The Boy in the Snow

by M. J. McGrath

  Derek turned down a side street and brought the snowmobile to a halt beside the cramped house of his old friend Zach Barefoot, with its scrapheap yard of old and broken kit, killed the engine and clambered up the steps into the house. Inside, the place had the feeling of some kind of home-grown museum, which had long outgrown its premises, the happy result, so Zach said, of his wife Megan’s collecting habit. Everywhere there were shelves piled high with Inuit carvings, embroidery and bead and fur work. Elaborate Russian dolls and meticulously painted wooden carvings lined the lower shelves and stacks of books were piled on the floor.

  Zach was Inupiaq, originally out of Little Diomede in the Bering Strait. His wife had been born on Little Diomede’s sister island, Big Diomede, just three miles but a whole world away. Back then, in the eighties, Little Diomede was officially part of the United States and Big Diomede belonged to the Soviet Union. From the fifties on, the Americans and the Soviets had constructed vast, intimidating military checkpoints on their respective islands and stopped local people from each island visiting one another. For the next forty years Inupiaq people found themselves unwitting pawns in this Cold War game, with families separated or displaced. In the nineties, when the borders opened you got a lot of Inupiaq families getting back together, Zach said. It was a good time, even though, for many, it was also when they discovered that their loved ones had died during their forced separation and they would never see them again.

  Derek remembered Zach telling him that Inupiaq now came and went more or less freely but, after a brief flurry of interest over the border, qalunaat activity across the Bering Strait had tailed off. You got a few supply planes, some folk coming in for the Iditarod, one or two Russian scientific ships in the summer and that was more or less it.

  There was a message from Zach fixed to the refrigerator suggesting the two men meet at the Anchor Bar after Zach’s shift. The refrigerator itself was empty save for a block of what looked – and smelled – like seal fat. Derek fumbled around in the cupboards until he found a half-empty package of graham crackers. He made himself some sweet tea and sat down to a breakfast of crackers spread with chunks of fishy blubber.

  He passed the day exploring along the coastline on the snowbie, familiarizing himself with the contours of the land. Every so often he stopped and pictured Sammy and his fifteen-dog team racing north towards him. Once in a while he thought about Edie, too, and hoped that when she’d dealt with Bonehead, she would decide to come up to Nome, at least for a few days. It wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on her. Despite all the bravado, he sensed his friend still blamed herself for her stepson’s death and he didn’t quite trust her not to get involved in the investigation into the death of the little boy as part of some misplaced attempt to redeem herself.

  Later that evening, on his way by foot to the Anchor Bar (he intended to have a drink or two), he took a detour to the Glacier Inn to check on Sammy’s progress. The musher had passed the Skwentna checkpoint and looked like he was through the marshes and heading up into the Shell Hills on his way to Finger Lake. Feeling cheered by his friend’s progress, Derek trudged back along Front Street to the Anchor. A couple dozen raddled-looking qalunaat, faces beaten to red leather by Arctic winds, sat around a tatty, L-shaped bar. A few more perched at tables, hard-drinking and swapping shaggy dog stories. Of Zach there was no sign. He checked his watch. For the past fifteen years Zach had worked at D (North) Detachment as an Alaska Wildlife Trooper. His job was to police hunting and fishing permits and to assist the coastguard and he spent many of his days flying around his territory in his AWT PA-18 Super Cub. Most likely he’d been delayed out in the field. Derek wasn’t bothered. In his experience, northern people had a more flexible attitude to time than their southern brothers. He ordered himself a brew then sauntered over to the pool table, where Aileen Logan was pocketing balls against a qalunaat man with the tattoo of a skull on his neck. The Iditarod director was a fine player, confident and steady-handed, more than a match for her opponent. In the couple of days he’d been in Nome, Aileen had impressed him more than anyone. He stood eyeballing the game. After only a few minutes Aileen potted the final ball and high-fived the loser. Looking around, and winking to a couple of her fans, she spotted Derek.

  ‘How’s about a friendly?’ She flapped a hand at the pool table.

  He downed the remainder of his beer and stepped towards the table. Aileen was the kind of woman it was impossible to ignore. Up close, he saw that her face was laced with the spidery red web of a long-time drinker and wondered why he hadn’t noticed that before.

  Sometime after midnight, he made his excuses. He’d long since lost count of the number of drinks he’d consumed, but his unsteady gait and blurry thinking told him it had been several too many. The street outside was deserted. The icicle glockenspiels hanging from every roof and the squeal of the snow underfoot told their own story. The temperature had dropped dramatically since the early evening. It was proper cold, the kind of cold that always made him feel comforted even now, when he knew his senses were sufficiently blunted for temperatures like this to be dangerous. He tramped along the hard packed snow of the pavement. A low-lying frost smoke blurred the air directly in front of him, but the sky was brilliant dark, perforated with stars. For a while he just watched, his breath buffeting against the fur of his parka, then he set off up Front Street towards Zach Barefoot’s house.

  At the far side of the Tundra Inn, two men passed him, clasping on to someone smaller who stumbled along between them. He could just see the faces of the two men, one long-nosed and thick-jawed, like a moose, the other handsome and electric-blue-eyed. The smaller figure between them was hidden by their bodies. The two men were talking in low tones, the outline of their shapes unearthly in the frost smoke. He volunteered a greeting and, when no reply came, realized they weren’t speaking English. The strange, buzzing cadences of the language suggested Russian, a language he had some grasp of, having for a couple of years had a Russian girlfriend, but they were speaking too quickly for him to be able to follow what they were saying. At Zach’s street he stopped and hesitated. The Russians were no long visible, but he could hear three sets of footsteps, two heavy, the last lighter, in the snow. It was then he thought he heard whimpering.

  The passers-by turned down a short side street. His curiosity aroused, Derek followed. As he reached the corner of the street, he saw all three figures illuminated in the thin, fluorescent sign for a run-down-looking boarding house, the Chukchi Motel. As the party headed up the steps towards the entrance, he could see that the small figure between the men was a young woman or, more likely, a girl. Moose-nose rang a bell. For an instant, it seemed that the girl knew he was watching her, then she was propelled inside and the door closed.

  He waited at the corner for a few moments, then followed in the tracks of the passers-by until he reached the steps up to the motel. At the top, he rang the bell and waited. No response. He repeated the process but, again, nothing. A swooshing sound alerted him to a top floor window, where a blind quivered slightly in an unlit room, as though it had been opened then just as suddenly closed. The motel sign buzzed then clicked off. Derek stood watching the motel door in complete darkness until he began to feel the hairs in his nostrils freeze, then, deciding he was drunk and not functioning properly, he clambered down the stairs and made his way back to Zach’s house.

  There was a message waiting from him from Zach, apologizing for his no-show. There had been an illegal hunting incident he’d had to see through. He’d got back at 11 p.m. and gone to bed. Edie had been left a message on the answering machine, but she didn’t seem to have anything particular to say. In the tiny spare room, Derek undressed and pulled on his pajamas. An image of the girl at the motel came to him suddenly and with force, as though it had been travelling at speed from some obscure corner of his mind. Going out into the kitchen and making some tea to clear his head, he tried to get his head to focus sufficiently to formulate a plan to go back to the motel. There had been
something wrong about the scene. He knew it and in his inebriated state he’d tried to ignore it. There were many possible interpretations. The girl had been drunk, she’d had a row with her parents or she’d got herself into some trouble with a boy and her family were extricating her from the source of her woes. But he knew now that his conscience wouldn’t allow him to sleep unless he went and satisfied himself that she was OK. He considered waking Zach then, thinking better of it, pulled on his outerwear and went back out into the night.

  The wind had blown spindrift from the sea onto the street and the only footprints on the pavement were those of a raven and a dog. At the side street where the Russians had disappeared into the frost smoke, he stopped. The motel sign was flickering. Reaching the steps he walked up to the front door. A man with the face of an elderly walrus answered the bell and squinted at him.

  ‘I’m looking for a skinny girl, fifteenish, pale-brown hair? She’s with two men.’ He checked himself. No point in coming over confrontational. ‘Personal matter.’

  The elderly walrus sucked his teeth and looked away, but Derek persisted, asking if the man would mind him checking around.

  ‘Yes, since you’re asking. It’s late. You want a room that’s a different thing, but we don’t got any right now, so scoot.’

  For a moment Derek stood his ground but his head told him that he was in no state to kick up a fuss. Without another word he turned and made his way back to Zach Barefoot’s house. A light was on. Through the window he could see Zach in the kitchen fixing some coffee.

  ‘I heard the door, but by the time I got up, you’d already gone. Where did you get to in the middle of the night?’

  Derek told him what he’d seen.

  ‘Probably nothing,’ Zach said, pushing a mug of coffee towards him. ‘I know the elder you spoke to. Name’s Jimmy Aqtok. He’s worked at that motel two or three years now. He’s OK. If anything was going on, Megan or I would have heard about it.’

  Derek nodded, nothing to add. The last thing he remembered was hitting the soft bulk of the mattress. Then the world disappeared and he was asleep.

  7

  Edie Kiglatuk popped five quarters into the newspaper bin, pulled out the morning Courier, swung into the Snowy Owl Café and passed by the sign reading ‘Please Wait for Someone to Seat You’.

  Stacey came over to her table. ‘Hey there, Edie, how you doin’?’

  Stacey opened her pad and made a show of being deep in thought. Despite all the black gear and piercings, she looked perky and bright. ‘We got no reindeer chilli today. So what I’m thinking is one order of pancakes and reindeer sausage, hold the pancakes, a double side of crispy bacon and two cheeseburgers, with no buns, cheese or pickles. Am I right?’

  ‘You missed out hot tea.’

  While she waited, Edie turned to the newspaper. It was day three of the Iditarod and the front page was still dominated by race news. She thought of Sammy deep in the narrow mountain passes of the Arctic range with nothing but his sled and fifteen dogs, and felt a surge of affection and pride.

  Stacey came over with the tea. She thanked her, added six teaspoons of sugar to the mug and flipped through the remainder of the paper. No mention of TaniaLee or Lucas Littlefish. Things moved so fast in the city. She wondered if the girl and her baby would have received the same treatment if they’d been qalunaat. She wished then that she could speak with the mother of the boy, find out more about her, but it was clear that she wasn’t going to get anymore about the young woman’s whereabouts from Detective Truro.

  From the corner of her eye, she could see Stacey coming towards her with a hot plate piled with meat.

  ‘You OK?’

  Edie raised a hand to her cheek, brushed off the wetness there and nodded but Stacey still hovered, wearing a worried look.

  ‘I was thinking about that little boy, the one who was found dead in the woods.’ She tailed off, aware, suddenly, that by even raising the topic she was putting herself at risk.

  The last couple of days had given Edie the sense that the fewer people who were able to connect her to the death the better. She still hadn’t got to the bottom of the young pregnant woman who seemed to have been waiting for her outside the cinema except in so far as she was pretty sure the girl was an Old Believer. What she’d wanted Edie still didn’t know but she guessed that it was something to do with what she’d seen on that morning in the forest. Yet there was something about Stacey that made her feel she was on safe ground.

  ‘I cross-country ski up that way sometimes. It could have been me who found him.’ Clearly she’d heard the news without making the connection to Edie. ‘God, what a thought. Can you imagine?’

  Stacey went on, ‘I think I saw that girl downtown a few times too, the mother.’ She leaned in and added, ‘They got some foreign girls down there, working girls, looked like she was with ’em, you know what I mean.’ She let this lie for a moment. ‘This town’s a hard place for women, Edie. You have to be able to look after yourself. You see that girl’s picture in the paper today?’

  Stacey tucked her order pad into her pocket and turned to a page near the sports section at the back. There was a tiny image of TaniaLee Littlefish wrapped around some text, easy to miss. The piece named her as the mother of the dead baby and noted that the body had been found on Old Believer land. She looked defiant, tough, Edie thought, but the uncertain curve of her mouth betrayed the vulnerability of her age.

  ‘She’s young enough it breaks your heart,’ Stacey said. A group of women had come in and were settling themselves at the table next door.

  Winking and drawing a finger across her lips, Stacey whispered: ‘APD administrators.’ Some unspoken confidence passed between the two women, then Stacey wheeled around to a group on a far table and Edie heard the perky voice asking if she could bring coffee.

  For a while she sat and read the paper, and thought through her next steps. She figured that if the young Old Believer woman wanted to talk with her, she’d find a way without Edie having to go looking for her. In the middle of all this, she needed to keep her head in the Iditarod, make sure Sammy had the support he deserved. She pulled out her multi-tool, cut out the newspaper picture of TaniaLee and folded it into her pocket. As she rose to leave, she noticed that the table at which the women from the APD had sat was now empty but there was something lying on the floor under one of the chairs. She went over and, checking no one was watching, picked it up. The object was a plastic ID card clipped to a blue ribbon. The name of the woman on the ID was ‘Patricia Gomez’. Above her name were the words ‘Anchorage Police Department’. Edie closed her palm over the card and slid it into her pocket. As she stood to leave she saw that Stacey was watching her. There was a moment, no more than an instant, when the two women simply stood looking at one another, then Stacey moved over to the table, picked up the newspaper and held it up just enough to show Edie that she’d seen her cutting out the picture, then, folding the paper and sliding it into her apron pocket, she gave Edie a little nod and an approving wink. Edie acknowledged the look with a fragile smile, mouthed the words ‘Thank you’ and swung back out onto the street. Whatever Stacey knew or didn’t know or had guessed at, it mattered less than the fact that the waitress had just signalled that she was on Edie’s side.

  8

  Chuck Hillingberg was at the breakfast bar at home slurping down a third cup of coffee while his super-competent assistant April Montalo laid out the list of back-to-back meetings, public appearances and interviews that would make up his day in the mayoral office.

  At some point in the middle of all this, he knew he’d have to find time to try to repair the damage caused by his reaction to the hysterical native woman up in Wasilla. His ducking behind Mayor Dillard had been pure reflex but, of course, he should have known, this being the tweny-first century, that the whole thing would have been captured on film and uploaded onto YouTube almost the moment it happened. It made him look like a fool. Worse, given the circumstances, a heartless fool. The
n there were those new stats on sex crime. Rape and sexual assault were a perennial problem in the city, not something confined to Chuck’s administration or the one before, more like part of the fabric of the place, but the Shippon campaign was bound to find a way to use the stats and the footage to appeal to native and women voters to vote against him. He’d asked Andy Foulsham, his comms director and campaign manager, to swing by. Once April had given him the day’s calendar, he was planning to sit down with Andy and come up with a way to head off any bad press at the pass.

  And here he was, head around the door, habitual grin on his face, right on time, as always.

  ‘Morning, mayor, April.’

  ‘C’mon on in, Andy,’ Chuck said, ‘grab some coffee and get me a refill while you’re at it. Me and April were just finishing up.’

  He took out his pen, signed a few of the papers April pressed on him, then motioned to his assistant to leave. Andy slid his mug over to him, took up the stool opposite. He blinked for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Chuck looked at the prematurely balding skull, the short body, thin, unmuscled arms settling in their preppy Oxford shirt. Andy was a big brain on a puny body, dressed like a Harvard postgrad. To get anywhere up here in politics you had to look like you could split logs and hunt moose for a living. However brainy they were, guys like Andy Foulsham would always be relegated to behind the scenes.

  Sensing he was being scrutinized, Foulsham grasped his coffee firmly in one hand and gathered himself for his performance. So what if I’m not electable? he seemed to be saying. You aren’t either without me.

  ‘We’ve got a lot of opportunity here, boss. The native woman’s not going anywhere. The moment Chief Mackenzie announces an arrest the Anchorage mayor picks up part of the glory for acting swiftly and the whole story is dead in the water. As for the sex crime thing, it’s statewide. Shippon goes after you on that, we can turn it around so it looks like he’s trying to duck his end.’