Chapter 39
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Lisianski Strait, AK
Anya had the Lady Melinda making nine knots through the rapid tidal current of Lisianski Strait.
It was good to rev the diesel now and then to blow the carbon out, and she was in a hurry to get to Sitka before dark.
Her boom box blaring Toto’s “Hold the Line” was keeping time with the slapping of the waves against the hull.
Chilton had filled her machine with messages about “something big” while she was out at the fishing cabin, but she’d tried several times to return his call and he hadn’t answered.
Lady Melinda needed some engine work, and Anya had some replacement fishing gear waiting for her in Sitka, so it was a good time to visit the lawyer in person anyway.
She figured a couple more days away from Pelican wasn’t a bad idea either.
The boardwalk fishing town was small for sure, but since the…
accident, it had started to seem downright claustrophobic.
A series of splashes alongside the boat announced a group of Dall’s porpoises arriving to surf the bow wake. Anya held course as the playful mammals ran effortlessly alongside her, splashing and sprinting joyfully ahead, swerving back and forth across her bow.
She opened the pilothouse door. “Hey buddy!” she shouted to a porpoise cruising up the side of the boat. The animal turned sideways and seemed to look up at her.
Pay tenshun when you’re driving the fuckin boat. You tryna kill me?
Pain shot through her shoulder—an old injury. She jumped back to the helm.
He was gone. She could drive the boat as she pleased.
Chilton was a major annoyance. She gave him a simple task—or what should have been for any ordinary lawyer, and he’d turned it into a circus of crazy theories about missing money and absurd land values.
On the upside, she hadn’t received a bill from him yet, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was just creating busywork for himself so he could bill her for more hours.
Whatever this new emergency was, she decided she’d have a serious sit-down with him and tell him to get back to business.
“We have a ‘Muskeg Message’ for whoever lost a navy blue baby stroller in front of the Russian Bishop’s House. Call the front desk to claim.”
Anya pulled Lady Melinda’s helm to port to avoid a shallow area she remembered that wasn’t well marked on the chart. She gave a wide berth to the field of kelp that indicated the location of the shoal.
The radio crackled “…Anya on fishing vessel Lady Melinda: Please contact John Chilton as soon as possible. It’s urgent.”
Anya jerked the power cord from the boom box, silencing it.
Yeah, urgent. I got that from the twenty phone messages. Thanks.
The wind was starting to pick up, and she worried that the last few miles into Sitka could get rough once she was in less-protected waters. Storm clouds were forming on the horizon ahead of her.