"Goddammit!" Jim said, and dived, landing on his belly with an ungraceful flop and skidding three feet farther on the snow and ice. Ahead of him, Kate had dodged behind the Kvasnikof house. The bullet hit the house next to her with a deafening bang and startled cries issued forth from all around them.
Mutt went ballistic. She snarled and bit Gallagher on the face, tearing skin and drawing blood, and then she went for his gun hand. Thirty feet away Jim could hear the crunch of bones breaking.
Gallagher shrieked and dropped the Sig. Kate ran out from behind the Kvasnikofs' and scooped up the Sig on the fly, and by the time she slowed forward momentum Mutt had her teeth on Gallagher's throat, that slow, steady, emasculating growl issuing from her own. He made one feeble effort to shove her away. Her jaws closed tighter and she shook her head. He screamed, or tried to. The result was a garbled, gargling sound.
Jim got to his feet. "Kate. Call her off."
"Why?" Kate said, torn between fright and fury. She didn't like getting shot at, either.
"Kate."
"Oh, all right. Mutt, release. Mutt! Mutt, release! Come on, girl, it's okay. Get off him. Off, Mutt, now!"
Mutt looked up at Kate, her jaws bloody from Gallagher's face, wrist, and throat, still that steady rumble, like tank tracks, issuing forth.
Kate grabbed Mutt's ears and shoved her down to the ground, her face right in Mutt's, her own bared teeth inches from Mutt's throat. "No! No! Release, I said! Release!"
"Jesus, Kate," Jim said, shaken.
Inexplicably, Mutt went motionless. Jim wasn't even sure she was still breathing.
For a long moment the three of them remained frozen in place, to the accompaniment of Gallagher crying and whimpering in the background. Jim couldn't say he blamed him much.
A soft, conciliatory whine sounded. Mutt stuck out a long pink tongue and washed Kate's cheek.
"All right then." Kate released her. They both got to their feet. Mutt shook herself and gave another ingratiating whine, touching her nose to Kate's hand. Kate cuffed her and Mutt cringed and whined again. "Oh shut up, you big baby," Kate said, and gave her a rough caress. Mutt bounced in place, yipped, and wagged an ingratiating tail.
"Holy shit," Jim said.
"No big," Kate said. She shook her hair out of her eyes, feeling suddenly, debilitatingly weary. "Once in a while I have to remind her who's still the alpha dog in the pack. She is half wolf, you know."
Nevertheless, Jim made a big circle around the both of them when he went to peel Gallagher off the ground.
TWENTY-SIX
The cells at the post were getting crowded. "It's time for you to go home, Howie," Jim said. "I've sent word for Willard to come get you." Howie looked torn between being booted out and scared that his life might still be at risk. "You don't think I killed Mac Devlin anymore," he said, a little crestfallen.
"Sorry, no," Jim said, pushing Howie in front of him. "Ballistics say you didn't. Not with your own rifle, at any rate."
"Well, I didn't kill him. I didn't kill Louis, either, Jim." Jim looked down at him. It was hard to detect truth from bullshit with Howie Katelnikof. The shifty eyes, the sly face, the involuntary instinct to lie his way out of every situation, all these were Howie to the bone and none of them inspired confidence. "You told me the aunties hired you to kill him. Was that true?"
Howie sent an uneasy glance down the hall to where the three Johansens were still smelling up the jail and the cell across the hall where Gallagher had taken Howie's place. He was stretched out on the bunk and was attended by all four Grosdidier brothers, who were in hog heaven at the amount of bandages that were going to be required. "We might even need a Life Flight!" Luke said, ecstatic.
In the other direction Maggie was visible through the doorway, sitting at her desk and pretending her boss wasn't having a whispered conversation with Howie Katelnikof. "Off the record, Jim?"
Jim looked at the ceiling and thought about it. If the aunties had hired Howie to kill Louis and he had, Howie would be guilty of murder and the aunties of conspiracy to commit. If the aunties had hired Howie to kill Louis and he hadn't, all four would still be guilty of conspiracy to commit.
Of course, any charges would be contingent upon Jim's ability to prove said charges in a court of law. With the aunties' unparalleled ability to stonewall so amply demonstrated of late, see Kate Shugak here, he didn't look forward to any conversation upon that topic with Judge Singh. On the other hand, Howie's understanding of "off the record," like his understanding of "immunity," came more from television than hands-on experience. "Okay," he said mendaciously. "Off the record."
Howie leaned in and said in a voice just above a whisper, "They did hire me to kill him. The aunties. I told you the truth about that."
"Uh-huh," Jim said. "And did you? Kill Louis?"
Howie shook his head vigorously. "No, Jim. No, I told you, I didn't. For one thing, I didn't have a shotgun with me that day."
"How did you know he was killed with a shotgun?" Jim said. "Very few people know that, Howie."
Howie's voice dropped even lower. "Like I told you before. Because I saw him."
Jim looked down at him, considering. "I remember. You said you found Louis dead on the road to the Step."
"Yeah." Howie swallowed and looked a little sick. "Yeah. I was driving out the road and he was just lying there. I pulled over and I got out and he was just… lying there, with his chest all blown open. Gut shot." He shuddered.
"Uh-huh," Jim said again. "What were you doing on the road to the Step that day, Howie?"
"I was supposed to pick up Louis when you let him out of jail," Howie said. "He was already gone when I got here. I knew he'd be mad I wasn't here on time, and he told me he had to talk to Ranger Dan, so I figured I'd find him on the road." He swallowed again. "And I did."
Jim took down Howie's statement, for what it was worth, and, after an internal debate that lasted a good five minutes, went ahead and released Howie into Willard's tearful arms. Willard probably hadn't eaten a decent meal since Howie went inside.
"Hey, Howie," Jim said, as they were leaving. "Who was that poaching caribou with you up Gruening River way?"
Howie hesitated, and then shrugged. Loyalty was never one of Howie's strong suits. "Martin Shugak."
"You already told me that, Howie. There was someone else, though, wasn't there? I saw a third rig under the trees."
"Fuck," Howie said, disgusted. "Al Sheldon."
Not one of the usual suspects, but the name nevertheless sounded familiar to Jim. He tried to track it down in his memory and came up empty.
There were two reasons he let Howie go. For one thing, he needed the cell. For another, if Howie hadn't fled the Park before this, chances were he wasn't going anywhere now. Still, Jim called Kenny Hazen and asked him to keep an eye out for Howie and Willard in Ahtna, just in case.
At some point he was going to have to talk to the aunties again. By rights, as a practicing policeman, he should bring them all in for questioning. He was already guilty of dereliction of duty by leaving it this long.
Although he had been busy, no denying that. Gallagher's prints had gone out before midnight, and before eight the next morning there was a match. Dick Gallagher was Doyle Greenbaugh, all right, and he was wanted for questioning for a double homicide at a truck stop outside of Boise, Idaho.
Johnny stopped by on the way to school and on Google Earth identified the truck stop as one of the stops Gallagher had made on their way north. "Here's the newspaper story about it," Jim said, handing him a printout.
BOISE, ID (AP): Two bodies were found in the parking lot of the Riders of the Purple Sage Truck Stop on Franklin Road, Caldwell, a suburb of Boise, early this morning. The first victim was a white male in his early forties, the second a white male in his teens; they have been identified as Dennis McMil-lian, a local businessman, and his fourteen-year-old son, Mark, both on a routine early morning walk with their dog, Rusty. Police say both appeared to have been shot by a large-caliber handgun, the elder victim in the chest and the younger in the back some distance away. Rusty was crouched next to the younger victim when the bodies were found.