by Marc Cameron
He’d seen weather morph human tracks into all sorts of odd shapes and designs. The ground didn’t lie—but sometimes she fibbed. You had to listen to the entire story.
CHAPTER 22
Sarah Mead’s shoulders felt as if they’d been wrenched off her body. Her hips were on fire from the pressure of the hard bed. As she was on her side, her head lolled, straining the muscles in her neck. She’d lapsed in and out of consciousness ever since glimpsing the toes of David’s boots. She would wake up in a sort of painful oblivion and then the memories came flooding back. Bitter, gut-wrenching sobs wracked her body until she couldn’t breathe. Overwhelmed and in shock, she’d pass out to repeat the process over and over. Awake again, she tried to blink away the agony of betrayal, worse even than the physical pain of her shattered teeth and injured jaw.
There were two of them. She’d been able to suss out that much, even blind and deaf. She could smell David’s body wash, but there was someone else too, someone more musky, like he needed to put on deodorant. This made no sense. How could her husband be involved? Why had they taken her? And why were they now keeping her alive? Her family had no money to speak of. David knew that. Why hadn’t he just killed her if he wanted her dead?
Her mind on fire, she rolled over, wobbling on her bound hands at the small of her back, bucking her hips to thrash like a beached fish. She screamed, past caring.
“Daawiid!”
Something slammed into her thigh. A barked command followed, too muffled to understand.
Stunned but not deterred by the blow, she screamed again, louder now, like a child having a tantrum, completely undone. At least she was getting a reaction. Maybe they would just kill her and this would be over.
“Daawwiid!”
A shadow loomed over the top of her, nose to nose. She could smell the sickening sweetness of chewing tobacco on rancid breath.
“Hey!” A cruel hand grabbed her by the jaw and squeezed.
She froze, despite the unbearable pain. “Shut your mouth,” he said, in a gravel hiss brimming with savagery and hate. “Or I’ll nail it shut.”
The hand held her this way for what seemed like forever, thumb and fingers cruelly gripping her jaw, grinding the inside of her cheeks against her teeth. Her body went limp, her mind reeling. Blackness crept in from the edges of her consciousness, but for some reason, she didn’t pass out.
A second voice boomed, somewhere in the distance. The cruel hand relaxed, slowly, reluctantly, finally letting her slip away.
She scrambled backward, but the log walls trapped her on the narrow bed. She barely had time to catch her breath before a shadow fell over her face again. “Relax,” a voice said, this one deeper, more precise. It wasn’t David, nor was it the tobacco chewer.
She shuddered, wincing at the pain even this small movement caused her damaged teeth. Her head lolled, too heavy for her neck. There were three of them? Why? What was happening to her? She broke into uncontrollable sobs.
“Stop,” the deep voice said. “You’ll break a rib.”
A hand pressed on her shoulder, almost gently, then coaxed her to the end of the bed and helped her to her feet. She felt pressure against her wrists, tried to pull away out of instinct, but strong hands held her in place. A moment later, her arms suddenly fell to her sides, free. Fiery pins and needles surged into her hands with the renewed circulation.
“Come,” the deep voice said, leading her sideways by the arm.
“Whaaa?”
She bumped into something to her left, reached out, felt a shoulder of someone seated there. A groan, then a whimper. “Sarah . . .”
It was David. She ripped away the hood with numb fingers, blinking, even in the dim lamplight of whatever hellhole she was in. Her husband was tied to a chair at the foot of her narrow bed. A thread of bloody saliva dripped from the corner of his broken lips, hanging down to the lap of his soiled shorts. One eye was swollen completely shut. The other bloodshot and dazed, as if he couldn’t focus.
Sarah turned to find two of the biggest men she’d ever seen. Both wore faded jeans and old flannel shirts, like lumberjacks, or hunters—or someone pretending to be lumberjacks or hunters. The darker of the two seemed to focus all his anger and hate out of one surviving eye. The place where the other eye should have been was a mass of white scars against a weathered face. His hair, black like his thick beard, was slicked straight back over a high forehead. Large hands held some type of club or whip. Sarah guessed him to be in his fifties, but the years had not been kind to him. The nearer and larger man had a disinterested face covered with red stubble. His thinning red hair was pulled back in a stubby ponytail. This one was wearing David’s boots.
“You should sit down before you fall down,” the redhead said.
Sarah looked at David, then back up at the two men. She should have fallen to her knees and comforted him, but she still couldn’t help but think this was all somehow his fault.
“Sarah,” he said again, a whispered groan. He knew she was there, but seemed to look past instead of at her. “I’m so sorry.”
His shirt was torn and open, revealing burns the size of quarters on his chest. A trickle of blood ran out his ear. Sarah put a hand on his shoulder, carefully so as not to cause him any more pain. It was the best she could do for now, while she processed all of this. His body slumped at her touch.
They were in a small cabin, maybe sixteen by sixteen feet. It was cramped for the four of them, dark, and stiflingly hot from a blazing fire in the woodstove. Other than the fire, the only light came from a candle lantern and a small window on the wall opposite her rough bed. To her left, beyond David, was a set of bunk beds, each with a rumpled sleeping bag.
She looked at the man, hand still on David. “Who . . . aahhr . . . you?”
“Doesn’t matter,” the dark man said. When he spoke, the dark beard opened to display white teeth. Every word was a snarl.
“Whaaa . . . ?” Sarah couldn’t get her jaw to cooperate. She clenched her eyes, trying to force away the pain, then tried again, sobbing, wincing, then sobbing some more through her slurred and drooling words. “Whaaa do yoou . . . ?”
The one with the red beard touched his own face. “I’m sorry about your jaw,” he said. “Things were happening kind of fast. You came out of nowhere. After that, I couldn’t leave you—”
Sarah wanted to pull her hair out. If this guy was sorry about nearly killing her, then why was he holding her prisoner?
“Whaaa . . . ?” she said again.
“What do we want?” The dark one finished her sentence.
She managed a meager nod, despite the fact that it made her head feel as if it might topple off and land on the floor at any moment.
“Answers,” the dark one said. “That’s what I want.”
Red Ponytail stood directly in front of her. He ran a finger down her jawline, flowing with her when she tried to pull away. He needn’t have worried. There was nowhere for her to go.
“I should have set this when you were still unconscious,” he said.
“Whaaaa?”
“Your jaw,” he said. “It’s not broken. Just knocked out of kilter. Promise not to bite me, and I’ll set it for you.”
Thumb in her mouth, he grabbed her by the chin like a hooked fish, pulling her jaw sharply downward and toward him. Sarah resolved to bite off every finger the man had, but the pain was so great she passed out the moment the jaw snapped into place with an audible crack.
CHAPTER 23
Lieutenant Warr agreed it was too dangerous to leave Ned Jasper at the lodge with no backup coming on the near horizon. With time ticking down until Birdie Pingayak’s “drop-dead” departure time, Cutter gave the lieutenant a thumbnail brief of his plans, then made a quick visit to the tree line while the others got Rolf Hagen loaded into a body bag and stowed on the boat. Cutter hoped to cut some sort of sign, to find a direction of travel for the shooter or shooters. The least he could do was point the troopers in the right direction wh
en they arrived to find the missing couple. Whoever the killers were, they’d kept to well-used trails around the lodge, deeply rutted paths that guests had used to explore the woods all summer long. There was a stand of white birch to the southeast. Leafless and skeletal without their leaves, many of the trunks provided a home for a gnarly chocolate-colored growth called Chaga, the supposed superfood fungus that gave the lodge its name. Thick willows and alders grew around the perimeter of the grounds, the bark nibbled by rabbits and scraped by moose and caribou antlers. Numerous animal tracks crisscrossed the snow. There were trails everywhere, but Cutter found nothing new belonging to a human.
He felt confident that he could have found something, given time and an ever-increasing search pattern, but Birdie Pingayak’s whistle cut him short. He chuckled at the fact that she didn’t yell, even when she was worried about getting iced in with a dead body. Cutter took one final look around at the duff and snow of the forest floor, and resigned himself to the fact that he’d have to leave the tracking to the troopers.
Birdie’s open aluminum boat was rated for seven people. Counting Rolf Hagen’s body, Vitus Paul, and the five who’d come upriver to the lodge, it was at max capacity on the return trip. Birdie gave the rubber ball on the fuel line a couple of pumps to make sure the engine had gas, and then pulled the starter rope. The fifty-horse Tohatsu caught the first time, burbling the brown water at the stern. Birdie leaned backward a hair to see that the engine was peeing, or pumping water through the system to keep it cool. She gave Lola and Ned a thumbs-up, and they pushed the bow away from the bank before jumping in with everyone else. Vitus rode up front with them, leaving the middle seat to Cutter and the judge again. Rolf Hagen lay sideways, gunnel to gunnel, just forward of Birdie. They’d propped the foot of his body bag up on the extra fuel can to make him fit.
Birdie adjusted the choke so the outboard ran more smoothly, then backed into the current. She pushed the tiller away from her, swinging the bow to the south.
“It should be a faster ride home,” she said, “now that we’re going with the flow. You guys up front watch for big ice and logs again. Okay?” She settled in on her seat, bright brown eyes flitting back and forth from bank to bank, as far as she could see in the fog. The lines of her tattoo highlighted the reverent smile on her lips. She was at home on this river, no matter the circumstances.
* * *
The tall silhouette of Aften Brooks pacing back and forth in her wool Sherpa hat materialized in the fog as Birdie nosed her boat toward the mud bank. Judge Markham slumped against the bench, head down, deep in thought. Cutter’s anxiety level had gone up by degrees the nearer they got to Stone Cross. He also had time to come to grips with the fact that the investigation into Rolf Hagen’s death and the disappearance of the Meads was a matter for the Alaska State Troopers. As difficult as it was, his primary focus had to be protecting the judge. Thankfully, Markham had fallen into a funk, making him less social than usual. He assured Cutter that he planned to make only a short appearance at the potluck before retiring to his room for the night.
Birdie came in at an angle, throwing the outboard into reverse when they neared the shore, slowing their approach. Water churned at the back of the boat. The aluminum bottom scraped gravel. Broadside to the current now, the stern swung sideways, and the little boat settled into an eddy of slower water so she faced slightly upstream.
Lola climbed out first, taking a position that faced the village proper even as her boots hit the water. The fog provided cover to any would-be shooters, but it also made targeting the judge more difficult. Cutter had asked Ned not to announce their arrival over the VHF, hopefully making it less likely that Daisy Aguthluk or anyone else would be waiting. He was surprised to see Aften and told her so. Surprises were rarely a good thing in the world of dignitary protection.
“How did you know when we were coming in?”
Aften grabbed the bow line and looped it around the piece of drill pipe to secure the boat. “I didn’t,” she said. “Not for sure at least. But I know Birdie, and she’s smart enough to get home before dark in shitty weather.” Like most people who weren’t guilty of anything, Aften Brooks didn’t waste time defending herself. Instead, she took a step toward Ned. “What about Sarah?”
The VPSO crinkled his nose, saying no without having to utter the actual words.
“Is it true?” she whispered. “Rolf’s dead?”
“I’m afraid so,” Jasper said.
“Did you find . . .” Aften’s voice trailed off. “I mean, did it look like Sarah was hurt?”
“I’m really sorry,” Jasper said. “I shouldn’t talk about the investigation. We have to turn everything over to the troopers.” He set his dry-bag on the bank along with the hunting rifle and returned to the boat to retrieve Rolf Hagen’s body.
Aften began to pace again. “But she’s missing. What if she’s hurt? Somebody killed Rolf, so—”
Birdie put a hand on her shoulder. “They’ve thought of all that. I promise. We have to let them do their job. Where’s Jolene?”
Aften closed her eyes and gave a helpless sigh. “At the school. Everybody is.”
“What about Daisy Aguthluk?” Judge Markham asked.
“Daisy?” Aften shrugged, caught off guard that the judge would know the woman’s name. “Yeah . . . I’m sure she’s at the potluck too.”
“Good,” Markham said. He threw the duffel over his shoulder. “I want to talk to her.”
Cutter looked back the way they’d just come. Ice chattered and hissed as it floated past in the darkness. It killed him to leave things undone. Something was going on out there, something bad. He sloshed into the river, ready to help Lola and Ned, who were in the boat again maneuvering the body bag into position. Even in the slower current of the eddy, Cutter could feel the frigid water shoving his calves. He leaned across the rail to get a good grip on the nylon straps. Rolf Hagen weighed well over two hundred pounds and even with rigor mortis, lifting him out of the boat was an ungainly task.
“Glad you’re playing the details of this close to the vest,” Cutter said to the VPSO as they worked. “You might consider letting it slip that we found a bullet. Don’t mention that we already took it as evidence, just that we saw it in the logs.”
“Good idea,” Jasper said. “If the shooter is somebody in town, he’ll want to go back and retrieve it before the troopers get here. Maybe we’ll see ’em go.”
Lola wedged herself against the side of the boat, ready to help lift the body bag. She looked up and gave Cutter a nod of approval. “Wow, boss,” she said. “You’re not just a badass. You’re a sneaky badass.”
* * *
Cutter convinced Markham to get his gear stowed in the Family and Consumer Science classroom, where he’d be sleeping, before he tried to speak with the woman who wanted to kill him. This gave Ned and Lola time to find Daisy Aguthluk and make reasonably sure she didn’t happen to be holding a butcher knife when the judge approached her.
Cutter dropped his own gear in the library, which was next to Markham’s room. He locked the door with the key Birdie had given him, and then waited in the hall under some hand-carved wooden Yup’ik masks.
The potluck was going full swing in the gym down the carpeted hallway. Anyone coming into the school through the main entry had to turn left, just two doors down from where Cutter stood, in order to reach the gym. Some were still arriving, others were going the other way, probably stepping outside to smoke. Most smiled politely at Cutter, not quite looking him in the eye when they said hello or offered the Yup’ik greeting, “Waqaa.”
The din of hundreds of chatting voices spilled into the hall each time the gym doors opened, along with the tantalizing odors of smoked fish, freshly baked bread, and other things Cutter couldn’t quite identify.
Markham came out wearing the same clothes he’d had on to go upriver—an open-collared shirt and jeans. Focused on the gym, he looked drawn and solemn instead of his usual bombastic, bow-tied self.
>
“We believed we were doing what was best,” he said.
“I’m sure,” Cutter said.
“The bush is a dangerous place,” Markham said, as if trying to convince himself. “Especially for someone with physical or mental problems . . .”
Cutter nodded without interrupting.
“Medical personnel are the experts at this sort of thing, you know. We had to rely on their knowledge. We still do. Attorneys, law enforcement, judges, we do not make our decisions in a vacuum. We depend on the eyes and ears of the people who are out in the . . .” His voice trailed off. “I’m assuming your partner is already in the gymnasium?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Cutter said. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to—”
“You could not,” Markham said, and started down the hall.
* * *
Cutter located Lola right away, even in a sea of other people with jet-black hair. She stood at the far end of the gym, next to a table with two stainless-steel coffee urns and an orange insulated water jug. Her jacket was unzipped, allowing quick and easy access to her pistol. Her hands hung loose and relaxed at her sides. She spoke with a Native woman wearing jeans and a blue fleece jacket over her kuspuk. Cutter couldn’t see the woman’s face, but he was sure it was Daisy Aguthluk. Ned Jasper stood quietly to one side.
Lola nodded politely, listening to what Aguthluk was saying. She glanced up when Cutter was still halfway across the gym. Her arm stayed down by her side, but she lifted her hand slightly, warning them not to approach. Cutter reached to touch the judge by the elbow, but he shrugged it off and plowed ahead like a moth to a flame.
Aguthluk caught the look in Lola’s eyes and turned, arms folded staunchly across her chest. She was in her late fifties, maybe even sixty, which added another layer of difficulty to the mix. If she did decide to take violent action, the headline would be DEPUTY MARSHALS SLAM ELDERLY NATIVE WOMAN IN SCHOOL GYMNASIUM BRAWL. Hell, there would be videos on YouTube as soon as it happened.
