by Stan Jones
“Why was Whyborn interested in Uncle Frosty?”
“I don’t know. My grandson never tell me anything else.”
Active pulled out his notebook and wrote down Whyborn Sivula’s name. “Thank you, Mrs. Maiyumerak.”
She peered up at him, eyes narrowed in anxiety. “Will my grandson come back today? He never feed that Kobuk yet.”
“I’ll do what I can for him.” The old lady looked like she knew she was being bullshitted, but she didn’t say anything. She turned her gaze away, stripped dental floss out of a plastic box, threaded it into her awl, and resumed work on the red parka.
Active left the house and walked to Silver’s Bronco. A frond of steam hovered over the tailpipe as the engine idled in the cold air. Calvin was slumped against the passenger door and appeared to be asleep. Silver was leaning against the headrest, but his eyes were open.
He grinned and lowered the window as Active approached. “So, you break the old lady, hotshot?”
Active let it pass and glanced at Calvin, now stirring. “Let’s go over to the Suburban for a minute.”
Silver reached over and shook Calvin’s shoulder. “I’m going to go talk to Nathan. You don’t touch anything while I’m gone, OK?”
Calvin shook his head and looked groggy. “What?”
“Just go back to sleep.”
Calvin leaned his head against the passenger window and closed his eyes again.
“He was out in the cold all night,” Silver said. “He’ll be all right.”
Silver turned off the Bronco and took the key. They walked across the street to the Suburban and climbed in. Active started it, switched on the blower, and put his fingers over a vent to see if the engine still had any heat to give. It did, a little, so he let it idle.
“You know a Whyborn Sivula?”
“Sure. Used to work at Chukchi Electric, but he’s retired now, got some kind of little pension, I guess. Hunts, fishes, traps, still runs a whaling crew, too, I think. Why?”
“He came to see Calvin the day after the museum burglary and asked him if he did it.”
“No shit.”
“That’s what Dolly says. His name ever come up in the burglary investigation? He on the tribal council, too?”
Silver shook his head. “Nope, we never crossed his trail once. What did Calvin tell him?”
“He said he didn’t do it, according to Dolly. Any idea where we could find Whyborn?”
Silver looked thoughtful and scratched his scalp. “Seems like I heard he put out his whaling camp already.”
“Can you tell me how to get there?”
“Sure, it’s up by Cape Goodwin. You just cross the bay here to—”
“Not now, tell me later when we can look at a map. Right now, let’s ask Calvin what they talked about.”
“Wait a minute,” Silver said. “There’s something else. Dolly say anything about a kid named Lemuel Bass?”
“Who?”
“Lemuel Bass.”
Active shook his head. “Why?”
“While you were in with Dolly, Dispatch called to let me know that Lemuel showed up at Harriman’s store and tried to swap an amulet for some Pokémon cards. Old Tim Harriman had a property list I circulated from the burglary, so I guess he called Dispatch as soon as he saw this amulet.”
“Our amulet?”
“Mammoth ivory with an owl’s face.”
“The kid say where he got it?”
“Don’t think so. Apparently he took off while Harriman was calling us.”
“Who is he?”
“He comes from a family that lives in a camp up around the mouth of the Katonak,” Silver said. “Dad’s white, Mom’s Eskimo, five or six kids up there, I’ve lost track, plus possibly an aunt, uncle, or cousin or two at any given moment. Lemuel’s about eight now, I’d say.”
“Calvin overhear the call?”
Silver wagged his head. “I went over to your Suburban and took it.”
“Let’s see what Calvin knows,” Active said.
The two men left the Suburban and crossed to the Bronco. Silver started to open the driver’s door. But Active, seeing Calvin still asleep on the other side, held up a hand.
He walked around to the passenger side, grasped the handle, and yanked open the door. With a surprised “Arii!” Calvin fell into Active’s arms.
Active lifted Calvin to his feet and stood close, so that the dog trapper was pushed back against the Bronco. Active put his nose almost to Calvin’s, catching a rank whiff of sleep breath. “What did you tell Whyborn Sivula about the burglary?”
Calvin wiped a patch of drool off his chin. “What? Who?”
“Whyborn Sivula. What did you tell him about the burglary?”
“I never—”
Active moved closer and put his hand to his hip. Silver had come around the Bronco and was now standing beside Active, so that Calvin was hemmed in.
“I never do it, that’s what I tell him.” Calvin talked fast, like he was worried about what Active might pull from his hip.
Active moved back a half-step, pulled a handkerchief from his hip pocket, and handed it to Calvin. “You missed a spot.” He pointed to Calvin’s chin.
Calvin took the handkerchief and cleaned up the drool. He wadded up the handkerchief and offered it to Active.
“Keep it,” Active said. “What else did you tell him?”
“Nothing, I never—”
“What did he tell you?”
“Nothing, he just want to know—”
Active moved up a half-pace and Calvin jerked his head back, thumping against the window of the Bronco.
“He say it’s Eskimo business from early days ago, maybe over now.”
“What?”
Calvin frowned. “He say it’s Eskimo business from early days ago, maybe over now.”
“The burglary was Eskimo business from early days ago?”
“That’s what he say.”
“What did he mean?”
“I don’t know. He never tell me.”
“Did you ask him?”
Calvin lifted his eyebrows.
“And?”
“He never tell me. He just say again, it’s old-time Eskimo business, I should forget about it.”
Active stepped back, a full pace this time. “And he said maybe it’s over now?”
Calvin lifted his eyes again.
“What do you think he meant?”
Calvin shrugged and squinted.
Silver spoke for the first time. “Did he say anything about Uncle Frosty being made cold by the universe and breaking out of the museum himself?”
Calvin looked away and didn’t say anything.
Silver grinned. “So you were just bullshitting us when you said that?”
Calvin still didn’t speak.
Active gave Silver a look and they both stepped back.
“How did Lemuel Bass get that thing from the burglary?” Active asked.
“Who? Is that one of Johnny Bass’s kids from up at the Katonak?” Calvin swung his eyes from one officer to the other and back again. “What thing he take? He’s pretty little to be a burglar, ah?” Calvin looked genuinely mystified.
“You can go back in now,” Active said. “Your grandmother will be happy to see you.”
Calvin’s face brightened. “You mean I’m not arrest for killing Victor?”
Active shrugged. “Not yet anyway.”
Calvin started for the house, but turned back after a few steps to look at them. “If you guys never think it was me anymore, then who you think did it?”
Both men shrugged.
Calvin revealed the gap in his teeth. “I still think maybe Uncle Frosty could do it himself.” He looked at Active, then Silver. “That’s old-time Eskimo business, ah?”
Calvin turned and started for the house again. Silver and Active looked at each other, and Silver said, “Shit.”
Active lifted his eyebrows and nodded.
CHAPTER EIGHT
>
HARRIMAN’S TRADING POST FRONTED on Beach Street. It was a long, narrow, low-roofed building of weathered gray clapboard, sagging into the permafrost with age.
Its proprietor, Tim Harriman, was the last of the old-time white traders, Silver said as they walked up to the door and stooped to enter. “Wife’s dead, kids in Anchorage and Seattle, no reason to be here except he’s got no place to go,” Silver said. “Missed too many planes, I guess.”
Harriman proved to be a tiny man with white hair, patches of frosted crabgrass for eyebrows, and diamond bristles on his cheeks and chin. He wore a red flannel shirt, rust-colored Carhartt jeans with suspenders, and reading glasses on a cord around his neck. He reached over to a television behind the counter and turned off CNN as they came in.
The walls and shelves were a wild jumble of clothes, boots, fishing gear, tents, stoves, nuts, bolts, ivory carvings, Eskimo masks, baleen baskets, boom boxes, CDs, rifles, shotguns, ammunition, candy, pop, snacks, and a few staples that didn’t need refrigeration. The place smelled of old things, dank earth, raw furs, seal oil, and dried fish—the Bush.
“Tim, you know Nathan Active with the troopers?”
Harriman put out a liver-spotted hand and nodded vigorously. “I do now, Jim. Pleasure to meet you, Trooper Active.”
Active took his hand and said, “Mr. Harriman.”
“Tim, call me Tim, everybody does.” Harriman pulled open a drawer and laid the amulet on the counter, along with the picture Silver had circulated to Chukchi’s merchants. “I reckon this is what you came for. Knew it the minute I saw it.”
Active and Silver bent to study the object. It was a shiny brown oval about the size of a cookie. An owl’s face was carved on the side Harriman had turned up. Just above that, a small hole was bored through the piece.
Active glanced at the picture and back at the amulet. “That’s it, all right.”
Silver nodded.
“Tell us about Lemuel Bass,” Active said.
Harriman looked at Silver. “I thought you were working the museum burglary, Jim.”
“You hear about Victor Solomon?”
Harriman nodded. “Killed at his sheefish camp with a harpoon is what they said on Kay-Chuck.” He tapped the picture, which showed Uncle Frosty’s harpoon as well as the amulet. “This harpoon?”
“Uh-huh,” Silver said.
“That would explain why the troopers are interested, I guess.” Harriman gave a satisfied chuckle. Active supposed an old man might feel that way, pleased and reassured, when he found his wits still worked.
“Did the boy say how he got the amulet?” Active asked.
Harriman shook his head. “He just rode up on his snowgo and came in and said he wanted to trade it for Pokémon cards.”
The trader waved at a glass case of the cards on the countertop. “Damned rubbish I have to sell now. It used to be that everybody in town would come in for whatever they forgot to order on the summer barge. ‘If you can’t find it at Harriman’s, you’re better off without it.’ That was my motto. But now, well, there’s Arctic Mercantile and air freight and . . . shit, we might as well be living in Anchorage.”
He stopped and shook his head. “You know how to tell if you’re old, Trooper Active? It’s when you start to find your past more interesting than your future.”
“The past is the only thing you can trust,” Active said. “It won’t change on you.”
Harriman stared at him and so did Silver.
“The only thing you can trust!” Harriman said. “I like this boy, Jim.”
Silver shrugged. “He’ll do, I guess.”
“An eight-year-old driving a snowmachine?” Active asked. “There was no adult along?”
“Naw,” Harriman said. “Lemuel’s been driving by himself a couple years now. Smart little squirt. Guess that’s why he took off when I told him I had to make a call, then I’d get him his Pokémon. Yelled, ‘Arii!’ and tried to grab the amulet back, but I beat him to it.” He gave the satisfied chuckle again.
“He comes in a lot?”
“Mostly in the summer,” Harriman said. “See, the Basses live in a kind of camp on Lemuel’s mom’s Native allotment up by the mouth of the Katonak. Stay out there most of the year, except when Johnny brings ’em all into Chukchi for the summer. Then they live in Tent City out at the north end of the spit. Johnny does some stevedoring for Chukchi Lighterage and I think he runs a net in the commercial chum salmon fishery, too. That and the state Oil Dividend and welfare is about all they need to get by.”
“Johnny Bass? That’s Lemuel’s father?”
Harriman nodded.
“And Lemuel buys a lot of Pokémon?” Active asked.
“He’s kind of addicted, I guess. I don’t know where he gets the money, but whenever he has any, he comes in for more Pokémon. Sometimes he brings in stuff to trade, but I don’t take it unless he’s got a note from his mom saying it’s not stolen.”
“Did he have a note this time?”
“Nope, but I wouldn’t have taken this amulet in trade regardless, because of Jim’s picture.” Harriman tapped it again.
Active dropped the amulet into a baggie and zipped it, just in case someone other than Tim Harriman and Lemuel Bass had left fingerprints on it. “What kind of snowmachine was he driving?”
Harriman wrinkled his brow in concentration and looked vacantly at a spot on the ceiling off to his right. “It was red and it was old,” he said finally. “A Polaris, maybe.”
“Thanks, Mr. Harriman,” Active said.
Harriman nodded. “Let me know how it comes out, will you?”
Active started to leave, then turned back to the counter. “What exactly did Lemuel want?”
“Eh?” Harriman looked puzzled.
Active pointed at the Pokémon display on the counter.
“Ah.” Harriman opened the case and took out a foil packet. “I believe this was the next addition to his collection.”
“I’ll take it.” Active studied the packet. A grumpy-looking pale green dinosaur glared from the cover. He paid Harriman for the cards and pocketed them beside the amulet.
“What about this Johnny Bass?” Active asked when they reached the street. “It’s not a local name, right?”
“Definitely nonlocal,” Silver said. “An import from Oregon, I think it is. Basically trailer trash, as far as I can tell. Came up with the air force just before they shut down the old radar station, liked the country, and hung around when he got out. Married one of the Kimball girls and moved up onto her allotment.”
“Ever been in trouble?”
Silver shrugged. “He’s been investigated a couple times, but never busted.”
“Investigated? For what?”
“Theft. Johnny, by reputation, is in the salvage business. Seems he finds a lot of abandoned stuff on the ice, along the trail, along the river. He salvages it and takes it back to camp, either uses it himself or sells it to someone who happens by and needs an ice auger, a couple of jerry jugs, a camp stove, whatever.”
“And sometimes the stuff’s not altogether abandoned?” Active asked.
“Supposedly,” Silver said. “Twice he’s been accused of pilfering stuff out of people’s camps, that I know of. We city cops handled a complaint last summer when the Basses were living up at Tent City. Supposedly stole a boom box from one of his neighbors, but nobody saw him do it and we never found the boom box.”
“You said it happened twice?”
“I don’t know much about the other one. That one was a trooper case last wint—shit! I think it was Victor Solomon who made the complaint. Claimed Johnny snuck up in the night and stole some sheefish from his camp on the ice. Maybe he went back for another load this year and Victor caught him.”
“Yeah,” Active said. “And he just happened to be carrying the harpoon he had burgled out of the museum, with which he promptly stabbed Victor, and then left behind the selfsame sheefish that were theoretically the object of the whole exercise.”
Silver grimaced. “You’re right, it makes no fucking sense whatever.”
“Not a bit,” Active said. “But we gotta talk to the guy. He ever been violent?”
Silver slapped himself on the forehead. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. The women’s shelter tried to get us to charge him with knocking his wife around up in Tent City last summer. Then they both sobered up and she wouldn’t sign a complaint. Same old shit. It makes you tired sometimes.”
Active nodded. “So you up for a run out to his camp?”
Silver frowned. “I could send Alan Long. I gotta help burn down a house this afternoon.”
Now it was Active’s turn to frown.
“An old BIA* house,” Silver explained. “The fire department is burning it so they can practice putting it out, and we gotta do crowd control, keep the kids from turning themselves into frankfurters.”
“Does Alan know the way to Bass’s camp?”
“I think so,” Silver said. “He hunts rabbits up there sometimes. It’s about four or five miles past Victor Solomon’s sheefish camp. You can’t miss it.”
An hour later, Active was bouncing over the sea ice on the Ladies Model, following Alan Long’s Ski-Doo north along the line of spruce saplings set into the snow as trail markers. Active looked for Victor Solomon’s tent when they passed the spot, but saw no sign of it. That reminded him he had told Darvin Reed and Willie Samuels to bring in the dead man’s camp. He made a mental note to get after them if it hadn’t been delivered when he got back to the village.
A few miles farther on, Long stopped at a fork in the trail. Ahead, the route swung northeast to follow the shore of Chukchi Bay as it curved inland.
To their left, the Katonak trail wound off through a series of low, brushy islands marking the mouth of the river. Long pointed up the left bank, which started as flat tundra, then rose to culminate in a hundred-foot cliff a mile or so upstream.
“Johnny’s camp is in the woods this side of that cliff,” Long said. “It’s hard to spot from here but—there, Active, see that smoke?”
Active peered into the whiteness and thought perhaps he did see a wisp of gray rising from the spruce forest ahead. “Has Johnny Bass got dogs?”
Long nodded. “Lot’s of ’em, last time I was by there.”
