Whisper to the Blood (40 page)

"Uh-huh," he said. "Look at this." He pointed at that
day's date.

She followed his forefinger to the entry. "GH mtg, RC, 7pm." She
looked up at him. "Global Harvest,
Riverside
Cafe?"

"Let's go see."

 

T
hey parked in the store's parking lot
and walked but they needn't have bothered. There was almost no one parked out
front of the cafe. Kate sighed.

"What?"

"If Global Harvest stays on this mission of all information, all the
time, people are bound to get bored and wander off."

"Think that's their plan?"

"It'd be mine, if I wanted to put in a strip mine in Iqaluk and I knew
it was going to piss off a lot of people in the Park."

Jim held the door for her. "Stay," she said to Mutt, and went in.

Inside, Laurel Meganack was drying glasses behind the counter. She gave Jim
a flat, inimical stare. She wouldn't even look at Kate. Maybe a dozen people
were gathered around the corner table. Gallagher was on his feet, talking
animatedly as he pointed to a map of the Park he'd taped to the wall. He looked
up and his voice faltered when he saw Kate and Jim. Heads turned.

"Hey, Dick," Jim said.

"Sergeant Chopin," Gallagher said.

"Or should I say Doyle," Jim said.

"Who?" Gallagher said, but he waited a beat too long.

"Got a few questions for you," Jim said. "If you could come
on down to the post, I'd appreciate it."

Gallagher looked past Jim at Kate, and whatever he saw in her face made the
rest of the color drain from his own. "Sure," he said, "no
problem. Just let me get my coat."

He turned and reached for the coat lying over the back of a chair. As he did
so Kate hit Jim with a low tackle behind the knees and the bullet from the Sig
Sauer P220 Compact only knocked the ball cap from his head and shattered the
window in the door. From the other side of the door Mutt uttered a series of
outraged barks.

There were screams and shouts and chairs scraping and bodies hitting the
floor, and then another loud crash when a second window went. Kate and Jim were
on their feet and looking at the broken window at the end of the counter Gallagher
had evidently dived through. Jim started forward and Kate turned and hit the
front door. "Mutt!"

Mutt was quivering with rage, teeth bared in a vulpine snarl. She snapped
and growled, dancing around Kate. She didn't like people shooting at her.
"Come on!"

Kate ran around the back of the cafe just in time to see Jim finish knocking
the rest of the glass out of the frame and jump outside. "Which way?"
Something sang by her ear, followed by the distinctive crack of the Sig.
"Fuck!

Jim had his 9mm out. "Stay back!"

"Like hell!"

"Goddammit, Kate, you're not armed!"

"Like hell!"

There was the sound of rapidly receding footsteps and Kate went after them,
Mutt shooting past her, a gray streak with her head lowered between her
shoulders, long legs eating up the ground, and a feral and terrifying growl
issuing from her throat.

They all heard the snow machine start, and rounded a corner in time to see
Gallagher start off on somebody's dark blue Polaris.

"Kate!"

"Mutt! Take!"

The gray streak that was Mutt seemed to flatten out and gather speed. The
snow machine had to slow for a second to take the corner of the Kvasnikof home
and as it did Mutt launched herself in mid-lope and hit Gallagher in the back
with all of her not inconsiderable weight. Gallagher rolled from the seat and
went tumbling head over heels. Mutt did a kind of mid-air jackknife to make a
four-point landing, falling over Gallagher like a net, teeth bared and snapping
inches from his face. He froze in place, and then the hand that was still somehow
holding the Sig raised it and squeezed.

"Goddammit!" Jim said, and dived, landing on his belly with an
ungraceful flop and skidding three feet farther on the snow and ice. Ahead of
him, Kate had dodged behind the Kvasnikof house. The bullet hit the house next
to her with a deafening bang and startled cries issued forth from all around
them.

Mutt went ballistic. She snarled and bit Gallagher on the face, tearing skin
and drawing blood, and then she went for his gun hand. Thirty feet away Jim
could hear the crunch of bones breaking.

Gallagher shrieked and dropped the Sig. Kate ran out from behind the
Kvasnikofs' and scooped up the Sig on the fly, and by the time she slowed
forward momentum Mutt had her teeth on Gallagher's throat, that slow, steady,
emasculating growl issuing from her own. He made one feeble effort to shove her
away. Her jaws closed tighter and she shook her head. He screamed, or tried to.
The result was a garbled, gargling sound.

Jim got to his feet. "Kate. Call her off."

"Why?" Kate said, torn between fright and fury. She didn't like
getting shot at, either.

"Kate."

"Oh, all right. Mutt, release. Mutt! Mutt, release! Come on, girl, it's
okay. Get off him. Off, Mutt, now!"

Mutt looked up at Kate, her jaws bloody from Gallagher's face, wrist, and
throat, still that steady rumble, like tank tracks, issuing forth.

Kate grabbed Mutt's ears and shoved her down to the ground, her face right
in Mutt's, her own bared teeth inches from Mutt's throat. "No! No!
Release, I said! Release!"

"Jesus, Kate," Jim said, shaken.

Inexplicably, Mutt went motionless. Jim wasn't even sure she was still
breathing.

For a long moment the three of them remained frozen in place, to the
accompaniment of Gallagher crying and whimpering in the background. Jim
couldn't say he blamed him much.

A soft, conciliatory whine sounded. Mutt stuck out a long pink tongue and
washed Kate's cheek.

"All right then." Kate released her. They both got to their feet.
Mutt shook herself and gave another ingratiating whine, touching her nose to
Kate's hand. Kate cuffed her and Mutt cringed and whined again. "Oh shut
up, you big baby," Kate said, and gave her a rough caress. Mutt bounced in
place, yipped, and wagged an ingratiating tail.

"Holy shit," Jim said.

"No big," Kate said. She shook her hair out of her eyes, feeling
suddenly, debilitatingly weary. "Once in a while I have to remind her
who's still the alpha dog in the pack. She is half wolf, you know."

Nevertheless, Jim made a big circle around the both of them when he went to
peel Gallagher off the ground.

 

 

 

 

TWENTY-SIX

 

T
he cells at the post were getting
crowded. "It's time for you to go home, Howie," Jim said. "I've
sent word for Willard to come get you." Howie looked torn between being
booted out and scared that his life might still be at risk. "You don't
think I killed Mac Devlin anymore," he said, a little crestfallen.

"Sorry, no," Jim said, pushing Howie in front of him.
"Ballistics say you didn't. Not with your own rifle, at any rate."

"Well, I didn't kill him. I didn't kill Louis, either, Jim." Jim
looked down at him. It was hard to detect truth from bullshit with Howie
Katelnikof. The shifty eyes, the sly face, the involuntary instinct to lie his
way out of every situation, all these were Howie to the bone and none of them
inspired confidence. "You told me the aunties hired you to kill him. Was
that true?"

Howie sent an uneasy glance down the hall to where the three Johansens were
still smelling up the jail and the cell across the hall where Gallagher had
taken Howie's place. He was stretched out on the bunk and was attended by all
four Grosdidier brothers, who were in hog heaven at the amount of bandages that
were going to be required. "We might even need a Life Flight!" Luke
said, ecstatic.

In the other direction Maggie was visible through the doorway, sitting at
her desk and pretending her boss wasn't having a whispered conversation with
Howie Katelnikof. "Off the record, Jim?"

Jim looked at the ceiling and thought about it. If the aunties had hired
Howie to kill Louis and he had, Howie would be guilty of murder and the aunties
of conspiracy to commit. If the aunties had hired Howie to kill Louis and he
hadn't, all four would still be guilty of conspiracy to commit.

Of course, any charges would be contingent upon Jim's ability to prove said
charges in a court of law. With the aunties' unparalleled ability to stonewall
so amply demonstrated of late, see Kate Shugak here, he didn't look forward to
any conversation upon that topic with Judge Singh. On the other hand, Howie's understanding
of "off the record," like his understanding of "immunity,"
came more from television than hands-on experience. "Okay," he said
mendaciously. "Off the record."

Howie leaned in and said in a voice just above a whisper, "They did
hire me to kill him. The aunties. I told you the truth about that."

"Uh-huh," Jim said. "And did you? Kill Louis?"

Howie shook his head vigorously. "No, Jim. No, I told you, I didn't.
For one thing, I didn't have a shotgun with me that day."

"How did you know he was killed with a shotgun?" Jim said.
"Very few people know that, Howie."

Howie's voice dropped even lower. "Like I told you before. Because I
saw him."

Jim looked down at him, considering. "I remember. You said you found
Louis dead on the road to the Step."

"Yeah." Howie swallowed and looked a little sick. "Yeah. I
was driving out the road and he was just lying there. I pulled over and I got
out and he was just. . . lying there, with his chest all blown open. Gut
shot." He shuddered.

"Uh-huh," Jim said again. "What were you doing on the road to
the Step that day, Howie?"

"I was supposed to pick up Louis when you let him out of jail,"
Howie said. "He was already gone when I got here. I knew he'd be mad I
wasn't here on time, and he told me he had to talk to Ranger Dan, so I figured
I'd find him on the road." He swallowed again. "And I did."

 

J
im took down Howie's statement, for
what it was worth, and, after an internal debate that lasted a good five
minutes, went ahead and released Howie into Willard's tearful arms. Willard
probably hadn't eaten a decent meal since Howie went inside.

"Hey, Howie," Jim said, as they were leaving. "Who was that
poaching caribou with you up
Gruening
River
way?"

Howie hesitated, and then shrugged. Loyalty was never one of Howie's strong
suits. "Martin Shugak."

"You already told me that, Howie. There was someone else, though,
wasn't there? I saw a third rig under the trees."

"Fuck," Howie said, disgusted. "Al Sheldon."

Not one of the usual suspects, but the name nevertheless sounded familiar to
Jim. He tried to track it down in his memory and came up empty.

There were two reasons he let Howie go. For one thing, he needed the cell.
For another, if Howie hadn't fled the Park before this, chances were he wasn't
going anywhere now. Still, Jim called Kenny Hazen and asked him to keep an eye
out for Howie and Willard in Ahtna, just in case.

At some point he was going to have to talk to the aunties again. By rights,
as a practicing policeman, he should bring them all in for questioning. He was
already guilty of dereliction of duty by leaving it this long.

Although he had been busy, no denying that. Gallagher's prints had gone out
before midnight, and before eight the next morning there was a match. Dick
Gallagher was Doyle Greenbaugh, all right, and he was wanted for questioning
for a double homicide at a truck stop outside of
Boise
,
Idaho
.

Johnny stopped by on the way to school and on Google Earth identified the
truck stop as one of the stops Gallagher had made on their way north.
"Here's the newspaper story about it," Jim said, handing him a
printout.

BOISE
,
ID
(AP): Two bodies were found in the parking lot of the Riders of the Purple Sage
Truck Stop on

Franklin Road
,
Caldwell

, a suburb of
Boise
, early this
morning. The first victim was a white male in his early forties, the second a
white male in his teens; they have been identified as Dennis McMil-lian, a
local businessman, and his fourteen-year-old son, Mark, both on a routine early
morning walk with their dog, Rusty. Police say both appeared to have been shot
by a large-caliber handgun, the elder victim in the chest and the younger in
the back some distance away. Rusty was crouched next to the younger victim when
the bodies were found.

"The incidence of violent crime has only been increasing on I-84 over
the last ten years," said Representative Cole Blanchette (R-Boise) in an
impromptu press conference near the scene yesterday morning. "It's what
I've been trying to hammer home on the floor of the House every session, that
we need an automatic death sentence for anyone convicted of committing a crime
with a firearm."

An anonymous source in the police department said that traces of cocaine
found near the bodies indicated that the two victims may have interrupted a
drug deal. The same anonymous source reported that police have long suspected a
network of drug dealers working truck stops across the nation. "It's
natural," the source said. "Interstates go everywhere, and those big
rigs go everywhere on them. It would make for a very efficient operation.
They'd be mostly anonymous to the locals, so they'd never show up on the local
cops' radar. They get here, they do their deal, they move on. And they've got a
cover story that isn't even a cover story, it's a real job, they have a reason
for passing through."

Police are canvassing the area for witnesses to the crime. A high-placed
source in the police department who wishes to remain anonymous says that
special attention is being paid to traffic in and out of the truck stop between
the hours of midnight and six a.m.