Nik Kane Alaska Mystery - 01 - Lost Angel

by Mike Doogan

  “Is she a popular girl?”

  The woman seemed to think about that question.

  “As I said, she is polite and quiet, she attends gatherings and behaves well, so I guess you could say she is popular among the adults. But she doesn’t seem to be very close to the girls of her age.”

  “How about the boys?”

  “Faith is a beautiful girl. She could be very popular with the boys if she wants to be. Several of them tried to get close to her, but she gave them no encouragement and they wandered off. Looking for a better reception elsewhere, no doubt.”

  “You don’t seem to have a very high opinion of men,” Kane said.

  The woman smiled.

  “I’m realistic about men,” she said. “They want what they want.” Her smile got bigger. “But, then again, so do women.”

  Kane found himself looking into the woman’s eyes. He felt warm and unfocused, as if she had given him some sort of very pleasant drug. He drank some tea. Its bitterness brought him back to himself.

  “Were you surprised when Faith decided to attend school outside Rejoice?” Kane asked.

  Again, the woman seemed to think.

  “No, I guess not,” she said. “Faith is very much her own person, in a way that few people in Rejoice are. Oh, I mean, we’re all individuals, but in mostly acceptable ways. Rejoice is a place with few rules but strong customs, and going against the customs is something most won’t do. But doing so doesn’t seem to bother Faith.”

  “How does she get along with her family?”

  “With her father, you mean? They seem to get along all right, but on a superficial level. And sometimes, when he wasn’t looking, she would give him a look that might have been anger. But if she thought someone was watching, she covered it up quickly.”

  “You seem to be very observant,” Kane said.

  The woman inclined her head and said, “When I came here I saw that there weren’t really any written rules,” she said, “so I watched others to learn. It suited my personality, anyway. I like watching people. I think they’re fascinating. For instance, I think it would be fun to watch you do your investigation.”

  “Probably not,” Kane said. “Most investigating is pretty tedious, asking the same questions over and over again. How did Faith get along with her grandfather?”

  “All you want is the facts, eh?” the woman said. Again, she paused to think.

  “You know, I don’t believe I see her much with her grandfather,” she said. “Oh, they are at meals and gatherings and so on, but they don’t seem to interact very often. Can’t say I blame Faith much. If he were my grandfather, I wouldn’t spend any more time around him than I had to, either.”

  “You don’t like Elder Moses Wright?” Kane asked.

  “Let’s just say that his view of the world is much more patriarchal than mine,” the woman said, getting to her feet. “I’m afraid I have to get back to work. And you need to finish your lunch before it gets stone cold.”

  “Wait,” Kane said. “You never told me your name and marital status.”

  “You’re a detective,” she said. “You find out.”

  The woman gave him a big smile and walked back behind the counter and into what Kane assumed was the kitchen. Watching her walk made Kane want to jump on the table and howl. Instead, he picked up his fork and finished his lunch, then took out a notebook and wrote some notes on his interview with Thomas Wright. When he read them over, Kane realized just how little the man had told him.

  The Montaigne passage came to Kane’s mind. Wright had a contradictory character, all right. It must take some grit to run Rejoice, but when it came to his family he was diffident to the point of timidity. Unless he was hiding something behind his reserve.

  Kane added some notes about his interview with the woman, then stretched his cup of tea out as long as he could in the hope that she’d reappear. She didn’t, so he carried his empty cup to the counter and went back to work.

  Tom and Faith Wright lived in a log cabin about a quarter-mile from the cafeteria building. Kane decided to walk despite the cold. The sun was making its brief appearance over the mountaintops, painting the snow an almost painful white. As he thought about Faith and Rejoice, images of the woman in the cafeteria kept intruding. Stop acting like a damn teenager, he thought.

  Kane kicked the snow off his boots and let himself into the cabin with the key he’d been given. The living room was small and tidy and missing something. A television set, Kane decided. Satellite TV had reached even the most remote settlements in rural Alaska. Few made the choice to forgo television.

  The room contained a big, potbellied stove, a sofa that had seen better days, and a couple of chairs that looked handmade. Tacked to the walls were big, bright primitive paintings of tropical scenes, signed “Faith” in a childish scrawl.

  Kane went through the room thoroughly, and found nothing but dust bunnies. The kitchen contained basic cooking and eating utensils, some canned and dried food and nothing more. Probably just emergency rations, Kane thought. Who’d cook with the cafeteria so close? He walked back into the living room.

  To Kane’s right was a short hallway that ended in a bathroom. Bedrooms were to the left and right. He went into the one on the right and switched on the light.

  The bed was covered with a wool blanket and made exactly the way they’d taught him to make one in boot camp. It was only when he opened the door to the small closet that Kane was sure he was in the girl’s room. A single dress hung there, a blue summer dress with white flowers. The rest of the clothes looked as if they’d been chosen for warmth.

  The small chest of drawers contained utilitarian underwear, socks, a scant assortment of T-shirts, and a couple of pairs of jeans. A bottle of hand lotion and a tube of lip balm stood on top. Nothing under the mattress or under the bed. No hiding places were possible in the log walls. The floor had no obvious hollow spots. Without a hammer and a wrecking bar, he wasn’t going to find anything else.

  Kane ticked off all the things that weren’t there: cosmetics, jewelry, CD player, computer, magazines, posters. The room suited a nun better than a teenage girl. Like the Jeep, it told him absolutely nothing.

  “Just what is it you’re hiding behind all of this austerity, Faith Wright?” Kane asked the empty room.

  Whatever it was, he didn’t find it in the bathroom, either. It yielded shampoo, soap, and tampons. In frustration, he decided to toss Tom Wright’s room, too. It was as bad as his daughter’s. The only personal items were a pair of photographs in a plain wooden frame on his nightstand. One showed a young, pretty, blond woman holding a baby. Next to her stood a younger Thomas Wright. The other showed a different family in an almost identical pose: a very young, very pretty blond, a baby, and a dark-haired version of Moses Wright.

  Moses is definitely next on my list, Kane thought.

  He walked back into the living room and stood there, trying to imagine where a teenage girl would hide things she didn’t want found. He looked into the stove, which was full of cold ashes, and into a medium-size wooden trunk, which held a collection of women’s clothes that Kane figured had belonged to Wright’s wife.

  I don’t suppose you can afford to throw anything away out here, he thought. Even difficult memories.

  He was halfway out the door when he realized there was something else he hadn’t found in Faith’s room. A Bible. There was no copy of the Good Book in her father’s room, either. Or anywhere else in the house.

  “That’s strange,” he said aloud.

  In fact, the whole situation was strange. And the more he looked, the stranger it got.

  I hope this isn’t one of those investigations where I end up more confused than when I started, he thought, and looking like a dope in the bargain.

  On his walk back to the main building, he thought about the tidy, empty cabin and how little it had told him. Or how much. It reminded him of his apartment, and his prison cell. None was a home, just a place where people slept and
marked time. Maybe Faith got tired of marking time, he thought. Maybe I will, too.

  8

  Only by pride cometh contention.

  PROVERBS 13:10

  MOSES WRIGHT SAT IN AN OFFICE OFF THE BIG ROOM where the community gatherings were held. The door was open. He was seated at a desk, a large volume bound in red leather open in front of him. His lips moved as he read. Kane sat across the desk from him. The old man ignored him.

  Kane used the time to examine Moses Wright more carefully. The old man was short but, even well past his prime, had powerful shoulders and arms. His head, with its eruption of shaggy white hair and thick white beard, seemed too big for his body. Only the big shoulders kept it from looking freakish.

  With his Old Testament appearance he would have been a good televangelist, Kane thought. People with big heads do well on television.

  Something about him rubs me the wrong way, Kane thought. I’d better watch that. You can’t let your personal prejudices warp the investigation.

  The old man was, like all of the residents of Rejoice, dressed simply. He wore no jewelry, not even a watch. Just like the cons, Kane thought. Is Rejoice just another sort of prison? Did Faith break out?

  Minutes passed. Wright’s breathing was loud and steady as he read, pausing every now and then to make a note on a pad that lay next to the book.

  Enough’s enough, Kane thought, and dropped his hand on the desktop with a noise like a firecracker going off. The old man’s head snapped up.

  “Good morning, Elder Moses Wright,” Kane said sweetly. “I have a few questions to ask you.”

  The old man glared at him.

  “This book contains all the answers any man needs,” he growled, holding the big volume up so Kane could see the words “Holy Bible” stamped on the front.

  “Fine,” Kane said with a smile, “just point me to the passage that tells me where your granddaughter is.”

  “Does blasphemy amuse you, Mr. Kane?” Wright asked.

  The old man’s hostility scratched against Kane’s nerves like fingernails dragged across a blackboard, but he kept his temper in check.

  “No,” Kane said, “but I’m not here to inquire into religious matters. I’m here to find a young woman. What can you tell me that might help?”

  The old man showed big, yellow teeth in a smile so unctuous that he must have wanted Kane to know it was phony.

  “What makes you think I want to help you?” he asked. “I was against hiring you, but the other elders ignored me.”

  “Why wouldn’t you want to help?” Kane asked. “Is your ego so much more important than the fate of your own flesh and blood?”

  Wright’s mouth twisted into a bitter grin.

  “You really shouldn’t talk about things you don’t understand,” he said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Kane asked.

  The old man was silent for a moment.

  “One of the things it means is that I must weigh the souls of Rejoice in every decision,” he said. “In your case, the question was whether it was better to have an outsider poking around here, particularly a murderer and convict, upsetting the residents, setting tongues to wagging, and exposing us all to the secular philosophy of the world, in the hope of finding one lost or more likely runaway girl, or to make our own quiet inquiries that would, no doubt, have discovered her whereabouts and left the community untroubled.”

  “You are confident that you would have solved the mystery?” Kane said. “How?”

  “We have many friends outside Rejoice, and many more contacts. We have many competent men and women here. How hard could it be to find one girl?”

  “Presumably you tried all that before calling me in and didn’t learn anything.”

  “We didn’t give it long enough. Besides, what is the fate of one body when compared to the danger to hundreds of souls?”

  “So it doesn’t matter that she’s your granddaughter?”

  The old man gave him another bitter grin.

  “Faith is very important to me,” he said. “You’ll never know how important. But if the girl wants to live in the world, then it is better that she does. Better for her and better for Rejoice.”

  Kane sat trying to make sense of what the old man was telling him. Better to let a girl disappear than let one outsider spend time in Rejoice? Better for whom? How?

  “Surely you don’t think I can destroy the faith of those in Rejoice?” Kane said. “Doesn’t the Bible say, ‘For what if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?’ ”

  “You are a most peculiar unbeliever, Mr. Kane,” Wright said, “to quote the Bible so glibly. But we must be wary of unbelievers amongst us. For the Bible also says, ‘Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief.’ We should have much less to do with the outside world, in my view. And we certainly shouldn’t be inviting outsiders to paw through our affairs.”

  Well, there was no doubting that the old man read his Bible, Kane thought. Or that he was being stubborn to the point of obstructionism.

  “Bible or no Bible,” Kane said, “if you withhold information that’s germane, that’s going to make people suspicious, isn’t it? It might make them wonder if you have something to hide.”

  Wright laughed.

  “Do you really think you’re going to get along in this community by threatening its leader your first day here?” he asked. “And with the wagging tongues of idle speculation?”

  “I’m under the impression you’re not the leader of this community anymore,” Kane said mildly. “Your son is.”

  The old man stood up. He wasn’t much taller standing than sitting, Kane noticed. He leaned toward Kane. Anger snapped in his eyes.

  “My son couldn’t lead a children’s parade,” he said. “I am the ultimate authority here. You’ll do well to remember that.”

  Kane stood.

  “What I’ll remember is that you refused to assist in the investigation of your granddaughter’s disappearance,” he said quietly.

  Wright’s shoulders sagged and he settled back in his chair.

  “You’re right, Mr. Kane,” he said wearily. “Pride has always been my weakness. Come, sit down again, and I’ll do my best to help you. I may disagree with the decision to hire you, but I won’t obstruct your investigation. Besides, the sooner you finish, the sooner Rejoice can get back to doing God’s work.”

  Kane sat, but the conversation that ensued wasn’t much help. The old man said he didn’t know his granddaughter all that well—“the generation gap, you know,” he said—and didn’t have any idea where she might be.

  “She doesn’t come to you for spiritual counseling?” Kane asked. “I thought you were the leader of this community.”

  The old man didn’t like the gibe, but he kept his temper in check.

  “No,” he said, “not everyone is required to confide in me. Or even, as your presence here proves, to heed my counsel.”

  “So who does she confide in?” Kane asked.

  The old man seemed to think about that.

  “I have no idea,” he said. “I’m under the impression that Faith keeps to herself for the most part.”

  “Did that bother you? Not being close to your granddaughter?”

  “Are we here to inquire into my emotional state?” the old man snapped.

  Kane didn’t say anything.

  “I can’t see how my preferences about the girl have any bearing,” Wright said in a milder tone. “Raising her was her parents’ responsibility. Of course, after his wife died my son made a mess of that, too.”

  “Was her parents’ responsibility? Do you think Faith is dead?”

  “No, no,” Wright said. “I have no reason to think that. I just meant that Faith is old enough to know her own mind. Besides, apparently teenagers no longer require instruction, even here in Rejoice.”

  “That bother you?”

  “Many things bother me, Mr. Kane. Rejoice is not wha
t it was, and has yet to become what I hope it will be. The world is too much with us, and the other elders don’t seem to be bothered by that. We are in danger of becoming a strictly secular community.”

  “Would that be so bad? Is religion so important to Rejoice?”

  “Mr. Kane, please. Religion—faith, anyway—is the sole reason Rejoice continues to exist. Without it, we would just be another hardscrabble town, and why would anyone stay?”

  “And the religion that is required here is the one you preach?” Kane asked.

  The old man laughed.

  “There is only one true religion,” he said, patting his Bible, “and that is the one found in this book. Every word in it is God’s word, and they are all literally true. I study it and try to interpret it, but more than that I try to be sure that Rejoice operates according to its precepts.”

  Doors were opening and closing in the building. People were tramping out of the cafeteria and down the hall from lunch.

  “What did you think of the decision to let your granddaughter attend the regional high school?” Kane asked.

  “I opposed it, of course,” Wright said. “Our children receive a fine education here. Many of our graduates go on to the best Christian universities. There was no academic reason for her to change, no matter what she said.”

  “So why do you think she changed schools?”

  The old man sat for a moment, looking down at his Bible, as if he expected to find the answer to Kane’s question on one of its pages.

  “I think she was curious about the secular world,” the old man said.

  “So she was going to something, rather than away from something?”

  Wright’s eyes came up from the page and locked with the detective’s.

  “I’m not sure I understand your question,” he said.

  Kane paused to marshal his thoughts. He’d been thinking about this a lot since Laurie had told him she wanted a divorce, but he’d never said anything out loud.

  “When someone leaves,” he said, “there can be one of two reasons. First, they can be going to something: a better job, a better relationship. Second, they can be going away from something: a lousy job, a bad marriage, a problem, a threat. Which do you think Faith was doing?”