Killing Grounds

by Dana Stabenow

  He slammed his patty into the frying pan with unnecessary force, and the resulting sizzle nearly took off his eyebrows. “It’s those goddam sport fishermen, is what it is, and their idiot escape demands. That goddam Bill Nickle won’t be satisfied until the only red taken from the Sound is taken with a silver spinner.”

  Kate set her patty down next to his. The subsequent tantalizing aroma made her mouth water. There was nothing better than mooseburger, especially in the middle of the summer, when it seemed you would never get the smell of fish out of your nostrils or the fish scales out of your hair. Frying mooseburger was the smell of fall, and dry land beneath your feet, and settlement time.

  Kate waited until they’d eaten before broaching the matter of their departure a second time. Old Sam was much more approachable on a full stomach. For that matter, so was she.

  “We might as well put ‘er in dry dock,” he said glumly, “all the fish we’re likely to haul in this year. Hardly worth the price of copper paint.”

  Kate wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Old Sam glum before. A mischievous, sometimes malicious, always impudent elf of a man, he enjoyed life and irritating the people in it too much to squander time brooding. As annoying as he usually was, she found she didn’t like it when he wasn’t. “Listen, Sam, I need to talk to some people on the Alaganik beach. Maybe even some of the drifters.” She paused. “It’d be a lot easier to have the Freya as a base of operations.”

  He raised his head, examining her with sharp old eyes almost hidden in folds of wrinkles. “This got something to do with Meany?”

  She nodded. “I promised Chopper Jim I’d nose around a little.”

  It was like she’d thrown a switch. He jumped to his feet and chucked plate, silver and mug into the sink on top of the unwashed frying pan. “Why didn’t you say so, girl?” he said, grinning a grin that rivaled Chopper Jim’s for sharkness. “Cast off, I’ll wake her up.”

  As Kate went to the bow, she reflected that cops-and-robbers was the one game boys never really grew out of.

  Ten

  THE BEACH THAT EDGED ALGANIK BAY began in the west at the Kanuyaq River delta and ended in the east in the high cliffs that abruptly broke off the southward march of the Ragged Mountains. There were three creeks big enough to be named, Calhoun, Amartuq and Coal, and a dozen rivulets that only appeared at low tide.

  It was a broad, steep expanse of fine, dark gray sand mixed with tumbled gravel. Heaped piles of seaweed and driftwood logs bleached white by the salt of the sea were scattered across the high-water mark. Tidal pools formed in the rocks exposed by low tide, sheltering sticklebacks and hermit crabs and sea urchins, and now and then a flounder or a bullhead, and occasionally a small salmon. Kate loved a tidal pool, and had ever since she was a toddler splashing after bidarkys.

  No time for tidal pool exploration or a seafood harvest today. Kate stood on the bridge of the Freya and surveyed the beach through Old Sam’s binoculars. Just above the high-tide mark the rain forest closed in, pine and cedar and alder and cottonwood and birch and spruce all jostling for place. The setnet sites had been hacked out of this jungle by main force, and the cabins built there constructed either of prefab kits freighted in by barge, or of the detritus of sea and land, their split log-tarpaper-plywood designs reminding Kate of Emaa’s add-on, multilevel, anything-goes-for-siding-including-the-sawed-off-bottoms-of-beer-bottles home in Niniltna.

  The Meanys’ nearest neighbor to the west was Mary Balashoff; to the cast, the Flanagans. “Widow woman,” Old Sam said briefly. “Got herself a couple of girl kids that are holy terrors. You can go talk to them all by yourself.”

  She wanted to talk to everyone all by herself, but Old Sam wasn’t having any. He ignored gentle hint and loud protest alike and climbed down into the skiff like he owned it. He did, so she yielded the kicker and moved forward to sit on the thwart in the bow, feeling reduced to ballast. Mary Balashoff's site was on the west side of Amartuq Creek, Meany’s on the east. It was far and away the richest creek that emptied into Alaganik Bay (Kate’s ancestral elders had been no fools), and she wondered how Johnny-come-lately Meany had acquired title to the site. She asked Old Sam.

  Old Sam took his time steering the skiff around a clump of seaweed. A sea otter kept a wary eye on them from the center of the clump, paws clutching a clam and a rock. “He didn’t. He didn’t need to.”

  “Why not?”

  “Alaska beaches are public beaches up to the high-water mark. Setnet sites can’t be personal property.”

  Kate knew this, but held her peace. Old Sam never passed up an opportunity to relieve her ignorance, whether or not she suffered any. He resembled Shitting Seagull in that respect. She turned her head to hide a smile.

  “However,” Old Sam said pontifically, “if somebody’s family has been fishing the same site for a hundred years, it’s their site for the next hundred, unless you want to try to move in at the point of a twelve-gauge.”

  Kate’s gaze sharpened. “So you’re telling me Meany brought a twelve-gauge?”

  “Pretty much. Nate Moonin used to fish it, but he sold his cabin to the Ursins, a married couple from Anchorage.” Kate remembered Lamar telling her that nearly a third of the setnetters on the Sound were neither traditional nor professional fishermen. “Teachers,” Old Sam said. “Well hell, makes some kind of sense, I guess. Teachers get the summer off, so they buy a permit and move their families down for the duration.” He grinned. “ ‘How I Spent My Summer Vacation.’ ”

  “How’d Meany get in on the act?”

  Old Sam shrugged. “Way I heard it, school got out and the Ursins came down and Meany was already on the site.”

  “That’s all?”

  Old Sam snorted. “Hell no, that’s not all. I wasn’t there, and Ursin didn’t slow down enough to talk to on his way north, so I don’t know what happened firsthand.”

  “But you can guess.”

  “I can guess,” Sam said, nodding. “I figure Meany offered to buy the cabin, because Meany always was one to keep things nice and legal. Probably for ten cents on the dollar, but he sure as shit’d steal it legal.” He paused, and added, almost reluctantly, “They had those three kids, ages ten and under.”

  It was a moment before Kate realized what he was saying. “You think he threatened them? You think Meany threatened to hurt the Ursin kids if the Ursins didn’t sell to him?”

  With flat conviction Old Sam said, “I think Meany did whatever was necessary to get the job done.”

  Kate thought again of the boy on the boat. Meany had been more than capable of beating on his own kid. Threats to someone else’s would have come naturally to him.

  The buzz of the outboard was loud against the silence of the day, the smell of salt water sharp and demanding. “That Mrs. Ursin, now, there was a nice gal,” Sam said suddenly. “Womanly,” he added with emphasis, nodding at Kate to make sure she got the idea that she herself might be somewhat lacking in that department. “Made one hell of a pineapple upside-down cake.”

  So do I, Kate thought, given enough Bisquick. But if she said so she’d be making two a week for the rest of the summer, so she kept quiet.

  “They didn’t know much about fishing, but they were learning. Didn’t sell much, but then they canned half of what they caught. I was going to show them how to smoke fish this summer.” He nodded toward the beach. “Jeff cleared a bunch of alder last fall, cut and stacked a cord of it next to the cabin. I see the Meanys been burning it, probably for fuel.” He spat over the side, and shipped oars as the skiff’s bow ran up on the beach.

  Kate jumped ashore and pulled the skiff up, tying the bow line to a driftwood log above the high-water mark. She looked toward the cabin and saw a curl of smoke rising up out of the chimney. It was half past seven, and the sun was still struggling to fight its way inside the low overcast. The bay was like glass, and although most of the fleet had headed back for town on the morning tide, there were enough boats left with men occupying themselves with make-wor
k jobs in their laps for Kate to realize she was under better surveillance than she could have hired through the Continental Op. She was not overjoyed to see that the Bush telegraph was doing its usual efficient job. Gossip tainted memories. She hoped potential eyewitnesses were keeping themselves to themselves, but it was a vain hope and she knew it.

  She felt a nudge in the small of her back. “Well, come on, girl,” Old Sam said impatiently, “what are you waiting for?” He set off up the steep slope at a brisk pace, and Kate followed. By the time she caught up with him, he was hammering on the door of the cabin.

  It was a trim little building, one of the prefabricated ones, with a corrugated-tin roof and neat powder-blue plastic siding. It stood over the high-water mark on pilings, its back to the bank as the forest primeval leaned down and tried to snatch it up in great green arms. The deck was unvarnished cedar that had gone a beautiful silvery gray, and still smelled wonderful in the salt air. The door opened abruptly just as Old Sam was fixing to hammer on it a second time.

  By her age and general air of wear and tear, the woman standing in front of them was the wife. “Mrs. Meany?” Kate said. “Mrs. Calvin Meany?”

  “Yes.” The single word was uninviting, either of further conversation or of entrance.

  “My name is Kate Shugak. This is Sam Dementieff. We’re the ones who found your husband’s body this morning.”

  She didn’t say anything, just stood in the doorway with her arms folded tightly against her. She had been pretty once, and with luck—widowhood, perhaps?—and a change of occupation might be pretty again. Dark auburn hair streaked with gray was matted against her skull, her skin was freckled and sunburned and her eyes were green and tired. Her figure was spectacular; from the neck down Mrs. Meany looked like Sophia Loren. Kate was impressed; anyone who could look statuesque in high-tops, filthy jeans and a faded brown plaid shirt was definitely out of the ordinary, and deserving of respect.

  Mrs. Meany did not appear to be stricken with grief. On the other hand, neither did she appear to be overtly hostile, or nervous. “May we come in?” Kate said.

  Mrs. Meany didn’t move. A voice came from the cabin. “Better let them in, Marian.”

  A man appeared behind Mrs. Meany. He was short of stature and stocky in build, much like Calvin Meany, but the blunt, nearly simian features of Meany’s face had been by some subtle transmutation thinned down, even refined here. The brow was broader, the nose high-bridged, even aristocratic, and when he met Kate’s eyes there was no trace of the predator that had lurked behind the drifter’s gaze. He was massaging a shoulder, and the knuckles of his hands were swollen and scraped and bruised. He looked as if a change of occupation might benefit him, too. “I’m Neil Meany,” he said. “Calvin was my brother. This is Marian, his wife. Please come in.”

  A gentle touch on one shoulder and Marian stepped obediently to one side. She didn’t close the door behind them, Kate noticed, but left it open, probably to encourage an early departure.

  It was a one-room cabin, lined with pink insulation between the two-by-four studs. Two sets of bunk beds stood against the far wall, a table and six chairs in one corner and a stove, a sink and cupboards in another. There was one window in each wall, the panes stained with smoke. The room was dim except for the muted light of the cloudy evening through the open door. No one had bothered to light a lamp, and the stove, a converted fifty-five-gallon drum, was cold to Kate’s casual touch.

  The handle on the fuel door across the stove’s belly was fashioned from an old metal doorknob, with latch. Kate had stumbled over a box of doorknobs just like it in the Freya’s focsle three days before. She looked over at Old Sam, who was glowering at her from beneath lowered brows, daring her to comment. She didn’t.

  “Please,” the brother said, gesturing. “Sit down. Would you like some tea? Dani, why don’t you put the kettle on.”

  The girl in one of the top bunks turned the page of her comic book. “Like, put it on yourself, okay?”

  “I’ll do it.” Marian Meany moved swiftly to the stove, detouring around Kate and Old Sam and Neil, pouring water out of a white plastic jerry can into a large kettle and lighting the camp stove on the counter. She remained there, staring out the window that faced the bay.

  Marian Meany moved like a woman one step ahead of a clenched fist. Old habits were hard to break. Kate looked from the widow to the two men at the table.

  The brother was on his feet, the younger man sitting down. The younger man had high, wide, slightly slanted brown eyes and a way of peering out from beneath tufted brows that gave him a distinctly vulpine look. His mouth was wide and full-lipped. He smiled at Kate, his face lighting with practiced charm.

  She didn’t smile back.

  “I’m sorry,” Neil Meany said, “what was your name again?”

  “Kate Shugak, Mr. Meany,” Kate said, “and this is Sam Dementieff, my uncle.” Maybe not technically, but close enough for government work. “Sam owns the Freya, the tender anchored out in the bay there. Your brother delivered to us last period.” Neil Meany glanced out the window and nodded. The light caught his face half in and half out of shadow; he looked tense and strained, natural enough in the circumstances. “Who is everyone else here, please?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “This is Frank and Dani Meany, my niece and nephew. And Evan McCafferty, our summer hand.”

  “How do you do,” she said. The summer hand smiled again. She ignored it. “We took your brother’s body back to town this morning.” She paused, but nobody asked. “The state trooper flew in and took the body to Anchorage.”

  Meany frowned. “Anchorage? Why Anchorage?”

  “Because there has to be an autopsy, Mr. Meany.”

  He went very still, eyes fixed on her face. “Autopsy?”

  “Yes. To determine how he was killed.”

  “You mean he didn’t just drown?”

  “No.” At the sink Marian Meany turned around. Her face was backlit by the window and Kate couldn’t make out her expression. This was awkward but necessary. Kate said levelly, “It looks like your husband was murdered, Mrs. Meany.”

  “Oh.”

  She didn’t seem much interested in how, Kate noted. Or perhaps she already knew?

  The brother said it for her. “How was he killed, Ms. Shugak?”

  “We don’t know.” She added, just to see the expression on their faces when she did, “It could have been one of several ways.”

  Neil Meany stared at her. “I beg your pardon?”

  Kate hesitated, more over how to phrase it than over fear of hurting anyone’s delicate sensibilities. “Well, you could say whoever did it wanted to be very sure your brother was dead.”

  An expression of revulsion crossed the mannered face, and Neil Meany put up a hand palm out. “Never mind. I don’t want to hear it.”

  Marian Meany remained silent. Kate looked at the boy sitting on the bottom bunk. “Your name is Frank, isn’t it? Frank Meany? Is there anything you can tell me about your father’s death, Frank?”

  “You’re not the cops,” the boy said, his heavy features, so like his father’s, cast in the same sullen mold as the last time she’d seen him. “We don’t have to talk to you.”

  “No, you don’t,” Kate agreed. “But you’re going to have to talk to somebody, sooner or later.”

  The boy ducked his head down, refusing to look at her, but she could see the misery—and perhaps fear—on his face.

  “Frank,” Neil Meany said sharply. “This kind of behavior doesn’t help us.”

  The girl in the top bunk turned her head to look at him. “Fuck off, Neil. Like, you know, you have anything to say about anything we do. Don’t talk to her if you don’t want to, Frank.”

  The silence in the little cabin gathered and grew. Kate kept her voice as nonthreatening as possible, and said, “Your sister’s right, Frank, you don’t have to talk to me. But you don’t really have anything to hide, do you? Did you have another fight with your father
? That’s certainly understandable, after the one I saw on Monday. Is that what happened?”

  A loud snort came from the top bunk. “Like, we never had a fight with our loving father, our loving father beat on us. There’s a difference, okay?”

  Kate kept her eyes on the boy. “I saw you on the deck of your dad’s drifter yesterday, when he went to town to deliver.”

  The boy still wouldn’t look up. “So?”

  “So, we need to know when was the last time you saw him.”

  Making them all jump, the girl slammed her comic book shut and bounced down from her bunk. She stood between Kate and the boy, her green eyes narrowed with hostility. She had a figure like her mother’s, better displayed in leggings and a halter top that bared her navel. All she needed was a veil and some bangles and she’d fit right into a harem. “Like, he went into town with our loving father, okay?” she said. “And our loving father as usual came up with some asshole excuse to start beating on him, okay? Like, you know, our loving father didn’t need an excuse? So Frank ran away, okay?”

  It was patently futile to look for grief from either of Calvin Meany’s children. Kate couldn’t blame them, and she would love to clear them of any complicity, but they weren’t helping her much. “What time did you leave the drifter, Frank?” she said.

  “Right after they pulled up to the cannery dock,” Dani said hotly. “You can ask the beach gang, they all saw our loving father beat the crap out of Frank. He knocked him into the friggin’ hold, for crissake, okay?”

  It wasn’t okay, but Kate didn’t say so. “Where did you go, Frank?”

  Again, Dani answered for Frank. “We do have some friends, okay? People who actually like us, okay? He went to stay with them.”

  Again, Kate addressed the boy. “Who did you stay with, Frank?” He kept his head down. “Frank.” Her voice compelled him to look up, finally. “You can make me leave you alone by telling me their names.”

  He held her gaze for a moment, and then his head drooped again. When he spoke his voice was an inarticulate mumble.