A Killing Tide (23 page)

Kaz relented a little. It was unrealistic to think that Lucy could've controlled what Sykes did. Glancing toward the storage unit to make certain that Sykes was still out of hearing range, she motioned the others over and brought Lucy and Ivar up to date.

"When there's that much money floating around, it's usually related to drugs," Ivar quietly pointed out.

Lucy clearly agreed. "Which gives us the possible connection to the murder of the drug dealer." She told Kaz and Michael about the body they'd found yesterday morning. "The second murder definitely doesn't look premeditated—more like someone who needed a fix turning violent. We've got a local methadone treatment clinic that was burglarized late this afternoon, what looks like a supply disruption on the street bad enough to escalate to violence, and a huge amount of cash." She shot Kaz a disgusted look. "Floating around God knows where."

"What?" Kaz raised her hands. "How was I supposed to know it would disappear while I was out?" Lucy gave her a look that told her she'd already figured out that it hadn't disappeared on its own, but she didn't say anything.

"It's got to be money that would've been used to buy drugs," Ivar said. "Someone stole drug money, and the drugs it would've purchased never got to the street."

Michael spoke up. "So maybe the fishermen are running drugs. Taking money out to sea for a rendezvous, then bringing the drugs back."

"If so, it's a damn near perfect setup." Lucy blew out a breath. "The Coast Guard wouldn't stop those guys to conduct searches—their boats wouldn't be considered suspicious."

"Gary's not part of this," Kaz insisted, sounding like a broken record even to herself. "There's got to be another reason why he had all that money." She appealed to Lucy. "You
know
he wouldn't be involved, Luce."

"Actually, I agree," Lucy said. Ivar frowned at her, and she shrugged. "I think Gary's being framed, so sue me." But her expression remained troubled. "It's a damn good question, though, what he was doing with all that cash in the storage unit."

"Maybe he got it from Ken," Kaz suggested, thinking out loud. "They could've been arguing that night in the tavern because Ken could've asked Gary to keep the money someplace safe, if he thought someone was after him."

"But if Ken was dealing drugs, why would he need anyone to safeguard the money?" Lucy shook her head. "That's cockeyed—he would've been exchanging the money for the drugs, not hiding it. And we've gone over his bank and phone records. Nada. He doesn't fit the profile."

"Profile?" Kaz looked from Lucy to Ivar.

"He has—had—a stable home life, there've been no dramatic changes in his lifestyle," Lucy explained. "Then again, Gary doesn't fit the profile either, based on our investigation into your financial records."

Kaz glared. "You've been looking at our
bank
records?"

"Yeah." Lucy sent her an apologetic look.

Kaz looked away. All of the sudden, she was sick to death of the whole mess. She wanted this investigation out of the way of her friendships with the people here in town she cared the most about.

A new thought occurred to her. "What if Ken wasn't involved with drug running but stole the money for some reason?"

"That could work," Michael said, looking thoughtful. "He yields to temptation, then gets in trouble and goes to Gary."

"That would also explain the sudden supply disruption at the street level," Ivar mused.

"Didn't you tell me Ken had suffered more than one beating a few days prior to being killed?" Michael asked Lucy. "So he stole the money, the bad guys were onto him, and they beat him up as a warning a couple of times. When he didn't pony up, they got rid of him."

Kaz remembered what Bjorn had said. "The fishermen think Ken was killed to send a message."

"Yeah, I can buy that." Lucy chewed on her lip. "But that doesn't explain why they framed Gary."

"If Ken went to Gary for help and Gary created heat by asking too many questions…" Michael shrugged. "Framing Gary kills two birds with one stone."

"But why would Ken have been stupid enough to steal drug money?" Lucy asked. "I knew him pretty well—he never struck me as being either stupid or suicidal. Anyone with half a brain knows not to steal from drug dealers."

"According to what Gary told me, Ken had horrific medical bills for Bobby's leukemia," Kaz said. "Ken loved Bobby—he'd have done anything for him." She shuddered, unable to imagine what it must have been like to watch your own child suffer that way. "If the rendezvous with the drug supplier is happening at sea, maybe Ken thought he wouldn't get caught."

Lucy shook her head. "We checked out the medical bills. The mother-in-law is paying for them."

Julie had indicated the same to Kaz, but Kaz wasn't so sure. At the time, it had been her impression that Julie was lying. And Kaz had just gotten Ken and his family signed up for health insurance a week ago, which made the cancer a preexisting condition that wasn't covered. The bills had to have been enormous.

"Whatever the scenario," Ivar said, "Gary is in this up to his neck."

"He's trying to find out who's involved," Kaz insisted. She stopped speaking while Sykes and Jackson locked up the storage unit and walked past them toward the docks, then continued. "At least, that's what Gary told me."

Lucy groaned loudly. "And you didn't tell me this earlier?"

Kaz risked a glance at Michael. His expression was set and furious, but she'd deal with him later. "Think about it," she insisted. "Someone else has to be involved, or I wouldn't be getting phone calls. Gary would have no reason to do that."

Lucy looked seriously unhappy. "Dammit, Kaz, you could be in real danger."

"I keep telling her that," Michael growled.

"We need more information," Lucy said. "I can start running checks on the finances of some of the fishermen—look for recent changes in lifestyle, that kind of thing. But we need hard evidence."

"A discussion with Gary right about now would be very useful, to find out what else he knows," Ivar mused.

Kaz stood up. "I'm heading home."

"No," Michael said firmly. "You'll wait right here until I get a change of clothes from my place, then we can go together."

"The cops have a surveillance team at my house, in case you've forgotten." Her voice was cool. "And Sykes and Jackson will be right behind me to search the house. I don't need you."

He strode over to her and knelt, taking both her hands in his. His grip was warm, his expression serious. "I didn't know about the search warrant, I swear," he said, keeping his voice low. "Don't do something foolish because you're upset with me."

Before she could react, Lucy grabbed Michael's arm. "Excuse us." She yanked him to his feet and walked him several feet away. "You're getting too close," Kaz heard her tell him in a low voice. "Back off."

Michael's expression turned hard. "Are you questioning my objectivity?"

"Maybe I am."

He took a step forward, and Kaz rose to intervene, then stopped at his next words. "Bottom line, I'm going to protect Kaz," he said, his voice tight with anger. "And I'll do my damn job." Then he turned to include Kaz. "Don't you two think it's about damn time you trusted me?"

#

"You're taking my
laptop?"
Kaz asked Sykes, shaking with fury. He and Jackson had arrived just after she'd gotten home. Michael was only a half hour behind, still angry that she'd refused to wait.

She and Sykes were standing in her living room while Jackson carried out boxes of files, printouts, and equipment—all of her records on the fishing business, as well as the records for her consulting business down in California. All of her bank statements, all of Gary's correspondence, all of her
personal
emails to Phil, for God's sake. She reached for the phone. "I'm calling my attorney."

"You'll get it all back, don't worry," Sykes replied, gathering up the loose stacks of printouts that had been strewn across the coffee table. He tossed her keys back to her, looking angry.

He and Jackson had practically torn the house apart, becoming increasingly destructive as they failed to find anything incriminating, yet refusing to answer when she demanded to know what they were looking for. And Clint had seemed to get an almost prurient satisfaction out of going through her personal belongings.

As Sykes walked out with her laptop tucked under one arm, Clint told her, "We're going to nail Gary this time, Kaz. Count on it."

She slammed the front door and stalked into the kitchen, yanking open the freezer and staring at her choices for dinner without really seeing them.

Maybe she was going about this the wrong way. Who in the fishing community was capable of running drugs? Bjorn was one of the more successful fishermen in town. He hadn't taken the government's buyout offer, and he was still operating several boats. But she couldn't imagine that he would be tempted by anything illegal. And if he were in trouble, she would've seen some sign—maybe that he wanted to sell one of the boats. Of course, it was possible the reason he was doing so well was that he had a second, very lucrative source of income.

She shook her head, slamming the freezer door. This was getting her nowhere. Bjorn was the last person she should be suspecting. So far, he was the one who was the most supportive of her, though that wasn't really saying much. After all, what had he really told her? Certainly nothing that could be substantiated. Maybe that was his strategy—sound helpful while keeping her in the dark.

She walked over to the window and stared out at the dark, empty street. Were things so bad that she was wondering whether one of the nicest guys in the fleet—the father of eight children, for God's sake—was a cold-blooded murderer?

When it came right down to it, the only fisherman she could stand to accuse of drug smuggling was Karl Svensen. He
had
refused to press charges against Gary six months ago, but recently, he'd been neither helpful nor friendly. And according to Steve, he'd had some kind of run-in with Ken. She wasn't privy to Karl's finances, but they couldn't be all that great if his boats came back into port on the light side. Of course, that could be said about every fisherman in Astoria, including her.

She sighed. She was going in circles, and those circles were bringing her right back around to Ken. He was the only person who'd had obvious financial pressures. Chemo and hospital stays like Bobby's were expensive, and she'd never been under the impression that Ken's mother was all that wealthy.

On a hunch, she pulled the Portland phone book out of the kitchen junk drawer, looking up the number for the hospital where Bobby was being treated. The clock on the wall above the stove indicated that they were well into the dinner hour, but maybe hospitals kept their offices open later than usual. She dialed the number. When the receptionist answered, Kaz asked for the business office and was informed that it was closed. So she asked to be transferred to the children's oncology ward.

While she waited, she rehearsed what she would say. She jumped when the head nurse answered on the second ring. "Um, yes, hi. This is Julie Lundquist, and I wanted to check on the status of our account. I think I may have paid one of the bills twice, by mistake—"

"I'm sorry," the nurse said, "but it's after hours, and the office is closed. If you could call again tomorrow morning—"

"Um, I knew that," Kaz said. "But it's kind of an emergency. See, I've overdrawn my account, and I know it's late, but I'm trying to reconcile my checkbook while Bobby gets a little sleep—he's having so much trouble sleeping right now—and I'll be getting overdraft notices that I can't afford—"

"Oh, poor thing," the nurse said, her voice instantly sympathetic. "It's so hard to watch children go through chemo."

"Yes," Kaz agreed quickly, feeling a giant twinge of guilt at her deception. "It would really help if you could pull up my records on the computer and take a peek at the last payment I sent you, you know, so I could verify the amount?"

"I'm not supposed to—"

"Please."

"Well, I don't see how it could really hurt…" The nurse seemed to come to a decision. "Hold on and I'll see what I can do." After tapping on the computer keys for a moment, she said, "Please verify the last four digits of your social security number for me."

Kaz froze, trying to remember Julie's number from when she'd filled out the insurance forms for them last week. "8166." She held her breath.

"Okay, here we go. You haven't sent us anything for a long time. Your last check to us was dated four months ago."

"I see," Kaz said hesitantly, amazed that it had been so easy, and then said, "Um, I thought that I might've overpaid. Can you give me the outstanding balance?"

"Well, that's odd. You don't have a balance." The nurse tapped some more. "Oh, right! I remember now. We just received that anonymous donation that wiped out your outstanding balance. Our bookkeeper told us about it. We were so excited that someone would do that for Bobby."

"Anonymous?" Kaz repeated, dumfounded. Then she realized the woman had to be talking about Ken's mother. "Oh, you must mean the payments from my mother-in-law."