“Into the YT,” he said.
She nodded.
“So you took them up there and turned them loose.”
She nodded again.
“Interesting,” he said, “when I’m pretty sure you know Ryan Christianson murdered Rick Estes.”
“I don’t know that,” she said, her voice steady.
“I flew down to Alaganik this afternoon,” he said. “Ryan’s friends were there, but Ryan wasn’t with them. And his parents are worried. I thought it was because Ryan might have killed Tyler, or Rick, or both of them. I already know Tyler and Boris killed Mitch. And now you’re telling me Ryan ran off with Jennifer? Kuskulana’s heir apparent absconded with Kushtaka’s darling?” He laughed. He didn’t sound even remotely amused. “Oh, that’s great, that’s just, that’s … Jesus. I’ll definitely be wearing Kevlar the next time I fly down to Kuskulana.”
“No,” she said, “listen. Anne Flanagan married them secretly four days ago. Jennifer snuck out of her house that night and met Ryan on the river. Rick Estes saw her and followed her there. They told me he just appeared out of the brush, seconds after she met Ryan. He tried to stop her going with Ryan—no, Jim, he actually laid hands on her. Ryan tried to stop him, and they started fighting. Rick had time and pounds on Ryan and he might have won, if…”
“If?”
“If Jennifer hadn’t hit him from behind.”
“What with?”
“She said one of the oars out of Ryan’s skiff.”
“Which is now where?”
“In Potlatch.” She thought she wouldn’t mention the fact that the skiff and all its contents would have been sunk in the river by now. “They knew they couldn’t get much farther without being seen by some relative or other, so they stopped at Potlatch and got Scott Ukatish to call Anne Flanagan in Cordova. He’s got a small strip. She picked them up and brought them to me in Niniltna.” She paused. “For what it’s worth, I believed them when they said it was an accident. Jennifer says that Rick had a crush on her and that her father wanted her to marry him. It sounds like he thought he had the right to stop her.”
“You’d better hope the autopsy bears them out,” he said.
She did, most fervently.
He hadn’t changed out of his uniform, and with his hands on his belt he looked like a recruiting poster for the Alaska Department of Public Safety. Badass trooper about to clean house.
“You’re not as surprised at any of this as I thought you’d be,” she said.
“I went back out to Kuskulana and Kushtaka,” he said. “I talked to the Christiansons, and then I went over the river and talked to the Macks.”
“They tell you anything?”
“No, but before I went, I found Boris Balluta. He told me his side of it. Pretty much like we’d thought, Tyler figured he’d start his own bootlegging business on the Halvorsen’s stock. Boris was his partner. Mitch caught them at it, and from what Boris says, killed himself staggering around in the dark trying to beat on Tyler and Boris. They nailed the hatch down—you saw the toolbox—and ran for it. Boris, naturally, says it’s all Tyler’s fault.”
“Fortuitous, since Tyler’s too dead to contradict him.”
“Two months later, Kenny Halvorsen notices Mitch isn’t fishing. He comes home to find the hatch nailed shut. He pulls it up and finds Mitch, but he can’t call the cops until he gets all the contraband out of the crawl space.”
“And Boris— “Kate said.
“And poor Boris is petrified that both villages are going to come after him.”
“He’s not wrong,” Kate said.
“No,” Jim said. “I can’t believe he was still in the Park when I found him.”
“Ryan…” Kate said.
Jim’s head came up. “Ryan what?”
“Ryan says Roger found Mitch first.”
“Oh hell no,” Jim said.
She spread her hands. “Don’t shoot the messenger. Ryan says Roger nailed the hatch back down while the council figured out what to do with the contraband before calling you. Before they could, Kenny came home and found Mitch.”
They frowned at each other. “Which one’s telling the truth?” Jim said.
“Who has more to lose?” she said. “So far as anyone knows except you and me and Anne Flanagan, Ryan Christianson is dead, and he knew that when he told me his story. Roger Christianson, on the other hand, is very much alive and well and still living in the Park. Plus Kenny is only a low-rent Kuskulaner at that. If anyone gets thrown to the wolves, it’ll be him.”
Jim nodded. “I’ve been looking for Kenny. I haven’t found him yet. I banged on every door in Kuskulana on my way home, but no one admits to seeing hide nor hair of him, although one or two of them were willing to swear that he’d moved Outside.”
“When?”
“Oh, they weren’t sure, but last week some time, they thought.”
“Was this before or after they swore on their mothers that he’d been in their sight every minute of the day Tyler Mack was murdered?”
“The very same, or close enough as to make no never mind. Not like any of them would have a different story.” The stern lines of his face eased a trifle, and he looked less angry than tired. “Oh, and Auntie Nan hitched a ride with me to Niniltna.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Not a goddamn thing. Although I don’t think she’s as dumb as she pretends to be.”
“Anne Flanagan says it was Auntie Nan who made the wedding possible. She pulled Anne out of Tyler’s services and took her to the two kids.”
“Definitely not as dumb as she pretends to be,.”
“Never underestimate an auntie,” Kate said.
“You know, Kate,” Jim said, shoving his cap back on his head, “I used to be a pretty good law enforcement officer. I could serve and protect with the best of them.” A surge of rage flooded up over his face. “If fucking people would just fucking let me!”
“Where is Auntie Nan now?”
The rage ebbed. “With Auntie Edna, who if I understood correctly is by way of being a shirttail relative to everybody named Mack in Kushtaka.” He thought it over and added, “Better them than me.”
Kate almost smiled. “So,” she said. “We’ve got three deaths. Best guess is, two were accidental, one deliberate. You figure Kenny for Tyler?”
“Course I killed him,” a voice said, and they looked up to see Kenny Halvorsen emerge out of the trees, the business end of a .30-30 pointed their way.
Jim unsnapped his weapon and pulled it out. “Put the rifle down, Kenny,” he said.
Bolt action, Kate thought, looking at Kenny’s rifle. Take some time to get off more than one shot.
Next to her, Mutt went up on all fours, a menacing snarl ripping out of her throat that could have been heard in Niniltna.
“He killed my brother,” Kenny said, his face congested with rage. “What’d you expect me to do?”
“Drop it, Kenny,” Jim said. “Drop it. Now!”
“Like you said, Kenny,” Kate said in a steady voice, hands up and palms out, “I didn’t kill Mitch.”
“No,” he said bitterly, “but you killed Pete.”
“What?” Jim said.
Kenny ignored him. “What the hell else were we supposed to do to support ourselves? We’re the poor relations in Kuskulana. It was what we knew how to do. Pete came from Outside, and when Dad died he took over. He showed us how to move the booze. It was the only thing we knew, the only way we could put food on the table. And then you.” He looked at her with bottomless hatred. “Did you think we didn’t know? Did you think we’d never pay our debt? Pete’s dead. Now Mitch is dead, too. I’m the only one left. And what the fuck does it matter?”
From a standing start at Kate’s side, Mutt went airborne, launching herself at him with teeth bared.
He shot her, more in reaction than with malice aforethought.
Jim fired at the same moment.
Kate saw Kenny’s left shoulder j
erk back and red bloom below.
Mutt seemed to stop in midair, and then fell heavily to the ground.
Somebody screamed. After what seemed like forever, Kate realized it was her. She took a step forward, so slowly, as if she were waist-deep in one of the bogs they’d been caught in going up to Canyon Hot Springs, pushing her way through the water and mud toward Mutt, who seemed somehow to be receding into the distance.
Kenny’s rifle swung back toward her, and Kenny and Jim fired at the same moment a second time.
Kate felt as if she’d been punched hard in the chest. She looked down in surprise and saw a small dark hole, replaced by a rapidly spreading stain. The strength drained from her limbs as if someone had pulled a plug. She sat down hard on the seat of the four-wheeler.
Across the clearing, Kenny grunted and staggered back, nearly dropping his rifle, but not quite. The barrel began to rise again.
Behind her, Jim’s gun boomed a third time.
This time Kenny Halvorsen went down.
Kate blinked at him, her vision starting to blur.
A tiny songbird with a golden crest lit high up in the branches of a spruce tree, and sang a mournful three-note descant that echoed beyond the clearing, down the river, and off the peaks of the very Quilaks themselves.
Acknowledgments
Heartfelt thanks go to my editor, Kelley Ragland, whose comments made this a much better book. You would think that by now I wouldn’t need to be told to show, not tell. Yeah, you’d think that.
Thanks go to my friend Pati Crofut, whose travels around Alaska have provided me with so many great story ideas, including the entire plot for this novel.
My thanks to Der Plotmeister, who came through yet again with an all! new! and improved! method for murder. This guy really shouldn’t be allowed out without supervision.
And my thanks to Carl Marrs, for giving me a great, true line, without even knowing he was doing so. All writers are thieves, especially when you don’t know we’re robbing you.
Many of the minor crimes passingly referenced in my novels come straight from the trooper dispatch page on the Alaska Department of Public Safety Web site. It makes for very entertaining reading, although not as entertaining as Sergeant Jennifer Shockley’s Unalaska police blotter, which has also provided much grist for my crime fiction mill, not to mention Facebook posts.
A long time ago in an Alaskan village not that far away, I babysat for Darlene Kasheverof Crawford. Darlene had three kids and full-cast recordings of all of Shakespeare’s plays. I’d make Crystal, Kim, and Don go to bed early so I could listen to the plays. It is Darlene’s fault that the first place I went on my first trip to Europe was Stratford-upon-Avon, England, and saw there at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre my first Shakespearean production, Romeo and Juliet, starring Timothy Dalton as Romeo, no less.
I thought then and I think now that Romeo and Juliet is less about the lovers than it is about their families, and that their elopement could have been much better managed. Forgive me, Will.
ALSO BY DANA STABENOW
THE KATE SHUGAK SERIES
Restless in the Grave
Though Not Dead
A Night Too Dark
Whisper to the Blood
A Deeper Sleep
A Taint in the Blood
A Grave Denied
A Fine and Bitter Snow
The Singing of the Dead
Midnight Come AGain
Hunter’s Moon
Killing Ground
Breakup
Blood Will Tell
Play with Fire
A Cold-Blooded Business
Dead in the Water
A Fatal Thaw
A Cold Day for Murder
LIAM CAMPBELL SERIES
Better to Rest
Nothing Gold Can Stay
So Sure of Death
Fire and Ice
NOVELS AND ANTHOLOGIES
Prepared for Rage
Blindfold Game
Powers of Detection
Wild Crimes
Alaska Women Write
The Mysterious North
At the Scene of the Crime
Unusual Suspects
THE STAR SVENSDOTTER SERIES
Red Planet Sun
A Handful of Stars
Second Star
About the Author
DANA STABENOW, New York Times bestseller and Edgar Award winner, is the author of nineteen previous Kate Shugak novels, four Liam Campbell mysteries, three science-fiction novels, and two thrillers. She was born, raised, and lives in Alaska, where she was awarded the Governor’s Award for the Humanities. Visit her online at www.Stabenow.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
BAD BLOOD. Copyright © 2013 by Dana Stabenow. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.10010.
Jacket design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Jacket photograph by QT Luong/terragalleria.com
www.minotaurbooks.com
www.stmartins.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Stabenow, Dana.
Bad blood / Dana Stabenow.—First St. Martin’s Minotaur edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-312-55065-3 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-02239-4 (e-book)
1. Shugak, Kate (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women private investigators—Alaska—Fiction. 3. Revenge—Fiction. 4. Alaska—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.T1249B33 2013
813'.54—dc23
2012038380
eISBN 9781250022394
First Edition: February 2013
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Act I
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Act II
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Act III
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Act IV
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Act V
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Acknowledgments
Also by Dana Stabenow
About the Author
Copyright
Bad Blood Page 22