Dead in the Water

Dead in the Water by Dana Stabenow Read Free Book Online Page B

Book: Dead in the Water by Dana Stabenow Read Free Book Online
Authors: Dana Stabenow
Harbor and Anua, her brows puckered. "Mmm."
    He waited, but that was all she said. "Alcala and Brown left the Avilda at about four in the afternoon, in the skiff. They had a flashlight and a bunch of jerry cans."
    "That all?"
    "Uh-huh."
    "No survival gear? No tent, no sleeping bags, not even matches?"
    "According to Gault, they weren't anticipating spending the night."
    "This was March?"
    "Yeah."
    "In the Aleutians?"
    "Yeah."
    Kate lay back down on the bunk. "Kind of gives new meaning to the word 'dumb,' don't it. What happened?"
    "What you might expect, and remember this was the first trip north for both of them."
    "First and last."
    'Yeah. Anyway, according to Gault, Skinner and Nordhoff the skiff made it into shore, and then it started snowing. The crew on the boat lost sight of the island and the skiff. It socked in overnight. The next morning there were two inches of snow on the ground and no sight of skiff or crew."
    "Did they go ashore to check?"
    Jack shook his head. "No."
    " What?
    "No, they didn't. They said they had no way to get there. The skiff was already ashore."
    Still disbelieving, Kate demanded, "I presume they had a life raft?"
    "Two of them." Jack grinned at her. "Gault says he didn't want to use them, in case he ran into trouble later on."
    Kate stared at him. "And this is the good ship Lollipop you signed me onto? Thanks a whole bunch, Jack. So what happened next?"
    "Gault called the Coast Guard."
    Something in his voice made Kate say sharply, "How soon?"
    "From the Coast Guard logs it was noon the day of the disappearance before Gault got around to calling them."
    He looked up with a bland expression. "He ran the Avilda up and down and around the island, looking for signs of life through the binoculars. When he couldn't find any, he pulled the hook and set course for Dutch."
    Kate was speechless. Jack's smile was bland. "It gets better. When the Coast Guard fired up a chopper and took a run out there, it seems that Gault had given them the wrong coordinates, so they searched the wrong part of the island."
    When Kate found her voice it was only for a very weak, "You're kidding me."
    "Nope. The Coasties didn't discover this until a couple of weeks later, when the operator who took the call compared notes with the pilot. So they went out again.
    Didn't find anything that time, either."
    "Nothing at all?"
    "Nope."
    "Not even a jerry can? An oar? A hat or a glove?
    Nothing?"
    "Nothing." Jack refiled the list of boat names in the folder, just missing losing the entire mass on the floor.
    "Why the hell hasn't Gault been fired?" Kate demanded.
    Jack smiled. "Because Captain Harry Gault had the forethought to marry a daughter of one of Alaska Ventures' board of directors. Just last January, in fact."
    Kate folded her hands behind her head and stared at the ceiling. After a moment, she said thoughtfully, "How very strategic of him."
    "The guy is slick," Jack admitted. "And of course, no one has been able to prove otherwise, Skinner and Nordhoff back Gault up, so no charges have been filed."
    "But."
    "But," Jack agreed. "The board of Alaska Ventures is as nervous as a cat with two tails in a room full of rocking chairs."
    "Alcala and Brown have family?"
    Jack bestowed an approving smile on her. "Yes, they do, and they want to know what happened, and they're starting to get loud about it. Marine insurance is not exactly cheap or easy to come by, so the board of Alaska Ventures has begun a little discreet investigation of Harry Gault's past."
    "And now the state's getting into the act."
    "You and me, babe."
    She twisted her head to stare at him. "What's this 'you and me babe' crap? I don't see you out on the deck of the Avilda, soaking wet and freezing cold and up to your ass in tanner crab." And puking your guts up over the rail every five minutes, she could have added, but didn't.
    Jack managed to look hurt. "You're the one with the fishing experience."
    "Fishing for salmon in Prince William Sound and a couple of

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