Midnight Sun (88 page)

Brassert
finally
stopped
his
thrashing
and
sagged
into
a
lifeless
heap
on
the
floor
beside
Lonnie,
trapping
her
leg
beneath
his
dead
weight.
Sirens
shrieked
closer
as
the
police
responded
to
the
shots
and
911
calls
of
people
who
saw
the
accident.

Someone
opened
the
doors
to
the
van.
Lonnie
could
not
raise
herself
to
see
who
was
there.
Then
she
heard
the
shouts
of
police
officers
,
and
the
shadow
of
the
person
backed
away
,
raising
their
hands.
She
heard voices but
could
not
make
out
any
thing
being
said.
After
what
simultaneously
seemed
like
both
an
instant
and
an
eternity
,
a
paramedic
climbed
partway
into
the
van.
He
saw
Lonnie
and
the
mess
that
had
been
Leonard
Brassert
and
recoiled
in
shock.
Another
paramedic
joined
the
first
and
they
helped
Lonnie
out,
leading
her
to
a
waiting
ambulance.
They
spoke
to
her
,
but she
stared at them in dull confusion,
her brain unable to
process
the
words.
She
thought
she
may have answered
,
but
was
not
certain
she
actually
said
anything
or
whether
they
replied.
Numb
and
trembling
,
she
turned
back
toward
the
van
and
saw
Brassert
’
s
nameless
companion
sitting
upright,
eyes gaping, staring out the windshield,
his eyes frozen in a shocked expression above the
knife
buried
to
its
hilt
in
his
open
mouth,
pinning
him
to
the
seat
back.

Chapter
18

Goldenview
Drive

South
Anchorage

2:00
p.m.

Marcus
’
s
F250
rolled
smoothly
over
the
recently
paved
surface
of
Goldenview
Drive.
He
recalled
the
time
years
earlier
when
,
as
a
teen
competing
in
track
meets
at
S
outh
Anchorage
’
s
Service
High
School
,
he
drove
through
the
Goldenview
area.
At
that
time
,
it
was
little
more
than
a
dirt
track
with
a
handful
of
remote
homesteads
,
much
like
his
own
hometown
of
Salt
Jacket.
Salt
Jacket
had
a
current
population
of
eight
hundred
inhabiting
an
area
of
nearly
fifteen
hundred
square
miles
. A
third
of
those
residents
still
were
not
connected
to
full
-
time
power,
telephones
,
and
running
water.
Goldenview
,
on
the
other
hand
,
was
a
very
different
story.
The
descendants
of
the
original
mountainside
inhabitants
had
mostly
sold
out
their
two
-
hundred
-
acre
homesteads
in
the
nineties
and
early
years
of
the
current
century,
pocketing
millions
in
the
housing
boom.

In
place
of
lush
sub-arctic
rain
forest
vegetable
farms
and
horse
ranches,
million
-
dollar
mansions
had
sprung
up,
stacked
almost
literally
on
top
of
each
other
on
plots
barely
larger
than
the
six
-
to
-
ten
thousand
square
foot
living
spaces
custom
designed
for
Alaska
’
s
rich
and
famous.
Every
massive
home
had
an
impressive
view
of
the
upper
limits
of
the
Pacific
Ocean,
Mount
Illiamna,
Turnagain
Arm,
the
Anchorage
Bowl,
and
the
roof
of
the
house
below
them.
Marcus
despised
the
design
that
comprised
the
“
Upper
Hillside
”
gated
communities
along
much
of
Goldenview
Drive
, what he often termed “Beverly Hills AK
.
”