Whisper to the Blood (39 page)

Jim, a little ashamed of himself, said, "I know. I'm just—"

"I know," Kate said.

"Kate?" Johnny said.

"And I told you, Howie's reneging his confession all over the place
anyway."

"And the aunties? What was the story they told you?"

"Pretty much the same one they told you," Jim said, unsmiling.
"To a woman, they are shocked, shocked at the very idea of such a thing.
Auntie Balasha says Howie must be mistaken, and she bawls when she says
so." He shuddered. "Auntie Edna says he's full of shit. Auntie Joy
says he was such a handsome little boy, she can hardly look at him without
smiling at the memory."

"And Auntie Vi?"

"Auntie Vi told me to tend to my business and the aunties would tend to
theirs."

"Ouch."

"Yeah."

"Was it just a story, then? Howie made it up?"

Jim thought of Bernie. "I don't know, Kate. I wish I did."

"Kate!"

They both looked at Johnny in mild surprise. "There's no need to shout,
kid," Kate said. "Something on your mind?"

Now that he finally had the floor, Johnny seemed reluctant to talk.

"Spit it out," Kate said. "Van's not pregnant, is she?"

Johnny blushed beet red. "No! No, it's nothing like that. Jeez,
Kate."

"Sorry," Kate said, sounding less than repentant. "What's
up?"

"There's something I've been wanting to tell you for a long time,"
Johnny said, and again seemed incapable of saying more.

"You're flunking physics," Kate said.

"No, Kate, stop it! It's that guy."

"What guy?" "That guy, Gallagher."

This was so far removed from the topic at hand that Kate was at first wholly
at sea. "Huh? Who?"

"The new guy?" Jim said.

"Yeah, or he was last fall, anyway," Johnny said. "He showed
up in September. Van and I ran into him in Ahtna."

Kate sat up. "When did you and Van run into him in Ahtna?"

He looked at her, caught off guard. "I ... I ... it was after we
brought the truck home." He could see the thunderheads darkening and he
cringed.

"You skipped school," she said in a level voice.

His own voice was very small in reply. "Yes."

"And you went to Ahtna without permission."

"Yes."

"And you took Van with you." "Yes."

"Your name is Johnny Morgan, prepare to die," Jim said in a fake
Spanish accent.

Johnny swallowed hard and risked another look at Kate. "I know you're
mad, Kate, but we need to talk about that later. The thing is, I know this
guy."

"We all know him now, Johnny," Kate said. "Well, it's not like
he's a fixture, but we've all met him by now. He didn't run screaming at the
first snow, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Let's see if
he makes it through the whole winter."

"Kate!"

"Sorry, sorry." Kate bent her head but Jim could see the corners
of her mouth indent. Johnny would pay for skipping school, but that would be
later, and she did so love giving the kid a ride.

"I know him," Johnny said again. "I rode with him."

That brought Kate's head up again, all traces of the smile erased.
"What do you mean?"

"On the way here. I rode with him."

"From
Phoenix
?
When you hitched home?"

"Yeah."

Kate stared at him out of narrow eyes, long enough to make him want to
squirm some more. He didn't, but it was a near thing. "Did he threaten
you? Harm you in any way?"

"No! No, nothing like that, Kate, I promise."

Jim saw Kate's breast rise and fall on a long, silent sigh. "So you
know him. He gave you a ride. He didn't hurt you. He also didn't turn you over
to the nearest cop shop, which he should have. Although I can't say, when all's
said and done, that I'm sorry he didn't."

"Me, neither," Johnny said, with emphasis.

"So what?" Kate said. "Other than the fact that I should look
this guy up and thank him for taking you from-outside
Phoenix
?-to where?"

"All the way to
Seattle
."

At that Kate did look impressed. "Wow. Okay, that was a nice big chunk
of the journey out of the way." And a long way out of his mother's reach.
"We owe him, no question. What, you want us to give him some moose? I
could make him fry bread. Does he need a job? Or no, wait, he's got one."

"That's not all there is to it," Johnny said miserably.
"There's something else. Something I should have told you when he first
came to the Park."

T
hey left Kate's snow machine in front
of the trooper post and walked the rest of the way to Auntie Vi's. It was full
dark and cold with it, and their breath frosted on the air and their boots
squeaked on the road no matter how stealthy they tried to be. By contrast Mutt
skimmed soundlessly over the snow, drifting in and out of the shadows like a
ghost.

Auntie Vi's house was on the uphill road between the village and the
airstrip, just up from Bingley's store and just down from the trooper post. It
was a sturdy, practical, two-story home that Auntie Vi, a sturdy, practical,
and entrepreneurial woman, had built specifically for a bed and breakfast. It
was, so far, the only place to rent a room in Niniltna proper, but to be fair,
Auntie Vi didn't short her customers just because they had no choice in the
matter. Her mattresses were new, her sheets clean, her pillows soft, and her
meals as good or better than what you got at the Riverside Cafe. There was a
common room with squashy couches and chairs, a television and a DVD player with
an extensive library of films, a bookshelf full of books, a pile of board
games, and a desk.

"How many people has she got staying there at present?" Kate said,
her voice a whisper of sound.

"I don't know," Jim said. "I'm hardly ever here. Have you met
Gallagher?"

"Yeah."

"What did you think?"

"I could feel my Spidey sense tingling. You?"

"I thought he was bent. No more or less bent than anyone else who comes
into the Park, you understand. You know how it is, Kate. Lots of people come to
Alaska
on the
run from something. Wives, cops, job. Traffic. You heard the story Gallagher-do
we call him Greenbaugh now?-you heard the story he spun Johnny. Could be
true."

"You didn't check him out?"

Again with the shrug. "No reason to so long as he kept his nose clean
in the Park. I'm not one for borrowing trouble. There's plenty of it already on
offer."

"Grim but true," Kate said. "Why didn't you do a wants and
warrants on him before we came?"

"I'd rather talk to him first, get a feel. If I think he'll bolt, I'll
grab him up for twenty-four. Be easier to run a search with prints
anyway."

"But I notice we're whispering," she said. "Also
tiptoeing." "Girls tiptoe. Guys sneak."

They came to Auntie Vi's driveway, overgrown with spruce and alder and birch
and fireweed and way too much devil's club. Unless it was edible, Auntie Vi
didn't care enough about landscaping other than to keep the driveway clear
enough to drive on.

There was a light on in the living room. The front door was unlocked, as
usual, and Jim led the way in. "Stay," Kate said to Mutt, and
followed.

The living room was empty. So was the kitchen. So was Auntie Vi's little
suite in back of the kitchen.

They went upstairs. "Which one is his?" Kate said.

Jim nodded at a door and Kate tried the handle. "Locked."

They stood side by side looking at the door with, had they but known it,
identical speculative looks on their faces. "I know where the keys to the
rooms are," Kate said.

"So do I." He looked at her. "I'm a practicing professional
police officer. I need a warrant."

She made a face and went downstairs, returning a few moments later with a
key. She inserted it into the lock and the door opened smoothly, as any door
installed beneath Auntie Vi's auspices would have if it knew what was good for
it.

The room held a full-size bed with a nightstand and a lamp next to it, a
dresser with four drawers, and an easy chair grouped with a floor lamp and an
end table. A tiny bathroom with a toilet, a sink, and a shower was tucked
behind a door between dresser and chair. Outside the window spruce branches
brushed the glass with scratchy fingers.

"Not a neatnik," Jim said from the doorway.

"Looks like Johnny's room," Kate said. "Or the Grosdidiers'
house."

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

The bed was a jumble of blankets and sheets, socks and underwear spilled out
of an open drawer, dirty clothes were tossed in a corner. Crumpled beer cans
had missed the wastebasket.

Kate made a quick circuit. "No letters, bills, mail of any kind. Stack
of these, big surprise." She held up a fistful of copies of the latest
Global Harvest flyer.

"When did Johnny say Gallagher showed up?"

"September."

"Four months. Long time to go without paying a bill."

"Auntie Vi would have kicked him out if he hadn't been paying his
here." Jim looked over his shoulder. "What?"

"Thought I heard something."

"Mutt's outside."

"Right. Gallagher own a vehicle?"

"A pickup, Johnny said."

"Global Harvest would have given him a company snow machine for the
river trip."

"Yeah, he had his own when I saw them leaving for the trip on the
river. Wasn't any snow machine outside."

Kate looked under the bed, and pulled out a large duffel bag, black and red
and worn at the seams. "Padlocked." She slung the bag over to the
door. Jim got out his key ring, selected a slender tool, and bent over the
lock. It took about two seconds. "Pitiful. No wonder it's TSA
approved." He shoved the bag back at her.

She unzipped the bag and looked inside. She looked inside for so long that
he said, "What?"

"Who's dealing coke in the Park these days?"

She dragged the bag back over to him and they both looked down at the Ziploc
with the white powder inside it.

"Open it up," Jim said.

Kate did, and Jim licked his little finger, dipped, and tasted. "Yeah.
Coke."

"Isn't full, either." "I noticed."

"That's a lot for personal consumption."

"I noticed that, too."

"Maybe my question is, who's using in the Park these days, and who's
supplying?" She looked at Jim.

"I haven't heard anything. Even Howie seems to have stopped dealing
lately." He thought. "Actually, I haven't heard of him dealing
anything since before Louis died."

"Me, either." She nodded at the Ziploc. "But one of us would
have heard if Gallagher was dealing."

Too late, they both remembered that Kate had been left out of the loop on
the assaults on the river. "You'd think so," he said, voice carefully
neutral.

"Shit." Kate rested her elbows on her knees. "Would you like
me to investigate further, officer?"

"Can't use any of it as evidence."

"Fruit of the poisoned tree," she said. "Still." She
reached in the bag and moved the Ziploc to one side. "Well, well."

"What?"

She pulled out a wad of bills fastened together with a rubber band.

There were a dozen more. All the bills looked well-used. Like maybe
Gallagher had been taking payments in cash for something he was selling.

Kate repacked the bag, relocked the lock, and restowed the duffel beneath
the bed. She rose to her feet, dusting her hands and knees. "Now
what?"

"Well," Jim said, "we know more than we did before. We know
Gallagher's running under an assumed name, and we know he is or was dealing
coke."

"Doesn't mean he killed Mac or Macleod."

"No. Does Auntie Vi ever make her guests fill out any kind of
form?"

She looked at him. "Did she make you fill out one?"

"No." He smiled down at her. "But that's me."

She rolled her eyes. "As long as their check or Visa card clears the
bank, she doesn't care who they are or where they come from."

They closed the door and locked it and put the key back on the hook in the
kitchen. Kate, unable to help herself, made a beeline for the flying pig cookie
jar on the counter. No-bake cookies today. Kate took one, put the lid back, and
then took the lid off again and took one more.

Auntie Vi's counters, while scrupulously clean, were barely visible beneath
the detritus of her life, of which the flying pig was only one manifestation.
There was a stack of unread
Alaska Fisherman's Journals,
another of
legislative circulars that had been heavily notated and highlighted in yellow.
She had three sets of canisters, one brass, one bright blue enamel, the third
Lucite. A knife block bristled with knife handles, there was a beer box full of
bright squares of fabric, a copy of
The Fannie Farmer Cookbook
on a
stand, open to a scone recipe.

Kate sorted idly through a large shallow wicker basket that held a jumble of
those tools essential to everyday civilized life. Pens, pencils, a Frosty the
Snowman notepad, a handful of Hershey's Nuggets, a tape measure, an oven mitt,
pushpins, safety pins, paper clips. There was a
Camelot CD
(original
cast, Auntie Vi was a known Robert Goulet enthusiast). There were twist ties, a
roll of duct tape, a roll of electrician's tape, a roll of Scotch tape, a spool
of string.

Under the roll of duct tape she found a small untidy ball of green
monofilament. "Hey," she said.

"Wait a minute." Jim was looking at the calendar hanging on Auntie
Vi's wall. It was a big one, featuring gorgeous photographs of the
Hawaiian Islands
. The month pages featured large squares
for the dates. There was something written in almost all of them, bake sales,
basketball games, due dates for Park rat soon-to-be moms.

"Look at this." He turned his head and she held up the
monofilament. "He eats breakfast in this kitchen every morning."