Less Than a Treason (Kate Shugak Book 21)

by Dana Stabenow

  “I don’t know. I might go for an A&P. I think this state needs more and better airplane mechanics than it does cops.”

  “You’d be wrong about that.”

  “Me being wrong about something would not be a new thing. And who knows. I might just build hours in my new airplane. There’s a lot of Alaska I haven’t seen.”

  Barton snorted. “Yeah, well, have fun on your vacation, and let me know when you get bored.”

  Jim looked at Kate across the room, her face alive with laughter as she advised Katya in a Monopoly game with Johnny, Vanessa and Anne Flanagan’s daughters Lauren and Caitlin. “Yeah, you’ll be my first call, John.”

  Right after that Kurt called with the news that Erland Bannister had died in the hospital early that morning.

  “Early Christmas present for you,” Bobby said to Kate.

  “Bobby,” Anne Flanagan said.

  “What?”

  “At least that’s over,” Jim said later to Kate.

  “No,” she said. “No, it isn’t.”

  “Why do you say that? Do you know something? Did Erland leave money in his will for a hit on you, or what?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. But Erland wasn’t the type to go gentle into that good night.”

  “Not the room to find any sympathy for Erland Bannister,” Jim said later to Anne.

  “You don’t believe in redemption, then? In the existence of a forgiving God?”

  “I’ve never felt that spark of faith, Anne. Even if I had, it would be for the sole purpose of believing that the judges would take one look at that guy and pull the lever on the trap door.” He grinned at her expression “Sorry. Not exactly what a priest wants to hear, I know.”

  “I don’t care what you believe in, Jim, so long as you believe in something.”

  His eyes wandered involuntarily across the room to where Kate, Katya, the three aunties, Johnny, Val and Dinah were playing a fiercely fought game of Snerts on the cleared dining room table. “I believe in Kate Shugak.”

  “That’s a lot of weight to load up on one person.”

  “Who better?”

  “You could try believing in yourself.”

  But that got way too close to a self-examination he wasn’t yet prepared to undertake.

  “Yeah,” he said later to Bobby, “the McDonalds were buried together in Anchorage last Thursday.”

  “They ever decide who shot him?”

  “DiFronzo says killing Fergus was all Spilotro’s doing, none of his. Spilotro says DiFronzo killed him before Spilotro could stop him. DeFronzo says Spilotro was driving when they hit Sylvia. Spilotro says DiFronzo was driving but that it was an accident. And they both fingered Accardo for Campbell.”

  “He under arrest?”

  “There’s no evidence, and they weren’t even in Anchorage at the time, so…” Jim smiled. “Special Agent Mason is so pleased that Ace and Deuce are going to be locked up somewhere that he didn’t, ah, even resent it was Alaska instead of Illinois.”

  “What were they doing holed up at the Kanuyaq Mine?”

  “They say they needed a place to work Martin over so he’d sign over his shares.”

  “I still can’t believe he didn’t. I never would have picked Martin Shugak to have much physical courage, and Matt Grosdidier says they whaled on him pretty good.”

  “So,” Ruthe said to Kate, “is Martin going to be rich now?”

  “Depends on if Erland’s heir decides to develop the Kanuyaq Mine.”

  “Who is his heir?”

  “Well, his daughter’s dead, his nephew’s in jail, and his wife ran off with her plastic surgeon. His sister by default, maybe? I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.”

  “And how are you, Kate? You sure got dumped into the deep end before you even got home.”

  Ruthe’s eyes were wise and kind and she’d been in the Park long before Kate came home that winter with her throat cut and her voice gone, when Billy Mike had asked Kate to find the bootlegger and stop him. She had. “I’m really, really glad that Martin being missing wasn’t about Ken Halvorsen.”

  Ruthe nodded slowly. “Yeah. I can see that.” She pulled Kate into a hug, warm and maternal. “It’s good to have you home, Kate.”

  “Any news on that guy in Potlatch?” Bobby said.

  “He’s gone, at least for now. Billy Mike Jr. was down that way and he stopped in. The fire was out, no food on the shelves except for some canned beans. The bedding was bagged. Gone for the winter, I guess.”

  Kate, overhearing, had a sudden inspiration and called Kurt. “No, not today, there’s no hurry. Next Monday when you’re back in the office is fine.”

  “What?’

  She hung up and turned to look up at Jim. “Nothing important.” She smiled and leaned against him. “Ready for home?”

  He kissed her. “Always ready.”

  And Bobby, shamelessly eavesdropping, marveled, first that Chopper Jim Chopin, erstwhile Father of the Park and the biggest rounder Alaska had seen since Mike Healy scattered offspring from Unalaska to Utqiaġvik, could so easily refer to Kate’s house as home, and second that Kate Shugak, that most tightly wired of tightly wired individuals, could be so comfortable with a public display of affection.

  Although there was that one time she had climbed Jim like a tree at the Roadhouse. So maybe not so wondrous a sight after all.

  He looked across the room to where Katya was reading The Paperbag Princess to Lauren and Caitlin and felt his heart turn over.

  Or maybe everyone was just growing the fuck up.

  Seventeen

  Friday, the day after Thanksgiving

  Kate’s homestead

  He woke up alone. Pulling on jeans and a sweatshirt, he followed the smell of coffee downstairs. There was no sound from behind the door with the sign “Orc Free Zone!” on it. The sign dated from Johnny’s Lord of the Rings period and remained because Kate thought it was funny. Johnny and Van had stopped to visit Annie Mike on their way back from Bobby and Dinah’s and returned home late. Annie was Van’s adopted mother, and for all Jim knew—and he’d been a teenage boy with a hollow leg in his time, so he was pretty sure he did know—they’d scored a second Thanksgiving dinner at her house.

  The sky was gray for a change, a high overcast with an ominous look to the southern horizon, and the clock read the crack of noon. He poured coffee into an insulated mug, slipped into his parka and boots, and went looking for Kate. He found her sitting on the glacial erratic that had come to rest at the edge of the cliff that formed one side of Zoya Creek. Its top was worn smooth by two generations of Shugak backsides. He parked the Chopin backside next to the extant Shugak one and they sat drinking coffee together in silence.

  The Park was so still this noonday that they could hear the sound of moose stripping bark from an alder, a whuff of displaced air from a golden eagle flying low overhead, the rattle of a porcupine’s quills as she licked at a salty rock on the near side of the creek.

  It was amazing, what the Park could tell you about itself, if you only stopped long enough to listen. “I forgot to mention.”

  “What?”

  “The doc told me to tell you that you can’t get hit on the head anymore.”

  She laughed a little. “I’ll try to avoid it.”

  “Seriously, Kate. He said you could wind up like Mohammed Ali, with what they call Pugilistic Parkinson’s. Only with no big-ass gold belt to show off.”

  “Okay. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen ever, ever again.”

  He knew she was lying, and he knew she knew that he knew.

  She stirred. “I have to make a trip up to Keith and Oscar’s. No hurry. Next week sometime.”

  “Okay. Why?”

  “I need a DNA swab from Keith.”

  He looked down at her. “Why?”

  “Because he’s the last living Gette in the Park.”

  He frowned, and then his face cleared. “You think it’s Lotte.”

  Seven
years before in Niniltna, longtime Park rat Lotte Gette had killed her sister and run from the consequences, straight up into the mountains, never to be seen out of them again. “My first thought was that it was the missing orienteer. Then I thought it was Fergus McDonald. Then I was afraid it was Jennifer or Ryan.” Jim was one of two Park rats besides herself who knew that the two were still alive. “But Brillo said the bones had been out there at least five years. Now he says the bones are from the body of a woman.”

  Jim thought back. “Is Lotte the only woman who has gone missing around these parts in recent history?”

  “So far as I know, yes.” She was silent for a moment. “When I chased Lotte up into the mountains and lost her, I thought she might have made it down the other side. I kind of hoped she was living off the grid somewhere in the YT.” She sighed. “But now I think maybe she didn’t make it.”

  His arm tightened around her shoulders. “We can fly into Niniltna, borrow an ATV, drive up to Keith’s.”

  “Okay.” She tipped her head back, smiling. “Kurt texted me a photo this morning. Take a look.” She got out her phone.

  He frowned and held it at arm’s length. “Who—”

  “It’s Barney Aronsen.”

  It took him a moment. “The missing orienteer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, guess what.” He handed the phone back. “It’s also the guy we found living in Scott Ukatish’s cabin in Potlatch.”

  “Yeah, I thought maybe.”

  “Why?”

  “Gavin Mortimer is married to Barney Aronsen’s widow.”

  His eyes closed and his head fell back. “Ah. Okay. Insurance fraud.”

  “I don’t think so, Jim. All three of them would have to be on it. I think maybe he just ran away. Brendan said he and his wife didn’t get along. And he’s already been declared dead and his insurance has already paid off and she and Gavin are already married.”

  “Then why is Gavin so anxious for the body to be Aronsen’s?”

  “Maybe he just wants to make sure he isn’t a bigamist.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Besides. You heard Bobby. Aronsen’s in the wind.”

  “He’s been hanging around the Park for four years. We could probably find him.”

  “If we wanted to.”

  “Yeah. If we wanted to.” He found he didn’t much. Yes indeed, it was positively liberating not to be wearing the uniform anymore. He saw Kate looking at him. “What?”

  “When did you quit? Right after?”

  “No. Not long after, but not right after. It really wasn’t a knee jerk reaction to you getting shot. Or,” he said when she raised an eyebrow, “okay, not only.”

  “What happened?”

  He sighed. She’d hear about it sooner or later. “It wasn’t any big deal, nothing I hadn’t run into a hundred, hell, a thousand times before on the job. The first week of August I caught two of the Yovino boys breaking into the Grosdidiers’ clinic. Looking for drugs, although of course they denied it.”

  “John and Paul?”

  He shook his head. “George and Ringo, the twins. They tried to run and it pissed me off, so when I caught ’em, I handcuffed them to the passenger side rearview mirror and took them right through town and up to the post at a trot.”

  “Jim. I’m shocked.” And she tried very hard to look like it.

  “No, you’re not, but I was. That was when—well, that was when I knew it was time to pull the plug. I’d just had it. It was the tipping point. And come on, Kate, it’s a crap job. People lie to you all day every day. They throw up down the front of your uniform and in the backs of your vehicles, always fun when you’re in the air. They lie. They—case in point—run and you have to chase them. They lie. And then there’s the state, which won’t fund enough troopers to do the job in the Bush, so even if you’re in the air every other day you can still be three weeks late to a crime scene. And, oh yeah, they lie.” He glanced at her. “And on occasion they shoot at you. And, not forgetting, they lie to you. It’s just…tiring.”

  She looked at him for a long moment. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Really.” She kissed him, taking her time about it, before pulling back to look up at him. “Okay.”

  They sat in silence, drinking their coffee. It was warming up, from the single digits into the twenties. It was still cold but it wasn’t biting down to the bone the way it had been.

  “Jim.” She turned to look up into his face.

  “What?”

  “I held Jack while he was dying.”

  He went very still.

  “We had time to say to goodbye, to say—other things.” She shook her head and met his eyes squarely. “I told him I loved him. I’d never said it before.” She paused. “He laughed.” Her voice almost broke on the word. Almost, but not quite. “And then he said, ‘Jesus, now I know I’m dying.’ And then he did.”

  Jim remembered the big, burly, almost ugly man, whose laugh was deeper and richer than James Earl Jones’. One of the last times he’d seen Jack Morgan had been at Bobby and Dinah’s wedding, which only marginally preceded the birth of their daughter, Katya. When it was all over Jack had tossed Kate over his shoulder and disappeared into the woods with her and no one had seen them again until well after sunrise. Jim like to have expired of jealousy right there on the spot.

  “The thing is,” Kate said. “Everyone I’ve ever loved leaves me. Stephan. Zoya. Emaa. Abel. Jack. Old Sam. It makes me feel a little…”

  “Paranoid?”

  Her smile trembled. “Apprehensive.”

  He put a hand on her neck and pulled her into a long, luxurious kiss that explored her lips, traced her jawline, her cheekbones, her eyebrows and returned again to her mouth. He pulled back to look at her, and was delighted to see that her skin was delicately flushed and her eyes dark with desire. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I’m not going anywhere.” He kissed her again, once, firmly, and then nipped her lower lip for emphasis. “Anywhere, Shugak. You’re like air or water to me. You’re necessary.”

  Her eyes went wide. “And then,” he said, “there is your generally nasty attitude, your total lack of sympathy for anyone not up to the job, your complete absence of sentimentality. Also, just FYI, you’re the best lay I ever had.”

  What was even more shocking than his words was the tone of his voice, calm, matter-of-fact, no emotion, no drama. Just the facts, ma’am. Once a cop, she thought. She had to clear her throat twice before she could get the words out. “Good to know. It’s a skill set I’m proud of.”

  “I know you still love Jack, I know that, but I’ll take whatever you have to give as long as I can get it, and everything that comes with that, too. You feel the need to hurl yourselves at goons with guns? Right there with you, babe. You have to sequester yourself alone up in the mountains for months at a time? I can deal. Just—” He stopped, thought about it, and started again. “Just once in a while drop by the homestead. I’ll be here.”

  “I kind of guessed that when I saw the airstrip. And the hangar.”

  “I’ll be here,” he said again, this time with more force. He wasn’t going to let her laugh away what amounted to a declaration, the only one he’d ever made in his life. He leaned forward to kiss her again and then something caught his attention. He nudged her and jerked his chin at the opposite side of the creek.

  Shadows glided from beneath the trees. Four of them went to the edge and drank while a fifth kept watch. The watcher was largest of all of them, with a thick pelt so gray the light turned it to liquid silver. Ears were up and alert and the full brush of a tail curled tightly over her behind. She moved easily, lean muscle rippling, paws stepping lightly and gracefully over the frozen ground without making a sound and leaving only the merest trace behind.

  The first four stepped back from the creek and vanished again beneath the trees. The watcher took their place at the creek, lapping up water from a lead in the ice. Thirst quenched, she didn’t lea
ve but paused to look up, straight at them. It was obvious that she had always known they were there. For all her lean form she projected a massive presence, aggressive with good health, assured in stance, yellow eyes sharp with awareness and intelligence. In a fight you would want her on your side.

  And two weeks ago, they had.

  Jim let out a shaky sigh. “Did you know?”

  From the corner of his eye he saw Kate smile, and had his answer.

  “I hoped. I tracked her with the four-wheeler when I got home, as far as I could before I lost the trail. But by then I knew where she was going. I think it’s the same pack that comes through the canyon now and then. She knows them. They know her.” A fleeting smile. “The big male I’m pretty sure knows her in the biblical sense. I think he was the father of that litter she popped out seven years ago.” She was silent for a moment. “They never came down into the hot springs while I was there, not once. But I could hear them howling, almost every night. I could hear her. I thought, maybe, she was letting me know.” She leaned her head against his arm. “Like I told you. Nothing to forgive.”

  They looked at each other, the couple on the rock on one side, the great gray half-wolf, half-husky hybrid on the other. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw her at the mine, when she attacked Spilotro. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Better to show you, I thought. Not sure you would have believed, otherwise.”

  He thought about the blood seeping inexorably into the gray pelt that was the last time he’d seen Mutt before he left the clearing, driving like a madman to get Kate to the docs in Ahtna. He’d been so certain Mutt was dead. Or maybe in his rush to save Kate’s life he had just decided she was so he wouldn’t feel guilty about leaving her there.

  Another thought evolved out of the first. “Kate, did you deliberately put us in harm’s way to force Mutt’s hand? Is that why we rushed those guys, not knowing if they were armed?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  He wasn’t sure he believed her. “Will she stay?”

  Kate shrugged. “Up to her.” Beneath her deliberately casual tone Jim heard the catch in her voice. “Staying with me has gotten her shot twice. Maybe she’d rather take her chances with assholes in airplanes.”