.
 
 
“How many of these independent operators would you say there are in Ketchikan?” I asked.
 
 
Gilroy shrugged. “Hard to say,” he said. “A dozen, maybe.”
 
 
“Would you have a list of them?” I asked.
 
 
“No, I don’t. No need for me to keep such a list. I can give you the names of a couple off the top of my head.”
 
 
“Please,” I said.
 
 
He came up with three names, which I dutifully jotted down in my little notebook. He pulled a phone directory from a desk drawer, looked up the addresses and phone numbers of the names he’d given me, wrote them down, and handed the paper to me.
 
 
“Anything else I can do for you this morning?” he asked. “We’ve got a busy day ahead of us, every plane booked solid. It’s tourist season, you know.”
 
 
“You’ve been very helpful,” I said. “Thank you for your time.”
 
 
“I feel as though we’ve just hit a brick wall,” Kathy said as we stood next to Trooper McQuesten’s car.
 
 
“Don’t talk that way,” Bill Henderson said. “We’re just getting started. Maybe one of those independent pilots Mr. Gilroy mentioned was hired by your sister. I say we visit every one of them.”
 
 
I judged from the expression on Detective Flowers’s face that his thinking was more in line with Kathy’s than Bill’s. Had I been totally honest, I would have sided with the detective. There we were, in Ketchikan, Alaska, without a tangible bit of evidence to justify continuing our search for Wilimena. But I wasn’t about to express my inner feelings. We’d come this far, and to throw up our hands and admit failure was the last thing Kathy needed. Yes, it was entirely possible—no, make that probable—that we would not find Willie before it was time to get back on the ship at the end of the day and leave for Vancouver, the final stop on the cruise before returning to Seattle. That would be an unfortunate conclusion, especially for Kathy. We had to use the day to at least follow up on every lead, and the list of names Mr. Gilroy had given us was a start.
 
 
There was also Dolly Arthur’s former brothel to visit. It was now a tourist attraction, according to the guidebooks. Whether anything there would prove helpful was pure conjecture. But then again, everything at that moment was conjecture.
 
 
“I agree with Bill,” I said. “Let’s see if we can find out anything from these independent floatplane pilots.”
 
 
Trooper McQuesten said, “That’s probably a good idea. Now, Detective Flowers and I need to go to our barracks here in Ketchikan.”
 
 
Flowers added, “We have a task force operating around the state, troopers looking for your sister, Ms. Copeland. They report in every morning at nine.” He checked his watch. “Trooper McQuesten and I need to be there to coordinate their reports.” He handed Kathy his business card. “Check in with us later this morning.”
 
 
McQuesten slid behind the wheel, and Flowers headed for his car, parked a few feet away.
 
 
“There’s one problem,” Bill Henderson said.
 
 
Both officers looked at him.
 
 
“We don’t have any way to get around,” Bill said.
 
 
McQuesten laughed. “Yes, I’d say that
is
a problem.”
 
 
“Will you drop us off at a car rental agency?” Bill asked.
 
 
McQuesten gladly accommodated us, and thirty minutes later we drove away from a car rental lot with Bill behind the wheel of a relatively new Subaru.
 
 
“Where to first?” he asked.
 
 
I consulted the list given us by Gilroy. “Might as well start here,” I said, calling out the address. “His name is Borosky. Bob Borosky.”
 
 
Kathy consulted a map of Ketchikan she’d brought with her from the ship. “Up that road,” she said, pointing.
 
 
The road took us along a narrow strip of land that jutted into Tongass Narrows, the body of water on which Ketchikan is situated. As we pulled up in front of a small house in need of painting, a man who was fixing something on a floatplane looked up and scowled.
 
 
“Do somethin’ for you?” he asked, wiping oil-stained hands on an oil-stained towel that was once white. He looked as though he’d just gotten out of bed. Thinning hair sprouted in multiple directions. He needed a shave, and the yellow T-shirt he wore hadn’t benefited from a washing machine in a long time.
 
 
“Mr. Borosky?” I said.
 
 
“That’s my name.”
 
 
“My name is Jessica Fletcher,” I said, “and these are my friends. We’re in Alaska trying to find a woman who disappeared from a cruise a few weeks ago.”
 
 
“That so? What’s her name?”
 
 
“Wilimena Copeland.”
 
 
He screwed up his weather-beaten face in exaggerated thought. “Nope, can’t say that I ever heard of her.”
 
 
“We think she hired a floatplane here in Ketchikan,” I said.
 
 
“Well, if she did, she didn’t hire me,” he said. “Probably went with one a’ the big boys, paid a fortune compared to what I charge. Don’t make any sense to me. I’m FAA-certified, keep my plane in tip-top shape.”

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