Chapter 61
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City Police Station—Sitka, AK
Chief Sam Worlson hung up the phone. The shelf across from his desk held a framed photo of him disembarking from the USS Missouri at the end of World War II.
Next to that, a service award for five years on the Sitka police force.
That was a quarter-century ago, but five years was the last award.
He wondered if they had been trying to tell him something.
Still, he had been promoted to chief twenty years ago, and he planned to put in for retirement in a year.
Not a bad career. To the right of the service award was an empty whiskey glass—one he’d taken from a crime scene almost—what was it?
Forty years ago? It took him back to a time long past when his own glass had come up empty.
He’d come to Alaska to work at the mines when the Great Depression hit, hoping to provide for himself and his new wife.
But she wasn’t really a wife, was she? It had been more a marriage of convenience.
His dad was the sheriff in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Her dad was the mayor. They’d grown up together and gone through school together and had absolutely nothing in common except that everyone thought they were a perfect couple.
She’d wanted no part in coming to Alaska, and had left him and moved in with a returning soldier while Sam was at the mines, trying to build them a future, risking jail to earn enough so that they could survive and live comfortably.
But Sam had left her too. Alaska had won his heart, and he’d vowed never to return to Oklahoma. He’d met Barb in Sitka during his early police career. She was born and raised here and loved everything about this place. She baked him cookies.
Barb was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Sam’s days at the mines seemed like a different lifetime, and his missed chance at a fortune felt unimportant now. The whiskey glass served to remind him of when he’d gone down the wrong path. He hoped his years of service—in the navy and in the police—had redeemed him somehow.
Joe Baxter’s murder had never been solved.
In fact, nobody but Sam even knew it was a murder.
Well, Sam and the guy who did it, anyway.
Sam had spent a lot of time looking for that guy back in the day.
Chased all over Baranof Island looking for a mysterious kid named Fellows in a fancy suit with an alligator briefcase.
When he finally got a lead, he found out the Fellows kid had gone and drowned in a fishing accident.
That was it. Sam never found a hint of the stolen gold or the money.
Something about this murder case didn’t feel right. He didn’t get a motive from Anya. Why kill her lawyer? No apparent upside in that. Chilton was supposedly a pretty shitty lawyer, but he was her shitty lawyer. Nothing in play that seemed like justification for murder.
Not that Anya wasn’t a tough lady. He was sure she wouldn’t hesitate to put a man down if she had to, but she also had an air of fairness. He couldn’t picture her shooting someone in the back of the head with a small-caliber pistol. Face-to-face with the 357 Magnum felt more her speed.
Back of the head was more like assassin stuff. And what Alaskan would even own a tiny gun like a twenty-five? What good was it? It’d just piss off a bear and get you mauled that much faster.
Then there was Anya’s whole story about the visiting real-estate guy—Thomas. The way she touched her face, and her eyes moved toward the door when asked about her meeting with him. She was probably still lying, or at least hiding something. It all just didn’t add up.
Sam wondered if they had overplayed the state police ruse. It at least got her to change her story. Collins had outdone himself with the bad cop role. Sam was afraid she was going to come across the desk and choke Collins for a minute there.
Sam had been doing this a long time, and he knew when things didn’t smell right. He was smelling that now.
He looked through his notes from his last interview with Anya…She’d sold a cabin on a small island. Where was that island, anyway? Why wait until now to mention the involvement of this real-estate guy with the fancy suit and…
He dropped his notes and hurried down the hallway to the holding room.
Anya was still sitting at the table, her chin in her hands, wrists cuffed together, staring out the small window.
Sam closed the door behind him. “Anya, you mentioned you sold him a cabin on a little island?”
She looked up with an annoyed expression. “Yes, I did. Not taking good notes these days? There’s a recording.”
Sam didn’t want to engage with her sparring. “Where is the cabin located?”
“It’s a little cabin on a small island—off the coast of Chichagof not far from the old mine. Used to be called Radioville back in the day. My husband’s father ran a radio outpost there. Nothing else there. Not sure why some St. Louis company wants it.”
Sam felt a wave of nausea rising from his gut. “You said he was well dressed and carrying a briefcase? Anything else you remember about him?”
She answered flatly. “Yes, a real slick suit like you never see around here. City business shoes, a green attaché, made from some kind of fancy leather.”
He felt his pulse pick up speed. “What kind of fancy leather?”
Anya looked perplexed. “Why on earth would that matter? I have no idea. It was dark green, had a pattern of big square shapes on the outside that got smaller toward the middle of the case. Odd looking.”
The room started to spin. “Any chance it coulda been alligator?”