Bad Blood (16 page)

“How to win friends and influence people,” Jim said, still scowling.

After Lyn Aery, the traffic dwindled, mostly bicycles going too fast with riders that yelled “On your left!” whether Jim and Kate were on the right side of the trail or not.

“Ever want to be a Borg?” Kate said. “Just raise your big metal arm and clothesline one of those dorks?”

No reply. Four miles later, they reached Point Woronzof, where the trail ran along the end of Runway 32. An Alaska Airlines 737 was thundering into the air, followed shortly by a FedEx DC-11. Both banked left and headed south-southwest, the sun trailing an anticipatory toe into the horizon in preparation for its brief nightly dip.

“Bethel and, what do you think, Hong Kong?” Jim said.

The scowl on his face had finally faded. He was watching the DC-11 climb into the sky. His hair shone gold as the sunset, and his eyes had never seemed more blue.

“I ever tell you I’m scared on the big jets?” she said.

“You? Afraid of flying? Never.”

“On the big jets, I’m always nervous.”

He thought about it. “You don’t know the pilots.”

“Or the mechanics,” she said, nodding.

He smiled. As always, it did nice things to an already very nice face.

“What?” he said.

Kate realized she was staring, and felt her own face heat. She only hoped it didn’t show beneath her summer tan.

A hand slid around her waist and yanked her up close and personal. “What?” he said again. This time it was a murmur right against her lips, and he didn’t give her time to answer.

Which was good, because she forgot the question, and was only recalled to the here and now when a biker’s long, loud wolf whistle made a kind of Doppler effect as he passed by.

She pulled back and blinked up at him, her vision a little hazy. “If you’re feeling like that, we should at least get the women and children off the streets first.”

He laughed, low in his throat, and wouldn’t let her step away. She wriggled against him, partly in earnest and partly to tease. “Keep that up, and you’ll get yours up against the nearest tree.”

She ran a hand up the nape of his neck to knot in his hair. “Mutt!”

Mutt came arrowing out of the brush at a dead run and knocked Jim on his keister a second after Kate managed to wrestle free.

“Tag-teaming me,” Jim said, getting to his feet. “Okay, fine. Let it never be said that Jim Chopin was bested by a couple of girls.”

The horseplay lasted all the way home, four interminable, exquisite miles of kisses and caresses and Mutt nipping at their heels. They were impervious to the looks they got, both envious and condemnatory, and by the time they got back to the town house, Jim had a hard time fitting the key in the door.

“Hope finding the right hole’s not a chronic problem with you,” Kate said.

The door opened finally and Jim took her by the arm and Mutt by the collar and yanked them both inside, letting the door slam behind them. He held one finger up in front of Kate. “Wait,” he said, breathing hard, “wait right here.” The finger traced a line over her lips, down her throat, between her breasts, around her belly button to the crotch seam of her jeans.

She stayed where she was, back and hands against the wall as if she were bolted to it. Over the thunder of her heartbeat, she heard Jim hauling Mutt through the kitchen and out the door into the backyard.

She turned her head when she heard his footstep in the entryway, and her heart skipped a beat at the intent expression on his face. “Where was I?” he asked. “Oh, yes, I remember now.”

He dropped to his knees in front of her. “You mentioned something about being horny.”

“Oh,” she said, her voice quavering.

“You’ve got three strikes against you at first sight with most people,” he said, his eyes seeking out every curve and hollow. “You’re a woman. You’re short. You’re Native. They have no idea who and what you are.

“But I do.”

The buttons on her jeans popped open and they and her underwear were yanked down her hips. He left them to hang around her knees, shackling her in place, while he pushed her thighs apart and set his mouth on her.

“Ooohhhhh,” Kate said, only this time it was a long, low growling moan that escalated into something like a scream. Her body arched as a blistering wave of pleasure rose up from his mouth to melt her spine. He wouldn’t release her until the wave had receded, and then only to pull her down to the floor and settle in between her legs.

“There,” he said, cradling her head in both hands. “Now that you’re not in so much of a hurry, I’ve got time to play.”

*   *   *

Much later, Kate, fresh out of the shower, pattered downstairs in an old white T-shirt of Jack’s and nothing else. She went first to the back door. Mutt, napping in a corner of the postage stamp–sized yard, raised her head and regarded Kate with a sapient yellow eye. So, did the earth move?

“Yes,” Kate said. “Now, you want to stay out here and crack wise or come inside with the rest of the grown-ups?”

Mutt sprang to her feet and galloped over to shove in between Kate and the door.

By the time Jim finished his own shower and came downstairs, Kate had assembled a chopped cucumber, a couple of tomatoes, half an onion, and cilantro into a shepherd salad, dressing it with olive oil and pomegranate molasses. The roast chicken was being reheated in the oven. She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Five minutes.”

“Good. I’m starving. I can’t think why.” He pulled out a chair and sat down, in the same movement pulling her in between his legs. He slid his hands under her T-shirt and over her ass. “Oh boy, commando.”

She toyed with the open snap on his jeans, which was all he wore. “I’m all about easy access.”

He laughed, a deep, satisfied sound. “Yeah, well, we’d better enjoy it while we can. Once the kids are in residence, there will be no more easy access to anything.”

She smiled at him over her shoulder. “On the other hand, they’ll be here. As in not in the Park.” His eyes narrowed and slid down her body, as if he were speculating over just what position he could get it into in just what location on the homestead.

They took dinner into the living room and ate on the couch, sharing bits of chicken with Mutt, who tolerated the kissy-facing up to a point in exchange for protein. When easy access became more interesting than food, she moved into the kitchen with something of a flounce.

When Kate surfaced a little while later, she noticed Mutt had taken the remains of the chicken with her to assuage her hurt feelings, and gave a soft laugh.

Jim’s voice rumbled in his chest. “What?”

“Look.” He raised his head and she pointed.

“Ah.” His head dropped back down on the couch. “Making a point.”

“You snooze, you lose.”

“Something like that.” One hand toyed with the short strands of her hair, running them continuously between his fingers.

She figured it was safe, but played it cautiously anyway. “You were pretty wound up in Kuskulana this evening.”

His hand paused for a beat. She kept her head down on his chest, and after a moment it rose and fell in a long sigh. “Yeah. Yeah, I was.” He tugged at her hair so she would look at him. “Do you understand why?”

“I think so,” she said, “but I want to hear it from you.”

He sighed again, and levered them both upright and pulled her over to straddle his legs. He ran his hands over her skin, more in absent appreciation than with obvious intent. “The first case that brought me into the Park when I was stationed at Tok was the death of a bootlegger. His name was Pete Liverakos.”

Her eyes widened a little. “I know the name,” she said after a moment.

“Everybody does,” he said, concentrating at a point somewhere over her shoulder. “He was flying booze into an old gold mining site, storing it in the adit, and moving it around the Park by ATV. Somebody found his cache and burned it, and somehow he wound up out there with broke-down transportation, in the middle of one of the longest cold spells during one of the coldest winters on record. People say he was probably dead before the wolves got to him.”

“I hear tell,” she said, her mouth dry.

“The point is,” he said, looking at her directly for the first time since his story began, “is that he was a Kuskulaner. A cousin of Mitchell Halvorsen’s, in fact.”

“Yes,” she said steadily.

“I was relatively new to the area then. People didn’t have much to say to me, but one of the things I did hear about was the Kushtaka–Kuskulana feud. Everyone, and I mean everyone, just naturally assumed that a Kushtaker had something to do with Pete Liverakos winding up dead and savaged by wolves a stone’s throw from five thousand dollars’ worth of incinerated Windsor Canadian whiskey.

“I was never able to prove anything, of course. But I’ve been around for a while now, and I’ve heard a lot more stories, and what they tell me is that the Macks and the Christiansons could give lessons to the Kreugers and Jeppsens. Hell, they could give lessons to the Hatfields and the McCoys.”

“You’re not wrong,” Kate said.

“By my count, over the last five years, there have been assorted vandalisms, thefts, assaults, you name it, in both villages. All perpetrated by a Kushtaker on a Kuskulaner or vice versa. I’ve never been able to do anything about any of them. It’s like watching a game of Ping-Pong with exploding balls, and then the players denying that their hands have been blown off when anyone can plainly see they have.” He paused, and said, “Oh. I forgot to tell you. Somebody pulled the drain plug on Roger’s skiff. Just before I climbed back into it to head upriver.”

Her head snapped up. He nodded. “Yeah. It sank about a mile south of the Kuskulana landing. I made it to shore, but the skiff didn’t. Had to hike up the river to the fish wheel, where I hitched a ride across.”

“Who did it?” Kate’s voice was very soft, but he was not deceived.

“I was leaving Kushtaka, so I’m guessing a Kushtakan.”

She was vibrating like a strung wire in a high wind. “Simmer down, tiger,” he said. “I’m fine. You want to be pissed, be pissed about Roger Christianson’s brand-new skiff. He loaned it to me for the trip. Brand-new kicker, too. Both of which are now residing on the bottom of the Gruening River.”

She closed her eyes, apparently to meditate on keeping her temper. Never one to waste an opportunity, he spent the intervening time in admiration of the velvet skin of her breasts, the sturdy strength of her waist, the lushness of her hips. Beauty, grace, and mystery in one compact package. He still had difficulty believing it was his.

She opened her eyes. “Okay.”

“Really okay?” he said, with meaning.

“Have I killed Howie Katelnikof for shooting at me and hitting Mutt instead?” she said.

“No,” he said.
Not yet,
he thought.

“Well, then. Have a little faith.”

He eyed her doubtfully, and much against his natural instincts let it go, for now. He let his head rest against the back of the couch. “I get where it took a D6 Cat to smooth things over between the Kreugers and the Jeppsens, but at least it was smoothed over. Kushtaka and Kuskulana, nothing’s ever smoothed over there. Nobody ever shakes hands and makes nice. Hell, Kate, George won’t even fly low over that section of the river for fear he’ll pick up a stray bullet from the Kushtakers and the Kuskulaners exchanging fire.”

“So?” she said.

“So, fast forward. Now I’ve got a dead Mack in Kushtaka, which looks to have been predated by a dead Halvorsen in Kuskulana, which I have to say is ramping the feud up some.”

When he didn’t go on, she said, “I understand. But you’ve been in the middle of family feuds in the Park before. All cops have. DVs are our worst nightmare. What made you go off on this one in particular?” She thought she knew, but she also thought it would be better if he said it out loud. It was haunting her, too. It might even have been in part responsible for the most excellent sex enjoyed beneath this roof this evening. There was no better affirmation of life.

“Assume he went into the crawl space when he was supposed to have gone to Chignik for herring fishing back in May.”

“Okay.”

“You saw the holes. Someone nailed down the hatch cover after him.”

“Yes,” she said, unable to stop the shudder moving up her spine. She rested her forehead on his shoulder, relishing the smooth muscle, the warm skin.

He was silent again. At last he said, “I did my first probationary stint out of the academy in Anchorage. My first week, I was the responding officer on the Berta Young case.”

She sat back and looked at him. “I did not know that.”

“I don’t talk about it. Doesn’t mean I don’t think about it. Way too often.”

Berta Young was an eight-year-old girl whose stepfather had locked her in a closet for three years, where he visited her regularly for rape and abuse. After a while, like a child who became tired of a toy, he forgot to feed her, and after that forgot to give her water, and after that she died.

“The autopsy showed that at some point she must have tried to get out. The tips of her fingers were ripped and torn. There were corresponding scratches and blood and tissue remains on the inside of the closet door.”

His voice was flat and unemotional. Just the facts, ma’am. She swallowed hard and tried to match him calm for calm. “Didn’t a neighbor call it in because of the smell?”

“Yes.”

Her brows pulled together. “Wasn’t her mother in the house at the time?”

“Yes. Said she didn’t smell anything. Swore to it in court. When they asked her what she thought had happened to her daughter, she said that her daughter was a temptress and a sinner and that the devil had taken her for his own. She was right about the last part.” He paused again. “There were three other minor children in the house. All girls. One of them was already in her own closet. She survived, although I don’t know what kind of life she was going to have afterwards. I’ve never tried to find out.”

This story was way too close to the nightmares she still occasionally suffered from her years working as an investigator for the Anchorage DA. “The media circus surrounding that trial was—”