Page 64 of Untamed Coast

“Oh, come on aboard. I’m so glad you’re here!”

The policemen looked around the fishing cockpit and eased into the rear door of the salon.

“Come on in. I was just cooking dinner. Have you learned anything yet? It’s just terrible. I called you guys right away.” Anya opened the silverware drawer and pulled out a fork and knife. “Can I offer you a beer?” She held up her beer. “Please, sit down.”

“I’m Officer Collins.” He took a couple steps inside.

The other officer followed him without introducing himself. “No ma’am, we can’t drink on duty. Thanks for the offer, though.”

Collins was short and stocky with anxious blue eyes, short buzzed hair, and freckles. His hand was hovering over his holster, fiddling with the snap. He was looking all around the salon, dipping his head down to peer up into the pilothouse, leaning aside to look down into the sleeping cabin. “Have you got a minute to talk?”

As if on cue, the pot she’d put on the stove started spewing steam from under the lid. Anya turned off the flame and moved the pot to a different burner. “Oh, of course. How can I help you? The whole thing is just awful. I’ve been shaking all day. Any idea what happened?”

Collins held his hands out with palms up and shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry—I see you’re in the middle of fixing dinner. We could come back in an hour or so. We really don’t know anything yet.” He leaned to one of the port-side salon windows and looked toward the boat in the next slip.

The song on the radio ended and the announcer came on. “And now a ‘Muskeg Message’: Greg and Mary Beth’s daughter Nina lost her new birthday doll, fourteen inches tall, blonde hair, blue-and-white satin dress. Lost Friday on bus number seventeen. Reward offered. Call 8470 anytime.”

Anya clicked the propane safety shutoff and stepped out of the galley. Her stomach was tied in a knot. She kept one hand on the counter to try to avoid shaking obviously. She faked a cough. “Can I get you some water?”

Collins shook his head. “We’re hoping you can help us. Would you mind coming down to the station, maybe after you eat?”

Chapter 49

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Baranof Marine Boatyard—Juneau, AK

2017—Marconi Franco

Marco walked around Radio Flyer, perched precariously on spindly-looking jack stands in the boatyard. Workers were touching up the red bottom paint that had been applied to the hull. It always made him oddly nervous seeing the boat out of the water, propped up on those flimsy-looking metal stands. Something about them appeared wildly inadequate to keep such a heavy vessel stable and upright. Accidents with hauled-out boats were rare, though, as long as the boatyard was reputable. More common was fire in boatyards, where one boat would catch on fire and destroy all the surrounding boats that were packed in for maintenance. Fire had always been Marco’s biggest fear in boating.

Marco had decided to have some regular maintenance done on the boat while the fuel tanks were being pumped out and cleaned. Dave had recommended the Baranof Marine yard for the work. Baranof Marine was a huge company based in Sitka on Baranof Island. They owned and operated tour boats, fishing boats, and a bunch of maintenance yards all over Southeast Alaska. They even built their own special-purpose vessels for taking large groups of cruise ship tourists on glacier and wildlife tours. Marco had seen their boats often—giant metal power catamarans flying past at thirty knots with a hundred or more passengers onboard, making speedy trips between Juneau and Tracy Arm with their big turbo-diesel drives. They also happened to have one of the best boatyards here in Juneau. They were a reputable company, and Marco figured they’d know what they were doing.

Baranof Marine also had one of the only yards in Juneau with a lift that could handle Radio Flyer. The hull needed a fresh coat of anti-fouling paint, and the zinc anodes that protected all the boat systems and equipment from corrosion were due to be replaced. All the major metal components in the boat were connected by bonding wires to zinc plates that were mounted below the waterline at various places. The zinc in the salt water would create a weak electrical current, which would cause the zinc to slowly dissolve, protecting the less-active metals that were connected to the zinc from corroding. Without them, critical items like the propeller and rudder would quickly dissolve away into nothing in the corrosive seawater. Every year or so, the zincs needed to be replaced.

Marco was anxious to get Radio Flyer back into the water and underway. He wondered how many more days the work would require. He also wondered if the yard would let him climb aboard to retrieve the Radioville journals he and Bill had been studying. He wished he had thought to grab the books and his notes before the boat was hauled out, but he had forgotten with all the kerfuffle around the diesel spill and getting the boat into the yard.

He was staying in a hotel while the work was being done and was spending his days at the Alaska Historical Library doing research on Radioville and Joe Baxter. Several interesting things were in the radio station logs stored there, and he wanted to compare what he had found with the books he’d discovered in the eagle’s nest.

He planned to donate his log to the museum to complete their record. How had a logbook from Radioville ended up in an eagle’s nest on a nearby island eighty years later? More intriguing, what was in the coded journal? Nothing in the library gave any hint of that. It was in the same type of small notebook, and in the same handwriting. What secrets had Joe Baxter been holding on to? Maybe he was a foreign spy? Marco decided to get the book and take a quick crack at breaking the code himself while he waited for Radio Flyer to be finished.

The boatyard manager approached as Marco was checking out one of the new zincs that had been attached to his prop. “Mr. Franco, I need to tell you we had some boat break-ins here in the yard overnight. Things were stolen from several boats. We took a quick look inside your boat and didn’t notice anything out of place, but you might want to go aboard and make sure everything is okay.”

Marco’s stomach tensed. “Oh no! Was there any damage? How did they break in?”

“Most of the boats here have a spare key in the propane locker or somewhere pretty easy to find,” the manager explained. “I’m sure that’s how they got in. We didn’t find any damage on any of the boats—just a few obvious items that had been taken—a chartplotter from one boat, and a small outboard from one of the skiffs. If you’re missing anything, we’ll add it to our police report.”

Marco anxiously climbed the ladder onto Radio Flyer’s rear deck. The back door was unlocked, and his heart raced as he entered the salon and looked around. He saw no signs of anyone having been there. His expensive stabilized binoculars were lying out on the counter where he had left them. The handheld SSB radio sat on its charger. His camera bag looked undisturbed.

But something felt odd, out of whack. He couldn’t put his finger on it. Maybe just the elevated view out the windows from the boat up on the jack stands. Chartplotters intact, no sign of anyone trying to pry out any of the high-value electronics. Dust covers were in place on everything just as he’d left them.

He went through the cruising guides on the small pilothouse bookshelf looking for the two Radioville journals and the notes he and Bill had made. They were not there. He went below to the bookshelf in the salon. Not there either. Maybe he’d stuck them in the chart drawer under the chart table near the helm. He often used that as a junk drawer since he didn’t carry paper charts onboard.

As Marco returned to the pilothouse, he felt a sinking in his stomach. His balance left him—dizzy—his mouth went dry. His gut knew what was wrong before his eyes told him. He looked across the dashboard behind the wheel—nothing. Behind the chartplotter—no. He opened the chart drawer, moved the notepad aside, dumped the dish with spare keys and USB cables. Not there. Impossible. He hadn’t…

Why?

Marco slumped into the helm chair and put his head in his hands. He looked at the dashboard again, willing it to be there, hoping for some kind of magic—hoping he’d just been careless with his first glance. He ran his fingers back and forth across the surface of the sun-bleached teak console—the small round shadow in the dust still visible—wishing his eyes had simply betrayed him. He moved his hand in circles, recalling the weight of the swirling fluid, the smooth glass dome, the rough resin base with “Ketchikan” embossed in large capital letters, and Michelle’s name and dates engraved on the underside.