Taking Liberty (14 page)

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The seaplane vibrated like a baby’s rattle as it scuffed dark water. It cast off speed, then coasted to the canopied pier at Moser Bay.

 “I called ahead,” the pilot shouted over the drone of the propeller. “Pete’s on his way. Should be here in about thirty minutes.” He checked his watch. “Okay, that’s it. Daylight’s burning fast; I’ve got to head back now. You have my number. Call me in the morning, first light, and I’ll come pick you up, whenever you’re ready.”

I fell out onto the weathered jetty and slammed the door. The pilot fed juice to the engine and the floatplane angled away from the pier. I watched it rip across the bay, leaving twin gouges in the dark surface before lifting into the sky and wobbling back the way we’d come.

I had the hooded shirt buttoned up to my chin, but the insidious chill was petrifying skin.

I waited for the noisy Cessna to be swallowed up by the lingering mist. Waited for the silence to come rushing in before drawing a lungful of frigid air and howling like a wolf.

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The tortured cries ricocheted around the bay, echoing off the frozen shoreline, overlapping like a remixed dance tune. I howled some more, adding to the audible mayhem. Kept at it, full volume, until my lungs threatened to burst and my throat had become linguini.

There was no one to hear. Not out here at the backend of the world. I might as well have been on the dark side of the Moon. No one to tell me to stop being so damned noisy and so inconsiderate toward the local wildlife. Not that I would have complied. Some things are worth screaming about.

All yelled out, I fell to my knees on the decking, suddenly swamped by slamming waves of emotion. I let them crash. Went with the flow. Rolled onto my back and stared through spotting vision at the bruised sky. Lay there for long minutes, cursing everything I knew and anything I didn’t. Digging nails into the splintered boards. Contorting like a man gripped with delirium, and maybe I was.

The bruised sky deepened from purple to black. Shadows visibly stretching out to meet. Daylight dwindling into western waters. Stars rising. Temperatures plummeting.

I pounded fists against the planking until my bones hurt. Yelled and thrashed some more like a landed fish.

Then, through ringing ears, I heard the distant hum of an outboard motor, and dragged myself to unsteady feet.

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Twilight had morphed the bleak Alaskan coastline into an alien world.

The boat captain had sensed my darkling mood from afar and had kept his deadpan comments to himself. Maybe he’d heard my howls and knew better than to pry. Weird guy from the outside – been here a day and already gone stir crazy. His expression had remained impassive as I’d climbed aboard. Hard to say one way or the other if ferrying federal agents to and from Akhiok broke the monotony for him or made it all the more conspicuous.

I rode the squared-off skiff in silence. Hood up. Face blank. Eyes blanker. All of my energy directed inward. I was like a Cray supercomputer: nothing special to look at, but a trillion calculations going on in the inside. Grappling to get a handhold on the ungraspable.

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Night fell without a sound.

We made a landing at Akhiok, the skiff moaning as it grounded against the cement launch.

I murmured a
thanks
to the boat captain and followed my hurrying feet inland, over crisping snow.

Breath fogged from my lips.

The fishing village looked about as lively as a cemetery in the dead of night. No lights visible anywhere. No living soul to humanize the place.

I stuffed frozen fingers in the hoodie’s pockets and skittered along the gravel road leading away from the beach.

The cold was almost unbearable. Seeping through the plaid shirt. I gritted my teeth to stop them chattering insanities.

I didn’t know what I would do once I got to my destination. I just had to get there. Pulled along by an invisible chain. Compelled by something primeval, something genetically encoded, something I couldn’t quantify or hope to explain.

My brain was in mush mode. Spark plugs misfiring.

A deathly quiet hung in the air, deadening sound.

No one on the main stretch. Still no lights visible anywhere. The place looked abandoned, dead. A zombie uprising just around the corner.

No signs of life in the medical clinic.

I leapt up the steps and tried the door: locked. I banged a fist against the flaky wood. Waited. No sounds of anyone opening up. No signs of Paul Engel or even Officer Locklear for that matter – so much for him keeping guard. I banged harder, longer, with both fists until my bones hurt. Waited some more. Still, no answer. Something like frantic fear spread through my chest. I snatched a glance both ways down the main street. Still no lights visible. No curious villagers coming out to see what all the noise was about. Hard to see anything in the cloying dark.

It was as if I were the only human left on Earth.

My penance, perhaps.

My own private hell.

The worst kind imaginable: just me in it.

I dropped from the steps onto the frozen dirt and went down the side of the building. Even darker here. I fumbled my way round back, slipping and cursing over splintered lengths of timber. The backyard was buried under three foot of compacted snow. I dug my toes in and climbed up, leaning on the rear wall for support. Walked my hands across the rough wood until I came to the letterbox window set in the extension.

The window formed a rectangular maw trimmed with icicle teeth.

I stooped and stuck my nose against the cold glass.

Darkness had transformed the backroom of the medical clinic into a black cave of indistinct shapes and uncertain depth. Monsters huddling in corners. The only thing remotely discernible was a metal oblong in the middle – the examination table, right where we’d left it. Only now there was no sign of the tarp-covered body.

Demon claws scratched at my stomach.

I raised an elbow and struck the glass. Just like that. Did it before realizing exactly what I was doing, which was breaking and entering. Illegal, in any State – especially in my state – even with an FBI badge stuffed in my pocket. I didn’t care. Jagged shards hit the floor inside and shattered noisily, slewing across the tiles. Too late now. I pulled the shirt sleeve over my fist and smashed away lethal daggers until the gap was big enough to climb through. Slung a leg over the rough rim, pivoted my forearms on the frame and rolled into the backroom of the medical clinic.

The air still stank of barbecued flesh. I felt bile scald my throat. I fumbled for the pull cord, scanned the room as the fluorescent bulb lit up. The monsters huddling in the corners instantly vanished, revealing nothing but my own wet boot prints and a lawn of broken glass. I’d made a big mess. Too bad.

What had Engel done with the body?

I pulled open the door and entered the main building. It was quiet, dark – aside from the light spilling out of the backroom. I followed my shadow down the hall. Four doors in total, two on either side, directly facing each other. I came to the first pair and opened the right-hand door, felt for the light pull and ignited another sleepy strip bulb.

It looked like a doctor’s waiting room: several faux leather chairs positioned around a wooden coffee table. Fishing magazines fanned out on the polished surface. A water dispenser in one corner. A plastic cheese plant in another. There was a long alcove set in the opposite wall, with a receptionist’s desk minding its own business. Room enough for a small metal filing cabinet and a waste paper basket. No signs of anything untoward.

I turned and opened the opposite door, yanked on the light.

This was Engel’s consultation room. There was an old desk and two padded chairs. The usual stationery and office requirements cluttering up the worktop. Shelves stacked with dog-eared medical books, subscription materials, reference manuals, journals. Framed certificates certifying Engel’s clinical achievements, including the University of Nevada School of Medicine. Nothing fancy. A locked cabinet for storing controlled drugs. And a small safe crouched in the corner.

There were photos pinned to the walls, I saw – mostly depicting Engel standing on a weather deck at the aft of a fishing boat, happily holding prize-winning catches up to the camera. Looked like the same swish cruiser I’d seen anchored up in the bay when Rae and I had first arrived in Akhiok. A handful of pictures with smiling Alaskan Natives – including Locklear and the boat captain – taken against green tundra grasses and summer skies.

I moved on to the next door pairing. The demon had begun to sharpen its claws on my stomach wall. Sparks flying. Both were identical storage rooms. An assortment of packing crates, some stacked, some with their lids off, several large enough to hide a body. Mounds of packing peanuts on the floor.

Why was I even thinking that Engel had hid the body?

I had no reason to think Engel had done anything improper – aside from the fact the body was missing. Maybe my present state of mind was overreacting. Maybe there was a perfectly reasonable explanation.

I inspected the bigger boxes. Whisked hands through packing peanuts. Chopped through bubble wrap lasagna. Came up with nothing.

The body wasn’t here.

The demon claws were ripping through.

What was Engel’s game?

I tried the main door, this time from the inside: still locked, with no signs of a key. Fired-up, I retreated back through the building, hoisted myself up and through the letterbox window and clambered out into the snow.

A dog howled somewhere.

Vaguely, I remembered Locklear saying his family had the house next door to the Tsosie residence. Maybe he could shed some light, or in the very least explain why he’d abandoned the body. I pulled up the hood and set off at a sprint, pounding impatient boots against the frozen gravel. The Locklear place was a hundred yards distant, tops. I hadn’t run this far in over four months, and it showed.

I came to the Locklear homestead and drummed palms against the front door. I could hear faint music bleeding through the wood. It sounded like Christmas songs tinkling from a stereo, maybe country. I banged some more. The door rattled against its surround. I heard footfalls approaching. Heels clacking. The door cracked open with a whine, just enough to reveal a sliver of wan illumination and the silhouette of a small elderly woman. Mountain mist hair floating above a sandstone face. The cheery discourse of folks enjoying Christmas together washing around her.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry to disturb you. I’m looking for your son, or maybe your grandson. Police Officer Locklear?”

She gawped at me as though I were speaking mandarin. I repeated the question, this time less forcibly.

Suddenly her rheumy eyes grew big as saucers and she reached out a skeletal hand. “Have you come for me?”

I balked.

There was movement behind her. I looked up to see Locklear striding down the hallway, a hot beverage in his hand. He was out of uniform, wearing a dress shirt and jeans. He murmured something to the old woman. She shrugged and shuffled back down the hall. Her disappointment was tangible.

“This is a surprise,” he said with a nod. “Is everything okay, Agent? You scared my grandmother; you look like the grim reaper in that getup.”

I threw back the hood. “You’re supposed to be guarding the body.”

“Is that what this is about?” His chest rose and fell. I was disturbing the family festivities over something Locklear clearly regarded as a small and unimportant breach of protocol. He took a sip of his beverage and smacked his lips. “Okay, so I took the liberty of staying home with my family for the evening. It’s Christmas. It’s not like anything was going to come of it. We’re a hundred miles west of civilization. I left the doc to lock the place up.” His mouth curled at one side. I recognized the expression: get lost. “Look, we’re just about to sit down and eat. There’s enough to go round. It’s freezing out there. You’re welcome to come in and join us.” He stepped aside. It was a feint, done to move the spotlight off his sloppiness.

I shook my head. “You don’t get it, Locklear. I gave you one order and you couldn’t even do that. You’re supposed to be guarding the body. And now it’s gone.”

I saw his face fold into a frown. Saw all trace of Christmas cheer melt away like springtime thaw. I didn’t wait for the floodgates to open.

“Where’s Engel?”

“The doc? Home, I guess. Are you sure the body’s gone? It’s dark. The eyes can play tricks. I don’t mean any disrespect, but did you take a good look?”

I stepped back off the stoop. “Point me in the right direction.”

He went to put his drink down on a hall table. “Let me get my coat and I’ll come with you.”

“No. I don’t need a babysitter, Locklear. Just tell me where he’s at and I’ll find my own way.”

“The doc doesn’t live here in the village. He has a place out past High Rock.”

I knew the landmark from a distant memory. It was out across the bay somewhere, east of Moser, on another offshoot of Kodiak’s crenelated coastline. Knew the only way to access it was by sea.

“You got his number? Call him.”

A little reluctantly, Locklear dug out his cell. “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding,” he muttered as he dialed a number.

I didn’t know what part of a missing body Locklear thought was a misunderstanding. What did he think Engel had done – taken it home for Christmas dinner?

“It’s ringing,” he said, then stuck out his lower lip. “And going straight to voicemail.”

“Any other number?”

“Only the clinic. And you say he’s not there.”

I turned on my heels and started back the way I’d come. I had no intention of wasting time trying to find the boat captain; I could pilot the skiff, find my way there, somehow. Point and go, right?