by Alan Russell
PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR
“He has a gift for dialogue.” —The New York Times
“Really special.” —Denver Post
“A crime fiction rara avis.” —Los Angeles Times
“One of the best writers in the mystery field today.” —Publishers Weekly (starred)
“Ebullient and irresistible.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“Complex and genuinely suspenseful.” —Boston Globe
“Credible and deeply touching. Russell has us in the palm of his hands.” —Chicago Tribune
“He is enlightening as well as entertaining.” —St. Petersburg Times
“Enormously enjoyable.” —Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
“Russell is spectacular.” —San Diego Union-Tribune
“This work by Russell has it all.” —Library Journal
“Grade: A. Russell has written a story to satisfy even the most hard-core thrill junkie.” —The Rocky Mountain News
Other Titles by Alan Russell
THE GIDEON AND SIRIUS NOVELS
Burning Man
Guardians of the Night
STAND-ALONE TITLES
No Sign of Murder
The Forest Prime Evil
The Hotel Detective
The Fat Innkeeper
Multiple Wounds
Shame
Exposure
Political Suicide
St. Nick
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 Alan Russell
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503945807
ISBN-10: 1503945804
Cover design by Mark Ecob
To those who worked on the Underground Railroad in the 19th century, and to those who are working on it today.
CONTENTS
THE CREMATION OF SAM MCGEE
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
EXCERPT: MULTIPLE WOUNDS
THE CREMATION OF SAM MCGEE
BY ROBERT W. SERVICE
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam ’round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.”
On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see;
It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.
And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.”
Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
“It’s the cursèd cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet ’tain’t being dead—it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”
A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.
There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.”
Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows—O God! how I loathed the thing.
And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.
Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the Alice May.
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”
Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole i
n the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.
Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.
I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside.
I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked”; . . . then the door I opened wide.
And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
PROLOGUE
Greg Martin avoided his wife’s eyes. He didn’t want to give Elese any hope that she might persuade him into accompanying her on another shopping expedition.
“If I have to look at another display of bronzed moose nuggets, I swear I’ll lose it,” he said. “Selling crap is one thing, but actually selling bronzed moose shit . . .”
“You don’t like those moose droppings? I thought they’d make a great memento. We could put them next to some of your rock finds on our mantel and shine a spotlight down on them. Wouldn’t that look nice?”
Elese pantomimed situating the droppings in a place of honor. She added a little wiggle of her backside to her imaginary positioning.
“If you weren’t so cute,” he said, “I think I’d spank you.”
“If you weren’t so stubborn about not going out with me,” she said, “I might let you.”
They came together in the middle of their stateroom and kissed. Their honeymoon had been spent on the Northbound Glacier Route traveling up the Alaska coast and making stops in Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, and Sitka. Now they were in Seward, their last port of call on the final cruise of the season. Although it was only September, winter was already showing itself in Alaska. The nights on ship had been cold and bracing, but their stateroom had stayed very, very warm.
“Now don’t you go romancing any floozies while I’m gone,” Elese said.
“I was thinking about calling on Mrs. Carpenter.”
Mrs. Carpenter was ninety-seven years old. That hadn’t stopped her from flirting with Greg whenever she got the chance.
“Two-timer,” laughed Elese.
The cruise had been all they had hoped it would be. They had seen pods of humpback whales, monumental icebergs, panoramic glaciers, soaring bald eagles, and breathtaking fjords. Elese seemed glad Greg had talked her into honeymooning in Alaska. Neither one of them had ever been to the state; everything had been new to them. There was still more sightseeing in store, but they would do it from land, taking a motor coach to Denali and a train to Anchorage. They would finish up their honeymoon in Anchorage, where almost half of Alaska’s seven hundred thousand residents lived. Some Alaskans didn’t think much of their big city, though. On the cruise Elese had heard one native say, “Anchorage is a wonderful place. It’s only twenty minutes from Alaska.”
Greg watched his wife primping her long, dark hair in front of the small mirror. Elese could have gone out in a shower cap and still turned heads.
It was his puppy-dog eyes, she had confessed, that had made her fall for him. Thank God for my big, brown, woeful eyes, Greg thought. Without them he wouldn’t have landed his wife.
She tilted her chin up for a good-bye kiss. He accepted her invitation, planting a long kiss that almost caused a change in her plans.
Greg came up for air first and said, “I want a rain check for later.”
“If you’re lucky,” said Elese.
She picked up her purse and walked out of their cabin. From the door she blew him a kiss.
A kiss, and then she was gone.
The Seward Police Department shared city hall with other city and state employees, Alaska State Troopers (AST), and Alaska Department of Fish and Game. By night the police generally had the building to themselves. Because Sergeant Evan Hamilton was working late, he caught the Martin case.
Hamilton was a deliberate cop. He liked to cover all his bases. Those who didn’t know him often mistook his deliberate style as being plodding and slow, even dull. His appearance seemed to corroborate that. He was a big, middle-aged man who bordered on being doughy.
The cop looked at the man sitting across the desk from him. He was half an hour into his interview with Greg Martin and still not sure what he thought about the man. Martin’s every expression and gesture was the epitome of the frantic husband. But there was something about him that Hamilton couldn’t put his finger on yet.
“So you took a nap when your wife went shopping?” he asked.
“The answer is ‘yes,’ just as it was the last three times you asked.”
He ignored the man’s impatience. Slow and steady wins the race. Hamilton lived by that motto, and it hadn’t let him down yet. Seward was a quiet town—no Anchorage, that was for sure—but they’d had their share of crimes, petty and otherwise, to investigate over the years.
“And how long did you nap?”
“Like I already told you, it was about four hours. That’s why I was so surprised when I saw that it was seven o’clock.”
Hamilton underlined the time in his notes. “And that’s when you say you went looking for your wife?”
“At first I assumed she came back from shopping, found me asleep, and didn’t want to disturb me. So I went looking for her.”
Martin was tapping his fingers restlessly against the top of the desk. Hamilton watched him until he stopped and rested his hands in his lap. “You say you went to some of the lounges and eating areas?”
Martin sighed. “And to the ship’s library, and a few of the viewing areas. There are a lot of places to look on a big ship.”
“You enlisted the help of several stewards and passengers, and ultimately brought in security, which took another hour and a half.”
“Yes, yes, and yes.”
“And then you spent half an hour in downtown Seward searching for your wife before coming here.”
Martin sighed and nodded, his fingers tap-tap-tapping again. Hamilton made another entry in his notes. His wife’s going missing could account for the man’s jumpiness. Or it was possible something else was making him nervous.
The desk phone rang. Hamilton glanced at the caller ID and picked up. He kept the call brief, then turned his attention back to Martin.
“The crew finished its preliminary search of the ship. I’m afraid they didn’t find your wife. They are now in the process of looking in every stateroom and berth.”
“What about the security tapes?”
“The security director is examining the footage right now.”
“Something’s wrong.”
Hamilton studied him before asking, “Why do you think that, Mr. Martin?”
“My wife’s been gone almost six hours now. Since our wedding she hasn’t been away from my side for more than an hour or two.”
“When were you married?”
“September fourteenth.”
Real newlyweds, Hamilton thought. He wondered if the bloom could have come off the rose and whether Mrs. Martin had reconsidered having gotten married.
“Where did you get hitched?”
“San Francisco.”
“Big wedding?”
Martin exhaled in annoyance. “It was more of an intimate gathering.”
“And before the wedding, you knew your wife for how long?”
“Not quite six months.”
“Fast courtship.”
Martin rolled his eyes and stood. “I am going to look for my wife.”
“I would suggest you stay here, Mr. Martin.”
“What if she somehow fell off the dock into the bay?”
“I already put a call in to the harbormaster. He said he would personally inspect the ferry dock, boat ramps, and harbor area.”
Martin sat again, this time leaning forward, elbows on knees. He rubbed the sweat off his palms. “I’ve never been so afraid in my life.”
“What kind of work do you do, Mr. Martin?”
“I’m a geologist.”
“What about your wife?”
“She works in advertising doing ad designs. But she’s really an artist.”
“How did you meet?”
“Through mutual friends.”
“You’re quite a bit older than her, aren’t you?”
Martin sighed. “I wouldn’t call seven years ‘quite a bit.’ She’s twenty-two, and I’m twenty-nine.”
“You two have any problems during your honeymoon?”
Martin shook his head, straightening. “This is un-fucking-believable. You’re questioning me, aren’t you?”
Hamilton didn’t say anything.
“My wife is out there missing, and you’re playing mind games with me. You’re wasting time while she could be hurt somewhere. God. Maybe I should be talking to someone who’s a real cop.”
Hamilton merely shrugged. “Is there any reason your wife might have chosen to leave you, Mr. Martin? A lovers’ quarrel, perhaps?”
“We didn’t fight,” Martin said, his voice barely under control. “She wouldn’t be away from me unless something was wrong. Now do your goddamn job. Put out one of those alerts. Get on the horn. Do something.”
Hamilton nodded. “I’ve already done that, Mr. Martin. Now, you said you didn’t leave your room until around seven, is that correct?”
Hamilton hung up the phone. They’d been going at this for three hours now, and he had a feeling the interview was about to get interesting. “Are you certain you didn’t leave your cabin at any time from approximately three to seven?”