Nothing to Lose (J.P. Beaumont #25)(39)

“I guess moose . . . whether one or in a herd . . . always have the right of way. It’s not mooses, correct?”

“You’ve got that right, city boy,” Twink said.

“What do you expect?” I asked her. “After all, aren’t I one of those chickadoodles—or whatever it is you called me earlier.”

“Cheechako,” she corrected with the hint of a grin twitching at the corners of her mouth. “And you’ve got that right, too. You’re a cheechako in spades.”

“And moose always have the right of way around here?”

“Indeed they do,” Twink told me.

It turns out that the restaurant was within a stone’s throw of my hotel, the Captain Cook. When we turned into the restaurant parking entrance several minutes later, the moose parade was still moseying on down the street.

Inside the restaurant the lunch crowd was beginning to clear out. Given a choice between being seated immediately or waiting for a window, Twink opted for a window. Clearly now that she had arrived, she was going to take full advantage and enjoy the experience to the fullest. Once we were shown to our table, I have to admit that even for someone who lives with a seaside view, the panorama visible from the restaurant’s windows was well worth the short wait.

When it comes to eating out, I’m not big on fish—I’m more of a meat-and-potatoes sort of guy. Since this was Alaska, I was afraid the menu would be all salmon all the time. When Twink ordered the waitress-recommended meat-loaf sandwich, so did I. You know how that old saying goes—when in Rome, et cetera, and I wasn’t sorry. For beverages Twink and I both chose coffee. Thankfully, coffee at Simon & Seafort’s was far less lethal than the bitter brew served up by Harriet Raines.

“Where to next?” Twink asked.

I scrolled through e-mails from Todd until I found one with a subject line containing John Borman’s name. Yesterday Todd had supplied me with both Danitza’s place of employment as well as her shift, and this time he came through again.

“It says here that John Borman is working at the Anchor Bar and Grill today. What can you tell me about it?”

“Like I said earlier, the Anchor’s not exactly a favorite hangout as far as I’m concerned,” she said. “It’s a bit on the sleazy side. Why?”

“That’s our next stop. How far away?”

“Eight blocks or so,” Twink replied, “but I wouldn’t recommend walking. I also wouldn’t recommend going to the Anchor after dark. It’s one of those places where hard-core drinkers go to get drunk or laid, not necessarily in that order. Who’s John Borman?”

“Someone from Homer who went to school with the guy we’re looking for and who may or may not be a friend of his.”

Twink accepted my answer. Thankfully, she didn’t ask for any further details.

The artichoke-dip appetizer arrived and disappeared in short order. As soon as it was gone, Twink grabbed her purse and went outside for a smoke. Left on my own for a few minutes, I sent Mel a brief text explaining my reasons for dodging her call.

Then, for the first time since leaving Bill Farmdale’s home, I had a chance to think. What he had told me about Chris’s going out late that Sunday night to change someone’s tire resonated with me. A blow from a tool of some kind could easily have left the deep indentation in the back of the skull in Harriet’s banker’s box. It also squared with the idea of the victim’s having been in a kneeling position when the fatal blow was struck. Once she had Jared’s DNA and, presumably, a positive ID on the human remains, investigators from the AST would be summoned en masse, and my presence in the mix would become problematic.

Jared Danielson was my client. If the homicide victim’s remains resting in Harriet’s banker’s box really did belong to Chris, I wanted to be the one providing that confirmation to his survivors, even if the painful truth that his brother was dead was the last thing Jared ever wanted to hear. More than that, though, I wanted to be the one who answered the questions Jared and his grandmother would ask next: Who did this and why? That’s what homicide investigators do. Retired or not, that’s still who I am and what I do.

I had no doubt that once Harriet confirmed the victim’s identity, AST would launch an investigation, but the urgency of a twelve-year-old cold case would depend entirely on how much else the agency had going on right then. My personal urgency and theirs were two entirely different things.

Twink returned, bringing with her the indelible scent of cigarette-smoke-drenched clothing that was obvious from several feet away. She had barely regained her seat when our entrées arrived, and we both tucked into our marvelous meat-loaf sandwiches. During lunch, in an attempt to carry on polite conversation, I mentioned Twink’s proficiency as a mechanic.

“I’m not sure I would have known what a heater core was, much less been able to install one on the fly like that,” I told her.

“That’s all because of my dad,” she said. “Our mother was a lot younger than he was. She took off and was totally out of the picture early on. Daddy had us out in the garage crawling under cars and handing him tools before we could walk and talk.”

“Who’s us?” I asked.

“Me and my older brother, Chad.”

“Is he a wizard mechanic, too?”

“Not with cars,” Twink said. “His specialty is airplanes. Chad and Daddy had a falling-out when Chad was a teenager. Chad joined the air force. He went to Vietnam for a couple tours of duty and came home a trained airplane mechanic. Alaska is a big place, and lots of people use planes to get around here—especially them little Pipers that can land three ways—wheels, skis, or floats.