So sure of death (11 page)

Those endless moments breathing fetid air and wrestling charred flesh into body bags rolled back over him in an instant. “Tough enough, he said, his voice clipped.

She understood and accepted his refusal of sympathy. “And you're sure it's murder.

“One of the men was shot, Liam said flatly.

“You could tell that even though the bodies were burned?

“I'm figuring the bodies were burned to hide that fact, and that the M.E. will find that they'd all been shot.

“The fire didn't do the job, though.

“No. That's when I figure whoever did it pulled the plugs on the boat.

“Hoping she'd sink.

“Yes. The bodies are on their way to Anchorage.

Bill took a deep breath and her breasts strained the words on her T-shirt all out of alignment. Liam looked over her head and thought of other things. For a woman who professed to be older and longer in Newenham than anyone else, Bill packed a punch as powerful as Molly Malone's picture. The stopover with Wy wasn't helping him maintain the fabled Trooper Campbell cool, either. “Did you know the Malones?

Bill shook her head. “Not well. Oh, I cashed a couple of checks for David after bank hours. None of them bounced.

“What was his reputation?

She considered. “I remember one time Harry Hart said Malone reneged on paying for a skiff Harry built for him. But I don't believe a tenth of what Harry says.

“Any romantic interests outside his marriage?

“Not that I know of.

Not much to go on, but he'd started other cases with less. “Anything else?

She grinned, displaying the merest hint of dimples and a set of white, even teeth. “Well, one time his daughter was in town on a school trip and her and a couple of her friends got all lipsticked up and tried to pass for drinking age. I ran them out, of course. I don't think I ever met the boy.

“How about Molly?

“She never came in here. Never saw her anywhere else. She paused. “Heard plenty, though.

“What was said? And who said it? Pretty much everyone came into Bill's place sooner or later. In her position as magistrate, she was on a first-name basis with every offender against the public peace, repeat or first-timer. In her self-styled role as the Elder of Newenham, she'd been in the area long enough to know where all the bodies were buried. Liam was no fool; in the past three months, Bill had become his central data bank.

“Mostly men coming in off the grounds, who'd been delivering fish to the cannery or been tied up to the processor at the same time as theMarybethia.They'd come in looking poleaxed and very, very needy. Usually they'd hook up with the first available woman and head for the nearest pair of sheets. She must have packed one hell of a punch, that Molly Malone.

Liam pulled out the picture of the Malones on the sailboat and handed it over. Bill studied it, lips pursed, and handed it back. “I see. I thought so. One hell of a punch. Must have been even stronger in person.

“Yeah. Liam looked again before pocketing the picture again. “Have to wonder if she saved it all for her husband.

“I didn't hear otherwise, I just heard a lot of wishing she did. She paused. “You got any idea who killed them?

Liam shook his head. “Not so far. Something going on with the tribal chief out at Kulukak. I asked a few questions, I'm letting him stew for now. He sighed. “The boat was adrift, looked like it had been overnight. They'd been fishing, everybody agreed on that because everybody else was out on the water, too. Nobody saw them come home, so it probably happened out there. Could have been any one of fifty fishers. Darrell Jacobson says he saw a skiff leave Kulukak harbor about ten o'clock last night. Didn't recognize who was driving it.

“Great. What now?

“I called the Malones' lawyer from the post. Next of kin is David's sister in Anacortes. He's calling her, and he'll call me back. A tender was picking up fish during the period.

“Which one?

“TheArctic Wind.

Bill nodded. “Seafood North. Right here in town.

“Yeah. I'm going to want to check all theArctic Wind's fish tickets for yesterday's period in Kulukak, get a list of the boats that delivered. If Seafood North is reluctant

“Not a problem, Bill said, waving a dismissive hand. “I'll slap a warrant on Virgil Ballard so fast it'll drop his socks.

In the absence of a judge, Liam relied on the magistrate to back him up, and truth be told, Bill was more than delighted to oblige. On occasion she had even been known to take the law into her own hands, the most recent incident having been a man apprehended by the local police in the act of beating his wife. Drunk, disorderly and abusive, he'd made the mistake of hitting the arresting officer.

The Newenham Police Department was understaffed, underfunded and underestimated, although Liam could only judge by reputation, as he had yet to meet any of them. The chief of police had resigned six months before under suspicion of embezzlement of public funds; in that same six months two officers had been accepted into the state police academy, leaving the remaining two officers overworked, overburdened and overwhelmed. During the past three months the two of them had either been in the middle of an armed conflict or sleeping under guard of wives armed with shotguns whenever Liam had tried to contact them.

All he knew for sure was that this particular officer had greeted this particular perpetrator's assault with such enthusiasm that the alleged perpetrator had been wheeled into the magistrate's hearing on local EMT Joe Gould's gurney. Bill had greeted his arrival with enthusiasm, deputized Moses to pull the public defender off his fishing boat and empaneled twelve people from the bar who had taken forty-five minutes to find the perp guilty of assault in three different degrees (he'd backhanded his eight-year-old son on the way to his wife). Bill thanked the jury for their service, dismissed them and sentenced the new felon to six months in jail then and there. As a magistrate Bill had no business trying anything but misdemeanors, but that didn't stop her. She didn't hold much with jury trials anyway, deeming them a waste of honest, hardworking citizens' time. “People got to work, she told Liam indignantly when he tried, delicately, to show her the error of her ways.

Liam hoped mightily that their district was never subject to review by the state Department of Justice, and that they never got a better public defender than the one they had now. Any case arising from judicial misconduct in Bill's court was bound to go all the way to the Supreme Court.

On the other hand, it was a Rehnquist court. Comforted, he said, “Thanks. I appreciate the help.

“No problem. You heading back over there now?

Liam shook his head. “I've got another problem out at that village site that this university guy is digging up.

“I heard. McLynn was in the bar, trying to drink away the memory. Your new trooper came in after him. Bill raised an eyebrow.

“She's not my new trooper, she's the trooper newly assigned to Newenham.

The eyebrow stayed up. “Funny, I got the distinct impression she was working for you.

Liam took a deep breath. “I suppose she was here the same time as my father?

Bill nodded, smile fading when she saw Liam's expression.

“Did he say what he wanted?

Bill looked at him for a moment. “He's your father, Liam. He doesn't need a reason to see you.

Wanna bet? Liam thought. “Okay, I'm headed back to the airport. Wy's flying me into the village site where she and this guy found the body. See what Prince has dug up. So to speak.

She winced and followed him into the kitchen. “Have you had lunch?

A loud sizzling sound as raw potatoes hit boiling grease was echoed by the growl of his stomach. Suddenly he realized he'd flown a hundred miles on no breakfast, and that fear of flying burned calories better than the Boston Marathon.

“Wy, either, I suppose. He didn't have to say a word. “Dottie! Two burgers and fries, one to go, for the trooper!

Dottie's expression didn't change. “I told you to peel some more potatoes, Paul! Get to it!

Paul got to it.

SEVEN

The borrowed Super Cub, a two-seater with more wing than fuselage, looked familiar. “Didn't we spot herring in this puppy three months ago? he wondered out loud.

Without answering, Wy pushed the pilot's seat forward on its tracks. Liam wedged himself into the seat behind, disposing his long legs in the limited space as best he could. “You sure the dentist from Anchorage isn't going to show up on the next Alaska Airlines jet and want to go fishing?

“You want to get to the dig or not? she demanded.

“I want to get to the dig, Liam said meekly.

“Fine. Wy climbed into the front seat and pulled it forward, which helped. This craft had no matching headsets, and Liam watched as she fastened the fold-up door and started the engine. Her fat braid hung down the back of her seat, curls escaping around her hairline and from every plait. She wore her hair long, she had told him, because it was easier to care for. Wash-andwear hair, she had said, laughing at his intent expression as he used a blow-dryer to tame his own thick pelt.

He tried not to remember what her hair looked like loose on a pillow, a mass of blond-brown curls that wrapped around his fingers with a life all their own. He was still trying when they took off, so that he barely noticed when they became airborne, one good use his obsession with her served.

He approved of the thought the old ones had put into siting Tulukaruk, on a bluff where what looked like half a dozen streams joined before heading southeast into the Bay. Easy to defend, and an escape route if defense proved inadequate. Food and water plenty to hand, in the form of those selfsame creeks and the salmon that swam up them to spawn. The Natives were still waiting for them, at sites like this one, all over the Bay and the Delta. The fish fed their families and their dog teams. When the dog team was replaced by the snow machine, fish sold to Outside processors paid for their gasoline.

The last two years hadn't been good ones. Some people said it was the trawlers, the ones with nets a mile long, dragging the bottom of the north Pacific Ocean and hauling up every species, endangered or not, in its way to the surface. Some said it was El Nio, causing an increase in the ambient temperature of the Gulf of Alaska and moving new species north, as witnessed by the tuna caught off Kodiak Island for the first time last summer. Some said it was nature, and the cycle of life. No one really knew.

Some fishermen were selling up and moving Outside. Others were taking odd jobs, working construction in Anchorage or Prudhoe Bay, enrolling in computer classes, doing anything to maintain their families until the next big run came in.

As they approached the bluff and the remains of the tiny settlement, Liam wondered why its inhabitants had left. Had the salmon deserted them, too? Or had they been chased off by another, bigger, stronger clan who wanted the site for their own? Had thegussukbrought annihilation in the form of measles or influenza? He remembered reading in Alaska history class about the great flu epidemic of 1919, as terrible in Alaska as it was worldwide, how it had wiped out entire villages.

He saw Wy's cub, 78 Zulu, on the ground at one end of the bluff, and nearly swallowed his tongue. “We're going to land there? he managed to croak.

She ignored him. They circled once over the camp and what Liam saw made him forget his fear for the second time. “Hey!

“I see her! Wy yelled over the sound of the engine. She banked to line up with the edge of the bluff and throttled back so far Liam thought the engine had died. They touched down lightly and rolled to a halt. Liam was out of the plane the instant it stopped moving and his longs legs ate up the ground between the bluff and the tents in seconds.

He knelt next to Prince, who was lying on her back, half in and half out of one of the tents, her hat a few feet away. “Prince? Diana? He felt her throat for a pulse, and was infinitely relieved when it thudded against his fingertips.

Wy went past him and bent over the man.

“Is he alive?

“Yes.

Prince's eyes opened. “Whozzit?

“It's Liam Campbell, Diana, and Wy Chouinard. You're at the village site with . . . ah . . . He looked at Wy for help.

“Professor McLynn, she said, and helped McLynn, groaning, to a sitting position. The left shoulder of his khaki shirt was stained with blood, which did not obscure the neat hole through his sleeve.

Prince sat up on her own. Her hand went to her head and she groaned. “Damn. I have got the worst headache.

She reached up. Liam caught her hand. “Let me look.

The hat and her thick hair had cushioned most of the blow, but there was a goose egg, swollen and tender, swelling her scalp. “Somebody clobbered you a good one. He sat back on his heels. “What happened? Can you remember? Head injury was frequently associated with short-term memory loss; he hoped that was not the case here.

He watched her struggle to regain some kind of composure. “I don't know. Wait a minute. She closed her eyes briefly, opened them again. “There was a four-wheeler. When we landed.

“Where?

She pointed with a shaking finger, and he got up and walked around the tent. There were fresh tracks, but no four-wheeler. He returned to Prince. “How long ago?

She looked at the no-nonsense watch with the large round face and the big numbers strapped to her left wrist. “I don't . . . Fifteen minutes. Thirty. Maybe an hour? We were late getting off from Newenham, I had to preflight the Cub. Prince sighed, looking suddenly tired, and closed her eyes. “We saw the four-wheeler from the air. He was hiding inside the tent. He clobbered me with something, I don't know what. Felt like a sledgehammer. That's all I remember.