Killing Grounds

by Dana Stabenow

  *

  “What did they want to do?” Old Sam said. “Your kids? They are twins, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, they are twins, may God have more mercy on me in my next life.” Anne Flanagan smiled and set out a plate of chocolate-striped shortbread, Old Sam’s favorite cookie on the planet. Old Sam looked like he was in love.

  “They wanted to go up to Mary Balashoff’s. Mary is kippering salmon today and they want to know how.”

  “Well hell, let ‘em. Mary’s been teaching kids to fish and such for the last thirty years.” Old Sam dunked his cookie in coffee and bit into it with a satisfied grunt.

  “Usually I do, but her place is across the creek, and the tide’s coming in, and—” She paused, and busied herself at the sink, washing out a mug with special care.

  “And they’ll have to cross the site between yours and Mary’s, and Meany’s is that site, and Meany’s just been murdered and you don’t want your kids anywhere near the place,” Old Sam finished for her.

  Anne Flanagan turned from the sink to give the old man a rueful smile. “Silly, isn’t it?”

  He snorted into his mug. “No way, lady. You keep them as far away from that bunch as you can. Those folks got problems, and I don’t mean just with the killing of their man. They give the word ‘dysfunction’ a whole new definition.”

  “You could go with them,” Kate said. “With the twins to Mary’s.”

  Anne Flanagan’s fine blue eyes rested on her face for a moment. “I could,” she agreed, “and I probably will, later, but for now I’ve got bread rising and half a dozen other chores left to do.” She smiled again at Old Sam. “You know how it is with kids. They want everything yesterday.”

  “You’ve heard about the murder, then,” Kate said, before this turned into Old Home Week at the Y.

  The minister poured out a cup of coffee and sat down across the table from her. “Yes.”

  “Who told you?” Old Sam frowned at Kate’s abrupt tone, but she ignored him.

  “Wendell Kritchen.”

  Wendell had brought Frank back from town, and couldn’t wait to spread the bad news. The DEW line of the Bush telegraph, that was Wendell. “He tell you Meany was murdered?”

  Anne Flanagan’s mouth pulled down a little at the corners, with distress or distaste. Kate couldn’t decide. “Yes.”

  “State Trooper Jim Chopin asked me to do a little preliminary investigating while he takes the body to the coroner in Anchorage,” Kate said. “We’ve just come from the Meany place.”

  Anne Flanagan’s eyebrows raised in a polite question.

  “Neil Meany told us he was here for dinner last night, Reverend Flanagan.”

  Kate would have sworn on oath that the slight emphasis on the other woman’s title wasn’t voluntary. Anne Flanagan’s eyes narrowed a little. “Why, yes, he was.”

  No invitation to call her by her first name, but then Kate didn’t seek the privilege, thanks anyway. “What time did he get here?”

  “Right after the period was over,” the minister said readily. “He brought one of those Japanese floats over for the girls. I invited him to stay for supper. Spaghetti and garlic bread, leftovers warmed up from the night before,” she added, her first trace of sarcasm, and surprised a snort of laughter out of Old Sam.

  “When did he leave?”

  “He helped with the dishes, and we talked. The girls were outside playing until late—I let them go to bed when they want to, out here—and when they came in, they wanted to play Monopoly. They like Neil, too. I made coffee, and Neil had one cup, and we played one game, and he left.”

  “What time?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I don’t know,” Anne Flanagan repeated, and smiled at Old Sam. “We don’t have a clock. The sun was down by the time he left, had been down for a while, so it was late.”

  “Past midnight? One o’clock?”

  “I’d guess the girls came in about midnight. Maybe a little before, maybe a little after, I don’t know. They’re such night owls, the two of them. And then the game, which took a while. Monopoly always takes a while.”

  “But you don’t know how long a while?”

  “No. Like I said, no clocks. And then we had another cup of coffee, and then he went home.” Anne Flanagan paused, turning her mug between her hands. “That’s the rule, no watches, no clocks. No sundials, no hourglasses, no ship’s bells, no poles in the sand, no chronometers of any kind.”

  One corner of Old Sam’s mouth curled up and, encouraged, Anne Flanagan added, “This beach has always seemed to me like a place out of time. Our nearest neighbors are at anchor or four miles down. There are no roads, and while what with fish spotting and stream surveys and sport fishermen you can’t get away from the planes, the only time one lands on our section is to bring us here or take us home. Time—” She shrugged. “It doesn’t exist. It does exist, I know that, but—”

  “Here you wag it, instead of it wagging you,” Old Sam suggested.

  An answering smile spread across Anne Flanagan’s face. “Yes. This time of year it’s easy. The sun doesn’t go down, it just goes around.”

  At this latitude that was an exaggeration, but not much of one. Kate was skeptical. “How do you know when you can put your net in the water?”

  The smile faded. “We wait until everyone else has theirs in the water. Sometimes Lamar Rousch goes by in his boat and says it’s time.”

  Kate barely repressed a snort. “You can miss a lot of fish that way.”

  “It’s not about making money for us, Ms. Shugak,” Anne Flanagan said levelly.

  “No?”

  “No. It’s about getting away from town, and all the noise that comes with it. It’s about getting the kids away from the nuts that Anchorage Job Service unloads on Cordova canneries every summer. It’s about me taking a break, from my job, from my church and from my parishioners.” She shrugged, and drank coffee. “Truth to tell, half of them are gone fishing themselves, so it’s not like I’m abandoning my congregation. And it’s good to get out here and away from the telephone and the television.”

  “Back to nature?” Kate suggested, something not quite a sneer on her face.

  Anne Flanagan’s voice remained level. “If you like.”

  “The better to commune with God, I suppose.”

  A muscle twitched in Anne Flanagan’s cheek. “If you like,” she repeated.

  Old Sam put his mug down and frowned at Kate. She ignored him. Neil Meany had said that he’d gotten home at one-thirty or two o’clock. “Did you watch Neil Meany go back to his cabin?”

  One eyebrow went up, and this time there was nothing of polite inquiry in it. “No. Neil Meany is a grown man. I was sure he was capable of making it home without my supervision.”

  “Did Neil Meany talk to you about his relationship with his brother?”

  The other woman hesitated, and Kate said, “What, did he tell you under the seal of the confessional?”

  Anne Flanagan stiffened in her chair. “I don’t hear confessions, Ms. Shugak,” she said coldly. “I am not a Catholic priest.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” Kate was aware of Old Sam sitting very still next to her. She could feel the weight of his gaze boring into her but, again, she ignored it.

  “Merely, I was organizing my thoughts. I am aware that, by virtue of my firsthand experience of the Meany family, I may have valuable insight into the situation.”

  “Read a lot of mysteries, do you?” Kate said unkindly.

  Anne Flanagan sat up straight in her chair and, fixing her gaze at a point above Kate’s right shoulder, reeled off a staccato recitation of events that Chopper Jim would have admired for its brevity, clarity and wholly impersonal tone. “I first met Neil the first of June, when school let out and we moved out to the site. His family was already here.” She paused. “I was not impressed with his brother. Calvin Meany seemed to me to be a businessman of dubious ethics as wel
l as a domestic tyrant. Marian—” She shook her head, as if to say, There is no there there. Kate was inclined to agree, but she didn’t say so. “His children—” She shook her head again.

  “His brother I did like. Do like. He has visited me and the girls perhaps eight, ten times over the past five weeks. Sometimes he stays for dinner, sometimes he doesn’t. We’ve shared meals, played board games, talked about books we’ve read. He’s quite a scholar. I gather he was studying for a doctorate in English literature before his brother brought him to Alaska. He is planning to return to school after next year’s season.” She took a drink of coffee. “How does—did he feel about his brother? He didn’t like him, but then that was a trait shared by the entire family. Frankly, I have yet to meet anyone who did like Calvin Meany, in the family or out of it.”

  So had Kate. “If he disliked his brother so much, why follow him all the way to Alaska from Ohio and go to work for him?”

  The other woman frowned. “I don’t know, exactly.” She hesitated, her eyes troubled. “He misses school. He really wants that Ph.D.”

  “Now there’s a motive for murder,” Kate said admiringly. “Academic frustration. I’ll try that out on Chopper Jim when he gets back.”

  Anne Flanagan’s fair skin flushed a deep red right up to the roots of her hair. She looked at Kate and opened her mouth, looked at Old Sam and closed it again. Her chair grated against the floor as she stood up. “I think I’ve told you all I can,” she said. “If you’ll excuse me. I have chores to do.”

  “Thanks for the coffee. Anne.” Old Sam got up, jammed his hat on his head and left without a word. Kate followed.

  Halfway down to where the skiff was beached, not far because the tide was coming in, their ears were assaulted by a high, thin voice rising into a piercing shriek, coming from the trees that lined the bank. “This is your last chance. Jabba! Surrender, or die!”

  Two disheveled twins emerged from the bushes, one with a slingshot, the other with a bow and arrow. Both weapons were loaded, and the enemy looked hostile.

  Where was Mutt when she needed her? Kate thought, staring down at the twins. The twins stared back, pugnacious and unafraid.

  Old Sam shot his hands up in the air and quavered in a high, falsetto voice, “We surrender! Don’t hurt us! Please! Take us to your leader!”

  This was more like it, and the twins relaxed without taking their fingers off the triggers.

  Unwisely, Kate said, “Watch where you’re pointing those things, you might hurt somebody.”

  Their expressions hardened instantly. “You should have bargained. Jabba.” the twin holding the how and arrow said ominously. She raised her weapon and sighted and an arrow whizzed between Old Sam and Kate.

  “Hey!” Kate retreated a step. Old Sam was already beating feet for the skiff. A rock zinged past six inches in front of her startled eyes, and the enemy was reloading.

  It was with distinct relief that she heard Anne Flanagan’s voice raised from the cabin. “Caitlin! Lauren! You knock that off, right now!”

  With more haste and less dignity than she would have liked, Kate retreated to the skiff, pushed it off the beach and jumped into the bow. By the time they were afloat, the twins had vanished back into the undergrowth, their mother in hot pursuit.

  “I’ve got to hand it to you, Kate,” Old Sam said when they were safely offshore, “when you hold a grudge, you hold a grudge.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kate lied, sitting very erect on the midship thwart.

  “The hell you don’t,” he said, his voice hard and flat and, yes, angry. “You had a run-in with that born-again zealot in Chistona last summer, so now you figure every preacher is tarred with the same brush. You know better, Kate, or you should. It just ain’t so that everybody called to God is a fanatic fixing to burn your books. You ain’t never been in Anne Flanagan’s church. You never heard her speak. You don’t know that she’s anything like that Seabolt asshole.” She heard the sounds of the starter cord being ferociously yanked, to no effect. “And you oughta know by the way I acted around her that she ain’t nothing like him at all. You ought to march your butt right back up that beach and apologize.” He yanked on the starter again. The engine spluttered and didn’t catch. Old Sam swore. “I ought to by God march it for you.”

  Kate, momentarily forgetting who she was speaking to, bristled and snapped, “Try it on, old man. Just you try it on.”

  She was sitting facing forward, arms folded, jaw tight, glowering at the bow of the skiff. The next thing she knew, there was a hand at her collar and another at the waistband of her jeans and a sudden sensation of weightlessness, followed by a tremendous splash.

  She came up spluttering and coughing. They were still close in to shore and the water was shallow enough for her to find her feet. She sluiced off her face with one hand and glared up at the old man. “What the hell do you think you’re doing!”

  “Teaching you respect for your elders,” he said calmly, wrapping the starter cord around the top of the kicker. It caught this time, and he throttled it back to a low roar.

  “Hey!” Kate said, as the skiff began to move slowly away from her.

  His voice floated back to her. “Walk it off, girl. I’ll be waiting for you at Mary’s.”

  And he left her there, waist-deep in the Gulf of Alaska, as he put-putted peacefully down the bay.

  Twelve

  IT WAS FIVE MILES from the Flanagan setnet site to the Balashoff setnet site, and the distance was not made any easier by the soft, wet gravel underfoot, the weight of her soaking clothes, the sight of Anne Flanagan emerging from the trees, twins in tow, in time to see her squelch off, the knowledge that only ten or twelve fishermen had to be watching from the boats anchored around the bay and, last but most definitely not least, the sting of her own conscience.

  Ekaterina Ivana Shugak was thirty-three years old, and the last time she had had to be reprimanded for disrespect to her elders was twenty-five years before, when at a potlatch she had failed to yield her chair to a visiting tribal leader from Port Graham. Her grandmother had said nothing of her granddaughter’s breach of manners, nothing at all, not during the potlatch, and not for seven days afterwards. The other Niniltna elders had followed her lead, even Abel, who had turned the emotional temperature way down at his homestead for the longest week of her life. She had never forgotten it.

  She had never repeated her error, either.

  Until today.

  The recognition of her violation of etiquette, of her dereliction of duty was slow and labored in coming. It took a mile of beach just to burn off her temper. She churned up the gravel better than a four-wheeler, and it was only exhaustion that slowed her down in the end. She was a grown woman, a person with education and experience, loved by her family, valued by her colleagues and looked up to by her community, not to mention feared by her enemies; what call did Old Sam have to correct her manners? One lousy little remark, not shouted, barely spoken, whispered even, and suddenly it was time to bob for apples, full-body-immersion style. This was the goddam Gulf of Alaska, after all, where the temperature of the water never rose above forty-two degrees Fahrenheit, she could come down with hypothermia in two minutes, count ’em, two, and go into shock and die right there on the beach, if not lose consciousness while she was still in the water and drown, and wouldn’t Old Sam be sorry then.

  By the second mile she’d slowed down enough to become miserably aware of her physical state. Damp denim chafed her thighs and her bra strap cut into the flesh beneath her arms. A residue of seawater tickled her sinuses and made her sneeze. Her skin was sticky, her shirt stuck to her back, her hair was falling out of its braid and, worst of all, her shoes squished. Above any other physical discomfort, Kate hated wet feet.

  By the beginning of the third mile she could see the Meanys’ cabin, and spent the next twenty minutes preparing to ignore with dignity any comment that might come her way. Her worst fears were realized; the two kids, Dani and
Frank, were sitting on the beach, heads together, talking earnestly. They broke off as she approached, their expressions at first hostile, then incredulous and finally delighted. They had the same eyes and the same chin; there wasn’t a lot of difference in their broad grins, either.

  “Been wading?” Dani inquired in a bland voice as Kate stumped grimly by.

  “You’re supposed to take your clothes off before you get in the water,” Frank added helpfully.

  Another time, Kate might have been relieved to see that Frank could smile and joke; now, all she could feel was the red creeping up the back of her neck. She marched on.

  It was another mile to Amartuq Creek. By then Kate was wet, tired and humiliated, and her defenses were down for the count.

  She had been rude to Old Sam. She had been even ruder to Anne Flanagan—rude hell, actively offensive, deliberately so. Further, Old Sam was correct when he said that Kate’s experiences at Chistona had colored her perception of Anne Flanagan from the moment she had been made aware that the woman shared a profession with the Right Reverend Simon Seabolt. Her grief for Daniel Seabolt had left scars, deeper ones than she had realized. Kate had never been one to agonize over past failures; nevertheless, under even the most superficial self-examination it was obvious that the events of the previous June had been nagging at her like an unhealed wound ever since.

  And poor Anne Flanagan, her mere existence a prod at the open sore, bore the brunt of an accumulated frustration Kate hadn’t even known she was carrying around.

  She had deserved the dunking for being rude to Sam, who had told her nothing less than the truth, and she had deserved the long walk in wet clothes for being rude to the Right Reverend Anne Flanagan, who had done nothing but offer Kate tea, cookies and her other cheek.

  And here at long last was the creek, its sandy mouth stretching wide, the incoming tide hiding the sandbar bisecting its channel, salmon making V-shaped ripples as they struggled upstream against the current. She halted at the water’s edge. And there was Old Sam’s skiff, beached on the other side of the creek. With the tide coming in, the channel was full of water. There would be no skipping across the sandbar that guarded the channel, which meant her shoes would get soaked again, and they had yet to dry out from their first dunking as it was.