Dana Stabenow - Whisper to the Blood

"Why do I think he's telling the truth?" Kate said out loud. "I'm not even fighting it."

For some reason, she remembered the trip down the river, talking to the Kaltaks, the Jeffersons, the Rileys. As sure as she was sitting here, they were to the last man, woman, and child convinced that the Johansens were responsible for the attacks. And to the last man, woman, and child they were equally convinced that the Johansens had been brought to account for their crimes.

Kate was afraid that they were right. Someone had decided on their own to take care of the problem.

"Like the aunties," she said out loud, feeling sick again. She swallowed hard. "Like the aunties might have taken care of Louis Deem."

Kate thought back to her visit to Vidar Johansen, that cranky, lonely old man, the village built by his family emptying out two and three at a time around him. The school was gone. The post office was gone, mail delivered now to Niniltna. She could see the Johansen boys of Tikani, descendants of some of the oldest blood in the Park, getting hungrier and hungrier, too proud and too contrary to ask for help, until the only option seemed to be to forage for food and fuel wherever they could find it. From whomever they had to take it, even their neighbors.

And even if they hadn't, which she didn't know for a fact, she could see how they would be the obvious suspects.

If it was the Johansens, it would make sense that all the attacks occurred south of Niniltna, none of them north. Efficient predators know enough not to hunt too close to home. It frightens the game.

An eagle soared overhead on outspread wings, a soft presence on the minimal winter thermals generated by the rising sun. He spotted the hare and dipped his right wing, banking down into a swooping, tightening spiral. The hare vanished, snow falling from the trembling branches of the blueberry bush. The eagle straightened out and beat his wings to regain his original altitude, moving on. There would be another hare, or a squirrel, or a fox. There always was. Eagles, card-carrying carnivores, scavengers, opportunists, weren't picky about their food.

If someone had in fact constituted themselves judge, jury, and executioner in the matter of the snow machine attacks on the Kanuyaq River, that someone would have to be identified and warned against such action in future. She remembered Jim's complaints about Park rats taking justice into their own hands. Demetri attacking Smith for blading his beaver line. Bonnie Jeppsen keying the truck of the kid who as a prank put a dead salmon into the drop box. Arliss Kalifonsky putting a (probably well deserved, Kate thought) bullet into Mickey the next time he raised his hand to her. Dan O'Brien kicking a poacher's ass for trying to sell him a bear bladder.

They were all classic examples of Newton 's third law, and a hundred years ago these equal and opposite reactions would have earned nothing more than an approving nod from passersby, even if those passersby were territorial policemen. In their time the TPs were even more thin on the ground than their descendants, the state troopers, and welcomed all the help they got so long as it didn't make them more work.

Today, there was a trooper post in the Park, with a trooper assigned to it full time, and the Bill of Rights was more than just a paper under glass in the National Archives in Washington, D.G. Jim was right. He should be the first call people made, and for a while he had been, or so it seemed to Kate. What had changed?

A fat, glossy raven spoke from a nearby treetop. He had a lot to say in croaks and clicks and chuckles, slipping effortlessly from one raven dialect to another. Mutt's ears twitched and she gave the raven a hard look. The raven chattered on regardless, not unaware but not afraid, either. Even Mutt couldn't climb a tree.

"Maybe Talia turned him down," Kate said. That was it, it had to be. Jim had made his move, and Talia had declined with thanks.

Kate remembered Macleod's manner with the men on the board that morning. She'd definitely had a thing with Demetri at some point, and she'd been flirting with Old Sam, probably fifty years her senior. She remembered with painful clarity the intimacy between Jim and Macleod she'd seen at Bobby's house.

No, Kate didn't think Talia Macleod would have turned down Jim Chopin. She would have tripped Jim and beat him to the ground first.

And then another thought struck her, almost blinding in its force. "Oh, god," she said. "Oh, god."

Mutt looked at her in concern. It wasn't a tone of voice she was accustomed to hearing. She nudged Kate with her head and gave a soft, anxious whine.

"I believe Howie? And I don't believe Jim?"

She had to close her eyes while the world righted itself around her, and when she opened them again she was determined to banish thoughts of Jim Chopin from her mind, at least for the present. She reacquired her train of thought and held on grimly, determined not to be thrown off track this time.

Park rats were a self-sufficient bunch, no question, but Kate would never have described them as lawless. In fact, out here on what was still pretty much a frontier, people had more of a tendency to abide by the rules than not. When your nearest neighbor lives five miles away, the golden rule in particular became not just a nice adage but a way of life. There was no phone to pick up and call 911, even if there were a firehouse or a hospital within driving distance, which there wasn't, and even if there was a road between the fire-house or the hospital and your house, which there also wasn't. When you got into trouble you were going to need help. You wouldn't get it if you had a reputation for breaking the rules, for helping yourself to a neighbor's vegetable patch when she was out fishing, say, or making off with a cord of wood when they were on a Costco run, or cleaning out the cache when they were in Anchorage getting their eyes checked. Or draining their fuel tanks when they were on vacation.

So where was this coming from?

Her butt was starting to go numb and Kate was rising to her feet to return to the house when another thought stopped her in her tracks.

Louis Deem. Shot on a deserted stretch of Park road by a still unknown assassin. Louis Deem, embezzler, confidence man, thief, triple wife murderer. Louis Deem, who had lost no opportunity to abuse and victimize any Park rat unfortunate enough to cross his path.

Was Louis Deem's murder where all this began? She turned with decision and made for the garage.

Kate let herself in Auntie Vi's front door, only to be confronted by a stranger. "Oh," she said. "Hello. I'm looking for Auntie Vi."

The stranger-stocky, medium height, dark hair and eyes-had a broad grin that came too easily. "Don't shoot," he said genially, holding his hands up. "I'm a paying guest."

Kate smiled politely. "No problem."

The smile, set in an oval face with almond-shaped hazel eyes set on high flat cheekbones and a wide, expressive mouth, all of it framed with a short cap of black silk, the husky rasp of her voice, the whole package made him straighten up and step in for a closer look. "I'm Dick Gallagher. Hey, cool dog." He stretched out a hand and snapped his fingers. "Here, boy."

Mutt looked at him, a long, steady, considering gaze.

"Heh," Gallagher said, and dropped his hand. "He doesn't take kindly to strangers, I guess."

"She's a girl, for starters," Kate said. "I recognize your name, I think. You're working for Talia Macleod out at Suulutaq, aren't you?"

"That's right," he said. "Good job, too. Pays well."

"Congratulations," Kate said, looking around for Auntie Vi.

He hooked a thumb at the kitchen. "I could even afford to buy you breakfast. Interested?"

"I've eaten, thanks. Is Auntie Vi here?"

"I haven't seen her since breakfast. Come on, a cup of coffee can't hurt."