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Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 11 - The Singing Of The Dead

Page 2

by The Singing Of The Dead(lit)


  "Seventeen thousand dollars," he said again. His voice was deep with no

  trace of an accent. Second-generation Swede, perhaps? He was

  strong-featured rather than handsome. His face was impassive, but she

  sensed that he was angry. She didn't know why, but it made her chin come up.

  "Seventeen-five!" the squat man snapped. His eyes were little and cruel

  and calculating.

  "Eighteen," the tall man said imperturbably.

  The squat man swore in a foreign tongue-Italian?- and said in a rising

  voice, "Nineteen!"

  "Twenty," the Greek said.

  Everyone else seemed to have dropped out and were now swiveling their

  heads among the three bidders. There would he a fight before the evening

  was over, and they all knew it. Lust and blood lust, thwart one and the

  other stepped in.

  She wasn't going home with the squat man, but she had a good idea of

  what six months of her exclusive attention was worth, and it was more

  than twenty thousand dollars. "The last bid stands at twenty thousand,

  boys," she called out into the silence, and when they turned to look at

  her, she shook her head once. The single pin, artfully placed, loosened

  itself, and her hair tumbled down in a thick, gleaming fall to her

  waist. "I know you can do better than that."

  One auburn strand fell forward to curl around her breast. The crowd

  watched it, mesmerized. Someone gave a little moan. Someone else swore

  not quite beneath his breath.

  "Twenty-five," the man at the door said.

  The room fell silent. He drained his mug and said into it, "Oh hell,

  what's the use of wasting time." He looked up to run a possessive look

  over the Dawson Darling and said, "Thirty thousand dollars." He smiled,

  showing strong white teeth. He didn't seem angry anymore.

  8

  She couldn't help herself. She had always had a weakness for good teeth.

  She smiled back.

  The Greek said nothing. The banker looked as if he were performing a

  complicated mental calculation. The squat man saw her smile and

  screamed, "You crooked, dirty whore!"

  He struggled to reach her and was thwarted by the crowd, as protective

  of her now as they had been avaricious before. With a sudden change of

  direction, he rushed the man at the door, and this time the crowd parted

  eagerly before him so that his opponent was grabbed up in a crushing

  grip immediately. The tall blond man struggled and got one arm free to

  fend off the hands reaching for his throat.

  "I break him! I smash him!" the squat man shouted. His arms quivered,

  muscles bulging. He lifted the tall man so that his feet dangled a foot

  above the floor. The tall man went limp. Everyone watching expected to

  hear the snap of the tall man's spine.

  Instead, when the tall man went limp, the squat man's grip slipped, and

  the tall man smashed him instead, one large-knuckled fist to the squat

  man's jaw with a force that laid the squat man flat on his back on the

  floor, out cold. The tall man almost went down with him, then caught his

  balance and remained on his feet.

  There was a roar of approval and a surge toward the tall man, who held

  up one hand, and such was his presence that they halted. "My name's Sam

  Halvorsen," he said, looking across the room to where she stood on the

  catwalk, skin gleaming through white chiffon and auburn curls. "You

  going to exercise your right to the next lowest bidder, ma'am?"

  She could barely speak around the lump in her throat. "No, Sam," she

  managed to say. "I am not."

  The crowd, silent again, parted before him as he walked to the edge of

  the stage. She didn't have to look down that far and realized he was

  even taller than she had thought.

  9

  He held up one hand, and she placed hers into it, only to give a

  startled shriek when he yanked on it, jerking her off balance. She fell

  forward, and he caught her neatly in his arms.

  He grinned at her. "We've only got until June 24th," he said. "Time's

  a-wasting."

  And, carrying her easily, he shouldered his way out of the bar.

  10

  I'M WATCHING YOU. That's all?" Jim Chopin said. Darlene Shelikof handed

  over a manila file folder, and Jim leafed through half a dozen similar

  missives, all on eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch sheets of plain white

  paper folded in thirds.

  He held one up to the light and read the watermark out loud. "Esleeck

  Emco Bond, twenty-five percent cotton content." He lowered his arm.

  "Available by the ream from Costco at six-seventy-nine a pop, the last

  time I looked." "Can't you tell something from the writing?" He shuffled

  through the sheets again. "Looks like he- or she-used a black Marksalot."

  I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE.

  "The big block printing is an obvious attempt to disguise the handwriting."

  ABORTION IS MUDRER.

  "I take it Anne's pro-choice?"

  "She started the family-planning clinic in Ahtna."

  "That does tend to make the nuts fall from the tree." He held the letter

  closer. "Probably printed with the left hand, or whatever hand is not

  their hand of choice in writing poison-pen letters. Also, he can't spell."

  YOUR HUSBANDS CUTE.

  Jim's eyebrows went up. "Is he?"

  Darlene smiled. "Not as cute as you are, Jim."

  His smile was swift and predatory in return. "Why,

  11

  Darlene, I didn't know you cared." Even to himself the words sounded

  formul, and tired as well, and he looked back down at the file. Well,

  hell, he was tired. It had been a long week, what with a rape in Slana,

  a death by arson in Copper Center, and a suicide by cop in Valdez that

  he would have missed if he hadn't had to overfly Cordova due to weather

  and overnight on the Valdez chief of police's couch. He focused on the

  papers in his hand.

  YOUR DAUGHTER WEARS HER SKIRTS TOO

  The writer had written in letters so large he or she had ran out of room

  before finishing his or her thought, and had had to add "SHORT" in

  smaller letters in the lower right-hand corner of the paper.

  STAY HOME AND TAKE CARE OF YOUR KIDS.

  "Ah, a traditionalist," Jim said.

  The seventh letter was more direct, run for senator

  AND ILL KILL YOU.

  He held it up so she could read it. "This the one that made you bring

  them all in?"

  She nodded. "They've been coming in one at a time ever since she

  announced. Then last week, we got two."

  "All date-stamped except the first one, and you kept the envelope for

  that one, too. Smart," Jim said. "We appreciate smart in law enforcement."

  She smiled again.

  He examined the envelopes, all of them stapled to the backs of the

  letters. "All postmarked Ahtna. Well, I'll give the post office there a

  call. You never know, somebody might have noticed something."

  "You don't sound very optimistic."

  "I'm not. The Ahtna post office handles all the mail that goes into and

  comes out of the Park. That's, what, three thousand people, a little

  less? And these are pretty anonymous letters, Darlene."

  "What about the handwriting? Isn't there an expe
rt you can send them to,

  figure out who wrote them?"

  12

  "Sure, and I will," he said, stuffing them into an evidence bag. "Today.

  But unless and until the state crime lab already has a sample of the

  perp's writing to compare them to, we're SOL as far as identifying the

  writer."

  "What about fingerprints?"

  He looked at her. What he wanted to say was, "You've been watching too

  much television," but what he said instead, patiently, was, "Who opened

  these?"

  "The candidate, the first one." She thought. "The rest were opened by

  volunteers, I think. Oh."

  "Right. And then they got passed up or down the food chain to you, and

  then your assistant had to file them. There are probably ten sets of

  fingerprints on every letter, and we can't even be sure that every

  letter has the same set of ten." He sealed the bag. "Have you

  fingerprinted your staff?"

  An expression of revulsion crossed her face. It was a very nice face

  otherwise, black eyes set in a broad, flat face with a tiny pug nose and

  a merry mouth, hair in a permed black frizz standing out around it. She

  was thick through the body and short, although her erect posture made

  her seem taller. She carried weight, did Darlene Shelikof, and not

  necessarily just body weight. Her jeans were faded but clean, the blazer

  over it a conservative navy blue, the shirt beneath a paler blue and

  open at the throat. Ivory dangled from her ears and adorned her lapel

  and both wrists.

  She had been leaning forward, just a little, and now she leaned back,

  just a little, not enough to give the impression she was in any way

  relaxed. "What about protection?"

  "What about it?"

  For the first time she allowed herself to look angry. He admired her

  control. "How much can you give us?"

  "Darlene, you worked for the AG. You know exactly how much protection we

  can give you."

  Her mouth thinned. "The threats are escalating, in delivery and in degree."

  "Yes."

  13

  "Chances are he-or she-will try to make contact."

  "Chances are he-or she-already has."

  "What do you mean?"

  He shrugged. "How long has Anne been on the campaign trail? She

  announced in June, didn't she?"

  "Yes."

  "What day in June?"

  "The sixteenth."

  "The first of those envelopes is dated June twenty- seventh."

  She thought about it. "So he's been following her since the beginning?"

  "That'd be my guess. She's been doing the usual things politicians do,

  going to church in Chitina, walking the bars in Cordova, shaking hands

  and kissing babies and promising to throw the bums out, like they all

  do." Darlene looked indignant. He waved away whatever comment she had

  been about to make about her candidate being all new and improved and

  completely different. He'd been an Alaska state trooper for going on

  twenty years; he'd seen a lot of political campaigns whistle-stop

  through; he had seen every single candidate of every political party

  (and in Alaska there were about seventeen separate and distinct

  political parties with more springing up every year), and he had seen

  every successful candidate as a first order of Juneau business cuddle up

  with the lobbyist with the most money to spend. Call him a cynic, but he

  didn't see anything changing just because this candidate was a woman and

  a Native and homegrown.

  Juneau seemed to have that inevitable and invariable effect on elected

  officials, he reflected. Or maybe it was just political office

  everywhere, because the nation as a whole seemed to be in about the same

  shape. Substitute Washington, D.C, for Juneau and what did you get? Bill

  Clinton for president. Jesus. It wasn't that Clinton was a rounder that

  bothered him so much, it was that he'd been so awful god

  14

  damn inept at it. If you're going to philander, he thought now, for

  crissake do it with some style.

  "So we have to wait until he takes a shot at her before you'll do

  anything?" Darlene said.

  "It's a big step from writing a nasty letter to someone popping off with

  a thirty-ought-six." He held up a hand to forestall further commentary.

  "What I will do is put the word out to all the local law enforcement

  agencies that your candidate's getting hate mail, that it's personal,

  and, yes, that it is increasing in amount and degree."

  She gave an impatient snort. "What's that get us?"

  He was starting to get a little annoyed. "Nothing, if you don't call

  ahead to let the local agencies know when you'll be there."

  She glared, and he sighed to himself. No point in getting the person who

  was very probably going to sit at the right hand of the next senator

  from District 41 mad at him. "I'll e-mail all the troopers in the area,

  and all the police chiefs. I'll give you a list of names and numbers,

  and I'll tell them you'll call when you know your candidate will be

  speaking in their jurisdiction. You need to call every time, Darlene,"

  he said with quiet force. "They can't plan to look out for you if they

  don't know you're coming. They've got jobs, full-time ones, already." He

  thought about the suicide by cop in Valdez. "Full-time jobs," he

  repeated. "You releasing this information to the press?" She hesitated,

  and he groaned. "Don't tell me you think that this is going to get her

  the sympathy vote?"

  She had the grace to flush.

  "All you'll do is get him off," he warned. "That's what he wants,

  attention, film at eleven."

  "Or she," she reminded him.

  He looked at her in sudden suspicion. She read his thought before he

  could speak it out loud. "Fuck you, Chopin," she said, her voice rising.

  15

  "Okay," he said, patting the air. "Okay. Sorry. Just a thought, a dumb

  one, I admit, but-"

  "As if I would-as if Anne would-just fuck you, Chopin!" She shot to her

  feet and marched to the door. Hand on the knob, she turned and said,

  spitting the words like knives, "Thanks for nothing. If-when Anne gets

  into office, if this asshole doesn't kill her first, we'll remember all

  this when it comes time to look at the budget for the Department of

  Public Safety. I'd say trooper salaries and step tales for Bush posts

  are way overdue for review."

  "Darlene!"

  His voice, cracking like a whip, stopped her halfway out the door. She

  looked back, very ready to escalate hostilities.

  "If you're that worried, if you really think Anne's in danger..."

  She didn't move. "What?"

  "What about hiring security for the campaign?"

  "You mean like guards?"

  "I mean like one guard." The one he was thinking of wouldn't need any help.

  She let go of the handle, and the door hissed closed on its hydraulic

  hinge. "You suggesting someone in particular?"

  He just looked at her and, being a well-trained law enforcement

 

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