Gary led them into the kitchen without introducing them. He nodded at Johnny. “Any relation to Jack?”
“His son.”
“Nice to meet you. I liked your father, few times I met him. Not a lot of bullshit going on there, for a cop.”
“Thanks,” Johnny said.
“Heard he was dead. Hell of a thing. Want some coffee?”
“Sure.” Kate settled herself at the kitchen table, covered with a faded print cloth and a small Christmas cactus, which was for some inexplicable reason best known to itself blooming in May. The refrigerator was covered with snapshots and honey-do lists. The counters were crowded with a toaster and canisters and a knife block and a little brown clay bowl with feet for legs holding three heads of garlic, one of which had begun to sprout.
A cat wandered in and did the shoulder-dive thing against Gary’s leg. He reached a hand down and gave its head an absentminded scratch. The resulting purr nearly drowned out the sound of the television.
“What’s this about, Kate?” Gary said, offering her a can of evaporated milk.
She took it and poured with a lavish hand. “It’s about Leon Duffy.” She looked around to offer the milk to Johnny, but he seemed to have vanished. She heard a murmur of voices from the living room.
“Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
“You knew him as Len Dreyer.”
“Oh. Of course. Len. Sure. Best hired hand I’ve ever had.” Gary cocked an eyebrow. “What about him?”
“You may not have heard. He’s dead.”
He raised both eyebrows this time. “Really?”
His surprise seemed minimal. “Yeah. Someone took out most of his chest with a shotgun.”
“That’s gotta smart.” Gary drank coffee. “A shame.”
Kate couldn’t help but note that Gary’s regret seemed even less than his surprise. “Why’s that?”
“Well.” Gary shrugged. “Like I said, he was first-class when it came to hired help. Never bid what he couldn’t deliver. Never said he could do what he couldn’t. Always showed up on time. Usually finished on schedule and on budget. Your basic home improvement dream team of one.” He looked at her, face guileless. “Why are you taking to me about him, by the way?”
It was Kate’s turn to shrug. “You’re a name on a list of people who had Dreyer do work for them in the days preceding his death. What’d he hire on for, anyway?”
If she hadn’t been watching him so closely, she wouldn’t have seen the infinitesimal relaxation of his guard. She did see it, noted it, drank coffee, and smiled an invitation for him to continue.
He did, relief making him a little more loquacious. “I was putting the house up for sale, and I wanted to spruce it up a little before I did. Get the best price out of it. You know.”
She nodded.
He became more expansive. “We remodeled the bathroom, ripped up that old linoleum and replaced it, stripped the kitchen cabinets and refinished them. That kind of stuff.”
“Sure,” Kate said, nodding some more. “Makes sense. What made you decide to move to Anchorage, anyway? I thought the Park had its hooks in you permanent.”
“So did I.” He watched coffee swirl around the inside of his cup for a moment before raising his eyes. “I been fishing the Sound since I could walk the deck of a boat. I inherited Dad’s permit when he died. I didn’t think I’d ever be doing anything else.” He sighed. “I swear, Kate, there’s more fish going up the river today than I’ve ever seen in thirty years of fishing, and at the same time the commercial catch is the lowest it’s ever been. What the hell is up with that?”
He already knew but Kate answered him anyway. “Used to be the commercial fishermen had it all their own way, Gary. Now you’ve got subsistence fishers and sport fishers wanting their share, too.”
“And then the market went to hell, what with the RPetCo oil spill and the farmed fish coming out of British Columbia and now Chile.” He was silent for a moment. “You hear they caught an Atlantic salmon out of Southeast?”
“No.”
“Fact.” He nodded once. “Absolute fact. Before you know it, the escapees from the B.C. fish farms are going to be interbreeding with wild Alaska salmon stock, and then what’ll happen?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you. We lose what market we do have because who the hell wants to eat that dry, diseased fish the farms produce? Fresh fish, my ass. I’ll tell you what else will happen, too-more guys like me, who used to fish for a living, will be forced to move into the goddamn city and find a goddamn indoor job where we have to wear a goddamn tie.”
They brooded together for a moment over the demise of commercial fishing in Alaska. The television was a steady drone from the living room.
Kate stirred. “Turns out Len Dreyer wasn’t his real name.”
He looked at her.
“His real name was Leon Duffy.” She sat up straight in her chair and took a deep breath. “Gary, there’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just come straight out with it. Before he moved to the Park, Leon Duffy was arrested and jailed for molesting an eleven-year-old girl here in Anchorage.”
He stared at her without speaking. She couldn’t read his expression.
“He served five and a half years of an eight-year sentence. He got time off for good behavior. He disappeared off everyone’s radar screen after he was released.” She paused. “His next known whereabouts were the Park.”
The silence stretched out between them. The television was staying on one channel for a change, although the music, if you could call it that, resembled something between a pig squealing and fingernails on the blackboard. Kate winced. The barely discernable backbeat sounded like it needed a defibrillator. Maybe Bobby was right, maybe there had been no rock and roll recorded worth listening to since the ‘70s.
Gary stirred and she looked up. “He was never alone with my girls,” he said. “That’s what you’re asking me, right? If he molested my girls.”
The dogged way he said it nearly broke her heart. “Gary-”
“He didn’t. He was never alone with any of them. He worked with me. I was always with him. You get it? You see?”
“Yes,” Kate said gently, “I see.” She paused, and closed her eyes momentarily, gathering the strength together to ask the next question. “Gary, when was the last time you saw Len Dreyer?”
He gave a mirthless laugh and drained his mug. “The last time I saw Len Dreyer was the day we finished putting the hardware on the kitchen cabinets.”
“Can you remember what day it was?”
“Nope. Sometime last May, just before we packed up and moved.” He rose to his feet. “If that’s all, I’ve got things to do.”
“Knock it off!” she heard Johnny exclaim, and walked into the living room to see him on his feet, an inch from the door, and if she was not mistaken caught in the act of zipping up his jeans. His face was beet red and he couldn’t meet her eyes.
“Okay,” she said, “gotta go. Gary, thanks for the coffee.”
His expression when he looked at his daughter, flushed, rumpled, and defiant, was half in sorrow, half in anger. “Anytime, Kate. Good to see you again. My best to Billy and Annie, and Old Sam, and Auntie Vi.”
“I’ll tell them.”
Fran and the two older daughters drove up as Kate and Johnny left the house. There were all slim and dark-eyed, with the same shiny dark hair and the same inimical expression when Gary reminded them who Kate was. “Good to see you, Fran,” Kate said.
“You, too, Kate,” Fran said, white to the lips.
The family stood watching as they backed out of the driveway and headed down the street.
They were stopped at the Bragaw light before she broke the silence. “What was going on back there, Johnny?” She glanced over at him.
He had his face turned to the passenger side window. His voice was choked. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
The light changed, and Kate put the Subaru into gear. She drove slowly, while she searched out the right words to say. “I respect your privacy, Johnny, but what happened back mere might have something to do with Len Dreyer.”