A grave denied (37 page)

Virgil looked sorrowful. “I went to where Dreyer lived, to make sure there was nothing to find. He came. He wondered that I was there. He said nothing, but I could tell. I had my shotgun with me.” He patted the air next to him. “My shotgun,” he said, and looked around in some bewilderment when it didn’t materialize beneath his hand.

Bobby snapped his fingers. “That’s why you wanted to sell your property to Ruthe Bauman for the Kanuyaq Land Trust. You figured if it was designated wilderness, no one would ever find the babies’ bodies!”

Virgil looked at him. “Could you see to my Telma now, please? You said that you would, and I am thinking she is very lonely, out there on our homestead, all by her herself. It is only the babies with her now, you see.”

And he smiled.

₁₉

Oh good, you’re awake.“ Kate’s eyeballs felt like they’d been sandpapered. ”You’re getting to be a regular customer, Ms. Shugak.“ A round figure beneath a starched white coat, the inevitable stethoscope draped around her neck, Adrienne Giroux had a soft voice and a gentle touch. ”If we had frequent flyer miles, you’d be eligible for a first-class upgrade by now.“

“My dog—” Kate said.

“Is fine,” Giroux said firmly. She tucked a strand of brown hair back into its twist. “The vet says she had a concussion, like you.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand how but neither of you were badly hurt.” She smiled. “Born lucky, I think is the phrase. Both of you.”

Kate blinked up at her. “Mutt’s all right?”

“Yes.”

“She’s not dead?”

“No. She’s not even hurt that badly.” Giroux smiled. “I imagine that hunky trooper of yours will bring her in at some point during your stay, violating hospital protocols right, left, and center.”

“He’s not my hunky trooper.”

“Really,” Dr. Giroux said. “My mistake.”

Kate thought back. “Dirt,” she said. “I could hardly breathe.”

“Yes,” the doctor said, “apparently—” but there was no apparently because Kate’s eyes closed and she slid gratefully back into sleep.

The second time she opened her eyes Auntie Vi was there, sewing something, her half-glasses slipping down her nose, looking impossibly dear. Kate watched, saying nothing, until Auntie Vi looked up and said, “Katya! You awake!”

“Hi, Auntie,” Kate said with what she knew must be a very weak smile.

Auntie Vi smiled back. “You want some water?”

Kate nodded, and sipped at the cup held to her lips, and slipped back into sleep.

The third time she woke up Mutt was there, sitting next to tüe bed, just tall enough to rest her nose on its edge. Big yellow eyes blinked at Kate, one eyebrow raised, and Kate heard the thumping of a tail against the floor. The area beneath her right ear had been shaved and there were stitches. She looked like Dr. Frankenstein had been using her for experimentation.

“Mutt,” Kate said. Tears blurred her eyes. “Mutt,” she said again, and reached out. A rending pain beneath her forehead blinded her. Her gasp caused a flurry of movement beyond her vision. She didn’t slide into sleep this time, she plummeted.

The fourth time she woke Mutt was still there. Johnny was sitting in Auntie Vi’s chair, bent over a book.

When Kate moved, a long rasping tongue came out and washed her face. She half-smiled and tried to clear her throat. “What are you reading?” she said.

Johnny looked up. “You’re awake!” he said.

“Everybody says that, and every time they do I fall back asleep. What are you reading?” He held it up, mute.
“Have Space-suit, Will Travel.
One of my favorites.” Wait a minute. Memory came back, painful and painfully. Someone had burned down her cabin, and all her books with it, and all Johnny’s, too. “Where did you get it?”

“We got a box of books from Rachel yesterday,” he said.

“Good old Rachel,” Kate said, closing her eyes and smiling. “Read to me.”

Johnny was doubtful. “You want me to start at the beginning?”

“Anywhere.”

Kip and Peewee were on their way to Tombaugh Station and Pluto when Kate drifted off this time.

The fifth time she woke she was alone, and hungry, and she had to pee. The catheter was out, thank god, and so was her IV. She sat up carefully, and discovered Mutt asleep on the floor next to the bed. The hair was starting to grow back through her stitches. “Don’t we make a pair,” Kate said.

Mutt’s ears twitched but she didn’t move. Kate stepped over her and negotiated the distance between bed and bathroom successfully. She made a fairly praiseworthy attempt at a spit bath, found a comb and wetted down her hair, carefully avoiding the lump that had somehow missed being shaved, and came out looking for her clothes.

“Get the hell back in that bed,” Jim said from the door.

She glared at him, swaying a little, the draft coming in through the open back of her hospital gown. It made her feel vulnerable. She hated feeling vulnerable, especially in front of Jim. “Where are my clothes?”

“If I knew I wouldn’t tell you. Get back in that bed now, or I’ll put you in it.”

He looked like he meant it. Grumbling, she obeyed, keeping her back turned away from him. “I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, like that’s a surprise,” he said, and deposited a Styrofoam container on her lap.

She opened it and found country-fried steak, no gravy, eggs scrambled soft, and home fries with onions and green peppers. She blinked. She might even have sniffled.

“Don’t you dare cry.”

She looked at him, misty-eyed.

“I mean it,” he said, sitting on the extreme edge of a chair.

“Where’s the coffee?”

He handed her an Americano tall, with cream.

She couldn’t help it; one lone tear escaped to run down her cheek. He looked away, glaring at a potted plant sitting on her nightstand. She swiped at the tear with her hand while he wasn’t looking. A small brown bag held a side of sausage gravy, plastic flatware, and salt and pepper. “Could you push the table over here?”

He pushed.

“Could you raise the bed, please?”

He raised.

“What day is it?”

“Friday. May sixteenth.”

“Thanks.” She waded in. Mutt woke up, noticed Jim Chopin was in the room, and padded over to welcome him with a lavish tongue. Her head wound must have slowed her down some, at least temporarily, because she was less effusive than usual. He could be grateful for that while abhorring the cause. He was silent, sipping his own coffee as he waited for Kate to eat. Nothing got in the way of Kate Shugak and a meal, not even a double homicide and two, three if you counted Mutt, attempted ones.

Mutt subsided, lying back down and resting her head on his right foot. He’d been tapping it nervously, so he took that as a hint.

Kate finished the last bite with a positively voluptuous sigh and leaned back, uncapping the coffee and sniffing it ecstatically. She sipped, and made a sound that sounded appropriate coming from a bed. Jim gritted his teeth.

“I’m going to live,” she said, smiling at him.

“Good,” he said briskly. “Now tell me what happened. You went out to the Hagbergs’ place. Why?”

Right to business. She searched her memory, and to her relief the fragments came together. “Because I got to looking at the list of people who’d had contact with Dreyer prior to his murder, and after what Gary Drussell said, I wondered if there were minor girl children in any of the other homes. And then of course I remembered Vanessa.”

“Of course.”

“So I went over there to talk to Virgil and Telma about Vanessa. I wanted to make sure she was all right, that Dreyer hadn’t gotten to her the way he had Tracy Drussell, and that if he had that we got her some help.”

“I see.” He sat still for a moment. “And Virgil thought you were there because you’d figured out that he had killed Dreyer.”

She looked up. “Virgil killed Len Dreyer?”

He nodded. “And Dandy Mike.”

She stared. “What?”

“He shot Dandy Mike,” Jim said stonily. “Dandy was just like you, he wouldn’t stay fired. He kept asking questions, and Virgil got to hear about it, and last Monday he followed Dandy up to Dreyer’s cabin and shot him with the same shotgun he used to kill Dreyer.”

Kate closed her eyes. “Dandy’s dead?”

“Yes,” Jim said, snapping the words out. “Dandy is most definitely dead. They’re releasing his body today, so you’ll be home in time for the podatch. Billy and Annie are planning one hell of a podatch.”

There was silence for a long time in the room. “I was so sure,” Kate said at last in a faraway voice, “I was so sure after we found out about Duffy serving time for a child abuse conviction that the killer would be some outraged parent. I was even prepared maybe to let it slide.”

“I wouldn’t have let you.”

“You wouldn’t have known,” she said. “Did you talk to George?”

“No. George? Why?”

She told him. “And then he came out to my place the next day and said that he’d lied to me, that Gary Drussell had flown into the Park last fall, looking for Len Dreyer, and that he’d had a shotgun with him. He told George he hadn’t found him, but we both figured he was lying. So I was sure Gary had done it, had killed Dreyer.”

“And it turns out,” Jim said after a moment, “that instead it was something that Dreyer/Duffy found during one of his jobs.” He told her the rest of the story.

“Five?” she said. “Five babies? All dead?”

He nodded. “And buried out back. Dreyer dug in the wrong place. You’ve got to wonder if he meant it to happen, letting Dreyer dig so close to where they were buried.”

Another silence. Kate said, “I was thinking before what a perfect position Len Dreyer was in to ferret out Park dirt.” She gave a humorless laugh. “In the end that’s exactly what he did. He was rototilling the garden and up come the bodies.” Her brow wrinkled. “He was out there twice, though.”

“Out where?”

“Out to Virgil’s, last summer. Once for the rototilling, and once to help Virgil dig the foundation to a new greenhouse.”

He nodded. “Yeah, he didn’t tell Virgil right away that he’d found Virgil and Telma’s little cemetery. He waited until he had a plan, and when Virgil hired him back to help on the greenhouse, he laid it out for him.”

“Blackmail?”

“Yeah. Not a lot of money, but steady. What Dreyer didn’t know was that Virgil had a plan, too. I’m not sure he decided to kill Dreyer until the glacier offered him a place to hide the body.”

She pushed her coffee away. “Where is Telma?”

“She’s in API, undergoing a psych eval.”

“And Virgil?

“At Cook Inlet Pre-Trial. He’s not crazy, he’s just homicidal. Which reminds me. How the hell did he get both you and Mutt?”

They both looked at the big gray half-husky, half-malamute, chin resting on her god’s shoe, eyes closed in an expression of perfect bliss. “I don’t know, exactly. I turned Mutt loose to forage. The next thing I remember was looking at the side of a shovel coming at me, and that’s all I remember until I woke up here.”

“It was a miracle he didn’t shoot you both,” Jim said savagely.

“Why didn’t he?”

“Beats the hell out of me. I would have.” He glared at her. “I think it was because he forgot to load the shotgun after he killed Dandy. Wasn’t used to killing people, I don’t think, although we haven’t dug up his whole homestead—who knows, there might be a dozen more bodies out there.”

Kate shifted beneath the sheet that was all she could bear in the way of covers. It was too hot in this damn hospital. She longed for the cool, the peace, and the solitude of her cabin. The easy tears came back when she remembered it no longer existed. She battled them back. “Thanks, by the way.”

“For what?”

“You did the CPR. Johnny told me.”

He shrugged. “And then you puked all over me.”

“Sorry about that,” she said, a little nettled.

“Yeah, well. You brought yourself back, really. Were you conscious when he dumped you in the ground?”

“Barely. Enough to pretend to be dead. I managed to scoop out a little breathing space beneath my nose without him seeing, before I passed out.”

“So you’ll be able to testify at trial.”

“Bet your ass,” she said.

“Good. Although it may not come to trial.”

“Did Virgil confess?”

“Oh hell yes,” Jim said, mouth compressed in a firm line. “He’s confessed to burying the babies after his wife had them and then smothered them in her arms. He’s confessed to killing Len Dreyer aka Leon Duff}‘ and hiding his body in Grant Glacier. He’s confessed to running Dreyer aka Duffy’s truck into a lake on his property, from where we have now recovered it. He’s confessed to burning down your cabin, and he’s confessed how much of a shock it was to see you alive the next morning. He’s confessed to killing Dandy Mike because Dandy just got too darn nosy, poking his nose into other people’s business, and he’s confessed to trying to kill you. And Mutt. He’s real sorry about Mutt, by the way. He wanted me to make sure you knew.”