Jim shrugged and continued eating.
“Tell us what happened out there, when you found the body,” Billy Bob said.
“Nothin’ to tell.”
“Nothing to tell?” Billy Bob blinked at this, confused. “But you were there when …”
Ray waved him off. “Why don’t you go get us some coffee. I take mine black.”
The cowboy nodded and left to attend to the chore.
Two minutes passed. Jim finished his eggs, sipped at his juice, studied Ray. When he had wiped his mouth and seemed ready to leave, Ray asked, “Where you from?”
“Ambler,” Jim sniffed.
“Ambler … That’s the Ivisaapaatmiut, right?”
Two black eyebrows shot up, the nonverbal, Inupiat cue for yes.
“Good people,” Ray noted.
Jim’s eyes widened, another affirmative cue. “The Real People.”
“Got an uncle lives down there. Well, close to Ambler anyway. Village of Shungak. Ever heard of it?”
“Sure. Used to fish just a few miles down the Kobuk from there.” Jim seemed to warm slightly. His brown eyes gave Ray the once over. “You full-blood?”
Ray answered with his eyebrows.
“Sure are tall.”
His eyebrows rose again. Jim was right. Ray had a good three to six inches on most Inupiats. “My mother died when I was born,” he explained. “My Grandfather says that’s why I’m as big as I am. The tuungak blessed me with size in exchange for taking my mother.” He decided not to add the bit of family trivia he had learned from an aunt: that his greatgrandfather on his father’s side had been a Friends missionary and that fact, not some superstitious tale about a spirit blessing, accounted for his height.
Jim seemed satisfied now.
“What brought you to the Slope, Jim?”
“Money.”
Ray nodded at this. That was the single draw. The weather sucked, so did the landscape. The hunting wasn’t very good anymore, not since the whites had shown up and started drilling for oil. The only reason anyone ventured to Prudhoe was for the money.
“How do you like working for naluaqmiut?”
Jim’s lips pursed. “My partner, Sam … he hates it. Says they’re all devils. Says they’re just using us, you know, like slaves. Keeps talking about going out with a rifle and doing some naluaqmiut hunting.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t mind so much. Long as they pay us. Most of ‘em are pretty decent.”
“Most of them?”
“There’s a few … you know … jerks. They got this attitude about Mooches.” He paused to denounce them with a curse. “But it’s still better than Ambler.”
“How’s that?”
“I hated village life: being poor, not having enough to eat, living in those cold dumps they call houses.” He swore again. “Here I got a room, board, all the food I can eat. Pulling down major bucks. And I’m saving it up.”
“For what?”
“Buy a boat.”
“A boat?”
Jim grinned for the first time, displaying a mouth full of yellow, chipped teeth. The eyebrows were animated again, rising into his forehead. “Me and my buddy Sam, we’re gonna go down to Mexico. Be fishermen.”
“Is that right?”
“Make a good living doing that. And it’s warm down there. Warm and sunny.” He seemed to bask in the light of this fantasy for a few seconds. Then, “I gotta get some sleep.” He tossed his utensils into the center of his empty plate and put his juice glass back onto the tray.
“Where is your partner?”
“Sam? Already in bed. Where I should be.”
“Why aren’t you?”
Jim sighed. “Dang coffee. Drank a cup just about an hour before we finished up. Got to sleep okay. But I woke again. Starving. Happens a lot. Caffeine messes with my stomach.” He gripped his tray and shifted his weight, about to stand.
Ray stopped him with an outstretched hand and slid the sketch across the table. “Recognize this guy?”
Fingers flicked at a two-day growth of facial stubble, then his nose wrinkled: no.
“That’s the man who was in the pipe,” Ray told him.
“Oh, yeah?” Jim’s disinterest was total.
“You’ve never seen him before?”
More furrows in the nose. “Nope.”
Billy Bob returned with two Styrofoam cups and took his seat next to Ray. Jim was suddenly sullen, eyes darting from Ray to the goofy looking naluaqmiu, back to Ray.
“How about a couple of those buns?” Ray suggested, gesturing to a platter of cinnamon rolls. “See if they’ll warm them for us in the microwave.”
Billy Bob groaned, “Okay.”
When he was out of earshot, Ray asked, “What happened out there, with the body?”
After a long, melodramatic sigh, Jim said, “We got done forking some crates around and started working on the pipe. The rig foreman said it was clogged.”
“Foreman? What’s his name?”
“Mr. Driscoll. Anyway, me and Sam, we figured it was full of mud. We banged around on it, Sam tried to work the clot loose with a stick of rebar … Didn’t work. So we tipped it up with the lift. And a watch come out.”
“The Rolex.”
Rising eyebrows. Jim shrugged. “That’s it. We told Mr. Driscoll, he took it from there.”
Ray considered this. “Any idea how the body got into the pipe?”
The wrinkles in the nose were accentuated by Jim’s frown.
“Doesn’t someone check the pipe before it’s taken into the rig house?”
“Supposed to, I guess.”
“Who’s responsible for that?”
One eyebrow rose, the other fell. “Guys at the main camp?” It was a question rather than a statement.
“Is that where the pipe comes from? Is it trucked up from Prudhoe?”
Jim’s eyes grew wide. “Think so. Can I go now?”
“Yeah. But we need to speak with your friend, Sam. Have him look at this picture.”
Jim’s face pinched into a sour expression.
“It won’t take long.”
“I can guarantee he won’t recognize the guy. Besides, he’s sleeping. Sam doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s sleeping,” Jim warned.
“Maybe not, but we have to do it.”
“Okay …” He rose and dumped his tray onto a conveyer belt on his way to the door. Ray followed, motioning to Billy Bob with a nod of his head. Discarding the two piping hot buns he had just acquired, the cowboy hurried to catch up.
In the corridor, they met a fresh crew: sleepy-eyed men shuffling toward the aroma of breakfast, parkas slung over their backs.
Jim took them up a stairwell and down a long corridor lined with doors. They went past another rec room: deserted Ping-Pong and pool tables, a big-screen TV. Stopping midway along the passage, Jim thrust a key into a lock and pushed the door open. The smell of damp clothing filtered into the hall.
After flipping on a lamp, he aimed a thumb at the bunk on the far wall. It contained a long lump shrouded in heavy blankets. “He won’t be happy about this.”
“Just wake him up,” Ray said. “Please.”
“Sam?” The lump didn’t move. “Sam?” Jim reached his hand out and jiggled a shoulder. “Sam … Hey, man … Wake up.” The bulge in the bedding grunted, twisted, then grew still again. It began to snore. “He sleeps like a log,” Jim explained. He kicked the frame. When that had no effect, he took hold of the bed coverings and yanked them back. “Sam?”
The man in the bed, abruptly dislodged from his warm cocoon, swore angrily. Sitting up, he squinted at them, cursed again, then shouted, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Sam, these guys are cops and they want to talk to you.”
Sam scowled at this. “Cops …” His inflection made the word sound profane. He rubbed his eyes on the back of a hand and muttered a crude sentiment. “What time is it?”
“Sorry about thi
s, Sam,” Ray apologized. “I’m Officer Attla, Barrow PD.” He presented his badge.
Sam told him what he could do with it.
“Okay … Well, we need you to take a look at a sketch.”
“A what?” He began to curse again, this time in Inupiat.
Ray leaned forward and held the drawing in front of Sam’s face.
He squinted at it, blinked, told them all where they could go.
“Ever seen this guy?”
“No! Gimme back my covers!” He wrenched the blankets free from Jim’s grip and dove beneath them.
“You sure?” Billy Bob asked the bedspread.
A head reappeared, brown eyes shooting fire at them. “Leave me alone before I have to hurt you!”
“This is the man who was found in the pipe,” Ray explained.
Sam growled a curse, reached for a Sorrel and flung it across the room.
“Told you he was cranky,” Jim said with a half-smile. “If that’s all, I really need to get some sleep. I’m on again in six.”
“Thanks for your help,” Ray offered, only half serious.
When Jim had ushered them through the door and slammed it shut behind them, Billy Bob asked, “You suppose one a them fellas did it?”
“Did what?”
“Killed that man they found in the pipe.”
Ray shook his head. “Doubt it.” He started for the stairwell.
“They’re … uh-uh … you know … They’re …” Billy Bob stuttered.
“What?”
“Ezkeemos.”
“So?”
“So … the way that fella was killed … You said it was like a Ezkeemo hunter.”
“Yeah. But that doesn’t mean those roustabouts did it. They lack something called motive.” Ray considered sharing Jim’s disclosure, that Sam had a twisted fantasy about mowing down whites with a rifle, but that would only fuel the deputy’s simpleminded, even bigoted, “the Ezkeemos did it!” theory. “Why would they want to shoot and slice some suit and stuff him into a pipe?”
Billy Bob didn’t have an answer, but seemed to be working on the question as they made the stairs, his features twisting into an expression that approached serious concentration. “What do we do now?”
“Keep asking questions. See if someone can place this face,” Ray answered, lifting the sketch. “I’d like to talk to the guy who was fitting the pipe inside the rig.”
“Settin’ the pipe,” Billy Bob submitted.
“Right.”
They found Simpson at his desk, on the phone. His cheeks were red with anger.
“I don’t care what the schedule says … No … No! Listen, we’re fine … We’ll be producing by … What? How in the heck am I supposed to know that?” He waved Ray and Billy Bob into the office, offering them a seat.
“I don’t care what Houston says … Well, they’re not up here having to deal with permafrost, equipment delays, dead bodies …” Simpson rolled his eyes at the two police officers. “I have to go … No … I’ll call you back when it’s firmed up.” He snapped the phone shut and tossed it onto the desk. “Executives …” he muttered. “They go to college, get a degree in marketing, and then pretend to know something about the oil field.” He punctuated this sentiment with a fitting expletive.
Ray nodded. Whatever. “Mr. Simpson, we need to speak with the pipe setter—”
“The derrick man,” Billy Bob corrected.
“Right. The guy who first noticed that the pipe was clogged.”
Simpson stared at them, obviously still annoyed at whomever he had been speaking with on the phone. His hand was back at his flattop, stroking the stiff silver hair as he mentally gnawed at the problem.
“Mr. Simpson …?” Ray prodded.
“The derrick man … right.” He nodded and considered this. “Let’s see, that would be Ed. He’s off-shift. I didn’t see him in the cafeteria. Try the dayroom on the second floor. If he’s not there, he’s probably crashed in his room.” Simpson scrawled a name and a room number on a piece of paper and handed it to Ray. “All the way to the south end.”
Ray presented his sketch. “We need to make copies of this and have the crews take a look at it. Got a copier?”
The phone rang before Simpson could respond to the request. He swore, picked it up, pointed to a copy machine in the corner of the small office. “Help yourself.”
“Thanks,” Ray said. After fiddling with the controls, he ran off ten duplicates of his work of art. Setting one on Simpson’s desk, he looked to Billy Bob. “Come on.”
They took the south stairwell this time. Upstairs, the dayroom Simpson had mentioned was uninhabited, the dartboard, billiard table and television neglected. When they found room 28, Ray gave it a rap. Thirty seconds later, he tried again, harder this time.
“Yeah?” someone grunted from inside. In one word the speaker managed to convey extreme irritation.
“Ed Stewart?” Ray read from Simpson’s note.
“Yeah?” the voice was still annoyed, but more wary now.
“Could we speak with you for a minute?”
“I’m busy.”
“We need to ask you a few questions.”
“Who the heck’s we?” the voice growled.
“Po-lice,” Billy Bob replied, accenting the long o. He smiled, clearly relishing the opportunity to assert his newfound authority.
“You got a warrant? ‘Cause if you don’t …” The unseen speaker went on to explain precisely what they could do to themselves if they did not possess the appropriate legal documentation.
“No, Mr. Stewart. We don’t have one. But we’ll have one faxed in within the hour,” Ray fibbed, “if you don’t open the door.”
There was a bump, something breaking—glass?—a curse, more noise: cardboard compacting, an object sliding across carpet, plastic being wadded up, wood meeting wood, labored breath. Finally the door creaked open a crack and two bleary eyes peered out from a haggard face. Stewart looked ill.
“Let’s see some ID.”
Ray flashed his badge. Billy Bob held his up to the crack.
“What seems to be the problem, officers?” He suddenly sounded like their best friend, accommodating, personable, but the door didn’t budge.
“It’s about the body,” Billy Bob drawled.
Stewart sniffed, then cleared his sinuses. “Body?”
“Yeah. The one in the pipe casing.”
“Mind if we come in?” Ray asked, taking a step forward.
The man swallowed hard, his thin neck shooting forward like a chicken’s. “Well … I—I—” He hesitated, snorted again, then swung back the door. “I guess not.”
EIGHT
ED STEWART WAS an emaciated shell of a man, dressed in baggy, wrinkled gym shorts and a stained Led Zeppelin T-shirt.
Sniffing, he gestured toward the only chair. It was a single room—one bunk, one desk, one chair. Stewart took up position in front of the closet, feet shoulder-width apart, arms crossed, as if guarding some prize.
“Well?…” A tongue reached out to lick at two dry, chapped lips. “What do you want to know?” The tone was semi-conciliatory, but the man seemed on edge, nervous to the point of being neurotic. He sniffed again, this time using a finger to hold one nostril closed. When a thin trail of blood leaked out, he swore and wiped it on his sleeve. “What do you want to know?”
Distracted by Stewart’s living quarters, Ray missed the question. The room was a disaster area: soiled clothing scattered about the floor in piles, balled up on the desk, hung over the headboard of the bed, draped along the blinds … And the smell! Despite the dirty laundry, the place reeked of alcohol. Ray glanced at the closet behind Stewart. There were tiny shards of glass on the carpet and a dark, irregular stain, as if something were trying to escape under the door. Since every oil camp on the Slope was dry, that made Ed either a secret drunk or a dealer—or both. And the constant sniffing … Somehow Ray wasn’t convinced that Stewart was suffering from a cold. Maybe he used th
e profits from the bootlegging operation to fund his cocaine habit.
“It’s about the body you found,” Billy Bob said.
“I didn’t find no body,” Stewart argued. His pupils were pinpricks at the center of two gray-green orbs, the whites of his eyes yellow, riddled with angry red veins.
“Okay, then,” Ray tried. “The pipe that was clogged.”
“What about it?”
“When did you notice the clog?”
“I don’t know.” Ed seemed unable to focus, his eyes flitting about like insects unwilling to light anywhere for longer than a few seconds. Stewart looked at Ray’s legs, at the bunk, at Billy Bob’s boots, picked at various spots on the floor.
“Just tell us what happened.”
“What do you mean? Nothing happened.” He was defensive now, breathing rapidly. He snorted, then shook his head. “I don’t have to tell you nothin’.”
“No,” Ray agreed, stepping toward the closet. “You don’t have to. We were sort of hoping you’d want to.”
“Huh?” Stewart’s eyes grew wide in terror. “What do you mean?” He backed toward the closet, protecting it. Billy Bob took the little man by the arm, nearly lifting him into the air. Ray knelt and tapped at the wet carpet with a finger. It was wet. He sampled it with his tongue. “Tequila.”
Billy Bob pulled the closet door open. “Wow!”
Wow was right. The small storage area was packed, floor to ceiling, with cardboard boxes: a case of vodka, two cases of scotch, a half case of gin, three cases of Budweiser … In front of the boxes a saturated label floated in a shallow pool of pale brown liquid and broken glass. The deputy picked it up. “Yep. Tequila. Sauza Gold.”
Ray slid past him and flipped open an unmarked box. It contained a dozen or so zip-lock bags, each bearing white powder, something akin to baking flour. He lifted one into the air and examined it.
“What’s that?” Billy Bob asked in his most convincing hick voice.
“Coke.” Ray tossed the baggy back into the box.
“You mean like cocaine?”
“Yeah. Like cocaine.” Ray reached into another box and withdrew a small paper sack. Inside he found a selection of chemicals in pill form along with a litmus strip and a measuring cup.
“More drugs?” Billy Bob wondered, peering into the sack.
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