Whisper to the Blood

SIXTEEN

Jim bagged the rifle and took it out to the Niniltna airstrip, where he was lucky enough to catch George Perry on a flight to Anchorage. He gave him the rifle for delivery to the crime lab.

Howie he locked up, and told Maggie no one was to talk to Howie except him. "Okay, boss," she said.

Maggie Montgomery's chief qualification for the job of dispatcher/ telephone answerer/clerk was her determined incuriosity. "My plan is to leave the job at the office when I go home every day," she'd told him during the interview, and he'd hired her on the spot. She might try to tell him what to do on occasion-as in attempting to discourage him from finding Louis Deem's killer last year-but that he could live with. Discretion in a cop shop was a rare and precious commodity, especially in a small town, and Jim was willing to put up with any amount of backtalk in private so long as he got a smiling, uncomplaining, and stolidly uncommunicative face in public. So far, Maggie, an Outsider who had married a Moonin she met on a fish processor in the Bering Sea, was holding up very well, both as his chief cook and bottle washer and as a Park rat. She might just stick.

He went down to the Riverside Cafe and got a hamburger and french fries to go and delivered it back to Howie. Howie actually thanked him. Jim wanted to open the door of the cell and beat him to death, and something in Jim's eyes must have indicated this because Howie dropped his eyes and became very, very still.

Jim went back to his office and closed the door, and then, for several minutes, he just stood there in the middle of the room, hands dangling uselessly at his sides. For the life of him he couldn't figure out what to do next.

He'd always figured Howie was the most likely suspect, but all this time he had thought Bernie had hired it done directly.

The year before, Bernie Koslowski's wife and son had been murdered in their own home. General consensus was that the killings had been committed by Park bad actor Louis Deem, whom it was supposed Enid and Fitz Koslowski had caught in the act of burglarizing the cabinet full of gold nuggets in the living room.

Shortly thereafter, Louis Deem had been shot and killed on the road to the Step. Bernie was the obvious suspect, so Jim had looked hard at Bernie, to the general disapprobration and not a little vocal abuse of the entire Park. The subsequent investigation had cleared Bernie of all suspicion of the crime.

Not least because his alibi was Sergeant Jim Chopin, with whom he'd been visiting over a latte at the Riverside Cafe at the time of the murder, in full view of cafe owner Laurel Meganack, Old Sam Dementieff, and half a dozen other Park rats, all with excellent memories.

"What is it you want me to do, Bernie?"

"Your job."

Well, he'd done his job. He'd maintained the peace and the public order.

One of the principal core values of the Alaska State Troopers was loyalty, first to the state of Alaska, then to the highest ideals of law enforcement, and, in third place, to the truth, although as stated "the truth, regardless of outcome."

Jim had been thinking a lot about that particular core value lately. The truth was he liked working in law enforcement. The truth was he didn't like the messes people got themselves into and he liked using what ability he had to step in and straighten those messes out. The truth was he was good at his job, and he knew it.

He'd opened the Alaska State Troopers' forty-fourth post in Niniltna going on three years ago, and if he had been a Park fixture before, by now he was a full-fledged Park rat. He was well aware of the dangers of being so dug in. A cop was always going to be a little bit on the outside looking in, or he should be if he was going to function effectively. If he was regarded as a member of his community, then it followed that other members in that community might feel comfortable enough with his presence to approach him with suggestions they wouldn't have dared to propose to the cop perceived to be Other.

"What is it you want me to do, Bernie?"

"Your job."

He had not allowed himself any preconceptions as to the identity of the killer of Louis Deem. He had conducted a by-the-book investigation into his death, reconstructing Deem's movements as minutely as was possible in an area as vast and as unpopulated as the Park, extensively interviewing the people closest to Louis as well as all the people who had last seen him alive, and, as near as he was able, keeping his prior knowledge of the character of the dead man from coloring his work.

He'd been thorough and conscientious enough to have discovered a missing piece of evidence and tracked it down to Park ranger Dan O'Brien. Dan had found the body and removed the piece of evidence before fetching Jim to the scene. Jim should have charged Dan with evidence tampering and obstruction of justice. He hadn't.

Since any list of Louis Deem's enemies included pretty much the entire population of the Park, all this had taken some time. Meanwhile, there had been pressure from his boss in Fairbanks to either close the case or move on. In the end, he'd come up empty, and obedient to authority, he'd moved on. Louis Deem's murder was a cold case now, and there wasn't a soul in the Park who would want it reopened.

Howie had not confessed to Louis's murder. It was the one thing he had stopped short of doing this morning, and though Jim had poked and prodded and tried to provoke him into admitting to it, he remained obdurate. He would only reiterate that the aunties had hired the job done on Louis, and he wasn't going to say any more until Jim gave him immunity, a fine word everyone in the Park with a television had picked up from goddamn Law and Order or goddamn CSI. Fictional crime fighters made life so much harder on the real ones.

Howie was obviously afraid that Jim was right, that whoever had shot and killed Mac Devlin had thought he was aiming at Howie.

Which led to another thought: Maybe that was why Howie had taken on his first gainful employment in years, and from what Jim had heard, possibly in Howie's life. Maybe the job was isolated enough for him to feel safe. Though, of course, being Howie, he had lost no time in turning the location to his advantage. That had been a caribou hunt of wholesale proportions.

The question remained. Who was Howie so afraid of that he'd ask to be taken into protective custody?

The aunties were at their corner table when he walked into the Roadhouse, and he went directly to them, pulling up a chair and straddling it. He put his arms across the back and leaned his chin on them and stared at the aunties in turn, calling out their names as he did so. "Auntie Vi. Auntie Joy. Auntie Balasha. Auntie Edna."

"Jim," Auntie Vi said, a little mystified by this formal greeting and a little suspicious because of it. "Where Kate?"

"She's doing a job for me downriver," he said.

Auntie Vi gave this statement her cautious approbation. "Always good to make some money."

Normally he would have talked to them individually. Some instinct had urged him to take this to the aunties head on. It might not have had as much to do with good police work as it did with self-preservation. No matter. Either he'd carry the barricades or they would repulse his attack, and he'd have to live with that.

He'd chosen here, in public, in a venue in which they felt comfortable and where they were in a position of authority, however unofficial it was. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bernie coming toward him. He shook his head. Bernie altered course for the table around which the four Grosdidiers were celebrating something monumental, as evidenced by the number of dead soldiers on the table. Matt had a black eye, Luke a fat lip, and the knuckles of the hand Mark used to reach for his beer were swollen double, so probably a fight in which one or all were victorious. Or maybe just a fight. The Grosdidier boys were rabble-rousers of the first water. One of the smartest things the Niniltna Native Association had ever done was to harness all that energy in an EMT program and put it to good use.

Quit stalling, he told himself, and faced the aunties again and took a deep breath. "Aunties," he said, "I just talked to Howie. He told me that you hired him to kill Louis Deem."

It felt as if time stopped, which was ridiculous. He could still hear the clink of glasses, laughter, a heated argument over drift net regulations, the squeak of sneakers on wood on television. Life continued, of course it did. But here, at this moment, at this table, it was as if everyone was holding their breath, as if the intake of oxygen had been suspended, and depending on the answers he got here, as if the world might begin spinning backward when time resumed.

He looked at their faces again, one at a time. Tears gathered and fell down Auntie Balasha's face. Auntie Edna looked pissed off, but then she always did. Auntie Joy's needle froze halfway into the fabric square she was working on. She didn't meet his eyes.

Auntie Vi alone did not so much as blink, her needle flashing in and out steadily, rhythmically, a straight line of even stitches progressing steadily across the quilt. "Such nonsense, Jim," she said, in a chiding voice. "You smarter than that."

"So you didn't hire him to kill Louis?" Jim said.

She paused in her sewing to give him an impatient look. "Of course not. Silliness. Surprised I am that you would believe him enough to ask us. Howie!" She snorted. "Nobody believe a word that out of his mouth come. Why you now?"

"Auntie Balasha?"

Her smile was wavering. "Silliness," she said, echoing Auntie Vi.

"Auntie Edna?"

Auntie Edna snorted her reply and without moving gave the distinct impression of turning her back on him.

"Auntie Joy?"

Auntie Joy's hands trembled. She still wouldn't look up. "What Vi says, Jim. Silliness."

Auntie Vi jumped. "Aycheewah!" She put her finger in her mouth, and stared down at the perfect circle of bright red blood staining the cloth.

When he walked into the house that evening, Kate was frying moose liver rolled in flour, salt, and pepper in olive oil with a dab of butter and mashing potatoes with butter and cream in what looked like proportions equal to the potatoes. She was mashing the potatoes by hand, and she was mashing with vigor. She didn't look up when Jim came in. "Johnny," she said, "would you go out to the cache for me and find a package of peas and onions?"

"Sure," Johnny said, and got up from where he had been studying Alaska history at the dining room table. As he passed Jim in the doorway, he touched his arm and said in a low voice, "She's mad about something, Jim."

Jim looked at Kate. "As it happens, so am I."

Johnny stared at him in consternation and gathering indignation. "Oh, good," he said. "At least it'll be a fair fight." He grabbed his parka and the door closed behind him.

Jim looked to Mutt for succor. Mutt, a reliable barometer when it came to Kate and a loyal friend even in the face of Mutt's undeniable lust for Jim, was parked in front of the fireplace, nose under her tail. She hadn't even looked up at his entrance. It was not the kind of treatment he was accustomed to, and even more than Johnny's warning, it put him on full alert. A proponent of the best defense is a good offense, he divested himself of parka, boots, and especially his sidearm and said without preamble, "What's wrong?"

At least he could rely on her not to respond with a falsely bright, "Nothing!" but he wasn't expecting what did come out.

"Do you have something going on with Talia Macleod?"

It caught him so flat-footed that his response was a brilliantly articulate, "Huh?"

"I've been up and down the river and in and out of Niniltna the past two days, and everywhere I go I'm told about the Father of the Park's new target."

"Wait a minute-"

"You've been seen everywhere together, it seems." She gave the potatoes a savage mash, her already tight shoulder muscles bunching with the effort. "In Niniltna at the Riverside Cafe. At the Roadhouse. In Cordova at the Club Bar. At Bobby's. You've been seen everywhere together, getting on like a house on fire, and the general consensus seems to be that I'm out and she's in. Fine by me, you do what you want, but I'd appreciate knowing if that's the case."

She pushed the pot of potatoes to the back of the stove and started turning the strips of liver. Each move she made was accomplished with a delicate precision, centering the pot and the frying pan on the stove's burners, piercing each slice of liver precisely at a spot on one end that would counterbalance the weight so it wouldn't slide off the tine of the fork, setting it back into the pan at the correct distance so no slice would adhere to the slice next to it. Each strip was a perfect brown, no charring allowed, and the potatoes looked like a pot full of cumulus clouds, fluffy and creamy and mouthwateringly appealing. A dish full of browned onions sat next to it.

He said the first thing that came into his head. "Why the cache for the peas and onions? Why not the freezer?"

She paused, one strip of meat in the air, and gave him a look that would have turned a lesser man to stone. "Why spend the money on diesel to run the generator to run the freezer when winter will do the job just fine?"

"Makes sense," he said. He took in the rest of the kitchen. There were two loaves of white bread cooling on a rack, a loaf of date nut bread cooling in the pan, and coffee cake cooling in a cake tin. "You've been busy."

"It's cold, I'm hungry, answer the question."

"You're jealous," he said.

Such a wave of fury rolled over the counter in his direction that he almost instinctively ducked out of the way of the frying pan that-oil, liver, and all-he was certain would be coming in his direction next.

She struggled for control and won. He breathed easier. "I told You once," she said, her voice very tight, "I don't stand in line. You want to sleep with Talia Macleod, go sleep with Talia Macleod. Just don't come back here after you have."

She banged open a cupboard and slung a plate in the oven to warm with such vigor he was surprised it didn't shatter.

"I'm not sleeping with her," Jim said, and as the words came out of his mouth wondered at them. Had he ever had this particular conversation with a woman before?

"Uh-huh," she said.

He realized she was hurt, and knew a momentary flash of guilt, which corresponded almost exactly to a simultaneous lick of resentment. Since when did he feel guilty over how he treated women?

Since never. His women were supposed to know the score, they were carefully selected and the relationship structured on a rational basis where everyone had a good time and nobody got hurt when it was over. "I've never lied to you, Kate," he said, the words coming out maybe a little hotter and harder than he'd meant them to. "If it comes to that, I've never lied to any woman I've ever known. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't automatically assume I was lying to you now."

She paused, a strip of liver dangled momentarily over the frying pan, and then set it carefully flour-side down in the sizzling oil. "All right," she said. "That's fair. I apologize." She set the fork to one side and looked him straight in the eye for the first time since he'd come into the room. "The day you were seen with her in the Club Bar? You didn't come home that night." At his expression, she heaved an impatient sigh. "I'm a trained investigator, Jim, not to mention which people tell me stuff." She added bleakly, "I don't know why, but they always do. Sometimes I think I should have been a priest, because I have to be the depository of more secrets than any other Park rat walking around on two legs."

She paused, but he could tell she wasn't done, so he waited.

"I hate this," she said with a heartfelt intensity. She picked the fork up again, evidently this time for the sole purpose of slamming it down.

"What?" he said.

"This!" she said, waving a hand that indicated the space between the two of them. "I hate it that I care this much! That I care for you more than either of us is comfortable with!" She glared at him. "If I could snap my fingers or wiggle my nose or click my heels three times together and make it all go away, I would!" She put a lid on the frying pan, removed it, and slammed it back on again.

"I'm not loving it a whole lot, either," he said, stung, and his voice rising with it. "You think this is easy for me? I've never had a relationship last this long. Hell, I've never had whatever the hell that word means before! But you're in my life, Kate, whether I like it or not, and there doesn't seem to be a whole hell of a lot I can do about it!"

"Well, I'm sorry it's such a trial to you!"

"I didn't say that!" He registered that he was almost shouting with a faint astonishment that failed to moderate his tone. "I'm okay with it! But I'll tell you something I'm not okay with!"

"What?"

He took a deep breath, mastering his anger with an effort, the anger and the effort both still a surprise. "I am not okay with you keeping evidence quiet that pertains to an ongoing investigation."

It was her turn to say, "Huh?"

He gave it to her bluntly, without trying to soften the words. Maybe he even meant to hurt her this time, and maybe that was because he was furious and frightened that he felt guilty and maybe even a little hurt himself that she had so immediately decided that the rumors were true, and he wanted to share the pain. "I've got Howie Katelnikof sitting in a cell at the post."

"You arrested Howie?"

"Not yet, although I've got a pretty good case for him hunting caribou out of season, in amounts that I can prove are commercial. No, Howie appears to think he needs protection from whoever it is who's trying to kill him."

She stared at him for a moment. "So, who does he think is trying to kill him?" And, Katelike, returning like a little homing pigeon to the original item under discussion, "And what does that have to do with me withholding evidence in an ongoing investigation? What investigation?"

"Louis Deem's murder."

She flushed and hung her head, looking undeniably guilty. "Oh," she said weakly.

Ruthlessly he pressed his advantage. "Howie says the four aunties hired the job done, Kate."

Her head snapped back up and she stared at him, obviously shocked. "What?"

"Just when were you going to let me in on that little tidbit of information?"

At this inopportune moment, Johnny returned with the peas and onions. "Here you go, Kate," he said with false cheer. "Sorry it took me so long, the veggie box is kinda buried in moosemeat."

She was still staring at Jim with her mouth open and no sound coming out. Jim was still glaring at her. Johnny looked from one to the other and said, "You know what? Van's having some trouble with the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, getting the movers and shakers straight, Willie Hensley, Tyonek, all those guys. We've got a test on it tomorrow in History of Alaska class. I think I'm going to drive over and help her out."

He fetched a daypack from his bedroom and swept the books and papers on the dining table into it with more efficiency than finesse. "Don't worry about me," he said, still cheery, "I'm sure An-nie'll give me dinner and a bed for the night."

Still nothing from the tableau vivant at the kitchen counter.

Johnny looked at Mutt. "You want to come with?"

Mutt cocked one ear and bent a reflective gaze on Kate and Jim, but in the end decided she didn't want to be compared to a rat deserting a sinking ship, and sneezed a polite refusal.

"Yeah, well, just try to stay out of the line of fire," Johnny said, and left the building. A moment later the Arctic Cat started up, followed immediately by the sound of it moving up the track to the road and out of earshot. Truth to tell, he was a little surprised at getting away with it, the twenty-five-mile drive alone through a cold winter night. He was heartened at this apparent evidence of faith in his maturity.

Meanwhile, back in the house, Kate had barely registered his departure. "I-," she said. "I-"

He was suddenly and thoroughly fed up. "Yeah, you," he said, rounding the counter. She slapped off the burners and turned to face him. "You don't trust me not to be sleeping with anyone else. You don't trust me enough to inform me of crucial evidence in an open murder investigation."

"But I didn't-"

"What do you trust me for, Kate?" He looked down at her and the anger whipped itself into a white-hot flame. "Oh hell, we both know what you trust me for," and he picked her up off her feet and kissed her so hard she felt her lip split.

She squirmed, her feet dangling a good foot off the floor, pushing against his shoulders, bending herself backward so she could free herself enough to speak. "No, Jim, wait-"

This only inflamed him further. "Wait, my ass," he said, and started for the stairs to the loft.

Mutt came to her feet at that, her yellow eyes wide. "You stay right there," he told her. "This is between us."

Mutt looked uncharacteristically indecisive. Attack or stay? Was Kate in trouble or not?

Meanwhile Kate began struggling in earnest. "No, Jim, stop, you don't understand-"

"I understand plenty," he said, starting up the stairs.

She was strong and slippery but he had more muscle mass than she did, as well as a longer reach, and he managed to hold on until he got them upstairs. He didn't so much drop her to the bed as throw her at it. She bounced once and tried to scramble to the floor.

"Oh no you don't," he said, and 220 pounds of outraged male dropped full on her, driving all the breath out of her body.

"Jim-," she said, her voice a squeak of sound.

"Shut up," he said, kneeing her legs apart. He was fully aroused, hard against her. "Just shut the hell up."

She fought him, she really did, but he ripped the white T-shirt over her head and left it to tangle her hands before he went for the buttons on the fly of her jeans.

"Jim, don't," she said frantically, "not like this."

"Just like this," he said, ripping open her jeans and shoving them down. He kissed her again, not so much a caress as a claiming, rough and demanding.

This time she kissed him back, biting at his lips, his jaw, setting her teeth into his throat almost hard enough to draw blood. He growled and bit back and he wasn't gentle. Her bra went somewhere and his teeth were at her breast and her panties went next, shredded and tossed. His hand was between her legs, forcing entry, demanding a response, and she couldn't stop it any more than she could stop the sun rising or the rain falling, she arched up into his caress with an involuntary groan.

He laughed once, low in his throat, his hand moving. "Yeah," he said. He could feel the heat rising up off her body in a scorching wave, and he reached for his fly, only to find her hands there before him. A second was too long to wait, and then he was there and sliding home, and she moaned, a long, drawn-out sound compounded of pleasure, relief, and fury, arching up in demand. He didn't bother with preliminaries, he started moving, long, slow, hard strokes, in and out, in and out. "Jesus," he said, breathless, "babe," he said, "Kate," he said, "oh Kate oh holy shit Kate, Kate, Kate!"

His eyes went dim but he felt her body tense like a strung bow and he heard her shout something, what he never knew and she couldn't remember. A blinding flood of pleasure and release started at the base of his spine and flooded up over his body like lava, burning out every living nerve end he had, leaving a wasteland of scorched earth and gray ash behind.