Restless in the Grave (7 page)

Failing that, Moses Alakuyak could always see fit to prophesy on your ass if you gave his girlfriend, Bill, any trouble.

The Bay View Inn, Newenham’s only hotel, passed on his right, across the street from city hall. Alta Peterson, the hotel’s owner, looked up from breaking ice from the patch of asphalt in front of the door and waved. Sometimes he wondered if the woman ever slept.

Boat harbor, harbormaster’s office, bulk store slash Costco wannabe, a bunch of chandler’s stores, a four-space strip mall with a Subway holding down one end and apartments above, the Newenham Telephone Cooperative, the Newenham Electrical Association, a stubby set of town houses with a river view. He turned right and went up a hill, past some old clapboard houses with snow hiding collections of leftover lumber and fifty-five-gallon drums—no one in Bush Alaska ever threw anything away—and around a corner and pulled up in front of the trooper post. It was a small building with one office and two temporary holding cells. The impound lot behind, surrounded by a twelve-foot chain-link fence, was twice the size of the building and currently corralled a posthole digger belonging to Crawdad Homes, who on one of his semiannual benders had seen fit to take it for a joyride up the road to Icky. That would have been fine with Liam if Crawdad had managed to keep it on the right side of the road, and out of Elias Anayuk’s living room.

Crawdad was now enjoying the hospitality of the Pre-Trial Correction Facility in Anchorage, where he would be smart to stay for as long as possible, given Sally Homes’s sworn oath to yank his liver out through his mouth when he got home.

He got out and was greeted by a soft croaking. He looked up and found the raven on a branch near the top of a tall spruce, peering down at him with the same beady black eye.

“What now?” he said, and his voice wasn’t friendly.

It croaked and clicked at him again.

“You forget,” Liam said, “I don’t speak raven.”

The raven clicked some more.

He waved a dismissive and probably foolhardy hand and said, “Yeah, yeah,” and went inside, closing the door firmly behind him.

He slung jacket and cap on the coatrack and put his sidearm in a drawer, and sat down to fire up his computer with no little dread. Dispatch called him directly for emergencies, which he actually preferred to the picayune reports that would have stacked up overnight online. The Newenham City Council, like every other city council in the state and the nation, was in a perpetual knot over finances, and filling the vacant positions at NPD had dragged out over two years. Dispatch worked out of one dingy little room in the city hall basement and triaged 911 calls before they got to his cell phone, but that didn’t mean they didn’t all eventually wind up in his in-box, requiring some response on the part of what remained of law and order in Newenham.

Maybe the next time he got a call to respond to a domestic dispute in Delinquentville, he should just roll over, put his arm around his wife, and go back to sleep.

Yeah. That’d happen.

The door opened, and he looked up to behold Jo Dunaway. “And this started out to be such a good day,” he said.

“Great to see you, too, Liam.” she said. She came in and draped herself decoratively across a chair in front of his desk.

A thirty-something zaftig blonde with short corkscrew curls and sharp green eyes, Jo was a reporter for the
Anchorage News,
the state’s newspaper of record. Normally that would be more than enough for him to escort her right back out his door and look not upon the order of her going.

Normally didn’t include Jo being his wife’s college roommate and lifelong best friend. He bared his teeth. “Great to see you, Jo. How soon will you be leaving us?”

She bared her teeth right back, and they were sharper than his. “Gary sends his love.”

Gary being her brother, an Anchorage building contractor who had something of a history with Liam’s wife. Liam felt, not for the first time, that the world was a little too tolerant of the amount of Dunaways in it. “What can I not do for you, Jo?”

She slid fully into her chair and made an elaborate pretense of getting out her reporter’s notebook, heaving a dramatic sigh, and putting it back in her pocket. “Remember Wes Hardin?”

He looked and indeed, felt, blank.

Jo elaborated. “John Neville Hardin, nicknamed Wes? After the famous Wild West gunfighter?”

“The name rings a bell,” he said cautiously.

“It should.” From between the pages of her notebook she pulled a piece of paper folded into quarters and handed it to him.

It was a printout of an obituary from the
Anchorage News.
“Coastie, State Legislator, Businessman, Philanthropist,” Liam read out loud. “John Neville ‘Wes’ Hardin, a hundred and three, died December twenty-sixth, at the Pioneer Home in Anchorage.” He looked up. “So?”

“Keep reading,” she said.

A celebration of his life will be held at 2 P.M. Saturday at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium on the University of Alaska–Anchorage campus. The public is invited to attend. He will be interred in Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery in a private ceremony in the spring.

Born and raised in Westchester, Connecticut, and a graduate in engineering of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Wes served 20 years in the U.S. Coast Guard, half of it under way. He rotated ashore for the last time into the job of harbormaster in Juneau, where he was instrumental in the smooth integration of the cruise industry into Southeast Alaska. At the age of 65, he formed his own cruise line, Hardin Cruises, with a fleet of small ships that eventually numbered 10, specializing in luxury cruises with an ecotourism theme. At 70, he sold the line and ran for the state legislature on the Republican ticket, where he served Southeast Alaska for 10 terms. He never won by less than a landslide.

At the age of 90, he retired from the legislature to start By Your Bootstraps, a nonprofit organization to fund microbusiness start-ups in Alaska employing less than five people and generating less than $300,000 in revenue. Within five years, By Your Bootstraps had awarded grants to over 100 small businesses, and as of the end of the last fiscal year, 76 of those businesses had moved into self-sustaining profitability. For this he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the first Alaskan to be so honored.

Among many other things, over the years Wes endowed the Hardin Chair of Engineering at the University of Alaska–Fairbanks, and founded the John and Geraldine Hardin Cancer Wing at Gastineau Hospital in Juneau, the Geraldine Reid Haven House in Ketchikan and the Geraldine Reid Girl Scouts Jamboree Center in Sitka. He was a past president of Rotary Club Alaska, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Alaska and the Alaska Chamber of Commerce. He was the recipient of honorary PhDs from the University of Alaska and Alaska Pacific University. He and Geraldine leave behind a combined estate valued at over $500 million.

Wes was preceded in death by his wife of 60 years, Geraldine Reid Hardin, daughter of historic stampeders Elvira and Edward Reid, and by his son, John Reid Hardin, who died in combat in Vietnam. He is survived by his granddaughter, Alexandra.

He looked up again. “Okay. All-around Alaskan powerhouse and do-gooder dies after a long and useful life. Figure his name was familiar to me in the same way it probably would be to anyone alive and breathing in the state of Alaska during the last century. Can’t say I ever met him personally. I don’t remember arresting him for anything.”

Her green eyes narrowed on his face in a way he particularly disliked, mostly because he was afraid she could see right through to his brain to read what was sparking between his synapses. “His name hasn’t come up in conjunction with any investigations you can’t comment on at this time?”

His eyebrows snapped together. “No.”

“How about his daughter’s name? Ring any bells?”

He looked down at the obituary. “Alexandra? No.”

“Hardin left a lot of money behind,” Jo said. “Settled in a trust for his daughter, Alexandra.”

“So far, I can see no reason to rush out and cuff and stuff anybody.”

She gave him a sweet smile. “A lot of Alexandra’s money has gone missing.”

Her words sank in, and his heart sank.

Jo Dunaway was a first-class snoop, with a string of awards to her credit, one of them for a recent story in which he had had a prominent role. Since a certain ex-governor had turned Alaska into must-see TV, Jo had also become a regular talking head on various news channels. If Jo was following money to Newenham, it was all too depressingly certain that there was money here to be found.

When he didn’t say anything, she sat up and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, green eyes intent on Liam’s face, alert to any change of expression. “Alexandra suffers from early-onset Alzheimer’s. She requires twenty-four-hour care. Her affairs, including the counting of something on the order of five hundred million dollars in cash, securities, and real property, rest in the irreproachable hands of Chapados, Reid, Reid, McGillivray, and Thrall.” She waited, and when he didn’t say anything, continued. “Which, you may remember, is also the law firm of the estate of the late, unlamented Dagfin Arneson ‘Finn’ Grant.”

He remembered. Hugh Reid had sprouted on the scene within twenty-four hours of Finn Grant’s death, and appeared to enjoy the full confidence of Finn’s wife and family. His heart sank further but he maintained what he hoped was a neutral and impenetrable expression. “And?”

“And,” she said, her eyes narrowing again, “there have been rumors filtering north that Finn Grant may have been the victim of foul play.” She stood up and glared at him. “There have also been rumors of possible suspects. Your wife being one of them!”

As adversarial as their relationship was, both professional and personal, the one unquestionably laudable thing about Jo Dunaway’s character Liam knew for certain was that she was absolutely, unswervingly loyal to Wy Chouinard, college roommate and in-everything-but-blood sister. So this trip to Newenham was personal for her, which only increased the pressure on the professional him.

Not to mention the potential nest of snakes it opened up in regards to Finn Grant’s possible murder.

When he did not respond, she said, “Well?”

“I have no comment at this time,” he said.

“Is there an ongoing investigation into Finn Grant’s death?”

“I have no comment at this time,” he said.

“Is there any reason to suspect that his death was caused by anything other than mechanical error?”

“I have no comment at this time,” he said.

“Sure you don’t,” she said. “I’m staying on for a few days. Oh, don’t worry”—a sardonic note when she saw his expression—“I won’t be crowding the newlyweds, I’ve got a room at Alta’s.” Again with the smile so sweet, it made his teeth hurt. “Burgers and brew at Bill’s tonight, though. I already checked with Wy.”

He was on his feet before she got a step closer to the door. “Jo,” he said, his voice coming out like the crack of a whip.

She had backbone, did Jo Dunaway. She didn’t jump or respond in any way until she got a hand on the doorknob. Just by way of reinforcing the First Amendment. “Yeah?”

His eyes bored into her. “If you have any information germane to an ongoing investigation, you have a duty to be forthcoming with that information.”

She shook her blond corkscrew curls back from her face and said in a gentle voice, “But according to you, Liam, there is no ongoing investigation. Or not one you can comment on at this time.”

He waited for the door to close behind her and put his head down on his desk. “Fuck,” he said with deep and sincere feeling.

He wondered how best he could impart this latest wrinkle in the maybe-murder of Finn Grant to Kate Shugak, and if, faced with another couple of hundred suspects, she might not rightfully be expected to turn tail and head back for Niniltna as fast as she could run.

He raised his head and reached for the phone to call the boss. If there were any rumors floating around about this non-case, he might as well be the last one to hear them.

Seven

JANUARY 18

Chinook Airport, twenty-five miles south of Newenham

The hangar was painted white with green trim and boasted the name
Eagle Air
in large, dashing script with an attendant, requisitely fierce eagle logo, wings spread, beak open, talons extended. It filled up the entire hangar door.

“Looks big enough for a 747,” Kate said, meaning the hangar.

“Plus three single Otters and four Caravans. All three Otters are turbo, too.”

“Pilot envy,” Kate said.

The pilot smiled. “Maybe a little. Makes ’em go faster, all right, but the downside is they need a lot more space to land and take off in.”

“Leaves the shorter strips for you.”

“True enough. I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on one of their Caravans, though. Be great for moving the mail, especially at Christmas. You know what Christmas is like for mail to the Bush.”

Kate nodded. She knew.

Wyanet Chouinard was half a foot taller than Kate, with brown eyes wrinkled at the corners from squinting at horizons. Her hair was dark blond hair with bronze streaks, and she wore it pulled back in a thick ponytail that ended well below her shoulders. Her Carhartt bibs were black with oil and grease stains and her XtraTufs looked like they’d been used to teethe ferrets. Kate had felt at home with Chouinard from their first meeting.

They and Mutt were standing next to Chouinard’s Cessna, a well-loved 180 with plenty of miles on her. Nevertheless, she looked a hell of a lot cleaner than her owner, smart and trustworthy in white paint with brown and gold trim,
Nushugak Air Taxi Service
spelled out in fancy black script down her fuselage. The two backseats had been pulled to make room for the mail from Manokotak and Togiak. Togiak was where Chouinard had picked up Kate.