Restless in the Grave (9 page)

She couldn’t hide her surprise. “How did you know?”

He shrugged. “I’ve spent some time here. Put myself through college working at the processing plant in Akutan.”

“Really,” Kate said, warming to the man in spite of herself. “Minimum wage?”

He grinned. “Yep. But time and a half for anything over eight hours a day and forty hours a week, and double time for holidays. You, too?”

“No, thank god,” she said, “I worked it from the other end, I deckhanded on a fish tender.”

“Bristol Bay?”

She shook her head. “Prince William Sound.”

He nodded. “Gorgeous there.”

“Not so bad here, either.”

He followed her gaze to the Wood River Mountains looming on the northwestern horizon. “Not quite so in your face as they are in Prince William,” he said. “There, they’re always a reminder that you’ve got the sea at your back.”

She looked at him, surprised again.

He quirked an eyebrow, as if to say,
What, you thought I was just another pretty face?
For some unknown reason, Kate felt herself flush. She was relieved when they heard the approach of another aircraft. They both turned to watch it land and taxi up to the fuel pumps. It had no windows except for the cockpit.

“Caravan,” Kate said, not really as a challenge, but he took it as one anyway.

“Super Cargomaster,” he said. “Almost nine-hundred-nautical-mile range with a payload of almost two tons. FedEx uses them for a lot of their short hops between small towns and hubs.”

She looked at him, remembering the comment about him not landing the jet on gravel. “You’re a pilot.”

He nodded, looking perhaps just a little complacent, and perhaps a little expectant of admiration, if not reverence. He was a pilot, all right.

“Or just an aviation nut,” she said.

The complacence vanished. “I’m a pilot,” he said, and might actually have been reaching for his wallet so he could show her his license when Chouinard came down the steps of the Gulfstream, talking over her shoulder to the pilot. “He flies?” she said. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“God in heaven,” Chouinard said devoutly. “Please don’t let him hurt it.”

Kate laughed. McGuire gave her a look, which relaxed into a reluctant smile when he realized she was riding him.

“I won’t,” Les said gravely. He was a tall, thin man in his sixties, with an untidy thatch of thick, pure white hair, a stubble to rival McGuire’s, and a twinkle in his eye if you looked for it.

Chouinard saw Kate and was recalled to duty. “Thanks for the tour,” she said, shaking hands with Les. “Happy to show you around my outfit in return, such as it is.”

“If we’re around long enough, I wouldn’t mind a ride-along on your mail route,” he said.

“Sure. Depends on how much mail I’ve got to carry.” Chouinard walked over to Kate and McGuire. “Sorry about the delay, Kate.”

“No problem,” Kate said. “I know better than to stand between a pilot and an airplane. Especially one like that airplane.”

Chouinard and McGuire both laughed. “Thanks for the tour, Gabe.”

“No problem, Wy. Tell Liam I said hi.”

And with that, America’s Number One Box Office Draw in the bone-chilling, spine-tingling, heart-pounding
Invincible
—the thrilling story of an intrepid Navy SEAL armed only with a Leatherman rescuing a beautiful American heiress kidnapped by an army of Muslim extremists—saw the three women to Chouinard’s Cessna, gave Mutt a farewell ear rub that left her panting in ecstasy, closed Kate’s door, and gave her a warm smile through the window before waving them off.

They taxied out onto the runway as McGuire’s entourage followed him into the building. “He’s like an actual human being, isn’t he?” Chouinard said.

“How long to Newenham?” Kate said.

Eight

JANUARY 18

Newenham

Bill’s Bar and Grill was a big square building with pale vinyl siding and a galvanized tin roof. It squatted on pilings three feet above the ground, and stairs and a switchback ramp led to a solid door flanked by large windows in which no neon beer signs shone. The business inside was advertised by one medium-sized sign over the door, its name in black script next to a cartoon mug of foaming beer.

Kate, carrying her pack and Mutt padding behind her, walked into one large room that looked to take up two-thirds of the building. A kitchen took up most of the rear third, a pass-through allowing the transference of saliva-inducing aromas of beef crisp on the outside and pink on the inside and the FDA food pyramid be damned. Through an open door in one corner Kate glimpsed a small office crowded with a desk, a couple of chairs, and a filing cabinet.

In the main room, a bar with a dozen stools ran along the back wall. Booths lined both sides, with half a dozen very small Formica-topped tables and mismatched dining chairs in between. The exposed rafters were draped with green fishing nets. Suspended in the net between the rafters were lengths of leadlines and corklines, floats and buoys and Japanese glass balls. The walls were crowded with more commercial fishing detritus, a pair of crossed boat hooks, single oars, a mounted king crab, bad oil paintings of boats, a brass steering wheel, and from the accumulated rust what might have been Captain Cook’s lost anchor.

It wasn’t the Roadhouse, but nevertheless Kate felt instantly at home. She walked up to the bar, set down her pack, and climbed on a stool.

The woman behind the bar had white, straight hair that hung below her shoulders and a splendid figure cinched in at the waist by a wide leather belt, between a faded blue denim work shirt unbuttoned far enough to show serious cleavage and jeans worn white at seams where her butt threatened to burst them. Her eyes matched the color of the shirt.

“What’ll you have?” she said to Kate, swiping a rag down the bar.

“Still serving lunch?” Kate said.

“Serving lunch from when we open till when we close,” the woman said.

“Cheeseburger and fries?” Kate said.

“It’s what we do best. Anything to drink?”

“Diet Seven Up? Lots of ice?”

“Fresca okay?”

“I didn’t know they were still making Fresca,” Kate said, charmed. “Sure.”

The woman shouted the order through the pass-through, which was immediately followed by the agreeable sound of meat sizzling on the grill. “Here you go.” A tall glass full of ice and a frosty can appeared.

Mutt poked an inquisitive nose over the bar.

“And who might you be?” the woman said.

“This is Mutt,” Kate said. “My partner. Mutt, meet…”

“The name’s Bill, Bill Billington,” the woman said. She gave Mutt’s head a hello scratch and looked at Kate.

“Kate,” Kate said. “Kate Saracoff.”

Besides herself and Mutt, there was only a man with his head down on the bar and what looked like a mother and son at one of the booths. As Kate looked, a second man joined them. Bill brought him a Bud Light without waiting for an order. “Slow afternoon,” Kate said when she got back.

Bill shrugged. “They’re always slow this time of year.”

“So you’re probably not looking for help.”

Bill looked her over, her blue eyes appraising, and a little too speculative for Kate’s comfort. “Got any experience?”

“Bartending?” Kate said. “No. But I show up on time, and I’ll work while I’m here.”

Bill looked at Mutt. “Well, she’d make one hell of a bouncer.”

Mutt gave a yip of assent, and watched with hungry eyes as Bill set Kate’s plate before her. “Oh hell,” Bill said, and another plate full of chopped ground round with a raw egg mixed in showed up shortly thereafter. Mutt displayed suitable gratitude and waded in with enthusiasm.

“Like to see people enjoying their food,” Bill said, watching Mutt. “So you’re new in town.” It wasn’t a question, and Bill didn’t wait for an answer. “You need a place to stay?”

Kate nodded, and Bill raised her voice. “Tina?” The woman in the booth looked around. “Talk to you a minute?”

The woman stood up and came to stand next to Kate. “Kate Saracoff, Tina Grant.”

Tina for
Clementina
? As in
Clementina Tannehill Grant
? As in Finn Grant’s widow? Kate loved small-town Alaska.

“Kate’s my new help, as of today. She needs a place to stay. You were saying you had a place over your garage you were looking to rent.”

Tina and Kate looked each other over. Mutt sat up, prepared to be polite, even if it was only a woman, and a woman with no food on offer, either.

“Looks like a wolf,” Tina said.

“Only half,” Kate said.

Mutt did her best to look more canine than lupine.

Tina looked at Kate. “It’s a one-room studio with a three-quarter bath.”

“Kitchen?” Kate said. No point in seeming too eager.

“Small stove, barely room enough for four burners, but you can fit a whole chicken in the oven. Microwave, under-the-counter fridge. It’s clean and partly furnished. You can use what’s there.”

Kate made it a rule never to flout serendipity when it offered itself up free of charge. “May I take a look at it?”

“Sure. You got transportation?” Kate shook her head. Tina nodded at the door. “I was on my way out. I’ll give you a ride.”

Kate looked at Bill, who gave her the barest suggestion of a wink and said, “Come back when you’re settled in, and I’ll walk you through the job.”

As they left the building, Tina nodded at the men in the booth. “See you back at the house, Oren.”

Oren Grant. That would be the son. Kate noticed he did not look thrilled at the prospect. There was some resemblance between him and the man sitting next to him. Grant’s brother, Oren’s uncle, maybe, Frank? Fred, that was it, Fred Grant.

Kate felt his eyes follow her out the door, but when she looked back it was Tina he was watching.

*   *   *

It was a one-car garage, separate from the house, the room at the top reached by a flight of unpainted wooden stairs. Tina led the way. The door at the top was unlocked.

Going counterclockwise around the room from the doorway was an armchair with an ottoman and a pole lamp, a twin bed with a bare mattress and a couple of rubbery-looking pillows, and a kitchenette set into the right-hand corner with a small round table and two chairs tucked into the corner between two windows. In the left-hand corner a slightly open door showed a fold of shower curtain. To the left of the door sat a chest freezer. Odds and ends of lumber and fishing gear were stacked in the space between the wall and the freezer.

“Sorry about that,” Tina said. “This used to be the garage attic, where we pitched all the stuff we had replaced but weren’t ready to throw away. We had it finished off so my daughter would have a little privacy when she came home on leave. I meant to clear it out, but…” She gestured vaguely. “I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

“Your daughter is in the service?” Kate said, because it was the only natural response.

“She was.” Tina went to a cupboard and assembled a load of sheets, blankets, and a pillow. She walked to the bed and put them down, and it seemed to Kate she moved somewhat slowly, as if something weighed her down. It wasn’t age. Grief, maybe?

She was a woman of moderate height, whose youthful leanness had been pared by life into something that approached gaunt. Her skin was pale and finely wrinkled. Brown eyes were deep set over hollowed-out cheeks. Her mouth was a still, controlled line that didn’t look like it had relaxed into a smile in recent memory. She wore her grayish brown hair in a careless tumble cut just below her ears, more convenient than stylish. Her jeans were older than Kate’s, and the original cream color of her hand-knit Aran sweater had faded to a dirty yellowish white. It was also unraveling at neck, hem, and one wrist.

“Towels in the cupboard, too,” she said. “And—” She gestured at the stackable washer and dryer next to the bathroom.

“Nicer than I expected to find,” Kate said. “I’ll take it, if I can afford the rent.”

“Five hundred a month?” Tina said.

“Everything included?”

Tina nodded.

“Cheaper than I expected, too,” Kate said. “Is there a key?”

“On the wall next to the door.”

“Okay,” Kate said. “Would you like the rent up front?”

“That would be great, uh…”

“Kate,” Kate said. “Kate Saracoff.”

“Sorry,” Tina said. “I’ve been a little … distracted lately. Lot going on.”

“No problem,” Kate said, reaching for her wallet. She counted five one-hundred-dollar bills into Tina’s hand.

“You always walk around with this much cash on you?”

“I cleaned out my bank account when I left Togiak,” Kate said. “Is that a problem?”

Tina’s eyes lingered on Kate’s scar, and drew her own conclusions. “No, no problem. I can use the cash. Well. If you need anything, I’m in the house next door.” She paused. “How were you going to get back to Bill’s?”

“Walk,” Kate said. “It’s only, what, a mile or so.”

“I’ve got a spare four-wheeler,” Tina said. “Extra hundred a month. You pay for gas.”

“Deal,” Kate said, and handed over another hundred. Campbell’s front money was down to fifty bucks and change.

“It’s the red Honda in the garage. The side door is open.”

“Okay,” Kate said, “thanks.”

Tina nodded and left, her footsteps sounding slow and heavy on the stairs.

Kate took a moment to marvel at her luck. Not only had she found a clean place to stay with hot and cold running water—she checked the kitchen sink and shower faucets and flushed the toilet to be sure—she was staying right next door to the prime suspects in Campbell’s case.

If there was, in fact, a case.

She unpacked her daypack, scattering stuff around to show anyone who might be interested that she had moved in. “Stay,” she said to Mutt, who flopped back down, pouting.

She stuck her head outside, listening. Apart from the distant hum of a small plane and some muted truck traffic on the main road, all was quiet. She went swiftly and silently downstairs and peeked around the corner of the garage.

The house next to it was large enough to house a family of eight and everyone’s ancestors on both sides of the family all the way back to the gold rush. Two stories, white siding, two rows of tall, rectangular windows, each with its own fake wooden shutters, a front porch sheltered by an antebellum overhang held up by two fluted white columns. The front doors were etched glass with heavy brass handles, and on the second floor a pair of French doors over the porch opened into a half-circle deck, upon which at any moment Jefferson Davis would step out to make his presidential acceptance speech.