Bad Blood

by Dana Stabenow

  He duck-walked to look over her shoulder. The dust was thick enough that there were outlines of boxes overlapping themselves, newer over older. “I should have done an inventory.”

  “Of the crawl space?”

  “Yeah.” He let his flashlight run over the boxes against the walls. “Because I think there are fewer boxes here than when I was down here last time.”

  “What was that Brillo said?” Kate said.

  “About what?”

  “That if Mitch hadn’t died of dehydration, he would have died of alcohol poisoning?”

  She pulled out a pocketknife.

  * * *

  An hour later, they were back outside, sitting on the edge of the house. The hole was again covered with the blue tarp and duct-taped to the floor. Jim uncapped a bottle of water and drank deeply. Kate finished it off. They were both sweaty and covered in dust. “So, no dope or booze on the premises,” he said.

  “Not now,” she said. She looked down the road that led to the house. “Far enough out of town.”

  “And on the right side of it for a bootlegging operation,” he said. “The airstrip’s five minutes away, and the mine’s, what, forty, fifty miles north-northeast.”

  “Which doesn’t prove anything,” she said.

  “Nope,” he said. “And wouldn’t, unless we caught them in the act.”

  She nodded, and stood up to walk around the perimeter of the building site. “Here,” she said.

  There was a track as wide as an ATV heading off into the bushes, concealed by a thick stand of alders.

  “They fly it into Kuskulana,” Jim said.

  “They offload it into Mitch’s basement,” she said.

  “And then they haul it up the trail,” he said. “Just enough at a time to fill the trailer on a four-wheeler.”

  “Or a snow machine,” Kate said. “You could fit, what, four, six cases of liquor and a lot more of beer into one trailer. Leaving plenty of room for a kilo or two of cocaine. Sell it fast and get out.”

  Jim pushed back a branch. “At some point, this track probably joins up with the track the village put into the mine.”

  She nodded. “No point in putting in a whole new trail when the village already did it for you.”

  “There will be a little turnout,” he said. “Close to the mine.”

  “But under some kind of cover,” she said. “So you can’t see it from the air.”

  He nodded. “So, did somebody get greedy? One of the partners start cheating the others? Siphoning off some product, selling it on his own?”

  She drummed her feet gently against the side of the house. “Bootlegging is a long tradition with the Halvorsens.”

  “That guy,” he said. “Pete Liverakos. Cousin to the Halvorsens, right?”

  She nodded. “He was originally from Outside. Lost his folks, some kind of car or plane wreck, I think. His nearest relatives lived here, Mitch and Kenny’s parents, I think, and they took him in. He was fifteen or sixteen. Early teens.”

  “Rumors about him being a bootlegger true?”

  She nodded.

  “So we’re not too upset over his tragic loss,” Jim said.

  “No,” she said, meeting his eyes. “Not too upset.”

  “Not that it did any good in the long run,” he said.

  She nodded again. “Like a hydra,” she said. “Chop off the head of one bootlegger, six more pop up in his place.”

  “Too lucrative,” he said. “So how many Halvorsens left?”

  “After Mitchell? Far as I know, Kenny is it. Not really the killing type, I would have said.”

  Jim looked at her. “Everybody’s the killing type, Kate. Given the right motivation. You know that.”

  She looked away.

  “I found a Brown Jug flyer in Tyler Mack’s cabin,” Jim said.

  She frowned at her feet. “You think he was going into competition with the Halvorsens?”

  “He ran with Boris Balluta.”

  Kate thought about that for a minute. “The new Howie and Willard? Only maybe just that little bit smarter.”

  “Not so much, as things turned out.”

  “No.”

  “If Boris or Tyler or both of them killed Mitch, and Kenny killed Tyler in retaliation…”

  “And Rick Estes, too? Unlikely.” She frowned. “For that matter, we don’t know Rick was murdered.”

  “Somebody sure smacked him around.”

  “Smacking around and murder are two different things. The wake from all those skiffs could have bounced him around that beach pretty good.” She added, “Did you see his hands? The knuckles were cut and bruised, like he’d held his own for a while, anyway.”

  “Why would the Kushtakers kill one of their own?”

  The weird cluck of the sandhill crane sounded over the trees, and they both raised their heads to watch five of the graceful wide-winged birds sail overhead like kites. Mutt watched, too, with equal interest but from a far different motive.

  “You know, Kate,” he said, “every time Niniltna votes to go dry, my caseload drops by eighty percent.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “But I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t try to talk Bernie into moving the Roadhouse into town.”

  “It’d about put the bootleggers out of business,” she said. “Lot easier to just go in a bar and buy a drink. And no danger of the wrath of Jim falling on them when they did.”

  “Also,” he said, “girls in bars.”

  “True,” she said.

  “And it’d be easier to control anyone who got out of hand,” he said.

  “And a lot shorter commute.”

  “Also true.”

  “I want to try something,” she said. “Climb back down in the crawl space.”

  He returned to the house and disappeared down the hole in the floor. She walked ten paces from the house and stopped. “Can you hear me now?”

  “Yes.”

  She walked another ten paces. “How about now?”

  It wasn’t a perfect experiment, because hatch and frame were two hundred miles away in Anchorage, but Kate was out of range of Jim’s voice well before she got a hundred feet down the road to town. She was at least relieved to determine that Mitch Halvorsen hadn’t died screaming for help within earshot of the entire population of Kuskulana.

  Jim climbed out of the hatch and uncapped another bottle of water. They sat down next to each other on the edge of the house, legs dangling over the side. The sun was warm and a slight breeze stirred strands of her hair. He watched her drink, the movement of the strong muscles in her neck as she swallowed. The scar that bisected her throat from ear to ear, once an angry reminder of her life as an investigator for the Anchorage DA, had faded to a faint white line. Although it would never completely disappear, and she had never deliberately tried to cover it up with turtlenecks or buttoned collars. She wore it less as a badge of honor, he thought, than as a declaration of war. Don’t fuck with me.

  Smart people didn’t. “Bernie would never go for it,” he said.

  “Neither would Annie Mike,” she said.

  “No,” he said. “Crap.”

  She gestured in back of them. “This explains a lot.”

  He thought of the alcohol- and drug-related calls the trooper post had been receiving on a daily basis. Burglary. Robbery. Assault. DUIs. Spousal abuse. Child abuse. Murder. Daily acts of random violence. “How much of this is going to the mine workers,” he said, “and how much to locals?”

  She didn’t answer, and he said, “You’re pretty lukewarm about finding a bootlegging operation in your own backyard, Shugak. What, because their sales seem to be directed mostly toward Suulutaq miners, you don’t have to give a damn?”

  Stung, she said, “Not true.” And then she remembered the young miner on overload in the Riverside Cafe, and never giving him a second thought after she’d relocated him to a cell at the post. Would she have followed up on a Park rat? “Not true,” she repeated with less c
ertainty.

  “Yeah,” he said, unconvinced.

  She might have argued, but just then Kenny Halvorsen appeared, driving up on a beat-up Honda ATV. He pulled to a stop and let the engine idle, looking the two of them over, his gaze lingering on Kate. It wasn’t friendly. “What are you doing up here?” he said.

  “Investigating your brother’s murder,” Jim said.

  Kenny grinned without humor. “You’re on the wrong side of the river for that.”

  His eyes had dark circles under them, and his features were sunken, as if it had been a while since his last square meal. Mutt, lying on the ground next to Kate, sat up and fixed an unwavering yellow stare on his face. He gave her an indifferent glance and went back to looking at Kate. A steady growl rumbled out of Mutt’s throat, stilled when Kate knotted a hand in her ruff.

  Jim capped his water bottle and stood up, towering over the other man. “As it happens, I’m also investigating the murder of Tyler Mack. Where were you last Tuesday morning?”

  “I was on my own side of the river,” Kenny said.

  “Anybody see you?”

  Kenny smiled without humor. “Every man, woman, and child in Kuskulana.”

  The hell of it was, every single man, woman, and child in Kuskulana would swear to exactly that if Jim asked them.

  To Kate, Kenny said, “Déjà vu all over again, huh?”

  “I had nothing to do with your brother’s death, Kenny,” Kate said.

  “No, you’d done enough already,” Kenny said.

  She said nothing.

  “Hard not to notice, Kate,” he said, needling her, “that I’m the last Halvorsen standing. How long have I got?”

  She stood up. So did Mutt. “Well, Kenny, that would depend on you, now. Wouldn’t it?”

  His hands tightened on the handlebars. “Is that a threat?”

  “Was yours?” she said. “Or was it just more of the same.” She made a fist with thumb and fingers and mimed jerking off.

  Kenny flushed a dull red. “Someday you and me are gonna have a conversation, Shugak.”

  “Yeah,” Kate said, “I can hardly wait.”

  For a moment, Jim thought Kenny might put the ATV in gear and run Kate down. In the next, he gave a contemptuous laugh that sounded too close to tears for comfort, and put the four-wheeler into a 180 and headed down the track to the village at full throttle.

  Jim thought about Kuskulanans and Christiansons and Halvorsens, and Kushtakans and Macks and Estes, all the way back to Niniltna.

  Twenty

  FRIDAY, JULY 13

  Niniltna

  In Niniltna, Kate waited until Jim took off and then went into the post office. Bonnie put up her eyebrows in exaggerated surprise. “Three times in one week,” she said. “Color me stunned.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Kate said, and went to check her box and then Jim’s. Mixed in with the junk he had a personal letter, return address Medford, Oregon. She resisted the impulse—barely—to take a photo and text it to him. She didn’t want him to wreck the plane.

  When she came out again, she saw Demetri Totemoff with the same bunch of guys across the airstrip at George’s. Curious, she watched from her pickup as he ushered them onto one of George’s town-bound Otters. When it took off he looked across and saw her, and walked across the strip. “Hey, Kate,” he said.

  “Hey, Demetri.” She nodded at the Otter climbing into the sky. “Clients?”

  He braced his hands on either edge of the driver’s-side window of her truck. “Not exactly.”

  “Didn’t have the look,” Kate said. She nodded and he stepped back out of the way and she got out.

  Demetri Totemoff was in his fifties, dark and stocky and fit. He was Kate’s second cousin a couple of times removed through one of the aunties, and they shared the high, flat cheekbones and the olive skin of the Alaskan Aleut. Her eyes were a changeable hazel, his a dark brown. They were both tanned a deep, golden brown from a life spent outdoors, and they both embraced taciturnity as a preferred mode of expression. “Something you want to tell me, Demetri?”

  He looked at her, his expression as still as always. “I get the feeling I have,” he said.

  “You’re funding Gaea,” she said.

  There was silence for a few moments. He stared over her shoulder while she stared over his.

  “When did you find out?”

  She snorted. “It wasn’t all that hard. It probably took Kurt all of five minutes on his computer. If he didn’t hand it off to Agrifina Fancyboy as beneath his skill set.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. What I don’t understand is, why the big secret? The Roberts court says all you’re doing is exercising your right to free speech.”

  “You aren’t pissed?” he said slowly, feeling his way.

  She looked at him until he turned his head to meet her eyes. “When I am, you’ll know it.”

  A little yellow and white aircraft appeared out of the southwest. They both watched in silence as it descended toward the far end of the runway.

  “I don’t get it,” Demetri said. “I thought you were for the mine.”

  “Tell me why you’re so against it,” she said.

  “Those earthen dams they want to put in to contain the tailings?” he said. “If they fail, the toxic outflow will kill every fish in every stream around my lodge.”

  “Will the dams fail?”

  “One earthquake, Kate,” he said.

  She nodded. They watched the little yellow and white plane touch down, bounce once, twice, then settle down onto the asphalt. Not as smooth a landing as the last one Anne had made with Kate watching.

  “We can’t let it happen, Kate,” he said.

  “Then you better start praying,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For the price of gold to drop far and fast.”

  He looked at her. “I don’t get it,” he repeated. “It’s not like you to take it up the ass just because there’s no other option.”

  She smiled. “There are always other options, Demetri. They’re just not all good ones.”

  The yellow and white plane kicked hard right rudder and buzzed onto their side of the strip.

  Goaded, Demetri said, “I’ll tell you someone else who’s on the side of the angels, Kate, though you won’t believe it.”

  “Who?” she said, indifferent.

  “Erland Bannister.” Her head snapped around, and he gave a thin smile. “That’s right. Erland’s writing us big checks. Keep the wilderness the wilderness, he says.”

  Later, Kate would date that moment as the beginning of her understanding of just how much Erland Bannister hated her. “But he’s a partner in Suulutaq.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t you care that he has a foot in both camps?”

  Demetri shrugged. “His checks clear the bank.”

  The yellow and white plane shut down its engine and Anne Flanagan hopped out. “Kate!”

  “Think about it, Kate,” Demetri said. “We shouldn’t be on opposite sides on this.” He nodded at Anne. “Reverend Flanagan.”

  “Mr. Totemoff,” Anne said. Her face looked tight and drawn and she was making an obvious effort to be civil. “I hope I’ll see you at services next Wednesday.”

  A faint smile creased Demetri’s face. “I hope so, too.” He nodded at her, looked at Kate, and walked away.

  “Anne,” Kate said. She looked over Anne’s shoulder and noticed that Anne was carrying two passengers.

  “I need to talk to you,” Anne said. “Someplace private.”

  * * *

  Kate drove them to the school, where she knew a back door that was always open, even in summer, and settled the three of them in the teachers’ lounge. “Okay,” she said, “what’s going on?”

  “This is Jennifer Mack,” Anne said. “And Ryan Christianson.”

  “Jennifer Christianson,” both young people said in unison.

  “Oh,” Kate said.

  “They’re ei
ghteen, they had a license, they asked me to marry them when I went down to Kushtaka to officiate at the Tyler Mack service,” Anne said. Anne looked at Jennifer and Ryan. “Tell her.”

  “All of it?” Ryan Christianson said.

  Jennifer was a beautiful young woman, with long dark hair, a pure oval face, wide-spaced dark eyes, and a lovely, lissome figure. She would turn heads wherever she went, but it was also clear to Kate that her looks were not all or even most of what she had going for her. There was a fierce intelligence there, an indomitable self-possession, and an iron will.

  “This is Kate Shugak,” Jennifer said, and there was no gainsaying the certainty in that rock steady voice. “We tell it all.”

  They told it together, one picking up the story when the other stopped.

  “You didn’t mean to do it,” Kate said at the end.

  A vigorous shaking of heads, and real regret and sorrow on both faces. “No. It was an accident,” Jennifer said. “He surprised us just as we were about to get in the skiff. He grabbed me and he hit Ryan.”

  A black eye and a split lip on Ryan’s face supported their story.

  “He was dead when you left him?” Kate said.

  Ryan’s face contorted. “Yes,” he said, his voice husky.

  Not depraved indifference, then, Kate thought. Involuntary manslaughter at worst.

  Jennifer, too, was close to tears. “He thought he was in love with me, and he knew my father … but I wasn’t going to let him force me back there,” she said. “I won’t go back now.” She didn’t say it defiantly. It was a simple statement of fact.

  “Where have you been?” Kate said.

  Ryan looked at Jennifer. “We didn’t tell him anything.”

  “We don’t want to get him in trouble,” Jennifer said.

  “Finish the damn story,” Kate said.

  Jennifer sighed, looking suddenly exhausted. Ryan put his arm around her and she leaned into his shoulder. He kissed her head and rested his cheek on her hair.. “The plan originally was that we would take the river up to Ahtna and take the bus to Anchorage and on down to the Kenai Peninsula. I’ve got a job waiting for me in Kasilof. We figured it would be a good place to hide out while the folks got over our getting married. And then—” He swallowed. Eighteen-year-olds were by definition immortal. It was difficult for them even to say the D-word in any kind of real-world context. “After Rick surprised us on the beach and it happened, we knew they’d be looking for us right away. At first we didn’t know what to do. We couldn’t go upriver, because we’ve both got too many nosy aunties in Niniltna and Ahtna. Same if we went downriver, because both our families and all our friends are fishing on Alaganik Bay. And then I remembered Scott Ukatish.”