The Woman Who Married a Bear (10 page)

I lunged forward and brought my left hand around the barrel and my right down toward the hammer. I stretched the web of my right hand, the flesh between my thumb and index finger, and wedged it under the hammer just as Emanuel pulled the trigger. The hammer snapped down and pierced the skin.

I kneed him in the testicles. There was a long phlegm-choked gasp, and then some gagging.

My hand was bleeding a little and I freed my skin from the gun. I opened the cylinder and ejected all the rounds onto the floor.

He started to move in a crouch toward the stairs and I brought the handle down on the top of his head. One of the walnut grips split off and fell over the edge of the staircase landing.

It's a lot harder to knock a man unconscious than most people think. And it's kind of a spooky thing to nudge a person that close to death or permanent brain damage. But I tapped him twice. His body went limp. I picked up his hand and grabbed him by his hair and dragged him to the door of my room.

I fumbled with my key, pushed the door open, and dragged Emanuel in. Tightly wedged between the plywood wardrobe and the foot of the bed, his head came to rest next to the radiator, which was banging and rattling as if someone in the basement were sending a frantic message.

I tried to fill an ice bucket from the stove-sink-refrigerator unit and got about a cup of rusty water. I threw it on his face anyway. He didn't move but his eyelids fluttered. I squatted above his chest and put my face very near his nose.

“I'm going to listen very carefully to your explanation of who paid you to kill me. Then I'm going to decide whether I need to kill you or not.”

“It's the truth, man. I don't know. Hey, I was only going to scare you, you know?”

“Where's the money?”

He pointed to his inside jacket pocket. Then his hand shifted down his leg. I jerked the knife out of his boot. It had an eight-inch black blade. Electrician's tape was wrapped around the tang for a handle. I pressed it against his throat. His pulse fluttered through his skin at the edge of the blade. I reached in his jacket and pulled out an envelope that held a fat stack of one hundred dollar bills.

“No one gave you this much money to scare me. You have several serious problems, Emanuel, and credibility is not the least of them. Now, who hired you? Think about it. It's important and it has a bearing on your future.”

The skin broke under the blade of his knife. A thin line of blood trickled down his neck.

“I swear to God, man, I don't know.” His eyes were glazed, his head was shaking slightly, back and forth.

I patted him gently on the shoulder, then I took the knife from his throat and threw it in the sink. Coercion never works in real life like it does on TV.

“I believe you, Emanuel. I really do. But I can't have you following me around.”

I put the envelope of money in my back pocket and I swung the butt of the pistol across his forehead. He moaned and lay back.

He kept moaning and his eyes kept fluttering like aspen leaves as I dragged his body parallel to the window and the bed. Now his feet were even with the edge of the radiator. What I wanted to do was set both legs up on the radiator pipe, wedging them firmly between the pipe and the wall. With his torso flat on the floor—head rocking back and forth, moaning—I could stand up on the bed, bounce twice on the mattress, vault forward and land just above his knees. I imagined that they would support me briefly, then snap like pieces of kindling.

But I didn't. Even if Emanuel was a scumbag who was trying to kill me, I kind of liked him. So I stuck his gun in the top of his pants and threw him down the stairs.

EIGHT

WHENTHE POLICE
arrived and found him on the second-floor landing, they arrested him on the spot, knowing, of course, that he was a criminal. Their investigation would fill in the details. They'd ask a few questions, and Emanuel might talk, but not about me. He had been half-smart shooting his mouth off in the bar about a contract killing, because it would look improbable, he hoped, that he would be the one to actually do it. But now if he accused me of assaulting him it would look, I hoped, as if he
had
taken the money for the killing.

It wasn't worth worrying about at this point. In the morning I paid my bill in cash and walked up to a French bakery for a croissant and an espresso. I read
The New York Times Book Review.
If I looked at the reviews and maybe the jacket covers I could fake having read the latest trendy books. That kind of thing helped in Juneau but it didn't matter much in Sitka. So I just scanned the poetry section to see if Wendell Berry had anything new and then tried to figure out if the waitress was really speaking French. She finally let me make some phone calls on her private line. Merci.

There is a woman at the phone company business office who does favors for me. Although she doesn't like to see me in the flesh, she is friendly over the phone. Her husband was arrested after he had admitted to his psychologist that he had had sex with the fifteen-year-old daughter of his business partner. I worked on his case and had helped keep him from going to prison by establishing that he was also having sex with the psychologist. They couldn't pay me enough, but they were grateful and would do things to help, as long as we didn't have to be seen together.

When I called her at the office, I gave a false name to the receptionist. Her voice was singsong when she came on the line. “How can I help you, Dr. Face?” But it changed when she recognized my voice.

I gave her a list of names and dates and asked her to find the phone records for me. She agreed and hung up without asking how I'd been since she'd last seen me.

I called another friend out at the airport. I'd met her working on a custody/kidnapping case and we had talked about having an intimate platonic relationship and ended up with an empty-headed sexual one. This time I used my real name. Her voice brightened when she recognized mine. I gave her a list of travel records that I needed and told her that a woman from the phone company would be dropping off an envelope at her office. Most likely, the courier would be wearing a hat, trench coat, and dark glasses but she shouldn't let that worry her.

Then she helped me with my travel plans to Stellar. Nonsmoking. Bulkhead. Aisle. I promised her dinner, a movie, and an uncomplicated evening of sexual intimacy. She said that would be nice as long as her fiance' could pick out the movie. I agreed.

I walked down a winding street past the governor's mansion with its stately columns and totem pole. I needed to get to the bottom of the hill. Instead of walking down the stairs built into the hillside, I took the elevator in the state office building. In the elevator were three men and two women talking politics and carrying cloth briefcases. They were all dressed in expensive clothes: rough wool, brass zippers, and nylon overcoats. There was one guy in coveralls with rubber boots, scabs on his knuckles, and a long smear of grease across his chin. He was carrying papers in his hand and watching the numbers flash by above the door with an expression of panic. It's common to lose ground level in the state office building.

Some old-time Juneau residents like to complain about the Yuppies in town, the hordes of young lawyers and MBAs who have brought the taste of Seattle or San Francisco to this relatively young mining town. There are, of course, the fern bars and the espresso shops and the food carts that sell anything from lox and bagels to halibut enchiladas. It's true, it's not the same town. But it's enough the same; only the food is better and the women are better looking.

Sy's receptionist had a large manila envelope ready for me at her desk. As she handed it over the counter she apologized: Mr. Brown was unable to see me this morning because he had a court appearance. I saw his Burberry on the oak coatrack and I heard his laugh in the back office.

I had a couple of hours to kill before my appointment with Emma Victor. I bought a raisin and cinnamon bagel from a woman standing beside a cart on Franklin Street. She had huge frame glasses like Elvis Costello's and she was learning to play the mandolin. As I licked cream cheese off my fingers I listened to several butchered versions of “A Sailor's Hornpipe” done in swing time.

The sun was out and when I looked straight up at the tallest buildings in town I could see the waterfalls and the yellowing tufts of grass on the bluffs behind them. It was a beautiful morning, and the landscape seemed to press in and make Juneau seem like a smaller, less sophisticated town than it really was.

I was beginning to feel kind of out of sorts about what I had done to Emanuel. So I went over to the law library in the courthouse, sat at a desk in the corner, and copied down the serial numbers of the five grand. Then I took a cab to the hospital and left an envelope with $2,500 and a get-well note in it. He probably deserved half of it for
trying
to kill me, and it left me $2,500 for cab fares.

It was a twenty-two-mile drive out to Tee Harbor, past the mouth of the glacier and around the twisting corners of the coastal road. The driver wasn't excited at first about the prospect of deadheading all the way back until he looked in his schedule and saw there was a ferry in soon at Auke Bay and he might be able to pick up a fare there. An extra twenty gave him some added motivation.

There was a long flight of steps down to the water off the edge of the road. The house was built on pilings over the tidelands. A gangway led to a log dock. A sixty-foot trawler-style cruiser was moored to the dock and beside it was tied a single-engine floatplane. The house had been built of cedar lumber that had grayed with age. It was built back into the hillside with a low profile to the wind. From the water, the house would blend evenly into the forest. The front door was made of two hand-hewn cedar planks. The door knocker was a brass doe's head. When I used it I heard a woman's voice from behind the door call, “It's open!”

Emma Victor was sitting on a round of firewood next to a picture window looking out over the harbor. She had been cleaning a fishing reel and was holding a can of light oil and a clean cotton rag. She wore a blue sweater and her red hair was pulled back in a bun. Her skin was fine white, like old manuscript paper, and her eyes were silty green.

“There're sea lions working some herring out there.” She pointed and her hand was steady. I could imagine her holding a fly rod perfectly still.

Out past the point of her deck the sea lions slid through the water in slippery loops, barely disturbing the surface as they appeared, crunching silvery fish in their jaws. An eagle sat on the top of the piling that held the dock in place. It watched the water by the sea lions and ruffled its feathers slightly.

“They've got to eat, might as well be the herring. I don't imagine the herring feel that good about it. But at least they don't dwell on it. Or do you think they do, Mr. Younger?”

“I imagine it's a very short surprise for them.”

At her feet was an enormous brown bear rug. The head was mounted with small eyes that seemed like tiny, close-set punctures in the massive skull. There was a plastic tongue curled behind the snarling teeth. The snout was square and as large as a loaf of bread. The taxidermist had wrinkled it slightly to enhance the snarl but he could do nothing about the small lifeless eyes.

“Are you a hunter, Mr. Younger?”

“Not a very good one. But I go out sometimes.”

“Uh-huh.” And she smiled at me as if I had just failed some important litmus test.

“Well, Louis was a very good hunter. You know, I came from San Francisco. I saw many glamorous things when I was growing up. San Francisco was so beautiful when I was young. Some of the hills were bare and wild like they still are here. The air was sweet and even mysterious. I thought I could never be human in any other place. My family took a trip to Alaska and I met Louis. I fell in love with him, and I spent that first winter with him. My brothers thought that I went off to college, but I came back here. Back then Louis and I did everything together. I don't know if you ever had the experience, Mr. Younger, of a love that just lifts you up off your feet and keeps you there?”

I shook my head but she was staring out to the bay. She turned slightly away from me.

“I remember once we were walking his trap line up north and the weather turned bad. It was dark and he didn't want to take the risk of the long trip back to the cabin. I was cold and tired and I didn't know what I was doing out God knows where. Then he found a hollow where the wind had blown around a stump and we took off our snowshoes and burrowed into the open pocket under the snow. When we crawled in, it was quiet and completely dark. Louis lit a single candle, and oh my….”

She looked back into the room and she worked her hands in front of her eyes slowly as if she were actually touching her vision.

“It was a cathedral, encrusted with diamonds. The snow sparkled so magnificently. The air was still and the wind was very faint out above the snow. I curled into his arms. We made love for the first time in that snow cave, Mr. Younger.”

She looked straight toward me, focused on the past but aware of the effect of being blunt.

“We made love, and our breath formed a thick crust on the snow. Then we slept the most beautiful, peaceful sleep. When I woke up I never thought of San Francisco as my home again, and I gave my life to Louis.”

She came back from her memory and stared at me across the room.

“Do you think it's healthy to dwell on a death, Mr. Younger?”

“I suppose it depends on whose death and why you have to dwell on it.”

“My husband took this bear.” She kicked the rug with her toe, hitting the bear on one of its canines. “It was the same year that we were married, out near Mole Harbor on Admiralty Island. Walt Robbins was with him. The bear almost mauled Louis. In fact, it scratched his rifle. Something like that never frightened Louis. He was very young then, and very funny.”

There was a picture of Louis Victor above her fireplace. He was standing hip deep in the white water of a northern river, reeling in a king salmon that was dancing with its tail on the surface of the water as if at the photographer's request. Louis's forearms were dark and muscled. He was gritting his teeth.

“It does not surprise me that my mother-in-law would hire you. It does not surprise me and it does not amuse me. What is it that she thinks you can find?”

I sat on the couch facing her and the open stretch of water beyond her window. “She wants me to find the whole truth.”

“You're not an Indian, are you, Mr. Younger? Do you understand anything about Indian people?”

“I know enough to know … that I know very little. I know enough to know that a person can't make assumptions.”

“Which is more than most people know. But how do you expect to find the whole truth for this old Indian woman when you don't know what the whole truth would feel like to her?”

“I probably will never know what the whole truth feels like. But I'm a curious guy, and I have only one choice and that is to keep going forward and asking questions. When people evade my questions, I know that something is being hidden from me, and I keep pressing. When people seem to tell me everything and nothing appears to be hidden, then I stop looking. For me, that seems to be the truth. But when someone
tries
to stop me, then I have to keep looking.”

The eagle slid from the piling into the air as if riding down the face of an invisible wave and plucked a shiny fish from the water. Its wing beats were labored as it flew away with its catch.

“Well, let me ask you a question then, and see if you evade me. What are you charging her?”

“What?”

“I've done some checking on you, Mr. Younger. You come from a good family. Your father was the Judge, wasn't he?”

I nodded.

“He seemed like an honest man. He wouldn't have taught you to exploit an old woman for her money.”

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Victor, but any arrangement between me and my client is confidential.”

She looked out the window and smiled.

“Professionally said, Mr. Younger. Don't misunderstand me. My mother-in-law was an intelligent woman in her day but now she's old and—you know.” She tapped her fore-finger against her temple. “She's not as sharp as she once was. And old people often fall victim to the money-making schemes of others. The nurses at the home tell me what goes on with my mother-in-law so that I can protect her. I telephoned you from here the other night as soon as I heard she was thinking of hiring you.”

“She called me and asked me to help her. My rates are fair.” My stomach sank as I said these last words and I hoped that my teeth were not clenched. “Do you want me not to work on this case for some reason of your own?”

“Listen to me, young man.” Her voice was thick, yet hissing. Her eyes seemed darker and closer together. “My husband is dead, and the man who killed him is in prison. What good, besides to your pocketbook, will this investigation do? Our family has been destroyed. Our privacy has been violated time after time and our lives are in ruins. We are the
victims,
for God's sake! That man in prison is sitting in his room just down the road doing … doing handicrafts and watching television. He doesn't have a tenth of the sorrows we have. You want to do something useful? Do something to him. Make him feel something close—even close—to what we feel.”

She was not crying but was looking at me steadily.

“He should not be alive. He should not be alive to talk or to laugh or to eat good food. He should not have any small pleasures as long as we have to suffer. For years we've suffered, and other women have suffered in the same way. We're being made fools of by the law. The family—the family is the only thing worth dying for and, Mr. Younger …” She pointed a steady index finger at my nose. “If it's worth dying for, it's worth killing for.”