“Yeah, I know, you thought I was dead.”
Cheryl managed to summon up an affronted look. “Certainly not. I heard that silly rumor and I told people it was silly when I heard it. I knew you were fine. If anyone was going to be fine in those mountains it would be Kate Shugak, I told them.”
“Thanks, Cheryl.” Kate’s gratitude was as genuine as Cheryl’s denial. “Listen, you remember Sylvia McDonald?”
Cheryl’s face collapsed into a well-crafted expression of sorrow. “Oh my yes, I heard about that poor woman.” She affected a shudder. “I saw Nick load her body on the airplane to take it to town. Horrible, just horrible.” Her protuberant eyes focused on Kate with an avid expression. “I noticed you flew in with the body. Did you find it?”
“She was my client.” Kate went on rapidly before Cheryl could pelt her with the questions she could plainly see trembling at the tip of her tongue. “I’ve just learned that her husband, Fergus McDonald, was sent an express mail. It was sent care of general delivery, to this post office. I’m pretty sure she picked it up the day she arrived. Did you give it to her?”
“Why, yes. She was such a pretty little thing. You could tell George and the boys thought so, too, their tongues were hanging out down to the ground watching her walk across the strip.” Cheryl tittered, and then sobered. “Oh. I…I hope I didn’t do anything wrong. She had identification, she could prove she was his wife and I thought…”
“Do you still have the slip on file here?”
“I can’t afford to lose this job, Kate,” Cheryl said, looking twenty years older from one moment to the next. “Please don’t call the postal inspectors on me. One more complaint, and—”
“Cheryl. Do you still have the slip on file here?”
“Of course.” Cheryl scurried around the Dutch door and Kate heard the sounds of a drawer opening and a flutter of paper. There was an aircraft on final into the strip outside, too.
“Here it is,” Cheryl said, reappearing, flushed, holding the form in her hand.
The writing on the label was cramped and illegible, and the label itself was crumpled. She could make out the date stamp, the day before Sylvia McDonald had flown to Niniltna, the From: Schuyler Rare Finds, and the To: Fergus McDonald. Contents could have been book, or maybe brochure? It was too badly creased to decipher. “Did she say what it was?”
Cheryl shook her head. “She said her husband was meant to have picked it up before she got here.”
“Could you tell what it was?”
The postmistress screwed up her face in thought. “It felt kind of like a blue book, you know, the exam books they give you in high school? Only bigger, and made of stiffer paper.”
Kate handed the slip back. “Okay, thanks, Cheryl. I appreciate it.”
“Kate?”
Kate, lost in her own thoughts, looked up. “Yes?”
Cheryl was actually wringing her hands now. “You won’t…”
Cheryl Jeppsen had fallen out of a bad marriage into one of the few good year-round jobs Niniltna had. She might be an inveterate gossip, she might hold back someone’s mail a day or two if she was peeved at them, she might even hand over mail to one person that was addressed to someone else. But she was, in that inimitable phrase of Sharyn McCrumb, one man away from welfare, or as in this case one job, and Kate would not be the person who shoved her over that line. “I won’t, Cheryl. Thanks again, you really helped me out.”
She stepped outside, pulling the door closed behind her, and watched a Cessna 206, white with blue and gold stripes and the tail number 18 Kilo Oscar roll out of its landing and taxi over to her side of the strip.
The engine shut down and the prop stopped turning and the pilot stepped out.
It was Jim.
Thirteen
Sunday, November 6th
the Park
She was distantly conscious of other people getting out of the plane but she couldn’t summon up the wherewithal to identify them, say hi or even care who they were. All of her attention had been taken hostage by the presence of the man standing off the nose of the unfamiliar aircraft.
He looked good. God, did he look good. His shoulders seemed broader, his hips slimmer, his legs longer, his hair blonder and his goddamn eyes bluer. He wasn’t even in uniform, but the bomber jacket and the Levis did fine as a showcase. She found her eyes drifting down to the button on the fly on his jeans and she yanked them back up to his face.
It was comforting to see that he was as dumbstruck by her appearance as she was by his. His eyes roved over her from head to toe and it felt as if her down jacket and jeans were melting right off her body and for just a second she was more than okay with that.
He said nothing. The only sound was their breath, the only movement the clouds it formed in the cold air. Her heart was pounding so loudly in her ears she wasn’t sure if she could have heard him if he had spoken. This was ridiculous. She pulled herself together and tried for a smile, although the expression felt stiff on her lips. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Try as she would the words came out shaky.
He took a deep breath. “The last time I saw you you were unconscious on a hospital bed and I had your blood all over my clothes. Give me a minute.” His voice was deep, resonant, the words maybe a little shaky themselves.
One of the two figures who had climbed out of the plane after Jim came forward. “Hey, babe.” She was engulfed in a bear hug.
“Bobby,” she said, and the world returned to real time. Over his shoulder she saw Bernie, who gave her a little wave. “Bernie. Hi.”
“Good to see you, Kate.”
“Backatcha.”
Bobby held her by the shoulders for a close inspection. “Come home with? Dinah and Katya would be very happy to see you.”
She gave Jim a fleeting glance. “Uh. I was going to go on out to the homestead.”
He snorted and said just loudly enough for her to hear him, “About time.”
She felt the heat begin to creep up her neck and was glad she was wearing all of her winter clothes, including the thin white wool scarf that came up to her chin.
“Okay then, see you later.” Bobby looked at Jim. “Tell her what we’ve been up to, asshat.”
“Will do, dipshit.”
“See you, Kate, Jim.”
“Bye, Bernie.”
Kate and Jim were left to stare at each other some more. Finally she nodded at her ATV. “Well. I should get going if I want to make it home before dark.”
“You could,” he said. “Or.” He jerked his head at the airplane. “We could fly.”
· · ·
The 206 touched down at the end of the runway and eased to a smooth stop in front of the hangar. Jim killed the engine and got out to open the hangar doors and Kate recovered enough to help him push the tail around and back the Cessna inside. He gave her the dollar-and-a-quarter tour over the rest of it, not forgetting to point out the weather station. “You can install the app on your phone and log in with my account. I paid for two users.”
She handed him her phone without comment and walked back out onto the runway in front of the hangar, hands stuffed into her pockets, surveying the complex from the ground as she had from the air before they landed. The hangar was perpendicular to the runway, the evergreens and the undergrowth were trimmed back to an evenly respectful distance, and everything was so neat—she squinted. “What’s that?”
He came up and handed her her phone. “What?” He followed her pointing finger to the two dimples in the side of the otherwise pristine hangar wall. “Oh. That.” He might have shuffled his feet a little. “I dropped a piece of wood.”
She looked at him. “Gravity generally works down, not up.”
He looked away. “Yeah, well, maybe I dropped two.”
He was clearly uncomfortable and she decided to table it. For now. “You did all this this summer?”
“Summer and fall.”
“All by yourself?”
“God no. I had some
guys come in from Ahtna to knock out a bunch of trees and blade the place level. I hired help to assemble the hangar and the sheds, and I had an electrician from Ahtna come out and wire the place to code. I hired the entire senior class to limb and buck the trees.”
“They cut the firewood, too?”
“No. No, I’ve been on that.”
She ran her eyes over him again. “Well, no wonder.”
He looked away. There might have been a little color in his cheeks. “Kept me busy.” He looked back. “And you?”
“I tore down Old Sam’s cabin and built a new one.” He didn’t say anything. “Did you know? How did you know?”
“Well, when you’re standing in line at the post office, waiting to pick up your packages, and a semi delivers two pallets of freight, most of it building materials, and George Perry shows up in a high-altitude helo to haul them east, not south as you might expect if he were taking them to Suulutaq…” His voice trailed away. “George didn’t say a word but I doubt it was much of a secret to anyone in the Park.” He smiled a little. “I mean, Cheryl Jeppsen had a front row seat.”
She smiled a little, too, and looked up to see him looking at her mouth. Their eyes met.
He took a deep gulp of air. “Help me close up and we can get out of the cold.”
The house looked much the same. Kate’s steps slowed when they came into the yard and she moved even more slowly up the stairs, casting an involuntary look behind her. The clearing was much the same, a semi-circle of buildings, the old cache still sturdy on its long legs, the greenhouse, the house, the garage and shop, even the old outhouse was still upright and functional because you never knew when your septic might blow out and in the Bush it was all about backup.
If Kate’s eyes clung briefly to the spot where Mutt had lain after she was shot Jim didn’t say he’d noticed, because he was smart like that.
She stepped inside and sniffed the air. “Did you spill some Clorox?”
He looked shifty. “Why would you think that?”
She shed her outer gear and went straight to the kitchen and got out the flour, salt and yeast. He watched her for a moment and then went to build a fire in the fireplace and refill the woodbox. When he was done she had the dough on to rise and had gone to investigate the contents of the chest freezer on the back deck. She returned with a package of moose ribs and opened it up to let them thaw in the sink.
The tension in the air had lessened some by the time these homely tasks were completed. She made coffee. He got a beer. They sat down on opposite ends of the couch. The sun sank into the southeast and the fire crackled on the hearth.
“So.” He rolled the bottle between his hands. “Bobby said you’re on a case.”
“Yeah.” Silently she thanked him for the segue from the personal to the professional, and told him about Sylvia McDonald, and Fergus McDonald, and then Magnus Campbell. After which she paused, and said, picking her way delicately through the words, “I, ah, got your text.”
“Good to know. When you didn’t answer, I wondered.”
He didn’t ask her why she hadn’t replied. “Did you go to town to pick up your new airplane? Which is a very nice airplane indeed, if I didn’t say so before.”
“Thanks.” He told her about his adventures and she laughed and that husky, partly broken sound nearly undid him then and there. “And I was looking for Martin.” He took a swig of beer. “A little bit, anyway.”
She lowered her mug. “Martin? Martin Shugak?”
He nodded. “Howie Katelnikof dropped by.”
She stared at him. “Voluntarily?” He quirked an eyebrow. “He’s in fear of his life, evidently. There’s some muscle for hire been asking questions about—” he took a deep breath “—Ken Halvorsen and Martin Shugak.”
She got there immediately. “Was Martin running for Ken?”
“Looks like maybe.”
“Oh.” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, of course, and Howie, too, which is why he’s scared.”
“Yeah, he’s afraid the muscle was sent by Halvorsen’s supplier.” He shrugged. “Maybe Halvorsen missed a payment, but Halvorsen’s dead—” he managed to say this without a quiver “—and Halvorsen must have told them that Martin was working for him so Martin is next on their list, and while he didn’t say so, I’m sure Howie, the little weasel, is afraid they’re going to catch Martin and persuade Martin to give him up.”
“Have you seen said muscle?”
“No, but Bernie has, up close and personal. They were at the Roadhouse, staying in one of the cabins and drinking in the bar. He waited on them.” He paused. “And he gave me a glass he’d served beer in to one of them.”
“No way.”
“Way. He didn’t like the look of them, he said, not enough to not take their money, but—”
“Certainly not.”
“—but enough so that he thought law enforcement might maybe come sniffing around after them. They were pretty rough-looking according to him and Bobby, who saw them, too. Lot of tats.”
“Prison tats?”
“He thought maybe so. Anyway, he gave me the glass and I brought it into town with me.”
Kate groaned. “You didn’t hand it into the lab, did you?”
“God no. Never see or hear of it again. No, I called that FBI agent you met last year in Newenham.”
“James Mason?”
“Yeah.” He told her about handing over the glass to the FBI and Mason’s subsequent callback, and flying out to Bernie’s that morning only to find the muscle gone.
She pursed her lips in a long, silent whistle. “Wow. The Mob in the Park.”
He felt bound to say it. “Not particularly heavy hitters, Mob-wise.”
“No, but still.” Her brow creased. “What the hell, Jim. The Mob’s getting back into bootlegging? I thought that went out with Prohibition.”
“Yeah, so did I.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You think they’re here for some other reason?”
He sighed and finished his beer. “If so, I can’t imagine what that reason would be.” He hesitated. “Something else. Erland Bannister has been around. A lot. George says he’s in and out of Niniltna two, three times a month. Hell, I saw his GII overhead I don’t know how many times while I was working on the strip and the hangar.”
“I ran into Erland in Anchorage.” She told him.
He didn’t try to hide his wince.
“Not all downside.” Her smile was lop-sided. “At least he bought me lunch.”
They were silent for a while. They’d both stretched out on the couch, legs laying next to each other’s but barely touching.
“So you didn’t find Martin in Anchorage.”
“Hide nor hair.”
“So he’s probably still in the Park.”
“Probably.”
There were silent for a few moments. “Where were you coming back from, today?”
“Cordova. When we flew out to Bernie’s he said Shitting Seagull came in for his annual toot and said he’d seen smoke rising from one of the houses at Potlatch. I thought it might be Martin so we flew down to take a look, but it wasn’t.”
“Scott Ukatish still there?”
“No. Some guy who said Scott sold him his house. He wasn’t, shall we say, welcoming. Didn’t even give us his name.” He shrugged. “Bugged me. Bernie said Gull said Scott had moved to Cordova. The weather was holding so we flew on down. Found Scott in the Cordova House.” A smile spread across his face.
“What?”
“He was barkeeping. And he was dressed to the nines.”
“What, he’d ironed his jeans?”
“Oh, no. I”m talking more like a leather mini-skirt over fishnet stockings and four-inch heels.”
Kate blinked. “Really.”
“Said he’d lost a bet.”
“But?”
“But I couldn’t help but notice how well those heels fit.”
“Well,” Kate said, “to each his own. How’s Cordova takin
g it?”
“Oh you know that town, they’re pretty much up for anything. And when we talked to him he said he did sell his house to, quote, some guy, unquote, five years ago.”
“Scott stayed through last summer, though, didn’t he?” Kate had reason to know, and two excellent reasons to forget.
“He said the guy he sold it to was gone a lot and was okay with Scott living there until he moved in full time.”
“He remember the guy’s name?”
“All Scott cared about was that the check cleared. At any rate the guy wasn’t Martin, and he did legitimately buy Scott’s house. So we came on home.” He tired of fiddling with the empty beer bottle and set it on the floor. “I noticed there was no smoke coming from Potlatch on the way back.”
She smiled. “Once a cop.”
And boom, there was the elephant in the room. He raised his head and looked at her. Her eyes widened at his expression. “I’m sorry, Kate. I’m so awful, goddamned sorry, I can’t even begin to tell you.”
“Jim—”
“I should have shot him the moment he walked into the clearing. He was carrying a weapon. He threatened you, and I’m standing there with my finger on my own trigger and can’t even pull it until he shoots Mutt and then you and then…” He scrunched his eyes closed. “I’d always been able to talk them out of shooting before. It never—but it’s not like they don’t train us—”
“Hush,” she said.
“I’m so sorry, Kate. I looked for her. Everywhere. I searched every square foot of this homestead out to the corner markers, first on the ATV and then on foot. I spent days at it, searching the homestead and beyond. I didn’t—she wasn’t—I never found her. Not even a trace of her. I’m so sorry.”
“Hey.” He opened his eyes to find that she was kneeling next to him, and that she had one hand on the back of his neck and the other on his knee. “There is nothing to be sorry for.”
“The hell there isn’t.”
He moved to get up and she pulled him back. “No.” Her voice was stern in a way he had never heard it before, in a way that forced his attention. “Is that why you quit?”
“I never shot anyone before, Kate. I’ve never had to. Hell, I’ve barely ever drawn my weapon on the job. And then the one time I should have…”
Less Than a Treason (Kate Shugak Book 21) Page 17
