Elements of Kill

by Christopher Lane

  “You sent Leeland after my machine?”

  Reynolds nodded.

  “Where was he last night?”

  “What do you mean? When?”

  “When I was out for my little stroll in the snow.”

  “Here. In bed, I guess.” Reynolds’s eyes suddenly flashed with recognition. “You’re not implying that …”

  Ray waved him off. “I’m not implying anything. Just asking. The only way to find the perp is to figure out who had the opportunity, and then work on motive.”

  “He didn’t have either,” Reynolds assured him.

  “As a security guard, he has access to a vehicle and—”

  “So does the deputy here,” Reynolds shot back. “That doesn’t make him a killer.”

  “And he can move freely around Prudhoe, in and out of camp …”

  Reynolds cursed the theory. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Okay, so it’s stupid. Call me paranoid. Coming within a few short minutes of popsiclehood can have that effect on a person. You start to question everything and everyone.”

  “Screws with your logic too, apparently,” Reynolds said.

  “Fellas,” Billy Bob called in a calm voice, “come on now. Let’s not fight.”

  “Step outside and I’ll show you a fight,” Reynolds grumbled. “Start asking questions about my partner and you’ll find out—”

  “Hey! Cool off!”

  “Okay,” Ray sighed. “I apologize. You’re right. I’m not thinking clearly. I didn’t mean anything by it”

  This seemed to placate Reynolds. He leaned back against the wall, arms crossed.

  “What about Makintanz?” Ray asked.

  “The chief? What about him? You think he’s trying to kill you too?”

  “Is he still here?”

  Reynolds nodded. “Waiting for the meeting.”

  “Meeting?”

  “As soon as the storm lifts, the president of Davis and the players from Arctic Slope Regional are flying in to sign an agreement to open a field east of Prudhoe for exploration.”

  “East of Prudhoe?” Ray said. “Wouldn’t that be the National Wildlife Reserve?”

  “There’s a patch of land between the Petroleum Reserve and the Wildlife Reserve. Davis apparently has first dibs on it. Thanks to Makintanz. He’s the middle man who’s making the deal happen.”

  “Don’t they have to get approval from the Department of Natural Resources to extend the drilling boundary?”

  “And Congress,” Reynolds confirmed. “Makintanz already took care of that.”

  Ray looked to Billy Bob. “We need to have a talk with this guy.”

  “What fer?”

  “To see if he knows anything.”

  Reynolds swore at this. “First you accuse my partner, now you’re accusing Chief Makintanz?” He cursed again. “I’ve heard of grasping at straws but—”

  “Sometimes an investigation is like that,” Ray told him. “You just blunder around, asking dumb questions and offending people, until something lines up or a piece of the puzzle falls into place.”

  “Well, you’re succeeding with the first part,” Reynolds said. “Blundering around … That’s not how we did things in the military.”

  “Yeah? Well, this isn’t the military. It’s small-town police work in Alaska.”

  “Obviously.”

  “How ‘bout we get us some coffee?” Billy Bob suggested in a bright tone.

  Reynolds frowned at Ray. Ray smiled back. “I’m stumbling around in the dark, Mr. Reynolds. Trying to solve a double murder: two seemingly related crimes that no one witnessed, that were committed for no discernible reason. I’m beat up, tired, and out of my league here. Forgive my clumsiness.” He extended his hand.

  Reynolds examined it suspiciously, hesitated, shook it.

  “The bottom line is that I need your help. This has to be a group effort.”

  The statement was met with a sigh of resignation. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Tell us where to find Chief Makintanz.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  “WHY ARE WE doing this?”

  “I told you, to see if he knows anything.”

  Billy Bob examined Ray from the driver’s seat. “Nah. I mean really. Why talk to this Chief fella, as opposed to a hundred or so other Davis Oil employees?”

  It was a fair question, one to which Ray didn’t have a sensible answer. His motivation for seeking out Makintanz involved nothing even remotely tangible: a mystical prophecy about a powerful anjatkut, a “miraculous” rescue that served to make the shaman’s words somewhat more credible, and a sizable dose of old-fashioned intuition. Makintanz was a crook. If something illegal was afoot and he happened to be in the vicinity, it was only logical to look for a connection. It was a standard operating procedure in law enforcement: start with the most obvious suspects, those with a history of crime, and work out from there.

  “Just a hunch,” Ray finally answered, gazing out the window. A dull glow rested on the frozen tundra to the south: the slightest inkling of daylight, with it the promise that one day, perhaps six weeks in the future, the sun would return to the Arctic.

  “Storm’s blowing itself out,” Ray observed.

  “Yeah,” Billy Bob grunted. He braced himself, gripping the steering wheel tightly as a gust rocked the Explorer on its shocks. “You can almost see the road now.”

  “This is the last hurrah,” Ray assured him. “We’ll be able to see the stars tonight. Tomorrow will be calm. Probably get hit with another storm by Monday.”

  “Is that right? How can you tell?”

  Ray shrugged. “You live up here long enough and you start to notice the patterns.”

  “Patterns?” Billy Bob frowned at the windshield. “All I see is dark … and snow.”

  Ray swore.

  “What? What did I say?”

  “Nothing. I forgot to call in.”

  The deputy pointed at the glove compartment. “There’s a phone in there.”

  Ray popped the box open and began rummaging through the debris: maps, candy wrappers, a lighter, several pens … a Magnavox cellular unit. Flipping it open, he punched in the number for Barrow PD. The phone beeped rudely, then began to ring.

  On the third ring a deep, female voice answered, “Barrow Police.”

  “Hi, Betty. This is—”

  “Ray! Where have you been?” It was more of an accusation than a question. “I … uh …”

  “The Captain was about ready to send out a search party.”

  “Really?”

  “He was worried. And angry that you hadn’t checked in. He’s been trying to reach you on the radio since yesterday. Just a minute. I’ll patch you through.”

  Great, Ray thought. Nothing like getting chewed out—long distance.

  “Raymond Attla!” a voice barked. It had the ring of a father preparing to read his son the riot act.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where in the blazes have you been? What’s going on over there? Why didn’t you call me? Is there something wrong with the radio?”

  “Uh …” Ray wondered which question to answer first, which one was the least likely to dig the hole deeper. “There’s been another murder, Captain,” he announced, hoping this would provide a distraction. The trick worked.

  “A what?”

  “Another murder, sir. Same MO. Some workers up at seventeen, the rig where the first body was found, recovered another.”

  “Stuffed in a pipe?”

  “No, sir. This one was out in the open, a few hundred yards north of the yard. Shot through the heart. Worm cut out.”

  The Captain swore at this. “Any witnesses?”

  “No, sir. No one saw or heard anything.”

  “You ID either of them yet?”

  Ray waited as a blast of wind hammered the Explorer, static surging on the line.

  “Attla? You there?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I
can barely … now. Where are …?”

  “We’re headed for Deadhorse.”

  The wind effectively stole the entire sentence.

  “Where?”

  “Deadhorse!”

  The captain said something unintelligible. When the gust suddenly subsided, Ray quickly said, “The second body was a man named Driscoll. He was the rig foreman.”

  “What about the first?”

  “We think it’s an executive.”

  “You think what? Speak up, Attla!”

  Billy Bob swore. “I cain’t see squat!” He was leaning toward the dashboard, squinting.

  “We think it’s an executive, a VP named Weinhart,” Ray repeated. “Worked for Davis.”

  “I can’t … breaking up … on the radio?”

  “The radio’s dead.”

  “What?”

  The Explorer was shaking, icy breath streaming in from around its supposedly air-tight windows.

  “The storm’s blowin’ itself out, huh?” the deputy scoffed.

  “It does this before it leaves,” Ray told him. Into the phone he shouted, “I’ll call you back later.”

  There was a blast of static, but no voice in it. Ray flipped the Magnavox shut. “So much for that.” Ray silently thanked Mother Nature for cutting the conversation short. The weather was a great excuse for avoiding the more embarrassing details of the case: the missing corpse, their inability to get a positive ID on it, visiting a witch doctor, nearly becoming a popsicle, going to Deadhorse to speak with Makintanz.

  Ray was putting the phone back into the glove box when the deputy said, “What about yer sweetie?”

  He sighed at this, retrieving the phone. “Maybe I won’t be able to get through.”

  “What’s the matter?” Billy Bob asked. “Don’t ya miss her?”

  “Of course I miss her. It’s just … I don’t know. If I tell her about the case, she’ll worry. If I gloss over it, make it seem routine, she’ll expect me to make it back for the shower this evening.”

  “Who knows,” the deputy drawled. “We might just catch the killer in time fer you to …” He cursed as the right front tire left the hard pack and dove into a drift. The Explorer stopped abruptly, throwing them forward against the seat belts. Shifting, the deputy backed up, turned the wheel and started forward again. “Maybe this Mackenzie fella—”

  “Makintanz,” Ray corrected. He watched as the tires slid toward the edge of the road again. “Stay left!”

  “I’m doin’ the best I can. You wanna drive?”

  The line rang. Ray began to pray that Margaret wasn’t home.

  “Maybe this Makintanz fella did it. Maybe when we talk to him, he’ll confess and this whole thing will be over with. Then you can head home to be with your sweetie.”

  “Yeah. And maybe malamutes will sprout antlers.”

  “Hello,” a voice answered. It wasn’t Margaret.

  Ray took a deep breath. “I’m calling for Margaret.”

  “Is this Raymond?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “This is Edna Wood, Margaret’s aunt.”

  “Oh, hello, Aunt Edna.”

  “Are you getting excited about the shower? We’re putting up decorations, making all sorts of dishes. It’s really going to be something.”

  “It certainly is. Can I speak with Margaret?”

  “I’m sorry, Raymond. She isn’t here right now.”

  Ray leaned back in the seat, relieved.

  “She and … to the store … putting together … recipe … not enough …”

  The display on the phone was blinking “no service.”

  “I’m on a cellular, Aunt Edna and we’re moving into a dead spot.”

  “… leave a message?”

  “No. Just tell Margaret I called.”

  “… tell her …”

  Static reclaimed the device and Ray hit the end button.

  “Dodge another bullet?” the cowboy asked with a grin. “Yeah.”

  “Course, yer gonna have to face the music sometime, partner,” he said, as if he was an expert in these matters. “Specially with your sweetie. Once ya get married …” Billy Bob whistled a warning. “She’s gonna wanna know where you are and what yer up to night and day.” Here he chuckled, clearly amused at Ray’s predicament

  “I’m here to tell ya that once they get their hooks into ya, it’s over and done with. I’m not saying marriage ain’t a good thang. It is.”

  “Are you married?”

  “Well, no. And I ain’t never been. But I’ve seen many a couple march down the aisle together, let me tell you. And once, I came right close myself. Why back … oh … it’s been ‘bout three years now, I met this woman …”

  “Is that right?” Ray grunted and nodded on cue, doing his best to ignore the story and the unsolicited sermon on the pitfalls and rewards of matrimony that followed. Billy Bob was still dispensing pearls of wisdom, when Deadhorse materialized. Low-frame buildings huddled in the harsh glow of halogen spotlights. There was a grainy surrealistic quality about the town, as if it had arisen out of an old black-and-white photograph.

  To call it a town was something of an overstatement in Ray’s opinion.

  “Deadhorse looks pretty darn dead,” Billy Bob observed. “Don’t it?”

  Ray surveyed the empty streets, the silent houses, a seemingly deserted mini-mart grocery. It didn’t look dead, exactly. More like it was hibernating. There were people inside the buildings, he knew, people who had chosen to live in a region where waiting out the weather was part of a seasonal routine.

  “There’s my office,” Billy Bob noted proudly. He pointed out the driver’s window at a short row of storefronts connected by a raised, wood-plank sidewalk. Wedged between a Laundromat and a barber shop, the narrow unit bore a large gold star. Bold letters on the door told the world that this was the Office of the Sheriff of Deadhorse. Except for the telephone and fax numbers listed below, it could have been something out of a spaghetti western, the kind of place you expected Clint Eastwood to frequent.

  Having cruised all three blocks of downtown Deadhorse, they passed a sign that pointed toward the airfield. A quarter mile farther, they came upon the old hotel that had been converted into a roadhouse. Orange neon letters in the blowing snow announced that Harry’s was open, had Bud on tap, and featured pool and darts. A pickup and two sport utility vehicles were sitting outside, black extension cords connecting their engines to a row of exterior outlets. They reminded Ray of horses tied to posts.

  “So this is where everyone is,” he said.

  “Always are,” Billy Bob said knowingly. “‘Bout the only action I ever see around here is at Harry’s—breaking up a fight or somethin’. ‘Tween the booze, the gamblin’ and the prostitutes, things can get a little dicey.”

  “Prostitutes?”

  “Yeah. They got a whole string of ‘em. Fer the oil workers.”

  “That’s illegal.”

  Billy Bob nodded. “Yep. Shore is.”

  “Why don’t you shut it down?”

  He shrugged. “It’s against the law, but the oil companies call the shots around here. First thing the Sheriff told me when I got to town was don’t mess with Harry’s. Just look the other way. And unless somebody kills somebody else, don’t arrest nobody.”

  “Interesting philosophy of law enforcement,” Ray mumbled.

  Harry’s disappeared in the wind and for the next three minutes, they drove into an abyss. To the uninitiated, it seemed as though they had left civilization behind and were sliding toward some hellish underworld where light and life had been banished for eons.

  “Ever been in the Bradbury?” Billy Bob asked.

  “No, but I’ve seen pictures.”

  “It ain’t the same. You got to see it to believe it.”

  Without warning, a monolith rose up out of the ice, its shape outlined by a host of twinkling stars. The monstrosity reminded Ray of a Mayan temple he had seen in an anthropology text back in college:
steep stone sides forming a triangle with a spire that seemed to reach halfway to heaven. The structure had been forged out of glass, enormous windows hung on a silver metal frame. It would have fit neatly into the Seattle skyline. But up here … in Deadhorse? How it withstood the wind was beyond Ray. And how they kept it from freezing into an oversized block of ice was downright baffling.

  Billy Bob steered the Explorer up the curving driveway. Miraculously, it was bare black pavement looking up at them through horizontal snow pellets.

  “Heated,” the deputy said, anticipating Ray’s question. “Just like the ones in Colorado, at Vail and Aspen. Them fancy ski resorts all got ‘em.”

  Ray shook his head at the idea. Considering the location, the architecture, and this “heated” road, a night’s lodging at the Bradbury had to be equivalent to a down payment on a house. Actually a mortgage might be more economical.

  Billy Bob pulled down a short concrete ramp into a covered parking area. The Ford was still rolling when a pair of men adorned in knee-length purple parkas, shiny black bunny boots, and golden polar fleece top hats with earflaps descended upon them. Trotting toward the vehicle, they split up, one hurrying to me driver’s side, the other attending to the passenger’s side.

  When the Explorer came to a halt, gloved hands reached for the handles, popping the doors open before Ray and Billy Bob could even unfasten their seat belts.

  “Welcome to the Bradbury,” the valets chimed in unison.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “POLICE.” RAY FLASHED his badge at them. “Where should we park?”

  “We’ll take care of that for you, sir,” the man at his door informed him. He then extended his hand, as if Ray were an invalid and required special assistance.

  Refusing the offer, he climbed out and hobbled around to join Billy Bob on the sidewalk, his feet reminding him that they had been sorely mistreated. One of the valets leapt into the Explorer and drove off. The other gestured with a gloved hand. “Right this way, gentlemen.” He led them to a set of nine-foot double doors. Pulling on one of the enormous brass handles, he bowed again. “Enjoy your stay.”

  “Welcome to the Bradbury.” The greeting came from a man, wearing a purple coat and top hat, standing at attention just inside the door. His sole purpose seemed to be welcoming guests. “May I be of service?”