“K1, K2,” she said into the mic.
It took a while, but Lester answered. His voice cut through the screaming wind on his end. Meghan turned down the volume. “Go ahead, K1.”
“I’m checking in on you, see how it’s going.”
“Well, I’m almost at camp. The weather is heavy on this end of the river.” That meant more bad weather was rolling in from the north. “I’m going to talk to our guy.” Lester knew the radio wasn’t secure. “I talked to his wife, got some pictures. I’ll finish out here and talk to you later.”
“Thanks, K2. Take care; be safe.”
Meghan finished the call in the short time it took to drive down Third Avenue from the apartment complex. Oliver was coming shortly with Vincent to fingerprint.
She unlocked the front door and went inside.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked when she saw Duane standing at her office door with a large ring of keys in his hand. He was in the middle of trying each of the keys on the locked door. Meghan knew he didn’t have a key because she’d ordered replacement doorknobs for the office on her second day as chief of police. He didn’t know that or need to know she’d replaced the locks.
“You can’t keep this door locked. What if I have to get in there?” Duane was a little startled when Meghan unlocked the front door to the station. He had that ‘oops, you caught me,’ look that wasn’t going away because it morphed into a mask of irritation.
Meghan approached Duane, crossing through the small gate, moving by the Formica table, and stood, so Duane had to turn away from the office door to face her. She wasn’t in the mood. Whatever agenda he had was just a nuisance for her. Meghan wasn’t giving in to his bullying.
“This is town property.” He had an argument for her prepared, and it sounded as if Duane rehearsed the lines. “Your authority here doesn’t include you shutting me out of the day to day business running this city. I have over four thousand people—”
“Three thousand,” Meghan corrected Duane’s embellishment. “There’re three thousand, well a little less, in the city.” It was a passive-aggressive maneuver to make him stumble in the prepared speech. “What does you being mayor have to do with getting into my office?”
“I need the recent financial reports.”
“I’ll submit them at the end of the week, just like I always do.” She narrowed her eyes accusingly at him. “What’s really going on around here Duane? I feel like ever since I started this investigation, you’ve been riding on my heels.”
“This isn’t your investigation. I called the Alaska State Troopers, they said—”
“They? Who did you talk to, Duane? What was the person’s name? What department were ‘they’ in; did you explain your chief of police already submitted all the information regarding the murder?” She shook her head. It wasn’t Meghan’s best hour. She wasn’t in the business of confrontation when it came to petty power plays, but Duane irked her, and she felt inclined to push back. “Who did you speak with? I need to know to make sure I send another follow-up email to the detective in charge.”
“I didn’t get a name but—”
Meghan looked to the front reception area. They were alone in the building. While she’d left the door unlocked, if anyone came in, they’d see the person through the archway. “Help me, Duane, stop getting in my way. You knew Nancy, everyone in town knew her. If you care so much for the residents of Kinguyakkii, you’d be glad that I give a shit about her too.
“I get everyone sees me as an outsider. Anyone who wasn’t born in Alaska or hasn’t been here for twenty years is an ‘outsider.’ I don’t care, what I care about is someone put their hands around that girl’s neck and choked her hard enough to crush a tiny little bone designed to keep you breathing and your tongue from falling back into your throat. It’s a god-awful way to die, Duane, and someone got away with it.” She gave him more than enough to chew on, and it appeared the small sliver of detailed description worked on him. He sidestepped from the front of the office door. Meghan didn’t unlock it.
“Whatever this is,” she said, moving her hands between them as a physical representation of the riff. “It needs to stop. I’m doing the job I was hired to do. I don’t know why it’s a problem.”
Oliver and Vincent walked through the front door. Oliver showed Vincent through the back. The look on Oliver’s face suggested he knew something happened between Duane and his chief.
“Oliver, this is a good opportunity to learn how to fingerprint people.” Meghan dropped the plastic bag by the office door on the floor. She saw Duane lean over to look inside. The floral and frilly prints of various materials jumbled together showed and he knew what was in the bag as his eyes darted back to Meghan. “It’s my laundry day,” she said and left it alone.
Ignoring Duane, Meghan joined Oliver and Vincent on the other side of the large table in the main room. Duane moved toward the door, glancing over his shoulder as he left. Meghan shed her heavy coat, dropped it on the table. Oliver and Vincent followed suit.
“Vincent, we need you to go wash your hands before we start.” She looked at Duane standing under the archway near the front. “Is there anything else I can get you, Mayor?”
He left, slamming the door behind him.
She collected the small digital scanner bed with finger grooves. It was part of the kit she’d ordered from Quantico and Meghan wasn’t going to make any part of it available to the public. Keeping the office door locked kept things secure; the evidence was stacked on a small side table in her office. Fingerprint cards, clear plastic bags of physical evidence, including the cookie tin and the olive-green army glove, all gathered and stored under the table. Meghan didn’t want to think that Duane needed to get into the office other than his controlling issues.
The relationship he had with the former chief of police was very close. When Alaska State Trooper arrested the former chief for conspiracy to commit crimes, tampering with evidence, and bootlegging, Meghan had a very long conversation with the ATF agents in charge of this tiny dark corner of the world. Duane Warren was in their sights as part of the operation. He was cleared because there was no evidence linking him to the chief and the former chief wasn’t rolling over on anyone who may have helped.
Meghan felt Duane was a little misguided, a little high-strung, and impatient with anything outside his control. She thought he wasn’t a criminal and deep down he cared for the city. Whatever his reason for trying to get into her office, Meghan hoped it had nothing to do with the investigation.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lester stayed at the camp overnight. The ice fog condensed and lay suspended in the windless air. Once the delicate ice crystals rolled into town, it was as if the precipitation was too thick to move out again without the help of wind gusts pushing across the tundra. Encrusted in icy frosting, the sunlight had diminished, unable to break through the fog. The ambient temperature dropped again, and while people were saying it wasn’t going to snow again, the conditions were right. Smaller planes were grounded. Communication on the two-way radio with her officer alone in the wild was spotty.
His confidence in the group of hunters he was with ensured Meghan that Lester was distinct by himself. VPSOs weren’t allowed firearms within the town limits. However, as a precaution, heading into the feral landscape of the Alaska tundra, guns were a necessity. Lester had a rifle with him for personal protection. That made Meghan more comfortable with his decision to stay until daybreak before heading back the twenty-something miles along the shoreline.
Oliver went home, was on-call for police business, which meant he’d handle most calls over the phone, take notes, and if Meghan felt the overnight calls needed a follow-up, she’d do it in the morning. Noise complaints and other petty issues weren’t something people usually called the police about. If a bear wandered into the village, someone would report it. Other than another emergency, Oliver would stay home, watch TV, and go to bed unless he was needed.
At home, aw
ay from the police department, Meghan sat on the couch with the television on for background noise. She sat cross-legged on the sofa, reading over the case log she’d put together on Nancy’s death. She’d done everything in her power, used all the tools available at her disposal, and someone still got away with murder.
It was after eleven, and the surrounding houses were dark. The town had a smattering of streetlights that populated some of the intersection corners, but none near the small house she had rented.
There were still moving boxes tucked against the wall in the corner of the dining room: books, photo albums, things she didn’t need immediately once Meghan moved to Kinguyakkii. Now the stack of cardboard boxes was storage, put on the permanent to do list that she’d never get done. Months later, they were part of the furniture. Now Meghan felt with the tension between her and Duane; the man would find a way to convince the borough council to get rid of her. If Duane could pinch coal long enough to make diamonds he would. Meghan had blown the planned budget for the department on equipment she felt necessary to do her job. Only Duane made her feel as if whatever she did wasn’t in the best interest of the city.
The smartphone rang, and Meghan saw Oliver’s grinning face for the contact. “What’s up?”
“Hey Boss, are you working at the office?”
“No, I’m home now. Why?”
“I got a call from Valerie and Tom Harper, and they were driving by the police station, said the light was on in the office.” Tom worked for the town transformer plant. He was diligent about town officials burning unnecessary electricity. The past few nights Meghan worked late were followed up companywide emails regarding turning off lights to conserve energy.
Kinguyakkii was on an independent power source. Enormous free-standing diesel generators powered the whole city. They were lucky to have modern conveniences light electricity, internet, limited cell phone range, and most importantly, plumbing and sewage. Meghan visited a few of the outlying villages from time to time for calls, and some people had was what they referred to as “honey pots” in their homes or very close by, fifty-five gallon drums used for toilet needs. The stench wasn’t close to honey.
“I thought I turned off the lights.” Meghan uncoiled her legs from under her on the cushion and stood up. Her knees popped.
“I can go shut off the lights.”
“No, Oliver, I’ll go. It’s my fault. Thanks anyway.”
***
The hush across the town was pleasant. It was cold but not the ‘take your breath away’ bitter that sometimes happened when stepping outside. It was March, and the sun did its best to warm the landscape. Except the ice fog gripped the town and made it hard to see the edges of the road.
Instead of driving the Suburban to the police station and back home again, Meghan bundled up in her oversized parka, put on gloves, ski cap, and the ivory bunny boots. She needed to get more exercise. Every time Meghan pulled on her jeans, the button-fly front took increasingly more time and longer breaths to hold when she fastened the pants. A little nighttime walking helped work off the fast-food and winter drag on her boot heels.
From the house, walking along Bison street to the intersection of Third Avenue, it was another half-mile at the most, took close enough to burn up more fuel when it was a simple turnaround.
The pale siding of the contractor trailers was hard to see through the thick white soup in the air. Streetlights on the corners cast a pasty glow over the immediate area, unable to cut through the ice crystals. The ruddiness of the office light inside the police station looked more like a small candle in the window. Leave it to Tom to pick out that light driving by the office.
Like most buildings, the trailers had two entrances. Meghan commonly used the central, front porch. The side access was higher off the ground, taller steps leading to the single door. They stored pallets near the side door, creating a breaker from the wind that cut through the town sometimes like a razor-sharp knife. There was a wooden bin for the garbage cans from the department near the side entrance. It was easier to enter through the side than the front when she walked across the gravel yards between the buildings.
At the door, Meghan paused. The tiny window in the door showed the Formica table and the office on the other side of the trailer. The door was open, light on, and as Meghan slowly, quietly slipped the key into the doorknob lock, she saw a figure moving around inside her office.
The small hallway to the side door had the bathroom on the left when she entered. She’d arrived without a canister of pepper spray because she hadn’t bothered putting on the uniform to turn off lights. Meghan wasn’t expecting to see someone had broken into the police station and her office.
The figure switched off the light in the office, dousing the rest of the interior in blackness. Meghan reached the far side of the Formica table, managed to get her hand on a plastic formed chair before the light went out.
That moment of instant blackness, when all light stops, and the eyes can’t adjust left Meghan blinded for a few seconds. She used the memory of space to lift the chair and hurtle it across the table toward where she suspected the burglar moved.
“Hey!” she yelled, running in the dark, knocking her thigh against the table, arms flailing.
The figure tripped over the chair Meghan threw in the path, fell toward the archway. It was a man; she’d heard his “oomph,” as he fell over the throne chair. He was agile, on his feet and the moment he burst through the small gate and out the front door, Meghan closed the space, limping after him.
By the time she reached the top step, peering outside, the icy fog had devoured the running man. It was pointless to pursue.
Instead, Meghan turned on the rest of the lights inside the station and returned to the office.
The limited collection of evidence was missing. Her box of homemade fingerprint samples was gone, the olive-green glove, the cookie tin, everything she’d assembled was missing. When the man fell, a few packing tape fingerprint cards spilled on the floor by the archway.
Meghan dropped in the chair she’d thrown at the suspect after she turned it upright. Sitting in the main room of the department, rubbing her thigh, she thought what to do next. He got the evidence without vandalism. If he was dressed for cold weather, he wore gloves. She knew he had on a ski mask because there was only the shape of a head in the room before the light went out, no hair, and no flesh showing.
Exhaling in frustration, Meghan stood up and limped to the office door. The lock was jimmied, pulled apart from the aluminum doorframe where the latch mechanism held the door locked. The police laptop was still on the desk. The burglar got the fingerprint cards but didn’t know about the software program that made the card redundant because she had a digital collection. Meghan thought if he was after something, the prints were a bonus, she suspected it was the army glove that he wanted. Now he had the glove, the one real piece of evidence leftover from a senseless murder of a misguided woman who hadn’t quite figured out her lift, now she never would.
Meghan picked up the few pieces of debris left over from the new crime scene. She pulled the smartphone from the deep well pocket on the oversized coat and began taking pictures of the scene. A digital camera was the next big purchase for the department.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Since the night was ruined, Meghan didn’t get any sleep. She spent the remaining time alone at the department. First, she documented the damage, took pictures, and looked for leftover clues, nothing valuable in the detritus. Then came the cleaning, starting with her office. It needed a good scrubbing anyway, and since there was a utility closet full of cleaning supplies, Meghan dusted, scrubbed, and vacuumed the entire department. She found some air fresheners and placed them around.
By the time Oliver showed up for work, the coffee was ready, and the place was spotless.
“What happened?” he asked, seeing the crisp tabletops, the straightened chairs, and lack of clutter from available surfaces. Even the small kitchenette, where everyo
ne used the microwave, but no one ever cleaned it, was spotless.
“I got bored.” Meghan took a few ibuprofen for the pain and swelling of her leg. She sat at her desk, finishing the incident report from the night before. Meghan made a copy for the Alaska State Troopers and emailed it to Detective Anderson, and cc’d Duane. She wanted to make it look official. Nonetheless, two incidents of breaking into her office were hard to separate into coincidences.
“What happened to your office door?” Oliver was observant. He was younger, and some people thought he was a little slow on the uptake, but Meghan learned he used the outside observation as an advantage, people took him for granted. They underestimated his abilities. Meghan had a proper officer.
“Well, that’s from when someone broke into the station last night and took our evidence.”
Oliver stood within the doorframe facing her, absorbing the information. “So, Tom saw the light on, and that wasn’t you, it was someone stealing the stuff?”
“That’s right.”
“Who would steal tape and a cookie jar?”
“Someone who committed murder and wanted to keep it secret,” Meghan said. “Or someone who knows who the killer is and wants to keep it secret. Or someone who wants to keep something secret but wasn’t the killer.”
“That’s a lot to unpack, Boss.”
“You’re telling me.”
Oliver retreated to the main room, circled the table and went to fix himself a cup of coffee. “It’s clean in here, smells nice too.”
“Thanks,” she called from the desk in the office.
A Cold Day for Murder Page 10