TWENTY-SEVEN

 

 

"Rupert got a phone call and abruptly left fifteen minutes before we arrived," Miles said as the door of the speakeasy closed behind them and they walked back up the pier toward shore. "Of course he did. I'll tell you, Floyd. It's starting to feel like we're always just a few minutes late. Always one step behind."

"The owner's name, Chiu," Floyd said. "It's another Cantonese name. The Mandarin equivalent is Zhao."

"So," Miles said, "the tongs are Cantonese. And now we have a Cantonese speakeasy owner whose barkeep is serving high-end Glenfiddich in his low-end rat hole of an establishment—this just after a probable rumrunner was very possibly relieved of a shipment of Glenfiddich."

"Plus, we have Rupert Hawkins," Floyd said, holding up a finger as he made each point, "who was recently seen giving two unusually well-dressed Chinese men a ride from the steamship terminal, who we already know was working with Angus Cooper aboard the Daisy this past week, who owes Chiu an awful lot of money in gambling debts, and who has been drinking even more than usual, looking like he saw a ghost, and recently bragging about something big being in the works. Something maybe involving gold. That's too many things lining up for it all to be a coincidence."

"I wouldn't put too much weight on what that poor drunk woman thinks she may or may not remember."

"Sure. But saying money is one thing. Saying gold is quite something else. They aren't words you tend to confuse."

"Still."

"You know, it's common for wealthy families to bring their gold with them when they emigrate via steamship," Floyd said.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm thinking back on all the stuff you found in Hans Jensen's tool shed. The Haro Strait nautical charts, the tide charts, the old newspaper clippings."

"About the wreck of the Empress of Burma?"

"Yes. Consider this—we know the Lucky Lena and the Daisy were observed, on more than one occasion, loitering in the general vicinity of where the Empress of Burma sank, out off D'Arcy Island, right? And didn't you say someone spotted an actual salvage ship in that area the evening before the Lucky Lena was spotted adrift?"

"The Deepwater Doubloon out of Seattle. Yes. A professional salvager. You think they were diving the wreck for lost gold?"

"It would explain why the Jensens had an expensive German deep-water diving apparatus," Floyd said. "Maybe word got around that the wreck of the Empress of Burma has been found. Maybe there was known to be gold aboard. Maybe there was a race on to recover it. Or maybe the Jensens were already in the process of bringing it up, someone found out, and then robbed them of it."

"That's a lot of maybes," Miles said, wondering at Floyd's sudden focus on a theory he was sure was nothing but a potential distraction. His suspicions of Floyd stormed back to the forefront of his mind. "Do you think somebody warned Rupert Hawkins that we were coming?" he asked, watching Floyd's face carefully.

"Warned? I suppose anything is possible," he said, looking genuinely thoughtful. "But who would have warned him?"

For a brief moment, Miles wondered whether Floyd had been in his hotel long enough to make a phone call when they'd stopped by for his raincoat. He'd have had to be very quick in making one, as he'd only been inside for a couple of minutes. But it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility.

With a splash, a California sea lion surfaced just below them, peered up with giant brown eyes, and gave them a deep, loud moan, probably begging for the food it was accustomed to getting from company workers who dumped their lunch leftovers off the dock. Distracted by it, Miles stepped on a long rusty joist nail nestled in a gap where one of the old pier planks had rotted away.

"Son of a whore!"

"What is it?" Floyd looked down to see a good inch of nail sticking, dead center, out of the top of Miles's shoe. "Oh, damn, Miles."

Gritting his teeth as beads of sweat broke out along his hairline, Miles slowly, gingerly raised his foot until it slid free of the nail.

"I knew I should have worn my damned boots," he said, wincing.

"We'd better get you back to the station," Floyd said.

But Miles hardly heard him. His mind was preoccupied with the fact that he'd have to catch the last steamer to Bellingham that evening so he could go to the hospital for tetanus antitoxin serum. That he would miss his dinner with Marion.

 

*****

 

As they were about to pass the Hotel de Haro, Miles and Floyd spotted the lime works owner, Errol Buchannan, and two broad-shouldered members of his security detail—each of them carrying 12-gauge shotguns—coming straight at them from up the wharf.

"This should be interesting," Miles muttered while they were still out of earshot.

Buchannan wore a bowler hat, a close-cropped red beard, and a dark three-piece suit. His men were similarly attired. None of them were smiling.

"Errol," Miles said. "What a wonderful surprise."

"You know you've let a Bolshevik onto your little island?"

"The hell are you talking about?"

"Edward Callahan of the Knights of Labor. Here to stir up trouble. Man should be shot for treason."

"I'll bear it in mind."

"I bet you will," Buchannan said, his cold, pale blue eyes measuring, assessing. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for someone at the Smokehouse."

"Why?"

"A matter of police business."

"You're limping."

"I stepped on a nail on your pier. Went clean through my foot. Consequently, I'm not in much of a mood to deal with your territorial pissings right now, Errol.

"You have no cause to interfere with goings-on at the Smokehouse."

"You mean aside from the naked disregard of state and federal law?"

"Nobody sought my permission to enter my property."

"Yeah, well, I don't know that you're aware of this, Errol. But my jurisdiction actually includes your little company town here."

Buchannan's expression remained impassive, so much so that it was menacing.

"Remember, Sheriff. If it weren't for my company town, the rest of you hayseeds wouldn't have phone lines or electricity yet."

Miles turned to Floyd, then said, "And on the seventh day, he rested."

"You're the second trespasser at the Smokehouse that I've had to deal with today," Buchannan added. "I have better things to do with my time."

"I thought the Smokehouse was open to the public."

"Not if a person is only there to interfere."

"Who was interfering?"

"Aside from you? That crazy lay preacher, McCaskill."

"McCaskill was at the Smokehouse?"

"He was huddling in the trees just off the end of the pier, watching who came and went, mumbling fire and brimstone quotes from the Good Book."

Miles and Floyd exchanged looks.

"Look, Sheriff. I'm asking you, as a gentleman, to not interfere with what goes on at the Smokehouse. There'd be general mutiny among my workers."

"Maybe you should pay them more, and in something other than company scrip. Like dollars, say."

"Working-class men like you need their petty distractions. It gives them something to live for. Otherwise, why get out of bed? Why go to work?"

"Don't worry, Errol. Nobody is going to pull the plug on the Smokehouse. Incidentally, did you know they're serving Glenfiddich in that rat hole?"

"No."

"Know where it came from?"

"No. Anything else?"

"The card room is run by a Chinese, is it not?"

"What of it?"

"Is he a member of one of the Seattle tongs?"

The robber baron gave Miles a hard look. "You read too many dime novels, Sheriff."

"Are you refusing to answer my question?"

"Whether the owner of the Smokehouse is a member of a tong? I'm not in the habit of asking questions like that. And frankly, I don't care."

"As long as the money comes in, right?"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I mean the establishment is on your company's property. You get a cut of the action, don't you? Or would you rather I call it above-market rent?"

Buchannan's eyes narrowed. "Sheriff, I'll tell you what—you take care of your fiefdom, and I'll take care of mine." The men stared each other down until Buchannan said, "Anyway, you'd better scamper back to your little fish camp of a town or you're going to be late."

"Late for what?"

"For supper, boy. Doesn't your mother still cook your supper every evening? Don't you still live in your mother's house?"

Miles's right hand rose until his fingertips just touched the cold steel butt of his holstered pistol. He gave serious thought to stepping forward and pistol-whipping Buchannan across the face—a feat he could manage without compunction. But he knew that Buchannan's escorts would gleefully crack his ribs—or his skull—with the butts of their shotguns before he could disengage. Buchannan knew it too.

It was Buchannan's way of reminding Miles of who was really in charge—and that money always trumped the law.

Miles took a couple of deep breaths through flared nostrils before he and Floyd turned and walked away.

"That was enlightening," Floyd muttered once they were out of earshot.

"Was it?"

"I learned that not only does your mother still make your lunches for you, but you still live with her as well. Surprise, surprise."

 

*****

 

The moment he got back to the station, Miles rang Marion and told her about the rusty nail.

"So," he said, "unfortunately, I'm going to have to catch tonight's boat to Bellingham so that I can get the tetanus antitoxin serum at the hospital first thing in the morning. Which also means that I can't meet for dinner."

"You don't have to trouble yourself with all that," Marion said.

"Only if I want to live."

"Nonsense. We'll just call Swedish Hospital in Seattle and have them send the serum up on the Bangor tomorrow morning."

"They'll insist that it be prescribed to a medical professional to administer the injection."

"Right. We'll have Sylvia make the call."

"Sylvia?"

"She's a nurse. She was in the War."

"Sylvia was in the War? You're kidding."

"I'm not. So we can have dinner after all. See you in an hour."

Miles was elated. He hung up the phone with a huge smile on his face. At that moment, Bill came flying through the door. "Sheriff, I've been looking all over for you."

"I was out at Roche Harbor, like I told you. What's up?"

"Akroyd's body washed up at Smallpox Bay."

After a stupefied moment, Miles almost chuckled. "Of course," he muttered, reaching for the phone to re-cancel dinner with Marion.