Bone Rattle

by Marc Cameron

  “If you worked for me—”

  Now Cutter gave a slow shake of his head. “Charles,” he said. “If I worked for you, I’d be in jail.”

  “Okay, boys,” Van Dyke said. “If you two are done pissing on your territorial boundaries, how about we make a plan and decide what to do next?”

  “All right,” Beason said, still fuming. “What is it?” He was used to throwing his weight around without having anyone to throw it back.

  Cutter gave him a quick rundown of his theory, relaxed again, like they were all part of the same team.

  Van Dyke had come on board with the idea that the Willits girl was alive. “Levi does seem to be more insistent that we’ll never find her than any details of how she died.”

  “That’s an odd thing to be so sure about,” Lola mused, more to herself than Beason. He didn’t listen to people of her lowly station anyway.

  Beason rubbed a hand over the dark stubble on his face, exhausted, which explained but gave him no excuse for being even more of an asshole than usual. “So you think he’s hiding the girl to protect her from someone?”

  “I believe we need to look at that possibility,” Cutter said.

  “Why didn’t he just bring her in?” Beason asked, still not buying in. “This town is crawling with FBI agents.”

  “There is that,” Van Dyke said.

  “Hang on a minute,” Lola said. “This kid is a senator’s son. Senators can run in some pretty shady circles to get themselves elected. Maybe it’s one of his daddy’s friends that he’s scared of. Maybe he’s so used to important people being dirty that he wasn’t going to chance turning his girlfriend over to the authorities until he does his due diligence. I mean, Daddy did writ him out in the middle of the night right before he was going to cooperate. Maybe someone doesn’t want him to talk because whatever the girl knew… or knows… he knows too.”

  “That’s not good for him,” Van Dyke said.

  “I know, right?” Lola said. “There’s no way Levi Fawsey is going to convince the people he’s scared of that Donita Willets fell overboard. They’re apt to be a little rougher in their interrogation methods than we would have been. And he flipped in about ten seconds for us. At the best they’ll ship him off somewhere, out of our reach. Worst case, he tells them where she is and they kill him and Donita both.”

  Cutter and Van Dyke nodded at the logic. Lola’s theory made enough sense that even Beason listened to her – for now.

  Cutter checked his watch. It was almost three in the morning. If Donita Willets was still alive, they had to get to her first.

  Day Three

  Chapter 29

  It was a quarter to four by the time Cutter got back to the Sheraton and his head hit the pillow. His alarm woke him at six fifteen. He’d learned in the army that if he couldn’t get four hours, then he woke up more alert from a two-and-a-half-hour REM sleep cycle than trying to milk out another half hour.

  He grabbed a quick shower, then dressed in water-resistant Fjällräven pants and a gray lightweight wool shirt. His meeting wasn’t until seven, and it was in the restaurant downstairs. He didn’t have to hurry, but he wanted to call Mim before she left for work.

  Six thirty-five. He’d give her five more minutes. That gave him a chance to check his gear.

  Among other things, his daypack held an extra set of black merino wool long johns, Ethan’s mammoth ivory 3DK sheath knife, and an extra pair of wool socks. He didn’t want to come back to the room no matter where the hunt for Levi Fawsey and Donita Willets led.

  He pulled on his Xtratuf rubber boots, which felt more like slippers than the work boots he was accustomed to, and then peeked out the curtain to check the weather. Lights twinkled in the darkness behind the Hangar restaurant and the boats along the wharf. Rain zipped through the bright halo around each streetlight below. Fog and darkness completely obscured the Gastineau Channel and Douglas Island beyond.

  Exactly the way he’d left it.

  Earbud in his ear, he took out his pocketknife and the small chunk of wood he’d been working on, and then slid down to sit on the floor to carve with his back against the wall. It gave his hands something to do while he talked to Mim.

  She’d sent him a text telling him she and the boys had made it home safely. Like they were a real family. They were. Just not the way he’d imagined it, thousands… no, tens of thousands of times since he’d met her at that bait shop on Manasota Key.

  Ethan had been almost eighteen then, much more at ease with himself and the ladies. Mim had naturally ended up with him, even though Arliss had met her first. He’d been too taken with her to say a word. Too smitten with her peaches-and-cream skin to move. He’d just stood there, feet rooted in the peeling linoleum floor of that sweaty bait shop while Ethan talked and moved, and swept Mim off her feet right under Cutter’s nose.

  That’s what Arliss got for having a cool older brother.

  That single moment in that bait shop had torn the rudder right off his boat. Left him drifting until he’d found himself in the army – and all that other mess. That at least had given him direction, purpose, even if that direction kept him teetering on the edge of getting fired or put in prison.

  Then Ethan had gotten killed, leaving Mim and her kids alone. And for some reason, Arliss found himself unable to move or speak again. In everything else he was a paragon of strength, but when his sister-in-law was involved—

  Mim answered.

  “You’re up early,” she said, sounding even more exhausted than Cutter felt. He could hear the thick, clickiness in her speech that told him she was just out of bed, hadn’t had her coffee. Her text said she was going in to the hospital to cover another nurse’s shift – since she was home anyway.

  “Can’t believe you’re going in,” Cutter said, turning his knife so it shaved off paper-thin slivers of wood, toward his thumb, exactly what he taught his nephews not to do.

  “I owe her a shift,” Mim said. “I wasn’t asleep anyway.”

  “Constance okay?”

  “She’s got friends.” Mim heaved a long sigh. It was content, and full of emotion, and such a perfect sound that Cutter nearly sliced his thumb.

  “I told her I was picking her up at nine,” Mim continued. “But now it’ll be after work. She didn’t sound disappointed. I’m just glad she’s got girls her age to talk to. No sense in wrecking her evening just because you had to work.”

  “I am so sorry about that,” Cutter said. He stopped carving and let his head fall backward against the wall so he faced the ceiling, eyes closed.

  “That’s okay,” Mim said.

  “Listen,” Cutter said. “We didn’t get a chance to talk after—”

  “What happened on the beach?”

  “Yeah—”

  “That was… I don’t know…” Mim paused, gathering her thoughts. “I thought I’d seen you lose your temper that time at the indoor track.”

  I didn’t lose my temper, Cutter thought. That time or this one. Losing my temper is ugly, something I never want you to see.

  He said, “Fights are nasty business. Better to end them as quickly as possible. I hate that you had to witness that. Sorry the boys had to see it.”

  “I get it,” Mim said, her voice hushed. “Really, I do. It’s just that it seemed so one-sided, like those guys never had a chance.” She caught herself. “Don’t get me wrong. I wanted you to win. It was just…”

  Cutter waited for her to finish. When she didn’t, he helped her out. “Violent?”

  He could hear her nod over the phone. “Yes, and gruesome. That look in your eye. I have to admit it scared the crap out of me. For a minute I thought you might murder those guys.”

  Not even close, Cutter thought.

  “It’s just a lot to process,” Mim said.

  “Are the boys okay?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Mim said. “They’re fine. If I’d let them say ass they’d never talk about anything except how proud they are to have a badass uncle
.”

  “I am sorry,” Cutter said again.

  “You’re always teaching them Grumpy’s Man-Rules. I guess I just thought they’d be a little older before they’d get the live demonstrations. Anyway, like I said. A lot to process.”

  They didn’t speak for a time; Mim was making coffee from the sounds of it, while Cutter worked on his carving and tried to suss out any hidden meaning in the things she’d said – or hadn’t said.

  “There we go,” Mim said at length. “I’ll be human again in five minutes. Listen, I gotta get ready for work.”

  “Me too,” Cutter said. He was already a minute late for his meeting downstairs.

  “Call me later,” Mim said – her way of saying she didn’t think he was wrong for beating the crap out of someone in front of her boys – or, if she did, she forgave him for it.

  Chapter 30

  McGivney’s sports bar was dead ahead as soon as Cutter got off the elevator in the Sheraton lobby, so he didn’t have far to go. He was only two minutes late, which was twelve minutes later than he liked to be. Grumpy’s rule: Ten minutes early was right on time.

  Lola was still up in her room, on her way to the gym. That girl was always in the gym. She planned to spend the morning running down leads with Rockie Van Dyke, who wanted nothing to do with Cutter’s breakfast appointment.

  Lori Maycomb was waiting at the center booth along the wall, looking out the window at the rain. A soccer game was on the big screen behind her, above her head. Argentina vs. Brazil. Lionel Messi dribbled the ball down the field like it was tacked to the end of his shoes. Messi was the twins’ favorite player. Arliss had bought them both number 10 jackets at a soccer store six months before, when he’d gone back to Miami Beach to testify in an old case, from before he’d gotten the supervisor’s job in Alaska.

  Maycomb turned when he approached the table, and stood up to shake his hand. She wore a synthetic hoodie with a Native design that Cutter took for a raven holding a circle in its open beak. Wool pants were tucked into her Xtratufs. A waterproof daypack peeked from beneath a damp raincoat on the seat beside her. There was a wobbly, but fiercely determined look in her eyes. Cutter had seen it before – in the mirror. She was someone who’d hit bottom, hard. On the up-bounce, but not quite yet in control of her surroundings. She wore no makeup that Cutter could see. Her eyes were puffy, probably from lack of sleep. Cutter felt her pain there. Her fingernails were chewed to the quick, black hair pulled back over her ears with a pink, no-fuss elastic hair band, like she was going out to play tennis instead of helping Cutter find a missing girl. There was a notebook on the table and a cheap blue Paper Mate pen that looked like a dog had gotten hold of the cap. Judging from her fingernails, Cutter suspected the damage had been done by Maycomb. The notebook was closed and the chewed cap was still on the pen – good signs in Cutter’s book. If anyone took notes, he wanted it to be him.

  She tilted her head toward the bar. “He’s bringing coffee in a second.” Her voice was soft, direct, and she looked him in the eye.

  “So,” he said, hoping to break the ice with a little small talk. He was far too tired to force anything close to a smile. “Maycomb – like the county in To Kill a Mockingbird.”

  “Culture points to you,” she said. “Arliss Cutter, like Little Arliss in Old Yeller.”

  “Touché,” he said.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” Maycomb said. “I’m sure Rockie has filled you in with all sorts of horror stories. Sad to say it, but most of them are probably true.”

  Cutter waved away the thought – for now.

  “We needed to talk,” he said. “You may be the only person we have as far as a lead to Donita Willets.”

  “I told the FBI everything I knew yesterday,” she said. “Which wasn’t much of anything, I’m afraid. Whatever got the poor thing killed, she hadn’t had time to tell me about it.”

  Cutter let the waiter pour their coffee and take their order. Scrambled eggs and toast for her, eggs over medium, bacon, and pancakes for him. He hoped to get so busy tracking down Donita Willets that he wouldn’t have time for lunch. He stirred a couple of spoonfuls of half-and-half into his coffee to soothe his gut, and then let the waiter go back to the kitchen before he pitched the new theory – off the record, which meant Maycomb couldn’t use it in a story.

  “So she isn’t dead?” Maycomb said after he’d given her the bones of it.

  Cutter eyed her over the top of his raised coffee, deciding how much to tell her. Some, or she’d clam up. He took a sip and set the cup on the table. “We’re thinking not. But we need to find Fawsey in order to find her.”

  “Before whoever did the Tyler-Rogers shooting out at the shrine kills her too.”

  “Yep,” Cutter said.

  The waiter came back with their order.

  Maycomb nudged the syrup toward him.

  “No thanks,” he said, lifting his eggs on top of the pancakes with his fork before breaking the yolks. “I’m not in a very sweet mood.”

  Maycomb put both hands flat on the table. “I promise, if I had any relevant information, I’d share it with you.”

  “Any information,” Cutter said. “Even irrelevant.”

  “I don’t have that either.”

  Cutter cut a bite of pancake, sodden with egg yolk. “You may have it but not know it.”

  “My friend in Anchorage said I should be careful of you,” she said.

  Cutter ate another bite. “Good advice.”

  “Don’t you want to know what my friend told me?”

  “Nope,” Cutter said. “I stopped caring what people think about me a long time ago. I know who I am and what I know. I want to know what you know.”

  “Well,” Lori Maycomb said. “I know that you probably saved me from a beating yesterday. That woman on the beach would have pulled my hair out by the roots if you hadn’t shown up. Who knows what the guys would have done to me.”

  “Stood and laughed,” Cutter said, serious.

  “Maybe,” Maycomb said. “Anyway, I owe you. Most people wouldn’t have stepped in like you did.”

  “Don’t know about that,” Cutter said.

  Maycomb heaved a heavy sigh, looking around the restaurant. “I’m just saying, not everyone could have handled those people the way you did.”

  Cutter kept eating his pancakes.

  She prodded. “Are you from Alaska?”

  “Florida.” He took a sip of coffee.

  “Aren’t you the king of pithy answers.”

  Cutter shrugged, fork and knife in hand. “Harder to misquote.”

  “I’m not the enemy, you know.”

  “That’s the thing,” Cutter said. “You kind of are. Journalists and cops are at cross-purposes ninety-nine percent of the time. I cannot count the number of occasions where ten seconds got taken from some interview with me and put on an endless out-of-context loop that distorted the truth into something ugly and interesting, just so it would get ratings – or clicks or whatever.”

  Maycomb gave a slow nod, staring down at her index finger as she drew tiny circles on the table. “I get it, you’d just as soon your work stayed in the shadows, hunting the swamps and dark holes of the world.”

  Cutter shrugged. “That’s where the rats and roaches like to hide.”

  “Is that what you think they are? The people you hunt? Rats and roaches?”

  “Hey, it’s your metaphor,” Cutter said. “But I guess I do. Human rats and roaches, worthy of human rights, but sometimes not so much human kindness.”

  “I guess that’s the difference,” she said. “You’d prefer to work in the dark. Journalists want to shine the light on things.”

  “And there you go,” Cutter said. “That is exactly what I mean. In my experience, it’s the angle of that light you’re shining that’s the problem. Straight down, hold-nothing-back lighting is just fine, but tilt that light a little up, down, or sideways and the shadows on one side get longer or shorter. The truth is distorted.”
r />   “A philosophical marshal,” Maycomb said, looking at him, but still doodling on the table with her finger.

  “Deputy marshal,” he corrected. “And don’t get me wrong. This isn’t an indictment of every reporter out there. I’m all about a free press. It keeps everybody honest. I just prefer not to be the one to talk to them.”

  “How about we be the one percent,” Maycomb said. The circles with her finger turning into jabs against the table as she came to some conclusion. “How about you and I work together.”

  Cutter gave her an it’s-not-so-easy grimace. “To get your story or get to the truth and find Donita Willets?”

  “Both,” she said. “But Donita Willets first, definitely.”

  She piled a mound of scrambled eggs on her toast and took a bite. “Listen,” she said. “My sister-in-law hates my guts. She’s made it clear to my news director that the station will get nothing if he assigns me any story regarding the police or public safety. I cover Native issues for public radio. Harmless.”

  “Native issues?” Cutter said.

  “Yep,” she said. “I’m Tlingit and Unangan.”

  “Unangan?” Cutter said, interested. Culture had a great deal to do with behavior.

  “Our word for Aleut,” she said. “My mother’s family was from here, Tlingit. My father’s father was Tlingit as well. But my father’s mother was from the Pribilofs. She was brought here during World War II. The United States government, in its infinite wisdom, decided to rescue the people from St. Paul and other islands in the Aleutians from advancing Imperial Japanese troops. Sounds like a deal, right? But they dumped them in internment camps here in Southeast. My grandmother ended up in Funter Bay.”

  “I read about that on the plane ride down. Tragic,” Cutter said. “An old salmon cannery.”

  “In the Anchorage Daily News?”

  “Yep.”

  Maycomb beamed. “That was my piece.”

  “Good writing,” Cutter said. “Bad times. I guess German prisoners of war were held here in Southeast as well.”