Blood Will Tell (22 page)

"When did she quit?" Kate asked. If it had been in September, maybe Axenia was going to school full-time.

The fresh-faced girl sitting behind what had been Axenia's desk was dressed as if she'd just come off a Nordstrom shopping spree with Jack Morgan, only her purpose had been to Dress for Success instead of Dress to Kill. "I don't know," she said, helpless. The phone rang and the girl picked it up. "District Attorney's office, how may I help you?" She listened, concentration marring her nineteen year-old brow. "Certainly, sir, I'll put you right through." She pressed a button, said, "Mr.

Bickford is on line three, ma'am," listened to make sure the connection was made, and hung up with an air of subdued triumph that broadcast how new she was to the job. She caught sight of Kate again and her face puckered back into its worried frown. "Oh. Ah. Yes. Axenia. As I said, ma'am, I don't know when she quit. She wasn't here when I was hired, and I don't know where she is now."

With infinite patience, Kate inquired, "Might there be someone here who does?"

"Shugak!" she heard a voice say from the doorway. She turned to see a big-bellied man with-a red face and a huge grin coming toward her.

"Brendan?" she said. She was engulfed in a comprehensive embrace from which she feared she would not emerge alive, and said, voice muffled,

"Dammit, Mccord, you're worsen any bear I ever wrassled. Turn me loose."

He did so, leaving his meaty hands on her shoulders and giving her a friendly shake that rattled the teeth in her head. "Long time no see, lady. Jack told me you were in town. How you been?"

"Okay. Really," she added when she saw his expression. "Really okay."

Her jacket was open and the scar in plain view above the neck of her T-shirt. He touched it with one gentle forefinger. "Looks like it healed up bad."

She pushed his hand away. "Cut it out, grandma. How have you been? Still chasing the bad guys?"

His hand dropped. "Even catching some of them."

"All right."

"Brendan! Come on!" an impatient voice shouted from somewhere out of sight.

"I'm on my way!" he shouted back in a voice that shook the rafters.

"What are you in town for?"

"The AFN convention."

His brow creased. "AFN--oh right, I saw something about that on the news last night." He quirked an eyebrow. "I didn't know you were into politics."

"I'm not." "Oh." Something in the way she said it gave him pause. "Well.

You in town for a while?"

"A while."

"Great! Let's do lunch before you leave." He grinned hugely. "I'll buy.

That way you'll have to listen to all my war stories." "Simon's?" she said.

"Ouch." He winced. "You always were a firstclass eater, Shugak."

"Then it's a date."

"Bren, dammit!"

"On my way!"

Kate put a hand on his arm. "Hold up, Bren. Where's Axenia?"

Sandy brows disappeared in astonishment beneath an untidy thatch of hair. "Didn't you know? Axenia got herself a job with the fedrul gum mint "Say what?"

"Thee Fed-E-Ral Gov-Em-Ment," he said, spacing the syllables out.

"Bureaucrats R Us. Those wonderful folks who brought you the nine-hundred-dollar monkey wrench."

"You're kidding. How come?"

He shrugged. "Don't know. She didn't say. I expect it's because they don't have to pay Social Security." He grinned. "Or maybe it's because you Native types just purely hate the state."

"Up yours, Mccord." He blew her a kiss, and she walked out of the building in the best mood she'd been in all day.

She found Axenia answering the phone on the second floor of the Federal Building on Ninth Avenue. The door behind her read

"U. S. Forest Service." Kate hoped Jane's office wasn't close by.

Her cousin's face changed when she saw Kate and she hung up abruptly.

"Hello, Axenia," Kate said, exuding charm. It didn't take; Axenia looked wary. "Hello, Kate."

Kate looked around at the file cabinets surrounding the reception area, at the several offices with titles like Timber Management" and "Forestry Science Laboratory" on the doors. She strolled over to one of the cabinets and read the labels. Lease sales, lease bids, all by location.

"You didn't tell me you'd transferred jobs."

"You didn't ask."

Kate turned and shoved her hands in her pockets. "When?"

"A year ago."

"Umm." Kate strolled back to the desk and perched on one corner. "You like it better here?"

Axenia shrugged.

"You get a raise, maybe?"

"A little one."

"You doing the same thing here you did over at the D.A.'s? Answering phones, a little typing, filing?"

"What's with the third degree?" It was clear from Axenia's face that she had meant the question to be lighthearted; instead it came out resentful and suspicious.

Kate looked at her, waiting.

At first glance the resemblance between the two women was obvious. A second look highlighted the differences: Kate was all muscle and bone, her chin was firmer, her eyes more direct, more controlled and far more self-assured. Next to her Axenia was younger, softer, rounder, less finished, a little clumsy. The potential was there, but it was as yet unrealized. Kate folded her arms and stared down at her cousin, examining her face for traces of what she had become, of what she might become.

Beneath that assessing gaze Axenia squirmed a little. "What do you want, Kate?" "Why are you dating Lew Mathisen?" Kate said.

Axenia flushed. "That's none of your business."

"It isn't if dating is all that's going on," Kate agreed.

Axenia bristled. "What do you mean by that?"

"Do you tell him what's happening with the Association?" Kate said. That kind of blunt candor wouldn't have worked with an elder; with Axenia a frontal assault was Kate's only hope. "Do you give him inside information on what plans emaa and the board have for the future? Plans for construction of community buildings? Plans for fish processing plants? Plans for, say, logging Iqaluk?" Axenia's face changed but she continued to meet Kate's eyes steadily. "Lew Mathisen's a contractor, Axenia. Inside information on plans and bidding would help him out a lot." She added, "This new job of yours must be a big plus for him, too.

He help you get it?"

Axenia's face turned a dull red and she surprised Kate by going on the attack herself. "What do you care? You've stayed as far away from Association business as you can your whole life. You spend your quarterly dividend checks and not once have you ever asked where the Association gets the money to pay them. Why all the concern now?"

Kate absorbed the sting without outward sign. Experience did that for you. "This isn't about me." She regarded Axenia with a cool eye.

"Mathisen's Dischner's business partner."

It wasn't news to Axenia. "So?"

"So, Eddie P. isn't exactly a virgin when it comes to crooked contracts and sweetheart deals and payoffs and kickbacks."

"So?" "So," Kate said patiently, "don't you think it's a little strange that when there's an internal conflict with the Niniltna board over logging Iqaluk, Mathisen and Dischner are looking very buddy-buddy with pro-development forces on the board, as well as in Raven?"

"You mean me?"

"I mean you." Kate held up one hand. "Axenia, I'm not judging you. You have every right to be pro-development if you want; damn near half the shareholders are, too. Hell, emaa's not exactly anti-development herself, she's the one pushing the road to Cordova and more tourist development for the Park."

Axenia snorted. "Penny-ante." "That," Kate said, "is not you talking.

That is Lew Mathisen mouthing the words with Dischner saying them. It is also disrespectful of your grandmother, and we have spoken about your tendency in that direction before."

Axenia mumbled something that could have been an apology. Kate said,

"You hear about Sarah Kompkoff and En akenty Barnes?"

Axenia was taken back by the change of subject. "Of course I heard. I'm really sorry." At Kate's raised eyebrow she flushed and said angrily,

"Okay, I didn't know Enakenty that well, but Sarah used to send me care packages of canned salmon all the time. She'd always come see me when she came into town on board business. I'll miss her."

"So will emaa. And Enakenty, too. They usually voted with her."

It took Axenia a moment. When she got it her face changed again. "Wait a minute. You don't think--"

"I don't think anything, yet," Kate said.

"Kate," Axenia said. "Kate, it's just--Kate, it's just plain silly to think that the two deaths were related, or that they had anything to do with association or corporation business." "Is it?" Kate said, outwardly bland, inwardly begging to be convinced.

"Sarah died of botulism, for God's sake," Axenia said, her voice rising,

"and Enakenty fell off a balcony. He probably had a fight with his girlfriend and she pushed him over, for all we know!"

"How did you know about the girlfriend?" Kate said.

Axenia stopped as if she'd run into a wall, her mouth half-open, staring at Kate. "I--don't know, I thought everybody knew. It's common knowledge." Her eyes slid from beneath Kate's. "Well, it was an accident anyway," she muttered. "Nothing to do with Sarah. And nothing to do with the board."

Her expression was mutinous and determinedly uncommunicative. Kate sighed inwardly. "Look. All I'm asking is that you think about it. Don't let yourself be used. When they're done, when they've stolen everything they can, when they've grabbed all they can carry, those carpetbaggers will either squash you like a bug or worse, leave you alone and twisting slowly in the wind, trying to explain where all the money went.

Dischner's done it before. He's famous for it. Hell, he prides himself on it."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Axenia said, but her voice was trembling. "You don't know these guys at all. ANCSA gave us land and the money to develop it. What's the point of having all these resources if we don't develop them?"

"There's a difference between development and exploitation, Axenia,"

Kate said, not ungently.

Axenia's phone ringed, and she snatched up the receiver with the air of a prisoner on death row waiting for a call from the governor. "Forest Service, may I help you? One moment, please." She pushed the hold button and said to Kate, "I've got to get back to work."

"Axenia--"

"I'll see you later at the convention, okay? Goodbye." Her cousin pushed the hold button again. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting, sir, let me see if I can locate Mr. Linden for you."

A door opened and a harassed-looking man came out with a sheaf of papers in one hand. "Axenia, when you have time, I need this retyped. It's got to go out this afternoon in the pouch." "Axenia," another voice said,

"where's that file I asked you to pull?" Axenia smiled brightly and impartially at both men, giving an excellent impression of being alone in the room. Kate gave up and left.

As she was coming out of the elevator on the first floor she heard a shout. "Kate! Hey!" She turned to see Dan O'Brian coming across the lobby at a trot. "Kate, by God!" He smothered her in a hug, evidently forgetting that he'd seen her less than a month before when she'd run a gallon of blueberries for his breakfast pancakes up to the Step.

"Danny boy!" She returned the hug enthusiastically. "What are you doing in town?" "Eating," he said, jerking his head at the cafe. "Can I buy you lunch?" "I just ate," she said, "but you can buy me coffee."

"Great!"

They went into the cafe, where Kate watched Dan load a tray to the groaning point, and they took a table next to the window that looked out on a sunken patio. The trees were leafless but the grass was still green and the sun was still shining. Kate shook her head and turned back to Dan. "So what are you doing in town?"

Dan, his mouth full, waved a fork at the ceiling. He gulped and said,

"Meetings with bigwigs in from D.C. Yawn." He filled his mouth again, reminding Kate of nothing so much as Johnny in intake mode. She settled back to watch him refuel.

Dan O'Brian was six feet tall with a bush of orange-red hair, laughing blue eyes and freckles that made him look more like a ten-year-old than his true age of forty-one. He'd started out in the range ring business in the Florida Everglades, discovered no affinity for alligators, and had moved forthwith to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, where a volcano had promptly erupted, practically beneath his feet. He decided he had no affinity for lava, either. The third time he got it right, transferring to the Park the day after Jimmy Carter signed the d-2 lands bill into law, which act tripled the size of the Park and locked Dan into the job of protecting it for life.

Dan O'Brian was that rarest of rarities, a ranger who respected the rights of the people around whose homesteads and fishing sites and mining claims the Park had been created, and as such nobody hardly ever shot at him. As overseer of a team of seven, recently cut to five (just because d-2 tripled the size of the Park didn't mean the Parks Service had to assign any more rangers to it), he was responsible for twenty million acres of public land and for everything that took place on or near it, including homesteading, hunting, fishing, mining--and logging, Kate thought. And logging. "Dan," she said on a note of discovery.

Gulp. "What?" He drank down a glass of milk. "What happens if an area in Alaska gets declared public land?"

"National or state?"

"National."

"Park or forest?"

"What's the difference?"

"Plenty." He kept her waiting while he took another bite. "A park is a park, it's protected, as is, by the U.S. government. It's all about conservation, land, water, birds, animals, marine mammals. It takes an act of Congress to change its status. Like ANWR." He pronounced it the common way, An-war. "Which is a refuge, not a park, but it's still Interior. The oil companies been trying to get the Department of Interior and Congress to open the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling for years. If the RPetco Anchorage hadn't run aground on Bligh Reef, and if Bush had been elected to a second term, they might have pulled it off."

"How's a park different from a forest?"

"For one thing, a National Forest is administered by the Department of Agriculture, not by the Department of Interior." He waved a fork, splattering gravy over the table. "Oh. Sorry. National Forests are put to economic use under policies dictated by Congress. They are administered by the National Forest Service, a bureau of the Department of Agriculture, which has never been famous for an abiding interest in conservation. The Forests sell lumber and grazing rights. National Forests can also be developed for hydroelectric power, for irrigation, and for mining." "Hands off the Park," Kate suggested, "hands on the Forest?"

"Pretty much. There's a real history of land abuse in the Forest Service. They're in bed with the timber industry, for one thing, and if there's anything the timber industry likes it's short-term profits."

"Clear-cutting," Kate said.

The fork waved again. "Within limits, Kate. The timber companies contract with the Forest Service to log out certain areas, within certain limits."

"Such as?"

"Such as, lately, buffer zones around the creeks. Sixty six feet, on both sides. Nowadays, we know that it's not smart to log too near a creek because when you cut down the trees there the water is exposed to the sun, the sides of the creek erode, the water muddies up and the salmon can't find a decent stretch of gravel to bed down in and even if they could, the eggs wouldn't hatch in water that's too muddy or too warm."

He shrugged. "But any fish hawk would laugh like hell to hear me explain it this bad, Kate. You really want to know, you hunt yourself up a decent wildlife biologist or forest ranger. Probably a bunch of them right in this here building--" the fork pointed at the ceiling again

"--you want I should round up one for you?"

"Thanks, anyway," Kate said, "I'll make do with you." He grinned. "What do you hear about Iqaluk?"

Dan snorted, mouth full of cherry pie. "Don't even get me started. They been fighting over Iqaluk for twenty years, the feds and the statics and the Natives between them. They'll probably be fighting over it for the next twenty." He snorted again, the fork holding a goodly portion of cherry pie unloading itself in the process and splattering red across the table. "They'll probably strike oil on it next, and then the oil companies'll get in the act, and then some body'll discover gold up in the Raggeds and you'll have the United Mineworkers Association moving in." He scraped the saucer the pie used to be on and pointed at her with his fork loaded. She hoped it didn't go off again. "I'll tell you, Kate, it ain't easy being a ranger. Every time you turn around there's somebody else wanting to drill an exploration well or run a sluice box or plant goddamn potatoes in an experimental garden, and it's always an emergency, we're gonna run outta oil for gas or gold nuggets for watchbands or potato pancakes for the starving masses before the end of the year. Shit, Kate, I'm sorry to have to be the one to point this out, but there are always people starving somewhere! For sweet Christ's sake, why can't people just let a beautiful thing be?" It was more prayer than curse. She didn't answer and he said, "Kate? You there? Yoohoo?" She brought her attention back to him and produced a smile a little frayed around the edges as she got to her feet.

"Thanks for the coffee, Dan, and for the information. I've got an errand to run and it won't wait."

"Hold it," he said, "I'm in town for another three days, can we get together? La Mex for dinner, maybe?" He winked. "Gotta have my margarita while I'm town, and you know Chilkoot Charlie's is right across the street."

"Ah--" She found it difficult to think clearly. "You know Jack's phone number?" He nodded. "Give us a call this evening, we'll work something out."

Mutt, irritated at being left in the Blazer, didn't speak to Kate all the way to mid-town, but Kate was preoccupied and didn't notice she was being snubbed, which irritated Mutt all the more.

The Z.J. Loussac Public Library was right where Kate had left it three years before. She parked in her usual spot, the first row, although there were so many cars she was at the end farthest away from the library building. She had to open the door again for Mutt, then headed for the stairs, feet beating an impatient tattoo against pavement, Mutt's toenails ticky-tacking behind her.

A man holding a clipboard accosted her with a practiced smile.

"Excuse me, ma'am, are you a registered voter?"

She barely paused. "Don't tell me, let me guess, you want to move the capital."

"Yeah."

"I'll sign your petition if you can tell me how you're going to pay for the move."

He couldn't. There was no escape, though; there was another of the pests lying in wait for her at the top of the stairs. "Excuse me, ma'am, are you a registered voter?" "Don't tell me," Kate said, moving fast in a flanking maneuver, "let me guess, you want term limits."

"That's right, would you like to sign our petition?"

"We've already got term limits, they're called elections," and she scuttled past, safe through the gauntlet.

The library was one of half a dozen buildings foisted on an unsuspecting Anchorage public by a former mayor with more tax dollars at his disposal than sense, and who had kept a low profile in the community ever since, with good reason. This building, which gave the impression that it should be defended by drawbridge and portcullis, had been designed by an Outside architect who among other acts of inexcusable ignorance had hung two flights of steep stairs on the southern exterior of the building, evidently in hopes of killing library patrons as they slipped and slid their way up and down the icy stairs after the sun had melted the snow and temperatures had frozen it solid. Better than a drawbridge and a portcullis any day. Better even than a moat.

The subsequent mayor tried like hell to put the best face on a seriously bad situation, not to mention protect the municipality from legal attack by irate patrons with broken coccyges, by causing the stairs to be roped off in winter. When that didn't work, he allocated a large portion of the municipal budget for Icemelt and someone to apply it. Then the floor of the Sullivan Arena, another pet project of the aforesaid mayor, started to sink, and the roof of the Performing Arts Center, yet another public edifice of the same provenance, started to leak, and the current mayor said the hell with it and blamed everything on the former mayor and his sycophant assembly. It worked well enough to get him reelected.

Kate took the still mercifully ice-and snow-free steps two at a time, saluted the statue of William H. Seward doing his Fred Astaire impression, said "Stay" to Mutt and pushed through two sets of heavy glass doors. In revenge. Mutt squatted at the base of the statue, then flounced over to look mean at the few remaining Canadian geese in the park below, just to keep them on their toes.

It had been a long time since Kate had been in Loussac and as usual she got lost trying to find the Alaska Room. A research librarian took pity on her and directed her to the third floor, down a hallway that reminded her of the walkways connecting the modules housing oil field workers at Prudhoe Bay, and back down a different stairway. It was with no little sense of triumph that she emerged into a circular room furnished with solid wooden bookshelves stained a dark red. At matching reading tables a thin old man scowled at a newspaper and a harried college student--Kate recognized the beginning stages of a term paper--sat surrounded by a mountain of books, tapping at the keyboard of a laptop computer. A tall, fair man with a friendly smile and a comfortable belly sat behind another computer to the right of the door. "Hi, my name's Dan. Can I help you find something?" "Hi. Yes, thanks." She paused to collect her thoughts. What did she want? "A map," she said, inspired.

His eyes twinkled. "Of what?"

"The area east of the Kanuyaq delta," she said. "Ah, Iqaluk?"

"Topographical?" he said, coming around the desk and moving to a bank of file cabinets.

"Yee-es," Kate said doubtfully.

Dan paused with one hand on a drawer pull. "What specifically are you looking for?"

Kate gave a sudden, rueful smile. "I'm not really sure."

He smiled back, unalarmed. "What scale?"

"Ah, I guess I don't know that, either," she said uncertainly.

"Big enough to see Cordova to Yakutat?" She thought about it. "No," she said slowly, "that would be too big."

His hand dropped to another drawer. "Little enough to see sand bars in the river?"