Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 02 - A Fatal Thaw
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I'll blister both your butts until you have to eat standing up for a
month. And then I'll tell your dads, and you may
never eat sitting down again. Got that?" She banged their
heads together a third time, for insurance, and let
into two heaps, faces dazed, too stunned to cry.
Kate lifted the leader's tail and didn't see any blood. She gave him a
reassuring thump, led the team around to the front of the building with
the rest of the sleds, and reset the anchors.
Inside, the Roadhouse was filled to overflowing with
what at first seemed one large, amorphous crowd, but
which upon closer inspection resolved into three distinct groups. In one
corner a man read from a Bible, hand upraised to heaven, forefinger
pointing the one way. A group of six people in folding chairs lined up
before him in two orderly rows.
"Pastor Bill," Kate said, nodding.
"Good to see you, Kate," the pastor said, and dropped his forefinger to
shake her hand. Without missing a beat the forefinger resumed its
upright position, and the sermon continued. "And when the children of
Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is-"
"Beer!" a man yelled from the group of tables shoved together in another
corner. Behind the bar Bernie nodded and set up another round. Kate
recognized them as mushers and, standing on tiptoe and craning her neck,
saw that they were hunched over a topographical map of interior Alaska,
covering all the Park from Canada to the Alaska Railroad and Prince
William Sound to Fairbanks. One of the mushers looked up, caught her eye
and waved. "Hey, Kate."
"Hey, Mandy. What's up?"
The stocky woman, eyes crinkled at the corners from squinting long
distances into setting Arctic suns, gestured at the map. "Working out a
route for the Kanuyaq 500."
"The Kanuyaq 500? What's that?"
"A new race we're organizing. What?" She turned back. "No, no, no, not
that way. You want the route to go right through the Valley of Death and
straight up Angqaq Peak? It won't be much of a race if we get all the
dogs killed in an avalanche." Mandy's smile faded. "Jesus, just think
what `Wide World of Sports' would have to say if we ran a bunch of dogs
off Carlson Icefall."
"Compared to what they might say if you only ran the mushers off it,"
Kate heard a loud voice comment from the next group over, and there was
a low laugh, quickly stifled when Mandy glared.
Kate followed the sound of that voice to a group of
matrons sitting around a square piece of cloth. One woman sensed her
presence and looked up. "Kate!"
"Hello, Helen." She nodded around the circle. "Kathy, Joyce, Darlene,
Gladys, Shirley. How are you all?" Shirley waved a thick white porcelain
mug in her direction. Identical mugs sat on the floor next to each
chair. "Pull up a seat! Want an Irish coffee? Bernie!" she bellowed.
"Bring Kate an Irish coffee!"
"No," Kate said quickly, shaking her head at Bernie. "I can't, Shirley,
I'm driving."
"No? Well, hell, Kate." Shirley, a redhead with pale, freckled skin,
grinned up at her. "If you aren't going to
drink, sit down and sew a patch or two."
"Love to," Kate said, "if you're sure you're up to it. I remember last
time I sewed the quilt to my jeans and it took you guys fifteen minutes
to cut me loose."
"You were a little nervous," Gladys, a plump, motherly woman with dark
hair, allowed.
"All those seam rippers that close to my lap, you bet I was nervous,"
Kate retorted. The circle of women cackled
reminiscently. Kate looked at the cloth, trying to identify the pattern.
"What do you call this one?"
"The wedding ring." Darlene winked at her. "Play your
cards right, Kate, and we'll give it to you for a wedding
present."
"I have to get married first?"
"Yup." All five graying heads nodded solemnly.
"Then forget it. [can't get married. Who would Chopper Jim and Dandy
Mike have to chase if I did?" Delighted, the circle cackled again. Kate
waved a general good-bye and stepped to the long bar at the back of the
room. Next to her Mutt reared up, both paws on the bar, panting slightly
around an anticipatory tongue. Bernie reached across and scratched
behind her ears. "Hey, Mutt, how are you, girl? What'll it be, the usual?"
Mutt yipped once. Bernie pulled a package of beef jerky off a stand and
ripped it open. Mutt received it delicately
between her teeth and returned to ground level. Bernie looked at Kate.
"Hi, Kate. Coke?" She nodded. "Thanks."
He reached for a nozzle and a glass. "What brings you into town? Kind of
early for you; you usually don't run your snow machine during breakup."
He grinned at her. "Earthquake weather."
She rapped her knuckles on the scarred surface of the wooden bar. "Bite
your tongue."
"Yeah, well, I missed the last big one."
"If you're lucky you'll miss the next one, too," Kate said, a little
grimly.
He set the glass on a napkin and slid both over in front of her. Leaning
forward on folded arms, he regarded her with a slight smile. He had high
cheekbones and a higher fore head accentuated by the hair skinned back
from both in a neat ponytail as long as Kate's. His eyes were brown and
deeply set, their expression always tranquil. Bernie projected a kind of
monastic serenity, which, with a wife and seven children in the rambling
house fifty yards from the Roadhouse, was a neat trick, now that Kate
thought of it. "How's Enid?"
"Fine." "And the kids?"
"We got the Class C state championship this year, did you hear?" he said
proudly.
"No, Bernie," Kate said in a patient voice, "I meant your kids. Your
very own children. Of Enid born," she elaborated when he looked
confused. "Remember? Your wife? My cousin?"
His face cleared. "Oh yeah. Them. They're fine." He thought. "Sammy'!!
be old enough to try out for the junior varsity team next year."
"How nice for you both," Kate murmured. "When do the playoffs begin?"
"Thursday afternoon," he said, his face reanimating. "Have we got a shot?"
"We always have a shot," he said loftily. "I been drilling the starting
five in free throws since September, Eknaty Kvasnikof's shooting
seventy-two percent and the other four aren't much below sixty." He
waggled a finger at her. "And remember-"
"Free throws win ball games," she chanted with him and laughed. "Free
throws win ball games," was Bernie's mantra. She took a sip. "Where were
you, Saturday before last?"
"When McAniff was on his spree?" She nodded. "Right here, along with
about half the town, which was probably a good thing."
"Typical Saturday morning," she suggested, and he nodded agreement.
"Crazy bastard," he said. "He must have known he'd get caught."
"I think he was looking forward to it."
Bernie shook his head. "Crazy sick bastard. I'll bet he can't wait for
the trial so he can tell us how he planned it all."
Kate's generous mouth turned down at the corners. "Safe bet. Jac
k Morgan
told me his lawyers are planning on pleading guilty by reason of insanity."
"So??She set her glass down. "They're saying he's insane because he had
a bad case of cabin fever brought on by eating too much junk food."
He stared at her for a long moment. "Right," he said at last. "I'll
remember to pig out on caramel corn first, the next time I want to shoot
somebody and get away with it."
"Bernie," she said and paused. What could he know about any of it,
serving up beer and wine coolers across a bar twenty-seven miles Down
river from Niniltna and the events of that terrible day? "Did you know
him?" she asked finally.
"McAniff?"
He shrugged. "Not really. I knew him enough to call
him by name."
"So he came in here?" "Once in a while." "What'd he drink?"
"Beer, mostly. Beer and a shot, every now and then." "What was he like?"
"Quiet. Kept to himself." "Did he run a tab?"
"Always paid in cash." He eyed her, curious. "Why all the questions? You
caught him, right? He's in jail, they got the rifle, they got the
bodies, he's bragging he did it on every TV and radio station that' 11
hold a mike still long enough for him to talk into it. Why do you want
to know about him?"
Why did she? Perhaps because she couldn't forget the sight of McAniff
lying on the hard-packed snow, weeping when he found himself drooling
blood. Maybe she just wanted confirmation of her own actions, validation
of the rightness of her cause. "He asked me if I had anything to eat,"
she said. "Like he was a neighbor who'd been out doing a little hunting
and had lost track of time and missed his lunch."
"He would have killed you," Bernie said. "I mean, he had the rifle up
and everything, right?"
"Yes." "You stopped him."
"Mutt did." Hearing her name, Mutt looked up and beat her tail on the
floor, chewing on the last piece of jerky. "Whatever. Somebody had to,
Kate." He shot her a keen
glance. "You're not going all soft on me, are you? He had to be stopped,
Kate. It's a shame-" He stopped and began studiously polishing a glass.
"I know, it's a shame I didn't shoot him when I had the chance." She
blew out a sigh and with a firm hand directed the conversation into a
useful channel. "Lisa Getty was one of the victims."
"Yeah. I'll miss her."
She felt a pang of dismay. "Bernie. Not you, too." "Well, she did dress
up the place." He pursed his lips as if about to whistle. "Did she ever.
Just walking in, she dressed up the place. She brought in the business,
too. I think half the guys who came here, came here hoping Lisa'd be
here that night. Wherever the biggest bunch of men were in the room, you
could bet Lisa'd be in the middle of them. What a honeypot."
Kate rolled her eyes, and Bernie grinned, his monastic restraint
suspended for the duration. "Well, she was." "Lisa interested in anybody
in particular?" Kate said, eyes on her glass.
Bernie snorted. "Sure. Every guy she ever laid eyes on. Old men,
middle-aged men, boys." He reflected. "I think half the team had the
hots for her. Eknaty Kvasnikof did odd jobs for the Getty sisters. Since
the massacre he's been dragging around like a whipped pup." His face
darkened. "Better not screw with his free-throw average or I'll dig the
bitch up and burn her at the stake. And I'll get Pastor Bill to exorcise
the remains."
Kate took another sip. "Lisa interested in anyone in particular lately?"
There was a long pause, and she looked up to see Bernie watching her.
"Why?"
"Bobby tells me half the Park's gone into mourning for Lisa Getty."
"The male half, sure enough," Bernie agreed. "The female half, that's
another story. They're thinking of catering a party." He reached for a
glass and began polishing it with a rag, a thoughtful expression on his
face. "You grew up with Lisa, didn't you?"
She nodded. "And Lottie."
"Lottie." He shook his head. "They ruined a hell of a man when they cut
the balls off her."
"Sorry," Bernie said, not at all penitently. He set the glass aside and
began polishing the bar instead. "But it'd be hard to find two people
less alike than the Getty sisters."
"They .were both blond and blue-eyed," Kate offered. It was a weak
observation and she knew it, but some atavistic impulse of loyalty
triggered by a shared childhood, and perhaps a smattering of lingering
guilt leftover from her intrusion into Lottie's grief, made her offer up
what defense she could. Defense from what? she wondered then. She was
thirty years old, almost thirty-one. Surely by now she had rid herself
of the us-versus-them complex every Alaskan inevitably developed between
we-who-were-born-here and them-who-weren't. She studied her glass. "So
Lisa was in here a lot."
"Three, four times a week." "Always at the center of a group."
Bernie's voice retreated once again into caution. "Well, now, I wouldn't
say always. "
Not for the first time Kate cursed Bernie's rigid standards. Bernie
figured your life was your business and what you did with it the same,
including alcoholism, doping, adultery-anything he regarded as a
victimless crime. He didn't care what you did as long as you weren't
hurting anyone else by your actions. He didn't have to talk about it,
either, and he wouldn't. Kate decided she was going to have to prime the
pump. "I was out to their place yesterday morning, to talk to Lottie,
see if there was anything I could do." Kate drew a circle on the bar
with the bottom of her glass. "I wandered around outside afterward." She
raised her eyes. "I found a greenhouse behind their barn."
"Did you?" The rag paused in its lazy swipe down the scarred wood of the
bar.
"I did." Kate put down her glass with deliberate care. "Bernie, was Lisa
dealing dope?"
Bernie looked at her with a meditative expression. A jingle of what
sounded like bells came from the back
room, and there was a shout of laughter from the quilting bee, laughter
that sounded almost relieved, as if the quilters were happy to discover
they still knew how. The pastor paused in his peroration, and the
congregation bent its collective head in prayer. "We planning on mushing
five hundred miles or five thousand?" Kate heard Mandy say with
exasperation. "I know I said we should make it a challenge, but that
doesn't mean we should break trail for Toronto."
Bernie shook out the bar rag and folded it with deliberate movements.
"She's dead, Bernie," Kate told him. "It can't hurt her to talk about it
now."
"That's right," Bernie agreed, draping the folded rag over a faucet with
elaborate care. "She is dead, so what can it possibly matter now?"
Bernie's usually calm brown eyes could be piercingly acute on occasion,
Kate discovered. "It does matter, Bernie."
"Why?" "It matters," she repeated. "I need to know. Was Lisa Getty
dealing dope?"
The minister said "Amen," in a voice that echoed around the bar. Amid
the resulting momentary silence, he looked over
at Bernie. "Coffee all
around?"
"Coming right up, Pastor Bill." Bernie loaded a tray with seven mugs,
sugar, cream and a pot of coffee and took it over to a table near the