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Authors: Don Porter

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BOOK: Deadly Detail
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I called Pizza Hut and ordered one large with everything to be delivered to bungalow number three at the River’s Edge.

When the minivan with the lighted Pizza Hut sign came down Boat Street, I stepped out and hailed him. If we’d been in a city, he would have suspected a hijacking and driven on by. In Fairbanks, he expected I had a problem and pulled over, so he was surprised when I hijacked him. I didn’t use the pistol though. I used a hundred-dollar bill.

“Look, buddy, my girlfriend is in that bungalow. Her husband is one mean son-of-a-bitch, will shoot me on sight, and both of us if he sees us together. Our job is to get her out so we can catch the evening jet to Vegas.” The driver was nodding. Truth is, that’s almost as classic an Alaskan story as the moose on the highway.

“What do I have to do? I ain’t getting shot for no hundred.”

“No danger. He’s watching for my car. Just stop in front of the bungalow, park as close as you can, and loan me your hat. I’ll make the delivery.”

“Okay, but if anything moves, I’m gone.”

“Right. Here’s a retainer to show good faith.” I tore the hundred in half and handed half to him. He took off his hat and passed it over while he turned into the River’s Edge driveway. He stopped the van almost on the step, solidly blocking the view from the car that was still lurking beside the road. I put on the cap, took the “Stay Hot” pizza box and marched up to ring the doorbell.

“Hey, Angie, it’s me. Open the door, then duck down and run to the van.”

The door opened and a black streak went under my left elbow. I waited long enough to be plausible, closed the door and got back in the van.

“Okay, we’re gone.” The driver liked that. He spun us around so fast I was afraid he’d arouse suspicion, but we made it to the road and turned toward town. The mysterious sedan was still parked. There were only two seats in the front of the van, so Angie was crouched down between us, and the driver seemed to approve of my choice. He let us out next to the rented Buick. I gave him the other half of the hundred and the thirty for the pizza, and handed back his hat. I steered Angie into the Buick and handed her the pizza, but popped the trunk and grabbed the shotgun before I got in.

Chapter Sixteen

I leaned the shotgun between the seats. Angie handed me a steaming hot slice of pizza on a napkin. She was halfway through one of her own. “Hey, this is pretty good and I was starving, but isn’t this the hard way to invite a girl out for dinner?”

She had a point. My stomach growled and I treated it to the tip of the pizza slice. I got anchovies, mushrooms and olives in one bite, and almost forgot the suspiciously parked car.

“Angie, remember your idea of shooting a few assassins every day before lunch? We missed this morning, so how about a couple during dinner?”

“You’re not kidding, are you?”

“I wish to heck I was.”

“You know, Alex, the most desirable and marriageable of all male attributes is being on time for dinner, but if you can’t manage that, a hot combination pizza is a good substitute. After that, a girl does like to be surprised, and you’ve got that one down pat.”

We drove back toward the River’s Edge but turned inland a block before we got there, drove a block past, and parked on the side street. I had finished my slice, and Angie was halfway through a second. She ripped hers in two, handed half to me. We got out of the car and closed the doors silently. I carried the shotgun at my side between us as inconspicuously as a twelve gauge with a thirty-inch barrel can be carried, and we strolled up Boat Street toward the back of the parked car. It was dark, no streetlights, so the car was a silhouette against the resort. No buzzing insects, just the occasional hum from a passing car two blocks away on Airport Road.

We walked quietly on the pavement, and I hoped that if we were noticed we’d be taken for a pair of young lovers out for a stroll. I leaned close to Angie and whispered.

“Angie, here’s the drill. The two guys in that sedan have been parked watching our bungalow for at least an hour. I’ll take the driver’s side, you take the other and you get the shotgun. We jerk their doors open at the same time and cover them, then see what happens next. If the door on your side is locked, blow the handle off with the shotgun, but I drove by earlier and they seemed to have their windows open. That’s good enough.”

Angie nodded, took the shotgun, and we split to walk up beside the car. The windows were open, engine running, heater blasting, and fifties music on the radio. I nodded over the car roof and we each jerked a door open. I had the pistol solidly in the driver’s face. “Hands on the wheel and do not move.” Angie had whacked the passenger in the temple with the shotgun barrel and he was shaking his head, trying not to black out, not sure at whom to look. “You, passenger, hands on the dash and stop breathing.” He obeyed instantly. Who wouldn’t? Angie was still pressing the gun barrel against his temple.

I spoke to the driver. “I’m the nervous type and my trigger finger itches. You move one eyebrow and this .357 will go through both of you.” I reached into his jacket, pulled a .45 automatic out of his shoulder holster and tossed it into the back seat.

“Okay, Angie, your turn. Yours is a lefty so the pistol is on his right side.”

“Say ahh,” Angie said.

The passenger did. She shoved the gun barrel into his mouth until it hit the back of his throat, kept her right hand on the trigger and used her left to open his jacket and extract his pistol. She followed my example and tossed the automatic into the back seat.

“Okay, Angie, I’ve got them covered. You get in back.” She pulled the barrel out of the poor guy’s mouth and left him gasping like a guppy. She climbed in but rested the barrel against the back of his neck. I slammed the front door but kept my pistol on the driver while I climbed in beside Angie and nudged the back of his skull with the barrel.

“Okay, very slowly, right hand only, put the car in gear. Now both hands on the wheel, drive straight ahead, and any bumps will probably cause an accidental shooting.”

I had the impression that these guys were pros, not terribly frightened or very surprised, and that was a good thing. They knew this was our turn and since we hadn’t shot them yet, they had a chance to survive if they did what they were told. Amateurs might have panicked and done something stupid, but our driver followed instructions, straight to the cop shop. Angie got out first, still pointing that ugly shotgun at the front seat. I made the suggestion and both men got out with hands on their heads.

Each with a gun barrel against his spine, they marched up the steps and into the vestibule. The desk sergeant recognized me, sighed at yet another interruption to his TV.

“We came to see Lieutenant Stella.”

“Right, he just came in.” The sergeant punched buttons on his phone and whispered to it. Jim Stella came out of the back room.

“Now what?” he asked.

“You wanted me to stop shooting assassins, so we brought these two in for you.”

“Preferring charges?”

“Well, we didn’t wait for them to shoot us, but they were carrying concealed weapons. Both are wearing shoulder holsters and their automatics are in the car outside. Is that enough to hold them?”

“Yeah, that’ll do it.” The driver still had his hands on top of his head. Stella clapped a cuff on his right wrist, jerked it down behind his back, then cuffed the left over the guy’s shoulder. “Pensguard?” Stella said. The desk sergeant jumped up, scooted around the desk, and cuffed Angie’s prisoner.

“Their automatics and luggage are in the back seat, so you probably want to impound their car, but we could use a ride back to our hotel. Maybe if you pound their toes with a hammer, we’ll find out who hired them?”

“Vee haff our vays,” Stella said, imitating a terrible German accent. “Pensguard, get them a ride.”

Pensguard ran back around his desk and punched buttons on the phone.

“We really are in a hurry,” Angie said. “Our pizza is getting cold.”

***

The toaster oven in our bungalow warmed the pizza two slices at a time. It wasn’t entirely successful because it also dried it out a bit, but it was okay in an emergency. Our mini-bar didn’t have Captain Morgan, but it had dark Myers. I wish I could describe the flavor of Myers. It puts me in mind of almonds, but that’s not right. Perfect for pizza in any case, and Angie seemed to agree.

Angie sampled her pizza, wrinkled her nose, but then dived in. “Lovely dinner, sir. Shall I find some candles?”

“Nah, candles are an asset for blonde bimbos, but with the stark reality of your flawless beauty, the more light the better. Do you suppose it’s time to move again? Mary Angela seems to have blown her cover.”

“Is there any point in moving? There are only so many hotels in Fairbanks, you know. Of course we could go back to the Maranatha.”

“We don’t have to stay in Fairbanks. The 310 can set us at the Circle Hot Springs Lodge in forty minutes and we could commute.”

“Could, but if we’re going to commute, we could move back to the house. With Turk on guard we won’t be murdered in our beds. I know, there’s only one way in and out, but I could ride shotgun, literally.”

“Well, there is one advantage to the house. The trick is to do something they won’t expect, and they certainly won’t expect that.”

Angie finished her slice and drained her glass. “Okay, it’s settled. Tomorrow morning, it’s back to the homestead. Let’s hit the sack, Alex. Something about ambushing gun-toting desperados takes the starch right out of me.”

“Bathroom after you, madam.”

“Thanks.” She took her little bundle of pajamas with her and closed the bathroom door. I turned on my reading light and snapped off the overhead. I’d kicked off my shoes and removed my shirt and tee shirt, but I didn’t feel good about getting into bed. The Chena was rushing past our window. It was a black snake with hints of foam and movement, but it was unconcerned. Were we safe for one more night? I felt the need to do something unexpected long before morning.

I bunched up the pillows in both our beds so there appeared to be bodies in them and snapped off the reading light. When Angie came out of the bathroom I put my finger to her lips in a shushing sign and caught her hand. We slipped out, barefoot and wearing nothing much, and padded across the grass to the next cabin. It wasn’t locked. We didn’t turn on lights, but I did lock the door from the inside, and we slipped into the beds.

Chapter Seventeen

It happened overnight. Jack Frost had etched the lower half of our window. He’d done a beautiful job with swirls and impressions of tropical jungles. If it had been colored, it would have looked like a New York subway car. Angie was bouncing on tiptoes, staring through the clear spot at the top.

“Better come have a look, author of my present predicament.”

I joined her at the window. She hadn’t bought pajamas for me so I’d been sleeping in my shorts, but fortunately this time I had included pants. The lawn was a white carpet of frost, the white Buick looked fuzzy, with no windows showing.

“Perfect,” I said. “All part of my plan. Notice we can see that there are no footprints leading to our bungalow?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s good, but we’re going to have to make some and we are barefoot.”

“Never fear, my lady. I, your self-sacrificing protector, shall brave the arctic and retrieve your shoes.”

“Damn, I hate that macho bullshit. Let’s go.” She opened the door and we tore across the lawn, leapt up the steps, and slammed the door of our bungalow. I stamped my bare feet and scuffed them on the carpet. Angie sat down on the bed and massaged hers. I brought a towel from the bathroom, knelt by the bed, and dried her feet.

“Thank you, kind sir. You do get me into some miserable situations, but you’re good at repairing the damage.”

The proprietor was as sorry to see us go as we were to leave. I did use my card to check out, since hidden identities seemed passé. They had cut back to one waitress, but pigs-in-a-blanket and ham-and-scrambled were as good as ever. The river looked black and sullen, not inviting, and the ice floes were white and constant.

An ice scraper that Avis had provided was in the glove compartment. I rehabilitated the windows. Roads were bare, but fall was no longer beautiful. Trees along the hot springs road looked shabby and dying. Leaves were brown, black branches showing through. Turk was glad to see us, but Angie managed to open her own door. I went around back to the generator shed and started the three-thousand-watt Onan diesel.

The furnace was spotless. Stan must have cleaned it in the spring, and it would have had only occasional use during the summer. The electric-controlled furnace required the generator, and they would have run that only in the evenings. I turned up the thermostat on the wall and the furnace came to life with a satisfying roar. Angie ran water into the kitchen sink until the pressure pump kicked on. Blessed heat poured out of the floor vents. The only frozen thing was Turk’s water pan. I fixed that with a stomp and a fresh pitcher.

“Planning to go to work today?” I asked.

“Well, one of us should do something constructive.”

I’d noticed that Turk’s plaster was no longer sitting on his scalp. It seemed to have raised up half an inch on new hair. “While you’re lollygagging around the water-cooler at Channel Two, I could take Turk back to the vet. Looks like time for a post-operative check-up.”

“Good. Leave the furnace on until you get back. Once the house is warm, it’ll stay that way until evening.”

I dropped Angie at the station, promised on my honor as an unreliable misanthrope that I’d pick her up at six forty-five outside the back door, and drove Turk to Creamer’s Dairy.

The vet removed the plaster by dissolving it with something. Turk had a puckered strip of skin across his scalp but the new fur was coming in fast. Huskys do that. His winter coat would stay ahead of the dropping temperature and when the time came, he’d be comfortable sleeping outside at fifty below.

The house was comfy. I shut down the furnace, then the generator, and told Turk to stay. He sat down and wagged his tail, brushing the gravel into scallops. I drove into town and found Lieutenant Stella at the cop shop. He invited me into his office. It was spare, clean, masculine, with a wooden desk, one extra chair, and one window showing black leaves outside. Mandatory pictures of the governor, commissioner, and chief hung behind the desk. Otherwise the walls were faded wallpaper from the nineteen fifties. He indicated a chair for me and sat behind his desk.

“Did we apprehend two on the FBI’s most wanted list?”

“Nope, far as I can tell, you accosted two innocent tourists who didn’t know Alaska’s gun laws. These guys are clean, have no priors. They arrived from Seattle yesterday, and have no idea about any plots or hits. They’re not quite sure what the term
hit
means.”

“You believe that?”

“Of course not, but that’s not the point. If we slap them with a fifty-dollar misdemeanor for concealed weapons, you and Angie will have to testify. Not worth the bother, maybe even dangerous. Want to explain to the judge why you were out walking with a shotgun in the night? By the way, why didn’t you tell me you’re a private investigator?”

“When’s the last time you cooperated with a PI?”

“You’ve got a point there.”

“Okay, so the two thugs are actually Christian missionaries in disguise. What can we do?”

“No, actually they were both discharged from the same Marine unit with your former victims, which is a bit much for coincidence. I’ll railroad them out of town for no visible means of support, but they can come back on the next jet if they want to. I’ll convince them that’s not a good idea, but the law is on their side.”

“That’s just dandy. Better luck with the fingerprints?”

“You batted your usual fifty percent. One glass was used by Reginald Parker, a regular Boy Scout. The only reason his prints are on file is his exemplary service as a Green Beret, honorable discharge, and decoration for valor. You do know he’s running for governor?”

“Yeah, I heard. And the other glass?”

“Wiped clean, nary a print nor a smudge. Alex, that glass could have just come out of a dishwasher. Care for coffee?”

I nodded, he punched buttons and spoke to his phone. The door opened and a pert young woman in patrolman uniform came in with two steaming cups. Apparently it’s good to be a lieutenant. She handed a cup to him, one to me, smiled at us, and departed.

“Could something have gone wrong in the lab?”

“Not a chance. Our print gal is the best. If she says the glass was clean, it was clean.” He sipped, so I matched him. For institutional coffee, it was good.

“Good coffee, thanks. So, where does that leave us?”

“Interesting question. Consider this, what kind of a guy wipes his glass clean after he’s just had a drink with a friend?”

“An obsessive compulsive?”

“Or one who is so paranoid he never leaves prints? Could be darn good reasons for that. Are you going to tell me who you suspected, or are you playing games?”

“No games, it’s just that I can’t explain a reason to suspect this guy. His name is Dave Marino, and he showed up three weeks ago to manage Reginald’s campaign for governor. I don’t suppose you can arrest him because I don’t like the expression in his eyes?”

“Probably not, and keep in mind, that’s not a good reason to shoot him, either. I’ll see what I can find. Want to bet a hundred bucks that the name isn’t phony?”

“No thanks.” We’d both finished our coffee and I stood.

“By the way, we moved back to the cabin in the woods this morning. We’ve tried sneaking around town and it didn’t seem to work. If we disappear, you can look for the bodies at the cabin.” I set the empty cup on his desk. He gave me a rueful nod that I did not take to be encouraging.

I stopped by Fairbanks Electronics, bought two motion sensors, a power supply, two five-hundred-foot rolls of zip-cord, and a bell like the one that had summoned me to grade school classes. Back at the house, I set the power supply and the bell in the spare bedroom, tied the ends of the rolls of wire to the bed frame and set them on the windowsill.

Outside, I just pulled the reels and let the wire lie on the ground beside the driveway. Two hundred feet reached to the road. I left one reel, turned toward town, and followed the road until the reel ran out. A sturdy birch limb made a good mount. I scrambled up, taped a motion sensor to the limb, focusing it on the road, and connected the wire. The other reel and the other motion sensor went an equal distance toward the hot springs.

I was setting us up for false alarms if a moose crossed the road, but anything that moved within five hundred feet of the drive in either direction was going to ring the bell. That made the house seem more like a fortress than a trap. A smart intruder might be able to neutralize Turk with a poisoned beefsteak or a silenced shot, and maybe I was being overly macho again, but with the pistol in my belt, and Angie backing me up with the shotgun, I figured we could handle an invasion, so long as we had some warning.

For no reason I could think of, I drove out to the airport and parked between hangars. The morning frost was gone, the sun trying to make up for it but with minimal success. The Skyvan was missing, Otter tied down. Reginald’s Mercedes and Celeste’s Miata were in the lot, Dave’s Cadillac was not.

The morning jet from Anchorage arrived, rocking the car and damaging eardrums when the pilots honked on the reverse thrusters to stop. It used three quarters of the runway before it turned around and screamed its way back to the passenger terminal. There’s a good reason why bush pilots refer to the Boeing 737 jet as Fat Albert. It doesn’t use the taxiways, taxis right down the middle of the runway to the far end, then shakes buildings and airplanes when it takes off.

It did occur to me that if I’d followed yesterday’s hunch and staked out the passenger terminal, I might have seen Dave meet the innocent tourists. That would have given substance to some unsubstantiated suspicions. I was debating with myself about making the same mistake two days in a row when the F-27 from Anchorage arrived on schedule and pallets were jockeyed back and forth, but none went into the Otter. The F-27 closed its door, the door of the freight shed slammed down, and the F-27 again used only one engine to sandblast the front of Interior Air.

I did keep an eye on the road, but Dave’s Cadillac didn’t come from the passenger terminal with a fresh wave of commandos. I was wasting time and getting half frantic. I needed a good idea, or at least a plan, and as usual, when I tried to think, nothing happened. I like to pretend that I get my share of good ideas, but they come when I’m driving or flying, or sometimes just sitting on the commode, not when I’m trying to focus and think.

The temperature had sneaked up well above freezing so it was a good time to do some housekeeping I’d neglected. The 310 needed the gas tanks topped off, oil checked, and winter covers over the engines, just in case the bottom dropped out of the thermometer. I strolled down the flight line to the 310. Bright green, hundred-octane gasoline poured out of the fuel tank drains and the fuel strainers on the engines, so there was no water in the system, but that is a danger when the temperature is flipping up and down. If the tanks aren’t topped off, air fills the space, and air has moisture in it. I checked the oil; both engines were down half a quart, very good for air-cooled engines.

I taxied the bird over to Sea Airmotive’s gas pumps, topped off tanks, and bought one quart of oil from the gas boy, who imagined himself in training to become a 747 pilot. He was as anxious to get on with his career as I was with mine. I added half the quart of oil to each engine, parked the plane, and dug the orange quilted cowling covers out of the baggage compartment. It wasn’t much, but I was doing something. No good ideas popped in when I stopped trying to think.

The Skyvan came home. Freddy climbed out and strolled into the office.

Reginald came out of the building at twelve fifteen, climbed into his Mercedes, but turned left toward the passenger terminal and coffee shop. He wasn’t meeting anyone because no planes had arrived in the last hour, so I let him have lunch in peace. Apparently the rest of the crew brown-bagged it because they didn’t come out.

Reginald returned at one-ten. The cars sat in the lot, and I guarded them. Persistence is the watchword for successful surveillance, so my afternoon must have been successful. Anyway, no one stole the cars. Reginald came out and drove toward town at six-oh-five. Celeste and Freddy came out and stood between their cars to banter for a minute, then Celeste headed for town in her Miata.

Freddy lounged beside his pickup and the brunette of the locked desk came out. What was her name? Muriel? Marlene? The crew from the freight shed dispersed, the brunette typist took thirty seconds to lock and shake the doors, and I was guarding an empty building. She strode to the lot, where she and Freddy glanced around and apparently decided the coast was clear. They locked into an embrace with kisses that made me blush before both slipped into Freddy’s pickup and headed for town. That put a new slant on Freddy, and I should be ashamed to say, added a whole new interest in the brunette.

I was Johnny-on-the-spot, parked behind the Lathrop Building at six-forty-five when Angie came out.

She glanced at her watch while she climbed in. “Amazing.”

“Yep, that’s me, thoroughly domesticated. How was your day?”

“Stinking. Your friend Dave Marino was in all afternoon trying to weasel the cheapest spots for Reginald. He had our top salesman crying, and the rest of us shagging availabilities.”

“Where would you like to have dinner?”

“Supposing, just for a change, I cook something?”

“Darn, I have this image of you as a high-powered executive. Don’t make me change to a household drudge.”

“Well, you could think of me as an executive chef. I can whip up a world-class beef stroganoff in twenty minutes. You can flirt with me instead of trying to make out with every waitress we’ve had.”

We hit the grocery store. Angie knew what she wanted. I just hovered, but there is something intimate about buying groceries together. It’s kind of a grown-up version of playing house. I asserted my macho ego and paid the tab, but it was interesting because everyone must have assumed we were married. Connie and I have done a lot of things together, but I couldn’t remember ever shopping for groceries. Maybe we should try that. I tried to picture grocery shopping with Celeste and got nowhere.

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