by Marc Cameron
“She did not,” Maycomb said.
Lola gave a satisfied nod. “Looks like they were all three former employees of Valkyrie Mines. Dollarhyde had apparently brought them back on for some contract work. The lady from HR admitted to hearing him talk to them about convincing a Native reporter she needed to leave Juneau for a while.”
Maycomb closed her eyes and sighed. “Thank you.”
“How you feeling?” Cutter asked.
“Honestly,” she said, “I feel like I need a cigarette.”
Lola looked up from her water. “But not a drink?”
“So far, so good,” Maycomb said.
“I’d think recent events proved you’re tough enough to handle anything,” Lola offered.
“Wish it worked like that,” Maycomb said. “Gotta take it one day at a time, every time. As soon as I start thinking I’m tough enough to go this on my own – that’s the day I’ll screw it all up.”
Cutter gave her an understanding nod.
“I’m fine, though,” she said. “Really. For now, anyway. And I got some cool material for my novel.”
Cutter passed her the little glass vial the doctor had given him. “This is all the gold I’ll ever get out of a mine. I want you to have it. You saved my life. Gunalchéesh.”
Maycomb’s jaw dropped. “You heard Donita say thank you in Tlingit one time and you remembered it?”
Cutter shrugged.
“I know, right.” Lola spoke around the straw clenched in her teeth. “Welcome to my world.”
Cutter’s phone buzzed in his shirt pocket. It was Mim.
“Excuse me a minute,” he said. “I need to take this.”
“You’re writing a book?” he heard Lola ask as he scooted out of the booth and walked toward the door, his phone still buzzing.
“Yeah,” Maycomb said. “Your boss gave me the theme without knowing he was even doing it.”
“How’s that?”
Lori Maycomb sat transfixed on the door where Cutter had disappeared. “You’ll have to read the book.”
* * *
Cutter answered the call and found a bench outside under the hotel portico, where he could whittle while he talked. His hands were bloodied and sore from frequent collisions with rough rock, but he couldn’t stand to have them idle.
“What did the doctor say about your eyes?” Mim asked first thing.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Fine you won’t die?” she asked. “Or fine you’ll have a cool eye patch?”
“Fine, I’ll be fine,” Cutter said, chuckling. “No cool eye patch, unless you think a white piece of gauze is cool.”
“Seriously, Arliss,” Mim said. “Your eyes…?”
“He said I’ll be good as new in a couple of weeks. The chief ordered me to take at least a week off.”
“Good for her,” Mim said.
Cutter paused with his knife, looking at the wood, seeing nothing. Later maybe. He folded the blade and put it away. Just as well, his depth perception was shot for the time being and he was likely to cut his thumb off.
“I’m really sorry about the way this wrecked your vacation.”
“The kids are out of school for the rest of the week,” Mim said. “I was thinking, we could start smaller, maybe drive down to Whittier, go through the tunnel, eat at the Swiftwater if it’s open.”
“The Swiftwater?” Cutter said, not caring where they ate. He was just happy Mim was going to let her boys hang out with him again after everything that had happened.
“Yeah,” Mim said. “If that’s okay. I really like their rockfish and chips. And we could walk the docks and look at boats. The boys would love that.”
Looking at boats was Cutter’s weakness, and she knew it.
“Well,” Cutter said, testing the water. “My depth perception is going to be a little off for a few weeks with this eye thing. I just might walk off the pier into the water.”
Mim laughed, the way she’d laughed when they were sixteen.
“I think I can help you out with that.”
Epilogue
Anchorage PD patrol officers worked four ten-hour shifts per week. It was great if you had family, or hobbies, or wanted time off, but all Joe Bill Brackett could think about during those three days off was getting back to work. He’d only had two days on his own before his first weekend. There was overtime duty, but the senior guys scooped that up – and Officer Brackett was about as junior as you could get in the APD pecking order.
His first night back he got punched in the ear, talked a young woman out of jumping off the A-C Couplet onto the tracks, and Tased a guy on meth who wanted to fight – he didn’t intend on getting punched in the ear again.
All of that was exactly what he’d signed up for, but what he wanted to do was hunt down whoever was hacking up girls and dumping them into the ocean. He’d phoned the detectives three times over his weekend to check on status, until Sergeant Hopper called and told him to cool it in his no-nonsense Texas drawl.
It was raining now, but Brackett didn’t care. He was back at work, and life was good – but for one tiny detail.
Officer Fluke’s weekend usually only overlapped with his by one day, which was a blessing. Two shifts of that guy was a gut full. Unfortunately, Fluke had done a tour trade with another officer so he happened to be working.
And that worthless son of a bitch got the call.
A body off the Tony Knowles coastal trail near Bootlegger’s Cove.
The call was North, Brackett was assigned to South, but he didn’t care. He attached himself anyway.
Fluke waved him off over the air, but good old Sergeant Hopper countermanded him and told Brackett to “come ahead on.”
All the way down by O’Malley when the call came in, it took Brackett a few minutes to get there, windshield wipers thumping, water spraying around his tires. He prayed that he wouldn’t come across an accident on the way. He’d have to stop if that happened, giving Fluke far too much time to screw everything up. Brackett consoled himself when he realized Fluke wouldn’t likely want to be out of his car for very long in this downpour.
Nearly there, Brackett slowed to work his way through the neighborhoods below downtown Anchorage. He drove down O Street until he got to Nulbay Park, where he saw other patrol cars.
Sandra Jackson, the uniformed investigator, was already there, sitting behind the wheel of her white APD Impala. The light of her phone lit up her face.
Brackett killed his headlights and parked behind her, grabbing his raincoat.
She rolled down her window when he approached.
“Hey, Joe,” she said. Her expression was tight, grim.
“What do we have?” he asked.
She scrunched her nose, squinting, like her face hurt, then rubbed her eyes.
“Another girl,” she said at length. “Or a piece of one, anyway.”
“Shit,” Brackett whispered.
“I was on the phone with Homicide just now,” Jackson said. “We’re supposed to hold the scene until they get here. In other words, don’t go poking around and screw everything up.”
“Is Fluke down there?”
She shook her head. “Fortunately, he’s taken up a post under that awning, out of my way.”
“Same MO?” Brackett asked, not knowing what else to say. He wanted to go down there but didn’t want to piss off the homicide guys. They barely talked to him now.
She nodded. “Killer’s getting sloppy, though. I took a couple of photos before Homicide told me to back off, if you want to see.”
Brackett tried to sound nonchalant. “Sure.”
She motioned him around to the passenger side. “You’ll have to squish in by my MDT, but this way I can roll up my window.”
The inside of Officer Jackson’s car smelled so much better than his – like coffee and shampoo, where his smelled like… not that.
She passed him the phone as soon as he shut the door.
Brackett zoomed in to reveal a female foot,
cut off just above the ankle. It was hard to tell from the photo, but the foot looked relatively fresh, like it hadn’t been in the water more than a day.
Jackson pointed at the phone. “Like I said. He’s getting sloppy.”
The rain picked up, battering the windshield.
Brackett enlarged the photo all the way to reveal a tiny gold ring around the index toe.
“And look at her nails,” Jackson said. “Each one is a different color. I guarantee you, somebody is gonna recognize this girl.”
Acknowledgements
The image of a lone deputy US marshal saving the day plays well in Hollywood or on the printed page, but I learned early in my law enforcement career it was better – and much safer – to ask for help.
And so it is with writing a novel.
As with every book, I spent hours talking, and in this case, walking, through the various man-tracking and fight scenes contained in Bone Rattle with my longtime friend and former partner in the US Marshals Service, Jujitsu Master Ty Cunningham. We sat around a campfire near his home in Southeast Alaska discussing human conflict, wilderness tracking, and long-range shooting.
A significant portion of the story takes place underground. Through a stroke of luck, a coincidental introduction from Ty’s sister-in-law on an early research trip to Juneau put me in contact with Peter Nestler – jump rope master, multiple Guinness Record holder, and world class fine-art photographer. Visit his website. You won’t regret it. Peter also happens to be a genuinely nice human being. He and his wife guided me on my first trip into an abandoned gold mine and then introduced me to a friend of theirs named Brian Weed.
As it turns out, Brian is a real-life incarnation of Indiana Jones when it comes to adventuring. He spearheads a group called Juneau’s Hidden History (check out the amazing photos on their Facebook posts) and is surely one of the most knowledgeable people in the area when it comes to historic mining sites. Brian; his wife, Mareta; and their super cool dog, named Kat, opened their home to me during subsequent research trips and guided me on some incredible excursions underground. Many of the locations described in Bone Rattle are taken directly from these adventures.
The whole gang from Juneau’s Hidden History invited me on several hikes and even hosted a dinner during my last research trip to Juneau. During the course of my visit, I wished many times that I didn’t have a deadline so I could throw my hat in and join one of their adventures – over mountains, down rivers, or deep into some mine; it didn’t matter to me.
Someday.
My dear friend Brian Krosschell answers countless questions about life in rural Alaska and provides a sounding board (and source) for many of my ideas.
Though this story is set in Alaska, much of it was written on the island of Rarotonga, ancestral home of Lola Tuakana Teariki. My wife and I have made many wonderful friends in the Cook Islands over the years – Bill Rennie, Peter Heays, Jolene Bosanquet, Carey Winterflood, George and Karleen, Amber and Jaret, Jean and Brian, Rod and Lily, Paul and Gabrielle, Mike and Pauline, Vikki, Naomi – all of whom contribute continually to Lola’s character, culture, and my writing life in general during our stays in the South Pacific.
I have one of the best literary agents in the business in Robin Rue of Writers House. Gary Goldstein, my editor at Kensington, is a gem of a guy. More than just colleagues, both have become my good friends over the course of many years and a few million words. In fact, the entire gang at both Writers House and Kensington Publishing are nothing short of stellar.
My friends with the Anchorage Police Department and the United States Marshals Service continue to be a constant source of inspiration and guidance.
It’s a fortunate writer indeed who has a partner who listens, plots, critiques, applauds, cajoles, and edits like my wife, Victoria, does for me. I was thinking the other day how patient she’s been over the past three (almost four) decades, allowing me to disappear into my mind as I wrote several hours each day – half of that time getting nothing from publishers for my efforts but rejection letters.
In one way or another, all the best characters in my books are inspired by her.
Grumpy Cutter’s Venison Stew
Note: Grumpy’s version calls for venison and a Dutch oven. Arliss uses caribou and cooks it in an Instant Pot. Moose, bison, Dall sheep, musk ox… or even beef may be substituted.
1½ pound of caribou cut into cubes
3 Tbsp Olive Oil
1-2 tsp salt
1-2 tsp pepper
2-3 cloves minced garlic
1 Tbsp of Montreal Steak Seasoning (or similar)
½ cup of Red wine
1 large onion chopped
3 cups beef broth
2-3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
3-4 Yukon Gold potatoes – cut into big chunks
4-5 carrots, cut in big chunks
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1-2 Tbsp of water to add to the corn starch to make a slurry
Add 2 Tbsp olive oil to the Instant Pot and turn on the saute function. When the oil starts to sizzle add the meat and season with the salt, pepper, and Montreal Steak Seasoning. Stir the meat until it has browned on all sides.
Scrape the bottom of the pot for brown bits as you deglaze with the red wine. Add the last 1 Tbsp of oil, onions and garlic and cook on the saute setting for two minutes, stirring with the meat.
Turn the Instant Pot off.
Add the beef broth, Worcestershire sauce, potatoes, and carrots.
Lock the lid and check that the valve is set to seal. Set to cook for 35 minutes on HIGH pressure. It will take 7 to 10 minutes to come up to pressure. Cook on HIGH pressure for 35 minutes.
Allow for a natural release of pressure for 10 minutes when the cooking time is up and then move the valve for a final quick release of pressure. Meanwhile, whisk the corn starch and water together to make a slurry.
Add the corn starch slurry to the steaming hot stew, stirring continuously as it thickens. Stew is done and ready to serve.
Grumpy Cutter’s Flaky Square Buttermilk Biscuits
3 cups of all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
2 sticks of butter, frozen (16 Tbsps)
1½ cups of buttermilk
Preheat oven to 400°F. Prepare a baking sheet with a light spray of oil or cover with parchment.
In a bowl, stir together all the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda.
Grate the two sticks of butter and add to the dry ingredient mixture.
Gently combine until the butter particles are coated.
Next add the buttermilk and briefly fold it in. Transfer this dough to a floured spot for rolling and folding.
Shape the dough into a square; then roll it out into a larger rectangle. Fold by hand into thirds using a bench scraper. Press the dough to seal it. Use the bench scraper to help shape the dough into flat edges. Turn it 90 degrees and repeat the process of rolling it out to a bigger rectangle and shaping it again. Repeat this process for a total of five times. The dough will become smoother as you go.
After the last fold, and if time allows, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Otherwise, cut the remaining dough into squares and place 1 inch apart on the baking sheet. Brush the tops with melted butter.
Bake at 400°F for 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool on a rack before serving – if you can wait that long.
Tips to remember:
• A buttermilk substitute can be made by adding one teaspoon vinegar to one and a half cups regular milk and letting it stand for a few minutes.
• Handle the dough lightly – don’t overwork it.
• Freeze the butter. It makes it easier to grate and distribute it throughout the dough.
• For the very best results, your bowl and other utensils should be cold.
• Rolling and folding the dough 5 times produces the
flaky layers – again, don’t get too heavy handed.
• Shaping the dough into a square and cutting it into squares avoids waste and rerolling (and overworking) the scraps.
• If time allows, let the dough rest for 30 minutes wrapped in plastic wrap in the fridge before you cut into squares. This helps them rise tall in the oven without slumping or sliding.
Makes about a dozen biscuits.
About the Author
A native of Texas, Marc Cameron has spent over twenty-nine years in law enforcement. His assignments have taken him from rural Alaska to Manhattan, from Canada to Mexico and points in between. A second degree black belt in jujitsu, he often teaches defensive tactics to other law enforcement agencies and civilian groups. Cameron presently lives in Alaska with his wife and his BMW motorcycle.
Also by Marc Cameron
The Arliss Cutter Thrillers
Open Carry
Stone Cross
Bone Rattle
First published in the United States in 2021 by Kensington Books
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
31 Helen Road
Oxford OX2 0DF
United Kingdom
Copyright © Marc Cameron, 2021
The moral right of Marc Cameron to be identified as the creator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
