Bone Rattle

by Marc Cameron

Arliss studied her for a long moment and then shrugged. He interrogated people for a living, so she doubted he was fooled. He was just too much of a gentleman to press her.

  “We’ll just get in your way,” Mim said, hoping he’d argue with her.

  “Not at all.” He looked up from helping Michael cut in the grated butter. “I’m only there in case Judge Forsberg sequesters the jury.”

  “What’s sequesters?” Matthew asked.

  “When we keep people in a hotel so they won’t hear any wrong information. We help them stay safe and get them back and forth to the courthouse so they—”

  “So,” Constance cut him off. “Basically a glorified bus driver.”

  “Kind of,” Cutter said, nodding thoughtfully. He knew better than letting a teenage girl offend him. “Really it’s not even that cool. I’m like the guy who makes sure the glorified bus drivers have what they need to do their jobs.”

  “I say we go, Mom,” Matthew piped.

  “Me too!” Michael said.

  “You took spring break off to be home with the kids while they’re out of school,” Cutter said. “I have plenty of air miles and I found a four-bedroom Vrbo that’s only twenty dollars a day over my hotel allowance. That’s a hundred bucks for a five-day vacation. Sounds like a good deal to me. Make the government work for us for a change.” The normally stone-faced Arliss Cutter was beginning to sound giddy. “Come on,” he said. “We could go for some hikes, get out and see the glacier, roast s’mores on the beach—”

  Michael’s head snapped up. “We’re going to a beach?”

  Constance gave her little brother another dyspeptic sneer. “Not like a warm Florida beach, nimrod. He’s talking about a rocky Alaska beach littered with stinking kelp and dead things.”

  “Wait,” Matthew said. “Will it have that kind of kelp that’s like a bullwhip? Because that would be so fun.”

  “Whatever,” Constance said. “You guys have a grand old time. I’m not going.”

  Michael stared at her, dumbfounded, looking for all the world like his father. “You can’t stay home all by yourself.”

  “He’s kind of right, you know,” Mim said.

  Constance bowed her head so her bangs hung over her eyes, glaring. “You already said I could spend a couple of nights at Audrey’s.”

  “I guess I did,” Mim admitted.

  Her face flushed as she watched Arliss cajole the boys into working together as they rolled, folded, and then cut the dough into buttered squares. It had been a long day and her mouth was beginning to water, even with Constance’s sour attitude.

  “I guess we’ll go to Juneau then,” she said, just as Arliss slid the baking sheet into the oven.

  Constance shook her head, hiding again behind the sullen bangs. The boys crowed happily, until Michael pushed in too close. Matthew jerked away, finally letting loose with the full-throated cry he’d been holding back all afternoon.

  “Come on, bud,” Arliss said, assuming he was still upset about the spill. “It’s just buttermilk.”

  “I’m not mad about that,” Matthew sobbed.

  “What then?” Mim prodded.

  Matthew stood rooted in place, eyes flitting back and forth between his mom and his brother. Finally, he turned to Arliss, choking back his tears. “There’s a girl in our class. She was my friend first, but Michael came up and was all, ‘Hi’ and ‘Those are cool Sketchers,’ telling her jokes and stuff. Now she likes him more.”

  Cutter looked quickly away, but Mim caught the sadness in his eyes.

  “Wish I could help you, bud,” he whispered. “But sometimes… it just bees that way.” He took a quick breath, obviously steadying himself. “Anyway, stew is done, biscuits are in the oven. I’m going to get some of my gear ready.” He rubbed the top of Matthew’s head, mussing his blond hair. “I think you boys should clean the flour off your snouts before dinner.”

  * * *

  Mim tapped the table with the flat of her hand as soon as Arliss and the boys left the kitchen.

  Constance looked up, earbuds dangling.

  “Turn your music off,” Mim said.

  “I can hear you fine.”

  “Turn it off or lose your phone.”

  Constance complied, but with the kind of disgusted groan that would have made a less trusting mother lock her bedroom door at night.

  “I’m getting really tired of walking on eggshells around you,” Mim said, exhaustion settling all the way to her bones. “You’re not alone in your misery, you know. It’s been an awful couple of years for all of us.”

  Stoney silence.

  “Your uncle is a guest in this house,” Mim said. “He helps us in more ways than you know.”

  “I’m sure he does,” Constance said. “But maybe we don’t need that much help.”

  “But we do,” Mim said. “He pays rent. He helps with the boys. He—”

  “Whatever,” Constance said, gathering up her notebook and papers. “I need to wash my face before dinner.” She stood, looking down the hall, then back at Mim. “I’ve decided I am going to Juneau with the family.”

  “Why?” Mim scoffed. “So you can make everybody else miserable and show Arliss how much you hate him?”

  “Holy shit, Mom,” Constance whispered. “I can’t believe you don’t see it. I don’t hate Uncle Arliss.”

  “Then spill it. What is your problem?”

  “I’d much rather stay home and go to the mall with Audrey, but I’m not…”

  “You’re not what?”

  “I don’t know,” Constance said, her chin beginning to quiver, starting to break down. “It just… it just seems like you’re forgetting Dad.”

  “Constance!” Mim found it difficult to breathe. “Come with us to Juneau or stay with your friends. But know this, I am allowed a few moments of happiness. That doesn’t mean I’m forgetting. I will never forget your dad.”

  “You gave away his knife, Mom,” Constance said, the emotional walls coming up again, spiked with broken glass.

  “What should I do? Leave it to rot in the sock drawer? You know what? I’ve changed my mind. You should stay home.”

  “I’d much rather do that,” Constance said.

  “They why the sudden flip-flop? You’re giving me whiplash.”

  “You already know.”

  Mim threw her head back to stare at the ceiling. Exasperated. “What does that even mean?”

  “Make me go if you have to,” Constance said. “Or make me stay home. I could not possibly care any less than I already do.”

  This wasn’t all hormones. Something was going on here. Maybe a little distance would do them both some good. “Stay home then.”

  Constance hung her head, hiding behind the horrible bangs that hung down like flaps on either side of her face. “Whatever.”

  Chapter 9

  Juneau

  “There is another problem,” Dollarhyde said, “beyond the Hernandez brothers.”

  Grimsson gave an exasperated nod. There was always something. “And what would that be?”

  “That reporter from the public radio station has been digging around.”

  “She’s the one that was supposed to do that feel-good piece about the mine a few months ago.”

  “That’s the one,” Dollarhyde said.

  “Well, it didn’t make me feel good.”

  “I hear you,” Dollarhyde said. “Whatever she found while doing that report has her asking even more questions now. Sooner or later she’s going to ask the right questions to the right people and be able to connect the dots. My contact at the station says she has a source who can damage you.”

  Grimsson nearly bit the stem off the pipe. “A source? You’re telling me someone from my organization is selling me out to the media? I want to know who this son of a bitch is! I want them standing in front of me on this island, pissing down their legs. And I want it now! You read me?”

  “I understand, sir,” Dollarhyde said, his voice calm as ever. “We’re wa
tching the reporter now. I’ll have her phone cloned shortly, then we’ll know who she’s calling and who’s calling her.”

  “I want that snitch dead,” Grimsson said, stabbing the air with the pipe. “Whoever he is, and I want that reporter lady dead.”

  “I can make that happen,” Dollarhyde said. “At least with the source. But every death brings more law enforcement. There may be another way with the reporter.”

  “Another way?” Grimsson said, still seething.

  “Yes, sir,” Dollarhyde said, taking a drink of his ginger ale. The sleeve of his leather jacket came up, revealing a gold Rolex Submariner. Grimsson despised ostentatious watches – or any sort of jewelry on men for that matter. Rings and watches were a good way to get your hand ripped off in machinery. But then, Dollarhyde dealt in another side of the business.

  “Her husband?” Grimsson asked.

  “He died a few months ago.” Dollarhyde drained his glass and set it down beside his chair. “But she has a little boy.”

  “You are one conniving, mean-ass son of a bitch. You know that?”

  “So I’ve been told, sir,” Dollarhyde said.

  Grimsson tapped the pipe against his front teeth in thought. “A little boy… That could work.”

  Day Two

  Chapter 10

  Anchorage

  The twins dragged their own suitcases from the rear of the minivan when Cutter dropped them off on the departure level at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. He would leave the van in long-term parking and then walk back to the terminal.

  “Want me to take your bag in so you don’t have to lug it?” Mim asked Cutter as she pulled her own suitcase to the sidewalk in the dim, early-morning haze.

  Maui Jim sunglasses propped up on top of his head for later, Cutter craned his head around to look out the open hatch from the driver’s seat. He gave her a conspiratorial wink. “There’s some stuff in that bag that might get you in trouble in an airport.”

  “Ah,” she said. “Of course.”

  She shut the door and watched Arliss drive away in her Toyota, fighting the urge to wave since she’d see him again in ten minutes. The twins were already charging full speed toward the double doors to “look at the stuffed polar bear inside.” Mim extended the handle on her hard-sided case and trudged toward the terminal. The shell of the old suitcase was completely covered in a hodgepodge of stickers from Maui, New York, London, and dozens of other places she’d been or wanted to go. Miami Dolphins football, pink ribbons for breast cancer awareness, a sunset over Manasota Key, where she’d first met Ethan and Arliss – and dozens of other causes covered every square inch of the case. Some areas were two stickers deep.

  Now, exotic travel meant helping with a school field trip to the Iditarod Museum near Wasilla, north of Anchorage. Until today, she hadn’t flown anywhere since she and Ethan took a trip to Maui the year before he died.

  Juneau wasn’t exactly Maui, but it was somewhere different from the monotony of her everyday life.

  She was still thinking about Constance’s little outburst when she walked inside the terminal and found Chief Deputy Jill Phillips standing by one of the Alaska Airlines’ ticket kiosks.

  Looking at once practical and stylish in a light tan Arc’teryx rain shell and Zamberlan mountain boots, Phillips chatted amiably with a guy with a salt-and-pepper goatee. Mim didn’t recognize him, but suspected he was a deputy because of his tan Royal Robbins style khaki slacks and a loose-fitting button-up shirt he kept untucked to cover a sidearm. Arliss called it a shoot-me-first uniform, since it was pretty much ubiquitous to plainclothes law enforcement on all levels. Usually provided by the department or agency, it was free, durable, and tacticool. Arliss dressed that way for work because he didn’t mind being identified as part of the task force, but off duty, or when he wanted to, as he called it, “go in slick,” he stuck with jeans and an untucked mechanic’s shirt. If it was cold, he wore wool long johns under the shirt.

  Phillips scanned the terminal as she chatted with the deputy, the way Arliss did when he was out in public. She smiled when she saw Mim, then raised her chin slightly, the universal gesture for hey. The guy in the shoot-me-first getup handed her some keys and then excused himself with a polite nod.

  Mim caught a glimpse of the handgun on Phillips’s belt as she approached. She wondered what it must be like for an attractive woman who was not exceptionally large in stature to wrestle with felons and, probably worse, lead a district jam-packed with gun-toting type A deputy marshals.

  “I guess Arliss is parking your rig?” Phillips asked, hands resting easily in the pockets of her “Dead Bird” jacket.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Mim said. “He’ll be here in a minute.”

  “That’s okay,” the chief said. “I’m happy to talk to you. This Juneau thing happened on the same day we hired a guy to change out all the winter tires. Government contracts are so complicated I don’t even want to try and reschedule. I’m here to help ferry vehicles back to the garage.”

  Mim nodded. “Arliss dropped his SUV off this morning. We picked him up.”

  Phillips gave a little nod, as if the last thing she wanted to think about was shuttling cars. “That helps. Glad you decided to make this trip.” Her eyes narrowed a little, the way Mim suspected they would during an interrogation. “I can’t promise anything, but the Marshals Service does hundreds of trials like this every year. Arliss is helping me supervise things until I get some more deputies up from other districts, but he should have some free time.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fun,” Mim said, as if trying to convince herself. Her mom instinct kicked in and she did a quick head-check for the twins, finding them leaning over the railing to peer down at the stuffed musk oxen on the floor below.

  “I’m thinking Arliss could use a little break,” Phillips chuckled. “Lola wears him out with all her cheerful zippiness.”

  “She’s so great,” Mim chuckled.

  Phillips’s smile faded. “How is he?”

  “Good,” Mim said. “I mean, he seems good.”

  As far as either woman knew, Arliss was still unaware that a former member of his Army Ranger unit had spilled the beans about the horrific events from their last mission in Afghanistan – the murder of a small child that they had witnessed but had been unable to prevent. It wasn’t their fault, but the guilt of the killing weighed heavy on every member of the team – chiefly on Arliss, the man who’d been in charge. Though he’d never been one to suffer a bully, the little girl’s senseless death had, in large part, formed Cutter into a man who would not abide bad behavior toward a weaker human being – for a single second, no matter the consequences.

  Phillips shook her head, deep in her own thoughts.

  Mim found herself mesmerized by the amazingly beautiful splash of freckles over the woman’s nose.

  “He seems the same to me,” the chief said. “Though, I guess that’s to be expected. Just because we know what happened to him doesn’t make him all better.”

  “I hope it helps us understand him,” Mim said.

  “Me too,” Phillips said. “Sometimes, he just seems so…”

  “What?” Mim prodded, surprised at her own directness.

  “I can’t put my finger on it,” Phillips said. “I was going to say ‘sad,’ but I’m not sure that covers it. Maybe numb is the right word.”

  “Hollow?”

  “Could be that,” Phillips said.

  “You know he’s been married four times, right?”

  Phillips gave a tired chuckle. “I guess that would hollow out the best of us.”

  “You got that right,” Mim said. “The first three were oddballs. Girls with problems Arliss thought he could fix. He couldn’t, of course, because they didn’t want to be fixed. His last wife was different, though. She was sweet. Passed away from breast cancer a couple of years ago. I think her death nearly killed him.”

  “I’ve seen her photo in his office,” Phillips said. “She looks�
�”

  “I know.” Mim gave a resigned sigh. “Like me?”

  “Sorry,” Phillips said. “You must get that a lot.”

  “Arliss likes to pretend it wasn’t so,” Mim said, “but I do have to admit he has a type. Barbara was a good soul. I think they could have been really happy – but in the end, she turned out to be another person he was helpless to save.”

  “You know,” Phillips said. “Men like Arliss… strike that… people like Arliss don’t come along very often. In some ways, I look at him and think, ‘I can tell where I stand with this guy,’ and then later I realize there’s this whole undercurrent going on behind that grouchy demeanor that I just cannot get a read on.”

  “I know,” Mim said, laughing out loud. “His grandfather was the same way.”

  “Wish I could have known Grumpy Cutter,” Phillips said.

  “You know Arliss,” Mim said. “So you kind of do.”

  “Anyway,” Phillips sighed. “I should get back. I am glad you decided to go to Juneau.”

  Cutter came up the escalator just then, pulling two roller bags. Lola Teariki, thick black hair piled in a frizzy bun, was a couple of steps behind him. Cutter caught Mim’s eye, stone faced.

  “See that?” the chief whispered. “He would have smiled at you if I hadn’t been here.”

  “You think?”

  “Look, Mim,” Phillips said. “It’s absolutely none of my business, but I’d like to think that Arliss and I would be good friends were it not for the whole boss, subordinate thing. You two have been dealt some shitty hands lately. Don’t worry about what you believe other people are thinking. Arliss doesn’t talk much, but he and I have worked together enough that I can put two and two together. A woman can see things in a guy’s face, you know. You’ve known each other since you were sixteen, so I imagine you can see it too.”

  Mim nodded.

  “You deserve to be happy – even if it’s with your brother-in-law.”

  Mim almost snorted. “The thing is,” she said, almost to herself, “the me I am now sure ain’t the same person he had a crush on back in Manasota Key.” She shook her head. “I imagine he’s past all that.”