Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Dana Stabenow

  Luke laughed.

  So did Jim. “My mistake.”

  Honors about even, the journey to Bill’s was accomplished in dignified silence. “Little nip in the air,” Jim said, holding the door for Bridget. He looked toward the southwest. “Storm coming in, looks like.”

  Bridget tucked her arm in his. “Good day for a hot toddy next to a roaring fireplace.”

  The south and west horizon were filling up with a rapidly advancing wall of dark clouds. “Hope they don’t get caught out in that,” Jo said.

  “Looks nasty,” Luke agreed. His hand was warm on her shoulder. She saw Jim looking at it and the hand became somehow heavier.

  One-thirty on a Saturday afternoon, and it was after fishing season and before hunting season really began. Just enough reason for the party to get started early, and it had. Kelly McCormick and Larry Jacobson had drawn up chairs next to a booth filled with three giggling young women. Jim Earl, the mayor of Newenham, and four of the five sitting members of the town council were deciding city business at another. The jukebox was playing “Fruitcakes,” and although no one was skating naked through the crosswalk-yet-Jimmy Buffet would have felt right at home.

  They grabbed the last booth and settled in, only to have Dottie bellow from behind the bar, “You want something, get your butts up here and get it! Not you,” she said to Molly Shuravaloff.

  “But Dottie-”

  “Don’t you ‘but Dottie’ me, girl, you’re lucky I let you step inside the door. You ought to be home being a comfort to your mother in her old age.”

  “She’s forty-seven, Dottie!”

  “Whatever.”

  Molly sulked back to her booth, where Mac McCormick put an arm around her waist and offered her a surreptitious sip from his beer.

  They conferred, and Luke and Bridget went up to the bar to order, returning with hot buttered rums all around. Luke sipped and closed his eyes. “God, what’s in this?”

  Jo tasted and choked at the resultant wave of heat that seemed to envelop her sinuses. “Besides a fifth of rum?”

  “Brown sugar,” Jim said.

  “And powdered sugar,” Bridget said.

  “Ice cream?” Luke said.

  Jo, still gasping for air, croaked, “Butter. And rum. A whole lot of rum.”

  The second sip went down better and faster than the first, and when Dottie shouted that their burgers were ready, it was time for a refill. By then everyone had a pleasant glow, marred only somewhat when a burly man came in the door and saw them. He whipped off gold-framed aviator sunglasses to reveal dark, frowning eyes in a blunt-featured face. Tiny blood vessels turned his nose and his cheeks a deep, angry red. His hands were big-knuckled and scarred, dangling at the end of arms too bulky with muscle to hang straight. He shouldered his way across the floor with an impatient, slightly bowlegged stride, taking no notice of the lesser mortals in his path. He looked, on approach, like a cross between George Patton and King Kong, with a luxuriant mustache that sported evidence of past meals.

  Jo saw him first. “Finn,” she said.

  He looked at Jim from beneath the brim of a cap advertising the Reno Air Show. “Your people still up?”

  “And you are?” Jim said.

  “Finn Grant,” Jo told him, and to Finn said, “They’re on their way home.”

  “Storm coming in,” he said to Jim. “I don’t want to have to run no patrol out after pilots who don’t know how to come in out of the rain.”

  “Finn is a member of the Civil Air Patrol,” Jo told Luke and Bridget. “He’s made a career out of not finding people who have gotten themselves lost in the Bush.”

  Finn’s face darkened to the color of the clouds in the sky outside. “Fuck you, Dunaway,” he said, and stamped to the bar.

  Jim looked at Jo. “My, my, you just endear yourself to everyone who comes down the pike, don’t you? What did you do, break the story that his girlfriend is sleeping with his uncle?”

  Jo fluttered her eyelashes. “You do say the sweetest things, Mr. Wiley, suh.”

  The aroma wafting up from the cheeseburgers became too much to resist and they tucked in. Plates polished clean down to the shine, a third toddy seemed like something even Jim and Jo could agree on, and Luke went to fetch them. Bridget said, “What was Mr. Finn so upset about, Jo? Is Jim right? Did you write a story about him?”

  Jo, in that state of well-being that always follows the ingestion of equal amounts of alcohol, salt and deep-fryer fat, said with an expansive wave, “Finn Grant’s the name, losing clients is his game.”

  Jim had to grin. Luke returned with the drinks and Bridget demanded further explanation. Jo fortified herself with a sip, burning her tongue in the process, and launched into what was one of her favorite stories. “Dagfinn Grant is a pilot, the owner and operator of a nice little air taxi service right here in Newenham. He’s quite the businessman: a member of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club, an old hunting buddy of ex-governor Hickfield, and he’s been a guide since Alaska was a territory.

  “Anyway, he makes his living flying people in and out of the Bush. He takes them into the Four Lakes for fishing and the foothills of the Alaska Range for hunting. He flies them up to the Togiak Peaks for that roughneck climbing people do, you know, the ones who actually enjoy hanging from a ridge by their fingernails while they dangle over a one-thousand-foot abyss.”

  “Or say they do,” Luke said, grinning.

  “Or say they do,” Jo agreed, grinning back. Luke’s handsome face had begun to take on a rum-enhanced allure that made her think of the couch in Wy’s living room with increasing anticipation. “In all fairness, it must be said that old Finn makes a pretty good living out of the air taxi business, so much so that he has to buy additional planes and hire on more pilots. Pretty soon he’s running things more from the ground than he is the air. Until one day…”

  “What?” Luke said.

  “Don’t encourage her,” Jim said.

  Bridget looked from Jo to Jim and back again.

  “One day,” Jo said, “not long ago, Finn was sitting in his office, all by his lonesome. I just want to point out,” she added parenthetically, “that he was by himself. Nobody else around.”

  “Nobody else to blame, we got it,” Jim said.

  “Hush up,” Bridget told him. “Go on, Jo.”

  “The phone rang. It was one Eric Silverthorne, who was calling on behalf of himself and his brother Rodney, and their wives Stella and Anna, respectively. They had just gotten off the jet from Anchorage and they wanted to go caribou hunting north of the Togiak Peaks. His name had been given them as a recommendation by the ticket agent at the Alaska Airlines terminal; could he oblige?”

  Jo drank some more of that lovely toddy. She had a full stomach from the burger, a warm glow from the rum, Wy was safe and on her way home, the threat of Jim Wiley’s disclosures were on hold, Luke’s face was becoming increasingly beautiful across the table, and she was truly on vacation for the first time in three years, no story to research and write, no crime scenes to inspect, no politicians pulling in illegal campaign contributions, nothing at all to do, in fact, except enjoy herself. She was practically dizzy with delight, and she was definitely off the chain.

  “As I said, Mr. Dagfinn Grant was all by his lonesome when his phone rang because all of his planes were in the air and all of his pilots were with them. He didn’t have a plane available to transport a hunting party of four and all their luggage. He scurried around and managed to rustle up an old Cessna Skywagon belonging to a friend, which always surprised me because it is my understanding that Finn Grant has no friends. The Silverthornes arrive and aren’t kept waiting more than two, three hours before Finn is ready to launch.

  “So he takes them up to the Togiak Peaks, and manages to wedge the Skywagon into that little gravel strip west of Weary River, unloads passengers and crew, and leaves them, with the understanding that he’s supposed to pick them up in ten days.”

  The toddy
had developed a fine, heady bouquet and she inhaled it with abandon.

  “What happened?”

  She opened her eyes and smiled across at Luke. “He forgot them,” she said simply.

  He stared at her.

  “What are you meaning, he forgot them?” Bridget said.

  “I mean just that, the tenth day rolled around and he forgot to go get them.”

  Luke and Bridget stared at her, mouths open. Jim, having read this story on the front page of theNews, stared into his mug. Better than looking at Jo, whose green eyes were bright with unabashed glee, whose dark blond hair seemed to be curling into tighter knots, whose face was glowing with the joy of storytelling. That’s who she was, really, he thought, just somebody sitting around a fire late at night, hoping to get a few coins in her bowl before everyone fell asleep.

  And, he had to admit, albeit reluctantly, that she was damn good at it.

  “Well?” Luke demanded. “When did he remember?”

  “He didn’t,” Jo said, and the glow faded a little. “Eight days after he was supposed to pick them up, old Julie Baldessario, a homesteader on Weary River, looked up from salting his silver catch to see Eric, Rodney and Anna stagger out from the brush. He almost shot them, until they managed to convince him all they wanted was a ride out. They were filthy, Anna had a broken arm, Rodney had a broken leg, and a grizzly had bit Eric’s ear clean off.”

  “Wait a minute,” Bridget said. “What about-what was her name? The other woman?”

  “Stella?” Jo drained her mug. “They waited three days, they said, until their food ran out, and then they started hiking out. Three days into the hike, they woke up and Stella was gone. The troopers went back in, the Civil Air Patrol, Search and Rescue. They quartered the area, back and forth, up and down. They never found her.”

  “Anybody suspect the husband?”

  Jo shook her head. “They asked, of course, but Eric and Stella Silverthorne, to all outward appearances, had a solid marriage. Good reputation in the community, financially stable, two kids, twelve and fourteen. No reason to suspect the husband. It looks like she just wandered off.”

  “Uuiliriq,” a voice said, and everyone looked up to see Molly Shuravaloff peering over the top of the booth. “Little Hairy Man,” she added, blinking bleary eyes. Mac had been sharing more of his beer.

  “Who’s he?” Jim said.

  “Nobody knows,” she said. “He lives up in the mountains. He comes down to steal people, little kids mostly. Parents say never to play outside after dark, or Uuiliriq will get you.”

  Another head popped up next to hers, round-faced, dark hair and eyes, smooth olive skin, so like Molly she could have been her sister. “Don’t talk about the Hairy Man, you know it only scares you. Come on, Darrell wants to dance.”

  The heads disappeared.

  Luke looked over his shoulder at Finn. The big man was still standing at the bar, surrounded by a group that was mostly men. As they watched, he bought another round. “When was this?”

  “Five years ago this month.”

  “And he’s already back in business?”

  Jo snorted a laugh and shook her head. “He was never out.”

  “What!”

  “He’s best buddies with Walter William Hickfield, former governor of the great state of Alaska. Hickfield pulled some strings. Plus he’s known to be the softest touch around for a free fly-in fishing trip. Long as you’re a judge, state court or higher, of course.” She drank. “You know how it works.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you?”

  Jo managed a smile, a shrug. “It’s just a story. I write them, the paper prints them, and I move on to the next.”

  Luke stared at her.

  “She got it on the front page of theNews for five days running,” Jim said.

  Jo looked at him, surprised.

  “Let’s have another toddy,” he said.

  SIXTEEN

  Newenham, September 5

  Liam started the recorder and gave the date and the time. “Present are myself, Corporal Liam Campbell of the Alaska State Troopers, Trooper Diana Prince, and suspects John Kvichak and Teddy Engebretsen.”

  The wind howled outside and the window shuddered in its frame, leaking cold air into the tiny gray room. The four of them sat crowded around the single rectangular table. It was dark outside due to the low overcast, and light flickered from the single fluorescent tube overhead, the second tube having burned out long ago. The room smelled of stale cigarette smoke and fear, an odor part ammonia, part fresh sweat. The lies told behind the door echoed off the hard surfaces of the wall and the ceiling, muttering dully beneath the scratching of the branches against the glass.I didn’t do it, officer. I only had one beer. I never hit her, she’s a lying bitch. Nobody told me my license was suspended, I don’t know what you’re talking about. The door was open; I just went in to make sure everything was all right. I was just borrowing that truck. I loved that girl like she was my own daughter. I could never hurt him, he was my best friend. I was over at my mom’s, at the bar, down on my boat, on the river, out hunting, in Anchorage, Outside.

  The room, with all its odors and echoes, had a pronounced effect on the people who were questioned there. Once Liam had come upon Mamie Hagemeister, the police station clerk, prepared to clean the interview room. He had himself removed mop and bucket from her hands and poured the hot soapy water in the nearest toilet. If he had his way, the room would never be cleaned, the walls never repainted, the ill-fitting window never replaced. The light fixture would always be kept to one bulb, and that bulb ready to give out at any moment. The chairs would never acquire cushions, the table would forever retain its scarred and unlovely surface.

  “Kvichak has asked for a lawyer,” Prince said tentatively, as if referring to a subject in questionable taste.

  “Yes, he has,” Liam said cordially, “and we’ll see that he gets one. Just as soon as Anchorage can rustle one up.”

  “What happened to Brian Keogh?”

  “Our judicial district’s most recent public defender? Came in on the plane before yours? That Brian Keogh?”

  “That would be the one,” Prince acknowledged. “What happened to him?”

  “He quit. Said he couldn’t face another winter in the Bush. He was posted in Kotzebue before here,” he added, in answer to Prince’s interrogatory lift of eyebrow. “Says he’s had enough ice not in a glass. He was offered a job as house counsel for some international import firm and he snapped it up. So Newenham is once more without a public defender.” Liam’s voice did not indicate massive sorrow at this turn of events. “And with this storm coming on, it’ll probably be a while before we get a temp.”

  The two troopers sat across the table from Engebretsen and Kvichak now, Prince erect and all business, Liam sitting back with his long legs sprawled at an angle, looking out the window as if he weren’t even listening, in fact as if he were about to doze off. In the three hours since starting that tape, he had yet to say one word.

  “I’m thirsty,” Engebretsen said. “Come on, gimme something to drink.”

  “In a minute,” Prince said, the crease in her blue uniform sleeve as crisp as it had been when she walked in, her tie as impeccably knotted. Her black curls formed a tight cap against her skull, her blue eyes were hard and merciless, her mouth held in a stern, uncompromising line. She looked like a cop from the bone out, and she sounded like one, too. “Let’s go over it one more time. You say-”

  “Shit, man,” Kvichak said, exploding onto his feet. His chair slammed against the wall and turned over. Engebretsen jumped and looked as if he were about to burst into tears.

  Prince rose to face him, eye to eye. Liam didn’t move, didn’t turn from the window. “We’ve told you the goddamn story about six different times this morning, how many times you want us to tell it?”

  “Until you get it right.”

  “Shit! You want us to say we killed that man! Well, we didn’t, and nothing you can say or do is going t
o make us say we did! I want a lawyer!” He leaned across the table and shouted directly at Liam. “I want a goddamn lawyer!”

  Liam didn’t turn his head. Prince stared without changing expression. “Sit down.” The two words were uttered in a soft, unthreatening voice, but they were a command. Kvichak picked up his chair, slammed it down on the floor and sat down hard. It must have hurt his tailbone, but it didn’t affect his glare.

  Prince sat opposite him and looked down at her notepad. “Now. You were hunting, you say.”

  Engebretsen, so verbal during the arrest and at the beginning of the interview, had withdrawn into silence and the occasional whimper. Kvichak was a one-man monument to fury; he spat out sentences as if they were being fed into the breech of an automatic rifle. “Yeah. We were hunting. We were hunting up on Nuk Bluff, like we do every September of our lives, like we have every single year since we could hold a rifle by ourselves. We were up there for ten days, we limited out in caribou, moose, geese, spruce hens and ptarmigan. We gutted and skinned and packed everything back to camp, so we didn’t violate no wanton waste law. We didn’t shoot the day Chouinard flew us in, so we didn’t violate the fly-and-shoot-same-day rule.” Again, he spoke directly to Liam. “We didn’t see nobody and we didn’t hear nobody, and we sure as hell didn’t kill nobody.”

  Liam didn’t stir.

  “You can’t always say you haven’t seen anybody, can you, John?”

  Engebretsen gave a low moan.

  “Sometimes we do,” John said truculently. “What of it?”

  “Sometimes you see them, and sometimes you talk to them, and sometimes you do more than that.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Prince consulted a file. “September 12, 1998, Todd and Sharon Koch of Anchorage were paddling a canoe from the Two Lake campsite to the Four Lake Ranger Station when two men matching your descriptions appeared on the beach and started shooting at them.”

  Engebretsen whimpered.

  “Got nothing to do with us,” Kvichak growled. “We were home by the twelfth.”