Whisper to the Blood

by Dana Stabenow

  They laughed together. Jim looked at Dinah, who rolled her eyes and went to admire Katya’s efforts at a dangerously tilting block castle.

  “No reason for you to be against it,” Talia murmured, “and plenty of them for you to be for it. Didn’t I mention? We’re going to be bringing jobs into the Park in numbers that haven’t been seen since the old days of the Kanuyaq Mine. Two thousand, maybe more, during construction, and a thousand to keep it running after, and did I also mention how long we expect to be here? Forty years, minimum. That’s forty years of jobs for Park rats, Bobby, and good-paying jobs, too.”

  “Yeah, Talia, but what kind of jobs we talking about here? Making beds, serving slop?” Bobby’s smile slipped a little. “Not something I aspire to for the kid.” He looked up at Jim and said, “Chopper Jim Chopin in the house, folks. Hey, Jim.”

  “Hey, Bobby,” Jim said, walking forward so his voice was within reach of the mike.

  Bobby watched him with a sapient eye. “You look like a man with a purpose. What’s up?”

  “I’m looking for Howie Katelnikof. Have you seen him?”

  Bobby’s eyebrow quirked up. “No, can’t say’s I have. What’s Howie up to these days?”

  “Well,” Jim said apologetically, “he’s in a little bit of trouble, and he’s got some people looking for him. Not very nice people, I’m afraid.”

  “Really,” Bobby said, his basso dropping to profundo. “Imagine my surprise.”

  “Yeah,” Jim said, trying not to laugh, “and these people looking for him have put up a reward for whoever finds him.”

  “Really?” Bobby said. “How much?”

  “Hear tell it’s five figures.”

  Bobby gave an appreciative whistle, but he frowned a little. He disliked Howie as cordially as the next person, but he didn’t necessarily want to get the guy killed on Park Air. “Wow, he must have really pissed someone off this time.”

  “Well, as you know, a couple days ago somebody got shot out at the Suulutaq when Howie was supposed to be working there,” Jim said. Talia frowned this time. “So I wanted to get the word out to folks. If they see Howie, tell him to come on in, okay? I’ll keep him safe.”

  “Okaaaaay,” Bobby said, drawing the word out, “you heard it here first, that’s Park Air, today at nearly ninety-five on your FM dial, but we won’t be here tomorrow! Thanks to the lovely and talented and babealicious Talia Macleod for being on our show today. That would be the same Talia Macleod who sold her soul to the devil, oh, I’m sorry, of course I meant to say Global Harvest Resources Inc., aka GHRIn, to convince us all that a fifteen-square-mile open pit mine in the Park is a goo-oood thing.”

  Talia, unoffended, laughed out loud, and Bobby grinned. “Hey, I’m convinced. Th-th-that’s all, folks!”

  He flicked a switch. On the console a green light went red and a red light went green and the sound of the Temptations singing “My Girl” soared out of the Bose speakers mounted in the four corners of the room. He turned his chair to Jim. “Okay, boyo, what the fuck was that all about? You think I’m rerunning episodes from Wanted: Dead or Alive on Park Air now?”

  “I need to talk to Howie, ASAP,” Jim said, “and either someone is going to bring him in for the reward, or what I’m hoping is he’ll beat them in, scared they’re going to catch him.”

  A warm hand settled on his arm and he looked down to see Talia standing very close next to him. “Do you think Howie Katelnikof killed Mac Devlin?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, and didn’t mention what he’d seen at the head of the valley the previous morning. “But he was supposed to be there, and he’s my best shot at a witness. So to speak.”

  She laughed, low down in her throat, and leaned in toward him a little more. He smiled back at her—she was pretty irresistible—and then felt a cold draft on his back as the door opened.

  He looked up and beheld Kate, standing in the doorway with a face wiped clean of all expression.

  It took less than twenty-four hours for Howie to present himself at the post. “In a place the size of the Park,” Annie said appreciatively, “that’s making pretty good time.”

  “Being scared shitless increases ground speed,” Old Sam said. “Fact.”

  Demetri stared pensively out the window of the front office of the Niniltna Native Association, where many people had gathered to watch the fugitive give himself up. “I heard that even Martin was looking for him.”

  “Five zeros,” Annie said. “That’d be enough to get any Park rat through the winter.”

  Old Sam snorted. “Always supposing that reward story was true, I’d a done it for ten bucks.”

  Howie arrived alone, on his cherry little Ski-Doo, the engine purring as seductively as Talia Macleod, but that, Jim figured, was only because Willard would have been assigned responsibility for tune-ups, repairs, and maintenance. Howie wasn’t careful of machinery, because he knew he could always steal something else when whatever he was driving broke down.

  He stumped up the steps of the post and walked into Jim’s office, receding chin thrust out as far as it would go. “What’s this I hear about some damn reward out on me? I ain’t done nothing wrong, Jim, and I expect you to take care of me same as you would anybody else in the Park.”

  “Hey, Howie,” Jim said, carelessly. In fact he’d spent the night at the post on the off chance that Howie would show up earlier and spook when he didn’t find anyone there. He’d watched Howie arrive through his office window with quiet joy. There was nothing better than when a plan worked. It made up for all the ones that didn’t. “Where you been?”

  Howie’s eyes slid away. “Around.”

  “Okay. So why weren’t you at work?”

  “Work?” Howie said the word like it was a concept foreign to his tongue, which it pretty much was.

  “Yeah, Talia Macleod told me she hired you as one of two caretakers for the trailer Global Harvest’s got up to the Suulutaq Mine.”

  “Oh yeah,” Howie said. “Right. That work.”

  “You were supposed to be there all last week, Monday to Monday, until your relief came.”

  “I was there,” Howie said. “I was there, you know, work. Working.” Again, he stumbled over the word. He didn’t even know the right verb to use with it.

  “Well, I’m really glad to hear that, Howie,” Jim said, smiling.

  Wary now, Howie said, “Oh? Why would that be?”

  Jim let his smile fade. “Because Mac Devlin’s body was found at the Suulutaq trailer, and I was hoping you could tell us something about how it got there.”

  Howie’s jaw dropped. “Huh?”

  “Mac Devlin,” Jim said, adding, since Howie seemed to need to hear it, “you know, the ex-owner of the Nabesna Mine. Someone killed him on the doorstep of the trailer and then went away, leaving him to rot where he fell. If you were there, you must have seen something that could help me find this someone.” He raised polite eyebrows.

  “Mac’s dead?” Howie said.

  “Murdered,” Jim said.

  “I didn’t do it,” Howie said.

  “Really,” Jim said.

  “I wasn’t there,” Howie said.

  “Really?” Jim said. “But you just said you were, Howie.”

  Howie’s voice, naturally a nasal whine, started to rise. “I wasn’t there! I didn’t do anything! I’m innocent! Let me go, right now, I’m not doing any more time in one of your lousy cells!”

  “If you weren’t there,” Jim said, “where were you?”

  His eyes bored into Howie’s. Howie stared back like a frightened rabbit. “If you weren’t at the mine, where were you, Howie?”

  Howie stared back, blinking, agonized, and for the moment blessedly mute.

  Jim sighed. “Maggie!”

  A head poked in. “Boss?”

  “Get Howie’s rifle off of his snow machine and bring it in, would you?”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  “No!” Howie said, making an abortive attempt t
o stop her, but the door shut smartly in his face.

  “Have a seat, Howie,” Jim said.

  When Maggie got back with Howie’s rifle, Howie was rigid in a chair in front of Jim’s desk, tugging at the handcuff holding him to the left arm of the chair. It was still cold outside, although those clouds he’d seen over the Gulf earlier in the week had paid off in a thickening overcast. This morning smelled like snow. Nothing worse than chasing down a perp in a snowstorm. Actually, nothing worse than chasing down a perp, period. They never watched where they were going, for one thing, and for another, it was just plain exhausting. Jim much preferred to dispense with the possibility altogether.

  “Thanks, Mags,” Jim said, reaching for the rifle. “Close the door on your way out, please.”

  Jim sat on the edge of his desk and examined the rifle. A .30-30 Winchester Trapper, well used and not well cared for. Jim looked up and allowed himself a personal comment. “You really are a worthless piece of shit, Howie.”

  “I didn’t do it! I didn’t do anything! I’m innocent! I want a lawyer! Get me whatshisname, Louis’s lawyer! He’ll fix it so I don’t have to stay here, so I can go home!”

  “Rickard?” Jim said.

  “Yeah! Him! Get me Rickard! On the phone, right now!”

  “Well, I could do that, Howie,” Jim said. “Or you could just tell me what happened. If you weren’t there, you don’t have anything to worry about.”

  Something about the deep, inexorable tone in Jim’s voice unlocked Howie’s spine, and he slumped in his chair. “I wasn’t at the trailer over half an hour that Monday. I just stopped to take a crap and grab some grub.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  Howie mumbled something.

  “Where’d you go, Howie?” Jim went around his desk and sat down.

  “I was up the head of the valley,” Howie said, studiously addressing the floor.

  “What were you doing up there?” Jim said. “That’s a ways to go just to sightsee, and it’s been a damn cold stretch of weather lately.”

  “Might have been doing some hunting,” Howie said defensively.

  “Caribou?” Jim said.

  “Maybe,” Howie said.

  “Out of season?” Jim said. “Howie, you astonish me. Anybody with you?”

  Howie rolled his shoulders.

  “Be a lot better if someone can corroborate your testimony, Howie. It can’t do you any good if all you did was go on a joyride with nobody looking.”

  “Fuck,” Howie said in a kind of furious mutter. “Martin was with me.”

  “Thought I recognized that old Yamaha,” Jim said. “Anybody else?”

  “We was just taking those caribou because we was hungry,” Howie said, and then added, “we was taking the meat to the elders.” He looked up, inspired. “Ask the aunties. They’ll tell you.”

  There was a gloating kind of certainty in Howie’s eyes that Jim didn’t like. “Okay, I’ll ask them. Where’s Martin, Howie?”

  “I don’t know,” Howie said. “We split up after we come down off the mountain.”

  “I see,” Jim said. “Tell me, Howie, who have you pissed off lately?”

  Howie stared at Jim, wounded. “Nobody,” he said. “I didn’t hurt nobody.”

  “Yeah,” Jim said. “You need to think about this some, Howie. Somebody shot Mac Devlin in the back. I actually think you’re telling me the truth, mostly because I saw you up there butchering out half the Gruening River caribou herd, so I don’t think you did shoot him. I shudder to think what’s going to happen to you when Ruthe Bauman finds out about your off-season slaughter, incidentally.”

  Howie looked aggrieved. Before he could say anything, Jim said, “But Mac wasn’t supposed to be at Suulutaq. So far as I know, he didn’t tell anyone he was going there, either. Which means that maybe whoever shot Mac didn’t know they were shooting at Mac. Maybe whoever shot at Mac was thinking he was somebody else. Maybe whoever shot Mac was thinking he was shooting at somebody who was supposed to be there, whose job should have kept them there twenty-four seven, Monday to Monday.”

  Howie’s head came up and he stared at Jim, his face sallow and starting to sweat.

  Jim smiled at him. “Yeah, Howie,” he said happily, “I’m thinking somebody tried to kill you and shot Mac Devlin by mistake.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “Poor Mac.”

  “Poor Mac,” Howie said mechanically, and seemed to revive. “What do you mean, poor Mac! What about me?”

  “What about you? Lucky you, I’d say.” Jim knotted his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair to look at the ceiling. “Well. Unless they try again, of course.”

  “Unless they try again?” Howie said.

  “Yeah, you know,” Jim said, adding helpfully, “to kill you.” He shook his head. “Seemed like a pretty serious effort to me. In my experience, anybody who’s that determined is likely to give it another shot. So to speak.” He stood and came around the desk. “Here, let me get that off you so you can get out of here.”

  “Wait,” Howie said. “Wait, Jim, wait!” He hopped the chair backward, trying to get out of range of the handcuff key.

  “Howie, come on now. You’ve got to sit still or I’ll never get that cuff off you.”

  “I got something to tell you! Something you don’t know about Louis!”

  “Louis’s dead, Howie,” Jim said, grabbing him before he could hop any farther. He jammed the key in the cuff and twisted. The cuff came free, but before he could stop him Howie slammed the cuff back around the arm of the chair and locked it, holding his hand over it so Jim couldn’t get at it again.

  “Howie,” Jim said, starting to get a little irritated, “I’ve had a long couple of days. Knock it off.”

  “The aunties hired his killing, Jim! They hired it done!”

  CHAPTER 16

  Jim bagged the rifle and took it out to the Niniltna airstrip, where he was lucky enough to catch George Perry on a flight to Anchorage. He gave him the rifle for delivery to the crime lab.

  Howie he locked up, and told Maggie no one was to talk to Howie except him. “Okay, boss,” she said.

  Maggie Montgomery’s chief qualification for the job of dispatcher/telephone answerer/clerk was her determined incuriosity. “My plan is to leave the job at the office when I go home every day,” she’d told him during the interview, and he’d hired her on the spot. She might try to tell him what to do on occasion—as in attempting to discourage him from finding Louis Deem’s killer last year—but that he could live with. Discretion in a cop shop was a rare and precious commodity, especially in a small town, and Jim was willing to put up with any amount of back-talk in private so long as he got a smiling, uncomplaining, and stolidly uncommunicative face in public. So far, Maggie, an Outsider who had married a Moonin she met on a fish processor in the Bering Sea, was holding up very well, both as his chief cook and bottle washer and as a Park rat. She might just stick.

  He went down to the Riverside Café and got a hamburger and french fries to go and delivered it back to Howie. Howie actually thanked him. Jim wanted to open the door of the cell and beat him to death, and something in Jim’s eyes must have indicated this because Howie dropped his eyes and became very, very still.

  Jim went back to his office and closed the door, and then, for several minutes, he just stood there in the middle of the room, hands dangling uselessly at his sides. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out what to do next.

  He’d always figured Howie was the most likely suspect, but all this time he had thought Bernie had hired it done directly.

  The year before, Bernie Koslowski’s wife and son had been murdered in their own home. General consensus was that the killings had been committed by Park bad actor Louis Deem, whom it was supposed Enid and Fitz Koslowski had caught in the act of burglarizing the cabinet full of gold nuggets in the living room.

  Shortly thereafter, Louis Deem had been shot and killed on the road to the Step. Bernie was the obvious suspect, so Jim
had looked hard at Bernie, to the general disapprobration and not a little vocal abuse of the entire Park. The subsequent investigation had cleared Bernie of all suspicion of the crime.

  Not least because his alibi was Sergeant Jim Chopin, with whom he’d been visiting over a latte at the Riverside Café at the time of the murder, in full view of café owner Laurel Meganack, Old Sam Dementieff, and half a dozen other Park rats, all with excellent memories.

  “What is it you want me to do, Bernie?”

  “Your job.”

  Well, he’d done his job. He’d maintained the peace and the public order.

  One of the principal core values of the Alaska State Troopers was loyalty, first to the state of Alaska, then to the highest ideals of law enforcement, and, in third place, to the truth, although as stated “the truth, regardless of outcome.”

  Jim had been thinking a lot about that particular core value lately. The truth was he liked working in law enforcement. The truth was he didn’t like the messes people got themselves into and he liked using what ability he had to step in and straighten those messes out. The truth was he was good at his job, and he knew it.

  He’d opened the Alaska State Troopers’ forty-fourth post in Niniltna going on three years ago, and if he had been a Park fixture before, by now he was a full-fledged Park rat. He was well aware of the dangers of being so dug in. A cop was always going to be a little bit on the outside looking in, or he should be if he was going to function effectively. If he was regarded as a member of his community, then it followed that other members in that community might feel comfortable enough with his presence to approach him with suggestions they wouldn’t have dared to propose to the cop perceived to be Other.

  “What is it you want me to do, Bernie?”

  “Your job.”

  He had not allowed himself any preconceptions as to the identity of the killer of Louis Deem. He had conducted a by-the-book investigation into his death, reconstructing Deem’s movements as minutely as was possible in an area as vast and as unpopulated as the Park, extensively interviewing the people closest to Louis as well as all the people who had last seen him alive, and, as near as he was able, keeping his prior knowledge of the character of the dead man from coloring his work.