"Thank you, Mr. Mayor," Kate said, and opened the door to the very irritated man who had been thumping on it for the past five minutes.
She went directly to the high school and spoke to a large, fair woman with flyaway blond hair and china blue eyes with the thickest, longest lashes Kate had ever seen. Chris confirmed that there had indeed been a varsity home game that night and that the mayor-and his wife-had been in the audience. Indeed she, Chris, had been in the same section of the bleachers, one row up, and had said hello to the mayor's family as they had come in.
Kate went to the Club Bar, where she found George simultaneously wolfing down a serving of fish and chips and hitting on the waitress. She interrupted this budding romance without compunction, and heard about it all the way to Ahtna, landing there as the last light leached from the sky.
They spent the night at the Lodge-any excuse for one of Stan's steak sandwiches-and were at the door of Costco when it opened the next morning. They sought out the manager, a short, square man with a twinkle in his brown eyes that complemented a broad smile, and a bushy crop of wayward hair that was graying at the temples.
Yes, he had heard of Talia's death, a shame, a young woman of so much talent and promise. Yes, he said, they had had a relationship, brief, mutually enjoyable, nothing serious. He'd been in Ahtna at work the night she had died. Kate checked with the staff at the store, who corroborated his statement. He was unmarried, he told her three or four times, and let her go with regret and a complimentary wedge of Cambozola cheese and a box of Bosc pears, enjoining her to drop by when she was next in town.
"I like the way you interrogate a suspect," George said when she loaded the loot in the back of the Cessna, but then he'd been doing some shopping of his own and the back of the Cessna was full.
They touched down on the airstrip in Niniltna at two o'clock that afternoon. Kate drove directly to the post, where Mutt, who hated being left behind, got up from her spot on the floor next to Jim's chair just so she could flounce around in a circle and thump down again with her back pointedly to Kate. And then she farted.
Jim reached behind him and opened a window. It must have been ten degrees outside, but it was necessary. "Anything?"
"Nothing," Kate said. "Mayor and manager both had affairs with Macleod. Mayor and wife have the same rock-solid alibi, son's basketball game, confirmed. Manager, single, was working that night, also confirmed."
Jim nodded. "It figures. They know if she was sleeping with anyone else?"
"I asked. The mayor said probably, the manager said maybe. It doesn't sound to me like anyone in pants was safe from Talia Macleod, married, single, old, young. Anything here?"
"Nothing new," he said.
He was a little tight-lipped. Kate could choose to believe it was because of her tone in speaking of Talia Macleod, who'd at least had the good taste to hit on him, too. She didn't say anything though, because she'd been where he was. The longer a murder went unsolved, the less likely it was ever to be solved. Practicing police officers hated mysteries. They especially hated mysteries that involved public figures.
"I'm for home," she said. "Don't be late, something special for dinner tonight."
TWENTY-FIVE
When he walked in the door there was a large plate with a wedge of some gooey blue cheese and a mound of toasted, salted walnuts, accompanied by a bowl of pears. There were napkins and paring knives at each place setting.
“No meat?” Jim said.
“Trust me,” Kate said, and raised her voice. “Dinner!”
Johnny ambled down the hall and flopped into his chair. “What’s this?”
“Cheese and fruit and nuts,” Kate said. “Trust me.”
Both of her men behaved as men will do and grumbled and whined and wrinkled their noses and shuffled their feet and implored the gods to explain why she was trying to starve them to death, but in the end plate and bowl were both empty.
“Okay, nice appetizer,” Jim said, “what’s for dinner?” He ducked out of the way of the thrown napkin as Johnny snickered.
“Oh well, if you insist,” Kate said, and went into the kitchen and pulled a moose burger meatloaf and roast potatoes out of the oven, loftily ignoring the cheering section.
“You know,” Jim said, sitting back from the table after the second course had likewise been cleared away, “this case is lousy with motive. What it lacks is evidence. Well, except for the body.”
Johnny watched and listened, his eyes following the conversation from one face to the other and back again.
Kate nodded. “Talia could have had other lovers.” He gave her his patented shark’s grin, and unreasonably reassured, she said, “And much as I hate to say it, I think our killer is a Park rat. There are no strangers in town unaccounted for in the witness statements.”
Johnny looked at Kate and opened his mouth, and then closed it again.
“My question is, do we still think the same person killed Mac as killed Talia?”
“Been thinking about that,” Jim said. “What did they have in common? Global Harvest. Mac hated Global Harvest for ripping him off. But Talia was Global Harvest’s point man in the Park. I don’t know, Kate, if Talia died before Mac, Mac would have had the hell of a motive for killing her.”
“I don’t see that,” Kate said, frowning slightly. “Anyone could have told you that Mac was always a guy with his eye to the main chance. He was hoping to get more money out of Global Harvest for the Nabesna. Why would he kill the goose he was hoping would lay him a golden egg?”
“By the way, I heard from the crime lab as I was leaving the post today. Howie’s rifle didn’t fire the bullet that killed Mac Devlin.”
“Really. What a shame.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. Or something like it.” He paused. “What I’d like to do is charge him with the murder of Louis Deem.”
Kate looked at him. “Are you going to?”
“I said what I’d like to do. Louis was killed with a shotgun, and I didn’t get enough evidence at the scene even to guess at how tall the perp was. Let alone who he was.”
"There's the tire print at the scene. You matched it to Howie's truck."
"Yeah, but as Howie, the little weasel, points out, there isn't a Park rat who doesn't leave his keys in the truck when he gets out. Doesn't matter if it's at the store, the post office, the cafe, the Roadhouse, the school, home."
Kate remembered taking the key of her snow machine with her when she'd stopped to see Vidar. One time in how many years? Maybe her lifetime?
"Anyone could have driven off in his truck. And the tire track alone won't make a conviction, as Judge Singh was pleased to tell me."
"She wasn't pleased," Kate said.
Jim, a little ashamed of himself, said, "I know. I'm just-"
"I know," Kate said.
"Kate?" Johnny said.
"And I told you, Howie's reneging his confession all over the place anyway."
"And the aunties? What was the story they told you?"
"Pretty much the same one they told you," Jim said, unsmiling. "To a woman, they are shocked, shocked at the very idea of such a thing. Auntie Balasha says Howie must be mistaken, and she bawls when she says so." He shuddered. "Auntie Edna says he's full of shit. Auntie Joy says he was such a handsome little boy, she can hardly look at him without smiling at the memory."
"And Auntie Vi?"
"Auntie Vi told me to tend to my business and the aunties would tend to theirs."
"Ouch."
"Yeah."
"Was it just a story, then? Howie made it up?"
Jim thought of Bernie. "I don't know, Kate. I wish I did."
"Kate!"
They both looked at Johnny in mild surprise. "There's no need to shout, kid," Kate said. "Something on your mind?"