been going at it in the front of his daddy's pickup. But they didn't see
anything except his daddy coming and then they were too busy running in
the other direction to pay attention to something like someone getting
shot."
Silence.
"You know, Kenny," Jim said at last, "it occurs to me that the middle of
a political campaign is a great time to commit a murder."
"Only one you wanted to get away with."
Jim said, on the phone from his office in Tok, "Where's Kate?"
On the phone from his office in Ahtna, Kenny said, "She's tracking down
Peter Heiman."
Jim hung up and swiveled his chair to stare out the window. The grin,
when it came, was slow and sneaky.
He wouldn't be in Peter Heiman's shoes right now for any amount of money
you could name.
"Don't give me that crap, you old smoothie," Kate said furiously.
"Then don't interrogate me like I'm the suspect and you've got the
rubber hose," Pete snapped. "Jesus, Kate,
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it's just politics we're talking about here, not nuclear secrets."
"So he was spying."
Pete shrugged and gave an unrepentant grin. "Rat- fucking, I think
Nixon's guys used to call it."
"This time he fucked and fucked over the opposing candidate's daughter."
The grin vanished. "What?"
"You didn't know? Erin Gordaoff thought she was engaged to your rat
fucker. So did her mother and the rest of her family and friends."
"That wasn't part of the plan," Pete said, frowning. "If that's true,
I'm sorry for it, and for her. He was an opportunistic bastard, I'll
give him that, but I didn't know he'd go that far."
They were sitting on stools in the Alaskan Bar in Cordova, coffee in
front of Kate and a Bloody Mary in front of Pete. It was ten-thirty on
Monday morning, two weeks before the election. So far, all the media had
hold of was Paula Pawlowski's death, and it was of more interest to them
at present that she was a frequent contributor of articles to newspapers
around the state than that she had been doing research for Anne
Gordaoff's campaign. Kenny Hazen and Jim Chopin were stonewalling on the
issue of suspects.
"Hey, Pete," someone said, and Kate looked around to see Kell Van
Brocklin give Pete a hearty slap on the back. "Good to see you. How's it
hanging?"
"All the way down to my knees," Pete said. "You know Kate Shugak?"
Kell nodded. "Kate."
"Kell," Kate said, and recalled that the last time she'd seen him it had
been the Fourth of July and he'd been drunkenly trying to mate the
Joanna C. with Tracy Steen's Dawn on Alaganik Bay. He looked sober
today, but as he
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ordered a beer and a refill for Pete, odds were good he wouldn't be for
long.
"How's the election looking?" Kell said, taking a long pull at his beer.
Pete took a token sip of his new drink. "It's in the bag, so long as you
vote."
"No problem there," Kell said with a wink, and ordered another beer.
"Although that little gal running against you has got a way with her. If
she wasn't married, you might be in trouble."
Pete grinned. "When did that ever stop you?"
Both men laughed, big-chested, hearty, good-old-boy laughs.
When Kate had left Anne that morning, she had asked, "Anything you'd
like me to pass on to Pete Heiman?"
The two women stared at each other, until Anne said, speaking with slow
deliberation, "Tell the old son of a bitch that I said thanks for the
compliment."
Kate didn't work it out until she was in the air. Anne Gordaoff,
challenger, was telling Peter Heiman, incumbent, that she knew that he
regarded her challenge to his office with such alarm that he had gone to
the length of planting a spy in her campaign.
It was the first time Kate had heard Anne say anything less than
circumspect in speaking of her opponent, and she liked her the better
for it, although she still wasn't sure it came from the love she bore
her daughter or the anger she felt at having been so screwed over
herself. Now, her daughter's heart was broken, her campaign was out a
fundraiser, and murder had been done.
Kate finished her coffee and stood up. "Hold on, I'll walk you out,"
Pete said and took his leave of Kell.
Outside the rain came down in a fine drizzle, as it almost always did in
Cordova, when it wasn't hammering down like roofing nails. They both
donned ball caps. Mutt got to her feet and shook all over them.
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"Where you headed?" Pete said. "Back to Niniltna." "Need a ride?"
She shook her head.. "George is waiting for me out at the airport. Oh,
by the way-" "What?"
"Anne says thanks." She left him to figure it out.
Back in Niniltna, Kate checked her copy of the typewritten schedule.
Anne was scheduled to be beat up on that afternoon by the Rude River
chapter of the NRA for daring to suggest that you don't need an Uzzi to
shoot a moose. The campaign was flying back into Niniltna the following
day, to attend a cheerleader exhibition and basketball game at the high
school, as well as consult with Billy Mike on a new fund-raiser.
Until then, Kate had the day off. When she started heading for the red
Ford Ranger long parked at the side of the airstrip, Mutt let out a
joyous bark and raced ahead to leap into the back. They had left the
rain behind in Cordova and here in the Park the sun glinted off the thin
layer of snow that began on the peaks of the Quilaks and ended in the
crunch beneath her feet. A light breeze, crisp and cold, ruffled the
hair at the nape of her neck, and when she started the truck, she turned
the heater on for the first time that year.
The first freeze followed by the first snow turned the twenty-five miles
of gravel between Niniltna and her homestead into the Park equivalent of
a superhighway, and she was home in less than an hour, which had to be
some kind of record. She parked the truck in the pulloff at the head of
the trail and shouldered her duffel. Beneath the trees the snow was a
fine layer of powder, leaving clear imprints of her shoes as well as the
tracks of all the most recent visitors to the homestead, which included
several rabbits, a
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porcupine, a bunch of ptarmigan which Mutt immediately went chasing
after, a moose cow and a calf, and a pair of grizzly cubs, probably the
two whose mother had charged Kate at the creek breakup before last. The
cubs would only be two years old, kind of early for them to be on their
own. Kate wondered if anything had happened to the sow, and hoped the
cubs would not become a nuisance.
When she came into the clearing, smoke was coming from the chimney of
the cabin. She knew who was there; she had followed his footprints down
from the road. She trod up the steps and opened the door.
Johnny looked up from pouring hot water into a mug of cocoa mix and
jumped, spilling hot water from the kettle all over his shoes. "Damn
it!" The kettle thumped down on the stove. Kate dumped the duffel on the
&nb
sp; floor and grabbed a dishcloth.
"I've got it," he said, snatching the dishcloth from her. "I made the
mess; I'll clean it up."
She stood for a moment, looking down at the bent head, and then Mutt hit
the door and bowled him over with that exuberant and unreserved
reception she reserved for people she liked. There weren't that many of
them. Kate had an uncomfortable flash of the way Mutt greeted Jim Chopin.
Johnny's face was flushed, and he was laughing as he tried to squirm out
of reach. "Come on, Mutt, cut it out, stop it, that tickles!"
Kate smiled. Johnny saw it, and stopped laughing. He gave Mutt's head a
final pat and got to his feet. "I didn't hear the truck."
"I left it at the pulloff. I have to go back into Niniltna tomorrow.
What are you doing here?"
She tried to make the question mild, but it was a wasted effort; he
bristled anyway. "It snowed last night. I came over to light a fire and
take the chill off the cabin."
"It's Monday. Why aren't you in school?"
"School gets out at three o'clock. I came here first."
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Kate nodded. "The heat feels good. Thanks." She nodded at the cocoa. "Is
there more of that?"
"What? Oh, yeah."
"I'll start some bread."
He watched her put flour, water, salt, and oil in a bowl. "How do you
know how much of everything to put in?"
It was the first civil question she'd had out of him since he'd showed
up in the Park. She answered it in kind. "At first you use a recipe, you
measure. When you've been doing it long enough, you just know." She
kneaded the dough a few times, draped the damp dishcloth over the top,
and set the bowl on the shelf over the oil stove. Johnny had lit the
wood stove; now she lit the oil stove and set the temperature on high.
She removed the cast-iron skillet and cast-iron Dutch oven from the oven
and hung the thermometer in front, where she could read it without
opening the oven door all the way. The Pyrex bread pans had also been in
the oven, and she greased them and set them on the counter.
Johnny warmed up his cocoa and retired to the couch, Kate's copy of Have
Spacesuit, Will Travel in his hands and Mutt's head on his feet. Kate
looked through the mail she had picked up on the way home. There was a
letter from Cindy Sovalik in Barrow, another from Olga Shapsnikoff in
Unalaska. Cindy's was short and to the point, "Come when you want."
Olga's was a little more subtle but not much: She began by telling Kate
that Sasha was drawing stories on the beach sand with her Story knife,
stories that imagined various and wonderful adventures Sasha and Kate
had together. Both letters made her smile.
The third letter was also an invitation, from her cousin Axenia in
Anchorage. Actually the invitation was from a friend of Axenia's whom
Kate had never met, to a baby shower. Axenia was pregnant.
Kate put the letter down and stared at the bookshelf
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above Johnny's head. Axenia and Lew Mathisen were having a baby.
"What?" Johnny said, and she lowered her eyes to see him staring at her.
"Is something wrong.?"
She stuffed the little yellow card, decorated with colorful birds
carrying flowers tied with pink and blue ribbons in their beaks, back
into its envelope. "No, nothing. My cousin's having a baby is all."
"Oh."
She looked out the window, where night was creeping down into the Park
from between the cracks and crevices of the Quilaks. "Will Ethan be
worried about where you are?"
Johnny's face closed up. "Why, don't you want me here?"
She looked at him. "Does Ethan know where you are?"
He ducked his head. "He knows I come over here," he muttered.
"Mmm." She got up and raised the dishcloth to poke the dough. The
imprint of her finger smoothed out almost immediately. Nice to know she
hadn't completely lost her touch. She divided the dough into two loaves
and set them back on the shelf beneath the dishcloth to rise. "We'll
take him a loaf when it's done."
"I was wondering when you'd wander in out of the snow," Ethan told
Johnny when they walked in the door.
"I was over at Kate's."
"And you found her." Ethan smiled at Kate. He'd shaved and put on clean
clothes since last month. His hair was brushed and pulled back into a
stubby little ponytail. "How's life on the campaign trail?"
Kate set her daypack down next to the door. "You ever listen to NPR?"
He nodded. "Yeah."
"Some actor was on one morning, and he said, "Keep us
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away from politicians. Lying is our business, and we know it when we see
it.? He was right."
Ethan threw back his head and laughed, a big, robust laugh that filled
up the room. "Yeah, well, let it be a lesson to you, Kate. Sometimes the
job just isn't worth the salary."
Kate shrugged. "It'll be over soon."
"Come on in, I'll pour you some coffee."
Johnny vanished upstairs.
Kate spoke softly. "How often is Johnny over at the homestead?"
"I don't know, a couple of times a week, I'd guess. He likes his alone
time, that boy." He smiled. "He's a lot like you. Probably why you don't
get along."
"It's getting darker earlier."
"Yeah? And your point is?"
"My point is I left him here so he'd be safe."
He smiled at her over his shoulder. "That kid's safe wherever he goes,
Shugak. Haven't you figured that out yet?" He got out two mugs. "He's
just like you. For all practical purposes, you were autonomous from the
age of four, when your dad started teaching you how to track game and
how to shoot it. Johnny told me you got him that thirty- thirty of his.
First grownup firearm he's owned, he says. He's pretty good with it,
too, at least at a stationary target. Says he's looking to shoot his
second moose. He doesn't belong in Arizona, Kate, any more than you did."
"Nobody ever offered me Arizona."
He snorted. "Yeah, like you would have taken it if they had." He poured
coffee and sat down. "You going to Bobby's tonight?"
"Why, what's going on at Bobby's?"
"You got to slow down, Shugak, or you'll miss all the good stuff.
Bobby's throwing a party for Peter Heiman."
"You're kidding me."
Ethan grinned. "Nope. Wanna go?"
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The first person they saw was Billy Mike. "Hello, Kate," he said without
a trace of embarrassment, balancing a bag of tortilla chips on a
casserole dish as he shut the door to his Honda Wagovan.
"Covering all your bases, Billy?"
He grinned, a white slash in his round face. "You should talk. Where's
Anne?"
"In Ahtna until tomorrow, then here for two days. I caught a day off."
"And used it to come to a party for Peter Heiman." He grinned again.
Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 11 - The Singing Of The Dead Page 24