Fatal Thaw (10 page)

Kate was momentarily diverted and even a little shocked. "Bobby. You're kidding, right?"

"Nope. Happened about ten, eleven years ago. Just after I got the roof on, she come visiting with a housewarming gift." He grinned, and it was a very wide, very male grin. "Herself. I don't think we got out of bed for a week. Swearta God, she was the all-time best piece of ass I ever had." He caught her eye and added hastily, "Except for you, of course."

"Oh, of course." Kate couldn't help herself; she laughed out loud. "Oh, Bobby. Well, I'm glad you enjoyed your self, but I thought you had better taste."

"Yeah, well. She wasn't easy to say no to, once she'd made up her mind."

"What happened?"

"Oh, she stayed as long as it took to satisfy her curiosity about what it was like to fuck a black gimp, and then she split." He saw her look.

"Come on, Kate. We both know what Lisa was like. Don't go all nil nisi bonum on me now."

She shook her head. "No. I just-I don't like the thought of her using you."

"Why not?" He smirked. "I used her, sure as hell, as well and as hard and for as long as I could. Didn't mean anything, but it sure felt good, and I was tired of shingling, anyway." "Bobby, no woman is safe from you." "You should know," he retorted.

"Mmm." She smiled at him in a way that made him for= get what Lisa Getty looked like, and resumed sweeping. "So Max Chaney was seeing Lisa, was he? Since when?"

"God, I don't know. Couldn't have been for more than two-three months or she would have dropped him."

That fit with what Jack had told her about Lisa and Chopper Jim. "Where was Chaney?" she said. "The day she was killed, I mean?"

"I don't know. Up on the Step at Park HQ, I guess." He shrugged. "I didn't ask."

Kate murmured some response and worked her way into the corner behind the wood box.

Bobby regarded her back thoughtfully. "What are you doing in town, Kate?" "Why?" she asked, without "Because it does just occur to me to wonder why you would be interested in Max's whereabouts that day." She said nothing.

"Come on, Kate, what's going on? You caught the guy who killed that bunch, Lisa included, caught him fair and square your own self, yet here you are, picking my brain about Lisa and Max." He pursed his lips.

"Unless, maybe"

The broom halted, and she regarded her toes with an interest bordering on fascination. "Unless maybe what?" She heard him shift in his chair, heard a faint squeak of rubber wheels on hardwood floor and moved her interesting toes out of the way just in time. She couldn't avoid his bright, direct gaze. "No bullshit now, Kate," he said, his drawl gone and all his verbs in their right places. "Was someone else shooting that "And did that someone else kill Lisa Getty?"

"Yes." Kate stepped back, swept her pile of dust and butts and potato chip and pretzel fragments into a neat pile and reached for the dustpan.

Bobby put it into her hand. "What was that crack Pete made? `How is Jack?' Jack's in the Park?"

"He was." "When?" "Sunday and Monday. He flew out again this morning." She handed him the full dustpan, and he emptied it into the garbage and handed it back. I

"Nice work if you can get it," Bobby observed. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. He didn't come just to see you, though, did he?"

"No. Bobby lost what little patience he had. "Am I going to have to drag it out of you? What'd he say?"

Kate refilled the dustpan and straightened. "He said the coroner says the bullet that killed Lisa Getty came from a different rifle than the bullets that killed the rest of the massacre victims."

"What's McAniff say?"

"He says he killed them all. Jack says McAniff was more than a little insulted at the mere suggestion that he might've missed one." "Jesus."

She nodded. "I know. Creepy guy."

"No shit." He stretched out one large, calloused hand, the airstrip to her interview with George, and finished up and she put her own into it. He drew her over to the couch, hoisted himself into it and pulled her down next to him.

Taking her hand again, he played with her fingers. "Okay, woman. Tell Bobby all about it." She did, from Mutt's apprehension of McAniff to Jack's report on the autopsies to her own vigil at the end of with an account of her visit to Lottie's house. He listened attentively, without comment, until she told him about the greenhouse. "All dope?" he said. She nodded. "All of it."

"How many plants'd you say?" he asked with a faraway look in his eye.

She suppressed a smile. "About seven to ten at hard labor's worth." He sighed. "Oh well, it was just a thought."

"Besides, you're through with all that," she pointed out and waited.

In vain, because he just grinned at her. She shook her head at him.

"So that's it?" he asked, and she nodded. "Who can tell?" "Keep it quiet, for now. I told George the same." "Somebody tell Lottie?"

She nodded. "Me. Today. And I'm telling you now want one person I trust to know where I am and what I'm doing at all times, just in case."

Bobby was pleased, and preened a little. "Why, of course. Do I get to help this time?"

"Sure." He looked delighted, and she added, "Bend your powerful brain to rounding up the usual suspects."

"Gotcha." He seemed to ripple to attention, like a cat at a mouse hole readying to pounce. "Sam Spade at your service, darling. What are we looking for?"

"The usual, Sam. Motive, means, opportunity. I'm sure Jack would appreciate some hard evidence."

"That doesn't sound very optimistic." "We're on an old, cold trail."

"It ain't even been two weeks!" Bobby roared.

"Most crimes are solved in the first twenty-four hours," she told him.

"After that the chances of finding whodunit decrease geometrically, I think by the minute. Maybe even the second." "What do you want, to find the killer standing over the corpse with a smoking gun in his hand?"

"It could be a her."

"It surely could," Bobby said dryly. "Two-thirds of the wives and most of the girlfriends in the Park had motive. This dope business bothers me, too. You know I don't miss much, Kate."

"I know. It's why I love you."

"Down, girl." He was almost purring. "I did miss the fact that Lisa was dealing dope."

"We don't know that she was dealing."

He gave her a tolerant look. "Lottie and Lisa smoking all day, every day for a year couldn't finish off that much weed all by themselves. No, Kate, they were selling it. And if they were selling it, somebody was buying it. And you know how druggies have this tendency to wig out every now and then." His eyes lingered on the scar at her throat. "Yes," she said flatly. "I know."

"Could have been a dissatisfied customer."

She got up and paced back and forth with long, thoughtful strides. She was between him and the fireplace and he admired the way the flames outlined her form. "What's wrong?" he said.

She paused and looked at him. "The whole thing's just so damn opportune."

He snapped his fingers. "Opportunity, the third thing we're looking for."

"Yeah." She resumed pacing. "I mean, there's McAniff, blasting away with a 30.06 at everything that moves, and somebody else just happens to be laying for Lisa, in the same place, with Another` 30.06? How could they know that he'd be using a 30.06?"

"Did they know?" Bobby asked, sounding skeptical. She halted. "You're right, they didn't have to. All they really needed was somebody else shooting, to cover the sound of their shots. By the time the difference in rifles was discovered, they'd be long gone. And were."

Bobby nodded. "A 30.06 is standard armament in the Park. If it comes to that, I've never seen you without yours, either on the rack in the back of your pickup or in a scabbard on your snow machine."

"True." Kate sat back down. "It'd be nice to have some place to start in this mess." "Well. The means we got." "Not in hand."

"No, but we know how it was done and with what," Bobby said, "thirty-ought-six, same as the others, only different." He stroked his chin, looking as if he wished he had a meerschaum pipe to puff on. He jerked his head. "You need to use the radio to talk to Jack?"

"Got nothing to say to him yet. Might need to, later. I hope so, anyway."

"No problem. KL7CC's"

"I know. KL7CC's always awake." He grinned. "Need a place to sleep?"

She grinned back. "Uh-huh."

"Want to share the bed?" he said, exaggeratedly hopeful.

"The couch will be fine." He sighed. "Goddam, woman, you don't know what you're missing."

She winked at him. "Oh, yes, I do."

ALONG with the usual assortment of snow machines and battered pickup trucks, there were half a dozen dog teams staked outside the Roadhouse as Kate drove up the next morning. Mutt leapt off the back of the Jag as they pulled to a halt, and trotted from one team to the next, touching noses with each team's leaders, exchanging sharp, short barks of greeting with the others, not missing anyone, and generally working the crowd in a manner that reminded Kate irresistibly of Ekaterina Shugak working the crowd at an Alaska Federation of Natives meeting. She didn't seem to be interested in much more than touching noses, Kate noticed with mixed feelings of relief and apprehension. Judging by the tracks she'd seen around the woodpile Tuesday morning, tracks the size of salad plates, the timber wolf was still hanging around, hoping, she was grimly convinced, for more than a handout. A yelp startled her. It wasn't a bark of greeting or a whine for attention, it was a definite yelp for help, and she looked for its source. Around one corner of the building another dog team was anchored almost out of sight. There was another canine yelp and some suppressed snickers of human origin. She took a step forward, the better to see.

The team's lead dog had been restrained by three boys. A fourth had a stick and with it was investigating the dog's behind. The dog yelped a third time. Kate took half a dozen swift noiseless steps and collared the boy with the stick and the one holding the dog's hind legs apart. Their heads thumped together with a very satisfying sound, so she did it again. The other two boys cut and ran. "Mutt, fetch!" Mutt bounded forward and knocked the third boy over with a powerful shoulder. She left him to nip at the rapidly retreating behind of the fourth. The third boy, still rolling, bounced off the side of the Roadhouse, jumped to his feet and streaked off.

"All right," Kate said, "now just who do we have here?" She twisted them around to see. Bewildered and neither was much above ten years old. "Ah.

Amos Totemoff. I'll be sure, next time I see Demetri to tell him I saw his son, and I'll be sure to tell him what I saw his son doing, too." She looked at the other boy and said musingly, "Larry? Lyndon? Leonard, that's it, Leonard Kvasnikof. Stop that bawling this instant." Her raspy voice cracked like a broken whip. Both boys froze into immobility, feet dangling some inches above the ground.

"Who were those other two boys?" Neither spoke, and she wound her fists tighter in their collars and gave them shake. "Who were they?"

Still no answer. "Okay," Kate said, easing her grip so that their toes could touch the ground, "I wouldn't give two cents for a boy who ratted on a friend anyway. But get this and get it good. I catch either one of you mistreating a dog, or any other animal anywhere in the Park ever again, 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."