“Uh-huh, Prince said. “When you got to the mine, what did you find?
Engebretsen leaned forward. “There was a man, facedown in the creek.
“You pulled him out.
“Well, yeah, we didnt know if he was dead or not. I got my feet wet. Ten days I kept them dry, and the last day I have to go get them wet.
“So, Mark Hanover was dead when you found him.
Kvichak slammed his hands down flat on the table. In the ensuing silence, he leaned forward and he met Liams eyes with a flat, unwinking stare. “Yes. Mark Hanover or whoever he was was dead when we got there. We heard the shot right after we got up. It took us two hours plus to get from the bluff to the Nenevok. We found his body in the creek. We pulled him out to see if he was dead. He was. We yelled for his wife. She didnt come out of the woods. I yelled for help on the cell phone.
“And then Johnny made us leave, Engebretsen said. “He said youd nail us for doing it. He paused, and added defiantly, “And he was right.
There was a brief silence. For a moment, for just a moment, Prince allowed herself to be impressed by their sincerity.
Liam stood up. “Interview terminated, two-thirty p.m. He turned off the recorder and looked at Kvichak. “Crime Lab says yours was the gun, John.
Kvichak stared back. “The Crime Lab is wrong.
“Wasnt a bad bluff, Prince said on the way back to the post. “I would have believed him, but the lab doesnt lie. She thought of Nick, and had to erase the grin that came out of nowhere.
“Have you ever been forced to bushwhack your way across muskeg?
Prince was thrown off track. “I beg your pardon?
“Have you ever been forced to bushwhack your way across muskeg, Liam repeated. “I have. Its slow going.
She digested this. “Come on. Theyve got it all, means, motive, opportunity. Theyve even got a history of pulling this kind of stuff, going back years.
“Theyve never killed anybody before.
“They shot at two people last year, she retorted.
“They didnt hit anybody, though, he said thoughtfully. “You notice? Just the canoe. You see that drawing Corcoran did, showing where the bullet holes were? One amidships, directly between the two thwarts where the two people were sitting. The second in the stern. Both just at the waterline.
“So?
“So, they both limited out this year.
She pulled into the space in front of the post and turned to stare at him. “And?
“And Id like to know how good they are with those rifles.
He called Charlene Taylor. “Johnny and Teddy? she said. “Theyre hell on the moose and the caribou, but I cant see them killing anybody.
“Do you know what kind of shots they are?
“First class, she said promptly. Charlene was Liams alter ego in Newenham, the fish and game side of the troopers. It was her unenviable lot to enforce, or try to enforce, the state fish and game laws, which she did by four-wheeler, Zodiac and Cessna 206. Wet your line too early, shoot your bear too late, take the rack on your moose and leave the meat, and Charlene was there, a smile on her face and a summons in her hand. “Ive checked out their camp a time or two, up on the bluff. Always go for a head or a shoulder shot, and they always get it, too. Probably has something to do with needing the meat to feed their families. Trophy huntersll go for the gut every time.
Liam heard the disgust in her voice but refused to be sidetracked. “You ever have to haul them in, Teddy or John?
“I probably could have, a time or two, she admitted. “Maybe even should have. But I didnt. They dont take more than their families can eat in a winter, and if they hold over the hunting season by a couple of hours, Im not going to notice.
“Thanks, Charlene.
He hung up the phone. Prince had her arms folded and was staring at him. “Please tell me you dont think theyre telling the truth.
He put his cap back on. By way of answering, he said, “Lets check out Teddys hunting boots.
Teddys dad suffered from Alzheimers. One of John Kvichaks nieces, a tall, cool, blond drink of water named Karen, was staying with him while Teddy, she informed Liam in icy tones, was in jail. She examined Liam and Prince from behind oversize glasses that somehow lent an extra air of contempt to her expression, and produced Teddys boots.
They were leather, and laced up over the ankles. They were also damp right through.
“This doesnt prove anything, Prince said.
“No, Liam said. “Lets go back to the office and make some calls to Anchorage.
They reached Rebecca Hanovers best friend, Nina Stewart, on their fourth call. She was upset and yelling by the end of the call, but what she unconsciously let slip along the way about the Hanovers summer on Nenevok Creek had even Prince raising an eyebrow afterward. “Well, she said.
“Well, Liam said.
“A reluctant miner.
“Her husband was the miner, Liam said. “Seems Becky wasnt all that thrilled at the prospect of moiling for gold.
“Cant argue with her there, Prince said. “You ever panned gold? Liam shook his head. “My folks took me out to the Crow Creek mine when I was a kid. I was soaked to the skin with mud up to my eyebrows by the time I was done. Never did find any gold.
Liam grunted.
“If I was dainty little Rebecca Hanover, used to a comfy suburban lifestyle, shopping at Nordies and dining at Sacks, all supported by my husbands North Slope engineering job, I might be a bit peeved if he quit that job, sold my home and moved me out into the Bush.
“She had a job, too, Liam said mildly.
“Uh-huh. Do you think she did it?
“Well have to find her to answer that question.
“The boys still look good to me.
“They look pretty good to me, too, Liam admitted.
Prince looked out the window. It wasnt even six oclock and the sky was black. “If its her, and shes on the run, at least shes not getting away easy.
“More than that, Liam said. At her inquiring look he added, “This storm is keeping the magistrate up the creek. Plus, if our boys do insist on a lawyer, itll take a public defender with a stronger stomach than Ive got to put his ass in the air until it blows out or through.
“Meaning?
“Meaning weve got time. Time to hang on to the boys while we wait for Rebecca Hanover to show up.
Prince was skeptical. “You think she will?
“If she isnt dead already, yes.
“The Bush is a big place.
“Yeah, but its amazing how often people wander out of it. Lets go talk to the boys again.
SEVENTEEN
Old Man Creek, September 5
The wind howled around the little shack. The walls creaked, but they were well caulked and Moses had built up the fire in the woodstove so that it was toasty warm.
“Do you think the roof will hold? Bill said, eyeing it, a collection of water-stained bits and pieces of three different grades of plywood, Sheetrock and one-by-twelves, neatly trimmed and fitted together like a patchwork quilt. Softened by the golden light of four gas lanterns, it looked like a work of art instead of a creation of convenience.
“The walls will go before the roof does, Moses said quite cheerfully, and grinned his evil grin when his three guests exchanged apprehensive glances. “Okay, he said. “Mr. Plum, in the library, with the pipe wrench.
He won, for the second time that evening, and Bill threw down her cards in disgust and eyed him in a frustrated way.
Moses worked his eyebrows. “Sorry, little girl, he purred, “not in front of the children.
After they finished picking up all the pieces, they retired Clue in favor of Monopoly. Moses won that game, too. In desperation, Tim suggested crazy eights, and aided and abetted by Bill and Amelia, who by this point didnt care who won so long as it wasnt Moses, he won handily.
They celebrated with mugs of hot cocoa. Bill leaned her back against Moses chest, his legs curled around her, her head on his shoulde
r. Amelia sat on her bunk, hanging over the edge as Tim showed her a card trick that involved a story of ace islands with diamonds buried on them, jacks coming to dig the diamonds up, kings coming to drive the jacks away and the queens bringing their hearts. “Then a big windstorm comes and blows them all away, Tim said, stacking the cards and cutting them repeatedly. “Here. He offered the stack to Amelia. “Go ahead, cut them.
She did so, a puzzled expression on her face, trying to work out the trick.
Tim dealt the cards out again in piles facedown. One by one he turned the piles over, with all the diamonds in one pile, all the jacks in another, all the hearts in another, and so on.
Amelia was impressed. “How did you do that?
Tim did his best to keep his face impassive, but a delighted grin kept leaking out around the edges. “I can never tell. I took the oath.
Amelia giggled, and Moses nudged Bill. “Theyre getting along all right.
She cast him an amused glance over her shoulder. For a man who could read the future with devastating and occasionally horrific accuracy, he could be remarkably obtuse about the now.
“What? he said.
She shook her head and snuggled against him, smiling to herself when she felt him react. Too bad, so sad, old man, she thought, and looked across the room at Tim and Amelia. Tim looked like a kid with a brand-new toy. He cast quick, sidelong glances at Amelia when he thought she wasnt looking, he blushed when she caught him, he took every opportunity of brushing against her, a finger touch to the back of her hand as he scooped up the cards, a shoulder brush when he leaned in, even a bump of heads when they fought out a game of Snerts, resulting in shared laughter.
He was thirteen and she was seventeen, and Bill didnt think that this was the beginning of a lifelong romance. But it did Tim no harm for his first time to be with a young woman who, he well knew, had been brutalized in her previous sexual encounters, and who therefore would require patience and kindness. It helped that he was young and inexperienced enough to be entirely intimidated, and would therefore be very slow. And it did Amelia a world of good to discover the difference between a lout and a gentleman in bed. Bill had a shrewd idea as to what had started them down this road, and she had an even shrewder idea as to who first reached for whom.
Well, she was a poor guardian of teenage morality, no doubt, but Amelia was looking less like a forty-year-old barfly and more like a seventeen-year-old girl, and Bill couldnt regret that. It wasnt just the newfound discovery of good sex, of course; nothing was ever completely about sex, no matter what the Freudians said. The tai chi was giving her control over her body, a physical confidence. Moses had left the filleting of the days salmon entirely up to her, and had viewed the results with nothing more than a disparaging grunt. From anyone else, that was like being awarded the Olympic gold medal, and judging from Amelias flushed, proud face, she knew it. She hadnt been hit in four days. And a young man was looking at her with something close to adoration in his eyes.
Tim looked proud and confident, with no hint of the swagger so common among adolescent boys after their first score. Held together for the first terrible years of his life by some inner, unplumbed strength all his own, rescued by Wy in what sounded like the nick of time and given a home, regular meals, rules by which to abide and, above all, unconditional love, Tim had the makings of a truly good man.
“Amelia, Moses said.
Amelia looked up, her olive skin flushed with laughter. “Yes, uncle?
“Its Sunday, he said. “We go home tomorrow.
Her smile faded. “Yes, uncle. I know.
On the floor Tim straightened.
“Do you go back to your husband tomorrow?
Amelia sat up and pushed her hair behind an ear. A log split in the stove and hissed and spit when the flames hit sap. The damper flapped when a gust of wind tangled itself in the chimney. Boughs creaked outside.
“No, uncle, she said. “I wont go back to Darren.
Bill felt Moses stiffen, she thought with momentary surprise, and smiled to herself. “You sound pretty sure of yourself.
“I am. She said the words as if she were taking a vow.
It was amazing what four days of tai chi, sweats and fishing would do for the self-confidence, Moses thought complacently. The voices whispered a warning. He ignored them. This time they would be wrong. It had happened before, not often, but often enough to allow him to retain some hope in the face of unrelenting forebodings of death and disaster.
Bug off, he thought, and somewhat to his surprise, they did. And he wasnt even drunk.
Across the room Moses murmured something in Bills ear, and she laughed. “Do you think they know we saw? Tim whispered.
Amelia looked at the older couple. “I hope not. But she wondered. Shed seen Bill looking at her with a speculative glint in her eyes, and when she came back from the outhouse this evening her knapsack had been moved and the pills inside had shifted location. She didnt mind; she didnt want to be pregnant, either. She didnt know what she wanted, exactly, but then it had been so long since she had felt the courage to want anything.
Five months ago she had married Darren Gearhart with no desire other than to be a good wife and the mother of his children. She had wanted to sleep with him, too, and she now knew enough to know he had wanted to sleep with her. If he hadnt, he would never have married her. The realization didnt hurt as much as it once had.
A good wife, she had thought, meant keeping a clean, neat house, serving good meals on time, keeping the checkbook balanced. The second shock, after her wedding night, came when he told her to close her bank account, one she had been building since she first began to earn money as a baby-sitter at the age of twelve, and deposit its holdings into his own. She asked, timidly, if he would put her name on it, too. That was the first time he had hit her. It didnt hurt much, not like later, but it was the third shock, and then the shocks piled up so thick and fast that she lost the ability to differentiate between them.
She no longer had money of her own, there was only his money, doled out a few grudging dollars at a time. If she couldnt stretch them to cover the purchase of food and the maintenance of the trailer they lived in, she had to ask for more, and she learned quickly that she didnt ever want to ask for more. She learned not to visit her mother, too; he would either accompany her and be so rude that she would leave before she was too embarrassed, or on those few occasions when she managed to slip her leash and go off on her own, he would track her down and take her home.
Her mother knew, though. Amelia remembered her father. Oh yes, her mother knew, all right.
If Darren wasnt yelling at her, he was hitting her. If he wasnt hitting her, he was fucking her. It never stopped. She had thought he would be gone fishing most of the summer, but hed been fired off the Waltzing Matilda practically before the season began. The skipper of the Matilda was Amelias uncles oldest son, and he had sought her out afterward, to apologize, she thought, but Darren had picked a fight with him and run him off before he could say so.
The five months had seemed like five years, and there had seemed no end to them. She could no longer sleep through the night, starting at noises when he wasnt next to her, and under constant assault of one kind or another when he was.
Shed been sleeping at fish camp, four dreamless nights of uninterrupted unconsciousness, in a bunk with clean sheets and a soft pillow all her own. She looked at Moses and felt something as close to love as shed ever felt for a man. She thought how wrong people were who said he was an evil spirit. Even her mother, an elder who should have known better, had warned her children against him.
Tims hands stopped shuffling the cards, and she looked up to see him watching her with grave eyes. “Are you okay? he whispered.
She smiled. “Oh yeah, she whispered. “Im perfect.
You sure are, he thought fervently.
To him, she was beautiful. The bruise on the side of her face had faded to a faint yellow and the dark shadows beneath her eyes were gon
e. Her hair, which she hadnt combed until her second day at fish camp, hung in a sleek, shining, black fall. Her olive cheeks were darker after three days spent outside and she moved with a new assurance. She looked him straight in the eye and smiled, and he had a hard time not ducking his head. He couldnt stop the flush that rose to his own cheeks.
“It was so good, he whispered.
“Yes, she said. She stretched a little in memory, her breasts pushing at the front of her shirt. “Yes, it was. The second time especially.
He swallowed. “Yeah. He shuffled the cards and they went all over the place. He bent over, picking them up, glad of the opportunity to hide his expression. “Amelia?
“What?
He gathered together all his courage and whispered her own question back at her. “Can we do it again?
He heard her inhale, her involuntary, delighted and slightly surprised chuckle, and then Moses got to his feet, giving Bill a surreptitious tickle on the way up. “Come on, boy, time to bring in some more wood.
The last thing Tim wanted to do was leave before his question was answered, but he rose obediently and followed Moses into the storm. A gust of wind ripped the door from his hand and slammed it shut. “Moses!
“What? And come on, lets get that goddamn wood before we both freeze our nuts off. He nudged Tim, his grin a white blur in a dark smudge. “Especially now that you know what theyre for.
Tim was glad the darkness hid his flush. He should have known the old man would see, would know. He turned his head into the wind, feeling drops of moisture cool his cheeks. “Is that snow, Moses?
“Feels like, the old man said, allowing the change of subject, much to Tims relief. He rooted through the woodpile, going down a layer in search of the dry stuff, and stacked Tims arms full.
“Its too early for snow, Tim said.
Moses added another piece of wood, and Tim could no longer see the blur. “Its never too early for snow out here.
A bird called, barely audible over the wind, a low note, followed by clicking sounds, the sound of bare branches rubbing together.
Stabenow, Dana - Liam Campbell 03 - Nothing Gold Can Stay Page 19
