by Stan Jones
She muttered something that sounded like “naluaqmiiyaaq,” but she swerved toward the bathroom, still dragging him by the belt.
They never made it to the bedroom. The shower took up the whole forty-five minutes until the fish was ready. Then they ate, she let him do the dishes, and they watched “My Best Friend’s Wedding” on cable. Finally they made it into the bedroom and an hour later Lucy was purring her tiny cat-snores, her sweaty hair spread across his sweaty chest.
She was so childlike in sleep, so unguarded, he wondered if somehow this perfect day could be made permanent.
He supposed she loved him at least five times as much as he loved her, if he loved her at all, but maybe hers was enough for both of them. Whatever the math, it seemed the relationship was afloat on a sea of joy, so perhaps it was better to do no math at all and just proceed as if this grace period would never end. At a minimum, he could make sure nothing he did caused it to end.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The numbers on the clock-radio read 1:38 when Active drifted up from sleep. He wondered what had awakened him until he heard Lucy saying “What? Who is this?”
Then he realized it must have been the phone chirping. Probably a wrong number, this time of night. “Who is it?” he said, already starting to sink down into sleep again.
“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “Some drunk in a bar, I guess. Sounds like they’re whistling.”
“Mmm … well, just hang - -” He jerked upright in the bed. “What? Let me have it.”
Lucy handed him the phone. She looked mystified in the murky mid-summer twilight coming in through the window blinds.
“Grace! Is that you?” He was shouting, trying to make himself heard over the airy little melody he had heard once before, in the dining room at the Triangle Bunkhouse in Dutch Harbor. “Hello? Grace? Stop whistling!”
Lucy got up, pulled on a blue robe, began pacing at the foot of the bed.
The whistling stopped and Grace Palmer said: “You told the police I killed Angie. How could you believe that, Nathan?”
She was slurring her words and he heard bar noises in the background: a jukebox, a muted rush and rumble and clatter of conversation, glasses, bottles.
“Where are you?”
“The Junction, fuck of a lot you care, you - - just a minute.” He heard a male voice in the background say something about a bottle of Bacardi, then Grace’s slurred voice, now muffled by something, perhaps her hand over the mouthpiece, said he could just go out in the parking lot and give himself a blow job if he couldn’t wait.
Then her voice came back to normal. “I made up that little song for you, Nathan’s Song, and you told them I killed Angie. How could you?” She began to whistle it again.
“You’re the logical suspect. I’m sorry.”
“Fuck logic! Don’t you have a heart?” She was shouting now. “You think I’m lying about my father - .”
She covered the mouthpiece again and he heard another muffled shout at whoever was waiting with the Bacardi. “Just a minute I told you, goddamnit!”
She picked up where she had left off, as though there had been no interruption. “- - about my father, too, don’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
She gave a low howl, a primal mix of grief and rage. “Nobody who’s alive believes me about anything. Angie believed me and my aunt Aggie, but now no one does. I knew I never should have told you.” She was silent and he thought he heard her draw on a cigarette, then exhale.
“Look, can I have a friend come get you? He’s a cop but he won’t arrest you. He’ll just take you somewhere where you can sleep it … where you can get some sleep.”
“Fuck, no, he thinks I killed Angie, too, if he’s a friend of yours.” She paused to smoke again. “I have all the friends I need right here on Four Street and they believe me.” She covered the mouthpiece and her muffled, drunken voice said, “You believe me, don’t you, Jake? Jack? You believe me don’t you, Jack?”
She came back on. “See there? Jack believes me. He’s not like you.”
An operator came on and asked for more money, then coins ka-chinked into the slot.
“Can I talk to Jack?” Active said when the coins stopped dropping.
“What for, so you can tell him I killed Angie and lied about my father? Fuck you, Nathan.” She paused again to smoke. “Why didn’t you leave me alone?”
He heard her catch herself in mid-sob, and smoke again.
“I came to Dutch Harbor to find Angie. You know that. I didn’t know it was you.”
“I got away from him and all of it, maybe I wasn’t well but I was functional at least. And then you showed up and now the police think I killed Angie and he’s got Jeanie, no, I mean Nita- -Goddammit, just a minute, Jack!- -oh, Nathan, how could you goddamn you what the fuck do I oh fuck … “
She hung up, or tried to. From the sound of it, she had thrown the phone at its bracket and missed. Now it was dangling on its cord and picking up life at the Junction. He heard Grace Palmer say, “All right, Goddammit, let’s go,” jukebox sounds, someone setting a tray of drinks on a table near the phone, voices crying “Right on!” and “About time!” and “Our angel of mercy.” Then the operator came on and asked for more money and he hung up.
He looked up to see Lucy studying him from the foot of the bed, a look of calculation on her face.
“Was that her?”
He nodded.
“Where is she?”
“A bar called the Junction.”
“In Dutch Harbor?”
“No, Anchorage. She’s back on Four Street.”
“Four Street.”
He nodded.
“Oh,” Lucy said. “That’s too bad. I’m sorry to hear it.”
The next day was Monday. Once Active had drawn himself a cup of coffee and flipped through the morning’s mail, he took a deep breath and dialed Dennis Johnson’s number in Anchorage. There was no answer at APD headquarters, just Dennis’s voice mail, so Active hung up, turned to his computer, and fished through his inbox until he found Dennis’s cell number at the bottom of an email. Dennis answered on the third ring. “Johnson.”
Active identified himself and asked how the Angie Ramos case was going.
“I dunno, I haven’t talked to ’em about it lately.” Active heard traffic noises and the squawk of a police radio in the background, and realized Dennis must be in his blue-and-white.
“Not since they got back from interviewing your beauty queen in Dutch Harbor,” Dennis said after the radio quieted down. Apparently the call hadn’t been for him. “Why, what’s up?”
“Grace Palmer’s back in Anchorage.”
“No shit!”
“No shit. I thought you might want to pass it along to Homicide.”
“You want to do it yourself? There’s a Lieutenant Boardman in charge. Let’s see, I think I got his card here somewhere, or you can just call Dispatch - ”
“No, I’d rather you pass it along. I don’t want to be involved in this case in any way if I can possibly avoid it.”
Dennis sighed. “Hang on, let me get something to write on, I gotta pull over.”
Active heard a few seconds of car noises, then Dennis spoke again. “All right, where is she?”
“She called me from the Junction last night, no, this morning a little after one-thirty. She was pretty drunk and I think she was with some guy named Jack.”
“Why’s she in Anchorage, you know?”
Active paused, reluctant to go into it. But in a murder case, everything needed to be in the file, even things that seemed irrelevant. “I believe the visit from Homicide pushed her over the edge.”
“Yeah, those guys can be pretty rough sometimes.”
“Actually, I think it may have been my involvement that did it.”
“Your involvement? All you did was pass on what she told you in Dutch Harbor.”
“Yep.”
“Sorry, man.”
“Yep.” Active cleare
d his throat. “Any word on the missing Dispatch logs?”
Dennis chuckled. “Oh, yeah. The DA faked up a search warrant and served it on the chief.”
Even through his depression, Active found himself laughing at the picture. “The chief wasn’t happy, I imagine?”
“Not at all. He’s making noises about how the head of records will be writing parking tickets soon as it starts to snow. The Anchorage Daily News even got wind of the search warrant and put it in the Alaska Ear last Sunday.”
“Well, I’m sure getting into a gossip column was a learning experience for both of them,” Active said.
They said goodbye, and hung up. Evelyn O’Brien had come into Active’s office, an evil and triumphant smirk on her face, and dropped a folded note on his desk during his conversation with Dennis. Active flipped it open and groaned when he read the five words scrawled on it: See Carnaby–animal husbandry–Nimiuk.
Nimiuk was a village a hundred miles east of Chukchi where a few of the men had developed an inexplicable penchant for gratifying themselves with female dogs. The Chukchi DA and the Troopers tried to duck these cases or to let them languish till they winked out or the files got lost. But once in a while an animal husbandry case, as they had become known, turned up that was unduckable and then the law-enforcement apparatus of the great State of Alaska was obliged to rumble forward in its awful majesty. Bestiality was, after all, still on the books as a crime against the peace and dignity of the same great State of Alaska.
Active walked into Carnaby’s office and dropped the note onto the desk of the head of the Troopers’ Chukchi detachment. “Not without a signed complaint from the alleged victim.”
Carnaby looked up. “Very funny. Now sit down and shut up.”
Active sat, but he didn’t shut up. “It’s not my turn and anyway these things are unprosecutable because there is no testimony from the victim and then it’s just the suspect’s word against whatever witness - - “
Carnaby held up a large right hand. “This time there’s a videotape.”
“What? The guy taped himself while he …” Active stopped, unable to form words for what must be on the recording.
Carnaby looked down at a page of handwritten notes and nodded. “While he was, ah, involved with a three-year-old malamute female named Jewel. One blue eye, one brown, said by our village public safety officer up there to be a lovely animal. Except he didn’t tape himself, Jewel’s owner did it with one of those surveillance cameras people use on their babysitters.”
Active shook his head. “My God, why? This isn’t some kind of, of …”
Carnaby grinned. “Love triangle? No, it seems that Jewel belongs to Marcus Ashashik - - you know who that is, right?”
“Dog musher? Won the Iditarod a couple years ago?”
Carnaby nodded. “That’s him, the pride of Nimiuk. Anyway it seems that Jewel comes from a long line of legendary lead dogs, promises to be one of the finest in that line herself, and Mr. Ashashik is concerned that she might sustain some, ah, injury that would prevent her from perpetuating this famous bloodline.”
Active shuddered.
“Precisely,” Carnaby said. “The alleged perp, one Willie Piqnaraq, refused Mr. Ashashik’s entreaties to cease and desist, including even Marcus’ offer of the services of Jewel’s litter-mate and sister, Alanis by name, said to be equally attractive but sadly devoid of Jewel’s abilities as a leader. That, it seems, was the last straw for Marcus, who went down to the school computer lab in Nimiuk and ordered himself the nanny-cam on eBay and brought us to the juncture at which we find ourselves today.”
Carnaby crossed his arms, leaned back, and beamed at Active. “Open and shut case.”
“Why do you need me? Sounds like the VPSO up there has done most of it.”
“Not really. His interviewing and note-taking skills are limited, and he doesn’t have a tape recorder, and apparently he’s got some time off coming and–- “
“In other words, it’s a family affair?”
“It does happen that the alleged perp is his father-in-law, yes.”
Active shook his head in surrender. “All right, what do I have to do? Not watch the videotape, I hope?”
“Yes, I’m afraid you have to see this with your own eyes, Nathan. That, and interview Marcus, and also Willie, if he’ll be interviewed after you read him his Miranda rights. You will read him his rights?”
Active flinched inwardly. Had Carnaby heard about the lapse with Grace Palmer in Dutch Harbor? If so, what else had he heard? “Definitely,” Active said with a nod.
“Good. Anyway, you can fly up there this afternoon, interview the two of them, or maybe just Marcus, watch the tape, and take Willie into custody. You should be able to wrap it up tomorrow, next day at the latest.”
Active looked up from the notebook where he was writing it all down. “What about Jewel? Is she evidence? Do I bring her back?”
“No, I’m sure Marcus will maintain her in satisfactory condition for a court appearance.”
Active thought for a moment. “Do we need any, ah, lab work on Jewel? I don’t have to take any samples, any swabs, anything like that, do I?” He shuddered again.
Carnaby pursed his lips and shook his head. “I think the videotape will speak for itself and in any event, Jewel’s last encounter with the alleged perp was, let’s see here, six days ago, so I’m sure any lab work would be inconclusive. If Mr. Piqnaraq’s defense wants DNA evidence, let them worry about it.”
Active closed his notebook and stood. “But this means I’m off the hook for a while, right? No more animal husbandry cases for at least a year?”
Carnaby’s eyes narrowed in a judicious squint. “You know, Nathan, those were really good questions you asked. About bringing in the dog as evidence, the lab work and all? I think you may have a flair for this kind of case and we’ve been needing an animal husbandry specialist–- “
Active hurried out and slammed Carnaby’s door so he wouldn’t have to hear the rest.
Evelyn O’Brien was waiting outside Carnaby’s office, her smirk more triumphant and evil than ever. She seemed to blame him personally for the office switchover to Windows computers that had followed his return from Peer Instruction Training in Anchorage. She had plastered a sticker on the side of her Apple that said “I’ll give up my Macintosh when they pry my cold dead fingers from the mouse” and had glared balefully when it was, in fact, taken away and replaced by a gleaming new Dell.
Since then, she had gloated over every misfortune to befall Active and he suspected the grudge was why she had not yet browbeaten Billy Clarkson into fixing the loose shock absorber on the Suburban. No doubt she viewed the Nimiuk animal husbandry case as another opportunity for revenge.
“Here’s your travel authorization.” She handed him an envelope. “You’re all booked on Lienhofer at noon. Bon voyage.”
He walked into his office and was just closing his door when she spoke again: “Hey, Nathan. Makes you want to howl, doesn’t it?”
He began to gather what he’d need for the case in Nimiuk, reflecting with something approaching gratitude that it might at least take Grace Palmer off his mind for a few days.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Two days passed before Active got back to Chukchi, it having proven impossible to wrap up the animal husbandry case before the next day’s afternoon flight in from Nimiuk.
He returned with the videotape, with a full account and a signed complaint from Marcus Ashashik, and with a humiliated Willie Piqnaraq, an elderly widower who barely spoke English and whose only statement had been “Better than little girls, like some of these old guys.”
After seeing Willie up to the jail on the top floor of the Public Safety Building, Active returned to his office about three-thirty to write up his report on the ridiculous case. He still hoped some fatal defect would present itself, but he was afraid to engineer one because of the Miranda problem in his interview with Grace Palmer in Dutch Harbor. He couldn’t afford anot
her screw-up any time soon.
His phone rang and he picked it up, grateful for the distraction.
“Guess who’s coming up to your office?” Lucy Generous’ voice carried an odd charge.
“I don’t know, who?”
“Grace Palmer. But she’s not wearing lavender.” Lucy clicked off before he could say “What?” or anything else.
He rushed into the hall just as Grace topped the stairs, looked the wrong way, then turned and spotted him. The silence stretched on and on.
She was trembling slightly and looked right off Four Street. Dirty jeans, a work shirt mostly covered by a stained, green, waist-length parka. “Hi, Nathan,” she said.
She filled the hall with the smell of old cigarette smoke, old booze, old dust, and sweat. One eye was ringed in purple and brown from a two- or three-day-old bruise, and a cut was scabbed over near her right ear. Her face was closed and unreadable, the fox eyes iced over. “Got a minute?”
Wordlessly, he led her past Evelyn O’Brien’s wondering eyes to his office and shut the door. He walked behind the desk and motioned for her to sit in one of the chairs in front of it. She remained standing, so he did, too.
“I think I need your help.”
“I’m afraid you’re beyond my help.”
“He’s dead, Nathan. The son of a bitch is dead.”
“Who’s dead,” he asked, feeling stupid because he knew already.
“Jason.” She crumpled into one of the green chairs and began to sob, the same kind of sob he had heard on the hillside over Captain’s Bay.
“How?”
“Shot.”
“Are you sure he’s dead?”
She nodded. “I think so.”
“Where?”
“In his office at the high school.”
He picked up his desk phone and punched a button.
“Dispatch.” Lucy’s tone was cold and professional. She would know from her console who was calling.
“It’s Nathan,” he said, just in case her console was malfunctioning. “I think Jason Palmer’s been shot. Get the EMTs over to his office at the high school right away, and the city cops. And let Jim Silver know.”