Bobby had appeared in the Park the year Kate had graduated from high school, carrying a worn duffle bag with his name stenciled on it in big black letters, and a deed from the state of Alaska to forty acres on Squaw Candy Creek. He’d built this A-frame, installed enough electronic hardware to run JPL, and had copped the NOAA job right out from under Old Sam Dementieff. To top it off, he was the first black man many of the Park rats had ever seen.
Three things worked in his favor. He’d hired locally to build his A-frame. From the first day of broadcast he had traded want ads on Park Air for moose meat and salmon. And he’d lost both his legs below the knee to a Vietcong land mine.
“I think the men folk thought I wouldn’t be able to run after their women,” he’d told Kate years before. They’d been in bed together at the time. He’d grinned and reached out an arm to pull her in tight. “They were wrong about that, but by then it was too late.”
They were indeed, and it was, far too late, and when Dinah Cookman showed up in the Park three years earlier he’d taken one look and wedded and bedded her, not necessarily in that order. Dinah was white and twenty-five years younger than Bobby was, but so far as Kate could tell neither one of them had noticed. The result was the going-on-two tornado currently making her proud parents’ lives a living hell. “Don’t touch that!” Dinah said, leaping forward to catch the end table next to one of the couches from tilting forward and landing on her daughter’s head. Katya’s face puckered up and everyone held their breath. Precious little Katya had a yell that could frighten a bear into the next county.
Katya’s eye fell on Mutt, who knew the signs as well as everyone else and who was poised to rocket through the door as soon as the siren went off. She didn’t move fast enough. “Mutt!” Katya said, pointing.
“Mutt!” Dinah said gladly. “Come play with Katya! Come on, girl!”
Mutt looked at Kate, mute misery on her face, and slunk toward Katya, her tail as close to being between her legs as it ever got. She flopped down and Katya launched, landing on Mutt’s side with a force that caused a “Woof!” of expelled air and a wheezing, pitiful groan.
“Goddamn, woman, you’re letting the kid play with the wolves!” Bobby bellowed at Dinah.
Dinah raised an eyebrow. “Handing over to you, Dad,” she said, and retired behind the central console to her computer, where she was editing a twenty-minute video for the community health representative on the practices of safe sex, to be shown that fall to health classes at Niniltna Public School. She was trying to keep the opportunities for snickering to a minimum but the local high schoolers were a precocious bunch and it was hard going. The Niniltna Native Association was footing the bill, however, so she waded in with a light heart.
Bobby, deprived of a husband’s legitimate prey, shifted his sights. “And you,” he bellowed at Kate, “I keep telling you, no fucking wolves in the house!”
Kate tried not to wince away from the volume. Katya was truly a chip off the old block. She heard a low moan and looked around to see Katya pulling mightily on one of Mutt’s ears.
Hard-heartedly, she turned her back. “So Len Dreyer reshingled your roof?”
“Yeah.”
“Before the first snowfall, you said. When was that?”
“Lemme look.” He wheeled over to the console and pulled down one of a row of daily diaries from a shelf. “Let’s see. October twenty-third. Late last year.” He closed the diary and replaced it. “His cabin’s really burned down?”
“It really is.”
“Anything left?”
She shook head. “No. No papers, nothing. And he didn’t have much ID on him. Any, actually. The only reason we know his name is he worked for everyone.”
Bobby nodded. “Not much need for ID in the Park.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Although, now we’re going to have our own resident trooper, might pay to keep a driver’s license handy.”
She tried to look down her nose but it wasn’t long enough. “It might.” She jerked her head at the radio. “Call Anchorage for me?”
He grinned. “The game’s afoot!” he said. He turned on one wheel and docked into the radio console like a ship nosing into port, flipped switches and turned knobs without looking, and said over his shoulder, “Who’m I calling?”
“Brendan McCord. Got his number?”
“Babe, I got everyone’s number.”
A snort came from the other side of the console, followed by a long, lupine moan from the living room. Both were ignored.
“Brendan? Kate Shugak here.”
“Kate!” Brendan’s rich, full tenor rolled off the airwaves like an aria. “Long time no talk. What’re you up to, girl?”
Kate, mindful of the thousand ears listening in from Tok to Tanana, said, “I’m working a case. I need some information.”
“Oh. Ah. Well,” he boomed cheerfully, “I live to serve. What do you need?”
“Anything you can dig up on a Len Dreyer.”
“Got a Social Security number?”
“Nope.”
“Got a date of birth?”
“Nope.”
“Got a driver’s license number?”
“Nope.”
A brief pause. “Well, if it was easy, everybody^ be doing it.”
“Jim shipped the body to the ME yesterday. It was stuck in a glacier. His prints ought to be fairly well preserved.”
“Freeze-dried,” Brendan said respectfully. “Who do I call?”
Bobby nudged Kate to one side. “Brendan, this is Bobby.”
“No offense, Bobby, but I’d rather be talking to Kate.”
Bobby laughed. “You and me both, bubba. I’m on-line nowadays. When you get what she wants, email it to Bobby at parkair-dot-com. That way I can print it out for you,” he told Kate.
Kate, who liked computers, said, “Just like downtown.” She raised her voice. “Thanks, Brendan.”
His voice sank to a lecherous purr. “Come to town and you can thank me in person.”
Kate laughed. “I’ll be on the next plane.”
“You’re cutting into my action, McCord, I’m cutting you off,” Bobby said, and cleared to the sound of Brendan’s laughter. He cocked an eyebrow at Kate.
“Cut it out,” she said. “You’re starting to sound like Dolly Levi.”
“I didn’t say a word,” he said virtuously. “You working for Jim on this?”
She nodded, careful to keep her expression neutral. “Usual rates.”
She waited grimly for the ragging to start, but all he said was, “Hmmm. Didn’t you owe me some money?”
When the door closed behind her he checked on Katya, who had fallen asleep with her head beneath the coffee table, her little butt stuck up in the air, which inspired him to scoop his wife out of her chair and into his lap. The kiss that followed was long and enthusiastic. She squirmed halfheartedly before giving in.
He pulled back to look down at her flushed and smiling face. “Promise me you’ll never leave me.”
She laughed. “Where’s that coming from?”
He jerked his head at the door.
Her laugh faded. “You mean her and Jim?”
“Who else?”
“Ethan’s totally out of the picture?”
“What I hear, his wife’s got him on a leash so short he hardly ever gets off the homestead anymore.”
She was silent.
“What?”
“I don’t want Kate hurt,” she said.
“Hurt? Kate?” It was his turn to laugh.
She shoved herself off his lap and sat back down in front of the computer. Even the line of her spine looked angry, so he wasn’t surprised when her voice was curt. “You’re such a moron, Clark. You think Kate’s invulnerable?”
He took a chance and rolled over to slide his arms around her waist. He nuzzled her ear and whispered, “I think she can handle herself. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I’d like to handle you.”
She tried to shrug him off, and only managed to shrug off her clothes and into their bed. A while later he said, “Got some news.”