White Sky, Black Ice

by Stan Jones

  "I hear," Crane said. "Tom Werner talk about it on radio."

  "Well, if the ban passes, then we can keep liquor out of Chukchi," Active said. "That will mean the bootleggers can't buy it and take it to Nuliakuk. Maybe things will get better."

  "Maybe they will," Crane said. "But best thing would be if you could arrest our bootleggers."

  Active said goodbye to the mayor, turned on his computer, and started the report on George Clinton's death. Somebody in headquarters might actually read it, so he started with an explanation of how he happened to get involved in a city case, then described his conversation with Daniel Clinton. He decided to leave out the Clinton curse. Headquarters probably wouldn't be impressed by gossip from street riffraff like Kinnuk Wilson. But he did mention reports that other sons of Daniel Clinton had committed suicide.

  When he finished, he grabbed the Wired and started down the hall.

  Just then the office phone rang. Evelyn O'Brien answered and listened for a moment.

  "You better watch out, Nathan," she said. "Lucy says Tillie Miller is on her way up."

  "Oh, God." He took the phone. "Why didn't you stop her? What did she say?"

  "She said, "Where that Goddamn nalauqmiiyaaqcop?' " Lucy said.

  That word again. "Maybe she didn't mean me. I'm no half-breed."

  "That's your opinion," Lucy said.

  He decided to stick with his original plan so he put down the phone and started down the hall.

  Unfortunately, he had to pass the stairwell to get to the men's room. There was Tillie, almost to the top, and snorting like the buffalo she resembled.

  "You stop, Goddamn you nalauqmiiyaaq" she grunted. He stopped. She climbed the last three steps and faced him.

  "What is it, Tillie?" he asked, forgetting momentarily that she was deaf, at least according to the city cops.

  "That qauqlik kill that boy," she said. "You catch him." She turned and stumped off down the stairs.

  "Wait, what boy?" He followed her downstairs, pulling at her sleeve and feeling foolish. She didn't stop, turn, or speak until they were outside. Then she faced him again. "That qauqlik kill that boy. You catch him, Goddamn you nalauqmiiyaaq."

  He stared into the wide brown face and the unreadable black eyes. She jerked her sleeve free, turned, and walked away up Third Street.

  He went back in and walked over to the dispatcher's office.

  "Does she come in here a lot?"

  "Not much," Lucy said, grinning. "I think she likes you, nalauqmiiyaaq."

  "She used a word I don't know, being a mere nalauqmiiyaaq. It sounded like 'coke-lick,' sort of."

  " 'Coke-lick'?" Lucy said. "Doesn't sound like any Inupiaq word I ever heard."

  "OK, that's not exactly what it sounded like. It sounded like she was hawking, getting ready to spit, at the same time."

  "Let me call my grandma," Lucy said, donning her headset and poking buttons on the console.

  "Aana, it's me," she said into the headset. "Nathan wants to know an Inupiaq word. Coke-lick, but like you're hawking to spit at the same time."

  She listened, then looked at Active. "She says you should learn Inupiaq, then you won't be such a nalauqmiiyaaq. She'll teach you."

  "Tell her the first lesson I want to learn is what 'coke-lick' means," he said.

  Lucy relayed, then listened again.

  "She says, will you give her a ride to bingo tonight in your trooper truck?"

  Active grimaced. "OK, OK."

  "She says, with the flasher on?"

  Now he groaned. "Yes, with the flasher on."

  Lucy told her grandmother the good news, then listened again. She looked at him. "Qauqlik, does that sound like it?"

  "That's it."

  "She says it's an old-timey word, it means 'chief,' and you come at eight o'clock." Lucy punched a button on the console and took off her headset.

  Lucy hoped Nathan would banter with her some more. But he just stood there thinking, his fingertips pressed to his forehead.

  His face was so hard to read, with its wary deep-set eyes under the buzz-cut black hair. Sometimes it was a face that seemed completely closed. But there was something soft about the lips, a softness that seemed to say Nathan Active needed something. Or someone.

  "So Tillie thinks you're the chief of the half-breeds, huh?" she asked, hoping the teasing would draw him out.

  But he just rolled his eyes, turned, and started for the stairwell. He must have something on his mind, she decided.

  Perhaps George Clinton's suicide was bothering him. The suicides bothered her too, but she had learned to push them out of her mind. There were so many. Nathan would probably learn too, when he had been in Chukchi longer.

  As he disappeared up the stairs, she put her headset back on and punched in Pauline's number.

  "Why did you do that?" she asked when her aana answered. "What will he think?"

  "He won't think nothing," Pauline said. "He'll just think old lady needs ride to bingo."

  "Don't you say anything!"

  "I never tell him nothing," Pauline said. "I just want to meet him, see what he's like."

  Active climbed the stairs to Jim Silver's third-floor office. The police chief was filling out paperwork, drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup, and listening to "Mukluk Messenger" on Chukchi's public radio station.

  The person-to-person messages were KSNO's most popular feature, an irresistible if unplanned mix of gossip, news, and entertainment.

  "To Sis in Chukchi, from Eleanor in Nuliakuk," the announcer read. "Please get a case of Pampers at Arctic Mercantile and send them up by air. The store here is out and little Herbie really needs them."

  "Poor Herbie." Active dropped into the chair in front of Silver's desk.

  Silver looked up from his paperwork. "Ah, Nathan. How did Daniel take the news about George killing himself? Coffee?"

  "Black," Active said. "I guess I'd say Daniel took it stoically. Not that I broke it to them. They'd already heard about it somehow. Anyway, Daniel didn't say much except that he figured it was his fault from something that happened a long time ago. He didn't say what it was, but Kinnuk Wilson says there's a curse on the family."

  Silver grunted, went over to the coffeepot, poured some into another Styrofoam cup, and handed it to Active.

  "You know, I find I don't care for coffee from your regular type of cup anymore," Silver said, sitting behind the desk again. "During my challenging, lucrative career in law enforcement, I've come to feel it takes Styrofoam fumes to unlock the full flavor of the bean. What do you think?"

  "I think I'd like to hear about the Clinton curse."

  "Yeah, the curse." Silver frowned reflectively. "You know, after the first Clinton boy killed himself and people started saying it was because of the curse, I figured old Billy Karl was the only one who could get it out of the other boys' heads. So I went and asked him to lift the curse. Probably the first time in the history of Chukchi there was an official police request for the practice of witchcraft. Probably the last time too."

  "What did he say?"

  "He didn't say anything. He was in his workshop, steaming the runners for a dogsled he was making. He just looked at me and turned Kay-Snow up louder."

  "Hard guy," Active said.

  "I thought maybe it would stop when he died a few years back, but it seems like the curse has a life of its own," Silver said. "Now we've got another Clinton boy killing himself."

  "I guess."

  "You guess what?"

  "I guess George killed himself. But maybe there's another possibility."

  Silver put down his coffee, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms. "Such as what?"

  "Maybe somebody shot him."

  "I know somebody did." Silver unfolded his arms, leaned forward, and pointed his index finger at Active, like a gun barrel. "George Clinton shot George Clinton. Just like Andrew Harker drowned Andrew Harker last August and Franklin Berry hanged Franklin Berry last month and some other kid is going
to shoot himself or hang himself next month or next spring. And if he doesn't do it himself, one of his buddies will do it for him when they're out drinking together, then tell me about it and ask me to let him kill himself. Or some kid will get drunk and fall out of a boat and drown, or he'll fall off his snowmachine and freeze to death on the trail, or he'll poison himself sniffing gasoline."

  "You been out here too long, Jim?" Active asked. "You know what happens when white people stay in the Bush too long: They go crazy or they turn into drunks. Usually both."

  "Sorry." Silver sighed, rubbing a corrugated cheek. "I've got two weeks off and a ticket to Hawaii for me and Jenny after the booze election next week. I promise to come back a better human being."

  Silver opened one of the files on his desk and thumped the stack of papers inside. "What's got you so revved up about George Clinton? Everybody we've talked to, not to mention the physical evidence, tells the same story: His buddies and him meet at the Dreamland and drink all night. They leave at closing time, they split up. He walks over to the willows by the cemetery, where, I might point out, two of his brothers repose, likewise deceased at their own hands. He fishes his father's rifle out from where he hid it behind a tombstone, he points it at his Adam's apple, and pulls the trigger, which, I might also point out, relieves us of the necessity of explaining how the killer, if it wasn't George himself, got the 30-30. Case closed, right?"

  "Well," Active said, "Daniel keeps that old Winchester out in his kunnichuk, which as far as I can tell doesn't even have a lock anymore. Anybody in town could have taken it about as easy as George. Did you talk to his girlfriend? Did she notice anything funny with him lately?"

  "Haven't found her yet," Silver said. "I guess she's pregnant?"

  "Yeah, that's what Daniel told me," Active said. "He thinks they were going to get married. You think she could have shot him?"

  "Not a chance," Silver said. "Emily's just a kid. She could never cook up something like this. And if she did, she'd be knocking on my door in ten minutes to tell me about it. Look, it's a city case. Don't complicate it, huh?"

  "OK, OK, just a couple more things," Active said. "How many suicides have you seen where they shot themselves in the Adam's apple?"

  Silver reflected for a while. "I don't recall anybody ever shooting themselves in that exact spot," he admitted finally. "In the heart, in the temple, one in the crotch that bled to death before he could get to a doctor, though I always thought his wife did that after she caught him fooling around with her sister. Lots of them in the mouth, but nobody in the Adam's apple. But, look, it's almost impossible to hold a rifle to your temple, especially if you're drunk. And maybe George was afraid if he put it in his mouth, his lips would freeze to the barrel."

  "He's about to shoot himself and he's worried about freezing his lips?"

  "Maybe a guy would want to look normal in the casket," Silver said. "Maybe a guy would want to be able to change his mind at the last minute without having to rip his lips off. Come to think of it, I can't hardly remember anybody shooting themselves outside in cold weather. Usually, if it's cold, they'll do it inside. Maybe I never saw an Adam's-apple shot before because nobody ever shot himself outside in cold weather before."

  "But maybe..."

  Silver held up his hand and shook his head. "But the biggest problem with all this is that somebody would have to be trying to make a murder look like a suicide. That's way too cute for Chukchi, Nathan. Murder's pretty basic around here. A guy kills his buddy, then either kills himself or heads for my office. I remember one guy that beat his girlfriend to death, then put her body out in the kunnichuk for cold storage. Nobody even knew she was dead till he got tired of tripping over her and turned himself in three days later."

  "All right, one more thing and I quit," Active said. "Tillie Miller paid me a visit."

  "Lucky you," Silver said. "Any damage? She's got a vicious right hook."

  "No, she must be in her nonviolent phase. She climbed up the stairs and blew dragon's breath on me and said, 'That qauqlik kill that boy.' "

  "Qauqlik?" Silver said. "I don't recognize it."

  "Neither did I. I guess the old-time Inupiat used it but you don't hear it much anymore. Lucy got her Aana Pauline to translate. It means the head man or chief, apparently. Tillie said a qauqlik killed George Clinton."

  "She actually said the name? George Clinton?"

  "No, she just said, 'That qauqlik kill that boy.'"

  "Then how do you know she meant George Clinton, if she meant anything?" Silver said. "She's just a crazy old drunk. She could have been talking about something that happened thirty years ago, or she could have been talking about something that happened in a story her grandmother told her in whaling camp when she was a little girl, or she could have been talking about a dream she had while she was passed out."

  "I know," Active said. "But there's one more thing. On my way back from Daniel Clinton's house, I found Tillie passed out in the bushes on Fourth Street. Right where that footpath from the Dreamland comes out of the tundra. You can see the cemetery from there. In fact, I could see you guys still at work on George. So Tillie could have seen something from where we found her. She could even have been right at the scene, maybe taking a rest on one of the graves, and seen it up close."

  "Could be," Silver said. "More likely, it was just the Everclear talking. All I know is, there wasn't one shred of evidence on or around George Clinton's body that he was killed by anybody but George Clinton and I'm sure the autopsy is gonna show he was fairly drunk."

  Active started to speak, but Silver raised a hand to stop him. "Look, in Chukchi you should take things at face value. I'd be the first one to tell you a cop has got to follow his gut, but mine's not twitching a bit on this. And it's a lot bigger than yours."

  "I guess you're right," Active said with a shrug. "You know the town a lot better than I do."

  The police chief drank from the Styrofoam cup and looked out the window onto Fourth Street. "What does your boss think about it?"

  "Carnaby? He's down in Anchorage for a few days," Active said. "My report's in the file, like it's supposed to be."

  "Well, may it rest in peace. Just like George Clinton."

  CHAPTER 3

  Wednesday Evening, Chukchi

  THE MESSAGE LIGHT WAS blinking on his machine when he got home that night.

  "This your aaka, Nathan," his birth mother said, the usual tease in her voice. "Your Uncle Jake send down fresh muktuk from Barrow. You better get over here, you want to be a real Eskimo."

  He had heard on KSNO that Barrow had landed three bowheads in the fall hunt. Now whale parts were working their way through countless family trees to villages all over the Inupiat part of Alaska.

  He hoped Martha Active Johnson wouldn't explain to him how the Active family tree ran through cousins, brothers, aunts, grandmothers, and in-laws all the way to Uncle Jake in Barrow. Martha would expect him to remember it if he wanted to be a real Eskimo and he was pretty sure he didn't. What he wanted to be was a real Alaska State Trooper, with a real transfer to Anchorage as soon as possible.

  Still, he was starting to like whale hide with the fat still on, as long as the muktuk was fresh and cooked right. Especially when the alternative was making his own dinner, meaning another Mexican Fiesta from the freezer.

  Not only that, staying in would mean spending time in the tiny, plywood-sided house the troopers rented for him. One small room served as the kitchen and living area. The furnishings consisted of a two-place dining table, a dung-yellow studio couch, two gray metal bookshelves, a gray metal office desk, and his computer, stereo, and TV. The bathroom was larger than an airline toilet only because it contained a tiny shower. The place had a cramped bedroom with a queen-size mattress but, mysteriously, no bed or box springs. Some fiscal year, no doubt, headquarters would approve his requisition for a new bed, but for now he slept on the mattress on the floor in a down trooper sleeping bag.

  "Men!" Evelyn O'Brien had sniffed
one day when she brought by some paperwork for him to sign. "You don't live in a place, you camp."

  Besides everything else, the sewer was frozen again. The malodorous Arctic institution known as a honeybucket stood beside his toilet, and served the same purpose. More buckets under the sink drains in the bathroom and kitchen let him shave and wash dishes. But no contrivance he had been able to think of would allow him to bathe at home. He could shower at the Rec Center for five dollars, but Martha wouldn't charge anything.

  He rounded up his bath things, put them in a gym bag, and went back out to the Suburban. He would be all right, as long as he didn't get trapped in a one-to-one conversation with Martha. He started the Suburban and headed for her house.

  When he was born, Martha Active had been only fifteen, interested mainly in partying and sleeping around. So she had turned him over to two of her teachers at Chukchi High. Officially, his adoption by Ed and Carmen Wilhite had been nalauqmiut'Style, complete with lawyers, court proceedings, and documents on long paper. In practice it had operated more as a village adoption, even after the Wilhites moved to Anchorage. They had let him keep his mother's last name and he saw her from time to time when she came to the city. She sent him Christmas and birthday presents and Carmen made him send her thank-you notes.

  In time, Martha had tired of bars and strange beds. When he was five, she had graduated from high school and gotten a job as a teaching aide.

  When he was ten, Ed and Carmen had dragged him to Chukchi to visit his birthplace and mother. But when the Wilhites saw how much he resented the woman who had sent him away, there were no more visits. He hadn't set foot in the place again until his first, dismaying assignment came down from trooper headquarters.

  Still, the cord that tied him to his mother had never quite broken. The presents from Chukchi kept coming, even though he didn't write thank-you notes anymore. The Wilhites kept in touch with her and told him what she was doing. He assumed they kept her posted on his progress too.

  About the time he was old enough for Little League, she had married Leroy Johnson, an electronics technician at the nearby air force radar site that had peered across the Chukchi Sea for Russian missiles and bombers until the Cold War ended. Two years later, the Wilhites reported, Martha and Leroy had produced a son.