Stone Cross

by Marc Cameron

  Cutter thought about that for a moment. “You know, Judge,” he said, “I have protected cabinet members who were absent any hint of a moral compass, and foreign ministers from countries known to harbor terrorists. I’ve driven the armored limousine with some shmuck diplomat who entertained a prostitute in the back seat while his wife rode in the car behind us in the motorcade. What I’m saying, Your Honor, is that I have protected a hell of a lot of people I did not like.” Cutter grinned. “But you, sir, are not one of those people.”

  Markham let the shaving bag fall to his side. “You don’t do that very often, do you?”

  “Do what?”

  “Smile.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Neither do I,” Markham said. “They mean more when they’re rare. Now, go do whatever it is you need to do. I’m in for the night.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Lola followed Birdie Pingayak’s directions to the cabin where Donna Taylor was staying at the edge of the village. With the judge tucked away, Cutter had decided they should look at a few people of interest in the village. That was fine. Sleep was overrated anyhow, Lola thought. A walk would be good exercise. Even if someone in the village was part of the mess out at Chaga Lodge, they were likely working with others. Lola mulled the possibilities. There was always a chance that this was one of those “Butcher Baker” things. That had happened before Lola’s time, before she was born even, but everyone in Alaska law enforcement knew about Robert Hansen. The serial killer had kidnapped Anchorage prostitutes throughout the 1970s and early 80s, and then flown them out to his remote cabin where he raped them a while and then let them go so he could hunt them like animals. If it was something like that, then maybe nobody in town was involved. They were dealing with an entirely different animal. The Meads might already be dead, or they could be out there running for their lives from some madman with a rifle. The thought of it made her look behind her a little more than usual.

  The Meads had been taken away from the lodge for a reason. Someone could be hunting them, but the more likely reason was . . . well, just about anything else. In any case, it didn’t hurt to check out the likely bad actors here in Stone Cross. One of them might lead the way back to his or her buddies.

  Lola had a powerful flashlight, but she left it in her pocket. Instead, she slogged through the darkness using her peripheral vision and a sort of echolocation from the sucking slurp of her boots against the mud in order to stay on the trail. The inky blackness creeped her out a little, but she liked the on-edge feeling. The village was already remote enough. If she got in trouble out here, where no one could hear her, she’d have to figure a way out of it on her own—a feeling she liked even better.

  There were no street signs, and the houses she passed—the ones she could see through the fog—all looked alike, but the musty odor of two dozen wet dogs and their associated crap made the place easy enough to find. She followed the smell past three junked snow machines that had been made into a fort, and beyond a dense thicket of willows and alders. It took a lot of food to feed so many working dogs, and the telltale odor of a full rack of dried fish was soon added to the moist air.

  The wet snow had stopped and temperatures hovered somewhere around thirty-two. That was downright balmy by Alaska standards, but moist fog crawled inside every layer of Lola’s clothing, sapping the heat from her body. Even her stomach shivered. Her grandfather’s people were Cook Island Maori, seafaring souls accustomed to coconuts and warm South Pacific breezes. He’d married a hardy blonde who’d run away from her Nebraska farm to see what the rest of the world had to offer. Lola’s thick black hair, high cheekbones, and bronze skin made her look more like her Polynesian ancestors, but at times like these she wished she could channel a little of her Nebraskan grandmother’s Nordic blood. Maybe even a little of her body fat for insulation. . . No, that was just crazy.

  Instructors at the academy did their level best to prepare baby deputy marshals for life on the street—running, shooting, interviewing, driving, more running—but freezing to death in ankle-deep mud while on the lookout for rabid foxes was never mentioned once in Lola’s training. These Alaska moments made her wonder if she’d ever be able to adjust to the rest of the Marshals Service. Her Basic Deputy classmates had almost four years on the job now, and each of her classmates’ experiences were as varied as the ninety-four districts in which they served. Those assigned to sub-offices got their feet wet hunting fugitives straight after graduation. The ones who landed in bigger districts, especially those along the southwest border, or, God forbid, DC Superior Court, got to be besties with the inside of a courtroom for days, weeks, and months on end. She had heard from fellow deputies that they stowed their sidearms in a lockbox when they got to work, spent all day escorting prisoners in three-piece suits (handcuffs, waist chains, and leg-irons) back and forth from the cellblock to court, and then didn’t arm up again until they left for the evening jail run.

  Lola didn’t mind hooking and hauling prisoners, or sitting in court once in a while. It helped her learn about people. She was a student of human nature—you had to be in this business. The sad sacks caught between the millstones of their own behavior and the unyielding weight of government justice lost any pretense or façade. Learning what made people tick helped Lola hunt them. Many law enforcement officers only saw bits and pieces of an outlaw’s personality. A prisoner might curse and swagger at his arresting officer or put on a meek face in front of the jury. But alone in the cell, facing the prospect of years in prison, bravado got flushed down the stainless-steel sink-and-toilet combo. For some reason, federal sentences always came down in months—You shall be confined to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons for a period of three hundred sixty months instead of saying straight out, thirty years. The lawyers explained it all beforehand, but the poor bastards always stood there in front of the judge, first with a look of bewildered relief because they heard months instead of years. Months didn’t seem so bad, even if there were hundreds of them. And then they got back to the USMS cells and did the math. One guy, a man in his early fifties who’d just been sentenced for child exploitation, finally figured out how to divide by twelve and realized that three hundred months meant twenty-five years. “There’s no federal parole,” he’d whispered, like all the air was leaking out of him. “I am going to die in prison . . .” “Things change all the time,” Lola had said, tossing the guy a flimsy lifeline, not because she felt sorry for him. He was a piece of human trash. But because she wanted him to behave on the ride back to the jail.

  Lola picked her way through sparse willows, edging close enough she could see the outline of the cabin.

  She loved this stuff, but hoped to be promoted someday, or at the very least, try something different in the Service. Some specialty position like witness security inspector or a sex offender investigations coordinator. The problem with all that was Cutter. She’d never say it to him out loud, but he was such an outstanding boss that any move away from the district felt like a demotion. At least he was a good boss so long as he didn’t beat the shit out of someone and get her jammed up with OPR—the Office of Professional Responsibility. Not that the guys he smacked didn’t deserve smacking. They did. But Cutter had a reputation, which tended to make misuse-of-force cases extremely palatable to attorneys.

  The man flat did not care. He was an enigma, like he didn’t need the job.

  Ninety-eight percent of the time he was all Southern manners and yes-ma’ams. But that other two percent . . . Heaven help the poor soul on the receiving end of Arliss Cutter’s wrath. Something had apparently happened to him during a deployment with the army. He never talked about it. But whatever it was, it took away his ability to suffer a bully, even for a millisecond. Spit on him, you’d certainly get thrown to the ground and handcuffed. Spit on someone else—especially someone he saw as needing his protection—and you were going to get your ass whipped. No questions, no reprieves, no warning. He hardly ever smiled anyway, but his frowns w
ere enough to loosen the bowels of anyone who got in his way. His anger focused like the light of a thousand suns, withering everything in its path. Lola liked that.

  He’d never so much as raised his voice to her—and she’d screwed up plenty of times—but she’d seen him nearly take the head off a guy who spoke rudely to the clerk at a little stop-and-rob where they were gassing up the G-ride. Arliss Cutter didn’t mollycoddle her, didn’t hold her hand during the tough stuff, but she was dead-level certain that he always had her back. A good boss gave you room to move, to make decisions, to stomp your own snakes—and she was damned good at stomping, even out here in this sloppy mess.

  Cutter had gone to watch the shop teacher, who apparently spent his off time frequenting websites that featured sturdy women with big asses. Lola tensed her drum-tight glutes. She wasn’t a small woman, but probably wasn’t big enough for that kind of website. She thought about it for a second, then resolved to do more lunges to make sure. That guy was one surveillance she was happy to skip.

  Lola was still fifty yards away when twenty-four Alaska sled dogs announced her presence with a riot of barks and whines. Chains rattled, wooden houses thumped and thudded as the dogs jumped on top. Lola stopped, then stepped slowly sideways, attempting to fade into a stand of willows. The notion of bumping into a rabid fox crossed her mind, but the porch light flicked on, giving her something else to think about. The door opened slowly and Mrs. Taylor stepped out, causing the dog yard to go completely crazy.

  It was difficult to tell for sure in the fog, but it looked like Taylor was dressed in long johns and house slippers. Staying-in-by-the-fire clothes. That was good.

  For one terrifying moment, Lola was worried Taylor might have one of the dogs in the house, off the leash. If that happened she was screwed. She remained motionless, fog and darkness her only concealment. No growling guard dog bounded out. Donna Taylor stood with one hand on the doorknob and leaned against the frame. It seemed as if the woman was looking right at her, but Lola chalked the feeling up to nerves. Bad guys always seemed to stare straight at your hiding spot. The truth was, most people didn’t give a second thought to anyone else in the world. It was usually only longtime criminals and meth heads who thought they were being followed. Lola took a couple of deep combat breaths to steady herself. Taylor definitely knew something had excited the dogs. She was a tall woman, sturdy looking—Lola stifled a chuckle, wondering what the pervy shop teacher thought about that. Blond hair was pulled back haphazardly with a wide elastic band, like she’d been interrupted in the process of washing her face before bed. She turned her head slowly, trying to see what had spooked her dogs, but she’d just come from a room with all the lights on. There was an open woodstove behind her, blazing away, which meant she had probably been staring into the fire. Her night vision would be toast.

  Lola remained motionless anyway, except for the shivering. Hopefully, her chattering teeth sounded much louder in her head than they really were.

  A cold wind freshened from the west. It wasn’t much, just a gentle back-of-the-throat puff, like the gods breathing fog against a glass. The temperature was dropping. Lola could feel it pinch her nose. She shivered from excitement now. Wind and falling temps meant the fog would lift and the troopers could start looking for the Meads. Maybe they could get the judge out of here and help with the hunt.

  Taylor reached inside and grabbed a puffy down jacket. Draping it over her shoulders, she stood at the door and stared into the night, singing something that Lola couldn’t quite make out. A lullaby maybe? It would take half an hour for Taylor’s eyes to fully adjust to the darkness, especially if she’d been staring into the fire, but every second that ticked by made Lola feel more exposed.

  After five full minutes, Taylor gave a final yell at the dogs, and then turned to go inside. Lola checked her watch. Nine thirty was late for someone who faced down elementary school kids all day and then mushed dogs several nights a week. Taylor was dressed in fuzzy slippers and jammies—well, thermals she probably used as jammies. She’d stoked up the fire in the stove and was in the middle of washing her face for bed.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Lola whispered.

  James Johnny, the guy who was jealous of Rolf Hagen’s choice of girlfriends, lived on the road out toward the airport. Lola would go there next to see if he’d returned from hunting. Or link up with Cutter if he’d come up with anything good on the shop teacher.

  The slurp of her muddy boots brought another eruption of yelps and barks from the dogs—the rural equivalent of a knock at the apartment door. It didn’t matter. By now, Taylor must have thought she had a moose or a bear stomping around outside. The wind had picked up enough to rustle the smallest willows, sending a fresh chill down Lola’s spine. Her Maori relatives on Rarotonga told stories of spirits, restless warriors who marched in the mountains and fog at night. As a little girl, she’d giggled when her grandfather told her about a ghost pig that haunted the area near Black Rock—until it was time for bed. For some reason, ghost pigs weren’t so funny when the lights were off. She wondered if Yup’ik people believed in ghosts. It was hard not to on nights like this, with fog and darkness so thick it felt like you had to swim through it.

  Lola broke out her flashlight as soon as she made it beyond the willows, well away from the boisterous dog yard and Donna Taylor’s cabin. The beam was incredibly bright, six hundred lumens or something, but it did little good to light her way now, reflecting back to her like a broken light saber in the white vapor. But it made her feel better, and with any luck, it would help her catch the approach of any rabid foxes. Her hand dropped to the butt of her pistol and she picked up her pace, nearly losing a boot to the sucking mud.

  Rabid foxes . . . The Action Service indeed.

  CHAPTER 30

  Birdie Pingayak slid the yellow margarine tub containing left- over agutaq onto the top shelf of her refrigerator, between a mayonnaise jar half full of seal oil and a clear baggie of smoked salmon strips that she intended to eat for lunch the next day. She’d been too twisted up inside to eat much of anything at the potluck, especially after she’d seen Jolene talking to the lady deputy. Lola Teariki had actually made her daughter laugh. What was up with that? Birdie got herself a glass of water from the tap—which, miraculously, was working today. She thought about boiling it, but decided her stomach bugs were accustomed to their little friends in the village water by now. She leaned against the counter, arching her back, catlike, while she looked around her living room. It was a good house, fairly new. Like most houses in the village, it had a crapload of framed photos covering the walls.

  Jolene was six years old before she’d asked why there were no photos of her father. Tony’s mom had pictures of her dad and her dad was dead. Robert’s dad caught a lot of caribou. Melissa’s mom hated her dad. Did her mom hate her dad too? Was her dad dead? Was her dad off hunting caribou? Did she even have a dad?

  There was no good answer. Birdie wasn’t about to let Jolene’s DNA donor near her, let alone put his photo on the wall of her house. He was dead, to her at least. If he was ever foolish enough to come to the door, he’d be dead to everyone.

  Before Birdie’s time, the principal at Stone Cross school lived in the big three-bedroom unit at the south end of district housing. That boss’s proximity to everyone else had cramped teacher parties, which these guys badly needed because they were away from all their families and friends. It wasn’t exactly a downside as far as the district head-shed was concerned. Birdie grew up in Stone Cross, so she already had a house when she was hired as a teacher. It was a nice place, warm, sealed against western Alaska’s notorious weather with Tyvek wrap, but it was small. Then this place had become available, with cold-resistant siding that was a pretty robin’s-egg blue instead of the wind-scoured plywood like so many of the other houses in Stone Cross. One of the elders on the village council had it built after making a ton of money off the contract to upgrade the road leading out to the airport. He’d died shortly
after and Birdie was able to scoop it up.

  It was less than ten years old, with the cluttered look of a grandma’s house with far too many mementos—nothing like her office, which she preferred to keep sparse. Like most people in Stone Cross, Birdie was brought up Russian Orthodox. Icons of the Virgin Mary and other assorted saints hung on the woodgrain panel in the corner of the living room. Photographs of Jolene in her soccer uniforms for every year since she was five ran the length of the couch. There was a Jolene-performing-traditional-dances section, Jolene as a baby, Jolene fishing, and Jolene’s beautiful chubby face, almost swallowed by the fur ruff of her parka as she sat on her grandfather’s dogsled. Portraits of Birdie’s parents and both sets of grandparents watched over the house from the dining nook. Her mom and dad were smiling, looking happy to be in photos together. Both had their share of issues, especially when a new batch of home brew made the rounds, but Birdie had no doubt that they loved each other. In the center of the wall above the dining table, in a place of honor that was visible from virtually anywhere in the room, hung a black and white eight-by-ten photograph of Birdie’s great-grandmother.

  The black and white photo was taken a few years after World War II, when Bertha Sovok Flannigan was already an old woman. She sat flat on the floor with her legs stretched straight out in front of her while she sewed the sole on the freshly chewed skin of a mukluk. A long piece of sinew thread hung from a needle in her hand. Her hair was parted in the middle, braided on each side. Dark Asian eyes were set over prominent cheekbones on a wind-burned face that looked as though it might have been carved from polished mahogany. She looked directly at the camera, smiling so hard her eyes almost disappeared in her cheeks. The tattooed lines below her chin were faded with age, but still visible. According to the back of the original photograph, it had been taken by Birdie’s great-grandfather, Horace Flannigan, a school administrator assigned to Wainwright—Ulguniq in the old times—by Alaska Native Services. It was the only photograph Birdie had of her great-grandmother. She loved it most of all because her Protestant great-grandfather had been unashamed of his tattooed Eskimo wife. Bertha’s smile said it all, really. You didn’t smile like that unless you loved the guy taking the photo.