Nik Kane Alaska Mystery - 01 - Lost Angel (21 page)

“Oh, it’s good,” Kane said. “Very, very good.”

She smiled at him.

“Thank you,” she said.

They talked for a while about the mine robbery, Kane giving her the pertinent facts and Ruth recounting the rumors she’d heard. Ruth set her nearly finished drink down and said, “So, when you stayed here did you use all of the amenities?”

Kane could see slyness creep into her smile.

“You mean, did I order up a woman?” Kane said. “No, I didn’t, and I’m surprised that someone from a religious community would be interested in such things.”

“Sin always interests the religious,” Ruth said, laughing. “Sometimes it interests them too much. If you don’t believe me, just listen to Moses Wright preach about the sins of the flesh. It’s practically pornographic.”

“Is that why you’re friends with the waitress, who I have reason to believe has firsthand knowledge of those sins?” Kane asked.

“No,” Ruth said, “I know Tracy from another life.”

The waitress returned to take their orders.

“I’ll have another one of these, too,” Ruth said, rattling the ice in her glass. The waitress looked at Kane, who shook his head. She went off.

“Why are you drinking water?” Ruth asked.

“It’s a long story,” Kane said. “The short version is that when I start drinking, I have a hard time stopping. But I’d rather hear about you and our friend, Tracy.”

Ruth looked at him for a moment and shrugged.

“Okay,” she said. “I met Tracy again right after I came to Rejoice. It was summer, and I made a point of introducing myself around. Small towns are supposed to be friendly, and I thought it would be a good way to establish myself, to start fitting in. But when the residents of Rejoice heard about it, several of them decided to counsel me about staying away from the unbelievers. I decided to counsel them about minding their own business. So I guess you might say that Tracy is part of the reason I sort of got off on the wrong foot in Rejoice.”

“And have you gotten back on the right foot?”

Ruth shrugged.

“I’m not sure what foot I’m on there,” she said. She raised one hand, palm up. “On the one hand, I have my differences with the more saintly element in Rejoice.” She raised the other hand, palm up. “On the other, I’ve lowered the cost of their food service by eleven percent.” She made a rocking motion with her hands. “So I guess I’d say Rejoice has learned to live with me.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of her drink. They chatted for a while about Kane’s police days, and he found himself telling her things he had never told anyone but Laurie about the life, about the challenges, the scrapes, the satisfactions, and the camaraderie.

“You make police work sound like fun,” Ruth said. Then, after a pause, “I don’t imagine prison was as enjoyable.”

“I don’t talk about prison much,” Kane said. “I’m trying to put it behind me, in more ways than one.”

“More ways than one?” she asked.

So Kane found himself telling her about his problems with open spaces and crowds and all the uncontained vitality of life outside the prison walls. She nodded and made encouraging noises and, when he’d finished, put a hand on his arm.

“I’m sure there are people who live in Rejoice as a way of dealing with just those problems,” she said. “I know life here is much simpler than it was in other places for me. But you seem to be a strong person. I’m sure you can overcome this.”

Logically, her words made no sense to Kane. They’d just met; she couldn’t have any informed opinion about his capabilities. But what she said made him feel better just the same.

The waitress brought their meals and looked at Ruth Hunt’s empty glass.

“I shouldn’t,” Ruth Hunt said. “I’m already feeling light-headed. But then I’m not driving.”

“Not driving?” Kane said. “How did you get here?”

“I skied over.”

“In this weather?”

“If you wait for it to warm up before you do anything, you’ll never do anything. Lots of people ski here, all the time. Why, even Moses Wright skis.”

Kane tried to imagine the old man on skis and failed.

“I suppose that’s all right,” Kane said. “Still, skiing in this weather is dangerous. I’ll give you a lift home, so if you want that drink, go ahead.” At that, Ruth nodded and the waitress went off.

“Let’s talk about you for a while,” Kane said. “What brought you to Rejoice?”

The woman chewed and swallowed a forkful of vegetables.

“Well, I suppose you could call it lust,” she said, laughing.

“Do tell,” Kane said.

She did.

She was born and raised in North Pole, just outside Fairbanks, the youngest of the six children of devout Christian parents. Her dad was a civilian employee of the Air Force and her mother a stay-at-home mom.

“We went to the public schools—this was back before home schooling became popular—but religion was really the major force in our lives,” she said. “We listened to KJNP—you know, King Jesus North Pole—and went to Bible study twice a week and church on Sundays and Bible camp in the summers. We didn’t smoke or drink or date.” She stopped to take a drink of her new G-and-T. “We were damned holy, is what we were.”

But the older she got, Ruth said, the less appealing all of that was.

“I couldn’t help but notice that women held only subservient roles,” she said, “and that just didn’t look like enough for me.”

So when her parents were ready to send her off to a Christian college, she rebelled and joined the Army.

“I wanted combat infantry,” she said, “and the Army, in its wisdom, taught me how to run a food service. I ran a mess tent in Saudi during the Gulf War. My biggest problem was keeping sand and scorpions out of the food. That wasn’t why I’d joined up, so when my commitment was up, I left.”

“I didn’t know what I was going to do next. I was still in my twenties and kind of floating. I thought about college, but it didn’t really appeal to me. Nobody was much interested in somebody who knew how to run a mess tent, so I was waitressing to pay the bills. That’s where I met Tracy. We had some fun. Out-all-night, sleep-all-day kind of fun.”

“Doesn’t sound like the life for a Christian girl,” Kane said.

“It wasn’t,” Ruth said, “and after a while it got to be not so much fun. Seemed kind of hollow, really. So one Sunday I decided to go back to my old family church. And the man giving a guest lecture about life in an isolated religious community was Gregory Pinchon.”

She stopped to eat for a while, shaking her head from time to time, then resumed.

“I’d never seen a more gorgeous man. He was such a babe and he made Rejoice sound so good, kind of like North Pole when I was growing up, that I was just sort of swept away. I moved here. A year later we started walking out, and a year after that we were married.”

She ate some more, still shaking her head. Kane finished his steak and set down his knife and fork.

“So you’ve been married for—what?—seven years?” he said. “How is it going?”

Ruth finished her dinner, taking her time, not speaking. Tracy cleared the dishes away and brought them coffee.

“I haven’t told anyone this,” she said at last. “I can’t imagine why I’m telling you, except that you make me feel comfortable somehow. Plus I’ve had too much to drink. But the truth is, it’s not going well at all. Matthew has never accepted me, and his father and I have less and less to do with each other. Maybe I’m telling you too much, but we don’t have physical relations very often.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong. Greg is very immature. His first wife was much older than he. She mothered him and then left him, which must have been confusing, and he just sort of retreated into his work and worship. I thought he’d make room for me, and I think he thought he would, too. But after a while he just quit trying, particularly when my independence became an embarrassment. Plus, we don’t really agree on religious matters, which is so much more important in Rejoice than anywhere else.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“Listen to me, pouring my heart out. I knew that third G-and-T was a mistake. Anyway, I decided a couple of months ago to leave him, and Rejoice, and I’ve been living with that decision since, sort of seeing how it feels.”

“And?” Kane said.

“And it feels more right all the time. I should have my replacement trained in another month or two, and then I’m gone.”

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know, and that’s one of the things that keeps me here. That sounds sort of low, but it’s true.”

“I think inertia is a much underestimated force in human affairs,” Kane said. “I suspect it’s part of the reason Laurie stuck with me for all those years.”

“Laurie?” Ruth said.

So Kane, to his surprise, told her the story of his own marriage and how it was ending. Once he started, he found himself telling her things he’d never told anyone else, about his bad behavior and his hurt and his regrets. The story lasted through coffee, through Kane paying the bill, through warming up his truck, through loading the woman’s skis and boots into the back, and through setting out for Rejoice. When he’d finished, they drove along in silence, listening to the heater and their own thoughts.

He drove across the river and along the road, past the airstrip and Moses Wright’s house, past the community building, and toward Ruth’s house. Just short of it, she said, “I’d like to see the flowers.” So Kane drove to the big greenhouse, and they let themselves in.

“It’s just so . . . so glorious in here,” she said. She took off her coat, dropped it, and walked along the aisles with her arms held out, turning slowly in full circles. “I wish my whole life was as wild and beautiful as this.”

She ran back to Kane, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him. The first kiss was tentative. The second sizzling. The third molten.

“I knew it,” she said, pulling her face away from his. “I knew it would be like this.”

They stood looking at each other. Kane felt light-headed and a little dazed.

“I so want to make love right now,” she said. “I so want to take you home with me, but Matthew is there. Do you think we could make a bed here somehow?”

Kane took a deep breath and tried to slow the blood racing through his veins.

“That might not be the wisest thing,” he said. “I’m sure people saw us driving out here and will notice how long we stay. I can’t afford to let something like that get in the way of my investigation and you . . . you just can’t afford it, period. Besides, I’m not sure my heart could stand it, anyway.”

Ruth smiled and started to move away, but he held her there and kissed her again. The kiss seemed to last an hour. Kane could feel his self-discipline melting like snow in the hot sun, so he pulled away. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he lost control, and he didn’t want to find out. Besides, he was too old to get involved with a married woman, and old enough to know they’d never get away with it in a place the size of Rejoice.

Boy, he thought, I seem to need a lot of convincing about this.

Ruth stepped back and ran her fingers through her hair, shaking it out.

“I’m sure you’re right,” she said, “but I had those drinks and I’m just so horny. ”

She giggled and put a hand to her mouth, then stood breathing for a while.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I shouldn’t behave this way.” They stood quietly for a minute. Then Ruth shook her head again. “I don’t know why I’m apologizing. I’m sure there’s no reason sex shouldn’t be important for Christian women, too.”

“I’m sure there’s not,” Kane said, helping her into her coat.

They got into the pickup and drove along in silence until Kane broke it.

“Why did Matthew stay home from the basketball trip, anyway?” he asked.

“If only he hadn’t,” she said. She shrugged. “I’m not sure why, unless it was to keep an eye on me. He said he wasn’t feeling well, but I didn’t see any sign of it.”

“What kind of a kid is he?”

“Complicated. Self-assured one minute, full of doubt the next. And, I think, beneath all that, pretty angry.”

“Angry?” Kane said. “Why?”

Ruth was silent for a while.

“I suppose because his mother left him. And I think his rejection by Faith hurt him more than he will say. He’s talking about joining the military now instead of going to college, and the way he talks about it makes me think he wants to do it because there’s a chance he’ll get to hurt people.”

“Maybe I should talk to him,” Kane said, as if to himself, “tell him that hurting people isn’t all that much fun.” To Ruth, he said, “Do you think he’s capable of hurting anyone here? In Rejoice?”

Ruth was silent again.

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “Maybe. Why, do you suspect he had something to do with Faith’s disappearance?”

“I don’t really think anything yet,” Kane said. He paused. “No, that’s not true. I think Faith Wright is or was hiding something, and that her disappearance wasn’t voluntary.”

“Hiding something? In Rejoice? If she is, she’s a much more complex person than I, or anyone else, thought. And why would anyone want her to disappear?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’ll find out.”

“You sound confident.”

“I am,” Kane said. “There are a lot of things in life I’m not good at, but I’m a damned good detective.”

They reached Ruth’s home, a prefab a couple of houses down from his cabin. It was ablaze with lights. He pulled into the driveway and helped her unload her skis. He could see Matthew Pinchon’s shadow as the young man watched them through the curtains.

“I’d invite you in,” she said, smiling, “but I’m sure Matthew wouldn’t like that. Besides, Clarice is no doubt watching us, and I’m afraid the sight of that would make her eyeballs fall out of her head.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” Kane said.