Tag Archives: Mystery

Karluk Bones

Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, Writing, , , , , , , ,

Karluk Bones is the title of my fourth Alaska wilderness mystery. The book has taken me longer to write than I had planned, but I think it will be worth the wait. This week, I want to share a portion of the opening scene with you.

Those of you who have read my other novels know Dr. Jane Marcus is a biologist at the Kodiak Fisheries Tech Center. In this scene, Jane and three of her friends camp near Karluk Lake on Kodiak. The next morning, they plan to float the Karluk River, but a fire in the middle of the night derails their expedition.

___________________________________________________________________________

Karluk Bones

Saturday, May 24th

“Fire! Wake up! Fire!”

The cry yanked me from a pleasant dream where my camping companions and I sat around the campfire roasting marshmallows. Now, I realized the smoky inspiration for my dream emanated not from a campfire but a forest fire.

I struggled to sit in my sleeping bag while my fingers fumbled with the zipper. Did we leave our campfire burning? No, I remember Geoff throwing water on it, and then we all watched until the last curls of smoke evaporated.

I’d worn my clothes to bed, and as soon as I struggled out of my bag, I crawled through the fly of the small tent. Smoke filled the air, and my friend and colleague, Geoff Baker, my friend, Dana Baynes, and her new beau, Jack Parker, all stood, staring to the north. I followed their gazes and saw the flames, but the fire had not yet spread far.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“It looks like a campfire got out of hand,” Geoff said.

“It’s so dry,” Dana said. “It’s bound to spread before they can put it out.”

“And the wind is blowing this way,” Geoff added.

“We’d better help them,” Jack said.

“You’re right,” I said, “but I fear only Mother Nature will be able to extinguish a blaze in the midst of all this dead, dry vegetation.”

“I’ll dump out our food buckets,” Geoff offered. “We can use those to scoop up lake water to throw on the fire.”

“Sure,” Dana said, “We’ll do a bucket brigade.”

I doubted anything we did would help, but if we stayed where we were, we’d be burned alive. “I suggest sticking anything you can’t live without in your pocket,” I said.

“Good point, Doc. I’ll grab my phone,” Geoff said.

“I’m grabbing my raincoat just in case,” Dana added.

I nodded. “I hope we need our raincoats. Rain is the one thing that will extinguish this fire.”
Geoff, Jack, and I carried our bear-proof food buckets now empty of their contents, and Dana shouldered a pack full of first-aid gear. She also carried a small camp shovel.

We hiked along the shore of Karluk Lake. It was a dark, chilly night. Correction, it was a dark, chilly morning. Darkness is an infrequent visitor in late May on Kodiak Island, but I can testify it is dark at 3:00 am. We wore headlamps to light the beach along the lakeshore, and I glued my eyes to the ground so that I wouldn’t stumble over a large rock or a tree branch. The smell of smoke grew stronger with each step.

As we neared the fire, I could see the flames growing in intensity and slowly but steadily spreading toward the south and our camp.

“We should have packed our stuff and moved it out of the line of fire,” I said.

“I don’t think we could move our stuff far enough to get it out of the fire line unless we brought it with us and stashed it upwind from the flames,” Geoff said.

We clung to the lakeshore and skirted around the edge of the fire. As we neared the tent camp where the blaze had started, we saw four young men frantically packing their tents and gear and moving everything down the beach. Miraculously, it looked as if the flames had not touched their camp.

Dana ran toward the men. “Is everyone okay?” She called.

One of the young men stopped in his tracks and looked toward her, obviously surprised by her presence. “Our campfire got out of control,” he said. “I thought we put it out but guess we didn’t.”

The man slurred his speech and seemed confused. At first, I thought he had a natural physical or mental impairment, but then, I realized he was drunk, or to be more accurate, he hadn’t completely sobered up from being drunk. I took in the entire scene and watched his camping companions stumble to move their gear, their actions clumsy and awkward. They were all in the no man’s land between drunk and sober, the period of the night when you wake up and curse yourself for drinking too much alcohol. I admit I’d been there a time or two, and now I tried to muster some forgiveness for them stupidly getting drunk and letting their campfire burn out of control.

Forgiveness was not on Dana’s mind, and she immediately understood the situation. She dropped her pack on the ground and stood, hands on hips, glaring at the young man who had spoken to her. “Are you drunk?”

“Maybe,” he said. “I’m not quite sober.”

“You are camping on an island with 3500 bears.” Dana walked toward him, her voice as loud as I’d ever heard it. “Many of those bears live near this lake.”

The young man looked at the ground and said nothing.

“If you want to camp on this Refuge, you need to be responsible.” Dana gestured to the spreading fire. “You started a fire by not putting out your campfire.”

“We tried to put it out,” the young man said.

“You tried?” Dana was now only about four feet away from the poor guy, all five feet nothing of her intimidating the young man as she screamed up at him.

Although the situation was dire, I nearly laughed as I watched the much larger man cower while petite Dana approached him. He flinched at each of her words as if she were slapping him in the face, and I thought she might slap him in the face when she got a few steps closer.

“I saw a video the other day,” Dana said. “An observant camper watched and videotaped a bunch of yahoos like you and your friends. They ate breakfast around their campfire, threw a little water on the fire, packed their gear, jumped in their raft, and headed down river. A few minutes after they’d left, a curious bear began sniffing their campfire. He put his paw on the hot embers, burned his paw and limped away, holding his burned paw in the air.” She took another step toward the young man who was now backing away from her. “I thought their lack of regard for the environment was disgusting until I see what you idiots managed to do here.”

I stood, caught up in the drama of Dana and the young camper when Geoff thumped me on the shoulder.

“Here, Doc,” he said, handing me a full bucket of lake water. “Let’s get this bucket brigade going.” He looked at Dana and the cowering campers. “Yo!” he yelled. “We need some help here; we have a fire to put out.”

The campers seemed happy for any excuse to escape Dana’s withering gaze and sharp reprimand. They found two more food buckets in their gear, emptied the contents, and hurried to stand in line between the lake and the burning fire.

I knew I couldn’t be the only one in this group who saw the futility of fighting a spreading wildfire with buckets of water, but buckets were all we had, and we needed to do something. There was no firefighting agency to call in the middle of the night to help put out a fire on the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. If the fire hadn’t been extinguished by morning, we would notify the National Wildlife Refuge office in Kodiak, and perhaps they could ask for assistance from the Department of Natural Resources. Dana was a biologist for the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge, so she would know what to do. At present, Dana stood in the bucket brigade between the four campers, still lecturing them. If they weren’t sober by now, they would be soon, and between excessive alcohol, smoke, and Dana’s piercing voice, I didn’t envy any one of them the headache he would have for the next several hours.

We continued the steady progression of bucket passing as the sky slowly lightened. At 5:00 am, my arms were numb, my shoulders screamed with pain, and I had one of the worst headaches of my life. My comrades and I silently passed buckets, refusing to admit defeat. At 6:00 am, Mother Nature decided to lend us a helping hand. It started as a drizzle, but soon the rain pelted us in sheets.

I stepped out of the bucket line and said, “I think we can stop now.”

_________________________________________________________________________

While hiking back to their campsite, Jane and her friends stumble across human bones exposed by the burned vegetation. Are the bones ancient or modern, and how did this individual die? These are the first of many questions Jane asks Alaska State Trooper Sergeant Dan Patterson, and Jane won’t rest until she uncovers the answers and learns not only the identity of the man whose bones she found but also what or who caused his death.

I will share other outtakes of my novel at intervals over the next few months. Please let me know what you think. The above scene is the beginning of the book. Did it grab you and make you want to read more?

_________________________________________________________________________

Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

Mystery Newsletter

Sign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.

 

 

Pre-Order The Fisherman’s Daughter

Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, Writing, , , , , ,

 

I am thrilled to announce the e-book of my new novel, The Fisherman’s Daughter is now available for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online booksellers. Here is a short synopsis of the novel:

Seventeen-year-old Deanna Kerr fights to start her outboard engine as storm-tossed waves fill her boat with water. Panicked and crying, relief spreads through Deanna when a boat approaches her. She believes she is about to be rescued. Four months later, Deanna’s bones are found in a pile of kelp on the beach. Her ankles are wired together, and her skull crushed.

Alaska State Trooper Sergeant Dan Patterson fears a serial killer is stalking women on Kodiak. Including Deanna Kerr, three women have been murdered on the island in the past six months.  When a park ranger discovers the body of a fourth woman dumped in the park in the middle of a blizzard, Patterson contacts the FBI and requests their assistance.

FBI, Special Agent Nick Morgan has been to Kodiak before on another case, and he volunteers to return to the fascinating island and its unique, independent people. He knows he also accepted this assignment because he hopes to see Dr. Jane Marcus, a woman he met on his previous trip to the island and hasn’t been able to stop thinking about since then.

Morgan flies into Kodiak on an icy, December day to offer his assistance to the investigation. Only 13,500 people live on Kodiak Island, but Morgan soon realizes the list of suspects for these crimes is long. Could the killer be the crab boat captain who knew Deanna Kerr and was the last person seen with one of the other victims, or is the murderer one of the coaches at the high school or the strange assistant coach who seems to have an unhealthy relationship with children? The killer could also be someone related to one of the victims. Morgan believes the killer is a person the victims had no reason to fear and he thinks they willingly met with him. As the investigation proceeds, Patterson begins to worry the murderer could be a police officer or a trooper and may even be one of the members of his task force.

When the murderer strikes again, tensions escalate, and Patterson and Morgan know they must catch this monster before another woman dies or before the killer leaves the island and begins preying on women somewhere else.

The Fisherman’s Daughter will be released as an e-book on October 17th, and the print version will be released on November 1st. If you are planning to buy an e-book of The Fisherman’s Daughter, it will help boost the book’s ratings if you pre-order it. As always thank you for your support!

________________________________________________________________________

Sign up below for my free, monthly newsletter about true crime in Alaska.

Mystery Newsletter

Sign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.

 

 

 

Park Ranger Liz Kelley

Writing, , , , , , ,

Park Ranger Liz Kelley discovers the body of a young woman while making her rounds in Fort Abercrombie State Historical Park on a snowy, November night. This excerpt from my upcoming novel, The Fisherman’s Daughter, is told from Liz’s viewpoint.

__________________________________________________________________________

Park Ranger Liz Kelley was alone on patrol at Fort Abercrombie State Historical Park, but since she was the only ranger who worked at the 182-acre park, this was business as usual for her. Fort Abercrombie is a beautiful park, rich in history and nestled in a Sitka spruce forest. The park is bordered on its front edge by steep cliffs that plunge into the heavy surf of the ocean. The park has a small lake containing trout, and in the summer, meadows teem with wildflowers of every hue. There are numerous campsites designed primarily for tent campers, and in the summer, the park is full of tourists.

It was not summer, though. It was a snowy, blustery November evening. Liz sometimes patrolled the main area of the park on foot when the weather was nice, but when it wasn’t, she made her rounds in the beat-up pickup with the state park insignia on the door. In the summer, she spent most of the day out on the park grounds, answering visitor’s questions and making sure they obeyed the park’s rules. This time of the year, she spent most of her time huddled in the ranger’s station with her computer, a small t. v., and most importantly, a coffee maker. Liz had last driven the main roads of the park at 5:00 pm, and she hadn’t seen a living soul.   She had seen several deer huddled under the protection of the spruce trees, but she saw no trucks, cars, nor tents. When she got back to the ranger’s station, however, she noticed headlights pulling into the park. It was too dark to determine the make or model of the vehicle, let alone see who the driver was, but it had to be teenagers. Who else would be out in the park on a snowy, November night? She hadn’t seen the vehicle leave the park, but she assumed it had driven past while she was deep in concentration, working on her computer.

At 7:00 pm, Liz locked the ranger’s station and climbed into the truck to make her final rounds for the evening. She was anxious to get home to her husband and dog, so this would be a quick trip down the main road. She wanted to make sure that the vehicle she’d seen entering the park earlier hadn’t slid off the slick roads. She hoped the driver had enough sense not to drive down one of the side roads in this weather, and she wasn’t willing to drive down every small road looking for a phantom vehicle.

Liz drove slowly in the blizzard conditions. Four inches of snow covered the ground, and the large, heavy, wet flakes were quickly adding to the amount. She estimated the wind was blowing 35 knots or more, causing the snow to whiz horizontally past her windshield. For a moment, she considered abandoning her last rounds and heading home, but she continued at a snail’s pace, stopping every few feet to look left and right into the forest. Only an idiot or an overzealous park ranger would be out here on a night like this, she thought.

She reached the end and the concrete barrier where people could stand and look out over Spruce Cape and was happy to see there were no vehicles parked there. She did a U-turn and was starting back toward the park entrance when her headlights illuminated something bright pink a few feet off the road. At first, she thought it was a plastic bag, but it was too big. Should she stop and check it or pretend she didn’t see it and keep driving? She exhaled a deep sigh, shifted into park, grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment, and crawled out of the truck. She cinched her hood tight and slogged through the snow toward the pink object. After only a few steps, she realized she was looking at a pink, down coat. After several more steps, she saw there was someone in the coat. She hurried toward the fallen form, all thoughts of her husband and dog and their cozy family room vanished from her mind, and she began running through first aid protocols in her head. Would she have to perform CPR? Did she have her rescue-breathing mask in her pocket? Should she put on her rubber gloves before she even touched the victim?

“Ma’am,” she called, “can you hear me?”

Liz slowed her pace as she neared the victim. “Ma’am?” The woman was on her side facing away from Liz. Liz touched her arm and called to her again, and when the woman didn’t reply, Liz rolled her onto her back. She took one look at her and stepped away from the body. She switched the flashlight to her left hand, and her right hand instinctually unsnapped her holster. She put her right hand on the butt of her gun while she swung the flashlight in a wide arc. She had seen a vehicle enter the park around 5:00, but she had not seen it leave. Was the murderer still in the park? Was he watching her? She felt the sweat run down her back, and she fought to control her emotions. It was no time to panic. She had to think clearly and act professionally.

_______________________________________________________________________

Next week, I will re-introduce you to FBI Special Agent Nick Morgan when he is asked to fly to Kodiak to help investigate the string of murders.

My May Mystery Newsletter is a shocking, true story of murder from Craig, Alaska. If you would like to read it, you can sign up below.

Mystery Newsletter

Sign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.

Sergeant Patterson

Writing, , , , , ,

This excerpt from my upcoming novel, The Fisherman’s Daughter is told from the viewpoint of Sergeant Dan Patterson with the Alaska State Troopers.

______________________________________________________________________

Alaska State Trooper Sergeant Patterson knew his night was about to take a turn for the worse. He had just finished his shift and walked into his house when his phone chirped. His wife was dishing up a plate of spaghetti for him, but when the phone rang, she stopped, knowing she would be reheating his meal in several hours.

“I’m on my way.” He said into the phone. He looked at his wife. “Sorry hon, this sounds like a bad one. Don’t wait up for me; I have to drive to Chiniak.”

He hurried to his car in the driving rain, fastened his seat belt and began the 42-mile drive down the Chiniak Highway. On a sunny day in July, this drive rivaled any in the world for its scenic beauty, but this was not a sunny day in July; it was a rainy night in October. The road was dark and curvy, and Patterson gripped the steering wheel as he concentrated on the pavement in front of him. Staying on the road was not his only concern. He had to watch for deer and possibly even bears running across the highway. The trooper who had called him said to park at the post office in Chiniak, and they would cover the final mile of their trek on four wheelers. All Patterson had been told was that a body had been discovered in the woods. He didn’t know whether the victim was male or female or whether it had been there a day or a year. If he’d understood Trooper Ben Johnstone correctly, the trooper himself had found the body while deer hunting on his day off. The usually calm and organized Johnstone, however, had sounded rattled, so Patterson may have misunderstood him. He’d get the details soon enough.

Patterson had only been stationed on Kodiak for six months, and he had only been to Chiniak once before, but it was a town with a population of 50 people, so finding the post office was not difficult. By the time he parked the car, sheets of blinding rain pelted the windshield. Patterson pulled on his raincoat, stepped out of his vehicle, and shook hands with Trooper Ben Johnstone.

“I see the weather isn’t going to be our friend tonight,” Patterson said.

“No, sir. If there were tracks near the body, they won’t be there now.”

“So the body is fresh?”

“Yes, sir. No more than a day or two old. She was murdered.”

Patterson felt a headache coming on. This would be a very long night. “You’re sure it wasn’t a hunting accident.”

“This was no hunting accident, sir. I’m certain of that. It’s pretty hard to cut someone’s throat by accident.”

The headache spread into Patterson’s neck. “You are the one who found the body?”

“Yes sir, I was walking through the woods. I’d been hunting about two hours and was heading back to my cabin because it was starting to rain hard. I caught a glimpse of something strange on the ground, and after a few more steps, I realized it was a body. I took some photos and checked around the area for footprints or four-wheeler tracks, but I didn’t see anything. She must have been murdered before the rain started.”

“How are you doing?” Patterson asked. “This must have been quite a shock.”

“Yes sir, it was. I’m fine, though. It’s just that you don’t expect to find a dead girl in the woods when you’re deer hunting.”

“A girl?” Now his stomach was beginning to hurt.

“A teenager, sir.”

“Okay, let’s go take a closer look.”

Patterson followed Johnstone through the woods, each man riding a four wheeler that Johnstone had somehow managed to procure. They had to travel slowly through the Sitka spruce rainforest to avoid smashing into a tree, but at least the large trees shielded them from some of the rain.

Fifteen minutes later, Patterson spotted the red beam of the light Johnstone had left to mark the location of the body. They parked their four wheelers several yards away and approached the body on foot.

The naked body sprawled on the ground, arms out to the side and legs spread wide. It had been posed for maximum effect. Her throat had been slashed so deeply she nearly had been decapitated. Her brown eyes stared sightlessly up at the trees. Patterson noted what looked like bite marks on her breasts, but otherwise, her slim, pale body appeared unmarred.

“We need to get a tarp over the scene right away,” Patterson said.

“Yes, sir. I brought one with me. I’ll get on that. Are the crime scene people on their way?”

“I’ll send them tomorrow when it’s light, but I don’t think they’ll find much. If there ever was any evidence here, it has been washed away by now. I don’t see much blood, so I think this is only where the body was dumped, not where she was killed. Once you get the tarp set up, go back to town and see if you can borrow a trailer or a sled or something we can use to transport the body back to my vehicle. After I take photos, I think we should get her packaged and transported back to Kodiak. The only hope we have of preserving any evidence on her body will be to get her out of this weather.”

It was 3:00 am by the time Patterson finally returned home and ate his spaghetti dinner. He and Johnstone had packaged the body, and it was ready to ship to Anchorage to the state medical examiner’s office on the morning Ravn flight. This was the second female on the island in the past six months who had been found with her throat slashed. Patterson had a bad feeling about these crimes. On an island where few murders occurred, two women killed in the same manner in the span of six months suggested to him they were killed by the same perpetrator or perpetrators. Was a serial killer hunting women on the island?

________________________________________________________________________

I will have another excerpt for you next week. If you haven’t already signed up for my free mystery newsletter, you will want to do it before my May newsletter about a shocking murder in Craig, Alaska.

Mystery Newsletter

Sign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.

 

 

 

Jane

Writing, , , ,

For those of you who read one or both of my previous novels, Big Game and Murder Over Kodiak, you probably remember my protagonist, Dr. Jane Marcus. Jane is only a supporting character in my latest novel, The Fisherman’s Daughter, which I hope to publish in a few months. She makes her appearance early in the novel, though. The following excerpt is taken from chapter one, where we find Jane elbow-deep in a rotting whale carcass.

I struggled to maintain my grip on the ten-inch-thick slab of blubber while my colleague stripped it from the fin whale carcass. I cursed myself for the umpteenth time for not thinking quickly enough to get out of this project, but here I was, elbow deep in decaying whale blubber, and yes, the smell was worse than anything you can imagine. I had been offered my position on this necropsy team by marine mammal biologist Leslie Sinclair, and I’m sure she thought I should feel honored to be included on her team, but my scientific enthusiasm tended to wane when I was fighting the urge to vomit. As soon as I got home, I vowed to write a list of excuses for the next time Leslie tried to invite me on a necropsy.

It could have been worse. This whale had been dead for around two weeks, but it was only moderately decomposed. The tongue extended from the mouth of the bloated carcass, but the skin had not started to slough, and it was only slightly sunburned. Unfortunately, the external condition is not a good indicator of the internal condition of a dead whale because whales decompose from the inside out. Due to the large volume of tissue wrapped in insulating blubber, the inside cooks before the outside decays. I learned the necropsy team must be very careful when making the first cut on the fifty-ton carcass because it can explode if all those built-up gasses are expelled at once, and yes, when the gasses do escape, the horrific smell just keeps getting worse. I wore a rubber rain suit, the legs duct taped to my boots and the arms duct taped to my gloves. This covering allowed me to wade into the project without getting biological fluid on my skin. A face shield protected my eyes, nose, and mouth, and I’d pulled back my hair and stuffed it under a rubber cap. A persistent drizzle rounded out the perfect day, but at least I was wearing rain gear.

It made sense for me to be part of this necropsy team since I was one of several biologists trying to discover why more than fifty whales had died near Kodiak Island during the past two years. The affected whales included fin whales, sei whales, humpbacks, and gray whales, all species that had baleen instead of teeth and fed on small fish and zooplankton. These huge animals feed at the bottom of the food chain, making them susceptible to pollutants, toxic algae, and changes in their food concentrations due to a variety of reasons, including warming ocean temperatures. Any one or a combination of these factors could be responsible for the whale deaths, or the cause could be something we hadn’t suspected yet. The team was also considering underwater noise pollution from military sonar and other sources. Since I had been studying toxic algae at the Kodiak Braxton Marine Biology and Fisheries Research Center, Dr. Sinclair asked me to come at the problem from the toxic algae angle. Even though the algae I suspected might be the culprit in the deaths of the whales was a different species from what I had been studying, I was happy to do what I could to shed light on this disturbing problem. It seemed as if dead whales were being sighted nearly every week, but most were floating several miles from shore. This carcass was one of the few that had conveniently washed up on shore where a necropsy could be performed. I wanted to do what I could to help, but I’d try to do my work from my lab in the future.

“Jane, can you hear me?”

“Sorry, Leslie. I was lost in thought.”

“The smell is amazing, isn’t it?”

“Oh yes.”

“Since you’re looking at toxic algae, why don’t you be in charge of taking the stomach and intestinal samples as well as collecting feces, if you can find some.”

Oh boy! My day just kept getting better.

_______________________________________________________________________

While Jane’s role in this novel is not big, it is important, and we all want to find out what happens when she and FBI Agent Nick Morgan reconnect. Next week, I’ll introduce you to some more characters from my novel.

I know I say this every week, but if you are interested in true crime and mysteries from Alaska, sign up for my free, monthly newsletter.

Mystery Newsletter

Sign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.

 

The Daughter

Writing, , , , ,

Last week, I wrote about my next novel, The Fisherman’s Daughter, and I promised some excerpts from the book over the next few weeks. This excerpt is a portion of the Prologue. A 17-year-old girl is running an aluminum fishing boat from a Fourth of July party at a cannery on Kodiak Island back to her family’s commercial fishing site. It is getting windy; she is plowing through large waves and begins to have engine problems.

___________________________________________________________________________

Deanna pushed the throttle forward too fast and plowed into a wave, taking a shower of spray over the bow. The cold salt water smacked her in the face, and she gasped for air. The engine quit again.

“No!” She slammed the clutch into neutral and twisted the key – nothing. She tried again, but no luck. She turned the key several more times in rapid succession. The boat turned sideways in the heavy seas, waves rocking it violently from side to side. Deanna’s heart hammered in her chest.

“Calm down, calm down, calm down! You’ve got this, Deanna Kerr. You are seventeen years old, not a little kid. Think!” She unhinged the hood from the outboard, her hands shaking so badly she could barely hang onto it. She set the hood on the deck and stared at the shiny metal cowling. Panic started to overtake her. She had no idea how to fix this type of engine.

“Think!” She commanded herself. The engine isn’t getting fuel. It must be a fuel filter problem. A wave poured over the side of the boat, filling it with several inches of water. She fumbled for the bailer and started scooping water out of the boat, but then another wave hit and more water poured over the side. She had to get the engine started and get out of the trough of the waves; the boat would fill with water if she sat here very long. She realized for the first time that her father had forgotten to give her a handheld VHF radio to carry in the skiff. She should have remembered to ask for one. If she had a radio, she could call for help.

Another wave crashed over the side of the skiff, and Deanna reached for the bulb on the gas line and pumped furiously. She turned the key. The engine coughed and died. “Please God, make it work!” She tried again but no luck. A wave struck her broadside and nearly knocked her out of the boat. She fell on her knees in the water in the bottom of the skiff. She looked for water in the fuel filter, but she didn’t see any. Maybe the filter was plugged by something. She opened the tool box secured to the inside of the hull. Her hands shook as she grabbed the filter wrench and fought to loosen the filter from the fuel line. Maybe she could bypass the filter. She tried to think. What would her dad do? She wasn’t sure how to bypass the filter. She pulled out the old filter and looked at it, but it looked fine. She had no time to think; she grabbed another filter and secured the housing. As she stood, another wave hit her and knocked her back into the bottom of the skiff. She chanced a glance at the angry ocean. Conditions were worsening at an alarming rate. Around her, whitecaps piled one on top another, but even more ominous was the black ocean toward the north, toward her home.

Deanna pumped the bulb on the fuel line again. She said a quick prayer and turned the key. Nothing. She heard herself sob before she even realized she was crying. She didn’t know what else to do. There were oars in the skiff, but she would never be able to row against these waves. She would just have to hope the storm blew her back to shore before the skiff filled with water or capsized. She took several deep breaths and thought about home. When she got back to the fish site, her mother would make her change out of her wet clothes while she made Deanna a cup of hot chocolate. Then, mom would wrap her in a quilt and stroke her head until she fell asleep. Of course, Dad would never let her take the skiff out alone again, but right now, Deanna didn’t care about that. She would be happy never to get on another boat in her life.

Over the roaring wind and pounding waves, Deanna thought she heard an engine. She stood, but her legs were trembling so badly she sat again, and then she saw it, approaching from the north. She rubbed her eyes, hoping she wasn’t hallucinating, but no, it was real, and it was coming straight for her. She was sure the driver of the other boat could see her, even with the swell and high waves, but just to be certain, she stood, waved her arms, and yelled at the top of her voice. She wiped her eyes and nose. Now that it looked as if she was going to be rescued, she didn’t want anyone to know she had been frightened and crying.

The other boat pulled alongside. “Are you okay?” The captain called.

“Thank God! What are you doing here?”

“I’ll toss you a line. Tie a bridle at the bow.”

“Okay. I can do that.” Deanna stood, but her legs were shaking so much she had to brace herself against the gunnel and pull herself to the bow of the boat. The skipper of the other boat tossed her a line, but with her trembling fingers, she couldn’t hang onto it. His next toss was harder than the first, and the heavy line slapped her in the face. She grabbed the line and pulled it into the boat. She knew how to tie a bridle because her father had taught her. Her hands shook as she threaded the line through a hole on the port side of the skiff, across the bow, and through a hole on the starboard side of the skiff. She nearly dropped the line as she brought it back to the center of the boat, but she paused, took a deep breath, and focused on the line and what she was doing. The rabbit comes out of the hole, around the tree, and back in the hole. She pulled the line tight. She had it, a perfect bowline.

The skipper nodded and pushed the throttle forward. Deanna’s boat swung into line behind the other boat. She slumped onto the forward seat, shut her eyes, and allowed herself to dream about a cup of hot chocolate and her mother’s embrace.

_____________________________________________________________________

Deanna only thought she was being rescued, and the situation was about to get much worse for her. Next week, I will reintroduce you to Jane Marcus, the protagonist in my first two novels. Please share any comments good or bad you have on my excerpts.

Sign up for my Mystery Newsletter to read about true crime and mysteries in Alaska.

Mystery Newsletter

Sign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.

My Second Novel: Murder Over Kodiak

Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, Writing, , , ,

My second novel, Murder Over Kodiak, is based on Kodiak Island, Alaska, where I live. Most of the story takes place in the town of Kodiak, where Jane works as a biologist at a marine science center. Later in the novel, Jane travels to the west side of Kodiak Island to Uyak Bay to collect clams to test for the presence of a natural toxin. Her campsite on this field trip is approximately fifteen miles from my actual home in the Kodiak wilderness, so describing the ambient temperature and other weather conditions Jane might encounter on a July day, as well as what she would likely see and smell, is easy for me, because I’ve spent many July days in this pristine wilderness. At one point, Jane has an encounter with a bear, and since there more than 3500 Kodiak bears on the Kodiak Island Archipelago, seeing a bear in the woods or on the beach is a common experience.

When thinking up an idea for a new mystery, I like to think, what if . . . . In the case of this novel, I thought, what if a floatplane crashed not because of bad weather, pilot error, or a mechanical malfunction, but what if the cause was something much more sinister such as a bomb? How would the residents of Kodiak react when problems from the outside world invaded our normally peaceful island?

Kodiak Island is beautiful with lush vegetation, steep mountains that rise nearly straight up from sea level, fjord-like bays, and at times, some of the worst weather on the planet. We see a few storms each year where storm-force winds spawn waves towering over 30 ft. Throw 3500 bears into the mix, and you have an awe-inspiring setting that can evoke many “what if” questions in an author’s mind.

The rugged men and women who call Kodiak home include commercial fishermen, bush plane pilots, guides, fish and wildlife researchers, and Coast Guard pilots and rescue swimmers, all who do their jobs by being willing to brave the challenging environment in which they live and work. I don’t have to use much imagination to create colorful, inspiring characters for my books. In fact, I know some actual people who are so colorful that no one would find them believable as characters in a novel.

I am lucky to have this rich, unique environment to inspire me when I write. I think and hope my novels will appeal to readers who love mysteries, but also to people who enjoy reading about Alaska and the wilderness.