Nik Kane Alaska Mystery - 02 - Capitol Offense (14 page)

Kane looked at him.

“You abandon me here,” he said, “and I’ll hunt you down and kill you like the dog you are.”

Cocoa laughed and left the apartment. Kane picked Alma up, carried her to the bedroom, and laid her on the bed. He took off her boots and sweater and loosened her jeans. Her breathing was shallow and her color wasn’t good.

“You’ve had too much,” Kane said.

He went out to the kitchen, found a big, pink plastic glass, and poured salt into it. He filled it with lukewarm water and carried it into the bathroom. He found a big towel and took it into the bedroom. He got Alma more or less on her feet, wrapped the towel around her neck, and shuffled her into the bathroom. He positioned her in front of the toilet, picked up the glass, and put it to her lips.

“Drink this,” he said.

She drank, then started to struggle. He kept the glass against her lips and poured the contents slowly into her. She fought and gasped and choked. When the glass was empty, he set it down. She stood quietly for a moment, then her eyes snapped open.

“What have you done to me?” she asked, and vomited. Kane tried to keep her head aimed at the toilet as all the booze she’d drunk and every morsel she’d eaten came back up.

It took a long time. She groaned and slumped against him when she was finished. He wet a washcloth and wiped vomit off her mouth and neck and the tops of her breasts, then walked with her back into the bedroom. Her breathing was stronger and her color was better. He laid her on the bed again, put a blanket over her, and propped a pillow against her back so that she couldn’t roll onto it and drown if she vomited again.

Kane rummaged in the kitchen, found rubber gloves, paper towels, and 409, and cleaned the bathroom as best he could. He knotted everything inside a plastic grocery bag and put it in the garbage. Then he washed his hands, checked on Alma once more, and walked into the living room. He took the $20 bill from his pocket, laid it on the counter, and found some little sticky notes with hearts on them and a pen. He wrote “cab fare” on one of them and stuck it to the bill. He set her keys on top of the note, left the apartment, making sure the door locked behind him, and joined Cocoa in the cab. Cocoa was reading a thick book called
Guns, Germs and Steel.

“So,” he said, leering at Kane over the book, “what happened in there?”

“What do you think happened in there?” Kane said. “I poured salt water into her until she barfed.”

“Sweet,” Cocoa said. “I always say, you don’t really know a woman until you’ve seen her puke. Back to the hotel?”

Kane nodded and closed his eyes. Cocoa marked his page, set the book down, and put the cab into gear. They drove off. Neither man said anything as the cab made its way back downtown.

It was nearly 1 a.m. when Kane walked into the hotel.

“Oh, Mr. Kane,” the night desk clerk called. He held up a big, bulky brown shipping envelope. “Someone left this for you.”

Kane walked over, took the envelope, and got into the elevator.

Probably something from Doyle, he thought as the elevator lifted him to his floor. God, do I need some sleep.

In his room, he tore open the envelope and dumped the contents on his bed. It was a large plastic bag. Sealed in the bag was a dead cat, its head attached to its body by only a flap of skin. A note pinned to the plastic bag read, “Leave or it’s you next.”

Kane looked at the cat and the note. It seemed needlessly cruel to kill a cat just to scare him, particularly when it didn’t work. He thought about calling the cops, then thought about the time it would take for them to get there, take his statement, and ask questions. He was just too tired for all that. He put the cat back into the shipping envelope, put the envelope in the closet, and shut the door. Then he got ready for bed. He was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow, and he didn’t dream of dead cats or live women or anything at all.

T
he beeping of Kane’s travel alarm sounded as loud as the backup warning of a truck about to run over him. He groped around and managed to knock the alarm off the bedside table. It lay on the floor, still beeping. He said a bad word loudly, but that didn’t make him feel any better. He felt around, found the alarm and silenced it, then lay back. Tension locked his neck muscles, his ears rang from all the bar noise, and the secondhand tobacco smoke left the inside of his mouth feeling like something foul had crawled into it and died.

Great, he thought. I didn’t have a drop to drink and I’ve got a hangover anyway.

Kane groaned his way out of bed and stood under the hot shower for a long time, then turned the handle all the way to cold and capered around under the icy blast for as long as he could stand it. As he toweled himself off, he looked in the mirror and inventoried the damage of aging and a life lived hard.

Just a collection of scars, wrinkles, and bags, he thought. It’s a good thing that poor woman passed out and didn’t have to see this.

He put on his suit and looked around the room. He walked to the closet, opened it, and picked the envelope up off the floor. Then he looked at the automatic. No sense carrying it to the police station, he thought. Or trying to get it through security at the court building.

He left his room, stopped at the bellman’s station, and asked, “What do you people use to keep your feet around here?”

“Cat-quick reflexes,” the bellman said. “But those Yak things, the ones that go over your shoes, they help. You can buy some at the outdoor store across the street.”

Kane did, and, walking out of the store, found that he was much steadier on his feet. The minute he stepped on the linoleum floor of the coffee shop, though, his foot tried to slide out from under him.

“That’s the downside of those things,” the guy behind the counter said. “If they can’t dig in, they’re like ice skates.”

Kane sat on a chair and pulled them off. He got the biggest cup of coffee the place sold and a bagel with egg and cheese and sat at a table eating and watching people come and go. Most everyone else seemed to know one another, and from their conversation he gathered that many worked for the legislature. They were, for the most part, young and healthy looking, and watching them made Kane feel older and more used up.

Letitia Potter entered the coffee shop and got in line. In a few minutes she turned to go, a bag of bagels in one hand and a cardboard carrier studded with paper cups of coffee in the other. When she got to the door, Kane got to his feet and opened it for her.

“Thank you,” she said, then seemed to realize she’d seen Kane before.

“Hello,” she said. “You’re the man from Nikiski, aren’t you?”

“Close enough,” Kane said. “Do you have a moment to talk?”

She shook her head.

“Not really,” she said, paused, and went on, “Oh, why not.”

Kane moved the envelope off the table. Letitia set her purchases on it and sat down. She worked one of the cups loose from the carrier, took a sip, and opened the bag.

“Bagel?” she asked.

Kane pointed at the crumbs of his breakfast and shook his head. Letitia removed a bagel. As Kane watched, she sawed the bagel in half with a plastic knife, spread cream cheese on it, and ate it with ferocious concentration, washing each bite down with a sip of coffee, not pausing until she was finished.

“I was hungry,” she said.

“I can see that,” Kane said. “Ms. Potter, I was hoping you could answer a few questions about Melinda Foxx.”

Letitia looked at Kane. He could read nothing in her eyes.

“I’m afraid I didn’t know her very well,” she said. “We just worked together. Or, rather, she worked. I’m a volunteer. The stupid rules won’t let me work for pay in my daddy’s office.”

“That’s too bad,” Kane said. “What can you tell me about Melinda?”

Letitia shrugged.

“She was a good worker,” she said. “That’s all.”

She paused, then smiled.

“She had very good penmanship.”

That seemed to exhaust the subject for Letitia. She reached out to touch Kane’s scar, then pulled her hand back.

“Did that hurt a lot?” she asked. “It must have hurt a lot.”

She gave a little shiver. Revulsion? Excitement? Kane found he couldn’t read her at all.

“Did you know anything about her personal life?” Kane asked. “Was she involved with anyone?”

“We aren’t a family, Mr. Nikiski,” she said. “I mean, my daddy and I are, but the others just work there. We aren’t involved in their personal lives, and they aren’t involved in ours.”

She gave a little nod and got to her feet.

“I have to get this up to my daddy and his friends,” she said. She picked up the bag and the coffees and turned to go.

“Ralph Stansfield says she was involved with someone,” Kane said.

Letitia turned back so fast one of the coffees toppled from the holder and burst open on the floor.

“Oh, no,” Letitia said, her voice sounding like a little girl’s. “Daddy will be angry.”

“Let me get another one,” Kane said. “What was it?”

She told Kane, and he went to the counter and ordered.

Kane tried again to draw her out, but Letitia stood silently until the coffee was handed over the counter. She put it into the carrier. Kane handed her the bag of bagels and their hands brushed and he felt…nothing. No warmth, no spark. Nothing.

I know your libido diminishes with age, he thought, but this is ridiculous.

He picked up his envelope and put it back on the table, then swung the door open for Letitia.

“What’s in the envelope?” she asked, her voice a woman’s again.

“A dead cat,” Kane said.

Letitia looked at him without expression, turned, and walked toward the Capitol.

Kane looked at his watch. If he moved fast, he had time to report his “gift” to the police and still make Hope’s bail hearing. He put his ice grippers back on, crept across the linoleum and back out onto the ice.

He explained his errand to the same woman at the front desk of the police station, sat, and waited. Crawford came out and led Kane to his desk. Malone sat, as before, facing them.

“Now what?” Crawford said.

“This,” Kane said, setting the envelope on Crawford’s desk. “Somebody left it for me at the hotel last night.”

Crawford prodded the envelope with a pen.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s open,” Kane said. “See for yourself.”

Crawford picked up the envelope, tilted it and shook. The plastic bag containing the dead cat slid onto his desk. He leaped to his feet, sending his chair shooting backward.

“Jesus Christ, bubba,” he yelled, “is this your idea of a joke?”

Kane shook his head.

“No joke, Tank,” Kane said. “Somebody’s trying to scare me. Read the note.”

Crawford flipped the plastic bag over with his pen and read the note.

“Somebody doesn’t like you,” he said.

“Yeah, and we both know who it is,” he said. “Or, rather, you do. I know what the two of them look like, but you know who they are.”

“Can you prove it was them?” Crawford said.

“You’re the cop,” Kane said. “There’s the evidence. You prove it.”

“Hey,” Malone said. “Hey, you two.”

Crawford walked to a coatrack, removed an overcoat from a hanger, and shrugged his way into it.

“Let’s walk,” he said to Kane.

Kane followed him out onto the sidewalk. Crawford led him across a street and onto the wharf. Crawford moved across the icy ground like he was skating. They walked along until the cop turned and leaned on the railing. Kane followed suit.

“I don’t know who those guys are, Kane,” Crawford said. “I could probably find out, but why would I bother? Nobody’s going to prosecute them for killing a cat, even if we could prove they did it.”

“What about the threat?” Kane asked.

“You want them on something sure to get kicked down to a misdemeanor?” Crawford asked.

“No,” Kane said, “I want to know who they are and who they’re working for.”

“Well, I can’t tell you that and I ain’t finding out,” Crawford said, his voice harsh.

“What the hell is going on, Crawford?” he said. He could hear the anger in his own voice.

“That’s all I’m telling you about this,” Crawford said. “But I will tell you, you’ve got some powerful people taking an interest in you, and not in a good way. So like I said yesterday, watch your ass.”

Kane realized that his hands were knotted into fists. He relaxed them slowly. Taking his irritation out on Crawford wouldn’t help anything. Besides, Tank might kick his ass.

“Why’d you bring me out here, Tank?” he asked. “You could have told me this at the station.”

Crawford swept a hand across the scene in front of them.

“I like looking at the water,” he said. “It calms me down. I like to think about doing something simpler, like being out in a boat, fishing. There are king salmon that swim through here even in winter, feeding, getting ready to run up the rivers to British Columbia in the spring to spawn. They’re good fighters and great eating, really moist from the fat that insulates them against the cold water. There are days I like my job and days I’d rather be fishing. Lately, there are more days I’d rather be fishing. This is one of them.”

Crawford straightened up.

“Like I said, bubba, watch yourself,” he said and walked back toward the police station.