Restless in the Grave

by Dana Stabenow

  Jim grunted. “Mine, either.” He drank. “Anybody from the mine management side of things drop in? Truax? Like that?”

  Bernie stopped massaging the bar. “I figured this was more than a social call. What specifically is it you’re after, Jim?”

  Jim examined the bottom of his glass, avoiding Bernie’s eyes. “I heard they’ve been acquiring some new investors.”

  “Yeah?”

  Jim nodded.

  “Well, I woulda thought they already had all the investment money they needed,” Bernie said, “but that’s a decision way above my pay grade.” At Jim’s look he said, “Sure, I bought some Global Harvest stock. You didn’t?”

  Jim shook his head.

  “Well, you should. For one thing, you’d get an annual report, which would answer a lot of questions.”

  Jim thought of the list of securities that had come with his portion of his father’s estate. He wondered if he, too, would now be receiving annual reports. The prospect was depressing.

  “In fact,” Bernie said, watching him, “I just got the latest GHRI annual report in the mail.”

  “You did?” Jim sat up. “Could I take a look?”

  * * *

  The afternoon was taken up with a break-in at Camp Teddy’s (“It’s not the theft, Jim,” a mightily pissed Ruthe Bauman told him, “I can replace what’s stolen. It’s the damages. Who rips a toilet out of the wall?”), a late lunch of moose tongue sandwiches at Bobby and Dinah’s, a show-and-tell at the end of Career Day at Niniltna High, and a domestic dispute between Alma and Derendy Shugak, which resulted in the arrest of her ex-husband for Assault 2, Assault 3, Assault 4, and Criminal Mischief 3. Jim deposited Derendy in a cell at the post and left Alma at the Grosdidier brothers’ clinic.

  He was halfway home and looking forward to dinner ready when he walked in the door—it was Johnny’s turn to cook—when a phone call diverted him back to Niniltna and a report of vandalism at the high school. It wasn’t anything that hadn’t happened a hundred times before the introduction of cell phones into the Park, that hadn’t been previously handled capably by its principal every single one of those times. Jim wrote up a report and drove home thinking with longing of those halcyon cell-free days—Jesus, were they only a month ago?

  He thought about calling Kate, but she’d been up pretty late the night before and he really didn’t want to wake her up in the middle of her first real sleep since she’d got to Newenham.

  News of the partnership between Erland Bannister and Axenia Shugak Mathisen could always wait.

  Seventeen

  JANUARY 20

  Newenham

  Six hundred miles to the south-southwest, Liam Campbell was up all night dealing with the Evelyn Grant shooting. She was in the local hospital, which was the regional hospital for Southwest Alaska so the care was of a pretty sophisticated standard for the Bush. The opinion of the doctor on call that evening was that the prognosis was good and that so long as Evelyn woke up soon, there should be no fears for her eventual full recovery. The bullet had by some miracle ricocheted off her eleventh floating rib through the intercostal space between the eleventh and twelfth floating ribs and lodged just under the skin on her lower back. “Bizarre things bullets do inside bodies,” the doc said. He sounded admiring.

  “You’ll let me know as soon as she wakes up?”

  “I will,” Doc Stanford replied. “Is it true that Gabe McGuire was the one who found her?”

  Liam hadn’t mentioned Gabe’s presence at the scene to anyone, and he was dead certain Kate hadn’t said anything to anyone at all. The Bush telegraph never ceased to amaze him with its speed and accuracy.

  The doc waved a hand. “All I meant was, good work on his part, applying consistent, firm pressure to the wound until Joe got there.”

  “Yeah,” Liam said, “good work.”

  “I haven’t met him yet,” the doc said a little wistfully. “Hear he’s a good guy.”

  “Yeah,” Liam said, “a good guy.”

  “I hear he bought a lodge on one of the Four Lakes.”

  “Yeah,” Liam said, “on one of the lakes.”

  “My sister would love an autographed picture,” the doc said. “For that matter, so would my mother.”

  And so would the doc (not for nothing was Liam an experienced law enforcement officer). “Yeah,” Liam said, “I’ll pass that on. You got the round?”

  The doc handed over the spent, squashed piece of metal in a small ziplock bag. Liam had the doc sign and date the bag, and then he extricated himself from the clutches of Gabe McGuire’s newest adoring fan and went to the waiting room.

  As he approached the door, he heard a low voice muttering in furious tones. He slowed his steps. “What does it matter why she was there, or how late it was? Someone attacked her, Mom, someone shot her!”

  “Liam said—”

  “Liam said! Jesus, Mom, you can’t trust anything he says! He was sent here as punishment for screwing up on the job. They always transfer the deadbeats to Newenham, the worst teachers, the worst doctors, the worst cops, it’s always been that way—”

  “That’s enough, Oren.” Tina’s voice sounded tired, as if she had been remonstrating with her son for a lot longer than the time they’d spent in the waiting room.

  It wasn’t enough for Oren. “Okay, fine, Mom, I know you think the sun shines out of his ass. Think about this instead, then: How much is Evelyn’s little trip to the hospital going to cost us? Will we be able to pay for it after you sell off or give away everything Dad built?”

  Oren’s question had the sound of something having been said before, many times.

  Tina’s voice was sharper this time. “We’re not going to go hungry, Oren.”

  “Right, Mom, and who was it who just rented the apartment over the garage because we couldn’t pay this month’s light bill because you refuse to touch any money in the Eagle Air bank account?”

  Tina didn’t answer.

  Oren lowered his voice to where Liam had to strain to hear it. “You have to drop this ridiculous idea of paying back everyone Dad ripped off, Mom. He screwed them, okay, no question there, but he’s dead, and we’re alive.”

  This was followed by silence.

  Over his shoulder Liam said in a voice meant to carry, “Yeah, Doc, I’ll let you know.” Louise Prewett, a heavyset nurse’s aide in her fifties, dressed in a flowered pink uniform, appeared at that unfortunate moment, looked from him to the empty corridor, and took a wide detour around him.

  Liam couldn’t wait for that story to make the rounds. He walked into the waiting room. Tina and Oren were sitting in chairs across a low table, Oren slumped and sulking, Tina looking as tired as she sounded and about twenty years older than the last time Liam had seen her. First Irene, then Finn, now Evelyn. The way Tina looked, if she were going to survive, Evelyn had to.

  “Tina,” he said. “Oren. Is there anything more I can do?”

  “Sit with me for a bit, Liam, if you would,” Tina said.

  Liam sat in a chair equidistant from both Tina and Oren. He wasn’t about to take sides, not even in body language. An interested observer, on the other hand, might pick up a clue or two as to what was going on between mother and son, and if it had anything to do with what had gone down at Eagle Air earlier this morning.

  “Liam,” Tina said, “what you said before. How you think Evelyn got hurt.”

  Oren’s snort of disgust was badly concealed. He stood up. “I’m going to get some coffee, if there is such a thing in this bad excuse for a real hospital.”

  Tina closed her eyes briefly when Oren stamped out.

  Liam waited. Without opening her eyes Tina said, “You said before that you thought it was an accident. That it looked like Evelyn and whoever it was struggled over the gun and that it just went off. That it was probably one of the partiers from last night’s blowout who drove out to Chinook and broke into the office.”

  “Well,” Liam said, very carefully indeed, “as you know
, Gabe McGuire heard shouting.” McGuire hadn’t, but absent the presence of Kate Shugak, this was their all new and improved story and they were sticking to it for now. “He heard what he thought was a struggle, followed by a shot, several shots. The weapon was one of Finn’s, hanging right there on the wall for anyone to grab. It certainly sounds like it might have been an accident.”

  “But it was a man.”

  “Yes.” One point upon which Liam felt he need not quibble.

  She opened her eyes. “And you still have no idea who it might have been?”

  Liam shook his head. “There has been too much traffic between here and the base to tell which vehicle might have been the one he was driving. He was driving away by the time Gabe got downstairs. And when Gabe saw Evelyn…”

  “Yes.” She leaned forward to touch his arm. “When you see Gabe again, please tell him how very grateful I am for his actions. Dr. Stanford said he saved Evelyn’s life.”

  There were tears in her eyes, and the ghosts of Irene and Finn were very much present in the room. “I will,” he said, although he wouldn’t, because Gabe might rip his head off and stuff it up his own ass if he did. And he wouldn’t be able to find it in himself to blame Gabe much, either. “Tina, now isn’t the time, I know, but when you get around to it, you might want to lock up all those guns Finn had on display in the office. At the very least, you should unload them.”

  There was a flare of emotion in her eyes that he couldn’t quite read. “I’m going to throw the whole boiling lot of them into the Nushugak.”

  There was a savage undertone to her voice that he’d never heard from Tina Grant before. “Some of them might be valuable,” he said, and felt that it was a weak response.

  “I don’t care,” she said. “I wouldn’t touch a dime that was associated with those guns.”

  Which didn’t exactly accord with the picture forming of Tina Grant hurting for money.

  Liam went from the hospital to the post, where he wrote up an incident report that owed a great deal to years of experience and a fertile imagination, and prayed no one would ever know. He filed Gabe’s statement and added a note that it had been taken at the scene and in what circumstances. Gabe had displayed an unexpected talent for screenwriting, and it had taken some persuading to tone down the “rapid rasps” of Evelyn’s breathing and the “glutenous carmine” of her blood, not to mention the “acrid smell of spent powder” and “the immediate arrival on the scene of Newenham’s finest.” Although Liam did wonder just how much Gabe was trying it on, as a way of exacting a little revenge.

  He got home just in time to kiss Wy good-bye on her way to work, when the phone rang. It was Tim, calling from Anchorage, to say hello and ask for money. Which was of course immediately promised to him.

  “Sucker,” Liam said, holding her from behind, all the better to nuzzle her neck.

  “I swear, it’s in the job description of kids in school, they have to call home for money once a week,” Wy said, hanging up.

  “How is he?” Liam said, still nuzzling.

  Wy sighed, tilting her head to give Liam better access. “Fine. I heard a girl’s voice in the background.”

  “God help him.” With even more feeling he added, “God help us.”

  “He doesn’t have a lot of luck in the sweetheart department, true.”

  Liam picked her up and turned her around and sat her on the counter. He smiled down into her eyes, parting her legs so he could step between them. “Fortunately, I do.”

  He loved the kid, he really did, but this kind of seduction was a lot easier with him three hundred miles away. He knew a secret, traitorous thought that Tim would have to repeat some subject so he’d have to stay longer, and then Wy slid her hands into his hair and he forgot Tim’s very existence.

  “The door is unlocked,” she said when he pulled her T-shirt out of her jeans and and slid his hand up to the catch of her bra. Her breasts were warm silken weights in his palms.

  “Liiiiiiaaaaaaaaaam,” she said when he bent his head to suckle nipples already hard through the fabric of her shirt.

  “The curtains are open,” she said, her head falling back when his hands came around to cup her ass and snug his erection into the sweet spot between her legs.

  “So we’ll make anybody watching reeeaally jealous,” he said in a thick voice.

  “I have to get to work,” she said weakly, when he reached for the snap of her jeans.

  “And you will,” he said. “Later.”

  Eighteen

  JANUARY 20

  Newenham

  Kate woke alone, not that there was room in that narrow twin for anyone else but her. She had become unaccustomed to sleeping alone for any length of time, and it was next to impossible not to wake up and feel for the warm body next to her. Jim was always remarkably accommodating in the matter of morning wood, too. Whether he knew who was reaching for it or not.

  An image of Gabe McGuire’s bare chest slid before her closed eyes.

  With an oath, she sat up, swinging her legs over the side, and yelped when her feet touched the cold floor. Mutt, happily chasing rabbits in her sleep, jumped up and barked and growled in four different directions at once.

  “Sorry, girl.” Kate pulled on socks and let an indignant Mutt outside.

  Moses Alakuyak was standing on the stairs.

  “No,” Kate said, even as he pushed past her into the room.

  “Yeah,” he said, “this’ll have to do, we don’t want to walk in on the kids this morning,” and started shoving all the furniture against the walls. When he’d redecorated to his satisfaction, he went into the bathroom and came out in his ninja outfit. “You know he didn’t do it, right?”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Maybe it came out more forcefully than she had intended.

  The Old Nick ninja snorted. “On your feet, girl.”

  No doubt about it, he sounded more like Old Sam every time she saw him.

  Ninety minutes later he went into the bathroom and came out in his civilian clothes. Kate was sitting on the bed, head hanging, sweat dripping from her nose, the muscles of her thighs vibrating beneath her elbows. “I thought you’d be in better shape than this,” he said.

  She managed to raise her head long enough to give him a killing glare.

  The little son of a bitch laughed all the way down the stairs when he left.

  “How do I keep letting him do this to me?” she asked the room. The room wisely returned no answer. Kate was no pushover, but Moses Alakuyak was another order of magnitude of tyranny entirely, and she and the room both knew it.

  Meantime, the sweat had dried on her body and she realized how cold it was in the apartment. The garage beneath was unheated, while the apartment itself had electric radiators. Her landlady was picking up all utilities, it was true, but Kate was enough of an Alaskan to be appalled at the potential heating bill to leave them on low overnight. She turned them up pretty quick now, though, and went to stand beneath some hot water while the apartment heated up.

  Dry and dressed, she was warmer but no less horny. The only marginally effective substitute for horniness was food, preferably good food. The kitchen had one frying pan and one saucepan, but no toaster. She couldn’t find a spatula for love or money. There was one fork, four spoons, and a table knife. Fortunately Kate had her Swiss Army knife, which amazingly she’d remembered to put in her checked luggage when she’d had to go through TSA in Anchorage on the way to St. Paul. There was one plate, three glasses, and one chipped ceramic mug with the handle broken off.

  She’d bought some groceries on the way back from Eagle Air yesterday afternoon, including eggs, sausage, and a rustic loaf. She poured a little oil into the frying pan set on high heat, and when it began to smoke tossed in a piece of bread sliced into cubes. She put water on to boil in the saucepan, and fit the single-cup plastic coffee filter she’d bought the day before with a folded paper towel and filled it with coffee, the real stuff this time, her f
irst purchase the day before. When the bread was brown and crisp, she crumbled in some sausage, and when it was browned, she poured in two eggs beaten in one of the glasses. Salt and pepper, and a handleless mug of coffee, liberally dosed with half and half, she took her breakfast to the postage stamp–sized table in the corner overlooking the river and sat down to tuck in. Done in short order—this was the hungriest job she’d ever worked—she pushed the plate back and crossed her legs on the table to sip her coffee.

  It was another gloriously clear day. There had to be a honking big high pressure system hanging over Bristol Bay that hadn’t moved an isobar in any direction in the last twenty-four hours. Okay by her. Made an investigation all that much easier if she didn’t have to fight the weather, too. Of course, there was indubitably a low building up its own pressure in back of that high that would bring in one hell of a blow when it finally pushed the high out of the way. “Let’s be gone by then,” she said.

  There was an admonitory yip from the other side of the door, and she went to let Mutt in. She’d bought food for Mutt the day before as well, at which Mutt turned up her nose. Kate took a closer look and saw a suspicious bit of white fur caught in Mutt’s teeth. She only hoped it was an arctic hare and not someone’s cat.

  It was an hour before the library opened. She got out her copy of Team of Rivals and opened it where she’d left off reading it in the Park, page 581. Thus far, despite unwitting and often deliberate provocation on the part of each and every member of his cabinet, Lincoln had resisted blowing up at anyone except for the army meteorologist. Everybody always got mad at the weather guy. She read twenty pages and quit, because she was on the wrong side of the middle of this book. Lincoln was just too good a guy and she wasn’t in any hurry to get to Ford’s Theater.