Tundra Kill

by Stan Jones

  “No reason you should, I guess. Only happened last night and the guy turned himself in already. Apparently he and a buddy got into a fight over the ownership of an Igloo cooler full of homebrew, the honeybucket got kicked over in the fight and then there was another fight over that. And when the first guy woke up and saw his buddy dead, he staggered over to my village safety officer’s house and turned himself in. Actually, he said he was sorry and begged my guy to shoot him, but all he got was arrested. And now I have to bring him down here.”

  Carnaby waved it off. “Let Alan go. Or have the safety officer bring him down. Sounds open-and-shut.”

  Active shook his head. “Thanks, but, I still gotta pass on this one. I want to check in with my safety officer up there and ask a few questions before I button it up.”

  “You may not exactly have a choice. She—” The door banged open and Carnaby jumped out of his chair. “Why, here she is now! Welcome home, Governor, this is Chief Active. Nathan, have you met our governor?”

  Active masked his astonishment as she swept into the room, complete with the scarlet Helly-Hansen parka, the rectangle glasses, the weapons-grade cheekbones, and a cloud of the famous perfume, though he couldn’t remember what it was called. And the calf-length high-heel boots—what was the brand? Something weird and a little suggestive, if he remembered.

  She crossed the office, hand out. He rose without conscious effort and his hand met hers of its own accord.

  “Chief Active.” She shook his hand and held it a moment longer than necessary. “What a pleasure!”

  Active stifled simultaneous impulses to ask why, and to punch Carnaby in the face. “The pleasure’s all mine, Governor,” he managed.

  “Good to see you again, Governor.” Carnaby put out his hand. Mercer turned her head away. The Trooper captain gave a slight eye roll. “Governor, I was just—”

  Mercer shot him a frown and he shut up. Carnaby retreated to the only other chair in the office, which was against the back wall. She took his seat in front of Active’s desk.

  “Sit, Nathan, sit, we need to talk. We haven’t met yet, right?”

  Active dropped into his own chair behind the desk. “No, ma’am, you were already governor when I got here and—”

  “I know, I know, I’m not home nearly as much as I’d like to be. It’s so hard to do that, now, much as I love my Chukchi and I guess…well, our paths just haven’t crossed.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Has Captain Carnaby told you how much I need you?”

  “He was just starting to exp—”

  “Yes, I want you for my bodyguard while I fly the Isignaq 400 and cheer my husband on for the next couple days.”

  Active gave Carnaby a fast look. The trooper threw up his hands in the international symbol for bureaucratic surrender.

  “But, Governor, I think you’ll be perfectly safe in Chukchi and the villages. And, anyway, don’t the troopers usually—”

  He froze at Mercer’s look. Too late, he noticed Carnaby’s grimace and warning head shake from behind the governor.

  “I will not have a trooper anywhere near me.” Mercer swung on Carnaby. His expression dissolved into bland impassivity. She turned back to Active. “The last one was guarding my body, all right. Especially my butt when I climbed the stairs to my office. I sent him back to Juneau this morning.”

  Behind her, Carnaby circled his ear with a fingertip.

  “Of course my department will be happy to help in any way possible, Governor.” Active snapped his fingers. “In fact, one of our officers, Alan Long, was born in a fish camp up the Isignaq and I’m sure he’d be only too happy—”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I don’t want Alan Long. I want you.”

  “Me?”

  “Posilutely.” She nodded and gave him the smile made famous on her campaign posters and book covers. “So we’re all set!”

  He shot another quick glance at Carnaby, who winked.

  “May I ask how you chose me for this honor? I had no idea you were even aware—”

  “Oh, I’m very aware of you, Nathan. I still have my sources here. You can take the girl out of the village, but you can’t take the village out of the girl, am I right?”

  “So they say.”

  “To be exact, I was very impressed by your interview with Roger Kennelly on Kay-Chuck the other night.”

  “You pick up Chukchi public radio in Juneau? I didn’t know—”

  “They stream it on the Internet, duh! Modern times, Nathan.”

  “Of course, what was I thinking?” He slapped his forehead, as she seemed to expect.

  She shot him another grin. “I liked what I heard about your ideas for the new department you’re creating here. I liked it very much. So much so that I’ve suggested to our commissioner of public safety that you might make a good director of state troopers in Anchorage the next time the job opens up. Which I anticipate will be soon.”

  Active rubbed his eyes. “Director of the Alaska State Troopers.” He gave Carnaby a vengeful look. “Meaning I’d be Captain Carnaby’s supervisor?”

  Carnaby shuddered behind Mercer’s back.

  “Come to think of it, you would!” She shot Carnaby another blood-freezing glare, then turned back to Active with an expectant air.

  “It’s a great honor, Governor, but—”

  “Suka.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Please. Call me Suka. That was my nickname when I played basketball here. It comes from the Eskimo word for ‘fast’ and it’s what my friends use.” She leaned across the desk and touched his forearm. “I hope you’ll be my friend now?”

  “Of course, Gov—er, Suka. But there’s so much I need to do here.” He waved at the litter of file boxes and office equipment on his floor. “I just took over. We’re still getting moved in.”

  Mercer glanced at the clutter and sighed. “The director’s job can wait, I suppose. But when you’re ready, you just let me know.”

  “Of course, Governor. Of course.”

  “And, meantime, you’ll be my bodyguard for the race?” She widened her eyes and waited. “You have a reputation as a guy who won’t back off, no matter what. That’s exactly what I want if things go sideways out there, right?” She waited some more. “Look, Nathan, I, that is, the state, of course, we do fund over half your department’s budget, right? And this seems like such a small thing to ask. You know, as one friend to another.”

  Active faked a delighted grin. “Of course, Suka. Absolutely. Your wish is my command.”

  She nodded with a gratified look. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes, your interview on Kay-Chuck. That network of women’s centers you and Grace Palmer want to set up around the region? I am totally in support of women’s rights, other than contraception for girls, of course, and abortion. But if you need an additional appropriation, just let me—well, here.” She scribbled something on a business card and handed it to him. “That’s my personal cell number. You call me absolutely any time you need absolutely anything.” She touched his arm again. “Anything at all, any time at all. You’ve got a friend in Juneau, Nathan. A true friend? Okay?”

  Active nodded.

  Mercer rose and swung on Carnaby, who let his game face slip a little under the pressure. “You have the information my staff emailed up?”

  Carnaby pointed at the green folder on the desk. “I printed it all out.”

  “And you’ll brief Chief Active on my schedule and make sure he has all the state resources he needs?”

  Carnaby nodded again and started out of his chair.

  “No! Don’t get up!”

  Carnaby sank back down.

  Mercer turned back to Active. “Nathan, great to finally meetcha, I can’t wait to fly the race with you and watch Brad win his third Isignaq 400! My staff arrives on the noon jet tomorrow. We’ll meet them and get organized, and then we’ll be off up the river with the legendary Cowboy Decker. Brad should hit Isignaq
tomorrow afternoon to give his dogs their last mandatory rest stop, and cross the finish line here in Chukchi the day after, so we should be out for just the one night and two days. All good, Chief Active?” She snapped him a mock salute.

  To his shock, he found himself picturing her in a tight sailor suit, the blouse open except for a knot at her bellybutton. Christ, what was this mojo she had? “All good, Suka,” he said.

  She wheeled and swept out of the office in another cloud of perfume. Active and Carnaby listened as her footsteps clacked down the hall. After a few seconds, Carnaby rose and peered after her.

  “She gone?”

  “Gone.” Carnaby dropped into the chair before Active’s desk and let out an exhausted breath.

  Active waved the business card at him. “And I have her personal cell number.”

  “Not my circus, not my monkeys,” Carnaby said. “Not any more.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Friday, April 11

  ACTIVE TUCKED THE card into his shirt pocket. “But what the hell was it about?”

  “You heard what I heard. She wants you to guard her body.”

  “Because one of your Troopers looked at her butt? Seriously, her butt?”

  “She thinks every man looks at her butt,” Carnaby said. “Which most of them do, probably. Also, don’t forget, she told that TV reporter she doesn’t like people judging her by her chest size. So, don’t get in front of her or behind her, and you’ll be fine.”

  “But—”

  “And I definitely wouldn’t use that word around her.”

  “Jesus,” Active said. “She’s even crazier than people say.”

  Carnaby’s eyes twinkled. “I hear she can see the White House from her house. You’d think we would have learned our lesson from the last woman governor we elected. But, no, we had to do it again.”

  “I mean, I heard the Juneau guys talk about her when I worked for you, but—”

  “That’s our governor,” Carnaby said. “A woman of iron whim. Not for nothing is she known as Helen Wheels even to this day.”

  “I’m doomed. I ride around for two days with her in Cowboy’s Cessna, she’s gonna think I’m looking at her butt or her boo—er, ah, chest, for sure.”

  “Actually,” Carnaby said, “you want my theory? It may not be the butt-checking at all. Maybe what it is, she does get any news coverage while she’s out here in the Bush, she wants to make sure there’s a Native face in the picture, so as to broaden her appeal in this multicultural society of ours. Mad she may be, but there’s usually some method in it.”

  “Her husband’s half Inupiaq,” Active said. “Why does she need me?”

  “The lady demographic maybe? You do wear a uniform and a Glock, and I don’t have to tell you what that does to some women.” Carnaby grinned. “But seriously. I didn’t know this guy she just fired very well, but I’m told he was in all fairness somewhat lacking in emotional intelligence—an area where you excel, I might point out.”

  Active studied the trooper captain in the spring sun flooding through the third-floor windows. The Super Trooper, as he had been known when Active was at the public safety academy in Sitka, was six-two, square-jawed, and still looked fit at age sixty or so. But there was a hint of jowl under the jaw these days, a little gravel in the voice, a little more salt than pepper in the hair and mustache. The bifocals that had appeared a year earlier were pushed up on his forehead.

  When Carnaby had first arrived in Chukchi, as Active understood it, he had a family in Anchorage and plans to return to it in a couple of years. But here he still was, with a live-in girlfriend, a boat, and a plane, and no word lately of the Anchorage family. And now he was retiring, what with the Chukchi Borough taking on the police powers once wielded by the Troopers. So far, he showed every sign of staying on in Chukchi. Maybe he had missed too many planes, as the saying went, to go home again.

  Carnaby cocked an ear. “We got company?”

  There was a rustle outside, then a tap.

  Active grimaced. “Come in, Lucy.”

  The door swung open to admit Lucy Brophy, onetime dispatcher and office manager for the Chukchi police department, now office manager for the new borough public safety department. A blue folder rested on her prominent belly. “I wasn’t listening when the governor was here,” she said.

  “Of course not,” Active said. “The thought never crossed our minds.”

  “Not for one moment,” Carnaby said.

  “Arii, I wasn’t. She’s sure pretty, ah?” Lucy said it with what struck Active as studied casualness. He didn’t respond. “I read she’s a size six. I wish I was a size six.” She laid the folder on Active’s blotter. “Maybe I’ll go on Amazon and order some Naughty Monkeys, too. You have to sign the paychecks.”

  “I do?”

  “Sure, it comes with your new job. Finance sent them over.” She snuffled a little as she said it, and felt around in the pockets of her sweater.

  “You got a cold?” Active said

  “No, it’s just my allergies.”

  He handed her his handkerchief. She looked at it, then at him.

  “Don’t worry, it’s clean.”

  “Arii, I know.” She took it and dabbed her eyes, then blew her nose.

  Active opened the folder and looked at the top of the stack. “I sign my own paycheck? Isn’t that a conflict of interest or something?”

  “Not if it’s under fifteen thousand. Then the mayor has to sign it.”

  Active signed checks. Lucy looked at Carnaby. “Is Nathan going to Anchorage?”

  “I thought you weren’t listening,” Carnaby said.

  “I heard on accident,” Lucy said.

  “He’s not going anywhere any time soon,” Carnaby said. “You heard wrong.”

  “I don’t think so,” Lucy said. “I have really sharp ears.”

  Active handed her the folder. She offered him the handkerchief, which he declined.

  She left and closed the door behind her. Carnaby looked at Active, then at the door, and raised his eyebrows.

  “Thank you, Lucy,” Active said in his command voice. “That’ll be all.”

  They heard a bustle outside, then footsteps receded down the hall.

  Carnaby chuckled. “Interesting life you lead, Chief Active. Your ex-girlfriend is your office manager?”

  “She came with the package,” Active said. “It’s fine. She’s a blissfully happy married woman now.”

  “And pregnant again,” Carnaby said. “How far along? And how many is this?”

  Active scratched his temple. “Six or seven months, and number two.”

  “And suffering from allergies, it seems. But in April? With everything still frozen solid? When did that start?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Maybe it started right outside the door when she heard you might go to Anchorage to run the Troopers.”

  “And maybe it’s none of your business. Like I said, married, blissfully happy, number two on the way.”

  “And what are these Naughty Monkeys she wants?”

  “That’s it!” Active snapped his fingers. “The boots the governor was wearing.”

  “Mm-hmm. Well, you and Lucy have fun with your shiny new cop shop. Where were we, now? Oh, yes, your flight-seeing expedition with the governor.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Assuming you can resist the temptation to induct her into the Mile-High Club in the back of Cowboy’s Cessna, there may be a way out of this.”

  “What way?”

  “If history is any guide, a few days in your company will be enough for our governor to get quite enough of you. She’ll move on to something else. Or someone.”

  “How is it a way out if she ends up hating me? The state money for my department could go up in a puff of smoke. Like that bodyguard.”

  Carnaby tented his fingers and beamed over them at Active, who groaned. “It’s all a matter of calibration, Nathan. Turn that emotional intelligence of yours up to ‘st
un’ and make sure you’re just cooperative enough while you’re with her, but not more so. Gracious but reserved, if you will.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “You’ll figure it out.” Carnaby leaned forward, grinned, and touched his forearm just like the governor had done. “If not, you do have her cell number.”

  Active slapped away Carnaby’s hand. “Maybe I could be sick tomorrow and send Alan Long.”

  Carnaby’s eyebrows shot up. “That nitwit? After what she said about him?”

  “He’s not a nitwit,” Active said. “You just—”

  “You just have to watch him,” Carnaby said. “I know. We’ve all had guys like that. In fact, I once supervised a young trooper who jumped out of Cowboy Decker’s Super Cub in mid-air. Without a parachute.”

  “It was not mid-air and I did not jump,” Active said. “Cowboy was hovering in a high wind and I stepped out onto a snow bank.”

  “And dislocated your shoulder.”

  “A gust caught us, is all.”

  Carnaby waved a hand in dismissal. “The point is, the governor likes you. Play it right and you’ll be fine.”

  He flipped open the folder and ran his finger down the schedule for the week. “See, she got in yesterday to drop the starting flag for the race and she and her kids are staying at their place here in town tonight. Like she said, the race leaders will overnight in Isignaq tomorrow, Saturday, and finish here in Chukchi the next day. She’ll park her daughters with her parents while you and Cowboy will fly her and the videographer, who happens to be her son, out to watch Brad mush into Isignaq. Then, while he looks to his dogs and sets up camp for the night, the governor stays with the family of the Episcopal minister there in Isignaq. The next day, Sunday, she barnstorms a couple of the upriver villages for muktuk eating and Eskimo dancing and such, then Cowboy does a 180 and whisks her back to Chukchi in time to cheer Brad on as he leads the pack down Beach Street, after which they spend the evening celebrating his victory in a manner not appropriate for minions like ourselves to speculate upon, however tempting the prospect might be. The evening of the next day, Monday, is the mushers’ banquet, where she passes out the trophies, and the morning after that she jets off to Juneau, restoring peace and tranquility to our little hamlet on the tundra.”