“You don’t think Mr. and Mrs. Collins were kidnapped along with my ma, do you, sir?”
“No, I don’t.”
“You think Sam killed Ireland.”
“I don’t know what I think, Angus. And that’s the truth.” Sterling didn’t relax his pace. “Let’s just concentrate on finding your mother. We can sort out the details later.”
The waterfront swarmed like a hornet’s nest. Men, and a handful of women, were shouting “Fiona” and “Mrs. MacGillivray” and crawling all over the layers of boats nestled out into the river. Several men were dripping wet— presumably they’d fallen in while leaping from one boat to another. Boat captains were either trying to fend off the waves of intruders or encouraging everyone to search harder.
“Will you look at that,” Sterling said, with something approaching surprise in his deep voice. “People in this town do care about each other, and about your mother. You should be very proud, Angus.”
“Right now, sir, I’d settle for just having her back.”
They waded into the crowd.
Anna Marie Vanderhaege watched them approach and nudged the man standing beside her. The two of them walked towards Sterling and Angus.
“My sister tells me you’re looking for Sam and Margaret Collins also,” she said with a shy smile. “But about that you need not worry. They left on the Mae West, shortly after midnight, the men say. I’m glad Sam is safe, he is a brave man.”
“Can you point out the man who told you this?”
“I saw them, Constable,” her companion said, scratching his beard with hard-working, callused hands. “I was getting the steamboat ready to shove off when they arrived all in a fluster. Didn’t have no tickets, but that don’t matter much. Captain said he had room, told ’em the price, and they boarded.”
“You know Mr. and Mrs. Collins?” “Know Sam from over to the Savoy, been there once or twice, I have.” He winked. “Don’t you worry, son. We’ll find your ma. Safe as Sam, she’ll be. I guessed that the woman with him was his wife. It weren’t Mrs. MacGillivray, that’s for sure.”
“Did they have luggage?” “Couple o’ small cases, not much.” “Angus, why don’t you let Millie sniff around.” Sterling handed over the dressing gown. “See if she can pick up a scent.”
“Sure.” Angus led the dog away, waving his mother’s garment in front of her face.
“How small? Large enough to hold a body?” Anna Marie gasped; her eyes flew to Angus, who was bending over and letting the dog have a good sniff of the robe.
“Nothing near that big. Couple of packs like they woulda come over the Chilkoot with. No trunks.”
“Thanks. You’ve been a help.” “Lots of the men who mighta seen Mrs. MacGillivray yesterday will still be off. I’ll spread the word when they get here.”
“Angus might like something to eat. For sure he has not had his breakfast, and now it is near lunchtime. I will take him back to the bakery for a waffle. Would you care to join us, Constable?”
“No, thank you, Miss Vanderhaege. I’ll stay here.”
“Then I will bring you a waffle. Make it special.”
“Thank you,” he said absentmindedly. “That would be kind.”
Sterling looked into the dark brown water swirling around the hulls of the boats. So thick and dirty was the river he couldn’t see more than an inch into its depths.
The waters of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers were cold, even in summer. It didn’t get warm enough, for long enough, to heat them so that anyone other than the most adventurous boy might want to go for a swim. White gulls flew overhead in lazy circles, cawing loudly and occasionally taking a dive at the scraps of garbage floating in the water. It was a warm day, and the sun shone in a cloudless blue sky.
His skin pricked under his heavy uniform coat. Richard Sterling felt very, very weary.
Sam Collins had packed up his wife and a handful of their belongings and left Dawson without a word in the middle of the night, apparently without even bothering to inform his employer or collect wages owed. And Fiona MacGillivray had disappeared that same evening. Sam had killed Ireland, for reasons unknown. Fiona had found out what had happened and—all on her own—had confronted him. No doubt she expected him to confess, beg forgiveness, and meekly accompany her to Fort Herchmer in order to turn himself in. She was a genuine lady, Fiona, obviously raised with a great deal of care, left to make her own way in the world on the death of her husband, Angus’s father. She might be a dance hall queen in Dawson, Yukon Territory, but what, really, would a well-brought-up lady such as Fiona MacGillivray know about men and the depths to which they could fall?
A dead fish bumped up against the shore, its exposed eye glassy and unfocused. A wooden box, marked as property of the Eastern Canning Company of Cleveland Ohio, floated past, bobbing on the tiny waves.
“I found a girl who was up in the night, with an earache.” McKnight arrived on silent feet—or perhaps Sterling had simply been too lost in thought to hear him. The inspector stood beside the constable and gazed into the dark water, stroking his moustache rhythmically.
“She was sitting outside while her mother heated some tinned milk, and she saw Mr. and Mrs. Collins pass, carrying packs. In a right hurry they were, the girl said.
Mrs. Collins was yelling at Mr. Collins to keep up or they would ‘miss it’. She—the girl—didn’t know what “it” was.”
“The Mae West, apparently. There was no one with them?”
“Not that the child saw.”
An eddy caught the dead fish and dragged it around the bow of a small boat. A few yards off shore, two gulls flew after a can that had once contained condensed milk. They squawked at each other, and the smaller pulled up and flew away, complaining all the while.
“It doesn’t look hopeful,” McKnight said. “They’ve torn this town apart. I hear Joey LeGrand is screaming up a storm about people disturbing her girls when they should be resting and is threatening to complain to Inspector Starnes.”
“She won’t. The Inspector doesn’t give LeGrand the time of day, and she knows it. He tolerates her and her ilk because the miners won’t have it any other way.”
“We may never find her, you know.” McKnight touched Sterling lightly on the shoulder in a surprisingly familiar gesture. “These rivers are treacherous, and there’s a lot of wilderness between here and the sea.”
“I’ll find her,” Sterling said.
“Constable Sterling. Constable Sterling.” Angus ran across the flat expanse of mud that led from the steamboat dock. Mr. Mann lumbered behind as well as Anna Marie, holding her skirts above her ankles. “Millie, we have to follow Millie.”
“Why don’t you go home, son,” McKnight said. “Get some rest. We’ll fetch you if anything turns up.”
“No! Listen to me. I’ve been so stupid. Ma hated every step on the Trail, and never, ever left Dawson, not even to go hunting for frogs.”
All around the waterfront, attention was drawn by the excitement in Angus’s voice. Heads popped up and people drifted towards them.
“Now, Angus, I don’t see what frogs have to do with this. Miss, would you see that the boy gets home.”
“You must hear what Angus has to say,” Anna Marie almost shouted.
“No one would think to look for Ma in the wilderness. But Millie did. Millie doesn’t know Ma hates the bush. She picked up a scent at the Collins’s house. Those two chairs outside. Millie wouldn’t leave them alone. Then she wanted to go up the road, into the hills. Into the wilderness. I had to drag her back to town. But there’s nothing here, and she’s getting confused about why I keep stuffing this robe into her face.”
“Angus, I….”
“It’s better than anything else we have, Inspector,” Sterling said. “Lead the way, Angus, Millie.”
The big white dog ran. Away from the water and back towards town. Her pace was slowed by the rope pulling against her throat, and she tried to encourage the boy behind her to run faster. Millie didn’t look back, but she knew that a stream of people followed her. As they ran through town, more and more people fell into place in the pack.
Millie ran so hard, the leash jerked out of Angus’s grasp. Free, she sprinted back to where she’d picked up the scent, and from there to the wildflower-covered hills.