Fire and ice (12 page)

Mr. Gunderson waved his hand, too taken up with his own concerns to worry about a little thing like a trooper's being out of uniform. Lucky for him he didn't work for John Barton. "Where do I sign?"

Liam blinked. "Sign what?"

"A complaint!" Gunderson said. "I want to prosecute the thieving little bastard! You don't know what monthly inventory's been like since--"

The kid had gone very still beneath Liam's hand. "Mr. Gunderson," Liam said, trying to stem the flow, without much success.

"Cigarettes, candy, double-A batteries by the twelve-pack--packages of T-bone steaks, for crissake! It's a wonder they didn't wheel in a hand truck and start hauling stuff out by the case! I oughta--"

"Mr. Gunderson!"

The tirade halted.

"Mr. Gunderson, do you have concrete evidence of anything else being stolen by this young man--what is your name, son?"

The kid didn't answer. "I'll tell you his name, it's Tim Gosuk, and we oughta ship the little bastard back to his village before he robs the whole goddamn town dry!"

The kid raised his head and said something in a guttural language that sounded less than complimentary. Gunderson reddened and raised his hand.

"That'll do, Mr. Gunderson," Liam said sternly. "Do you know who Mr. Gosuk's parents are?"

Gunderson sneered. "He doesn't have any parents. He lives with that woman pilot over to the airport."

The boy's head snapped up. "She's not just some "woman pilot"--she owns her own air taxi," he said in a shaky but determined voice. "And she's my mother."

Something in the angle of his cheekbones gave him away to Liam: he was the boy on the street from the day before, the swaggerer with a penchant for holding up traffic. "What's your mother's name, Tim?"

"Wyanet Chouinard," the boy said, meeting his eyes defiantly.

Liam was silent for a moment, staring down into the boy's face. "Yeah," he said at last, on a long, drawn-out sigh of realization and resignation. "Of course it is."

Liam sat in the chair behind his desk, hands linked behind his head, and contemplated the boy seated opposite him.

Tim Gosuk returned the trooper's stare with an underlying nervousness he tried hard to cloak beneath a layer of defiant bravado. "Well? Aren't you going to fingerprint me or something?"

"Or something," Liam agreed peacefully. He eyed a red mark on the boy's left cheek. "Did Mr. Gunderson hit you, Tim?"

The boy ducked his head, disdaining an answer.

Liam left the subject for now, resolving to have a word with Dewayne Gunderson at his earliest opportunity. "Tell me about yourself, Tim."

"What?" The boy stared at him, puzzled. "What do you want to know?" A look of wariness settled down over his features, and he glanced at the door. "What's going on here? I want you to call my mother."

"In a minute," Liam agreed, still peacefully. "But first we're going to get to know each other a little better."

The boy was on his feet and the defiance was back at full throttle. "I don't want to get to know you at all! I know the law--I'm underage, you have to call my mother!"

"You're right," Liam said, nodding. "I have to call your mother if you're underage. Probably your friends told you that to get you to steal for them. All over sixteen, are they? What are you, twelve? They probably told you you wouldn't pull time, you weren't old enough yet. Right?"

"You have to call my mother," the boy repeated, but his voice was now more sullen than defiant.

Liam unlinked his hands and placed them flat on the desk. His eyes bored into the boy's. "Sit down," he said.

His words were flat, unemotional, and so imbued with menace that the boy dropped back into his chair without a word. Great, Liam thought, something else I've always wanted: the ability to cow little kids into submission. "How old are you?"

The boy fiddled with the arms of his chair. "Twelve," he muttered without looking up.

"How long have you lived with Wy--with your mother?"

The boy shrugged. "I dunno. Two years, I guess."

"Where did you live before that?"

"Ualik," the boy said.

"Ualik," Liam echoed. "Where's that?"

The boy nodded vaguely. "Up the river a ways."

As soon as he could, Liam was going to have to settle down to a map of his new posting and locate all the towns and villages that came under his jurisdiction. "Who did you live with in Ualik?"

There was a short silence. The boy's face paled, and he seemed to shrink in his chair. His words barely audible, he said, "With my mom."

Liam's brows knit. "With Wy?"

The boy shook his head. "No. With my real mom."

Liam was going to ask more questions, but something about the hard line of unhappiness around the boy's mouth stayed his words. "Okay, Tim, look," he began.

The door burst open and Wyanet Chouinard came through it like a whirlwind. "Where's my kid, Liam, you son of a bitch! Where is he?"

"He's right here," Liam said mildly, at about the same time Wy spotted Tim.

Wy took one step forward and yanked the boy to his feet. "Are you all right? That damn Gunderson is telling everybody he had you arrested and put in jail! What the hell is going on?"

Tim kept his face down and didn't answer. Wy's fierce gaze transferred to Liam. "Well?"

Liam met her eyes calmly. "Mr. Gunderson down at the NC Market says he caught Tim here shoplifting. Says it's a habitual thing. Says Tim steals for his gang."

"Gang?" Wy said incredulously. "Tim doesn't belong to any gang! There aren't any gangs in Newenham, for crissake!" The other shoe dropped. "Stealing?" she said. She looked at Tim. "You were caught stealing from the store? Tim! Is it true?"

A dark red flush crept up the boy's cheek.

"Oh, Tim," Wy said, her voice breaking. "After all we've been through, after-- Tim, you know what's at stake here." She caught his chin in one hand and forced him to meet her eyes. "You know better than I do," she said. "You can't put it at risk like this." Her voice almost a wail, she repeated, "You can't."

Tim blinked rapidly. In a very small, very gruff voice he said, "I'm sorry, Wy."

Wy closed her eyes and let her head touch his, lightly, briefly.

Liam waited, watching. The intensity of the connection between woman and boy was palpable. It was obvious that both of them considered Tim to be a permanent part of Wy Chouinard's life. In which case, he was now a permanent part of Liam Campbell's life as well. Liam wondered if Gunderson would accept restitution in return for dropping charges.

She let the boy go, took a deep breath, and sat down. "What did he steal?"

"A couple of packs of Camels," Liam said. "This time."

"Cigarettes?" Wy's voice went up a notch, and she turned to look at Tim. "You're smoking, too?" Tim hunched an impatient shoulder.

"Mr. Gunderson seems to think hanging, drawing, and quartering would be too good for him," Liam said.

"Oh hell, that Dewayne is a--" Wy remembered who else was listening and bit back the words. "He made you arrest Tim, is that it?"

Liam said wryly, "Wy, Alaska state troopers don't spend a lot of time apprehending people for shoplifting. Mr. Gunderson caught Tim stealing and was in the act of hauling him down to the local police station when I drove by in the trooper vehicle. He waved me down." He paused. "Mr. Gunderson says it isn't the first time Tim has stolen from his store."

Wy looked to Tim for confirmation. Tim stared steadily at his feet, dark color creeping up his neck.

"Mr. Gunderson seems to think that there is a gang of boys that gets Tim to steal for them, essentials like cigarettes and candy and batteries."

"Tim?" Wy said.

Tim raised his face, pale again but determined. "I won't rat them out. That's like the lowest. I won't."

"Besides," Liam added helpfully, "they'd beat the shit out of you if you did."

The boy flashed him a startled look.

"Is this Joey and Jerry Atooksuk?" Wy said. "Tim, I've told you to stay away from them."

"They force you in, Tim?" Liam said, man to man.

Tim's head snapped up. So did Wy's. "What do you mean, force?" she said, bristling. "Tim, did they hurt you? Did those boys threaten you or--"

"Wy," Liam said.

She stopped, looking at him. "Mr. Gunderson got his property back, undamaged. He's mad now, and he wants to throw the book at your boy, but if we give him a while to cool off I think he'll come around. He's probably not going to want to see Tim in his store for a while. If ever," Liam added, watching the boy, and was rewarded when a brief flash of intense relief flooded the young face. "Let me talk to him. In the meantime, take Tim back to school. Or no, it's Saturday, isn't it. Home, then."

"Fine," Wy said promptly, and the grip she fastened on the boy's arm had more the look of military police than maternal concern about it. But then Wy hadn't been a mother long, Liam reflected as the door closed behind them.

It swung open again almost immediately. "Liam? Thanks. Thanks a lot. You don't know what this means; you don't know what--"

"I'm going to know, though, aren't I, Wy?" Liam said.

He threw the question down between them like a gauntlet, and left it lying there for her to pick up or not, as she chose.

Five minutes later the door opened and Gary Gruber stuck his head in. "Trooper Campbell?" He sidled inside and stood hesitantly in the still-open doorway, jaw champing at a bubble gum cud.

"Mr. Gruber, come on in." Liam waved the thin man to a chair. "Thanks for coming down."

Gary Gruber perched himself gingerly at the very edge of his seat. "You said you wanted a statement."

"Yeah, wait a minute while I get the computer fired up. Took me ten minutes to find the On button this morning. Computers. Sheesh." He grinned at Gruber. "I'm getting acclimatized to the twentieth century just in time for the twenty-first."

Gruber returned a weak smile and shifted the omnipresent pink wad from one cheek to the other. Could have been worse, Liam thought, could have been chewing tobacco. "I don't know what I can add to what I told you yesterday. It's like I said, I didn't really see much of anything."

"Tell me what you did see, then," Liam said as the screen filled with the proper form.

He'd been in his office, Gruber told him, when he heard a scream from the lobby in the front of the building. He'd rushed to see what was going on, and there was Bob DeCreft, stretched out in front of 78 Zulu.

"Not a pretty sight," Liam said sympathetically.

A slight shudder passed over Gary Gruber's thin frame, and he swallowed spasmodically. "No," he agreed, shifting his gum again.

"In fact, not much to tell you it was Bob DeCreft," Liam observed. "Tell me, how did you know it was him?"

Gruber stopped in mid-chew. "What?"

"Well, I was there, too, and there wasn't much left of his face. How did you know that the man lying on the ground in front of that Cub was Bob DeCreft?"

Gruber floundered for a moment. "Well, I-well, I just assumed it was him."

"Why?" Liam asked in an interested voice.

"Well, I--well, I--" Gruber had a flash of inspiration. "Everybody knew he was spotting for Wy. Who else could it have been? Nobody's gonna go messing around with somebody else's plane, not without their permission. Good way to get shot, out here," he added, gaining confidence. "Had to be Bob, since it wasn't Wy."

"And since it was 78 Zulu," Liam prompted.

"Well, yeah."

"So 78 Zulu is known as belonging to Wy Chouinard."

"Well, sure. She's in and out the airport all the time. Everybody knows Wy."

Liam printed out Gruber's statement; Gruber signed it and sidled out in the same vaguely furtive manner with which he had entered.

Liam rifled through the various statements he'd taken at the airport the day before. Nobody saw nobody doing nothing, he reflected sadly. At a conservative estimate, culled from Gruber's statement, at the time of Bill DeCreft's death there had been at least ten small planes in the act of landing or taking off, one DC-3 freighter off-loading a hold full of lumber, a 737 on a short final, and three small craft inbound. There were fourteen people in the terminal waiting to board the Metroliner Liam had flown in on, another thirty waiting either to pick up the inbound passengers on the Metroliner or to board the 737, and who knew how many mechanics and fuelers and wand wavers and baggage men and support personnel standing around with their fingers up their noses, not to mention whoever ran Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe.

And nobody saw nothing. He sighed.

He called the hospital. The doctor he reached there sounded impatient and irritable. "Cause of death? For Christ's sake, officer. The man walked into the rotating propeller of a small plane. What do you want, an exact description of what that does to the human head?"

Liam said no, thank you very much all the same, and set the phone down gently in its receiver. He called the bank, forgetting it was Saturday, and had to track down his quarry at home. Fortunately the banker was hooked into her database by computer. "Gosh," she said in thrilled accents, "we've never had a depositer murdered before!"