Less Than a Treason (Kate Shugak Book 21)

by Dana Stabenow

  “So,” Jim said, looking at Kate, “if the owners of the Kanuyaq Mine want to—”

  “—they could open the mine back up and start mining copper again,” Kate said.

  “Or anything else they found in it,” Jim said.

  Kate stared at him. “Or anything else they found in it.”

  · · ·

  The brief flight to Niniltna was accomplished mostly in silence, until they touched down and R2-D2 signaled an incoming call.

  “Better not be that guy who wants to see you naked calling again.”

  “Jim, I told you—hi, Kurt. Wow. You’re kidding, really? Wait, let me put you on speaker.”

  “I started looking for a Kanuyaq Mine prospectus on line and I fell down a rabbit hole and wound up on a page on the state website that lists every Alaska corporation’s annual report. Kate, did you know that the Kanuyaq Mine is still privately owned?”

  “I did know that, Kurt. I’ve known it for all of fifteen whole minutes.”

  “Good, I don’t feel so dumb then. Do you know what an annual report is?”

  “Pretend I do.”

  “Like I said, there’s a list of them on the state website and guess what?”

  Kate felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. “There’s one for the Kanuyaq Mine?”

  “How the hell did you—Yeah, but only for one year, last year.”

  The feeling intensified. “Can you order a copy?”

  “You can click right through most of them and read them right on your phone. I’ll send you the link.”

  “Does an annual report include a list of shareholders?”

  “No, but it does include their chairman and board of directors. There are seven of them on Kanuyaq’s board. You want their names?”

  “Text them to me.”

  “Will do.”

  “And keep looking for a prospectus.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I just feel like it’s important. I don’t know why. Like an itch I can’t scratch.”

  “I bet Jim could help you with that.”

  “Say good-bye, Kurt.” She hung up and turned to Jim. “The McDonalds made a habit of buying into the businesses employing them and they made a good thing out of it. According to everyone I’ve talked to every spare minute he had from his job at Suulutaq Fergus was out prospecting with his rock hammer. What if Fergus McDonald found gold, maybe a paystreak it would pay to develop down in the old Kanuyaq Mine?”

  “And the owners caught him at it? But why kill him, why not just say thanks and pay him a finder’s fee? And why kill his wife? And his friend and fellow geologist, what was his name—”

  “Magnus Campbell. I don’t know. Were they mining it themselves and smuggling it out of the Park and selling it illegally? And got caught? All mine owners are paranoid assholes, I don’t care if it’s a placer miner waist-deep in a creek or a guy in a board room in a fancy suit. I wouldn’t put homicide past a one of them.” She brooded for a moment. “But that’s not it, or not all of it. Let’s go talk to Auntie Vi. She’s what passes for institutional memory in the Park now that Emaa’s gone. She might know something useful.”

  · · ·

  They left 18 Kilo Oscar at a tie down near the post office and walked down the hill to Auntie Vi’s, who took one look at the two of them and gave an explosive “Hah!”

  “Is that good or bad?” Jim said out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Who the hell knows?” Kate raised her voice. “Auntie, I need to ask you something. Did you know the Kanuyaq Mine was still privately owned?”

  Auntie Vi huffed out an impatient breath, but Jim could tell she was pleased Kate had come to her for help. Or perhaps just pleased she knew something Kate didn’t. “Of course I know this thing, Katya,” intimating strongly that anyone who didn’t was little better than an idiot, present company included. “Old mine never a part of the Park, the owners insist.”

  “Who are the owners, auntie?”

  “Ay, owners I don’t know. Some childrens of olden days owners.”

  “Who were the owners in the olden days?”

  Auntie Vi gave a dismissive shrug. “Muckety-mucks with money. Never see them, they never come to the Park, never talk to the peoples. They stay Outside and cash their checks.” She filled the carafe with water and thumped it into the coffee maker, and produced a plate of cookies right out of a hat. “Millionaire’s shortbread. Damn sure muckety-mucks never get these. You eat.”

  Kate would never know why she asked her next question. “Were there any owners who lived locally, Auntie?”

  Auntie Vi gave her a look of scorn. “What Park rat have money then, or ever?” She slammed down three mugs and filled them and slung them onto the table. She pointed. “You sit. You eat.”

  They weren’t thirsty and they weren’t hungry but they sat and they ate. The shortbread was a layer of chocolate over gooey caramel over a shortbread crust. Kate could feel her teeth dissolving in her mouth and used the coffee to wash them clean. “Well, thanks, Auntie—”

  The commanding finger again. “You sit. I think.”

  Kate leaned forward, hopeful. “Did you remember something, Auntie?”

  “Maybe. Maybe I remember little something.”

  “What?”

  Auntie Vi scowled impartially between the two of them. “I’m just a kid but I remember elders talking stories about when the mine close down, and back before too when it first opens. When they find that kanuyaq, that copper, when they are looking for moneys to dig it out, they come into the village to talk to the old elders.”

  By old elders she meant the villagers living in that day, or her grandparents, or possibly even her great-grandparents. Kate nodded. “Yes?”

  “One elder say the mine people offer shares to the villagers.”

  Kate’s eyes narrowed. “Really.”

  “Not many shares but they say they want to include local peoples.” Auntie Vi snorted. “They want to buy local peoples off more like.”

  “Did any of the locals take them up on their offer?”

  “I remember story of one only. Not local really, he come up from Kodiak way. Kalmakoff. Albert? Andrei? Alex, that name. Alex Kalmakoff. A smart man. He own the local store, Auntie Lillian say he make much money financing miners.”

  “I don’t know any Kalmakoffs in the Park,” Kate said.

  “He die young. Barely fifty, I think.”

  “Oh. So he left no descendants?”

  “Oh no, he got married up to Willy Totemoff’s daughter from down Cordova way. They have a little girl before he die. Mildred. Milly, we call her.”

  “So Alex’s shares would have gone to her?”

  “I suppose.”

  “And did she have children?”

  “One daughter. Milly Junior. MJ we call her.”

  Kate added up the generations in her head. “Did she have any children?”

  “Again one son. Those Kalmakoffs never have many kids. Not for want of trying, my mom say that Alex Jr. chased more skirts than everybody else put together.” Auntie Vi glared at Jim.

  “And does he, the great-grandson of Alex Kalmakoff, does he live in the Park?”

  Auntie Vi gave Kate a disgusted look. “Katya, for smart woman you very dumb. Of course he does, all his life just like you. MJ marry up with Norman.”

  It took Kate a moment. “Norman? Norman Shugak, Auntie?”

  “Yes,” Auntie said testily. “Only Norman I know is Norman Shugak.”

  “But that means—”

  Auntie Vi nodded. “MJ and Norman’s son is Martin. Almost a good man, that Norman. Never understand why his son so useless.”

  Alerted by the quality of silence that fell following her statement, she glared impartially between the two of them. “What? What I say?”

  · · ·

  Outside again, Jim said, “Kate, you realize that it is now possible that those two guys looking for Martin aren’t looking for him because he was working for Ken Halvors
en?”

  “Yes,” Kate said a little numbly. “I do realize that.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and frowned. “Do you think Martin knows that?”

  “I don’t know. I do know we better find him before they do.” Her phone rang. “Kurt! Kurt, just the man I wanted to talk to. I—”

  “Wait, Kate, just wait. I found out the majority owner for the Kanuyaq Mine. It’s a shell company that is owned by another shell company that is owned by another shell company, like that.”

  “That doesn’t help me, Kurt.”

  “This will. I got hold of a forensic accountant I know and the guy’s a magician, I think it took him like three keystrokes. Behind all the shell companies is a corporation called Maestro Ltd., which the Justice Department is investigating for tax fraud in moving all its profit-making enterprises offshore funneling through, variously, Ireland, London, the Isle of Jersey, the Bahamas, Wyoming, if you can believe that, and the Isle of Man before coming finally to rest, although who knows for how long, in good old Switzerland with the Daniel Peter Group. The Daniel Peter Group is in turn managed by Cullen and Associates. And Cullen and Associates is a legal firm representing DiFronzo, Ltd.”

  “DiFronzo? As in the Chicago Outfit?”

  “How the hell did you know that?”

  “What else?”

  Kurt grumbled. “Okay, on a hunch, I ran a search for all of the people and businesses Cullen and Associates have represented over the years. Guess who else is on their client list.”

  There was a cold feeling growing in Kate’s gut. “Erland Bannister.”

  “Will you STOP that!”

  I expect we’ll meet again soon. Jane and I will be visiting the Park quite often, now that I have interests there.

  Kate had thought Erland had meant his financing of Old Sam’s museum, but that wasn’t it, or not all of it. “So, basically what you’re telling me is that there is a good chance through various proxies Erland Bannister owns the Kanuyaq Mine.”

  “Yes. Well, all except for a hundred shares. They are in the name of one of the first shareholders—”

  “Alex Kalmakoff?”

  The legitimacy of Kate’s antecedents were profaned back to the third generation but Kate wasn’t listening. “Thanks, Kurt,” she said, interrupting his tirade. “Really good work. Gotta go.”

  The ATV started reluctantly after a night sitting out in the cold in front of Auntie Vi’s but it did start. On the way down the hill Kate stopped into the Niniltna Native Association to vote at the polling booth set up there for the day and came out again feeling as if her hands needed washing. Jim was waiting on the ATV. “You’re not voting?”

  “Already did, absentee, two weeks ago. I was afraid I wouldn’t at all if I didn’t do it then.”

  “I heard that.” She climbed on in front of him.

  “Where we going? You didn’t say.”

  She looked over her shoulder and met his eyes. “If my case is all about the Kanuyaq Mine, and now it seems that your case is all about the Kanuyaq Mine, I think we should go up and take a look around. It’s only four miles and a bit and we’ve got plenty of daylight left.”

  “Works for me.” He put his hands on her waist as she kicked the ATV into gear. “Did anyone look for Fergus McDonald up at the Kanuyaq?”

  “Not so far as I know. His wife’s body was found on the Step road.”

  “Maybe she turned right when she should have turned left that morning?”

  “Maybe. And maybe someone was watching, and followed.”

  It was a scenic drive through trees frosted like cake decorations. They passed five moose hunkered down beneath a stand of diamond willow waiting out the cold spell. A family of river otters slid gleefully down a frozen waterfall on Glacier Creek. Overhead a trio of ravens tag-teamed them all the way up the road. There was no other sign of life, animal or human. It was as if the Park had been frozen in place for the duration.

  The road hadn’t seen much traffic since the previous summer so the ride was pretty smooth and they made good time. In twenty minutes the mine was in sight. Gargantuan piles of gravel tailings sat at the edge of a wide, shallow river, looking like the carcasses of dinosaurs. At the edge of the tailings massive, faded buildings stair-stepped up the not-quite-vertical hill to the right. First in line were the old offices and a mess hall and a bunkhouse. Next to them was the reason for being there, twenty acres’ worth of buildings containing the machinery of an industrial mining operation and everything needed to keep it going. Gigantic belts and shovels and shaker tables with graduated grates where the water mixed with the mined ore and shook out the good stuff in smaller and smaller sizes, and rails with metal carts that carried the day’s production to the train, which would take it to Cordova and the bulk carriers waiting there. The mine itself, the source of the ore, was buried deep in the earth beneath or in back of the production buildings.

  Everything worth looting had been taken before a year had passed following the closure of the mine. Extremely unsafe-looking wooden staircases led to multiple entrances behind signs that read “Danger! Do not enter!” and “No Trespassing!” affixed with Park Service seals and a phone number in case of emergencies that Jim recognized as ringing directly to Dan’s cell phone. He crossed the job of chief ranger off his bucket list then and there.

  Kate hadn’t moved to get off the ATV. “I forgot how big this place was.”

  He hadn’t moved, either. He was nice and warm tucked up against her. Gloves, hat and parka only went so far and it was a cold, cold day and a fast ride on a four-wheeler had only made it colder. “Where do you think he’d start?”

  “McDonald? I don’t know, I’m not a geologist or a mining engineer. Maybe we should go find one or the other and bring them back with us.”

  “Maybe not. Kate, look.” He pointed over her shoulder at the barest wisp of smoke rising straight up into the air.

  She killed the engine at once. “I wonder if he heard us?”

  They waited, listening. A wolf howled not very far off and there was a frantic thrashing of underbrush as if something large and delicious was trying to get away from it.

  “Could be a squatter,” Jim said.

  “Could be.”

  “Could be McDonald.”

  “I don’t think so, Jim. He’s been gone too long, and he was a married man, it seemed to me happily so. No way would he have been gone this long without contacting his wife.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time a husband used Alaska to hide out from his spouse.”

  “Wouldn’t even be the first time this month.” She got off the ATV and grinned at him. “Time to be sneaky.”

  “You look entirely too pleased about that.”

  They moved slowly and carefully up what was left of the narrow gravel road that fronted the mine buildings. It rose steadily in front of them and then went round a hairpin corner, revealing the remains of thirty small clapboard homes roosting in their own debris. Management had lived here, the mining superintendent and his deputies and their families. They’d had hot and cold running water and refrigerators and electric stoves, all the modern conveniences and better than what most rural Americans would have enjoyed Outside at the time. Meanwhile the hired help slept twenty to a room in the bunkhouse below, or tried to. The mine would have been plenty loud when it was in operation and it would have worked twenty-four-seven so long as there was ore to get out and money to be made. But here, rank hath or had its privileges, including at least some peace.

  The smoke was rising from a miraculously still-standing chimney from the one house that was mostly intact. It was the farthest one back and close up against the side of the hill which might account for its relative state of preservation. The windows were boarded over and the porch had long since fallen down, which meant it was a big step up to the front door. Someone had tried to remedy that with a cinder block.

  The wolf howled again and was answered by one of its kin. “I thought wolves mostly hunted at night.
Are you armed?”

  He could hear the smile in her voice when she answered. “Don’t worry about it, Jim.”

  He kept his natural reservations to himself and followed her when she scurried over to the partial wall nearest to them and peered around it. Leap-frogging each other they moved up the incline, moving from house to ruined house as silently as possible. Although the frozen grass seemed to crunch very loudly beneath their feet, they made it as far as the unoccupied ruin next to the occupied ruin undetected. Out of breath, they leaned against a pile of rock that might once have been a foundation to catch their breath. Jim started to say something and stopped when Kate held a finger to her lips. There is nothing so still as a cold winter day and they could both clearly hear a low rumble of voices. They listened for a while, unable to make out the words but able to distinguish different voices. Kate held up two fingers. Jim held up two and then three and then two again and shrugged. She made a circle around the cabin and held up her hand flat, and before he could stop here she was making a big circle around the house with the voices. When she got back her cheeks were red with exertion and her eyes bright and he almost kissed her. “There’s a pickup parked back there, green, Alaska plates.”

  He nodded. “Bernie said Ace and Deuce had a truck.”

  “No back door,” she said, “and all the windows are boarded up. We can’t get in the front door with any kind of advantage, and if we wait for them to come out we’ll freeze solid.”

  “Have to make them come out to us then,” he said and like to wriggle his tail at her approving smile.

  “They could be armed.”

  “Any sensible person would be.”

  “Yeah, yeah, quit whining.” She looked down at the clump of dry grass they were standing in. “I’ve got an idea.”

  They pulled handfuls of the grass and shoved it beneath a pile of aging planks that was all that was left of one wall of the house they were huddling behind. There was plenty of kindling in smaller pieces of wood that was just as old and just as flammable. Kate pulled her gloves off with her teeth and fumbled out a compact emergency kit in a zipped ditty bag. She held up a tube of weatherproof matches.