A Fatal Thaw

by Dana Stabenow

  Jack dissected another slice of French toast. “I told you to keep your investigation quiet, but noo-ooo, the first thing you do is tell all to the Blabber of the Bush. What, did he put it out on that pirate radio show of his: ‘Hey, everybody, somebody killed Lisa Getty, and it wasn’t McAniff!’”

  “Hey,” Bobby said in a hurt voice, pretending wounded feelings he didn’t have in hopes of getting another rise out of Jack. He knew perfectly well Jack was spoiling for a fight and would say whatever hurtful thing he could lay tongue to in the process. He also knew that Jack didn’t mean a word of it, that he would apologize for it later, and that he would owe Bobby big-time for putting up with his fouled mood. Bobby smiled to himself and tucked into his breakfast with relish.

  “You said you wanted me to handle this,” Kate said.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “On the evidence, not one of your better ideas,” Bobby observed, and Jack damned him with a single glare.

  “Then let me handle it,” Kate interjected before Jack could start in on Bobby.

  “Oh right, you’re handling it so well,” he retorted, “your second day in you almost get yourself killed.”

  She shook her head and regretted it. “No, I didn’t.”

  He paused, fork suspended in midair, to give her an incredulous stare. “Of course,” he said, very polite. “How silly of me. You weren’t shot yesterday. You weren’t unconscious for hours on Lisa Getty’s boat. You didn’t have to crawl on your hands and knees to your snow machine; you didn’t fall down unconscious and damn near dead on Bobby’s front porch; you don’t have a bandage on your head now. In fact, this is all a product of my overactive imagination and I’m going to wake up in Anchorage any minute. Feel free to mix in here anytime,” he told Bobby.

  “Why should I?” Bobby said, mopping up the last of his syrup. “You’re doing fine.”

  “Look, Kate,” Jack said, taking a deep breath and making an obvious grab for some shred of composure, “take it easy today, get your strength back up. Drink a lot, eat a lot, that kind of thing. From what Bobby says, you’ve lost a lot of blood. I’ll take the Jag into Niniltna and nose around, talk to a few people, maybe go up on the Step—”

  “No, you won’t,” Bobby said.

  Jack stared at him. “Mind telling me why not?”

  “I’m going into town this afternoon. Ekaterina’s throwing a potlatch at the gym.”

  Kate, forgetting her injury, sat up straight. “A potlatch? What for?”

  Bobby raised an eyebrow. “To say good-bye to those killed week before last, or so Billy Mike told me when he stopped by. Ekaterina wants everyone to turn out, so he says, and I am not one to spit in the eye of a royal command. So you,” he said to Jack, “need to stay and look after Kate.”

  “Oh,” Jack said, adding reluctantly, “okay. I’ll stay.”

  “No,” Kate said.

  “Why not?”

  “For one thing, Nurses Clark and Morgan, I feel fine. For another, I’ve got an errand to run in Niniltna myself this morning.”

  Forks clattered to plates. “What? Like hell! You—”

  “Woman!” Bobby’s roar was back in full force. “You’re not going anywhere anytime soon! You just got shot in the goddam head! Not that there was that much there to hit in the first place, but it must’ve shaken loose what few brains you used to have! You ain’t getting on no goddam snow machine and driving anywhere!”

  She bit down on her last piece of bacon. It crunched satisfyingly between her teeth and almost melted on her tongue, and she closed her eyes reverently.

  When she opened her eyes her two men were still yelling at her, with a steady increase in volume. Mutt had risen to her feet and was adding to the general hoopla with short, excited barks. Kate drained her mug, smiled ingratiatingly at Bobby and pitched her voice to cut through the hubbub. “Could I have a refill?”

  Bobby dithered and spluttered and finally snapped, “If you’re in good enough shape to get on a snow machine, you’re in good enough shape to get your own goddam coffee!” He glared at her.

  She rose carefully to her feet, pleased to find her legs working, and walked over the stove to refill her cup. Turning, she found both men watching her with varying degrees of frustration. She smiled, a dazzling smile that was two parts mischief to one part seduction and which she divided impartially between them. Bobby cursed and sailed his fork across the room. After a long, frustrated stare and what was obviously a severe inner struggle, Jack bent his head over his plate and continued eating.

  She waited until they finished and, amid thunderous silence, cleared the table, washed the dishes and dried them. Reaching for her parka, she paused in the doorway. “Now,” she said, sweetly malicious, “can I trust you two to behave while I’m gone?”

  There was a flood of profanity and at least one solid object thudded against the door she hurriedly pulled closed behind her. “Maybe not,” she told Mutt, “but boys will be boys.”

  Mutt gave a reproving growl and turned to stalk stiffly down the drive, disapproval evident in every line of her body. Bloody but unbowed, Kate followed.

  *

  She found Johnny Wu the only place he could be, at Auntie Viola’s. Her aunt rented out her three spare bedrooms (shared bath, included breakfast) for the highway-robbery amount of $100 a night during those winter months when the Niniltna Lodge was closed. There was nowhere else in town to stay, and you either anted up with a smile or you slept out in the cold. Kate came in just as he was settling his bill, and from the satisfied expression on Aunt Viola’s face he had paid in cash. Auntie Viola always preferred cash. She inquired if Mr. Wu cared for a receipt, and beamed to hear that he did not. The cash vanished into a convenient pocket, and she shook Wu’s hand heartily and invited his speedy return to her establishment. Over his shoulder she caught sight of Kate in the entryway, stamping slush from her feet. “Kate!” she said with a wide grin. “I didn’t know you were in town. This is Mr. Wu, from Outside.”

  “No, ma’am, I told you before, I’m from Hawaii. How do,” he said to Kate, before his eyes widened in recognition. “Didn’t I buy you a drink yesterday at the Roadhouse?”

  “You sure did, and I thank you,” Kate told him. She gave Auntie Viola, a short, plump woman with a shrewd twinkle in her brown eyes, a quick kiss. “Auntie, could I use your living room? I want to talk to Mr. Wu for a minute.”

  “Sure, honey, no problem, take your time.” Auntie Viola hurried past them to open the door into the living room and ushered them inside. She hesitated in the doorway, flicking at some imaginary dust on the buffet hutch, until Kate assisted her out, closing the door firmly behind her.

  Her business with Wu did not take long and they were both very pleased with each other at its conclusion. Kate even gave him a ride to the airstrip on the back of the Jag, turned him over to George Perry personally, helped load his bulging duffel bag into the now reassembled Cessna and waited until it was off the ground.

  She gave a final wave as it disappeared into the west. When she lowered her eyes, her gaze became tangled and caught in the stand of trees at the far end of the strip. Their tops clustered together against the almost colorless sky, and their trunks hugged the ground, presenting a stiff, united front. Her good humor faded and her arm dropped to her side. On an impulse she walked forward. All the evidence there was was in the state crime lab in Palmer; she’d seen the inventories and the results of the tests in Jack’s files. There was nothing left to look at in the copse that had seen so much blood spilled just ten days before. She told herself all this, and kept walking.

  It was another still day, a bare hint of a breeze stirring the air, the sun warm on her back. She entered the woods as she had before, carefully, silently, respectfully, Mutt leading the way. Much of the winter snowpack had melted beneath the onslaught of so many pairs of feet over the last days, leaving bare, hard ground still frozen beneath the melting slush.

  Kate paused and cocked her head. Voices came from somewhe
re inside the copse. There was a distant, single pop that made her flinch. Low, smothered laughter followed. It was not a pleasant sound. Mutt’s ears went up and, her pulse quickening, Kate pushed her way back between the branches.

  Kate caught the limb of a birch across her cheek, a spruce elbowed her in the side, a knot of alders tried to trip her up. She fought her way in, ducking and weaving, until she came to the heart of the copse. There she halted, out of breath.

  A group of half a dozen women stood in a small circle; surprised faces turned to look at her. A short, plump brunette held a bottle of champagne, the cork out. The rest of the women held glasses filled to the brim with golden bubbling liquid. They gaped at her, until the brunette asked, a little unsteadily, “Come to join in the celebration, Kate?”

  “What celebration, Enid?”

  Enid gestured with the bottle in a way that made Kate realize that the celebration had begun at the Roadhouse much earlier in the day, perhaps even the previous night. “In memoriam.” She stumbled over the word, and the rest of the group helped her out—“That’s right, in memoriam”—although none of them were in much better shape.

  Kate looked around and realized they were on the site, or very close to it, where Lisa Getty’s body had been found. Incredulous, she asked, “In honor of Lisa Getty?”

  Enid snickered. “Hell no.” She topped off her glass with an unsteady flourish, emptying the bottle to the last drop. “In honor of Roger McAniff, bless his heart, who shot that fucking bitch and killed her dead. He got it right one time, right, girls?”

  “Hear, hear,” someone said, and someone else said, “I’m just sorry it was so quick.”

  Kate couldn’t find a single unfamiliar face. There was Enid, Bernie’s wife; there was Sarah, Pete Kvasnikof’s wife; there was Susan Moore, Jimmy Bartlett’s room-mate-for-life; there was Luz Santos, who had been engaged to Chuck Moonin; there was Betty Sue Brady, Lee’s widow; and there was Denise Smithson, whose husband Phil had worked as Lisa’s deckhand and then got off the boat in Cordova and got on a plane to Anchorage and never come back. It was a fairly representative cross-section of the Park—tall and short, fair and dark, thin and plump, old and young—with nothing in common but their concentrated hatred of Lisa Getty. “To McAniff!” Enid said, her glass held high, and “To McAniff!” the other women responded. They drank deeply, and when the glasses were drained to the last drop, they threw them against the trunk of a large fir, to shatter and fall to the ground in a glittering, broken shower that mingled with the half-ice, half-slush layer of snow until it was impossible to tell where the shards of glass left off and the crusty snow began.

  There was a shout of approval and cheers and congratulatory smacks on the back, but the circle did not break and their expressions did not ease. They hunched over their hatred, cradling it jealously. It was a malignant, ugly thing to see. Kate felt sick, and it wasn’t her wound. “Ladies. I think you’d better head on home. You’re not driving yourselves, are you?”

  Enid giggled, and hiccuped. “Hell, no, Bernie took all our keys away. We hitched a ride in.”

  “Have you got a ride home?” That stumped them. “Well,” Kate said, “go on up to the post office. Ralph’ll find somebody going your way.”

  Enid shrugged and grinned, pushing a hand of hair out of her eyes. “Okay.”

  As the circle began to break up, Kate couldn’t resist saying, “McAniff didn’t kill Lisa Getty.”

  “What?”

  “The cops tested McAniff s rifle. The bullet that killed Lisa Getty came from a different rifle.”

  She watched them carefully, but once they believed her, the response was collectively and, so far as Kate could see, completely surprised. Enid was the first to recover from the news, and she waved a dismissing hand. “Doesn’t matter. Whoever did it, did the whole Park a favor.”

  That seemed to be the general consensus, and the women stumbled off, crashing through the trees with a fine disregard for either environmental preservation or personal safety.

  Kate stood where she was, breathing deeply, trying to quell her roiling stomach. She had known Lisa was disliked among her own sex in the Park, but until today she had had no idea just how much. Her skin crawled and she wished she could take a bath. She raised her head, fixing her gaze on the small patch of sky the treetops allowed to show through.

  A branch cracked behind her, and she whirled, her heart thumping.

  Mutt’s ruff expanded. Kate straightened and put a calming hand on her head.

  Lottie was rooted in place, as if she had grown there among the scrub spruce and mountain hemlock and diamond willow, gathering her own rings of age over the short summers and the long winters. Her eyes were squeezed shut. Her pale skin looked waxen. She was as still and as hushed as the trees clustered thickly around her, abetting her silence.

  That silence felt reverent but less than serene. “Lottie,” Kate said, her voice a bare thread of sound. She cleared her throat, the sound rasping across the stillness. “I’m sorry you had to see that.” She paused. “Lottie, you shouldn’t be here.”

  The urgency in her voice got through. Lottie stirred. Her blue eyes opened, and she looked around. It took her a moment to focus, and when she did, her gaze fixed on the bandage on Kate’s right temple, and then slid past without comment or question.

  “Louie,” Kate said, “go home. Lisa’s dead. You can’t change that by hanging around here. It’s not…” She hesitated, searching for the right word. “It’s not healthy. I’ll…” Again she hesitated. “I’ll take care of this. Go on home now.”

  No response. Kate swore beneath her breath and looked around for inspiration. The surrounding trees presented a blank face in solidarity with Lottie. Kate decided to go for shock value. “I hear Lisa was seeing something of Max Chaney before she died.”

  The instantaneous change of expression on Lottie’s usually stolid face astounded her. The skin reddened, the lips drew back into a snarl. Lottie’s hands curled into claws, and Kate felt all the hair on the back of her neck rise. Mutt took a pace forward, getting between the two woman, facing Lottie and uttering one sharp, warning bark.

  “Okay, Mutt,” Kate said, putting a hand on the dog’s back. “It’s all right, girl. It’s okay.” She looked up at Lottie, and given their difference in height it was quite a way up, which Kate was aware of as never before. “Isn’t it?” Lottie didn’t reply, and Kate repeated, “Isn’t it okay, Lottie?”

  Still with that near-snarl on her face, Lottie looked from the dog to Kate and back again. Some of the tension went out of her. Her hands uncurled. “No, it’s not okay, Kate,” she said in her dull, thick voice. “It’s not okay, and it’s never going to be okay again.”

  She left, crashing blindly and indifferently through the trees, breaking branches off with her shoulders and crushing last year’s seedlings beneath her boots. Kate, shaken down to her core for the second time in the space of half an hour, retraced her path through trees that seemed a lot less hostile to her exit than they had to her entrance.

  The seat of the Jag felt steady beneath her, and she leaned forward over the handlebars, her eyes closed, thinking hard. Max Chaney. Max Chaney, who had taken Mark Miller’s place in the Parks Service when the latter had been killed the year before. Opening her eyes, she sat up straight and asked Mutt, “How about a trip up to the Step? We can stop at Neil’s on the way.”

  *

  In fact they made several stops on the way up to Park Service headquarters, at small homesteads scattered along the rough track that once had been a roadbed, when the Kanuyaq & Northern Railroad ran between the copper and silver mines in the foothills of the Quilak Mountains and the port of Cordova on the coast of Prince William Sound. It was maintained only during the summer, and the half-frozen, broken surface of ice and mud was rutted and mushy. It was slow going, and sometimes Mutt had to walk while Kate got off and pushed their way out of yet another rut.

  At the first homestead, a one-room cabin in the middle of
a clearing still littered with the stumps of newly fallen trees, they were greeted with a sullen hostility that Kate wisely ignored. “Neil,” she said patiently, “you know and I know what you’ve got growing out back. It’s what’s growing out back of half a dozen homesteads that I know of up and down this road. Because the troopers haven’t spotted it from the air yet doesn’t mean they couldn’t, if someone gave them a tip as to where to look. Five’ll get you ten Chopper Jim knows all about it already, and just hasn’t had the time or the inclination to bother. If someone makes a complaint, he’ll have to.” She waited.

  The white, ropey scar that bisected her throat was just visible in the opening of her collar. It began to itch beneath his fixed gaze. “Lisa Getty was a competitor, Neil,” Kate said, still patient. “Somebody killed her, and it wasn’t McAniff.” Jack may have wanted to keep Lisa’s murder quiet, but he hadn’t been shot at. Kate was done with discretion.

  “You think I did it?” Neil, a burly, ponytailed man, said with a glower.

  “You tell me. Where were you that morning?”

  “I was here.”

  “Did you have company?”

  He hesitated, and shook his head.

  But Kate saw that hesitation and snapped, “Dammit, Neil, I don’t care if you were making a sell. I’m not going to turn you or the buyer in if you were. Somebody killed Lisa Getty, and it wasn’t Roger McAniff. Who was here that morning? Who’s your alibi? I’ll talk to them, and if I’m satisfied they’re telling the truth, that’ll be the end of it. Come on, Neil, you know my word’s good.”

  He hesitated a moment longer and then said with patent reluctance, “Jeff Talbot came by that morning. He bought a couple lids and split.”

  “What time?”

  He shrugged. “Ten. Maybe ten-thirty.”

  Which would not have left Neil enough time to make the scene of Lisa’s murder and home again to sell dope to Jeff Talbot.