Rogue Wave (16 page)

He noted her hand but seemed hesitant to touch it. Keeping a firm hold on the door, he said, “Yes?”

“Are you Carl Hartoonian?”

“Yes?”

“Great. I just need five minutes of your time. Inside,” she added, giving her soaking hair a quick shake.

Hartoonian’s hand tightened on the door. “I’m pretty busy right now. Can you tell me—”

“Simple insurance questions. But look, you’re getting soaked too.” When his hand dropped, she stepped inside into a circular room that had been sliced in half by a wall parallel to the front door. To the right, a kitchenette fitted under the sloping wall. No dishes in the sink, not even a pan on the stove. To the left, a mattress, with blankets squared at the corners. Two low bucket chairs squatted next to it. The spareness of the room and its obsessive tidiness suited its owner. What would Hartoonian have thought of Robin Matucci’s house? Kiernan wondered.

A black plastic desk stood midway along the central dividing wall, and covering the top half of the wall were computer-generated maps; those to the left represented the entire West Coast; the other four were even larger blow-ups of the Bay Area. Waves of greens and yellows and blues spread vertically along the ocean. Against the drabness of the room, the colorful maps stood out like impressionist paintings on a gallery wall.

Kiernan hung her slicker on a rack next the door and moved closer to study the coastline as it emerged through the varying colors. Hartoonian stood behind her, hands on hips, beaming like a proud parent. It was as if he had squeezed all the colors from his life and happily splashed them onto his maps. What matter if he were left dull and lifeless?

Turning to him, Kiernan said, “You’re Harpoon, aren’t you?”

Behind the thick lenses, his eyes widened alarmingly. He seemed even smaller, even more unsure of himself.

Struggling not to reveal her own excitement, she said, “It was you Robin Matucci was calling on board
Early Bird.
These maps, did you read them and advise her where to find fish?”

He shrank away from her. “I didn’t say anything about that.”

“I know you didn’t
say
it. I’m an investigator. Figuring things out is what I do.” Kiernan smiled to cover her irritation with herself. She’d been too impatient with him; now she’d have to backtrack, let him talk till his suspicion passed. “I’ve heard enough about Robin’s uncanny ability to find fish. Guys who’ve been fishing the Bay all their lives can’t figure out where the fish’ll be, but Robin conies back full. I’ll tell you, Carl, I’ve gotten real anxious to see this set-up. You’ve done one fantastic job for her. But I guess you know that. So how does this all work?”

He looked at the maps and back at Kiernan, the war between pride and protectiveness magnified by his thick glasses. Taking a step between her and the wall, he said, “Private investigator? Just what are you investigating?”

“Like I said, a couple insurance questions about
Early Bird.
The company needs to clarify them before they can settle the paper work. Actually,” she said, “how you find fish isn’t one of them. I just got so fascinated with it that I couldn’t resist asking.” She hoped she wasn’t spreading it too thick.

But Hartoonian’s look of pride told her that too thick a spread would be virtually impossible. He turned to the maps, beaming. “These are images from the satellite; color-coded for temperature. See the boundary lines where one temperature comes up against another?”

“And water temperature tells you where the fish are?”

“Well, it’s hardly that simple,” he said protectively. “The fish tend to be on the warm side of the boundary. But different fish prefer different temperatures. And the boundaries themselves differ. Because of the topography below, and the currents, and so forth. Some boundaries have stayed in one general area longer than others, while some have moved with the water. The more stable ones have been in place long enough to attract more fish.”

Kiernan nodded. “But, Carl, there’s more to it than that, isn’t there? I mean, fishermen can test for water temperature themselves.”

“Sure they can, once they get there! But they can’t do it before they leave the dock, and if they make the wrong decision and go south of the Gate when the right Water’s north, their day is shot.”

“So why haven’t they all gotten these printouts?”

“Too shortsighted and too cheap.” His voice had an uneasy bravado to it.

How had Robin Matucci found this man, and where? Had she seen through his insecurity and chosen to nurture the defensive disdain beneath it? Kiernan could imagine his eyes widening with wonderful disbelief as Robin asked about his work. He would have been bowled over by a woman like that.

He turned back to the printouts, standing straighter now, wrapped in the aura of his expertise. “The thing is that the ordinary printouts aren’t worth a whole lot. They’re only good within a mile, and a whole degree. A mile’s a big place to troll back and forth across. And you have to remember that the printout reflects that mile of water as it was when the picture came off the satellite. You get a six
A.M.
printout and you don’t get out to the spot till ten …” He turned his hands palm upward. “Water moves.”

Kiernan stared at the printouts. Hartoonian seemed like a man Robin could count on, one she could turn to for help. What was behind the wall that divided the dome? Maybe Robin had called him, had come here. Since the accident. Maybe she was still here, on the other side of the wall. Was there a door to the outside back there?

“Anyone can get the charts from the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They’re free. You can get them over radio facsimile or even mailed to you.” He laughed comfortably. “But not these,” he said beaming at his work. “These are the highest resolution, done from satellite lasers that shoot light pulses over five hundred miles down to earth. On these, I can spot upwellings that bring up cold deep water full of nutrients. And I can tell you what was there yesterday, what was there an hour ago. I can tell you what the right spot is now, and if you call me in an hour, I’ll give you an update.”

“And Robin called you every hour or so for help?”

“If she needed to, I was there.” His smile was as intense as when he’d first started talking about the maps. And yet there seemed to be a flicker of fear in his expression. Fear or grief.

She had to know. She turned to face Hartoonian. “It must have been very hard for you hearing that Robin died.”

The question seemed to startle him. His eyes narrowed behind his thick glasses, and there was a catch in his voice as he said, “Yes, well, of course.”

“There was more to your relationship than just business, wasn’t there?”

He shook his head stiffly, and looked toward the door. Kiernan suspected his mouth was too dry to protest, or, as he clearly yearned to do, tell her to get out.

“What about Robin and Ben Pedersen?”

“There was nothing between them!” He sputtered with outrage. The outrage of a lover, or at least a wannabe.

Robin was used to being in radio contact with Hartoonian. She could have called him at the last moment before the
Early Bird
sank. Hartoonian surely would have dropped everything to help her. But there was no sign Robin had been in this main room. Whatever there was would be behind the wall. And Hartoonian was hardly going to let an investigator trot back there. When he got control of his breath, he would certainly tell her to leave.

Shifting to a less threatening subject, Kiernan said, “You’ve known Robin a long time, right?”

“Five years.”

“In Alaska?”

He nodded. “Met her at the California Tavern up there.” The expression in his eyes relaxed.

Kiernan waited a moment, letting the pleasant image comfort him. “The California Tavern? I’ve heard about that.” She decided embroidery couldn’t hurt.

“Great place, the ol’ C.T. …” He smiled, with the same not-quite-sure expression he had had talking about Robin. “No matter where you’re from, after you’ve spent a few dark, twenty-below months up there, California-anything sounds pretty good. Of course, to Californians it sounds good, right away, or at least they all stop in there.”

She eased toward the door to the back room. “All the transients? Like the guys who do temporary work on the oil-company cleaning crews?”

“Sure.”

“Carl, did you know an artist on the cleaning crew?” When he didn’t respond, she said, “Garrett Brant? Blond guy with brown eyebrows, about six feet tall? He was working on a series of paintings that represented the life of the people in various parts of Alaska through their landscapes.”

The tentative smile, which had given the stiff lines of his cheeks and jaw softness and color, had left his face. Again, his eyes looked too large, too suspicious. “He might have been there, but I don’t remember. Look, I really do have to get back to work.”

“Okay.” Kiernan reached for the doorknob. “But let me see those fabulous computers of yours.”

“No!” He grabbed her arm. “They’re very sensitive.”

“I won’t touch.” She opened the door.

“Looking isn’t going to tell you anything,” he muttered as she strode through the door.

But Hartoonian was wrong; the room told her Robin Matucci was not there. It was full of computers, printers, phones; it could have been Olsen’s office. There were no closets or trunks, no place to hide anything, or anybody.

When she turned, she found Hartoonian smiling smugly. “Disappointed?” he asked.

When she nodded, his smile faded, and he looked a little taken aback. Whatever his relation to Robin, he seemed to be basically a nice man. A nice man she was going to use, as she suspected Robin had. “Carl, you knew Dwyer Cummings, didn’t you? At the California Tavern?”

“Yes, but, look I really—”

She walked to the front door and reached for her slicker.

Maybe he knew why Cummings had been exiled. Scandal, industrial spying, embezzling? She played the odds. “You remember the fuss before he left there, about the theft?” She poked her arm into the sleeve and waited.

Hartoonian didn’t reply.

She insisted: “He stole something.”

Hartoonian’s expression lightened. “No, you’ve got it all wrong. Dwyer Cummings had a problem with the bottle, and he didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut, but he wasn’t a thief. He didn’t steal anything. He wasn’t the culprit, he was the victim.”

“What did they steal from him?”

“Nothing they could sell. It was just some memo that could have made him look bad.”

“What was it about?”

Hartoonian laughed. “Cummings could be indiscreet, but he wasn’t a fool. He never said.”

“Who took it?”

“I don’t know. No one ever found out. The memo just disappeared.”

S
KIP
O
LSEN TRUDGED BACK
across the wharf to his car, gritting his teeth against the pain. He refused to limp like some worn-out codger. No one cared how he walked, that’s what the physical therapist said, but he knew different. In this business, you look weak, you get zip. He smiled. He must have looked pretty damned strong. The Big Bench Presser of the trade. He grinned wider. The rain struck his face and the wind made his jaws ache, but Skip Olsen didn’t care.

O’Shaughnessy had told him not to come. He was too well known. He wouldn’t find out anything. Well, the first thing
she’d
find out was that she was wrong.

The second, when he chose to tell her, was a juicy little fact. A nautilus of a find. He liked that smile. Nautilus machine, the thing that transforms a small bit of force into a big muscle. A find like this was going to pump him right back in control of this case. A real nautilus, all right: Jessica Leporek was on the dock with Robin Matucci two days before Matucci went under. And the two of them were looking daggers at each other.

It was a good find. Important. And just as important, it would give O’Shaughnessy a new route to follow, keep her from looking too closely at Delaney.

Olsen reached for the car door.

An arm wrapped around his shoulders. A hand slapped over his mouth. He tried to look up; couldn’t move. The hand slid off his mouth, grabbed him by the hair. The orange paint on the car was the last thing he saw as his head slammed into it.

I
T WAS AFTER FOUR
when Kiernan got back to the motel. The phone was ringing.

“Kiernan? It’s Maureen. I’m calling to check in. What have you found?” Maureen was panting.

“Just a minute. Why did you leave the store before I called this morning?”

“Oh, sorry, Kiernan. Garrett had been acting funny, and I just got nervous, and I couldn’t wait. I knew the call wasn’t a big thing with you.”

“You’re wrong, Maureen, it
is
a big thing. It’s important that you be there when you say you will, so I don’t have to wonder what happened and whether it’s something connected with this case that I should be concerned about.”

“Oh. I’m really sorry, Kiernan. I guess I didn’t think—That doesn’t affect your decision, does it? I mean, you’re still on the case, aren’t you?” The beginnings of panic were clear in her voice.

“Yes, Maureen, I’m still on the case,” Kiernan reassured her. ‘There was enough of a question about Delaney’s body to make me wonder.”

“What did you find?”

“There was a horizontal bruise above his ear. The only significant mark on his head.”

“Like he could have been hit with a poker, or something like that? On a boat?”

“Or a karate chop. Seems Robin knew some karate.”

“Ah-hah! What else? Tell me everything.”

“Slow down. I’ll make a full report.” Kiernan laughed. She settled back on the newly made bed. “I found Harpoon, who turns out to be a scientist who used sophisticated satellite analysis to guide her to more fish than any other boat captain.”

“You don’t waste any time. What did you find out from this Harpoon?”

“Dwyer Cummings, Robin’s most faithful passenger, left Alaska under the shadow of a theft from his office. A memo. Hartoonian—that’s Harpoon’s real name—heard about it in the California Tavern up there. Ask Garrett if he remembers hearing anything.”