“What happened to him?” Ray asked.
Reynolds shrugged. “He fell down.”
“What’s the tape for?” he asked, struggling to remain calm. The guy looked more like a kidnap victim than a killer.
“He was yelling and carrying on,” Reynolds explained gruffly. “I told him if he didn’t shut up I’d have to tape his mouth shut. He kept on, so …”
Ray peeled the tape off as gingerly as possible, but the man flinched anyway. “What’s your name?”
The eyes were sad now, sorrow overshadowing fear.
“What’s his name?”
“No idea,” Reynolds grunted.
“What’s your name?” Ray repeated.
There was no response, just heavy, panicked breathing, the man’s chest pushing at the ropes.
“Was he violent?”
“Huh?”
“Did he resist Leeland? Or did Leeland just smack him for the fun of it?”
“He ran. And I guess he put up a fight.”
“I’d run too if that monster was chasing me. Let’s take his ropes off.”
Reynolds shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
Ray ignored this, pulling at the knots until they unraveled. The man’s hands bore red burn marks from rubbing on the jute.
“There. Better?” Ray asked.
The man glanced at Ray, then at the open door. Suddenly he was on his feet, making a break for it. Confusion reigned as Ray fought to grab an arm, while Billy Bob and Reynolds struggled to grasp other limbs. The man seemed possessed now, evidencing the strength of Hercules. He shouted something and Ray saw Billy Bob fly into the shelves. Reynolds had a foot and was holding on for dear life, his entire body flailing as the man kicked at him. Ray twisted the arm he was attached to, then kicked the man’s planted leg with a foot. AU three of them fell to the floor. One of the shelves wobbled and threatened to topple onto them. Instead, it began raining cleaning supplies: rolls of paper towels, rubber gloves, bottles of dishwashing detergent, toilet paper …
Reynolds ended the scuffle with a forearm to the prisoner’s face. The man groaned as his head bounced against the concrete floor and, though he remained conscious, all resistance evaporated. They put him back into the chair and refastened the ropes.
“Told you,” Reynolds puffed.
Billy Bob was staring blankly at the captive, more clueless than ever.
“Got yer bell rung, didn’t ya kid?” Reynolds laughed.
The deputy blinked and began massaging a lump on the back of his skull.
Reynolds swore at the man in the chair. “Gotta watch these klooches every second. No offense, officer.”
“Let me talk to him alone,” Ray said. He was developing a healthy dislike for Reynolds.
“Whatever you say. Just don’t let him loose. You’re gonna have to wheel him to Deadhorse in that chair, you know.” He laughed at this and led Billy Bob back toward the office.
When they were gone, Ray sank to the floor next to the man. “What’s your name?”
The man stared at him. He had the look of a caged animal: dangerous, unpredictable, desperate.
“You’re being accused of murder, you know that, right?”
Nothing.
“Did you kill those men?”
Silence.
“Did you kill them? Yes or no?”
“Yes.” His eyes grew wide.
“Why?”
No response. The man was glaring at the floor now. “You’re Inupiat,” Ray surmised.
The man continued his examination of the concrete. The gash on his forehead had been reopened by Reynolds’ blow and blood was trickling down his brow. Ray felt like a Nazi interrogator.
After wiping the blood with his sleeve, Ray asked, “Do you speak English?” When this failed to elicit so much as a glance, he translated the question into Inupiaq.
The man looked at him with a forlorn expression. “No.”
In Inupiaq, Ray asked his name.
“Mike.”
“Mike …” Continuing in their native tongue, Ray explained the problem, summing it up with, “You’re being accused of murder.”
The eyes flashed with terror, the man’s breathing becoming labored again. “Adiii!”
“Exactly.” Ray studied him for a moment, then asked in the People’s language, “Did you kill anyone?”
“No!” It took the form of a plea.
Ray tried English again, an experiment. “Did you kill two men in cold blood?”
“Yes?” It was more of a question than an answer. The man was simply aiming to please, to get himself out of a situation he didn’t understand.
“Hang on.” Ray left and returned two minutes later with Reynolds and Leeland. Billy Bob trailed after them, still looking dazed.
In the storage room, with all four of them gathered around the accused, Ray asked, “Did you kill two men on the North Slope?”
The man’s eyes glanced at his interrogators. “Yes?”
“See?” Reynolds said victoriously. “Listen, before you take him to Deadhorse, can we get a few pictures, of us with him, for the press?”
Ray silenced him with a hand. “Did you kill JFK?”
The eyes darted around, then, “Yes?”
“Have you ever worked for Sadaam Hussein?”
“Yes?”
“He’s out of his mind,” Reynolds surmised angrily. “No. He just doesn’t speak English,” Ray announced. Reynolds and Leeland took turns muttering profane phrases.
“But he ran,” Leeland argued. “He was doing something to your snow machine.”
“Probably after spare parts,” Ray said. He submitted the question to the man in Inupiaq. A long explanation followed. When he was done, Ray said, “Yep. He needed parts for his Snow Cat. Couldn’t afford to buy them. Saw my machine and …”
“He’s a thief!” Leeland asserted.
Ray nodded. “Guilty of stealing, or at least attempted robbery. But not murder. And since I don’t plan to press charges …”
“You’re not thinking of letting him go?” Reynolds bellowed incredulously.
Ray nodded, already untying him. He told the man not to worry, that everything would be okay and he would not be hurt if he would simply cooperate. The man seemed to accept this. Once unbound, he darted through the door and disappeared down the hall.
“Stupid muktuk …” Leeland muttered. “What are we supposed to do now?”
“Call Houston back,” Reynolds said. “Tell them … tell them it was a mistake.”
“Right. I’ll tell them it was a mistake, that all the press stuff was premature, and they’ll tell me I’m out of a job. Sounds easy enough.” He began rubbing his temples. “How were we supposed to know the idiot didn’t understand us?”
“Yeah, imagine a person from another culture not speaking English,” Ray said. “If you had something other than a lump of muscle attached to your shoulders …”
Leeland told Ray where to go. Ray considered trying his new high-kick maneuver out on Leeland’s face.
Reynolds pushed them apart gruffly. “Come on. Call Houston,” he said to Leeland. “I’ll go see Red.” He cursed. “He’ll have a fit. A stack-blowing, through-the-roof, conniption fit.”
“I’ll go with you,” Ray said. “I need to talk with him anyway. And it’s been a while since I witnessed a good conniption fit.”
TWENTY-NINE
BAUER WAS GRINNING into a telephone receiver when they reached his office. He waved them in, beaming.
“No, sir. He had absolutely no connection to Davis whatsoever.” The small ruddy man paused, listening, the smile expanding. “As far as we know … Yes, sir. Just a solitary Native, a lunatic that went nuts and killed a couple of our guys.” Bauer laughed heartily. “Who knows, with the right spin, we might even use it to our advantage … Exactly. ‘Crazed Eskimo slays oil workers in murderous crime spree.’ If nothing else, it’ll give the Corporation something to think about. Bad PR is bad PR. Mi
ght even strengthen our position. Public opinion will naturally swing toward the innocent victims, in this case, Davis oil employees.” He chuckled again, almost gleefully, as if the murders were somehow fortuitous, the best of luck.
Ray, Reynolds and Billy Bob stood waiting, all reluctant to accept the two seats Bauer had offered.
“Anything on Weinhart?” Ray whispered.
Reynolds’s face was suddenly animated. “Yeah. The guy never checked into his ski condo down in Colorado.”
Ray considered this. No one could confirm Weinhart’s presence on the company jet. No one back in Houston knew where he was. And he hadn’t made the vacation he was supposed to be taking. Short of finding the missing corpse and getting a positive ID, this was about as close as they were going to get to confirmation. Hank Weinhart was either purposefully out of touch, or he was dead, his life ended by a bullet, his body desecrated by an ulu. Both hypotheses were plausible, but Ray tended to believe the latter. It made more sense, given the facts they had to work with. Why would an executive whose company was involved in a big deal choose this particular time to drop off the face of the earth? Go skiing? Sure. Especially if he wasn’t invited to the negotiations in Deadhorse. But disappear? It was difficult to imagine a grown man, a vice president, off sulking somewhere over a disagreement in business strategy.
“No, sir,” Bauer was saying. The smile had lost intensity, like a moon waning. “No, I hadn’t thought of that, but … No. I’ll have to check that out, but … I doubt it, sir. I really do. But even so, I don’t see why that would … Yes, sir. Oh, I understand. Certainly …”
Bauer hung up the phone and swore. “When it rains it pours,” he muttered. After staring intently at his desktop he said, “That was Dale Shawshank, CEO and chairman of the board. He and Parker, our president, are stuck in Anchorage, waiting out the weather.”
Bauer began to pace back and forth behind his desk. After a half dozen passes, he asked, “Any chance our murderer could be connected with Arctic Slope Regional?”
“That’s … uh … actually that’s why we’re here, sir,” Reynolds said in an apologetic tone.
“Because if he is …”—Bauer continued without hearing him—“that could be advantageous, or it could be disastrous …”
“Sir, the, uh, suspect …” Reynolds tried.
But Bauer was pacing again, studying the carpet. “If he was linked to Arctic Slope, we might use that as leverage. You know, play on our victimhood. Force their hand. On the other hand, they might back off, maybe even refuse to deal with us because of the embarrassment of the whole thing. You know, losing face. Of course, that’s more of an Asian thing, the Japanese especially.” He stopped and looked to Ray. “What about Eskimos?”
“What about them?”
“They worry about losing face?” He started pacing again.
“Mr. Bauer,” Reynolds interjected. “The, uh, the suspect, he … uh, he didn’t do it.”
Bauer didn’t seem to hear this. “Didn’t do what?” he asked, distracted.
“He didn’t murder anyone.”
“Huh?” Bauer froze, an expression of shock on his face. “What did you say?”
“He didn’t murder anyone.”
“But he confessed.”
Reynolds nodded. “Yes, sir, but the problem was that he didn’t understand English. He didn’t know what he was confessing to.”
“Are you telling me we don’t have the killer in custody?”
“No, sir. We don’t.”
Bauer shouted a curse that echoed from wall to wall. “We’ve got VIPs who will be inbound in less than twenty four hours. Arctic Slope is ready to sit down at the table. And there’s still someone running loose out there, slicing and dicing our people?” He swore angrily.
Reynolds shrugged at this, head drooping.
“What about the press?” Bauer wondered. He slumped into his chair and ran off a string of profanities. “Houston is already playing this thing. What are we supposed to do? Tell the media, ‘Oops, we didn’t actually catch the killer’?” He answered his own question with a curse, then pounded the desk with a fist. “You idiots!”
“Leeland is calling Houston to update them on the situation,” Reynolds relayed in a professional tone. “I’m sure the PR department can figure a way to put the fire out.”
“That’s not the point,” Bauer mumbled. He looked at Reynolds, swore, then asked, “What do we pay you for anyway?” His eyes darted to Ray. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you out trying to track down this loon? Incompetents!”
“Actually I had a few questions for you, Mr. Bauer,” Ray said calmly, trying not to respond in kind. It was tempting to tell old Red what he could do with his attitude and down-dressing. “Regarding Hank Weinhart and Chief Makintanz.”
Bauer fished a bottle of Advil out of a drawer and popped a trio of tablets into his mouth. “What about them?” he mumbled, trying to swallow the tablets without the benefit of water.
“I got the impression from talking to the chief that the two of them didn’t get along.”
“That’s an understatement.” He swore, quietly this time. “Why does this have to be happening right now? Why not a month ago? Why not day after tomorrow, after the papers are signed?”
“There was animosity between them?” Ray asked, trolling for answers.
“You could say that. Weinhart opposed the decision to add Makintanz to the board. Hank actually called the chief a crook at one point. He said that despite the ‘in’ it would give us with Arctic Slope, having him at Davis was like inviting a boa constrictor to share a crib with a newborn baby. That’s a direct quote.”
“And after Makintanz was elected to the board …?”
“More of the same. Name calling, arguments … Hank was a lawyer, always concerned with appearances. Having Makintanz around looked bad. Hank thought it would scare off investors. And as this deal with the Corporation took shape, he actually accused Makintanz of playing both sides of the game, taking, well, bribes from Arctic Slope Regional while he pocketed a salary from Davis. Who knows if that was actually the case.”
“So the deal with Arctic Slope brought a head to their mutual dislike,” Ray asserted.
“Sure. Hank was a tough negotiator. He wasn’t about to let the Corporation get the best of us in this thing. I guess he thought the price was too high, the benefits too small. Anyway, Makintanz thought differently. And I think he put pressure on Shawshank and Parker to pull Hank from the negotiations.”
Ray tried to make sense of this. The situation sounded volatile, but was the relationship between Makintanz and Weinhart vicious enough to elicit murder? It didn’t sound like it. And Weinhart seemed to be the one who would have been out for revenge. Makintanz had succeeded in pushing him out. Why would he kill Weinhart?
From a business level, no one seemed to have a motive for killing Weinhart. The man might have been a nuisance, constantly playing devil’s advocate and bemoaning the possible problems in the deal with Arctic Slope, but his bid to scuttle it had failed.
“Did Weinhart know Driscoll?” Ray asked.
Bauer squinted at this. “I don’t know. I doubt it. VPs don’t usually fraternize with the crews, and Hank wasn’t exactly a people person.”
“You can’t think of any reason they would have met? Anything they might have had in common?”
This drew a wry chuckle. “Aside from being members of the human race, no. Weinhart was upper management, vice president of domestic operations. Despite the problems with Makintanz, Hank was being groomed to take over the company. The rumor is that Mr. Parker might be retiring next year. Hank was one of maybe three guys who stood a good chance of getting the promotion.
“Driscoll … He was just a blue collar from Oklahoma. Worked for our competition down in … Arkansas, I think. I hired him about two years ago. He was a good man: on time, worked hard, relatively intelligent, didn’t get in fights or anything.”
“Was he married?”
&
nbsp; “Huh-uh. Lived in Ok City. I called his parents and gave them the bad news a little while ago.” He frowned. “He was supposed to go on furlough next week.”
Ray sighed at this. He hadn’t really expected Bauer to supply case-breaking information, to magically tie Driscoll to Weinhart, or to solidify his suspicions about the feud between Weinhart and Makintanz. Yet the absence of anything even resembling a lead was disconcerting. From the start of the investigation he had entertained a latent hope that things would click into place with the right encouragement and nudging from Ray. Instead, he had spent two days spinning his wheels, asking stupid questions, getting absolutely nowhere. There were still two unsolved murders, still no suspects, still no evidence or clues.
Bauer swore, reverting to the role of peeved boss. “All I can say is that you had better get this thing tucked away before that meeting. It is absolutely imperative that the negotiations take place in a safe, nonthreatening, neutral environment. We can’t afford to have the participants distracted.”
“Murder can be distracting,” Ray confessed, somewhat resentful of Bauer’s demand.
“Guess I’d better call Shawshank back,” he lamented, lifting the phone. He dismissed them with another crude pronouncement. “Get to work!”
In the hallway, Ray said, “A little disappointing.”
“What’s that?” Reynolds asked.
“You promised us a conniption fit. That was more of a mild tantrum, really. I’d only give it a six on a scale of one to ten.”
“Maybe even a five,” Billy Bob drawled. “You should see the sheriff chew my heinie when I screw up.”
“We didn’t screw up,” Ray noted. “We just haven’t figured this thing out yet.”
“Same difference,” the deputy said.
When they reached Reynolds’s office, they found Leeland on the phone, backpedaling as if the person on the other end of the line had a sword to his throat.
Elements of Kill Page 24