Nik Kane Alaska Mystery - 02 - Capitol Offense (5 page)

T
he bellman showed Kane into a room on the fifth floor. The place was dark and dingy, which reminded Kane of his apartment back in Anchorage.

All it needs is the smell of fish cooking and the sound of the people next door having sex and I’ll be right at home, he thought.

He astonished the bellman with a $20 tip, then unpacked. There was plenty of room left in the closet and the small chest of drawers when he finished. He looked at the pieces of the automatic. He’d brought it with him to Juneau, more to avoid leaving it in his none-too-secure apartment than because he thought he’d need it. He’d broken it down, put the pieces in plastic food-storage bags to keep the gun oil off his clothes, and distributed them throughout his checked bag. If he reassembled the automatic, it would be a lethal weapon. But would he really need it tonight, to defend himself against a lawyer? He wrapped the pieces in a towel and set the towel on the shelf in the closet. Then he let himself out and took the elevator down to the lobby.

Oil Can Doyle was in the bar, sitting alone at a small, round table and staring into a tall glass filled with amber liquid. A young woman and an older man whispered in a far corner. As Kane’s eyes swept over them, the man leaned over and kissed the young woman. Even in the dim light, Kane could see his tongue working. Besides the bartender, who stood behind his bar polishing glasses, and Doyle, they were the only people in the dimly lit room.

Kane walked over and stood next to Doyle’s table until the lawyer looked up. He was a small, slight man with a big nose, big ears, and a toupee that looked more like a dead muskrat than human hair. A gravy stain that looked vaguely like the Aleutian Chain marred his tie, and the front of his white shirt was sprinkled with bits of snack mix. The gray suit he wore was cheap, and the expression on his face was hostile.

“I’m not giving interviews,” he said. The tone in his high, squeaky voice was unfriendly. “Don’t you jackals have anything else to do but hound me?”

“I’m not a reporter,” Kane said, wondering how much Doyle had had to drink. “I’m Nik Kane, your investigator, the guy you’re here to see. We’ve met a few times in court. I used to be with the Anchorage police.”

Doyle didn’t say anything or offer to shake hands. Kane pulled out a chair and sat. The bartender put down the glass he’d been polishing and started for the table, but stopped when Kane shook his head.

“Good to meet you, I suppose,” Doyle squeaked. They said around the courthouse that he’d gotten his nickname when another lawyer heard him speak for the first time and said, “You should get an oil can for that squeak.”

If you built an unsuccessful trial lawyer from scratch, you’d end up with Oil Can Doyle, Kane thought. Looks like a bum and has the personality of a wolverine, but somehow he wins cases.

“Don’t get all overwhelmed,” Kane said.

Doyle screwed his face up and showed his teeth.

Good God, Kane thought, he thinks that’s a smile.

“I need an investigator,” Doyle said. “I can’t use anybody here. The case is too political. You’re not my first choice, but I’m not paying the bills. If you take this job, you’ll work for me—and only for me—helping prepare the defense.”

Kane waited for the lawyer to continue, and when he didn’t, said, “That’s some sales pitch. I can’t remember when I’ve felt so motivated.”

The two men looked at each other. Doyle shrugged.

“You can take the job or not,” he said. “It’s all the same to me. I can always bring in somebody else.”

Kane could feel himself smiling as he looked at the other man. Clearly, Doyle wanted him to turn the job down. So why was he here in the first place? Was Jeffords pulling strings? Was somebody else? Kane could feel the bottomless pit of political calculation opening under his feet, and he didn’t like the feeling one bit. He could console himself with the thought of the money, but he knew he was here for more than that, although he couldn’t say just what.

The two men were silent. The bartender walked to the couple in the corner, took some money from the man, and walked back behind the bar. The couple walked out of the bar. They might have been father and daughter, except that the man had his hand on the woman’s ass.

“I’ve already decided to take the job,” Kane said, watching for Doyle’s reaction. The lawyer didn’t even twitch. He’d be a great poker player, Kane thought.

“Well, that’s just wonderful,” Doyle said, twisting up his face and showing his teeth again. “But just so you don’t misunderstand, I expect you to turn over everything you find out to me, and to not discuss anything with anybody else. Anybody else at all.”

Kane didn’t say anything to that. Silence wasn’t a lie.

Doyle leaned forward again and picked up his drink.

“Here’s to a mutually beneficial relationship,” he said and drained it.

He held his empty glass above his head and rattled the remaining ice. The bartender came over to the table. Doyle handed him the glass.

“This is Tony,” Doyle said to Kane. “He is a fine bartender, which is a treasure rarer than pearls.”

The bartender, a middle-aged fellow with dark hair and a pencil mustache, nodded to Kane. Kane nodded back.

“Tony is going to bring me another,” Doyle said, “and I’m sure he’d be happy to bring you whatever you’d like.”

Kane shook his head.

“No, thanks,” he said.

Tony took Doyle’s glass back to the bar.

“Too good to drink with me?” Doyle squeaked.

“Probably,” Kane said, “but that’s not the reason I turned down a drink. I’m an alcoholic.”

Doyle shook his head.

“So am I,” he said, “but I don’t let a little thing like that stop me.”

Tony returned with a full glass and a bowl of snack mix. He set them on the table and went back to his station behind the bar. Doyle popped a handful of snack mix into his mouth, chewed, drank, and said, “Tell me what you know about all this.”

“What I’ve read in the newspaper,” Kane said. “I was hoping you could tell me more.”

Doyle nodded again.

“Instead of listening to me talk, why don’t you look over what’s on paper so far?” he said. “Although there’s not much that hasn’t been in print. Along with purple prose and bootless speculation.”

“You don’t like the press?” Kane asked. “In the cases I was involved in, you played those reporters like a violin.”

Doyle snorted.

“I like the press just fine when they’re reporting what I want them to,” he said. “But when they’re making life more difficult for me and my client, I hate the bastards.”

He pulled a big briefcase up into his lap, opened it, and pulled out a set of thin manila folders that were rubber-banded together.

“Here’s the discovery,” he said, sliding the folders across to Kane. “It’s mostly preliminary. Notes really, from the investigating officers and examining physician. Some crime-scene photos. Like that.”

He took another drink.

“I’ve got a transcript of my preliminary interview with my client, but it’s under lock and key in my office. You’ll have to come by there to read it.”

He took a card from an inside pocket, scribbled on the back of it, and handed it to Kane.

“That’s where I’m renting office space while I’m down here,” he said.

Kane slid the folders to his side of the table.

“Any reason you’re being so careful?” he asked.

“I’m always careful,” the lawyer said. “But with a case like this one, I’m being extra careful.”

“What’s so special about this case?” Kane asked.

Doyle smiled again and shook his head.

“Didn’t Tom Jeffords ever explain Alaska politics to you?” he asked. When Kane just looked at him, the lawyer continued. “Yeah, I know all about you and Jeffords. I know everything about you, except maybe where you got that scar. Somebody told me, but I forgot.”

He stopped as if he expected Kane to fill in the silence.

“It was an accident,” Kane said.

“What kind of accident gives you a scar like that?” Doyle asked.

“The kind where a guy wants to jam a sharpened toothbrush handle into your brain, but you turn at the last second and he accidentally misses the soft spot in your temple,” Kane said.

Doyle nodded.

“Yeah, prison’s a bitch, ain’t it,” he said. “At least that’s what some of my clients tell me. But if you think that was dangerous, wait until you get into this case. Politics is a full-contact sport in Alaska, and it doesn’t have a lot of rules.”

He drained his glass.

“You working for Jeffords makes you kind of an odd choice to try to get my client off, given their political positions,” the lawyer said.

“I’m not working for Jeffords on this,” Kane said. “I’m on my own. Politics doesn’t mean anything to me. Either this Hope did the crime or he didn’t. If he didn’t, I’ll find out. I’ll find out if he did, for that matter. And I’ll let you in on whatever I find. So if you’re going to worry, worry about something besides me selling out you and your client.”

Doyle looked steadily at Kane, then shrugged.

“Fair enough,” he said. “Why don’t you read through those files and come see me in the morning. Maybe we can work together.”

He closed his briefcase, got to his feet, and put on a frayed ankle-length topcoat with a matted collar that looked for all the world like it had been made of the same stuff as his toupee. When he saw Doyle getting ready to leave, the bartender hurried over with the bill and handed it to him.

“Why, Tony,” Doyle squeaked, “it’s like you don’t trust me.” He set the bill down on the table. “My colleague will take care of it.” To Kane he said, “Is there anything else I can do for you before I go?”

Kane nodded.

“You can tell me if there’s a Catholic church around here,” he said.

The lawyer peered at him.

“Seriously?’ he said.

Kane nodded again.

“I have no idea,” he said, and left, moving like a man walking on a slippery surface.

Kane looked at the bill, dug some money from his wallet, and, after making sure there was plenty for a tip, handed it to the bartender.

Tony gave him a small nod of appreciation.

“The church is three blocks up and one block over,” he said, pointing. “It’s called the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Big name for a wooden church.”

Mary, Kane thought. Mother of Jesus. Maybe she can help me figure out how to deal with my son.

K
ane put on his coat and stuck his nose out the lobby entrance. The slush storm had stopped, so he decided to carry the folders with him rather than detour to his room. The bartender’s directions sent him uphill. He walked slowly, trying to stretch each step to chase some of the soreness from his muscles. I’m getting too old for the kind of roughhouse that Robert Bland threw my way, he thought.

The streets were a mosaic of darkness and pools of light from the streetlamps. Few cars, and fewer people, moved along them. Kane walked carefully over the congealing slush. The surface would be unwalkable if it froze overnight. The hill got steeper with each block. Kane was grateful to reach the door of the church without having fallen.

Inside, a light burned in the tabernacle lamp. Kane walked to the front of the church, knelt, slid a folded bill into the offering slot, and lit a votive candle.

“O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful,” he said softly, “grant to the souls of Your servants departed full remission of all their sins, that through our devout prayers, they may obtain the pardon, which they have always desired. Who live and reign, world without end. Amen.”

As he prayed, he thought of all the dead people he knew. His father, who’d left the church to worship the bottle. His mother, so furious in her devotion. His sister Rose, killed by cancer, and his brother Kevin, killed by the Viet Cong. People he’d killed. People he’d seen dead in war. In car accidents. In crimes of passion. In the cruelties and mishaps of the criminal life. Lots of dead people. Not enough ghosts to fill this church, maybe, but enough to fill several pews. Life is tenuous and full of peril, he thought.

Kane got to his feet, walked back down the aisle, and sat in one of the pews. His mother had drilled religion into him and his brothers and sisters. Although he’d stopped practicing the faith as soon as he’d left her house, parts of it still popped into his head. Like the prayer for the dead, and the patronage of Mary for mothers and families. If his own mother were still alive, she’d tell him to pray for help in dealing with his son.

Since childhood, Kane had been attracted to the simple ask-get transaction of prayer. But all it had ever gotten him was sore knees. Lately, he’d begun to see religion as just another form of dependency, with God taking the place of booze, and the church, with all its rules about how to live your life, as not much different from prison. Still, it was one thing to recognize a dependency, another to break it. He didn’t really understand the grip the religion of his youth had on him still. He didn’t follow the faith’s teachings or believe in its mythology. But he did, somehow, find enough comfort that he visited often.

As he sat, Kane realized that he regretted not having simple faith. Not many things scared him, but the prospect of trying to reestablish a relationship with his son did. He could use all the help he could get. But he would have to do this on his own. Laurie, who’d always been the intermediary with the children, wasn’t there for him anymore, and the chances of divine intervention were pretty slim.

The first thing I’d better do, he thought, is stop kidding myself. I’m not trying to reestablish a relationship with Dylan. I’m trying to establish one. I wasn’t that great a father even when I wasn’t in prison.

He’d never really made a decision to have children, or even had a real discussion with Laurie about what becoming parents would mean. He’d met her, fallen in love, gotten married, and they’d started having babies: Emily, the oldest, the child most like Kane; Amy, the middle child, competitive and independent; Dylan, the youngest, the child he knew the least about. By the time Laurie was twenty-five, they had the three and then, apparently, she’d decided that was enough. They’d never talked about stopping, either, although Kane, familiar with the stresses and strains of a big family, wouldn’t have objected.

It all just happened, Kane thought. One minute he’d been a guy in his early thirties with a good job, a gorgeous young wife, and plans for fun and travel. The next he’d been a father, with enough responsibilities to keep him pinned down for years and years. Could I have been more unprepared?

How could I have taken on so much responsibility with so little thought? he asked himself. In the past, he’d always explained such things away by telling himself that was just who he was. But that explanation seemed facile and useless to him now.

Things happen for reasons, he thought. You are who you are for reasons.

His parents had some responsibility for who he was, although he was still figuring out just how much. He’d been shaped by their silent lessons as much as their spoken ones, maybe more. One of the unspoken lessons was that married people had kids, and so Kane hadn’t really given fatherhood much thought.

He hadn’t really been very good at it, either. Because his own father had taken a powder, Kane had gotten it into his head that just sticking around made him a good father. He and Laurie had had what the religious right called a traditional family: a father who worked and dispensed discipline when called upon, a mother who stayed home and did the child-rearing, and children who, unless they were much more self-aware than Kane had been, would repeat the process. No consideration given to what any of them, as individuals, might want or need.

When he thought about his life before prison, the clearest images came from work: in uniform, tooling around in a patrol car; in plain clothes at a crime scene; just sitting around the station chewing the fat with other cops. Then came snapshots of his life with Laurie. Then the time he spent drinking. Or, maybe, considering the relationship he’d had with booze, those last two were reversed. Either way, he just didn’t remember doing many things with his kids.

At the time, he thought he wanted to be a better father. He wished his job gave him more time with the kids, he told himself, but at least they weren’t living on the charity of the parish.

But now? Now he could see that if he’d really wanted to be closer to his children, he would have been. He could have spent less time at work and a lot less time in bars.

And, of course, the irony of ironies was that Kane had failed just the way his father had. Oh, he could tell himself that his father had run off while he had been taken away. But the truth was they’d both been drunks and, however the specifics had sorted themselves out, their drinking had led to their absences from the lives of their children.

And he’d left Laurie to clean up the mess. Whether she admitted it or not, that had to have had something to do with her decision to get a divorce. He’d broken the unspoken deal, hadn’t he? Why shouldn’t she break the spoken one?

Kane sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

What’s done is done, he thought. The question is, what do I do now?

As usual, the answer was silence. Kane was used to that. He’d been asking God questions since he was a kid, and this was just the latest in a long list that had brought no booming voice, or even a whisper in his head.

Kane stood, walked out of the church, and began picking his way downhill toward the hotel.

Children are plastic, Kane thought. They adapt. Maybe Dylan is still young enough to adapt to me. To find some way to forgive, forget, and move on. Maybe I haven’t lost him forever.

Should I look him up first thing? he asked himself. Should I wait to run into him? Should I hope I don’t run into him?

Kane’s feet started to slide and he brought himself up short. The downhill slope was as slippery as the slope of his life, and if he wasn’t careful he was going to take a fall. So he focused on where he put his feet and proceeded down the hill, one step at a time.