Breakup. Part 20

Dinah looked dangerously close to breaking into a purr. "I hear you, boy."

Across the room, Kate said, "Jim, how does Stewart say he got here? Him and his wife? Dan says he doesn't have a pilot's license."

"Air charter out of Merrill Field."

"Did he say which one?" Jim shook his head. "I think you should find out which one."

"Why?"

"So you can ask the pilot if he had a rifle with him."

"Did somebody tell you he had one?"

"No."

"Did he even have a bag that might look like it could hold a rifle?"

Reluctantly, she shook her head. "No, I asked Auntie Vi. Both Stewarts carried packs."

192 "Than what makes you think he had a rifle?"

"You can break a rifle down, Jim. The individual pieces don't take up much room. You could pack for a romantic week for two and still have room left over for a barrel, a stock and a trigger."

"Not to mention ammunition."

"Not to mention."

He looked down at her and quirked an eyebrow. "I thought you weren't interested."

"I'm not, G.o.ddammit," she said.

He continued to look at her, saying nothing.

"Oh h.e.l.l," she said. "Bernie! Can I have another of those Diet Seven-Ups?"

The noise in the room grew to the point that Old Sam let loose with a vivid curse and turned the volume on the television up to 9. One of the pool players was in the process of running the table and she offered up an even more vivid curse, which Old Sam applauded politely before sitting back down. Luba glanced sideways at her husband and said something and Enid, Auntie Joy and Auntie Vi threw back their heads and laughed. Demetri, Harvey and Billy s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably in their chairs. In the far corner, the Unitarians were trying "Amazing Grace" on for size and finding it fit their soprano profundo section, if there was such a thing, rather well. Through it all Ralph Estes snored peacefully.

Bernie refilled Kate's gla.s.s with ice, popped open another can, served Jim another beer and, in response to a slight jerk of the trooper's head, drifted back down the bar.

Kate took a long, reviving drink. "Auntie Vi said something else, Jim."

"What?"

She had to raise her voice over the music. "Auntie Vi said Carol Stewart was up here last spring, too."

Jim was quick. "Alone?"

She shook her head. "With another man."

His brows rose. "Hmm. I suppose she could have been married to someone else a year ago."

193 "She could have been, but she wasn't." Kate nodded in Dan's direction. "Dan's Motznik buddy pulled up a marriage certificate for Mark and Carol dated six years ago."

"Really," Jim said, gla.s.s arrested halfway to his mouth. "Did Viola know who the other guy was?"

The jukebox blared out Aerosmith and Kate winced. "She can't remember his name. It reminded her of fish. She said sardine, and then she said that wasn't right."

"Description?"

Kate shrugged.

"Great." Jim drained his gla.s.s, and regarded Mark Stewart over the rim of it. "You ever been charged by a bear, Kate?"

Kate took another drink. "Does day before yesterday count?"

"I thought the three of you were in the truck."

She shook her head. "I got charged on the homestead the day before that."

Jim gave Kate a sharp look that held the beginnings of understanding.

"Tell me."

She told him. When she came to the part where the bear stood up and snapped its teeth, Jim didn't go all manly-man on her and try to hide his s.h.i.+ver. "I hate that sound. Did you go for your rifle?"

Kate was silent.

"Kate?"

She raised her eyes, the expression in them rueful. "I didn't have it.

Both the rifle and the shotgun were back in the cabin."

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

He hadn't said anything, but she agreed anyway. "Yeah, I know. Dumb.

Especially for someone who is supposed to know what they're doing out here." She remembered the conversation at Bobby and Dinah's table the night before and one corner of her mouth curled in self-mockery.

He shook his head. "Close."

"Too d.a.m.n close," she agreed.

"You gonna take the shotgun down to the creek when you go fis.h.i.+ng from now on?"

194 Kate gave a short laugh. "From now on, Jim, the shotgun goes with me to the outhouse."

"Good." He paused. "So that's it, huh?"

"So that's what?"

"You got charged and survived. Carol Stewart got charged and didn't.

Could have been you and wasn't. That's why you're finally asking questions. You want to find out what happened."

She s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably and didn't reply.

He looked over her shoulder, and she knew he was looking at Mark Stewart again. "I got charged once myself, hunting on Montague Island. Big male.

Real big, and there was snow on the ground, which as you know makes 'em look twice as big as they already are. False charge, he stopped about fifty feet away from me and reared up like a G.o.ddam jack-in-the-box. He ran off after he let me know I was someplace I shouldn't be and he didn't like it and he was sure I knew he didn't like it. I've never forgotten it." He dropped his eyes to Kate's and added in an even tone, "I've never forgotten what happened afterward, either. It took twelve hours to come down off the adrenaline high, and I was still jumping at noises a week later."

Kate nodded. "It's not something you get over overnight."

They both looked around at Mark Stewart. Evidently Tina had ceded the field to Jackie, who had Stewart's hand pressed between hers, soothing away whatever strain might remain from grizzly- induced nervous trauma.

The treatment appeared very effective. Tina was across the room, flirting obviously and outrageously with Frank Scully. One of the Moonin boys-Sergei, or was it Tom?- didn't like that any more than he'd liked her making up to Stewart. "Of course," Jim said thoughtfully, "if you were expecting a bear charge-"

"-like if somehow you managed to provoke one-"

There was a brief pause, broken by Jim. "He said he'd gotten her up on the roof before he ran for help, but he didn't have a mark on him, like the bear had taken a swipe at him, or like he'd gotten in between the bear and his wife."

195 Kate remembered the long strips of paint peeling back from the clapboard sides of the buildings. "I didn't see any trace of anybody climbing up any walls to a roof." , "Me either, and I looked pretty carefully this morning."

There was another, longer pause, broken again by Jim. "Well, if he did what I think he did, he took one h.e.l.l of a chance."

"I wouldn't care to hand-feed a grizzly myself.'' She drained her gla.s.s and frowned. "You'll never prove it, you know. If there's no forensic evidence, all you can prove is that the two of them came into the Park and acted dumb, and unfortunately, dumb is not a capital crime." She drained her gla.s.s. "No, you'll never prove it."

"Aside from finding the rope he tied around her neck with the stake attached to it, that is." He saw her expression and gave an apologetic shrug. "Sorry, Kate. Remember, by the time I saw her, she was no longer a woman. She was just a hunk of leftover meat."

"Me, too," Kate said softly.

"Bears," he said. "They wake up cranky, the way everyone does when they wake up hungry. If they stumble over a patch of horsetail first, fine.

If they stumble over a nicely decomposing body instead, that's fine, too. If they run into a couple of idiots setting themselves up as the main course, all the better. h.e.l.l, n.o.body ever got mad at Binky-G.o.d rest his ornery little soul-when somebody tried to crawl into his cage at the Alaska Zoo. If you're the kind of person who thinks crawling into cages with polar bears would be, like, totally rad, dude, you're doing the whole human race a favor when you do."

"And if the bears get an a.s.sist on the goal?"

"As you so astutely pointed out, Kate, we don't have any evidence." The quickly bitten off words indicated that he was not as resigned to the situation as he would have her think. "h.e.l.l, we don't even have motive."

He brooded for a moment. "Thought I'd give jack a call, have him run a make on Stewart. Purely unofficially, of course."

"Oh, of course," Kate said courteously, and wondered what Jim's boss would have to say if he thought for one moment that 196 Sergeant James M. Chopin, pride of the Alaska Department of Public Safety, was treating a random bear attack as a murder investigation.

Dan O'Brian had bellied up to the bar and was holding forth on the trails, trials and tribulations of a ranger's life for the edification of one Amy Kasheverof, a medium-size brunette with flas.h.i.+ng dark eyes, a dimple in her right cheek and an impressive cleavage displayed to advantage in a tight scoop-neck T-s.h.i.+rt.

Kate caught sight of Ben Bingley, sitting alone in a corner, nursing his head and a beer. "Only one so far," Bernie said in answer to Kate's inquiring glance.

Old Sam Dementieff caught her eye and raised his Irish coffee in salute; she bowed slightly in return, feeling unsettled that he evidently regarded them as being somehow in cahoots.

Karen Kompkoff's husband had shown up in time to rescue her from a fate worse than death and Dandy Mike was now hustling s.h.i.+rley Inglima around the pool tables (didn't the man ever let up?). The four Grosdidier brothers, who at one point had const.i.tuted four of the starting five of the Kanuyaq Kings, had joined Old Sam beneath the television monitor, dwarfing the old man, who more than made up in noise what he lacked in size. The Unitarians had moved on to "The Old Rugged Cross" and were making an even better job of it than they had of "Amazing Grace." The quilters were doing finish work. Kate wondered if Dinah knew the end product had her name on it.

All in all, kind of slow for a Sat.u.r.day night, but then it was early.

"Not to change the subject," Jim said, "but Nathan Harrigan is your DB.

Ring any bells?"

"I don't have any DBs," Kate said instantly, but something nagged at the edge of her consciousness. She puzzled at it for a moment and got no change. "You mean the body the go team found near to but not on my place yesterday?"

He nodded. "I talked to the coroner this morning. It's too soon for a positive identification, but the body matches a missing person description. Guy from Anchorage, electrician, contract hire for 197 Northern Enterprises-now there's an imaginative name-anyway, he didn't come in for work one day last October. After three days' no show and no call-apparently Harrigan was the responsible type-the boss got worried and sent his secretary to check out Harrigan's apartment. n.o.body home, nothing missing except maybe a few clothes, truck parked in the lot. n.o.body's heard from him since."

"No family?"

He shook his head. "There was a girlfriend a while back, last summer sometime according to the apartment manager, but he couldn't remember much about her except that he thought she was blonde. Or maybe brunette.

I love eyewitnesses. Almost as much as I love breakup. And of course he didn't know her name or anything about her. n.o.body at work did, either."

"A man who kept himself to himself," Kate murmured, still trying to scratch the little itch at the back of her brain. "How'd he die?"

"Coroner says he's got a crack on the back of his skull, and his right femur is cracked about halfway down."

"So he fell down and broke his leg and hit his head while he was at it?"

"Something like that."

"Did you find a rifle or gear or anything at the scene?"

Jim shook his head again.

"Then what the h.e.l.l was he doing out there?"

Jim smiled his carcharodonian smile, all teeth and appet.i.te. "I was hoping you'd check around a little, take Mutt, see if the two of you can sniff out something."

She opened her mouth to tell him exactly and precisely what she thought of that idea when the window to the right of the door shattered, and the neon Rolling Rock sign with it.

"s.h.i.+t!" Bernie said, and dropped for cover.

198.

The second bullet shattered the mirror behind the bar.

Chopper Jim clapped his hat on his head and performed a neat, economical, 5.4 swan dive over the bar to land with a breathless thud on Bernie's other side. Bobby had his chair in overdrive with Dinah in his lap as he skidded around the other end. Dan was left sitting, open-mouthed, where he was, one arm around an equally befuddled Amy.

Kate tackled the gray streak as it launched itself from beneath her stool. "No, Mutt, no! Stay!" Mutt, growling and barking, was an inch away from fighting free when Kate got a headlock on her. "No! Calm down, girl, calm down. Dammit, stop that!"

She got to her knees and knotted a hand in Mutt's ruff. "Come on, sweetheart, there's a good girl. Come on, dammit!" With a mixture of curses and endearments she managed to 199 crawl around the bar, hauling Mutt behind her. They took cover next to Bernie.

The door banged open and a figure backed in. Kate, sneaking a look over the top of the bar, saw that the figure, which looked ominously familiar, held a rifle at waist level and was firing pointblank into the parking lot. For the moment the target had s.h.i.+fted, and she motioned to Jim and together they rose to grab Dan and Amy and haul them over the bar to safety, where they landed on Bernie, hard. Bernie complained.