Beaudine poked her head through the open hatch in the prisoner screen. “You know about the scientist?”
“Hon,” Aunt Abbey said, “Nome is a very small place. The checker down at the AC store probably knows about your scientist.”
“Tell us about this break-in,” Quinn said.
Duncan turned the Tahoe off the main road and into the lighted parking lot of the air charter business that handled trips between Alaska and Russia. Snow drifted against the blue metal building, most of which served as a maintenance hanger with the remainder converted office and terminal space. Quinn guessed it was large enough to house five or six aircraft at least as large as the C-12 or a couple of larger birds.
A dark-skinned Inupiaq man wearing a wool watch cap and light jacket stood in a pool of yellow light in front of the building, seemingly impervious to the cold. The smoke from the ember of his cigarette was whipped away into the darkness. He gave a stoic wave when the Trooper vehicle pulled up. The headlights threw his long shadow across the driven snow.
Trooper Duncan introduced him as Angus Paul, a night watchman for the airport.
“I brought the feds, Angus,” the trooper said, her voice breathy against the cold air. “Show us what you found.”
Angus Paul studied them for a long moment, then picked a stray fleck of tobacco leaf off his lip before turning to walk around to the side of the building. He pointed to a broken window three feet off the ground and still outside the airport perimeter fence. The area was protected from the view of anyone who happened to be driving by and a logical place to try to force entry without being detected. It was also protected from the wind. Several spots of yellow snow suggested it was the spot Angus Paul stopped to relieve himself during his nightly rounds — which was probably the reason he’d discovered the broken window before sunrise.
Quinn took a small flashlight out of his pocket and stooped to look at the ground without approaching too close. Shards of glass lay scattered in two sets of tracks in the snow — the larger, a pair of boots with a lug sole and a well-worn left heel. The other tracks were narrower and smaller all around with a circular pattern in the tread.
Quinn glanced at Angus Paul’s boots.
“You won’t find any of my tracks around there,” the man said as if reading Quinn’s mind. He lit a fresh cigarette and blew the smoke into the relative still air in the lee of the metal hangar. “Anyways, looks like more of a break out than a break-in if you ask me. There ain’t any tracks walking up to the building, just the ones leadin’ away. I followed ’em as far as that drift over there by the road before the snow covered ’em over.”
Quinn nodded. “You’re right. Whoever made these tracks was leaving, not breaking in. The glass is pressed into the snow where they stepped on top of it. You see any sign of forced entry anywhere else in the building?”
Evidently tired of talking, Angus wrinkled his nose and eyebrows, the Inupiaq equivalent of shaking his head no.
Quinn held his flashlight so the beam fell across the tread, throwing a slight shadow and revealing what looked like the imprint of a flower among the circular treads.
“You know what that is?” Quinn asked, pointing to the design.
“A girl’s shoe,” Beaudine mused. She squatted down beside him, careful not to disturb the tracks. “Looks like a daisy.”
Quinn put his pen alongside the track for scale before snapping several photographs with his phone. “Could be,” he said. “Or it could be a chamomile, the national flower of Russia.”
Quinn took a couple of notes, gleaning all the information he was going to get from the few tracks outside the building by the time the emergency contact for the charter company showed up ten minutes later.
The break-in was really Nome PD’s jurisdiction, but with Alaska State Troopers and FBI on the scene, they were more than happy to yield the investigation. Aunt Abbey carried in a small crime scene kit, but the building manager, a balding man named Charles with a long goatee that was crooked from sleeping, could find nothing missing. It was Beaudine who found the displaced tile in the women’s restroom and scuff marks on the back of the toilet where someone had apparently accessed the false ceiling.
“Mind if I use some of your fingerprint powder?” Quinn asked.
Abbey handed over her kit. Quinn used the magnetic brush to dust the back of the toilet with finely ground iron powder, revealing the black outline of a shoe print where someone had stood on the porcelain with both feet. One of the prints was clear enough to make out the design of a chamomile flower in the tread pattern.
Aunt Abbey stood next to the toilet and peered up. “So they cleared Customs and then hid up in the rafters waiting for the building to close.”
“Apparently,” Quinn said. “Any flights leave Nome after dark?” He already knew the answer but asked anyway.
“Nope,” Angus Paul said. “Not even any charters tonight. Too windy.”
Quinn looked at Beaudine then checked his Aquaracer. He stifled a yawn when he realized it was a quarter after two in the morning. “Let’s get back to the hotel and catch a couple of hours sleep.”
“This makes no sense,” Beaudine said. “Why would someone go to the trouble of hiding after they cleared Customs?”
“You said he had mental issues,” Quinn offered. “But I’m guessing your doctor is hiding from someone other than the U.S. government. Maybe a welcome party.”
Agent Beaudine’s face fell into a thoughtful frown. “I’m wondering if that makes this more or less of a shit detail.”
Chapter 18
A stout bang on the door ripped Quinn from the blackness of his dreams and sent him reaching for the pistol he kept on a folded washcloth in the drawer beside his bed. He sat bolt upright, staring through the darkness toward the door. The nightlight from the bathroom revealed that the chair he habitually placed in front of any hotel door was still in place.
The pounding started again, followed by the urgent voice of his Aunt Abbey.
“Jericho!” she said, her voice a breathy stage whisper. “Open the door before I wake everyone in the hotel!”
There was no place to tuck the pistol since he slept in a pair of loose sweatpants, so Quinn set it back on his nightstand before opening the door. He squinted at the bright light of the hotel hallway. Abbey batted her naturally long eyelashes — dark for the blond that she was — and grinned, reminding him of why he’d always loved her. She shoved a cup of coffee in Quinn’s face.
Across the hall, the door to Agent Beaudine’s room opened a tiny crack revealing a tan strip of thigh and one extremely sleep-deprived eye. The door opened completely when she realized it was Aunt Abbey. She wore a pair of navy blue sleeping shorts and a simple white T-shirt that hid much less than she probably thought it did.
Beaudine ran a hand through the frosted hair of her mussed bed head. “Didn’t you just drop us off ten minutes ago?”
“Hours ago, my dear.” Abbey said. “Hours ago.” She handed Beaudine a cup of coffee as well. “I don’t know how you like it.”
“I like it now,” Beaudine said, taking the cup with both hands and using it to warm herself.
“It’s six thirty-five, dear nephew.” Abbey shrugged. “You can go back to bed if you’d rather, but I thought you might want to know we have another break-in — with the same chamomile print in the track.”
“Where?” Quinn was instantly awake.