Dana Stabenow - A Taint in the Blood

She replaced the covers and, ears on alert for the sound of approaching sirens, went swiftly and thoroughly through every cupboard and drawer in the place, as well as the pocket of every pair of pants and coat she came across. She found a checkbook showing a balance of $530.72, bills for light, gas, and phone, and a wallet with a driver’s license. She compared the face in photo on the license to that of the dead man in the bed. It was the same.

There was another photo in the top drawer of the bedroom dresser, a four-by-six snapshot in a cheap wooden frame, the kind that came in a two-pack from Wal-Mart. It showed a group of three people posing on a boat on a sunshiny day, all laughing, all sunburned, all in life vests. The background looked like it might be Kachemak Bay. The stern of the boat was pointed at the camera, but only the tops of the letters of the name showed.

There was only one other picture in the entire cabin, this one in another wooden frame, the twin of the first. It was a black-and-white head shot of a young woman posed for a formal portrait. It looked like every other photo of a high school senior Kate had seen in her life.

At long last, she heard the distant wail of sirens. She stuffed both pictures into her day pack, and shut the door to the Subaru, turning to face the driveway.

The cops beat the ambulance by three minutes, but they still missed the Pontiac.

The doctor came out of the operating room. He wasn’t smiling. Kate got up on shaky legs. “How bad?”

“Bad enough,” the doc said. “But not fatal.”

“Not?” Kate said. The relief took the strength out of her legs and she sat down again.

The doc shook his head. He was a wiry man, not much taller than Kate, and had a lined face and lively eyes. He didn’t smell like he’d showered in the last twenty-four hours and he didn’t look like he’d slept in longer than that. “Missed his heart, lungs, spine, even passed between his ribs on the way out.”

“So he’ll be all right?”

The doc shrugged. “Maybe. Probably.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “There’s a lot of muscle and tissue damage. Goddamn bullets just love to turn cartwheels when they get on the inside of a human body. He’ll be awhile healing, that’s for sure.”

“When can I talk to him?”

The doc gave her a derisive look. “Forget about it. He’s out of it for the next twelve to twenty-four. Sleep’s the best thing for him. He’s going to hurt like hell when he wakes up. The longer he can hold off on that, the better.”

From behind Kate, a voice said, “I’ll need to know the minute he wakes up.”

The doctor flapped his hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know the drill.” He shambled off down the hall, white coat stained with blood.

“So I’ll talk to you instead, Shugak.”

Kate turned. “O’Leary.”

“What were you doing there?”

“Kurt asked me to meet him there.”

“What was he doing there?”

Kate did a rapid mental review. “He’s working for me.”

“So you said. Doing what?”

“Finding a witness to a case I’m working.”

“What was the name of the witness?”

“I don’t know,” Kate said. It was her first lie. It wouldn’t be her last. “I was coming to town, and Billy Mike asked me to look for Luba Hardt while I was here.”

“I remember.” She paused, and to her relief and somewhat to her shame, O’Leary jumped right in. “So Kurt was looking for witnesses to the assault?”

“Yes. He called me to ask me to meet him there because he’d found something or someone. He wouldn’t tell me what it was, he just asked me to meet him. Who does that cabin belong to, anyway?”

She saw his look and hoped she hadn’t overdone the innocence. There was a long pause. “Guy by the name of Gene Salamantoff You know him?”

“Never heard of him.” That was the strict truth, so far as it went.

“Mmm.” O’Leary, big, beefy, red-faced, examined her with careful eyes, and decided for reasons best known to himself to provide further information. “Turns out he’s dead, too.”

“Salamantoff?”

O’Leary nodded. “We found his body in his bedroom.”

“You’re kidding,” Kate said, and earned herself another long look. She couldn’t help it-lying just wasn’t her very best thing. “Was he shot, too?”

O’Leary nodded.

“Same gun?”

“By the entry and exit wounds, yeah. Take ballistics a few days to be sure.”

“There were two men,” Kate said.

“I read your statement,” O’Leary said.

“Did you raise any prints?”

O’Leary shrugged.

“Got this, though,” and handed her a mug shot of the dead man.

“Thanks,” she said, a little surprised.

O’Leary’s middle name was not “helpful.”

“Anybody spot the Pontiac anywhere?”

O’Leary shrugged again.

“When you find them, look for bite marks,” Kate said.

O’Leary looked down at Mutt, who was standing one pace behind Kate, and almost smiled.

Kate left the number of the town house and the one for her cell phone at the nurses’ station with strict instructions to call her if Kurt showed any sign whatsoever of regaining consciousness. To be sure, she slipped into his room when the nurse’s back was turned and left a note under the bedside phone to that effect, too. She stood for a moment looking down at him. Tubed and wired and bandaged. No respirator, though. Kurt was breathing on his own, always a good sign, and the heart monitor registered a reassuringly steady blip.

He seemed to be frowning, his brow puckered. Truth to tell, he looked more than a little pissed off, and for some reason this caused Kate’s heart to lift a little. Pissed off was nowhere near to dying. She touched his shoulder. “I left both my phone numbers, Kurt,” she said in a low voice. “Call me when you wake up.

In the meantime, I’ll get on the trail of those sons a bitches in the Pontiac.“

Kate pulled some pork ribs out of the refrigerator and put them on to boil with salt and garlic powder, started rice in the rice cooker, and took a diet Sprite over ice with a lime twist into the upstairs bathroom. She stripped out of the clothes stained with Kurt’s blood and got into the shower. She let the water, hot as she could stand it, beat down on her back and took a long, cold swallow of her drink.

She turned her face into the water, soaking her hair, breathing the steam in deep.

Kurt was going to be all right, that was the main thing. “He’s going to be all right,” she said out loud, and then she said, “Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch” and slapped the tile with her open hand hard enough to make it sting.

She soaped down, rinsed off, and toweled herself dry, then stalked into the bathroom and yanked on clean clothes. Mutt, who had followed her into the bathroom, trailed her into the bedroom. Kate took her bloodstained clothes into the laundry room and started the washer. Mutt followed her there, too, and followed her into the kitchen, where Kate boiled water for tea, got out a cup, and added a huge dollop of honey. She took the cup of tea into the living room and curled up in the easy chair, the afghan from the back of the couch tucked in around her. Mutt whined at her, so she scooched over, and Mutt climbed into the nest with her. It was a tight fit, but Kate was more than grateful for the reassurance that emanated from Mutt’s warm, solid body.

Suddenly, Kate was freezing. She was shaking so hard the tea spilled over the side of the cup and her teeth chattered on the rim. She had an immediate desire to call George and tell him to come get her and Mutt out of this friggin‘ town at once. She had an equally immediate desire to find the two shooters in the Pontiac, cut out their livers, and feed them to Mutt as a special treat.