Though Not Dead

by Dana Stabenow

  “Like you don’t know,” she said.

  He was a tall man, broad-shouldered, slim-hipped, long-legged, with a full head of thick hair and intent eyes so dark it took a while to realize they were blue. His nose and chin were strong, and he wore his prison fatigues with the same ease and style with which he had worn his tailor-made suits. He was in his sixties, but a privileged life with good food and all the quality medical care money could buy had left him looking much younger than his years.

  His arrogance was still very much in evidence, and when he smiled, so was his charm. He smiled at her now, and nodded at a pair of chairs sitting in front of one of the row of windows. They were prime seats, a little apart from the rest and as close to being outside as you could get inside the wire. How he had reserved them for his own use was a mystery.

  He waited until she was seated and then took the seat opposite. He was the kind of guy who made whatever chair he was sitting in look like a throne. “Nice to see you again, Kate,” he said.

  “I imagine you’re happy to see anyone in here,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Not true. There is seldom a day when I don’t receive visitors.”

  “Including Vitus Bell,” she said, “or perhaps one of his brothers.”

  His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Perhaps.”

  “All I have to do is check the visitor log,” she said.

  He waved an airy hand. “By all means, check it.”

  “Does Victoria ever get down to see you?”

  “I’m afraid my sister sends her accountant to speak with me these days.” His expression darkened. “Or that antediluvian cop she hired.”

  “Morris Maxwell?” Kate was pleased.

  He saw it and was displeased. “To what do I owe the honor?”

  “You knew my grandmother,” she said.

  He inclined his head. “Ekaterina Shugak. A formidable woman.”

  “Did you know her cousin Samuel Dementieff?”

  Something flickered in his eyes. “Probably. There aren’t many people in Alaska I don’t know. And she herself might have introduced us at some function.” He sounded indifferent.

  “He died two weeks ago.”

  “Did he. I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “I am his primary beneficiary.”

  “Congratulations.”

  The glint of amusement in his eye irritated her but she held on to her temper.

  She wanted information, but Erland hadn’t tripled the family holdings by giving anything away for free. What did she have to barter, beyond the negligible gift of her presence? Which could only offer him a respite from what had to be a mind-numbingly boring existence for a man of Erland Bannister’s intellectual acumen. The only thing he could possibly want was his freedom.

  What had men like Erland Bannister always wanted? Power, all they could get, and more of it when they had that much. Erland would see it as a manifestation of his own power, her coming hotfoot down to Seward to see him.

  Outside the window a cloud shifted, allowing a ray of weak fall sunlight to slant in through the windows. There was a simultaneous pause in the background murmur of conversation as every con in the room instinctively looked around to watch the bright gleam that lit up the dust motes in the air, that kissed the cheek with the most fleeting caress of warmth.

  That same ray of sunlight fell upon Erland Bannister’s face, reducing the prominent nose and the firm chin to the bone structure beneath. The bright eyes seemed even deeper set beneath more strongly marked brows, the cheekbones sharper beneath the skin.

  For one fleeting, ephemeral moment, it was as if Old Sam himself were sitting across from her.

  She realized that her eyes had been traveling over him in what must have been an expression of marveling astonishment. Erland mistook it for something else, and preened. She repressed a sudden urge to laugh out loud. It felt too close to hysteria to be allowed loose.

  Old Sam must have known.

  She wondered if Erland knew.

  She wondered if Emaa had known. “Your father,” she said.

  His expression didn’t change, but then a poker face was prized and cultivated among high rollers. “Emil Bannister. Yes?”

  “He was involved in gold mining, wasn’t he, back in the day?”

  He stiffened involuntarily and relaxed again almost immediately, but she had her answer. “Of course,” he said, and waved a dismissive hand. “Everyone was, to some extent, at least before oil came in. It’s what Alaskans do, Kate. You should know that. You’re involved in gold mining yourself these days.”

  “Isn’t anything ever enough for you guys?” she said.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Enough,” she said. “Enough things. Enough gold. Enough money.” She shook her head. “Enough power.”

  He didn’t answer, maintaining the amused smile at her flights of fancy without seeming effort.

  The clock on the wall showed twenty past one. Time to cut to the chase. “Bruce Abbott,” she said.

  Erland preserved his calm. “How is Bruce?”

  “He’s fine,” she said. “Other than having developed overtly criminal tendencies later in life.”

  “Old Bruce?” Erland loosed a guffaw that was almost too convincing.

  “Yeah, I figured he learned from the best,” Kate said, impatient. That cut off the laughter. “What is Bruce looking for that you think I have?”

  Erland maintained his bland expression. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Kate. How could I hire anyone to follow you from in here?”

  “I didn’t say he was following me,” she said.

  “He would have to be following you for you to discover his overtly criminal, er, tendencies.” He raised an eyebrow, contriving to look a little bored. “Was there a question in there somewhere?”

  “I’m wondering what Bruce Abbott can do for you, stuck in here,” she said. “I seem to remember he has a law degree.”

  Erland’s laugh seemed much more genuine this time. “My case is on appeal, Kate,” he said. “I’ll be out of here before the year is up. But Bruce Abbott is not my attorney.”

  “You might get out,” she said. “And you might not.” But she was afraid he was right. The mournful note in Brendan’s voice had said it all.

  “Oh, I will be out,” he said, leaning forward, his voice silken. “So why would I bother hiring a second-rater like Bruce to do anything for me before I am?” His smile was a promise of menace yet to come. “I can wait.”

  Enough. She got to her feet to look down at him with amused contempt. “Who do you think you are, Erland, Lord Voldemort? If Bruce Abbott is the best you can do for a pet snake, I don’t think so.”

  “You have adopted a son, I believe,” he said.

  Her laughter cut off like a switch. His eyes gleamed with satisfaction.

  Kate told herself to take a deep breath. Kate told herself to count to ten. Kate told herself to step back.

  Instead, she took a step forward, catching him in the act of rising from his chair, using one hand to push him back down. She stepped in close enough that he couldn’t rise, one knee slightly advanced, just touching his crotch.

  The smile vanished from his face. Some part of her was pleased to see it. She was further pleased to see that he couldn’t stop himself from shrinking back a little bit, especially when she leaned down to place both hands on the armrests of his chair.

  From the corner of her eye she could see the guard posted in the room look their way. She ignored the guard, and the sudden silence that had fallen over the visiting room. She bent forward until her nose was almost touching Erland’s, until his eyes very nearly crossed trying to meet her gaze. When she spoke, her voice was even more silken than his had been, and infinitely more deadly. “The last time you fucked with me, Erland, you wound up in here. You mess with any of mine, next time you won’t live to see the Seward Highway past McHugh Creek.”

  He might have paled, but he met h
er eyes steadily. “Don’t you want to know why I’m looking for the icon, Kate?”

  She stared at him, arrested. Before she could formulate a reply he said, “My father bought it from an antiques dealer in Seattle on a trip Outside in 1945. It was one of the things that was stolen when a burglar broke into our house in 1959.” He leaned forward, never breaking eye contact. They were close enough to kiss. “You might want to look up the case. It has certain, shall we say, family connections.”

  The guard was almost upon them, and she released the arms of Erland’s chair and stepped back.

  The light of malice in his eyes as she left the visitors’ room stayed with her all the way back to Anchorage. She was furious with herself. She had let him get to her. She had lost her temper, and worst of all, she’d let him have the last word. Mirroring her inner tumult, a gusting wind that was the leading edge of a low blowing in from Prince William Sound battered the Subaru all the way through the Pass and down the Arm. She was grateful that the roads were still dry, and tired enough by the time she got past the sheltering outcropping of Beluga Point that she stopped at McHugh Creek and got out to stretch her legs and Mutt’s.

  The trees whipped back and forth, leaves falling in a dry rustle only to be swept into the air again to form miniature golden tornadoes. The shallow water of the Arm was choppy and grayer than usual with stirred-up glacial silt, moving fast on an incoming tide. The mountain wedges that succeeded one another from Portage west looked sharp and formidable, and the air had a distinct bite to it. Kate sniffed, considering. Snow? No, not yet, but rain, and soon. She grabbed her jacket and locked the Subaru.

  The road up to the park was barred and padlocked. Mutt took the gate in an easy lope and Kate ducked under it and they followed the paved switchback together up to the top, which reduced the sound of the Girdwood going-home traffic to a minimum and improved the view. The eastern end of Turnagain looked dark and menacing.

  Kate walked over to look at the creek, which tumbled headlong down the side of McHugh Peak in a mad and drunken dash that ricocheted from rockfall to boulder, a fast and deadly torrent. For many years back in the day, McHugh Creek had been the dumping ground of choice for the bodies of Anchorage murder victims. Now it was a handicapped-accessible park with a gate that was locked after the last tourist headed south.

  Next time you won’t live to see the Seward Highway past McHugh Creek.

  She looked out at Turnagain Arm, so named because Captain Cook had sailed up it looking for the elusive Northwest Passage, the holy grail of eighteenth-century explorers. After the 1964 earthquake, which had caused the entire arm to rise five feet, a windsurf board was all the draft it could handle.

  There weren’t any out there this evening.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she said out loud.

  Old Sam, of course, couldn’t answer.

  She kicked herself for not anticipating the possibility. Habits were hard to break, and the first thing a competent investigator noted. Mac McCullough had fathered one illegitmate son. Why not another?

  She thought back to the first time she’d seen Erland Bannister, in his own home, surrounded by a crowd of suck-ups, sycophants, and stooges, in company with a wife, a mistress, a daughter, and a nephew. The wife’s plastic surgeon. The daughter’s lesbian lover. His home was palatial by any standards, his clothes, however casual, of the best quality and carefully tailored to a body that showed signs of moderation in food and drink and hours in the fully equipped gym undoubtedly in the basement. He cultivated an affable charm, but his air of privilege, his pride, and his sense of entitlement were manifest at first glance. He expected attention to be paid, and it was.

  The last time she’d seen Old Sam he’d been wearing Carharrt bibs so stained with use you wouldn’t have known they were Carharrt brown, over a plaid flannel shirt with a frayed collar and cuffs and aerated elbows that allowed his longies to show through. He looked like what he was, a fierce, predatory loner, a man with hands rough from making a living and knuckles scarred from fighting off whoever got in his way. He lived in a one-room log cabin and made his living on a seventy-five-foot fish tender older than he was. But he, too, expected attention to be paid, and it was.

  A gust of wind tore at her clothes, her hair. At her confidence. How could she not have seen it?

  One thing was certain. Mac McCullough hadn’t died of the tuberculosis contracted in prison, exacerbated by wounds suffered in the Battle of Attu. Not immediately, he hadn’t. No, Mac McCullough had lived to procreate another day.

  Had Old Sam known? She thought of the map she had discovered the night before, which recorded the elevation and contour of each rise of ground, every boulder over five feet in diameter, every rivulet, brook, stream and creek. She knew now where Old Sam had gotten the gravel for the cabin’s foundation, and as she’d guessed, it was from the moraine left behind by the retreat of the hanging glacier above it. She knew how deep the hole was beneath the outhouse. She knew there had been a cache, and where and how big it had been.

  What she didn’t know was why the map mattered as anything more than a faithful representation of a homestead proved up on sixty years before.

  Erland wasn’t going to tell her.

  Who else would know?

  The nephew, at his own request, was incarcerated in a facility Outside. The daughter was dead. The wife, now she might know something. If she hadn’t hightailed it to Cabo with her plastic surgeon.

  It has certain, shall we say, family connections.

  Kate took a deep breath and let it out. There was another family member who might know something.

  Mutt nudged her side about the same time the first drop of rain from the oncoming storm hit Kate’s cheek. They returned to the car and headed for town.

  1956

  Juneau

  The Freya went to Southeast that March for the herring season, and Sam took her into Juneau on April 24 so the crew could vote in the election to ratify the state constitution. He’d hired locally when he’d bought the Freya back in 1950, so they all had to vote absentee.

  Being locals who worked in the fishing industry gave them an added incentive when it came to the third ordinance on the ballot. When Old Sam learned later that while citizens of the Territory voted only two to one for statehood as compared to five to one for outlawing fish traps, he was not at all surprised. The Outside fish processors and mine owners had fought a fierce battle against statehood in an attempt to protect their properties from federal taxation, and as a result not only lost the battle but pissed off a lot of Alaskans.

  He escorted his crew up to the voting place to make sure they did their duty as citizens and then gave them the rest of the day off to celebrate in the local bars, with the warning that the Freya would be casting off at 8:00 a.m. the following morning whether they were on board or not. He picked up a newspaper and adjourned to the Capital Café for a meal he didn’t have to cook himself. Which reminded him, he was still looking for a cook. Not one of his four hands could fry an egg without setting the galley on fire. Which also reminded him, he should have all the fire extinguishers on board checked and refilled while he was in town.

  He ordered half a pound of bacon crisp and four eggs over easy and a mess of fried potatoes and three slices of sourdough toast—“Sopping in butter, and I mean wet, and I mean real butter, Darigold butter right out of the can”—and settled in to read all about the seventy-five-day constitutional convention in Fairbanks, beginning last November and ending this February.

  Seventy-five days in midwinter in Fairbanks. He shook his head. At a mean temperature of forty below, he would have thought it would have taken the fifty-five delegates a lot less time.

  He ran his eye down the list of names, some familiar, some not. Pilz, Bell, Heiman, all the usual suspects and then some.

  The list of names continued and he turned the page, reached for his mug, only to jump and spill hot coffee all over his leg.

  “Honey, are you okay?” It was the waitr
ess, her round face a little too concerned, her hands a little too eager to help him mop up.

  “I’m fine, sweetheart,” he said. “A couple more napkins’ll do the job.” He turned her toward the counter, his hands on her waist, and gave her a gentle pat to send her on her way. He folded the newspaper open to the relevant page and stared down at the name.

  Emil Bannister, Anchorage.

  He reached for his wallet. Beneath the hidden flap was a piece of paper, crumpled, greasy, and coming apart along the folds. On it was the name Pete Pappardelle had written down for him nearly ten years before.

  Emil Bannister.

  Emil Bannister was the man to whom Pete had sold the icon.

  The waitress brought him his food and was disappointed when it elicited nothing but an absent grunt. He’d looked pretty hungry when he came in, and sounded hungrier when he ordered, but now he sat staring at the laden plate as if it wasn’t really there.

  He had also given her ass an appreciative look when he came in. She twitched off, with a hopeful glance over her shoulder. Nothing.

  It would not be fair to say that Sam had searched nonstop, unrelentingly, for Emil Bannister during the past decade. He had spent a year in Seattle, with Pappardelle’s help trying to track down Bannister and the icon, but the postwar boom and the flood of returning veterans overwhelmed all other claims for attention. Public servants were run off their feet by new marriages, new births, new housing developments, new business start-ups. With the best will in the world, the few friendly bureaucrats Sam found were buried in paperwork and had no time to excavate dusty records for curiosity seekers.

  The upside was that the docks had never been busier, exporting lumber and raw minerals, importing consumer goods. No cargo ship arrived without its allocation of diapers. The marine construction trade was booming right along with everything else, and Sam’s employer had gone to a third shift.

  Sam had never made so much money in his life. He banked almost all of it, staying in the shabby one-room studio apartment he’d found near Pioneer Square, and limiting his social life to dinners at Pete Pappardelle’s, with the occasional Sunday spent in Wallingford, helping Kyle Blanchette restore the Craftsman home he’d bought before the war. Kyle turned out to be funny, smart, and good company, even if he did cast the occasional languishing look Sam’s direction, which most times he turned into a wry joke and a laugh on himself.