Midnight Come Again

by Dana Stabenow

  Kate’s pen stopped moving.

  There was the sound of skin on cloth. “Especially after such an enjoyable night. I wanted to do something to show my appreciation.” There was the sound of what could have been a soft kiss.

  “I had to get back to work,” Jim said.

  “You’re about ready to knock off now, aren’t you? Want a lift?”

  “Should you be here?”

  Kate’s pen fell from suddenly nerveless fingers, and it began to roll, unnoticed, toward the edge of the desk.

  A note of annoyance crept into Zarr’s voice. “Why not? No one knows who you are, so why should they suspect anything? Even if they did see us together?”

  “I just meant, with your homicide investigation, if you shouldn’t maybe be—”

  “I’m a big girl, I can get my job done when it needs doing.” A brief pause. “I can also sleep with whomever I want.”

  Jim said nothing.

  “So you’re one of the fuck-and-run guys after all.”

  “No, damn it. I didn’t mean that, Mary, I—”

  “Yeah, sure you didn’t.”

  Quick firm steps, followed by the slam of a door, the hard start of a truck engine, the squeal of tires.

  Jim’s discouraged voice said, “Oh, goddamn it to hell, anyway.”

  Kate’s pen fell off the desk and she made a mad grab for it, knocking over the ashtray in the process. It crashed to the floor, scattering sand, stogie stubs and ashes beneath the desk, under the coffee table and the couch and everywhere in between.

  The hangar door was yanked open. Kate didn’t want to look up, but she had to and, of course, there he was, standing in the doorway.

  It was difficult to say who was more horrified. His skin turned a deep, dark red. Hers did, too. Mutt, until then having a peaceful snooze with her nose beneath her tail, was on her feet in response to the ashtray crash, looking wide-eyed and ready for action, even if she didn’t know what kind.

  The ticking of the Budweiser wall clock seemed to have slowed down, and also to have become very loud.

  “Fuck,” Jim said, with bitter and comprehensive emphasis.

  The door slammed so hard that instead of catching it bounced back on its hinges and off the wall. Small pieces of already rotten Sheetrock crumbled and fell to the floor. Hasty feet were heard going the long way around the hangar toward the bunkhouse. If he’d gone the short way round, she could have seen him through the windows. And he would have been able to see her.

  The Herc arrived, back from Anchorage, followed shortly by the Cub and the Cessna. All had to be serviced and ready for action with cargo stowed when the dawn came, five and a half hours hence. The DC-3 was in Dillingham with the Native association board of directors, being serviced by Cal Kemper. One plane less for her, and she was grateful.

  Kate swept up the mess in the office, returned the ashtray to the desk, finished totaling the deposit slip, slid checks and slip into a manila envelope she marked DEPOSIT in large black letters with a Marksalot and ducttaped to the office door, and went back to work.

  She was hanging up the phone when Jim came in at noon. “That was Yuri,” she told Baird. “The Kosygin’s heading out tomorrow, and he wants to get another load off to Anchorage before then.”

  “Fish or trinkets?”

  “Trinkets.”

  “How many boxes?”

  “He said no more than six, same size as before, same weight as before.”

  Baird grunted. “Hey, big spender. Herc’s taking a load of reds into Tenth and M Lockers later today. We’ll put them in with that.”

  Jim felt his ears prick up. He wondered what else Yuri was shipping besides trinkets. Maybe the Fibbies’ obsession with this zirconium stuff was about to pay off. And maybe then he could go home. The sooner the better. He couldn’t wait to get out of Bering.

  He wondered if Yuri was the Russian who had been visiting Kate late at night in the hangar. He wondered why. Not that he lent any credibility to the Fibbies’ suspicions, or Zarr’s speculations about Kate’s state of mind. No, he knew Kate better than that.

  But he wondered about Yuri. A young man, perhaps? Good-looking? Every Russian Jim had met had had terrible teeth. Not their fault, Russia had lousy health care. He wondered if Kate knew that Russian men were only interested in Alaskan women as a means of gaining entry into the United States. He wondered if perhaps someone should tell her.

  Her voice brought him out of his speculations. “Oh, and Bill LaRue called from Koot.”

  “Oh yeah? And what did marvelous Mr. LaRue want, exactly?”

  “Exactly, he wanted a ride into town.”

  “He offer to pay?”

  “No, he seemed to think you’d be happy to put it on his tab.”

  “Four-flushing con artist swindling son of a bitch,” Baird said without heat. “And you said?”

  “I informed him that Mr. Baird had instructed me that until he, Mr. LaRue, paid his outstanding debt to Baird Air, which at the moment totals an amount approaching six thousand dollars and change, that he, Mr. LaRue, was unwelcome to fly the otherwise friendly Baird skies.”

  “Well put,” Baird said, admiringly.

  “Thank you. I also told him that his personal check was no longer good here. Cash, money order or cashier’s check only.” Kate almost smiled until she looked up and saw Jim. Her tone became very crisp. “Jessie Oscar called from Atmautluak; his wife is due to go into labor this week sometime and she needs a ride in to the hospital.”

  “Jeeze, how many is it now, six, seven? You’d think they’d have figured out how that works by now. Anything for the Cessna?”

  “A few calls, nothing firm yet. Oh yeah, Shep says the Cub’s tailwheel needed repacking. You’ll have to sign off on it before he takes off for Atmautluak.”

  She looked between the middle two buttons on Jim’s shirt and said, “I’m done. See you tonight.”

  Jim watched her very straight back march off with a vague, indefinite notion that he owed her an apology. He just couldn’t figure out what for.

  Mutt’s head nudged his hand as she followed. The gesture offered him some comfort.

  She showered, buttered two slices of bread, heated a can of cream of asparagus soup and forced herself to eat, managing to avoid even looking at Jim’s side of the bunkhouse. Certainly she never strayed over the invisible line she had painted down the center of the floor.

  A soft whine told her Mutt was back. She opened the door and Mutt sidled inside with the smug look of the successful hunter.

  Kate wasn’t sleepy, but she put on a clean T-shirt and a clean pair of underwear and made herself lie down. Her pillow smelled differently. She sniffed and realized it was Jim’s aftershave.

  Before she knew it the pillow was sailing across the room. When it thudded to the wall and then the floor Mutt’s head jerked up. She looked from Kate to the pillow and back again, her ears and eyebrows up.

  “Oh shut up,” Kate said.

  Mutt heaved a sigh and lay back down.

  The next thing Kate knew was a knock at the door. She found herself out of her bunk and on her feet, her heart pounding. It was three o’clock in the afternoon by the battered alarm clock on the table, so she must have slept after all.

  The knock came again, more firmly this time. She went to the door and opened it.

  It was Stephanie.

  Kate made her cocoa. It was a family tradition; elders made cocoa for children when they came to call. Emaa had made cocoa for all the kids in Kate’s family when they came over after school, kindergarten right up through twelfth grade. Lorna Doones were a poor substitute for fry bread, though.

  The red Super Cub sat to one side of Stephanie’s feet, Mutt to the other. Stephanie dunked her shortbread into her cocoa with grave precision.

  The silence became burdensome. “How are you?” Kate said, and immediately wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

  “I miss my mother,” Stephanie said.

  “Yes. Of course yo
u do.”

  Stephanie reached for another cookie. “She left something for you.”

  “What?”

  “My mother. She left something for you.” Stephanie dunked with one hand and with the other produced a fat, dirty envelope with Kate’s name on it.

  Kate accepted it with a sinking heart. “Where was it?”

  “In her purse. They found it outside the bank. They think she dropped it there.” Stephanie spoke with little emphasis, concentrating her entire being on just the right amount of cocoa soaking into her cookie.

  Kate opened the envelope and her worst fears were confirmed. Inside was a printout of the deposits and withdrawals made to Alaska First Bank of Bering by all the processors who had delivered to Bering so far this season.

  There was a note clipped to the top sheet in Alice’s large, round handwriting, which hadn’t changed much in thirteen years. She no longer dotted her I’s with little hearts, but the big looping tails and extravagantly crossed T’s took up a lot of room.

  Kate, the note read, sorry I took so long to get this to you. I got you the other ones, too, like you asked, so you can compare. Funny thing, it looks like Mike has been making some of the entries himself. I knew we were busy but not so busy that the bank manager has to do data entry (giggle). I’ll drop this off at Baird’s on the way home from work, so you’ll get it when you come on shift. Where are you staying? You never said. Don’t leave without saying good-bye. Thanks for letting me play Nancy Drew (giggle squared). Am I George or Bess? I’m not Ned! Love, Alice

  Kate closed her eyes, unable for the moment to read further.

  Alice had come through for her. Alice had located the information Kate had wanted, had printed it out, and had tucked it safely into an envelope addressed to her friend.

  But was what Kate was holding in her hand the reason Alice had been killed?

  The only way to find out was to keep reading, to see just how hot was the information Alice had uncovered.

  In the normal course of events, a processor came into the fishing grounds flush, prepared to take advantage of the early high market prices by topping other processors’ bids in price per pound of salmon. That way high bidders got the best fish first, and most of it, for resale to potential buyers, gourmet restaurants as far away as New York, gourmet grocery stores, caviar makers, smokers, canners and packers.

  Because the business was so cash intensive and because Alaskan salmon were considered gourmet, as opposed to farmed European or Canadian salmon which seemed to get more pale and more bland and more disease-ridden by the year, and because the freezer life of even a wild salmon was not long, a quick turnaround was necessary. A quick turnaround was only possible with large quantities of cash on hand, and cash in good old American dollars.

  Since the Kuskokwim River was known the world over for the quality of its reds, business had always been brisk in Bering, especially after the Bristol Bay runs had crashed the year before. This accounted for the processors lined up down at the dock.

  Alice had printed out a page for every one of them. The Kyoto Kozushima, the Chongju, the Northern Harvester, the Arctic Princess, along with others who had docked at Bering that season. All had healthy accounts amounting on average to between one and two hundred thousand dollars, ready to be drawn upon. These looked as if the minimum amount were maintained over the winter, to keep the account open and current, and then were increased by a large deposit at the beginning of the fishing season. Payments went to Chevron for fuel and AC and Eagle for groceries, to the chandlers for parts and supplies and to Alaska Airlines and Baird Air for freight, but the bulk went to individual fishermen in many smaller payments ranging from two hundred dollars to ten thousand. Deposits of much larger amounts came from buyers. At the end of the year, Kate figured, they would clean out the account to the bare minimum and head south for the winter.

  She came to the last page and halted. She had to read the numbers twice before she believed them, and that was after she counted the zeroes and the commas.

  The Kosygin’s cash on hand amounted to one million five and change.

  “What?” Stephanie said. She was halfway through the Lorna Doones, Kate was glad to see, while Kate’s cocoa had gone cold in her mug.

  “I’m sorry, did I make a noise?” Kate said. “I didn’t mean to.”

  Deposits to the Kosygin’s account came from someone or something called High Seas Investments, Inc. The deposits were not large by comparison with the beginning deposits of the other processors, one to three hundred thousand dollars each, but there were so many of them, nearly—Kate ran her eyes down the dates—one every two or three days.

  It looked like the Kosygin intended to buy one hell of a lot of fish.

  Kate spread the accounts out on the table and compared numbers. The Kosygin was buying less fish from fewer fisherman than all of the other processors combined. At the same time, they seemed to be selling five or six times the amount of fish to their one buyer, a Northern Consolidated Seafood Distributors, Inc.

  She sat back and thought of her visit to the Kosygin. The small crew. The dearth of fish, and near absence of fish smell. The willingness of the crew to party instead of readying the ship for sea again, to get out there and buy fish and fill up their hold.

  Her eyes dropped to the pages spread out before her. She used a magazine as a straightedge and began to compare names with numbers.

  The same fishermen were delivering to the Kosygin over and over again. This wasn’t unusual; with this much money to throw around the Kosygin could afford to pay top dollar, but receiving a full load from the same fishermen three and four times a period was testing the bounds of fishing reality for anyone who’d ever wet a net in Alaskan waters. The twelve- and twenty-four-hour periods weren’t long enough to accumulate that many loads, not to mention which the Kosygin would suffer a great deal of difficulty getting them on board that fast. Besides, the Kuskokwim salmon runs were dropping the same way the Bristol Bay runs were, although not as drastically, and for the same reason—the trollers with their one- and two-mile-long nets dredging up every living thing on the ocean bottom without regard for size, sex or species. There just weren’t that many fish to catch, and if that was the case, there weren’t that many fish to deliver, either.

  A Russian processor. An Alaskan bank. A lot of money coming in. A lot of money going out.

  She looked at the dates. The money was going out fast, usually one to two days after it had come in. The amount left was the bare minimum to keep the account open and to cover docking fees and crew expenses.

  The pages didn’t list the bank’s fees, but they would be listed somewhere, and in large figures with lots of their own zeroes and commas, as banks were not in the business of providing their services for free.

  The Alaska First Bank of Bering was providing the Kosygin quite a service.

  She thought about Mike Sullivan. Alice had carelessly dropped a few facts about him. Too carelessly. Mike was divorced, and attractive, and about Alice’s age, and Bering wasn’t that big a town.

  What had Alice said about Mike Sullivan? His father had been an Irish trapper who followed the beaver to Bering and married his mother, Martha Ashepak. His father had left soon after the birth of his second child, Mike’s sister Brigid, and Martha had raised them up on her own, if any Yupik could be said to be ever truly alone. The Yupik were strong believers in having family around.

  Kind of like Emaa, Kate thought, only more familial and less tribal. Or maybe it was just that to Emaa, everyone was family.

  The Yupik were the unspoken envy of many Alaskan Natives, particularly the Yupik who lived along the Kuskokwim. It had helped the culture immensely that there was nothing of value by white, Western standards along the lower half of the Kuskokwim River. It was too shallow for whales to swim up, so the Yankee whalers passed it by, and it was faster to take the Yukon River to the Klondike from Nome, so the Gold Rush passed it by, too, except for the diseases the miners brought with them. Its b
road, sandy banks and crumbling bluffs, its lack of trees for fuel and lumber, its sparse and scattered settlements, all these unattractive qualities had combined to allow the Yupik to retain their culture and even their language, which was presently taught half-days in the local school district, with English the other half of the day. “Family first” would have been their motto, if they’d had one. Families lived together, one and two and three and sometimes four generations together. They trapped together, they fished together, they hunted together, and when one family brought home meat the whole village shared.

  As Alice had shared with her, she thought. She looked across the table at Stephanie, who had finished her cocoa and most of the cookies and who seemed content to wait in silence.

  She didn’t ask what had been in the envelope. She hadn’t even looked at the papers. Kate didn’t offer an explanation. It might be information that had gotten Stephanie’s mother killed, and Stephanie was not going to fall heir to that same information if Kate had anything to say about it. She gathered up the papers and put them back in the envelope. “Thank you for bringing me these, Stephanie,” she said.

  The girl nodded, as was her usual habit keeping her eyes down. Mutt had her chin on the girl’s left knee, her eyes closed in bliss as Stephanie scratched between the flattened ears.

  “Did the police bring your mother’s purse back?”

  Stephanie shook her head.

  “Somebody, a friend, a relative, went by the bank and picked it up? Maybe someone saw it there on the way into work today? And then brought it straight to your house?”

  Stephanie’s head bobbed in the slightest of nods. Pick one, Kate thought. Well, that explained why Trooper Mary Zarr hadn’t trampled down her door, wanting to know why the deceased had had a letter addressed to Kate in her purse the night she died.

  “I mean what I said yesterday,” Kate said. “If you ever need anything, anything at all—”

  “I want to go to school.”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I want to go to school.” The voice was barely discernible but firm enough for all that.