A Fatal Thaw

by Dana Stabenow

  His head bent. She waited. When he raised it again, the shame had not altogether faded from his features but at least now he didn’t look as if he would crumple at a harsh word. “She took me… we were in the barn,” he said, steadily enough. “Then we heard the shots. Lottie came around the cabin.” He flinched. “She saw us coming out of the barn,” he said painfully. “She could tell what we… what we… well, she didn’t say anything, but you could tell what she was thinking.” He swallowed. “Lisa laughed at her. I was watching Lottie, and for a second I thought…”

  “What? What did you think?”

  He took a deep breath and said, “For a second I thought Lottie was going to hit her.” He shook his head. “You know how big Lottie is? Well, when she’s mad, she looks about twice that big. She looks… she looks as big as a grizzly. Only more scary.” Kate didn’t laugh, and he shivered. “Lisa didn’t even back up. She just kept looking at Lottie, like, like…”

  “Like what?”

  “Like Lottie wasn’t her sister at all, like Lottie was this, like, joke she lived with, and had to put up with, but one she didn’t have to pay any attention to, or… or respect. You know? It was like in Lisa’s world, Lottie didn’t count.” He looked up at Kate, his young face sick. “She even nudged me and winked at me when Lottie was yelling at her, like I was supposed to laugh at Lottie, too.”

  “Did you?”

  “No.” He shook his head back and forth violently. “No way Jose. Lottie must outweigh me by seventy-five pounds, and she was mad enough. Besides…”

  “Besides what?”

  He smiled, a brief, weak, sad little smile Kate’s heart ached to see. “I always liked Lottie. When she went on a hunt with Uncle Chick and me one time, up back of the Tellglliqs, she taught me how to shoot, with her own rifle. I was just a kid, and Uncle Chick had a bottle along for company. She was pretty disgusted with him, so she took me out alone the next day. She helped me get my first caribou. I guess she felt sorry for me or something because after that she let me go fishing with her, and even bear hunting one time. She always hires me on for odd jobs around their place every spring. She doesn’t talk much, but she’s always nice to me. I like her,” he repeated.

  Kate waited patiently until he finished. “But, on that morning…”

  He shivered. “I’d never seen Lottie mad before. When she finished yelling at Lisa, she told us about finding Steve Syms’s body at his house.”

  “Why had she gone there?”

  “She was going to hire him to help scrape the hull on the bowpicker so we could copper paint it. Anyway, when she stopped yelling at Lisa, she went back in the house and came out with their parkas and rifles and threw Lisa’s at her. And then she went to the garage and—”

  “They each had their own rifle?”

  He looked over at her, surprised at the question. “Sure, Kate. They always each took their own. Sometimes I thought Lottie’d had hers welded to her shoulder.”

  “Eknaty, are you sure? You remember seeing Lisa and Lottie each with their own rifle?”

  He looked bewildered. “Yes. I’m sure. Lottie had her new rifle, the one Max gave her for her birthday. They were still going together then.”

  “What!” The exclamation was forced out of Kate.

  He jumped and looked at her, and she forced her voice down. “Max and Lottie were going together?”

  “Sure. Didn’t you know? Max met Lottie first. He even went sheep hunting with us last November.”

  Kate, feeling as if the world were shaking a little beneath her feet, was barely able to restrain her incredulity. “Were they… did they… was it… romantic?” she said finally.

  He blushed and ducked his head. “He slept with her in her tent.”

  Kate sighed, a long, deep sigh. “I guess that’s romantic enough.”

  At that moment a hovering Bernie swooped down and rescued Eknaty from Kate’s fell clutch, offering a blanket curse on her offspring if Eknaty’s performance the following day was less than perfect. “Always supposing some misguided fool feels inclined to beget offspring upon you,” he added acidly, herding Eknaty before him. “Right, thanks, Bernie,” she replied in an abstracted voice. He paused for a moment and watched her walk away, his forehead puckered, before shaking himself and trotting off after Eknaty. There was a postgame analysis to be held, weaknesses in offense and defense to be identified, a dozen teenagers flushed with success to be tucked safely into bed, and two more days of games to plan for. Bernie had no time to waste on mere murder.

  Nine

  THE NEXT MORNING George Perry roared up to Bobby’s house on a Skidoo and off-loaded a grim-faced Jack. He entered without knocking, stamping the snow off his feet, and demanded, “Why didn’t you wait for me up on the Step?”

  Kate looked over at him coolly. “I had to talk to someone.”

  Jack counted to ten. “Okay,” he said. “They shipped the body out to Anchorage last night. Forensics promised to have the bullet out and run a ballistics test on it by this morning, and Chopper Jim’ll get the news to us as soon as they do.”

  “Thirty-ought-six?” Bobby asked.

  “Looks like. Won’t know for sure until ballistics gets the slug.”

  “It won’t be the same rifle,” Kate said.

  Jack’s head whipped around. “What?”

  “The bullet didn’t come from the same rifle that killed Lisa Getty.”

  “How do you know that?” he demanded.

  “There were too many people in the area. After shooting Lisa, the killer had to ditch the rifle in the woods, or be caught with it. Chaney was shot with a different rifle.”

  “If the killer dumped the rifle that shot Lisa Getty in those woods, where is it? I’ve had twenty officers and investigators beat feet over every inch of those goddam woods at least five times apiece. Where the hell is it?”

  “It’s there.” Forestalling, she knew for the moment only, further questions on the subject, she treated him to an abridged version of her last two days’ activities. “You have been a busy girl,” he said at last, frowning. “So what’d you do with the bear bladders and the tusks?” He looked at her blank face. “Don’t tell me you left them on the boat?”

  “How dumb do you think I am?”

  “Don’t tempt me. So what did you do with them?”

  “I sold them.”

  Jack’s jaw dropped. “What!”

  Kate shrugged. “I found a buyer who wanted them. He had cash.”

  “Jesus, Kate!”

  “How much did you get?” Bobby said.

  “Sixty-six hundred.”

  “Jesus Christ, Kate!”

  Bobby gave a long, low, respectful whistle. “For half a dozen bladders, that’s eleven hundred apiece. Not bad, Kate. Not bad at all.”

  “I thought so, too,” she said with a trace of pride.

  “Sweet Jesus!” Jack said, varying his reaction.

  “Bear’s private parts come high these days,” Bobby observed.

  “I know,” she said, her smile fading. “Dan’s already worried about the poaching going on in the Park. If the price goes up any more, the Park Service is going to have to hire a bodyguard for every black bear in it.”

  “Sweet Jesus H. Christ on a crutch!”

  “What’s your problem?” Kate asked Jack, annoyed and a little hurt. “You think I shouldn’t have sold them? Why? The bears were dead, Lisa’s dead, and I needed the cash. You know how far sixty-six hundred dollars can take me? I’ll be able to fish for myself this year, instead of guiding some jackass Outsider who can’t figure out why his ten-pound test keeps breaking every time he snags a Kanuyaq king.”

  Bobby eyed the fists gripping the arms of Jack’s chair and hoped the chair would hold up under the strain. “Kate,” Jack said with great calm, “by selling those bladders you have violated the Endangered Species Act, on top of which you can be charged with smuggling, shooting out of season, shooting over your limit, and God knows what else.”

 
She smiled at him. “Prove it. And I didn’t shoot them. Lisa did.”

  “Jesus!” Jack said, his momentary calm deserting him. “If Dan O’Brian ever finds out!” His face changed color, and he said in a hollow voice, “Jesus! Those bladders were evidence in an ongoing murder investigation. If Chopper Jim ever finds out, he’ll throw us all in jail!”

  “You plan on telling them?” Kate inquired. “Either one of them?”

  Jack’s voice deserted him, and he stared at her, speechless. “I suppose you sold him the walrus tusks, too?” he asked finally, if his expression was any indication, without much hope.

  Kate was shocked and more than a little indignant. “Certainly not! What the hell kind of person do you think I am?”

  “I’d answer that truthfully, but I like living,” Jack told Bobby. “What’s the difference between taking the bear bladders and taking the tusks?”

  Still indignant, Kate snapped, “The difference is you can’t give the bladders back to the bears.”

  “Oh? And you can give the tusks back to the walrus?”

  “No, I can’t give the tusks back to the walrus,” Kate said, aping Jack’s heavily sarcastic tone, “but I can and will pass them on to Chick Noyukpuk, and he can carve them into cribbage boards or sea otters or anua for spirit masks and sell them to an Anchorage gift shop and maybe make a few bucks. That way, the tusks stay where they’re supposed to, in the Park, or at least whatever Chick earns from them will. The bladders would just get tossed in the trash.”

  “Chick Noyukpuk? The Billiken Bullet? The drunk musher who wrecks every snow machine he sets eye on?” Jack threw up his hands and addressed the ceiling. “Oh well, then how could I possibly object?”

  “When he’s sober he is a fine artist,” Kate snapped.

  “Time!” Bobby roared. “Much as I approve of comic relief, you two are worse than a couple of kids. Food’s on, shut up, sit down, and eat. Now!” he roared, when Jack opened his mouth.

  Kate and Jack sat. The food, an omelet seasoned with caribou sausage and sharp cheddar, was delicious, which was a good thing, since conversation lagged.

  Kate was clearing the table when a distant whap-whapwhap heralded the arrival of the trooper. The engine grew louder, settled and died. Heavy footsteps crunched the ice created by the overnight drop in temperature, followed by a perfunctory thump on the door before it opened. Chopper Jim stepped inside.

  “Hey, Jim,” Bobby said.

  “Bobby,” the trooper replied. “Jack. Kate.”

  “Had your breakfast?”

  “Yeah. I wouldn’t say no to a cup of coffee, though.”

  “Coming right up.”

  They arranged themselves around the fireplace and waited until Bobby had handed out steaming mugs. “Well?” Jack said.

  “It’s a match,” Jim said.

  Kate’s head jerked up and Jack smirked at her.

  Jim fished something small out of a breast pocket and tossed it to Kate. She caught it automatically, a misshapen slug of lead. She looked from it to Jack in sudden suspicion, and he nodded. “When I left the Step I went down to the boat. I dug it out of the forward bulkhead of the cabin.” He smiled thinly. “It looks worse than your head.”

  Kate turned to Jim. “This match the bullet that killed Max Chaney?”

  He nodded.

  “But not the bullet that killed Lisa Getty.” Her voice was certain and Jack looked annoyed.

  Chopper Jim shook his head. “Nope.”

  The single, laconic syllable irritated her. “Lisa Getty was growing commercial quantities of marijuana in her backyard, Jim,” she said. “Why didn’t you mention that when you talked to Jack?”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Come on!” Kate glared at him. “Lisa had enough pot in that greenhouse to put the entire Park into orbit without benefit of rocket. I found drying frames and a case of baggies in the barns. No one knows his beat better than a small town cop, and in people this Park is just one gigantic small town. If anybody knew that Lisa was growing dope, you would.”

  He looked at her, at her angry face, a meditative expression on his own. “We didn’t talk much.”

  “You didn’t have to, talk to her, anyway,” she retorted. “You knew, didn’t you? Probably about the dealings in walrus ivory and bear bladders and sealskins and sea otter hides—hell, Lisa probably shot sea gulls, just for the hell of it! Why didn’t you tell Jack?”

  “Kate,” Bobby said.

  “I’ll tell you why,” Kate said, ignoring Bobby. “Because you wanted me to do your dirty work for you. Because you didn’t want to piss off everyone in the Park following up leads that led, for one reason or another, into just about every house and cabin and cache in a million square acres! Not to mention which half the men in the Park went into mourning when she died. That’s no secret, in fact, for my purpose it’s probably better to assume she’s slept with everyone I’ve talked to so far. Including you,” she said pointedly. She looked at the trooper, raised an eyebrow and added, “And just where were you the morning Lisa Getty got shot?” She brightened a little. “Where were you when Max Chaney got shot?”

  Bobby turned a sharp laugh into a choking fit, and even Jack had to smile. “What about you?” Chopper Jim asked, affable and unperturbed. “Where was I when somebody took a shot at you, Kate?”

  “Kate,” Bobby said again, and something in his firm, inexorable tone halted her in mid-tirade. “All this is beside the point and you know it. Get to it, woman.

  He was right, and Kate stopped dancing around and got to it. “I know where the rifle that killed Lisa Getty is.”

  “What?” The three men spoke with one voice.

  “You didn’t tell me that yesterday,” Bobby snapped.

  “I didn’t realize where it was until last night, and we couldn’t have found it in the dark.”

  “And you can today? This morning?”

  “I think so.”

  “Need any help?” Chopper Jim asked with a guileless expression.

  “You’ve been such a big help so far, working so hard, doing so much legwork, sharing information on this case, I think we can allow you a little time off now,” Kate cooed.

  She was incensed when he didn’t bother to look offended. He drained his mug and rose to his feet. “Then I’ll be off.” He put on his hat and touched a finger to its brim. “Anything I can do.”

  Kate thought of several things he could do, none of them productive of results in a murder investigation but all of them deeply satisfying to contemplate. He knew it, and from the hint of the smile on his face she knew he knew it. She waited until the door closed behind him, but not long enough for him to be out of earshot. “Prick,” she said, with heartfelt loathing.

  The sound from the porch might have been a cough or a laugh, and Kate sat, stewing, until the sound of the chopper died away, and then said to Jack, “Suit up. Mutt, up and at ’em. Let’s move like we got a purpose, people.”

  She sounded just like the drill instructor Bobby had had at San Diego. He removed himself from the line of fire, stayed there until the door closed behind them and gave a loud, vociferous sigh of relief that he was staying home.

  *

  “We’ve been over this ground, the troopers have been over this ground, everybody in Niniltna has been over this ground a hundred times. The troopers bagged enough crap to top off the Anchorage landfill. Why are we back here?” Jack’s voice was plaintive.

  “I still can’t believe it took me so long to figure out,” she said, and followed the yellow crime-scene tape, tattered now but still showing a ragged path through the trees, walking in the reconstructed path of the killer. When she came to where Lisa’s body had lain, Kate halted for a moment, the memory of yesterday’s witches’ coven shivering through her. Determinedly, she shook it off and reached for the nearest birch and, hand over hand, pulled it down to the ground until it bowed into a U-shape. She examined its top carefully and let it spring back. She reached for the birch beside it
.

  Jack watched her, mystified. “What in the hell are you doing?”

  Kate nodded at the next clump of birches. “Start pulling those down.”

  “What!”

  “Pull down the goddam trees and look at their tops,” Kate half shouted, her ruined voice a rough scrape across exposed nerves.

  “All right, all right, anything for a quiet life.” Jack waded through the snow to the nearest tree and yanked its trunk into a taut, straining bow.

  “Careful,” Kate snapped, “don’t break them, just bend them so you can see their tops.”

  “What, there aren’t enough of them around, you’re afraid I’ll injure one beyond all hope of recovery and eternally upset the ecological balance of the Park?”

  Stepping back, she released the hold she had on her birch and let it spring upright. Its top whipped past his face and vaulted erect to some twenty-five feet above their heads. Kate watched it weave back and forth in a steadily slackening swing, among a thickly clustered group of birches huddling together in insular fraternity, keeping all their cards close to their white, birch-bark chests, all secrets secluded within the tops of their rustling branches.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. She smacked her forehead in irritation. “Where is my head at? She’d have tied it off to a spruce, or a birch next to a spruce, in a clump of them probably. Yeah, for better concealment until the leaves came out.”

  Her grin was tight. “It’s the same problem I’ve been having all along, not seeing the trees for the forest.” Stepping back, she surveyed the scene through narrowed eyes. “Here. I’ll try this one. You start on that clump over there.”

  He shook his head, wrestling with his scrub spruce. “Kate, you have had me doing some pretty dumb things in my life, but this—” His voice died away, as he stared at the top of the tree he had pulled down.

  The 30.06 was tied lengthwise to the topmost part of the trunk of a tall, slender spruce. The butt rested in the crotch where a branch met the trunk; lengths of green fishing twine, the kind used for net mending, bound the stock and barrel tightly to the bark. The stock was sticky with pine sap.