Dana Stabenow - A Fine and Bitter Snow

“You’re from Illinois, I understand, Mr. Higgins.”

He looked startled. “Yes, I am. Carbondale.”

“All your life?”

“Yes. Well, except for when I was in the army.” He ducked his head. “You know what the worst thing about jail is?”

“What?”

“No windows. In the movies, there are always windows, with bars on, that you can see out of.”

“With John Wayne on the other side.”

He smiled, delighted that she would play. “Right.”

“That was always in Texas. Be cold here.”

He frowned. “Oh, I guess. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“It’s a long way from Illinois to Alaska.”

“Yes. I mean, I guess so.”

“A long drive for someone traveling alone.”

He looked away. “I walked.”

The AlCan was fifteen hundred miles long, plus however many miles it was from Milepost Zero to Carbondale, Illinois. “Hitchhiked, do you mean?”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” he said too quickly.

She nodded. By now, it would be next to impossible to find anyone who had given him a ride, even if his story were true, which it wasn’t. “That’s quite a trip. You must have seen some country.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, his face lighting. “Beautiful. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. I’ve never been anywhere before, just home, and-well, just home, really. This was like-this was-” He shrugged and spread his hands. “Amazing.”

“Yeah,” she said, “I’ve heard.”

“You’ve never driven it yourself?”

She shook her head. “The two times I’ve been Outside, I flew.”

“You ought to drive it,” he said earnestly. “At least once.”

“I’ve been told that,” she said, nodding. She let the amiable silence lie between them for a moment or two. “So the Park was the first left turn after you crossed the border,” she said, smiling at him. Kate’s smile, while not as lethal as Jim Chopin’s, seldom failed to have an effect, either.

He smiled back. “Well, maybe not the first turn. But one of them.”

“It’s a hard place to pass up. I know. I’ve lived here most of my life.”

“I wondered.” He gave her a curious look. “If you don’t mind my asking, are you an Indian?”

“I don’t mind,” Kate said, “and no, I’m an Alaska Native. Aleut, mostly, but if you go back a generation or two, it’s quite a mix. Pretty much everyone who dropped by Alaska dipped their pen in my ancestors’ inkwell, from the Russians on down. Heinz fifty-seven American.”

Mutt lay down, and again Higgins scratched her head and retained his hand, and again Mutt leaned into it, as opposed to moving out of the way or even just tolerating it.

“Just about the most beautiful dog I’ve ever seen,” Higgins said quietly.

“She’s half wolf,” Kate said.

His eyes widened. “Really?” He looked back at Mutt. “Wow. She seems pretty civilized. I always thought wolf hybrids were dangerous around people.”

“Mutt’s the exception. And she’s got a pretty big backyard to run off any aggression she might be feeling.” Although the aggression was always there, and on tap when it was needed.

“Where did you get her?”

“She was a gift.” Kate nudged the conversation back on track. “Must have been tough, your first winter in the Park.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” he said. “I met Dina and Ruthe at the Roadhouse, and they were looking for someone to do odd jobs around their place for the winter. Cut wood, like that.”

Kate nodded. “Yeah, they’re always looking for someone. Not many can stick out an Interior winter, when they’ve just gotten here.”

“Yeah, your fall doesn’t last long,” he said, nodding. “I got here and, bam! it snowed. It was early compared to home. I was surprised.”

The first snowfall had been on October 17. “And then it kept snowing.”

“For six days,” he said ruefully, “and Dina and Ruthe had a heck of a lot of path to shovel.”

“Nice little cabins, up the hill.”

“Yeah,” he said nostalgically. “And an incredible view. Dina said that on a clear day you can see all the way to Prince William Sound. But I think she was fooling me.”

“That why you killed her?” Kate said, asking her first question of the interview.

His head snapped up and he stared at her out of wounded eyes. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice strained.

“You mean you didn’t kill her? You didn’t try to kill Ruthe?”

“I don’t know. The way he found me, I must have-” He closed his eyes and what little flesh was left seemed to melt away from his face. “I don’t remember doing it, but I must have,” he whispered.

“Ever do anything like this before?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes-”

“Sometimes what?”

“Sometimes I lose time.”

“You lose time?”

“I just blank out. One minute I’m walking down the street, and the sun’s out, and the kids are playing in the school yard, and the next minute I’m in the shelter, lying on a bed, wrapped up in a blanket.”

“You had the knife in your hand when you were found. Did you blank that out, too?”

“I don’t remember any knife,” he said helplessly. “I don’t remember anything after-” He stopped.

“After what?”

He didn’t answer.

“If you didn’t kill Dina, who did?”

“I don’t know!”

“Pretty convenient, your not knowing.”

“7 don’t know! Oh god! Oh god!” He moaned and put his hands over his ears. “Can you hear it? Can you hear it?”

“Hear what?”

“They’re coming!”

“Who’s coming?”

“Incoming!” he screamed, and took her down in a diving tackle. Mutt was on her feet in an instant, barking wildly.

Jim was through the door a heartbeat later, to find Higgins trying to drag Kate beneath his bunk, screaming “Incoming*. Incoming!” at the top of his voice. Kate was trying to fight him off, and Mutt had her teeth fastened on the back of Kate’s sweatshirt and was pulling with her legs braced, growling all the time.

She let go as soon as she saw Jim and started barking. The cement walls of the cells rang like a tocsin. Jim got one arm around Kate’s waist and hauled her up. For a moment, Higgins wouldn’t let go, and then he did and scuttled beneath his bunk. Jim deposited Kate unceremoniously in the hallway, said, “Out!” to Mutt, and went back into the cell. Higgins was curled into a ball, his knees to his chest and his arms over his head, moaning and crying and sobbing. “Oh God, I’m so scared, I’m so scared. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop!”

“Riley,” Jim said. Higgins kept rocking and moaning. “Riley. Riley! It’s all over. The attack’s over, Riley. It’s safe to come out now.”

Higgins’s sobbing slowly ceased.

“Come on, Riley.” Jim held out a hand. He could hear Higgins snorting back mucus.

“I’m going to stay here for a while. If that’s okay?”

“Sure,” Jim said. “Sure it is.” He pulled the blanket and the pillow off the bunk and gave them to Riley, who thanked him and proceeded to blow his nose on the blanket.

Jim stood up and left the cell, locking it behind him. He motioned to Kate, and the three of them padded silently down the hall, leaving the man beneath the bunk to crouch, shivering and terrified, waiting for the next attack.

“Poor bastard,” Kate said.

“Yeah,” Jim said. “But did he do it?”

“Poor fucker,” Bobby said.

He was sitting in front of the computer, one of the many electronic components of the console that occupied the center of the A-frame. He had a satellite uplink now and was the only person in the Park, apart from Dan and the school, to have instant Internet access. He tapped some keys and a different site popped up-one with a Department of Defense logo-one Jim was not entirely certain Bobby should have been able to get on, but he held his peace.