‘That was a harsh thing happened to her.’
Edie said she thought it was.
The woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘You a reporter?’
Edie paused. It was difficult to say. ‘I was the one who found TaniaLee’s little boy.’
The woman flushed and looked flustered. ‘Oh my.’
‘Maybe you know where her parents live?’
‘Oh I don’t know about that.’
‘I just wanted to tell them their grandson looked peaceful. Might help some, a time like this.’
The woman’s eyes grew filmy. ‘Oh yes, yes, of course.’ She described a cabin on a ridge outside Homer, said Otis and Annalisa Littlefish had lived up there quietly for a long time, then gave Edie directions on how to get there.
The Littlefishes’ rough plank cabin was the kind of place that wouldn’t have stood through a single winter in Autisaq. There were shingles missing from the roof and one of the windows was glazed with transparent plastic but here above Homer, nestling in the trees, it looked cosy in a rustic, rough-around-the-edges kind of a way. It seemed the Littlefishes were in. A chimney leaked smoke from its base and under a corrugated plastic carport sat a big old flatbed truck with a tarp over it. There was firewood piled either side and a splitting log with an axe buried in it and new cut marks. Beside the port, a pair of bald eagles sat in a spruce preening.
Edie swung open the door of the rental and jumped down. A huge native man with a hewn face and hair tied in a ratty pigtail appeared at the door of the cabin with a shotgun swinging from one giant, wind-whipped hand. Maybe Otis and Annalisa Littlefish didn’t get too many visitors, Edie thought, or maybe the ones they did get they wished they didn’t. She trudged up the steps and tried to look friendly. He stood and waited for her to speak. As she explained why she’d come she saw his expression soften. Immediately, she liked him.
‘It’s been hard for my wife,’ Otis said, inviting her in. ‘TaniaLee was wild. We hadn’t seen her or our grandson for a while.’ His voice was low and there was an edge of pain in it. ‘The police got her locked away in some clinic, told us not to visit. Maybe that’s easier for her, I don’t know.’
He offered Edie a seat at the plank table beside the tiny kitchenette and went to fetch his wife in from the back where she was cleaning out the field-dressing shed. He came back with a tiny, plump woman with long braids, wearing rubber boots, a native like her husband. The woman held out a yellowed, arthritic hand, asked Edie if she’d like something to drink then went to heat some water.
Neither Otis nor Annalisa looked like they had any qalunaat blood. Since the little boy in the snow was mixed it stood to reason Edie thought that unless he’d been some kind of throwback, Lucas Littlefish had a white daddy. Maybe the guy TaniaLee claimed was her husband, Fonseca? She made a note to herself to find out.
While Annalisa fixed tea and a snack, Otis went out to the carport to fetch more wood. He walked with an odd rolling gait, favouring his right leg.
Annalisa said, ‘Otis can’t stand women’s talk.’
She came over with a tray on which she’d balanced three steaming mugs and a plate of salmon jerky topped with frozen roe.
‘I’m real sorry for your loss,’ Edie said.
Annalisa wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.
‘The police said TaniaLee mentioned a man called Fonseca,’ Edie went on. She wasn’t going to say she’d visited their daughter at the clinic. ‘I guess he’s Lucas’s father, right? Must be taking it pretty bad.’
Annalisa gave a stiff little shrug. ‘We don’t know any Fonseca.’ Otis came back in and her face relaxed. He came and sat down in a chair opposite.
‘I was just saying, I’m real sorry, Mr Littlefish,’ Edie said. The old couple stared into the middle distance, their faces closed and tightened. Edie had seen that look before up in Autisaq. She’d gone too far in trying to make them talk about the dead. It was time to change the subject.
‘You got a beautiful house here.’
Annalisa immediately perked up, a little smile of pride playing around her lips.
‘Twenty years,’ she said. ‘Me and Otis built this place.’ She offered round the snacks. Edie helped herself.
‘Great salmon jerky,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
‘You Inupiaq?’ Annalisa said.
Edie explained how she’d come to be in Alaska. ‘What about you?’
The old woman seemed to have got over her initial reluctance to talk. They were full blood Dena‘ina, originally from the hills around Eagle River. They’d moved up into the woods to get away from all the people and, even though their ancestors were buried elsewhere, they never regretted the move.
‘Otis here works in construction and forestry when there’s work going. We hunt, fish.’
‘Is TaniaLee your only child?’
It was the wrong question. ‘We have to get back to work now,’ Otis said. He had an implacable look on his face.
Edie stood up and swung herself into her parka. As she was zipping up, she noticed some family pictures sitting on a console table just inside the door. Her attention was drawn to a photo of TaniaLee holding her son. Reaching out a hand she scooped it up. Mother and son were outdoors somewhere. There was a great deal of snow and from the shadows Edie could tell that the picture had been taken more or less at noon in full sunlight. TaniaLee was squinting, her pupils pinpricks. There was a dreamy look on her face, as though she was somewhere far away.
‘That was Thanksgiving last year.’ Annalisa spoke in a voice of barely disguised anguish.
There was a pause then, suddenly, she said: ‘It’s Lucas’s funeral tomorrow at ten at the Orthodox Church up at Eagle River. We’re having a potlatch in the hall afterwards, if you want to come.’
Edie smiled and returned to examining the picture. In it Lucas Littlefish was six weeks or maybe two months old. The body she’d found in the forest was that of a two-month-old baby. But now it was March and the picture had been taken at Thanksgiving, which could only mean that Lucas Littlefield had died sometime in November or, at the latest, early December. Confirmation of what she’d already suspected, that for at least three months between his death and her discovery of his body, Lucas Littlefish must have lain frozen somewhere out of the reach of animals. In storage maybe. That would explain the profound freezing of the body, and the pattern of ice crystals across the skin. But why? And why had no one reported him dead before?
She returned the picture to the table, but her hand was shaky and as she replaced the frame she managed to knock over the one behind it. When she picked it up, she was shocked to see that it was an image of Otis shaking hands with a man who looked remarkably like Tommy Schofield.
‘Oh, Mr Schofield,’ she said, trying to sound casual. ‘He’s a big guy around here, isn’t he?’
Otis nodded. He picked up the photograph and turned it so it faced the wall. ‘He got a cabin ways up there, not far. Sometime I do maintenance work for him.’ He was agitated, anxious for her to leave.
She drove back down to Tommy Schofield’s offices on the Spit. Schofield’s assistant had finished her break and was sitting at her desk staring at her computer screen. She was a perky-looking woman in her early twenties, somewhat over-groomed. Introducing herself as Sharon Steadman and explaining that the developer had gone to the airstrip. He often had to rush off to the capital at short notice – last-minute meetings with planners and financiers – and it was easier if he flew himself. He owned a Piper Super Cub he took to fish camp, Sharon explained, but when he was flying to Juneau he usually took his Cessna 180.
They heard the sound of a small-engined plane overhead.
‘Oh, my gosh, I guess that’s him.’ She smiled indulgently. ‘Mr Schofield just loves his planes.’
They waited for the sound to fade.
Sharon said, ‘Sometimes I say to him, one day, Mr Schofield, you gonna fly clean away and never come back, but he always says, he says, how could I leave you, Sharon?’ She f
lapped a hand in the air and giggled. ‘Oh my gosh, he’s always kidding around.’
Edie looked around and decided there was nothing more to be got from Schofield or his office today. She glanced at her watch and figured she may as well drive back to Anchorage.
‘Mind if I just use your bathroom?’
The assistant waved both arms.
‘You betcha! Right along there.’
Edie went through the door into the corridor. The door to the bathroom was in front of her. Opposite it, there was a photocopier and a small chest freezer, secured with a padlock.
Sharon was talking on the phone when she returned. The girl gestured for her to wait while she wound up the call.
‘You get everything you need?’
‘Sure,’ Edie said.
13
Chuck sent April to the front door of the house to peek out between the slats of the venetian blind, clock the number of TV news trucks parked outside, and report back.
From the breakfast bar where he was sitting at his laptop reading his morning briefing, he could just about see Marsha doing her morning stretching exercises in the den.
‘How’s it looking?’ This to April.
His assistant’s voice came from the hallway. ‘Four, maybe five.’ April scrolled off the names on the OB trucks. ‘KTYU, Channel Two, the usual local stations.’ Andy Foulsham had invited them along yesterday, for an ‘intimate personal interview’ with the gubernatorial challenger in the mayor’s backyard at 7.45 that morning.
In the den, Marsha began bobbing up and down, touching her toes, breathing faster. She was still fit but it made him a little sick to watch her all the same. The ageing skin, the relentlessness of her pursuit of a physical perfection she seemed unaware that she’d lost twenty years before. He guessed most men would still consider her attractive, but then they didn’t know what he knew about her.
He’d been woken at four in the morning by Mackenzie, announcing that they now had enough evidence to charge the Old Believer Peter Galloway with the kidnap and ritual murder of Lucas Littlefish.
‘What evidence?’
‘Galloway’s fingerprints on the grease used to draw the cross on the kid’s body.’
‘You didn’t mention that before.’
‘We were waiting for confirmation from forensics.’ The APD would be feeding the story to the news outlets at 7.30 a.m. Chuck had immediately called Andy for advice. An arrest was what they wanted, but the Hillingberg campaign had also hoped to capitalize on the ongoing Iditarod story and fend off any negative campaigning Shippon might be throwing at them over those sex crime stats. Andy had got back to the police chief to ask him to hold off on the arrest story till the evening news, but Mackenzie seemed too wary of leaks to let it wait. So Foulsham had called Bob Morehouse, the owner of Channel Six, at 5.30 in the morning to offer him an exclusive interview with gubernatorial candidate Hillingberg on the understanding that he would guarantee to broadcast between seven and seven-thirty that morning. Six had always been good to the Hillingbergs. Morehouse had played high school football with Chuck, and his wife, Mindy, had cheerled from the sidelines with Marsha. More importantly, Six News had the biggest audience of all the local stations. A Channel Six reporter and crew had shown up at 6.00 a.m. to tape Chuck’s segment. The interview had been a breeze; the reporter had given him seven minutes on the gubernatorial campaign with plenty of opportunities for sound bites and no tough questions. By 6.30 the tape was back at the Channel Six studio. A lightly edited version would go out as live at 7.15, just before the news hit of the arrest of Galloway. That way, Chuck would be the top morning story for fifteen minutes and would remain associated in people’s minds with the arrest for the remainder of the day.
Timing is everything, Foulsham always said. A cliché, but nonetheless true.
Chuck checked his watch. It was 7.12 a.m. The TV was already on, muted. Reaching over, he grabbed the remote sitting on the breakfast bar and switched on the sound. Andy Foulsham appeared, April following behind him. Chuck hollered to Marsha, who came in breathing heavily from her exercise regimen. Six News went to commercial break.
Andy had already briefed the remainder of the networks waiting outside the Hillingberg mansion to expect him out at 7.45 for an eight o’clock start. This was supposed to be an ‘at home’ with Chuck, a chance for the voter to get to know the man himself. The personal approach had been designed to pull in women voters, with a promised tour of Chuck’s trophy room at the end of the interview the lure for men. If it came up, Chuck would acknowledge the arrest of Peter Galloway and take as much credit as he could for it without seeming to be raining on Police Chief Mackenzie’s parade, but he wouldn’t bring up the issue himself. Andy had arranged for a vintage Iditarod sled to be displayed in the trophy room. Chuck would take them around his bear and moose trophies then he’d home in on the sled and use it to riff on his love for the Iditarod. Foulsham had advised him to express his admiration for Duncan Wright, the plucky challenger to Steve Nicols. The public was apt to draw parallels.
April poured coffee for everyone. The commercials segued directly into a sponsor’s message, then a short intro for Chuck’s segment, before cutting to the taped interview. The piece was a dream.
Six minutes later the whole room was applauding. Even Marsha broke into a smile. Chuck’s performance had been flawless, his body language that of a governor-in-waiting.
They kept the TV on, waiting for news of the arrest to break at 7.30. At 7.32 Chuck’s phone rang. It was Morehouse.
‘Don’t answer,’ Andy said. ‘I’ll handle it.’ Moments later, his phone began to peep. He flipped up the top and put on a smile.
Chuck could hear Morehouse screaming from over the other side of the room, Andy trying to calm him down. ‘Well, see, Mr Morehouse, you need to be reasonable here, sir, the mayor wasn’t informed about the arrest until after the Six interview had already gone out.’ The man was an absolute pro. It didn’t even sound like he had any idea he was lying.
Chuck went to his room, combed his hair, brushed his teeth, refreshed his make-up and ran a lint brush over himself. When he came back down Andy had come off his cell phone and it was ringing again. Someone was knocking on the door. Moments later, all the phones in the house started ringing simultaneously.
‘Galloway?’ Chuck said. ‘Really?’
Marsha lifted one eyebrow in a ‘told you so’ gesture.
‘No sweat,’ Andy said. ‘We’ll just do the “at home” interview like we planned and tell them they’ll get a statement on the Galloway arrest at the end.’
‘What’s the line?’
Marsha looked up and made a scoffing sound and Foulsham cut in to rescue his boss.
‘Just like we talked about, mayor. Terrible tragedy, fine police work, you’re confident there are no implications beyond this one arrest blah blah, then draw a line under it.’
Marsha reached out and brushed some piece of carpet fluff off his shirt. ‘Remember. You set the agenda.’ She gave him one of her tiny nods of encouragement. ‘Now go get ’em.’
Andy opened the door onto the backyard and Chuck walked out with Foulsham following. He sat down on the carefully placed chair, a rare Alaska antique made from Sitka spruce and moose antlers, and smiled vaguely in the direction of the press. There were more reporters than April had suggested and they seemed intense, even a little frantic. He took a deep breath and reminded himself of his brief. Andy Foulsham opened the interview for questions, then something unexpected happened. Instead of the gentle, lifestyle-orientated act of sharing he was expecting, reporters began jostling and shouting over one another and in the cacophony of sound there was only one question.
In the half hour since the official announcement of the arrest of Peter Galloway for the abduction and murder of Lucas Littlefish, it appeared that the men and women of the fourth estate had been seized by Dark Believer Fever. And Mayor Hillingberg, caught completely unawares, had laughed them off.
What seemed li
ke a lifetime later, Andy Foulsham pushed Chuck back inside the house and locked the door. Chuck slid down the cedar panelling and sat on the thick shag carpet, head in hands.
What the hell happened?’ It was Marsha.
‘Gee,’ Chuck said, ‘I’m touched by your support.’
She picked up on his sarcasm but was in no mood to apologize. Throwing her arms around her body, she started pacing the entrance hall, and then swinging herself round with a voice of cold fury, she said:
‘What did I say? I said you underestimated this, both of you.’ She turned her ire on Andy, ‘And you, his comms director, you fed my husband to the freakin’ wolves.’
Foulsham’s cell phone buzzed. He checked the screen and switched off.
‘Hey, you know,’ he began, trying to sound soothing, ‘I don’t think any of us could have anticipated that.’
‘Uh, wrong.’ Marsha unfolded her arms and pointed at herself. Her fingers were like fish hooks. ‘I anticipated it but none of you would listen to me.’
Andy adopted his smooth, damage limitation voice. ‘We can come back from this.’
Marsha, who had started pacing again, whirled round and stood in front of them.
‘You’re darned right we can,’ she said, pointing an accusatory finger at Foulsham. ‘Because you are gonna remember who’s employing you.’ The finger moved across to Chuck. ‘And we are going to work on a briefing document about the mayor’s response to the arrest of Peter Galloway. Then we’re going write a piece for tomorrow’s Courier in which we are going to say that the mayor never suggested that Dark Believers don’t exist, only that the evidence in this case so far did not prove that the sect had anything to do with the death of the boy. We’re gonna say that despite Alaska’s proud tradition of free speech Alaskans will not tolerate any kind of religious worship or ritual involving or advocating any form of violence against anyone, let alone children.’ She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. Her face bore a look somewhere between moral indignation and relief, as it always did when she felt in command. Turning to Andy, she asked for a moment of privacy with her husband.
The Boy in the Snow Page 9