No Fixed Line (A Kate Shugak Investigation Book 22)

by Dana Stabenow

  “He says he is unable to assist us in this matter, sir.”

  “Does he? Does he, indeed?” A pause. “How well informed is Hutchinson on our Alaska operation?”

  A clearing of throat. “I suspect that he may have been at least partially read in, sir.”

  A snort. “‘Partially read in.’ Stop sounding like a Harvard grad, Jared.”

  “You’re a Harvard graduate, too, sir.”

  “And don’t be cheeky.”

  “No, sir.”

  “It may be that Lawyer Hutchinson poses a risk to our business model.”

  “A small one, sir.”

  “But he may pose a risk nonetheless, however small. And as you may have noticed, Jared, I am severely risk-averse.”

  “Are you thinking of shutting down the operation entirely, sir?”

  A silence. “I don’t think it has quite reached the level of being a liability, not yet. I’d hate to abandon it now, given how lucrative it has grown over the last seven years.”

  “Eight, sir.”

  “Eight, then. And the most important part of it is for the moment at least in reliable hands. We may need to keep our heads down for a bit, until something happens to divert official attention elsewhere. Something always does. At which time we could return to business as usual.”

  “Perhaps Hutchinson could be brought to see it that way?”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. Since he has not been forthcoming with aid in this trying time, I am inclined to think not. It’s a risk I’m not willing to take, Jared.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I assume we still have local talent on tap?”

  “Indeed, sir.”

  “See to it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A pause. “Perhaps expand their brief to include solving our other problem while they’re at it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And, Jared?”

  “Sir?”

  “With discretion.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Nine

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 4

  Anchorage

  THE PING OF A TEXT WOKE KATE THE NEXT morning. She fumbled for her phone and saw that it was from Kurt.

  Arr Anc fm Fai Ravn 9a. Pick me up?

  Yawning, she texted back a thumbs up, and went downstairs to put on the coffee. Showered, dressed, and go cup in hand, she climbed into the Subaru with Mutt and pulled out of the driveway with the neighbor looking on. Kate never saw anyone else but him on her visits into town, and he did seem to be taking up permanent residence on his doorstep wearing the same ratty brown bathrobe.

  “Maybe we should get him a new bathrobe for next Christmas,” she said. “I mean, if he’s going to stand around on the doorstep morning, noon, and night, he could dress a little better, you know?”

  Mutt looked skeptical but kept her reservations to herself.

  They arrived at the curb at five minutes to nine. There was very little other traffic and no airport officers in sight. “Shall we risk it?”

  They got out and went into the terminal, walking down to the Ravn gates. The Fairbanks flight was a half an hour late, of course, so Kate found a seat and sipped her coffee, Mutt sitting next to her, ears up, eyes alert, ready to rock.

  A flight for Kodiak boarded while they waited, the passengers mostly young and white, fishermen, Fish and Game, a lot of Coasties since their big base was there. By contrast a flight for St. Mary’s was almost entirely Inupiaq, old men, young women, every one with a baby, and mature women with sharp, knowing eyes and a no-bullshit demeanor who looked a lot like aunties to Kate. The passengers for Homer included a lot of gray-haired couples, single women, and one couple who were fighting in whispers that were getting progressively louder as they went out the door. Kate didn’t envy their fellow passengers, but she was kind of admiring all the same. It took a lot of energy to work up that much rage that early in the morning. A flight full of oil platform workers left for Kenai, and another for Valdez full of the next shift at the OCC at the Valdez Marine Terminal, where the TransAlaska Pipeline ended and the oil was loaded onto tankers. Only two tankers a day now, Kate remembered hearing, where there used to be four. No wonder the oil companies were hot to punch holes in ANWR and no wonder the governor was so hot to let them.

  A couple of rows over sat a tall skinny white guy wearing a cowboy hat with a paper crown from Burger King over it. He had on an NRA T-shirt and skinny jeans held up by a wide leather belt and an enormous brass buckle in the shape of a grizzly bear, but what was most remarkable was that he had a snake wrapped around his waist with its head lying on his shoulder. Every now and then the snake would open his mouth and tickle the guy’s cheek with a forked tongue. There was no one within ten seats of him. Mutt, catching sight of this abomination, looked first disbelieving and then disgusted. Her ears flattened and her eyes narrowed and she started up her growl. It contained less than the usual amount of menace but it was clear she disapproved.

  It did not go unnoticed. A gate agent, very young, approached and said timidly, “Your dog is alarming the other passengers, ma’am.”

  “My dog is alarming the other passengers? What about that guy’s snake?”

  “It is a fully certified comfort animal, ma’am. Please, could you get her to stop growling? Otherwise I will have to call security.”

  A comfort snake. Kate was so very grateful that she wasn’t flying anywhere that day. They were saved by the arrival of the Fairbanks flight. Kurt was the third person through the door. “Got baggage?” Kate said.

  He held up a small duffel in reply. He looked like he hadn’t slept.

  “Great, I’m parked at the curb. Let’s go see if Homeland Security has deemed us a credible threat.”

  “Is that a snake?” Kurt said.

  “The gate agent informs me that it’s a fully certified comfort animal,” Kate said.

  “What the fuck?”

  Humanity’s cry. “To quote the late, great Dick Francis, life keeps getting steadily weirder.”

  “Never heard of the guy but he got that right.”

  At the curb there were still no guards visible, bad for the fight against terrorism but good for points on Kate’s driver’s license. They climbed in and headed off. “What were you doing in Fairbanks?” she said.

  “Have you had breakfast?” he said.

  “No.”

  “I’m starving.”

  They drove to Jackie’s in Spenard and it wasn’t until they were both nearly through their orders of fried spam and eggs and rice and Kurt was on his third cup of coffee that he decided to share. “That thumb drive you dropped off yesterday.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You said you wanted me to put it on a new laptop, one not connected with our network.”

  “Yeah. I was afraid Jane might have loaded some malware on it. No evidence other than she doesn’t like me a whole lot.”

  “Noted.” He drained his mug and looked around for the server, who was there in a gratifying instant and smiled seductively at him as she poured. Good luck with that, Kate thought, Agrifina Fancyboy has you totally outclassed. Well, Agrifina Fancyboy had pretty much every other female on the planet totally outclassed, Kate included. “You made me nervous enough that I wanted Tyler to handle this one personally, and I didn’t want to put the thumb drive in the mail so I carried it up to him yesterday.”

  “Tyler’s your nerd? I didn’t know he lived in Fairbanks.”

  “Our nerd now, I hired him on full time.” He cocked an eyebrow, waiting on her reaction, as she was his initial and only investor as well as his silent partner in Pletnikof Investigations.

  Kate was unperturbed. “The last time I looked at our financials we’ve got more than enough revenue to support another full-time employee, and I’ve seen what he can do, so excellent. I assume Agrifina is on board?” He nodded. “He moving down here?”

  “As soon as he can find a house with a basement he can move into. Nerds only flourish in the dark.” He was on
ly half kidding.

  “So what did he say about what was on the thumb drive?”

  “First of all, there’s no malware, and he dug all the way down to the bottom of every last zero and one to make sure. Then, because he’s suspicious like that, he loaded it on to a laptop—” He dug into his duffel and produced it, a flat black square about one foot by two. “He has a stack of them for just this kind of job, I think he buys them a dozen at a time on Amazon. He wipes them clean of everything except the OS and in some extreme cases I think he even writes one of his own.” He flipped it open, waited for the desktop to come up, and clicked on the only folder on it. The Bannister Foundation logo came up, their name in white Helvetica on a dark blue background with the gold stars of the Big Dipper fading in behind.

  Kate snorted. “What was he going for, being confused with the state of Alaska?”

  “When you have no legitimacy and no credibility and no track record you borrow it wherever you can. Okay.” Kurt looked across the table at her. “Brace yourself. You haven’t looked into the Bannister Foundation at all, correct?”

  “I left my laptop at home, and the battery on my phone’s dying, so no.”

  “So you wouldn’t even know who’s on their board of directors?”

  A small, hard ball of apprehension was forming in the pit of Kate’s stomach. “No.”

  “Well, don’t shoot the messenger, okay?” He click on the menu, scrolled down to Who We Are, and clicked on it. Three rows of four photographs per row, each with a brief bio beneath it. She went through it methodically.

  Erland had done a good job of populating his board with movers and shakers and star power, the latter as exemplified in the person of Gabe McGuire, a Hollywood A-lister Kate had met a year ago at the same time she had helped uncover the embezzlement of the Hardin Trust. If she recalled correctly, Erland had had a piece of McGuire’s FBO in Newenham, and she’d heard a rumor that Erland had been starting an Alaska production company in partnership with McGuire. Also looking smiley if less glamorous in their headshots were the president of RPetCo Alaska, two bankers, the senior partner of a law firm specializing in corporate law, the managing director of North Star Investments, two vice-presidents of Native regional corporations, and two educators. One of them was the chancellor of the University of Alaska who, given the current governor’s propensity for defunding education, might be out of a job before long. Kate wondered how long he’d be welcome on the Bannister Foundation board afterward.

  The eleventh board member—

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Heads turned around the restaurant to seek out the potty mouth and give her simultaneous death glares. And that was before she saw the second name farther down the list.

  “Keep it down, Shugak, I have to live here,” Kurt said.

  She took a deep, calming breath. “So I think my day just rearranged itself.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re not done digging into the database. I have to say that on the surface it looks pretty legit. They’re incorporated in the state of Alaska, they’ve got their bylaws posted right there on their website, their nonprofit status checks out. Records show money coming in from donors and going out to schools, nonprofit organizations and other worthy causes.”

  “Dig deeper.”

  “On it.”

  Kate dropped Kurt at the office and drove south on Minnesota to take the exit for 100th Avenue. There lived her cousin, Axenia Shugak Mathisen with her husband, lawyer Lew, who was also a lobbyist for the Suulutaq Mine, and their two sons. Axenia, whose chief ambition in life as a screwed-up teen had been to get out of the Park, now returned at least four times a year as a member of the board of directors of the Niniltna Native Association. This last was at Kate’s suggestion and direct machinations, yet another sin in a litany of egregious offenses for which Axenia would never forgive her.

  Transplanted into the Park the house would have been called palatial. In comparison to some found on the Hillside in Anchorage, it was merely a McMansion, with one more bathroom than bedrooms and an open plan first floor in which one only needed a bullhorn to be heard between kitchen and living room. Axenia opened the door dressed in yoga pants and a Raven Corporation T-shirt, her long black hair up in a ponytail that reached her waist and absolutely no expression on her face whatsoever when she saw who was waiting on her doorstep. “Kate.”

  “Axenia.”

  They did look a little separated at birth, Kate had to admit, which might have been part of the problem. They were both short. They both had thick black hair, although Kate wore hers in a pixie cut maintained by Dinah Clark, which meant any resemblance to Anne Hathaway’s was purely accidental. They both had high, flat cheekbones clad in skin a natural pale gold that bronzed under the summer sun. Axenia’s eyes were brown; Kate’s were an indeterminate hazel that changed with her mood, what she wore, the weather, and if Axenia wasn’t quite a round eye Kate’s epicanthic fold was more strongly pronounced. Kate’s mouth was wider and fuller, but Axenia’s thinner lips could always be attributed to attitude, not nature, especially when in the presence of her cousin.

  “I didn’t know you were in town.”

  “Could I talk to you?”

  “I was just about to go out—”

  “This will only take a few minutes.” Kate stepped forward and Axenia perforce stepped back. “Kids around?”

  “Daycare. What do you want, Kate?”

  Kate removed the door from Axenia’s reluctant hand and shut it firmly, leaving them standing in the foyer. “Marble tiles?” she said, looking down. “Those are new. Ritzy.”

  “What do you want, Kate?” Axenia said again.

  So much for small talk. “I want to know why you are on the board of directors for the Bannister Foundation.”

  Just the tiniest flush of color washed over Axenia’s cheeks. There might also have been the slightest possible air of… not guilt, that would be expecting too much. But consciousness, certainly. “I am on several boards,” Axenia said.

  “But you are aware of the one I am referring to nonetheless,” Kate said. “How did you come to be on it?”

  “I don’t really think that’s any of your business,” Axenia said, and reached for the doorknob.

  Kate shut the door a little more firmly the second time. “Oh but I think that it is. Given that Erland Bannister tried to kill me more than once, I think it’s definitely my business. Did he personally invite you to be on his board?”

  Axenia huffed out a breath and crossed her arms, the first sign of defensiveness Kate had seen from her in years. Whether she’d ever heard of Disraeli or not, her marriage and lifestyle in Anchorage had transformed Axenia into a “Never apologize, never explain” acolyte.

  “Well?” Kate said.

  “Yes, he did. What of it?”

  Kate let her amazement show. “What of it? You didn’t think that a guy I put in jail for murder who got out on a technicality invented by a bought judge didn’t have an ax to grind in asking my cousin to be on his board?”

  “Maybe he wanted to atone for his bad actions, Kate, did you ever think of that? Maybe he was looking for a little redemption, a way to give back.”

  “Or maybe he was looking for a way to get my cousin involved in something criminal as a backhanded way to get even with me. Whose idea was it to use your maiden name as a member of the Bannister board?” She saw the answer in Axenia’s eyes. “Yeah, pretty much a given that Erland would have loved seeing the Shugak name on his board.”

  “Everything’s not always about you, Kate.”

  “I’m well aware, Axenia,” Kate said, her voice hardening. “This would have had everything to do with having Ekaterina Shugak’s name on his board, however.”

  Axenia flushed. “Have you looked at all the things we’ve funded? For a young charitable foundation we have made a considerable impact. For the better.”

  “You’re starting to sound like a Hallmark ad. What do you get for being on the Bannister Foundation board?”

&
nbsp; “We meet every three months in a different location,” Axenia said stiffly. “We’re allowed to bring our spouses and children with us. The foundation picks up all expenses.”

  “Oh please, let me guess. Hawaii? Mazatlan? Turks and Caicos? Jesus, Axenia, did you even think before you drank the Kool-Aid he was passing around?”

  There were definite spots of color flying in Axenia’s cheeks now. “I remember what Emaa said if you don’t, Kate.”

  Kate’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, this should be good.”

  “She said you had to forgive people when they were truly sorry.”

  It took Kate a moment to recover her power of speech. “Did you just say that out loud?”

  “You can leave anytime, Kate.”

  “Erland Bannister was never sorry for anything he did in his life, Axenia.”

  “And you would know this, how? I’m the one he came to, Kate, not you.”

  “And there would be a reason for that, Axenia. So he told you he was sorry for trying to kill me, did he? Did he tell you he was sorry for killing his father, too?”

  Axenia actually gasped.

  “That’s right, Erland killed his own father and let Old Sam believe he did it for the rest of his life. So far as I can tell, Erland never lost a moment’s sleep over it.”

  “That’s a lie! You made that up!”

  “Axenia…” Kate sighed and looked at the ceiling. “I would ask you, for the sake of your sons and for that matter for your own sake, that you be a little more cautious in future of Greeks bearing gifts. Because that horse will split open and its contents will eat you alive, every time.”

  Axenia reached for the door again and this time Kate didn’t stop her. On the doorstep she turned and flattened a palm against the door, preventing Axenia from closing it. “Erland named me his trustee. Did you know?”

  For just a moment Axenia looked startled out of her anger and resentment. “No. I didn’t know that. I don’t think anyone on the board knew.”

  “You might ask yourself why Erland did that. It wasn’t for love of me, or you, or Alaska, that I promise you.”