Restless in the Grave

by Dana Stabenow

  “In Afghanistan?” She snorted. “A hundred thousand of our guys on the ground for ten years, and who takes him down? A seventy-nine-man SEAL team. In Pakistan.” She thought of Irene Grant, dead of a sniper shot less than three months before, and grieved for the waste of a woman she had never known.

  He made that same come-ahead motion with his hand, which must have had some kind of power of hypnosis in it. Or maybe she just needed more breathing space between her and the name he’d just dropped oh so casually into their conversation. She said, parsing the words out carefully, “I think what I really object to is the deification of the warrior.” She leaned her head back against the booth. “We send them off to marching bands and waving flags and tears, we bury the dead at places like Arlington with more marching bands and waving flags and tears, we honor them with parades and speeches and more marching bands and more waving flags and more tears on Memorial Day and Veterans Day. I can’t help but think that all of it is at least in part a cynical attempt by the nation—any nation—to convince young, impressionable people to volunteer to be cannon fodder. Which in and of itself guarantees the continuation of war. No cannon fodder, no war. It’s not like any Bush ever personally challenges any Saddam to a duel.” She shook her head and looked down at her drink, swirling the melting ice around in the glass. “Like Bobby said. For what? Does anyone really think Iraq is going to become the fifty-first state? They can’t even keep the lights on in Baghdad twenty-four/seven.”

  “Wow,” he said. “I didn’t know we were telling the truth.”

  She smiled, a little mocking in her turn. “Be careful what you ask for, little boy.” The shock had worn off, leaving her cool and clear-eyed, mistress of the now familiar fury simmering just below the surface. If Erland Bannister was in the house, she wanted to know how he had got there, and what he was up to. “You were telling me about buying your jet.”

  He had an obvious inner debate over whether to let her change the subject, and gave in. “After Captain Cook and Kandahar, I could finally afford my own transportation, so I went shopping for a plane. I met Erland Bannister at a Gulfstream dealership. We got to talking, he mentioned he was from Alaska, I told him I was looking for a hideout along with the airplane to get me there, and he told me about Finn’s operation.”

  Deliberately casual, she said, “You and Erland Bannister best friends now?”

  McGuire shook his head. “It was the only time I met him. It was a good tip, though, I owe him. Finn was just Bristol Bay Air then, an outfitter running hunting and fishing and flightseeing trips out of Niniltna. I remembered how much I’d liked it up here when I was a kid working in Akutan. So I came up, and I’ve been up at least a couple of times a year ever since.” He smiled at her. “I make enough money to pay for gas and groceries. Someday I just might make it a one-way trip.”

  “Spend a winter here first,” she said. “A lot of people can’t handle the cold, let alone the dark.”

  “I’m from Montana, remember?”

  “I never knew where you were from in the first place,” she said, and got to her feet and began collecting his dirty dishes. “You all done here?”

  “Yeah, but, hey, where you going?”

  “Back to work. See you around.”

  Or not. She delivered the dishes to the pass-through and made another round of the bar, which had filled up a little, but was nowhere near as full as it had been the night before, which was just as well, because someone else was filling drink orders and making change. She saw McGuire come to the bar to pay his tab, stand chatting to Bill and Moses for a while, and then, giving her a long, unfathomable look, take his leave. She made sure she was on the opposite side of the room until he did so.

  Erland fucking Bannister. Was there any pie in the entire state of Alaska he didn’t have a finger in?

  She went blindly about her job, taking orders, busing tables, washing glasses, conscious that Bill and Moses both were watching her. So was Mutt, all of them wary, as if waiting for a delayed fuse on a bomb to tick down to detonation. She made an effort to contain her rage, so it didn’t spill all over Bill’s Bar and Grill and frighten the customers. She owed Bill that much.

  The last week had been a nice respite from the memory of Old Sam’s death and the scavenger hunt he had sent her on the month following it, which revealed more about him and her family than she had ever wanted to know. Erland fucking Bannister had played a big part in those revelations, and he had never been on her dance card to begin with. Not the least attractive part of Sergeant Liam Campbell’s proposition was that the job took place six hundred miles away. Any rational person would have thought it a safe distance. Out of sight, out of mind, and all that.

  Not.

  Although why was she so surprised? Why wouldn’t Erland Bannister know Finn Grant? What could be more natural? Thick as thieves, wasn’t that how the old saying went? Took one to know one. Finn Grant would incline in Erland Bannister’s direction the way water ran downhill.

  She made an effort and smiled at the half dozen men sitting at the table she was currently tending. To a man, in a group fight-or-flight reaction they shoved their chairs back, so as to get the table out of the way if either became necessary. One of them even bolted to his feet.

  Her rage did not cloud her powers of observation so that she didn’t notice the sideways looks, the elbow nudges, the flurry of attempts to chat her up, at least until they saw her smile. If Gabe McGuire was interested in Kate Saracoff, she must really be something. Even Bill said invitingly, “You and Gabe seemed to be having an interesting conversation.”

  “He thought so,” Kate said, and moved off.

  Bill called for last drinks at eleven thirty and closed the bar promptly at midnight. “I got this,” Kate said.

  “Good,” Bill said, “since it’s your job.”

  Kate gave her a grin that was almost real. “Go home.”

  Bill thanked her and she and Moses left.

  Kate washed down the tables and swept the floor, still on autopilot. Mutt plunked herself down next to the front door, indicating her willingness to head for the barn immediately, if not sooner. Kate wasn’t the only one who’d been up most of the last two nights. “At least Moses didn’t tie you into a pretzel for an hour and a half,” Kate told her. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t mind an early night myself.”

  She bagged the garbage and took it through the kitchen to the back door. She flipped the wall switch to turn on the light over the stairs but she didn’t see it come on through the window in the door. Crap. She opened the door, straining to see in the darkness, and felt her way down the stairs and over to the Dumpster. The door swung closed behind her.

  Maybe it was mention of Erland Bannister that had shaken her out of her usual caution, but really there was no excuse after the chest freezer incident for her not to be on her guard.

  They rushed her as she was lifting the lid of the Dumpster. There were two of them, and they hit her at the same time, knocking her chest-first hard into the edge of the Dumpster.

  All the breath was forced from her body in a single whoosh.

  “Can’t see a fucking thing!” she heard someone say from a great distance as she tried to breathe in and couldn’t. Her lungs, her chest felt paralyzed.

  “Have you got her?”

  “I think so!” They caught her hands and held them behind her. “Can you find her pockets? Check her pockets!” A hand groped her breast and somebody laughed, a high, thin giggle stretched to the edge of terror.

  Not professionals, someone thought somewhere in the deep recesses of an oxygen-depleted brain. Little white lights were sparking in front of her eyes. Her diaphragm would not extend no matter how hard she pushed at it. She heard a thud like a distant cannon going off, and then the sound of claws scrabbling on wood. She heard deep-throated, growling barks that promised much. She kicked out feebly, no strength behind it, because she couldn’t draw any air into her lungs.

  “Find her fucking pockets before that f
ucking dog of hers breaks out and rips us a fucking new one!”

  Hands forced their way into her pockets, one after the other. “It’s not here! Goddammit, I thought you said she had it!”

  “I saw her put it in her jeans at the library, goddammit!”

  “Shit! Did you check her watch pocket?”

  Both speakers were male. One seemed to be the boss and the other a whiner.

  Another ominous thud coincided with the definite sound of splintering wood.

  “It’s not on her, goddammit! What the fuck do we do now?”

  “Come on, help me!”

  “Oh, man, gross!”

  “If she’s in here, the dog won’t chase us! Help me, goddammit!”

  Hands grabbed her shoulders and her feet. She swung back and then forward and the hands let go at the end of the forward arc and she sailed through the air and gravity kicked in and she landed in the Dumpster with a disgusting, squashy-sounding splat.

  The lid slammed down on top of her. Footsteps, running very fast. The distant sound of an engine starting and moving away in first gear with the gas pedal all the way down.

  Kate wasn’t in any shape to pay attention. She landed hard, which jolted her diaphragm out of its stasis. She inhaled, an enormous gulp of air, feeding her starved alveoli.

  That was good.

  But along with the air came the smell of three days’-worth of garbage, the remnants of burgers and fries and shakes and uneaten maraschino cherries, everything out of the bar, kitchen and bathroom garbage cans, paper towels and used Kleenex, not mention used condoms from assignations consummated in the parking lot, all of it sitting there beneath her, fermenting.

  She sucked it all in, for the moment just grateful to be breathing again.

  Twenty-two

  JANUARY 21

  Newenham

  The lid flew back. “Climbing out of there any time soon?” an irascible voice said. “Or were you thinking of spending the night?”

  For a split second she thought she was hearing the voice of Old Sam.

  “Gimmee.”

  She focused and saw a hand stretched out to her in the darkness. Mustering up the initiative from somewhere she grasped it. It pulled her over on her front and began a steady tug, sliding her through and over wine boxes, squashed beer cans, slimy lettuce leaves, and rotting tomato tops until she could reach the side of the Dumpster with her other hand. Between the two of them they got her out and on the ground.

  “You’re lucky they didn’t toss you into the bottle bin,” Moses said beside her.

  There was another ominous thud and even more ominous crunching sound from the back door of the bar, accompanied by a continuous growling, slavering, threatening howl that Kate realized hadn’t stopped since she’d gone in the Dumpster.

  “Tell that dog of yours to cease and desist before the Newenham magistrate has her up on charges,” Moses said.

  Kate took another, cleaner breath of air and call up the requisite energy. “Mutt! It’s okay! I’m all right!”

  The howling stopped but there was another thud against the door, and even in the darkness Kate thought she saw it sag slightly in defeat. She grabbed the railing and hauled herself up the steps. It wasn’t fully functional after Mutt’s battering, but she pulled and swore at it and finally got it open. “I’m okay, girl, stand down.”

  Mutt, crouched to go airborne, poised in mid-launch. Her lips pulled back from her teeth, she went up on tiptoe and in reverse in the same movement, and the sound she made then would have been indistinguishable from “Eeeeeeyeeeeeew!” in any other language.

  “Nice,” Kate said, “thanks, I appreciate your sympathy and support.” She turned around to see Moses still on the bottom step. “What?”

  “You planning on standing out here all night?” he said.

  “I’m locking up, going home, and taking a shower,” she said shortly. “Do you know who those two guys were?”

  “Too dark to get a good look at them,” he said.

  “Not what I asked,” she said.

  “You’re welcome, by the way,” he said.

  She stopped the futile attempt at brushing herself off and glared. “I hear tell you’re supposed to be some kind of soothsayer. You couldn’t have gotten here five minutes earlier? Maybe your crystal ball broke down?”

  “For people in real danger, maybe,” he said. “For you, no.”

  She watched him vanish around the corner of the building, and thanked whatever powers there were that he hadn’t decided it was a good time to do form.

  Whatever the hell that was.

  Mutt politely declined the invitation to hop on back of the ATV, instead loping beside Kate all the way back to the apartment over the garage. The mood Kate was in, it was a good thing it was empty.

  * * *

  The next morning her cell phone rang way too early. She groped for it with her eyes closed. “Make it good,” she said.

  “Don’t start with me,” Jim said, “I’m not even of this world yet.”

  She woke up. “Hey.”

  “Hey, your own damn self. Seen the inside of any chest freezers lately?”

  From fast asleep on the braided rug Mutt woke and came all upstanding at the sound of her love god’s voice. She padded over and nosed the cell phone. Kate shoved her aside. “Get your own guy.” To Jim she said, “Dumpsters okay with you?”

  A brief silence. “I don’t even want to know, do I.”

  “You really don’t. But I had a shower. I’m all, you know, cleaned and pressed. Wanna have phone sex?”

  “Sure,” he said automatically, because he was a man and any question with the word sex in it automatically elicited an answer in the affirmative. “Wait,” he said, “what?”

  She laughed, a husky, intimate sound. “You awake now?”

  He cleared his throat. She imagined him shifting to ease the fit of his pants, and smiled to herself. “So, what were you doing in the Dumpster?”

  “Coward,” she said softly.

  “The kid’s right here,” he said, or maybe he hissed.

  She laughed again.

  “Dumpster,” he said. “I’m assuming you didn’t climb in of your own free will.” He paused. “Unless you did.”

  “I didn’t,” she said, laughter failing, and ran a hand through her hair to make sure no bits of eggshell lingered there. Wouldn’t hurt to shower again this morning, just to be sure. “Much as it humiliates me to admit it, I got thrown in.”

  “Where was Mutt?”

  “On the other side of the door.”

  “That’s never stopped her before.”

  “Wouldn’t have stopped her this time if they hadn’t run off and I got out in time to calm her down. As it is, I think I have to pay for a new one.”

  “Who did it? Or maybe that question should be, why?” There was the sound of another voice, and she heard Jim say, “Somebody threw your esteemed guardian into a Dumpster.”

  “Really?” she heard Johnny say. “Did anybody get pictures?”

  “So?” Jim said into the phone. “Whodunnit?”

  I saw her put it in her jeans at the library.

  “I’ve got it down to around ten or so,” she said.

  “Oh,” he said. “Well, at least you’re narrowing the field. What the hell’s going on down there, anyway?”

  “If anything,” she said, stretching, “Campbell grossly underestimated the amount of enemies his vic had. And get this.”

  “What?”

  She shoved the covers aside and sat up. Mutt leaned against her bare legs and yearned toward the phone. “Erland Bannister is connected to Finn Grant somehow.”

  There was a long and, Kate sensed, somehow fraught silence. “How?” Jim said eventually.

  “I don’t know, exactly,” Kate said. “He, ah, made an introduction to someone I met down here.”

  “Someone involved with the case?”

  “Sort of, although not really.”

  “Thanks for clearing th
at up.” Another odd silence.

  “What?” Kate said.

  “It’ll keep till you get back,” he said. “What next?”

  She looked out the window. Dawn was drawing a thin light on the horizon. “I think I’m going to hitch a ride,” she said. Before he could ask what she meant, she said, “What’s going on at home?”

  A momentary silence, to let her know he noticed she had changed the subject. “A lot of the usual, a couple of the not so usual.”

  “Such as?”

  “Don’t clutch, everyone’s alive,” he said, “but Frank Echuck got his hands on his dad’s three-fifty-seven, and he shot his brother David with it.” Hearing the intake of Kate’s breath, he said more loudly this time, “Remember, everyone’s alive. David got off with a grazed forearm. Pretty big graze, and his ears are still ringing, but a lot better than it could have been.”

  “Don’t tell me Nick just left that cannon sitting around loaded!”

  “Okay, I won’t,” Jim said, “but he did. He told the kids never to touch any of his firearms unless he, Nick, was present. That might work when the kids are younger, but once they hit their teens, it’s all about pushing the limits. Like I said, David was mostly scared, and the boys at the clinic patched him up. In the meantime, I’m not sure Frank’s ever going to be able to sit down again. I might have stepped in, were I a better person, but let the punishment fit the crime and all that.”

  Kate waited for her heart to slow down. “Nick needs a gun safe,” she said.

  Jim snorted. “Oh hell, Kate, you know better than that. Nobody outside of Anchorage owns a gun safe. A gun rack over the door is the best we can hope for, maybe, and I told Nick so. By the time I left, he’d stopped whaling on the kid and was getting out his tools.” A pause. “I told him he could start locking up his liquor, too.”

  “They’d got into his booze?”

  She could almost hear his shrug. “They’re fourteen, their mother split, when they’re not at school they’re home alone.”

  “This is happening too damn often,” Kate said.

  “Over the entire state,” Jim said. “I’m just glad this time I didn’t need a body bag. Listen, Kate…”