by Stan Jones
Fortune shot the engineer a cold stare, then turned back toward Active. "Well then, what does 'still under investigation' mean?" he asked. "Exactly what?"
"It means I haven't decided whether Tom Werner's death was an accident or a suicide."
Fortune stared at him for several seconds, whispered with Jermain, then turned back to Active. "Why would anyone but the family care? In particular, why should GeoNord care?"
Active dropped his arms and rested one elbow on the table. He stared at Fortune and spoke slowly.
"I'll report the death as accidental if GeoNord will announce a seventy-five-million-dollar plan for pollution controls at the Gray Wolf," he said. "Also, you make a full disclosure to DEP about the leach field and pay whatever fine they impose. And the mine stays open."
The lawyer and the engineer whispered together again.
"We've explained that GeoNord doesn't have seventy-five million just now," Fortune said. "What happens if we don't make your announcement?"
"Then I'll report the truth," Active said. "How Tom Werner told me about the leach field and the murders before he shot himself, essentially a deathbed confession."
Fortune took off the glasses and twirled them by an earpiece. "A deathbed confession." Active supposed the lawyer felt himself back on familiar terrain now, terrain where truth was a matter of negotiation, not fact.
"That's right," Active said. "How he wanted you to clean up the pollution and you wouldn't. How you said you'd shut down the mine if he didn't let you put in the leach field. How, when George Clinton and Aaron Stone found the schematic and threatened to go public, he begged you again to spend the money to fix the problem. How you refused again and told him if he didn't take care of Clinton and Stone, you'd shut down the mine, throw hundreds of his people on the unemployment rolls, and sue his company into bankruptcy because of the defective assay work. How he finally cracked and killed Clinton and Stone because of the pressure you put on him. How he decided to atone for his sins by shooting himself right in front of my eyes." He stopped and waited.
They whispered together at the table. Fortune put his glasses on and they went to the corner behind Jermain's desk and whispered some more.
"Why didn't you stop him?" Fortune asked, walking back from the corner.
"I couldn't," Active said. "He got the drop on me at his fish camp and shackled me to a cot with my own handcuffs. All I could do was listen and watch."
"He handcuffed you to a cot?"
"Probably the most embarrassing thing a law enforcement officer could ever have to tell a jury," Active said. "No trooper would ever make up such a story. See?"
He pulled up the left sleeve of his uniform shirt to show the bandage on his wrist. "The handcuff cut me when I dragged the bed over to Tom Werner's body after he shot himself."
Fortune took Active's wrist and studied the bandage. "I do believe this is the first case I've seen that involved a handcuff wound without sex." He released the wrist and shook his head.
"A remarkable case in every way," Active said. "But I can assure you that if the D. A. follows my recommendation, Michael Jermain and GeoNord will be charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder."
Fortune drummed his fingers on the table, then whispered something to Jermain. Jermain whispered back, then Fortune looked at Active again.
"Would I be safe in assuming that your, ah, confinement prevented you from capturing Tom Werner's amazing disclosures on your little recorder?"
"No, there's no recording. There'll just be my recollection of what Werner told me."
"Then you'll lose," Fortune said. "My cat could make up a better story than this rigmarole about a deathbed confession."
"Well, we do have three dead Inupiat, not to mention thousands of dead fish and an illegal leach field," Active said. "And I have no doubt I can find the contractor who put it in."
"You could still lose."
"Let's not forget that an Alaskan jury gave a bunch of fishermen a five-billion-dollar verdict against Exxon because of the Valdez oil spill," Active said. "In your case, pollution's only the beginning.
"We'd win on appeal," Fortune said. "Your case against GeoNord and Mr. Jermain rests almost entirely on hearsay testimony from a dead man who, by your own account, admitted actually committing the murders."
"You still lose," Active said. "First there's a trial, with months of international headlines about GeoNord poisoning a river and driving a simple Eskimo hunter to murder and suicide. Then there's a guilty verdict. Then, if you do win on appeal, you get nothing but the chance to air it all again at a new trial."
Fortune opened his mouth, closed it, and shook his head, looking exasperated. He and Jermain whispered together.
"The board doesn't meet again till December," Fortune said.
"The board can have an emergency meeting," Active said. "I can keep my investigation open for twenty-four hours. That's it. Considering the, ah, extraordinary circumstances, I imagine the D.A. will have indictments out of the grand jury within a day of my report's being filed."
"The board members are scattered all over the world," Fortune said. "It'll take at least three or four days, maybe a week, to assemble a quorum."
"They can meet by conference call," Active said.
"We'll have an answer for you this afternoon," Fortune said.
Active got up and walked to the door, then turned and stared back at the two men. Fortune was putting his yellow pad into his briefcase. Jermain was studying the tabletop, his forehead resting on his hand.
"There's one more thing."
Fortune looked up at him with an expression of distaste. "What thing?"
"The Tom Werner Scholarship Fund."
"The Tom what?"
"The Tom Werner Scholarship Fund." Active walked back to the table and sat down across from Fortune. "Every year, five graduating seniors from the Chukchi region get four-year, all-expense scholarships to the University of Alaska. In Tom Werner's name."
"You want us to memorialize that killer with GeoNord's money?"
"It's our mine, so it's our money."
"Jesus Christ, he's as bad as Werner," Jermain said.
Fortune shook his head. "You'll get your answer this afternoon."
A YOUNG Inupiat woman with a baby asleep on her shoulder came to the door when he knocked at Clara Stone's house.
"You must be Nathan Active," she said. "My mother told me about you. I'm Linda Smithson. Come on in."
He stepped from the kunnichuk into the house. "You're the daughter from Nuliakuk? Clara said you were coming."
"That's right. I teach English and Inupiaq at the school there. My husband, Jimmy, runs the power plant." She lifted the baby from her shoulder and turned its face toward him. "And this is James Aaron."
The baby opened his eyes, examined Active with a frown, then turned back to his mother's shoulder, and went to sleep again.
"James Aaron. Would that be after his grandfather?"
"Yes, Aaron is for Dad."
"I'm sorry for your trouble," he said.
"Thank you," she said. She blinked rapidly a few times, then rubbed tears away.
"How's Clara?"
"Still pretty torn up," Smithson said. "Me too, as you can see. But not like her. I've got Jimmy and James Aaron here and Sydnie, our daughter. But Mom... well, with Dad killing himself, I think she feels like all her tomorrows are yesterdays."
"That's what I came about. Is she here?" He peered into the living room, but there was no sign of the woman. "If she's asleep, I could come back later."
"No, she took Sydnie to the Korean's for a cheeseburger. That's what Sydnie really misses in Nuliakuk, the Korean's cheeseburgers. Funny, huh?"
"It's American, anyway."
"You can wait if you like." She motioned at the dining table. "They'll be back in a few minutes. James Aaron and I are making doughnuts." She looked at Active. "In seal oil. You want one?"
He sat down at the table and raised his eyebrows in the Inupiat expression of as
sent. "Sure."
"Here, you take him," she said. Before Active could speak, he found James Aaron emitting tiny snores on his shoulder. Smithson went to the stove, lifted the lid off a pot, and poked the contents with a long-handled fork. Active sniffed the little head next to his cheek and savored the baby smell for a moment.
"What if he drools on my uniform? It might be destruction of state property."
She rolled her eyes at the ceiling and rummaged in a drawer for a dish towel. She lifted up James Aaron's head, slid the towel under his cheek, and lowered his head again. "There, nalauqmiiyaaq. You happy?"
"I guess we're related," Active said. "Martha told me Clara is her cousin?"
"I guess," she said. "Once I made sure I wasn't related to Jimmy, I stopped trying to keep track of the family trees around here."
She brought over a plate with four hot fried doughnuts on it. "But I suppose I'll have to start again when Sydnie and James Aaron get into their teens." She sat down across from him and took a doughnut. "Hmm. Maybe that's a good project for our students, setting up a computer database of the local bloodlines."
"Maybe." He bit into a doughnut. It tasted about like any other doughnut. A little richer, maybe, but there was none of the fishy taste that seal oil gave off when it got too old. Smithson must have brought a fresh batch from Nuliakuk.
"Look, I have kind of a delicate problem here," he said. "Can we speak in confidence?"
"In confidence?"
"You can tell your mother, but that's it. And get her to promise not to spread it around."
"I can't talk to Jimmy about it?"
"I see your point," he said. "Just say you heard it, but don't say where, OK?"
"In other words, you want us to know something, but you want everybody else to think it's just gossip."
He raised his eyebrows.
"Go ahead."
"Your father didn't kill himself."
She put her doughnut back on the plate and stared at him. "I could never believe he did. But then I thought I was just kidding myself. So it was an accident?"
"No, he was murdered."
"Murdered? But who...?"
"That's the problem. I know who did it, but I may not be able to prove it."
"You mean the killer is going to get away?"
"The killer is dead too. That's why it's hard to prove."
"Dead? But who . . ." Her eyes widened. "The radio this morning, it said..."
Active held a finger to his lips and she fell silent. But he raised his eyebrows again.
"But why would he kill my father?"
"Something went wrong in his mind," Active said. "I don't know how much I'll be able to prove and I can't tell you everything I know. But no matter what you hear on the radio in the next few days, just know that your father didn't kill himself, OK?"
"OK, but..."
"And tell your mother?"
"Of course, but..."
"And remember, outside this house, this is just street talk you heard, just gossip. OK?" He lifted the baby from his shoulder and handed him to his mother. James Aaron woke up and nuzzled her breast.
"I don't know if I should believe you." She turned her back to him and began to unbutton her blouse. "Why won't you tell us what happened?"
He opened his mouth, then realized he couldn't explain it, even to himself. A man had tried too hard to do the right thing, and now he and two other people were dead.
"Sometimes the facts don't do justice to the truth," he said. He took the dish towel from his shoulder, dropped it on the table, and left Clara Stone's house.
JULIUS CLINTON was at work on a snowmachine in the yard when Active stopped the Suburban in front of Daniel Clinton's house. He felt the boy's eyes on his back as he walked through the kunnichuk and knocked on the inner door.
Daniel Clinton answered. A day's gray stubble covered his face and his eyelids hung down like crepe. "What is it?"
"Can I talk to you about George ?"
"We already talk." But Clinton led him into the kitchen. The older man sat down at the table and put both hands around a coffee cup. He didn't offer Active a chair, or a cup of his own. Finally, Active sat down across the table.
"There's something I need to tell you about George's death," Active said. Clinton looked down into his coffee. "I don't think it was a suicide, but..."
"You don't need to lie to make me feel better, Mr. Active," Clinton said. "I know George kill himself."
He looked out the window at the boy in the yard. "I know Julius will do the same. My line is going to die out."
He turned back to Active and started sobbing—wrenching, groin-deep groans that Active had never heard a man make before. He waited silently until they stopped.
"No, this is true," Active said. "Did you hear on the radio about a man who died last night?"
"You mean Tom Werner? I guess he kill himself too, ah?"
"He did," Active said. "But I think he killed George first."
"He kill George? Why would he do that?"
"Something went wrong in his mind," Active said. "But I'm not sure how it's going to come out in my official report. I may not be able to prove anything."
Clinton stared into Active's eyes.
"Sometimes in police work, we know something but we can't prove it."
"I believe you," Clinton said finally. "That Tom Werner, there was something inside him that always seem different. Maybe it's because he have white grandfather. He never know if he's Inupiat or nalauqmiut."
"Can you tell Emily Hoffman what you think?" Active asked. "I would like to tell her myself, but I can't say anything official. I don't know if I can make it clear to her."
Clinton nodded. "I will tell her."
Active paused for a long time, thinking how to bring up the next subject. "People say your family has a . . . a problem on it," he said finally.
Clinton was silent.
"From something that happened a long time ago," he prodded.
"I guess so," Clinton said.
"Well, if I understand the problem right, could . . . ah, would . . . ah, if George didn't kill himself, would that break the . . . ah... the chain and make the problem go away?"
Clinton looked up. For the first time, Active saw something resembling hope in his eyes. He looked out his back window at the ice of the lagoon, as if his thoughts were ranging back over the years to the night he killed Frank Karl and incurred the wrath of the angatquq Billy Karl.
"I think maybe it could," Clinton said finally. "That bad man say my boys will take themselves from me. I guess his words will die if George didn't do that."
"Will you tell Julius?"
Clinton was silent for a while. "This is hard to talk about."
"But if Julius doesn't know the truth . . ." Active let the thought hang in the air between them.
Clinton looked out the window again. Active's eyes followed. Julius was still at work on the snowmachine engine, his long black hair hanging down in front of his eyes like a curtain. "I could tell him," Clinton said.
He showed Active to the door, walked out behind him, and stood awkwardly by the snowmachine for a moment. Julius tightened something in the engine compartment, then stood up and lowered the cowling back into place.
Active walked toward the Suburban. Behind him, he heard Daniel Clinton address his last son. "Looks like that snowgo is good now, ah, Julius? We could go caribou hunting."
Active was a block north of Daniel Clinton's house when he spotted the familiar figure beside the street. Dirty blue parka patched with silver duct tape, stringy black hair straggling out from under a Mariners baseball cap, sneakers. He stopped and rolled down his window.
"Hey, you need a lift?"
Kinnuk Wilson crossed the street and climbed in. His face was oily and flushed and he smelled of sweat, beer, and cigarette smoke.
Active left his window down and put the Suburban's heater fan on high. "Whew! Rough night at the Dreamland?"
"Yeah, Hector give free dri
nks after election's over," Wilson said. "I wake up in somebody's kunnichuk this morning."
"Whose?"
"I dunno. I leave before they come out."
"You could use a shower. You want me to drop you at the Rec Center?"
"Nah, my wallet's gone."
"I'll treat."
Wilson raised his eyebrows and Active headed for the Rec Center. "I hear Tom Werner shoot himself," Wilson said.
"Yes, that's what I told Roger Kennelly at Kay-Snow."
"Maybe somebody else do it."
"I don't think so. There was no evidence of foul play."
Wilson rubbed a hole in the frost on his window and stared out for a moment. "That's three people this week shoot themself. George Clinton, Aaron Stone, Tom Werner. That's lots, even for dumb Eskimos."
"You think Tom Werner was a dumb Eskimo? After all he did?"
Wilson shrugged. "I guess not."
"I think maybe they were accidents. Maybe it will stop now."
"Maybe," Wilson said. "Or maybe there's innukaknaaluk around."
"You mean like in the old stories?"
Wilson nodded.
Active pulled up in front of the Rec Center. "I don't think so. I think the innukaknaaluks are all dead."
Wilson shrugged again. "It's hard to know."
Active studied Wilson, wondering if there was any way to bring him around. It was like people got tickets early in life to trains on different tracks. Once aboard, you couldn't change trains, no matter what. Finally, Active took a five from his wallet and handed it over. "For the shower."
Wilson took the money and started to get out of the Suburban.
"What will you do when the liquor ban takes effect next month?"
"Move to Anchorage or Fairbanks, maybe. No more parties here." Wilson slammed the door of the Suburban and walked toward the kunnichuk of the Rec Center.
Active pulled away, watching his rearview mirror as the Suburban rolled slowly south on Third Street. In a few moments, Wilson stepped out of the kunnichuk and started south himself, in the direction of the Dreamland.
After some thought, Active decided to go back to his office. If Carnaby hadn't told Evelyn O'Brien about the suspension, there would be no problem. If she had been informed—well, he could tell her he needed to organize the files Carnaby had ordered him to give her.
