Whisper to the Blood

by Dana Stabenow

  “Grim but true,” Kate said. “Why didn’t you do a wants and warrants on him before we came?”

  “I’d rather talk to him first, get a feel. If I think he’ll bolt, I’ll grab him up for twenty-four. Be easier to run a search with prints anyway.”

  “But I notice we’re whispering,” she said. “Also tiptoeing.”

  “Girls tiptoe. Guys sneak.”

  They came to Auntie Vi’s driveway, overgrown with spruce and alder and birch and fireweed and way too much devil’s club. Unless it was edible, Auntie Vi didn’t care enough about landscaping other than to keep the driveway clear enough to drive on.

  There was a light on in the living room. The front door was unlocked, as usual, and Jim led the way in. “Stay,” Kate said to Mutt, and followed.

  The living room was empty. So was the kitchen. So was Auntie Vi’s little suite in back of the kitchen.

  They went upstairs. “Which one is his?” Kate said.

  Jim nodded at a door and Kate tried the handle. “Locked.”

  They stood side by side looking at the door with, had they but known it, identical speculative looks on their faces. “I know where the keys to the rooms are,” Kate said.

  “So do I.” He looked at her. “I’m a practicing professional police officer. I need a warrant.”

  She made a face and went downstairs, returning a few moments later with a key. She inserted it into the lock and the door opened smoothly, as any door installed beneath Auntie Vi’s auspices would have if it knew what was good for it.

  The room held a full-size bed with a nightstand and a lamp next to it, a dresser with four drawers, and an easy chair grouped with a floor lamp and an end table. A tiny bathroom with a toilet, a sink, and a shower was tucked behind a door between dresser and chair. Outside the window spruce branches brushed the glass with scratchy fingers.

  “Not a neatnik,” Jim said from the doorway.

  “Looks like Johnny’s room,” Kate said. “Or the Grosdidiers’ house.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.”

  The bed was a jumble of blankets and sheets, socks and underwear spilled out of an open drawer, dirty clothes were tossed in a corner. Crumpled beer cans had missed the wastebasket.

  Kate made a quick circuit. “No letters, bills, mail of any kind. Stack of these, big surprise.” She held up a fistful of copies of the latest Global Harvest flyer.

  “When did Johnny say Gallagher showed up?”

  “September.”

  “Four months. Long time to go without paying a bill.”

  “Auntie Vi would have kicked him out if he hadn’t been paying his here.” Jim looked over his shoulder. “What?”

  “Thought I heard something.”

  “Mutt’s outside.”

  “Right. Gallagher own a vehicle?”

  “A pickup, Johnny said.”

  “Global Harvest would have given him a company snow machine for the river trip.”

  “Yeah, he had his own when I saw them leaving for the trip on the river. Wasn’t any snow machine outside.”

  Kate looked under the bed, and pulled out a large duffel bag, black and red and worn at the seams. “Padlocked.” She slung the bag over to the door. Jim got out his key ring, selected a slender tool, and bent over the lock. It took about two seconds. “Pitiful. No wonder it’s TSA approved.” He shoved the bag back at her.

  She unzipped the bag and looked inside. She looked inside for so long that he said, “What?”

  “Who’s dealing coke in the Park these days?”

  She dragged the bag back over to him and they both looked down at the Ziploc with the white powder inside it.

  “Open it up,” Jim said.

  Kate did, and Jim licked his little finger, dipped, and tasted. “Yeah. Coke.”

  “Isn’t full, either.”

  “I noticed.”

  “That’s a lot for personal consumption.”

  “I noticed that, too.”

  “Maybe my question is, who’s using in the Park these days, and who’s supplying?” She looked at Jim.

  “I haven’t heard anything. Even Howie seems to have stopped dealing lately.” He thought. “Actually, I haven’t heard of him dealing anything since before Louis died.”

  “Me, either.” She nodded at the Ziploc. “But one of us would have heard if Gallagher was dealing.”

  Too late, they both remembered that Kate had been left out of the loop on the assaults on the river. “You’d think so,” he said, voice carefully neutral.

  “Shit.” Kate rested her elbows on her knees. “Would you like me to investigate further, officer?”

  “Can’t use any of it as evidence.”

  “Fruit of the poisoned tree,” she said. “Still.” She reached in the bag and moved the Ziploc to one side. “Well, well.”

  “What?”

  She pulled out a wad of bills fastened together with a rubber band.

  There were a dozen more. All the bills looked well-used. Like maybe Gallagher had been taking payments in cash for something he was selling.

  Kate repacked the bag, relocked the lock, and restowed the duffel beneath the bed. She rose to her feet, dusting her hands and knees. “Now what?”

  “Well,” Jim said, “we know more than we did before. We know Gallagher’s running under an assumed name, and we know he is or was dealing coke.”

  “Doesn’t mean he killed Mac or Macleod.”

  “No. Does Auntie Vi ever make her guests fill out any kind of form?”

  She looked at him. “Did she make you fill out one?”

  “No.” He smiled down at her. “But that’s me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “As long as their check or Visa card clears the bank, she doesn’t care who they are or where they come from.”

  They closed the door and locked it and put the key back on the hook in the kitchen. Kate, unable to help herself, made a beeline for the flying pig cookie jar on the counter. No-bake cookies today. Kate took one, put the lid back, and then took the lid off again and took one more.

  Auntie Vi’s counters, while scrupulously clean, were barely visible beneath the detritus of her life, of which the flying pig was only one manifestation. There was a stack of unread Alaska Fisherman’s Journals, another of legislative circulars that had been heavily notated and highlighted in yellow. She had three sets of canisters, one brass, one bright blue enamel, the third Lucite. A knife block bristled with knife handles, there was a beer box full of bright squares of fabric, a copy of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook on a stand, open to a scone recipe.

  Kate sorted idly through a large shallow wicker basket that held a jumble of those tools essential to everyday civilized life. Pens, pencils, a Frosty the Snowman notepad, a handful of Hershey’s Nuggets, a tape measure, an oven mitt, pushpins, safety pins, paper clips. There was a Camelot CD (original cast, Auntie Vi was a known Robert Goulet enthusiast). There were twist ties, a roll of duct tape, a roll of electrician’s tape, a roll of Scotch tape, a spool of string.

  Under the roll of duct tape she found a small untidy ball of green monofilament. “Hey,” she said.

  “Wait a minute.” Jim was looking at the calendar hanging on Auntie Vi’s wall. It was a big one, featuring gorgeous photographs of the Hawaiian Islands. The month pages featured large squares for the dates. There was something written in almost all of them, bake sales, basketball games, due dates for Park rat soon-to-be moms.

  “Look at this.” He turned his head and she held up the monofilament. “He eats breakfast in this kitchen every morning.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “Look at this.” He pointed at that day’s date.

  She followed his forefinger to the entry. “GH mtg, RC, 7pm.” She looked up at him. “Global Harvest, Riverside Café?”

  “Let’s go see.”

  They parked in the store’s parking lot and walked, but they needn’t have bothered. There was almost no one parked out front of the café. Kate sighed.

  “Wh
at?”

  “If Global Harvest stays on this mission of all information, all the time, people are bound to get bored and wander off.”

  “Think that’s their plan?”

  “It’d be mine, if I wanted to put in a strip mine in Iqaluk and I knew it was going to piss off a lot of people in the Park.”

  Jim held the door for her. “Stay,” she said to Mutt, and went in.

  Inside, Laurel Meganack was drying glasses behind the counter. She gave Jim a flat, inimical stare. She wouldn’t even look at Kate. Maybe a dozen people were gathered around the corner table. Gallagher was on his feet, talking animatedly as he pointed to a map of the Park he’d taped to the wall. He looked up and his voice faltered when he saw Kate and Jim. Heads turned.

  “Hey, Dick,” Jim said.

  “Sergeant Chopin,” Gallagher said.

  “Or should I say Doyle?” Jim said.

  “Who?” Gallagher said, but he waited a beat too long.

  “Got a few questions for you,” Jim said. “If you could come on down to the post, I’d appreciate it.”

  Gallagher looked past Jim at Kate, and whatever he saw in her face made the rest of the color drain from his own. “Sure,” he said, “no problem. Just let me get my coat.”

  He turned and reached for the coat lying over the back of a chair. As he did so Kate hit Jim with a low tackle behind the knees and the bullet from the Sig Sauer P220 Compact only knocked the ball cap from his head and shattered the window in the door. From the other side of the door Mutt uttered a series of outraged barks.

  There were screams and shouts and chairs scraping and bodies hitting the floor, and then another loud crash when a second window went. Kate and Jim were on their feet and looking at the broken window at the end of the counter Gallagher had evidently dived through. Jim started forward and Kate turned and hit the front door. “Mutt!”

  Mutt was quivering with rage, teeth bared in a vulpine snarl. She snapped and growled, dancing around Kate. She didn’t like people shooting at her. “Come on!”

  Kate ran around the back of the café just in time to see Jim finish knocking the rest of the glass out of the frame and jump outside. “Which way?” Something sang by her ear, followed by the distinctive crack of the Sig. “Fuck!”

  Jim had his 9mm out. “Stay back!”

  “Like hell!”

  “Goddammit, Kate, you’re not armed!”

  “Like hell!”

  There was the sound of rapidly receding footsteps and Kate went after them, Mutt shooting past her, a gray streak with her head lowered between her shoulders, long legs eating up the ground, and a feral and terrifying growl issuing from her throat.

  They all heard the snow machine start, and rounded a corner in time to see Gallagher start off on somebody’s dark blue Polaris.

  “Kate!”

  “Mutt! Take!”

  The gray streak that was Mutt seemed to flatten out and gather speed. The snow machine had to slow for a second to take the corner of the Kvasnikof home, and as it did Mutt launched herself in mid-lope and hit Gallagher in the back with all of her not inconsiderable weight. Gallagher rolled from the seat and went tumbling head over heels. Mutt did a kind of mid-air jackknife to make a four-point landing, falling over Gallagher like a net, teeth bared and snapping inches from his face. He froze in place, and then the hand that was still somehow holding the Sig raised it and squeezed.

  “Goddammit!” Jim said, and dived, landing on his belly with an ungraceful flop and skidding three feet farther on the snow and ice. Ahead of him, Kate had dodged behind the Kvasnikof house. The bullet hit the house next to her with a deafening bang and startled cries issued forth from all around them.

  Mutt went ballistic. She snarled and bit Gallagher on the face, tearing skin and drawing blood, and then she went for his gun hand. Thirty feet away Jim could hear the crunch of bones breaking.

  Gallagher shrieked and dropped the Sig. Kate ran out from behind the Kvasnikofs’ and scooped up the Sig on the fly, and by the time she slowed forward momentum, Mutt had her teeth on Gallagher’s throat, that slow, steady, emasculating growl issuing from her own. He made one feeble effort to shove her away. Her jaws closed tighter and she shook her head. He screamed, or tried to. The result was a garbled, gargling sound.

  Jim got to his feet. “Kate. Call her off.”

  “Why?” Kate said, torn between fright and fury. She didn’t like getting shot at, either.

  “Kate.”

  “Oh, all right. Mutt, release. Mutt! Mutt, release! Come on, girl, it’s okay. Get off him. Off, Mutt, now!”

  Mutt looked up at Kate, her jaws bloody from Gallagher’s face, wrist, and throat, still that steady rumble, like tank tracks, issuing forth.

  Kate grabbed Mutt’s ears and shoved her down to the ground, her face right in Mutt’s, her own bared teeth inches from Mutt’s throat. “No! No! Release, I said! Release!”

  “Jesus, Kate,” Jim said, shaken.

  Inexplicably, Mutt went motionless. Jim wasn’t even sure she was still breathing.

  For a long moment the three of them remained frozen in place, to the accompaniment of Gallagher crying and whimpering in the background. Jim couldn’t say he blamed him much.

  A soft, conciliatory whine sounded. Mutt stuck out a long pink tongue and washed Kate’s cheek.

  “All right then.” Kate released her. They both got to their feet. Mutt shook herself and gave another ingratiating whine, touching her nose to Kate’s hand. Kate cuffed her and Mutt cringed and whined again. “Oh shut up, you big baby,” Kate said, and gave her a rough caress. Mutt bounced in place, yipped, and wagged an ingratiating tail.

  “Holy shit,” Jim said.

  “No big,” Kate said. She shook her hair out of her eyes, feeling suddenly, debilitatingly weary. “Once in a while I have to remind her who’s still the alpha dog in the pack. She is half wolf, you know.”

  Nevertheless, Jim made a big circle around the both of them when he went to peel Gallagher off the ground.

  CHAPTER 26

  The cells at the post were getting crowded. “It’s time for you to go home, Howie,” Jim said. “I’ve sent word for Willard to come get you.”

  Howie looked torn between being booted out and scared that his life might still be at risk. “You don’t think I killed Mac Devlin anymore,” he said, a little crestfallen.

  “Sorry, no,” Jim said, pushing Howie in front of him. “Ballistics say you didn’t. Not with your own rifle, at any rate.”

  “Well, I didn’t kill him. I didn’t kill Louis, either, Jim.”

  Jim looked down at him. It was hard to detect truth from bullshit with Howie Katelnikof. The shifty eyes, the sly face, the involuntary instinct to lie his way out of every situation, all these were Howie to the bone, and none of them inspired confidence. “You told me the aunties hired you to kill him. Was that true?”

  Howie sent an uneasy glance down the hall to where the three Johansens were still smelling up the jail, and the cell across the hall where Gallagher had taken Howie’s place. He was stretched out on the bunk and was attended by all four Grosdidier brothers, who were in hog heaven at the amount of bandages that were going to be required. “We might even need a Life Flight!” Luke said, ecstatic.

  In the other direction Maggie was visible through the doorway, sitting at her desk and pretending her boss wasn’t having a whispered conversation with Howie Katelnikof. “Off the record, Jim?”

  Jim looked at the ceiling and thought about it. If the aunties had hired Howie to kill Louis and he had, Howie would be guilty of murder and the aunties of conspiracy to commit. If the aunties had hired Howie to kill Louis and he hadn’t, all four would still be guilty of conspiracy to commit.

  Of course, any charges would be contingent upon Jim’s ability to prove said charges in a court of law. With the aunties’ unparalleled ability to stonewall so amply demonstrated of late, see Kate Shugak here, he didn’t look forward to any conversation upon that topic with Judge Singh
. On the other hand, Howie’s understanding of “off the record,” like his understanding of “immunity,” came more from television than hands-on experience. “Okay,” he said mendaciously. “Off the record.”

  Howie leaned in and said in a voice just above a whisper, “They did hire me to kill him. The aunties. I told you the truth about that.”

  “Uh-huh,” Jim said. “And did you? Kill Louis?”

  Howie shook his head vigorously. “No, Jim. No, I told you, I didn’t. For one thing, I didn’t have a shotgun with me that day.”

  “How did you know he was killed with a shotgun?” Jim said. “Very few people know that, Howie.”

  Howie’s voice dropped even lower. “Like I told you before. Because I saw him.”

  Jim looked down at him, considering. “I remember. You said you found Louis dead on the road to the Step.”

  “Yeah.” Howie swallowed and looked a little sick. “Yeah. I was driving out the road and he was just lying there. I pulled over and I got out and he was just . . . lying there, with his chest all blown open. Gut shot.” He shuddered.

  “Uh-huh,” Jim said again. “What were you doing on the road to the Step that day, Howie?”

  “I was supposed to pick up Louis when you let him out of jail,” Howie said. “He was already gone when I got here. I knew he’d be mad I wasn’t here on time, and he told me he had to talk to Ranger Dan, so I figured I’d find him on the road.” He swallowed again. “And I did.”

  Jim took down Howie’s statement, for what it was worth, and, after an internal debate that lasted a good five minutes, went ahead and released Howie into Willard’s tearful arms. Willard probably hadn’t eaten a decent meal since Howie went inside.

  “Hey, Howie,” Jim said, as they were leaving. “Who was that poaching caribou with you up Gruening River way?”

  Howie hesitated, and then shrugged. Loyalty was never one of Howie’s strong suits. “Martin Shugak.”

  “You already told me that, Howie. There was someone else, though, wasn’t there? I saw a third rig under the trees.”