Restless in the Grave (17 page)

Kate had a chance to look around between bites, and liked what she saw. A small house, and an old one, with comfortable mismatched chairs, each with its own reading light, and books sitting on every available horizontal surface. The largest focal point on the wall was a map of Southwest Alaska, much annotated with ruled route lines and pinholes and pencil scribbles. There were a few family photographs. A stubby little potbellied woodstove stood next to the Nushugak Air Taxi office. There was a television but it wasn’t the focal point of the room, instead tucked into a corner on a triangular three-wheeled cart, looking as if it had been there for a while and might be there awhile longer.

The living room was separated from the kitchen by a counter with stools. Behind the kitchen a hallway led to bathroom and bedrooms.

There were no curtains on the windows, which all faced east, toward the glorious view of the river, the opposite bank, and the rising sun.

Moses mopped up the last of his syrup, pushed his plate back, and stood up. “Not bad. Little heavy-handed there on the buttermilk, Campbell. You.”

Kate looked up to see Moses fixing her with that glare. “You know he didn’t do it, right?” It was more of an accusation than a statement, and he didn’t wait for an answer, grabbing his bag and slamming out of the house. The engine of the longbed started up and receded into the distance.

“Don’t worry, I can drop you off at Tina’s on my way to the airport,” Chouinard said.

Great,
Kate thought,
one of the chief suspects in this non-murder giving me rides home. Not to mention her grandfather picking me up.

She caught Campbell’s eye, and knew he was thinking the same thing. “I’ll drive you,” he said.

Not that it was going to be any better for her cover to be seen in the local trooper’s company. Surely no one would notice that, either.

Campbell grinned. “We could always phony you up a record. GBH, maybe. I can think of at least one likely victim.”

“Very funny,” Chouinard said, thinking that Kate was naturally reluctant to be seen getting driven home by the state trooper, and probably not happy about the rumors that would spark about her husband, either. As Campbell went to change into his uniform, she said, “Or we could make you my cousin. We probably are cousins, anyway.”

“Are you Native?” Kate said in surprise.

“A quarter Yupik, from Moses.” Chouinard smiled. “And aren’t all Alaska Natives related?”

Kate laughed.

“What’s the joke?” Campbell said, coming back into the room, immaculate in his uniform, which had to have been tailored to fit, because it fit so very well. What was on the inside of it didn’t necessarily need embellishment, but packaging in this case didn’t hurt the contents one bit. Until this moment Kate had believed that Jim Chopin lacked any competition for poster model for the Alaska State Troopers.

She realized she was staring and gave herself a mental kick. It didn’t help when she saw that Chouinard had a sly smile on her face.
You should see my trooper,
she thought, and smiled back. They both laughed, albeit at different things.

This time Campbell didn’t bother asking, although Kate was sure anyone who spent that much time on their appearance had to be at least minimally aware of its impact. At least he didn’t preen.

“Time for me to go make a living.” Chouinard grabbed a daypack, kissed Campbell, raised a hand to Kate, and was gone.

“How much does she know?” Kate said.

“Nothing,” he said. “Why? She say something to you?”

“No, but I wondered when we stopped at Eagle Air on the way here. Seemed, well, convenient.”

He shook his head. “She’s got the first class mail contract for these parts. Eagle Air’s on her route. And the less she knows about what you’re doing in town, the better, at least up front.”

“Agreed,” Kate said. “However, Bill Billington pretty much figured it out for herself. She braced me about it after work last night. I told her the truth.”

If anything, he looked relieved. “Good. I was willing to keep it on the lowdown but she really would have been pissed if you’d lied and she found out about it. Pissed at me,” he said, clarifying matters. “Really don’t care if she’s pissed at you.”

Kate laughed. “Understood.”

“So what’s up?” Liam refilled their mugs and they drew up stools on either side of the counter. He spilled a little coffee when she told him about last night’s attack. “Jesus Christ,” he said, mopping up.

“What I said,” Kate said.

“You haven’t been in town a day,” he said, shaking his head. “Is this what Jim meant when he said you’d shake things up?”

“Maybe,” Kate said. “Maybe not. I haven’t spent any time in the Southwest, but I worked almost six years in Anchorage and I’ve been to enough AFN conventions. Someone here could have recognized me, and could be aware of what I do for a living. Could even have been someone I’ve testified against. You’re a trooper, you know every time you bag a bad guy, you make an enemy. But…”

“But what?”

“But I’m wondering if the attack didn’t have more to do with the place than the person staying in it.” She explained why.

“Okay,” he said when she finished, “but if that’s so, why wait until the space was occupied before searching it?”

“Could be they didn’t know it was occupied.” She smiled. “After all, I haven’t been here a day.” Her smiled faded. “All I’ve got on me traceable back to Kate Shugak is my cell phone, and I was carrying that, so I haven’t been outed yet, that I know of. They made a hell of a mess of the place, but I think I surprised them before they could start ripping up floorboards. It had that kind of feel to it. You know?”

He did. “You keep saying
they
. Was there more than one?”

“I’m pretty sure it would have taken two people working together to tackle Mutt.”

They both looked at Mutt, who had infiltrated cautiously into the house when the diminutive demon left. She blinked back at them, ears up at the sound of her name.

“I see what you mean,” Campbell said. He earned Mutt’s undying devotion by putting down the plate holding the last of the sausages.

“Something else,” Kate said.

“What?”

“Why I was so late getting back to the apartment. I, ah, got access to some of Grant’s records last night.”

“Did you,” Campbell said, and took a fortifying gulp of coffee. “Notice I do not ask how.”

Kate grinned. “The books are in order, so far as I can tell, but I still don’t see where the money is coming from. He was spending it like water before he died, and now Tina’s acting glad to get cash to rent out her garage apartment. Doesn’t make any sense.”

“Ah,” Campbell said.

Kate raised her eyebrows and waited.

“Yeah,” Campbell said, “it may be I have a line on where Finn was getting his money.” He explained Jo Dunaway’s theory.

“If Finn Grant got his hands on any part of Alexandra Hardin’s inheritance,” Kate said, “he could afford to overthrow the government of Taiwan if he wanted.”

“As was explained to me,” Liam said, his grimness matching her own.

“Who explained it?”

“Ah, yeah,” he said, an expression consisting of one part helpless fury and one part acute misery passing over his handsome countenance. “Ever heard of a reporter named Jo Dunaway?”

Her mug set itself down on the counter of its own volition. “What about her?”

“I see that you have,” he said, misery increasing. He sighed. “She was my wife’s college roommate. And her lifelong best friend. She has bigger ears than anyone else in the entire state and she may—” He ran a finger around the inside of his collar. “—she
may
have heard a rumor that Finn Grant’s death was less than accidental, and that Wy was a possible suspect.”

“That’s why she’s here,” Kate said without thinking.

His head came up like a hound’s on the scent. “You’ve seen her?”

“She reported on a case I testified in back a ways,” Kate said. “She recognized me when you brought her in the bar last night.”

He sat up straighter. “You’ve talked to her?”

“I wouldn’t call it talking, exactly,” Kate said. “She accused me, I insulted her. Honors were about even, I thought.”

“And you were going to tell me this when?” he said.

“Any minute now,” Kate said.

“Uh-huh,” he said.

They sat in mutual gloom for a few moments.

“However,” he said, cheering slightly, “no one has come looking for that money yet, and until they do, I am less concerned about how he paid for anything than in how Finn Grant died.”

“Money is a powerful motive,” Kate said. “Especially a lot of money.”

“Uh, yeah,” Campbell said, “about motive,” and explained about how the local Native association might be interested in acquiring Grant’s FBO.

She looked at him. “And you were going to tell me this when?” Her tone of voice was enough to pull Mutt straight up off the floor. She gave Campbell an accusing glance.

He patted the air at both of them. “I didn’t hear about it until the day I got back, and we haven’t had a moment to talk until now.”

She was steaming. “So not only do we have a reporter dogging us, the suspect list might just have increased by a couple of hundred shareholders? Especially if Grant was steamrolling over them the way he did everyone else?”

He winced. “That’s about the size of it, yes.”

She tapped out a tattoo with her fingernails, thinking. “Is Tina Grant looking to sell?”

“I don’t know,” Campbell said. “She’s been tried pretty hard over the past two months. I don’t know that she has plans to do anything about anything yet.”

Not quite at random, Kate said, “I met Gabe McGuire at Eagle Air yesterday.”

“Really? I didn’t know Gabe was back.”

“Why,” Kate said with what she felt was pardonable annoyance, “does everybody in Newenham call Gabriel McGuire, movie star, number one box office draw, and Oscar nominee, by his first name?”

Campbell looked taken aback. “I don’t know, I—he’s been vacationing here regularly for the last four years or so. He’s pretty well known locally.” He reflected. “He spends a lot of money here, which naturally endears him to the business community. And—”

“What?”

Campbell met her eyes squarely. “He’s a good guy, Kate.” He held up a hand. “I know, I know, you don’t think of someone you’ve seen on the cover of
People
magazine as a regular guy, and okay, he isn’t. Obviously. But he doesn’t walk around like his shit don’t stink, either. He doesn’t expect people to kowtow, he doesn’t screw all the women within a hundred-mile radius, he keeps his posse in line. So far as I know, he doesn’t import illegal substances into the borough, for either resale or recreational use, although I admit I haven’t visited him at Outouchiwanet. Pretty upstanding citizen, at least on the face of it.”

“Outouchiwanet. That like Outouchiwanet Mountain Lodge?”

He nodded. “Why?”

“Because in those records I, ah, acquired?”

He looked pained, but said encouragingly, “Yes?”

“There is a transfer of title for Outouchiwanet Mountain Lodge, made out from one Dagfin Arneson ‘Finn’ Grant to one Gabriel McGuire. Fee, one dollar, and other valuable considerations.”

“One dollar? Really?”

“Really.”

“Dated when?”

“Within a month of the formation of the corporation that owns Eagle Air, Inc.”

Campbell thought it over. “I did get the feeling that Gabe wanted to buy the lodge. He spends almost all his time there when he comes up. Stops in town to buy supplies and grab a burger at Bill’s, or he did before Finn moved operations out to Chinook. Then it’s straight out to the lodge.” He looked down at his mug, swirling the now cold coffee in it meditatively. “Understandable. The suck-uppery must be pretty advanced at his level. He’s put a premium on privacy. Unless a fan was rabid enough—and rich enough—to charter his own private plane, Outouchiwanet Mountain Lodge would be out of reach of most of them.”

“Privacy would be worth more than a buck to him, what you’re saying?”

Campbell nodded. “It’s a pretty nice lodge, and there’s some property attached to it, too.”

“A hundred sixty acres,” Kate said.

He tried not to cringe at the thought of how she knew that. “Originally a homestead?”

“Be my guess.”

“Those aren’t thick on the ground anymore, and fewer than that unsubdivided. Nor is any significant amount of privately owned acreage anywhere in the state. Yeah, worth a lot more than a dollar.”

“So I’m thinking Finn held him up for a partnership stake in the company in exchange for the publicity McGuire would bring to Eagle Air,” Kate said.

“You said he was here?”

She nodded.

“Want me to get Wy to fly me out to Outouchiwanet and ask him?”

He made the offer like Indiana Jones volunteering to jump into a pit full of snakes and given his fear of flying, he should have. Hadn’t someone defined courage as being shit-scared of it and doing it anyway, whatever it was? If that was true, Campbell had to have balls the size of cantaloupes.

Kate was appreciative of the sacrifice, if not also a little suspicious. Campbell, not to mention everyone else she’d met in Newenham, seemed a little too close to Gabe McGuire for her taste.

She ignored the niggling little feeling at the back of her mind that said she was looking too hard for reasons to dislike McGuire, and said, “Hold off on that. Let me poke around a little more first.”

“Where?”

She beamed a smile at him that left him visibly shaken, married man and all. “I’m thinking about dropping in on Eagle Air next. Unannounced, of course.”

Liam gazed at her with a kind of fascinated horror. “Jim was right,” he said. “You really never did meet a rule of evidence you like.”

“Well,” Kate said with modesty unbecoming, “they do tend to get rather in my way.”

Thirteen

JANUARY 19

Newenham

Liam dropped Kate and Mutt in town in a discreet alley next to what he informed her was the only hotel in town. It was just about this time of year that everyone in Alaska tired of chewing over the same old scandals and started looking for something new. She got a hard look from an older woman looking out the window of the lobby, which relaxed a little when she saw Mutt. Something about a dog was just naturally disarming.