A Grave Denied Part 7

"I've got him over at Auntie Vi's. I don't want him here. The man has no manners."

Kate understood. Bobby had a lot of good will going on in the Park. He was afraid his brother was going to step all over that, and he wanted her to make sure it didn't happen. "No problem," she said, sliding to her feet.

He looked at her, worried. "Sure?"

"I'm sure," she said, and looked at him affectionately. There wasn't much she wouldn't do for Bobby Clark.

"No," he said, "I meant are you sure you can keep it together when he starts insulting the slant of your eyes and the color of your skin."

She laughed. "Oh Bobby," she said, still laughing as she went down the steps, Mutt at her side. "If a whole country full of white folks hasn't managed to irretrievably p.i.s.s me off, one lone black man isn't going to, either. I'll spread the word."

"Thanks, Kate," he said, raising his voice as she climbed into her truck. "I owe you one."

"Don't kid yourself, Clark, you owe me all!" she yelled out the window, and headed down the road.

The Hagbergs' homestead was one of the oldest in the Park, though the Hagbergs themselves were relatively new to it, having moved there only in the late '70s. It was the old Barker place, Kate remembered as she drove down the narrow track from the road. The Barkers had originally come north in the gold rush, taking the route up and over from Valdez via mule train, and by the time they got to what would become the Park they'd gotten tired. Mrs. Barker, according to legend, had tied up her skirts to show a prettily turned ankle and served pancakes hot off a griddle she'd hauled to Alaska from San Francisco. Mr. Barker played the squeeze box and sang sea chanties. By the time the rush had dwindled to a trickle, they'd ama.s.sed a sum large enough to homestead. They'd been good pioneers, so it was said, until Mrs. Barker decided seven children were enough and ran off to Fairbanks, where it was said she and her ankles prospered on the Line. Mr. Barker held down the home fort, raised the kids, and on his deathbed enjoined his daughters to be true to their husbands and his sons never to trust a woman. Two of the sons joined Castner's Cutthroats and both died on Attu in World War II. The third son stayed home to marry off his sisters. This wasn't difficult, as women were in even shorter supply in Alaska during the war than they were in normal times. The third son, name of Ezra, stayed single and made a living trapping beaver and wolf. He'd died suddenly of pancreatic cancer in 1976, and his sister, Telma, who had married a Norwegian fisherman from Valdez, moved in that same summer with her husband, Virgil.

Virgil and Telma Hagberg were in their fifties now, although Kate thought they looked older, especially Virgil, with his stooped shoulders and his thinning strands of ash gray hair. He didn't talk much. Telma spoke even less than Virgil. She smiled a lot, though, which held within it the memory of a once-startling beauty, now faded, almost overgrown, as if the weeds had overtaken the rose too soon.

Virgil was known for the wooden toys he carved from birch and spruce, models of airplanes and trucks and bulldozers and the like, finely crafted with moving parts, sanded to a deep, satiny finish, and sold to Park rats at the school's Christmas bazaar for next to nothing. Telma, so far as Kate could remember, sat in the background and never sold anything.

Situated on a south-facing slope on the opposite side of the road from Kate's homestead, it was about halfway between Kate's place and Niniltna and the sun was still up, so it seemed efficient to stop there on her way home. Kate knew the Hag-bergs to say hi to at the post office, but that was about it. It was one of the Park's greatest attractions, the ability to disappear into the undergrowth if you wanted to. It was also, Kate reflected on the doorstep of the Hagberg home, one of the greatest disadvantages to the practicing detective.

"Kate," Virgil said when he opened the door to Kate's knock.

"Hi, Virgil. How you been?"

He was surprised to see her but his manners were too good to ask her what she wanted. He invited her in. She told Mutt to wait on the porch, and followed Virgil inside. They pa.s.sed a room with two workbenches and a set of shelves filled with hand-carved objects. "Still working at the carving, I see," she said.

He stopped and smiled. "Oh, yes. I make the toys for the children. They like them, and it makes a little money for Telma."

He led the way into the kitchen and Kate took the chair offered at the kitchen table. "Telma," he said, raising his voice. "We have company."

Telma came in and smiled at Kate. "h.e.l.lo, Kate."

"Hi, Telma."

"Would you like some coffee and cookies?" Telma's voice was perfectly normal but her eyes were off, just a little, exactly how Kate couldn't quite figure. They were a washed-out blue and placid as a pond, but unlike the pond they were all surface and no depth.

"Sure, Telma, I'd love some," Kate said, and cringed to hear the note of false heartiness in her voice. Just so did one speak to the simpleminded.

Virgil seemed not to notice. He kissed Telma's cheek, a quiet salutation in the manner of one making willing, wors.h.i.+pful obeisance to a G.o.d. It might not have grated so much if Kate hadn't just come from Bobby and Dinah's, where the kisses were loud and l.u.s.ty and generally led to something horizontal, or looked like they would as soon as the kissers got rid of their company. Virgil's kiss was just too d.a.m.n reverential for Kate's taste.

She thought back to the last time Jim Chopin had kissed her. Nothing reverential about Jim's kisses, nosireebob. But best not to think of it, or of what happened after, and who was she to dictate how people kissed one another, anyway? She shook her mind free and settled herself to being as pleasant as she could possibly be.

While Telma brewed the coffee and got down mugs, Kate and Virgil talked about the coming fis.h.i.+ng season, and how the dip netters and the sports fishermen and the subsistence fishers were cutting into the commercial fis.h.i.+ng action. From there they moved on to hunting, and the gay abandon with which the rangers opened and closed the moose, deer, and caribou seasons. "I was talking to a man in Ahtna," Virgil said, traces of Norway still present in his slow, deliberate speech. "He tells me there are more deer on the Kanuyaq delta than he has ever seen. What happens if there is no managed harvest, if they are allowed to eat up all their food supply?" He gave his head a solemn, mournful shake. "I am glad that I can afford to buy beef in Ahtna, Kate, because I do not believe I can support us any longer with my rifle and my shotgun."

They agreed that hunting to eat in Alaska as it had been traditionally practiced was very probably doomed. Telma relieved their mutual despondency with coffee and peanut b.u.t.ter cookies produced from a large ceramic jar cast in the shape of Sylvester the Cat's head.

Kate swallowed and said, "Great cookies, Telma."

Telma smiled her thanks.

"I was wondering if the two of you could help me with something."

"If we can, sure, Kate," Virgil said.

"I don't know if you've heard about Len Dreyer."

"Dreyer?" Virgil said slowly.

"The guy who used to fix things. Houses, trucks, snow machines, boat engines." Virgil still looked blank. "I understood that he and Dandy Mike did some work for you last summer."

Virgil's brow cleared. "Oh. The handyman."

"Yes."

"He helped me build our new greenhouse." Virgil nodded several times. "What about him?"

"Well." Kate fortified herself with a sip of coffee, which was dark and rich and laced with just the right amount of evaporated milk. "To start with, he's dead."

"Oh." Virgil looked at Telma, putting a hand over hers, as if she needed comforting after the shock of Kate's announcement. "I did not know that. I am sorry to hear it."

Telma smiled her sympathy.

Clearly trying for politeness, Virgil said, "Were you friends?"

"No. I was like you, he did some work for me, and beyond that I didn't know much about him personally. The thing is, the trooper has asked me to ask around about him."

"The trooper? What for?"

"Well." There was something so civilized about the Hagbergs' house, a neat log cabin, exterior logs freshly oiled, interior Sheet-rock freshly painted, floors freshly scrubbed, that made it difficult to utter the word "murder" within its walls. "It appears that Mr. Dreyer was a victim of homicide."

Virgil stared at her. "Well, for gosh sakes." The expression would have sounded quaint coming from anyone except Virgil Hagberg. It also added ten years to his age.

"Yes."

"What a terrible thing to have happen to someone."

"Yes," Kate said.

Virgil cast around looking for something else to say. "Who did it?"

"That's just it. We don't know. His body was discovered inside the mouth of Grant Glacier."

"Well, for gosh sakes," Virgil said again.

"So the trooper has asked me to trace Mr. Dreyer's last movements. And Dandy Mike said he and Dreyer had done some work for you last summer."

"Of course, of course," Virgil said. He made an obvious effort to gather his thoughts. "It was in July, around the middle of the month, I think. Mr. Dreyer and Dandy Mike came out and put in the foundation and did the framing and the roof. I wanted to put in some tomatoes." His chest puffed out a little. "We got ourselves a daughter to feed now, you know."

At that moment a thin girl with a pale, solemn face came into the kitchen. "Have you met Vanessa? Vanessa c.o.x, this is Kate Shugak."

Woman and girl exchanged nods.

"Our cousin's only child," Virgil added in a hushed voice, as if Vanessa wasn't standing at the counter directly behind him. "There was a tragedy, you know. Both her parents were killed."

He raised his voice. "Did you want something, Vanessa?"

"One of Aunt Telma's cookies," Vanessa said.

"Sure, go on, help yourself." Virgil turned back to Kate. "Her grandparents were dead, and she was all alone in the world. It looked like she was going to have to go into foster care until we said we would take her. I would not put a dog into foster care."

He patted Telma's hand. Telma smiled her agreement.

Vanessa reached into a drawer and pulled out a Ziploc bag. She proceeded to fill it with cookies from Sylvester's head. Both Telma and Virgil had their backs to her and her movements were noiseless and efficient. When the bag was full, Vanessa vanished again.

"A lovely girl," Virgil said. "And so quiet around the house. Is it not so, Telma?"

Telma smiled her agreement.

"Johnny..." Kate said, and then she was stumped at what to call Johnny. He wasn't her son, he wasn't even a relative. "Johnny Morgan, the boy who is living with me, is in Vanessa's cla.s.s. He's talked about her some." In fact, Kate thought, Vanessa was with Johnny when he discovered the body. Had Vanessa not told the Hagbergs about it?

"All good things, I hope," Virgil said, smiling at Telma.

Telma smiled back. Telma smiled a lot.

"Of course, all good things," Kate said, and s.h.i.+fted into investigator mode. She asked the usual questions and got the usual answers. No, Dreyer hadn't mentioned family or friends. No, he hadn't said where he was from. He'd showed up when he was called, and he'd done what he'd hired on to do and that well, he'd been paid in cash, and then he'd left.

The ideal handyman, Kate thought. Why on earth would anyone want to kill him? She drained her mug and got to her feet. "Thanks for the coffee and the cookies, Telma. Virgil."

"Kate. I am sorry we could not help more."

"You and everybody else," Kate said.

She climbed into her truck and sat in thought for a moment. Bonnie Jeppsen had sent Keith Gette and Oscar Jimenez to Bobby. After to the Roadhouse, and particularly for those who didn't, couldn't, or wouldn't drink, the postmistress was the next best contact point for the Park. Everybody got mail.

The most conversation Kate had had lately with Bonnie Jeppsen was "Hi" when she picked up and dropped off her mail. Perhaps that should change.

Of course, there were reasons why Bonnie Jeppsen might be perfectly happy to live out the rest of her life on a "Hi, how've you been" basis with Kate.

"But she's probably forgotten all about that by now," Kate said out loud.

Mutt stuck her cold nose in Kate's ear. Kate fended her off. "All right, all right, we're going." She started the truck and set off.

They got home at nine o'clock to find Johnny gone.

6.

Dear Kate," the note on the kitchen table began.

I'm not going back Outside to live with my grandmother. I'm not going to Anchorage to live with my mom. I'm staying in the Park. No judge who doesn't know me or you or my mom is going to make decisions about my future. It's my "- 'my was in capitals and underlined- 'my was in capitals and underlined-v future. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. I'm in a safe place, I brought my sleeping bag, and I have lots of food. future. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. I'm in a safe place, I brought my sleeping bag, and I have lots of food.

Kate sighed. "Oh, h.e.l.l." There was a P.S.

I'm sorry, but I took the .30-06. I left you the shotgun so you should be okay. I promise I'll pay you for any ammunition I use.

Kate's blood didn't exactly run cold but she could feel frost forming on her veins. "Okay," she said, letting the note fall to the table.

She stepped to the door. The clearing was void of life. She stepped outside and took a deep breath. "MUUUUUUUTT!"

It took Mutt precisely seventeen seconds, trotting back and forth with her nose to the ground, to pick up Johnny's scent from the T-s.h.i.+rt Kate held out to her, to where the boy's smell from it led into the bushes. It took them forty-six minutes, Kate on the four-wheeler with Mutt loping ahead to track him down to his camp in the entrance of the Lost Wife Mine. Kate didn't know what that was in regular time but she felt she'd aged at least a year door-to-door.

Mutt got to him before Kate did, and by the time Kate killed the engine and climbed off, Johnny was p.r.o.ne beneath an onslaught of sandpapery tongue. "Off! Help! Mutt! Yuck! Get off me!"

Mutt backed off, tail wagging furiously. Johnny got up and brushed pine needles from his jeans. "Traitor," he told Mutt. She heard what he meant instead of what he said and woofed again.

"Good girl," Kate said with a laudatory scratch behind the ears. "Go ahead. You've earned it."

In response to a signal, Mutt launched herself into the brush and flushed a bunch of rabbits from a peaceful browse. She wasn't really hungry, but they didn't know that and scattered in a starburst of white tails.

Johnny was the first to regain his composure. "Would you like some coffee?"

Kate, now that she could see Johnny had not, after all, shot his eye out with the .30-06, decided firstly that Johnny could live, and secondly that she must retain rights to the grown-up in this situation. As such, she would not lose her temper. She chanted that six or seven times to herself, and when it finally took replied, "Sounds good."

It was after ten o'clock and the sun was as near to setting as it ever got in May at that lat.i.tude. The mine entrance was high on a hill and commanded a sweeping view of the valley leading up to the plateau known as the Step, and the Quilak Mountains beyond. The sky was without color, neither the blue of day nor the black of night, and no stars shone save the the faint golden glow of the one setting behind the hill the mine tunneled into. faint golden glow of the one setting behind the hill the mine tunneled into.

The camp, Kate had to admit, was a cozy affair. Johnny had built up a sleeping platform on spruce boughs, cus.h.i.+oned with a tarp, a Thermarest, and a sleeping bag, set just inside the overhang of the cave out of the dew and the rain. A little fire pit was lined neatly with flat rocks he must have hauled up from the creek in back of the homestead. Canned goods were lined up like soldiers on a shelf made from two weather-stained Blazo boxes, both of which Kate recognized as having been salvaged from the dwindling stack behind the shop. He'd brought his CD player and a carrier full of CDs. Kate saw a bargain pack of batteries for the player and for his book light, which had been folded into the paperback copy of A Civil Campaign A Civil Campaign that sat on his sleeping bag. that sat on his sleeping bag.

No way had he moved this much stuff up here in one day. He'd been planning this for some time.

Mutt had interrupted him in the middle of writing in a notebook, which lay open on the ground. Kate picked it up along with the pen she found a few feet away, only to have Johnny remove both from her hands. He wasn't abrupt about it, or embarra.s.sed, just polite, and firm.

She took a deep breath and reminded herself again that she was the grown-up here.

"Here," he said, "take my seat." Gravely, he proffered a rough but recognizable chair, with back, sliced out of a round section of tree trunk with what had probably been her chain saw.

Kate's sense of humor got the better of her at this point. "Thank you, Mr. Crusoe," she said. She sat down. Her b.u.t.t overlapped both sides but it got the job done. She waited while the water boiled in a saucepan, and didn't offer to help measure coffee into the filter. The resulting brew threatened to remove the enamel from her teeth, but that was okay because that was how she liked it. She added some evaporated milk from a can and sipped. He did, too.

She wondered when he'd moved on from cocoa to coffee. "Nice camp," she said.

"Thanks," Johnny said.