Killing Grounds (19 page)

"What have you got, Jim?" Kate said, impatient with pissing contests of any kind, whether she was first prize or not.

"Well, not you, for starters," he murmured, breaking eye contact with Jack to smile down at her. "Oh, you meant Meany? Kinda forgot there for a minute. Well, the pathologist is a tad upset over Meany, Kate. She can't quite figure out how he died. There's water in his lungs, but his trachea is crushed, and then there is that knife, and unfortunately, the wound did bleed, so he was stabbed before he died." He paused, apparently thinking he might have missed something. He decided not. "That's about all she could tell me. She'll have more tomorrow, and the final report by Saturday, if her boss okayed the overtime. State cuts, you know." His mouth thinned, leaving them in no doubt of his opinion of legislative cutbacks to law enforcement.

"So we still don't know exactly when he died?" He shook his head, and Kate swore. "Dammit, Jim. If we don't know when, we're never gonna find out who. It's July, for crissake, it's light pretty much round the clock." She waved a hand for emphasis at the twilight sky that passed for night during an Alaskan July. "Somebody killed that many different ways has to have been seen going down for the third time, dammit!"

"Which reminds me," he said. "What'd you find out on your end?"

She gave him a look to let him know she knew she was being sidetracked. "He was beating on his son again at the cannery dock last night, admitted to by the son and witnessed by the whole damn beach gang, his wife and daughter are abuse victims if I've ever seen them, he moved in on the Ur-sins' setnet site and ran them off by threat if not by force, he cut Mary Balashoff's nets not once but twice during the past week and Gull is ticked because he tried to park in a space reserved for visiting dignitaries from Alpha Centauri."

Jim raised one very bland eyebrow. "Anything else?"

Kate took a deep breath, held it and then blew it out explosively. "Well, I didn't like him very much, either."

The three men laughed.

Kate, regaining her poise, said, "Old Sam says the whole bunch of them came here two years ago from Cincinnati, and from what his wife says, Calvin Meany has been driving them all like slaves ever since. You might want to check with the Cincinnati PD."

Chopper Jim knew what she meant; if Calvin Meany had been skating close to the edge of the law in Alaska, chances were he'd been doing the same in his previous neighborhood.

"You might want to talk to the Ursins, too. They live in Anchorage. And of course you'll want to talk to the family yourself. And you'll need to check the boy's alibi. He says he stayed overnight with the Wieses, Paul and Georgina, before Wendell Kritchen told him about his dad and gave him a ride back to the site." Suddenly Kate remembered the daughter. "You ought to interview the daughter yourself, Jim. Try to get her off by herself. I'm pretty sure she was holding something back."

George, standing behind Jim, hid a grin. He'd ferried groceries and supplies out to the Meanys' site a time or two, had had a close encounter of the third kind with Dani and had escaped virtue intact literally by a wing and prayer. But Jim was a big boy. He could take care of himself. George only hoped he got to be there to watch him do so. He'd like to be present when a little of that famous Chopin aplomb went south for the winter.

No fool, Jim examined Kate's smile with suspicion. "Really?"

"Really," Kate said, with perfect truth, just not with all the truth. She did not, for example, warn Jim that he ought to don a chastity belt before he went within a mile of the place. Really, it had nothing to do with the case, did it?

"I'm staying at The Reluctant Fisherman tonight," Jim said. "I'll be back out tomorrow morning. I've talked to most of the fishermen in town todayI figure on getting to the rest of them out here. From what I understand, it had better be sooner than later, before they all get on a plane for Anacortes.' He touched the brim of his hat and walked back to the Cub.

George waited while the trooper climbed into the back seat. He climbed into the front seat, pausing in the act of folding up the door when a thought struck him. "Hey, Kate!"

"What?"

"Tell Joyce I loved the invisible-dog leash float in the parade." He grinned.

"What parade?" Kate said blankly.

" 'What parade?' What kind of American are you, anyway, Shugak? The Fourth of July parade in Cordova. I flew out and picked her up. Sarah Nicolo decided they couldn't do their thing without her and chartered me to bring her in."

Kate vaguely remembered seeing George's Super Cub buzzing the jousting tournament the day before. It seemed like a long time ago.

"Anyway, Joyce was the leader of the invisible-dog team. It was a scream," George told Jack, "about a dozen old women walking those dog leashes, you know the ones all stiff that look like they have an invisible dog in them? Joyce and a bunch of the other gals, Rosie Pirtle and Monica Peters and Crystal Van Brocklin and Deliah Nordensen and I don't know who else, being hauled down the road by these invisible dogs. With Joyce in front those dogs didn't want to follow the parade route real strict, either, they barged through the crowd and the downtown playground and through the Alaskan Bar and around the post office and just generally broke everyone up. None of the old broads cracked a smile the whole time, either. What a riot, you should have seen it. Hell, I almost forgot." He leaned back and said something to Chopper Jim, who turned to rummage behind his seat, producing a cheap trophy and handing it forward. George thrust it out the window. "Here. Rosie sent that out for Joyce."

Kate took it automatically. With a final wave, George folded up and latched the window. The engine roared to life, the prop rotated and a minute later they were airborne.

Kate looked down to find that the object she was holding was a small wooden trophy, a fake brass five-pointed star on top and a thin fake brass plate affixed to the front. She held it up in the dimming evening light to squint at the words.

FIRST PRIZE

for Best Entry in

the Open Invitational All Alaska

Independence Day Parade

Cordova, Alaska

The four old women and Johnny were still seated around the fire, which had been recently built up. Berries and gear mending had been abandoned for Monopoly, the board unfolded on a large round of sawed-off tree stump, and from the pile of money and property accumulating in front of Johnny, not to mention the smug look on his face, it seemed that he was winning. He rolled the dice, cruised on up to North Carolina, which he owned, and trained the forward guns of his battleship on the Short Line, which he didn't.

Edna hopped one-footed around Go, landed her shoe on Baltic, collected two hundred dollars and handed it over to Johnny with a sigh. He owned Baltic, too, and she was staying at his hotel. She sighed again and mortgaged Boardwalk to pay off the rest of the rent.

Auntie Vi looked up at Kate and Jack's entrance into the clearing and said instantly, "Ayapu, you two, you better go back in the woods and finish what you started."

"That's nothing," Johnny told her, "you ought to see them in town." He rolled his eyes. "Mush," he added in his best Grumpy imitation. "Yuck."

Jack put one hand to the side of his son's head and shoved. Johnny collapsed in a heap of sand, giggling. Mutt bounded forward and attacked and they roughhoused around the yard until they very nearly dumped the Monopoly board. When it tottered, Kate distinctly saw Edna reach out and with a slight nudge of one stubby forefinger give it a slight assist. The pieces went everywhere. Johnny leapt up with a cry of anguish and began scrambling after them.

Kate raised an eyebrow at Edna. Edna, all round-eyed innocence, blinked back.

"Tea, Katya?" Auntie Joy said, holding out a mug. Kate traded it for Auntie Joy's trophy, reading out the inscription in fine round tones, adding an embroidered version of George's description of the winning entry. Edna and Balasha laughed heartily.

"So that's why you flew into town on the Fourth," Kate said, and at Auntie Joy's puzzled look added, "I saw you in George's Cub. I wondered."

There was a brief pause, and then Auntie Joy exchanged a look with Auntie Vi that Kate couldn't read. "Yes, I go to be in parade," Auntie Joy said placidly, bending over the berry bucket once more. But she'd left it a little too long, and Auntie Vi looked a little too impassive, and Kate wondered what they were up to. They were grown women, they could get up to anything they wanted to, but still, she wondered.

She found space on a log and sat down. Jack stretched out next to her, picking up a stick to poke the fire. A clump of sparks flew upward to dissolve against the pale sky, the closest they would come to stars for another two months.

A comfortable silence fell. Kate closed her eyes, the better to enjoy the warmth of the fire, letting the various woes of the day leach out through her skin.

When she opened them again, Auntie Joy was looking at her. With a trace of sternness, she asked, "What this I see in your face, Katya? What happens?"

Next to her, Jack went still. Next to him, Johnny, one arm around Mutt's neck, leaned forward with an inquiring look.

She told them of her discoverywas it only that morning?of Meany's body, that it was obvious he had been murdered, that the trooper had drafted her into some legwork.

When she came to the end of the story, the comfortable quality of the silence around the campfire had changed. Auntie Joy's mouth was closed in a stubborn line. "What, auntie?" Kate said. "What is it? Do you know something about Meany?" The older woman remained silent, and Kate said, "If there is something, you have to tell me. He was killed. We have to find out who."

"Why?" Auntie Vi said bluntly. "That" From the back of her throat came a grating Aleut word that meant exactly what it sounded like. The Aleut language had a thing or two to teach English about onomatopoeia. "That one not worth killing, Katya, but if someone did, we thank him."

Johnny's face had paled. He looked over at his father. Jack's gaze held a clear warning. The boy gave a tiny nod, and some of the color came back into his face.

Kate didn't notice; all her attention was on Auntie Joy. "How do you know Calvin Meany wasn't worth killing, auntie? When did you meet him?"

Auntie Joy remained stubbornly silent. With a sideways look at her sister's face, Auntie Vi said, "That one come up creek last Sunday."

"Here?" Kate sat up. "Meany came here?"

Auntie Vi nodded, but before she could speak Auntie Joy burst out, "He come up creek like he own it. He say he want fish camp, we should sell to him. Pah!" She didn't spit but she came pretty close. "No one own land. Land belong everyone."

There were fierce nods from the other three old women seated around the fire.

Auntie Joy made a visible effort, and went on more calmly. "So then that one say if land belong everyone, then everybody can come fish here. He will bring them." She paused. "We laugh at him."

Kate stiffened. "What did he do?"

Auntie Joy exchanged a glance with Auntie Vi, who was sitting like a wooden statue, the shadows of the fire flickering over the lines of her face giving an illusion of expression, "He get mad. He say he file for permit for lodge with Parks Service. He say if we don't have title, he can build lodge here. That true?"

"I don't know," Kate said slowly.

Jack stirred. "Iqaluk's title is still under deliberation, Kate. He probably could have, a temporary one anyway, if he greased the right palms. With all the budget cuts in Washington, the Parks Service needs money bad."

The refrain of the nineties, Kate thought.

Jack reflected, and added, "And then once Meany got the lodge up, he could claim grandfather rights to it. The way the Park rats did when the government created the Park around their homesteads."

Kate thought this over. "Greedy just doesn't even come close to describing this son of a bitch," she said finally. "He jumped the Ursins' setnet site, he cut Mary's nets, not once but twice, and then had the gall to offer to buy her out. The setnet sites on both sides of the mouth, and the fish camp, toohe wanted all he could get of Amartuq Creek. Did he come here again, Auntie Joy?"

"No." But the old woman had hesitated, just a fraction of a second, before answering.

"Auntie?" Kate said. "Is there something else?"

Auntie Joy glared. "Nothing else," she said with finality. She got up and stamped off. Auntie Vi followed. Edna and Balasha exchanged glances, gave Kate apologetic looks and left, too.

They left behind a crackling fire, an uneasy niece and a father and son with secrets to share.

It was well after one when the skiff nosed out of the mouth of the creek. The northwestern horizon was lit with a golden glow where the sun had put his head down for a four-hour nap. On the right, the windows of Mary Balashoff's cabin were dark. On the left, the soft glow of one kerosene lamp turned low outlined the door of the Meany cabin. Kate fancied she could see Marian Meany sitting next to the open door, gazing out into the night, perhaps listening to the sound of her children breathing deeply, peacefully in sleep behind her. Neil Meany and Evan McCafferty would be sacked out in the hammocks out back. Offshore, the no-name drifter rode at anchor, one of the few boats left in the bay. Most of the fleet had headed for port.

Good, Kate thought. Chopper Jim could nail them one at a time as they hit the small boat harbor. She wondered if he'd stopped at the Meanys' on the way back to Cordova, to be exposed to the full glory of the Meanys' oldest daughter. The thought made her smile, and forget for the moment that she was alone.

This circumstance was brought about by Mutt's understandable inclination to remain on shore, where she could roughhouse with Johnny and terrorize the local wildlife with equal abandon, and also by Jack Morgan's inexplicable decision not to accompany her out to the Freya, where, she had made sure he was aware, they would have spent what remained of the night all by themselves. She had to return to spend the night on board because Old Sam was busy adding another chapter to the thick volume of carnal commerce with Mary Balashoff, and it was a standing order that the tender be manned every night it spent out of the harbor. It was Kate's turn on watch. Jack was regretful but firm. Kate pouted, and even that didn't work, but she couldn't do much more because Jack had Johnny on a short leash, trailing along behind him like a lamb on a tether. She came as close as she ever had to wishing Jack's marriage had been childless.

She putted across the bay alone, torn between feeling frustrated and feeling rejected. It was in this schizophrenic mood that she nosed up against the Freya and climbed on board, bow line in hand. Preoccupied, maybe even still pouting, she bent over to loop the line around a cleat, and totally missed the hiss of the boat hook through the air as it came down on the back of her head.

The night exploded in a sunburst of red, swallowed up by a great, engulfing wave of black into which she sank without a whimper.

It took a long time, it took what seemed like forever, before the black faded to gray, a drizzly kind of gray. A drizzle, in fact. She was wet clear through, and shivering, and she couldn't understand why. This was July; one did not shiver in July, not with the temperature consistently above fifty degrees, the big five-oh that signaled the beginning of summer each May. Hell, sometimes it got up to a scalding eighty degrees in Prince William Sound, a temperature hot enough to drain the enthusiasm out of the most competitive Alaska fisherman.

Wet again. After her adventures in dunking the previous day, by rights she shouldn't have to get wet all over again outside of the Freyas head or the galvanized stainless-steel tub on her own homestead. What the hell was going on here? Her brow furrowed with temper, and she struggled to open her eyes. It wasn't easy, as they seemed stuck together, but eventually she pried them apart.

The first thing that met her gaze was a black-painted wooden surface that, after painful cogitation, she recognized as the deck of the Freya. Her cheek seemed to be pressed against it. Her whole body seemed to be pressed against it, in fact, although plastered might be a better word, because there was a steady drizzle coming down. The deck was wet, her clothes were wet, her hair was wet.

Beneath her wet hair, her head hurt, a deep throb that kept time with her heartbeat. She groaned, which only made it hurt worse. She stopped groaning.

There were two objects on the deck in front of her, two faded blue knobs sitting side by side that appeared to be connected to something. With an effort, she raised her eyes, and found Old Sam staring down at her, his wizened face bearing a disapproving frown. The knobs must be his knees, she thought hazily.

"What the hell's wrong with you, Shugak? You drunk or something?"

She didn't remember much about the next hour or so. Old Sam must have pried her up off the deck and helped her into the galley, where he stripped her and muffled her in the scratchy comfort of an army blanket and plied her with mug after mug of steaming coffee. When she'd regained consciousness enough to make herself understood, he examined the back of her head with uncharacteristically gentle fingers.

The probing hurt enough to cause silent tears to roll down her face. This terrified him, and he overcompensated by donning a bluff and hearty demeanor. "Not much harm done," he said in a tone determined to be cheerful. "You've got a lump the size of a baseball but the skin wasn't broken. You must have a skull like a rock. You'll be fine in a day or two." He rolled a towel and put it around her neck so she could relax without leaning her head against the wall. "Don't suppose you saw the asshole that did this?"

"No." She almost shook her head. "I was climbing up over the gunnel when Wait." She paused. "No. I was already on deck, I think." Her eyes closed against the glare of the galley light, and she said, spent, "I don't know."

He grunted. "Well, whoever it was was looking for something."

She struggled to take an interest. "What do you mean?"

"I mean he thoroughly trashed my boat, is what I mean," Old Sam said grimly. "Look at 'er."

Painfully, Kate opened her eyes. It was true. Everything in the lockers was now out on the floordishes, pots and pans, canned goods, fish tickets, tender summaries, pens, pencils, tide books, a mending needle, a sliming knife. A bright orange swath that resolved itself into a survival suit sprawled awkwardly across the table. The color hurt her eyes. She closed them again. "How about above?"

Old Sam's voice hardened. "The same. He yanked the charts out of the shelves, he busted the goddam compass, your stuff's scattered from hell to breakfast." He paused, and added with menace, "I sure wish you'd caught him in the act, Shugak."

"I think I did," she murmured, slipping into a doze.

She woke up sprawled across Old Sam's bunk, and turned her head to find Chopper Jim standing there, staring down at her, hat for once in hand. "Hey," she said.

"Hey backatcha," he replied.

She ran her tongue around the inside of a mouth that felt as if it were stuffed with cotton wool. "Water."

He left and returned with a full glass, putting an arm around her shoulders and holding it to her lips. She gulped gratefully. "Thanks," she said, stretching back out.

The tiny stateroom boasted a single chair. The trooper tipped it forward to let the dirty clothes heaped on it slide to the deck and seated himself next to the bunk, unzipping his jacket and adjusting his holster. "Tell me about it."

"Nothing to tell," she said, wincing when an unwary movement made her head throb. "I came back to the boat after one. Somebody coldcocked me coming on board. I never saw him."

"Amateur," he said.

A reluctant smile widened her mouth. "Prick."

They sat in peaceful silence. After a bit she felt well enough to scoot up against the bulkhead. Jim shoved a pillow behind the small of her back. "Thanks." She closed her eyes again. "What did you find out in Cordova?"

He produced a notebook and thumbed through it. "First off, the boy's alibi holds up. The beach gang saw him leave the dock with his father alive and well on the deck of his drifter, and the Wieses say he showed up at their house right after and stayed the night."

Unconsciously, Kate's breast lifted in a long, relieved sigh. "Good. How about the autopsy?"

He flipped a few pages. "Time of death, roughly midnight."

"Roughly?"

He shrugged. "The Gulf of Alaska's mean temperature is forty-two degrees. The body was floating around in it for at least six hours. It tends to foul up all the techies' fancy-dandy tests. And Kate? He drowned."

"What?"

He held up a hand, palm out. "He had help. His trachea was crushed, and there was water in his lungs."

"What kind of water?"

"Salt."

"So. Could have been either the harbor in Cordova or Alaganik Bay. Any way we can find out which?"

He shrugged. "Lab's running more tests. It won't help," he added with the jaded wisdom of long experience. "They'll find trace amounts of oil and gas in the water, but with as many boats as have been fishing Alaganik there's probably not much difference in composition between this bay and the harbor."

"There's a lot more glacial silt in Alaganik Bay, washed down from the Kanuyaq. They ought to be able to identify the water from that alone."

"Maybe." He didn't sound convinced. In his years as an Alaska state trooper, Chopper Jim had not had much cause to put a whole lot of faith behind forensic evidence, which in his experience led, in court, to a face-off between opposing so-called expert witnesses, each of whom contradicted everything the other said, leaving the jury more confused than enlightened and, consequently, resentful enough to take it out on the prosecution. Like most in law enforcement, he leaned toward catching the perp at the scene, weapon in hand, preferably in the presence of three eyewitnesses, one of whom was a priest.

"So the knife went in after the fact?" Kate said.

"Yup."

"After he was strangled and drowned, somebody stabbed him."

"Uh-huh."

"I hate the weird ones." Kate tried to figure out a scenario to fit the evidence, but the effort made her dizzy and her head started to hurt again. "What else? What about the cuts and bruises on his face and torso?" Something in the quality of the ensuing silence made her eyes snap open. "What, Jim?"

He made a pretense of consulting his notes. "After Meany delivered, he went over to the fuel dock and topped off his tanks. Shortly after which he had a visitor."

Kate made a face. "Female, no doubt."

"You're such a prude, Shugak," he complained. "Anyway, they both left the boat about six-thirty, according to Otis Swopes, the Standard Oil guy. Otis identified the lady as one Myra Sarakovikoff. And, of course, Otis lost no time in telling the tale to the first guy to wander by, in this case one Wendell Kritchen, also known as the Mouth of the Sound."

Kate closed her eyes again. "Shit."

"Yeah. You can almost guess what happened next."

"Tim Sarakovikoff came home."

"You win first prize. Not only home, but he tied up to the fuel dock right next to Meany's drifter, and took on the story from Otis and Wendell while he was taking on fuel." Chopper Jim smoothed his already immaculate hair. "Tim took off uptown. According to approximately twenty eyewitnesses, he caught up with them at the Cordova House. Whereupon he proceeded to beat the living shit out of Meany. Dick Bynum's words, not mine," he added. "Dick seemed kind of admiring. One might even say jubilant. He got a good-looking wife?"

"Yes."

"Thought so," Jim said, satisfied, and making a mental note to check out Dick Bynum's good-looking wife at his earliest opportunity.

"What happened next?"

"Near as I can figure, everybody went into the bar and celebrated, leaving Meany bleeding on the sidewalk. This was the Fourth of July, Kate, and the celebrating started early on."

"No one's memories are all that clear," Kate suggested, and he nodded. "Shit," she said again.

"I heard that," he agreed.

"Myra?"

"Myra was on the first plane out of Mudhole Smith this morning, on her way to Anchorage."

"Did you talk to her first?"

"No," he said regretfully. "But I phoned APD, talked to Sayles. He said he'd track her down, get her statement."

She had to ask, even if she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer. "What does Tim say?"

"I haven't talked to him yet. He wasn't home, he wasn't at his mother's house, and his boat's gone from the harbor."

She sat where she was for a few moments, and then swung her legs over the side of the bunk.

"Whoa there," he said, stretching out a hand.

"Help me up." She grabbed his arm and pulled herself upright. With this sudden ascent to the vertical her head felt as if there were no more than three jackhammers working on it at the same time. "Come on."