Nik Kane Alaska Mystery - 01 - Lost Angel

by Mike Doogan

  “We keep heat tape on the pipes all winter, and leave them running so they don’t freeze up,” Ruth Hunt said. “We heat-tape the sewer pipes, too. It’s costly but cheaper than replacing burst pipes all the time.”

  She went to the stove and opened it.

  “Why don’t you bring in your things,” she said, “while I start a fire and get some heat in the place?”

  It took Kane three trips to bring everything in. By that time, a fire was going in the stove and the woman was putting big chunks of spruce on it.

  “This should make the place warm enough for you to sleep in,” she said, “and I’ll leave you to do that.”

  Kane was suddenly aware that, for the first time since Laurie had thrown him out, he didn’t want to be alone.

  “Do you have to leave right away?” Kane asked.

  The woman smiled.

  “The community will be scandalized if I stay long,” she said, “but I have a few minutes.” She walked to the table and sat down. Kane took a seat across from her.

  “Is your investigation going all right?” she asked.

  Kane shrugged.

  “People are cooperative, for the most part,” he said, “but no one has said anything that is likely to lead me directly to Faith.”

  They were silent for a moment.

  “Well, that topic doesn’t seem to be taking us anywhere,” Ruth said. “Why don’t you tell me about why you went to prison? You said you would.”

  To his amazement, Kane found himself telling her about the shooting, about the force’s inability to turn up a gun, about the newspaper and TV campaign demanding his prosecution, about Jeffords’s refusing to intervene and about the district attorney’s deciding to prosecute.

  “I could see what was going to happen then,” Kane said, “so I told my lawyer to string it out as long as he could so that I could prepare for prison.”

  “Prepare?” Ruth said. “How?”

  “Physically, for one thing,” Kane said. “I didn’t figure that, wherever they sent me, an ex-cop was going to be the most popular inmate in the place. So I went on a diet and spent my afternoons with the department’s hand-to-hand combat teacher. I was glad I did, later.”

  With the delays Kane’s lawyer requested, it took nearly a year to get the case to trial. The charge was second-degree murder, but Kane’s lawyer did a good job discrediting the so-called eyewitnesses and calling into question the Breathalyzer test results. So the jury came back with manslaughter, and the judge gave him seven years.

  “Is that a lot?” Ruth asked.

  “The sentencing guidelines call for five years, first offense,” Kane said, “but the judge said, ‘If the law tells me to add two years for being drunk when you run over somebody with a car, I’m surely going to add them for being drunk when you shoot somebody.’

  “And so I spent the past seven years in prison.”

  Ruth reached over and put a hand on Kane’s wrist.

  “You poor man, it must have been terrible,” she said. “Couldn’t you have gotten out earlier?”

  “I could have,” Kane said, “but I didn’t want parole. I wanted to pay the full price all at once.”

  “How did you come to be cleared of the crime?” she asked.

  “First-class detective work,” Kane said with a bitter laugh.

  The woman said nothing. She just looked at Kane expectantly.

  “The other kid there that night, the one they called Train, got shot in a dispute with another young gentleman and ended up in a wheelchair,” he said. “The experience seemed to bring him to Jesus. One of the sins he had to repent was lying about what happened that night.”

  “Enfield, he had him a gun that night,” Train Simmons told a police sergeant named Tater Therriault who’d been on duty when the young man wheeled himself into the station to confess. “That cop who got shot, he was knockin’ boots with a young thing name of Sharilee. Was supposed to be my bitch. Well, I couldn’t allow that kind of disrespect, could I? When I find this out, I beat her ’til she told me when the cop was gonna be in our neighborhood. Then I called in a phony crime and shot the cop when he showed up.”

  Train asked for a glass of water and drank it down.

  “Okay,” Therriault said. “Then what?”

  “I never shot nobody before,” Train said, “so I dropped the gun and kind of staggered back. And that dummy Enfield runs out his house and grabs the gun and starts dancing around like some sort of crazy man.”

  “Why didn’t you take the gun away from him?” Therriault said.

  “Man, I was tryin’,” Train said, exasperation pushing his voice up an octave, “but a dummy with a gun be dangerous. And that other cop got there so fast.”

  “Then what?”

  “He shoots Enfield and falls down. I grab the gun and book. And the rest you know.”

  Therriault looked at Train for a minute, then said, “You know you’re in big trouble, right? You’re going to prison?”

  Train shook his head.

  “Man, I’m already in prison,” he said, slapping the arm of his wheelchair. “But long as I’m right with Jesus, that’s what counts.”

  There was a silence when Kane finished the story. Kane broke it by saying, “After Train confessed, they had to let me out and exonerate me of manslaughter. Even a drunk has a right to self-defense. But it didn’t make much difference.”

  “Why not?” Ruth asked.

  Kane gave a rueful laugh.

  “By the time Train found Jesus and all the paperwork was finished, there were only three weeks left on my sentence.”

  Ruth ran her hand along Kane’s arm, and he could feel the fist he’d made relax. Her touch was cool and exciting. Kane reached out and put his other hand over hers. They sat looking at one another for several moments. Then Ruth slid her hand out from under Kane’s and stood up.

  “I’ve been here far too long already,” she said. “I must be going.”

  Kane got up and walked around the table to stand in front of her. He took both her hands in his.

  “If you’re sure you have to leave,” he said.

  Up close, in the flickering light from the stove, Ruth Hunt was so beautiful Kane had a hard time convincing himself she was real. She dropped his hand, reached up, and, with her forefinger, traced the line of his scar.

  “Where did you get this terrible mark?” she asked.

  Kane wanted to tell her some story, or just tell her to mind her own business. But standing there like that with her, he found himself telling the truth.

  “A man tried to stab me in the temple with a sharpened toothbrush handle,” he said. “Fortunately for me, he missed my temple. Unfortunately, he didn’t miss my whole head.” He could feel the jagged plastic ripping down the side of his face as he said the words.

  “How terrible,” she said. “This was in prison?”

  “It was,” Kane said.

  “What happened to the man?” she asked.

  “He’s dead,” Kane said, feeling the con’s neck snap again as the guards tried to pull them apart.

  “You really have had a difficult time, haven’t you,” she said.

  Something big and angry crashed through the window near the wood stove, buzzed past Kane’s ear, and hit the log wall opposite with an audible thunk. As he threw himself at the woman, Kane heard the sharp crack of a high-powered rifle. His weight knocked the woman to the floor and he landed on top of her. As they lay there, Kane heard two more bullets plow into the log wall, two more cracks, then only the rushed rasps of their breathing.

  11

  For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the

  string, that they might privily shoot at the upright in heart.

  PSALMS 11:2

  KANE AND THE WOMAN LAY THERE AS THEIR HEARTBEATS lengthened into one minute, two, three. Then Ruth Hunt began to stir.

  “This is nice,” she said, “but I’m really too old to be lying on wooden floors.”

>   Kane moved off of her. She started to rise. Kane grabbed her arm.

  “Stay down,” he said. He crawled to the broken window and lifted himself until he could see through it. Nobody coming. Nobody in sight. Nothing.

  “Crawl over there and shut off the light,” he said to Ruth. “Reach up, don’t stand up.”

  The woman did as he directed. With the lights off, Kane could see white snow and dark trees. Not enough moon to see any detail, even with the snow cover to reflect its light. He crawled back to his belongings, rummaged for a pair of binoculars, and crawled back to the window. The big lenses gathered a lot of light, so Kane could see better, but not well. If someone was just inside the trees, Kane couldn’t see him. He could just lie there waiting for a clear shot.

  There was a knock at the door. The woman stood up. Kane started to say something, then realized she was out of the line of sight of the window. She swung the door open. A man and woman Kane didn’t know were standing there, showing signs of having dressed quickly for the outdoors. The man held a hunting rifle.

  “We heard shots and saw the lights go out,” the woman said. “We thought we should come and see if something was wrong.”

  “Somebody shot at us through that window,” Kane said, pointing. “Whoever it was might still be out there.”

  “Not if he knows Rejoice,” the man said. “Everyone within earshot will be here soon. We don’t leave anyone unprotected.” He looked around the room. “Ruth Hunt, I’m surprised to find you here.” There was something in the man’s voice Kane couldn’t quite identify.

  “I was showing Mr. Kane to his cabin,” Ruth replied. “I didn’t really expect his welcome to be so warm.”

  Kane stood up. No one shot at him. He walked over to where Ruth stood leaning against the wall.

  “Are you okay?” he asked in a low voice. “Do you need to sit down?”

  She looked at him with eyes that glimmered, then put her hand on his sleeve.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I was a little weak in the knees. I don’t get shot at every day. But I’m fine now.”

  The couple at the door was joined by an entire family, parents and what looked to Kane to be seven children, who arrived like a small tornado, spewing questions and exclamations in every direction. Kane could tell that the kids thought it was very cool that someone had shot at him. Within five minutes there were two dozen people in and around the little cabin, most of the adults armed and all of them asking what had happened.

  “It’s really too cold for everyone to be standing around,” Kane said after answering the same questions for the dozenth time. “Anyway, I think the excitement is over for the night. So why don’t you all just go home? With my thanks for checking up on me.”

  The crowd began dispersing.

  “I’ve got some plywood we can put over that window,” the first man on the scene said, and went off to get it. His wife found a broom and began sweeping up the broken glass.

  “Where is your husband tonight, Ruth?” the woman asked, looking at Kane. “Isn’t he in Anchorage with the basketball team?”

  “He is,” Ruth said, “as you well know, Clarice.”

  The smile she gave Kane was full of mischief.

  “I’d better be going home,” she said, “before I’m the talk of Rejoice. Thanks for a wonderful evening.”

  Kane laughed and laughed some more, hearing an edge of post-danger hysteria in his laugh.

  “You bet,” he said, “the next time I’m going to get shot at, I’ll be sure to invite you along.”

  Ruth left, and the man soon returned. He and Kane nailed up plywood on the outside, stuffed the opening with insulation, and nailed another sheet of plywood over the inside. Then the man and woman left, taking Kane’s thanks with them.

  The detective walked out and, using an extension cord, plugged in his pickup. Then he just stood there. He could hear the crunching of feet on the snow, and the soft voices of his neighbors, then the bang of their door closing. Then nothing. He stood, drawing cold air in through his nose, smelling the faint odor of spruce from the nearby forest and the lingering tang of exhaust from Ruth’s Jeep.

  Above him, a thin sliver of moon showed cold and white. A multitude of stars made pinpricks of dancing, winking light in the blackness of the sky. He could feel the cold move through his clothes and wrap itself around his body. A small thrill ran along his backbone, as it always did when he enjoyed the cold’s seductive threat knowing warmth was near.

  Kane stood there and thought about who in Rejoice would want him dead and why. He thought about Faith Wright, and wondered if she had a real life and, if so, where it was hidden under her careful covering of pleasantness and conventionality. He thought about God, and if there was one and, if so, where He stood in all of this. He thought about how the excitement of having death brush past him made his blood sing, and about how good Ruth Hunt felt beneath him. Then he began to shiver, so he went into the cabin, closed and locked the door, and got ready for bed.

  12

  And from the roof he saw a woman washing herself;

  and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.

  2 SAMUEL 11:2

  KANE AWOKE WITH A START, THE HAIRS ON THE BACK OF his neck standing upright, his hands groping for a weapon. Then he remembered he didn’t have one. If I’m going to do this for any length of time, he thought, I’m going to have to get over my qualms about guns.

  That’s the thing about living in the world. So many problems to deal with. Life in prison was simpler. He was beginning to understand why so many cons did things that got them jugged again.

  His eyes scanned the room, finding only darkness in varying shapes and depths. His ears sought sounds and heard only the soughing of his breath and the hammering of his heart. He lay there breathing deeply and waited for his pulse to slow. When he was calmer, he unzipped his sleeping bag, put his bare feet on the hard, cold floor, walked across the room, switched on the lights, and looked around.

  The little cabin looked like a cave that bears had been wrestling in. Before turning in, Kane had moved the bed out of sight of the remaining window, shoving a chair and small table haphazardly out of the way. There was a short curtain on that window, but nothing to keep someone from looking in to find a target. He’d searched the cabin for a better covering and, finding none, had settled for stuffing the cushions from the chairs into the window opening. Then he’d wedged the door shut, unrolled his bag, undressed, and crawled in. He lay there thinking about how he’d get out of the cabin if somebody set fire to it. Just when he decided he was too wound-up to fall asleep, he did.

  Satisfied that there was no immediate danger, Kane put on a polypropylene union suit and socks and started a fire in the wood stove. Then he walked into the tiny bathroom and stood eyeing the phone-booth-sized metal shower stall. The electric water heater that stood next to it was warm to the touch, so he decided to risk it. He stripped off his clothing, turned on the water, and, clenching his teeth, walked into the stall. He showered in tepid water, toweled off, and got dressed. Only then did he think to look at his watch. It was five-thirty a.m., far too early to do much of anything in the way of detecting.

  There was no stove in the kitchen, and no refrigerator, either. Cooking was done on the wood stove, he decided, and there was probably a trapdoor somewhere in the cabin floor over a hole in permafrost that served as a cooler. They haven’t given me the VIP quarters, he thought, and laughed. More likely they figured a guy just out of prison wouldn’t be comfortable in anything fancy.

  He rummaged in the single cupboard, found a small pot, and filled it with water. He carried it over, set it on top of the wood stove, and waited. When it started to boil, he rinsed his traveling mug with hot water to warm it up, then poured coffee into a one-cup dripper, set it on the mug, and poured water through it. Just one day in Rejoice, he thought, and I’m already breaking the rules.

  He carried the cup into the bathroom and balanced it on the edge of the tiny sink. He
filled the sink with water and shaved, maneuvering his face so he could see it in the scrap of mirror, alternating razor strokes with sips of coffee. When he finished, he examined the result. Even without the scar, not much chance of being chosen as Brad Pitt’s stand-in.

  He went back into the living room and made himself another cup of coffee. The beans were Guatemalan, bought from an Anchorage roaster, and the brew that resulted was, Kane decided, what they served for breakfast in heaven. Good coffee was one of the things he’d really missed in prison, along with, oh, everything else. He was happy to be able to indulge in small pleasures again.

  He sat on the bed and read through his notes, took out a legal-sized tablet and pencil, and began sketching. He put Faith Wright in a box in the middle of the page and started a connections matrix. The problem was, everyone was connected to her somehow, and connected to everyone else for that matter.

  He flipped the page over and tried doing the same with himself, to see if he could limit the field of people who might have shot at him. But once he put in the names of the Council of Elders and the people he’d interviewed the day before, he saw that he had the same problem: too many possibilities, too little information. Rejoice had had plenty of warning he would be here, so anyone who didn’t want him to find Faith could have been behind the attack. Especially since all they had to do to find him was look at the map in the community hall.

  Of the people he’d talked with, only those away with the basketball teams could be ruled out. And that wasn’t even counting the people at the mine who knew he was here or, for that matter, the “rough element,” who no doubt had heard, especially after his performance in the bar. He couldn’t even be one hundred percent sure that the attempt was connected to his search for Faith.