And then he’d had to ask them when was the last time they’d seen Dandy, and who was his latest girlfriend, and had he told them anything about trying to find Len Dreyer’s killer. He hadn’t got much sense out of either one, big surprise, but he’d done his duty, by god. The academy would be proud of him; his probationary officer would have nodded approvingly; Lieutenant Gene Brooks, his boss in Anchorage, would find nothing about which to complain.
He felt his gorge rise, and for a moment thought he was going to have to pull over to puke. He fought it back, winding down the window and inhaling large gulps of cool spring air. He’d slowed down a bit and the four-wheeler ahead of him pulled away. He stepped on the gas and caught up again.
Leon Duffy aka Len Dreyer was no loss to the Park. If Dreyer’s death resulted in a open file growing steadily colder over the coming weeks and even years, that was pretty much okay with him. Duffy was a child abuser. Jim would not have connived at his murder, and he would have tried to stop it had he been present at the event, but after the fact his personal opinion was that a quick shotgun blast to the chest was far too short an ending. Something involving large amounts of pain and suffering would have been more appropriate, but at least Duffy had been removed from the general population, to its far greater good.
However. Jim had every reason to believe that the murderer had tried to burn down Kate’s cabin and Kate with it, and that was not allowed, whether he was sleeping with the prospective flambe or not.
And now Dandy. Dandy, that charmer of women, that guiltless slacker, that cop wanna-be for who knew what reason, hell, maybe he liked the hat, too. Dandy, who was just stubborn enough, just stupid enough not to back off the investigation when told to, little Dandy Mike, stumbling around the Park, poking his nose into what didn’t concern him, asking questions of all the wrong people, causing enough talk so that someone would decide to shut him up for good.
“Fuck!” Jim yelled.
He pounded on the ceiling of the cab until his knuckles split.
“Fuck!” he yelled again.
It didn’t make him feel any better.
Right now what he wanted most in the world was to talk to Kate Shugak. He was going to sit down with Kate and discuss this case from the beginning of last summer and the attack of Tracy Drussell to the discovery of Duffy’s body, the burning of Kate’s cabin, and the murder of Dandy Mike. They were going to lay out a timeline, they were going to put names and places next to the dates, and they were “fucking going to find this asshole with the shotgun and the firestarter!” he bellowed, and pounded on the ceiling again.
His knuckles hurt. He sucked on them, watching the four-wheeler ahead with a fierce gaze. No way was anything going to happen to Johnny Morgan on his watch. And the girl, what was her name? Van, Vanessa something. Right, Vanessa Cox. The Norwegian bachelor farmer’s daughter, only she wasn’t his daughter and he wasn’t a bachelor. Jim had met Virgil Hagberg at a town meeting in the high school gym once. He didn’t remember a wife, but he remembered someone saying there was one, but she seldom left the homestead.
He never should have let Dandy Mike imagine for one moment that he might have a chance at a job at the Niniltna trooper post. He never for one moment should have allowed Dandy’s father, Billy, to believe that he had influenced Jim into giving Dandy a job. There was such a thing as being too goddamn diplomatic. Screw diplomacy from now on, diplomacy got the wrong people killed.
He blinked. For one heart-stopping moment the four-wheeler disappeared, and then he drew level with the lane they had turned on and spotted the telltale dust hanging in the air. With a curse, he floored the gas pedal and dove down it after them. Tree limbs caught at the rearview mirrors and deadwood cracked beneath his tires, but he caught up with them as they pulled up to the house.
It was a nice house, trim; somebody had already raked the square patch of lawn free of dead leaves and new grass was poking its head up. The outbuildings were neat, too, well maintained, a shed for everything and everything in its shed.
Kate’s truck was parked in front of the house. Good. He’d by god hijack the woman and they’d pull an all-nighter and figure out who the murderer was. Almost calm, he pulled up on her rear bumper-just in case she had any ideas about getting away from him -and killed the engine and got out.
Johnny eyed him. “You got a lot of room to park out here, you had to park it right behind Kate’s truck?”
“Yes,” Jim said, and something in the tone of his voice shut Johnny down cold.
He was Jack Morgan’s son, though, so only for a moment. “It’s your funeral,” he said, and turned to Vanessa. He was too manly to try anything with Jim watching, but she had no such qualms. She kissed his cheek, a swift, shy gesture, and murmured something that Jim didn’t catch. Johnny blushed, and with a quick glance over his shoulder murmured something back. With a little wave, Vanessa went up the steps and in the door.
Jim followed her. “Hold on,” he said before she vanished. “Find Kate for me, will you? Tell her I need to talk to her.”
She nodded. He stood in the doorway and waited.
“Hi, Aunt Telma. I’m home.”
“So I see, dear,” a pleasant voice said.
“Where’s Kate Shugak?”
“Why, I don’t know, dear. Kate who?”
“Kate Shugak, Aunt Telma. Her truck is parked out front.”
“Oh.” A brief silence. “Did I give her cookies?”
“You might have. You give everyone cookies. Was she here?”
“Someone was here.”
“When?”
“Oh, I don’t know, dear. A while ago.” A pause. “Would you like some cookies?”
“No, thank you, Aunt Telma.”
Vanessa came back down the hall. “She’s not in the kitchen or the living room.”
“Your aunt seems – ”
“Yes. She is.” Vanessa stood very straight and looked him directly in the eye.
“Yes. Well.” Jim respected loyalty, deserving or not. “Maybe Kate’s with Virgil outside somewhere. I’ll go look.” He went back outside.
“Where’s Kate?” Johnny said.
“I don’t know.” A faint unease whispered around the edges of his mind. After a moment he identified it. Where was Mutt? Generally speaking, he couldn’t set foot within a mile radius of Mutt without being instantly attacked. She never strayed far from Kate’s side, except when Kate was tucked in for the night. So where was she?
Maybe Kate had left her at home. But Kate seldom did so, and would Mutt allow that anyway? Unlikely.
Without thinking, he reached down to unsnap his holster.
Johnny’s eyes got big. “What’s wrong?”
He tried for a reassuring smile. “Nothing. Stay here, okay? In fact, get in my truck and lock the doors. If Kate or Mutt show up, beep the horn.”
“Okay.” The boy looked up at the house. Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair. Ain’t love grand. Young love, anyway. Grown-up love was a colossal pain in the ass.
Jim walked around the house, not tiptoeing exactly, but not announcing his presence, either. He walked between the house and the garage, a neat pathway paved with irregular stones with a flat surface, worn by much use and bordered with neat beds of raked soil, ready for planting.
He heard a sound and followed the path to it, around a stand of paper birch and through a tiny grove of what he thought might be apple trees, although he didn’t know how fruit trees could survive either the cold or the moose in the Park.
He came out of them onto a large plot of turned earth. Virgil was digging in it with a number two shovel, taking earth from a pile of dirt and tossing it into a hole.
Jim walked forward, his footsteps muffled in the grass. “Hey, Virgil,” he said.
As uneasy as he was, he was still unprepared for the other man’s reaction.
Virgil dropped the shovel and lunged for a shotgun that Jim only just then noticed propped upright by its butt in the dirt. He tried to grab it before Virgil got hold of it, but Virgil was closer and quick for an old man. He swung it around, both barrels pointing at Jim.