Stone Cross

by Marc Cameron

  David reached out with the toe of his slipper and touched the back of her thigh, causing her to jump.

  “Sorry,” he said. “How about we have a shower? Then I can paint your nails for you.”

  His customary glibness had returned.

  She looked over her shoulder at him, incredulous. “Do you want a girl who splits firewood and caulks logs or one who dolls herself up with nail polish? ’Cause I don’t see how you can have both for the next couple of months.”

  “Jeez,” David said, lips pooched out like he was wounded. “I’m just saying you don’t have to let yourself go because we’re living in the bush.”

  “Keep it up,” Sarah said. “That’s the way to talk me into the shower.”

  “Really?”

  She scoffed. “I’m not about to take my clothes off so I can be murdered with soap in my eyes—not with that awful noise out there.”

  “I’ll be in the shower with you,” David said, raising his eyebrows up and down the way he did when he wanted sex. He was pretty much a giant human gland, so his eyebrows were moving all the time.

  She ignored the suggestion and stared into the fire, trying not to imagine four months of this.

  “You should have told me when Bobby stopped by.”

  His dismissive chuckle galled her enough to chase away some of the chill.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, not meaning it at all. He patted the couch cushion beside him. “At least sit—”

  Every light in and around the lodge went out at the same time, leaving them bathed in the orange glow of the fire—and the shadows. Lots of shadows. The ever-present hum of the generator was gone. They turned it off every night to save on fuel, but the lights ran on backup batteries. They should have stayed on for a while. Voles or squirrels must have gotten into the wiring.

  The hissing sound of the river seemed louder now, closer, more invasive. David didn’t appear to notice. He slumped in defeat, slowly beating the back of his head against the couch. No generator, no shower—even if he by some miracle managed to convince Sarah it wasn’t a stupid idea.

  The sudden blast of a car horn outside caused Sarah to jump. David bolted to his feet.

  The racket of Rolf’s makeshift alarm was grossly out of place against the sounds of the wilderness. The handyman had rigged the contraption using a boat battery, weighted milk jugs, and fishing line to warn him if bears tried to break into the meat shed.

  “Hmmm.” David stepped into a pair of insulated Xtratuf rubber boots, the toe of each decorated with a smiley face drawn on with a Sharpie. He threw a wool jacket over his shoulders before scooping up the rifle beside the front door. Sarah didn’t know what was more ridiculous: the sight of David in his shorts and calf-high rubber boots, or the sight of him holding a gun. It was astounding that she’d not noticed what a child he was before she’d married him. He’d grown up in Alaska, but as far as she knew, he’d never shot a gun until they came to Chaga.

  The noise of the horn was deafening, but at least it obscured the moan across the river.

  David opened the door and peeked out, aiming his rifle downhill toward the meat shed. “Maybe it really is bears. You wait here and I’ll go check.”

  “Not a chance.” Sarah grabbed the shotgun from the corner by the door. It was only loaded with birdshot, but was better than her fingernails—which were chewed down to the quick anyway. “I’m coming with you.”

  He nodded. “Probably a good idea.”

  “Don’t shoot Rolf,” she said.

  “Another good idea,” David said, dripping with condescension.

  * * *

  There was no moon. The wind blew harder now, coming off the freezing river and adding a sinister layer to the darkness. Lengths of split spruce reflected like bleached bones in the harsh beam of David’s headlamp as he took tentative, creeping steps down the hill. Sarah stayed close behind him, playing her flashlight back and forth. She carried the shotgun down by her waist, her hand wrapped around the action. Rolf was out there somewhere, and it was beyond dangerous to go aiming into the darkness without knowing where he was—even if there were bears.

  The meat shed was a relatively flimsy affair, its screened sides held in place with scrap two-by-fours and weathered plywood. It did little to protect meat from bears, but that wasn’t the point. The shed was meant to allow air to flow freely around hanging meat while keeping flies at bay.

  David flipped the toggle switch to turn off the alarm and then lowered the rifle.

  “Good,” he said. “No bears.”

  Sarah frowned, though David didn’t see it in the dark. “Isn’t there supposed to be a caribou shoulder in there?”

  “Son of a bitch!” David stomped a rubber boot, making a dull thump on the frozen ground. “Rolf must have taken it for himself.”

  “An entire shoulder?” Sarah wasn’t buying it. “Why would he do that?”

  “Beats the hell outta me,” David said. “I think he’s been out here by himself so many years he’s lost it. Why do you think they hired us?”

  Sarah moved her light across the concrete floor, catching her breath at what she saw.

  David gave a low whistle. “Well, that’s creepy as hell.”

  A perfect, circular design about a foot in diameter, like a maze or a miniature crop circle, had been drawn in blood on the concrete.

  Sarah forced herself not to stare too long, looking up to make sure that whoever had drawn the strange pattern and stolen their meat wasn’t lurking anywhere nearby.

  “Almost looks like that Aztec calendar,” she said. “Or some kind of code.”

  “I guess.” David gave a grim chuckle and then kicked an empty plastic R&R whiskey bottle that was just inside the door. “It’s code for Rolf’s drunk again and trying to screw with our heads.”

  Sarah relaxed a notch at the simple explanation. They’d been warned that Rolf liked to tip a few back now and then after the guests had gone—and even when they hadn’t. It was weird that he’d taken the caribou shoulder, but hey, guys did a lot of odd things in the name of practical jokes.

  “You go start the generator,” David said. “I’m going to kick the shit out of Rolf.” He obviously didn’t realize how stupid that sounded with his bony legs sticking out of gym shorts, and rubber boots with smiley faces on the toes. Rolf Hagen was built like a Viking.

  Sarah stopped cold, pointing her flashlight at the rusted tin generator shed. Even following her brainless husband was preferable to going out there by herself. “I . . . I don’t think we need the generator tonight.”

  “I want a shower,” David said. “Even if you are gonna abandon me in my time of need. Just start the damned generator.”

  He marched into the night before Sarah could argue.

  * * *

  Sarah sniffed, shining the light over the frozen mud. She’d walked the section of land between the river and the lodge hundreds of times over the last few weeks but there always seemed to be some new rock or ice clod to send her sprawling. The cold made her nose run. She started to wipe it with the wrist of her fleece but stopped, chuckling to herself despite her fear. She’d heard one of the elders in Stone Cross joke that he and his friends had been called The Silver Sleeve Gang when they were children, because of all the frozen snot on their parkas.

  The river hissed in the darkness to her left. For the time being, the current was stronger than the cold, but that would soon change, probably overnight. Even now, she could hear the telltale gurgle of air bubbles trapped under newly formed ice. The wind lulled, leaving the trees beyond the far bank strangely silent. Sarah picked up her pace, wanting to get back to the lodge before the awful moan started again.

  The interior of the shed smelled of diesel fuel and grease. Spare parts and tools overflowed the wooden shelves along both side walls. The engine had only been out for a few minutes and was still warm. Sarah checked the fuel, made sure the switch that controlled power to the lodge was turned to the off position, before turning the ignition ke
y. The engine sputtered, coughed like it was going to start, and then fell silent. She tried again with the same result—one-handed because she didn’t want to give up the shotgun. A gust of wind popped the tin siding, making her jump. She turned the key to the off position and stepped back.

  “Screw this,” she whispered, already moving to the door. “He doesn’t need a shower that bad.”

  She hustled back up the hill toward the lodge, stumbling twice on the frozen mud, cursing, but catching herself before she rammed the shotgun into the dirt. She expected David to step out of the darkness at any moment, berating her for not trying hard enough to get the generator started. The thought galled her, and she found herself looking forward to the confrontation. She’d tell him what he could do with his stupid shower, and this lonely shithole of a lodge for that matter.

  The beam of a headlamp flashed around the corner. Spoiling for a fight, she turned and strode toward the light. It would feel good to get some things off her chest. For one thing, David had better never forget to tell her when company came by again.

  The sudden boom of a rifle carried through the cold air. The sound was so sudden, so out of place, that it stopped her in her tracks as surely as if she’d been the one to get shot.

  The light still came from around the corner of the lodge. David must have seen a bear.

  “Hey!” she said. “Where did you go? David! Where are you?”

  Maybe it was Rolf.

  She kept walking, madder than scared now. Shooting into the darkness was dangerous. She’d almost reached the steps when she saw it. Someone was sprawled out on the ground around the corner with one stockinged foot visible around the wall.

  “David!” she screamed.

  The horrible moan picked up again across the river, closer now.

  A scuff in the gravel behind her sent a shudder down her back. Her legs were heavy, posts set in the frozen mud. But she still had the shotgun. “David!” she said again, more of a squeak this time, through clenched teeth.

  Before she could turn, something heavy slammed into the side of her neck. She stumbled forward, sinking to her knees. The shotgun slipped from her grasp. She tried to call David, but could manage nothing more than a pitiful croak.

  A second blow sent her reeling, this one to the back of her head. The night closed in around her, and the moan across the river faded away.

  CHAPTER 1

  Anchorage, Alaska

  In addition to being a heroin addict, Nicky Ranucci was also an extremely talented chef. Unfortunately, the thirty-year-old junkie could never remember to turn off the stove, and his mother’s four-plex burned down around what was probably the best bucatini carbonara anyone in Alaska would have ever tasted.

  Worse than that, Ranucci found himself in jail and in desperate need of a fix—which meant he ended up in the back seat of a government SUV with tinted windows, sitting next to a mountain of a deputy US marshal who frowned like someone had just fed him a spider.

  Fortunately for Ranucci, he had something to trade. And it was good stuff too. With any luck, it would be enough to get him out. Feeding a six-hundred-dollar-a-week heroin habit put Ranucci in constant contact with the worst of humanity, the kind of dudes who prayed to their patron saint one minute, then preyed on some hooker’s addiction the next. Ranucci was a small fry, a user. The cops wanted the big fish and he intended to give them one in trade for his freedom. In this case, the big fish was Twig Ripley, a dealer and leg-breaker who was wanted for selling black tar heroin in Nevada. Lucky for Ranucci, Twig had burned every bridge he had from Vegas to Northern Cali and had come to hide out with his cousin Sam, who owned a used-car lot in Anchorage.

  The lady marshal behind the steering wheel drove past a sign that said HONEST SAM’S HONEST CARS. She was hot, if a little scary looking. Hawaiian or something like that.

  Ranucci’s gut churned. Snitching could get him killed. Someday. But he had to think about the here and now, the shit that was staring him dead in the eye at this very moment. Turning rat was better than the alternative. Getting sick. That’s what they called it. What a joke. Sick was nothing compared to coming off heroin. Sick was puking up your lunch. Withdrawal was having your skull opened with a chisel while someone scraped out your brain with a spoon. Overdosing was what killed you, and they had Narcan for that. Getting clean sure as hell felt like dying. The jail doc had given him methadone, but not nearly enough, and it just made him thirsty.

  People kept telling Ranucci he was lucky to be alive. But he didn’t feel lucky.

  He’d escaped the fire with the clothes on his back and a Crown Royal bag that contained a burned spoon, a well-used insulin syringe with a bent needle, and a gram of black tar. None of the junkies he knew ever had any luck, and the kit had fallen out of his shirt when the firefighters were helping him to safety. Some cop, who should have been minding his own business on the fire perimeter, saw the whole thing. Everyone knew the purple whiskey bags were the worst possible place to stash drug paraphernalia, but they were just so damned convenient. Nicky’s mom had never used anything stronger than aspirin, but she did love her Crown Royal and had collected enough of the bags over the years to make a couple of quilts, a Christmas-tree skirt, and a big curtain for the missing door to her spare bedroom—all of which Nicky had just torched along with the carbonara.

  Now, a day after the fire, he found himself handcuffed in the back seat of a Ford Expedition dying of thirst—an aftereffect of the damned methadone. The big, blond deputy sat in the back seat too, hands folded quietly in his lap. Gray clouds hung low over the squat, earth-tone buildings, spitting rain on midtown Anchorage. The side streets off Arctic Avenue were paved—contrary to what people in the lower forty-eight believed about Alaska roads—but a layer of gravel from last year’s winter maintenance caused the tires to crackle and pop as the SUV rolled slowly south. Ranucci wished the pretty Polynesian lady in the driver’s seat would speed up. The dark Expedition was obvious enough. Rolling slowly through this kind of neighborhood left no doubt in anybody’s mind that this cop car was hunting.

  Ranucci strained against the metal chain that secured the handcuffs to his waist. He pushed the bologna sandwich toward his mouth with the tips of his fingers, craning his neck down in an effort to reach it. This jailhouse lunch was a far cry from bucatini carbonara, but it was food, and anyway, it was nice to eat it somewhere that didn’t smell like farts. The marshals would probably have him out past evening chow too—which was okay. The jail would just hold another sandwich for him if he missed whatever slop they happened to be serving that night.

  The big marshal looked over at him across the back seat, sun-bleached hair mussed like a surfer who’d been chillin’ on the beach. His name was Cutter, and if his stony expression held anything, it was the remnants of a disappointed sigh, like when you let your grandma know college wasn’t in your cards—or told your mom that you’d just burned down her house. Deputy Cutter said nothing, but his disgust was apparent in his narrowed eyes.

  Nobody liked a snitch, not even the cops.

  Alaska state court judges were notoriously soft with their conditions of release, but Ranucci’s record was “deep, wide, and continuous” enough that he didn’t qualify to bond out on his own recognizance. That was kind of a joke anyway: nobody but a judge was ignorant enough to believe that a tweaker who’d rip off his own mother for a score could be trusted to show up for breakfast, let alone a court appearance. In the end, the judge had set a five-hundred-dollar cash bond. It was low enough to elicit an eye roll from the arresting officer, but, considering the fact that the forty-three dollars Ranucci did have went up in flames with his mother’s Crown Royal curtains, bond may as well have been set at a million. He’d been forced to turn to the only coin he had to trade when it came to dealing with “the man.” It was good information, the stuff he was offering about Twig, but Deputy Cutter didn’t seem all that happy to get it. Maybe he just wasn’t a happy guy. Ranucci didn’t care, so long as they let him out onc
e he’d cooperated.

  The muscle under his right eye began to twitch. He rattled the restraints, softly; some cops took it real personal when you made noise with the chains.

  “Any chance I get you to take these cuffs off so I can get a drink?” He shrugged, but it came off as a sort of spastic twitch. “Seeing as I’m helping and all. That jungle juice they have me take at the jail gives me a powerful thirst. Know what I mean?”

  The lady marshal behind the wheel glanced in the rearview mirror, catching his eye. Ranucci had heard the others call her Lola. She wore her black hair pulled back in a tight bun, which made her look a little stark for Ranucci’s taste. She couldn’t be over twenty-five, and even in his present circumstances, he couldn’t help but imagine her shaking out the bun and letting her hair down. Nicky, sweetie, how about you and me . . .

  “Jungle juice?” she asked.

  “Methadone,” the big marshal grunted.

  The pretty Polynesian nodded slowly, adding another term to her lexicon of street slang, and returned her focus to the wet street.

  Ranucci set the sandwich in his lap, exchanging it for a paper cup and straw he held between his knees. He’d already drained it twice.

  Cutter poured him some more water from a plastic bottle.

  Nicky drank it all immediately. The water gave him a little courage. “Ma’am,” he said, earning himself a side-eye from the big deputy beside him.