A deeper sleep (21 page)

Previously, his family had consisted of his parents, who lived in southern California in a state of civil indifference that hadn't changed since his childhood. He'd let them define what a relationship was, calm, polite, bloodless. His relationship with Kate, by contrast, was turbulent, bawdy, challenging, exasperating, amusing, and passionate enough to melt his eyebrows, and infrequently not a little violent. He rubbed the scar on his forehead, a reminder of the file cabinet she'd heaved at him when she'd found out he'd slept with Ruth Bauman. That it had happened years before he'd become involved with Kate hadn't put her aim off any.

Not that it mattered, he told himself. He'd never told a woman he loved her. He was always scrupulously honest about the love thing. If it came to that, he was honest about everything. He raised no false hopes, he encouraged no long-term plans, he made it clear from the beginning that he was in it for the fun of it and when it was over no hard feelings, good-bye, and everybody's still friends. That was his plan and it had worked well for him.

Until now.

For the first time it occurred to him that if he spent as much time working on a relationship as he did in planning for its ending, it might last longer, and it might mean more.

If he had to boot Howie Katelnikof out of the Park, if he had to buy him a one-way ticket out of the state out of his own pocket, he was going to see to it that Louis Deem wasn't going to get any more free shots at Kate Shugak or Johnny Morgan. Or Mutt. The U.S. Constitution was a wonderful thing, no doubt about it, and he personally loved each and every one of the amendments, in particular the first ten. He'd meant every word of his oath when he took it. More, he believed absolutely in the law enforcement doctrine of "to protect and to serve."

But if the U.S. Constitution said he couldn't arrest Louis Deem for killing Kate Shugak unless and until Louis Deem actually did kill her, then fuck the goddamn U.S. Constitution and all who sailed in her.

In this patriotic mood, he carried the case file back into the house and sat down at the table to go through it piece by piece.

Sec. 11.41.110. Murder in the Second Degree

(a) A person commits the crime of murder in the second degree if

(1) with intent to cause serious physical injury to another person or knowing that the conduct is substantially certain to cause death or serious physical injury to another person, the person causes the death of any person . . .

—Alaska statutes

He liked to have his hands around her throat during sex. She didn't like it, but he didn't give her much choice in the matter, and she had learned through experience that it was over quicker if she didn't fight him.

That damn Kate Shugak. She'd dropped in again today, oh so casually, looking at her with those eyes that saw everything whether you wanted them to or not. He was always angry after one of Kate's visits. She tried to tell him that it wasn't her fault, that she and Kate hadn't been that close in school, that they were hardly related at all, that Kate was just snooping around in what wasn't any of her business, but he wouldn't listen. He would be angry, and he would take it out on her.

Lately he'd been taking it out on her in public places, too, which she really didn't like, all the more reason for making no protest so it would be done and they could go home.

She shut her mind to the sound of other truck engines coming and going and let him bend her over the bench seat of the truck. Her head struck the steering wheel, and she made an involuntary sound and tried to jerk free.

"Louder," he said, and grabbed a fistful of her hair to push her down again.

Her head caught awkwardly between the wheel and the edge of the seat. The last thing she heard was a loud crack, and she had just enough time to wonder what it was before the broken edge of her axis vertebrae severed her spinal cord.

NINE

In that same patriotic mood, the next morning Jim drove to the post and strode back to the cells like Will Kane heading out to face down Sam Fuller.

Unlike Sam Fuller, however, Louis Deem was not holding a six-gun; he was reading a book. He looked up. "Hey there, Jim."

"Louis." It bothered Jim that Louis could read. It bothered him more that Louis was reading one of Jim's favorite authors, John D. MacDonald.

Louis smiled. "You seem upset about something, Jim. How can I help?"

Jim rallied. "I know why you wanted Bernie's gold, Louis."

"And I can see you're dying to tell me," Louis said. "Go ahead, serve it up."

"It wasn't the gold at all. Or not Bernie's. I couldn't understand why you left all those nuggets lying around. I figured at first you dropped them, but it's just not like you to get in a hurry when it comes to ripping somebody off.

"And then I remembered something Bernie told me once, and this morning I called the Alaska Miners Association and talked to a guy there. He told me an experienced miner can tell what mine a piece of gold comes from in a certain area. Emphasis on experienced, Louis. You aren't, of course. In a million years, you'd never dirty your hands on something as hardscrabble as mining gold. But you don't mind a controlling interest while somebody else pulls it out of the ground for you."

"So far I'm not seeing what this has to do with me," Louis said with determined boredom, "but it's a whale of a tale, and everybody likes gold rush stories, so by all means continue."

"That's why you shined up to Abigail, got her to say she'd marry you, and you'd have gone through with it, too, because hey, she's the eldest daughter, the one who's bound to have the most say over whatever her folks leave behind. Which brings me back to the gold." Jim produced a slip of paper from his breast pocket and waved it at Deem. "Bernie isn't an experienced miner, either, but he's a half-assed amateur historian and he likes to know about stuff. So whenever a miner brought in gold to settle up his tab, Bernie'd ask him to write down what creek it came out of, and anything else the miner could remember, any details that would spice up the tale."

Louis faked a yawn. "I'm sorry, Jim, was there a point to your story? A punch line? Any ending in sight at all?"

"Dan O'Brien's got a map up on the Step. It shows that someone has been granted subsurface mineral rights to a tract of land that sits partly on the land the Smiths say they own."

Louis's eyes narrowed, but his voice remained calm. "Really?"

"Really," Jim said. "Bernie showed me through his nugget collection a couple of times, Louis. I vividly remember the one that came out of Salmon Creek."

"Which Salmon Creek?" Louis said, displaying a mild interest. "There must be twenty of them in the Park, and a thousand of them in the state."

"But only one that rises in Suulutaq Glacier, Louis. You know
what suulutaq
means in Aleut, don't you? 'Gold,' Louis. It means 'gold.'"

"Really," Louis said, but he said it just a beat late. If Jim hadn't been watching him closely, he wouldn't have caught it. It was enough to confirm his suspicions, which was a good thing because it was very probably the only confirmation he was going to get in this whole sorry affair.

"You weren't stealing the nuggets when you broke into Bernie's house, Louis. You were stealing the little bits of paper with the nuggets' provenance on them. The one from the Suulutaq was more specific than general in directions, and it was going to show you and Father Smith the way to a gold strike, or so you thought. God forbid you get out there on your knees with a pan and try to find it for yourself. No, you wanted a shortcut. You always go for the shortcuts, Louis."

There was a brief silence. "Interesting story," Louis said, and smiled. "Needs an ending."

Jim turned on his heel and walked out.

Behind him, Louis started to laugh.

Jim was so angry, he didn't hear Maggie at first, and she had to repeat herself. "Boss!"

"What?"

Maggie recoiled, and Jim realized he was standing in the front office. "I'm sorry, Maggie. What is it?"

"Judge Singh on line one."

Jim swore beneath his breath and snatched up the phone from Maggie's desk. "Chopin here."

"Sergeant Chopin? Robbie Singh."

"Yes, Your Honor. What can I do for you?"

He heard a heavy sigh. "You have to let Louis Deem go, Sergeant. I'm sorry."

"Judge, I—do you know what this guy—?"

"I know all about him, but you haven't made your case, Sergeant. Mr. Rickard is quite prepared to sue you, me, the Department of Public Safety, the Department of Law, and the state of Alaska for wrongful imprisonment if we don't let his client go."

"Judge-"

"Let him go, Jim," she said. "Now."

She hung up, and he replaced the telephone in its cradle.

Maggie, who had heard too much of that phone call for her own peace of mind, hooked an unceremonious thumb over her shoulder. "Somebody to see you."

"Oh." Oh God. The very last person he wanted to see at this moment. "Hey, Bernie."

"Hey, Jim."

"Come on in." Jim walked into his office, trying to arrange his face into some semblance of sanity.

Bernie, receding hair pulled back in its usual ponytail from a drawn face and haunted eyes, sat in one of the chairs across from Jim's desk. Jim went around and sat in his chair.

"Do you mind?" Bernie got up again to close the door.

"No," Jim said, but he was wary. This was usually the part where the victims' relatives, suffering from survivor's guilt, sought out a target for their frustration and rage and grief. The easiest target was always the cop on the beat.

Bernie sat down again. He didn't say anything immediately. Jim, still mastering his fury at that smug, murdering son of a bitch in the cells, was happy to sit without speaking. Anything to delay the moment he'd have to actually turn the key in the lock and let him out.

"I was talking to Auntie Vi," Bernie said.

Great. Another country heard from. "Oh, yeah? About?"

"Auntie Vi says all you've got is the kid's testimony that it was Louis he saw at the house."

"That plus Abigail Smith says she was with him all night that night."

Bernie looked tired. "Come on, Jim, you know she's lying. Who knows why all these women lie for Louis Deem, but they do, over and over again, until it literally kills them. I've seen him pick up women at the Roadhouse and I want to go over the bar and grab them and nail them into a barrel and feed them through the bung-hole until they get over it."

There was an edge of bitterness to his voice that told Jim a great deal. "Bernie?"

Bernie sighed. "Yeah. Last summer."

"When you and Laurel Meganack—?"

"Yeah. Enid found out. She had a couple of revenge fucks and told me all about them. Len Dreyer was one."

Len Dreyer being the Park handyman who had been murdered the summer before. Jim already knew this, and Bernie knew he knew it. "And Louis?"

Bernie nodded. "Louis was another."

"What did you do?"

Bernie shrugged. "He scared her. She just wanted revenge, not to get killed. I think she only slept with him the once."

"Where?"

Bernie nodded, as if he'd known Jim would ask. "Our house. Our bed. She made sure I knew that, too."

There wasn't anything Jim could say that would help, so he kept quiet.

"I figure that's when he saw the collection, and he's been making plans to steal it ever since."