So Sure Of Death

FIFTEEN

He stopped at NC for coffee and a roll, and headed to the post. Charlene Taylor was waiting for him. She didn't look happy.

Fifty years old, give or take a few, she had a round face topped by a fringe of flyaway brown bangs. Her ample waist was firmly restrained by a thick leather belt, and her epaulets and shoulder pads made her look twice as wide as the Sherman tank she already was. Her eyelashes, long, thick and curling, were disarmingly coquettish until you got past them to the unavoidable brown gaze they screened, a stare that weighed, measured, classified and stamped in one thorough glance. It reminded him a little of Alta's. It reminded him a lot of Bill's.

Liam, a man who had always loved women, was a bit afraid of all three of them. He wondered suddenly what Wy would be like at fifty, and gave an involuntary grin at the thought of what it might be like to live with her then. He'd have to check with Charlene's husband, the D.A. for this district, and see what he said.

“There's nothing funny about it,” Charlene said severely, rebuking his grin.

“Nothing funny about what?” Liam said, leading the way into his office.

Charlene planted herself squarely in front of his desk and folded her arms across an impressive chest. “I understand you have Frank Petla under arrest for murder.”

Liam, still in the act of pulling off his cap, looked surprised. “He hasn't been charged yet, but, yes, he's in custody.”

“He didn't do it.”

Liam took his cap the rest of the way off and took a minute hanging it just so from the hat rack on the wall. He went behind his desk, sat down, and took the lid off the coffee. “You want half?” he said, holding out the enormous cinnamon roll.

“He didn't do it, Liam.”

“Fine,” he said. “More for me.” He took a gigantic bite and washed it down with a swallow of satisfyingly strong coffee. “You sound very sure.”

“I know him. He's a drunk, but he's not a killer.”

“We're all potential killers, given the right circumstances, and you know it, Charlene.” He took another bite.

“You weren't,” she said pointedly, and he flushed a dark red.

“No, I wasn't.” The memory of the man who had killed his wife and child, kneeling in front of him in the rain, on a lonely road fifty miles from anywhere and anyone to see, flashed through his mind. He banished it, the way he always did. His appetite gone, he set the roll down.

“Aw hell,” she said, disgusted. “I'm sorry, Liam.” She removed her own cap and sat down heavily. “Low blow, totally unwarranted, completely out of line.”

“You aren't the first person to have made that observation.” A lot of people thought Rick Dyson should have been shot while resisting arrest, many of them within Liam's own command. Liam had felt the weight of their silent contempt every time he walked into headquarters.

Contempt was not manifest in Charlene's glare. “I said I was sorry.”

He held up one hand, palm out. “All right. Apology accepted. What makes you so sure Petla didn't do it?”

“Tell me what happened,” she said instead.

He told her. She followed the story intently. “How did you catch him when he took off on the four-wheeler? There's no place to land and intercept him around there.”

“I brought him back to the dig,” Liam said, avoiding a direct answer. “Charlene, he assaulted a trooper.”

She looked startled. “You?”

“No, we got ourselves a new trooper, fresh out of the academy, Diana Prince.”

“I didn't know that.”

“She came in yesterday. Green as she is, I have to say it helped having her here, what with the press of business and all.” It was a weak attempt at a joke and didn't earn him a smile. “You hear about theMarybethia?” She nodded. “We flew out to Kulukak yesterday morning when the news came in, I sent her back with the bodies. McLynn-you know McLynn?”

“I've heard of him.” Her dry tone indicated that she hadn't heard anything good.

“Well, Wy Chouinard's been flying him in and out, and when they flew in yesterday morning they found Nelson's body. Don Nelson,” he added parenthetically. “He was McLynn's gofer. McLynn and Wy flew back to town and got hold of Prince. Prince borrowed Wy's Cub and flew out to the dig with McLynn, while Wy picked me up in Kulukak and brought me back.” He omitted reference to the brief stop en route. He was getting good at skipping that. “We switched planes and flew out to the dig. When we got there, Prince had been clubbed, McLynn had been shot and Frank Petla was hightailing it over the horizon on a four-wheeler with a thirty-ought-six and a bag of Yupik artifacts from the dig strapped to the handlebars. Which bag of artifacts included the murder weapon, I might add.”

“What was the murder weapon?” He told her, and she grimaced. “I knew there was a reason I chose the Fish and Game side of this department. At least people are only murdering moose.” She pulled the brim of the cap through her fingers. “Okay.” She raised her head. “It looks bad for Frank. Given his presence and his behavior, you didn't have any choice, I see that.”

“How do you know him?”

Her mouth pulled down. “He boarded with us for a year when he was a teenager.” Her eyes met his, her expression troubled. “You know how it is in the villages, Liam. The elders are trying to hold things together, trying keep the kids off the booze long enough to grow up, but a lot of the time it's just too little, too late. Frank comes from one of the families for which it was too little and too late. His father ran his snow machine into a lead on the river when Frank was ten, and his mother never recovered. She's a great gal when she isn't on the sauce, but it's got her by the scruff of the neck and it's not about to let go. His sister Sarah died when she was thirteen, alcohol abuse. Frank was in trouble in the village, some underage drinking, some disturbing the peace, some small-time B &E-yeah, yeah, I know what this sounds like. Liam, he just never had a chance. The elders called in the troopers when he broke into the school one night and trashed the library, and the trooper brought him before Bill. Jerry and I-well, we don't have any of our own, and we take in a kid now and then, a kid who otherwise will get sent to McLaughlin in Anchorage and get lost in the system. Village kids got no business being sent to McLaughlin, Liam; all that happens there is they get advanced instruction in criminal behavior.”

Liam held up one hand. “You're preaching to the choir here, Charlene.”

She relaxed a little. “He was real good, the time he spent with us. Stayed sober, did his homework. Even had a girlfriend, Betty Kusma, smart girl, works as a checker at NC. We took both of them to the AFN convention that October, and he signed on with the sobriety movement.”

“What happened?”

Her mouth set in an unhappy line. “His mother got an attorney and forced DFYS to give him back to her.” She sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. “He was only fifteen. If we could have kept him for just one more year, until he was sixteen and would have had a choice whether to go or stay, he might have made it.”

There was silence for a moment. “I'll dot all thei's and cross all thet's, Charlene,” Liam said at last. “I won't take anything at face value. But you have to know it looks pretty bad.”

“I know.” She opened her eyes and stood up. “Thanks, Liam.”

“Hold on a minute, would you?” He rose and walked over to the wall map of the Bristol Bay area. He tapped Kulukak. “Can you tell me what part of Kulukak Bay was open for fishing on Sunday?”

“Sure.” She came to stand next to him. “All of it.”

“For how long?”

She thought. “I'd have to look it up, but I think six a.m. to six p.m.”

“Hell.”

“What's the problem?”

“It's eight miles across,” he said gloomily, “and ten or more north-south. I'm trying to track the whereabouts of forty to fifty different boats on that Bay during a twelve-hour period.”

“Because all of it was open, doesn't mean all of it was fished.”

He looked at her. “Which means what, exactly?”

“It means that fishermen aren't stupid. They'll wet their nets where it'll do them the most good. In this case…” Her forefinger traced a section of the coastline on the northeast corner of Kulukak Bay. “Right about here.”

He inspected the bit of coastline. “Why?”

“Because that's where the Kanik River, the biggest creek on the bay, empties into the Kulukak,” she said. “You know? Every summer, salmon come in from the ocean to go up the creeks where they were born to spawn their own young? You must have heard something about this, surely.”

His ears reddened. “Not a lot of commercial fishing in Glenallen.”

“That's no excuse,” she said severely. “You've been on the Bay for three months now. Anyway, that's where most of your boats will have been, outside the markers of the Kanik, trying to get in between the fish and fresh water.” She pulled her cap on.

“One more thing.”

“What?”

“Ivory, walrus ivory.”

“The tusks. Sure, what about them?”

“I know only Natives can sell them. Can they sell them as is, or do they have to be carved into something first?”

“The law says it has to be carved on or into something. Walk into any gift shop on Fourth Avenue in Anchorage and look around. You'll see whole heads with the tusk sporting one little carving of a mask or an animal, just to make it legal.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why? Is there something you're not telling me, something going on to do with my side of the patch?”

He told her about the suspiciously fresh chunk of ivory tusk he had found in the service tent at the dig. She listened with interest, and when he was done said, “Like I said, it's the law, the pieces have to be finished.” She smiled. “But if everyone obeyed the law, we'd both be out of work.”

Charlene left the post, and as Liam returned to his desk the phone rang. It was a man, on the ragged edge of losing his selfcontrol, his voice so choked that Liam could barely understand him. “I beg your pardon, sir?”

The man cleared his throat. His voice was shaken but clear. “My name is Donald Nelson, Senior.”

Liam closed his eyes for a brief moment, and then sat up straight. “Yes, sir. This is Liam Campbell with the Alaska State Troopers. Are you Don Nelson's father?”

The voice broke again. “Yes.”

“I'm very sorry for your loss, Mr. Nelson.”

“Thank you.” There was the sound of a sob, quickly suppressed, and Liam set his teeth. “Please, can you tell me what happened? I just talked to Don last week, and he was fine. He was fine, he sounded happy, and excited about his work.” There was a sound something between a laugh and a sob. “He said Alaska was beautiful and the people were crazy.”

“He was right about both, sir,” Liam said gently. He would rather respond to a hundred scenes like theMarybethiathan talk to one grieving parent, but this was part of the job. He had a thought, and sat up. “Mr. Nelson, how did you find out your son was dead?”

“I don't know,” Nelson said drearily. “Some woman called.”

“When?”

“This morning. Just a little while ago.”

“What time?”

“I don't know. About nine o'clock, I think. Mary? When did she call? Yes, about nine.”

Eight o'clock Alaska time. Prince? “And you're calling from Seattle?”

“Why, yes,” the man said, bewildered all over again. “How did you know?”

“Your son's identification stated his residence. Who called you, Mr. Nelson? Who was it on the phone this morning?”

“I don't know. Mary, where is that piece of paper…” Paper rustled in the background, and someone blew his nose. Nelson's voice came back on. “Here it is. Somebody from Anchorage.”

Liam relaxed a little. “Someone from the medical examiner's officer, perhaps?”

“That was it. She told us he was dead, and when we asked how, she gave us your name. How did he die, Mr. Campbell? He was fine when we talked to him last week,” Nelson repeated. He sounded dazed. “He was-he was fine. Was it an accident?”

“I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Mr. Nelson, but no, your son did not die in an accident.” He thought of the hilt of the storyknife protruding from Nelson's mouth and added evenly, “There is evidence of foul play.”

“Foul play? Foul play? What the hell does that mean?”

Liam hated the phrase “foul play” himself; it made him think of an Agatha Christie novel. “Mr. Nelson, your son was killed,” he said bluntly. “I'm sorry,” he added.

“Killed?” Liam had expected the rise of anger in Nelson's voice; it always happened, shock, followed by grief, followed by rage. “Who killed him? Who did it?”

Liam looked at the door, which Charlene had closed firmly behind her. “We don't know yet for sure, Mr. Nelson.” He was thinking of Don Nelson's body lying in a sprawl so awkward it could only be death when he added, “But we do have a suspect in custody.”

“Who?”

“A local man,” Liam said circumspectly.

“How was he killed?”

Even more circumspectly, Liam replied, “Your son's body is at the medical examiner's office in Anchorage, Mr. Nelson. I expect cause of death will be pronounced within a few days. I can give you their phone number, if you like, so that you can make arrangements.”

“Make arrangements.” That was almost as bad a euphemism as “foul play.” Much as we do to sanitize it, Liam thought, everything we do to clean it up for public view, death is messy and painful, and will not be called to order. He thought again of Frost's poem.

“All right,” Nelson said, sounding suddenly exhausted. Liam gave him the M.E.'s number. “Thank you.”

Before very long Don Nelson, Senior, was going to want answers.Who, what, where, how and, above all, why? It was Liam's job to provide them. “You're welcome. Mr. Nelson, did your son have a particular friend here in Newenham? A girlfriend, maybe?”

“What? No. At least… he never said.” The tears were coming back. “He would have said, wouldn't he? If he'd met a girl, he would have said. He would have told his mother. He would have. He-”

“So there wasn't anyone?”

“No. Not that we know of. And if it had been serious, we would have known. We were very close.”

“I'm glad,” Liam said, and said it forcefully. “Did Don have any siblings? Any brothers or sisters that he might have talked to since he talked to you?”

“He had a sister, Betsy. She didn't say he'd called when we talked to her this morning.”

“May I have her phone number?”

Liam scribbled it down, and they said their goodbyes, Liam promising to call with any new information. Nelson Senior would call back first, he knew. It would take a day or two for him to filter the information Liam had given him through his grief, but when he did he would be on the phone breathing fire and smoke over the suspect in his son's murder, and if Liam was very unlucky, in less than a week he would be stepping off a plane at Newenham Airport.

The thought brought him to his feet. He donned cap and weapon and headed purposefully for the door. When he opened it, the white, shocked face of Tim Gosuk was on the other side.

“Tim?” Liam said.

“Is it true?” Tim said.

“Is what true?”

“Is it true that Mike Malone is dead?”

“How did you know Michael Malone?”

“I played guard opposite him at regionals last year. Is it true?”

Liam sat down on the top step, and with a gentle hand pulled Tim to sit next to him. “Yes, Tim, it's true.”

Tim sat, staring numbly in front of him. At twelve you are immortal and indestructible. This time next year is an aeon away, and the end of your life shrouded in mists you won't penetrate for another forty years. Death just doesn't happen when you're twelve.

It doesn't happen to your friends, either. “I can't believe it. I heard Mom and Jo talking about a boat burning and the crew all dead. I didn't know it was Mike's boat. He was-he was the greatest guy, Liam. Really nice. If you made a good play, he'd slap you on the back and yell, ‘Way to go!’ Even when you were on the other team. He was a good player, too, always had his hands up, had a great rebound.” Tim swallowed hard. Liam pretended not to notice. “He was just a great guy. I learned more playing against him than I did in a year's worth of practice.”

There was a rustle of branches overhead, a soft croak. Liam didn't look up. “Did you know the rest of his family?”

A trace of color rose up from Tim's neck. “I met his sister,” he said gruffly.

“Kerry?”

He nodded, his head turned away. The tip of his left ear was pink. “She was a cheerleader.”

“Pretty?”

Tim nodded again. “Is it true? The whole family is dead?”

“Yes.”

Liam's deep, slow voice was its own soporific. Tim's shoulders shuddered with a long sigh and he sat up straight again. “Kerry, too?”

“Kerry, too.”

“Damn it,” Tim said. “GodDAMN it.”

Liam dared to place one hand at the back of Tim's neck and squeeze. To his relief, Tim did not jerk away. “I'm sorry, Tim.”

“Me, too,” Tim said. “Me, too.” He swiveled around. “Mom says they were murdered, that somebody killed them. You gonna find out who did it?”

“Yes.”

Again, the deep voice was soothing in its certainty.

Another long, shuddering sigh. “Okay, then.” Tim stood up, thin shoulders squared, jaw up in a gesture that looked uncannily similar to the same gesture Liam had seen a hundred times on Wy's face. “Go get 'em.”

“All right,” Liam said obediently. He wanted to say, How's your mom? but stopped himself in time. It would have been like ninth grade all over again, in love with Mary Kallenberg and trying to discover if she liked him through his best friend, Cal, and her best friend, Melissa.

The raven sitting on the swaying spruce bow beat his wings and gave a raucous croak. Liam's head jerked up. The raven met his eye and croaked again.

“He's around here a lot, isn't he?” Tim said, looking at the raven as he straddled his bike. “I thought they roosted way out of town.”

“I just wish they did,” Liam said. He looked hard at the raven. It didn't do any good. He looked like every raven Liam had seen since coming to the Bay; big, black, beaky and beady-eyed. You had to perform surgery to tell a female from a male, and you had to catch one and stare down its gullet to tell how old it was. They all looked alike, those damn ravens, which was why he kept thinking he saw the same one over and over again.

He climbed into the Blazer and peeled out of the lot.