Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 07 - Breakup

by Breakup(lit)

  than she did."

  "Was he dark? Blond? How old was he?"

  Auntie Vi shrugged. "Brown hair, maybe. About her age, I guess, maybe

  couple years older. Look, I have to go help those ones finish that

  quilt. If I don't, they sew it to their laps."

  Kate watched her cross the room with her bouncy, birdlike step. She

  turned back to the bar to find Chopper Jim lying in wait. He'd taken his

  hat off, which meant he was available to talk other than business, his

  dark blond hair smooth and shining. "I don't see any blood on the

  floor," he said with a grin.

  190 "Where's your prisoner?" said Kate, who knew perfectly well where he

  was but didn't see any reason not to rag a little on Jim.

  "He's not my prisoner.'7

  "Why'd you bring him back?" she said bluntly.

  "I told you, I wanted to walk over the ground with him."

  "What did you find?"

  "Nothing."

  "Did Stewart show you which roof his wife was on?"

  "He was a little confused," Jim drawled. He looked over her shoulder at

  Mark Stewart, and the blue eyes narrowed. "He couldn't remember which

  roof it was. Said he was in kind of a hurry at the time."

  "There are a dozen houses back there," Kate said with acerbity. "Did he

  manage to narrow it down to two or three? Or maybe even just one, with a

  few scuff marks from the sole of a hiking boot or a few claw marks from

  a grizzly?"

  "You noticed that, too," Jim said, satisfied. "Nope. He sure couldn't."

  Dan O'Brian stamped inside. Kate saw him and waved vigorously. He looked

  right through her and joined the group around Bobby and Dinah.

  "Still mad from this morning, I guess," Chopper Jim, a trained observer,

  said.

  Kate set her glass down on the bar with a bang and stalked across the

  room to tap Dan on the shoulder. "O'Brian."

  He sent her a cool look. "Shugak."

  "You said you had a friend look up Mark Stewart on Motznik."

  Dan almost sniffed. "I thought you weren't interested."

  "I'm not. Did your friend happen to mention if Stewart has a pilot's

  license?"

  Dan pushed back from the table and regarded her. "You're not interested,

  but you want to know if Stewart flies."

  Kate felt the creep of warmth up the back of her neck. "There's no law

  says I have to be consistent," she snapped. "Does Stewart have a pilot's

  license or not?"

  191 "No, he doesn't. I told you, when I saw him last fall the other guy

  was flying. Hooligan, or something like that. What's this all about, Kate?"

  "Were he and Carol married in Alaska?"

  "Yes, what-"

  "Did you get the date on the marriage license?"

  "Yes."

  "Well? When? When did they marry?"

  "Six years ago," Dan said. "Why the sudden interest?"

  She stood still for a moment, frowning. "No reason," she said. "Excuse me."

  Dan, sputtering, half rose to his feet to go after her. "Goddam that

  Shugak! Who the hell does she think she is! I oughta-"

  "Don't," Bobby said. "I've seen her like this too many times. Don't bother."

  Dan watched Kate halt in front of the trooper and start talking rapidly.

  He settled back into his seat, fuming. "Women," he said, and the word

  was not complimentary.

  "I hear you," Bobby said, one hand massaging the back of Dinah's neck.

  Dinah looked dangerously close to breaking into a purr. "I hear you, boy."

  Across the room, Kate said, "Jim, how does Stewart say he got here? Him

  and his wife? Dan says he doesn't have a pilot's license."

  "Air charter out of Merrill Field."

  "Did he say which one?" Jim shook his head. "I think you should find out

  which one."

  "Why?"

  "So you can ask the pilot if he had a rifle with him."

  "Did somebody tell you he had one?"

  "No."

  "Did he even have a bag that might look like it could hold a rifle?"

  Reluctantly, she shook her head. "No, I asked Auntie Vi. Both Stewarts

  carried packs."

  192 "Than what makes you think he had a rifle?"

  "You can break a rifle down, Jim. The individual pieces don't take up

  much room. You could pack for a romantic week for two and still have

  room left over for a barrel, a stock and a trigger."

  "Not to mention ammunition."

  "Not to mention."

  He looked down at her and quirked an eyebrow. "I thought you weren't

  interested."

  "I'm not, goddammit," she said.

  He continued to look at her, saying nothing.

  "Oh hell," she said. "Bernie! Can I have another of those Diet Seven-Ups?"

  The noise in the room grew to the point that Old Sam let loose with a

  vivid curse and turned the volume on the television up to 9. One of the

  pool players was in the process of running the table and she offered up

  an even more vivid curse, which Old Sam applauded politely before

  sitting back down. Luba glanced sideways at her husband and said

  something and Enid, Auntie Joy and Auntie Vi threw back their heads and

  laughed. Demetri, Harvey and Billy shifted uncomfortably in their

  chairs. In the far corner, the Unitarians were trying "Amazing Grace" on

  for size and finding it fit their soprano profundo section, if there was

  such a thing, rather well. Through it all Ralph Estes snored peacefully.

  Bernie refilled Kate's glass with ice, popped open another can, served

  Jim another beer and, in response to a slight jerk of the trooper's

  head, drifted back down the bar.

  Kate took a long, reviving drink. "Auntie Vi said something else, Jim."

  "What?"

  She had to raise her voice over the music. "Auntie Vi said Carol Stewart

  was up here last spring, too."

  Jim was quick. "Alone?"

  She shook her head. "With another man."

  His brows rose. "Hmm. I suppose she could have been married to someone

  else a year ago."

  193 "She could have been, but she wasn't." Kate nodded in Dan's

  direction. "Dan's Motznik buddy pulled up a marriage certificate for

  Mark and Carol dated six years ago."

  "Really," Jim said, glass arrested halfway to his mouth. "Did Viola know

  who the other guy was?"

  The jukebox blared out Aerosmith and Kate winced. "She can't remember

  his name. It reminded her of fish. She said sardine, and then she said

  that wasn't right."

  "Description?"

  Kate shrugged.

  "Great." Jim drained his glass, and regarded Mark Stewart over the rim

  of it. "You ever been charged by a bear, Kate?"

  Kate took another drink. "Does day before yesterday count?"

  "I thought the three of you were in the truck."

  She shook her head. "I got charged on the homestead the day before that."

  Jim gave Kate a sharp look that held the beginnings of understanding.

  "Tell me."

  She told him. When she came to the part where the bear stood up and

  snapped its teeth, Jim didn't go all manly-man on her and try to hide

  his shiver. "I hate that sound. Did you go for your rifle?"

  Kate was silent.

  "Kate?"

  She raised her eyes, the expression in them rueful. "I didn't have it.

  Both the rifle and the shotgun were back in the cabin.
"

  He closed his eyes and shook his head.

  He hadn't said anything, but she agreed anyway. "Yeah, I know. Dumb.

  Especially for someone who is supposed to know what they're doing out

  here." She remembered the conversation at Bobby and Dinah's table the

  night before and one corner of her mouth curled in self-mockery.

  He shook his head. "Close."

  "Too damn close," she agreed.

  "You gonna take the shotgun down to the creek when you go fishing from

  now on?"

  194 Kate gave a short laugh. "From now on, Jim, the shotgun goes with me

  to the outhouse."

  "Good." He paused. "So that's it, huh?"

  "So that's what?"

  "You got charged and survived. Carol Stewart got charged and didn't.

  Could have been you and wasn't. That's why you're finally asking

  questions. You want to find out what happened."

  She shifted uncomfortably and didn't reply.

  He looked over her shoulder, and she knew he was looking at Mark Stewart

  again. "I got charged once myself, hunting on Montague Island. Big male.

  Real big, and there was snow on the ground, which as you know makes 'em

  look twice as big as they already are. False charge, he stopped about

  fifty feet away from me and reared up like a goddam jack-in-the-box. He

  ran off after he let me know I was someplace I shouldn't be and he

  didn't like it and he was sure I knew he didn't like it. I've never

  forgotten it." He dropped his eyes to Kate's and added in an even tone,

  "I've never forgotten what happened afterward, either. It took twelve

  hours to come down off the adrenaline high, and I was still jumping at

  noises a week later."

  Kate nodded. "It's not something you get over overnight."

  They both looked around at Mark Stewart. Evidently Tina had ceded the

  field to Jackie, who had Stewart's hand pressed between hers, soothing

  away whatever strain might remain from grizzly- induced nervous trauma.

  The treatment appeared very effective. Tina was across the room,

  flirting obviously and outrageously with Frank Scully. One of the Moonin

  boys-Sergei, or was it Tom?- didn't like that any more than he'd liked

  her making up to Stewart. "Of course," Jim said thoughtfully, "if you

  were expecting a bear charge-"

  "-like if somehow you managed to provoke one-"

  There was a brief pause, broken by Jim. "He said he'd gotten her up on

  the roof before he ran for help, but he didn't have a mark on him, like

  the bear had taken a swipe at him, or like he'd gotten in between the

  bear and his wife."

  195 Kate remembered the long strips of paint peeling back from the

  clapboard sides of the buildings. "I didn't see any trace of anybody

  climbing up any walls to a roof." ,

  "Me either, and I looked pretty carefully this morning."

  There was another, longer pause, broken again by Jim. "Well, if he did

  what I think he did, he took one hell of a chance."

  "I wouldn't care to hand-feed a grizzly myself.'' She drained her glass

  and frowned. "You'll never prove it, you know. If there's no forensic

  evidence, all you can prove is that the two of them came into the Park

  and acted dumb, and unfortunately, dumb is not a capital crime." She

  drained her glass. "No, you'll never prove it."

  "Aside from finding the rope he tied around her neck with the stake

  attached to it, that is." He saw her expression and gave an apologetic

  shrug. "Sorry, Kate. Remember, by the time I saw her, she was no longer

  a woman. She was just a hunk of leftover meat."

  "Me, too," Kate said softly.

  "Bears," he said. "They wake up cranky, the way everyone does when they

  wake up hungry. If they stumble over a patch of horsetail first, fine.

  If they stumble over a nicely decomposing body instead, that's fine,

  too. If they run into a couple of idiots setting themselves up as the

  main course, all the better. Hell, nobody ever got mad at Binky-God rest

  his ornery little soul-when somebody tried to crawl into his cage at the

  Alaska Zoo. If you're the kind of person who thinks crawling into cages

  with polar bears would be, like, totally rad, dude, you're doing the

  whole human race a favor when you do."

  "And if the bears get an assist on the goal?"

  "As you so astutely pointed out, Kate, we don't have any evidence." The

  quickly bitten off words indicated that he was not as resigned to the

  situation as he would have her think. "Hell, we don't even have motive."

  He brooded for a moment. "Thought I'd give jack a call, have him run a

  make on Stewart. Purely unofficially, of course."

  "Oh, of course," Kate said courteously, and wondered what Jim's boss

  would have to say if he thought for one moment that

  196 Sergeant James M. Chopin, pride of the Alaska Department of Public

  Safety, was treating a random bear attack as a murder investigation.

  Dan O'Brian had bellied up to the bar and was holding forth on the

  trails, trials and tribulations of a ranger's life for the edification

  of one Amy Kasheverof, a medium-size brunette with flashing dark eyes, a

  dimple in her right cheek and an impressive cleavage displayed to

  advantage in a tight scoop-neck T-shirt.

  Kate caught sight of Ben Bingley, sitting alone in a corner, nursing his

  head and a beer. "Only one so far," Bernie said in answer to Kate's

  inquiring glance.

  Old Sam Dementieff caught her eye and raised his Irish coffee in salute;

  she bowed slightly in return, feeling unsettled that he evidently

  regarded them as being somehow in cahoots.

  Karen Kompkoff's husband had shown up in time to rescue her from a fate

  worse than death and Dandy Mike was now hustling Shirley Inglima around

  the pool tables (didn't the man ever let up?). The four Grosdidier

  brothers, who at one point had constituted four of the starting five of

  the Kanuyaq Kings, had joined Old Sam beneath the television monitor,

  dwarfing the old man, who more than made up in noise what he lacked in

  size. The Unitarians had moved on to "The Old Rugged Cross" and were

  making an even better job of it than they had of "Amazing Grace." The

  quilters were doing finish work. Kate wondered if Dinah knew the end

  product had her name on it.

  All in all, kind of slow for a Saturday night, but then it was early.

  "Not to change the subject," Jim said, "but Nathan Harrigan is your DB.

  Ring any bells?"

  "I don't have any DBs," Kate said instantly, but something nagged at the

  edge of her consciousness. She puzzled at it for a moment and got no

  change. "You mean the body the go team found near to but not on my place

  yesterday?"

  He nodded. "I talked to the coroner this morning. It's too soon for a

  positive identification, but the body matches a missing person