Midnight come again (27 page)

"In her purse. They found it outside the bank. They think she dropped it there." Stephanie spoke with little emphasis, concentrating her entire being on just the right amount of cocoa soaking into her cookie.

Kate opened the envelope and her worst fears were confirmed. Inside was a printout of the deposits and withdrawals made to Alaska First Bank of Bering by all the processors who had delivered to Bering so far this season.

There was a note clipped to the top sheet in Alice's large, round handwriting, which hadn't changed much in thirteen years. She no longer dotted her I's with little hearts, but the big looping tails and extravagantly crossed T's took up a lot of room.

Kate, the note read, sorry I took so long to get this to you. I got you the other ones, too, like you asked, so you can compare. Funny thing, it looks like Mike has been making some of the entries himself. I knew we were busy but not so busy that the bank manager has to do data entry (giggle). I'll drop this off at Baird's on the way home from work, so you ' get it when you come on shift. Where are you staying? You never said. Don't leave without saying good-bye. Thanks for letting me play Nancy Drew (giggle squared). Am I George or Bess? I'm not Ned! Love, Alice Kate closed her eyes, unable for the moment to read further.

Alice had come through for her. Alice had located the information Kate had wanted, had printed it out, and had tucked it safely into an envelope addressed to her friend.

But was what Kate was holding in her hand the reason Alice had been killed?

The only way to find out was to keep reading, to see just how hot was the information Alice had uncovered.

In the normal course of events, a processor came into the fishing grounds flush, prepared to take advantage of the early high market prices by topping other processors' bids in price per pound of salmon.

That way high bidders got the best fish first, and most of it, for resale to potential buyers, gourmet restaurants as far away as New York, gourmet grocery stores, caviar makers, smokers, canners and packers.

Because the business was so cash intensive and because Alaskan salmon were considered gourmet, as opposed to farmed European or Canadian salmon which seemed to get more pale and more bland and more disease-ridden by the year, and because the freezer life of even a wild salmon was not long, a quick turnaround was necessary. A quick turnaround was only possible with large quantities of cash on hand, and cash in good old American dollars.

Since the Kuskokwim River was known the world over for the quality of its reds, business had always been brisk in Bering, especially after the Bristol Bay runs had crashed the year before. This accounted for the processors lined up down at the dock.

Alice had printed out a page for every one of them. The Kyoto Kozushima, the Chongju, the Northern Harvester, the Arctic Princess, along with others who had docked at Bering that season. All had healthy accounts amounting on average to between one and two hundred thousand dollars, ready to be drawn upon. These looked as if the minimum amount were maintained over the winter, to keep the account open and current, and then were increased by a large deposit at the beginning of the fishing season. Payments went to Chevron for fuel and AC and Eagle for groceries, to the chandlers for parts and supplies and to Alaska Airlines and Baird Air for freight, but the bulk went to individual fishermen in many smaller payments ranging from two hundred dollars to ten thousand. Deposits of much larger amounts came from buyers. At the end of the year, Kate figured, they would clean out the account to the bare minimum and head south for the winter.

She came to the last page and halted. She had to read the numbers twice before she believed them, and that was after she counted the zeroes and the commas.

The Kosygin's cash on hand amounted to one million five and change.

"What?" Stephanie said. She was halfway through the Loraa Doones, Kate was glad to see, while Kate's cocoa had gone cold in her mug.

"I'm sorry, did I make a noise?" Kate said. "I didn't mean to."

Deposits to the Kosygin's account came from someone or something called High Seas Investments, Inc. The deposits were not large by comparison with the beginning deposits of the other processors, one to three hundred thousand dollars each, but there were so many of them, nearly--Kate ran her eyes down the dates--one every two or three days.

It looked like the Kosygin intended to buy one hell of a lot of fish.

Kate spread the accounts out on the table and compared numbers. The Kosygin was buying less fish from fewer fisherman than all of the other processors combined. At the same time, they seemed to be selling five or six times the amount of fish to their one buyer, a Northern Consolidated Seafood Distributors, Inc. She sat back and thought of her visit to the Kosygin. The small crew.

The dearth of fish, and near absence of fish smell. The willingness of the crew to party instead of readying the ship for sea again, to get out there and buy fish and fill up their hold.

Her eyes dropped to the pages spread out before her. She used a magazine as a straightedge and began to compare names with numbers.

The same fishermen were delivering to the Kosygin over and over again.

This wasn't unusual; with this much money to throw around the Kosygin could afford to pay top dollar, but receiving a full load from the same fishermen three and four times a period was testing the bounds of fishing reality for anyone who'd ever wet a net in Alaskan waters. The twelve- and twenty-four-hour periods weren't long enough to accumulate that many loads, not to mention which the Kosygin would suffer a great deal of difficulty getting them on board that fast. Besides, the Kuskokwim salmon runs were dropping the same way the Bristol Bay runs were, although not as drastically, and for the same reason--the trailers with their one- and two-mile-long nets dredging up every living thing on the ocean bottom without regard for size, sex or species. There just weren't that many fish to catch, and if that was the case, there weren't that many fish to deliver, either.

A Russian processor. An Alaskan bank. A lot of money coming in. A lot of money going out.

She looked at the dates. The money was going out fast, usually one to two days after it had come in. The amount left was the bare minimum to keep the account open and to cover docking fees and crew expenses.

The pages didn't list the bank's fees, but they would be listed somewhere, and in large figures with lots of their own zeroes and commas, as banks were not in the business of providing their services for free.

The Alaska First Bank of Bering was providing the Kosygin quite a service.

She thought about Mike Sullivan. Alice had carelessly dropped a few facts about him. Too carelessly. Mike was divorced, and attractive, and about Alice's age, and Bering wasn't that big a town.

What had Alice said about Mike Sullivan? His father had been an Irish trapper who followed the beaver to Bering and married his mother, Martha Ashepak. His father had left soon after the birth of his second child, Mike's sister Brigid, and Martha had raised them up on her own, if any Yupik could be said to be ever truly alone. The Yupik were strong believers in having family around.

Kind of like Emaa, Kate thought, only more familial and less tribal. Or maybe it was just that to Emaa, everyone was family.

The Yupik were the unspoken envy of many Alaskan Natives, particularly the Yupik who lived along the Kuskokwim. It had helped the culture immensely that there was nothing of value by white, Western standards along the lower half of the Kuskokwim River. It was too shallow for whales to swim up, so the Yankee whalers passed it by, and it was faster to take the Yukon River to the Klondike from Nome, so the Gold Rush passed it by, too, except for the diseases the miners brought with them.

Its broad, sandy banks and crumbling bluffs, its lack of trees for fuel and lumber, its sparse and scattered settlements, all these unattractive qualities had combined to allow the Yupik to retain their culture and even their language, which was presently taught half-days in the local school district, with English the other half of the day. "Family first" would have been their motto, if they'd had one. Families lived together, one and two and three and sometimes four generations together. They trapped together, they fished together, they hunted together, and when one family brought home meat the whole village shared.

As Alice had shared with her, she thought. She looked across the table at Stephanie, who had finished her cocoa and most of the cookies and who seemed content to wait in silence.

She didn't ask what had been in the envelope. She hadn't even looked at the papers. Kate didn't offer an explanation. It might be information that had gotten Stephanie's mother killed, and Stephanie was not going to fall heir to that same information if Kate had anything to say about it. She gathered up the papers and put them back in the envelope. '

Thank you for bringing me these, Stephanie," she said.

The girl nodded, as was her usual habit keeping her eyes down. Mutt had her chin on the girl's left knee, her eyes closed in bliss as Stephanie scratched between the flattened ears.

"Did the police bring your mother's purse back?"

Stephanie shook her head.

"Somebody, a friend, a relative, went by the bank and picked it up?

Maybe someone saw it there on the way into work today? And then brought it straight to your house?"

Stephanie's head bobbed in the slightest of nods. Pick one, Kate thought. Well, that explained why Trooper Mary Zarr hadn't trampled down her door, wanting to know why the deceased had had a letter addressed to Kate in her purse the night she died.

"I mean what I said yesterday," Kate said. "If you ever need anything, anything at all--"

"I want to go to school."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I want to go to school." The voice was barely discernible but firm enough for all that.

"Okay," Kate said. She rallied. "Your mother said she hoped you would go. How can I help?"

"I don't know."

"Well, you should finish up here, first," Kate said, feeling her way.

"Do you agree? You don't want to leave your great-grandfather, or your grandmother, not yet, do you?"

There was a brief silence. By then Kate's face was nearly at table level, trying to see into Stephanie's eyes. "I guess not," the girl said at last. "Especially now," Kate said gently. "They'll need you, for now.

Later, when you're older, when they have other grandchildren, then you can go. When you graduate from high school, maybe?"

"No."

"Oh. When then?"

"I want to go to Mt. Edgecumbe. They have a good sciences program." For the first time the girl raised her eyes, and Kate straightened hastily.

"I'm good at science. I'm the best."

Only dimly did Kate perceive how difficult it was for Stephanie to say those words. If one were Yupik, according to Alice, and especially if one were female and Yupik, one did not speak up, or draw attention to oneself, and one never, ever claimed to be the best at anything. It had been hard for Alice to go to school, too. Kate was impressed by the girl's tenacity. "Oh. I see. How old are you, again?"

"Ten."

"Which puts you in which grade?"

"Fourth last year. Fifth next year."

"So you'll have three more years at home, before going off to school. Is that enough, Stephanie?"

"Yes."

"Don't answer so quickly. Think about it. Are three years more long enough?" Something in her voice caught and held the girl's attention. "I lost my parents very young, younger even than you. I refused to live with my grandmother because I wanted to stay on the homestead with my parents' memories. It wasn't the best or the smartest thing I've ever done, Stephanie. And it hurt my grandmother deeply." Until she'd said the words out loud, she hadn't realized how true they were. Oh Emaa, I am so sorry.

"You have the rest of your life, Stephanie. Many, many years. Your grandmother has not so many, your greatgrandfather even less." Silence.

"Just think about it, all right? But remember, whatever you decide, whatever you wind up wanting to do, I will help. All you have to do is write, or call. Okay?"

"I guess so."

Kate reached across the table and put a hand beneath Stephanie's chin.

"You know so."

They stared at each other, considering, evaluating, testing. Kate tried not to blink.

"Is that envelope why my mother died?"

Kate tried not to jump, tried to keep her eyes and her voice steady. She withdrew her hand and sat up. "I don't know. I hope not."

Stephanie regarded her steadily without expression for what seemed like a very long time. After which she rose to her feet, gave Mutt a final scratch, tucked her Cub beneath her arm and left.

"I thought Kipnuk was a dry town," Jim said.

"It is," Baird said, grunting as he shifted another case to a pallet.

"Then what are we doing shipping this beer to them?"

"I just ship it. What they do with it once it gets there is their problem."

Jim was beginning to miss his uniform. He opened his mouth to say more and caught sight of Stephanie standing in the doorway to the hangar, bright red Super Cub clutched beneath one arm.