A deeper sleep (15 page)

Well, so did she. But she wished Johnny had seen Louis's face.

Actually, what she really wished was that she'd taken Johnny to Disneyland.

Jim cuffed Louis and took his elbow to lead him back to his cell. Louis purposefully hung back. "I thought that was you back there in the dark, Kate. You got your boy with you?"

Jim shoved Louis forward. Nimble on his feet as always, Louis never lost his balance. "We haven't met, kid. But we will. Oh, yeah. We will."

"Hurry up, Louis," Jim said. "I need to get back to my office to look up the Alaska statute on threatening bodily harm. See if we can add some more time on that life sentence you've already got going for you."

He shoved Louis into the cell, slammed and locked the door behind him, and turned to go.

"Hey, Jim."

"What," Jim said without looking around.

"Not that this hasn't been fun, and not that I'd mind a free trip to Ahtna—I could do with a Costco run—but before you put Judge Singh to all the trouble of an evidentiary hearing, you might like to check out my alibi."

At that Jim did turn, to fix Louis with a bleak and unyielding eye. "Alibi?"

"Abigail Smith." The smirk was back in full force. "My fiancee."

"What about her?" Jim said.

"I was with her last night." Louis stretched and summoned up a yawn. "All night. I'd just barely gotten home when you showed up."

"And of course she'll swear to that."

"She's a religious person," Louis said piously. "They take that whole ninth commandment thing pretty seriously."

This time he let Jim get all the way to the door before he said, "Homely kid, that Johnny Morgan. Looks a lot like his dad."

“I have to ask her," Jim said doggedly.

"She'll lie. God alone knows why, but women lie all the time for Louis Deem."

"I know, Kate. I still have to ask." Jim looked at Johnny. "Are you sure it was Deem, Johnny?"

Johnny nodded, chin resolute.

Jim met Kate's eyes, and she knew what he was thinking. After the lineup, Deem's face would be fixed in Johnny's memory, super-imposed over the shadowy figure he had seen in the Koslowskis' house that night.

They both knew, too, that at a vengeful, visceral level every Park rat worthy of the name wanted it to be Deem, and that it was impossible for Johnny not to feel the weight of that expectation.

"Okay." Jim rubbed a hand over his face. "Sit down, both of you."

"Johnny's got school—"

"School can wait. Just a few minutes of your time, Kate. Please." When they were all seated, he spoke directly to Johnny, trying very hard to treat him as any other witness in any other case. "Johnny, you say it was Deem that you saw last night."

"It was." Johnny was becoming more positive with every iteration. Repetition breeds its own certainty.

"Are you willing to testify to that in court?"

Johnny, to whom Fitz's death was just beginning to feel real, with the subsequent and inevitable anger growing into the aftermath, said in a firm voice, "Yes."

Jim looked at Kate, and Kate leaned forward to be eye to eye with Johnny. "Louis Deem is a very bad guy, Johnny."

"I know."

"Juries like eyewitnesses, especially Alaskan juries, who always want to convict someone but who like to feel sure they're doing the right thing when they do. I don't know how much physical evidence there will be, that's all on the lab guys in Anchorage, but if this alibi of Deem's holds up, the case will rest on your testimony."

Johnny's face looked pinched. "I know."

He didn't, not really, but Kate let it pass. "I know we've said this like nine times already, but I want you to understand. Louis's—he's broken, Johnny. He's bad not because he doesn't know any different. He does. He's bad because he enjoys it. Hell, he revels in it. It's just more fun for him than being good. The people he's hurt, the people he's killed, that's just a Deem good time. Like you and me would go fishing with Old Sam, or those crazy-ass climbers summit Big Bump, or the four aunties building one of their quilts, or Bernie coaching basketball, or Jim here—"

"I get it, Kate," Johnny said, much to Jim's relief. He looked at the floor and said in a small voice, "Are you saying that Louis Deem will try to hurt me if I testify?"

Kate looked at Jim. "It wouldn't be the first time, Johnny."

Johnny looked at Jim. "But he'll be in jail."

It occurred to Jim that he was a little too close to the eyewitness in this case, but there wasn't a lot he could do about it now. "Yes."

He could see that Johnny was having a hard time dealing with the idea that sometimes the bad guys won. Jim wished with all his heart that he didn't have to be the one to introduce Johnny to the realities of American jurisprudence. For a moment he bitterly resented the role being thrust upon him, and then he looked into Johnny's face, the promise of strength in the strong bones and the honesty in the frank eyes, and he thought, Hell, if the kid can hitchhike from Arizona to Alaska at the age of twelve, he ought to know what he can and can't handle. He said, "Yeah, Deem is in jail, and I don't guess Judge Singh'll be throwing bail bones his way anytime soon. Or ever, if she can help it. But you should know, Johnny, that Louis Deem has a history of intimidating witnesses. And he's got a lot of money for a good attorney. Hell, I think he's got Rickard on retainer, and Rickard is never nice to witnesses against his client. If you were thinking anyone was going to be easy on you because you're only fourteen, think again."

Johnny's shoulders had stiffened. "I wasn't."

Jim looked at Kate. "What about you? Are you on board with this?"

Kate sat there, looking at Johnny, trying to sort out an answer to Jim's question. Was she? For the general well-being of the population of the Park, Louis Deem needed to be put away. A double homicide would make him a guest of the state for the lifetimes of most Park rats.

Correction. A conviction on a double homicide would. Louis Deem's almost preternatural ability to skate on the most heinous crimes had to be taken into account.

If he skated this time . . . well, Louis Deem always got even. He'd left Kate alone until now, but she was always wary of him, always aware of the malevolent interest directed her way. Because the six years following her return to the Park hadn't given him an opportunity for payback didn't mean he wouldn't take it when it was offered. Louis Deem had one thing most criminal types did not: patience. He was willing and able to wait for what he wanted.

Which led her to identify the niggling unease she had been feeling about the murders of Enid and Fitz Koslowski. The whole robbery was so ... it was just so careless. Louis Deem was a lot of things, but clumsy wasn't one of them. The reason none of his arrests had stuck was because he was fastidious in choosing his targets, meticulous in making his plans, and shrewd in their execution. This rushed robbery, these hasty murders had amateur written all over them.

Amateur was also something Louis Deem most definitely was not.

They deposited Johnny with Bobby and Dinah, Kate deciding that Johnny needed family more than he needed school that day. Katya was as usual ecstatic to see him, and Kate could see visible signs of him relaxing in her exuberant two-year-old presence. Unqualified love was a great healer.

Back in the Blazer, Kate told Jim what she'd been thinking.

"'Clumsy'?" Jim said. "Maybe the word you're looking for is
arrogant."

Kate digested this. "You mean because he was acquitted of Mary Waterbury's murder."

"He's gotten away with so much, Kate. You said it yourself. We taught him he could get away with murder. This last acquittal may have put him over the edge, made him think he was invincible. Maybe he thought he could get away with a little smash-and-grab and—oh, oops!—eliminate some unexpected witnesses on his way out."

"Turn here," Kate said, pointing.

Jim gave a quiet but heartfelt curse at the condition of the Cat trail, which had not improved since Kate had driven it with Dan.

"Everyone in the Park knew about Bernie's gold collection," Kate said. "I've seen him haul total strangers out of the Road-house to go look at it."

Jim risked a glance away from the track to look at her. "What is this, Kate? You want Deem to be innocent?"

"No!" she said, loudly enough that Mutt, sitting in the backseat, put her ears back. "No," she said again, more calmly this time. "I just like things to fit, is all." She gave her head an angry shake. "No, you're right. It's hubris, pure and simple. Louis Deem always did think he was better than Superman. Why shouldn't he? Even kryptonite wouldn't kill this son of a bitch."

The Smiths must have heard the Blazer coming because they were all assembled on the deck when Jim and Kate pulled up. The deck now had a railing, and the four walls of the big cabin were eight logs high. A pile of trusses sat to one side, ready to start holding up the roof. They looked handmade, sturdy, and functional.

"Mr. Smith," Jim said, "I'm Sergeant Jim Chopin with the Alaska State Troopers. I believe you've met Kate Shugak."

"Of course." Smith effected a bow that reeked of noblesse oblige in Kate's direction. "Who could forget?"

"I see you're still here, Mr. Smith. Eviction notice notwithstanding."

"I am indeed, Kate." Smith bent a kindly eye on Jim. "How may I help you, Sergeant?"

"I understand you have a daughter named Abigail."

Smith's eye became less kindly. "Yes. My eldest." He did not indicate which of the seventeen assembled, but Kate saw her at the back of the crowd looking nervous. Near her were the next two oldest girls, Chloe and Hannah, holding hands so tightly, their knuckles were white even at this distance.

"I'd like to speak to Abigail in private, if I may."

"You may not." Smith was sounding very frosty.

Jim nodded as if that was what he had expected. "Then may I speak to her in the presence of you and her mother?"

Smith made a grandiloquent gesture with one hand. "You may speak freely in front of our entire family, Sergeant. We don't keep secrets from one another."

Kate had been watching Abigail during this conversation, and she had seen the girl turn white and then red and then white again. "Jim—"

"No help for it," he said in a low voice, and raised his voice again. "May I meet Abigail?"

"Abigail. Come forward."

Abigail threaded her way through the crowd of siblings with all the enthusiasm of one headed for the guillotine, which for all Kate knew about this family she might well be.

"Abigail, this is Sergeant Chopin. As a matter of curiosity, Sergeant, Chopin as in Frederic?"

"He was a distant cousin a couple of generations back, yes, sir," Jim said.

"A brilliant composer. I've always been fond of his tribute to Mozart."

"I wouldn't know, sir. I'm a Bruce Springsteen fan myself." Jim looked at Abigail. "Hello, Abigail. I'm Sergeant Chopin."

Abigail looked steadfastly at her feet. "Hello."

"I understand you are engaged to be married to Louis Deem."

She nodded, sneaking a sidelong look at her father, and a second, more furtive one at Kate.

Jim hesitated, and Kate wondered if he was thinking of the putative guillotine himself. She watched him square his shoulders and plunge in. "Last night, there was—something happened at the Roadhouse last night, Abigail, something very bad. Two people are dead. They were murdered, shot at point-blank range by their killer. A mother and her fourteen-year-old son."