“Liar!”
“You begged me!”
“I did not!”
“You know what?” he said, suddenly, dangerously calm. “All right, fine, I took advantage. I mean what the hell, there I was, there you were, we even had a bed. It was great. I loved every minute of it. Especially right there at the end, when you called me Jack.”
He dropped the box he was holding, to what sounded like the total disintegration of whatever was inside. “It’s midnight, my shift’s over, I am out of here.”
He stalked outside and was halfway to town before he realized that he’d even started walking in that direction. All he knew was he needed to get as far away as possible from the infuriating woman in the hangar. His legs ate up the ground at a furious rate, while he called Kate every name in the book and himself seventeen different kinds of a fool.
There were flashes in the distance that caught the corner of his eye, and he looked up to see fireworks. He remembered then that it was the morning of the Fourth of July.
Last year on the Fourth he’d been in Aleganik Bay, working a murder. And working it with Kate Shugak.
George had flown him out to Kate’s aunties’ fish camp, and they had caught Kate and Jack going at it on the shore of the creek. It was evident that they’d been playing grabass all the way to the airstrip, too; Kate had had her T-shirt half out of her jeans and Jack had had that look, the one men get when they are this close to getting some, eager, edgy, annoyed at the interruption and in a hurry to get back to it. He, Jim Chopin, had been irritated with Jack Morgan that evening. He, Jim Chopin, had wanted Jack Morgan on the other side of the earth.
He, Jim Chopin, had been jealous.
He stopped dead in the middle of the road. “What?” he demanded out loud of no one in particular. “Who said that?”
Nobody answered. He started walking again. “Jealous, my royal blue ass. She’s just another woman, she held out longer than most, so what. I’ve had her now, time to move on.”
He tried not to think about what would have happened if Bobby Clark had heard him say that. Or George Perry. Or Chick Noyukpuk. Or Bernie, or Old Sam, or Demetri.
Or Jack Morgan. He, Jim Chopin, would have been on his royal blue ass if Jack Morgan had been within a ten-foot radius during the last five minutes.
Try the last three hours.
Jim refused utterly to acknowledge any shame and moved on briskly.
On the outskirts of town a white Suburban pulled up next to him, and he looked up to see the insignia of his own service on the door. The trooper behind the wheel said, “Jim Chopin?”
“Sorry, wrong guy, I’m Jim Churchill,” he said, wary.
She raised an eyebrow. “First Sergeant Jim Chopin?”
“I guess so,” he said, yielding.
“We need to talk.” She leaned over and opened the passenger door. “Get in.”
“I take it somebody told you who I am.”
“You take it right. How’s your head?”
“Lousy.”
“Remember anything yet?”
“No.”
“I saw you in the cafe yesterday evening. You should have joined me.”
“I didn’t know we weren’t playing Superman and Clark Kent anymore. How is your homicide investigation going?” He caught her look. “One of the guys you were talking to came into the cafe afterward and told us.”
“Yeah. Well.” The knowledge that she was talking to a fellow officer made her relax her guard. “We sent the body to Anchorage today for autopsy. That’ll tell us whether she died of the beating or drowned. It looked like her neck was broken.”
“Who was the last person to see her alive?”
“She was a teller, worked at the local bank. One of the other tellers said they were walking by and saw her inside yesterday at four in the afternoon.”
“On a Sunday?”
“She told her mother she was behind and that she was going in to work some overtime.”
And Kate had had dinner with her Saturday night.
“That’s not unusual,” Zarr said, misreading his silence. “It gets crazy around here in the summertime. Everybody gets in a lot of overtime.”
Jim looked at his watch. “Including you.”
She smiled. “Including me.”
Carroll and Casanare were waiting for them at the trooper post. “Ah,” Jim said, “Boris and Natasha, what a surprise to see you again. Especially since you’re both in Anchorage, reaching out to informers, gathering information. Amassing evidence. Building a case.”
Carroll didn’t waste time. “What the hell were you doing on that boat?”
“What was I doing on what boat?”
“On the Russian boat, the Kosygin,” Casanare said.
“I didn’t know I was on it,” Jim said. Carroll’s face darkened and he held up a hand. “Wait a minute, okay? I’m not trying to weasel out of anything. Let me think, just for a minute.”
His head was aching and he put up a hand to touch the gauze taped to his skull. The crust of the wound was hard beneath his fingertips. He’d have to soak it off in the shower. “Look, the doc told me I might experience some short-term memory loss. I expect she told you the same thing.”
“Yes, she did,” Casanare said with a warning glance at Carroll.
“So I don’t know where the hell I was just before I was out.”
“You remember who we are?”
“Yes,” Jim said, feeling very tired all at once, “I remember who you are. I thought I made that clear.”
“You remember what we’re all doing here?”
“Yes.” He held up his hand again. “Let me speed things up by telling you what I do remember. I remember hitching a ride into town after my shift was over with a fisherman named Mike Mason. I remember having coffee and doughnuts on the dock with the beach gang—”he looked up“—and I remember seeing you, Mr. Casanare, working the hoist, and you, Ms. Carroll, waltzing around in raingear like you had some fish to count. I also remember wondering why Gamble told me you’d be working background in Anchorage when you were so obviously all present and accounted for in Bering.” He paused expectantly.
Carroll and Casanare exchanged another glance. The trooper straightened a piece of paper on top of her desk with great care and precision.
“Do you remember anything after that?” Casanare said. “After you saw us on the dock?”
“No,” Jim said. “Have I mentioned how appreciative I am of the way you people share information? And you whimper when local law enforcement doesn’t roll out the red carpet when you show up.”
“What about the woman?”
“What woman?” he said, although he knew perfectly well what woman.
“The woman who visited you in the hospital. The woman working at Baird Air.”
“Kathy Sovalik,” Casanare added.
“That woman,” Carroll said.
“What about her?”
“You know her.”
Jim had his antenna up and in full working order. “Like you said,” he said, shrugging, putting as much nonchalance into it as a nearly fatal head wound would permit. “I work with her. I didn’t show up to relieve her. Baird probably sent her looking.”
“She went on board the Kosygin.”
“She did what!” His head gave a vicious throb. “Ah, shit. Do you have any aspirin?” he asked Zarr.
Without speaking, Zarr reached into a drawer and pulled out a year’s supply of Bayer. There was a small refrigerator behind the desk, from which she produced a bottle of Evian. He accepted both gratefully and followed four aspirin with a long, continuous swallow that drained the bottle dry. “When did she go on board?” he said, looking around for a trash can. Zarr took the bottle.
“Saturday afternoon,” Carroll said. “The day after you went on board. While you were in the hospital.”
Jim closed his eyes and tried to think. “She said something tonight. Something about me speaking Russian to her in the hospital?”
“You said good-bye and thanks,” Casanare said. “Dasvidanya and spasibo.”
“That was it?”
“Yes.”
“That would be enough to send her on board a Russian fish processor?” Carroll said, disbelief clear in her voice. “A Russian fish processor harboring international fugitives?”
“I don’t know what the hell she would or wouldn’t do,” Jim said shortly. “Or why.” He was trying to figure out if it would be better to say who Kate really was and thereby clear her of all suspicion, or to go along with her cover and try to bury her in the background.
“I ran her through the computer,” Zarr said.
Oh shit, Jim thought.
“She came to work for Baird through Job Service. She gave them a phony social security number and a phony driver’s license number.”
“Okay,” Jim said, his hand forced. He didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. “Her real name is Kate Shugak.”
The trooper drew in a sharp breath. “Is she the one—”
“Yeah. Yeah, she’s the one.”
“She’s the one Gamble wanted you to find,” Casanare said.
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” Carroll said, folding her arms, “how convenient is it that she shows up right where and when we need her?”
Jim stood up, ignored his head, looked Carroll straight in the eye and said firmly, “I know her. She’s a part-time independent investigator who worked five years for the Anchorage district attorney. I’ve worked cases with her. She has a reputation, a good one, that is very well deserved. She’s not here working for anybody except herself.”
“How do you know that? When was the last time you saw her?”
An image of the woman holding the dead man in her arms flashed through his mind, followed immediately by a picture of her lying beneath him, moving with him, coming with him. He pulled himself together. “I know her,” he repeated.
“Maybe you don’t,” Zarr said. She met his eyes without flinching and said to Casanare and Carroll, “Shugak got into a situation last fall.” She told them, keeping it brief. “You don’t know how a thing like that affects someone,” she said, as much to Jim as to the two agents. “Even someone you know real well.”
“I know her,” Jim said forcefully. “She is not mixed up in this.”
“Yeah,” Carroll said, clearly unconvinced.
“The Russians are shipping stuff out on Baird Air,” Casanare said. “And I noticed she was wearing one of those Russian watches.”
“So is Baird,” Jim said. “So are all of Baird’s pilots. It’s grease, is all.” He went on the attack. “Where did you find me?”
They exchanged a glance. “Like we said. Dumped in somebody’s yard.”
“Were you looking for me?”
“I saw you go on board the Kosygin that morning,” Casanare said, and shook his head. “Man, I don’t know what you were thinking.”
“Me, either, considering the guy you told me to find is dead.” He nodded at Zarr. “You tell them?” She nodded. “Tell me this: How long has the Kosygin been in port?”
“Three days.”
“And Burianovich came in on her?”
Zarr looked at the two federal agents, decided she could converse with a member of her own service if she so chose, and nodded.
To the agents Jim said, “I’m guessing the two guys you were talking about in Tok, the general and—”
“Yes,” Casanare said.
“—they flew in about the same time?”
“Yes.”
“And suddenly Burianovich, Russian Mafia highflyer, is dead, in an unexplained accident. Implying a change of command, not a, shall we say, amicable one.”
Casanare and Carroll looked at him without expression.
“They can’t stay tied up here forever,” Jim said. “If that circum—seercon—whatever the hell you call that stuff is on board, they’re going to have to offload it and ship it out.”
“And Baird Air is the likeliest route,” Carroll said, “since Zarr here says the crew has been using them since they first docked with a load of fish in June.”
“What have they been shipping up to now?” Jim asked Zarr.
“Fish and trinkets, mostly. Fish because the Kosygin is affiliated with the local IFQ. It’s a program,” she explained in an aside to the agents, “designed to get Bering Sea fish delivered to villages so they can skim off some of the profit. The trinkets are mostly stuff for the gift shops on Fourth Avenue in Anchorage. Nesting dolls, amber jewelry, icons. Stuff like that.”
“You check it all?”
“Customs has someone fly in from Anchorage on a random basis to check cargoes. I monitor the process when they do. Otherwise I don’t get involved.” Zarr added, “They have an import permit.”
“Really?” Jim raised an eyebrow at Carroll and Casanare. “Boris and Natasha didn’t tell me that. How convenient.” He paused, thinking, and said slowly, “Now, I wonder who signed off on that permit? Do we know?”
He waited. No information appeared forthcoming. “I see that we do. What else is going on that you’re not telling me?”
Nothing. “Okay, fine. You’re thinking they’ve got the stuff on board, that they’ve been shipping junk up till now as practice. Why don’t they move it?” He thought. “Because they’re waiting for payment, of course. And it’s such a hell of a big deal that the boss man showed up to handle the transaction in person. And Burianovich didn’t like it, protested and was removed from office, so to speak. That about it?”
Casanare looked at Carroll and shrugged. “That’s about it,” he agreed.
“You’ve got a witness,” Jim said. “What the hell are you waiting for? Get your warrant and go on board.”
“We want them all,” Carroll said softly, echoing Gamble’s words the week before. “We want the sellers, and we want the goods, yes, but we want the buyers, too.”
“Who are the buyers?”
“Well, that’s the problem,” Casanare said after a moment. “We mostly don’t have a clue about who the buyers are. We’ve got some ideas, but until they show their hands…” He spread his own and shrugged.
“You’re risking a lot to find out,” Jim observed. “Why not just grab up your guy and sweat him? Offer him witness protection or something.”
Carroll’s laugh was short and unamused. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re right,” Jim said, “I don’t, and whose fault would that be?”
The agents left. “I can’t believe I’ve had Kate Shugak in my own backyard for four months and not even known it,” Zarr said.
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t want to get noticed, she isn’t.”
Zarr stood up. “I’m knocking off for the night. Would you like a drink?”
She was an attractive woman, a nice smile, friendly eyes, made chunkier than she really was by her uniform. “I thought Bering was a dry town.”
“Damp. I can have it in my home, I just can’t buy it or sell it. At least that’s what it is today. Who knows after the next election. So?”
Well, why the hell not? He deliberately forced himself to relax into a smile, and saw the usual and expected response on Zarr’s face. “Sure,” he said. “I’d love a drink.”
Zarr smoothed back her hair, tucking a strand behind an ear. “Great.” She paused at the door to look up at him, as she was about eight inches shorter than he was. “Play your cards right, I might even cook.”
He grinned, the old, practiced grin full of lazy, seductive charm. “You play your cards right, I might even eat.” He ran his eyes over her. “All of a sudden, I am hungry enough to eat a moose, whole.”
She laughed, and he followed her out the door.
10
Are these
Your Levi’s or mine
Lying wrinkled on the floor?
—Marked Man
Jim came in precisely at noon, surly and uncommunicative. Kate managed to hand over ground o
perations without once meeting his eyes. She showered and changed, sat for a moment to gather strength, and headed for the Chevak house, Mutt padding next to her.
The first person she saw was Stephanie, the last person she wanted to see. She approached the porch with a step that slowed in spite of herself. “Stephanie.”
The girl looked up from the model plane she was holding, a red Super Cub, beautifully made, correct in every detail. Her knuckles were white where they clutched the fuselage. Kate sat down next to her, Mutt on her other side. “I’m so sorry, Stephanie.”
Silence. Mutt leaned up against the girl. Stephanie released her grip on the Cub to slip an arm around Mutt’s neck. Mutt gave a soft whine and licked the girl’s cheek. Stephanie buried her face in Mutt’s ruff.
A woman came up the steps. “Hi, Stephanie.”
“Hello, Mrs. Jenkins.”
“I’m so sorry about your mother.”
“Thank you.”
“I brought you some banana bread, would you like a slice?”
“No, thank you.” The little voice was thin but firm.
The woman hesitated, casting Kate a curious glance. “Oh. Well, I’ll just go inside then, pay my respects to your grandmother and Ray.”
“Okay.”
Kate waited until the door closed behind her. “Your mom and I went to school together. I don’t know if you heard us talking about that when I came to dinner the other night. At the University of Alaska. In Fairbanks.”
Stephanie didn’t move, didn’t speak, kept her eyes trained on the airplane in her arms.
“She was the nicest person, one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. I—I was really scared in school, at first, and really lonely. Your mother helped me my first year, a lot. She helped me get my books at the bookstore, and showed me where all my classrooms were. She went to meals with me so I didn’t have to walk into that big dining room all alone. Sometimes she would make me go with her to a movie. Whenever she had a party in her room, she always invited me, too.”
The girl swallowed, and the guilt threatened to swamp Kate the way the tears had the night before. “She was one of the best people I’ve ever met. I’m really glad she was my friend.”
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