Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 11 - The Singing Of The Dead
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face. She had another letter in her hand.
Poison Pen had struck again; and Kate had slept right through it.
"Anne found it on the floor of her room." "Where on the floor?" "Just
inside the door." Kate nodded, and read the letter again, pay up or ill
TELL.
"He's here, Kate," Darlene said. She was pacing, around the end of the
bed to the window and back again.
Tell what? Kate was thinking. Pay what? And to whom? This was the first
letter that sounded like blackmail. Did Poison Pen know about Darlene
and Doug? It seemed odd, then, that the letter would not go to one of
them. Or was Poison Pen under the impression that Anne Gordaoff would do
anything to get elected, including paying to keep her husband's affair
with her campaign manager a secret?
It was the same writing with the black marker pen, on the same sheet of
stationery, inside the same envelope. No postmark this time.
"He's right here in this hotel," Darlene said, pacing. "He must have
followed us from the dinner."
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"Or he's been with you all along," Kate murmured.
"What?" Darlene said, not understanding, or too worried to try to. "I'm
calling the cops, Kate. I don't care what Jim says, this has gone on
long enough. It's one thing when they come in the mail. But this guy
went right to her room. I'm calling the cops," she repeated.
"Ahtna's only got one," Kate said dryly. She dressed: white T-shirt,
black jeans, blue sweatshirt with the gold UAF nanook on the front,
white anklets, black-and-white Nike tennis shoes. The face that looked
back at her from the mirror over the dresser was tight-lipped, hazel
eyes intent. Her hair needed trimming again. She gave it a few swift
strokes with the brush, tucked it behind her ears, and forgot about it.
"What are you going to do?" Darlene said.
"I'm going to make a call," Kate said, and went to the pay phone down
the hall, where she dialed a number from memory.
" "lo," a thick voice said after five rings.
"Kenny, wake up. It's Kate Shugak."
Nobody said anything for a moment. "Ah shit," the voice said finally,
"who's dead now?"
"Nobody," Kate said, and Kenny responded gloomily, "With you around it's
only a matter of time."
"Up yours, Hazen," Kate said pleasantly. "Anne Gordaoff just got another
letter."
There was a brief silence. "At this hour?"
"Sorry."
"Me, too. Who found it?"
"Anne. She got up to go to the bathroom. It had been slipped under her
door."
"And this couldn't wait until morning?"
"The whole campaign staff is in the Ahtna Lodge tonight, and I want to
go around knocking on doors before they're awake enough to think up lies
about their recent
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correspondence. I could use a uniform to back me up. More official, you
know?"
"I know. You've got the letter?"
"And copies of the previous letters, and the envelopes they came in. And
you might give Jim Chopin a call." If she had to be up before the dawn,
why shouldn't everyone else be?
"I'll be right down."
"I owe you one, Kenny."
"Don't kid yourself. You owe me at least ten, Shugak," he said.
She gave him her room number and hung up. "Kenny Hazen's coming down,
he's the Ahtna police chief. We're going to talk to the campaign staff
one at a time, starting with Anne. And then we're going to talk to
everyone else who rented a room in this trailer."
"What?" Darlene stood up. "Why the staff? And we can't get Anne out of
bed; it's almost three in the morning; she just got to bed and she's
exhausted; she's got to get up early in the morning and go to-"
"I doubt that she's asleep after this," Kate said, nodding at the
letter, "and I don't care if she is. I want to talk to everyone to do
with the campaign, ask them if they saw anything. We're all in the same
trailer, right?"
"Yes, but-"
"Good. Maybe we'll get lucky and somebody will have seen something."
"Kate-"
"This is what you hired me for, Darlene," Kate said, meeting her eyes
squarely. "You said you were worried about Anne's safety. I admit, I
wasn't very impressed by the threat. Then Jeff Hosford was murdered."
That stopped Darlene. Kate got the distinct impression that Darlene had
forgotten all about Jeff Hosford.
"Maybe Jeff's murder had something to do with the letters, maybe it
didn't, but something is going on here. I
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don't know what it is, but I don't like it. As far as this letter is
concerned, well, a lot of people in public life get threatening letters.
Not a lot of people in public life get them shoved under their hotel
room doors. This means whoever is writing the letters is very close by.
If you want to catch him, this is the luckiest break we could have. The
longer we wait, the colder the trail gets. I'm talking to all of them
tonight, or this morning or whatever, I don't care what time it is."
Darlene stared at her. "You think it's one of us," she said. "I said he
must have followed us from dinner and you said, "Or he's been with us
all along."
Kate looked at her.
"Bullshit, Kate," Darlene said, her voice rising. "That's just-that's
bullshit. Who the hell working for us would do that? It makes no sense!
We all want Anne elected; we're working our butts off to get her to
Juneau. Who the hell among us is going to write her hate mail?"
Kate looked at her with no expression.
Darlene flushed.
Someone thumped on the other side of the wall at the head of Kate's bed.
"Hey, keep it down in there, will you? I'm trying to get some sleep
here, crissake!"
"Woof," Mutt said, distributing the effect between the thumper and
Darlene. Like Kate, Mutt didn't care for a lot of loud noise about her
person.
Darlene looked at Mutt and lowered her voice. "It's insane to think the
writer is one of us."
Who are you trying to convince? Kate thought. Out loud, she said, "I
hope you're right. Let's find out."
Anne and Doug Gordaoff, sharing a room. Darlene Shelikof, a room to
herself. Anne's son, Tom, a room to himself, although after what she'd
seen in the bar Kate was sure he wouldn't be sleeping alone. Anne's
daughter, Erin, a room to herself. Tracy Huffman. Kate herself. That made
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eight, nine if you counted Mutt, and Kate never made the mistake of not
counting Mutt.
"And then there's Paula," Darlene said thoughtfully.
"Who's Paula?" Kate looked again at the list. "She's not on here."
"Paula Pawlowski. She's the researcher I told you about," Darlene said.
"She's been in Fairbanks, looking up stuff in the library there. She
just flew in today, but she's not staying in the hotel. She lives in
Ahtna. You wanted everyone working for the campaign. That's it. I'm
going to go talk to Anne."
"Wait," Kate said.
"No, Kate. We are not hammering on her door in the middle of the night
with a uniformed cop in tow. She'
ll think somebody else died."
"Darlene, I don't want anyone to know about this until I can watch the
expressions on their faces. Don't-"
Darlene made as if to go nose-to-nose with Kate, and Kate saw the moment
in her eyes when she remembered what had happened the last time she had
done that. Darlene made a visible effort, and this time when her voice
came out, it was low and dead even. "No dogs or Natives allowed," she said.
Kate blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"No dogs or Natives allowed," Darlene repeated. "That's what the signs
said in the grocery store windows before and sometimes even after
statehood, in the shop windows, on the door into bars, in towns all over
the territory. No dogs or Natives allowed. Have you forgotten the
stories your grandmother told you?" A fine edge of contempt sharpened
Darlene's voice. "Or maybe you didn't bother listening when she told them."
Kate's eyes narrowed. "My grandmother has nothing whatever to do with
you warning Anne Gordaoff before I have a chance to question her about
this letter."
"The hell it doesn't!" Darlene's words caused another
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thump on the wall from the room next door, another protest from Mutt. "I
have a good chance of seeing Anne Gordaoff elected to the state
legislature, Kate. A woman. A Native woman. One of our own."
"Anne isn't exactly the second coming of Christ here, Darlene. There are
two Native women in the legislature now."
"Two out of sixty," Darlene said. "That's not enough. That's not near
enough. Let me make myself plain: I will do anything, I will say
anything, to get Anne to that swearing-in ceremony in Juneau in January.
You-" she said, stabbing at Kate's chest with a forefinger "-you are not
going to get in the way of my accomplishing that."
Kate made a massive effort and refrained from breaking Darlene's finger
off at the knuckle.
Darlene glared at her. "Do you understand me?"
"Perfectly."
Darlene walked out, and Kate nearly followed her, but at that precise
moment the name of Darlene's researcher sunk in.
Paula Pawlowski.
Paula.
The woman who had shared her table for dinner the previous evening. The
writer doing the research. Her writing habit underwritten by a job
researching a candidate for political office for that candidate's
opposition, what could be more natural.
A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. It was Kenny, with
Darlene, her drying hair frizzing up to make her look like an ambulatory
ball of steel wool, coming up behind him.
"Kate."
"Kenny. Kenny Hazen, Darlene Shelikof. Kenny's the Ahtna chief of
police, Darlene. Darlene's Anne Gordaoff's campaign manager, Kenny.
She's the one who brought me on board to work security for the campaign."
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"You have the letters?"
Kate handed them to him, along with the newest one, handling it
carefully by the corners, not that that was going to do much good as it
probably already had Anne and Darlene's prints all over it. Doug's too,
no doubt.
The small upright chair in front of the tacky desk creaked when Kenny
sat down in it. He turned on the desk lamp and read through the letters,
frowning. ?this last one's a little different. None of the others are
asking, they're warning."
"Yeah."
"Where'd you say it was found?" He looked at Darlene.
"Anne found it shoved underneath the door of her hotel room. We'd been
out late, at a dinner given by the local Native association's board of
directors. She and her husband, Doug, say they were in bed and asleep by
midnight." Darlene carefully did not look at Kate as she spoke. "She
woke up after two and got up to go to the bathroom. On the way she
stepped on the letter."
"So it was left sometime between twelve and two."
"Yes."
Kenny looked at Kate. "Bar doesn't close till two."
"No. I was in the restaurant until after eleven."
"See anyone?"
She'd been trying to remember that since Darlene had knocked at her
door. "A few people were leaving the bar at the same time I was. There
were three drunks trying to figure out how to get in their truck. I took
their keys away from them and gave them to Tony."
"Good girl. Anybody else?"
She looked at Darlene, who was still avoiding her eye. "I saw Doug
Gordaoff coming out of Darlene's room."
"Yes," Darlene said immediately. "Doug was dropping off the text of a
speech Anne wanted me to run through."
Whatever Kenny thought of that he didn't say and nothing
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showed on his face. "I noticed the door to the outside gives one hell of
a bang when it closes."
"Yeah, I noticed that, too," Kate said. "Shakes the whole building."
"Feel anything like that after you went to bed?"
She shook her head.
"Could mean nobody came in from outside to do the deed."
Before Darlene said anything, Kate said, "It could also mean that
whoever did it is familiar with the door and held it so it wouldn't
bang. That damn door has been banging shut for years, and I bet
everybody in the Park has stayed here at least once."
He sighed. "You're right." He looked at her. "How do you want to play
this, Kate?"
"I want to question everybody in this trailer, and I want you to stand
around looking mean while I do."
He grinned, a tight, hard grin. "I can do that."
First stop, Anne and Doug's room. Anne looked tense and exhausted,
wrapped in a flannel robe, dark red with a black moose print. She was
sitting beneath the covers of one bed, reading a book, or trying to.
Kate got a look at the title. Stephen King. Doug was curled up
motionless on the other bed, covers up to his chin, back to the door.
Clothes were hung neatly in the closet. Toiletries were laid out on the
bathroom counter with almost military precision. Used towels were folded
and hung over the shower rod.
Kate introduced Kenny and asked Anne to tell them what had happened. It
didn't differ in any of the particulars from what Darlene had said. "No,
I didn't see anyone. I didn't hear anyone, either. Whoever left the
letter didn't make enough noise to wake me up. I got up to use the
bathroom, which as you can see is right next to the door to the room. I
stepped on the letter. When I turned on the
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light, I saw what it was, and I went to get Darlene." She looked at
Kate. "What does this mean, Kate? I'm not in any danger. Am I?"