Dana Stabenow - A Grave Denied

Jim paused, one foot in the plane, one foot on the ground. “Oh, shit.” And it had been such a nice ride home.

Kate turned to him. “That’s right, you said you were picking up the autopsy report.”

He frowned at her. “Not in front of the civilians.”

“You people are just no fun at all,” George said, and ambled back into the hangar, where his Super Cub could be seen, cowling peeled back and engine exposed. Even from where they were standing, it gleamed with the care George lavished upon it.

The airstrip was dark with overnight rain, but not enough to be muddy. A low, thin layer of cotton-puff clouds was dissolving beneath the noon sun. There was a flash of white in the brush across the strip and Mutt gave a joyous bark and shot off in pursuit. Johnny gave a sigh of pure joy and headed for the post office. They’d only been gone overnight, and on a weekend at that, but like every other Bush dweller Johnny lived for the mail, and he had new clothes coming. If there was a package slip he could always go round to Mrs. Jeppsen’s house in back of the post office and talk her into opening up long enough to get it for him.

“So?” Kate said to Jim.

“ME says Dreyer’s been dead about six months, give or take three in either direction. She’s going to do some more tests, but that’s her best guess and she’s thinking her final one. She says the deep-freeze effect delayed rigor and lividity and she doesn’t know if he was sitting, standing, or lying down when he caught it. Death resulted from massive trauma caused by a direct hit from a shotgun. From the stippling, she thinks the perp was less than four feet away.”

“Did you have a chance to talk to ballistics?”

“From the pattern, they think it might be one of the older models, maybe a Remington, maybe a Winchester, maybe old enough to be one of the discontinued models.”

“That might help. Might be fewer of them around.”

He shrugged. “You’re dreaming and we both know it. Who in the Park doesn’t have an old shotgun his father left him?”

“Me,” Kate said.

“Oh. Right. Forgot. Sorry.”

“Yeah, well.” Her turn to shrug. “So nothing we didn’t know before, or not much.”

“Nope.”

“Mind if I say this totally sucks?”

“Nope.” The sun broke through the clouds and he watched her lift her face into it and close her eyes. He wondered what she would look like naked in the sun, if she would turn her whole body into the light and warmth the way she did her face. He wanted to find out. He did most sincerely want to find out, preferably before his need robbed him of independent mobility. He cleared his throat. “Rein in that hairy Bigfoot of yours and we’ll drop her and the kid at Auntie Vi’s and go see if the cafe is open. Talk it out over coffee.”

She had been about to suggest Auntie Vi’s, but Auntie Vi would insist on sitting in on the deliberations. “I keep forgetting there’s a cafe now. A cafe in Niniltna. What’s next, a Wal-Mart?”

“Bite your tongue.”

She loitered deliberately until he had driven off. Before she whistled up Johnny and Mutt, she walked over to the hangar. “Looking good, George,” she said, circumnavigating the Super Cub.

He didn’t preen, but it was close. “Thanks.”

“Nice to see a well-maintained aircraft. Gives you faith in the airline, and the man who flies it.”

His head came up like an animal scenting a predator. “Gee, thanks, Kate. Nice of you to say.” He turned his head and looked at her. “Was there something else?”

“You used to hang with Gary Drussell, didn’t you? Do some hunting together every year?”

A brief pause. “Sure. What of it?”

“I was wondering,” she said in a casual tone that fooled nobody. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“Last time I saw Gary?” he said thoughtfully, wiping down an open-end box wrench that didn’t need it.

“Yeah.” She waited.

“Gosh, I’m not sure, Kate.” Minute attention was paid to the wrench. “I guess when he moved out last summer. Actually, I guess it was closer to spring, right after breakup.”

“Really,” Kate said.

The face he presented to her was wide-eyed. “Yeah, right around breakup, I figure.”

“Long time,” Kate said. “He didn’t even come back to go hunting in the fall?”

“Nope.” George hunched over the engine. “Hell of a thing, what moving to Anchorage will do to your priorities.”

“Yeah, hell of a thing,” Kate said.

The cafe was still enough of a novelty to be crowded at noon on Sunday, although Laurel Meganack behind the counter was all by herself enough of a draw for most Park rats. Jeffrey Clark sat alone in a corner, scrupulously polite to Laurel, ignoring everyone else. Jim jerked his head. “What’s with Lord High Everything Else?”

Kate laughed. Jeffrey Clark’s eyes snapped up and narrowed suspiciously. He was sure they were laughing at him, mostly because he didn’t see anything else they could be laughing about.

There were two stools available at the end of the counter. Kate copped the one against the wall and leaned against it so she could face Jim. He ordered their coffee and turned his back on the rest of the room so as to face her. It gave them the illusion of privacy. “I can’t wait till the post gets built,” he said.

She smiled faintly. “Make it easier on the interviews.”

“No kidding.” The coffee came. “Talk.”

She doctored her mug liberally with sugar and evaporated milk, which an intelligent Laurel ordered in by the case and for a serving of which she added fifty cents onto the price. “Okay,” she said, sitting back. “Some of this will be new to you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Talk, Shugak.”

She told him about Enid Koslowski.

He whistled. “Bernie caught them in the act?”

“Yes.”

“There’s motive for murder enough right there.”

She was silent.

“What else?” he said.

She looked over his shoulder at Laurel, carrying five plates in two hands to a table where Old Sam and four of his cronies were waiting. “Seems Bernie and Len both shared the favors of Miss Meganack, here.”

“No kidding?” He hung his chin on his shoulder for a moment. “Can’t say as I blame them.” He looked back at her and noticed no trace of jealousy. That could be either a good thing or a bad thing. “Did she dump one for the other?”

“She says not. She says she was overcome by Len’s tool belt, it was a one-time thing on the floor of the kitchen when he was doing some fix-up stuff for her before the cafe opened. She was surprised when he didn’t try to turn it into more.”

“So am I.”

“I’m not,” she said, “but I’ll get to that in a minute.”

“Take your time, I’m still on the kitchen floor.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said without heat. “Enid says it was pretty much the same for her.”

“Enid made the first move?”

“Yeah.”

“Seems a little out of character.”

“It is. It was when Bernie was sleeping with Laurel. Enid found out.”

“Ah,” he said, understanding. “A revenge fuck.”

“Two of them, to be exact.”

“The second one being when Bernie walked in.”

“She seduced Dreyer aka Duffy in one of the cabins. I’m just going to call him Dreyer if you don’t mind,” she added. “Main reason I hate aliases, just gets too damn confusing.”

He considered. “Enid wanted Bernie to catch them at it. Catch her at it.”

“Yeah.”

“Nice little quadrangle, if that’s the right word. Bernie sleeps with Laurel, Enid finds out and sleeps with Dreyer, Dreyer sleeps with Laurel.” He straightened. “Wait a minute. How serious was Bernie about Laurel?”