“And this morning?”
“And this morning I was flying the archaeologist-”
“One moment, please.” The trooper produced a notebook and a pencil. “Go ahead.”
“His name is McLynn, Desmond X. McLynn, and I was flying him to work this morning. We landed and found the body of his gofer, Don Nelson.” Wy hesitated. “Uh, it didn't-it wasn't-I don't think-oh hell.” She expelled an impatient breath. “He didn't just die,” she said bluntly. “He was killed.”
As if a switch had been thrown, the indulgent air vanished and the trooper went on alert. Wy could almost hear the howl of the bloodhounds. She'd seen the same expression on Liam's face too many times to mistake it now.
Prince said, “What makes you say that?”
Wy remembered Nelson's body and repressed a roll of nausea. “Well, the handle of the knife sticking out of his mouth was my first clue.”
“I see.” The trooper seemed to sniff the air. “Where is Professor McLynn now?”
“At Bill's. He wouldn't stay at the site, so I dropped him off on the way into town from the airport.”
“Bill's?”
“Bill's Bar and Grill,” Wy elaborated.
“This McLynn a drinker?”
“He is today,” Wy said, her mouth a grim line. “I would be, too, if I didn't have to fly.”
The trooper reached for her cap. “I'll follow you there.”
Bill's Bar and Grill was a squat, square building with a shallowpeaked roof of corrugated metal and green vinyl siding. Windows basked in the neon light of a dozen beer signs, and worn wooden stairs led up to double doors.
Inside, the building was divided, the bar in front and the kitchen in back. They were separated by a wall with a passthrough window through which wafted the tantalizing smell of beef burned to the proper degree of char and the occasional bellow, “Order up!” A bar with a black Naugahyde elbow pad ran the length of the front room on the left, booths and a jukebox were on the right, a small stage and an even smaller dance floor in the back. A hardy indoor-outdoor carpet of indeterminate color suffered beer spills and cigarette ashes with equal indifference, and the walls were arrayed in dark wood paneling and still more neon beer signs. The rafters were exposed, sort of, because every available inch had been stapled with business cards, men's shorts and women's bras, Japanese glass fishing floats, a moose rack that looked wide enough to challenge the current record holder inBoone & Crockett,a length of baleen, the cork line off a drift net and the inevitable and innumerable square foil packets of Trojans.
It was also, on this early afternoon in late July, almost empty, but for a woman standing behind the bar polishing a glass, a man seated opposite her and another man standing next to him. The standing man was tall, dark and in uniform.
“Liam!” Wy said involuntarily, and started forward.
“Sir?” Trooper Prince said. “How did you get here?”
The man turned his head toward them, bringing it full into the light from one of the windows. Wy halted. So did Prince.
He was tall, broad-shouldered and long-legged, with thick dark hair going a distinguished gray at the temples and blue eyes deepset in a brown face. His nose was high-bridged and arrogant, his mouth ready for an easy, sexy grin and his jaw square and obstinate, but despite these uncanny similarities he was not Liam Campbell. On closer inspection Wy realized that his uniform was not the blue of the Alaska State Troopers, either, it was the blue of the United States Air Force.
“I'm sorry,” he said with crisp courtesy, “I'm afraid you've mistaken me for my son.” He smiled, first at Wy, then over her shoulder at Trooper Prince, and in a heartbeat Wy understood where Liam got all his charm. “I'm Charles Campbell.” He smiled again. “I don't seem to be able to find my son, in fact.”
“He's out of town, Colonel,” Wy said. He gave her a sharp look, wanting to know how a civilian, and a female civilian at that, knew his rank. “I… know your son,” she said lamely. There was a comprehensive snort from the man seated at the bar. Campbell glanced down at him, and Moses Alakuyak's bright brown eyes met his with distinct challenge.
Wy shot the shaman a fierce look, and the woman behind the bar put her hand over his, in restraint or encouragement, Wy couldn't tell which, but then Bill was like that. “Liam speaks of you often,” she told Campbell. That was a lie, but it was the best she could come up with on the spot. Another snort from Moses told her what he thought of that.
“I flew Trooper Campbell out to Kulukak this morning, sir,” Prince said, stepping into the breach. “It is a coastal village about fifty miles southwest of here. He is working on an investigation.”
Campbell looked interested. “You're a pilot.”
“Yes, sir.”
He smiled again. “As am I. We have something in common, then.”
Prince eyed the eagles on his collar and the wings on his breast and said in a voice gone very dry, “So we do. Excuse me, sir, I'm here to talk to someone.” She looked around.
Wy pointed at a booth, where McLynn sat with a glass clutched in one hand, scribbling furiously in a notebook. Prince walked to the booth. “Mr. McLynn?”
“It's Professor McLynn, or Doctor, if you prefer,” he said without looking up.
“I'm Diana Prince with the Alaska State Troopers,” she said. “I'm flying out to your dig immediately. I'd like you to accompany me.”
He closed his eyes and shuddered. “Is that really necessary?”
“It would be very helpful,” she said mildly.
He opened his eyes and tossed off the last of his drink. “Fine. Whatever. Let's get it over with.”
He snapped his notebook closed and rose to his feet, to level an admonitory finger at Prince. “I don't want anything there disturbed, do you understand? I've been working that dig for nearly twenty years. It is an archaeological site containing one-of-a-kind artifacts chronicling the existence of a small band of people that, when presented in its proper context, will rewrite the prehistory of this area.” He glared up at the trooper. “My research must not be interfered with.”
Trooper Prince didn't raise her voice. “I quite understand, sir, but the area is, unfortunately, also the scene of a crime. Our investigation will intrude as little as possible into your workspace, but it must begin immediately.”
Basically, Wy thought with admiration, she outpompoused him. Defeated but grumbling, McLynn followed Prince back to the bar. “I understand that your air taxi service is on contract to the troopers,” Prince said to Wy.
Wy groaned inwardly, but the thought of Harold Abood, Esquire, J.D., made her reply, “Yes.”
“And that you know where Kulukak is.”
Wy nodded.
“In that case, I'd like to charter your services to go pick up Trooper Campbell.”
Colonel Campbell looked at Wy. “You're a pilot, too?”
“Place is just lousy with pilots,” Bill observed from behind the bar. She was a short woman with eyes the translucent blue glacier ice goes only on a cloudy day, and silver hair swept straight back from her face to her shoulders in a thick, shining fall. Her T-shirt read “Laissez le bon temps roulez-Mardi Gras,” not easy to read unobtrusively because of how well she filled it out. Like Moses, her expression was one of not quite malicious glee.
“Yes, sir,” Wy said to Campbell, “I'm a pilot, too.”
“In what capacity?”
“I own and operate the Nushagak Air Taxi Service.” She said it proudly, because she was proud of it.
“Really.” He seemed amused, and she bristled. He saw her reaction and grinned, and again she was put forcibly in mind of his son. “Well, then, we have something in common, too.”
Not hardly, she thought, remembering Liam's occasional tales of his father going head to head with Soviet Backfire bombers in the skies over the Bering Strait, back before the Berlin Wall had fallen and taken the Cold War down with it. “Marginally,” she said. “I fly a Piper Super Cub. You fly an F-14.”
�
�An F-16C, actually,” he said.
“And a Cessna 180,” she said.
“Pilots,” Moses said to Bill. “Jesus. Even when they don't have cocks, they're comparing sizes.”
Campbell said, “I take it you'll be bringing my son back from, er, Kulukak?”
“Yes.”
“What time you think you'll get in?”
Wy looked at her watch. “I should get out of here in less than an hour. It's eleven o'clock, say I'm in the air by noon. I should make Kulukak well before one. If Liam's ready to go, we should be back here by, oh, say two-thirty to be safe. I don't know what he's got left to do on the ground.”
“All right. Tell Liam I'm here, would you? Liam hates surprises.” He donned his cap and smiled again, and this time she saw that his charm was more practiced than Liam's, and more conscious of effect. “I'm at the BOQ on base. I'll be expecting his call. Nice meeting you folks,” he said to Bill and Moses. He nodded to Prince and left the bar.
“Whew,” Bill breathed as the door swung closed behind him, and pretended to fan herself.
Moses growled something and hooked a hand around her neck to pull her forward. The passionate, carnal kiss then exchanged was enough to make Prince blink and McLynn's jaw drop. Wy was more used to it, but she still felt the temperature of the room go up a couple of degrees. She rolled her eyes, tried not to feel jealous and walked outside, followed by Prince and McLynn on self-conscious tiptoe.
Prince said, “I assume you're taking your Cessna to Kulukak.”
“Yes.”
“Am I correct in assuming I can't fly a Cessna on floats into the dig?”
“Yes. A Cub's the only aircraft other than a helicopter that'll make it in and out of that strip. It's not even a strip, really, we just moved some rocks and pulled some bushes.”
“I see. Do you charter your aircraft?”
“Yes,” Wy said, masking a flinch.
“Then I'll need to charter your Cub to fly out to the dig.”
“Tulukaruk,” Wy said. “That's the name of it. Look, I don't mean to-I mean-well-hell. It's a very short, very rough strip, with a forty-five-foot drop to a river at one end. How many hours you got on a Cub?”
Prince's smile was smug. “Three hundred and four. I've been flying since I was thirteen, and I've done hundreds of Bush landings, Ms. Chouinard. Besides,” she added, serious now, “you're insured, aren't you?”
Smart-ass, Wy thought. She sighed and gave in to the inevitable. “You'll need a map. Follow me out to the airport.”
“And when we all get back to town, I'll want to talk to you again, take a formal statement.”
“Not a problem,” Wy said, heading for her truck. “You know where I work, and I'm not going anywhere.”
Except to Kulukak to pick up Liam, she thought as she started the truck. She felt her heart skip a beat. She hadn't seen him to speak to in almost three months, and now they were going to spend a minimum of forty-five minutes shoulder to shoulder.
Unwillingly, she remembered the first days of their acquaintance, when she in her innocence had thought they were just friends. The hours spent in the air on their way between Glennallen and various crime scenes, the grisly prospects before them muted by the pleasure they took in each other's company. They had never seemed to stop talking, she remembered painfully: books, music, politics, religion, art, people they both knew, places they'd both been, experiences they'd shared separately.
Oh, they had been such fine, fine days in the air, that summer that now seemed so long ago and so far away.
It was when they had stopped talking that they got into trouble.
She slammed the truck into gear and headed for the airport. The white Blazer with the gold shield on the side fell in behind her like a ghostly shadow.
FIVE
When Liam didn't respond, Ekwok repeated in a louder voice, “I know who did this.”
The raven erupted with a staccato “Kuk-kuk-kuk-kra-kuk”that sounded eerily like the cadence of Ekwok's own speech patterns. Ekwok looked up with an apprehensive expression. His eyes hardened and he said for the third time, “I know who did this.”
Liam wished with all his heart that just once it could be that easy. Well, hell, maybe it could be. “And who might that be, Mr. Ekwok?” he said, pulling out his notebook.
“That David Malone, he fired a guy last year. A deckhand. He wouldn't even give him a ride from Seattle when he brought theMarybethianorth. This deckhand, he was angry. He said he would kill Malone.”
Ekwok shut up, his expression suggesting that he had said all he had to say. His attitude clearly indicated that he had solved all Liam's problems and that he, Liam, should go away now and attend to them.
Quoth the raven,“Kwark, click, click.”
“Will you knock it off?” Liam said.
“Knock what off?” Ekwok said.
“I'm sorry, Mr. Ekwok, I meant him.” Liam jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
Ekwok examined him with an expression on his face that was impossible to read. “You talk to the raven?”
Liam pulled himself together. “No. No, of course not.” Pen poised, he said, “Do you know the name of the deckhand that Malone fired?”
Ekwok shook his head. “No.”
“Do you know someone who might?”
“Walter will know. Walter hired him last summer, after Malone fired him.”
Had he indeed. “Could you take me to Mr. Larsgaard's house, Mr. Ekwok? I'd like to ask him a few questions.”
Walter Larsgaard and the rest of the village council were at Larsgaard's house, sitting around a kitchen table, drinking coffee. As one honor-bound, Walter Larsgaard offered Liam a mug. Liam accepted. It was hot and strong enough to melt the enamel right off his teeth.
They waited politely until he had taken a few sips, and he used the time to look at his surroundings. The kitchen was small but clean, wooden cupboards that went right up to the ceiling painted a white enamel that was beginning to chip down to the original lime-green coat, an old but well-scrubbed gas stove, a Frigidaire refrigerator with a bad-tempered mutter that sounded pre-World War II. The sink was stainless steel with a high arching faucet-high enough to clean salmon under-and the linoleum on the floor had been scoured so often and so well that the blue and white floral pattern was beginning to wear off. The kitchen table was rectangular, with a Formica top and steel legs. The chairs matched. A half-eaten loaf of Wonder bread and a one-pound can of Darigold butter sat on the table, with a box of Lipton tea bags and a jar of homemade jam.
Clear glass canisters with sealed lids lined up against the wall: flour, white sugar, brown sugar, coffee. On one side of the room a window looked over the harbor, and on the other side of the room a magnificent walrus head had been hung on the wall, tusks gleaming with that inner light that only ivory has. One of the tusks was broken off in a painfully jagged point about twelve inches down, the other stretched its full length. Eighteen inches? More like twenty, Liam thought.
Some trick of the light made the hollow eyes of the skull seem to flicker, as if something were staring back at him. He could almost see the walrus raise its lip at him, raise its head and rear back to display those tusks in attack. He raised his mug in its direction, half in salute, half to point. “That's a great head.”
“Walter's father did it,” Ekwok volunteered. “Don't know why he bothered to mount one with a broken tusk. Plenty out there with both intact.”
“It was his first,” Walter Larsgaard said, with an almost imperceptible softening of his stern expression. “When he was a boy, we could huntasveq.”
“Asveq,” the rest of them echoed.
“Walrus,” Ekwok volunteered when he saw Liam's questioning look. “Asveqis Yupik for walrus. He's a carver, is Old Walter. The best in the village. Walter, you ought to let the sheriff see your dad's workshop. He's got some-”
“He's sleeping,” Larsgaard said, his face closing up again.
Well. End of subject, obviously. Liam took ano
ther sip of coffee. As if it were a signal, Ekwok said, “I told him about the deckhand.”
Larsgaard's lips tightened.
“First things first,” Liam said, setting the mug down and reaching for his notebook. “Can you tell me who all was on board theMarybethia?”
There was an exchange of glances, a shuffling of feet. Kashatok spoke up in a high, thin voice with a precise diction that was almost British in inflection. “David and Molly Malone. David Malone's brother, Jonathan. Their daughter, Kerry. Their son, Michael.”
“There were two others, we think adult males,” Liam said. “Deckhands?”
There was a universal shrug. “He hired them from Outside,” Ekwok said. “Anacortes, or Port Angeles, or Bellingham, maybe.”
“Maybe we find their names at Malone's house,” Andrew volunteered.
Liam looked down at his pad and doodled. “Mr. Ekwok tells me that Mr. Malone had a problem with a deckhand he hired last summer.”
There was a brief silence.
He looked up to meet Larsgaard's eyes. “He also says, Mr. Larsgaard, that you hired this deckhand after Mr. Malone fired him.”
There was another brief silence. Larsgaard gave a curt nod. “I did.”
“I'll need his name.”
For a moment he thought Larsgaard would refuse. The other man had yet to meet his eyes straight on.
Liam was familiar with the attitude, almost, in a perverse way, comfortable with it. To many if not most of the tribal chiefs in Bush Alaska, Liam was a necessary evil to be dealt with civilly but not cordially and certainly never socially. It was one of the things you put up with if you worked for the state of Alaska in the Bush, along with being on call for every disturbance, civil and criminal, that the local police couldn't or wouldn't deal with, along with being confused for a federal agent and held responsible for every ill visited upon mankind by the IRS. It was why a Bush trooper got step increases to his salary, one for every posting farther away from the population centers of the state, where the majority of the population was white and only distrusted you for your uniform and not the color of your skin.
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