Singing of the Dead

by Dana Stabenow

  She was also a younger woman to Peter’s older man, and Pete didn’t hesitate to point that out, referring to his many long years in Alaska, summoning up family apparitions of his own going back three generations of Alaskan history, his record as a successful businessman and employer of over a thousand Alaskans, his two terms in Juneau.

  The audience applauded, the stage lights overhead dimmed, and everybody shook everybody else’s hand. Comments from the crowd held the honors of the evening to be about even. More than one person was laughing over Pete’s Yupik interpreter, and Kate heard someone say, “Think Dan O’Brian’d like having to do business for the Parks Service in Athabascan?”

  “So?” Billy Mike said.

  “I admit,” Kate said, “I’m impressed.”

  His round moon face was split by a wide, and what could have been relieved, grin. “Good. Great.”

  “I don’t have to like her to keep her safe,” Kate said. “I don’t even have to vote for her.” He laughed, scoffing at the possibility. “Tell me, Billy, this advance I’ve got in my pocket. It’s drawn on the Niniltna Native Association bank account. I’m wondering how the other three hundred and forty-six shareholders would feel about this use of the tribal chief’s discretionary portion of the general fund.”

  “The board okayed it at Monday night’s meeting.” He looked back at the crowd and said, “So? Do you see anyone suspicious?”

  “Well,” Kate said, watching the crowd gather around the tables dispensing cookies and Kool-Aid, “other than the joint I saw Michael Moonin sucking on, Rudy Brooks selling six hits of what I figure was cocaine, too many people drinking too much Windsor Canadian out of paper bags, and the narrowly averted infliction of what would have been statutory rape by Nathan Kvasnikoff upon the person of Carole Pyle—although I must say Carole looked more than willing until her dad, Ray, showed up—” She looked at Billy, whose laughter had faded into round-eyed dismay. “No.”

  Billy looked from one side of the crowd to the other. “What? You saw all that? Here in the gym? What—why—”

  “Billy,” Kate said, and he turned back to her. He looked so hurt that she was moved by an unaccustomed stirring of sympathy. “There are over eight hundred people here tonight, maybe more. You get this many people together in one place, you’re bound to have some of that stuff going on.”

  “Why didn’t you stop it?”

  “None of it was anywhere near Anne,” Kate said. “That’s what you hired me for, remember? To protect Anne Gordaoff.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Billy.”

  He lapsed into unhappy silence.

  Tracy appeared, the ghost of a grin on her face. “So. Bathed in the presence of the candidate, have you now become a true believer, ready to walk in the paths of righteousness?”

  “Ask me tomorrow morning.”

  “Why tomorrow morning?”

  “Tomorrow morning, the check clears the bank,” Kate said.

  Billy winced, and Tracy laughed. There was a scrabble of canine feet, and Kate looked down to see Mutt on tiptoe, ears straight up, nose pointing at the door. “Mutt?” She hopped down from the chair. Mutt streaked away through the crowd. Kate looked around for Anne and found her still on the stage. “Go to Anne, Billy.”

  “What?”

  “Go to Anne, now. Stay with her, I don’t care where she goes or what she does, until I get back. Got it?” He said nothing and she raised her voice. “Got it?”

  He looked shaken, but he said, “Got it,” and stuck his chubby little chin out like he meant it. He began pushing his way through the crowd to Anne, and Kate took off after Mutt.

  She found her finally, in the parking lot, whining at the blue van Doug and Darlene had driven from the lodge to the gymnasium.

  Inside was the tall blond man who was the candidate’s daughter’s fiancé.

  And if the gunshot wound in his chest was any indication, he was riding shotgun for the last time.

  NOME

  JULY 1900

  The little girl had long dark curls done up with pale pink ribbons that matched the trim on her dress. She stood in the doorway of the Aurora Saloon and gazed inside.

  A tall man wearing a big gray hat and a black suit came to the door. “I have to say you’re the youngest customer I’ve ever had in this saloon, little girl. What can I get for you? Maybe some lemonade?”

  He had a nice smile and she liked his voice, which was deep and soft. She pointed. “That lady doesn’t have any clothes on.”

  He looked over his shoulder at the painting of the reclining nude hanging in back of the bar. “She sure doesn’t. Why don’t you have a seat on the porch, and I’ll bring you a glass of lemonade. Real lemons, fresh off the boat, and you can tell me where to find your mother. Here—”

  There was a rustle of silk, and a woman with dark red hair and tired eyes rushed forward to scoop the little girl into her arms. She glared at the man. “Leave her alone!”

  The big man looked surprised. “Is she yours, Angel? I thought—”

  “No, she’s not,” the woman said, and the little girl squirmed when the woman’s arms tightened around her. “But she has no business in here, and you have no business with her, so just leave her alone.”

  The man’s face darkened, and the little girl was suddenly afraid. “I wasn’t doing anything except getting her a drink. I didn’t—”

  “A drink!”

  “Not a drink drink, goddamn it, just some lemonade to keep her settled while we looked for—”

  “Victoria!”

  Everyone’s head turned to watch the woman wade through the mud from the other side of the street. “Victoria Mae Wilson, I told you not to stray!” She saw who was holding her daughter and flushed. “How dare you! Give me my daughter!” She snatched the little girl from the redhaired woman’s arms and glared impartially from the woman to the man. He looked resigned. The woman’s expression was harder to define. She looked weary and apologetic and, for a moment perhaps, even on the verge of tears.

  The little girl watched them both over her mother’s shoulder as she was borne off down the street, her mother trailing righteous indignation like the wake of a large ship.

  There was a silence between the two people on the steps of the saloon. People, mostly men, pushed past, some pausing to touch their hat brims to the man, some to give the woman a familiar chuck under the chin. They stood as the mother and child had left them, watching the throng of men panning elbow to elbow for gold in the icy waters of the Bering Sea on the beach that formed the other side of the main street. The Arctic summer sun didn’t so much set at this time of year as it circled the horizon, weakening in intensity toward the late evening hours but never entirely waning. “Angel—”

  “Don’t,” she said.

  His lips tightened. “I don’t know how much more I can stand it, watching him treat you like he does.”

  “It’s none of your business,” she said without anger. Anxiety always brought out her accent, and this was no exception. He had to work to follow her words. “And he’d kill you, if you tried anything. He ‘d kill you, Matt.”

  “Would he, now?” he said thoughtfully, his hand raising to settle on the butt of the pistol strapped to his side. “Would he, indeed?”

  She put a restraining hand on his arm. “Don’t, Matt.” She tried to smile and almost succeeded. “Just don’t.”

  His hand came up to grasp hers. “What hold does he have on you, Angel? You don’t have to do this, you could go back to just dancing. God knows my customers love your Flame Dance.” He grinned and added, “I don’t mind saying it keeps my heart ticking over nicely, too.”

  Her smile was more the real article this time.

  “I don’t know for how much longer, though,” he said. “Nome’s about played out. I hear tell how Alaska Steam is cutting the price of a ticket Outside to fifteen dollars. That’s down from seventy. I figure a lot of people are going to take advantage of that to get the hell out once and
for all. I might myself.” He looked at her. “How about you?”

  She looked away, back at the beach front and the path of gold the sun was making over the ocean behind them. “I don’t know. He hasn ‘t said.”

  “Is it that kid of yours?” he said suddenly. “Has he threatened your baby?”

  Her smile vanished and she turned to go back inside. He restrained her. “Is that it, Angel?”

  “I told you never to call me that,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I ever told you.”

  “Told me what? Your real name? Why not? It suits you. ” He raised a hand to smooth back a lock of hair, still red, still lustrous, that had fallen forward on her brow. “It’s beautiful. Like you. I want to call you by it.”

  “You can’t,” she whispered. “I don’t want you to.”

  “Is it the baby?” he said again. “Because if it is—”“Because if it is you’ll do what?” The Greek’s suit was tailored of fine tweed, and his boots were well-made and shined to a mirror finish, but nothing would ever hide the rapacious expression in his cold dark eyes. His teeth flashed when he smiled at the two of them. “You’re losing me money, Darling, standing around on the porch talking.”

  Matt made a sudden movement, and a long-barreled Colt appeared in the Greek’s hand.

  Once again silence descended. Men froze in the doorway, watching, ready to dive out of the line of fire.

  Matt’s face darkened. “You want to be careful with that pop gun of yours, Alex,” he said evenly. “Somebody could get hurt.”

  Alex Papadopolous smiled. “Somebody sure could,” he agreed, and caused the Colt to disappear again. He stood back, looking at the Dawson Darling, still smiling.

  The redhead raised her chin and swept past him into the saloon.

  Matt was right, Nome was on its last legs as a stampeder town. The Poor Man’s Gold Rush was almost over. The only thing that made for more business in a whorehouse than a boom was a bust. Men stood in line for their turn, and she was exhausted when morning came. Alex would have kept her working right around the clock—“Hell, the sun’s still up, ain’t it?”—and it was after five before she dispatched the last customer. Tired as she was, she made the time for a quick bath before tumbling into bed and falling instantly asleep.

  It seemed only moments later when a faint scratching at the door woke her. She repressed a groan. “Whoever it is, go away,” she called. “Come back tonight.”

  “It’s Matt,” came the reply. “Open up.”

  There was another sound, a faint mewling, that had her on her feet and at the door in an instant. She wrenched it open and Matt held out the child in his arms. “Percy!”

  Percy was thin and pale and almost asleep. “Mama?” he said, and nuzzled his face into her shoulder.

  “How did you get him? How did you know where he was?”

  “Alex had to pay the woman he had looking after hinu One day I followed him.” He smiled. “He’s a cheap bastard, Alex is; she wasn’t happy with what he was paying her. From the looks of that kid she didn’t spend much of it feeding him, either.” He shrugged and cast a look behind him before he stepped inside and closed the door. In a low voice he said, “Get dressed. I’ve got you a ticket on the boat to Fairbanks.”

  She stared at him, open-mouthed.

  “He’ll think you went to Seattle,” he said. “Anybody could scrape fifteen bucks together. He won’t figure you went to Fairbanks, so that’s where you should go.” When she didn’t move, he put firm hands on her shoulders and turned her toward the wardrobe. “Hurry up now, before he gets back.”

  She took a step, stopped. “Matt,” she said. “Why?”

  He didn’t pretend to misunderstand her. “Because you’re not like the rest of them. You got yourself forced into something you don’t want to do.” He paused. “I could have outbid Halvorsen, you know.”

  She stared at him. “Is that what this is about? You feel guilty because you didn’t win the bidding that night?”

  “I know you want out,” he said, ignoring her words, “and I aim to get you out.” He handed her a small leather bag, and she knew what it was from the weight.

  “Matt, I—” She swallowed, and tried again.

  He shook his head, his smile a little twisted. “I’m not coming with you now. I’ve got a saloon to run. Maybe later, when the stampede’s over, I’ll catch up to you. But now, you ‘ve got to go. Speaking of which, pack your bag, woman, you’ve got a boat to catch.”

  “The hell you say,” Alex Papadopolous said from the doorway, and fired from the hip. The gunshot echoed around the room and startled Percy, who began to cry.

  Matt spun around, pulling his pistol and trying to aim. Papadopolous fired again, and Matt fell backward, his head at her feet. She stared down at him, and he raised his hand to her, the one holding the pistol. She took it, as if in a dream, and raised it with a trembling hand.

  Alex laughed at her, the same laugh he had laughed at her when he stood in the door of the cabin Sam had built for her, the same laugh he had laughed when he took her to the bed she had warmed for Arthur.

  She fired.

  7

  The Ahtna police chief was a big, beefy, red-faced man with a five-o’clock shadow, a beer-belly gut, and a handlebar mustache. He could have come straight out of central casting to answer a call for “Cop, Small Town, Generic.” His eyes were cop’s eyes, watchful, shrewd, wholly untrusting. He was every speeding driver’s sinking heart coming up in the rearview mirror, every perp’s terror when he came into the interrogation room, every watch commander’s pet, every conservative’s wet dream come true, every liberal’s worst nightmare. A cop’s cop.

  “Hey, Kenny,” Kate said.

  “Hey, Kate,” Kenny said. His grip was warm and solid, and he didn’t say anything about Jack, for which that alone she could have kissed him. He was dressed in full uniform, black shirt tucked into black pants cuffed over shined black half-boots that Kate would bet all of her campaign paycheck had steel toes. His badge was gold and shone brightly from the pocket over his left breast: his tie matched the color of his pants and was neatly knotted with the tail tucked between the buttons of his shirt, marine-fashion. Everything had been recently cleaned and fit very well. Kenny knew the value of appearance, and he looked every inch the part.

  “So, I’m not liking the hell out of this,” Kenny said, indicating the report on his desk. He settled in his chair. It was large and comfortable, with arms and a headrest, and sat in front of a large and comfortable desk in a large, comfortable, and well-appointed room. Diplomas, neatly framed, were hung with military precision on the wall, the filing cabinets were dust-free, the carpet freshly cleaned, and the walls newly painted. Kenny had somebody out front to answer phones and mind the prisoners, if any, in the four-cell jail down the hall. The sour smell of vomit, common to so many cop shops, in the Ahtna Police Department made itself conspicuous by its absence.

  Kenny Hazen was the chief of police for Ahtna, which had remained defiantly unincorporated from its founding in 1892, through all of the following century, and entered the next the same way. Local taxes were confined to an eight percent sales tax on everything except food and drugs, which was one reason it attracted businesses from all over the state and why big-box chains like Wal-Mart had been heard to have been investigating into the possibility of locating there.

  From that eight percent sales tax, which everybody paid, local and tourist and the weekend fisherman from Anchorage alike, came the funds to run the city. Which was why Ahtna had a one-man police force, but then that was the way Ahtna residents liked it. Ahtnans preferred to handle their own domestic problems, so that by the time Kenny, retired from the Anchorage Police Department after he got in his twenty to take up the job of Ahtna’s chief of police, arrived on the scene, all the guns had been hidden, all the blood had been mopped up, and everybody had the same story to tell. The chief had no Indians, but then neither did he have much to do, and he did it at a handsome salary that kept him mid
dling honest. Ahtna could assure prospective businesses thinking of opening a branch office on the Kanuyaq that the local police force was efficient and reliable and fully supported by the local community.

  “I’m not liking it much, either, Kenny,” Kate said. “It happened on my watch.”

  A voice said from the doorway, “No shit, Shugak.”

  She looked up to see Jim Chopin towering over her. Mutt gave a joyous bark and bounced to her feet, nudging at his hand with her head.

  “What are you doing here?” Kate said.

  Jim grinned his grin at Kate, the one that should have been posted next to a photo of a great white shark over the caption, “Separated at birth? You be the judge.”

  “Anybody’d think you weren’t happy to see me. I’m hurt.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, right, that’ll happen.”

  “You don’t always know everything there is to know about everyone, Shugak,” he said. The fine edge underlying his words was a surprise. He saw the odd look on Kenny’s face as he sat listening to them, and got himself back under control. “I’m here because Darlene came to me first about the letters, and now because somebody who’s working on her campaign has been murdered. Kenny called me last night. I flew in this morning. Not that I’m answerable to you for my actions.”

  “Nobody said you were,” she said, taken back.

  He looked at Kenny. “What have you got?”

  “A GSW to the chest, straight into the heart. Powder burns on his jacket. Small caliber, probably a twenty-two.”

  “I don’t suppose the killer was kind enough to leave the weapon at the scene, say, oh, laying under the dash, with a perfect set of fingerprints on the grip?”

  “Nope.”

  “Hell.” Jim thought. “Killer was close.”