Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 02 - A Fatal Thaw
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getting a little weird out. God knows we've had about all
the weird we can take." He paused. "Sometimes "What?"
He looked at her, but his dark eyes were fixed on events long ago and
far away, on a story that did not begin "once upon a time." "Sometimes,
when another movie comes
out, or they start up another program on television, or do another
documentary on the vets, you get to feeling like you're never going to
be able to clean the smell of the
jungle off you." His forehead creased, and he said in
low voice, "It's a funny thing, Kate. I can still smell it.
can still taste it. You can taste death, you know. At Hue,
the siege lasted a month. The bodies most of the time
stayed where they fell, and rotted there. You could smell
them every time you inhaled. You could taste it in your
rations, drink it from your canteen. It was the last thing you smelled
at night, the first thing you smelled in the
morning. It was all around you. You couldn't get away from it, and you
wouldn't, until you made more of it, until
you'd killed enough people dead so that there was no
one left to die."
It was the first time in their thirteen-year friendship she'd ever heard
Bobby talk about the war. Kate blinked her eyes clear and said nothing.
"So," Bobby said briskly, reaching for the last over flowing ashtray,
"that's pretty much it. Once a year we get together and get a little
tanked and cuss the brass and the dopes in D.C., and remember the guys
who didn't make it, and cheer the fact we did." He grinned at her. "It
relaxes the tension better than a good massage."
Kate cast around for an equally lighthearted response. "That new ranger,
whatsisname, Chaney, didn't seem any too relaxed to me."
"Yeah, well, he was higher'n two kites, and besides, he's recovering
from more'n the Nam."
"Like what? Danny boy assign him to taking the trash out of the Park?"
Bobby looked up and he wasn't smiling. "He had a thing going with Lisa
Getty." Mistaking Kate's sudden stillness, Bobby said, "Yeah, I know,
who didn't have a thing going with Lisa Getty. But he was new in the
Park and he didn't know that, and she wasn't done with him, so he thinks
it was true love, and now his heart's broken." Bobby paused. "Did I ever
tell you, I got a little of that?"
Kate was momentarily diverted and even a little shocked. "Bobby. You're
kidding, right?"
"Nope. Happened about ten, eleven years ago. Just after I got the roof
on, she come visiting with a housewarming gift." He grinned, and it was
a very wide, very male grin. "Herself. I don't think we got out of bed
for a week. Swearta God, she was the all-time best piece of ass I ever
had." He caught her eye and added hastily, "Except for you, of course."
"Oh, of course." Kate couldn't help herself; she laughed out loud. "Oh,
Bobby. Well, I'm glad you enjoyed your self, but I thought you had
better taste."
"Yeah, well. She wasn't easy to say no to, once she'd made up her mind."
"What happened?"
"Oh, she stayed as long as it took to satisfy her curiosity about what
it was like to fuck a black gimp, and then she split." He saw her look.
"Come on, Kate. We both know what Lisa was like. Don't go all nil nisi
bonum on me now."
She shook her head. "No. I just-I don't like the thought of her using you."
"Why not?" He smirked. "I used her, sure as hell, as well and as hard
and for as long as I could. Didn't mean anything, but it sure felt good,
and I was tired of shingling,
anyway." "Bobby, no woman is safe from you." "You should know," he retorted.
"Mmm." She smiled at him in a way that made him for= get what Lisa Getty
looked like, and resumed sweeping. "So Max Chaney was seeing Lisa, was
he? Since when?"
"God, I don't know. Couldn't have been for more than two-three months or
she would have dropped him."
That fit with what Jack had told her about Lisa and Chopper Jim. "Where
was Chaney?" she said. "The day she was killed, I mean?"
"I don't know. Up on the Step at Park HQ, I guess." He shrugged. "I
didn't ask."
Kate murmured some response and worked her way into the corner behind
the wood box.
Bobby regarded her back thoughtfully. "What are you
doing in town, Kate?"
"Why?" she asked, without
"Because it does just occur to me to wonder why you
would be interested in Max's whereabouts that day." She said nothing.
"Come on, Kate, what's going on? You caught the guy who killed that
bunch, Lisa included, caught him fair and square your own self, yet here
you are, picking my brain about Lisa and Max." He pursed his lips.
"Unless, maybe"
The broom halted, and she regarded her toes with an
interest bordering on fascination. "Unless maybe what?" She heard him
shift in his chair, heard a faint squeak of
rubber wheels on hardwood floor and moved her interesting toes out of
the way just in time. She couldn't avoid his bright, direct gaze. "No
bullshit now, Kate," he said, his drawl gone and all his verbs in their
right places. "Was
someone else shooting that
"And did that someone else kill Lisa Getty?"
"Yes." Kate stepped back, swept her pile of dust and
butts and potato chip and pretzel fragments into a neat pile and reached
for the dustpan.
Bobby put it into her hand. "What was that crack Pete made? `How is
Jack?' Jack's in the Park?"
"He was." "When?" "Sunday and Monday. He flew out again this morning."
She handed him the full dustpan, and he emptied it into the
garbage and handed it back. I
"Nice work if you can get it," Bobby observed. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. He didn't come just to see you, though, did he?"
"No. Bobby lost what little patience he had. "Am I going to have to drag
it out of you? What'd he say?"
Kate refilled the dustpan and straightened. "He said the coroner says
the bullet that killed Lisa Getty came from a different rifle than the
bullets that killed the rest of the massacre victims."
"What's McAniff say?"
"He says he killed them all. Jack says McAniff was
more than a little insulted at the mere suggestion that he
might've missed one." "Jesus."
She nodded. "I know. Creepy guy."
"No shit." He stretched out one large, calloused hand, the airstrip to
her interview with George, and finished up
and she put her own into it. He drew her over to the couch,
hoisted himself into it and pulled her down next to him.
Taking her hand again, he played with her fingers. "Okay,
woman. Tell Bobby all about it."
She did, from Mutt's apprehension of McAniff to
Jack's report on the autopsies to her own vigil at the end of
with an account of her visit to Lottie's house. He listened
attentively, without comment, until she told him about the
greenhouse. "All dope?" he said. She nodded. "All of it."
"How many plants'd you say?" he asked with a faraway
look in his eye.
She supp
ressed a smile. "About seven to ten at hard
labor's worth."
He sighed. "Oh well, it was just a thought."
"Besides, you're through with all that," she pointed out
and waited.
In vain, because he just grinned at her. She shook her
head at him.
"So that's it?" he asked, and she nodded. "Who can
tell?" "Keep it quiet, for now. I told George the same." "Somebody tell
Lottie?"
She nodded. "Me. Today. And I'm telling you now
want one person I trust to know where I am
and what I'm doing at all times, just in case."
Bobby was pleased, and preened a little. "Why, of
course. Do I get to help this time?"
"Sure." He looked delighted, and she added, "Bend
your powerful brain to rounding up the usual suspects."
"Gotcha." He seemed to ripple to attention, like a cat
at a mouse hole readying to pounce. "Sam Spade at your
service, darling. What are we looking for?"
"The usual, Sam. Motive, means, opportunity. I'm sure
Jack would appreciate some hard evidence."
"That doesn't sound very optimistic." "We're on an old, cold trail."
"It ain't even been two weeks!" Bobby roared.
"Most crimes are solved in the first twenty-four hours," she told him.
"After that the chances of finding whodunit decrease geometrically, I
think by the minute. Maybe even the second."
"What do you want, to find the killer standing over the corpse with a
smoking gun in his hand?"
"It could be a her."
"It surely could," Bobby said dryly. "Two-thirds of the wives and most
of the girlfriends in the Park had motive. This dope business bothers
me, too. You know I don't miss much, Kate."
"I know. It's why I love you."
"Down, girl." He was almost purring. "I did miss the fact that Lisa was
dealing dope."
"We don't know that she was dealing."
He gave her a tolerant look. "Lottie and Lisa smoking all day, every day
for a year couldn't finish off that much weed all by themselves. No,
Kate, they were selling it. And if they were selling it, somebody was
buying it. And you know how druggies have this tendency to wig out every
now and then." His eyes lingered on the scar at her throat. "Yes," she
said flatly. "I know."
"Could have been a dissatisfied customer."
She got up and paced back and forth with long, thoughtful strides. She
was between him and the fireplace and he admired the way the flames
outlined her form. "What's wrong?" he said.
She paused and looked at him. "The whole thing's just so damn opportune."
He snapped his fingers. "Opportunity, the third thing we're looking for."
"Yeah." She resumed pacing. "I mean, there's McAniff, blasting away with
a 30.06 at everything that moves, and somebody else just happens to be
laying for Lisa, in the same place, with Another` 30.06? How could they know
that he'd be using a 30.06?"
"Did they know?" Bobby asked, sounding skeptical. She halted. "You're
right, they didn't have to. All they really needed was somebody else
shooting, to cover the sound of their shots. By the time the difference
in rifles was discovered, they'd be long gone. And were."
Bobby nodded. "A 30.06 is standard armament in the Park. If it comes to
that, I've never seen you without yours, either on the rack in the back
of your pickup or in a scabbard on your snow machine."
"True." Kate sat back down. "It'd be nice to have some place to start in
this mess."
"Well. The means we got." "Not in hand."
"No, but we know how it was done and with what," Bobby said,
"thirty-ought-six, same as the others, only different." He stroked his
chin, looking as if he wished he had a meerschaum pipe to puff on. He
jerked his head. "You need to use the radio to talk to Jack?"
"Got nothing to say to him yet. Might need to, later. I hope so, anyway."
"No problem. KL7CC's"
"I know. KL7CC's always awake." He grinned. "Need a place to sleep?"
She grinned back. "Uh-huh."
"Want to share the bed?" he said, exaggeratedly hopeful.
"The couch will be fine."
He sighed. "Goddam, woman, you don't know what you're missing."
She winked at him. "Oh, yes, I do."
ALONG with the usual assortment of snow machines and battered pickup
trucks, there were half a dozen dog teams staked outside the Roadhouse
as Kate drove up the next morning. Mutt leapt off the back of the Jag as
they pulled to a halt, and trotted from one team to the next, touching
noses with each team's leaders, exchanging sharp, short barks of
greeting with the others, not missing anyone, and generally working the
crowd in a manner that reminded Kate irresistibly of Ekaterina Shugak
working the crowd at an Alaska Federation of Natives meeting. She didn't
seem to be interested in much more than touching noses, Kate noticed
with mixed feelings of relief and apprehension. Judging by the tracks
she'd seen around the woodpile Tuesday morning, tracks the size of salad
plates, the timber wolf was still hanging around, hoping, she was grimly
convinced, for more than a handout.
A yelp startled her. It wasn't a bark of greeting or a whine for
attention, it was a definite yelp for help, and she looked for its
source. Around one corner of the building another dog team was anchored
almost out of sight. There was another canine yelp and some suppressed
snickers of human origin. She took a step forward, the better to see.
The team's lead dog had been restrained by three boys. A fourth had a
stick and with it was investigating the dog's behind. The dog yelped a
third time. Kate took half a dozen swift noiseless steps and collared
the boy with the
stick and the one holding the dog's hind legs apart. Their
heads thumped together with a very satisfying sound, so
she did it again. The other two boys cut and ran. "Mutt,
fetch!" Mutt bounded forward and knocked the third boy over with a
powerful shoulder. She left him to nip at the
rapidly retreating behind of the fourth. The third boy, still
rolling, bounced off the side of the Roadhouse, jumped to
his feet and streaked off.
"All right," Kate said, "now just who do we have
here?" She twisted them around to see. Bewildered and
neither was much above ten years old. "Ah.
Amos Totemoff. I'll be sure, next time I see Demetri to
tell him I saw his son, and I'll be sure to tell him what I saw
his son doing, too." She looked at the other boy and said musingly,
"Larry? Lyndon? Leonard, that's it, Leonard
Kvasnikof. Stop that bawling this instant." Her raspy
voice cracked like a broken whip. Both boys froze into
immobility, feet dangling some inches above the ground.
"Who were those other two boys?" Neither spoke, and she
wound her fists tighter in their collars and gave them
shake. "Who were they?"
Still no answer. "Okay," Kate said, easing her grip so
that their toes could touch the ground, "I wouldn't give
two cents for a boy who ratted on a friend anyway. But get this and get
&nb
sp; it good. I catch either one of you mistreating a
dog, or any other animal anywhere in the Park ever again,