Dana Stabenow - Whisper to the Blood

Howie hesitated, and then shrugged. Loyalty was never one of Howie's strong suits. "Martin Shugak."

"You already told me that, Howie. There was someone else, though, wasn't there? I saw a third rig under the trees."

"Fuck," Howie said, disgusted. "Al Sheldon."

Not one of the usual suspects, but the name nevertheless sounded familiar to Jim. He tried to track it down in his memory and came up empty.

There were two reasons he let Howie go. For one thing, he needed the cell. For another, if Howie hadn't fled the Park before this, chances were he wasn't going anywhere now. Still, Jim called Kenny Hazen and asked him to keep an eye out for Howie and Willard in Ahtna, just in case.

At some point he was going to have to talk to the aunties again. By rights, as a practicing policeman, he should bring them all in for questioning. He was already guilty of dereliction of duty by leaving it this long.

Although he had been busy, no denying that. Gallagher's prints had gone out before midnight, and before eight the next morning there was a match. Dick Gallagher was Doyle Greenbaugh, all right, and he was wanted for questioning for a double homicide at a truck stop outside of Boise, Idaho.

Johnny stopped by on the way to school and on Google Earth identified the truck stop as one of the stops Gallagher had made on their way north. "Here's the newspaper story about it," Jim said, handing him a printout.

BOISE, ID (AP): Two bodies were found in the parking lot of the Riders of the Purple Sage Truck Stop on Franklin Road, Caldwell, a suburb of Boise, early this morning. The first victim was a white male in his early forties, the second a white male in his teens; they have been identified as Dennis McMil-lian, a local businessman, and his fourteen-year-old son, Mark, both on a routine early morning walk with their dog, Rusty. Police say both appeared to have been shot by a large-caliber handgun, the elder victim in the chest and the younger in the back some distance away. Rusty was crouched next to the younger victim when the bodies were found.

"The incidence of violent crime has only been increasing on I-84 over the last ten years," said Representative Cole Blanchette (R-Boise) in an impromptu press conference near the scene yesterday morning. "It's what I've been trying to hammer home on the floor of the House every session, that we need an automatic death sentence for anyone convicted of committing a crime with a firearm."

An anonymous source in the police department said that traces of cocaine found near the bodies indicated that the two victims may have interrupted a drug deal. The same anonymous source reported that police have long suspected a network of drug dealers working truck stops across the nation. "It's natural," the source said. "Interstates go everywhere, and those big rigs go everywhere on them. It would make for a very efficient operation. They'd be mostly anonymous to the locals, so they'd never show up on the local cops' radar. They get here, they do their deal, they move on. And they've got a cover story that isn't even a cover story, it's a real job, they have a reason for passing through."

Police are canvassing the area for witnesses to the crime. A high-placed source in the police department who wishes to remain anonymous says that special attention is being paid to traffic in and out of the truck stop between the hours of midnight and six a.m.

"He bought me breakfast there," Johnny said, handing it back. He looked sick. "I was starving. I thought it was so nice of him. He left me at the counter, said he had to see a man about a horse."

"How long was he gone?"

"Twenty minutes, maybe? Half an hour?" Johnny shook his head. "I don't remember exactly. I thought-" "What?"

Johnny ducked his head and studied the floor intently. "I thought maybe a woman. I saw them, the ones who hang around the truck stops. They were everywhere we pulled in." He glanced up fleetingly. "I'm sorry, Jim. If I'd told you when he got here-"

"It's okay," Jim said.

"No, it isn't. Maybe Ms. Macleod would be alive if I had." "You didn't kill her, Johnny. And Gallagher hasn't confessed." "Yet. But you got him. Kate told me about the monofilament." "Yeah,' Jim said, not without a certain satisfaction. Besides the little bundle in the kitchen catch-all, there was enough mending twine in Auntie Vi's net loft to stock a marine supply store. Jim didn't know if the geeks at the crime lab could match batches of the stuff, but even if they couldn't it put the means of Macleod's murder very close to Gallagher's hand.

They'd recovered the bullets in the Boise homicides, too, and Gallagher's weapon was already on its way to the crime lab in Anchorage. "Yeah," he said, "we got him."

Kate came in as Johnny was leaving. "You okay?" she said.

"Jim says I didn't kill her."

"Jim Chopin, while a man and by definition foolish and fallible, is in this case absolutely and miraculously right."

Johnny watched his hands as they tried to tie his knit cap into a knot. "I shouldn't have told him where I was from, Kate. He wouldn't have shown up here." He looked up. "Maybe if I hadn't, Ms. Macleod would still be alive."

"Maybe. Maybe not. He'd already killed two people, don't forget. And you were with him. You could have seen something."

He paled a little. "You think he would have tried to kill me."

"I don't know. Fortunately, not an issue now."

Johnny's expression lightened. "I guess so. Yeah."

"Go on," she said, opening the door to the post. "You're going to be late for school. Just make damn sure that's where you're going."

"Yes, Kate," he said, and bolted out the door.

I saw Howie and Willard, headed for home," she said in Jim's office. "You still think he might be making it up about the aunties hiring him to do Louis Deem?"

"You asked them again?"

"Haven't had time."

He snorted. "Yeah, you're as petrified as I am that it's true. And then what?"

Kate had other issues with the aunties as well, but he couldn't help her with those. "You're sure he didn't kill Mac Devlin?"

He nodded. "Yeah. He was out there all right, with your cousin Martin and some guy named Sheldon, poaching caribou for resale. And Howie's rifle doesn't match the bullet the ME dug out of Mac's back." She was silent, frowning at the floor. "Kate?"

She looked up. "Want me to talk to Martin and Sheldon?"

"Sure. Probably even pay you for it. I'm going to take Greenbaugh into Anchorage personally as soon as it gets light."

"He okay to travel?"

"They got doctors in Anchorage can take care of him just fine. The sooner he's safely inside Cook Inlet Pre-Trial, the better I'll feel."

"Has Greenbaugh said he killed Talia yet?"

"He's not talking. After Mutt's emergency tracheotomy last night"-Mutt's ears perked up at mention of her name-"I'm not sure he can. But I called Global Harvest. The day Macleod died, he called them and told them he wanted her job."

"They give it to him?"

"Are you kidding? Guy hasn't even been in the state a year. Hasn't even made it through his first winter. No time served, no name recognition. Global Harvest didn't get to be the world's largest gold mining company because they were stupid."

It was almost word for word what she'd thought herself. Spooky. "So who's the new Talia, did they say?"

"They don't know yet. The guy said they'd made a job offer and were waiting to hear back. You get a call you didn't tell me about?"

Kate smiled, a little distracted.

"You okay, Kate?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'll go talk to Martin and Sheldon today."

She didn't bother looking for Martin. Instead, she went straight out to the Sheldons' place. It was about five miles downriver from Niniltna on the road to Bernie's, a couple miles after the turnoff to Bobby's place on Squaw Candy Creek and a couple of miles before the turnoff to the Nabesna Mine. The Sheldons had been Mac Devlin's nearest neighbors.