Fatal Thaw (16 page)

Kate eyed him with something approaching respect.

"You're sitting pretty calm at the prospect of of Park acres going up in flames."

"Not calm. Reconciled to my fate, maybe. Anyway, you want a job?" Kate felt the weight of the envelope lying against her breast and smiled to herself. "Not this year."

"Damn. We could use someone on the line that knows smoke trail from morning fog." He sighed. "No, I'm up here for something else entirely."

Something in her voice alerted him. He returned to his seat, folded his hands on his desk and regarded her, at attention. "What's going on?"

"You heard about McAniff's little shooting spree down in Niniltna, I assume." His face darkened. "Who hasn't?" He shook his head.

"Bunch of good people dead, for no earthly reason that anyone can discover. Crazy bastard." He eyed her curiously. "Chopper Jim said McAniff made a try at you and you nailed him."

"Sort of." "Good girl."

"Thanks. Mutt deserves most of the credit."

"Good girl," Dan told Mutt, unknowingly echoing Kate's very words that day. Mutt's tail thumped the floor enthusiastically. "What's the going rate for apprehending homicidal maniacs these days?"

"The grateful thanks of John Q. Public." "Lucky you. So what's the problem? You caught McAniff, murder weapon in hand. From what I hear, he hasn't denied doing any of it."

"On the contrary."

"Bragging about it, is he?" Dan said distastefully. "Nonstop, from what I hear."

"Sick." "Yeah." "So what is the problem?" He gave her a shrewd look.

"There is one, isn't there?"

"The problem is, one of the victims was killed by a bullet from a different rifle."

Sound seemed to seep out of the room, leaving an empty, hollow feeling behind. "Jesus H. Christ on a crutch," Dan said at last, slowly, the syllables dropping into the silence like rocks down a deep well. "We got another mad killer on the loose with a 30.06?"

"So it seems."

He seemed to see the bandage on her temple for the first time, and his eyes narrowed. He raised an eyebrow, and she nodded. "I think so." She raised a hand to forestall his next question. "No, I didn't see them."

"Where were you?"

"Lisa Getty was the one shot with a different rifle. I was tossing her boat down on the river. They got me on deck."

He sat upright. "Lisa Getty?" She nodded, and he said with utter loathing, "Whoever killed that bitch did everything in the Park on four legs a favor."

Kate sighed. "Great. Another prospective charter member for the Grateful Lisa Getty's Dead Fan Club. What, specifically, did you have against her?"

"Nothing I could prove or I'd of jailed that bitch long since." Dan was a tall man with bushy, carrot-colored hair, blue eyes that usually twinkled with good humor and an open, freckled face that was usually smiling. There was no smile and no twinkle now. "I followed her up into the Quilaks twice and found at least half a dozen dead black bear both goddam times."

"Ah. Bladders gone?"

"Yep, and the fur and the meat just left there, wasted." "Not wasted, exactly," Kate murmured, "coyotes and foxes got to eat, too."

Dan carried on, unheeding. "God, how I hate that! I could live with the poaching, game has to be regularly harvested to keep the population down so it doesn't run out of feed, but it's the waste that pisses me off.

And this time of year is the worst. Jesus, the goddam bears've been sleeping all winter, their coats are the best they'll ever be, they've just woke up and they haven't had a chance to get at the fish yet so their meat tastes the best it ever will, and that bitch shoots'em and guts'em for the fucking bladders and leaves the rest there to rot! Can you believe it?"

The question was obviously rhetorical. Kate, having been acquainted with the residents of the Park for a lot longer than Dan, who as a ten-year veteran was a comparative newcomer, wisely refrained from answering.

"And I know," he added, "I know she had a hand in that sudden drop in sea otter population we had in the Ikamag Fjords last year. Plus I'm positive she's been flying into the Ahlbach seal rookery. Bitch was a goddam one-woman meat grinder."

"I hear black bear bladders are fetching a good price." His spleen temporarily vented, Dan gave a gloomy nod. "Anywhere from six hundred to a thousand bucks apiece on the Asian black market. And why not? Any Hong Kong chemist'll tell you, ground bladder of black bear'll cure anything from impotence to influenza."

Kate raised her eyebrows. "Nice work if you can get it."

"Like hell." Dan glared at her suspiciously. "And don't let it give you any ideas, either, Kate. We got a stable population of bear in this friggin' Park and I'd like to keep it that way."

Kate widened her eyes at Dan, the picture of innocence. He snorted, and she smothered a smile. "You sure Lisa was the one doing the poaching?" "I'm sure. Like I said, I had my suspicions and I followed her a couple times. She left bear carcasses on her trail the way moose leave nuggets.

I was dying to bust her; I just hadn't been able to catch her in the act."

"Odd," Kate said in a ruminative voice. "What is?"

"Oh, I heard one of your rangers was spending some time with her." She met his eyes. "That his idea, or yours?"

Beneath her fascinated gaze Dan swelled up to twice his normal size and exploded in a burst of rage. "One of my rangers was fucking that bitch?

Which one? Tell me! I'll kill him! Which one? Goddammit, Kate, if you know, you'd better say!"

Just for meanness Kate said, "It was Max Chaney," and Dan erupted out of his chair and stamped over to the door and shouted Chaney's name down the hall. When there was no reply, the door slammed shut with a force that reverberated up through the legs of Kate's chair. Mutt came to her feet, alarmed.

Simmering, Dan sat down again, very erect. A long, timid silence ensued, broken by the cautious creak of the opening door. An eye peered through the crack. "You bellowed, boss?"

"Where's that fucker Chaney?"

"Not on the premises, boss," the voice said, gaining confidence now that its owner knew he wasn't the one on the carpet.

"Well find him or find out where the hell he is!" The door shut promptly, and feet beat rapidly down the hall and out of earshot.

"I remember once," Kate said, "when I was working for the D.A.'s office, they made me take this class called Interaction Management. It was all about how to supervise one's employees, to teach them how to get along with their fellow workers and encourage them to realize their full potential." She looked at Dan. "Wonder why they didn't call you in as a guest lecturer."

The door crashed back against the wall, and a tall young man, thin almost to the point of emaciation stood breathing heavily in the doorway, his exhalations causing his magnificent handlebar mustache to ruffle like seaweed in a strong current. "You better come, boss."

Dan was on his feet, his eyes fixed on the other man. "What's the matter, Kevin?"

Kevin's face was paper white, and he was shaking so hard Kate thought she could hear his bones rattling together beneath their negligible layer of skin. "It's Chaney, boss. I think he's dead."

Max Chaney was dead all right, as dead as a bullet through the forehead can make one. It was a small, dark, perfectly round hole, with very little blood. He lay on his back in front of an open window in his tiny bedroom, as if the shot had caught him as he leaned out to take a breath of spring air. If so, it had been his last.

"Stop," Kate said sharply from the doorway. "Don't touch anything else.

Everybody out. You, too, Dan. Kevin? Get on the radio and put in a call to Chopper Jim. Tell him there's a man down, dead, same M.O. as Lisa Getty, looks like the same weapon. Tell him to get on the horn to Anchorage and get a forensics team up here crash. Got that?" Kate had to repeat herself. "Have you got that, Kevin?" "Man dead, same M.O. as Lisa Getty, forensics team crash," Kevin repeated numbly.

"After you talk to Jim, try to raise Bobby Clark on the radio. He might not be there but Jack Morgan probably will be." Kevin hung fire where he was, staring at Chaney's body with dilated eyes and a slowly greening complexion. Kate put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a little nudge.

He seemed to come awake, and turned to stumble through the crowd gathered around the door.

Nothing in life makes a body look as awkward as death, not even sex.

Chaney's limbs looked broken where they lay, as if death had somehow rearranged them to grow out at odd angles. His brown hair was neatly parted and combed, his skin was whiter than Kevin's, and his eyes, wide, thickly lashed and brown in color, stared at the ceiling with a puzzled look. Waving back Dan, whose shock had given way to a cold, tight-lipped fury, Kate knelt next to the remains of Max Chaney and with gentle fingers closed his eyes. They were lukewarm to the touch, and somehow less firm than living flesh. He hadn't been dead long; his arm moved easily when she flexed the elbow.

She controlled an inner shudder and rose. "Can you lock this door, Dan?"

Outside the building Mutt met her with a worried frown. Kate patted her head absently, which made the dog look even more worried. Dan, standing next to them and swearing steadily, broke off long enough to demand, "Well? What do we do now?"

Kate, staring at the peaked heads of the Quilak Mountains, didn't answer. He nudged her and repeated the question.

Starting, she stared at him for a moment, as if recalled only by force from a place far away. "Wait for the trooper. Jack Morgan'll be along, too; he flew in this morning. Tell them everything you know." "That won't take long," he growled.

"From the looks of things I'd guess the shot came from that stand of hemlocks just up the strip. Don't go over there, and don't let anybody else go over there. Let Jim and his team get to it first before you track up the snow."

"They're not going to find anything; it's been melting faster than butter on a hot plate the last week. Wait a minute," he added as she started toward her snow machine, "where do you think you're going?"

"I've got to talk to someone. I'm sorry, Danny boy, but it's important."

She mounted the machine and started the engine.

"Goddammit, Shugak, I'd like to know what's more important than answering a lot of dumb questions from that dumbass trooper from Tok!"

"The only reason you don't like Chopper Jim is because he beat you to my cousin Martha," she yelled over the noise of the engine. "Come on, Mutt!" Mutt, with an apologetic look over her shoulder at Dan, hopped up behind Kate, and the machine lurched off down the mountain.

"Women!" Dan O'Brian said, with a loathing that encompassed mistress and dog, and set about the task of calming down twenty-five slightly hysterical Park workers, most of whom had never heard a shot fired in anger before in their lives, unless they were Fish and Game agents.

BY running the engine flat out Kate made it Step to town in less than an hour. She was lucky and met Bernie at the door of the Niniltna High School gymnasium. "Bernie, hold up! I want to talk to you."

"Can't stop now, I got a potlatch to go to."

"I didn't know you came to potlatches," Kate said, momentarily diverted.

"I didn't come, I was commanded," he said. "Didn't you hear? Ekaterina put the word out-the whole Park is supposed to be here. Besides, the first game of the tournament begins right after."

"What tournament?" she asked innocently.

"Ha, ha. What happened?" he asked, nodding at her bandage. "Jack clip you one?"

"Ha, ha," she replied. "Bernie, I need to-" He waved her through the door and the words died on her lips.

The gym was large and rectangular, with a high ceiling, a hardwood floor and bleachers on one side. From one backboard hung an American flag, from the other the maple leaf of Canada. Centered on the opposite wall was a sign that read in large, black, plain-spoken letters, "Please Honor And Respect That This Is An Alcohol Free Event." Beneath the sign half a dozen long tables placed end to end were stacked with platters and casseroles and bowls and trays, each featuring the owner's very own special recipe for fish head stew or caribou sausage or blood stew or boiled moose tongue or muktuk or kulich or pashka. Drums were beating as Kate entered, the crowd in the bleachers spilled out around the walls of the room, and Ekaterina Moonin Shugak was calling down the tribes, and everything else was driven out of Kate's head.

"Inupiat!" The drum beat on, the response was tepid, and Ekaterina said, her deep voice amplified by the microphone, "Inupiat! Come on, get out here! You know if you don't I'll come up there and get you out!"

Half a dozen people groaned and laughed and climbed down out of the bleachers to join the costumed tribal dancers on the floor. They crouched over bent knees, stepping from one foot to the other and shaking their hands in time to the beat.

"Athabascan!", ., An old, old man in beaded buckskins and wearing hearing aids in both ears made his slow and stately way out onto the floor. He was using a walker, but he had his dancing slippers on, made of buckskin and heavily beaded.

Bernie noticed Kate standing very still. "What is it?" She took a breath. "It's Chief William. From Tanana.

He almost never leaves his house nowadays. Emaa must have asked him to come as a personal, favor to her." "Who's Chief William?" .

"He's the oldest chief of any tribe in Alaska. He's probably the oldest Alaskan there is, for that matter."

"How old is he?"

"He was born in 1867. The year Russia sold Alaska to the United States."

Bernie whistled, a long, low whistle. "That'd make him-what? A hundred and ... ?"

"A hundred and twenty-five."

"And still dancing," Bernie said, marveling. "I should in such good shape when I'm a hundred and Twenty-five."

Kate shook herself, resisting her awe. "He was born somewhere up around Ahtna, way before there was a town. He doesn't have a birth certificate, so they can only guess at his age. He's probably younger."

"He could be older," Bernie suggested. Kate's breath expelled on a short laugh. "So he could. I never thought of that."