Dana Stabenow - So Sure Of Death

“I've heard of him.” Her dry tone indicated that she hadn't heard anything good.

“Well, Wy Chouinard's been flying him in and out, and when they flew in yesterday morning they found Nelson's body. Don Nelson,” he added parenthetically. “He was McLynn's gofer. McLynn and Wy flew back to town and got hold of Prince. Prince borrowed Wy's Cub and flew out to the dig with McLynn, while Wy picked me up in Kulukak and brought me back.” He omitted reference to the brief stop en route. He was getting good at skipping that. “We switched planes and flew out to the dig. When we got there, Prince had been clubbed, McLynn had been shot and Frank Petla was hightailing it over the horizon on a four-wheeler with a thirty-ought-six and a bag of Yupik artifacts from the dig strapped to the handlebars. Which bag of artifacts included the murder weapon, I might add.”

“What was the murder weapon?” He told her, and she grimaced. “I knew there was a reason I chose the Fish and Game side of this department. At least people are only murdering moose.” She pulled the brim of the cap through her fingers. “Okay.” She raised her head. “It looks bad for Frank. Given his presence and his behavior, you didn't have any choice, I see that.”

“How do you know him?”

Her mouth pulled down. “He boarded with us for a year when he was a teenager.” Her eyes met his, her expression troubled. “You know how it is in the villages, Liam. The elders are trying to hold things together, trying keep the kids off the booze long enough to grow up, but a lot of the time it's just too little, too late. Frank comes from one of the families for which it was too little and too late. His father ran his snow machine into a lead on the river when Frank was ten, and his mother never recovered. She's a great gal when she isn't on the sauce, but it's got her by the scruff of the neck and it's not about to let go. His sister Sarah died when she was thirteen, alcohol abuse. Frank was in trouble in the village, some underage drinking, some disturbing the peace, some small-time B &E-yeah, yeah, I know what this sounds like. Liam, he just never had a chance. The elders called in the troopers when he broke into the school one night and trashed the library, and the trooper brought him before Bill. Jerry and I-well, we don't have any of our own, and we take in a kid now and then, a kid who otherwise will get sent to McLaughlin in Anchorage and get lost in the system. Village kids got no business being sent to McLaughlin, Liam; all that happens there is they get advanced instruction in criminal behavior.”

Liam held up one hand. “You're preaching to the choir here, Charlene.”

She relaxed a little. “He was real good, the time he spent with us. Stayed sober, did his homework. Even had a girlfriend, Betty Kusma, smart girl, works as a checker at NC. We took both of them to the AFN convention that October, and he signed on with the sobriety movement.”

“What happened?”

Her mouth set in an unhappy line. “His mother got an attorney and forced DFYS to give him back to her.” She sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. “He was only fifteen. If we could have kept him for just one more year, until he was sixteen and would have had a choice whether to go or stay, he might have made it.”

There was silence for a moment. “I'll dot all thei's and cross all thet's, Charlene,” Liam said at last. “I won't take anything at face value. But you have to know it looks pretty bad.”

“I know.” She opened her eyes and stood up. “Thanks, Liam.”

“Hold on a minute, would you?” He rose and walked over to the wall map of the Bristol Bay area. He tapped Kulukak. “Can you tell me what part of Kulukak Bay was open for fishing on Sunday?”

“Sure.” She came to stand next to him. “All of it.”

“For how long?”

She thought. “I'd have to look it up, but I think six a.m. to six p.m.”

“Hell.”

“What's the problem?”

“It's eight miles across,” he said gloomily, “and ten or more north-south. I'm trying to track the whereabouts of forty to fifty different boats on that Bay during a twelve-hour period.”

“Because all of it was open, doesn't mean all of it was fished.”

He looked at her. “Which means what, exactly?”

“It means that fishermen aren't stupid. They'll wet their nets where it'll do them the most good. In this case…” Her forefinger traced a section of the coastline on the northeast corner of Kulukak Bay. “Right about here.”

He inspected the bit of coastline. “Why?”

“Because that's where the Kanik River, the biggest creek on the bay, empties into the Kulukak,” she said. “You know? Every summer, salmon come in from the ocean to go up the creeks where they were born to spawn their own young? You must have heard something about this, surely.”

His ears reddened. “Not a lot of commercial fishing in Glenallen.”

“That's no excuse,” she said severely. “You've been on the Bay for three months now. Anyway, that's where most of your boats will have been, outside the markers of the Kanik, trying to get in between the fish and fresh water.” She pulled her cap on.

“One more thing.”

“What?”

“Ivory, walrus ivory.”

“The tusks. Sure, what about them?”

“I know only Natives can sell them. Can they sell them as is, or do they have to be carved into something first?”

“The law says it has to be carved on or into something. Walk into any gift shop on Fourth Avenue in Anchorage and look around. You'll see whole heads with the tusk sporting one little carving of a mask or an animal, just to make it legal.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why? Is there something you're not telling me, something going on to do with my side of the patch?”

He told her about the suspiciously fresh chunk of ivory tusk he had found in the service tent at the dig. She listened with interest, and when he was done said, “Like I said, it's the law, the pieces have to be finished.” She smiled. “But if everyone obeyed the law, we'd both be out of work.”

Charlene left the post, and as Liam returned to his desk the phone rang. It was a man, on the ragged edge of losing his selfcontrol, his voice so choked that Liam could barely understand him. “I beg your pardon, sir?”

The man cleared his throat. His voice was shaken but clear. “My name is Donald Nelson, Senior.”

Liam closed his eyes for a brief moment, and then sat up straight. “Yes, sir. This is Liam Campbell with the Alaska State Troopers. Are you Don Nelson's father?”

The voice broke again. “Yes.”

“I'm very sorry for your loss, Mr. Nelson.”

“Thank you.” There was the sound of a sob, quickly suppressed, and Liam set his teeth. “Please, can you tell me what happened? I just talked to Don last week, and he was fine. He was fine, he sounded happy, and excited about his work.” There was a sound something between a laugh and a sob. “He said Alaska was beautiful and the people were crazy.”

“He was right about both, sir,” Liam said gently. He would rather respond to a hundred scenes like theMarybethiathan talk to one grieving parent, but this was part of the job. He had a thought, and sat up. “Mr. Nelson, how did you find out your son was dead?”

“I don't know,” Nelson said drearily. “Some woman called.”

“When?”

“This morning. Just a little while ago.”

“What time?”

“I don't know. About nine o'clock, I think. Mary? When did she call? Yes, about nine.”

Eight o'clock Alaska time. Prince? “And you're calling from Seattle?”

“Why, yes,” the man said, bewildered all over again. “How did you know?”

“Your son's identification stated his residence. Who called you, Mr. Nelson? Who was it on the phone this morning?”