Whisper to the Blood (14 page)

It surprised him that she still believed in justice. She'd been lied to,
beat up, shot at, her house had been burned down, her truck had been run off
the road, her dog had almost been killed, she herself had been in the hospital
more times than Evel Knievel, and left not in the best of shape even when she
managed to stay out of it. Only too well did he remember finding her bruised
and covered with blood, driving a stolen truck with the exaggerated care of a
drunk down what was little more than a goat track out of the back range of the
mountains north of
Anchorage
.
She put herself at risk too often, and all for a lousy paycheck.

He smiled to himself.

It wasn't the paycheck, and no one knew that better than he did.

His smile faded. Still, she had been getting a little pissy lately.
Thinking, he dated it back to the Louis Deem murder the year before. Amazing
first, that he'd noticed. Amazing second, that he wanted to know why.

The fisherman let him off in front of the Cordova cop shop, and he went in
to meet and greet and compare notes on several of the Park's most stupid, most
drunk, most likely to, and most wanted. Afterward he walked down to the Club
Bar for a burger and a Coke.

The first person he saw when he walked in was the ubiquitous Talia Macleod,
holding forth to a table of Cordovan movers and shakers, all with drinks at
their elbows for which Jim was willing to bet large Macleod had paid. They were
all sprouting GHRI ball caps, too, the ones with the golden sunburst peeping
over a line of mountains, recognizable as the Quilaks if you looked close.

She saw him at once and raised a hand in greeting without missing a word of
what she was saying. He sat at the bar and ordered, and as he was finishing his
meal her meeting broke up and she joined him there. "Cheese it, the
fuzz," she said.

He grinned. "How you doing?"

She grimaced. "Sometimes I feel like I've taken a vow. And that I get
paid by the convert." She looked over her shoulder and waved someone over.

Jim looked and saw a burly man of medium height, late thirties, dark hair
and wary eyes. He patted the air and shook his head, nodding at the group he
was talking to. She insisted, and he trailed over, obviously reluctant and
equally obviously trying not to show it.

"Jim Chopin, meet Dick Gallagher," she said.

"How do," Jim said.

"Hey," Gallagher said. His handshake was brief and a little
clammy. "So," he said, his eyes taking in the blue and gold,
"you a cop?"

"Trooper," Jim said. He'd been one too long not to recognize the
reluctance, and ran a quick interior scan of the most recent wants and
warrants. None of them sported Gallagher's name or his description, and few
people liked cops anyway, so mentally he stood down, for now.

"You need me for anything else?" Gallagher said to Macleod. He
half turned from Jim as he spoke, focusing his attention on Macleod. Crowded in
close, too, and touched her knee.

"No, I think our work here is done," Macleod said, composed.
"For today, anyway. You can head for the barn if you want."

Jim watched the tension in Gallagher's jawline increase. "A couple of
the gentlemen want to shoot some pool down to the Cordova House. Figured I'd
tag along."

"You lose your own money, not Global Harvest's," Macleod said,
unperturbed.

Gallagher laughed, but it rang false. "What time do we leave
tomorrow?"

"Ten A.M., George picks us up at the airport."

"See you then," he said. He gave Jim a distant nod without meeting
his eyes and left with the other men.

"I've been duly warned off," Jim said lightly.

"No need to be," she said, as lightly, and smiled at him.

Jim felt an unwilling sympathy for Gallagher, so easily discarded, and
Macleod must have somehow intuited it because she added, "He's like every
other boomer who ever came into the state, his hand out for any and everything
he can get before he hauls ass south."

The bartender came over and she ordered a glass of chardonnay.

"Women always order chardonnay," Jim said.

She made play with her eyelashes over the rim of her glass. "Sometimes
we order pinot grigio." She sipped. "But most of the time they don't
have it. Besides, men always wear blue."

He looked down at himself. It was true. "In my own defense, it is the
color of my uniform."

"What are you doing in town?" she said.

"Prisoner escort, and I had to reach out to the local cops on a few
things. Routine. I don't have to ask you what you've been doing. How long have
you been here?"

"Two days. Got a suite at the Reluctant, or what passes for a suite,
which is two rooms with a connecting door. I have had breakfast with the
Chamber of Commerce, lunch with the school board, attended a meeting of the
library advisory board, played pinochle at the Elks Club and Bingo with the
retired folks at Sunset Arms."

Jim smiled. "Whatever they're paying you, it isn't worth it."

"I don't know." She shrugged. "I had a lesson in beading from
a nice lady, name of Pat, retired from the school administration. Or I did
until her granddaughter Annie showed up. She told me to go find my own beading
teacher."

"Gotta watch out for them granddaughters," Jim said. "Where
do you go next?"

She brightened perceptibly. "I'm spreading the word to the villages on
the river, by snow machine."

"No kidding," he said, impressed. "You're heading out to the
'Burbs, are you?"

"Yeah, I've been waiting until the river froze up enough for
traffic."

"You want to be careful when you get close to the mouth. It starts to
get a little slushy."

She laughed. "I'm told that it's fish camps the last twenty-five miles
before the Sound, summers only, so I should be all right. I'm going to take my
skis, see if I can get in some snow time while I'm out there."

"Your rifle, too?"

She looked mock shocked. "Of course."

Her enthusiasm was contagious, and he warmed to her. "Should be a great
trip, so long as the weather holds."

She shrugged. "I've been snowed in in Bush Alaska before. I'll bring a
deck of cards."

He ate another french fry. "I have to say that snow machining down the
Kanuyaq sounds like a lot more fun than eating bacon and eggs with the Cordova
Chamber of Commerce."

"Tell me about it." She hesitated. "Actually. Tell me about
something else."

"What?"

"You know Howie Katelnikof?"

"Everybody knows Howie," he said casually, suddenly on the alert.

"What do you know about him?"

He shook salt onto his plate and started mopping it up one fry at a time.
"A lot more than I can prove."

"Shit," she said. It was a long, drawn-out expression of annoyance
and frustration, and it was heartfelt.

"What'd he do?"

"I think he's been stealing stuff from the trailer out on the
leases."

"You think?"

"I know stuff is gone, a computer monitor, a telephone, some other
office supplies. I don't know that Howie took them, but he was the guy out
there when they went missing. It was his shift."

"His shift?"

"Yeah, I hired Dick Gallagher to work a week on, a week off with
Howie."

"Guy just here."

"That's him."

"You don't think Gallagher is responsible?"

"Wrong weeks."

Jim thought of the wariness in Dick Gallagher's eyes. He and Howie could be
ripping off the place together. "Those snow machines don't work only on
the river."

"You got something against Dick?"

"Just met the guy. Don't like to jump to assumptions, is all." He
ate another french fry. Salty goodness. "Howie never was the brightest dog
on the gangline. Come to think of it, that was probably an insult to any dog on
a gangline. Actually, maybe anything on four feet."

"I guess I should have talked to somebody before I hired him," she
said moodily.

"That would have been good," he said.

She smacked him halfheartedly on his arm. "What's more, he's decided
he's in love with me."

"Only a matter of time," Jim said. "Why, thank you, Sergeant
Chopin."

"Howie falls in love pretty easily," Jim said. "A working
pulse is pretty much all it takes for him."

She smacked him again, less halfheartedly this time, and they both laughed.
"Well, I'm not all that hard to please, but I'm a lot harder to please
than that," she said. "How mad at me are the Park rats going to be if
I fire him?"

"Not very. You might even get some more converts on the strength of
it."

"Oh, well, then I'll fire him the next time I see him."

"Where is he?"

She made a face. "Out at the lease site. It's his week on."

The bartender came with the check. "Anything else?"

"I'll get that," Macleod said.

Jim managed to snag it a second before she did. "I'm here on business.
I'll expense it."

The bartender stood there, waiting. "I'll have another glass,"
Talia said. "Jim? Want a beer?"

Jim shook his head. "Can't. I'm flying home this afternoon. Can't drink
and fly. I might hurt myself. Not to mention that three-hundred-thousand-dollar
plane they gave me."

She put a hand on his arm. "Simple. Don't fly."

He took a deep breath, and let it out before turning his head to meet her
eyes. They were large and very blue, and the lashes were long and thick and
heavy. They weighed her eyelids down, giving her a slumberous, sexy look. Her
face was flushed and her lips were shiny with gloss and half parted, and as he
watched her tongue came out to tease delicately at one corner.

He swallowed hard. "You know I'm with somebody now."

She didn't look away, and the smile didn't falter. "I've heard.
So?"

She was making it clear she knew the score. An evening spent enjoying each
other's company, and then parting the next morning with no promises on either
side.

How uncomplicated that sounded, how downright relaxing.

How tempting.

She slid from her stool and leaned close to whisper in his ear. "Room
204. Come up the back stairs. I'll leave the door unlocked."

She walked away and he watched her attentively, because he was a trained
investigator and there might be a clue in the way her well-toned muscles moved
together as they went away from him.

He waited until she was out of the door and then turned and flagged down the
bartender. "Could I have a receipt, please?"

NINE

I
t was always a bad idea to sit around
brooding, so when the bread came out of the oven Kate went outside to split
kindling until her nose and her toes were numb. She came back inside to thaw
out beneath a steaming shower and dress. She called to Mutt and the two of them
went into town to check the mail. She hadn't checked it since before the
holiday so her mailbox was jammed and there was an overflow notice. She took it
to the window and Bonnie gave her a hurt look and came staggering back with a
plastic tub full to the brim. Kate detoured to the Niniltna dump and tossed
nine-tenths of it into the ever-growing pile presided over by a flock of sleek,
fat ravens and another of cranky-looking eagles, all of whom went silent as the
tomb when they saw Mutt.

There were only a few people at the Riverside Cafe that morning, and Kate
got the best table by the window. Through it she could keep an eye on Mutt, who
was sitting on the seat of the snow machine, surveying the passersby with a
lofty air and accepting tentative greetings with a regal condescension and,
when someone dared to take liberties, a baring of teeth.

"Americano double tall, with lots of half-and-half," Kate told
Laurel
, and added two
packs of sugar when it arrived.

"Damn, girl, how can you do that to an innocent little espresso? Sorta
defeats the purpose of caffeine, you know?"

She looked up to see Pete Heiman standing next to her table, a grin on his
face.

"Ah," Kate said, "Pete, hello. Still unindicted, I see."

His grin didn't falter. "I remain free on my own recognizance. Isn't
that how you cop types put it?"

"Not quite," Kate said dryly, "but it'll do for going on
with."

He indicated the seat across from her. "You mind?"

Kate shrugged. "Suit yourself."

"Just coffee, honey," he told Laurel, and sighed when Laurel
winked at him and put extra into her hips as she departed their table. There
was a reason the Riverside Cafe was so popular with men.

Kate sipped her Americano and schooled her face into an expression of cool
neutrality as she regarded Pete over the rim of her mug.

Pete Heiman was a third-generation Alaskan with an irreproachable Alaskan
family tree that included a stampeder, a Bush pilot, and one of Castner's
Cutthroats. Grainy newspaper photographs going back a hundred years showed a
succession of Heiman men who looked like they'd been cloned, the same coarse
dark hair clipped short, the same merry eyes in the same narrow face, the same
shovel-shaped jaw, and the same grin somewhere between ingratiating and
shit-eating. The president and CEO of Heiman Transportation, a trucking firm
that was responsible for a minimum of twenty percent of all goods moved between
Fairbanks and the Prudhoe Bay oil fields, and a lifelong resident of Ahtna,
Pete was also in his third term as the Republican senator for District 41,
which included the Park.

Laurel
brought his coffee and swished away again. "How you faring this
winter?" he said.

"Like always," Kate said. "Fuel bills are killing me, but
they're killing all of us. I'll get by."

"Heard about that PFD fraud ring you broke up." Pete gave an
approving nod. "Good work there. Hate people who rip off the PFD."