Prime Catch (2 page)

“Deputy Lakat and I are here on department business. Could she see the territorial news for the last month? And I would like to look over the Personals for the last week.”

The man nodded. “Would this happen to do with the Polar Star Cannery?”

Sarah watched Amos’ jaw twitch. “How would you know about that?”

“Word gets around fast.”

“I’ll bet it does, Mr.―?”

“Edwards. Ray Edwards. I’m the news editor.” He turned to Sarah. “Miss Lakat, the files are through that door on the left. Mr. Day is the file clerk. He can get the folders you need. Sheriff, the Classified Department is down the hall on the right. Last door on the end.”

Sarah slid through the door to the filing room. Wooden cabinets lined the walls and marched down the center. Two small windows let in some dusty light. In front were three tables, and a desk where a mousy man with a pencil-thin mustache looked up. “May I help you with something?”

“You must be Mr. Day.” There was something about him, something oily, that made her feel uncomfortable, and she hurried to show him her identification card, using her most authoritative manner. “I’m Deputy Lakat, and I’d like to see files for the territorial news for the past two months.”

She must be fresh steak, the way he eyed her. “Just a moment. I’ll get the files from the last eight weeks. You may sit.” He indicated one of the tables.

Sarah pulled the chain on the old desk lamp on the table, and it gave a yellow glow. He came back in a few minutes with a stack of folders. Standing behind her, he set them down, brushing her arm. He smelled of rancid hair tonic, and she grimaced. “Can you tell me what you’re looking for?” The odor of old cheese floated on his breath.

“No. I’ll know when I find it.” He slunk back to his desk, grumbling something under his breath, while she opened the first folder and took out the stack of papers.

****

Amos came to a door whose frosted glass window held the words, “Classified Department” stenciled in black block letters. Opening it, he stood at a wooden counter where a young man in a blue suit worked at a typewriter. “Excuse me, Mr.―?”

“Perkins.” The young man turned and said, crisply, “Do you want to post a classified?”

Amos shook his head. “I’m Sheriff Darcy, and I’m conducting an investigation. May I see the Personals from last week?”

Perkins rose and went to a wooden file cabinet. Shuffling through the drawers, he pulled out one of the folders and brought it over. “We usually keep copies of all our Personals, by the month. You’ll find the past week’s at the top.”

Amos thumbed through the notices of lost pocket watches, lonely hearts, and greetings. A short message caught his eye.
There will be a third at Polar Star, Wednesday next.
“Mr. Perkins, may I see the record of who purchased this message?”

Perkins brought the ledger to the counter and matched the number on the sheet to the one in the ledger. “It was purchased by a Mr. John Smith.”

Amos pursed his lips. “John Smith? Really?”

Perkins clattered his fingers on the ledger page. “We aren’t required to ask for identification for a Personal, Sheriff.”

“Do you think you would recognize him if you saw him again?”

“Perhaps.”

“Didn’t you think this was an odd post?”

“Sheriff, if I questioned every unusually worded Personal message, I wouldn’t get any work done.”

“May I take this?”

Perkins nodded. “I don’t see why not.”

Amos turned on his heel and exited the room.
At least I have a handwriting sample.
He hurried to the filing room to see if Sarah had found anything. As he opened the door, he heard a smack and a howl of dismay. Sarah was glaring at someone―the file clerk, he assumed, who was rubbing a red mark on his cheek. “What happened here?”

Sarah gave a startled, “Oh!” and then, with a contrite look, added, “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“Well?”

“I’d rather not say.”

Mr. Day huffed. “You shouldn’t send a woman to do a man’s work.”

Sarah sneered, “If I were a man, you wouldn’t be hovering over me like a vulture.”

Amos clenched his jaw. “Stop it, both of you. I’m guessing you’re Mr. Day. Find something else to do, away from here.” Day hesitated. “Now!” Amos barked. For some reason, he wanted to rip Mr. Day’s head from his neck.

She waved him off. “You didn’t have to come to my rescue. I can take care of myself.”

Amos sat across the table. “I know you can. I wanted to see what you found.”

Sarah wrinkled her nose as if displeased. “There’ve been accidents at the North Seas Cannery in Cordova and King Cannery in Soldotna that each resulted in a death, but it doesn’t mention if there were notes found with the bodies.”

Amos stroked his mustache. “I suppose I could send a wire to their law enforcement to see what I can find out.”

“Did you get anything in Personals?”

He showed her the message and related what the clerk told him.

“Well, we do have a few things to go on.”

“Come on, Lakat, we can go back to the office to plan our next move.”

She called behind her, as she caught up the needed clippings, “You may put the folders away again, Mr. Day. Thank you!” There was a hint of sarcasm in her too-lilting voice.

On the street, Amos turned to her. “Tell me, Lakat, what made you slap him?”

An amused smile tried to come through, but she said, “Mashers get what they deserve.”

Amos shook his head as he got into the auto.
Some people make the mistake of thinking Sarah is an ordinary woman. They usually don’t make it twice.

Chapter 3

Back in Amos’ office, Sarah sat facing the desk, clutching a coffee mug. She took a sip and watched him pore over the information. “What do you think our next move should be?”

“Whoever this is, he seems to be going in some sort of pattern. If we can figure it out, we may be able to catch him before he strikes again.” Amos reached into a lower drawer and pulled out a map of Alaska. Opening it, he studied it for a moment. “If this was the third, he seems to be moving south.”

Sarah shook her head and tapped the map with her finger. “Soldotna is farther west than Cordova. How do we know if he’ll stay in the southeast? There’s a number of towns west of us that have canneries. How would we know which one he’d strike next?”

A knock on the door broke their train of thought. “Come in,” Amos called.

Sam leaned in. “Sir, Elmer is here. He says he finished examining the body.”

Amos rose from his chair. “Lakat, let’s see what he found.”

Sarah didn’t enjoy this part of the job, but it came with the territory. She followed Amos and Elmer next door and downstairs to the morgue. Elmer opened one of the cold storage rooms to reveal a sheeted body on a metal gurney.

Elmer peeled the sheet down to the shoulders, and Sarah sucked in a quick breath to fight her nausea. The head seemed to have been split in two like a ripe melon. Her stomach threatened to rebel, but she pushed it down and set her mind in business gear. Holding the two pieces together, Elmer pointed to the side of the neck. “I think the initial wound was this bruise here. Then he was hit on the back of the skull, which must have cracked it. I’ll bet, when he fell, he landed upside down, which split it open.”

Amos steadied himself against the wall, not looking well. “Does it look like he fought back?”

“No. He must have been struck from behind and had no warning.” Elmer turned to a shelf and picked up a small corked glass vial. “I found these embedded in the wound.”

Amos opened it and shook the contents into his hand, studying them carefully. “Lakat, look at this.”

Sarah peered at the items. “Those are splinters of wood. Do you think he was hit with a board of some kind?”

Amos nodded. “It seems like they’re from a finished mill board and not raw wood.” He was silent for a moment. “Come with me to the cannery, and let’s see if we can find anything else.” He deposited the wood fragments back in the vial and gave it to Elmer as he guided Sarah out.

They hurried to the patrol car and, as Sarah slid in, Amos started the engine. He glanced at her. “If it was a board that killed him, then given the force needed to crack his skull we should find some wood fragments on the catwalk or down below.”

A sea fog was coming in, coating the land with a gray misty chill. Sarah shivered a bit as they headed into the warehouse. A plant guard stopped them. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Amos stepped up. “I’m Sheriff Darcy, and I want to inspect the crime scene.”

“Come in. I’ll go tell Mr. Anders.”

Sarah followed Amos through the huge wooden sliding doors into the drafty building. A few men milled about, away from the crime scene. A couple of them glanced at her and started whispering. One of the larger men strode over. Jabbing a finger toward Sarah, he whirled on Amos. “What’s she doing here?”

Amos’ eyes flashed. “She’s one of my deputies and working on the case. Why?”

“She’s one of them Eskimos and, from what I know, one of those people killed Mr. Thornton.”

Sarah ground her back teeth, longing to deck this oaf. She also knew she couldn’t get anywhere with this type. May as well let Amos deal with the bluster.

Amos was in the man’s face. “What, exactly, are you saying?”

The idiot didn’t back down. “I’m sayin’ they’re all savages and cover for each other.”

Amos grabbed the straps of the man’s overalls and swung him against a wooden crate. “You take care of your business and I’ll take care of mine, or you can spend the night in the hoosegow for accosting an officer. You got that?” He hit him against the crate again, as if for emphasis.

Shrugging Amos’ hands off him, the man straightened up. “Yeah, I got it.”

Peter Anders hurried up from the far door. “Is there trouble here, Sheriff?”

“Taken care of.” The bully went back to his buddies. “Mr. Anders, I take it no one has disturbed the warehouse or the catwalk?”

Anders nodded. “I’ve had people watching it.”

“Good. Deputy Lakat and I want to give it a closer look. If I have her search down here, I don’t want any of those bulldogs bothering her. Understood?” At Anders’ nod, he turned to Sarah. “You search for anything that might have come down from the walk, and I’ll look up there.”

Sarah skirted the drying bloody pool and checked the floor for anything suspicious that could have fallen from above. In the corner, by a pallet, she spotted something and investigated. Crouching down, she saw it was a splintered piece of rounded, finished wood. It had spots of blood on it. She called, “I’ve found something down here!”

Amos answered from the catwalk, “Leave it where it is. Is it on the side where he fell?”

“No. It’s on the other side.”

“Hold on― Yes! Lakat, I’ll be right down.” Amos strode to where she was waiting and examined the piece of wood. “Looks like a piece of baseball bat, and it sure matches the splinters.” He pulled out his handkerchief and wrapped the piece to take with him. “Come and see what I found upstairs.”

As they walked out on the catwalk, Sarah studied the area. A faint chalk mark before the cut railing caught her eye. “Looks like someone tried to erase this mark.”

Amos nodded. “The murder was planned out, not a random killing. Seems Mr. Thornton came to inspect the warehouse by himself around the same time every morning, using the same route every time.”

Sarah took a breath. “So the one that followed him up must have put the chalk mark down to let him know when to strike, so Thornton would fall through the weakened railing.”

“The man who was seen following Mr. Thornton up had on mukluks. Probably to muffle any footsteps.”

A shock wave shot down her spine. “That’s why that worker thought it was a native who killed him!”

“Lakat, don’t jump to conclusions. Anyone could put on a pair of mukluks.” Amos inspected the railing on the other side. “If the wood piece was found on this side, then...ahh, here it is!”

Sarah ran her finger over a dent in the board. “That must be where he broke the bat.” She pointed to a few wood fragments between the wall and the floor of the catwalk. She scooped them into a handkerchief.

Amos wielded an imaginary bat. “The killer was right-handed if he swung like this to the neck. The body would have fallen to the other side when he brought the bat down like this to break his skull. The bat broke when the tip hit the rail.”

Sarah moved to the other side. “Then he would have to shove the body this way to make it look like Mr. Thornton fell.” As they worked out the details, both Sarah and Amos moved back and forth, their paces becoming almost giddy. A distant “ahem” made them stop in their tracks.

Mr. Anders stood by the door. “Sheriff, when can we clean the warehouse?” A slight irritation colored his tone.

Amos snagged Sarah by the arm and headed toward Anders. When he got to the agitated cannery owner, Amos slapped him on the shoulder. “You can now. I think we have what we need to start on the case.”

As they slipped through the door to the outside, Sarah chewed on her lip. “Where do you think the rest of the bat is?”

“He probably hid it under the long coat. I don’t know if he chanced disposing of it nearby, but he may not have wanted to be caught with it, either.” They took a walk around the plant but turned up nothing.

Disappointed, they returned to the patrol car and started back to the office, but just outside the cannery’s gated entrance Sarah noticed a pile of waste wood. “Pull over for a moment. We can take a look there.”

Amos nodded. “Good idea.” He parked on the road, where the hill sloped to the channel. They picked carefully through the tall grasses to the discarded wood and started inspecting pieces. Sarah heard a shout from Amos. “I found it!” She stepped cautiously around the debris, and he handed her the remains of the bloody bat. “Hold this a moment.” He brought out the piece they’d found inside, which he’d wrapped in his handkerchief. Freeing the bit of wood, he aligned the tip with the rest of it. “Swell catch, Lakat! I’d say we had a profitable morning. What do you say? Let’s stop at Millie’s for lunch. I’m buying.”

Sarah’s stomach growled. “Perfect.” She grinned as Amos carefully put the evidence in the back of the patrol car.