by Mike Doogan
“Okay, that’s how he could have done it,” Jeffords said. “Still, you don’t have much proof.”
“I didn’t really need much proof, at least for myself,” Kane said. “You see, Faith wasn’t alone in that mine shaft.”
“What do you mean?” Jeffords said. Kane thought he heard something in the police chief’s voice, but he wasn’t sure what it was.
“There was another body laid out in there, too,” Kane said. “Mostly skeleton, but with some patches of skin, hanks of hair, and bits of clothing still attached. That mine gallery had been cut into permafrost, and the cold preserved a lot. Enough to convince me that I was looking at the remains of Moses Wright’s wife, Margaret Anderson. And there’s only one man who could have put both those bodies there, isn’t there? Well, two, actually, but I was pretty sure the other one wasn’t involved.”
“Who is that other suspect?” Jeffords asked. Hesitation, Kane thought. That’s what I’m hearing, hesitation.
“Thomas Wright’s father,” Kane said. “Margaret Anderson’s lover. The man who sent me the old pictures and the fifteen thousand dollars cash.”
Both men were quiet again. Kane’s eyes followed the lights of the traffic along the elevated freeway over Ship Creek.
“But it turned out to be Moses, the most likely candidate,” he said, “and that’s that.”
Jeffords signaled for the waiter to bring him the bill.
“Well, you did pretty well out of this, didn’t you, Nik?” he said. “There’s what the Angels will pay you, the mine’s reward, and the cash you got out of the envelope.”
“I am keeping the money,” Kane said, “and the reward. I earned them. But I’m not billing the Angels. They’ve got enough trouble. It’s touch-and-go whether Rejoice will survive.”
“Do you think it will?” Jeffords asked.
“I don’t know,” Kane said. “When I left, Thomas Wright was heavily sedated and Gregory Pinchon had taken over, at least temporarily. I’m not sure Wright will ever be up to running the place again, even if the residents would let him. What his father did was a hell of a shock to the community, and many of the residents seem to be rethinking their commitment to the place. So it’s possible Rejoice will scatter to the four winds.”
“Maybe it should,” Jeffords said.
“Rejoice is more than Moses Wright,” Kane said. “And the world still needs faith.”
The waiter brought the bill. Jeffords handed him money and waved away the change.
“And what about you, Nik?” Jeffords said. “What are you going to do? More detecting?”
Kane nodded.
“I guess so,” he said, “if I can find anyone to hire me. It’s all I know how to do, and I need something to keep me on the straight and narrow.” He paused for a moment, then said, “And I’m going to try to let the past be the past and figure out some way to live in the present. I think one thing I’ll do is try to get used to the wide open spaces, then find some land out of town and build myself a cabin. I find I don’t like the city much anymore. And I have plenty of practice being alone.”
“And this other woman? Ruth Hunt?” Jeffords asked. “Do you think you’ll see her again?”
“I doubt it,” Kane said with a sad smile. “I doubt it very much.”
The two men rose, donned their coats, and got into the elevator. They had it all to themselves. As it descended, Kane said softly, “I’m sorry about your granddaughter, Tom.”
Jeffords looked at him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Nik,” he said.
“I talked to your pal at the troopers,” Kane said. “You got your start with them in ’sixty-six or ’sixty-seven, at the Tok station, which would have been the closest one to Rejoice in those days. And Thomas Wright looks a lot like you. Has some of the same mannerisms. After I saw him the first time, I thought you two might be related. But that money and cell phone threw me off. After all, you knew I’d tell you what happened. So why would I need the cell phone?
“In fact, it wasn’t until I was about to use it again that I realized it was just a red herring. You were trying to throw me off, to keep me from concluding that you are Thomas Wright’s father.”
Jeffords smiled and patted Kane on the shoulder.
“You always were a bright fellow,” he said.
“Why don’t you get in touch with Thomas?” Kane said. “A son should know his father.”
“My wife would like that, wouldn’t she?” Jeffords said. “With my track record, to suddenly produce a grown son? If I had one, that is. Which, of course, I don’t. A man in my position couldn’t afford the scandal.”
The elevator stopped and the two men got off. As they walked through the lobby, Jeffords said, “Come and see me in a few days, Nik. Whenever you feel like it. I have some ideas about how you can find work. And I want to help you, because I know you’re effective. And discreet.”
Outside, the two men shook hands. Jeffords got into his limousine. Kane walked across the street to the parking lot, started his truck, and drove to his apartment. He collected his mail from the manager, dumped everything on his bed, and unpacked his duffel. Then he opened the box of videotapes the mailman had delivered. He would burn them all, of course. There was no way Slade was ever going to get his hands on his tape.
He looked at the backs of the tapes, selected one, and went into his living room. He put the tape in the VCR and sat on the moldy couch with the remote control in his hand. He thought about his last, painful conversation with Ruth Hunt, then sighed, turned on the TV, started the tape, and fast-forwarded to the spot he wanted to see one last time.
On the screen, the waitress from the Devil’s Toe Roadhouse was astride Slade, naked, rising and falling. Another woman stood with her back to the camera, watching. The waitress turned her head and said something to the other woman, then slid off Slade. The other woman threw a leg over him and took the waitress’s place. Rising and falling, the woman turned to the camera. The intense concentration and joy on Ruth Hunt’s face made it look like she was praying.
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Nik Kane Alaska Mystery
by Mike Doogan
Capitol Offense
Available August 2007
From G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
Prologue
BABY SANTOS GOT OFF THE ELEVATOR ON THE FIFTH floor of the Alaska State Capitol. He pushed his cleaning cart to the right, down the hall, around the corner, and through the propped-open door to the House Finance Committee hearing room. At just after 10 p.m., the room, like all of the offices he’d passed, was empty.
Baby had been cleaning offices here for many years. He knew that if it had been May instead of March, the rooms would be brightly lit and full of people. He was glad it wasn’t the end of the legislative session yet, because working around all those people talk-talk-talking made his job much harder. And the wastepaper they made. Holy Mother!
He took his CD player from the shoe box that held his music. The CD player was old and heavy and his sons, with their iPod Nanos, made fun of him for using it. But the CD player still worked and he saw no reason to get rid of a perfectly good piece of equipment just because there was a newer one.
Baby put the player into a pouch he’d made from canvas and clipped it to his belt. Then he put on his earphones, inserted the new One Volce CD into the player and hit Play. If Corazon, his wife, found out he was listening to these young girls he’d never hear the end of it. But he liked the bright, R&B stylings. And the girls. Aiee. Even a man as old as Baby could dream.
He took the thirty-three-gallon plastic garbage can off the cart and started emptying wastebaskets. When he was finished, he took down his vacuum cleaner and ran it over the carpet. He knew some of the other janitors didn’t vacuum every night, but this was his floor and he wanted it just so. Besides, they had spent so much time and money re-modeling these offices, it would be a shame to let the carpet get dirty.
When Baby
finished that room, he worked his way from office to office, around the corner, along the hallway, and past the elevator to the women’s restroom. He knocked on the door. When no one answered, he snapped on a pair of disposable rubber gloves, picked up the cleaner and some rags, and leaving his cart in the hall, scrubbed the pedestal toilets and the big square sinks of thick porcelain. When he was finished, he returned all the cleaning materials, hefted his mop and bucket, and scrubbed the floor. Then he moved on to the wing that belonged to the Senate, going in and out of offices with his garbage can and vacuum. One Volce gave way to Rachel Alejandro, then Rachelle Ann Go. These young women could sing and, aiee, did they look good.
Baby liked his job, liked being able to listen to music and move along the floor in an orderly fashion. The older he got, the more he liked everything just so. He even liked being able to work during the day on the weekends, because it gave him time to be with his family on some evenings. His boys were teenagers now and needed watching. Once he had been their hero. Now they clashed all the time. Fathers and sons. It was the way of the world.
Baby reached the men’s restroom and looked for his cleaner. It was not in its usual place, with the rags and brushes, but on the bottom of the cart on the opposite side. Odd. Had he put it there? Baby shrugged. As he got older, he forgot many things.
When he was finished with the restroom, he put a Sugar Pie DeSanto CD into his player. She might not have the shape of the young women, but she had twice the voice. Baby had every CD she’d ever made.
Baby pushed his cart around the corner. The doors of the Senate Finance Committee room were propped open, too. In one of the offices at the far end, Baby saw a light. He switched off his CD player, removed his earphones, left his cart where it was, and walked softly through the committee room. The room was Baby’s favorite, a big room that had been a federal courtroom when the building was young, but had been carefully restored and, since Baby had been doing the cleaning, carefully kept up, too.
Baby’s sneakers made no noise on the thick carpet. He was glad; he wanted to see why the light was on before revealing himself. Once, years before, he’d blundered into that office and found a man, a senator, on top of a woman half his age, on the office’s big leather couch. How embarrassed everyone was. Holy Mother! Baby didn’t want that to happen again.
He went through the reception area and peeked into the chairman’s office next door. There was a young woman there, but she wasn’t underneath anybody. She lay on the floor beside the desk.
She is wearing no clothes, or not many, Baby thought. Where are her clothes? And what is that pool around her head? Water?
Standing over her, holding something in his hand, was a slim, dark-skinned, dark-haired young man. The young man looked up from the woman’s body, his face contorted in a horrible grimace.
Baby Santos turned and ran out of the office, around the corner, and down the hall, screaming with all his might.
1
Politics are as exciting as war and almost as dangerous.
In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
—WINSTON CHURCHILL
TOM JEFFORDS LEVELED THE GLOCK .45 AND PULLED the trigger. The automatic tried to kick upward, but Jeffords was a big man and held it level with ease as he fired again. When he’d run through thirteen rounds, he ejected the clip and laid it and the automatic on the counter in front of him. He removed his big hearing protectors and motioned to Nik Kane to do the same. The last shot still echoed in the big room, empty except for the two of them. Jeffords pushed a button on a pole next to his shooting station and a motor began to whirr.
While he waited for his target to arrive, he said, “So, you want to go out on your own.”
His tone made it sound as if Kane intended to do something distasteful.
“Yes, I do,” Kane said. “I’m bored.”
Jeffords nodded and examined the target. It was an outline of a man with a gun. All thirteen holes were within the kill zone. Jeffords might be a desk-bound bureaucrat who was pushing sixty-five, but he could still shoot.
The Glock .45 was the Anchorage Police Department’s standard issue sidearm, but the version lying in front of Jeffords was anything but standard issue. It was chrome plated and had honest-to-god pearl handles with TSJ inlaid in ebony. A grateful salesman had given Jeffords the automatic after the department selected the Glock .45, and it went well with his thousand-dollar-a-copy tailored uniform, his full head of well-barbered white hair, and his Maui tan.
It’s easy to mistake Jeffords for a show horse and his automatic for a show gun, Kane thought. But not if you watch him on the firing range.
Jeffords clipped a new target to the line and hit the button again.
“I’d think boredom would be preferable to the life you’ve been leading for the past several years,” he said. “I’d think you’d welcome some peace and quiet.”
Ah, Kane thought. The oblique reference. A Jeffords specialty. So much more elegant than using words like drunkenness, killing, and prison.
“And if your life were more . . . exciting . . . you would be forced to carry a firearm,” the chief said.
Kane hadn’t carried a gun of any sort since the night he’d answered an officer needs assistance call on his way home from a bar and shot and killed a twelve-year-old. Of course, for seven of those eight years he’d been in prison, where they sort of frowned on inmates packing. He’d finally been exonerated when a witness recanted and admitted the dead boy had been aiming a gun at Kane, but he’d tried to steer clear of firearms since he’d gotten out anyway. Jeffords seemed to regard that as a form of weakness.
Jeffords put a fresh clip in the .45.
“A man in your line of work needs to carry a firearm for self-defense,” he said, as he waited for his target to reach the proper position, “even if his assignments are boring.”
The chief put the hearing protectors back on before Kane could reply. Kane did the same, then watched as Jeffords put another thirteen rounds right where he wanted them.
When Kane had gotten out of prison a little more than a year before, he had wanted to go back to his old job as a detective lieutenant with the Anchorage Police Department. Jeffords had put the kibosh on that, but had seen to it that Kane was hired by 49th Star Security, a firm in which he was a silent partner. Kane had had an interesting case or two, but mostly he’d been doing corporate background checks, some divorce work, a few pilfering cases, the kind of thing they’d left to the newbies when he’d been with the police department.
When his target returned, Jeffords regarded it for a moment.
If he had any emotions, Kane thought, that look might be satisfaction.
Jeffords took the targets up to the range master’s stand, returned with a handful of supplies and began breaking down the automatic.
“Aren’t you a little old to be chasing after excitement?” he asked.
Kane laughed.
“I’m, what, seven years younger than you,” he said. “Are you too old to be bossing cops and politicians around?”
Jeffords shot Kane a look that said age wasn’t his favorite topic of discussion, then shrugged.
“If you are really thinking about going out on your own,” he said, “then this is a happy coincidence. I have a job offer for you.”
Kane laughed.
“And here I thought you just wanted to see my smiling face,” Kane said. “I’m heartbroken.”
“Very amusing,” the chief said in a tone that made it clear he wasn’t amused. “There’s a woman in town named Mrs. Richard Foster. She has some work that needs to be done. I’d like you to do it.”
Kane had so many questions, he wasn’t sure where to start.
“You’d like me to do it?” he said. “You mean, this isn’t an order?”
“You aren’t with the department anymore, Nik,” Jeffords said. “I can’t give you orders.”
Just like Jeffords, Kane thought. We both know he owns the security firm
, but he won’t admit it even to me. In an empty room, no less.
“Why am I hearing this from you instead of someone at Forty-ninth Star?” he asked.
“I’m told the firm can’t take this job,” the chief said.
He’s told, Kane thought. That’s rich.
“Why not?” he asked.
Jeffords was slow to reply.
“The reasons are . . . complicated,” he said at last.
Great, Kane thought. Now we’re in the world of Jeffordsisms, answers that don’t answer anything. Kane had known the chief for more than thirty years. They’d come up through the ranks of the police department together. Jeffords, who had joined the department sooner and had a much better grasp of politics, was always a couple of rungs above him on the career ladder. Since he’d often worked under Jeffords, Kane had had plenty of reason to study him. He had watched the chief become the man he was, each year growing a little more devious and a little less human.
“You want me to take a job the firm won’t take for ‘complicated’ reasons?” Kane said.
“Can’t take,” the chief said.
“Why not?” Kane asked.
Jeffords looked around to make sure no one had entered the firing range.
He probably arranged for this place to be empty, Kane thought. He didn’t want anyone else to hear this conversation, and he’s still not saying anything. I wonder who he thinks might be listening.
“The case involves a politician,” Jeffords said. “It would be . . . incongruent . . . for me, or the firm, to be involved with this.”
And that’s as close to an admission that he owns the firm as I’m likely to get, Kane thought.
“Incongruent,” Kane said. “I guess those word-a-day calendars really do pay off.”
He was silent for a moment.
“If you’re trying to lay low on this, why send me?” he asked. “All your political pals will figure you’re involved the minute they see me anyway.”
Jeffords’ job title was chief of police, but for the past decade or more he’d actually run Anchorage, stage managing the elections of mayors and assembly members who did what they were told. Because so much of the money that made the city go came from the state and federal governments, he had made himself a force in state and federal politics as well.
