Bone Rattle

by Marc Cameron

  Maycomb nodded, apparently pleased he’d actually read the whole article. “The German prisoners got dry barracks, decent food – and heat. My grandmother was with the group that got plunked in the rain and mud at that broken-down salmon cannery at Funter Bay. Not fit for a goat, let alone American citizens…”

  “Sounds like it,” Cutter said.

  “The war ended and the government shipped the ones who hadn’t died of flu or dysentery back to the Aleutians to work the seal harvest – except my grandmother. She’d fallen in love with a Tlingit boy who used to help deliver their meager supplies. I’m thinking of writing a book about her.”

  “I’d read a book like that,” Cutter said.

  Maycomb ate a bite of toast, settling herself again after getting so personal. “The point is, there are a lot of Native issues for me to write about. Those guys who came after me on the beach called me an Indian bitch. Not just bitch, but Indian bitch, as if that made it worse somehow.”

  “There was a lot about them that wasn’t right,” Cutter said.

  “Anyway, thank you.”

  “What’s the deal with your sister?” Cutter asked, changing the subject.

  “Sister-in-law.” Maycomb put both hands on the table again to steady herself. “Well… for starters, she wants to take my son. She thinks I’m a shitty mother and whole-heartedly believes she could do better.”

  Cutter let out a deep breath. “Because you’re Native?”

  “No,” Maycomb said. “Because I’m a drunk. I could deal with it if she were just another Indian-hater. That would put her a hundred percent in the wrong. Trouble is, part of what she thinks is absolutely true. I am… or at least I was a shitty mother and an even worse wife.”

  “You appear to be doing well now,” Cutter said.

  “Looks can be deceiving,” she said. “I mean, I am sober. My birthday was yesterday if you can believe it.”

  Cutter knew enough alcoholics to understand she meant her sobriety birthday. People who attended AA called the anniversary of when they were born their “belly-button birthday.” Their “birthday” celebrated the first day they had remained sober – and that was far and away more momentous than the belly-button kind.

  “I’m a recovering drunk, but I’m still a drunk,” Maycomb continued. “Leave me alone with a six-pack – and at some point, there’s a good chance I’ll have to do my research and drink it all, just to see if I’m still an alcoholic. And when I say drink, I mean drink.” She faced the window as she spoke, staring into the fog. “My husband – Rockie’s brother – he was such a decent soul. Poor guy watched me go back to the bottle again and again – and never once said anything about kicking me to the curb. I mean, I was already there on my own, but he never mentioned divorce or taking our son from me.”

  Head still bowed, she glanced up at him, embarrassed. “Sorry to vomit the sordid details of my life up on the table.”

  “Hey,” Cutter said. “I asked.”

  She gave a soft chuckle. “You know how to pick a recovering alcoholic out in a crowd?”

  Cutter remained stone-faced.

  “Don’t worry,” Maycomb said. “She’ll tell you. I guess we get so used to making amends and admitting we have a problem that we start to believe everyone wants to hear about it.”

  “Like I said, I asked.”

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t ask for all… this…” Her voice trailed into a whisper as she locked on to something on the street outside.

  Cutter turned, leaning forward to get a look at Maycomb’s sight line.

  Juneau was waking up. People were just beginning to emerge from warm houses onto chilly streets black with rain. A man in orange Grundéns overalls and floppy black rubber boots pushed a wheelbarrow toward a waiting boat, illuminated by a string of work lights. A couple of young women walked side by side toward some early-morning job downtown, dressed Juneau-sheik with tasseled Nepalese wool beanies, name-brand rain jackets, and skinny jeans tucked into their Xtratufs. Another woman, a mom or nannie, pushed a tandem jogging stroller with a clear plastic rain hood across the heavy timbers of the wharf toward a line of parked cars. She balanced a flat of coffee cups on top of the extra-wide stroller.

  The skinny guy looked out of place, uncomfortable, like he’d been dropped off at the wrong address or escaped from solitary confinement.

  “See that guy with the scruff and the red bandanas tied around his hands?”

  “Yep,” Cutter said.

  Cutter estimated the man was about six feet tall. Thin, but not the healthy kind. All bone and skin, like an addict – the kind of person Lola would have said survived on the “smell of an oily rag.” He had a bouncing stride that looked as if he was loping when he walked. One arm stayed close to his chest, the other hovered over his belly, elbows tight, like he had a broken rib or some other injury that hurt him when he moved. He was probably thirty, but carried himself like a very old man.

  Cutter shot the reporter a quick glance, then returned to Bandana Hands. “What about him?”

  “I saw him sitting in a truck in front of the federal building yesterday.”

  “Post office, maybe?” Cutter said.

  “Maybe. But he was there when I left for lunch and there when I got back. I was waiting for a call from Donita. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but I can tell when someone’s watching me, and he definitely was.”

  “You know him?”

  “Never saw him before yesterday.”

  Cutter was already on his feet. He peeled two twenties off the roll in his pocket and left them on the table.

  The double doors in the lobby slid open automatically when Cutter approached, letting the cool air from outside hit him in the face like a damp washcloth. Bandana Hands crossed under the glow of a streetlight, shooting a nervous glance over his shoulder as he walked north from the Wharf building. His collar was turned up against a steady drizzle, but he’d left the hood of his raincoat down, presumably so he could keep his head on a swivel. He was hinky about being followed, which made Cutter want to follow him all the more.

  Lori Maycomb stood inside, well away from the entrance.

  “Wait here,” Cutter said, and stepped out the door at a trot. He moved obliquely, like he was going straight to the restaurant. Bandana Hands flicked another look over his shoulder, saw Cutter, sized him up like a grazing gazelle deciding if it was time to run. He looked at the hotel entrance – then froze, mid-bounce. His face fell, not really a frown, more like he was melting in the rain. Cutter followed his gaze to find Lori Maycomb standing at the hotel doors.

  “Fantastic,” Cutter muttered to himself.

  Bandana Hands tucked his head – and bolted.

  Chapter 31

  Cutter knew a thing or two about chasing people. The smart ones – and there were very few of those – just took off, trying to make the most of any head start. Experienced crooks did the same, even if they weren’t smart. Bandana Hands was neither.

  Animals – humans included – tended to follow the path of least resistance when they moved. Some trackers called this the “natural line of drift.” Grumpy called it “funneling.” “Ten guys walk out of hunting camp to take a dump at different times of the day, nine of them get funneled to the same spot and end up planting a boot in somebody else’s crap.”

  It was human nature to take the easier way, to let the terrain dictate direction of travel.

  Bandana Hands followed that logic – at first.

  The Gastineau Channel lay to his left, a twenty-foot drop from the wharf. The streets and alleys of downtown were to his right, but that was all uphill. Bandana Hands’s legs told him it was better to run parallel to the street instead of crossing it and having to work to gain elevation.

  Cutter was fast and this guy was injured. It wasn’t anything close to a fair footrace. Cutter gained ground with every stride. Pumping his arms. Feeling the familiar bump when his elbow touched the Colt Python on his hip. It was good to open up, to run all out after someon
e who needed to be caught. He’d already zeroed in on the spot between Bandana Hands’s shoulder blades where he’d give a little shove. Tackling was for rookies who’d never broken a rib on some felon’s boot heel. Another ten steps and it would all be over but the paperwork.

  Then Bandana Hands saw the lady with the jogging stroller. Maybe that had been his goal all along. He juked between two pickup trucks, rounding up so he was face-to-face with the startled lady. The back door of her Subaru was open, where she’d been bent over fastening one of her kids into a car seat. The other, a child of two or three, stood at her mother’s thigh, all but eclipsed by an oversize yellow rain coat.

  Bandana Hands scooped up the child as he ran by, wincing with pain, but digging into a sprint.

  Directly toward the water.

  Cutter was right behind him, ten steps away, maybe less, but it didn’t matter.

  Bandana Hands ran along the edge of the boardwalk until he cleared a waiting tug boat that was moored stern to the wharf, and then tossed the screaming toddler over the side like a piece of garbage.

  Five more steps and Cutter would have had the son of a bitch. No little shove now. A human sled ride to the ground, face-first. But the kid was in the water. New terrain that dictated Cutter’s direction of travel.

  He took a scant second at the edge to locate the yellow raincoat sinking beneath the surface. The water was black as stone. For all he knew, there were stones down there, big ones, just deep enough they didn’t scrape the bottom of a boat, but plenty shallow to break your neck if you dove from the wharf.

  The glint of yellow raincoat faded from sight, so he jumped anyway, feetfirst.

  Cutter braced himself, waiting for impact, but felt only cold water. He bobbed up quickly, forcing himself not to draw in a gasping lungful of the frigid water. The guy with the wheelbarrow had made it to his boat. Spotlight in hand, he was shouting, pointing over the side. Cutter caught a glimpse of yellow again. He took a breath, kicked his feet above his head, and piked into a dive, pulling himself deeper into the darkness with powerful strokes.

  Cold blackness closed in around him. A life-long scuba diver, he was as at home in the water as he was on land, but he’d not taken time to clear his ears. Ten, fifteen feet down, he heard the familiar squeal as his Eustachian tubes tried to equalize the pressure against his eardrums. He wiggled his jaw back and forth, tasting salty water.

  His lungs tightened. His hand brushed something in the darkness. Lost it. He drove himself forward, kicking as hard and fast as he could while still wearing the rubber boots. He found it again. Smooth. Slick.

  His fist closed around the edge of the raincoat, then a fragile little hand. Pulling the tiny child to his chest with both arms, he looked skyward, kicking even harder now, willing himself upward.

  He surfaced a dozen yards from the boat and the man with the spotlight. Seconds counted, so he flipped the little girl on her back, resting her on his forearm. His body blocked the spotlight, leaving her small face looking fragile and chalky pale in his shadow. He checked for breathing. Nothing. Lifting the child to him as he swam, he gave her two rescue breaths before he made it to the boat.

  The man in orange Grundéns reached down and took her, pulling her on board.

  “She’s still not breathing!” he yelled, alternately talking to Cutter and the child. “Come on, baby girl. I already called nine-one-one! Come on, wake up, kiddo.” Cutter pressed himself up onto the stern platform and then scrambled over the side in time to find the man patting the little girl on the cheeks. Her mother, who had another baby to worry about, was just working her way down the ramp from the wharf. She called out her daughter’s name.

  “Brie! Brie!”

  Brie lay on the deck of the fishing boat, the hood of her raincoat pulled back to reveal a tangle of dark hair across a pale forehead. Her eyes were closed.

  “I’ll do CPR,” Cutter said to the man, dropping to his knees. Seawater spilled from his boots as he knelt, ran from his sodden clothing, puddling the deck and dripping on the little girl. He tilted her head gently, opening her airway. “Get back with nine-one-one and stay on the line. Tell them no breathing. No pulse.” He wanted the man to have a job. Something to do so he didn’t get in the way.

  She’d been in the water less than a minute. That wasn’t enough time to cause brain damage, but the shock of hitting the cold water had caused her to take a reflexive breath. Cutter had brought her up from the bottom, but her lungs were full of water.

  She was on dry ground, but still drowning.

  She was so small that Cutter gave rescue puffs of air, held back with his chest compressions to make sure he didn’t break a rib.

  Two breaths, thirty compressions.

  “Come on, Brie!” Cutter said. “Come on, kiddo.”

  Two more breaths—

  She gagged. Then spewed a geyser of water, coughing and spitting and crying. Her mother crowded in to take her, handing off her smaller baby to a soaking wet Cutter.

  * * *

  An ambulance arrived four minutes later, put little Brie on oxygen, and then sped away to the hospital with her mother and sibling.

  A second ambulance arrived shortly after. Cutter refused care but did accept a wool blanket that he wrapped around his shoulders. He was fine. Cold, wet, and supremely pissed. But fine.

  Lori Maycomb recounted how she saw Bandana Hands get in a skiff, probably stolen, and disappear into the fog toward Douglas Island. She stood in the rain with Cutter now, staring across the channel at nothing but cold gray darkness.

  “No idea what his name was?” Cutter asked for the third time.

  “Sorry, no,” she said. “I’ve never seen him before yesterday.” Cutter pushed his chin toward Gastineau Channel. He was shivering now and needed both hands to hold the blanket tight around his neck. “What’s directly across from us?”

  “Forest, mostly,” Maycomb said. “Neighborhoods, schools, a few restaurants and stores. But mostly forest. The Treadwell Mine is there. It’s abandoned. Caved in about a hundred years ago. Huge place. There are lots of old buildings, moss-covered ruins, really, like something you’d see in an Indiana Jones movie.”

  “Takes a special kind of bastard,” Cutter said, his teeth chattering.

  “To toss a kid in the water like that?” Maycomb said.

  “No.” Cutter looked up at her. “To hunt a guy like that down.”

  Chapter 32

  Special Agent Beason, who must have been sleeping at the courthouse, screeched down Willoughby and across Egan in his rented Tahoe. He jerked to a stop on the wooden wharf directly behind Cutter and Maycomb. He left the engine on, the headlights glaring, which only served to piss Cutter off more than he already was. Cutter continued to look the other way, even when Beason addressed him, forcing the FBI agent to come around and face his own blinding headlights if he wanted to talk.

  “You let another one get away,” Beason said, turning to follow Cutter’s gaze into the fog. For once, he didn’t rant. His idiocy was ingrained, but he was too exhausted to rail.

  “Yep.”

  Cutter had worked for and with people like Charles Beason before. The FBI didn’t have a corner on the asshole market. The Marshals Service had their fair share, as did the army, even the pizza joint where he’d worked in Port Charlotte when he was seventeen. It was best to ignore them. Let them derail their own careers – or, in some cases, inexplicably promote. Those people were uncanny at their ability to discern which asses needed to be kissed and which ones they could kick with impunity.

  “You’re not being fair.” Maycomb hooked a thumb over her shoulder, up Egan toward the hospital. “Cutter had to choose between saving a drowning child and catching the guy.”

  Beason glared at her, acting like he’d just realized she was there. “And who are you again?”

  She extended her hand. “Lori Maycomb. KTOO. Assuming you’re with the FBI, I talked to a couple of your agents yesterday.”

  “Maycomb?” Beason recoi
led as if he’d been smacked in the face. “You need to beat it.” He turned to Cutter. “Donita Willets was this woman’s informant. She’s a person of interest herself, in case that little investigative tidbit slipped by you. I don’t know what you’d call that in the Marshals Service, but we—”

  “We call it not being a dick while we’re interviewing a witness,” Teariki said. “You should try it sometime.”

  Cutter snugged the blanket a little tighter, past caring. Beason’s grumbling was directed at him, so he shrugged it off.

  Lola had trotted across the street, crowding into the group, thinking she needed to be there to keep Cutter from pulling Beason’s head off. She’d heard the last. She handed Cutter a dry shirt she’d grabbed from his room after he’d called her.

  “That’s enough, Lola,” Cutter said. She held the blanket while he stripped out of his wet shirt and slipped on the new one, feeling better instantly. The Fjällräven pants were clammy but relatively dry already.

  Lola wedged herself farther between Cutter and Beason, holding up the blanket with both hands, like a matador. She spoke over her shoulder to Cutter. “What? You know you wanted to say it yourself.”

  “I’m good,” Cutter said, buttoning up the shirt. “He can be a dick to me. Just not my people.”

  “Well,” Lola said. “You’re my people…”

  Fortunately for Beason, Rockie Van Dyke pulled up in her SUV, interrupting his response. The detective ignored Maycomb altogether when she approached the group. “Hey. Dispatch got a call from Mary Dutchik two minutes ago. She’s a scanner fan, monitors JPD radio more than a rookie patrol officer on his days off. She heard the call go out about the pursuit and the little kid in the water. Sounds like she had an appointment with a man this morning who wanted to sell her a Tlingit shaman’s rattle. According to her, this guy had bandages on his hands.”

  “Where is she now?” Lola asked.

  “Her shop’s right around the corner. We can walk there.”

  “Can I come?” Maycomb asked.