Dark Moon Walking (15 page)

Coltrane had morphed into the plaintive wail of Charlie “Yardbird” Parker's alto sax and Dan still had nothing. There were too many pieces of the puzzle missing. He needed a place to start. He closed his eyes and let his mind drift with the music. A faint image pulsed and coiled on the inside of his eyelids, gradually coalescing into the shape of the man he had seen on the black ship. A memory feathered through his brain, but it twisted out of reach and he couldn't grasp it. Who was he?

The last note of Parker's “Ornithology” faded into the night and he felt the silence settle over him, quieting his mind and relaxing his body. It was late. Walker obviously wasn't going to call again. Time to turn in. He pulled a sleeping bag out of a storage locker under the settee and took it up to the wheelhouse. Childhood memories of storm-dark nights and long hours in the wheelhouse watching to make sure the anchor hadn't dragged, checking that the wind hadn't shifted, had spurred him into building a bunk behind the chart table. Tonight there was barely a breeze, and the boat was steady as a rock, but the radio would be only a few feet away. He turned the volume up just in case.

Four hours later, it came to life.

“You awake?”

Walker's voice cut through the layers of sleep like a machete and catapulted Dan off the bunk. He struggled to free his feet from the sleeping bag and fumbled for the microphone.

“Yeah.”

“Don't sound it.”

“Funny guy. What the hell time is it?”

“White man's time?”

“Ah, shit. Never mind.” Dan peered out blindly through the windshield into an ink-dark night. “What's happening?”

“I'm in Shoal Bay.”

A surge of adrenalin brought every nerve cell revving to instant attention. He wasn't sure he had heard right. “Say again?”

There was no response, just the faint hiss of the air waves coming from the speaker.

“Are you nuts? Why? Is the crew boat still there?” The questions tumbled over each other as Dan fought to make sense of what Walker was saying.

“Nope.”

“They left?”

“Yeah.”

“So there's no one there?”

“Couple of guys. They're up at the old lodge.”

Dan rubbed his face. Maybe he was having a nightmare. None of this made sense. It was so crazy, it was disorienting.

“What if they're armed? Get the hell out of there!”

“They're sleeping. I can hear them from here.”

“Where are you?”

“Down by the float.”

“Down by the float.” It was ridiculous to simply echo Walker's words, but Dan couldn't find any of his own. “Huh. So now what?”

“Got a bunch of canisters and a box here.”

Dan sucked in his breath and his eyes fixed on the microphone as if it were a snake that had come alive in his hand. “They left them there?”

“Yeah. Guess the sleeping beauties are supposed to be keeping watch.”

“Walker, leave them alone. You can't open them, and one slip will wake those guards. Then what happens?”

He could hear the smile in Walker's voice. “You got a short memory.”

“What?”

“Remember how we met?”

Dan grimaced. This was not going well. He had to find a way to get Walker out of there.

“Walker . . .”

“The box is full of spray cans.”

“What?”

“Spray cans. You know. Kinda like paint cans, only little. You got to pull a trigger thing.”

“Spray cans.” He was back to echoing.

“Yeah. But they're plastic.”

“Okay.” Dan shook his head. This wasn't a nightmare. It was more like science fiction. Or a scene from
Alice in Wonderland
. Maybe he had fallen down a rabbit hole.

“I opened one of the canisters. It's got a bunch of cooking stuff all packed in foam and plastic.”

“Cooking stuff.” The repeating thing again. Maybe he
was
the rabbit. “Wait a minute. You opened a canister? Shit! They're going to know. Soon as those guys wake up . . .”

“I closed it again.”

“Oh. Right. Sure.” Considering what else Walker had done, he supposed that made some kind of sense. Maybe. “So what are you doing now? Are you planning . . .”

“Gotta go. I can hear those guys moving.”

The radio went dead, but Dan continued to stand there, staring at the unblinking red light that was the only illumination in the wheelhouse. He was a rational man and his life was based on logic and reason. He remembered taking an aptitude test when he had first applied to the police force. It had been twelve pages of odd, disjointed, seemingly unrelated and irrelevant questions. Crazy stuff. He had thought the whole thing a total waste of time: who cared if he jumped in piles of leaves or rolled up the toothpaste tube? But the next day, when he had been summoned to a meeting with the recruitment-office commander and a staff shrink, they told him more about himself than he had ever thought possible. It was so accurate, so detailed, it was eerie. They knew he was good at math. They knew he liked to work with his hands and was good with tools. They knew he loved puzzles. They even told him he was artistic, although his wood carving was something he had never shared with anyone except Susan. They also told him that he had received the highest score they had ever seen on the deductive reasoning scale. Two days later, he was invited to the police academy.

So what the hell could he deduce from all this? Spray cans and cooking oil? Was the girl wrong? Maybe she hadn't seen a rifle that night when she returned to the bay. But then why were White Hair and his buddy searching for her? Walker believed her, that was for sure. And what about Walker? Was he wrong when he said her boat had been deliberately sunk? Didn't seem likely. Walker was a cautious man who would say nothing rather than go out on a limb. And he knew boats. And the weather. And the ocean.

Dan shook his head to try and clear the fog that was swirling around in his brain. It didn't help. He lifted his gaze to the windshield and tried to peer out into the night, but it was so dark he couldn't even make out the trees on the shore just sixty feet away. Hell, Walker could be ten feet away and he wouldn't be able to see him. And where was Walker? Had he left Shoal Bay? Was he going to come here? Did he need help?

“Shit!” Dan pushed himself away from the console, inhaled as deeply as he could, and breathed it out in a long sigh. “I need a coffee.”

He felt his way back to the galley, hearing Claire's soft breathing as he passed the stateroom. At least she was getting some sleep. He knew he wouldn't be getting any more this night, and it seemed like Walker hadn't had any.

He pulled the kettle onto the stove and made himself a cup of coffee. Somehow he had to make sense of all this. He leaned back against the settee cushions and stretched his legs out under the table. The ocean was calm, but it was never still, and the faint rocking relaxed him. Allowed him to let his mind roam free. Let all the facts float and settle. Let his subconscious take over.

TWELVE

It all revolved around the black ship.

Dan had moved out onto the deck and was leaning on the rail, watching the trees slowly take shape against a lightening sky. He felt renewed by the freshness and promise that early mornings held. Reveled in hearing the dawn chorus fill the air with birdsong. Loved breathing in the morning breeze that wafted the clean scent of fir and bracken across the water. Three hours of contemplation had not added any new facts, but it had given him a clearer perspective.

Claire had not been mistaken. He had seen and spoken with the men who were looking for her. They had lied to him. And that lie meant Walker had not been mistaken either. Claire's boat had been deliberately sunk. So the black ship was the main player. And the crew boat was part of it. But what the hell were the spray bottles all about? And the cooking oil?

He had been thinking this was drugs. Now he wasn't so sure. It was beginning to take on the shape of something much worse. He remembered the slick, slimy feel of some of the cases he had worked on. They had coiled their way into his gut, taken on a foul smell and taste that seeped into his skin and permeated his dreams. This felt the same.

He needed an edge, a corner, a loose flap that he could use to pry something open. Hargreaves wouldn't make a move unless he had something concrete to go on. He had pretty well said as much last night. And speaking of Hargreaves . . .

Dan pulled his gaze from a pair of gulls, pale against the still-dark shore, and headed back to the radio.

“The guys out already?”

“No, why? Something happening?” There was an odd note in Hargreaves's voice that Dan couldn't quite place.

“Not that I know of. Just wanted to let you know Walker's out there somewhere. Maybe have them keep their eyes open for him.”

“That's the Indian, right?”

“Yeah.”

“He's in Shoal Bay?”

“Probably not now, but he was there a few hours back.”

“Doing what? It was so damn dark last night you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Hell, it's barely light now. He wouldn't have been able to see his paddle, let alone see where he was.”

“He seemed pretty sure about it. Said the crew boat was gone and there were some canisters and a box on the float.” Dan figured he should keep quiet about Walker opening the canister. Hargreaves didn't seem like the kind of guy who would be understanding about something like that.

“Yeah. Well, no law against that.”

“Depending on what's in 'em.”

A vision of Hargreaves and his team opening a box of cooking oil drifted past his mind's eye, and he bit back a grimace.

“Yeah. Well, we'll check them out when we get back.”

That was it—the note he had heard in Hargreaves's voice. It was the slight tremolo caused by the vibration of big engines thundering just below the deck.

“Get back? You going somewhere?”

“They've got a freighter changed course south of Rupert. Looks like it could be heading to a rendezvous with a trawler over by Porcher Island. We're headed there now. We'll check it out and be back maybe late tonight or tomorrow sometime.”

“Might be too late.”

Hargreaves's voice was fading as he moved farther away. “We can keep an eye on them on satellite. Pick them up later if we need to.”

Dan bit off his reply and turned off the radio. He couldn't blame Hargreaves for not feeling the same sense of urgency he did. On the other hand, he didn't want to say something he might regret later. He had a feeling he would be needing Hargreaves and his crew again.

A salmon leaped high out of the water, silver body lit by the first rays of the sun. Dan thought about throwing out a line—it would make a nice lunch—but quickly dismissed the idea. The fish would probably sense the mood he was in from five hundred feet away and head straight for the bottom.