"The incidence of violent crime has only been increasing on I-84 over the last ten years," said Representative Cole Blanchette (R-Boise) in an impromptu press conference near the scene yesterday morning. "It's what I've been trying to hammer home on the floor of the House every session, that we need an automatic death sentence for anyone convicted of committing a crime with a firearm."
An anonymous source in the police department said that traces of cocaine found near the bodies indicated that the two victims may have interrupted a drug deal. The same anonymous source reported that police have long suspected a network of drug dealers working truck stops across the nation. "It's natural," the source said. "Interstates go everywhere, and those big rigs go everywhere on them. It would make for a very efficient operation. They'd be mostly anonymous to the locals, so they'd never show up on the local cops' radar. They get here, they do their deal, they move on. And they've got a cover story that isn't even a cover story, it's a real job, they have a reason for passing through."
Police are canvassing the area for witnesses to the crime. A high-placed source in the police department who wishes to remain anonymous says that special attention is being paid to traffic in and out of the truck stop between the hours of midnight and six a.m.
"He bought me breakfast there," Johnny said, handing it back. He looked sick. "I was starving. I thought it was so nice of him. He left me at the counter, said he had to see a man about a horse."
"How long was he gone?"
"Twenty minutes, maybe? Half an hour?" Johnny shook his head. "I don't remember exactly. I thought-" "What?"
Johnny ducked his head and studied the floor intently. "I thought maybe a woman. I saw them, the ones who hang around the truck stops. They were everywhere we pulled in." He glanced up fleetingly. "I'm sorry, Jim. If I'd told you when he got here-"
"It's okay," Jim said.
"No, it isn't. Maybe Ms. Macleod would be alive if I had." "You didn't kill her, Johnny. And Gallagher hasn't confessed." "Yet. But you got him. Kate told me about the monofilament." "Yeah,' Jim said, not without a certain satisfaction. Besides the little bundle in the kitchen catch-all, there was enough mending twine in Auntie Vi's net loft to stock a marine supply store. Jim didn't know if the geeks at the crime lab could match batches of the stuff, but even if they couldn't it put the means of Macleod's murder very close to Gallagher's hand.
They'd recovered the bullets in the Boise homicides, too, and Gallagher's weapon was already on its way to the crime lab in Anchorage. "Yeah," he said, "we got him."
Kate came in as Johnny was leaving. "You okay?" she said.
"Jim says I didn't kill her."
"Jim Chopin, while a man and by definition foolish and fallible, is in this case absolutely and miraculously right."
Johnny watched his hands as they tried to tie his knit cap into a knot. "I shouldn't have told him where I was from, Kate. He wouldn't have shown up here." He looked up. "Maybe if I hadn't, Ms. Macleod would still be alive."
"Maybe. Maybe not. He'd already killed two people, don't forget. And you were with him. You could have seen something."
He paled a little. "You think he would have tried to kill me."
"I don't know. Fortunately, not an issue now."
Johnny's expression lightened. "I guess so. Yeah."
"Go on," she said, opening the door to the post. "You're going to be late for school. Just make damn sure that's where you're going."
"Yes, Kate," he said, and bolted out the door.
I saw Howie and Willard, headed for home," she said in Jim's office. "You still think he might be making it up about the aunties hiring him to do Louis Deem?"
"You asked them again?"
"Haven't had time."
He snorted. "Yeah, you're as petrified as I am that it's true. And then what?"
Kate had other issues with the aunties as well, but he couldn't help her with those. "You're sure he didn't kill Mac Devlin?"
He nodded. "Yeah. He was out there all right, with your cousin Martin and some guy named Sheldon, poaching caribou for resale. And Howie's rifle doesn't match the bullet the ME dug out of Mac's back." She was silent, frowning at the floor. "Kate?"
She looked up. "Want me to talk to Martin and Sheldon?"
"Sure. Probably even pay you for it. I'm going to take Greenbaugh into Anchorage personally as soon as it gets light."
"He okay to travel?"
"They got doctors in Anchorage can take care of him just fine. The sooner he's safely inside Cook Inlet Pre-Trial, the better I'll feel."
"Has Greenbaugh said he killed Talia yet?"
"He's not talking. After Mutt's emergency tracheotomy last night"-Mutt's ears perked up at mention of her name-"I'm not sure he can. But I called Global Harvest. The day Macleod died, he called them and told them he wanted her job."
"They give it to him?"
"Are you kidding? Guy hasn't even been in the state a year. Hasn't even made it through his first winter. No time served, no name recognition. Global Harvest didn't get to be the world's largest gold mining company because they were stupid."
It was almost word for word what she'd thought herself. Spooky. "So who's the new Talia, did they say?"
"They don't know yet. The guy said they'd made a job offer and were waiting to hear back. You get a call you didn't tell me about?"
Kate smiled, a little distracted.
"You okay, Kate?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'll go talk to Martin and Sheldon today."
She didn't bother looking for Martin. Instead, she went straight out to the Sheldons' place. It was about five miles downriver from Niniltna on the road to Bernie's, a couple miles after the turnoff to Bobby's place on Squaw Candy Creek and a couple of miles before the turnoff to the Nabesna Mine. The Sheldons had been Mac Devlin's nearest neighbors.
The snow machine nosed down the narrow track, which went in about a mile before ending in a large clearing. There was a small, neat house, a cache on stilts, and a couple of outbuildings. Next to one of these was a D6 Caterpillar tractor, yellow body and ten-foot steel blade. Kate recognized it immediately, as some years back she'd had occasion to employ it as a means of resolving a chronic property dispute between the Jeppsens and the Kreugers. It would have wrung Mac's heart to see it sitting out in the weather. He'd always taken good care of his equipment. It was one of his few discernible virtues.
She pulled up to the house and killed the engine. Mutt hopped down and Kate dismounted as the door opened. A man stood in the doorway squinting out at the morning light, tall, balding, suspenders holding up his Carhartts, T-shirt stained with coffee and what looked like egg, worn leather mocs on his feet.
"Mr. Sheldon?" Kate said, without moving, because he was also holding a bolt-action.30-06. He wasn't aiming it anywhere in particular and she wasn't going to give him cause to do so. She hoped.
"Yeah?"
"I'm Kate Shugak, Mr. Sheldon. I'm a Park rat like yourself, live about thirty miles the other direction, off the road to Ahtna."
"I've heard of you." The rifle remained held loosely in front of him. "What do you want?"
"I need to talk to you. Okay if I come in?"
He seemed about to refuse, and then Mutt trotted up and looked at him with wide eyes and alert ears. "Nice-looking dog. Got some wolf in her."
"Some. May I please come in and talk to you, Mr. Sheldon?"
He shrugged and stepped back. "Sure, I guess. If you want."
She waited until he set the rifle in a corner before stepping into the kitchen, where unwashed dishes were piled high in the sink and more were spread on table and countertop, along with silverware, cutlery, and pots and pans. There was the sour smell of moldering food in the air, probably emanating from the gnawed-looking haunch of caribou sitting on the table, and dirt crunched underfoot.