Kate sipped coffee and waited for the giggling to die down, and then waited some more. “Perhaps the two of you would like to get a room.”
Dinah, face flushed with laughter and perhaps something more, struggled free of her husband’s grip and sat up straight. “Nonsense.” She smoothed her hair back and reached for the mug of coffee Kate had placed on the coffee table. “We’re an old married couple.”
“Yeah,” Bobby said, waggling his eyebrows, “and even if we weren’t, we don’t need no stinking room.”
Kate rolled her eyes, but she and Bobby had had a thing back before Jack, before Jim, and way before Dinah, and she understood Bobby’s talent for showing a woman the view from the mountaintop.
He bent a stern eye upon her, as if he knew what she was thinking. “You’re looking awfully fucking smug there yourself, Shugak.”
“I don’t know why you would say that, Clark,” she said with all the primness at her command, which wasn’t much and which was pretty much ruined by the shit-eating grin that followed, but she forestalled further cross-examination. “What does Brendan want?”
Brendan was Brendan McCord of the Anchorage district attorney’s office, a coconspirator of Kate’s from her time served there, a longtime friend and an enthusiastic if erratic suitor.
Bobby waggled his eyebrows again, which given how thick and long they were were admirably suited to the purpose. “The reason they’re called state secrets is because, you know, they’re secret. ADA McCord doesn’t think I need to know.”
Kate waggled her own eyebrows back at him, which were less busy and altogether more elegant but did not fail of effect.
“The Smiths,” Bobby said.
Dinah poked him in the side. “You’re so easy.”
He gave her a lascivious grin. “But not cheap.”
Before they could get started again, Kate groaned. “I had a clue. What have they been up to lately?”
The Smiths had materialized in the Park the previous fall with the title to forty acres of land ten miles outside of the Niniltna city limits and five miles inside the Park boundary. Title to said land did not include a right of way between the road from Niniltna and the property. There was a dirt airstrip, but the Smiths, defying life as it was known in Alaska, did not number a pilot in their midst. Father Smith professed an aversion to civilization and all that came with it, which included aviation. Also electricity, running water, power tools, voting, jury duty, and public education. They also shunned birthdays and Christmas, but given their seventeen offspring this was generally seen to be more an act of fiscal survival than a faith-based initiative.
This aversion apparently did not include heavy-duty equipment, as their first act upon relocating to the Park was to rent a D6 Caterpillar tractor from Mac Devlin. Their second act was to bulldoze a track over fourteen miles of previously pristine Park land.
This had taken place the previous January. The Smiths woke up at least one bear by rolling over its den, felled a small forest of spruce that had managed to survive until that day the depredations of the spruce bark beetle epidemic, diverted the course of Salmon Creek, and wiped out Demetri Totemoff’s duly permitted trapline along said creek. Demetri appealed to the Park’s chief ranger, Dan O’Brien.
Upon inspection of the afflicted area, Dan went into orbit, not a great surprise to anybody watching. Everyone liked Dan, one of the few rangers in Alaska never to have been shot at in the line of duty. This was a real danger in the Park, first from cranky old farts who had homesteaded in territorial days only to see themselves after statehood slowly surrounded by the creation of federal and state parks, wildlife refuges and forests, and second from cranky Alaska Natives who had been hunting caribou and moose and bear in the area for ten thousand years and saw no need for either hunting licenses or hunting seasons.
But it had to be said that there was more than a little fellow feeling for the Smiths, who were only exercising their by-God given rights to access their own by-God land.
“Except it turns out,” Bobby said, enjoying himself hugely, “that the title to said land may be in some question.”
“You mean the Smiths didn’t buy it after all?”
“Oh, they bought it, all right, but they bought it off some old guy who just got a divorce and hadn’t waited for the property to be divided up between him and his ex-wife before he sold it off.”
Kate paused with her coffee mug in midair. “Would that be Vinnie Huckabee?”
“And his lovely former wife, Rebecca, yes it would. God, what a bitch.”
Dinah poked him in the side. “You used to think she was hot.”
Bobby poked her back. “She was hot. Until I got to know her. Now she’s just a bitch.”
Rebecca and Vinnie Huckabee had split the sheets in spectacular fashion a year before. It hadn’t been a Spenard divorce, exactly, but rumor had it there had been gunfire involved and later, and worse, a lot of lawyers who had distinguished themselves primarily by the speed with which they had serially decamped the case. Rebecca, an attorney prior to marrying Vin-nie, in the end violated the cardinal rule of jurisprudence and represented herself, which didn’t give her anything in the still-ongoing settlement hearings except continuity.
“The story goes that Vinnie hightailed it to town and hunkered down with his brother in Chugiak. His brother—”
“Walter.”
“—his brother Walter put the word out about Vinnie having land for sale and along come the Smiths, new to the state and—” Bobby hesitated, “—and new to our ways.”
Kate looked at Dinah. Dinah looked demure. “Let me guess,” Kate said to Bobby, “they wanted to get back to nature.”
Bobby clucked his tongue. “Don’t be so cynical. They came to Alaska to reinvent themselves, as do all good cheechakos who hear the call of the wild.” His grin flashed out again, partly righteous, all rogue. “They heard tell someone had some land for sale up back of beyond, and got in touch. Vinnie wasn’t asking much, from what I hear, he just wanted enough cash to adios it. Last anybody heard he was on his way to Nome. Is Nome a good place to hide out from pissed-off soon-to-be ex-wives?”
“Beats the hell out of me.”
“And she was pissed off, was the lovely Rebecca,” Bobby said, dwelling upon what was evidently a fond memory. “Word is she went ballistic when she heard about the sale. Especially when she heard how much Willie sold it for. She figured it should have sold for a lot more. And she was right, was the lovely Rebecca.”
“So,” Kate said patiently, “the Smiths came here and rented a bulldozer.”
“They have also begun to fell trees for a house and outbuildings. Some of them are Park trees.”
Kate thought of Dan O’Brien and shuddered. “They must be pretty well financed if they can buy up that much land for cash and pay Mac Devlin enough to convince him to allow them to drive his beloved Cat. What does an Anchorage DA want me to do? This is a federal matter.”
“Better ask him,” Bobby said. “He said he’d be available all this afternoon.”
Time was when Kate needed to talk to Anchorage, Bobby got on his ham radio, exchanged pleasantries with a ham in New Zealand and another in Iraq before raising KL7CC in Anchorage, who called Brendan at his office and patched him through over the air. Now Bobby went to his computer, got online via satellite, and bellied Kate up to the keyboard to do a little IMing. At least every Park rat with a radio wasn’t listening in, but she missed eavesdropping on Bobby’s conversations with the likes of King Juan Carlos, Jeana Yeager, and Barry Goldwater. Even if Barry was dead. She had a feeling most Park rats felt the same way.
In the meantime, she bellied. “Oh ha ha,” she said when she saw the user name Bobby had assigned to her.
Bobby grinned his wide, nasty grin. “Thought you might like it.”
“Very funny.” Kate turned back to the keyboard before he could see her answering grin.
SHYSTERGUY: Hey, gorgeous, how you?
PARKDICK: Life is good, ha
ndsome. Whattup?
SHYSTERGUY: Right to business, that’s what I love
about you, Katie. The Smiths.
PARKDICK: I had a feeling. What about them?
SHYSTERGUY: They’re driving the feds crazy.
PARKDICK: Great! Let’s throw a party.
SHYSTERGUY: Spoken like a true Park rat. The feds are
leaning on the state to exercise a little
authority in this situation. Especially
since they know Niniltna now has its
own trooper in residence.
PARKDICK: How much authority?
SHYSTERGUY: Run them off, if you can. I’m told
that their title to the land is in question.
PARKDICK: You want me to evict them?
SHYSTERGUY: Yeah.
PARKDICK: Kinda sorta need a court order for that.
SHYSTERGUY: Got one.
PARKDICK: Which judge?
SHYSTERGUY: Reitman.
PARKDICK: Figures.
SHYSTERGUY: Don’t blame me, take it up with the Park
Service.
PARKDICK: Why doesn’t Jim’s boss just order him to
do it? Why me?
SHYSTERGUY: It may come to that. These folks seem
ready to call out the National Guard.
“You miserable little shit,” Kate said out loud.
“What’d I do?” Bobby said, injured.
“She means the other miserable little shit,” Dinah said serenely, and went to the kitchen to open cans of salmon for sandwiches.
PARKDICK: You want me to be your process server.
SHYSTERGUY: Did I mention the National Guard? We
were thinking—
PARKDICK: WE were thinking?
SHYSTERGUY: Okay, I, I was thinking. I was especially
thinking when the Park Service started
mobilizing for Iwo Jima here. If some
mild-mannered, inoffensive little Park
rat—
Kate snorted.
SHYSTERGUY: —I heard that—
“Sure you did,” Kate said, toying with the mouse, running the cursor over the sign-out option on the drop-down menu in a suggestive manner.
SHYSTERGUY: —I was thinking that if some rational
person who knows everyone involved
would go talk to these people and try to
get them to back off before somebody
brings out the assault weapons, it would
be a good thing for all concerned.
Kate thought about it.
SHYSTERGUY: Kate? You still there?
PARKDICK: HOW much are you paying me?
SHYSTERGUY: The general thinking seems to be whatever you want to get the feds off our backs.
PARKDICK: Lots. It’ll be lots.
SHYSTERGUY: Attagirl. I’ll fast-track the court order and fly it in on George first available. And Kate?
parkdick: What?
SHYSTERGUY: YOU never heard me say this (you especially never heard me say this anywhere near Ranger Dan) but tell the Smiths to get themselves a smart lawyer. I’ve seen the paperwork the Park Service used to get this writ and it’s totally based on technicalities. The current administration is coming down heavy on the side of the rights of the property owner, not to mention easier public access to parks and wildlife refuges in
the public domain. Most Alaskan judges are already there, and it’s a toss-up which Alaskan juries hate more, technicalities or the federal government. Barring an appeal to the 9th District, the Smiths will get a friendly hearing.
Brendan signed off.
“Yeah,” Kate said, pushing back from the console, “but will you love me tomorrow?”
Sec. 11.41.100. Murder in the First Degree
(a) A person commits the crime of murder in the first degree if
(1) with intent to cause the death of another person, the person . . .
(B) compels or induces any person to commit suicide through duress or deception . . .
—ALASKA STATUTES
She wasn’t a weakling—she used to help her dad pull gear at the setnet site, and she could tote potatoes out of her mom’s garden a bushel at a time—but the truck was so big, and she was so tired.
She paused to mop her face on her shirtsleeve. She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder at the house, scanning the windows overlooking the yard, worried that he would see her. Fear bent her over the jack handle again, working it up and down. The barely healed bone in her right arm ached with the motion, and she shifted her stance, but that just made the bruises on her back hurt. She shifted her stance a third time, so that she stood halfway under the enormous wheel well of the truck.
It wasn’t a very good jack, and she’d get it up so far and it would slide down. Her movements became more frantic because time was running out and she knew he was coming, because he was always coming, and he wouldn’t be pleased that she hadn’t finished changing the tire. She knew by then that there was nothing he wouldn’t do when he was displeased, from forcing her to have sex right there on the ground to locking her overnight in the woodshed. She was still cold from the last time. November was a harsh month to be out all night in nothing but a T-shirt and jeans and moccasins.
Maybe he would only beat her. It was the best she could hope for. And she healed up pretty fast so that no one knew.
She didn’t want anyone to know, ever.
The tears were running down her face by the time she got the tire off. It weighed more than she did, and she had to let it fall. It rolled down the icy driveway to thump into the porch and fall over.
The door to the house opened, and she jerked in a panic, bumping into the jack. It wobbled. The truck leaned over on its unsupported side. She looked up and saw the wheel well coming down.
She had plenty of time to dodge out of the way.
She didn’t.
FOUR
With what any Park rat would have considered true heroism, Kate tackled what she considered to be the most hazardous segment of Brendan’s assignment first. Heroism notwithstanding, she took Mutt with her as insurance.
Her battered red pickup poked a cautious nose up over the edge of the Step and halted, engine idling, clutch thrown out, ready for a quick getaway. Kate poked an even more cautious nose up over the edge of the dashboard to peer through the windshield at the Park Service buildings clustered together at the side of an airstrip of snow so hard-packed it looked like an elongated hockey rink. The view was slightly altered by the canyon-sized crack that ran from side to side on her windshield, courtesy of a rock kicked up by Martin Shugak’s truck when he passed her on the road into town last fall. She was going to have to speak to Martin about getting mud guards for his rear wheels.
Smoke was rising from the chimneys of the office buildings, mess hall, and bunkhouses. Neat paths had been cut through the snow, deeper here at two thousand feet than in Niniltna two miles down the valley.
At first viewing, no one had yet dug revetments for machine gun emplacements. Kate put the truck into gear and rolled discreetly up onto the small plateau that divided Park flatlander from Park mountain goat.
The light was on in Dan’s office. She backed into a parking space, left the keys in the ignition with the engine idling, and went in.
He was hunched over his desk, scowling ferociously at a pile of paperwork, a man with orange-red hair the consistency of steel wool and bright blue eyes which on most days held a latent twinkle that invited everyone to laugh along with him at pretty much everything life had to offer. Kate opened her mouth to say hello, and his phone rang. Without looking up he reached over, picked up the receiver, and let it fall back in the cradle.
Kate closed her mouth again and gave some thought to a strategic retreat.
Mutt, suffering no such self-doubt, shouldered her way past Kate and bounded into the room and up on Dan’s desk, scattering paper in every direction.
“What the—”
Mutt pounced, pushing him back
in his chair with her front paws and giving him a tongue bath that would have wrung Bobby Clark’s heart with envy.
“Jesus!” Dan said, trying and failing to twist out of reach. “Call her off before I drown, Kate!”
Mutt dropped back to all fours, scattering more paper, and grinned down at him.
He was not noticeably charmed. “Off!” he said, pointing at the floor. “Off the desk, right now!”
Before he could duck out of the way, she licked him again and then bounced off the desk, more paper flying, and headed for the mess hall where she knew there would be something edible and someone to either beguile or terrify into handing it over.
In a situation like this, Dan O’Brien could be relied upon to laugh loud and long. He opted this morning instead to curse, loud and long, while he picked up after Mutt. “Can’t you control that fucking dog any better than that, Shugak?”
Kate said nothing.
Dan looked up at the extended silence, and he had the grace to look a little ashamed. It made him mad all over again. “What do you want, anyway?” He stood up suddenly, a sheaf of papers in one hand. “Oh. Oh, yeah, now I get the call I got this morning. You’re here about those goddamn squatters, the Smiths, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Kate said.
The mildness of her tone was a clear warning, but today it was like waving a red flag in front of an already enraged bull. “Jesus, Kate, do you know anything about these—these people?”
“No,” she said. She sat down and smiled up at him. “Why don’t you tell me.”
He tossed the bundle of papers on his desk with no regard for in what order they landed and strode to the wall to pull down a map of the Park. Niniltna, Ahtna, and Cordova were small red urban enclaves in a huge sea of green, spotted with blue parcels indicating Native land, much of which followed the course of the Kanuyaq River and the coastline of Prince William Sound. Widely scattered and very tiny yellow polka dots indicated the less than 10 percent of the Park that was privately owned. There were a very few, very small, and very scattered brown parcels indicating areas of natural resources for which the Parks Department had with a show of great reluctance granted various exploration companies permission to look for natural resources, mostly timber, coal, and oil. Word was that someone had won a bid to explore for gold on a privately owned creek very near the land the Smiths had bought. She wondered how eager the Smiths would be to build when they heard a gold dredge would be starting up next door.
A Deeper Sleep Page 7
