Tundra Kill

by Stan Jones

  “I’ll tell her.”

  “Might as well,” Stewart said. “You know we never make it official. The subject just doesn’t hear from us again.”

  “Thanks, and, ah, just thanks.”

  Stewart hung up without so much as a “no problem.”

  “Thanks, baby,” she said when he called. Then she broke down in sobs.

  “You OK? Should I come home? I’m coming home. I’m leaving now.”

  “No, no, not now. Let me pull myself together. I’ve been that bitch’s basket case long enough. I never want you to see me like this again.”

  “It’s OK. Let me come home.”

  “See you tonight.”

  That afternoon came the final call, from Bill Ashe, the investigator for the police standards council.

  “Let me guess,” Active said.

  “Yep, you get a pass, at least till next time,” Ashe said. “Bullshit end to a bullshit case. Remind me to be on vacation the next time the governor calls.”

  “Me, too,” Active said. “Maybe we should go fishing. Ever catch a sheefish?”

  “I want to piss away my time and money, I’ll go to Vegas,” Ashe said.

  “You’re off the hook, too?” Grace said after he told her of the call.

  He raised his eyebrows. “She’s a woman of her word, it appears. Gotta give her credit, I suppose.”

  Grace considered for a moment. “Not yet. Not till your hearing tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY - FOUR

  Friday, April 25

  HELEN MERCER, as Procopio had predicted, sported the push-up bra and abundant cleavage when she arrived in court. Also, the painted-on jeans and scarlet blouse Active had seen the night he shared his playlist. Brad Mercer wore Sorels, rust-colored Carhartt jeans, a wool shirt, and a Gray Wolf ball cap that he parked under his chair.

  McConnell, the Mercers’ lawyer, proved to be a small and fussy-looking man in gray pinstripe, and rimless glasses so shiny it was impossible to see his eyes. No doubt the prim, buttoned-down exterior he showed the world was one reason for his success in criminal defense. It would be easy to misread that.

  Judge Stein rapped his gavel and the courtroom settled down. “Everybody here? Everybody set?”

  Everybody nodded.

  “For the record, this is a closed hearing on the matter of the death of one Peter Aqpattuq Wise on, ah, April 15 of this year. I understand we have a plea today?”

  McConnell rose. “We do, Your Honor,” he said in a high, thin voice. “If we could pass these around?” He waved a sheaf of copies at Doris, the court clerk.

  “We have ours already.” Procopio said. She tapped the folder in front of her. “Mr. McConnell was kind enough to send it up by email.”

  “Actually,” McConnell said, “We have a revised version. I think the prosecutor and Chief Active will want to take a look.”

  Doris came out from behind her railing, took the copies from McConnell, and put two on the table where Active and Procopio sat. She took the rest back to the bench.

  Active and Procopio gave the document a casual scan, looked at each other, picked it up in disbelief, and read it again. Active read it a third time before he could believe it.

  “Brad Mercer?” Procopio erupted from her chair. “Brad Mercer is pleading? That is not what we agreed to and it is not what we got from Mr. McConnell two days ago. His offer was that Helen Mercer would plead. This is outrage—”

  Stein held up a restraining hand. “We try not to raise our voices in this courtroom, Ms. Procopio. And it would appear that Mr. McConnell wants to offer an explanation. Shall we hear it?”

  Procopio nodded and sank back into her chair.

  “This is bullshit,” Active hissed into her ear. “Total bull—”

  “Yeah, I know. Let’s just listen.”

  Active shot a fast glance at the governor. He thought she shot back a smirk, but it was too quick to be certain.

  McConnell pushed back his chair and rose. “Your honor, Ms. Procopio is right. We did send a different plea offer on Wednesday. But as I subsequently observed the demeanor of my clients in discussing with them the events of April 15, including listening to both of the state’s recordings, I came to entertain doubts, serious doubts, that Mrs. Mercer’s plea was an accurate account of those events.”

  He gazed down on his clients. The governor kept her chin up but Active was pretty sure it trembled.

  “I became concerned, Your Honor, that Mrs. Mercer, might be pleading in an effort to protect her husband because she was so moved his the devotion to his family, the devotion that led him to make that fateful trip out onto the tundra on the morning in question in one last effort to resolve the Mercer family’s differences with Mr. Wise, with the tragic but accidental result that brings us here today. It’s that devotion that is reflected in his affidavit and our new plea offer.”

  McConnell paused and seemed to look into himself. “It was foolish of the governor, I know. But who among us has not been a fool for love at least once? And who, having done so, does not pity those who never have?”

  The lawyer paused again and gazed around the courtroom.

  “Cut the crap, Mr. McConnell,” Stein said with an expression of disgust, or amusement, or both. “Save it for when this gets in front of a jury, if it ever does.”

  Active shot another glance at the Mercers. This time, it was Brad Mercer who looked sheepish. His wife cast down her eyes. The lashes looked to be jeweled with tears, just like the first time she’d tried to blame Pete Wise’s death on her husband.

  “Of course, Your Honor,” McConnell went on. “I counseled with my clients. I told them of my concerns. I implored them to consult their hearts and their consciences in this matter. I even indicated I might be unable to continue representing them unless I could achieve a satisfactory level of confidence regarding the veracity of the materials we were filing with this court. And they did, after praying for divine guidance, as I understand it, come to me with the account we submit today. As you can see, it is identical to the previous version in every material respect. Only the names have changed.”

  McConnell gazed around the courtroom again. “So, if we’re ready for Mr. Mercer?”

  “This should be good,” Active said.

  Procopio shrugged. “I’ll kill him on cross.”

  Stein waved Brad Mercer up and administered the oath.

  McConnell led the First Mate through the new version of Pete Wise’s death. He had, it seemed, been distraught over Wise’s refusal to back off the custody suit during the previous day’s conference, and had gone to his house early that morning for another talk. Seeing Pete’s sled and dogs gone from behind his house, Brad had surmised Wise was out for a morning run with his team and had followed him by snowgo along the usual route of Chukchi mushers, past the airport, the cemetery on the ridge, and onto the Isignaq trail.

  Surface visibility was poor that morning because of the layer of blowing snow, Mercer said, and as he came over a rise, he was suddenly upon Wise and his team and hit the musher from behind before he could react and swerve aside.

  After that, he said, he must have panicked, fearing not only for himself but also for the damage to his wife’s career that would result from public knowledge of the accident. The next thing he remembered clearly was shoving the snowgo through the ice on Chukchi Bay and calling his wife for rescue.

  And how, McConnell asked, had he come to make the call on her phone?

  That he didn’t know, Mercer said, unless it was because he picked it up by mistake as he fumbled around in the darkness of the bedroom before his ride to Pete Wise’s house for another talk about the custody suit.

  And what about his wild stories of sharing his wife with Pete Wise, of Helen Mercer spending the night with Wise before he was killed, and of helping Pete Wise get a DNA sample from Pudu?

  All concocted, Brad said, and he was sorry for doing it. But when he heard the recording of his wife trying to seduce Chief Active, he had he lashed
out in blind fury and struck back in every way he could, never stopping to think she only did it to protect the family.

  “But it was lies, all lies,” Brad said. “It was my wife who told the truth about what happened and when she tried to take the blame after all, I saw how much she loves me and I realize how much I love her. So now I’m confessing to what really happened.”

  “FML,” Procopio muttered.

  “What?” Active whispered.

  “Eff My Life. McConnell stole our cross-examination.”

  “Cross, Ms. Procopio?” Stein said.

  “Your Honor, this comes as a complete surprise to us, not to mention an outrage. We need some time to go over this material before we can respond.”

  “Very well.” Stein looked at the clock at the back of the courtroom. “How long will you need?”

  “Not long,” Procopio said.

  “Let Doris know when you’re ready and we’ll resume.”

  Active and Procopio found a conference room a few doors down the hall from the courtroom and slumped in chairs at a little table under framed copies of the state and federal constitutions.

  “Shit,” Procopio said as she flipped through Brad Mercer’s plea and affidavit. “That’s what we’ve got here. Shit.”

  “Same as we had yesterday, but with a different name on it,” Active said. “Should we take it?”

  “I could rake Brad over the coals a little. But there aren’t many coals to rake here with the search of Pete’s place looking to come up dry.”

  “It is remotely possible he’s telling the truth, I suppose.”

  “Is that what your gut tells you?”

  “I still don’t know. But here’s the thing. If Brad’s telling the truth, he deserves to go to jail. If he’s lying under oath, he still deserves to go to jail. In which case, if he has a little time in his cell to think it over, maybe he’ll come to his senses and rat her out.”

  Procopio tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “You fight dirty.”

  Active raised his eyebrows. “I try.

  “I guess I’m in,” she said. “Let’s go break the good news.”

  “Not yet, I’m thinking.”

  Procopio sagged back into her chair. “What now?”

  “What’s to stop Mercer from giving him a pardon or clemency or something the minute we walk out of here?”

  “Again, FML. Nothing except bad publicity maybe.”

  “At which point she’ll blow it all off as a vendetta by a small-town cop and an overzealous prosecutor.”

  “So what, then?”

  “They have to stipulate that Brad serves at least a year before she takes executive action.”

  Procopio shrugged. “Why not? Probably get laughed out of court on constitutional grounds if she ever contests it, but this case is already a clown car.”

  “And no possibility of parole till he’s done the year.”

  The prosecutor shrugged again. “Sure, that, too.”

  They left the conference room, and Procopio popped her head into Doris’s office to let the clerk know they were ready.

  “That was not our agreement!” McConnell protested when Procopio laid the counteroffer before the court. “A year is not—”

  “Your agreement was never our agreement,” Procopio said. “Ours was with Helen Mercer. This is the new one.”

  “And this business of the governor stipulating, I’m not sure it’s even…I’ve never run into…” McConnell sputtered to a halt and and whispered for a moment with the Mercers. “Now I’m afraid we need some time, Your honor.”

  “Thought you might,” Stein said. “Be my guest.” He stood and slipped out the back to his chambers.

  “Third door on the right,” Active said as McConnell and the Mercers filed out.

  No one thanked him.

  Active and Procopio waited in the courtroom, for lack of a better idea. Active checked email on his phone. Procopio pulled a laptop from her briefcase and started a draft of the new plea agreement.

  Less than ten minutes later, Stein and his clerk entered the rear of the courtroom as McConnell and the Mercers filed in from the hall. McConnell’s expression was unreadable. The Mercers were stone-faced. Active caught Brad Mercer’s eye for a moment and shot him a little smirk. The First Mate’s expression got stonier.

  Stein gaveled them to order. “Mr. McConnell, what say you? Do your clients accept the state’s offer?”

  “This is highly unusual and I’m not sure it’s legal, your honor, but we do.”

  “All right, guys, put it in writing, get signatures from the Mercers and Ms. Procopio, file it with Doris and we’ll call it good,” Stein said. “Anything further? No? Then we’re done here.” He looked at Procopio and Active, then McConnell and the Mercers. “And I wish I may never hear of this matter again.”

  They all stood as he slipped out the rear door. Doris gathered her papers and followed soon after.

  “Nathan?” the governor said as they moved toward the exit. “A moment?”

  Everybody started back toward the tables.

  The governor shook her head. “Just Nathan, Brad, and me.”

  “Governor,” McConnell said. “I seriously advise against this. We have the matter wrapped up. Further conversation cannot possibly be in your interest.”

  Mercer gave him a frosty stare.

  “I advise against it is all I can say.” He started for the door.

  “Me, too,” Procopio told Active. “This is not a boat to be rocked.”

  Active touched her arm. “I won’t do anything stupid.”

  She left, too. Active and the Mercers took seats on a front bench in the public section of the courtroom.

  Mercer gave him a searching look. “So this is really over?”

  “You know the deal. You stick to your part, I stick to mine. The cases stay closed, the birthday cake stays unlit.”

  She looked at her husband. “Brad?”

  “I said I’ll do it and I will.”

  “I do have a question,” Active said.

  Mercer widened her eyes in inquiry.

  “That ridiculous business about drafting me for your bodyguard, the Trooper job, the scratches in the tent. What was that about? Pete Wise wasn’t even dead yet. Were you already planning to kill him?”

  “What happened to Pete Wise was an accident! There was no plan—”

  “Don’t bother. We’re off the record here and the deal’s done anyway.”

  She got back a little of the smirk he had seen earlier. “The truth is, I was worried about Pete’s suit right from the get-go because of the birthday cake issue. With your reputation, I figured if word got out, you’d be asking me about birthdays before I knew it. I needed leverage. Then Cowboy put us down in Shelukshuk Canyon and I never let a good crisis go to waste. I got you into the Arctic Oven, scratched my throat, and there was my stick to back up the carrot of the Trooper job.”

  He chewed his lip for a moment. Was she telling the truth for once, or just working a new angle not yet obvious?

  “I surrounded you, Nathan.” She flashed him the campaign smile.

  He looked at her husband, who had taken it all in, chin on hand.

  “How about you, Brad? You know what really happened, but you’ll be the one sitting in a cell while she’s out doing what she does, maybe with a new man. Why you doing this?”

  Now the First Mate wore the smirk. “You should have spent that afternoon with her.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You’d know why I’m doing this if you were ever inside her.”

  “Told you,” the governor said.

  Her husband chuckled. “She’s gonna have’em put me in Lemon Creek at Juneau so we can have conjugal visits.”

  The governor winked and left with her husband.

  EPILOGUE

  Saturday, April 26

  ACTIVE PUSHED HIMSELF up on his hands and looked down the length of Grace Palmer’s body, the hills and hollows, to where they were still join
ed in the middle, her ankles locked behind his knees. “Baby? You there?”

  She opened heavy-lidded eyes, now limpid and silver. “No, I’m in heaven.” She closed them again. “I guess it’s true what they say. There’s nothing like the real thing.”

  “No argument here.” He rolled off and stretched alongside her on the narrow little cot in Leroy’s sheefish camp. “That boffo splibo still going?”

  She groped around on the cooler beside the cot and came up with the boffo. “Nope, it’s out. Why?”

  “I was thinking I might give it a try. Walk on the wild side a little in honor of…this. Today. The first time I was ever inside you in the biblical sense.”

  She propped herself on an elbow. “You? Smoke a boffo?”

  “I’m thinking it might speed up my recovery.”

  She handed him a lighter off the cooler.

  He lit the boffo and inhaled cautiously, not having smoked marijuana since college.

  She took a hit and laid it on the cooler. “Again? Already?”

  “Soon. But I have a question first.”

  “Ask me anything.”

  “Wanna get married?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Of course seriously. A, we love each other to pieces. B, this, here today, makes me think you’ve, how do I put this, finally exorcised your demons enough to give informed consent. C, if we’re gonna propagate the species, we don’t wanna wait too long to start. And, D, if Helen Mercer does come after us again, we can invoke spousal privilege.”

  She chuckled. “Not the most romantic proposal a girl ever had, I suppose, but, then, it wouldn’t be you if it was. So, A, hell, yes, and B, fuck Helen Mercer.”

  Stan Jones is a native of Alaska. He has been a Bush pilot and has worked as an award-winning journalist and an environmentalist. He is the author of four previous mysteries in the acclaimed Nathan Active series, and is co-author of the non-fiction work The Spill: Personal Stories from the Exxon Valdez Disaster. He lives in Anchorage.

  Stan’s web page is www.sjbooks.com, his Facebook page is www.facebook.com/stansbooks, and he welcomes reader email at sj.alaska@gmail.com.

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