by Stan Jones
Werner turned the radio down as the opening lines of an old country song called "Queen of the House" came from the speaker. He took a drink of whiskey, then extended the bottle toward the cot. "Want some?"
Active shook his head no. He could make out all the words now, even though Werner spoke in a normal tone.
"Good thing," Werner said. "Eskimos can't drink."
"And you can't get away with another killing. I found the schematic of the leach field and Michael Jermain and Alex Fortune told me the whole story. They know you shot George Clinton and Aaron Stone."
Werner stared at Active, his eyes wide. "You found the schematic? I searched Aaron and his camp and—" He shook his head and fell silent.
"It was in the mail. With his paycheck. Clara Stone and I picked it up yesterday morning at the post office."
"In the mail. I should have thought of that." Werner, looking disgusted with himself, opened the bottle, took a sip, and capped it. "So Jermain caved, huh?"
Active nodded.
"I thought he might, once the killing started. Not his kind of game, shooting Eskimos."
He took another pull from the bottle. "Anyway, you don't need to worry. That part of it's pretty much over. Just one more to go."
Active shifted his position, scraping his wrist on the hand-cuff before he remembered he was shackled to the cot. "You can't possibly get away with killing me. Unlock me and I'll take you in and... well, there's no death penalty in Alaska."
Werner laughed without mirth and took a cracker from the box of Sailor Boy pilot bread on the table. "A lot of people around here call these things niqipiaq, Eskimo food," he said. "Funny what a culture will take to itself." He bit into the cracker and chuckled again. "How did you figure out George and Aaron didn't shoot themselves?"
"Somebody saw you shoot George, for one thing."
"So old Tillie was awake," Werner said. "I thought about shooting her too. But she looked like she was out cold there on her mother's grave. Besides, I couldn't figure out how to make it look like George shot her before he killed himself."
"Who said the witness was Tillie Miller?"
"Don't worry," Werner said. "Tillie's safe. Like I said, this is about over. The only person I'm going to kill now is me."
"What? No, that's not—" Active sputtered to a stop as the force of Werner's logic dawned on him, then tried again. "Don't do it. Go back and face your people. That's what a brave man would do."
"I'm not brave." Werner's face sagged into an exhausted smile. "I don't even have the guts to walk out on the ice pack and let the cold solve my problem like the old-timers used to do."
He took another bite of pilot bread and fiddled with a knob on the radio. "What else?"
"What else what?" Active asked.
"You said, 'for one thing.' What was the other thing?"
"The throat."
"The throat?"
"You shot them both in the throat," Active said. "Jim Silver couldn't remember anybody ever shooting himself in the throat, much less two in one week."
"Did I do that?" Werner was silent for a long time, then nodded his head. "I guess I did."
Suddenly he looked at the door and stood up. The ringing in Active's ear got louder and he realized it was the buzz of a snowmachine. Werner moved to the window beside the cabin door, rubbed a hole in the frost, and stared through it at the darkness.
"Somebody traveling with you, Nathan?" he asked tightly.
"No, I'm alone."
"Hmmph." Werner picked up the rifle, went back to the window, and continued his watch. "Silver's wrong about the throat," he said. "It did happen before."
The buzz of the snowmachine got louder and louder, then started to fade. Werner relaxed and returned to the table.
"I was seventeen or eighteen, I guess. I was fooling around on the beach out there with my kid brother, teaching him how to drink like we did at that school in Oregon where they used to send us young Native guys."
Werner slid back the bolt of the rifle and checked the load in the firing chamber, then slid the bolt home and thumbed the safety on. "We had this very rifle with us. We thought it was empty." He patted the weapon's scratched and faded stock.
"So my brother puts it up to his throat and he says, 'Betcha I can hit my Adam's apple.' I say, 'Betcha can't,' and he pulls the trigger." He laid the rifle on the table again. "We buried him on the bluff up there above the camp."
"That was what you were talking about at George Clinton's funeral?"
"Yep."
"Maybe your brother didn't kill himself. Maybe you did it, like with George and Aaron."
"No, he did it himself," Werner said. "That was before I was an innukaknaaluk."
Active groped for the meaning. "A what?"
"Never mind. It's just an old Inupiaq word. One of the few I know." He walked to the door, opened it, and looked out into the night.
"I remember now. You used it on the radio the other night. A man who always kills people."
Werner looked at him curiously. "You pick up Inupiaq pretty quick for a nalauqmiiyaaq."
The cabin was getting hot, thanks to the oil stove in the corner. Active wished he had taken off his parka before fastening himself to the cot. He wriggled his right arm and shoulder out of the coat and pushed it down his left arm to the handcuff. Maybe if he kept Werner talking and drinking long enough, he'd pass out.
"Why did you have to kill George and Aaron?" he asked. "They would have trusted you to take care of the problem at the Gray Wolf."
"Aaron Stone was too stubborn for his own good," Werner said. "I asked him to give me and GeoNord a couple years to clean up the leach field, but he wouldn't. All he could talk about was dead fish and how his grandchildren were living down at Nuliakuk and drinking out of the river. He wanted it fixed right now, even if we had to shut down the mine."
Werner took a drink of Jack Daniel's, but only a small one. "Wouldn't want to go to sleep on you." He capped the bottle. "I tried to get him to tell me where that damned schematic was but he wouldn't do that, either. He said he was going to KathyChildswithit."
"Couldn't your friend Shotwell have taken care of her?"
Werner looked at him, surprise on his face. "You know about Shotwell?"
Active nodded. "Fortune and Jermain told me about that too."
"That guy Fortune does his homework." Werner shook his head admiringly.
"So why not let Shotwell take care of Kathy Childs and the schematic?"
"She's a wild card," Werner said. "You know, she sent some of those dead fish from the Nuliakuk down to the state lab in Juneau, but Shotwell sidetracked it before she got any results. If Aaron had given her the schematic, I think she would have gone to the feds."
"So you killed him? And you planted liquor in his camp and his locker to make him look like a drinker? Sounds like you were planning way ahead."
"I try to be ready for anything," Werner said. "Always have."
"And George Clinton too? You ambushed your own cousin outside the Dreamland?"
"I had to. He would have panicked when Aaron Stone turned up dead."
"You can't be sure of that."
Werner shrugged. "It doesn't matter. The Clinton curse would have gotten him anyway."
"You don't believe that."
Werner hunted through his pockets till he found a package of Marlboros, pulled one out, and lit it with a matchbook from the same pocket. "No, but George probably did. Anyway, it's a small price to pay to keep the Gray Wolf open." He dragged on the Marlboro, then exhaled, his eyes closed in pleasure.
Active shifted on the cot. The handcuff bit into his wrist again, "Two lives is a small price to pay?"
"You weren't around before we had the mine. Take everything bad in Chukchi now and multiply it by ten. That's what it was like before the Gray Wolf." Werner checked the load in his rifle again, then rotated the radio back and forth on the table until the signal was strongest. "Not that it matters now. I guess the mine will close anyway, tha
nks to you."
"All I did was ask questions."
"Questions are deadly. Don't you know that?" Werner's voice was an exhausted monotone. He uncapped the bottle and took the tiniest of sips. "When you wouldn't take that woman's phone number in Las Vegas, I knew I couldn't stop you."
Active shrugged. He thought of telling Werner he had passed on the information, but decided against it. It was still possible Werner would come out of this alive, and under arrest, and then the information would be dangerous. "Then why not kill me too?" he said. "One more dead Eskimo seems like a small price to pay."
Werner chuckled. "Who'd believe a Dudley Do-Right like you would get drunk and shoot himself? Anyway, I think I quit the innukaknaaluk business when I couldn't bring myself to kill old Tillie there by the Dreamland." Werner shook his head as if to clear it and blinked his eyes several times. "So when you came around I decided to just try to keep the lid on till the election."
"Why? What's the difference?"
"If people knew I polluted the Nuliakuk and killed George and Aaron, they'd vote against the liquor ban because I was behind it."
"I don't get it. What's the connection?"
"I can't explain it, but that's how people around here think. Now, we won't have the mine anymore, but if the vote goes my way, at least we'll be rid of both innukaknaaluks—me and this stuff." Werner raised the bottle halfway to his lips, stopped, shook his head, and put it down again. He screwed the cap back on and took a drag from his Marlboro. "So you liked my little speech at George's funeral?"
"Very moving."
"That was before you got on my trail, so I was still thinking, as long as I had to kill those guys to keep the Gray Wolf open, I might as well use the deaths to get the liquor ban too. A good Inupiaq never wastes anything."
Active opened his mouth to speak, but Werner raised a hand and stopped him. He turned up the radio.
"... Werner, the president of Chukchi Region and the organizer of the liquor initiative, was scheduled to be with us tonight," Roger Kennelly was saying. "But he hasn't shown up, so we're going ahead with the returns. I'm here at city hall, where the city clerk and the city attorney have just finished the tally. They're putting the vote up on the blackboard now and . . . folks, it looks like Chukchi is about to become a dry village. The vote is three ninety nine for the liquor ban and three eighty against."
"Nineteen votes," Werner said. "So if ten people had changed their minds, we'd still have liquor in Chukchi. You think George and Aaron's dying made ten people vote for the ban?"
"I don't know."
Werner stubbed out the Marlboro on the tabletop, then gave another of his mirthless chuckles. "Mae always told me these things would be what killed me." He stood up and lifted the rifle from the table. "Time to get it over with, I guess."
"Don't do it," Active said.
"Oh, I'm going to do it, Nathan." Werner opened the firing chamber, checked the load again, then slid the bolt forward, and thumbed the safety off. He looked at Active. "The question is, what will you do?"
"Look, if you commit suicide, people will... people will..."
"How they remember my name is up to you, Nathan." Werner stood and walked to one of the bunks. "I can be the leader taken from his people by a tragic accident on the very night his most cherished goal was achieved." He propped the rifle across an upper bunk and put the muzzle against his Adam's apple. "Or I can be just another dumb Eskimo who got drunk and shot himself."
"Don't do it."
There was an explosion, slightly muffled, and a red jet spurted from the back of Werner's neck. The window on the east wall of the cabin shattered and he flopped backward onto the table. One of its legs gave way and his body crashed to the floor. From somewhere under it, the radio played on. "To Uncle William in Ebrulik from Lenora in Chukchi," the announcer said. "Wishing you a happy sixty-sixth and many more to come, here's 'I'll Fly Away' by the Nuliakuk Singers.' " A church piano, slightly out of tune, thumped from the radio and a man with a strong, reaching bass took the lead in the old hymn. The singer's voice was so powerful that Active heard it clearly from under Werner's corpse.
Active jerked at the cot, struggling toward the keys hidden somewhere in the wreckage. Over the ringing in his ear and the rasp of his own breath, he heard the buzz of a snowmachine approaching the cabin. Perhaps it would go by. But, no, the engine slowed.
He dragged the cot over to the body and reached under it. Finally his scrabbling fingers found the keys. The snowmachine swung into Werner's camp, its headlight briefly sweeping the interior of the cabin and the broken window on the east wall.
Frantically, he unlocked the handcuffs and stuffed them into a pocket. He kicked the cot back against the wall and looked around the cabin. There was no sign he had arrived before Werner shot himself, or that he had been held prisoner. He was kneeling over the body when the door opened.
"I couldn't stand waiting . . ." Mae Werner stopped and stared at her husband. She knelt beside him, touched him once, and shook her head.
"I'm sorry," Active said. "I didn't get here soon enough."
She walked to the cot and sat down and began to cry silently.
He sat beside her and handed her his handkerchief. When he put his arm around her shoulder, she buried her face in his neck and gave in to the grief. "Why did he do it?" she asked after a long time, when the sobs had subsided.
"I guess something went wrong in his mind. Did he tell you what was bothering him?"
"No, he always keep his troubles to himself. Seem like that's what men do."
She turned and looked at her husband on the floor. "Do you have to say he kill himself? People will be so sad if they know the way he went."
"I don't know yet what my report will say."
"He try so hard," she said softly. "So hard. What will we do now:?"
CHAPTER 18
Wednesday Morning, Chukchi
BACK IN HIS OFFICE the next morning, Active called Fortune and set up an appointment for nine o'clock. He had just hung up when his phone rang. This time Carnaby made no pretense of small talk.
"I was just wondering where that Gray Wolf report is. I told Bill Felix you were faxing it to me two days ago."
Active was silent for a long time, listening to Carnaby breathe at the other end of the line. Finally he said the only thing he could think of. "It's not ready yet."
"And why is that?" Carnaby asked, so quietly Active could barely hear him.
"I have one more meeting with Fortune and Jermain this morning to clear up a couple last details."
"Fuck, you told me you were dropping the investigation." Now Carnaby was not only shouting, but swearing too. Another first. "You're on administrative leave as of right now. I'll be in Chukchi this afternoon to take over personally—fuck, it's too late for today's flight. I'll be there early afternoon, tomorrow, and I want you in my office at two o'clock. Meantime, you give that file to Evelyn and don't touch it again. In fact, stay out of the office till I get there." He hung up with a crash.
Active sat at his desk a few moments, feeling sweaty and slightly ill. Then he left, as ordered.
And headed for the GeoNord offices at the airport.
"HOW MANY of those did you bring?" Active asked, trying to mask his jitters as he shook Fortune's hand. Today's suit was charcoal gray, but looked as expensive as yesterday's sand-colored model.
"About a half-dozen, I think," Fortune said with one of his amused smiles. "If this drags on, I may have to visit your local dry cleaner."
"Chukchi doesn't have a dry cleaner, Mr. Fortune." His nerves felt like banjo strings. Would Fortune pick up on it?
"Really! That would explain much of what one sees on the street around here," the lawyer said. "But no matter. I'll just send to San Francisco for another batch. Not that I expect that to become necessary. I'm guessing we're about done here."
Active breathed an inward sigh of relief. Fortune was obnoxious but no more so than usual. Apparently he was in too good a mood
to pick up on anyone else's.
Jermain stood up from behind his desk and walked over to shake hands. Active shook his mind free of his problem with Carnaby and concentrated on Jermain. At first he thought the engineer hadn't shaved that morning. But on closer inspection, he decided it was probably lack of sleep that accounted for Jermain's gray face. There were bags under his eyes too.
"Nathan," Jermain said with a jerk of his head. He sat down at the conference table.
"Shall we get started?" Fortune said. He motioned at a chair.
Active stood, silent.
"Ah, I forgot," Fortune said. "You have to be the last one standing. An ancient custom of the Alaska State Troopers, no doubt." The lawyer dropped down beside Jermain and watched as Active took a chair across,the table.
"Good." Fortune looked around the table. "So. We should be able to wrap this up in a very few minutes. Right, Trooper Active?"
"Why would you think that?"
Fortune opened his mouth, then closed it. He removed his gold-rimmed glasses and polished them with a monogrammed handkerchief. "When we heard on your radio station this morning that Tom Werner had shot himself, we naturally assumed everybody's problems were solved."
"Really?"
"Of course. You can close your investigation on George Clinton and Aaron Stone without having to accuse Chukchi's most illustrious citizen of murder." Fortune held the glasses up to the light, then went back to work on the left lens. "We can close our mine until copper prices are higher and we can afford to fix the pollution problems."
Fortune put the glasses back on and studied Active. "I believe it's what the politicians call a win-win situation."
"Do you happen to recall what Roger Kennelly said at the end of his story this morning?" Active asked.
Fortune looked puzzled. "Something about the death's still being under investigation? I assumed that was just a matter of the report being written and the odd loose ends being tied up."
Active leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, and studied the two men. "Not exactly."
"Told you," Jermain said softly.