White Sky, Black Ice

by Stan Jones

  "But what does the Alaska Department of Environmental Protection say? Officially?"

  "The DEP doesn't say shit. All we know is what GeoNord tells us and their data don't show any impact from the mine."

  "You don't do your own monitoring?"

  "Fuck, no. Why would we want to do that? You think GeoNord can't be trusted to monitor itself?"

  "Well..."

  "Don't look at me like that, fuckhead." She balled up the stuffing and threw it at him. "Of course I know we should be doing our own tests. But every time I push for a monitoring program the district director in Nome says we don't have the money, so we go with what GeoNord gives us."

  He shook his head and stretched out his legs. The Macintosh was too low to make a good seat. "Sweet deal for GeoNord."

  "That's what I thought too. So I snuck up to the Nuliakuk on my trusty Arctic Cat and collected a few of those dead fish and sent them to a friend at the DEP lab down in Juneau." She unlaced her Sorels and pulled them off, then propped her stockinged feet up on the boots and sighed. "That's better. Jesus, I knew I was dressing too warm today."

  "And what did your friend find out?"

  "Not shit. Somehow Shotwell—that's the district director in Nome—heard about it and called and told me to lay off. Said he didn't want any half-assed measures when it came to the Gray Wolf. Either we'd do full-scale monitoring or we wouldn't do any. And since we couldn't afford a real monitoring program..."

  "... you're not doing any monitoring at all."

  "You got that right. Then he told me the money had run out for the Chukchi office and he was moving me to Bethel."

  "You think the office here is closing because of your dead fish?"

  "Fuck, who knows what goes on up there in the ionosphere? Guys at Shotwell's level don't even breathe oxygen like you and me. All I know is, the Gray Wolf is somebody else's baby now." She drew back her right foot and kicked a Sorel across the floor at him. "And I start looking for a federal job the minute I get to Bethel. I'm tired of this chicken-shit outfit."

  He caught the boot with his foot and slid it back to the couch. "What kind of by-products do they get at the Gray Wolf anyway?"

  "Well, copper ore has a bunch of minerals in it. Some of them are fairly nasty."

  "Such as?"

  "Antimony, arsenic, sulfur. Actually, the antimony's not much of a problem. But arsenic and sulfur you have to..."

  "Sulfur as in sulfuric acid? And arsenic as in... arsenic?"

  "Sure, bad stuff. But the pollution controls up there should take care of it." She started pulling the Sorels on again. "GeoNord takes it out during processing and ships it south. I guess they sell it on the West Coast and get back some of the cost of handling it."

  "Couldn't they just put it back in the ground where it came from? Like with some kind of leach field or something?" He watched carefully as he said it, but she gave no sign she had ever heard of a leach field at the Gray Wolf. The state of perpetual fury in which she seemed to exist made it hard to be sure, though.

  "Fuck, no. That mountain's like a giant sponge. You put that stuff back in the ground after it's separated from the copper, it'll flush right through. No telling where it's gonna end up." She pulled up the bibs of the Carhartts, flipped the straps back over her shoulders, and snapped them.

  "Why you interested, Nathan?" She said it casually, but the amazing blue eyes were like searchlights in her dark face. "You thinking there's some kind offish and game violation?"

  "Not really," he said, avoiding the beams of the blue search-lights. "My stepfather likes to go up there for trout and he was complaining about the fish kills the other night. I just thought I'd check around a little."

  "I didn't think a state agency would get serious about the Gray Wolf," she said. "Anyway, I don't think even GeoNord would try something as stupid as a leach field. They'd be looking at a fine the size of the national debt. From the Feds if not us."

  She pulled on the Sorels and walked to the door, then turned and looked back at him. Her hands were inside her front bib and she was rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. "So, you wanna go get some caribou with me, Macho Man? I hear they're crossing at Jade Portage now. It'll be like swatting mosquitoes."

  He tried not to let his mouth fall open at the invitation. What was she proposing?

  It could be several nights of nonstop gymnastics in a double sleeping bag, or it could be a simple caribou hunt. She had a hungry dog team to feed for the winter and the bag limit for the western Arctic herd was five animals a day. With two people hunting, that was ten animals a day. They could slaughter caribou until they were crusted in blood up to their elbows.

  Whichever it was, he doubted he could keep up with her. Besides, whenever he tried to picture her without the Carhartts, Lucy Generous's face came into his mind. Wearing that look she got when she was hurt and trying not to show it.

  "Nah, I don't hunt much," he said finally.

  "Didn't think so," she said. She walked out into the kunnichuk, then stuck her head back inside the cabin proper.

  "Close the door when you leave," she said. "Or not, your choice. Fuck 'em." Her head disappeared and, a moment later, he heard the snowmachine cough to life and pull away.

  BACK IN the Sunday hush of the deserted trooper office, he laid his notebook on the desk and flipped through his Rolodex, then his file drawers. He locked his fingers behind his head and frowned at the ceiling. Where was it? Suddenly he remembered, took a slip of paper from his wallet, and dialed the Anchorage number on it.

  "It's Nathan," he said after a few seconds. "Did you find her?"

  "Nope," Patrick Camaby said. "Not a trace."

  "I heard something."

  "You heard something?"

  "I heard she's at the Lo..."

  "Don't touch this," Carnaby interrupted. "You've still got a career left."

  "I came by this information accidentally."

  "In other words, you didn't hear it from whoever you heard it from, that kind of thing ?"

  "Something like that."

  Carnaby was quiet for several seconds. Active heard a radio in the background. Pots and pans rattled. A teenage boy called, "Dad, breakfast is ready."

  "Just a minute," Dad yelled back. Life as usual at the Carnaby household in Anchorage, except Dad's career was shot and his office was now six hundred miles away in Chukchi.

  "All right," Camaby said into the phone finally. "What is it?"

  "She's dancing at the Lodestar Lounge in Las Vegas." Active opened his notebook and read the telephone number.

  "What name is she using?"

  "Helen Ready."

  "Helen Reddy?" Carnaby said. "You mean like the singer Helen Reddy? Won't she get sued?"

  "No, Helen R-E-A-D-Y. As in ready for action, I think. But you didn't hear any of this from me."

  "I feel like I'm in one of those conversations my undercover guys used to tape."

  "Let's hope not," Active said.

  "I'll say. Anyway, thanks. If this works out and I... well, if you ever need anything ..."

  "Some things don't need saying."

  "Then I won't say it," Carnaby said. "So how are things in Chukchi?" He didn't sound very interested.

  "Oh, the same," Active said. "Couple more apparent suicides, not much else." He held his breath. The old Super Trooper from the academy would catch the "apparent" in a second.

  "Maybe Tom Werner's liquor ban will help, if he gets it," Carnaby said. Active relaxed. Evidently the new Carnaby was too preoccupied with Helen Ready to analyze sentence structure. He didn't even ask who had died. "How's the vote looking?"

  "It's anybody's guess," Active said. "I think it'll be close."

  They hung up. Active went to the window and frowned across the lagoon for several minutes. What was going on at the Gray Wolf? George Clinton thought he had found out something about a leach field. Was it possible that GeoNord would have been that stupid? At any rate, George had decided it was somehow causing the
fish kills and had gone to the GeoNord offices, then turned up dead across from the Dreamland. Then Active and Cowboy Decker had found Aaron Stone in the spruce grove at Loon Lake. What was the connection? Was there one? Who had the know-how and the means to kill two men under such different conditions? Jermain was the only name that came to mind.

  It wasn't much of a hand, but it was all he had. He walked back to his desk and dialed GeoNord's number, hoping the engineer was still in Chukchi.

  "It's Nathan Active," he said, feeling relieved, when Jermain answered on the fourth ring. "I'd like to talk to you again about the murders of Aaron Stone and George Clinton."

  "The what?"

  "The murders of Aaron Stone and George Clinton."

  "Jesus," Jermain said. "Hang on."

  The engineer put him on hold and he listened to a syrupy instrumental. Why did it seem familiar? Suddenly he smiled. "I Am Woman," Helen Reddy's greatest hit. Maybe her only hit. If there was a God, he was obviously in the mood for jokes today. Or maybe God was she, considering the song. Either way, God was a better comic than music programmer.

  Helen Reddy stopped with a click. "Alex Fortune," a voice said. Why did it sound familiar? "How can I help you?"

  "I was holding for Michael Jermain," Active said. "Can you put him back on?"

  "I'm Mr. Jermain's attorney," Fortune said. "How can I help you?"

  Of course. It was the voice Active had heard when he listened in on Jermain's conversation at GeoNord headquarters— the voice whose owner had said he would be in Chukchi by Sunday.

  "His attorney?" Active wrote the name in his notebook and stared at it. It was familiar too, but why?

  "What is it you wanted with my client?"

  Active hesitated. Interviewing Jermain alone was one thing. He had been jumpy the first time and now Active had more information. With a little luck, this time the engineer might crack. But with his attorney present?

  On the other hand, Active reminded himself, what was there to lose? Even if Jermain didn't crack, perhaps he would disclose something that would pump life back into this moribund investigation.

  He swallowed, took a deep breath, and said it fast, his voice half an octave higher than usual. "I want to interview your client about the murders of George Clinton and Aaron Stone."

  Fortune was silent. Then there was a click and the hold music came back on. Active waited through two songs, neither of which he recognized. With another click Fortune returned.

  "Murders? That's absurd. Everyone knows they were suicides. What basis do you have for your allegation?"

  "I've located a witness to one of the homicides," Active said.

  "What witness?"

  "A witness who might be safer if his or her name doesn't get around," Active said.

  "You won't even disclose the gender of this alleged witness? Isn't that a little melodramatic, Trooper Active?"

  Active pictured Tillie Miller with a hole in her leathery, hairy old throat. "Not necessarily."

  "And this witness identified the killer?"

  "Partially." So Tillie hadn't exactly said a chief engineer killed George Clinton. She had said a qauqlik, a head man, a chief, killed a boy. Close enough.

  Fortune clicked off again and Active listened to the end of one instrumental and the start of another. Then the lawyer came back on. "Can you come to Mr. Jermain's office? About three?"

  CHAPTER 12

  Sunday Afternoon, Chukchi

  ACTIVE TRIED NOT TO stare as he shook Fortune's hand. The lawyer was the first utterly hairless person he had ever seen. Nothing on the scalp, no mustache or beard, not even eyebrows or eyelashes. The only thing on his head was a pair of gold-rimmed glasses.

  "A pleasure to meet you, Trooper Active," Fortune said with a wide grin, big ears jutting from the gleaming skull. Was he ill? No, his grip was strong. Perhaps the goblin look was part of his uniform, like the sand-colored suit he wore. Active didn't know clothes, but Fortune's outfit looked as if it cost as much as a snowmachine.

  Active nodded at Jermain, who gave a tight jerk of his head and said nothing. The engineer stood behind Fortune as if for shelter. "I don't think I've ever seen a three-piece suit in Chukchi, Mr. Fortune."

  "I'm afraid I didn't have time to run by Eddie Bauer before I left San Francisco," Fortune said with another smile.

  "San Francisco?" Finally, Active remembered. "You're the Alex Fortune who defended Clayton Howell." GeoNord hadn't sent up a mere staff lawyer; Fortune was one of the highest-priced criminal defense attorneys on the West Coast.

  "The same," Fortune said with a little bow. "GeoNord hires only the best. But speaking of the Howell affair, how is our mutual friend Captain Carnaby?"

  "He's a sergeant now."

  "So he is," Fortune said. "My mistake. How is Sergeant Carnaby these days?"

  "He's fine."

  "I'm glad to hear it," Fortune said. "I understand he's a good man. And of course it's always regrettable when bad things happen to good people."

  "There's a lot of that going around."

  "It's always a risk when someone . . . overreaches, however laudable his intentions." Fortune nodded at a chair on one side of Jermain's conference table. "Won't you sit?"

  Active walked over and stood behind the chair. "After you." He stared at Fortune. Fortune stared back.

  Jermain started to sit across from Active. He looked at Fortune and froze halfway down, then stood again.

  Finally, Fortune smiled and sat down. So did Jermain, looking disgusted. Fortune opened a briefcase, took out a yellow legal pad and a gold ball-point pen, and laid them on the table.

  Active sat, pulled out his Pearlcorder, clicked it on, and set it down in front of him. "Shall we start Mr. Jermain's statement now? Today is..."

  Fortune held up a perfectly manicured hand and Active stopped. With the same hand, Fortune reached down and clicked off the recorder. He opened the little plastic door, removed the microcassette, and placed it on the table beside the recorder.

  "There won't be any statement," Fortune said. "Not today. Probably not ever. Certainly not until you give us some reason why Mr. Jermain should say anything whatever. A partial identification, you said?"

  The lawyer's confidence was unnerving, but of course lawyers like Alex Fortune were paid extremely well to look confident.

  "That's not all."

  "Not all?" Fortune looked from Active to Jermain and back again. Jermain looked at his hands.

  "I've located another witness who says George Clinton and Aaron Stone were investigating an illegal leach field at the Gray Wolf when they were killed." Perhaps Emily Hoffman hadn't actually mentioned Aaron Stone or used the word "investigating" at the Dreamland last night. But it was close enough.

  Jermain's head jerked up. He glanced from Active to Fortune. Fortune's bland smile didn't change. But when he reached for his gold ballpoint, Active noted with satisfaction, he missed and knocked it two inches to the left.

  He picked it up and tapped it lightly on the yellow pad. "Would that be a partial ID or a full ID on the leach field, Trooper Active?" He looked down and wrote something with the ballpoint.

  "I would characterize it as a sufficient ID, Mr. Fortune." Active mustered a smile of his own, hoping it approached the serene confidence radiating from Fortune. "Put the two witnesses together, and Mr. Jermain is the logical suspect. He obviously has the hunting skills to kill the two men." Active waved at the trophies staring down from the walls of Jermain's office.

  Jermain looked at the heads. Fortune was still writing. His eyes didn't leave the yellow pad.

  "Mr. Jermain's plane and his snowmachine give him the mobility that would have been needed to kill Aaron Stone at Katy Creek," Active said. "Because of the thaw last week, no one from Chukchi could have crossed the bay on the ice.

  "And Mr. Jermain had the motive, to put it mildly. According to my witness, that leach field is the cause of the fish kills on the Nuliakuk. I would think keeping something like that secret would be
absolutely crucial to the Gray Wolf's chief engineer." Active nodded at Jermain, then looked at Fortune. "Not to mention his employer."

  He switched his gaze back to the engineer, who was now watching Fortune intently. "Murdering two people to cover up the willful poisoning of an important subsistence stream— I'd say a jury of aanas and caribou hunters and berry pickers is highly likely to grant Mr. Jermain here a lifetime of state hospitality at the Anvil Mountain Correctional Center."

  Active stopped, feeling a mild optimism that faded in the long silence that ensued. Fortune continued writing for a time, then paused and looked up quizzically. Active realized the lawyer was waiting to see if he had finished. He tried to find something else to say, but couldn't.

  At last Fortune laid his pen on the legal pad, his smile broader than ever and now somewhat incredulous. "That's your case? Fragmentary oral evidence, supposition, and hypothesis?"

  Active met the lawyer's gaze for a moment, then looked down at the Pearlcorder on the table.

  "You're wasting our time, Trooper Active." Fortune put the pen in his pocket, dropped the legal pad into his briefcase, and snapped it shut. "If you had real evidence for any of this nonsense, you'd be here with an arrest warrant instead of your little recorder."

  The lawyer stood up and extended his hand. "Good day, now."

  Active shook the hand and gazed into Fortune's eyes, where he saw something that looked like pity. Jermain just stared, wordless.

  Numbly, Active put the Pearlcorder and cassette in his pocket, fumbled with his notebook, dropped it, picked it up, pocketed it too, and left the GeoNord offices. They had learned most of what he knew, plus all that he surmised, and he was leaving no smarter than when he arrived.

  CHAPTER 13

  Monday Morning, Chukchi

  ACTIVE'S EYELIDS FELT AS if they were lined with river gravel when he arrived at the office the next morning. He had spent the night wide-eyed in the dark, trying to stop his mental VCR from rewinding and replaying the showdown with Jermain and Fortune. Every time, it ended the same: with Nathan Active being chased out of the office, Pearlcorder and all.