Dana Stabenow - Better To Rest

Jo flipped through her notes. “I think that’s all for now, Charles. If I have any further questions, may I call you?”

The smile was back and full-bore. “Of course. But why don’t you stay and have dinner with us?”

Her gaze rested for a speculative moment on Liam’s face. “Sure. Why not?”

“I can’t stay long,” Liam said.

Mason took a gulp of beer.

They ordered, ribeye for Charles, filet mignon for Jo, New York for Liam, steak sandwich for Mason. All the fishermen whose boats were still in the water had taken one look at the horizon and had stayed inside the breakwater that morning, so there was no fish or shellfish on the menu that night. Charles ordered a bottle of wine, and Liam, recognizing the signs, wondered if he ought to give Jo some kind of alert. He decided not to. He didn’t like her job, but he liked her just fine, and in spite of the crap she’d dumped all over him on Wy’s behalf he was glad Wy had such a staunch friend. But she was a grown woman who made her own choices.

He winced away from the prospect of Wy’s best friend and his father in the sack together, but then he’d winced at the reality of Diana Prince and his father in the sack together and it hadn’t killed him. His father was a rounder. If a woman was even halfway presentable and even a tenth of her was willing, it was as inevitable as the sun rising in the east that Charles would hit on her. Liam still thought the impulse to nail everything in sight came from Liam’s mother’s abandoning the both of them for a German nightclub owner when Liam was barely six months old, but that was his father’s problem to work out, not his. He didn’t do therapy. He kept his nose buried in his beer and spoke only when spoken to.

The bar was about half-full, mostly of drinkers. Moses was at his usual table, playing chess with Clarence Saguyuk, another old geezer who looked twice Moses’ age and had maybe half as many teeth. Neither factor seemed to affect his playing ability, if the forest of pawns, knights, rooks and one queen at his elbow was any indication. Eric Mollberg sat a little behind Clarence, a glass in one hand. He looked almost sober. Maybe he was finally coming out the other end of the tunnel. Liam had been down that same tunnel and he knew just how long it was.

Moccasin Man was holding forth in his usual booth, too, and Liam saw him make at least two sales. Gray was getting bolder with every day that passed without an arrest. Fine by Liam. Pretty soon Evan Gray would have enough rope to hang himself, and Liam would be there, ready to haul on the other end of it.

He wished with all his heart that the politicians in Juneau and Washington, D.C., would get a clue and legalize and tax all drugs, from dope to crack to ecstasy. If people wanted to go to hell in a pile of white dust or at the end of a needle, let them, instead of overworking law enforcement and overcrowding the jails to the point that every third bust was a drug bust and that the U.S. had more people in jail today than the Soviet Union ever did in all their gulags combined.

The result was the Evan Grays of this world, with a marijuana grow stashed somewhere in or near Newenham and a profitable and growing retail business. Admit him to the ranks of businessmen and be done with it, and while we’re at it, tax the hell out of him, Liam thought, watching Tasha Anayuk slide out of the booth opposite Gray, tucking something into her pocket. She saw Liam watching, and instead of flushing and scurrying away like the lawbreaker she was, she flashed him a brilliant smile and a little wave.

“Don’t you think, Liam?”

“Sorry?” he said, turning back to his father. “I didn’t hear you.”

“There ought to be a museum dedicated to Alaska’s World War II effort.”

Liam cut a piece of steak. “Why not?”

“Really,” Charles insisted. “The Alcan was built to support Lend-Lease planes to Russia and China. The war in the Aleutians drew enough Japanese strength north to make the victory at Midway possible.” He was at his most winning and it was all directed straight at Jo Dunaway, who was looking, in spite of herself, a little dazzled. Although that could have been the face Jo always put on when she got ready to seduce more information out of a source than they had previously known they had. According to Wy, such sources were legion, and Jo left them all lamenting their failure to recognize this fact.

“Maybe you could get in touch with the air museum in Anchorage,” Jo said. “They’re underfunded and going out of business every other week. If you could find a sponsor, they’d probably greet you with open arms.”

“It’s a thought,” Charles said, with a warm smile that applauded such a wonderful idea and the wonderful person who had had it.

Be careful what you wish for, little girl, Liam thought. Half a steak to go, some chitchat, and he was out of here.

“Liam.”

“Dad?”

“How have you been?”

“Fine.”

“Catching a lot of cases?”

“No more than usual.”

“Now there’s a modest statement if I ever heard one, Colonel,” Jo said. “Just last month Liam busted a serial killer who’s been kidnapping and murdering women around these parts for the last twenty-five years.”

Charles nodded at the stripes on Liam’s arm. “I noticed the promotion. Good job.”

“Thanks.”

“Still flying out to the Bush?”

“Yes.”

“Still hating it?”

“Yes.”

Charles fortified himself with a drink. “I know I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Charles plowed on. “If you learned how to fly, if you learned the reasons why planes stay up in the air and how to keep them there, you wouldn’t be nearly as afraid to travel in one.”

Liam made no reply.

Jo met Special Agent James Mason’s eyes. Special Agent James Mason had been careful to keep his mouth full of food during this exchange, which made Jo think highly of both his intelligence and his sense of self-preservation.

Clearly there was a problem of communication going on here strong enough to overwhelm any residual parent-child affection. She wondered how hard Charles had pushed Liam to learn to fly as a child. She wondered how hard Liam had resisted. But that wasn’t all there was to it. On the surface, Charles was trying to reach out to his son, and Liam was refusing to see the outstretched hand. On the surface, Charles appeared fatherly and, well, maybe not loving, but at least proud and friendly.

Liam, on the other hand, looked sullen and churlish and about twelve years old. Charles had done something to make Liam angry, and Liam had not forgiven him for it. Charles was pretending it had never happened. Liam was reminding him.

She wondered what it was, and if there was a story in it. She was immediately, if only mildly, ashamed of herself. Looking for the story in everyone she met was an occupational hazard. There was always a story, though, and it was never the story the person wanted told. Some were worthy of her editor’s attention and some weren’t. A very few she kept to herself. She nearly always got the story, though, and she idled away a few moments, letting Charles’ questions and Liam’s monosyllabic replies join the slipstream, while she pondered what this one might be. Had Charles broken a law? Had he broken it in his son’s posting?

“Where’s the arm?” Charles said, and she woke from her reverie.

“At the crime lab in Anchorage.”

Jo looked down at her plate. Her filet mignon stared back up at her. With a shrug, she took another bite.

“I should take custody of it.”

Liam was uncertain of the protocol involved, but on general principles he decided that the arm should stay in the custody of the state of Alaska. “They’ll take fingerprints. Did they take fingerprints in World War Two?”