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  ALKI POINT

  Henry Walton

  Forrell Publishing

  Alki Point. Copyright © 2020 by Henry L. Walton. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, write to Forrell Publishing, 141 Fox Hollow Dr., Chanhassen, MN 55317

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and are used fictitiously. All other names, characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead or locales are entirely coincidental.

  Cover art and book design by Henry Walton

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020907690

  ISBN 978-0-578-67733-0

  ALKI POINT

  Chapter 1

  Last Thoughts

  Terry stared out at the deserted boat launch ramp where, only hours earlier, it had been a beehive of activity.

  He thought, ‘I wonder what the young woman’s last thoughts were as she went under the frigid black surface, alone in the darkness of night, water rushing into her car, at first shocking her with its frigid cold, then bringing stabs of pain as it stole her warmth.’

  He hoped the pain was short-lived and quickly replaced with a feeling of calm as the sea took her consciousness and let her slide into peace, the lights of the Seattle night skyline fading to black through the rippling surface of Elliott Bay overhead.

  He shook his head and finished taking down the yellow police tape he had strung around the area hours before.

  The crime scene detectives were gone, along with the black Ford Focus they retrieved from the water at the base of the ramp. That vehicle now sat, dripping, in the Police impound lot.

  The medical examiner’s staff had left with the woman’s body. It now laid in cold storage at the morgue awaiting examination by the coroner.

  Other than a few hangers-on, most of the press and mass of onlookers that crowded the parking lot earlier had all dispersed. The ramp itself empty. It was too stormy for anyone in their right mind to be out on Puget Sound today.

  Terry shivered, threw the police tape into the trunk of his patrol car, and drove back to the station, troubled by the events of the morning.

  Earlier

  “I said left, left, not right.”

  Michael was losing patience with his father’s lack of skill backing the boat trailer down the launch ramp. It didn’t matter how many years they had been making their early morning fishing trips on Elliott Bay, his father had never got the hang of steering a trailer when backing up.

  Their family boat was not large or cumbersome, just an old eighteen-foot outboard runabout they had bought several years back to go fishing and cruising around on Puget Sound. But every trip was the same. The trailer would swerve left, then right, then left again, zigzagging down the ramp threatening anything and anyone within twenty feet of its path.

  For as long as the lanky fourteen-year-old could remember, he and his father had performed this early morning ritual, most often in the summer, but at least once a month year-round, always before sunrise, and always at this launch ramp. The Alki ramp had always been a popular launch point for the residents of West Seattle, with easy access, proximity, and direct entry into Elliott Bay.

  As usual, they chose an early start to beat the rush of other anglers and to have the ramp all to themselves while Michael’s father wrestled with backing up across the gravel parking area and down the inclined concrete. Other than an SUV that was pulling out of the lot when they arrived, there was not another vehicle or boat to be seen at the launch. Michael thought to himself that they should not be out in these conditions. It was stormy and the white caps on the water would make for a rough and possibly dangerous ride.

  “Did you unfasten the tie straps?” his dad yelled over the wind from the cab of their black quad cab pickup.

  Michael was walking behind the boat, guiding his father down the ramp, “Yes, yes, more to the left.”

  “Did you tie on a bow line?”

  “Yes, now straighten it out”

  “Did you put in the drain plugs?

  “Of course.”

  He would never forget that again. The first time they had launched their boat, neither had known about the drain plugs located under the waterline at the stern and they had practically sunk while still tied to the dock.

  “Hey, if you don’t trust me why don’t you come out and check everything yourself?”

  “Because it’s warm in the cab and I haven’t finished my coffee.”

  John trusted his son to remember everything. It seemed he just checked more out of habit, and perhaps a little to cover his own ineptitude at backing the trailer. He couldn’t wait until Michael turned sixteen and had his driver’s license. Then he could relax and let his son back the trailer.

  After taking a zigzag path across the lot and down the ramp, the boat trailer finally angled into the frigid water, its wheels went under the surface and the boat roughly floated off.

  “Okay, hold it there. I’ll line the boat out to the dock and tie it off”

  Michael took the loose end of the bow line in his left hand and gave the boat a shove with his right. As it drifted out, rocking in the waves, the wind took it towards the right-side dock. Michael ran across the ramp and out onto the floating dock to intercept the runabout as it was blown toward him.

  John put the truck into drive and slowly pulled up the ramp, every few feet sliding on the slick algae that coated the concrete surface below the high-tide line.

  ‘Thank goodness for four-wheel drive’ he thought.

  Sunrise had been a little after five and the gray sky was beginning to lighten as John parked the truck and trailer and made his way back down to the dock. The wind was strengthening and the whitecaps on the bay looked more menacing.

  Michael shouted over the wind, “Why are we even going out today? It’s too rough.”

  His father waved him off, “We’ll be fine. We’ll just troll between here and the Duwamish river outlet. It won’t be bad if we stay in close to shore.”

  Once on the boat, Michael’s father went to the bow to cast off the front line as Michael turned the ignition key and brought the outboard motor to life. He would give it a couple of minutes to warm up before slipping the gear handle into reverse and spinning the steering wheel to back out from the dock.

  When Michael was satisfied the motor was warm, he turned the wheel hard right, put the boat in reverse, and hoped the stern would swing out and pull away from the dock. “Okay, let the line go and I’ll back out.”

  Michael’s father let go of the dock and the motor pulled the boat back and away, as Michael turned the stern into the wind. Waves smashed into the flat stern of the boat and forced the two to hold onto the front windshield to prevent being tossed backward over the seats.

  The boy was about to push the shift lever into forward and turn the bow into the wind when the craft bucked extremely hard and threw him and his father to the floor. At the same moment, a loud repeating metallic sound came from the back of the boat.

  Instinctively Michael jumped up and threw the motor back into neutral, but it was too late. The impact had already snapped the shear pin on the propeller, and they were powerless to control the boat. The shear pin had done its job. When the propeller hit an object in the water, the pin, which normally locked the propeller to the spinning drive shaft, had sheared to let the propeller spin freely and protect the propeller and the motor from further damage. Now the man and son drifted at the mercy of the wind past
the end of the dock and towards the waves smashing against the rocky shore.

  As the boat drifted, Michael looked over the side to see what they had hit.

  “Father, quick, we have to call for help.” He pointed back toward the launch and pulled out his cell phone. As he did, a large wave rocked the boat and he dropped the phone overboard into the water.

  His father looked in the direction Michael pointed and forgot about their own situation as he spotted the top of a car in the water. His own cell phone was still in their truck.

  He yelled, “We need to jump and swim to shore before we hit the rocks. It will be too dangerous to get out when we’re grounded. Follow me.”

  He jumped over the side of the boat and quickly swam the twenty-yard distance to shore where he climbed the rock embankment, looked back to make sure his son had made it to safety, and then ran to his car to call 911.

  Michael followed close behind aware that shortly, their boat would be dashed onto the rocks and broken beyond repair. But that was not what consumed his thoughts as he exited the water and climbed up the shoreline rocks. He couldn’t get the image of what he had just seen out of his mind.

  The Call

  It was a particularly windy, cold, and rainy March morning and Terry Carver was glad to be inside his patrol car where he was warm and comfortable. He cruised slowly along Alki Avenue, an arterial that wrapped around the peninsula of West Seattle, and gazed out through the car’s rain spattered windows at the lights of downtown Seattle shimmering across the storm-tossed bay. The mottled-gray dawn light was just beginning to show through the dark storm clouds that hung low overhead.

  As bleak as it was, Terry reminded himself of how much he liked both this time of day and this type of weather. There is not much activity for a patrol officer when it is early in the morning and miserable out.

  He would drive his route around West Seattle, spend a little time at his favorite coffee shop, and possibly write one traffic citation during his entire shift. He smiled and said out loud, “This is the good life” as he made a turn that would take him up onto the plateau of West Seattle and to Velvet Green Coffee and Tea.

  A little after six, and about halfway up the hill to the coffee house, Terry’s pleasant mood was disrupted by a call from dispatch. A fishing boat with a man and his son aboard had struck an object at the local boat launch and their disabled boat had been dashed onto the rocks nearby. The boat’s owner reported that his propeller had struck the top of a submerged car at the base of the ramp and he thought he might have seen someone still inside the vehicle.

  Terry switched on his lights, made a quick U-turn, and floored the pedal, making it back down the hill and to the launch ramp in less than two minutes. He didn’t really expect to find anything more than a cold, wet man and boy along with a wrecked boat. Most likely the two had struck a waterlogged tree and mistaken it for a car. They were probably in shock from the accident and cold water and their imaginations had taken over from there.

  Of course, another possibility was that the report was simply a crank call. Terry hated false alarms, but he had to admit that, on a morning like this, he would prefer to find nothing at the ramp and remain in the comfort of his car. He steered the cruiser into the launch parking lot and over to the ramp.

  At the top, where the concrete began to slope down to the water, he pulled the shifter into park and strained to spot the caller through the rapidly sweeping wiper blades. There was no one to be seen on the ramp or the floating docks to either side. And if there was a grounded boat, it was grounded out of sight.

  After a few moments scanning the launch and surrounding water, he turned and looked out through the right-side passenger window across the public parking lot. There, on the far side sitting in the shadows, was a lone black pickup attached to an empty boat trailer.

  Terry cursed under his breath, “Damn, who in their right mind goes out on Elliott Bay on a morning like this?”

  He opened his car door and was immediately struck by the brisk north wind that clipped the tops off the white caps and pelted his face with salt spray. He involuntarily stiffened and pulled his collar up and turned toward the parked truck.

  Two figures emerged from the truck and began to shout and run toward Terry before veering off toward the long narrow floating dock that ran parallel to the right side of the ramp. Their words were lost in the roar of the wind, but Terry could just make out the gist of the message to follow them.

  He ran to catch up as the man and boy sprinted out onto the dock. Large waves battered the structure and it bucked violently as if trying to break its moorings. An experienced boater himself and normally quite adept at keeping his balance on rocking vessels, Terry found that he could barely maintain his footing on the heaving, water washed platform. Just short of the far end, the two figures stopped, and Terry caught up to them. Now he could see that one was a middle-aged man and the other a young boy.

  The two men grabbed each other for support as the boy shouted and pointed to a spot in the water about twenty feet away.

  Even though the wind cut through his clothing like an icy knife, Terry was not chilled from the wind or even from the sea spray. Instead, he now shivered from what he saw in the water.

  Exposed

  The tide was going out and the top of a black sedan was clearly exposed in the troughs of water that separated the two-foot storm waves. Either someone had ditched a stolen car by pushing it down the ramp or some unfortunate soul had driven into the bay.

  Terry strained to see into the dark car interior between the waves. It would be too late to save anyone if they were still in the submerged vehicle but whatever he saw would determine his next steps. Either he would simply call for a tow truck to retrieve an abandoned vehicle or he would be calling in reinforcements to investigate a death.

  The water between two waves dropped enough to expose the entire driver side window and Terry thought he could just make out a shape, but he wasn’t certain. Another trough swept past the window and his heart sank. As much as he hoped against it, Terry could make out a figure sitting in the driver’s seat. He keyed the microphone on his radio and reported a possible dead body found.

  Soon, the empty ramp, docks, and parking lot would be filled with patrol cars, one or more Seattle Harbor Patrol vessels, and crime scene investigators, along with the press and curious onlookers.

  He turned and shouted to the fishermen, “Follow me. You can warm up in my car and tell me exactly what happened.”

  The pair nodded, and all three struggled back across the rocking dock and up to the idling police car. Once inside the lighted the car, Terry could see the man and boy better. The man was probably in his late thirties and he guessed that his son was somewhere between thirteen and fifteen.

  Terry also noticed that both were shivering uncontrollably. The best of rain gear couldn’t protect them from the cold waters when they had jumped overboard.

  Terry turned the heat up to high and retrieved two blankets from his trunk. Then he radioed for medical assistance. It would be no use asking the father and son questions now. Police investigators would talk with them once they were warmed and stabilized.

  Terry pulled his personal phone from his pocket and dialed. There was no answer, so he left a brief message.

  Brothers

  Reed was in a deep sleep dreaming about hiking on his favorite trail on the Olympic Peninsula when his cell phone rang. The phone rested in a charger on the dresser across the room and made the sound of waterfalls. The ringtone was soothing, and he had no intention of answering the call until his wife kicked him, “Hey, your phone is ringing.”

  He rose up onto his elbow and scowled at her, “Seriously? You couldn’t tell I was just ignoring it?”

  Reed was not a morning person. In fact, the only thing he hated more than mornings in general was being woken by someone calling way too early in the morning. And that would be any time before nine. Angela kicked him again, “It might be important.”


  “More likely a robocall.” He grumbled.

  Reed pushed himself out of bed and walked over to the dresser. The ringing stopped just as he reached for the phone.

  “Hey honey, since you are up, could you make me a cup of coffee.” Angela’s head peeked out from the covers and she smiled meekly at him before pulling them back up over her head. He was just about to toss his phone at her when he saw that it was a call from his brother, Terry. The voice message icon flashed, and he dialed for voicemail.

  Terry’s voice came on, “Hey brother. Sorry to get you up, but I am down at the Alki boat launch. There is a car in the bay with a body inside and I thought you might want to come down and take a look.”

  Reed perked up and looked over at his wife buried under the covers, “That was Terry. There is a submerged car at the West Seattle launch ramp with someone in it. I am going over to check it out.”

  Reed may have not liked mornings, but he was always interested in opportunities to watch the police in action, especially if it involved something unusual. He had listened to Terry’s stories and would sometimes do his own investigating on the side to see if he could solve a crime before the police did.

  Over the years, it became apparent that Reed had a talent for sleuthing. On one case he had uncovered key clues that were instrumental in helping the police unravel what had been a spider’s web trail of leads. Officially, the police department did not like civilians poking around their cases but inside the department, no one saw any harm in Terry inviting his brother to crime scenes if he stayed out of the way. Most of them knew Reed from social gatherings and knew him to be quite intelligent and have the common sense not to do anything stupid.

  Terry had repeatedly encouraged his brother to become a genuine detective, but Reed had no desire for a structured job. He preferred to be on his own, reporting to no one. Sleuthing was mostly a brain game for him.