Fire and ice (13 page)

Liam thanked her and hung up, and looked at the amount he'd written down on the yellow pad. Two thousand one hundred and seventy-three dollars and sixty-eight cents. The bank held no outstanding notes in Bob DeCreft's name. There had been no recent withdrawals of any substantial size, just the usual bill payments for heat, light, gas, groceries.

He turned on his computer, called up the modem, and tapped out a sequence that got him into the Department of Motor Vehicles. Bob DeCreft had had one vehicle registered in his name, a 1981 Ford four-wheel-drive pickup. No lien holder was listed, and he'd been up to date on his tags. No emissions test necessary, since he'd lived in the Bush.

The Division of Revenue listed one airplane in Bob DeCreft's name, a Piper Super Cub the state had valued at $35,000. DeCreft was current on the personal property taxes for the Cub, too. He'd had the usual collection of king salmon tags, duck hunting stamps, and moose hunting permits. He'd had his permanent fund dividend check direct-deposited to his bank account every October, and he'd been deemed eligible to receive the dividend every year since the first one was issued in 1981.

Liam disconnected the modem and got up from the computer. It was more than time to change into his uniform, but when he unpacked it, it was so hopelessly crumpled that it was unwearable. He rummaged around for a phone book and searched for a dry cleaner. There wasn't one listed in the entire town of Newenham.

"Well, hell." He closed the book and sat back to run his newest acquaintances through his mind. He knew firsthand Wy didn't own an iron. If you couldn't wash and wear it Wy didn't buy it. Moses seemed an unlikely candidate, about as unlikely as Bill. Maybe Jim Earl. He consulted the phone book again, and dialed the number for Newenham, City of. "An iron?" Jim Earl bellowed. "Jesus Christ, son, what in the ever-loving hell would I want with one of them things?" Liam thanked him and set the phone down in its receiver as gently as before. He looked at the uniform shirt and pants draped across the chair. He didn't even have a shower he could steam them in.

Which reminded him--he didn't have a place to live, either.

He found a copy of the Newenham News on the table holding up the coffeepot, not too far out of date, and turned to the real estate section. There was exactly one house for sale, none for rent, and no apartments for rent listed.

Looked like another night in the chair.

Since he couldn't yet don his uniform, and since the prospects for house-hunting looked slim, the only fallback was work.

He called up the report summaries on the computer and scrolled through the past month. As was usual in police work, the same names kept popping up over and over--a lot of Gumlickpuks, Macks, and Haines. In the past two weeks there were nineteen citations for herring fishing during a closed period, seven for fishing with unmarked gear, and one for sportfishing in a closed creek. These reports were signed by a Trooper C. Taylor, from which Liam deduced Trooper Taylor was his opposite number on the Fish and Wildlife Protection side of the Alaska Department of Public Safety. On his side, Corcoran had charged one man with felony third-degree assault, one man with felony second-degree burglary, and one man with importation of alcohol to a local option area, otherwise known as bootlegging, always a problem in dry Bush communities. One man had been charged with thirddegree criminal mischief and resisting arrest, which must have given Corcoran a thrill. There was the usual assortment of domestic violence, disorderly conduct, and DWI charges, and one of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor.

Liam had never understood the necessity of varying the degrees of sexual abuse with which an alleged suspect could be charged in assaulting a minor. Either someone old enough to know better forced sexual attention on someone too young to resist, or they didn't. The law was you didn't screw babies, and so far as Liam was concerned babies were babies until they were of legal age. He made a mental note of the perp's name for follow-up.

He ran out of reports, turned off the computer, and fetched the garbage bag holding the inventory of 78 Zulu. Clearing his desk, he began laying items out in rows.

There were the wrappings from a strawberry PopTart, a Snickers bar, and a package of MandMore's. A tiny wad of paper turned out to be a mangled Bazooka bubble gum wrapper, and after a moment's thought Liam identified the white square of thin cardboard as being part of the packaging of a Reese's peanut butter cup. It appeared that junk food went hand in hand with herring spotting. Liam could relate; it went hand in hand with stakeouts, too.

There were the two maps of Bristol Bay, one old and generously patched with Scotch tape, one comparatively new. There were the six Japanese glass floats, the broken walrus tusk, the survival kit, the two firestarter logs, the two parkas, the two pairs of Sorels, the Pepsi bottle full of pee, the clam shovel, the empty bucket, the three gloves, and the two handheld radios.

He didn't know much about radios. Again, he had recourse to the phone book, and was shortly dialing an 800 number for Sparky's Pilot Shop. He was mildly surprised and pleased when instead of being shunted into phone mail someone actually picked up.

"Sparky's Pilot Shop."

"Hi, this is Officer Liam Campbell of the Alaska State Troopers, calling from Newenham, Alaska. I'd like to talk to someone about radios."

"What kind of radios?"

Liam picked up one of the radios lying in front of him and examined it. "Battery-operated handheld radios. Uh, like walkie-talkies, you know?"

"What brand?"

"One says it's a King, the other says it's an Icom."

Amused, the voice said, "One moment, please."

Neither music nor Muzak was played at him while he waited, which made Liam think even better of Sparky's Pilot Shop.

Another voice, raspy and irascible, barked, "What?"

Liam went through his spiel.

"Whaddya wanta know?"

"Ah, um, well, first of all, do you know what kind of radios are used for herring spotting?"

"Scrambled marine VHF."

"Uh-huh. And I suppose the receiving radio would have a descrambler to translate incoming messages."

"You suppose correctly. What else you want, I'm busy."

Liam remembered the radio bolted to the dash. "Are spotters' radios usually handhelds?"

"No."

"Why would a spotter be carrying handhelds?"

"Backup for main radio breakdown, why do you think?"

"I wouldn't know, that's why I'm asking," Liam said. "How much do these radios sell for?"

"Six hundred apiece minimum for the good ones. What else?"

"Uh-huh," Liam said, dutifully scribbling this down. "Is there some way you can tell if you sold these particular radios, sir?"

"Gimme the serial numbers."

Liam did so.

"Gimme your phone number."

Liam complied.

"I'll get back to you."

Click.

For the third time Liam set the receiver down in its cradle. He looked down at the yellow legal pad. Six hundred apiece. Not chump change. And probably the one bolted to the dash, being bigger and fancier, would be even more pricey.

The yellow pad was the same one he'd written the Cub's inventory down on the day before, and he flipped idly back through the pages and read over the list, comparing it with the items on the desk.

He sat suddenly upright in his chair, went to the top of the list, and ticked off the items one by one, beginning to end, comparing the list with what was spread across his desk. He did it twice, because he didn't believe his eyes the first time.

When he was done he sat back in disbelief and gathering rage. "Son of a bitch," he said. "Son of a bitch."

SEVEN

It was almost one o'clock, and Bill's was riding out the lull between the draft beer crowd that came in for lunch and the evening party-hearty bunch. One man was asleep, head down in a front booth. Another man held a cold bottle of Rainier to the side of his face. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be praying. Four older women played Snerts at a corner table, slapping down cards and knocking back Coors Lights with equal enthusiasm.

Bill herself was taking the break as an opportunity for a little self-enrichment. "Did you know that the Ursuline Convent in New Orleans is the oldest building in North America?" she said to Liam.

"Uh, no, I didn't," Liam said.

"Of course, once the nuns built it up and made it nice the priests moved in and booted the nuns out," Bill said.

"Of course," Liam said obediently. The air was redolent of wonderful things deep-fried, and his stomach growled. Bill cocked an eyebrow. "Cheeseburger and fries do you?" She laughed at Liam's expression. "Pull up a stool," she said hospitably. She closed her book and went into the kitchen, and fifteen minutes later Liam was attacking a heaping plate. "Like to see a man enjoying his food," Bill said, gratified. Like any good hostess, she knew enough not to bother a hungry customer with conversation, and so retreated behind her book once more.

Liam mopped up the last of the salt on the plate with his last fry and let out a long, satisfied sigh. Taking this as a signal to resume their conversation where it had left off, Bill lowered her book and said, "Not bad, huh? Bet it's a while since you had a burger that dripped that much juice down your chin."

"You'd lose that bet," Liam said, swallowing. "I had one just as good yesterday." Bill bristled, and Liam held up one hand, palm out. "From here, Bill, takeout."

Still suspicious, Bill said, "Takeout? I don't do takeout."

"You don't?" Wy had told him she'd gotten the burgers at Bill's.

"Hell no. Too much trouble, and I hate those plastic containers--they take a million years to decompose, and we've fucked up the environment enough for one lifetime as it is. 'Course," she added, "you bring your own bag, I'll wrap your order up in tinfoil." She rubbed her chin and added meditatively, "Although I've been thinking about charging a fee for the tinfoil." She fixed him with a severe look. "Tinfoil ain't cheap."

Liam remembered the greasy brown paper shopping bag Wy had produced, and breathed again. If Wy was buying burgers at Bill's, she wasn't anywhere around when Bob DeCreft walked into the prop of the Cub. He wanted Wy's alibi to be ironclad, impenetrable, intact. More than that, he didn't want to think that she'd lied to him within minutes of seeing him for the first time in over two years.

Although everybody lied, he knew that. It was the first rule any cop learned on the job. And it would have been easy enough for Wy to cut the p-lead and leave Bob DeCreft to his fate. It was what someone had done, after all. Yes, Wy had had all the opportunity in the world, and since she did most of her own mechanical work, the means as well. And motive? No. He didn't, wouldn't, couldn't believe it. He said, "Bill, do you know Wy Chouinard?"

"Of course. Pilot. Nice gal. She's Moses'--" She paused. "She's one of Moses' students."

Liam wondered what she had been going to say. "Did she order a couple of burgers yesterday?"

She eyed him. "What is this, an interrogation? Yeah, she was in, ordered two cheeseburgers, two fries, two Cokes; she brought an NC shopping bag with her. We visited some over the bar while she waited. She told me there was still a chance Fish and Game was going to declare an opener so they were going back up, and I told her all about the Mystic Crewe of Barkis." She cocked an expectant eyebrow, but he didn't bite, and she sighed. "Anyway, that New Orleans sure is one hell of a party town. Christmas, Mardi Gras, Strawberry Festival, Jazz Fest. The Neville Brothers come from New Orleans, did you know that?"

"All I know about New Orleans is that in 1814 we took a little trip."

Bill wrinkled her nose. "Johnny Horton--good God. He ain't the Neville Brothers, I'll tell you that for nothing."

"Really?"

Bill's blue eyes narrowed. "You ever hear of the Neville Brothers?"

"No," Liam admitted.

Bill muttered something uncomplimentary under her breath and marched over to the jukebox, the very set of her shoulders indicating she was on a mission from Jelly Roll Morton his own self. A coin rolled into a slot and the sweet, sad strains of "Bird on a Wire" rolled out.

"Nice," Liam commented when the song was done.

Bill rolled her eyes and heaved an impatient sigh at his lack of enthusiasm. "Nice, the man says. Nice."

Liam liked classical music, its intricate melodies and rhythms, its careful crafting, its honest passion. Jenny had called him a throwback, displacing Beethoven for the B-52's on their stereo whenever he turned his back, and Wy--he pulled himself together. He hadn't come to Bill's for a walk down memory lane or a lesson in contemporary pop rock. He'd come for lunch and for information, in that order.

Short of a parish priest, who was bound to an inconvenient confidentiality by oath, a local bartender was more privy to more information on the native population than anyone else. Liam had cultivated bartenders in other towns, and had found them to be a source that never failed, and a much quicker route to the information he needed than going through more conventional channels. Not to mention the added advantage of Bill's position as magistrate. She'd know all the repeat offenders, would be able to fill him in where Corcoran hadn't. "Bill," he said, "what can you tell me about Bob DeCreft?"