Whisper to the Blood (29 page)

Auntie Vi dismissed this with a contemptuous wave of her hand.

Her button black eyes burned and her face was flushed. "What that matter?
They let him go. You always let him go, Katya." She looked straight at
Kate. "You always let him go." "Auntie, I—"

"Then he hurt those two girls. Those two babies. That one she comes to
me crying her eyes out. She beg me for help. What do we do, Katya? You tell me.
What do we do?"

Kate tried to say something and failed.

"What you do, Katya?" Auntie Vi said, and the resentment in her
voice was as unmistakable as it was flaying. "What do you do?"

She took up the needle again and reached for the next hole in the gear.

Kate stood there, shocked, speechless.

"Working here," Auntie Vi said. "You bother me. Go."

Kate went.

O
utside, she was just in time to see
Gallagher and Macleod loading up their snow machines.

Macleod looked up and gave her a warm smile. "Kate," she said.

Kate made a heroic effort and managed a civil reply. "I hear you're
making a trip downriver."

Macleod nodded. "Down first, one day in each village, back and
overnight here, and then up to Ahtna, same."

"Spreading the gospel according to Global Harvest Resources Inc.,"
Kate said.

Macleod shrugged, unfazed by Kate's less than enthusiastic tone. "I
told Global Harvest that if they wanted a successful operation they'd better
get to know the neighbors."

"The 'Burbs know you're coming?"

"Oh yeah," Macleod said. "We've got town meetings set up
everywhere we're stopping, and someplace warm to lay our heads every night.
People have been pretty welcoming."

"So far," Kate said.

"So far," Macleod said agreeably.

Kate nodded at the rifle in the scabbard on Macleod's snow machine.
"Keep that handy. There have been a couple of attacks on the river
lately."

"Yeah, Jim told me."

In spite of herself Kate stiffened. "Did he."

"Yeah, I checked in with him before coming down here to pick up Dick.
He wasn't happy when I told him what we were up to. He told me about the
attacks and to be careful." Her ravishing smile flashed out again.
"Good guy, Jim. For a trooper. Not to mention hot as a pistol."

Dick Gallagher's head whipped around at that, and his expression wasn't
pretty, but Macleod didn't see. She pressed the starter and the engine roared
into life. "See you, Kate!"

Kate stepped back as Macleod accelerated down the road, followed, at first
tentatively and then with more assurance, by Gallagher.

Kate watched them until they were out of sight. "Yeah," she said,
her lips tight. "See you."

EIGHTEEN

Y
ou knew," she said to Jim.
"You knew and you didn't tell me."

"You knew I was Bernie's alibi," he said. "I sure as hell
didn't know Bernie'd dragged the aunties into it," she said hotly.
"Neither did I."

She glared at him.

He leaned forward and stared back, his chin out. "Neither did I,
Kate," he said again, slowly and with great deliberation, "and I'd
appreciate it if you'd take my word for that, too."

A sudden rush of color scorched her face. She tried to ignore it. "Have
you asked Howie who this alleged assassin was?"

"Have you asked the aunties who they hired?"

They glared some more.

"Howie's just down the hall," Jim said. "Shall we?"
"Let's," Kate said.

O
h man," Howie said when he saw
Kate. "Come on, Jim, buddy, there's no need for this." He scrambled
up on his bunk, pressing himself into a corner. "Don't you come near me,
Kate," he said, his voice rising. "Don't you do it."

Jim opened the door to the cell and Kate sauntered in like a small but very
deadly tiger, and, very much like a big cat, curled up at the end of Howie's
bed. She crossed one leg over the other and linked her hands on her knee. She
looked as if she felt quite at home, with no plans to leave anytime soon. She
even smiled at him.

He might have whimpered. His eyes looked wild and he was definitely
sweating. He gave Jim a pleading look. "Jim, come on, man."

Jim leaned against the door and crossed his arms. "You're not under
arrest, Howie. You can walk out of here any time you want. You want?"

Howie licked his lips.

Howie Katelnikof was a guy who never looked as tall as he was. He had a hard
time standing up straight and an even harder one looking anyone straight in the
eye. No matter how often he showered his hair was always greasy, and no matter
how often he changed his clothes they always smelled of sweat, cigarette smoke,
and beer. He might have been a good-looking guy, he possessed the requisites,
height and weight proportional, thick hair, regular features, but his character
had forced his eyes a little too close together, had pushed his chin just a
fraction too far back. His character oozed out of his pores and stained him for
what he was, a wannabe crook who'd watched
Oceans Eleven
so many times
he thought he was George Clooney when, as Bobby said, "Who he really is is
Steve Buscemi in
Fargo."

"Let's talk, Howie," Kate said.

"I doanwanna," Howie said.

"Relax, Howie," Kate said, and reached over to pat his knee. He cringed.
"I don't want to talk about the time you took a shot at me and my kid and
damn near killed my dog. I'm not ready for that conversation yet. Someday. I
promise you." She patted his knee again. "But not today."

A bead of sweat drooped from his nose. He kept his face turned away. He
might have been trembling. He looked like he felt the jaws of the snake closing
around him after he'd been dropped into the glass cage.

Still in that light, good-humored, terrifying voice, Kate said, "What's
this Jim tells me about the aunties hiring somebody to kill Louis?"

"I didn't do it," Howie said.

"What didn't you do?" Kate said. "'Cause, forgive me, Howie,
but the list is getting kind of long. You didn't shoot at my truck? You didn't
kill Mac Devlin? You didn't hire out to the aunties to kill your best bud Louis
Deem?"

"I didn't kill Louis!" He came out of the corner, realized how
close that put him to Kate, and shrank back in again. "I didn't do
it," he said.

"But you're saying somebody did."

He nodded sullenly.

"So the aunties hired somebody to kill Louis Deem that wasn't
you."

He nodded, then shook his head, then nodded again.

"Then how do you know about it? Excuse me, but it doesn't sound like
the kind of thing they're going to drop casually into the conversation, Howie.
Especially into a conversation with you."

"How come you're always so mean?" It was almost a wail.

"Because you don't deserve anything better, you little weasel,"
Kate said.

Jim cleared his throat. She turned to look at him. He shook his head. She almost
flipped him off, but he was right. In this instance, insulting Howie probably
wasn't the method of interrogation most productive of results.

"Howie," she said, turning back to him, "come on. You know
you're gonna tell me, one way or another. Either in here, where you've got Jim
and the Fifth Amendment on your side." She smiled again, and again he
cowered from it. "Or out there somewhere, with just you, and me, and none
of those messy Miranda warnings to confuse either one of us."

She waited. Jim waited. Howie sniveled. It was disgusting. Kate clicked her
tongue impatiently and got up to grab Howie a bunch of toilet paper. She shoved
it into his hands. "Here. Blow your nose."

He did, smearing snot on his cheeks.

"Jesus Christ, Howie," Kate said, disgusted, "can't you even
blow your own nose right? Come on. What did you mean when you said that the
aunties hired someone to kill Louis Deem?"

He looked at the crumpled ball of tissue. "I dint do it. I dint kill
Louis."

"Okay," Kate said. "Say for the sake of argument I believe
you. Who did?"

"I don't know." He looked up. "By the time I found him, he
was dead."

B
ack in Jim's office, he said,
"How much of that do you believe?"

Kate dropped into a chair and rubbed her face with both hands, and then
scrubbed at her scalp for good measure, ruffling the short cap of thick black
hair until she looked like an angry panther. She shook her head and it
obediently ordered itself again. Was there anything, he thought, that didn't do
exactly and precisely what Kate Shugak told it to?

"I don't know," she said. "I talked to Auntie Vi this
morning."

"And?"

"Oh, god," she said miserably.

"Did she say they did?" he asked, disbelieving.

She looked up. "She didn't say they didn't. And she gave me to
understand that if they did have him killed, it was my fault for not doing it
first."

"Christ." He went behind his desk and sat down with a thump.
"It's the fucking Sopranos in the fucking Park."

"Okay," Kate said, clinging to sanity, "say they did hire
him. Do you believe him when he says he didn't do it?"

"There was that tire track at the scene that matched Howie's Suburban.
But you know as well as I do that a tire track all by itself isn't conclusive.
Hell, Louis could have taken Howie's ride to go up to the Step to see Dan when
I sprung him that day."

"Why wouldn't he take his own vehicle?"

"It was at home, fifty miles from here. Howie picked him up. Or he was
supposed to."

Kate thought about it. "Howie sure had opportunity, Jim," she
said. "And if the aunties paid him to do it, he had motive. And there must
be a dozen guns out at Louis's house. He had means."

He looked at her. "Do you think he did it?"

Mutt, as was not her custom, had not gone straight to Jim and slobbered all
over him when they'd arrived at the post. Instead, she had remained at Kate's
side. Now she looked up at Kate with a steady yellow gaze. Solidarity, sister.
"I don't know," she said. "He's just- He's such a little weasel,
Jim. This is Howie Katelnikof we're talking about here, the Park rat most
famous for achieving mobility while lacking a vertebral column. It's kind of
hard for me to imagine him setting out to kill in cold blood."

"He took a shot at you," Jim said.

"From one moving truck, at another," she said. "He got lucky.
Or maybe even unlucky."

"How so?"

"You know how hard it is to shoot a stationary target. Shooting and
hitting a moving target is almost impossible, even for an expert, and he's no
expert. Much as I loathe acquitting Howie of malice, he could have meant it
like a shot across the bows. Throw a scare into us and then go home and tell
Louis he did it. Doesn't mean he won't pay for it one day," she added.

"Never for one moment imagined otherwise," he said.

"And though Louis sure as hell wasn't anyone's nominee for humanitarian
of the year, he was the closest thing Howie had to a brother. He fed him, he
housed him. What little social structure Howie had, Louis gave him."

"He's still got the house," Jim said. "Him and Willard, still
living on what Louis inherited from his second wife following her untimely
death."

"You think Louis could have threatened to kick them out for some
reason? And Howie killed him before he did?" Kate considered this.
"Possible, I guess." She shook her head. "I don't know. If the
aunties admit they did hire him, you can charge him."

"And if I charged him, I'd have to charge them with conspiracy to
commit."

She straightened and looked at him, a sick expression on her face. "Oh.
Of course. I... I didn't think of that."

"It's all I have been thinking about," he said grimly, "ever
since Howie made me believe it might be true." He paused. "Well.
Mostly all I've been thinking about."

Again she blushed, another scorcher. "There is no way," she said
steadily, ignoring his last words. "There is no way you're going to march
my aunties into a jail cell on the say-so of a loser like Howie
Katelnikof."

"I've already winked at the law once in the murder of Louis Deem,"
he said. "I won't do it again, Kate."

"You'll do it for Bernie but you won't do it for Auntie Vi?" she
said angrily.

He got up, came around the desk, and yanked her to her feet. She shoved her
hands against his chest but he wasn't trying to kiss her. He shook her once,
hard enough to rock her head back on her shoulders. "This is not about
that, Kate. What happens there"—a stab of a finger in the general
direction of the homestead—"stays there. What happens here is
something else. Know the difference."

This time she took the bait. "How could you do that, Jim?"

"I didn't do it alone, Kate."

"I said no!" Kate said. She made an effort and said more calmly,
"I said no. Lots of times."

"You turned off the stove," he said. "I- What?"

"When I started coming for you," he said. "You turned off the
stove."

She opened her mouth and nothing came out.

"Plus you came three times." He walked to the door and opened it.
"We were both angry, Kate, but don't try to turn it into something it
wasn't."

She found herself on the other side of his office door without knowing quite
how she got there. The door shut in her face. Maggie gave her a quizzical look.
"I hate men," Kate said.

Maggie shook her head. "I hear you, honey," she said mournfully.
"Oh, how I hear you."

NINETEEN

O
ver the next three days Kate went in
turn to all the aunties, Balasha, Edna, Joy, and even Auntie Vi again. To a
woman, they stonewalled her. "They're stonewalling me," she said with
incredulity that evening. "It's like they've rehearsed or something."