“No, thanks.”
There was a hiss as the deputy twisted the top off a bottle, a crackle as he broke open a package of cashews. “Ya sure?”
“Yeah.” Ray tapped a button on a CD stereo built into the shelf between the two beds. Country music blared. Another jab of his finger silenced the components. He flipped through the CD cases stacked neatly next to the player. All country, except for one classical release.
“Are we livin’ er what?” Billy Bob drawled, mouth burdened with nuts.
Ray deposited the radio unit on one of the chairs. “Er what. Too bad we won’t have a chance to enjoy this.”
“Yeah.” Billy Bob frowned, took a long swig of Budweiser.
“I’m gonna jump in the shower,” Ray informed him. He was already peeling off layers—neck warmer, flannel shirt, cotton shirt, polypropylene long underwear top …
Billy Bob picked up a miniature alarm clock and began fiddling with it. “What should I set this for?”
Barechested, Ray looked at his partner and shrugged. “Three hours? How’s that sound?”
“Sounds great.” The cowboy began shedding clothes. Slipping off his pants, he pulled back the spread on one of the beds and got in. “First one to sleep gets a prize.”
“Right.”
In the shower Ray fought a wave of guilt. Here they were, engaged in a murder investigation, and he was about to crash in a luxury suite. What would the captain say? Considering the fact that Ray had slept maybe two hours in three days, been cracked in the head by a malevolent hoist, stranded on an ice haul road … The captain would probably order him to catch a few Z’s, if only to clear his head.
The hot water had a reviving effect on his weary muscles. Breathing in the steam, he realized that the pounding in his head was subsiding. Distant drums kept a steady but subtle beat.
He could feel himself relaxing, drooping like an overcooked noodle. Sleep would come easily, before he managed to towel off if he didn’t hurry.
Dry and wearing only his long johns, he slid into the empty bed. The sheets were smooth, the blankets soft. He wondered if he had ever been on a more comfortable mattress. It was like resting on a cloud.
“So now we got ourselves a window,” Billy Bob announced.
“Huh?”
“The pipe was checked at around four, right?”
“Yeah.” Ray felt heavy, listless.
“And it was shipped around five or six.”
“Uh-huh.” His breathing slowed, lungs inhaling gently but deeply.
“So that means the murder was committed between four and six.”
“Maybe.”
“Now if we kin just pin down this Weinhart fella.”
Ray considered responding, but decided it required too much energy.
“Be nice if we could talk to that rig foreman too. What was his name? Briscoe?”
Resisting the urge to tell Billy Bob to shut up, he grunted, “Driscoll.”
“Right. Wonder where he disappeared to?”
Eyes closed, Ray imagined various locations that might answer Billy Bob’s question: the toilet, his bed, the Bahamas—steel drum music, warm, humid air, ocean waves crashing, palms swaying in the trade winds. If Ray was a foreman on an ice rig located less than 1400 miles from the North Pole, he would disappear to somewhere tropical, someplace where it never snowed and they put little umbrellas in the drinks. A scene materialized: Margaret in a patio chair. Her eyes were masked by dark glasses, a minuscule string bikini accentuating bare skin that glowed bronze from the intense equatorial sun. He had never seen her look so sexy.
Ray was in the process of joining her in the fantasy, watching objectively as his own body approached her, clad only in flowery jams and flip-flops, when a voice asked, “You think we met him yet?”
“Uh?” The vision disappeared, taking Margaret with it. Ray swore softly. “What?”
“You think we met him yet?”
“Who?” Ray asked with a sigh.
“The murderer. You think we talked to him?”
Ray struggled to consider this, his enervated mind projecting a montage of caricatures against a screen of hazy gray: Simpson, phones glued to both ears, Jim the roustabout, staring with suspicious eyes, his buddy Sam’s angry glare, Stewart the drug dealer, Huckleberry and his goofy felt ears, Drill Sergeant Reynolds, his partner Mr. Universe, Mr. Bauer, glowing like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, the two mechanics, Shorty and the snow machine fanatic, Ford the blues-man, his slob of a roommate, McMillian, and a cowboy with a grin that put Goofy to shame. Ray wasn’t sure if that was the entire cast of suspects. And didn’t much care. The faces wavered, rearranged themselves, merged, slipped away.
“You got me,” he finally groaned.
“Hard to imagine one a those fellas killin’ somebody, like that.”
“Yeah …”
“Hard to think anybody could do somethin’ so sick.”
“Uh … huh …”
Billy Bob said something else, but Ray missed it. He was floating, rising to an airy, almost magical dreamscape. He realized that he had won the contest. The prize the deputy had offered was Ray’s for the taking. He punctuated the victory with a nasal snort.
SEVENTEEN
THE CRACKLING HISS sounded half-human, half-electronic like an alien attempting to communicate from deep space. The erratic popping and clicking came in pulses, surging, then fading. Each wave seemed loud and offensive in the quiet room. Ray was oblivious, caught in a heavy, dreamless sleep. It was only when a shrill tone mixed its voice with the audio show, nudging him with the subtlety of a cattle prod, that he flinched and sat up. Squinting into the darkness, he strained his ears to determine the source of the disturbance.
The first instant of consciousness was like stumbling out of a drunken stupor. His mind was having trouble forming and classifying the simplest of thoughts. The popping had stopped. If there had been any to start with. Maybe he had imagined it.
Static shot at him from across the room. He rubbed his eyes and glared at the tiny blinking red light. The radio. Rising, he staggered over, switched off the squelch, and returned to bed. Hiding beneath the blankets, he silently cursed the device, the timing of its intrusion, then, begrudgingly, considered checking the time. His limbs were dead, his brain fuzzy. Instead of being groggy from too much sleep, he was probably still semi-comatose from sleep deprivation.
Ray swore at the radio again, wordlessly willing it to a hot, fiery resting place in which it could burn long and hard, before glancing at it. The red light was still blinking. Whomever had been calling was still at it. Did he care? No. Should he care? Probably. Should he get up and answer the blasted thing? Unfortunately …
Sitting up on the edge of the bed, he depressed the Indiglo button on his Timex. He sighed at the numbers when they finally came into focus: 3:48. He had managed a whopping thirty minutes. Wow.
After rubbing his stinging eyes, he examined his forehead with a timid finger. The bump had swelled. It was tender, angry. A gentle touch sent a bolt of pain down his temple and behind his eye. He felt like he was suffering from a severe hangover, his body pleading with him to lie back down and sleep it off. Across the room, the radio beckoned.
Driven by the steady snoring of his partner, Ray approached the black box and lifted the mike. Twisting the knob, he thumbed the button and sighed, “Attla here.”
The response was a surge of empty static.
“Attla here,” he repeated with obvious irritation.
More static. A distant voice. Snatches of words.
“Attla here. I’m not reading you.” He fiddled with the controls. “Say again.”
The speaker popped, crackled. “… bout ders …
… Raymond ngak … king …”
“You’re breaking up,” he said. “Adjust the squelch.”
There was a brief pause, static howling like the wind. Finally, “I call about murders, Raymond. Tuungak speaking.”
“Grandfather?”
&n
bsp; “Ayy.”
“Where are you?”
“Nuiqsut. Emily Foxglove got radio.”
Closing his eyes, Ray shook his head. Being rudely awakened to attend to official police business was bad enough. But being jarred from a well-deserved sleep by an old, quite possibly senile, relative was more than he could bear. “Why are you calling me?”
“Important. Much important.”
“What is it?” Ray sank to the floor and propped himself against the wall, waiting for an explanation.
“Spirits. They talk Maniilaq.”
Ray resisted the urge to curse. Maniilaq was the shaman of Nuiqsut. His given name was George Johnson, but he had changed it some years back, adopting the name and mantle of a famous, almost godlike Inupiat shaman who had lived in the 1800s. Among other things, the original Maniilaq had predicted the future of the People, foreseeing the arrival of the naluaqmiut. In Ray’s opinion, old George, the new and improved Maniilaq, was a big fake who had entered the shaman business simply because it offered easy money. By promising to keep the spirits at bay, George managed to bilk poor, ignorant Eskimos out of their welfare checks.
“Tuungak much worried,” Grandfather continued.
“Good. The spirits are worried. Wonderful. Listen, I—”
“Ayy. Not wonderful. Bad. Very evil. They tell Maniilaq of killings.”
“Huh?” Ray blinked at the mike. Was it his imagination or was Grandfather making even less sense than usual. “I don’t follow you.”
“Killings.”
“Yeah. I caught that part.”
“Tuungak angry. Killings not please them.”
“What killings?”
“Killings you track.”
“You mean the murder up at the rig? How did you know about that? Was it on the news or something?”
“Tuungak tell Maniilaq.”
“Oh, yeah,” Ray groaned.
“Danger, Raymond. Many danger.”
“Is that right?” He allowed his head to tilt back and rest against the wall. “You’re calling me because the spirits told George Johnson about the murder I’m investigating? Is that it?”
“Ayyy. Many danger. Anjatkut do killings. Want do more.”
“Uh-huh. If that’s all, Grandfather, I really need to get some—”
“No. Not all. Must come.”
“What? Who must come?”
“Raymond must come. You come, talk Maniilaq.” “No.”
“No?”
“No. I’m not coming to talk with Maniilaq. If he has information for me—which I seriously doubt—tell him to radio it in.”
“Tuungak know killings.”
Ray suppressed a curse. This was really starting to get laborious. “Listen, first of all, I can’t come. I’m in the middle of a case. You know, work. Doing my job. Second of all, the spirits got their wires crossed. It’s not killings, plural. It’s killing, singular. One. There has been one murder. I’m not sure how Maniilaq found out about it. Maybe the gossip grapevine. However he managed it, I’m not about to make the trek back to Nuiqsut just so I can watch him do some ridiculous ceremony and tell me there’s ‘much danger.’”
When Ray let up on the button, Grandfather was already grumbling back in Inupiat The old man finally switched back to village English and said, “Tuungak say two killing. Much if you not come. Many blood. Many death.”
Ray rolled his eyes at the scare tactic. That sort of thing might work on simpleminded Natives in the Bush, but …
“Maniilaq say you barely killed already. Steel and ice look for you. They no get you. But anjatkut still try.”
Steel and ice …? No. That couldn’t be referring to … A knock at the door brought an end to the outrageous speculation. “Just a second Grandfather.”
“Two killing,” Grandfather’s voice continued as Ray rose stiffly and walked to the door. “Two killing. Much soon. You come …”
Leeland was waiting behind the door, wearing a Nike T-shirt that seemed ready to rip if the guy so much as took a deep breath, along with a bored expression.
“What is it?” Ray wondered. “You find Weinhart?”
The brute shook his head. “Not yet. We located the flight attendant, faxed a picture of Weinhart to her.”
“And?”
“She doesn’t remember him being on board.”
Ray nodded thoughtfully at this.
“That’s not why I’m here, though. We just got word about Driscoll, the foreman up at seventeen.”
“Yeah? Did he recognize the sketch?”
“No,” Leeland replied, frowning.
Ray frowned with him, mourning the passing of yet another possible lead. “Where did he turn up?”
“About a quarter mile north of the shop.”
“A quarter mile north? Wouldn’t that be …?”
“Yep. Outside camp.”
“Is he …?” Ray’s hazy brain struggled toward the logical conclusion. “Is he dead?”
Leeland’s square head rocked up and down on his wide shoulders. “Frozen solid. They haven’t thawed him out yet, but there’s blood. Looks like somebody cut on him.”
“Great,” Ray muttered. He took a deep breath, let it out, stared at Leeland. “I’ll wake up the deputy and we’ll meet you in the security office in ten minutes.”
Leeland grunted and turned to leave. As he watched the musclepig depart down the hallway, Ray’s tired mind posed a question: where had Leeland been when Driscoll was being murdered and dumped on the ice? It was a lame idea, wholly without merit, the result of too much work, not nearly enough rest. Still, what if Leeland had somehow managed to make the trek to the rig, kill Driscoll, and get back to the main camp without being noticed. Reynolds said that Bauer had grounded most of the operation, suspending travel until the storm passed. Maybe Leeland had used the down time to sneak up and kill Driscoll. For that matter, maybe he had killed both men—the pipe casualty and the rig foreman.
Ray closed the door and began punching holes in the accusations. There were several problems with them, most notably the lack of motive. Why would Leeland murder two men? Aside from the fact that he was big, physically capable of ending any life he so desired, why suspect him more than the rest of the four thousand or so workers on the Slope? And why limit the list of possible perps to workers? What about visitors, even roaming Natives? The first body bore marks of Eskimo ritual, and the second sounded like it might also. Maybe some demented tribal elder had gone off his rocker and launched a killing spree, cutting up men as if they were grizzlies.
The bottom line was that, in the absence of clear motive, obvious opportunity, and clues and evidence of any sort, almost everyone within a fifty mile radius was a suspect in these violent crimes. And that was precisely the problem Ray and Billy Bob were facing. They were hunting for a raven at midnight, without the benefit of a flashlight.
The crackle of the radio jarred him from the disjointed, frustrating brainstorming session. Lifting the mike, he told Grandfather, “I can’t come. Something’s happened.”
“Must come. If no, maybe three. Soon much. Much dead if no come. Two killing just beginning.”
Two killings! Ray was suddenly impressed by the coincidence. Maniilaq claimed that the spirits had told him of two killings, not just one. How could he have known? Was it possible that … No. It couldn’t be. But what if … Spirits? Spirits? Still, suppose George, aka Maniilaq, really was communicating with the tuungak, which Ray seriously doubted, and say the spirits had an inside track on these crimes. So what? What possible benefit could that offer Ray? He was a law enforcement officer, not a witch doctor. What were the spirits going to do for him? Point out the killer in a lineup? Catch the perp red-handed, cuff him, and put him in jail? Turning to the spirits for assistance was loopy. Besides, making the trip to Grandfather’s in this weather would be arduous at best. It was a bad idea all the way around. A stupid idea. Only a fool would—
“No be fool, Raymond,” Grandfather continued. “You come. Y
ou come before evil find you. Learn about anjatkut. See face. Understand ways so can catch. You come.”
“I’ll think about it,” Ray finally told him in a patronizing tone.
“You come.”
“I said I’ll think about it, Grandfather,” Ray barked back. From across the room, Billy Bob snorted. Rolling over, the cowboy mumbled, “What’s goin’ on?”
“You come,” the old man repeated. “Tuungak call. You come. Must come.”
“I’ll think about it,” Ray responded laboriously.
“I wait for you. You come.”
“Attla over and out.” He switched off the radio before Grandfather could argue further.
“What are you doin’?” Billy Bob wanted to know. “What time is it? Is somethin’ wrong? How long we been asleep?”
Ray picked through the questions, chose the last. “Long enough.”
“Huh?”
“They found Driscoll.”
The deputy sat up in bed. “Yeah?”
“Dead.”
Billy Bob drawled a curse.
“He was frozen, and someone sliced him up.”
“Just like the other one?”
“Sounds like it. Another assisted popsicle.”
“So what are we gonna do? Go back up to the rig?”
“I don’t know.” Ray put on the first in a series of shirts. Despite his initial reluctance, he could feel himself wavering, beginning to seriously consider Grandfather’s summons. “Let’s talk to Reynolds first. Get the details, then …” They had no leads. No direction. The old man and his witch doctor friend probably had nothing to offer either, nothing of value at any rate. But, well, suppose they could help somehow. Ray had read about city cops in New York and LA using psychics to catch serial murderers. The CIA had even employed mind readers and ESP experts in counterintelligence operations during the Cold War. Was seeking the advice of a shaman any crazier?
“Then what?” Billy Bob prodded. He climbed out of bed, stretched, and climbed into his shirt in slow motion.
“I don’t know.”
Seven minutes later, coffee in hand, hair uncombed, looking like a couple of street beggars who had slept in their clothes, Ray and Billy Bob entered the security office. Reynolds was behind his desk, legs propped on a chair, talking on the phone. Leeland’s work cubicle was vacant.
Elements of Kill Page 14
