Elements of Kill

by Christopher Lane

  “Didya try his room?” Billy Bob asked.

  Simpson nodded. “Not there. Not at the rig.” He shrugged at them.

  “Keep looking,” Ray instructed. He gestured to the sketch. “And keep showing that around.”

  Simpson nodded. “Will do.”

  “What now?” Billy Bob asked.

  “Head to Prudhoe, I guess,” Ray offered without enthusiasm.

  The deputy’s bunny teeth made an unscheduled appearance. “I’ll go warm up the Explorer.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Ray said. “We can load the body.”

  Billy Bob made a face at this. “He’ll melt with the heater going.”

  Ray shook his head. “We’ll put him in my sled.”

  “But … I’m not sure I can hook it to my truck.”

  Ray could see the cowboy struggling to envision this. “I’ll tow it,” he added. “Behind my machine.”

  “Wait a minute. You ain’t plannin’ to …”

  “I’ll follow you.” In response to the disapproving look he said, “I’ve been driving snow machines since I could walk. Prudhoe’s only what? Forty-five minutes? I could drive it in my sleep.”

  Billy Bob’s scowl only intensified. Simpson muttered something and rubbed his flattop.

  “I’ll need some fuel. Unleaded.”

  “Pump’s in the third shed,” Simpson told him with a sigh.

  “Okay.” Ray stood and zipped his parka. The room grew fuzzy, wavered, then came back into focus. “Let’s go.”

  The deputy held his ground. “I don’t know …”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Ray said. He was wobbly but surprisingly alert, a fresh surge of energy engulfing him. He felt like he had just downed a half dozen cups of strong coffee. “I’m fine. Really! Come on. Let’s load that corpse and get out of here.”

  ELEVEN

  IT WAS LIKE navigating through a sea of oil: thick, liquid curtains of black pushing in from above, from the sides. The only points of reference were the beam of the Polaris, a weak shaft of light illuminating a few short feet of ice and snow, and the ruby taillights of Billy Bob’s Explorer twenty yards ahead.

  Ray glanced at the speedometer: 30. They were plodding along, fighting a gale-force head wind, sliding blindly down the lumpy, slick haul road. At this rate they wouldn’t reach the Davis main camp in Prudhoe before noon, which might not be all bad, he decided. Maybe he would feel better by then. The combination of movement, lack of a discernible horizon, and subzero temperature wasn’t helping his situation. He had already thrown up once, and he was about ready to take another break. He could feel his stomach knotting up. At least his head had stopped pounding. It felt fat now, his thoughts dull.

  He was certainly in no condition to evaluate his future or analyze his upcoming marriage. But in the absence of visual stimulation or mental distraction, his mind seemed obsessed with the subject. As he gazed through his goggles into the howling, vacuous gulf, he silently listed the negatives. First, and most importantly, was Margaret’s personality. She was aggressive and strong-willed. She liked to be in control. These were traditionally masculine character traits. Was he getting himself into a situation where he would wind up in a submissive role? Did marrying her mean sacrificing his manhood?

  Ray followed the curving haul road, eyes transfixed on the ghostly taillights of the Explorer. Second, she was a modern woman, almost a feminist. She wanted her own identity. Her own job. He admired her ambition, but in some ways, her “career” was a slap in the face, proof that he could not support them, that his job wasn’t good enough, that he wasn’t good enough.

  None of that mattered, Ray knew. The list of nitpicky reasons not to marry Margaret could have filled a book and he still would have disregarded them for one simple truth: he loved her. That was the bottom line. In fact, the so-called “negatives” were some of the things he loved most about her. He loved that she was spirited, that she seldom backed down, even when facing off against a man. He loved that she was independent, that she was fiery, zealous, often unstoppable. He loved her, loved her with every fiber of his being, and knew that he always would. And he was certain that life apart from her would be empty, without purpose or joy. She possessed his heart.

  So the question wasn’t whether or not to merge his soul with Margaret’s. The question was how to make the integration smooth and permanent. Beyond her penchant for a more modern worldview, something Ray tended to embrace just as readily, there was still the issue of religion. Margaret believed in the white man’s God. She had become interested in Jesus, the Jewish savior, in college while attending a predominantly native church. Ray had gone with her a couple of times and been nonplussed. He failed to see the draw. But Margaret had become a convert, a Christian, and was committed to raising their children according to the tenants of that faith. Ray wasn’t sure how he felt about that. What about Inupiat customs and traditions? Would their children grow up without a sense of who they were, who their elders were, what their culture was?

  Ray shook off the array of perplexing questions, consoling himself with the conviction that everything would work out. Satisfied for the moment, he shifted his hazy thoughts to something more imminently troubling: the murder.

  Ahead of him a furious gust drove the snow pellets into a frenzy. Glowing beads flew past horizontally, then whirled, consuming the Explorer and leaving Ray without direction. It was a fitting picture of the case, he decided as he let up on the throttle and squinted to find the edges of the road. He was without direction—no clues, no theories, no real strategy. His only recourse was to keep going, to follow standard procedures, to ask questions, seek answers, wait for a solution to present itself.

  Despite the absence of light and warmth, his head seemed to be clearing slightly. Maybe thoughts of love had worked some miracle cure, he mused. Whatever the reason, he felt more able to consider the facts.

  A man had been murdered: shot, cut like an animal, stuffed into a pipe. His body had been discovered at a remote ice rig as the crew was in the process of setting casing. The man was a suit, an executive. No one knew him. The obvious explanation was that the victim had been killed elsewhere, at the main camp perhaps, his corpse hidden in the pipe. In order to determine who had killed him, three questions had to be answered. First, who was he? That bit of information might help with motive. It was tough to figure out why a man had been murdered when his identity was a mystery. Second, why had the body been desecrated? Shooting someone was one thing. Slitting the worm and attempting to sever the head, that was something else altogether. Why treat a man as if he were a bear? Third, why had the body been hidden? If you were going to take the time and effort to slice and dice someone, why dump them in a pipe with the job only half finished? Because you were in a hurry? Because someone showed up unexpectedly while you were in the middle of it? Because you didn’t want the man to be found anytime soon?

  The mental problem-solving session served to bring back Ray’s headache. His sight was clearer now, his thinking crisp, but the pounding was returning. Apparently the pills were wearing off. He considered taking another set, before the pain peaked, but decided against it. Better to remain alert and experience some hurt than sleepwalk through this case.

  Ray suddenly realized that the Explorer had not reappeared. Twisting the throttle, he decided it was time to catch it. The needle on the frost-encrusted speedometer jerked to 36, 43, 47 … Nothing. No Ford. No Billy Bob. They were somewhere beyond the stubby headlight beam. The needle trembled up to 50. Ray’s head swung from side to side, checking the drifts that comprised the shoulders of the road. He was still on it, still headed, presumably, toward Prudhoe.

  Ray was about to goose the machine when he saw something. A blink of light. It was colorless but could have been the Explorer. Before he could find out, the Polaris coughed and sputtered, like a horse that had been ridden too hard and was giving up the race. Ray twisted the throttle in a vain attempt to maintain the machine’s momentum. It was useless. The en
gine continued to sputter for another thirty seconds, barking in protest before dying completely. The skis slid to a halt and, as if to punctuate the extent of the snow mobile’s problem, the headlight went out.

  The darkness was absolute. Ray cursed at it, swore at the Polaris, and dismounted. Feeling his way back to the sled, he found his tool chest and switched on a flashlight. It was a joke. The tiny bulb barely lit up the end of the plastic tube. Holding it an inch from the chest, he fished for tools with which to resurrect the dead machine. The way it had sputtered made him think it might be something to do with the carburetor. Stuffing two screwdrivers and a socket set into his parka, he trudged back to the snow mobile. Even with a neoprene mask, his nose was cold.

  Balancing the flashlight on the dash, he lifted the miniature hood and inspected the engine. It was already cool and if he didn’t manage to get it running in the next hour or so, the oil would be reduced to the consistency of chilled molasses.

  Poking a screwdriver into the nest of wires and hoses, he reflected on his plight. Stranded, alone, in one heck of a bad storm. If the machine was beyond repair, he could survive, thanks to the emergency supplies in the sled, but it wouldn’t be fun.

  Yep, carburetor. Ray removed it, fiddled with it, called it a derogatory name, tossed it into the darkness.

  Where was Billy Bob? Had the idiot just gone off and left him? Probably too busy listening to country hits in that heated cab to look back or even give Ray another thought. The cowboy would tootle into Prudhoe and wait, drinking coffee at the Davis camp until Ray showed.

  He went back to the sled and dug through the boxes. Twenty minutes later he had assembled a replacement carburetor from two Snow Cat relics. As he was in the process of attaching the transplant, he wondered why he was bothering. The oil was sludge by now. The chances of the Polaris even starting, much less running, were slim to none. With the carburetor in place, he tried anyway. The first turn of the key made the machine shimmy. A puff of smoke exploded from the tailpipe. That was something. But the successive turns were silent—not so much as a click. Dead in the water. Or more precisely, dead on the ice.

  Slamming the hood, he gazed up and down the road, at black nothingness. It would be just his luck that a truck would come roaring along and squash his rig, turning the Polaris into a metal pancake. He bent and began pushing the machine toward the shoulder. Grunting at the effort, he managed to burrow it into the edge of the right-hand drift. Next he slumped to the sled and opened a black plastic crate. It contained a down sleeping bag, a one-man snow tent, a thermal pad, a compact white-gas stove, a steel pot, several cans of beans, a can opener, knife. He pulled a waterproof tarp from the nylon tent sack and struggled to wrap it around the front end of the sled. The wind made this almost impossible, kicking at the corners and threatening to lift the tarp up and away, into the invisible sky.

  When the tarp was in place, forming a thin, makeshift barrier against the wind, Ray crawled into the bed of the sled, pressed out the insulating mat, and wriggled into the down bag. The bag was reportedly good to 70 below zero, the mat to 85 below, the parka even lower. Yet Ray could feel the icy wood against his back as if he were lying there in nothing but a flannel shirt. The corpse didn’t seem to mind the accommodations. Lying close enough to touch, the plastic-enshrouded lump of deep-frozen flesh and bones was without complaint. Ray rapped it with a knuckle. The man, whoever he turned out to be, was more than just dead. He was rock hard. He could just as well have been made of marble. The perfect companion for a situation like this, Ray decided. An inanimate statue that didn’t argue about who’s fault this was.

  Staring into the noisy black void of wind, snow, and angry nylon, he outlined a plan of action. He would be fine like this for another couple of hours. After that, if no one showed up, he would need to break out the tent and crank up the stove. That would hold him for the rest of the afternoon. If he wasn’t found by evening, he might need to take more extreme measures, build an ice house, burn part of the sled, begin worrying about hypothermia and frostbite. Wouldn’t that be a hoot for old Billy Bob: an honest to goodness Ezkeemo holed up in an honest to goodness igloo!

  Ray could feel the cold stalking him, watching him, bending low, draping itself over him like a garment. The tips of his fingers were tingling. His nose was numb. So were his toes. Despite the layer of air in his bunny boots, his ankles were stiff. His other joints, elbows and knees, seemed to have run out of lubricant and were reluctant to swing. Maybe he wouldn’t last an hour. Maybe he needed the tent now, before he too became an ice sculpture.

  He was trying to decide how to set it up in the wind, where to set it up, what to anchor it to, when he heard it. The sound blended with the storm at first, but its rhythm soon distinguished itself. The volume rose. It was manmade. Mechanical. A vehicle. The tarp became visible, illuminated from behind.

  Ray scooted out of the sled, tripped, and clumsily rolled, prostrating himself before a blinding light. He was still in the sleeping bag, a down-filled worm begging for mercy at the throne of a mysterious, unknown god. His cheek stung. He had skinned it in the fall and when it thawed it would smart. Lifting his head, he gazed up at the light.

  Something clicked, steel sliding against steel. As Ray fought to extricate himself from the bag, he heard steps, boots on snow. The wind relaxed for an instant and a truck materialized. The grill was less than five yards from Ray, the word Toyota written in brilliant chrome. The tires were enormous, pitted with studs to give it traction on the ice. It had two wings, open doors. They slammed shut simultaneously.

  Another gust arrived, beating the snow with renewed fury. The pellets responded by performing a frantic dance. More crunching. Two shadows stepped into the headlight beams. Still on the ground, Ray examined their boots. Sorrels. One pair was big: size 11 or 12. The other was even bigger: 15+. All new. All expensive. Deluxe arctic attire.

  “Having a problem?”

  Hands gripped his shoulders, lifting him to his feet. He blinked at the hooded figures. “Yeah. Who are—?”

  “Davis Oil Security,” a deep voice responded.

  “You Officer Attla?” another asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Got a call. Said you might be lost out here.”

  “Not lost. But stranded. My machine conked out.”

  “Get in the truck. Warm up. We’ll figure out a way to tow your rig.”

  Ray started to object, to insist that he’d help. But the fire attacking his toes and fingers convinced him otherwise. “Okay.” He hurried to the truck and climbed into the back. It was a five-seater with a small cargo bay. The heater was pumping enthusiastically, the air suffocatingly warm. Ray began pulling off layers: mittens, liners, goggles, mask.

  Outside, the two men studied the snow mobile for a moment, gestured to each other, then began pushing it toward the truck. A few minutes later, they had the machine up in the sled and the sled hooked to the truck via a chain.

  As they got into the Toyota, the driver cursed. “Nasty stuff,” he exclaimed, slamming the door. He toggled the windshield wipers and they began scraping at frozen lumps on the glass.

  “Heck of a storm,” the other agreed. He patted his hands together, then reached for a thermos. “Coffee?”

  Ray nodded. “Sure.” His lips were still thick and useless.

  “Good thing your partner gave us a jingle,” the driver said. “Otherwise, you might have been a goner.”

  “An Eskimo pie,” the passenger added somewhat gleefully.

  Ray studied the back of the man’s hood, uncertain whether he was just making conversation or being intentionally offensive. Probably the former. These guys probably didn’t even know he was a Native. Retracting his own hood, he gazed into the rearview mirror.

  The driver glanced up, surprise registering in his eyes. He swore softly. “He didn’t mean anything.”

  “Huh?” The passenger turned to hand Ray his coffee. “Oh … oops. No offense, man.”

  “No problem.” He a
ccepted the cup and cradled it between his legs, bathing his bare hands in the steam.

  The driver took the radio mike and thumbed the button. “Pilgrim-two, this is Pilgrim-one. How do you copy?”

  After a burst of static, a voice replied, “Four by four, Pilgrim-one. What’s your ten-twenty?”

  “On the haul road about thirty minutes out. We got the package and we’re on our way home.”

  “Roger, that. See you back at camp. Pilgrim-two, out.”

  The man in the shotgun seat removed his hood revealing a severe, bleach-blond crewcut. Even with the parka on, it was clear that he was a bodybuilder, wide, impressive shoulders, almost no neck. He looked Scandinavian. A towheaded Arnold Schwarzenegger.

  The driver had short, dark hair that accentuated an angular, weather-wom face. His eyes were narrow and intense. He reminded Ray of a military drill sergeant.

  “Hear they had a murder up at seventeen,” the driver said. He eyed Ray in the mirror.

  “Yeah.”

  “Sounded kind of … grizzly.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Got any suspects?” Musclepig asked.

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Figure out who it was that got killed?” the driver wanted to know.

  Ray shook his head. “Nope.” He ripped open a Velcro pocket on his parka and removed a folded copy of the sketch. Handing it into the front seat, he asked, “Recognize this face?”

  Musclepig squinted at it, grunted, “Huh-uh,” gave it to the driver.

  “Looks a little like that VP from Houston. What was his name?”

  Taking the sketch back for another look, Musclepig muttered, “You mean … uh … Weinhart?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Mmm … I don’t know.” Musclepig frowned. “Maybe.”

  “You know him?” Ray asked, leaning across the seat.

  The driver shrugged. “Could be a suit from Houston. Vice President of … Domestic Services, I think.”

  “Davis has got dozens of veeps,” Musclepig grumbled. “Everything from accounting to toilet management.”