Nik Kane Alaska Mystery - 01 - Lost Angel

by Mike Doogan

  The trooper looked at Kane steadily for more than a minute.

  “What makes you think I’ve got a problem doing my job?” he asked in a voice that sounded as young as he looked.

  Kane laughed.

  “I’ve made a few mistakes, too,” he said.

  He put on his coat.

  “Some of them,” he said, turning to go, “the not-so-serious ones, happened early in my career, and older and wiser heads helped me out. I’m offering you the same kind of help I got. You’d be smart to take it.”

  14

  And he went down, and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson

  well.

  JUDGES 14:7

  KANE WAS EARLY FOR HIS DINNER WITH RUTH HUNT, SO he decided to stop in the bar to hear what Devil’s Toe was talking about. From the looks of the place, everyone within a hundred-mile radius had made the same decision. Small-town Friday night, Kane thought. The only thing thicker than the crowd was the cloud of cigarette smoke that filled the room. The only thing thicker than that were the rumors flying around.

  Kane felt something like panic crawling up his throat. Too many people, too much noise. He took a deep breath and got a lungful of smoke. Coughing, he forced his way toward the bar.

  I’ve got to get past this, he thought, or I’m not going to be worth a damn at anything but sitting in my apartment staring at the walls.

  As he shouldered through the crowd, Kane overheard snippets of conversation. Everybody was talking about one thing.

  “I heard there was a half dozen mine guards killed,” one man said.

  “The payroll was more than a million,” said another a little farther along.

  “They’re sending in some kinda strike force,” a woman with a snake tattooed on her left shoulder told a long-haired guy with a ring in his nose. The woman had clearly been spending a lot of time pumping iron, and the long-haired guy was muscles from head to toe.

  “I heard,” the guy said. “Maybe a SWAT team, too. That kid trooper ain’t up to this.”

  By the time Kane reached the corner of the bar, his nerves were twitching like live wires. I really need a drink, he thought as he caught the bartender’s attention.

  He wanted to order a beer, just one, but he knew there couldn’t be just one for him. He forced himself to say, “Club soda with a twist.”

  The bartender, a thin, greasy-haired, shifty-looking character who had a scar of his own on his right cheek, gave him a pitying look.

  “Sure you don’t want a glass of milk?” he asked with a sneer in his voice. “That what the fast crowd in Anchorage is drinking now?”

  Kane reached across and laid a hand on the bartender’s shoulder, pulling him close.

  “Believe me, pal,” he said in a low voice, “the last thing you want is for me to start drinking.”

  The bartender drew back, rubbing his shoulder.

  “No need to be acting so tough,” he said, moving away.

  Actually there’s every need, Kane thought. Act soft in a place like this, and they’d pull you down like a pack of wolves. The only difference between this place and prison is that there weren’t any guards in gun towers to make them think twice.

  The bartender returned and set a glass in front of Kane.

  “That’ll be three dollars,” he said.

  “For club soda?” Kane asked.

  “It’s the freight,” the bartender said.

  Kane smiled at the punch line to the old Alaska joke, handed him a five-dollar bill, and said, “How do you know I’m from Anchorage?”

  The bartender gave him another pitying look.

  “This here is Devil’s Toe,” he said, laying a couple of wrinkled one-dollar bills on the bar in front of Kane. “A half hour after you take a dump everybody knows what color it was.”

  Kane stood there drinking his club soda and taking in the scene, wishing that his fellow drinkers smoked less and bathed more. He wondered which of them, if any, had been involved in the robbery or knew something about it. Or knew something about Faith Wright’s whereabouts. Anyone who did would be unlikely to simply walk up and tell an outsider.

  The crowd ignored him until the woman with the snake tattoo forced her way over and stood next to him. Up close, she had a flat face that was cracked and seamed like the face of a glacier, a big nose that had been broken and badly reset, and eyebrows that had grown into one. There was a cluster of rings on one side of that brow.

  “You’re some kinda cop, ain’t ya?” she asked, her voice loud to be heard over the noise of the crowd.

  “Some kinda cop,” he replied. “That’s about right.”

  “What you know about the robbery?” she asked.

  Kane set his empty glass down on the bar.

  “Robbery?” he said. “There’s been a robbery?”

  The woman examined his face.

  “You just being funny?” she asked.

  “I’m here looking for Faith Wright,” he said. “You know anything about that?”

  “You mean that little Angel that disappeared?” the woman said. “No, I wouldn’t be knowing any of the Angels. I’m sort of on the other team.”

  “You work here?” Kane asked.

  “Me?” the woman said. “Nope, you won’t find me making beds or slinging hash.”

  “How about at night?” Kane said.

  The woman gave a hoot of laughter and examined his face again.

  “You’re kidding, right? Who’d pay money to fuck me?” she said.

  She giggled and punched Kane on the shoulder. The blow sent a bolt of pain shooting down his arm.

  “You got a pair on you, asking me a question like that,” she said, turning to leave. “I told Herman what you said, he’d pinch your head off. See you later, Mr. Some Kinda Cop.”

  Kane waved the bartender over and handed him a twenty.

  “Get those two whatever they’re drinking on me,” he said, nodding to the tattooed woman and her companion, “and keep the change.”

  He wriggled his way through the crowd and through the partition into the café.

  The café was full. Ruth Hunt was sitting at a corner table, chatting with the waitress named Tracy. The two of them were laughing. Ruth put her hand on Tracy’s arm. The waitress responded by reaching down and stroking aside some hair that had fallen over Ruth’s face. She looked up and saw Kane watching them.

  “Oh, Mr. Kane, right on time,” she said. “Meet Tracy, our waitress.”

  Kane nodded at the waitress as he slid into a chair opposite Ruth.

  “Tracy and I have met,” he said. “In fact, I was an overnight guest in this establishment.”

  “I’d better get back to work,” Tracy said. “That was a G-and-T for you, Ruth. And what are you having, Mr. Kane?”

  “Nik,” Kane said. “I’m drinking water.”

  The waitress went off and Kane looked over at Ruth Hunt. She was wearing a long-sleeved black mock turtleneck sweater, just a touch of makeup, and no jewelry. Her long, black hair had been brushed until it shone. The overall effect was neither provocative nor frumpy.

  “How do you do that?” Kane asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Manage to be so much yourself wherever you are?”

  “Is that good or bad?” she said, arching an eyebrow.

  “Oh, it’s good,” Kane said. “Very, very good.”

  She smiled at him.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  They talked for a while about the mine robbery, Kane giving her the pertinent facts and Ruth recounting the rumors she’d heard. Ruth set her nearly finished drink down and said, “So, when you stayed here did you use all of the amenities?”

  Kane could see slyness creep into her smile.

  “You mean, did I order up a woman?” Kane said. “No, I didn’t, and I’m surprised that someone from a religious community would be interested in such things.”

  “Sin always interests the religious,” Ruth said, laughing. “Sometimes it interests th
em too much. If you don’t believe me, just listen to Moses Wright preach about the sins of the flesh. It’s practically pornographic.”

  “Is that why you’re friends with the waitress, who I have reason to believe has firsthand knowledge of those sins?” Kane asked.

  “No,” Ruth said, “I know Tracy from another life.”

  The waitress returned to take their orders.

  “I’ll have another one of these, too,” Ruth said, rattling the ice in her glass. The waitress looked at Kane, who shook his head. She went off.

  “Why are you drinking water?” Ruth asked.

  “It’s a long story,” Kane said. “The short version is that when I start drinking, I have a hard time stopping. But I’d rather hear about you and our friend, Tracy.”

  Ruth looked at him for a moment and shrugged.

  “Okay,” she said. “I met Tracy again right after I came to Rejoice. It was summer, and I made a point of introducing myself around. Small towns are supposed to be friendly, and I thought it would be a good way to establish myself, to start fitting in. But when the residents of Rejoice heard about it, several of them decided to counsel me about staying away from the unbelievers. I decided to counsel them about minding their own business. So I guess you might say that Tracy is part of the reason I sort of got off on the wrong foot in Rejoice.”

  “And have you gotten back on the right foot?”

  Ruth shrugged.

  “I’m not sure what foot I’m on there,” she said. She raised one hand, palm up. “On the one hand, I have my differences with the more saintly element in Rejoice.” She raised the other hand, palm up. “On the other, I’ve lowered the cost of their food service by eleven percent.” She made a rocking motion with her hands. “So I guess I’d say Rejoice has learned to live with me.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of her drink. They chatted for a while about Kane’s police days, and he found himself telling her things he had never told anyone but Laurie about the life, about the challenges, the scrapes, the satisfactions, and the camaraderie.

  “You make police work sound like fun,” Ruth said. Then, after a pause, “I don’t imagine prison was as enjoyable.”

  “I don’t talk about prison much,” Kane said. “I’m trying to put it behind me, in more ways than one.”

  “More ways than one?” she asked.

  So Kane found himself telling her about his problems with open spaces and crowds and all the uncontained vitality of life outside the prison walls. She nodded and made encouraging noises and, when he’d finished, put a hand on his arm.

  “I’m sure there are people who live in Rejoice as a way of dealing with just those problems,” she said. “I know life here is much simpler than it was in other places for me. But you seem to be a strong person. I’m sure you can overcome this.”

  Logically, her words made no sense to Kane. They’d just met; she couldn’t have any informed opinion about his capabilities. But what she said made him feel better just the same.

  The waitress brought their meals and looked at Ruth Hunt’s empty glass.

  “I shouldn’t,” Ruth Hunt said. “I’m already feeling light-headed. But then I’m not driving.”

  “Not driving?” Kane said. “How did you get here?”

  “I skied over.”

  “In this weather?”

  “If you wait for it to warm up before you do anything, you’ll never do anything. Lots of people ski here, all the time. Why, even Moses Wright skis.”

  Kane tried to imagine the old man on skis and failed.

  “I suppose that’s all right,” Kane said. “Still, skiing in this weather is dangerous. I’ll give you a lift home, so if you want that drink, go ahead.” At that, Ruth nodded and the waitress went off.

  “Let’s talk about you for a while,” Kane said. “What brought you to Rejoice?”

  The woman chewed and swallowed a forkful of vegetables.

  “Well, I suppose you could call it lust,” she said, laughing.

  “Do tell,” Kane said.

  She did.

  She was born and raised in North Pole, just outside Fairbanks, the youngest of the six children of devout Christian parents. Her dad was a civilian employee of the Air Force and her mother a stay-at-home mom.

  “We went to the public schools—this was back before home schooling became popular—but religion was really the major force in our lives,” she said. “We listened to KJNP—you know, King Jesus North Pole—and went to Bible study twice a week and church on Sundays and Bible camp in the summers. We didn’t smoke or drink or date.” She stopped to take a drink of her new G-and-T. “We were damned holy, is what we were.”

  But the older she got, Ruth said, the less appealing all of that was.

  “I couldn’t help but notice that women held only subservient roles,” she said, “and that just didn’t look like enough for me.”

  So when her parents were ready to send her off to a Christian college, she rebelled and joined the Army.

  “I wanted combat infantry,” she said, “and the Army, in its wisdom, taught me how to run a food service. I ran a mess tent in Saudi during the Gulf War. My biggest problem was keeping sand and scorpions out of the food. That wasn’t why I’d joined up, so when my commitment was up, I left.”

  “I didn’t know what I was going to do next. I was still in my twenties and kind of floating. I thought about college, but it didn’t really appeal to me. Nobody was much interested in somebody who knew how to run a mess tent, so I was waitressing to pay the bills. That’s where I met Tracy. We had some fun. Out-all-night, sleep-all-day kind of fun.”

  “Doesn’t sound like the life for a Christian girl,” Kane said.

  “It wasn’t,” Ruth said, “and after a while it got to be not so much fun. Seemed kind of hollow, really. So one Sunday I decided to go back to my old family church. And the man giving a guest lecture about life in an isolated religious community was Gregory Pinchon.”

  She stopped to eat for a while, shaking her head from time to time, then resumed.

  “I’d never seen a more gorgeous man. He was such a babe and he made Rejoice sound so good, kind of like North Pole when I was growing up, that I was just sort of swept away. I moved here. A year later we started walking out, and a year after that we were married.”

  She ate some more, still shaking her head. Kane finished his steak and set down his knife and fork.

  “So you’ve been married for—what?—seven years?” he said. “How is it going?”

  Ruth finished her dinner, taking her time, not speaking. Tracy cleared the dishes away and brought them coffee.

  “I haven’t told anyone this,” she said at last. “I can’t imagine why I’m telling you, except that you make me feel comfortable somehow. Plus I’ve had too much to drink. But the truth is, it’s not going well at all. Matthew has never accepted me, and his father and I have less and less to do with each other. Maybe I’m telling you too much, but we don’t have physical relations very often.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know what’s wrong. Greg is very immature. His first wife was much older than he. She mothered him and then left him, which must have been confusing, and he just sort of retreated into his work and worship. I thought he’d make room for me, and I think he thought he would, too. But after a while he just quit trying, particularly when my independence became an embarrassment. Plus, we don’t really agree on religious matters, which is so much more important in Rejoice than anywhere else.”

  She was quiet for a moment.

  “Listen to me, pouring my heart out. I knew that third G-and-T was a mistake. Anyway, I decided a couple of months ago to leave him, and Rejoice, and I’ve been living with that decision since, sort of seeing how it feels.”

  “And?” Kane said.

  “And it feels more right all the time. I should have my replacement trained in another month or two, and then I’m gone.”

  “Where will you go?�
��

  “I don’t know, and that’s one of the things that keeps me here. That sounds sort of low, but it’s true.”

  “I think inertia is a much underestimated force in human affairs,” Kane said. “I suspect it’s part of the reason Laurie stuck with me for all those years.”

  “Laurie?” Ruth said.

  So Kane, to his surprise, told her the story of his own marriage and how it was ending. Once he started, he found himself telling her things he’d never told anyone else, about his bad behavior and his hurt and his regrets. The story lasted through coffee, through Kane paying the bill, through warming up his truck, through loading the woman’s skis and boots into the back, and through setting out for Rejoice. When he’d finished, they drove along in silence, listening to the heater and their own thoughts.

  He drove across the river and along the road, past the airstrip and Moses Wright’s house, past the community building, and toward Ruth’s house. Just short of it, she said, “I’d like to see the flowers.” So Kane drove to the big greenhouse, and they let themselves in.

  “It’s just so . . . so glorious in here,” she said. She took off her coat, dropped it, and walked along the aisles with her arms held out, turning slowly in full circles. “I wish my whole life was as wild and beautiful as this.”

  She ran back to Kane, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him. The first kiss was tentative. The second sizzling. The third molten.

  “I knew it,” she said, pulling her face away from his. “I knew it would be like this.”

  They stood looking at each other. Kane felt light-headed and a little dazed.

  “I so want to make love right now,” she said. “I so want to take you home with me, but Matthew is there. Do you think we could make a bed here somehow?”

  Kane took a deep breath and tried to slow the blood racing through his veins.

  “That might not be the wisest thing,” he said. “I’m sure people saw us driving out here and will notice how long we stay. I can’t afford to let something like that get in the way of my investigation and you . . . you just can’t afford it, period. Besides, I’m not sure my heart could stand it, anyway.”