Final Departure Read online

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  About the Author

  Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

  Synopsis

  Jake Finnigan is already having the worst day of his life when the corpse of notorious tabloid reporter Susan Crane is found locked in the trunk of her car on the ferry where he works. Worse still, though Crane is bound, gagged, and shot in the forehead, her death is ruled a suicide. Convinced of a cover-up, Jake finds himself entangled in the investigation, much to the annoyance of his partner of nearly a decade, Sam O’Conner. As Jake and Sam uncover more about the woman’s blackmailing schemes, the list of suspects grows, and the couple find themselves skidding unavoidably into the killer’s crosshairs.

  Final Departure

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  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

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  Final Departure

  © 2016 By Steve Pickens. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-537-4

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: February 2016

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Jerry L. Wheeler

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design By Jeanine Henning

  Acknowledgments

  They say no one writes a book alone, and I have certainly found that to be true. Without these folks who have helped me shape Jake and Sam in this book (and six others that follow), I’m positive I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I am forever in your debt: Ang, Brandon, Debbie, Gloria, Lonnie, and Mom and Dad.

  Special thanks to Jerry Wheeler, who made editing a smooth and incredibly easy process, and to everyone at Bold Strokes for helping me fulfill a lifelong ambition.

  For my grandmother, Thelma, the kindest person I have ever known, and always for B.

  Chapter One

  “You miserable, black-hearted old tub!” Jake Finnigan muttered as the ferry Elwha dropped into a trough. The three-hundred-eighty-two-foot vessel shimmed like a geriatric hula girl, rattling and sending out a sharp bang! that reverberated through the hull. He waited for the ferry to return to center, but the Elwha hung on the roll instead, leaning to port for a fraction of a second longer than it should have. Grudgingly, she returned to an even keel, and he let out the breath he’d unconsciously been holding.

  He was already in his bunk, trying to read and not contemplate the tempest outside as the ferry struggled through the strait on its last trip of the evening headed to Friday Harbor. The ferry gave another lurch, shudder and bang, righting itself quicker. Moments later, the bobbing stopped, and he knew they must have sailed into the protective waters of Thatcher Pass.

  Sighing, he glanced at the clock. One hundred fifteen hours, fifty-five minutes, and twenty-eight seconds, and Sam would be home. If he’d realized six months was going to be so long, he’d never have agreed to Sam running off to Australia, even if it did hasten Sam’s Retire At Forty plan. The long days apart had been unbearable, the phone bill astronomical, and his generally amiable nature tarnished by what his captain called “a severe case of the crabbies.”

  “I’ll be so glad when Sam gets back and you are your usual self,” said Captain Rhoda Trelawney the week prior.

  He smiled at this now, setting aside the book and feeling his stomach drop out as the Elwha plowed through the heavy seas outside. Crabby, because he hadn’t seen his partner of nearly ten years for six months. Many couples would have looked forward to that break. Once again, Jake let the knowledge that he was a lucky man wash over him, and with a contented smile, he shut off the light and went to sleep.

  ❖

  Hours later, Jake gasped, sitting bolt upright. He took a few deep breaths, shivering, his body sheathed in sweat. He threw his sleeping bag open and sat on the edge of the bunk, holding his head in his hands. When he had regained his composure, he glanced over at his clock and saw it was just after four in the morning. No point in trying to get back to sleep now, he knew, as he’d have to be up in forty-five minutes to sail back to Arrow Bay.

  He went to the basin and ran the water until it was warm, trying to push the images from his dream out of his head. He’d never seen the crime photos, but his imagination was all too vivid. He visualized the plastic sheeting, the shadowed figure within, the plastic coming unfolded and catching a glimpse of the pale blue lips…

  “Knock it off,” he said aloud.

  He washed his face and brushed his teeth, not wanting to think of it, but the dream had brought it back to him in Technicolor again. He wondered vaguely if it wasn’t an ill omen for the day, and he quickly shoved the thought out of his head.

  Thirteen years, and still unsolved. The homicide of Christopher Nethercutt Aponte, Jake’s best friend from the first grade until his death just before Jake graduated from high school, had gone glacier-cold a decade before. A construction worker on his way to a jobsite had discovered the body, but Jake had read about it and thought about it so often that when he dreamed of Chris, he was the one who found his friend dead and wrapped in plastic on the beach near the old Port Jefferson Paper Mill.

  An idea flitted through his head like a butterfly in a sunbeam. He quickly pulled out his battered three-ring notebook and pen and flipped through page after page of scribbles until he found a blank sheet. For the next twenty minutes, he wrote frenetically, getting every word and bit of dialog from his head.

  Sam had asked him many times why he hadn’t gotten a laptop so he could get his ideas down more efficiently.

  “By the time the damn thing boots up,” Jake had replied, “I’ll have forgotten.”

  “You?” Sam had asked, arching an eyebrow over his glasses, stroking his bearded chin and looking overtly skeptical and, as ever, like the twin of film director Kevin Smith. “Mr. Eidetic Memory? Forget?”

  “I remember what I see and hear, Sam, not what phantom ideas float around in my head,” Jake had pointed out.

  He looked up from the paper. Sam.

  Glancing at the calendar, Jake bloomed into a smile. Four days to go.

  Four days.

  Even now Sam must be making plans for his departure. Jake could hardly wait. Crabby was now being replaced by anticipation, and he knew he’d been walking around the ferry like an idiot the last day, unable to keep from smiling.

  Jake finished shaving and made a mental note to stop at the bar for dinner on the way home. He suspected he’
d need a drink to wind down after working with Fred Phillips, the homophobic relief mate who barely kept his contempt for Jake in check. In return, Jake barely kept from flattening Phillips’s nose, particularly as he suspected Phillips was pilfering his chocolate cupcakes from his lunch each day.

  He slipped into his bathrobe and went down the short corridor to the crew bathroom. He took a quick shower and returned to his room, dressing quickly and tidying up his bunk, stowing the sleeping bag in his locker. He made his way up to the wheelhouse to start the coffeepot. Glancing out the windows, he saw the sky lighting up in the east though the sun would not rise for quite some time, close to seven a.m. They would be departing Friday Harbor in the usual gloom, although it looked as if the rain and wind had stopped.

  Once the coffee had sputtered to a halt, Jake poured himself a cup and sat down at the computer desk at the back of the wheelhouse, pulling out the latest Kent C. Spievens novel, The Clock Struck Murder, wondering if his best friend and fellow Spievens enthusiast, Rachel Parker, had read the book yet.

  Jake made a mental note to call Rachel and see if her plans for traveling home to Washington for the holidays had solidified yet. He knew something was up with her as she had gotten flakey with her messages and had been difficult to get hold of. Last time that had happened, her most recent relationship had suddenly expired, as she had put it, “like milk just before the pull date. You know, when it sometimes sneakily goes bad the day before it is supposed to and you end up with a mouth full of sour milk before you realize it.”

  Bitter End, call Rachel, he wrote on the pad in front of him, tearing off the sheet and slipping it into his pocket. He looked up at hearing the sound of footsteps down the corridor; either Captain Trelawney was up or First Mate Fred was. He hoped it was the former and not the latter, as he didn’t want his morning brought down just yet. Despite having been awakened by the nightmare, he was feeling quite good.

  He shook his head and returned his focus to the task at hand, relieved when he saw Captain Rhoda Trelawney yawning as she climbed the stairs into the wheelhouse.

  “Ah, coffee,” she said.

  “Mind the bite,” Jake replied, setting his book down.

  “I don’t know what plantation in hell this coffee came from, but it’s horrible,” she said. “Who picked it out?”

  “That would be Fred,” Jake said. “He likes his coffee’s bitterness just slightly under sulfuric acid.”

  Captain Trelawney, a slender woman of about sixty with thick, brown hair cut in a wedge, shook her head and added copious amounts of dried creamer to her cup before adding the coffee. She took a sip and grimaced. “Yuck. Next time I’m buying.”

  “Well, we only have to wait until we get back to Arrow Bay. Once the galley crew comes on, we can get some real coffee,” Jake said.

  “Hmm,” Trelawney replied skeptically. “What’s our weather like for today?”

  “Clear,” Jake said. “I haven’t checked the forecast today, but as of last night, it was supposed to be okay until the late afternoon,” he said, looking out the window, mooning.

  “I will be so glad when Sam gets back,” Rhoda Trelawney said, shaking her head. “You haven’t had your feet on the ground all week.”

  “Erm,” Jake said, shaking his head.

  Rhoda chuckled. “It’s okay. It’s not like you’re not doing your job or anything. It’s just your usual focus has gone all fuzzy.”

  “Speaking of not doing a job,” Jake said slowly, “I’ve had another complaint about our favorite ordinary seaman.”

  “Sean?” Trelawney asked, taking Jake’s seat at the computer after he vacated it for her. She brought up NOAA’s website to check the weather forecast.

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “Sally mentioned that the women’s head looked like it hadn’t been touched all day yesterday.”

  “She mention this to Fred?” Trelawney asked Jake.

  “Twice,” Jake confirmed.

  “I’ll have a word,” Captain Trelawney said. She caught Jake’s expression and said, “Don’t worry; I won’t bring you or Sally up.”

  Jake smiled, and mouthed the words “thank you” just as Fred entered the wheelhouse. As he went to pour himself another cup of coffee, he suddenly realized it was indeed Daphne who’d killed Lord Bettiscomb at Claxton Manor. The Craigganmore Codwallops had always worn their jumpers inside out in the school photo, ever since Giles Gnatworth had been accidentally killed by lightning in the thunderstorm in 1919. It was supposed to have been a way of warding off bad luck…

  ❖

  “Make it one-four-zero, Jake.”

  “One-four-zero.” He made the course correction. “Wind’s up a bit. We’ll at least avoid it tonight,” he said, looking out over Ferryboat Channel as they approached the Arrow Bay ferry terminal. The sky above was flawlessly blue, but heavy clouds were building over Mount Baker. By evening, there would be rain. The temperature was at fifty-six degrees, and the leaves of the vine maples along the rocky shores of Enetai Island were already ablaze in crimson.

  “Don’t even mention it,” said Captain Trelawney. “If we have another run of foul weather like we did last year, I’m bidding off this watch. I’ve never seen so much green water on the car deck in my life going through Haro Strait.”

  “And we’re stuck with this old top-heavy tub,” said Jake.

  “You don’t care for the Elwha, do you Jake?” Trelawney asked.

  “No, I do not,” Jake readily agreed.

  “Get that partner of yours to design us some new boats,” Trelawney said, taking the tiller over from Jake as Fred Phillips grunted. “Something you care to say, Fred?”

  “Nothing,” he spat, looking disgustedly at Jake.

  “You can go ahead and clear out, Jake,” said Captain Trelawney as they were about to dock.

  “Thanks, Captain. See you tomorrow afternoon,” Jake said. He looked at Fred and said, “Have a great afternoon, Fred.”

  Fred said nothing. As soon as Jake slipped down the steps, the Elwha’s engines reversed, and she shuddered to a halt. As he made his way down the corridor, he heard Captain Trelawney snap at Fred.

  Jake gathered up his bag from the crew quarters and made his way quickly through the ferry and onto the car deck. As they had just returned from Sidney, British Columbia, via Friday Harbor, he quickly cleared Customs and made his way to the staff parking lot, where his electric blue Chrysler PT Cruiser waited for him. Jake pulled out of the lot and sped up the road, heading into Arrow Bay.

  ❖

  Jake turned up Dawson Road toward home after deciding to skip going to the Bitter End. Since the nightmare woke him much earlier than he normally would have gotten up, he was feeling sleep deprived and decided to make an early night out of it. He’d make a quick dinner, then soak in a hot bath before calling it a night.

  The narrow road climbed up a steep grade lined with maples and cedar. Dawson Road finally leveled out and High Street, so named because it was at the top of the hill, appeared at his left. The blue and white trimmed house at 100 High Street was one of two anomalies to the neighborhood in terms of architecture. The next-to-last home built on High Street, it was the textbook definition of American Craftsman bungalow: a peaked roof with a gable one story above the front door. A wide porch ran the length of the front of the house, supported by four columns. It was considered a “one and a half story” in true bungalow fashion, with two bedrooms and a full bath upstairs.

  Every other house on the block had either Victorian flourishes or, in the case of the Crenshaws across the street, honest-to-goodness Greek-style columns as part of their architecture.

  The only other notable exception was the flat, boring ranch-style house that was at number 98 High Street, owned by Leona Weinberg. It had been built in the 1950s and was currently suffering from the sour Mrs. Weinberg’s penchant for all things Disney. The latest additions were the red shutters at every window, a big heart cut out of the center of each panel. The lawn was festooned with figurines of
the seven dwarves, each on their own little ceramic toadstool, although some lurked in the circle surrounding the old apple tree, buried in the creeping myrtle.

  Jake and Sam had bought the house on first look and considered it a rescue; they soon discovered the front porch was full of dry rot and the roof had leaked, ruining the sheetrock in the ceiling of the master bedroom. Had they known about the roof and the prune-faced Mrs. Weinberg, they might have reconsidered, especially when they found out the previous owner had painted over all the oak woodwork in thick coats of pink. Jake and Sam had spent weeks stripping it all off, particularly in the kitchen which had looked as if Pepto-Bismol had been slathered everywhere with great gusto.

  The house had become a real home, though, once the work had been completed. They finished out the kitchen with a butcher’s block table and uncovered the floor’s original hexagonal white ceramic tile. The pink paint had protected the old oak kitchen cabinets, which they refinished. They’d painted the dining room walls sage and pulled up the carpet, restoring the oak hardwood. The table, like all the other furniture in the home, was Mission style.

  Upon completion, they’d invited in all the neighbors for an open house, including Mrs. Weinberg, who had refused. They’d been relieved to find that only Mrs. Weinberg seemed to have any kind of an issue with them, and they’d actually formed friendly relationships with everyone on the block, including Mr. and Mrs. Simonton on the other side at 102, who Jake and Sam discovered just before buying the house were aging nudists.

  It was home, he thought. Nudist neighbors and all. He pulled into the driveway and parked in front of the detached garage, not bothering to put the car in. He got out and slammed the door, looking at the building. He knew it still needed work. The mother-in-law apartment Sam had turned into a makeshift office needed to be restored to a proper guest apartment, and the basement still had to be finished. They’d planned to do the work before Sam left for Australia, but they’d run out of time.