Chapter 50
Joellen called Cutter’s phone an hour later.
“I’m bored,” she said.
“Bored and safe.” Cutter put her on speaker.
“Bored and bored,” Joellen moaned. “Don’t you want to use me as bait? You’ll never catch my stalker if I don’t get out in the open where he can come after me. Let’s go get some dinner. I have a meal credit at The Steak House.”
Lola, who’d been typing up USM 11 incident reports in her room, poked her head around the corner.
“I reckon I could eat a steak,” she said, grinning, turning up the volume.
Joellen mumbled something unintelligible, then said, “Asshole. You’re supposed to tell someone when you put them on speaker.”
“Lola needs to know everything I know if we’re going to protect you,” Cutter said. “You talk to one of us, you’re talking to both of us.”
“Good to know,” Joellen said. “Well, I’m going to eat a steak at five. You two can come if you want.”
“Got it,” Cutter said. “Now, let me explain how this is going to work …”
Located aft on Deck 6, The Steak House was one of the specialty restaurants on the ship, meaning it wasn’t included in the fare.
The Polar Star was miles south of Alaska’s Arctic midnight sun.
Even so, it wouldn’t get dark until after ten—almost five hours away.
Floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides of the restaurant offered incredible views of green mountains and misty fjords shrouded in whisps of cottonwool clouds.
The 250-plus-mile passage from Ketchikan to Juneau took the ship through hundreds of islands, some no more than tiny rocks awash and invisible at high tide, others, like Prince of Wales off the port side, among the largest in the United States.
The wildlife looked like something out of a travel brochure.
Dall’s porpoises played in the bow wake.
Black and white, they looked like miniature killer whales but were actually a favorite prey of transient orcas.
Rafts of sea otters anchored themselves to kelp beds, riding the waves on their backs.
Some of them raised a paw, as if to wave at the passing ship.
Humpback whales slid by periodically, showing a fin or, if the cruisers were lucky, offering a photo-worthy glimpse of a fluke.
If they were extremely lucky, the whales might breach completely out of the water.
On his guard, Cutter scanned the tables for threats while the bow-tied Indonesian woman at the front desk scanned his key card.
Both he and Lola were dressed in manhunting clothes—Lola in a dark polo shirt with a long-sleeved smart wool top underneath, Cutter his usual Fjallraven Keb trousers and an olive-green Poncho shirt with pearl snaps that reminded him of his grandfather.
Both deputies wore light fleece jackets to cover their weapons.
The clothing wasn’t exactly evening wear, but it was enough to pass the ship’s dress code.
The fact that cruisers paid extra to eat at The Steak House made the restaurant no less crowded.
Joellen, inexplicably seething with jealousy that Lola spent so much time near Cutter, was already seated in the corner.
She’d made reservations for two, obviously thinking he would be forced to join her as part of his job.
She now looked over the wine list in one of her pursed-lip huffs.
It was a bitter look Cutter knew all too well.
Lola leaned closer. “I reckon you dodged a bullet with that one, Boss,” she said.
“No doubt,” Cutter said, deadpan. The bullet had more than grazed him, that was certain, but he saw no reason to talk about it.
The Steak House had been sold out, but a call from Ajit had paved the way for Cutter and Lola to get a window seat, five tables from Joellen.
Cutter sat with a clear view of Joellen. Not exactly great for his appetite, but it had to be done. Lola was responsible for watching the entry.
Lola spread her napkin across her lap and set a manila folder marked “TBO” on the table beside her water glass. She shivered, then looked furtively around the restaurant. “Am I just imagining it or do you get the feeling we’re being watched by someone while we’re watching your ex?”
“Crossed my mind,” Cutter said. “Leo’s contacts, maybe.”
“Maybe so,” Lola said. “Whoever it is, I can feel eyes on me for sure.”
“We’ll have Ajit pull footage later,” Cutter said. “See if anyone’s following us.”
Lola glanced over the menu. “Per diem on a cruise ship better be heaps,” she said. “There’s no prices on this thing. I reckon if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. …” She reached up to tuck back an errant lock of black hair in her tight bun while she continued to read.
Cutter had never known anyone who could be at once so relaxed and such a live wire.
He’d worked with the plucky Polynesian woman over three years now and he’d yet to figure out for sure if she was endowed with more confidence than anyone on earth or if she was just the best actor he’d ever seen.
He expected it might be a bit of both. Her boyfriend, Anchorage Police Officer Joe Bill Brackett, called her a “sturdy girl.” She didn’t seem to mind—and it certainly suited her.
Cutter unfolded his own napkin, gesturing to the manila folder with his chin. “The Branded Ones?”
“Yep.”
Jess Stone made the seventh Branded One on their list. One man and two women were connected as witnesses and/or coconspirators in a frigid manhunt the previous winter.
Over the course of the next five months, three other bodies—two Native females, one white, with near identical burns—had turned up around the state with similar brands.
Two bobbing in the waters offshore in Kodiak and one, four hundred miles across the Gulf of Alaska on a gravel beach near Yakutat.
The Great Land covered a lot of territory, but it had a small law enforcement community.
Lola made it crystal clear to every cop she met that though homicide investigations were not in the US Marshals Service wheelhouse, she’d taken a special interest in these cases.
They were somehow linked to the death of two federal witnesses and a federal inmate.
Her boyfriend, Joe Bill, was the one who started collectively referring to the victims as the Branded Ones.
Other than the brand, nothing she’d found so far linked the Kodiak victims to each other or the Alutiiq girl who’d washed up near Yakutat.
Jess Stone coming into the mix gave them another branch of the tree to explore.
Not only did she have the same jagged two-inch design of what looked to be a wolf or bear head burned into the base of her neck, she’d uttered the same eerie phrase others had said to Lola and Cutter.
… they’ll kill me; they’ll kill you; they’ll kill my family; they’ll kill your family …
It wasn’t much to go on, but it was something new, as if God or fate or the universe had thrown them a bone—or given them something to get excited about that would eventually lead to nothing.
The medical examiner had yet to finish a postmortem on Stone, but the brands on the previous victims looked like they’d either been applied hastily or with an unsteady hand, most likely, according to experts, with an electric wood-burning tool from a hobby kit.
“I can figure this out, Boss,” Lola said. “I just need more time.”
“Without a doubt,” Cutter said.
“I know what you’re going to say,” she said. “We have other priorities. But what are we going to do, leave this to the Feeble Eyes? They have their hands full with antiterrorism cases and making themselves look good.”
“ABI is into it hot and heavy,” Cutter said. “But there are only so many of them. Like you said, it’s a question of priorities.”
Like the deputies, the Alaska Bureau of Investigation—a relatively small unit within the Alaska State Troopers—had to prioritize.
Combating violent crime in Alaska was akin to playing whack-a-mole, but having to fly from mole to mole in a bush plane.
It didn’t exactly slow down and give them the luxury of focusing their efforts on any one case.
“Seems to me that six dead bodies with identical burn marks should be a priority in everybody’s book,” Lola said. “You know good and well this thing needs a dedicated task force.”
Across the restaurant, a server brought Joellen her lobster. She flirted with him for a moment, glancing at Cutter to make sure he noticed. Cutter ignored her, and she resumed her pinch-lip pout and dug into her baked potato.
“We still have two more warrants to serve in Ketchikan,” Cutter said. “I’ll make it a priority to get us down here again before long. Do some digging on Stone then. Until then, I don’t disagree about the task force idea. Bring it up with the chief. Maybe she can get other agency heads to sign on.”
Lola perked up, but before she could answer, a tall woman with a name tag that said she was Polina from Ukraine stopped to take their order.
She wore a gold-tone watch like other crew members in senior positions.
Apart from fussing periodically with an errant lock of mouse-brown hair that kept falling from her band, she carried herself with the friendly calm that came with years of experience.
Cutter guessed her to be in her midthirties.
She smiled, making eye contact first with Lola, who put the manila folder on the table and picked up the menu.
Both deputies ordered Caesar salads and filets, hungry but unwilling to get too full when they didn’t know what their evening held. The steaks came in six- or ten-ounce portions. Cutter started to order the six-ounce, but Lola stopped him.
“Get the big one, Boss,” she said. “I’m running on four miles before breakfast and a foot pursuit at lunch. I’ll gladly eat what you don’t.”
Polina’s eyes suddenly narrowed, as if she’d been taken aback. She took an audible breath and cocked her head ever so slightly, pushing the lock of hair behind her ear again.
A piece of printer paper with a large line drawing of Jess Stone’s brand had fallen out of the folder when Lola nudged it to the side.
Lola turned the paper around so it faced Polina. “You act as though you recognize this?”
The server used both hands to pull down at the waist of her uniform blouse. “An interesting choice for a tattoo,” she said, in a Slavic accent but otherwise in excellent English. “That’s all.”
Lola looked up at her. “But you do recognize it?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Mostly from stories my grandmother used to tell.”
“What kind of stories?” Lola asked.
“They were to keep us … how would you say … ? In line.” The server continued to gaze at the sketch, bouncing on her toes, brimming with more to say.
“I would love to hear those stories,” Lola said.
Polina shook it off. “They were foolish tales,” she said. “I think you would find them—”
“They could help me solve a murder.”
Polina gasped. “Pi—” Whatever she said was lost under her breath, but Lola was certain it was a curse. “Where did you see this?”
Lola glanced at Cutter.
“The body of a young woman,” he said. He didn’t mention that the design had been burned in.
Lola tapped the drawing again. “We just need to know what it means.”
“It is a dog,” Polina said on the back of another gasp.
“A dog,” Cutter mused. He could see it. A mean and ugly dog.
“But you must understand,” Polina said. “This is not just any—”
Just then, a waiter stumbled behind Polina, dumping his brimming tray. Plates of steak and lobster, ramekins of drawn butter, all crashed to the floor. Gasps of disapproval rose from surrounding patrons when butter and béarnaise sauce splashed onto fancy slacks and Jimmy Choo shoes.
“I am sorry,” Polina said to Lola. “I will be back. I promise.”
Lola smacked the table with her fist. “Perfect timing,” she said. “It’s like the world is against me.”
“You?”
“Okay, against us.”
“We don’t have brands on our necks,” Cutter said.
“Yeah, nah,” Lola said. “I reckon our world is pretty bright, comparatively speaking. Still, I’m keen to know what Ms. Polina has to tell us.”
“I am … as … well …” Cutter gave a low groan, looking directly at Joellen.
“What?” Lola turned to look over her shoulder as Joellen tossed her napkin on the chair and started for the door. “That bitch—Sorry, Boss.”
“That’s okay,” Cutter said. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“She scarfed her food on purpose just to screw us over.”
Cutter pushed back his chair and dropped his napkin on the table.
“I’ll stick with her,” he said. “You hang back here and find out what you can about this dog from Polina.” His phone buzzed in his pocket.
“Hold that thought,” he said, digging it out while keeping an eye on Joellen, who had stopped to get a toothpick out of the little dispenser on the front desk.
He turned the phone so the screen and thus the caller ID faced Lola. It was Ajit.
“Am I on speaker?” the security officer said when Cutter picked up.
“You are not,” Cutter said. “Lola and I are about to follow Joellen out of The Steak House.”
“I hope it was to your liking,” he said.
“Long story,” Cutter said. “What’s up?” Lola leaned in, and he held the phone slightly away from his ear.
“We have lost eyes on Leo,” Rishi piped up. “The last place we saw him was near the stairs on Deck 5. It looks like he was going down.”
“Lost eyes?” Lola said, loud enough to be heard on the other end.
“Rishi is trying to bring the system back up now,” Ajit said. “But I must confess, I am not hopeful.”
“Your security officer sabotaged it?” Cutter said.
“I am afraid so,” Ajit said. “I’m not able to raise Abraham Malosi on the radio. He was the very large man in the office when you first arrived. He’s a senior officer. Enough access that it would be possible for him to erase camera data or do something with the system.”
“Direct me where you want me to go,” Cutter said. “Hang on a second.” He turned to Lola. “Stay here. Follow up with Polina. I’ve got this.”
Lola folded the case file in half and stuffed it down the waistband of her slacks.
“Malosi means strong in Samoan. I’m going with.
If he’s the security guy I think Ajit’s talking about, he’s kind of the Polynesian version of Bamm-Bamm from The Flintstones.
There might be violence—and I wouldn’t want to miss it. ”