Bad Blood

by Dana Stabenow

  “Good. I’m starving. I can’t think why.” He pulled out a chair and sat down, in the same movement pulling her in between his legs. He slid his hands under her T-shirt and over her ass. “Oh boy, commando.”

  She toyed with the open snap on his jeans, which was all he wore. “I’m all about easy access.”

  He laughed, a deep, satisfied sound. “Yeah, well, we’d better enjoy it while we can. Once the kids are in residence, there will be no more easy access to anything.”

  She smiled at him over her shoulder. “On the other hand, they’ll be here. As in not in the Park.” His eyes narrowed and slid down her body, as if he were speculating over just what position he could get it into in just what location on the homestead.

  They took dinner into the living room and ate on the couch, sharing bits of chicken with Mutt, who tolerated the kissy-facing up to a point in exchange for protein. When easy access became more interesting than food, she moved into the kitchen with something of a flounce.

  When Kate surfaced a little while later, she noticed Mutt had taken the remains of the chicken with her to assuage her hurt feelings, and gave a soft laugh.

  Jim’s voice rumbled in his chest. “What?”

  “Look.” He raised his head and she pointed.

  “Ah.” His head dropped back down on the couch. “Making a point.”

  “You snooze, you lose.”

  “Something like that.” One hand toyed with the short strands of her hair, running them continuously between his fingers.

  She figured it was safe, but played it cautiously anyway. “You were pretty wound up in Kuskulana this evening.”

  His hand paused for a beat. She kept her head down on his chest, and after a moment it rose and fell in a long sigh. “Yeah. Yeah, I was.” He tugged at her hair so she would look at him. “Do you understand why?”

  “I think so,” she said, “but I want to hear it from you.”

  He sighed again, and levered them both upright and pulled her over to straddle his legs. He ran his hands over her skin, more in absent appreciation than with obvious intent. “The first case that brought me into the Park when I was stationed at Tok was the death of a bootlegger. His name was Pete Liverakos.”

  Her eyes widened a little. “I know the name,” she said after a moment.

  “Everybody does,” he said, concentrating at a point somewhere over her shoulder. “He was flying booze into an old gold mining site, storing it in the adit, and moving it around the Park by ATV. Somebody found his cache and burned it, and somehow he wound up out there with broke-down transportation, in the middle of one of the longest cold spells during one of the coldest winters on record. People say he was probably dead before the wolves got to him.”

  “I hear tell,” she said, her mouth dry.

  “The point is,” he said, looking at her directly for the first time since his story began, “is that he was a Kuskulaner. A cousin of Mitchell Halvorsen’s, in fact.”

  “Yes,” she said steadily.

  “I was relatively new to the area then. People didn’t have much to say to me, but one of the things I did hear about was the Kushtaka–Kuskulana feud. Everyone, and I mean everyone, just naturally assumed that a Kushtaker had something to do with Pete Liverakos winding up dead and savaged by wolves a stone’s throw from five thousand dollars’ worth of incinerated Windsor Canadian whiskey.

  “I was never able to prove anything, of course. But I’ve been around for a while now, and I’ve heard a lot more stories, and what they tell me is that the Macks and the Christiansons could give lessons to the Kreugers and Jeppsens. Hell, they could give lessons to the Hatfields and the McCoys.”

  “You’re not wrong,” Kate said.

  “By my count, over the last five years, there have been assorted vandalisms, thefts, assaults, you name it, in both villages. All perpetrated by a Kushtaker on a Kuskulaner or vice versa. I’ve never been able to do anything about any of them. It’s like watching a game of Ping-Pong with exploding balls, and then the players denying that their hands have been blown off when anyone can plainly see they have.” He paused, and said, “Oh. I forgot to tell you. Somebody pulled the drain plug on Roger’s skiff. Just before I climbed back into it to head upriver.”

  Her head snapped up. He nodded. “Yeah. It sank about a mile south of the Kuskulana landing. I made it to shore, but the skiff didn’t. Had to hike up the river to the fish wheel, where I hitched a ride across.”

  “Who did it?” Kate’s voice was very soft, but he was not deceived.

  “I was leaving Kushtaka, so I’m guessing a Kushtakan.”

  She was vibrating like a strung wire in a high wind. “Simmer down, tiger,” he said. “I’m fine. You want to be pissed, be pissed about Roger Christianson’s brand-new skiff. He loaned it to me for the trip. Brand-new kicker, too. Both of which are now residing on the bottom of the Gruening River.”

  She closed her eyes, apparently to meditate on keeping her temper. Never one to waste an opportunity, he spent the intervening time in admiration of the velvet skin of her breasts, the sturdy strength of her waist, the lushness of her hips. Beauty, grace, and mystery in one compact package. He still had difficulty believing it was his.

  She opened her eyes. “Okay.”

  “Really okay?” he said, with meaning.

  “Have I killed Howie Katelnikof for shooting at me and hitting Mutt instead?” she said.

  “No,” he said. Not yet, he thought.

  “Well, then. Have a little faith.”

  He eyed her doubtfully, and much against his natural instincts let it go, for now. He let his head rest against the back of the couch. “I get where it took a D6 Cat to smooth things over between the Kreugers and the Jeppsens, but at least it was smoothed over. Kushtaka and Kuskulana, nothing’s ever smoothed over there. Nobody ever shakes hands and makes nice. Hell, Kate, George won’t even fly low over that section of the river for fear he’ll pick up a stray bullet from the Kushtakers and the Kuskulaners exchanging fire.”

  “So?” she said.

  “So, fast forward. Now I’ve got a dead Mack in Kushtaka, which looks to have been predated by a dead Halvorsen in Kuskulana, which I have to say is ramping the feud up some.”

  When he didn’t go on, she said, “I understand. But you’ve been in the middle of family feuds in the Park before. All cops have. DVs are our worst nightmare. What made you go off on this one in particular?” She thought she knew, but she also thought it would be better if he said it out loud. It was haunting her, too. It might even have been in part responsible for the most excellent sex enjoyed beneath this roof this evening. There was no better affirmation of life.

  “Assume he went into the crawl space when he was supposed to have gone to Chignik for herring fishing back in May.”

  “Okay.”

  “You saw the holes. Someone nailed down the hatch cover after him.”

  “Yes,” she said, unable to stop the shudder moving up her spine. She rested her forehead on his shoulder, relishing the smooth muscle, the warm skin.

  He was silent again. At last he said, “I did my first probationary stint out of the academy in Anchorage. My first week, I was the responding officer on the Berta Young case.”

  She sat back and looked at him. “I did not know that.”

  “I don’t talk about it. Doesn’t mean I don’t think about it. Way too often.”

  Berta Young was an eight-year-old girl whose stepfather had locked her in a closet for three years, where he visited her regularly for rape and abuse. After a while, like a child who became tired of a toy, he forgot to feed her, and after that forgot to give her water, and after that she died.

  “The autopsy showed that at some point she must have tried to get out. The tips of her fingers were ripped and torn. There were corresponding scratches and blood and tissue remains on the inside of the closet door.”

  His voice was flat and unemotional. Just the facts, ma’am. She swallowed hard and tried to match him calm for c
alm. “Didn’t a neighbor call it in because of the smell?”

  “Yes.”

  Her brows pulled together. “Wasn’t her mother in the house at the time?”

  “Yes. Said she didn’t smell anything. Swore to it in court. When they asked her what she thought had happened to her daughter, she said that her daughter was a temptress and a sinner and that the devil had taken her for his own. She was right about the last part.” He paused again. “There were three other minor children in the house. All girls. One of them was already in her own closet. She survived, although I don’t know what kind of life she was going to have afterwards. I’ve never tried to find out.”

  This story was way too close to the nightmares she still occasionally suffered from her years working as an investigator for the Anchorage DA. “The media circus surrounding that trial was—”

  “Yes,” he said. “It was. It was on Court TV and Dateline and, for all I know, Judge Judy. The reporters were worse than mosquitoes and way more resistant to deet. I hope like hell I’m never involved with that high-profile a case ever again. Happy to leave those to Liam.”

  “What made you think of it again?” she said, although again she was pretty sure she knew.

  “I learned more than I really wanted to about what the average human being needs to survive,” he said. “It turns out we can live a long time without food. Without water, not so much. If it’s hot, dehydration can set in in an hour, and even a healthy person could be dead in three. Most you can live without water is six days.”

  She thought about that house. Mitchell Halvorsen had been building for the view. On the edge of the wedge, facing south, he would have been able to see damn near all the way to Prince William Sound, the Gruening River at the foot of the cliff beneath the house, with the Quilaks cutting a ragged outline into the sky on his left, the Park rolling slowly downhill all the way to the Chugach Mountains on his right, and the Kanuyaq River coiling back and forth across the landscape in between.

  “And no food and no water in that crawl space. He might have had a candy bar or a pack of gum or some Tic Tacs in his pocket. But nothing else.”

  She swallowed, and suddenly felt very thirsty.

  After a moment he said, seemingly at random, “That house is how far out of town, do you think?”

  She thought. “A little under half a mile. Maybe a bit more, but not much. Can’t get much farther from Kuskulana in that direction and not fall over the edge.”

  He nodded. “About what I figure, too,” he said. “I’m hoping he was dead in three hours, Kate.”

  She met his eyes in sudden awareness.

  “Because I’d hate to think he was nailed into that crawl space for six days, screaming for help the whole time, and nobody came.”

  He let his head fall back against the couch. “Sometimes,” he told the ceiling, “sometimes I really, really hate this job.”

  She was looking at him, the strong throat, the broad shoulders, the six-pack abs, the slim hips, the triangle of hair and sex almost hidden by her own. His arms were roped with muscle, and his hands long-fingered and strong. He didn’t look remotely harmless, even stark naked.

  “Hey,” she said, leaning forward to let her breasts brush against his chest.

  He raised his head. “Hey, yourself,” he said, well aware of what she was doing but sounding nonetheless a little halfhearted.

  She put her fists on her hips and a glower on her face. “This is not the level of enthusiasm I have come to expect from you, Chopin.”

  His hands came up to cup her ass. They felt warm and solid against her skin. “Well, you kinda wore me out today, Shugak.”

  “You should talk,” she said, and leaned forward.

  Against her lips he said, “What about my beauty sleep?”

  She nipped at his lower lip. “We can sleep when we’re dead.”

  Act IV

  Fifteen

  FRIDAY, JULY 13, VERY EARLY

  IN THE MORNING

  Kushtaka

  It wasn’t your typical elopement.

  For one thing, there was no waiting until the dark of night to cover their movements, because at this time of year there was no dark of night.

  For another, she wasn’t climbing out from her bedroom window on a knotted sheet steadied by her lover below. There was no second floor on their house. For that matter, she didn’t have her own bedroom, just an alcove she shared with Auntie Nan.

  For a third, they were already married.

  It took all her formidable self-control to conceal that joyous secret over the next twelve hours. Even then in an unguarded moment, when she reached inside her shirt to touch the ring on the chain round her neck, the expression on her face caused her mother to say sharply, “Jennifer, wake up! I told you to start the bread!”

  Jennifer had woken from her trance and she had started the bread, but as she assembled the ingredients, a chant ran through her mind: This is the last time I will heat the water. This is the last time I will dissolve the yeast. This is the last time I will measure out the flour. This is the last time I will knead the dough. This is the last time I will do any of these things in this house. In this village.

  It was already agreed between the two of them that they would leave the Park. No member of either family was going to accept their marriage. No member of either village would, for that matter.

  Her mother, suspicious of happiness in any form but especially in faraway smiles on her daughter’s face, had been keeping a beady eye on Jennifer ever since she came back from the woods. Jennifer, so close to being free of her mother’s supervision forever, was tolerant, which only made her mother more suspicious. Her poor mother, who Jennifer was certain had never experienced a single happy moment in her own life, was only jealous, poor thing. Jealous of Jennifer’s youth and beauty and determined that neither would help Jennifer escape her destiny, one very like her mother’s own. She would marry a good boy from the village, very probably Rick Estes, and settle there and have babies and raise them and look after her parents when they got old. It was the way things were. It was the way things had always been. It was the way things would always be.

  Her mother, poor thing, didn’t know that Jennifer had already confounded one of those requirements, and was about to turn her back on the rest of them and not just walk but run away.

  Every moment of Jennifer’s life had been anchored by her parents’ expectations. She was mature enough to realize that this was partly because she was an only child. More siblings would definitely have helped to share the load, but that was not to be, and she learned very early on that if she was to get anything she wanted then she would have to fight for it.

  It did seem as if everything she wanted was forbidden to her. The first time she’d picked up her dad’s rifle, it had felt natural and right, but by tradition she wasn’t allowed to go after the big game, the caribou and the moose and the bear that might help feed her family and the whole village. She’d known instinctively how to bait and set a trap so that no trace smell of human on it would warn the mink and the beaver away. When she trapped her first wolf, she’d had to let her dad take the credit. A strip of it was on the hood of the parka her mother had made her, and every time she put it on, it reminded her of the joy she had felt in being out on the trail in winter, the crunch of snowshoes on the crusty snow, the bite of cold air in her nostrils, the bright glint of sun on the ice crystals that lined the creeks, the clear, clear water running between the ice growing out from the banks. The joy of finding that her traps, the traps she had baited and set with her own hands, had outsmarted even the wolverine. There was joy, too, at home, in the curing of the pelts, in the speculation around the fire of what they would bring at auction, in thinking of what she would buy with her share.

  Not that she ever got her own share. Everything went into a communal treasury that supported the family. That didn’t bother her. When you didn’t have much, you had to share to survive, and she never went cold or hungry or was without a r
oof over her head. But it would have been nice to be given some of the credit for keeping herself that way, that her skill with rifle and trap and fishing net had contributed to the health and welfare of the family.

  To his credit, her father didn’t like it any more than she did, but she couldn’t help but wonder if it was more about the son he didn’t have than the daughter he did.

  Other girls in other villages, she knew, were not forbidden these things. When the Kushtaka school had closed down and, with much misgiving, her parents had transferred her to the Kuskulana school, she had heard several of the Kuskulana girls talking about going hunting or fishing, usually with their fathers but sometimes with their mothers, too. Like everyone else, she’d heard the stories about the legendary Park rat Kate Shugak, upriver in Niniltna, who while not a hunter or a trapper or a fisherman by trade, per se, lived like a man, on her own terms, taking her own meat and her own fish and feeding herself with them through the winters.

  A busybody, some people said. An avenging angel, said others. Whatever they called her, she waded into messes other people walked around and cleaned them up.

  On Career Day, Sergeant Jim Chopin of the Niniltna trooper post had visited Kuskulana school and talked about being a trooper. The other girls swooned over his metaphysical product perfection, his blue eyes, his thick blond hair, his broad shoulders and narrow hips and long legs, the quick, easy grin that was beguiling without being flirtatious. Jennifer wasn’t a nun, she appreciated all those things, too, but mostly she was curious to see up close and personal a man who would attract the attention of a Kate Shugak and not be found wanting. He was smart and funny and he didn’t try to shine them on. “To be a cop is always to be other,” he had said.

  Jennifer got that. Of everyone in Kushtaka, she was the most other. Because of her looks and her gender she was watched more critically, and because she was a chief’s daughter she was judged more harshly.