Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 07 - Breakup
Page 17
The grin, as wide and predatory as a shark's, should have been licensed
to kill. "I'll mark that down that for future reference."
Kate refused to be lured. "How did you know I was here?"
The grin widened. "Heard you on the radio last night."
"Oh." She had said nothing over the air to embarrass herself, and
therefore she refused to be embarrassed.
He gestured. "You remember Mark Stewart?"
"Under the circumstances, it would be difficult to forget," Kate said.
"How are you, Mr. Stewart?"
"Fine."
The widower's expression was bland, his voice flat, uninflected. His
grip was warm and tactile. Kate looked up to find him watching her, his
face still, his dark gaze vibrant and compelling. She felt the hair on
the backs of her arms stand up, and very carefully pulled her hand free.
Jim said amiably, "Mr. Stewart has agreed to accompany me up to the mine
and walk me through yesterday's unfortunate incident, so that I can
complete my report."
It was an odd enough request, thankfully, to free her from
127 Stewart's mesmerizing gaze. She looked at Jim and thought, What are
you up to now, you sneaky bastard? "Why didn't you just go straight up
there then?"
Amiability turned to amusement. "And hello to you, too, Jim," he said.
"Beautiful morning, isn't it? Like a cup of coffee?"
Behind her there were noises, and with ill grace she held open the door.
"You might as well come in, now that you've gotten us all out of bed."
"Who's all?" Jim followed her inside, Mark Stewart one step behind. A
yawning Dinah was measuring scoops into the coffeemaker. "Morning, Jim."
"Morning, Dinah." The trooper doffed his hat, and raised an eyebrow as
he took in the crowd. "What's this? A sleepover and I wasn't invited?"
"Mr. and Mrs. Baker, this is Sergeant Jim Chopin, of the Alaska State
Troopers. Mandy's parents," she told Jim. "And Mr. and Mrs. Baker, you
met Mr. Stewart yesterday."
Mr. and Mrs. Baker blinked up from the couch. Probably they had been
expecting the maid with coffee, croissants and the Boston Globe. Mandy
and Chick were rolling up their sleeping bags. Bobby was glowering at
Jim from the kitchen table, but whatever pithy comment he had been about
to make was forestalled by the sound of an approaching four-wheeler with
the throttle all the way open.
"Jesus Christ," Kate said beneath her breath. Grand Central Station had
followed her to Bobby's. She yanked open the door, this time to see Dan
O'Brian roar up. He must have flown into Niniltna even before Jim was in
the air to get to Bobby's this early.
"Hey, K!ate!" he said, bounding up the steps. A morning person,
obviously. So was Kate, but then usually she'd had more sleep.
"How'd you know I was here?"
"Why are you so sure I'm looking for you?" he said indignantly, and
added, at the same time she did, "Heard you on the radio last night." He
caught sight of Mark Stewart and his chin dropped. "Mr. Stewart?"
128 "Ranger O'Brian." Stewart's expression didn't change, but Kate
received the distinct impression that he did not welcome Dan's
appearance on the scene. For reasons she shied away from examining, she
didn't want to be able to read Stewart that well, and deliberately stood
where he would be out of her line of vision.
Jim was finishing up the introductions with a placid air. "And this is
Bobby Clark, Mr. Stewart. This is his house."
Bobby shot the trooper a malevolent look. Bobby was not a morning
person. Dinah stepped into the apprehensive silence that followed his
nongreeting with mugs of coffee all around. Mr. and Mrs. Baker accepted
theirs in a manner strongly reminiscent of the Chosen seeing their first
water after forty years of staggering around the desert. Mandy looked
less ticked off than at lights-out the night before, but not much. Chick
was still restraining a belly laugh.
Always at ease, Chopper Jim sat down across from Bobby and added milk
and sugar, surveying them all with a glint of amusement in the back of
his blue eyes, and something else Kate couldn't quite identify. "Thank
you," Stewart said, and smiled at Dinah. Dinah returned the smile with
equanimity, a certain curiosity and a purely female appreciation, which
changed as Kate watched to a surprised understanding. She turned her
head and looked at Kate. Kate nodded. Bobby sat up straight in his chair.
Dan O'Brian virtually snatched his mug from Dinah's outstretched hand
and stepped out of range of Mark Stewart's vision. In a series of facial
twitches, winks and head jerks reminiscent of an epileptic with
Tourette's syndrome he managed to convey that he wanted to speak to Kate
privately. Unless they went into the bathroom together, which might
occasion some comment, there was only the porch. Resigned, Kate followed
him outside, cradling the warmth of her coffee mug in her hands against
the chilly dawn. Breakup was not known for its subtropical range of
temperatures.
There were no clouds in the sky, revealing the sun as a dull gold disk
low on the eastern horizon, outlining the jagged peaks of the Quilaks in
the thin light of an Arctic spring morning. There was a
129 steady drip of melting ice from the eaves, and the sound of a
winter's worth of snow rushing between the narrow banks of the creek at
the edge of the front yard. A mile downstream, the creek would merge
with the silted gray expanse of the Kanuyaq, and from there the two
would travel together to Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska.
Before long, the first king salmon would be beating its way upriver.
Kate's mouth watered at the thought.
Dan was almost beside himself with impatience. "All right, all right,
what?" she said.
He looked over her shoulder at the closed door, decided it didn't
provide enough privacy and lowered his voice to a whisper that could
probably have been heard on the next homestead. Subtle was not exactly
Dan's middle name. "I called Anchorage last night and got a buddy to log
on to Motznik for me. You know, the data base that accesses all state
records?"
"Yes, Dan, I know what Motznik is."
"Okay, guess what?"
Kate took a deep breath and let it out. All she wanted to do at this
point was go home and start reassembling the pieces of her life. There
were supplies to be laid in, dip nets to be mended, caches to be
repaired, snow-machine tanks to be patched, washing machines to be fixed.
Taxes to be filed.
On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt to drink Dinah's excellent coffee,
enjoy the glorious dawn and listen to Dan carry on. He could be fun when
he took up a cause, and his current mood had all the signs. "I don't
know," she said. "What?"
"MarkStewart has had a license for hunting everything on four legs in
the state of Alaska for the last twenty years." He paused impressively.
Kate, in the act of swallowing coffee, did not choke in surprise.
That was all right, because Dan had more than enough enthusiasm for the
both of them. "He applies for the moose lott
ery every year, Kate. He's
got himself a tag six times and a moose five."
130 Since he so clearly expected a reaction, Kate said obediently, "So
you're saying he is an experienced hunter."
Dan, losing patience, thumped the railing. "That's where I've seen him
before, Kate! He was up last fall hunting sheep. He flew in with someone
else and they stopped up on the Step for maps. I talked mostly to the
pilot, guy name of, hell, what was it, Hooligan or something like that.
That's why I couldn't remember Stewart at first, I didn't talk to him."
There was a crunch of twig and Kate looked across Bobby's yard to see a
moose cow with a yearling calf browsing contentedly through a stand of
diamond willow.
Dan demanded, "Don't you see? When I said I'd seen him before, he said
he couldn't remember. He lied."
Kate sighed and turned to look at him. "Dan, it was five minutes six
months ago. Maybe he's one of those people who just doesn't remember a
face. And what does it matter anyway?"
"What does it matter!" At his shout the low murmur of voices from inside
the house stilled momentarily. Dan whispered furiously, "It matters
because that whole story about his wife and the bear attack is as phony
as a three-dollar bill, and you know it, and it's even phonier if he's
an experienced hunter, and you know that, too. Now, what are you going
to do about it?"
Her lips compressed. "Et to, Dan?"
Dan, bewildered, said, "What the hell does that mean?"
"It means you and every other mother's son in this friggin' Park thinks
I'm in charge. In the meantime, I've got half a 747 scattered across my
front forty, my cupboards are bare, my truck's been flattened and my dog
probably thinks I'm dead. I'm going home." And she still had yet to talk
to Harvey Meganack, a chore she was convinced was futile anyway,
whatever Auntie Vi thought. "The situation's a little odd, I grant you,
but-"
"A little!"
"Dan." She said his name with enough force to shut him up, at least for
the moment. "Okay, so Stewart ran off on his wife. He
131 panicked. It happens. So he outran a grizzly. Grizzlies aren't
stupid, she probably stayed behind to feed on the wife." Kate controlled
a shiver. "So Stewart doesn't look as frazzled as anyone else we've seen
who survived a bear attack. Shock takes people different ways. None of
it proves anything."
"He lied to me," Dan said stubbornly. "I don't like him."
"I don't, either," she surprised both of them by saying. "It still
doesn't prove anything." She drained her mug. "If you want action, talk
to the man. I've got my own problems."
The man chose that moment to open up the door and step outside.
"Somebody call my name?"
"Ranger O'Brian, aka Sherlock Holmes, will be happy to fill you in." She
waved a hand at Dan. "The game's afoot. Have at it."
Too excited to take offense, Ranger O'Brian did, promptly and
thoroughly. In a minute, Dan was going to find a way to work the
Trilateral Commission into the scenario. Kate turned to go inside.
Jim caught her elbow. "Kate."
"What?" Kate snapped, yanking free.
"Wondered if you'd do me a favor?"
"Ef to, Jim?" she snarled.
He blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
Kate took a deep breath and counted to ten. "What favor?"
"Come up to the mine with Stewart and me." He saw the answer in her face
and said quickly, "You were first on the scene, you've spent a lot of
time in the area and you know bears. I want you to listen to his story
and pick all the holes you can. Dan's right. It's phony as hell."
"I didn't find anything, Jim," Kate said, with an awful patience she
hoped neither he nor Dan would mistake. "And I told you, we saw the bear
right after the attack. She'd been feeding, all right." She remembered
the red-stained fur, the shreds of flesh between the claws, and again
suffered through a flashback of the moments by the creek. She never
wanted to look down the snout of a grizzly bear at that close a range
again. What must Carol Stewart have
132 felt her last few seconds, knowing there was no escape? Had she been
conscious enough to feel the rip of the claws, the bite of the teeth?
Had she- Kate yanked herself away from that thought and said briskly,
"Believe me, that grizzly had been feeding, and recently. And she did
come barreling down the hill from the direction of the mine."
Dan O'Brian couldn't resist. "And you took the All-White Enriched East
Coast Couple up there anyway?"
Kate's eyes narrowed. "It was in the opposite direction from the way the
bear was traveling at the time. It seemed like a good idea." Dan started
to speak and she held up both hands, palms out. "Look, guys. If Mark
Stewart wanted to kill his wife, it would have been a whole hell of a
lot easier and a lot less risk to himself just to shove her into the
Kanuyaq River and let the glacier calve on her."
"Unless she was already dead and he needed the bear to cover up how she
really got that way in case the body was recovered," Dan hissed.
"There's bear attacks and there's bear attacks, Shugak. That grizzly
should have either run when she heard more than one voice, or taken both
Stewarts out. At the very least, Stewart should have been wounded. And
if he was an experienced hunter, he should have had a rifle with him."
"Even experienced hunters get brain cramps."
The door behind them opened and Bobby rolled out. "What's going on?"
With some asperity Kate demanded, "Is there anybody left in the house?"
She was ignored. Ranger O'Brian was more than happy to fill Bobby in.
Bobby, who had taken an instant dislike to the tall dark stranger making
eyes over the coffee mugs at his soon-to-be wife, entered into the
discussion with enthusiasm, endorsing Dan's assessment of the situation
without hesitation and heaping scorn on Kate for her steadfast dissent.
The third time around, Dan O'Brian had Mark Stewart cutting up his wife
with a hunting knife and feeding her to Ursus arctos horribilis one
piece at a time.
133 Kate snorted and set her mug down on the railing with a thump.
"Yeah, right. The first thing that bear would have done is take
Stewart's knife away from him and jam it up his ass. Bobby, can I borrow
your truck? I've got to make a supply run into Ahtna."
"But, Kate-"
"Dammit!" Kate turned on Dan so ferociously that he actually backed up a
step. "Dan, there's the cop on this porch." She pointed at Chopper Jim,
who had perched on the railing and was listening with a faint smile
creasing his face. "You got a problem, take it up with him. Like I said,
I've got my own to deal with. Bobby?" She held out her hand.
Meekly for him, Bobby fished keys out of his pocket. Kate fairly
snatched them up and stamped down the stairs. Chopper Jim made no
attempt to stop her. The trio of men watched as she backed the pickup
around and thundered over the little bridge and down the road.
When the truck was safely out of earshot Chopper Jim remarked, "She's
awful
goddam cranky today. What's her problem?"
"Jack's in Anchorage and she's here," Dan said, the wisdom of the ages
sitting on his leprechaun face.
Bobby, who knew her better than either of the other men, frowned and
said nothing at all.
The old railroad roadbed was, if anything, in worse shape than it had