Bonereapers

by Jeanne Matthews

  “Who did the Times name as its source?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Your Senator Frye is my best guess. But it could be anyone. Longyearbyen’s become a journalists’ hive and everyone’s buzzing about Sheridan’s involvement in the murder and his unfaithful rock-star wife. I don’t think Norwegians are as used to this kind of titillation as we are.”

  The bartender, who was apparently also the cook and the waiter, brought their sandwiches and Dinah ordered a cup of regular coffee.

  Tipton didn’t want another beer. He paused between each sip as if measuring its effect on his blood alcohol level. He sliced off a morsel of the fish sandwich, took a tentative bite, and said, “Not bad for a greasy spoon at the end of the world.”

  “Mm.” Dinah’s grilled cheese tasted great. She considered ordering a second one to go.

  “Was Erika loaded to the gills when you found her?”

  “She had been drinking, but she covered it well.”

  “The mark of a true lush. I agreed with Mahler and Valerie. She was Colt’s number one roadblock to the White House. She’s good-looking and telegenic for a woman her age and her history might have appealed to a segment of independents and women who like the fact that the candidate’s wife had some celebrity of her own at one time. But our values voters would never have gone for her, especially with her showing up tipsy at campaign functions and running off at the mouth about some lost child.”

  “You know about that?”

  “From Valerie. She was privy to Colt’s despair. She tried to persuade him to institutionalize her, but he wouldn’t hear of it. And Whitney let his feelings cloud his judgment, too. This election is just too momentous to let feelings enter in. Of course, Whitney decided over a year ago to back Colt, before Erika went ‘round the bend. Whitney is a fantastic tactician and an absolute master of the electoral map. He knows precisely where and how to rack up those two-hundred and seventy necessary electoral votes. And with his foreign policy expertise, he would have been an awesome Secretary of State.”

  All that and a bag of potato chips, thought Dinah. She tore apart her bag of potato chips with her teeth and ruminated on the political calculus of Whitney Keyes. What kind of feelings had clouded his judgment? Feelings toward whom and why? There was no question now that he detested Mahler. He may have resented Mahler’s greater influence over Sheridan, but the antipathy ran deeper.

  A man with your vulnerabilities. What vulnerabilities?

  Keyes was the one who’d arranged this trip. Might the fantastic tactician have summoned Eftevang to Norway in order to embarrass Mahler? If Eftevang’s ravings generated negative press back in the States, it would prove to Sheridan that Tillcorp was more of a liability than an asset and, perhaps, Sheridan would ditch Mahler. Keyes could have had no motive to kill Eftevang, at least not initially. But maybe his plan backfired and Eftevang threatened to tell Sheridan and Mahler who’d sent for him. Instead of ditching Mahler, Sheridan would have ditched Keyes. Keyes couldn’t let that happen, so he set up a meeting with Eftevang and when the man wouldn’t swear to keep his name out of it, Keyes retrogressed to his days in the Persian Gulf when killing was the short answer to a dicey situation. And when Valerie somehow found out that it was Keyes who had brought Eftevang to Longyearbyen, she confronted him and he killed her, too.

  Dinah was willing to concede that she sometimes let her imagination run away with her, but the narrative was rolling and it all made sense. Keyes, himself, was the mole. Val neither liked nor trusted Dinah, but there was only Keyes’ word that she suspected Dinah of working for a rival campaign. Furthermore, as closely as Keyes worked with Sheridan, he would almost certainly have known the password to Sheridan’s e-mail account, or known enough to guess it. And except for that incriminating e-mail from Sheridan to Val, the case against Keyes was as strong or stronger than the case against Sheridan.

  There was a definite whiff of pretense about the too-perfect Senator Keyes and the sly, malignant way that Mahler had told her to ask Keyes about Myzandia still perplexed her. Did Mahler know something unsavory about Keyes’ foundation and its operations? If so, the vulnerabilities ran both ways. Tipton would brook no criticism of his hero, but when her coffee arrived, she hazarded a tactful query. “While you were being interviewed by the police, Senator Keyes and Jake Mahler got into a row. Is there bad history between them?”

  “Oh, they’ve crossed swords once or twice before.”

  “Over how to manage Sheridan’s campaign?”

  “That and Mahler’s love of the limelight.” Tipton picked breadcrumbs out of his hairy, gray cardigan. “Val and Whitney both pleaded with him to stop giving speeches all over creation, crowing about the wonders of gene modification and stirring up the food purists on several continents. He was pushing Congress to kill a bill requiring labels on GM foods before we had worked out a position paper and talking points for Colt. Tillcorp had problems in Africa and we were all afraid if that story broke, it would taint Colt’s image. But Mahler wouldn’t let up. He acted as if he owned Colt and expected value for his investment.” Tipton extracted a fleck of fried fish batter from his sweater sleeve. “Mind you, this is before we even have the nomination wrapped up.”

  “So Senator Keyes’ grudge against Mahler has nothing to do with Keyes’ health clinics?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. Both Tillcorp and Whitney’s Global Health Foundation have had to fight rumors of one kind or another. They have attorneys working full-time on damage control.”

  “What were the rumors about the foundation?”

  “Some problem with the tetanus vaccine the doctors administered to the women in Myzandia, allegations that it was tainted.”

  “Tainted? Tainted how?”

  “I don’t have anything to do with that aspect of Whitney’s life. All I know is there was a memo from one of his foundation lawyers about some hormone or other that caused spontaneous abortions. I think Mahler is the one who alerted Whitney’s lawyer to the rumor, which didn’t set well with Whitney. It wasn’t true and Whitney saw it as, oh…provocation on Mahler’s part. Like, he was calling attention to a false story to take the attention off his own scandals in the region.”

  A galvanizing thought struck Dinah. What if the rumor was true? Or even if not true, what trouble might it cost Senator Keyes, legally and financially to defend against it? What damage would it cause to his prestige? Would stopping the spread of such a rumor be a sufficient motive to commit murder? She jettisoned tact. “Would Eftevang have known about this vaccine rumor?”

  “Oh, he was in and out of Africa.” Tipton seemed to realize that he was about to be mousetrapped. He drained his beer and, to Dinah’s surprise, made a big to-do of ordering a second. She asked the bartender for another splash of hot coffee. She wasn’t counting on much sleep tonight anyway.

  The man in the Soviet hat paid his bill and put on his coat, another somewhat tattered relic from the U.S.S.R. He started for the door and she braced herself for another gust of wind. This time when the door opened, a framed photograph blew off the wall.

  “Skitt!” The bartender grabbed a dustpan and a broom and began sweeping up the broken glass.

  Dinah flashed to the legend she’d read about the mysterious pair who brought the Black Death to Norway. The man carried a rake. The woman carried a broom and where she went, all were swept away to their deaths. She wrested her eyes off the broom, tried to wrest her thoughts off death. “That’s an unusual sweater, Tipton. I noticed it earlier. What type of yarn is that?”

  “Oh, it’s dog fur.” He seemed delighted that she’d asked. “My mother knitted it for me from the fur of our English sheepdog. Reagan was my best friend from the time I was eight years old. Mother wanted me to have something to remember him by and she spun his fur into yarn. I have a vest and scarf, too.”

  The bartender returned to their table with Tipton’s
beer and a pot of viscous looking coffee. “No rush, but this is the last round. I’m closing early tonight. I promised my wife I’d be home before next year.”

  Tipton yakked on about Reagan the sheepdog and life growing up in Boston. In spite of the limitations of living in a bastion of liberalism, his mother was apparently an awesome political fundraiser for the Republican Party. Tipton had met all of the major figures in the party and two members of the Supreme Court called him by his first name. He had decided at the age of fourteen to make his mark in the world of politics. Dinah was grateful for the diversion. She didn’t want to think about death and unhappiness. The sound of a friendly human voice making small talk was comforting. Her thoughts drifted occasionally to Valerie, but she wrenched them back to the present and tried to ask intelligent questions from time to time.

  The other two diners put on their duds and, being careful not to let in another gust of wind, said “God natt” and took their leave. Finally, with Tipton’s chronicle of his ambitions pretty well covered and the bartender staring at his watch, Dinah acknowledged that it was time to go.

  Tipton helped her into her pea jacket and she suited up with all the rest of the paraphernalia. Dressing and undressing had become a tiresome ritual. There were so many layers of clothing to put on and take off. Tipton held onto the ends of his cardigan sleeves to keep them from riding up as he struggled into his huge, puffy coat. He got one arm into a sleeve, but couldn’t catch the other and writhed about helplessly. Like a little kid, thought Dinah.

  She laughed and held the loose sleeve out for him. “This isn’t the coat you wore when we toured the vault.”

  “I bought it today at that sporting goods store next to the hotel. If we’re going to be here for another week, I plan to stay warm.”

  “Maybe you could lend me your old parka. I’d like to stay warm, too.”

  “It’s yours.” His arm finally found the armhole and pushed through.

  “There you go.” Dinah patted him on the back and a small chip of something red fell onto the toe of her boot.

  A small red chip like…

  Her heart lurched. She turned away quickly and slipped her balaclava over her face. Tipton was pulling on his gloves and didn’t notice.

  “Drat it.” She tried to keep her voice nonchalant. “I have to go to the ladies’ room. You go on ahead, Tipton.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll wait.”

  “No, really. I’ll have to take off all this paraphernalia again and put it back on. I’ll be fine. There’s no one on the streets tonight.”

  “All right. I have a few memos to write tonight, so I guess I’ll see you in the morning. Happy New Year.”

  “Same to you.”

  He opened the door and the wind rushed through like a freight train. Her heart was racing. She reached down and picked up the red chip. It was an acrylic fingernail. Fire-engine red. Valerie’s color.

  She studied it for several seconds. It must be the most elementary lesson a politican had to learn. You can’t trust anyone. Valerie had learned it the hard way and now Tipton’s best friend Reagan had come back from the grave to teach it to him.

  She said to the bartender, “Do you have a telephone I can use? It’s an emergency.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Thor wasn’t at the Radisson and he wasn’t in his office. Neither was Sergeant Lyby. Dinah felt a rising alarm. Tipton had bludgeoned Valerie and it was odds on that he had also stabbed Eftevang and shot her. He had to be stopped and nobody who could stop him was reachable. Her hands were quivering. Who could she call? Who would believe her? Should she have picked up the fingernail? If she hadn’t, Tipton would have. But who could say now that Valerie hadn’t lost the nail in a struggle with Dinah? If Valerie’s DNA was detectable, hers would also be there. Jerusalem, why was everything so hard?

  She put down the phone. It occurred to her that she was utterly alone, at least until tomorrow. And what if she was wrong and Tipton had seen the nail fall out of his sweater? What if he had registered the no-doubt telltale look of horror on her face and was lying in wait for her somewhere out there in the darkness? She didn’t understand why he’d shot her in the first place, but if he had reason before, he had ample reason to finish the job now.

  “Miss, are you in trouble?” The bartender had cleared the tables and was unloading a tray of dirty dishes into the dishwasher behind the bar.

  “Yes. I mean, I think I am. I can’t reach Inspector Ramberg.”

  “Probably went home for the night to his cabin.”

  “Do you have his home number?”

  “No phone out there. He lives more than four miles outside of town on the Longyearbyen River.”

  Dinah licked her lips. “Would it be possible, Herr…?

  “My name’s Tobejas.”

  “Would it be possible for you to walk me back to the Radisson, Tobejas?”

  The creases around his eyes deepened. He rinsed his hands and dried them on the towel hanging from his belt. “With all these murders going on lately, I’ll take my gun.”

  Tobejas turned on the dishwasher, gave the bar a quick wipe-down, and went back toward the toilets. He opened a utility closet and took out his coat and a rifle. “You seemed to be having a good time with the young man. What scared you?”

  Doubts flooded her mind. The answer would sound ludicrous. Because an acrylic fingernail fell out of his sweater. She had no proof that the nail had belonged to Valerie. It could have belonged to some Norwegian sweetie Tipton had been cuddling with, or Valerie could have lost the nail while giving Tipton one of her bolstering little arm-shakes. But Valerie wasn’t likely to have bolstered Tipton. She thought he was a kiss-up. Tobejas was staring at her, waiting for an answer. She said, “He dropped something that makes him a mistenkelig.”

  Tobejas flashed her a testy look. “Whatever that means.”

  “It’s Norweg…Nevermind.”

  Tobejas zipped up his coat, pulled his ski mask over his face, and shouldered his rifle. “Let’s go.” He opened the door and held onto it until she was clear, then let it blam shut.

  She shouted over the howl of the wind. “Aren’t you going to lock up?”

  “Nei. Murder’s the only crime that happens in Longyearbyen.”

  He stayed close to her on the walk back to the hotel, holding the rifle at the ready and twisting his head around to peer down the dark alleys and side streets. The wind was blowing from behind them, whistling past their ears and scouring the street of everything that wasn’t tied down. An empty cardboard box bounced down the street and passed them. A plastic sack flew out of nowhere and brushed across Dinah’s eyes. Her heart skipped a beat. She caught her breath and swatted the bag away. It flapped up and away like a berserk ghost.

  The blue lights of the Radisson came into view and she began to fret over what she should do once she was inside. She couldn’t ask Tobejas to stand watch over her with his gun all night.

  Something banged above their heads. Tobejas whirled around and raised his gun. Dinah cringed against the side of the building. Looking up, she saw a wooden signboard dancing in the wind.

  When they entered the ambit of friendly light emanating from the Radisson, Dinah felt weak with relief. “Thank you, Tobejas. Tusen takk.”

  “Will you be all right from here?”

  “Yes. I’ll be fine. The place is packed with people.”

  “Okay. I’ll watch you until you’re safe inside. Tomorrow, you tell Thor Ramberg he’d better do something about this craziness. It’s starting to feel like the south side of Chicago.”

  Dinah nodded and hurried into the foyer. Before she removed her boots, she reconnoitered the lobby. There was no sign of Tipton. It was 10:30 and the Brits were partying to beat the band, literally. A lusty-voiced gang clustered in front of the blazing fire singing “Norwe
gian Wood” while the band played “Winter Wonderland.” Several people were still waiting for a table in the dining room, including Lee and Rod. Dinah waved to Lee and he waved back. Maybe she should latch onto him and his partner. Who better to protect her than a pair of professional bodyguards? Mahler must have decided that he didn’t need their protection. Strange since, presumably, he didn’t know who murdered his attorney or why.

  Dinah shucked her coat and thought about taking off her boots, but changed her mind. She couldn’t picture a situation where she would have to flee outdoors, but better shod than sorry. She would remain ready to run until she was safely inside her room with the door chained.

  On the off chance that Thor or Sergeant Lyby had left a number where they could be reached, she stood in line to speak to the desk clerk, a middle-aged man with an angular face like chiseled granite and a mien of supernatural calm. He was juggling the complaints of two other guests—a man whose cantankerous voice could be heard crackling over the telephone and a somewhat intoxicated woman flourishing a voucher that hadn’t been redeemable in the dining room.

  “I’m sorry, madam. The electronic code on the voucher does not match the number on the reservation. It’s the tour company’s responsibility to provide us with…”

  “Call the company then.” The woman had to shout to be heard above the noisy celebrants in the lobby and the band’s manic rendition of “Stayin’ Alive.”

  The clerk stuck a finger in one ear and spoke determinedly into the telephone. “No, sir. The hotel is unable to book a New Year’s Day sleigh ride until we know what the weather will be. If you will call tomorrow…”

  “Excuse me.” Dinah stepped around the woman and interrupted. “Did Inspector Ramberg leave a number where he could be reached?”