Better to rest (19 page)

She had been incredibly lucky that no one had managed to lay hands on a gun. It wouldnt have been the first time a stranger to a village had been attacked. Alcohol, the blight of the Alaskan Bush, was almost always involved. Usually the incident wound up involving the community health representative, the troopers, and sometimes the medical examiner. She was glad she couldnt understand the last message, and then she was ashamed that she was glad. They were her people, after all, Yupik, Alaskan, Bush rats. That she hadnt wound up an alcoholic herself was due only to the fact that, at least once, the cards had fallen for her instead of against her. God knows she carried the gene.

The time shed spent with Moses on the deck the night before came back to her, along with his words.

“No, she said out loud. “Not now. Later, when Liam comes home.

She picked up a copy of
The Fiery Cross,
her current book, but she was too restless to read. Liam was reading
Nathaniels Nutmeg,
but that didnt hold her interest either. She clicked on the television. Ninety-nine channels and nothing on. She paced. Finally she went to the computer and got on-line, checking the Nushugak Air Web site for messages, finding none.

Then she remembered the Web site she had visited when she was looking up stuff on Lend-Lease, before Moses came over. She clicked on the bookmark and found the page of links. One went to the full texts of the various Lend-Lease acts. Another went directly to the United States Navys Web site, and the cargo ships that plied the Atlantic run funneling Lend-Lease materials to Britain, in the teeth of the U-boat wolf packs. There were links to the air force and the army as well. She followed another link and fetched up at a site sponsored by McDonnell Douglas, these days aka Boeing, which contained a brief history of the C-47.

In 1941 the Army Air Force (recently transmogrified from the Air Corps) selected it as its standard transport aircraft. The floor was reinforced and a large cargo door added, and hey, presto, the Skytrain was born. It could carry up to six thousand pounds of cargo, a fully assembled jeep, a thirty-seven-millimeter cannon, twenty-eight soldiers in full combat gear, or fourteen stretcher patients and three nurses.

All the Allies flew it, on every continent and in every major battle of World War II. By 1945 there were more than ten thousand of them in the air, answering to the nickname of “the Gooney Bird. General Dwight D. Eisenhower himself called it one of World War IIs most important pieces of military equipment.

Her eyes dropped down to the specs with professional curiosity. It had a wingspan of ninety-five feet, six inches and was seventeen feet high. Its maximum ceiling was twenty-four thousand feet, with a normal range of sixteen hundred miles and a maximum range of thirty-eight hundred miles. It weighed thirty-one thousand pounds and cruised at one hundred sixty miles per hour, powered by two twelve-hundred-horsepower Pratt & Whitney engines. It was a three-holer, pilot, copilot and engineer, although she thought theyd been called navigators back then.

There was a picture, too, black-and-white, the aircraft gray with the barred white star on the fuselage just before the tail, and the tail numbers small and white on the vertical tail above and behind it. It was a shock to see what the wreck on Bear Glacier had looked like whole and proud.

Twenty-four thousand feet. And according to Colonel Campbell, they were on their way to Russia, to Krasnoyarsk, so already they were way the hell and gone off course. She wondered what the weather had been like that night. She did another search and raised the National Weather Services site, which was excellent but was more focused on forecasts than on history.

Well, hell. You could see Carryall Mountain from Newenham, couldnt you? She tried to picture the horizon in that direction. She thought so. If you could, and if it had been clear that night, someone might actually have seen the plane auger in. There were a lot of Alaskan old farts in Newenham, a lot of people whod been around from well before war had broken out. The plane must have made one hell of a bang when it went in, and that wasnt something you forgot.

Shed make a few calls tomorrow, she promised herself. She shut down the computer and resumed pacing away the minutes until Liam got home.

FOURTEEN

Charles was already at Bills, vamping every female in sight. Tasha Anayuk, Natalie Gosuks roommate, was leaning up against the booth, gazing into his face as if he was the answer to all her prayers. Bill made sure his glass never ran dry. And Jo Dunaway was sitting across from him.

“Liam, Charles said, catching sight of his son and breaking into a warm and well-practiced smile.

“Dad. He nodded at Jo.

Special Agent James Mason was sitting next to Charles, and nodded to Liam, his round-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose again.

Liam wondered about those glasses. They looked like plain glass, and the brown eyes behind the glass seemed to be very shrewd. During an interrogation, a perp might find those glasses less alarming than the eyes.

Jo had a notebook out, he noticed, and several pages were already filled with her cramped scribble. A curl fell over her eye and she flipped it back with an impatient gesture. “You giving an interview? Liam said to Charles, careless of the incredulity in his voice.

“The air force brings back its own, Charles said, smile gone. “No matter how long theyve been gone. I think thats a damn good story, and one the public has a right to know.

“Their families are all likely dead by now. Why not leave them where they are, declare the area a graveyard?

Jo and Liam both waited for Charles answer. He made a show of thinking it over, and when the silence had drawn out long enough to be anticipatory, said simply, “Theyre ours. They were members of the force when they took off from Nome that evening. They were members of the force when they went off course. They were members of the force when they slammed into that glacier. Just because theyre dead doesnt make them any less ours. We dont leave anyone behind. We defend the nation and we protect our own.

Liam could see that Jo, hard-nosed seeker of truth that she was, was nonetheless impressed by this speech, and Tasha was either in love or getting ready to enlist, or maybe both. Liam ordered a beer.

Jo flipped through her notes. “I think thats all for now, Charles. If I have any further questions, may I call you?

The smile was back and full-bore. “Of course. But why dont you stay and have dinner with us?

Her gaze rested for a speculative moment on Liams face. “Sure. Why not?

“I cant stay long, Liam said.

Mason took a gulp of beer.

They ordered, ribeye for Charles, filet mignon for Jo, New York for Liam, steak sandwich for Mason. All the fishermen whose boats were still in the water had taken one look at the horizon and had stayed inside the breakwater that morning, so there was no fish or shellfish on the menu that night. Charles ordered a bottle of wine, and Liam, recognizing the signs, wondered if he ought to give Jo some kind of alert. He decided not to. He didnt like her job, but he liked her just fine, and in spite of the crap shed dumped all over him on Wys behalf he was glad Wy had such a staunch friend. But she was a grown woman who made her own choices.

He winced away from the prospect of Wys best friend and his father in the sack together, but then hed winced at the reality of Diana Prince and his father in the sack together and it hadnt killed him. His father was a rounder. If a woman was even halfway presentable and even a tenth of her was willing, it was as inevitable as the sun rising in the east that Charles would hit on her. Liam still thought the impulse to nail everything in sight came from Liams mothers abandoning the both of them for a German nightclub owner when Liam was barely six months old, but that was his fathers problem to work out, not his. He didnt do therapy. He kept his nose buried in his beer and spoke only when spoken to.

The bar was about half-f, mostly of drinkers. Moses was at his usual table, playing chess with Clarence Saguyuk, another old geezer who looked twice Moses age and had maybe half as many teeth. Neither factor seemed to affect his playing ability, if the forest of pawns, knights, rooks and one queen at his elbow was any indication. Eric Mollberg sat a little behind Clarence, a glass in one hand. He looked almost sober. Maybe he was finally coming out the other end of the tunnel. Liam had been down that same tunnel and he knew just how long it was.

Moccasin Man was holding forth in his usual booth, too, and Liam saw him make at least two sales. Gray was getting bolder with every day that passed without an arrest. Fine by Liam. Pretty soon Evan Gray would have enough rope to hang himself, and Liam would be there, ready to haul on the other end of it.

He wished with all his heart that the politicians in Juneau and Washington, D.C., would get a clue and legalize and tax all drugs, from dope to crack to ecstasy. If people wanted to go to hell in a pile of white dust or at the end of a needle, let them, instead of overworking law enforcement and overcrowding the jails to the point that every third bust was a drug bust and that the U.S. had more people in jail today than the Soviet Union ever did in all their gulags combined.

The result was the Evan Grays of this world, with a marijuana grow stashed somewhere in or near Newenham and a profitable and growing retail business. Admit him to the ranks of businessmen and be done with it, and while were at it, tax the hell out of him, Liam thought, watching Tasha Anayuk slide out of the booth opposite Gray, tucking something into her pocket. She saw Liam watching, and instead of flushing and scurrying away like the lawbreaker she was, she flashed him a brilliant smile and a little wave.

“Dont you think, Liam?

“Sorry? he said, turning back to his father. “I didnt hear you.

“There ought to be a museum dedicated to Alaskas World War II effort.

Liam cut a piece of steak. “Why not?

“Really, Charles insisted. “The Alcan was built to support Lend-Lease planes to Russia and China. The war in the Aleutians drew enough Japanese strength north to make the victory at Midway possible. He was at his most winning and it was all directed straight at Jo Dunaway, who was looking, in spite of herself, a little dazzled. Although that could have been the face Jo always put on when she got ready to seduce more information out of a source than they had previously known they had. According to Wy, such sources were legion, and Jo left them all lamenting their failure to recognize this fact.

“Maybe you could get in touch with the air museum in Anchorage, Jo said. “Theyre underfunded and going out of business every other week. If you could find a sponsor, theyd probably greet you with open arms.

“Its a thought, Charles said, with a warm smile that applauded such a wonderful idea and the wonderful person who had had it.

Be careful what you wish for, little girl, Liam thought. Half a steak to go, some chitchat, and he was out of here.

“Liam.

“Dad?

“How have you been?

“Fine.

“Catching a lot of cases?

“No more than usual.

“Now theres a modest statement if I ever heard one, Colonel, Jo said. “Just last month Liam busted a serial killer whos been kidnapping and murdering women around these parts for the last twenty-five years.

Charles nodded at the stripes on Liams arm. “I noticed the promotion. Good job.

“Thanks.

“Still flying out to the Bush?

“Yes.

“Still hating it?

“Yes.

Charles fortified himself with a drink. “I know Ive said it before, but it bears repeating.

“No, it doesnt.

Charles plowed on. “If you learned how to fly, if you learned the reasons why planes stay up in the air and how to keep them there, you wouldnt be nearly as afraid to travel in one.

Liam made no reply.

Jo met Special Agent James Masons eyes. Special Agent James Mason had been careful to keep his mouth full of food during this exchange, which made Jo think highly of both his intelligence and his sense of self-preservation.

Clearly there was a problem of communication going on here strong enough to overwhelm any residual parent-child affection. She wondered how hard Charles had pushed Liam to learn to fly as a child. She wondered how hard Liam had resisted. But that wasnt all there was to it. On the surface, Charles was trying to reach out to his son, and Liam was refusing to see the outstretched hand. On the surface, Charles appeared fatherly and, well, maybe not loving, but at least proud and friendly.

Liam, on the other hand, looked sullen and churlish and about twelve years old. Charles had done something to make Liam angry, and Liam had not forgiven him for it. Charles was pretending it had never happened. Liam was reminding him.

She wondered what it was, and if there was a story in it. She was immediately, if only mildly, ashamed of herself. Looking for the story in everyone she met was an occupational hazard. There was always a story, though, and it was never the story the person wanted told. Some were worthy of her editors attention and some werent. A very few she kept to herself. She nearly always got the story, though, and she idled away a few moments, letting Charles questions and Liams monosyllabic replies join the slipstream, while she pondered what this one might be. Had Charles broken a law? Had he broken it in his sons posting?

“Wheres the arm? Charles said, and she woke from her reverie.

“At the crime lab in Anchorage.

Jo looked down at her plate. Her filet mignon stared back up at her. With a shrug, she took another bite.

“I should take custody of it.

Liam was uncertain of the protocol involved, but on general principles he decided that the arm should stay in the custody of the state of Alaska. “Theyll take fingerprints. Did they take fingerprints in World War Two?

For the first time Charles looked uncertain. “I dont know. I think they relied more on dog tags back then. Seriously, Liam, I can take charge of the arm and fly it back to D.C. Ill turn it over to the FBI lab. He hooked a thumb at Special Agent James Mason. “Theyll track him down. Its what they do, and really, its only a matter of deciding between which of the three. It was a military plane, the property of the federal government. The FBI probably has jurisdiction. He looked expectantly at Mason.