Nik Kane Alaska Mystery - 01 - Lost Angel

by Mike Doogan

  “Come and see us in the counselor’s office,” Kane told Johnny Starship, then followed Miss Wisp’s rigid figure down the hallway.

  Miss Wisp opened a room with a key, turned on the lights, and walked in. The room was small and windowless, as homey as Faith Wright’s locker. Kane and Slade put their loads on the metal desk.

  “Thank you, Miss Wisp,” Kane said. “We’ll find you if we need anything else.”

  Kane’s words set the principal vibrating with indignation.

  “This is my school,” she said. “Faith is one of my students. I have an obligation to be here while you search her belongings.”

  “You have an obligation to cooperate with the police,” Slade said, none too kindly, “and an obligation not to obstruct an investigation. Good-bye.”

  Miss Wisp looked from one man to the other, spun on her heel, and marched out of the room.

  “There goes someone to make telephone calls to get us in trouble,” Kane said with a smile.

  Slade laughed.

  “Let her,” he said. “It won’t be the first time I’ve gotten into trouble with a principal.”

  The men pulled chairs up on the opposite sides of the desk. Slade slid the first book off his pile and began leafing through it. Kane did the same with the first binder. It was red, and its spine was labeled “Civics.” It contained nothing but notes and other papers relating to the class. The notes were in a clear handwriting, feminine but unadorned by the curlicues Kane associated with teenage girls. Each of the test papers in the binder bore an “A” written in blue ink, and several pages appeared to be notes for what seemed to be an ambitious term paper on the separation of church and state.

  The next binder, a green one labeled “Trigonometry,” was just as well organized, clear, and comprehensive. Kane, who didn’t remember a single bit of his high school math, couldn’t make heads or tails of it. The blue one labeled “Spanish IV” was just as bad. The marks in both were all A’s.

  “This is one formidable young lady,” he said.

  Slade set the last of the textbooks on the pile.

  “There’s nothing in these,” he said. “There’s writing in some of them, but it’s all different and none of it looks like the handwriting in the notebooks. Probably used books.”

  Kane took binders labeled “English” and “Chemistry” off the pile and slid them over to the trooper.

  “Check these out,” he said, then opened one labeled “PE.” There wasn’t much in that but some handouts on exercises and a couple of physical evaluations that said Faith Wright was in good shape indeed. Kane turned to the last binder, “Extra C.” He leafed through fliers for dances and student-body elections and copies of the school newspaper.

  “The only thing I see in here,” Slade said, sliding the English binder onto the pile, “is notes on a lot of feminist literature: Simone de Beauvoir, Nancy Hardesty, Catherine MacKinnon. Plus a bunch of stuff about feminism and sexuality. That’s a little unusual for a Christian girl, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe,” Kane said, “but a young woman who wants to go to the Ivy League probably needs to know that stuff. How do you know those are feminist writers?”

  Slade laughed.

  “I took a course on feminism in college,” he said.

  “Know thine enemy?” Kane asked.

  “I suppose,” Slade said, “but I don’t remember a thing about that class. Except that it put me next to a lot of women anxious to demonstrate their sexual independence.”

  Kane turned a page announcing tryouts for the school’s production of The Taming of the Shrew and stopped.

  “I’ve got something,” he said, sliding the binder over to Slade. “Tell me what you make of this.”

  What Kane had found were a pair of statements from an Anchorage bank addressed to Dorothy Allison at a Devil’s Toe post office box that showed weekly deposits of a thousand dollars or more.

  “Looks to me like Dorothy was making pretty good money doing something,” Slade said.

  The two men sat looking at each other.

  “Suppose it’s an alias?” Kane said.

  “Could be,” Slade said. “Why else would she have these statements?”

  They were silent again for a few minutes.

  “So if it is an alias,” Kane said, “how could Faith Wright have been earning one thousand dollars a week?”

  Slade looked uncomfortable and said nothing.

  “Hard to think of many legal ways,” Kane said. “But the illegal ways are completely out of character, at least the way I read her character. Maybe Johnny Starship can shed some light on this.” He paused. “I think the conversation might go better if I talked with him myself.”

  Slade looked at Kane for a moment, then nodded.

  “Okay,” he said, “I’m sure the investigators could use my help questioning the workers up at the mine.”

  “You might stop at the post office first,” Kane said, “and see who rented that post office box.”

  Slade didn’t look happy about the suggestion. But he nodded, got to his feet, put on his coat, and left.

  Kane finished leafing though the binder while he waited, finding nothing else the least out of the ordinary. When he finished, he leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, trying to blank his mind and let this new piece of information settle into the mosaic he was composing of Faith Wright. The ringing of the school bell didn’t stop his reflection, but a knock at the door did.

  “Come in,” he called, and Johnny Starship stepped into the room.

  “Please sit down,” Kane said, motioning to the chair Slade had vacated. “Thanks for coming.”

  The young man sat on the edge of the chair, looking like he might take off at any moment.

  “I’m not sure my dad would want me to talk to you,” he said.

  “Okay,” Kane said, “but all I’m trying to do is find out what happened to Faith Wright. I’m told you are friends. Don’t you want to help find her?”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to be found.”

  “Do you know that? Do you know that she left of her own free will?”

  The young man shook his head.

  “I don’t. The last time I saw her she said she’d see me later, just like always.”

  “When was that?” Kane asked.

  The young man looked over Kane’s shoulder at the wall.

  “I guess it was Friday before last, here at school,” he said.

  That’s his first lie, Kane thought.

  “Were you good friends?” he asked.

  The young man shrugged.

  “We talked about stuff. She was nice to me. Lots of kids won’t have anything to do with me because of my family.”

  “What kind of stuff did you talk about?”

  “Oh, life and stuff. About the problems of life and what to do about them.”

  “Did you hang out together after school?” Kane asked. “Are you into the same extracurricular activities?”

  Johnny Starship’s eyes flitted to the wall again.

  “I don’t do many extracurricular activities. Nobody wants me in their clubs and stuff. And I don’t know what Faith does after school.”

  “So you wouldn’t know how she was making money? Lots of money?” Kane asked.

  The boy stood up.

  “I’ve gotta go,” he said. “I don’t want to be late for class.”

  “Johnny,” Kane said, “whatever you know, whatever Faith was doing, she needs your help now. The way you can help her is to talk to me.”

  “No,” the young man said. “No. I can’t. I won’t.”

  He turned and hurried out through the door.

  Kane sighed, shook his head, and got to his feet. He carried the books and binders out to his truck. Both bells rang as he was doing so. He went into the administrative offices, walked past a student at the counter, and opened the door to Miss Wisp’s office. The principal stopped talking to a pleasant-looking woman in her forties to glare at him.

/>   “A closed door is usually a sign that someone doesn’t want to be disturbed,” she snapped.

  “No kidding?” Kane said. “I’m just here to report that we’re done for now. Thank you for your help.”

  He nodded to the other woman and smiled.

  “I’m Nik Kane,” he said. “Faith Wright’s father has hired me to find her. And who might you be?”

  “I might be anyone,” the woman said, “but who I am is Audrey Lee. I’m Faith Wright’s faculty adviser. I’m helping her with her college applications. The girl has a lot of potential. Do you think you will find her?”

  “You might be able to help me do that,” Kane said. “Do you know which after-school activities Faith is involved in this year?”

  “Mrs. Lee,” Miss Wisp said, “you know we aren’t supposed to talk about the students.”

  The other woman ignored her.

  “Faith wasn’t involved in any extracurriculars this semester,” she said. “She told me she had an after-school job.”

  Kane asked a couple of more questions without getting anything, thanked the woman, nodded to Miss Wisp, and walked out to his pickup. Faith Wright is proving to be a very interesting young woman, he thought. But not in a good way.

  19

  She is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree,

  and there hath played the harlot.

  JEREMIAH 3:6

  “DID SHE KNOW WHAT THE JOB WAS?” SLADE ASKED.

  The two of them were sitting in Kane’s truck. Around them, the business of the Pitchfork mine went on as though nothing had happened. The two trooper investigators were set up in Charlie Simms’s office, questioning mine workers about the robbery. They still had a lot of people to talk to.

  “She didn’t,” Kane said. “What did you find out at the post office?”

  A look of worry passed over Slade’s face.

  “Those federal bureaucrats are even more secretive than Miss Wisp,” he said, “but I finally got them to tell me that the box is rented by our friend Little John.”

  “Interesting,” Kane said.

  “Think we should go see him?” Slade asked.

  “Absolutely,” Kane said, “but since we’re here, there’s a couple of things I want to do first.”

  “What’s that?” Slade asked.

  “Well, first, I want to look over Simms’s room again,” Kane said.

  Slade raised an eyebrow.

  “I just want to check on something he said,” Kane said.

  Simms’s room was unchanged, right down to the dirty dishes still in the sink.

  “We’ve got to search the whole place again,” Kane said. “I’ll start in the bathroom.”

  “What are we looking for?” Slade asked.

  “Pictures,” Kane said.

  The two of them moved through the apartment carefully, searching the furniture, sounding the walls and taking down curtain rods and closet poles to make sure nothing was rolled up and hidden inside. They found nothing. Kane sat on the couch in the living room and let his eyes wander around. They stopped at the row of videotapes beneath the television.

  “You know,” he said, getting up from the couch, “there’s nothing that says pictures have to be still pictures.”

  He crouched, pulled a tape from its box and looked at the handwritten label. He repeated that procedure until all dozen tapes were stacked on the floor in front of the television.

  “I guess they’ve got cable here,” Kane said. “Charlie seems to have been taping The Sopranos.”

  “What?” Slade said. “No porn?”

  “Not on the labels,” Kane said. He looked at Slade.

  “I suppose we’re going to have to watch all of these,” the trooper said.

  “We are,” Kane said. “You’ve got a VCR back at your quarters, don’t you?”

  The trooper nodded.

  “Then I guess we’ll just look at these tapes later,” he said.

  They carried the tapes out to Kane’s truck and put them in the passenger seat. Tony Figone and his sidekick pulled up.

  “That’s good timing,” Kane said. “The other thing I wanted to do was talk to Figone.”

  “Got a call we’re being interrogated,” Figone said to Kane. “That you guys?”

  “No,” Kane said, “a couple of trooper investigators. They’re in Charlie’s office. But I do have a few questions.”

  “Come on in,” Figone said. “We’ll tell the troopers we’re here and then we’ll talk.”

  “I’ll tell them,” Slade said, knocking on the door to Simms’s office. Tony led the way to the conference room. Slade followed a moment later.

  “They want one of you now,” he said.

  “Why don’t you go first?” Figone said to his companion. After the man left, Figone said to the trooper, “No offense, but this will go a lot easier if it’s just me and Kane.”

  Slade shrugged and left.

  “Got a problem with the kid?” Kane asked.

  “Not really,” Figone said. “But you know how it is in a small town. You hear things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Oh, just that the kid might be a little badge heavy. And maybe a little too friendly with the ladies.”

  Kane laughed.

  “That’d describe just about every young cop I ever knew. Including me.”

  Figone grinned.

  “Me, too, I guess. Now what was it you wanted to know?”

  “I want to know about Charlie,” Kane said. “How he’s seemed lately. If he’s done anything unusual. You know the drill.”

  “You think he was involved in the robbery?”

  Kane didn’t say anything.

  “Me, too,” Figone said. “The SUV, right? No damage.”

  Kane nodded.

  “He wouldn’t have been that easy to run off the road. You’d need something big to overpower that Explorer, and you’d have to hit it pretty hard. Hard enough to leave marks.”

  “That’s what I thought the first thing I saw it,” Figone said. “Have the troopers figured that out yet?”

  Kane shrugged.

  “Don’t know. They’re putting up with me because they know I’ve got political backing, but that doesn’t mean they’re telling me what they’re thinking.”

  Figone grinned.

  “Yeah, we always used to hate guys like you when we were on their side of it, didn’t we? Anyway, Charlie. Nothing too unusual. Not out carousing at night. Not chasing secretaries around the desk. Three, four months ago he did start getting a little hepped on the subject of theft, particularly payroll theft. Even started working a split shift. Said it was so he could keep an eye on the night crew. Not that there’s much of a night crew working right now.”

  “Got any idea what he was doing in his time off?”

  “Not really. He was going off the mine site, but I don’t know where exactly.”

  “Anything else?”

  Figone looked off into space for a minute.

  “Just one thing. He was due for R-and-R last month and didn’t take it. Said he didn’t want to leave during a period of heightened danger.”

  He shook his head.

  “Jesus, Nik, I hope he wasn’t involved in this. I’d hate for it to be him.”

  “Me, too, Tony,” Kane said, getting to his feet, “but it’s got to be somebody.”

  He put his hand on Figone’s shoulder.

  “There’s no reason for you to volunteer any of this to the troopers,” he said.

  “I understand, but if they ask me, I’m not lying to them. I need this job.”

  “That’s fine. I wouldn’t expect you to lie. I’d just like to keep a step ahead of them if I can.”

  “Are you a step ahead now?” Figone asked.

  “Shit, Tony, who knows?” Kane said.

  He left Figone sitting in the conference room and walked into the waiting area. Richardson, the mine manager, waved him over into his office.

  “Just though
t you should know, we’re offering a reward for the recovery of the money,” he said. “Ten thousand. Since you’re not in law enforcement anymore, you’d be eligible.”

  Kane nodded and walked toward the door. Gossip and tips brought out by the reward should keep the troopers busy. Slade was sitting in a chair in the waiting area.

  “Get anything from Figone?” he asked.

  Kane stopped and looked down at the trooper.

  “Not really,” he said. “Simms started acting differently a few months ago, but not really in a way that tells me anything. I’ve got a lot of pieces, but none that seem to go together.”

  “So now what?” the trooper asked.

  “I don’t know,” Kane said. He put on his coat, ran a hand through his hair, then covered it with a knit cap. “We need to talk to a couple of guys named John, but we don’t really have a lever to pry anything out of them yet. So we’d better wait. I think I’ll head over to Rejoice to check in and have lunch. I’ll drop these tapes off at your place first if you’ve got an extra key. What about you?”

  The trooper shrugged.

  “I really ought to be out on patrol sometime today,” he said, “but I also need to stick around in case these guys need anything. So I’ll probably do that. Just don’t go talking to the Johns without me.”

  He took a bunch of keys off his belt, separated one, and handed it to Kane.

  “That’ll let you in.”

  “Okay,” Kane said. “See you later.”

  Kane drove to the trooper office, unloaded the tapes, and drove to Rejoice. Along the way he moved pieces of information around in his head without forming a clear picture. Whatever Faith Wright had been doing with her afternoons, the Johns had been involved. But he couldn’t see one of them as the person who’d shot at him. They both seemed too confused and dispirited. I suppose it could have been Big John, he thought, but would he be creeping around Rejoice? Probably not. So it was likely someone in Rejoice was involved as well.

  And as for the robbery? He couldn’t see Charlie Simms involved in the robbery, but he couldn’t see how it had happened without Charlie’s help. And if he was going to steal the payroll, why would Charlie be warning everyone of the danger? He’d told Kane that Big John had been a particular danger. That made a clean sweep of the Johns. Did that mean that Faith’s disappearance and the robbery were related somehow? Everywhere he looked was fog.