The Mountains Bow Down (24 page)

I walked the perimeter to the bar. Milo's skin had the slick appearance of damp clay and he had thrown an arm around Jack's shoulders.

“You're a good man, Jake.”

Jack lifted his drink. A swaggering gesture, blurred around the edges. I took the bar stool next to him, ignoring the big goofy smile on his face. His eyes, which were set close on his face, now looked almost crossed.

I tried to keep my voice down, but I was mad. “You're drunk?”

He dropped a hand on my shoulder. It felt like ten pounds. “Harrrr-mon, lighten uuu-up.”

I shrugged my shoulder away and turned to the bartender, who was serving them another round of drinks. Like every bartender on the ship, his name tag said he was from the Philippines. When he put the drinks down, Jack thanked him; Milo didn't; Sparks ignored him; and the bartender smiled at them all.

“What you have?” he asked me.

“Did you get an order for a cheeseburger?”

“Yes.” He walked to the end of the bar, picking up the phone.

I swiveled to watch MJ. For a piano player, her hands were small, brushing the keys with adequate dexterity. The talent was in her voice. She sang with a voice that reminded me of rain weeping down windowpanes. And she sang about love. And pain. So much pain.

When my food arrived, I swiveled back around and said silent grace before digging into the burger. I had to restrain a moan of gratitude. The meat was tender, grilled and peppered to perfection. The melted cheddar was carmelized in places and the toasted bun was not soggy anywhere. When I opened my eyes, Milo was hunched over his drink and taking stabbing glances at MJ. Jack stared at her as well, his face looking almost grave. Only Sandy Sparks seemed oblivious to the sound, scribbling notes on cocktail napkins. When I looked over at the stairs, Vinnie the bodyguard was lifting the chain for Larrah Sparks. Her platinum hair was fluffed to perfection and she strode directly in front of the piano, heedless of the performance. When she reached the bar, midrefrain, she announced, “They told us we'd see bears. I haven't seen one.”

I ate like one, relishing every carnivorous bite. Nothing could ruin it, not even overhearing Sandy Sparks tell his wife a dumb joke about bears and the woods and the pope. When he came to the punch line, there was silence. I glanced over.

“I don't get it,” Larrah said.

I dipped my French fries in mayo and considered the possibility that Ramazan and Serif killed Judy Carpenter. Possible. Not probable. Their cabin showed chaos and filth. And Letty had described their erratic behavior. While Serif was cool under questioning, Judy Carpenter's murder was planned with precision. More probable: Ramazan broke into the safe. But murder?

“Oooo-waaaa-waa-waaa,” Milo started singing, trampling MJ's music.

I bit another fry and considered the gossip rag in the Turks' cabin. Milo on the cover implied they could recognize him. Did that mean anything? As Geert pointed out, the ship was full of gossips. Maybe the Turks heard about the bracelet found at the scene. Maybe Ramazan decided to steal it, run away. Perhaps there was no connection to Judy or Milo.

I sipped the milkshake, still glancing around the deck and realizing that the most likely scenario was still the most disturbing: one of these beautiful people killed Judy Carpenter.

Somebody she knew.

Somebody she didn't think she needed to fight.

Somebody strong enough to lift a 172-pound woman over the deck rail.

I carried my shake over to the plastic windbreak where Vinnie Pinnetta stared out at the passing mountains, smoking a cigarette. Each time he exhaled, the gray cloud seemed to stay suspended in midair, hanging there as the ship cruised forward.

He looked over, glancing down at my milkshake. “Sure you can handle a stiff drink like that?”

I flipped open my credentials. Next to my Bureau ID, I'd placed the employee photos of Serif and Ramazan. The men looked like evil swarthy cousins, haters with bad eyes.

“You know these guys?”

He stared down at their faces, his forehead like the bill on a baseball cap. “No, but I'm guessing they're why you're not having a good time.”

“I'm having a great time.” I smiled. “But it's going to be better when we dock in Seattle.”

He blew a cloud of smoke. “Why's that?”

“Because by then, I'll know who killed Judy Carpenter.”

“You must be slow. She killed herself.”

“Only she didn't.”

“What kinda game are you playing?” he asked.

“No game. It's life and death.”

There was a burst of applause as MJ finished her song. She leaned into the mic and announced a quick break.

Vinnie flicked his cigarette over the rail, not bothering to see if it hit water, and walked away. When he reached the bar, Milo threw a sloppy arm around him.

Away from everyone else, MJ stared out at the ship's starboard side, her black hair blowing, the color blending with the mountains across the water. When I walked up beside her, there were tears sliding down her cheeks. She looked over, then pointed to the woods along the water's edge. In the trees, a tempera of yellow light glowed from a tiny log cabin.

“That's where I want to go,” she said. “Somewhere nobody can find me.”

“It looks lonely.” I watched her tears, wondering whether the wind made them. “Is it Judy's death that's bothering you?”

She cried without contorting her face. She cried the way actresses cry.

“It's just all so . . . final. She's never coming back.”

I hesitated saying the next thing. It was cruel. But there was no time for sentiment. “The dress you sent down to the laundry. How did it get so dusty?”

She didn't turn to look at me. I stared at her profile and she wiped her face almost robotically before walking back to the piano and sitting on the bench. After a moment, she raised her hands. I could see her fingers trembling. She closed her eyes.

And then I heard something remarkable.

With her eyes still closed, she reached forward and let her fingertips caress the keys lightly, like someone reading Braille. The first notes that came out were minor keys. They rose so slowly I wasn't sure it was a song, but she continued to coax the bittersweet tune and the notes stretched into elongated cries of desperation and need. At the small tables, all conversation ceased and the music swam into the gloaming sky, harmonizing with its twilight hues.

Only one person ignored her: Milo. Keeping his back to the piano, he hugged his drink. I watched Jack swing himself off the bar, staggering toward me. I turned around, facing the ocean, hoping he'd stay away. But he came to the rail, hooking a boot heel on the bottom rung. A cowboy, caught in the wrong century.

“Harmon, don't look at me like that.”

“How many drinks, Jack?”

“Four.”

“Terrific. You'll be a big help tomorrow.”

“The first two I flushed in the men's room. I spilled the third.” He lifted his glass in a mock toast. “I'm nursing number four and they're all too drunk to notice.”

The wind shifted, blowing hair across my face. I gave a begrudging nod, still not ready to forgive for some reason. “Did your new best friend tell you anything interesting?”

“His jeans got dirty when he fell on the floor.”

“Fell where, in a dustbin?”

“In the Sky Bar. He fell because he was upset about Judy.”

I looked over at Milo. He was staring at me.

No, I was wrong. He was staring at Jack.

“He's making moony faces at you,” I said. “What's the deal with you two?”

“He wants an Oscar.”

“For playing a drunk?”

“Harmon, do you have any idea how much I've missed you?”

I repeated my question, “What's the deal with you two, Jack?”

“All right, brace yourself. He thinks this movie will be his biggest hit. His most emotional performance ever.”

“It's an emotional performance all right.”

“Don't ever quit this job, Harmon. You were made for it.”

“Jack, I read this script. It's not like it's
Citizen Kane
.”

“Ah, but Sandy Sparks is rewriting the ending.”

I waited. The movie was about an FBI agent who takes a cruise with his wife. Only she gets kidnapped and he has to rescue her. “Don't tell me.”

“You got it. The wife dies. She's found hanging off the ship.”

I looked at Sandy Sparks, scribbling on the cocktail napkins.

“By the way,” Jack said, “Milo says you're fired.”

“Do you promise?”

He laughed. “You're fired and I'm the new consultant. He asked me to come to Hollywood, work the double.”

“What double?”

“A double. I stand in for Milo, when the director wants to block the shot.”

“Block the shot?”

“He made a nice offer. He thinks I have a future in movies.”

“Jack, that's not a compliment.”

“Think about it. No more paperwork, no more perps vomiting in my car. No more days sitting at the courthouse waiting for the case that never gets called. I just might take him up on the offer.”

“Go for it.” Satiated with food, I didn't want to talk anymore. I wanted sleep and could feel myself fading. “Until you go Hollywood, we have work to do.” I pushed myself off the rail. “See you in the morning.”

“Harmon, tell the truth.”

“About what?”

“If I went to Hollywood, you'd miss me.”

I told myself it was fatigue. That's all. I was tired, so tired my mind was playing tricks. Because as I walked away, leaving him standing there, a certain part of me wondered if he wasn't right.

Chapter Nineteen

T
he sound of the shower woke me Friday morning—woke me suddenly, woke me with a pounding heart. I bolted upright, listening to the water run, fearing this was another episode of “cleaning the air.”

But the bathroom door was closed. Sighing with relief, I lay back down and stared at my watch. It was 6:23 am and sleep would not come again. I reached for my cell phone, seizing the rare moment of privacy. There was another message from DeMott, but I bypassed voice mail and called the Alaska Medical Examiner's office, hoping to catch them before the day got busy. A woman answered, put me on hold, and three minutes later when the shower cut off, I grabbed my keycard and stepped into the hallway, figuring nobody else was up at this hour.

Wrong.

“Baby sleeping again?” whispered the nice woman from yesterday. Beside her, the man carried a camera, binoculars, and a camcorder. He stared at my pajamas. The woman pointed to the cabin next to Aunt Charlotte's. “Are they keeping you up too?”

I nodded, smiling as they passed, listening to the automated recording that gave me directions to the morgue.
Follow Northern Lights Boulevard to .
. . But the nice couple was just the beginning. More cabin doors were opening, and people were stepping into the hallway dressed in warm jackets and hats, all of them carrying cameras and camcorders.

Snapping my phone shut, I slid the keycard into the lock.

But I missed.

Suddenly the floor shifted and I grabbed the door handle, hanging on to keep from falling over.

People were lunging for the handrails, crying out. And then a bang went off.

On the other side of the door, my mother screamed.

I managed to get the keycard in, throwing the door open.

She squeezed the curtains, holding them open, and stared out the window. Blocks of pale blue ice floated by.

“Iceberg!” she cried. “We hit an iceberg.”

The ocean water no longer looked blue. It was green—electric green—and the mountains no longer had trees. The sharp rock faces sliced the water like knives.

“We're okay,” I said, feeling my pulse pound again. We had sailed into Tracy Arm, considered one of the world's most spectacular fjords. Seeing it was among my top vacation hopes—before murder and grand larceny and pornography altered my focus. “We're inside a narrow channel and there's a glacier at the other end. That's where the icebergs are coming from. We're fine. It's just going to be a little bumpy.”

She did not look convinced; in fact, she looked at me like I was . . . a liar.

I turned away and knocked on the adjoining door. Aunt Charlotte was snapping a pink scarf like a flag. She nodded before I said a word, then called out, “Nadine, this is not the
Titanic
. Throw some warm clothes on, let's go. We're late.”

I felt a surge of love for my aunt. We disagreed about so many things, yet here was family: the people who kept dancing with you, even after the music stopped.

She ran her eyes over my pajamas. “Are you coming?”

“Yes, but”—I glanced around the cabin—“where's Claire?”

“She's saving us a good spot on the top deck.” Aunt Charlotte picked up her coat, lowering her voice. “I'll try to keep them apart as much as possible, but this ship's only so big.” She raised her voice again. “Now g'on, get dressed!”