by Marc Cameron
“David!” But it came out garbled, like she had a broken jaw or a mouth full of rocks.
More muffled sounds, closer now, as if someone was trying to get her attention.
She cried out again with the same gibbering result.
Unable to see, or hear, or scream, she could at least feel. She could smell. Someone was close to her, inches from her face. A man? He smelled awful, like sewage and wood smoke—an outhouse on fire. She froze. What was he going to do? Her breath came in ragged, terrified gasps. She was helpless to do anything but wait and wonder. Her heart beat faster, pushing the pain deep in her skull to an agonizing crescendo. Bright lights flashed behind her eyes like an oncoming car at night, and then faded as she slipped from pain into unconsciousness.
DAY TWO
CHAPTER 5
“You let them play with knives and fire, Uncle Arliss,” Constance Cutter said, turning up her nose at the mess her twin seven-year-old brothers were making in the kitchen. “That’s the only reason they get up so early to help you with breakfast.”
The heavy bass beat spilling out of the white buds in her ears made it clear that the prickly fifteen-year-old was making an observation, not conversation. Mousy brown hair was parted in the middle, hanging to her shoulders and forming curtains over her eyes, which allowed her to shut out the rest of the world. For most teenage girls, the straight hair, ripped jeans, and loose sweatshirts were all carefully executed to make it look as though they didn’t care about their appearance. Constance truly didn’t—which made her probably the most authentic sophomore in the Anchorage school system. She had her mother’s natural beauty and her father’s athleticism, which allowed her to pull off the look, where someone with less confidence might come off like a female Napoleon Dynamite. She threw her backpack—pink and covered with a pattern of tiny white skulls—on one of the heavy Amish chairs at the dining room table, and grabbed a cup of yogurt from the fridge. Arliss remembered a time when she was all bubbles and brightness—but the death of her father had knocked the happiness right out of her. She cultivated all the coziness of an aggravated porcupine, forcing everyone else in the house to get out of her way or suffer the consequences.
Arliss’s brother had been gone for over a year. Bedtime was still difficult—when the house grew quiet enough for little boys’ hearts to run wild with emotion. But the twins had rebounded, for the most part. Cutter’s sister-in-law, Mim, was still struggling, emotionally and financially. She’d not only lost her husband, but the engineering firm that sent him to the Kuparuk River oil fields on the North Slope blamed him for a design flaw that caused the explosion that killed him. The court battle over any insurance money was stomping her into the mud. Cutter fantasized about meeting some of the suit-and-tie shitheads responsible for her misery, in a dark alley. He often dreamed of demonstrating to them that losing someone you love was a lot like having a couple of teeth knocked out. Cutter knew all too well. In the end, neither worry over losing his job or consequences of the law kept him from bludgeoning the executives into a greasy smear. He simply cared too much for Mim. Violent action on his part would trouble her—and she had enough trouble.
Arliss poured some buttermilk into a glass measuring cup and gave his grouchy niece a rare smile, even if she didn’t want one.
Michael, the older of the two boys by twelve minutes, sifted flour, salt, and other dry ingredients into a glass bowl. He had honey-colored hair and the natural sobriety of his father. Matthew, the younger twin, inherited his great-grandpa Grumpy’s flaxen blond hair and blue eyes, as well as the natural tendency toward a mean mug at an early age. He looked and acted much like Arliss had when he was seven. It wasn’t at all uncommon that people in the grocery store commented on how much Arliss’s “son” looked like him.
“We’re making Grumpy pancakes,” Cutter said to his niece. “We’ll make extra.”
Constance peeked around a flap of hair with a sulky side-eye that would have terrified a lesser man. “Pancakes go straight to my ass.”
The twins looked at each other and giggled. Michael pursed his lips.
Matthew put a hand over his mouth. “Constance said ass.”
“Well,” Cutter said, “Grumpy had a man-rule about that.”
Both boys threw back their heads and crowed in unison. “Grumpy Man-Rule five: No rough language in front of ladies!”
Matthew took the measuring cup full of buttermilk from Cutter and poured the liquid into the dry ingredients. “Constance is a sister, not a lady.”
Michael nodded in agreement, then dipped his finger into the batter, tasted it, then grimaced. “More like pan than cake,” he said, sounding an awful lot like his father.
Mim came down the hallway at that moment, head beautifully tilted, putting in an earring as she walked. Her damp hair was pulled back in a thick ponytail with a purple scrunchy that matched her hospital scrubs. Cutter caught his breath when he saw her, glancing away for a moment to steady himself so she wouldn’t see the look in his eyes. She wore very little makeup, but the morning shower had pinked her peaches-and-cream complexion, making her look flushed, like she’d been exercising. Cutter suspected she’d likely gone to sleep crying and then woken up the same way. He wanted to comfort her. To tell her that he was there for her. But she was his sister-in-law. That made it feel weird. It didn’t matter that he’d met her first, when they were only sixteen, in Manasota Key. That he’d been about to ask her out when his older and much cooler brother had swooped in and swept her off her feet with his smile and charm. Ethan had won her and that was that. He’d gotten the girl, had the beautiful kids, and then he’d died. Arliss chided himself for the pity party. He’d come to Alaska to take care of Mim and the kids, not kindle some unrequited romance from his youth.
She finished with the earring and took a deep breath. “Is that bacon I smell?”
“Yep!” Matthew said.
Michael gave a flourish with his drippy spatula. “Bacon and Grumpy pancakes.”
“Smells great,” Mim said. “What’s this about Constance not being a lady?”
Constance looked at Cutter, waiting.
“Nothing to worry about.” He shook his head. “Just some sibling rivalry.”
“No, it’s not,” Matthew said. “Constance cursed.”
Michael gave another of his smug nods. “She said the pancakes would go to her ass.”
Mim heaved an exhausted sigh. It was too early in the morning for a fight. “Ass isn’t really a curse word. But it isn’t polite, for a sister or a lady.”
“Sorry,” Constance said, obviously not sorry at all.
“It bothers me more that you’re worried about getting fat,” Mim said. “If anything, you could use a few more calories.”
“I just don’t want pancakes, okay?”
Mim decided not to press the issue, turning instead to Cutter. “Are you teaching them your famous flip?”
“They’re watching this time,” Cutter said. He looked at his watch. “Okay. The batter’s made and we’ve waited a couple of minutes for the magic-y science stuff to happen with the buttermilk and baking soda. This way they’ll be nice and fluffy.”
Matthew poured a quarter cup of batter into the hot frying pan.
Mim checked the time on her cell phone, then looked up at the boys and smiled, clearly appreciating what Cutter was doing. “Now you just wait for the little holes to app—”
Matthew raised his hands like a traffic cop. “We know how to cook it, Mom. Uncle Arliss let us cut the bacon into pieces and weave it into squares.”
“Cool,” Mim said. “I’m starved. Where is this bacon you speak of?”
“In the oven,” Michael said, still waving the batter-covered spatula. He quoted something Arliss had told them at least a dozen times over the past few months since he’d arrived from Florida to help out. “Grumpy was bakin’ bacon before anyone knew it was a thing.”
“Holes!” Matthew sounded the alarm, pointing at the pan. “Time to flip it!”
>
Cutter drew a chorus of oohs and aahs with his pancake-flipping skills. Even Constance looked on, but sideways, as if it was the most boring thing she’d ever seen.
It took the boys less than fifteen minutes to eat, wash the syrup and bacon grease off their faces, and help pile their dishes in the sink. They fled out the front door at the first sound of the school bus. Constance had gone well before the boys, taking her yogurt on the fly. Cutter saw her snitch a piece of bacon and fold it in a pancake, but pretended he didn’t.
Mim set her coffee on the table and checked her phone again when she and Cutter were alone. “I’m late,” she said. “I’ll do the dishes when I get home.”
“I got it,” Cutter said. “Grumpy’s pancakes are light as a feather, but the batter turns to indestructible concrete in an hour.”
“Thank you, Arliss,” Mim said.
He gave her a rare grin—the dangerous kind, the kind with dimples that had gotten him married four times. “It’s okay. I like doing dishes.”
“No, you don’t,” she said. “You hate doing the dishes. In fact, I’m not a hundred percent sure that’s not what caused your second divorce.”
“I can confirm or deny nothing.”
“You know what I mean,” she said. “Thank you for everything. Those boys were crushed when Ethan died. I didn’t think Michael was ever going to come out of it. Now you have them leaving the house each morning trailing pancakes and confidence.”
“They’re good kids,” Cutter said. “Constance will come around eventually.” He changed the subject quickly so she didn’t have to dwell on how long that might take. “How about cowboy chili pie for dinner?”
He stood to clear the table, wincing at a new pain in his back.
Mim raised an eyebrow. “Need some ice?”
“I’m good,” Arliss said, carrying the dishes around the bar to the sink. He’d probably overextended a tendon in his hip kicking the shit out of Twig Ripley, but that wasn’t something he wanted to talk about with Mim.
“I heard you come in late,” she said. “Rough night?”
“We got our guy.”
“Grumpy Man-Rule twenty.” Mim nodded. “Let no guilty man go free.”
Cutter rinsed the plates. “Yeah, well, I got to this one a little slow. He beat the crap out of a police dog.”
“Is he okay?” Mim asked. “The dog, I mean?”
“I don’t know,” Cutter said. “But it was bad . . . Anyway, sorry to start your day on a downer.”
“Oh,” Mim said, “I can do that without any help from you . . . What were we talking about before?”
“Cowboy chili pie,” Cutter said.
“Right. That sounds outstanding.”
“Good,” Cutter said. “Because I promised the boys they could cut up onions.”
“They don’t even like onions.”
“I didn’t either when I was a kid.” Cutter shrugged. “Grumpy had a rule about that too . . . well, an axiom really. ‘It’s more about the knife than the onion.’ ”
“Touché.” Mim sat with both hands resting in her lap. “It’s supposed to rain all day,” she said. “Want to go to the Dome and run if you get home in time?”
“Works for me,” Cutter said, drying his hands.
“Good, because, you know, pancakes and cowboy chili pie in the same day. Constance thinks only she has a problem.” Mim put a hand on her hip and winked. “For some of us, the struggle is real.”
Cutter started to say something that bordered on flirtatious, thought better of it, and made do with an awkward hug goodbye.
CHAPTER 6
Cutter parked his government vehicle-colloquially called a G-ride—beneath the James M. Fitzgerald US Courthouse and Federal Building. His parking space put his driver’s-side door against a thick concrete support pillar so he had to suck in his gut to get out. He’d learned from Grumpy that a boss should always take the oldest car in the fleet and leave the best assigned parking to the troops. He grabbed his war bag from the passenger seat and took the elevator to the ground floor.
The Alaska Fugitive Task Force offices were down the hall and around the corner from a bank that rented space in the federal building, in a separate location from the rest of the Marshals Service. Cutter had just punched his access code into the scramble pad beside the door to the task force suite when Lola stepped out from the USMS gym across the hall. As usual, her bronze skin was slightly flushed from a recent workout—Cutter doubted she ever went more than a few hours without some form of exercise. She wore a pair of black jeans, loose enough she could fight in them, but tight enough to look stylish. A dark blue pocket T-shirt with the short sleeves rolled up past her biceps revealed the border of a Polynesian tattoo on her shoulder. The hallway was a dead end and generally out of view of the public, so she carried her brown leather jacket, leaving the Glock on her belt exposed. The silver circle-star of a deputy United States marshal was clipped to a round black leather case just forward of the pistol. Two spare magazines and a flashlight rested over her left hip. Her handcuffs rode over her left kidney. A CZ folding knife nested in her right pocket slightly back from the leather holster. There was room for a Taser too, but not much, so she customarily left it in her desk while she was in the office.
“Morning, boss.”
Cutter pushed open the door, stepping to the side so Lola could go in ahead. “Have a good workout?”
“Leg day,” she said. Anyone who’d ever experienced leg day wouldn’t need an explanation and anyone who hadn’t wouldn’t understand anyway.
Cutter walked into his small office, which was barely big enough for his desk and a couple of side chairs, and dropped his war bag before sitting down. Lola followed him in, standing there like something was on her mind.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s Zeus,” she said, looking glum.
“That was going to be my first call,” Cutter said. “What are you hearing?”
Lola sat in one of the two chairs in front of Cutter’s desk. The other was piled high with blue warrant folders. Both hands in her lap, she fidgeted, uncharacteristically nervous.
“Nancy says it’s bad. Theron took him straight to the animal emergency hospital off Tudor last night. It sounds like he’s got swelling on the brain. The vet put him in a drug-induced coma. He has to be on a respirator. I didn’t even know that was a thing for dogs.”
Cutter sighed. “Thanks for letting me know. Is Nancy coming in?”
“I don’t think so,” Lola said. “She’s with Theron right now.”
The phone rang. Cutter looked at the number and then picked it up. “Morning, Chief.”
Lola mouthed, “Want me to leave?” He waved an open hand, motioning for her to keep her seat.
He listened a moment, and then hung up.
“Chief wants to see us.”
Lola raised a wary brow. “Both of us? Did she say why?”
“Something about Judge Markham.”
“What did I tell you?” Lola threw back her head and stared at the ceiling. “I really don’t like that guy. Did she say what she wants from us? Scott Keen handles judicial security. We stay plenty busy hunting bad guys, thank you very much.”
“Keen’s in the chief’s office now. For some reason, Jill wants to talk to us too.”
Cutter felt the familiar tickle on his neck that said something unpleasant was about to go down. Federal judges could be funny animals. Grumpy often said that the difference between God and a federal judge was that God didn’t believe he was a federal judge.
“Markham . . .” Teariki said, her voice taking on an uncharacteristic whine.
“Do you two have some kind of history I need to know about?”
“He chastised me once for yawning during a trial,” Lola groused.
“In open court?”
“Well,” Lola said, “he didn’t really chastise out loud. But he glared at me so everyone could see. The prisoner thought it was all pretty hilarious. I think Markh
am’s dad was a judge in New York. Not a real judge, but a parking-ticket judge kind of deal. I think he’s outdone Daddy and has gone and turned all purple with his terrible cosmic power of the federal bench. You’ll see what I mean.”
“We’ve met,” Cutter said.
“Then you already know.” Lola closed her eyes and gave a mock shudder. “We are soooo stuffed.”
* * *
Jill Phillips, the chief deputy US marshal for the judicial district of Alaska, sat poring over a stack of photographs at her cherry-veneer desk. It was a nice enough piece of furniture, but still held the slightly chintzy look of government-issue. Large windows ran the length of the wall to her right, giving her a view of Eighth Avenue. During the summer, vendors sold reindeer hotdogs from umbrella pushcarts along the quiet street that ran between the federal building and the social security annex. In winter, the occasional moose stopped by to rest on the bark mulch beneath landscaped birch and spruce. The southern exposure lit various marksmanship trophies, challenge coins, and photographs—mementos of the chief’s career and her personal love of horses. An eight-by-ten photograph of her husband and new baby got center stage.
Scott Keen, the judicial security inspector, or JSI, stood at the end of her desk, examining each photograph. He was on the back side of his forties, having been promoted to the rank of senior inspector later in his career. A quiet man, Inspector Keen was an expert at dealing with judicial whims while still maintaining a high level of security. He had the thinning silver hair of a grandfather—though his own kids were still in middle school—and, like many deputies in Alaska, the callused hands of an avid outdoorsman. As a supervisor, Cutter and he shared the same rank, though Cutter ran a task force of people while Inspector Keen oversaw the judicial security program. Keen liked the JSI gig—managing a program instead of subordinates. He was good at it, and would likely stay there until he retired.
