by Ed Ifkovic
The two men rushed through the long room, weaving in and out of the various sofa sets, bumping into end tables, divesting themselves of parkas and scarves—which Raina grabbed from them, sometimes catching them in mid-air—until the disgruntled pair stood in front of Tessa and me.
Tessa’s voice was laced with sarcasm. “Edna, you’ve met Preston Strange, the fruit of my generous and overworked womb, born in an Episcopalian meeting house on a dark December night.” She paused. “And my second husband’s sister’s failure, Jeremy Nunne.” She paused again, dropped her voice. “Mild-mannered Mr. Milquetoast.”
“Mother,” Preston snarled, “I told you this woman is the enemy.”
That surprised me. “I beg your pardon?”
Preston stared down at me. I saw flecks of food stuck to the corner of his lips. “Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes, madam.”
Again a garbled cough, painful clearing of Tessa’s throat, and the frantic reach for a cigarette. In seconds smoke filled her corner of the room. She glowered at her son. “Tell me what happened at the police station.”
Preston glanced at me, hesitated, but said slowly, “I was questioned. For an hour.” His face scrunched up. “Me—a prominent businessman in Fairbanks. The Chamber of Commerce. The Rotary…”
Tessa squealed. “A vendetta, Preston—are you dimly aware of what’s gong on?”
Preston hurled a sidelong glance at me. “A simple formality, the chief said. Bullshit. Pardon my language, Miss Ferber. Because of that idiotic scene in the Model Café. And”—again the fierce look at me—“Sonia’s gleeful mention of my squabble in that tabloid rag she edits.”
“A formality,” Jeremy echoed. “Everyone knows the Indian Sam Pilot did it. That brawl. Something talked about in town by everyone.”
“They’re hauling his ass in for questioning,” Preston said. “But since when does an Indian ever tell the truth?”
Tessa turned to me, a rumble in her voice. “Do you see, Edna dear, what Sonia has done? A bitter woman—she would damage us. An empire built on privacy, discretion—yes, even bluster. But…”
“But now…” Preston whined.
“Shut up, Preston. You brought this on yourself. A hothead like your father. Acting like a street thug. All our enemies will gather like a pack of wolves.”
Jeremy cleared his throat. “I want to say something.”
Preston groaned. “Your tussle with Jack Mabie also made it into the police blotter, Jeremy.”
“I was walking by myself, quiet—and he harassed me. I pushed him away.”
Tessa screamed. “Enough.” She tossed her head back and forth. Rolls of fat moved. “Jeremy, Jeremy. How many opportunities you miss! Will this be the story of your life?”
“I’m not used to dealing with trouble-makers.”
“Jack Mabie,” Preston muttered. “Better off dead.”
Tessa roared. “Are you listening, Edna? Will you repeat this to the chief of police? To Hank? To Sonia? Tomorrow’s headlines. Preston Strange announces Jack Mabie better off dead.”
Preston was furious. “Jeremy, tell my mother about your trip to the Frontier Home.”
Jeremy swallowed, nervous. “I visited Jack Mabie at the Frontier Home—just before he headed to the bar.”
“What?” Tessa thundered. “For what reason?”
He crossed and uncrossed his arms. “I felt bad about the nonsense in the street and…”
“And so he chose to lose his mind.” Preston made a fist and stomped his foot.
Jeremy had hammock hands and a round basketball face. Beard stubble made his ruddy complexion appear unwashed. He had messy black hair and small black eyes, pinpoints. He looked monstrously unhappy. A football jock gone to riotous and pitiful seed.
“The police want to question me,” he said softly.
Tessa said nothing at first, though I caught her surreptitious glance in my direction, an attempt perhaps to size up my reading of the two buffoons.
Finally, purposely blowing smoke into Preston’s face, she said, “Which of you two will be named murderer by The Gold? A crap shoot, really. Tweedledum—tweedle dumber.” She began coughing, a smoker’s thick, pasty rasp, then said to me, “Do you see why I asked you here?”
Flummoxed, I stammered, “No, I still don’t.”
Tessa held up her hand and cleared her throat. “All right, dammit. You two have made fools of yourselves.” She lit another cigarette and roared, “Raina, more whiskey.” The young Eskimo woman bustled in and replenished the tumbler, though Tessa never looked at her.
Preston was mouthing Sam Pilot’s name. “The Indian did it—a drunken brawl.”
Tessa was shaking her head. “You didn’t consider, Preston, that decisions like this are—political. Consequential. No matter guilt or innocence. Politics. Hank and Sonia have an agenda—statehood. Worse, a desire to embarrass us—to attack us.”
“I still don’t understand,” I broke in.
Her eyes were watery. “You have the power to squelch this travesty, Edna. I have to believe you value—truth.”
I stood up. “I have no role to play here.”
Suddenly Tessa reached to a side table, out of breath, and grabbed a crumpled edition of The Gold. “Sonia, in her desire to exploit everyone for her readers’ titillation, mentioned your name—you as horrified witness to Preston’s ill-advised shoving of the late, not-so-great Jack Mabie.”
“Yes, I saw that.”
“Intrusive, no?” A sly smile. “The exploitation of a budding friendship.”
“It didn’t bother me.”
She wagged a finger at me. “You don’t lie well, Edna.”
“Don’t trust her, Mother,” Preston said. “I wouldn’t be surprised…”
Tessa was amused. “Everything surprises you, Preston. You know that.” A chuckle. “I used to think it was part of your charm. Now I know it’s just…imbecility.”
I took a step forward. “I have to get back.”
Tessa called Raina, who summoned Joe—and helped me into my parka.
Getting into the backseat, I looked toward the doorway. I was surprised to see Tessa standing there, her massive arms folded over her chest, her body filling the lighted doorway.
She raised her arm in salutation.
Already cold, I simply stared out the window as the car pulled away from the curb.
Chapter Eight
Noah and I found Sam Pilot hidden in the afternoon shadows of Omar’s. Bothered by the nasty rumors floating around the lounge, Sam’s name whispered as a brutal man who murdered his old partner, Noah was making repeated phone calls to his sister’s apartment. “Maria was surprised to hear my voice again,” he told me, a boyish smile on his face. “She’s used to a simple Christmas call.”
I ran my tongue into the corner of my mouth. “Maybe the gods are telling you something, Noah.”
He hesitated. “Edna, you don’t understand.”
“Of course I do. I don’t think you do. Perhaps a little understanding of a life lived differently from your own.”
I could see him fashioning a rebuttal, but he simply shook his head. “You don’t let a person get away with anything, do you, Edna?”
“Why should I?”
We were sitting in the lounge, and he said quietly, “I want to talk to Sam.”
“Maria didn’t know where he is?”
“She suspects Omar’s.” He breathed in. “Or a hundred other gin mills in town. She said he was questioned by the police, taken in a second time, and he came back moody and cold. He smashed a plate on the floor but she said he apologized, which stunned her. He never apologizes for anything. He wouldn’t tell her anything except that they pummeled him with ridiculous questions, especially about his threat to kill Jack. She gathered that he stayed quiet, refusing their questions, crossing his arms
and waiting for them to tell him he could leave.”
“That’s not going to help his case.”
He made a helpless gesture and sighed. “He doesn’t care. If he’s innocent, he expects the authorities to believe him.”
I laughed a bit. “That’s not how it works.”
“For the Athabascan that’s the way it works.” He rustled in his seat. “Come with me to Omar’s. That’s where he’ll be.” A quirky smile. “I know you, Edna—tempted to walk on the wild side.”
Which was why, at four in the afternoon, an awful chill in the air as ice crystals floated in our faces, we walked into the seedy saloon. At first, blinded by darkness, I saw nothing, though the rancid odor of spilled beer and body odor slapped me in the face. A tiny place, slapdash peeled log cabin walls and a corrugated tin roof fashioned out of Mobil oil drums, an interior space with a few ragged pinewood tables and a makeshift bar up front, dimly lit from exposed bulbs hanging from wobbly wires, Omar’s was a firetrap. Or a forgotten rung of Dante’s inferno. As my eyes adjusted to the scattered light, I spotted an obese man with a knit snow cap tending the bar, unmoving, his body facing us. I stepped toward the bar, immediately assailed by the cloying whiff of smoke from the cast-iron coal stove, chugging and belching, a red glow to the hot metal, a bent pipe serving as ventilation to the outdoors. A smoldering sensation of dust in the air, a film on your skin.
An empty bar at that hour of the afternoon, it seemed. But no—dim late-day sunshine pierced the one side window, illuminating a shaft of dust motes across the room and spotlighting, almost like a stage beam, Sam Pilot, his back against a wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. Arms folded over his chest, body slumped down in the chair, he looked asleep. But as we approached I noticed a left eye flicker, open for a second, then close.
Noah stood in front of him. “Sam.”
A long time answering. “What you want?”
“Answers.” Noah’s voice was clipped, biting.
“None to give the likes of you.”
Noah glowered. “Well, you better get some.”
“I ain’t done nothing.”
“You were at the police station all morning.”
A shoulder moved. “Yeah? So what? It ain’t the first time I been dragged into such places.” A bitter smile. “But I always end up in places like—this.” His hand lazily swept the bar.
“Somebody murdered Jack.” Noah leaned down into Sam, his face inches away from the old man.
Silence, a raspy cough, then, “It ain’t me.”
“You threatened to kill him. Sonia and Edna heard you. On the street. Other people heard you. The reason the cops brought you in.”
Sam’s hand moved up toward his face, so slow and calculated a gesture it seemed staged. “So what? I threaten a lot of people. It’s sort of what I like to do.”
Stunned, I cleared my throat. “Why?”
For the first time he moved his head in my direction. He watched me closely. “Why are you here?”
Noah jumped in. “I asked her to come with me.”
“A real man would come alone.”
Noah’s face tightened. “A man wouldn’t hit his best friend in the back of the head with a club.”
Sam waited a long time, his head slowly nodding up and down. The tip of his tongue slipped out, rolled across his lips. He stared into Noah’s face, then dramatically reached across a nearby table and grasped a bottle of beer. Dreamily, eyes still focused on Noah, he drained the bottle, let out a satisfied growl, and slammed the bottle down on the table.
“Christ Almighty,” the bartender yelled over. “Sam, you gonna break the goddamn bottle.”
Sam ignored him.
“So your threat on the street meant nothing?” I ventured, hesitant.
He stared at me closely, his eyes dark. “You don’t understand the North, lady. It ain’t”—he flicked a finger toward the center of the room—“this. Jack and me. Living for winters in snowbound cabins. If we don’t slam each other, if we don’t threaten to kill each other, if we don’t wrestle the other into a corner, then we go—crazy.” A short maniacal laugh. “It’s sport.”
“Do you ever mean it?”
A wry chuckle. “Every time I say it. Otherwise why bother?”
“I’m not following this.”
“Maybe you ain’t supposed to, lady.” He focused on Noah, and I wondered about his eyesight. “Why bring the old lady?”
I ignored that. “Sam, can I ask you about something you said?” I didn’t wait for his response, “In the Nordale lounge you said”—I glanced at Noah—“I’m translating, ‘He saw it.’ In your street brawl Jack said to you, ‘Maybe it ain’t him.’ Tell me, who are we talking about?”
“Nobody.”
“Do you know a guy named Ty Gilley?”
“Never heard of him.”
I was frustrated. “Those remarks have to mean something.”
“No, they don’t.” He breathed in. “You ain’t heard me correct, lady.”
I looked to Noah for help. “Noah, talk to him.”
Noah had been shifting from one foot to the other. “Tell us, Sam. Okay?”
“Ain’t nothing to tell. I say a lot of things.”
His face closed up, yet I knew, to my core, that Sam harbored a secret. His eyes fluttered, and his head dipped into his lap, his breathing louder, faster. A secret—and a damning one. A murderous one. “You’re not telling us something.”
He bit his lip. “You ask too many questions.”
“You say such things and then Jack is found murdered.”
“I ain’t done it.” For the first time a trace of anger in his voice.
Noah and I watched him, quiet, quiet.
“Then who killed Jack?” Noah asked suddenly.
He shrugged his shoulders. “He comes in here at night, gets drunk, picks fights with strangers. That’s what he does, you know. Spits in folks’ faces—insults, jabs at you. Sooner or later he’s gonna lit into the wrong guy.”
“The police think it’s you?”
His face scrunched up. “Ain’t no proof.”
“I believe you,” Noah said suddenly. He stepped back.
Surprised, I turned to him. “What?”
Flat out, cocky. “I believe him.” He shrugged. “He didn’t do it.”
Sam was nodding at him.
“I’m not following this,” I said out loud.
“I already told you that,” Sam muttered, a smile on his face. “You an Outsider. You old white lady.”
“Yes, I am that, but…” I stared at Noah. “An Athabascan thing?”
He was smiling at me. “A gut thing.”
“Noah,” I protested, “you’re a lawyer. Surely you know…”
He stood up, stretched out his arms. “Blood talks.”
Sam was nodding slowly.
Noah was backing away, signaling to me that it was time to leave.
Sam yelled to the bartender, sputtering something about another beer, but the bartender, rocking on his heels as he polished a glass, was staring at Noah and me. Sam repeated his request—“You goddamn deaf, Harry?”—and the bartender, mumbling “Yeah, yeah, you old drunk Indian,” popped the top of a beer and slid it across the bar. It sat there, Sam staring across the room at it.
Impulsively, walking to the bar, I picked up the bottle. Behind me, Sam grunted—muttering something about my hurrying up, what are you doing, lady? It ain’t your goddamn beer—as I debated what to do. Noah, flummoxed, made a what-are-you-doing? gesture with his hands, though a wide smile covered his face. As I approached Sam, he shuffled in his seat, attempting to sit upright.
“I thought I’d save you the long walk,” I told him.
He growled as he reached for the bottle.
I held it high over his head, my finge
rs gripping it tightly. I watched as he attempted to lift his arm in the air, but with difficulty. His shoulder twitched and he winced, his face contorted.
“Gimme the goddamn bottle,” he hissed.
I gave him the bottle and he took a swig.
I looked at Noah, who was smiling. “Maybe you’re right, Noah. The arthritis I have in my arms makes little tasks daunting. Sam here—I can’t imagine him lifting a board and slamming it with such force to kill Jack.”
“I told you,” Noah said, a smug look on his face.
“I told you, too.” Sam slumped down in the chair, content.
“I mean, it’s possible,” I went on. “Jack was small, Sam tall. I still have my doubts.”
Noah stared moving toward the door, his hand under my elbow. “I don’t.”
Sam called after us, his voice hollow. “Noah.” We turned to face him. Slowly, almost ritualistically, he placed his hand over his heart. The other hand gripped the beer bottle. A shift in that voice now. Not the callous indifference. Now, strangely, he sounded frightened. “Noah, I have seen the face of God.”
Noah’s mouth fell open. Then, his eyes bright, he said, “I know.”
We sat in Hank and Irina’s living room having coffee. Irina fussed around us, pouring coffee and slicing chunks of blueberry cake. Hank’s eyes followed her jittery movement, at one point shaking his head, though I detected affection there. Irina acted fluttery, and Sonia finally reached out, touched her forearm, and whispered, “Mom, sit down.”
Noah and I had been recounting the encounter with Sam Pilot, with me concluding, “I didn’t understand half of what was said to me. A condition I’m not used to. Nor do I like it.”
“The call of the wild.” Hank rolled his eyes.
Sonia was amused by it all. “Half of what Noah tells me—in fact, whispers affectionately in my ear—is mysticism from—Stonehenge. Runic romance. His mash notes are shaman hieroglyphics.”
Noah was shaking his head. “I contain multitudes.”
While we all laughed and Sonia winked melodramatically at Noah, Hank didn’t. “Somebody killed Jack Mabie.”