Killing Grounds (20 page)

"Sure, Shugak," he said, the drawl back. "You might want to put on some pants first, though."

She looked down and saw that Old Sam had stripped her to T-shirt and panties. She swore halfheartedly and went to lean up against the wall. "In the chart room."

She waited. There was an eruption of male voices, followed by the angry thud of feet. The door crashed back on its hinges. Old Sam glowered at her. "Get your ass back in bed, Shugak."

She managed a grin. "Not even if you crawl in there with me, Old Sam."

He swore and snorted and in the end stamped off, outrage evident in the set of his shoulders. Chopper Jim returned with a pair of Kate's jeans in one hand and socks and Nikes in the other. He held the jeans for her to step into, and waited until she was working on the second leg before observing, "I've always dreamed of doing this. It's just that in my dreams I'm helping you out of your pants, not into them." She had no comeback and he was mildly alarmed.

Leaning heavily on his arm, Kate shuffled out on deck and up into the bow, trying not to throw up along the way. What with the strike, most of the boats were back in the harbor. There couldn't have been more than ten left, and it was easy to pick out the neat lines of the Esther. She pointed it out.

"Think Old Sam'11 loan me his skiff?" Jim said.

"If I go along," she said, lying in her teeth.

He turned his head and looked at her. The cost of remaining upright was reflected clearly in the pale, taut lines of her face. "You know, Shugak, you give the word 'stubborn' a whole new meaning."

Tim saw them aboard with an impassive expression belied by the shiner he was sporting, and returned to his work. He was mending a hole in his net, and the green plastic needle with the Gothic arch to its tip looked tiny and fragile as he wove it deftly back and forth. His knuckles were swollen and bruised, which could have been from launching and hauling a hundred feet of gear every six hours, with or without salmon in it. Picking fish was as hard on the hands as it was on the back.

He didn't seem surprised when Jim told him why they were there. He even admitted to the fight.

Of course even the weather knew better than to rain on Chopper Jim, and the overcast had turned into a high, broken layer of cumulus clouds with enough blue sky between to allow shafts of golden sunlight to ripple across the water, illuminate the peaks of the Ragged Mountains and the erect figure of the trooper, dwarfing the deck of the bowpicker. The Alaska state trooper uniform was very distinctive, and even if it hadn't been, there was no mistaking that hat. Every boat left in the bay had its whole crew on deck, and Kate wondered how far their voices were carrying.

As if she'd spoken aloud, Tim's voice was low. "I wanted to kill him."

"But you didn't," Chopper Jim said, "is that what you're telling us?"

Tim's smile was lopsided and rueful. Not much was left of the joyous high boat of the season opener. "Didn't get the chance."

"Why not?" Kate said.

"Auntie Joy made us quit," he said.

Kate's heart skipped a beat. "What?"

"That would be Joyce Shugak?" Jim said.

Tim nodded, contemplating his hands, the bruises already fading to yellow, the scrapes drying to black crusts.

"Tell us about it," the trooper said. "All of it."

It was a short story. Tim Sarakovikoff had left Alaganik Bay at one minute past six p.m. precisely on Wednesday afternoon, when it was evident that the Independence Day celebration had reached a point where no one was going to be doing any fishing. By eight, maybe a little past, he was tied up at the fuel dock and, as they already knew, had been met by Otis and Wendell, eager harbingers of humiliation.

Tim's face, so open, so honest, so completely without guile, darkened like a thundercloud. "They'd seen him, they said, and her, going at it right on the deck of his boat. Right in the harbor!" His voice went up an octave, and all at once Kate was reminded of how young he was.

Jim gave one of those all-purpose trooper grunts that indicated comprehension, sympathy and the determination to slog away at the facts until the whole truth and nothing but was arrived at, if they both had to sit there till the last trump.

Tim must have recognized it for what it was because it didn't require any further prompting for him to continue. "I caught up with them on First. Looked like they were headed for our house. Probably wanted to try out our bed." Tim's broad shoulders moved in a shrug. "I didn't let them get that far."

"You confronted him?"

Tim gave a short, unamused laugh. "Yeah, I guess you could call it that." He looked down and picked up a section of mesh that was lying on the deck between his feet. The green twine was tangled and torn, a piece he'd taken out of his gear and replaced. "Myra was scared. She ran. Meany didn't even try to deny it. He laughed at me, said Myra wouldn't have come prowling around him if I'd been taking good enough care of her at home. So I hit him." He raised his hands, backs up, displaying the wounds of honorable battle. "Guy had a jaw like the blade on a D-nine. I thought every bone in my hand was broken, but I didn't stop. I keep hitting him, and I guess I was so angry he couldn't get through, except the one time." He touched his shiner. He raised his head and looked at Jim.

"To tell you the truth, Jim, I don't know what would have happened if Auntie Joy hadn't stopped me. I just hit him, and hit him, and hit him. It felt good. It would have felt even better to have kept on hitting him."

"But Joyce Shugak broke it up."

Tim nodded, looking suddenly exhausted. "I think she came out of the Cordova House. There were a bunch of people in there. Anyway, she brought out a pitcher of ice water and threw it on me. It shocked me, and I stopped."

Jim made another note. "What kind of shape was Meany in?"

Tim shook his head. "On his hands and knees. He was okay enough to call me a bunch of names."

"And then?"

"And then Auntie Joy chewed on my ass for ten minutes, and then she picked Meany up and took him away."

Kate jerked erect in a movement that made her head throb and the low-level nausea surge threateningly to the back of her throat.

Jim noticed the sudden movement and eyed her curiously. She said nothing, and he turned back to Tim. "And then?"

Tim shrugged again. "And then I went up to the house and kicked Myra out."

Good for you, Kate thought, momentarily diverted. As young as Tim was, she had feared the romantic in him would be willing to forgive all for love.

"If there was one guy, there would have been others," Tim added. "I can'tI won't live with that."

Jim gave the grunt again, examining his notes with a critical air. "About what time was this, do you remember?"

"Oh hell." Tim let his head fall back on his shoulders and thought. "Had to have been eight-thirty, nine o'clock anyway. Maybe a little past. I don't know for sure. I pulled the plug on Alaganik at six."

"Where did you go after you left Myra?"

"Out to the Powder House. Got drunk as a skunk. I don't remember the rest of the night too well." Tim tied off a knot, cut the twine and set the needle aside. "I woke up the next morning on the Esther. I couldn't stand being around town, with everybody probably talking about it and all. So I came on back out. Been here since." He sighed. "Might never go back."

Jim made another note. Tim watched him. "Could have been worse, I guess," he said.

"How so?" Jim said.

Tim gave a wan smile. "She could have been screwing you."

As he was assisting Kate up over the side of the Freya, Jim said casually, "What's bothering you about Joyce, Kate?"

Damn him, he'd always been quick as a snake. Not that Kate had ever seen a snake, but she could well imagine one with Chopper Jim's sly expression on it, and with Jim's habit of striking out at precisely the one thing in a conversation you hoped he would miss.

"What?" Old Sam said, hauling up Kate from the other end. "What are you talking about, what's wrong with Joyce?"

"Nothing," Kate said, shaking off her tugs. She was feeling better; she could inhale without wanting to barf the air right back out. Upon investigation her belly felt hollow. "What's for breakfast?"

"Try lunch," Old Sam said. "How about pork chops and applesauce?"

Pork chops and applesauce was Kate's favorite meal in the whole world. As a child she'd gotten it only as a special treat because none of the Park rats raised pigs and, after you added on the air freight, pork in the Park was more expensive than filet mignon in New York City. Old Sam knew this perfectly well, and Kate realized that the offering of pork chops and applesauce was his way of showing his affection, alleviating his anxiety and ministering to her needs. Not that he would for a moment outwardly demonstrate anything of the kind; if challenged, he would have said the goddam chops were freezer-burnt and they might as well start using up some of the applesauce before the whole goddam case rusted out in the damp air of the focsle. "Sounds great," she said. "Good," he said gruffly. "I'll serve it up." When Old Sam cooked, he cooked comprehensively. There were, besides the aforementioned pork chops and applesauce, chicken adobo, sweet and sour spareribs (Old Sam had taken a course in Filipino cooking from his previous deckhand, a man from Seldovia who left him to open a restaurant in Homer), mashed potatoes, creamed corn, green beans with bacon and onions, and fruit salad. Kate spooned some of the fruit salad on her plate and said, "Hey, great, no marshmallows. You remembered."

Old Sam frowned ferociously. "We're out." "Oh." Kate prudently said no more on the subject and fell to without delay. Chopper Jim had laid hat and jacket aside and tucked a napkin into his collar; the view from her end of the galley table indicated that he only just managed to refrain from wallowing in his plate like a hog in a trough. Kate didn't blame him. Everything was delicious, and when she finished she sat back and reflected on how nearly impossible it was to despair on a full stomach.

That comfortable, almost complacent thought was challenged in the next thirty seconds, when Trooper Chopin pushed back his plate, complimented Old Sam extravagantly on his table d'hote and announced his intention of visiting Joyce Shugak at the fish camp. Kate's head snapped up. Chopper Jim met her gaze with an unwavering stare. He was determined, and she knew he was not going to be sweet-talked, sidetracked, misled or otherwise diverted this time. "Okay if we take the skiff again?" she asked Old Sam.

Jim took this determination to accompany him without a blink, although he did say, when they had cast off, "You remind me of this German shepherd I used to know, the better half of a K-nine team. Ornery, overprotective of his handler and frankly a colossal pain in the ass." He smiled gently at her stiffening expression, and pointed out, "I did say he was the better half."

She did not dignify his observation with a reply.

The bay was a mirror in which the Ragged Mountains regarded themselves with approval, until the wake of the skiff opened a widening V in the still surface and their reflection broke into a collection of fragments that rolled and rippled ashore, cast up on a gleaming expanse of gravel that divulged no secrets.

From on and above the waterline, various sets of people watched their progress, but only Mary Balashoff, with either audacity or a clear conscience or both, waved.

The fish wheel was shut down. Judging from the wear and tear of gravel leading to it, it had definitely seen recent and vigorous action. So much for state-imposed fishing periods, Kate thought wryly, or federally imposed injunctions, for that matter.

The skiff nudged on the gravel. Mutt heard them first, and bounded down to greet Kate with enthusiasm and Jim with ecstasy. Jack's greeting to Kate was wary, which baffled her. He was also, when he saw Jim, alarmed and, if she read the flash of emotion that crossed his face, embarrassed.

The four aunties brought up the rear, not descending to the water's edge but lining up on the creek bank, looking more than ever like four birds sitting on a branch, cedar waxwings maybe, all fluffed out against the winter chill. Cedar waxwings, Kate remembered, had black masks like raccoons, which made them look like cartoon bandits, or punk rockers. The aunties looked like neither, but there was a palpable air of solidarity about them, especially in their united regard of the trooper, and her heart sank. "Where's Johnny?" she said, trying to keep her voice light.

Jack, with an obvious effort, managed to match her lightness. "Downstream slaughtering salmon."

"Decided to strike out on his own, did he? Funny, we didn't see him on the way."

"Maybe a grizzly ate him."

"Nah." Kate shook her head. "Too full of fish."

"And he's got the twelve-gauge," his father added, reassuring himself.

Jim, once he managed to fend off Mutt's advances, doffed his hat and spoke directly to Auntie Joy. "Joyce, I'm sorry tc have to bother you, especially at fish camp"thereby showing respect for both age and culture, Kate thought in grudging approval"but I understand you were a witness to a fight between Calvin Meany and Tim Sarakovikoff in Cordova the night of the Fourth." He paused. Auntie Joy said nothing, and he added, "I'm sure you've heard by now that Meany was killed that night. I'm tracking his movements, trying to find out who saw him when."

Auntie Joy looked at him with a blank expression and no reply.

One of the most effective tools an Alaska state trooper had was the quality of expectant silence that followed a question. They were taught it in trooper school, along with the need to establish one's authority at the beginning of an interview. His height, clad in all that dazzling blue and gold, and what Kate had once referred to as his Dudley Doright demeanor generally proved effective for the latter; for the former, Jim was relying on tried and true interrogative tradition.

However, in the matter of expectant silence an Alaska state trooper is no match for a villager from the Alaskan Bush who has been trained from birth to listen to her elders, to the land, to the river, to the very wind itself, before she opens her mouth to pronounce upon any subject, if she ever feels the need to do anything of the kind. The aunties sat tight in their little round row and waited for what the trooper would say next.