The Mountains Bow Down Read online

  “This ship would be a whole lot safer if we carried our guns,” Jack said.

  “Nobody carries weapons on my ship.”

  “If you know what to do, a saltshaker is a weapon,” Jack said.

  I held up my hand, signaling a cease-fire, and asked Geert, “Could you carefully roll back your chair?”

  Following my gaze, he glanced down at the carpet.

  “Yes, don’t touch that dust.” I came around the desk. The tall Ninja was still standing by the door, and when I asked him to bring the crime kit, he looked at Geert. The Dutchman tossed his head, giving permission.

  The powder-coated safe was roughly the size of a microwave. The stainless steel door was secured to a titanium baseplate, and I ran my eyes over the knob, searching for nicks in the striated surface. But there were no obvious signs of forced entry. Bending at the waist, I stared at the baseplate from below. A fine-grained gray dust rested on the safe’s shelf, and more dust stuck to a tiny circle, no more than one-sixteenth of an inch, at the bottom of the faceplate. My fingers twitched, tempted to tap the ashen circle. I wanted to know if the glue or paint was still wet. Tackiness could tell time—how long since the drill bit had penetrated the baseplate directly beneath the knob, bypassing the safe’s numerical code. Whoever cracked the safe had done an excellent job cleaning up. But any high-speed drill spiraling into a safe had to tunnel through several fireproof layers, flinging a dust into the air so fine it could remain suspended for hours, even days. Whenever the thief left, the dust—on the shelf and the carpet and stuck to the drill bit hole—hadn’t fallen yet.

  The Ninja returned with the crime kit, setting it on Geert’s desk.

  “Gloves, please,” I said. “And if you have it, some kind of dropper. And a small sterile container.”

  Asking no questions, the Ninja pulled items from the case. Down the hall, I heard a sudden burst of sound. Webb, perhaps yelling about his rights. Then I heard a door close, followed by silence. I glanced at Geert.

  “I sent another babysitter,” he said.

  “I’m free of charge,” Jack said.

  The handlebars twitched. “Please, tell him I said hello.”

  Jack left. Holding an eyedropper, I kneeled on the floor and released my squeeze on the rubber bulb, suctioning the gray dust from the blue carpet. It was the consistency of powder and I deposited it in a sterile test tube. Fortunately, the thief had missed an area under the cabinet, leaving more than gray dust. I could see pieces of vermiculite with my naked eye.

  Collecting all that I could, I snapped on a new set of gloves and grabbed a sterile piece of gauze, tapping it against the painted hole. Puttied, I decided, then painted black to match the safe’s powder coat. The gauze barely stuck; the paint was almost dry.

  “Were you in your office today?” I asked Geert.

  “Neen.”

  I looked over, hoping for elaboration.

  “Port days are time to rest. My staff takes over.”

  I waited.

  “I take a long sauna,” he said, almost embarrassed. “I swim, get a massage.”

  All of which could be verified. “So when was the last time you were in your office, before we came back with Webb?”

  “This morning. I gave you two your guns.”

  That was just before 6:00 AM. Then Geert walked us to the gangway, allowing us to bypass the security arches.

  I asked the Ninja to take photographs of the drill hole before we dusted for fingerprints. Not that I was hopeful about prints; anybody this expert at safecracking wasn’t likely to leave the more obvious trails. I tried not to think about the difficulties. Crime was a game of cowardice and chance. Crime fighting was a game of perseverance, of determination constantly triumphing over despair as the obstinate cat pursued the greedy mouse.

  And I was right: there were no prints. Feeling we’d collected what we could, I asked for pliers, then gripped the striated knob with the tool’s hinged jaw, rocking back and forth. The insulation materials made a gritty noise as I ground them through the dial mechanism. But when enough particles had been dislodged, the dial began to turn again. Handing Geert the pliers, I stepped away and asked him to open it.

  When the door popped open, he thrust his hand inside, slapping the dark space.

  I knew the answer, but what was one more stupid question? “The bracelet is gone?”

  “And the money.”

  “What money?”

  “Five thousand, American.”

  “Your money?”

  He was still running his hand around the inside of the safe, disbelieving its emptiness. In my mind, I jacked up the jewelry’s price tag to six figures. Possibly seven, if the gems were extremely rare. Blue diamonds, I wondered, glancing around the room, searching for a camera. The ceiling held more of the starred sprinkler heads, dotting the acoustic tiles. When I looked back at him, Geert continued feeling around the safe, as if he might discover some previously unknown hidden compartment.

  “Was it your money?” I asked again.

  “Ship money. For emergencies.”

  “No video cameras in here?”

  “In a security office?” He spun, facing me, about to utter judgment on my question when it suddenly didn’t seem so stupid. His white mustache drooped. “The nearest camera is by the casino.”

  “Is there only one entrance to this office?”

  He nodded, then said to the Ninja, “Check all video for today. Anybody walking through the casino.”

  “We’re probably looking for somebody carrying a toolbox or a briefcase,” I added. “Or a package that could conceal a powerful drill.” I turned to Geert. “We need every drill on the ship accounted for. Can you do the same with missing or worn out bits?”

  Geert grabbed the phone on his desk, pushing two digits. “Maintenance, immediately.”

  While he waited for someone to pick up, I asked for a list of all employees. The list he refused to give me before because everyone was “clean as whistles.” His eyes were averted from me but he gave a quick nod.

  “You can fax it to the FBI’s Seattle office,” I said, writing down Allen McLeod’s name. “The violent crimes unit.”

  I could almost hear his teeth grinding as he ordered somebody on the phone’s other end to gather all the drills in one place.

  When asked, the Ninja gave me the two magnifying glasses in the crime kit, and when Geert hung up, I lifted the sterile test tube, now hazed with gray dust.

  “Is there a microscope on board?” I asked.

  Geert picked up the phone again. “Medical clinic. Deck Four. I will tell them you are coming.”

  “Thank you.” And I meant it. A lesser man would’ve become defensive in this situation. And a man less dedicated to security would have shifted the blame.

  I turned toward the door and saw Jack dragging Webb by the arm. “He’s demanding to see his lawyer.”

  “When I tell him how my civil rights were violated—” Webb said.

  Geert offered his generous and ruthless smile. “Have a seat, Mr. Webb. And let us take off those handcuffs. You must be uncomfortable.”

  “That’s more like it.” Webb sniffed.

  “You want to be able to hold the pen.”

  “Pen? What about my lawyer?”

  “When your check clears with the bank, you can call this lawyer.”

  “My check?”

  “You want to pay for the damages to the animal people. And you want to add some donations, isn’t that right?”

  “Hey, that’s not—”

  Jack pushed him into a chair. “We tried to warn you, Marty.”

  Geert looked at me. “Anything else?”

  “Yes, where’s the laundry room?”

  “Laundry?” Jack said. “You want to do laundry—now?”

  I didn’t reply, and Geert had his eyes pinned on Webb.

  “Yah,” he said. “That’s a good idea. We all gonna have a little cleaning up.”

  Chapter Fourteen

&nbs
p; A steel spine of stairs traced vertically through the ship’s fore, and every one of our steps created a hollow echo through the cylindrical chamber. Coming up the stairs as we went down, the ship’s food service workers moved wearily, their uniforms spattered and wrinkled from work.

  When we reached Deck Three, Jack held his cell phone to his ear, keeping his voice low, while I rushed down the hallway. It was tubular and windowless, like a submarine’s lowest chamber. I stopped at a set of ten-foot-wide double doors with small porthole windows that showed the laundry room on the other side. I waited for Jack to finish his phone call, listening to the rhythmic thudding on the other side, that unmistakable sound of dryers. The air smelled starched.

  “Yes, the same bracelet that Raleigh found,” Jack was saying into the phone. “And five K in cash. The money’s always been in there, so we can assume the jewelry was the target.”

  On the other side of the door, somebody yelled. Not in English. Not in Spanish. It sounded Asian. Vietnamese, Cantonese?

  “Now?” Jack said into the phone. “For some reason, now Raleigh wants to see the laundry room. I know I can’t investigate a safe heist until my pants are washed.”

  The old Jack, the guy I remembered.

  Jerk Jack.

  “Ask her yourself.” He handed me his cell phone. “McLeod.”

  I cleared the dry-heat tickle from my throat, then pressed my hand over my ear, blocking the sound of the dryers and Jack’s muttering.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I’m in no mood for games. Tell me the truth, Harmon. I won’t be upset. You didn’t cook up this whole thing just to get Jack up there?”

  My jaw fell open.

  “Pardon?”

  “Neither of you has checked in since he got there. I realize technically he doesn’t have to check in but—”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s on vacation.”

  I stopped. “Could you say that again?”

  “Is this connection bad? He’s supposed to have a satellite phone.”

  I stared at Jack. Jack was leaning against the steel wall, looking smug. “Sir, this connection is very bad.”

  “I said, if Jack wants to use his vacation days to help you out, that’s his choice. But our office is responsible for this case now. And I need to know what’s going on.” He paused. “So it’s back to my first question, what’s going on with you two? Is this a plutonic relationship?”

  At times his malaprops struck with idiomatic accuracy. And at this moment the irony of what he’d said was the only thing holding back my fury. Nothing—but nothing—described my feelings for Jack better than Pluto, the coldest planet in the universe and a place so insignificant it had been downgraded by scientists to a nonplanet.

  “Sir, it’s entirely plutonic.”

  “Good,” he said. “I wanted to check. I’ve seen women go crazy for that guy.”

  As if hearing this dubious compliment, Jack lifted and lowered his eyebrows, some flirtatious expression that worked on weaker females.

  I turned my back on him.

  “Tell me about this robbery,” McLeod said.

  “Even without the cash gone, the bracelet puts it in grand larceny territory,” I said.

  “And the dead woman—you’re sure it was murder?”

  “I’m still waiting for the official medical examiner’s report but—”

  “So you still say it’s murder.”

  “It wasn’t suicide.”

  With his silence, I listened to the dryers thudding. And Jack, humming something.

  “When does that cruise come to end?” he asked.

  “Sunday.”

  “Better crank up your speed, Harmon. Anything you need from me?”

  “You’ll be getting a fax of names. Most if not all are foreigners. I need background checks.”

  “You’re talking Interpol?”

  “Yes, sir. And we’re looking for any red flags linked to safecracking, jewelry heists, robbery. And of course murder.”

  There was an even longer pause.

  “Sir?”

  “Harmon, you’re calling in every last favor.”

  “I realize that.”

  “When this is over, you might even owe me a favor. Then you’ll have to come work for me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I handed the phone to Jack. He was drawing a wrist across his perspiring brow. The heat made the air seem void of oxygen. Along Jack’s hairline I could see traces of salt crystallized. It had been a hard day, the fast run up then down Mount Roberts. And neither of us had time to shower. Good thing this was a plutonic relationship.

  He hung up with McLeod, promising to check in more frequently.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  “If you’ll tell me what we’re doing.”

  “We’re looking for clothing with gray dust. Check elbows and knees first. But the dust is so fine it could spread anywhere.”

  “Wait—we’re checking dirty laundry?”

  If I wasn’t such a nice person, I would have answered the way Geert did, telling him it was a stupid question. Instead, I pushed through the double doors, ready to hunt down minerals.

  In my four years at the mineralogy lab, I had two safecracking cases. One was sent to us from Colorado and involved an antique safe, circa 1902. The safe had contained St. Gaudens gold coins, but somebody had dynamited the thing open. The second case involved a safe manufactured in the 1980s containing valuable deeds that were suspected of being stolen and forged. That second safe was penetrated the same as Geert’s: by drilling into the faceplate. But both cases hinged on the safes’ insulation material and the matching dust found on the suspects’ clothing.

  Geology sealed their fate.

  “I’m not touching any underwear,” Jack said.

  The laundry “room” looked more like a laundry warehouse. Riveted steel walls held up wide arches that divided the large space into separate functions, each the size of a condo. Dryers the size of small automobiles tumbled masses of beige and white. Tablecloths, sheets, napkins, I decided. In a nearby area, several Asian women scooped up white towels with wooden paddles, pushing them into machines that looked like brick pizza ovens. And in the farthest corner, a monstrous thing with metal arms took dry sheets and tablecloths, hissing like a dragon as its mechanical arms thwhacked and thwhopped before suddenly dropping a precisely folded square on the conveyor belt below. The women standing by the belt inserted the squares into clear plastic bags.

  Walking toward us, a bandy-legged Asian man pushed a canvas cart that brimmed with soiled tablecloths. Behind him, a ten-foot-wide steel chute guided an avalanche of sheets into an empty cart.

  Jack flipped open his credentials. The man’s brown eyes widened with fear.

  “We’re not with Immigration,” Jack said.

  I introduced myself, shaking the man’s hand. His fingers felt calloused and dry.

  “I am Nam,” he said.

  “Nam, where is today’s laundry?”

  “Clean or dirty?”

  “Dirty,” I said. “And we need to see clothing from both passengers and crew.”

  Nam moved the cart from under the chute, now full, and replaced it with an empty one before walking us to the room’s farthest corner. The air smelled slippery and alkaline with the feel of soap, and along the wall white plastic bags lined the floor. Each was marked with a corresponding cabin number. I made a quick count.

  So did Jack. “That’s, like, three hundred bags—are you serious?”

  I turned to Nam, raising my voice so he could hear me over the folding machine hissing to our left. “When did these bags come in?”

  “Today,” Nam said.

  “I’m sorry, I meant what time.”

  “What time you look for?”

  I calculated the hours. Geert claimed he left the office after our 6:00 AM visit. We returned with the movie director around 3:30 PM. Cracking the safe required a minimum of twenty minutes, longer if the thief didn
’t have a powerful drill or a diamond-tip bit. Perhaps one hour. I knew this thief was methodical, calculating a strike when Geert would be away from his office getting a sauna and massage. And he’d covered his tracks. But, I also knew, he could have struck in the middle of the night. When Geert turned the safe’s dial this morning to get our guns, he apparently didn’t notice any difference in the dial. But the dust was so fine, and it could take time for gravity to deposit enough insulation in the dial’s turning mechanism to block it. And if that were the case, then the thief took the jewelry and the money but left our guns. Because they would set off the security arches if he tried to leave?

  And then another question popped into my mind, more disturbing. Could I trust Geert? That bracelet was several years’ salary. If he was close to retirement, what better ruse was there than to drill into his own safe, at night, then stay away all day, casting suspicion everywhere but himself, the head of security. I wasn’t ruling out anything.

  I gave Nam the time frame that included last night, and he walked to the back rows of dirty laundry bags.

  “Some not done. Some we pick up this morning.”

  I handed Jack a pair of latex gloves taken from Geert’s crime kit. “Dig in.”

  “Me?”

  “Keep an eye out for black paint too.”

  He stared at the gloves. “And what’re you doing?”

  “I’m narrowing my search.” I pulled the passenger list from my pocket. Most of the movie crew had cabins on Deck Twelve, each numbered in the 1200s. Only Milo Carpenter and the Sparks were on Deck Fourteen and there was no Deck Thirteen—sailors believing in bad luck. Only Martin Webb was staying on Deck Eleven. Alone.

  With reluctance, Jack snapped on the gloves while I crosschecked cabin numbers with the plastic bags. Five bags matched the movie crew. Three belonged to men whose names I didn’t recognize, possibly cameramen or extras, and one bag belonged to Milo Carpenter. The fifth bag belonged to a woman. Martha Jane. MJ. The musician.

  The felon.