The Mountains Bow Down Page 3

  “You want me to notify the Alaska office, is that it? So it’s on record?”

  I turned a slow circle, making sure nobody could overhear my words. Three basketballs were rolling across the sports court, spinning with the sea swells. “Sir, I don’t think it’s a suicide.”

  “Why?”

  “She was hanging at least twenty feet from the deck by a thin nylon rope. Maybe thirty feet. There’s no ladder. Which means she had to jump.”

  “Okay, she jumped. People jump overboard.”

  “But a jump like that, with that rope, would’ve practically decapitated her. The rope would rip right through the skin and tissue. When they pulled her up, her neck showed only minor bruising. She looks like somebody taking a nap.”

  “Raleigh . . .”

  I knew that tone of voice. I heard it daily in Seattle, after I insisted a missing persons case didn’t look right.

  “Sir, I also found a piece of jewelry,” I pressed on, trying to bolster my argument. “A bracelet, buried under another rope. Eight or ten stones, a total of about fifteen to twenty carats. And they don’t look fake.”

  “She jumped, it fell off.”

  “Respectfully, sir?”

  “Go on.” He sighed.

  “This suicide required the kind of planning that goes down to the last detail. If somebody prepares that much, how would they forget to take off a bracelet worth at least fifty grand? For that matter, why wear it at all?”

  During the long pause that followed, the wind swept over my phone, the static sounding like a distant storm.

  “Where’s the ship?” McLeod finally asked.

  This was what I liked about the guy: he always listened. Didn’t always agree, but he trusted agent instincts.

  “The ship turned around, thinking she was overboard. Now we’re heading back to Ketchikan.”

  “We have no jurisdiction, Raleigh.”

  “Yes, sir. I realize that. One more thing?”

  “What?”

  “Her husband’s Milo Carpenter.”

  “The movie star?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Milo Carpenter—he’s on your ship?”

  “He’s filming a movie. He plays an FBI agent.” Badly, I wanted to add. Very badly. “And, well, here’s the last thing. I’m onboard as a consultant.”

  “That’s not a vacation, Raleigh.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Another silence followed. “You need a vacation,” he said.

  I imagined McLeod, sitting in his glass booth of an office surrounded by the violent crimes squad. He would be wearing his standard white shirt and dark slacks, his red suspenders freckled with oily stains.

  “Sir, I wouldn’t be calling unless—”

  “The cruise ship has no suspicions?”

  “Suicide, no questions asked.” I described for him how the body was pulled up before any substantial evidence could be collected. How Geert already called the cops, the funeral home, and labeled it a suicide before the autopsy was done. “The Alaska State Troopers are coming to close out the scene. No sirens. That was the order.”

  “Okay, we let the troopers handle it until later—”

  “No, sir.”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry, we can’t. The crime scene’s compromised already, and I doubt the troopers will recognize the impossible physics of this thing. In addition to having no major damage to her neck and throat, she’d have to be an acrobat to climb down there with a rope. At night. On a ship. You see where I’m going? If the FBI doesn’t pursue this, somebody gets away with murder.”

  “And you’re willing to take it on?”

  The rub.

  “I might have a conflict of interest, given my consulting job with the deceased’s husband. And, well, here’s another thing.”

  “You just said you told me the last thing.”

  “The dead woman hired my aunt to do some consulting on the movie as well.”

  Judy Carpenter, I explained, wanted my aunt to teach the movie crew about the healing powers of rocks. That part I didn’t want to explain to McLeod. To anybody.

  “Sir, you know I’d take it, but given the circumstances . . .”

  “Another way to look at this is, you’ve got an inside line.”

  “Yes, sir. But could you contact the Alaska office, ask them to take it?”

  “Because it’s you, Raleigh, I will. You’ve extinguished yourself before.”

  Along with food freckling his suspenders, McLeod dropped malaprops whenever he opened his mouth. I had neither the bad manners nor the courage to correct him and simply inserted the right word in my mind. Here, I replaced “extinguished” with “distinguished.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I’ll see if they can send an agent on board. Then you can go back to your version of a vacation. In the meantime, stick close to this until you hear back from me. Maintain procedure as much as possible. Talk to the husband. His statement might not be admissible later but it’ll help whichever agent gets assigned to the case.” He paused. “What’s he like?”

  “Sir?”

  “Milo Carpenter.”

  “He’s a drunk.”

  “I’ll tell my wife,” he said. “She sees that guy in a movie or on some magazine and she’s tinkled pink.”

  I did the substitutions—“tickled” for “tinkled”—then thanked him for listening. It was more than my boss in Richmond would have done.

  “You’re welcome,” McLeod said. “I’ll call as soon as we hear back from the Alaska office.”

  As I walked back along the steel rail, tasting the salt that rose from the ocean, I could see Geert and his bald pate reddening in the sun. He stood over the tarp-covered body like a man guarding a good parking space.

  “You called the FBI?” he said.

  I nodded, not surprised by his question. Cruise ships hired the best security money could buy. As he said himself, this wasn’t his first trip through the tunnel of love. But as we stood there with her body between us, I sensed borders forming, the boundaries that divided our disputed territories. I wanted truth. Geert wanted protection—protection of the ship’s reputation.

  “While you called your people, I hunted down the husband,” he said, as if his choice trumped mine.

  Led by two Ninjas, the movie star passed though the human security line. Every head swiveled to follow him, until Geert gave one quick shake of his head. The tall Ninja pivoted and turned to the crew. The employees whipped back around, facing the deck’s public area.

  Milo, meanwhile, was staggering toward us. Like most movie stars, he seemed smaller in person, even with his six feet of height. There was something compact about him, so that the broad shoulders seemed out of proportion with his narrow chest and slender hips. His face was rough-hewn, ruddy from booze. His strongest feature was bright green eyes. They were glazed this morning. They’d been that way since we left Seattle. But the varnish looked different now. Perhaps from shock.

  Perhaps not.

  Geert said, “I am sorry.”

  Slowly the Dutchman leaned down, pinching the edge of the tarp. “It will seem rude, but I must ask.”

  He paused, seeking permission.

  Milo nodded.

  Geert pulled the plastic all the way back. “Is this your wife?”

  The actor seemed frozen. When he finally moved, his feet were leaden, moving closer to the body, walking like a man condemned. His green eyes once again found Geert, but they seemed dull, unable to see.

  “I felt the boat turning around,” he said, wooden. “I thought you found her. On board. Not . . .” The words trailed away as he stared down at the noose still around her neck.

  Geert waited. “I am sorry, Mr. Carpenter.”

  Milo’s eyes shifted. They went first to the steel half wall, then the mooring line. He followed the thick rope from where it wrapped around the steel pole, to the orange rope that snaked around her pale throat and the strand of purple bruises. Her fat
al necklace.

  And then suddenly his face fractured. It broke with pain and revulsion and fear.

  Plenty of fear.

  Geert quietly offered some abbreviated details. Coast Guard called, found hanging, clearly a suicide. Silently I begged him to stop talking. But it was not the FBI’s investigation.

  Not yet.

  When a commotion broke over at the security line, we turned to see a stout man trying to break through. The man began yelling.

  “Sandy . . .” Milo said in a weak voice.

  Sandy Sparks, one of the film’s producers. My aunt introduced him the first day, making sure I understood that Mr. Sparks helped pay for our tickets, for our consulting services.

  “Would you like him to come over?”

  The movie star nodded.

  Geert flicked his eyes at a Ninja who gave a hand signal. The human barrier immediately parted.

  “Did she—” Milo swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Did she suffer?”

  Rather than answer, Geert watched the pudgy man. Short arms pumping, he approached us as if running, though he looked like someone who had never run anywhere, ever.

  “Did she suffer?” Milo repeated.

  Geert continued to pretend he couldn’t hear him.

  I cleared my throat. “Mr. Carpenter, was your wife depressed?”

  He turned, recognizing me. Then he looked confused. “Why are you here?”

  “I’m with the FBI.”

  “But you’re—you’re with us.” He pointed to his chest, implying the movie production. Then he turned to Geert. “Why do you need the FBI here?”

  “She was on the ship,” Geert replied, in a tone that said I was some unwanted accessory, free of charge, like an extra ashtray in a new car.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss,” I continued. “Was she upset about something, depressed in any way?”

  His broad shoulders hunched. He gave a small nod.

  “Did she give any indication she might do something like this?”

  The green eyes flashed like emeralds. “If she had, you think I’d let her come on this ship?”

  Geert twirled the mustache. Stupid question.

  But I had another one. “Did she have any knowledge of knots?”

  “Knots?” Carpenter said, even more confused. But then his eyes dropped to the orange line and I watched the successive layers of comprehension explode inside his mind, detonating with the well-tied knots. When he looked up at me, the veneer was shattered. The pudgy man arrived, crying out his name. “Milo! Milo!”

  The actor was too tall, his shoulders too wide, for the shorter man to grab, but Sandy Sparks reached up anyway. It was an awkward hug. Milo looked like an overgrown boy craving parental comfort.

  “Sandy,” Milo said. Tears were coming now. Tears whose absence had me wondering. “Sandy—Judy is dead.”

  “I heard. I’m sorry, Milo. I’m sorry.”

  “She hung herself, Sandy!” He pointed to the tarp that Geert had once again pulled over her body.

  The chubby man nodded, gazing at the lumpy shape. Then he glanced at Geert. “He saw her?” he asked.

  Geert nodded, grimly. “I wanted her identified here. He tries to go to the funeral home, the lookie-looks will take photos.”

  Sparks looked around, suddenly assessing the risks. He stared at the human barrier. “Wow, thank you.”

  “Most welcome.” Geert nodded. “We are here to help.”

  Sparks turned to Milo. “I know this is bad, man, but you need to get out of here. If anybody takes a picture, it’s the cover of the Enquirer. And that rag has enough pictures of you.”

  Milo straightened.

  “You hear what I’m saying?”

  Milo wiped his face, as if pulling himself together, then allowed Sparks to lead him away while Geert signaled to the tall Ninja who was hovering near us, ever silent.

  “Escort Mr. Carpenter back to his room,” Geert said. “Keep them on the back stairs.”

  I started to say something.

  But he glanced over, cutting me off.

  “And guard his cabin door,” he told the Ninja. “Just in case.”

  Chapter Four

  Luck doesn’t exist.

  Scientifically, that theorem wasn’t provable but I’ve believed it since I was a little girl. Now, heading down the ship’s gangway to the Ketchikan dock, I had no reason to change my mind. Behind me, the mortician guided the metal cart loaded with Judy Carpenter’s body, and I kept my hands in back, helping with the weight on the slanted ramp. Geert had assured us that all tour-taking passengers were gone—including my mother and my aunt—but as “luck” would have it, my mother stood at the bottom of the gangway.

  There was one person who shouldn’t see this corpse, and it was my mother.

  My sense of dread turned to stone.

  Head down, she searched frantically through an oversize handbag, and for one split second I considered reversing direction, turning around and pushing the mortician and the dead woman back into the ship. Hide out until the coast was clear.

  But his cart clattered like twenty tin soldiers coming apart, and when she looked up at the noise, I let go of the handle behind my back.

  “Hey—!” the mortician said.

  Her already troubled eyes filled with questions. Questions I couldn’t answer truthfully.

  “Raleigh Ann?” She leaned to one side, trying to see around me. On the cart the black body bag looked ominous with bulk. Almost as bulky as the mortician. He was clad in black fleece, resembling an overfed polyester lamb.

  Her purse hit the ground.

  “Oh my word!” she exclaimed. “Did somebody die?”

  I turned, feigning surprise at the man and the cart.

  The mortician was scowling, and now that I’d let go, he was straining to hold the cart against the gangway’s descent.

  “You gonna help me?” he demanded. No longer lamblike, he puffed, an ornery bull.

  I pressed a shaking hand against my beating heart. “Me? You want me to help you?”

  “You said—”

  “Did somebody die?” My mother’s voice was trembling.

  Nadine Shaw Harmon, authentic Southern belle, might be politely described as “a bit touched.” Her bouts of paranoia struck with the sudden fury of August thunderstorms, and the torrential aftermaths kept me from telling her the truth about my job. Before becoming an agent, I spent four years in the FBI’s forensic lab, and both my dad and I agreed she didn’t need to know everything. My forensics work was in mineralogy; we told her I was a geologist. That was true. True enough. But one day somebody decided to shoot my dad, cutting him down in cold blood. His murder has never been solved, and I decided the most productive way to fill this gaping hole in my heart was to join the hunt for bad guys. When I graduated from Quantico, fatherless, with no mother in attendance, my personal life became one long covert op.

  Taking in the horrified expression on my mother’s face, I stepped aside and allowed the portly mortician to clatter past us with the dead body. He grumbled as he passed, and I geared up for my first whopper of this vacation.

  “I have no idea what that’s about.” Quickly I changed the subject. “Aren’t you supposed to be sightseeing today?”

  But her jasper-hued eyes remained on the mortician. He pushed the rattling conveyance across the conglomerate pavement that formed the ship’s dock. The rough pebbly surface made his progress sound like a train of broken-down shopping carts. At a black Suburban that was coated with winter dirt, he snapped open the back barn doors as if the handles were hot. Taking hold of the cart again, he rammed it against the vehicle’s dented chrome bumper. Its legs buckled, sending the entire contraption flying into a dark space gutted for transporting passengers who would never complain.

  “And on a vacation too,” my mother said sadly.

  The mortician slammed the doors and whisked his pudgy palms across one another, finishing off the job.

  “Wasn’t there
a trip to Misty Fjords today?” I asked.

  Her skin was like Carrara marble, and when she closed her eyes, bowing her head, she looked like an angel. In her sweet Southern voice she began praying, calling out to heaven with heartfelt pleas. Though I closed my eyes with her, I couldn’t help listening to the Suburban’s rumbling muffler, or how it harmonized with the tour bus convoy pulling away from the dock. I opened one eye and saw that a single bus remained. Closing my eyes again, I tried to concentrate on the words seeded by Scripture, watered with Dixie, and rising to their intended destination in a voice that trembled.

  But another voice intruded.

  “Hey, what’re you guys doing?”

  Claire, the self-professed clairvoyant, walked toward us wearing a bright-yellow raincoat, despite persistent sunshine. Her spiked hair was ashen, like asbestos, and although she claimed to see into the future, my experience had been that she barely stumbled through the present.

  Claire hooked a thumb at my mother, then whispered, “What’s she doing?”

  “Nothing you’d be interested in.” I glanced at the Suburban. The mortician glowered, waiting. I suddenly wondered what Claire and my aunt would say when they discovered Judy Carpenter was dead.

  “Is she okay?” Claire whispered, narrowing her already beady eyes.

  “She’s fine.”

  “Okay, then tell her to wrap it up. The bus is waiting.”

  This was my sister’s fault. My sister Helen was supposed to come on the cruise. But at the last minute she claimed work would keep her in Richmond. My aunt gave the ticket to Claire, and I added another entry to my long list of Helen’s infractions.

  “Amen,” my mother said.

  She looked calmer, marginally, and I guided her gently toward the last remaining tour bus, now belching diesel fumes at the curb.

  “Take plenty of pictures,” I told her. “I hear those fjords are beautiful.”

  “Why aren’t you coming?” she asked.

  “Hiking, remember?” Except now it was a lie. Another lie. “I told you. Deer Mountain Trail.”

  “DeMott said to make sure—”

  “Yes, I know, don’t worry. I’m going with a group.”

  Lie number two. Or three.

  Suddenly the mortician honked his horn. My mother jumped. I looked over. He was staring out his window with an expression that said his best friend was the grim reaper.