Restless in the Grave (3 page)

“Five people dying because you were asleep at the switch constitutes a little more than screwing up in my book,” Jim said.

“That was six, almost seven years ago now,” Campbell said, his voice level. “Maybe time to let that go.”

“Like you have?”

Campbell met Jim’s eyes squarely. “Not an option for me.”

A third silence. Jim took a long breath, held it for a few moments, and then let it out slowly. “What the hell happened?”

Liam told him. He spoke simply, in words devoid of emotion, but the obvious determination to remain matter-of-fact told its own tale. “There’s no excuse, Jim,” he said. “I just wasn’t paying attention. I fucked up, and five people died.”

“You’re right, you did,” Jim said. A pause. He sighed. “But so did they. They drove down an unmaintained road in February, out of cell range, with no arctic gear, and didn’t tell anyone where they were going.” His mouth twisted. “A friend of mine calls it suicide by Alaska. Usually it’s Outsiders with no clue. But sometimes…”

Campbell was silent.

“I should have asked before,” Jim said. “I’m sorry.”

“You tried,” Campbell said. “I wasn’t real … receptive.”

They were men. That was as sentimental as it was going to get.

Jim leaned back in his chair and crossed his feet on his desk. “Newenham. Lot of big cases, all closed pretty decisively, and all of them on film at ten, too. Been an interesting post for you.”

Campbell’s expression lightened at the relaxation of tension in the room. “You could say that.”

“And I see you’re already back up to sergeant.”

“Yeah.”

“Fast tracker.” Jim smiled for the first time. “Good work on Gheen.”

Campbell shrugged. “He finally kidnapped the wrong woman. She escaped and led him right to us.” A shadow passed across his face. “And getting him didn’t come for free.”

“Heard that, too. Still.”

Liam nodded. “Still.”

“Heard you didn’t even have to go to trial.”

Liam shook his head. “Oh, he wanted to tell us all about it. Whether we wanted to hear it or not.”

Jim smiled. “A full confession, plus enough probative evidence to slam-dunk a jury full of card-carrying ACLU members, might make some practicing law enforcement professionals think they’d died and gone to heaven.”

“When the perp, tail wagging, led them to the grave of his tenth vic, where was found not only her skeleton but also the skeleton of her unborn child, some practicing law enforcement professionals might think otherwise. I’m just glad it didn’t come to that.”

Their eyes met in perfect understanding. By profession, their noses rubbed in the worst of human behavior every day of their working lives, they were de facto unshockable. People behaved badly. It’s why there were cops. But Jim and Liam wouldn’t have been human if the criminal, conscienceless inventiveness of certain deeply bent individuals had not, in fact, deeply shocked them on occasion.

Campbell settled back into his chair. “I’ve got a problem.”

“Figured. A big one, too.” He saw Campbell’s look and shrugged. “Had to be something big to get you on a plane all the way out here.” Jim laced his fingers behind his head. “I grant you full and free access to the wisdom of your elder and better.”

Campbell didn’t smile. “I caught a murder.” He paused. “I think.”

“Interesting,” Jim said.

Campbell’s laugh was explosive. “That’s one word for it. I could use some help on it.”

“I thought you had help. Didn’t Barton send Prince down there?”

Campbell’s brows came together. “He did.”

“And she can’t help you?”

“No,” Campbell said.

“Why not?”

Campbell’s lips tightened. “Because she ran off with my father.”

When Jim stopped laughing, he saw that Campbell was regarding him with a marginally lighter countenance. “Yeah, very funny.”

“Clearly, it is,” Jim said, wiping an eye. “USAF Colonel Charles Campbell, trooper thief. Who’d a thunk it.”

“Anybody who knew him for more than five minutes,” Campbell said.

“Wouldn’t have thought it of Prince, though.”

“No,” Campbell said glumly, “but all bets are off when it comes to my father and women. But about this case.”

Jim frowned. There was something else, other than perfidious fathers absconding with faithless sidekicks. “What about it?”

“If I were investigating this officially,” Campbell said, his voice bleak, “my prime suspect would be my wife.”

Four

FRIDAY, JANUARY 15

Niniltna

At the very same moment Sergeant Liam Campbell was unburdening his heart to Sergeant Jim Chopin, Niniltna Native Association board of directors chair Kate Shugak was back in the Niniltna School gymnasium for the second day in a row. As usual, a longing eye was canvassing the room for the nearest exit. While yesterday’s potlatch for Old Sam had inspired its share of grief and tears, she infinitely preferred it to presiding over the annual shareholders meeting.

Although it was going unusually well, the customary infighting, backbiting, and power-jockeying were in suprising abeyance. In part this was due to their current chair’s leadership abilities. Kate marched them through old business like Alexander went through Asia, doubling the budget for the Niniltna Public Health Clinic against easily suppressed opposition from Ulanie Anahonak and her anti-everything clique, refining two clauses in the NNA contract with Aurora Communications, Inc., the document governing the construction of cell towers down the three-hundred-mile length of the Kanuyaq River, and reporting on ongoing talks between the Association, the State of Alaska, and the federal government on just who could fish where, when, and take how much out of the three-hundred-mile length of the Kanuyaq River.

New business didn’t take much longer, being chiefly concerned with the return of the Sainted Mary to the tribe. Kate reported on as much of the history of its one-hundred-year perambulation and subsequent restoration as she thought it was good for the shareholders to know, and gave all the credit to Old Sam. Tradition held that the Sainted Mary reside with the current chief, but there wasn’t a current chief, that position having been gradually superseded over the last thirty years by the chair of the NNA board, and the shareholders agreed that the safest place for the Sainted Mary at present was locked up in the NNA’s headquarters here in Niniltna. Kate proposed and Herbie Topkok seconded that a committee be formed to work out more permanent accommodations for the Sainted Mary’s future, and five people, including two aunties, promptly volunteered to serve.

“Is there any more new business?” Kate said.

There wasn’t. Really, one of the least confrontational shareholders meetings in the history of the Niniltna Native Asscociation.

Or, she thought, everyone was just in a hurry to get to the main event, which was the election of a new board of directors, and a new chairman of that board.

She was in something of a hurry to get there herself.

“Very well,” Kate said. “There being no new business, I move that we open the floor to nominations for the board seat left vacant by the death of board member Samuel Leviticus Dementieff.”

The move was seconded, and Auntie Vi raised her hand.

“The chair recognizes Viola Moonin.”

“I nominate Axenia Shugak Mathisen for Old Sam’s seat,” Auntie Vi said, and the glower she directed at the assemblage dared anyone else to put up a rival candidate.

Some of the shareholders would go up against Kate any day all day long, but Auntie Vi was another kettle of fish entirely. Harvey Meganack, of all people, seconded the nomination.

“Axenia Shugak Mathisen has been nominated to serve on the board of directors,” Kate said. “Ms. Mathisen?”

Halfway down the center aisle formed by two rectangles of gray metal folding chairs, Axenia rose to her feet, dark brown eyes calm, black hair cut in a tidy pageboy with artfully feathered bangs. “Madam Chair?”

“You have been nominated to a seat on the board of directors. Do you accept the nomination?”

“Madam Chair, I do.”

“Very well.” Kate surveyed the two hundred shareholders. “Are there any other nominations?”

Auntie Vi maintained her glower. Prudently, there were none.

“Very well,” Kate said. “Is there any discussion on the nomination of Axenia Shugak Mathisen to the board of directors of the Niniltna Native Association?”

Iris Meganack raised her hand. “Axenia lives in Anchorage. I thought all board members had to live in the Park.”

Kate looked at Annie. “The chair recognizes Annie Mike.”

Unflustered, Annie looked at Iris. “Residency is unrestricted, according to our bylaws. The founders”—by which she meant Ekaterina, Kate’s grandmother, who had been most responsible for the final form of the bylaws governing the Association—“were mindful of the fact that the Association was and would be for the foreseeable future very small in number of members. They knew it would have been a mistake for the founders to exclude any shareholder on the basis of residence.”

“Yes,” Iris said, “but have we ever had a board member who didn’t live in the Park before?”

“No,” Annie said. “Again, this is a matter of tradition only, not of bylaw.”

The shareholders took a moment to digest this. Kate looked at Axenia, who had remained on her feet for the discussion. She was dressed in worn jeans, a faded plaid shirt, and waffle stompers that looked older than she was. She had brought both of her children with her, and they were playing quietly with the rest of the kids in back of the rows of folding chairs. She’d been front and center at the potlatch yesterday, circulating through the crowd to speak at least a few words to every single person there, and taking her turn at the microphone to tell an unexceptional story about Old Sam and the time he’d built a bed for her Barbie doll. She’d been a wild child in her youth, before Kate conspired against their grandmother to get her cousin out of the Park. Her Park rat dress and quiet, assured demeanor, not to mention her well-behaved children, had gone a long way toward erasing the Park’s memory of that wayward teenager.

Someone else raised their hand. “The chair recognizes Debbie Ollestad.”

Debbie raised herself ponderously to her feet, wincing when her weight came down on that bunion on her left big toe. “Axenia’s husband is an attorney for the Suulutaq Mine.” A murmur went around the room. “Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”

Annie Mike raised her hand. “Madam Chair, if I may. The bylaws do not define conflict of interest, per se. They do require all board members to conduct themselves in a manner that is transparent, at all times putting the interests of the Association before their own.” Annie paused briefly, and when she continued, the more observant noticed the steel entering into her voice. “If a board member is at any time observed by any shareholder in violation of these precepts, the bylaws provide a mechanism for bringing the matter before the shareholders.” Annie paused again. “At which time the shareholders will be asked to decide if they wish to retain the services of said board member.”

Her tone was so dry this time that a ripple of laughter ran around the room, and Debbie nodded and resumed her seat in obvious relief.

“Is there any further discussion?” Kate asked, bending an intimidating eye on the assemblage. There was not, and Axenia Shugak Mathisen was elected to the Niniltna Native Association board of directors by a voice vote. Amid applause, she walked to the stage, climbed the stairs, and took the empty chair next to Auntie Joy.

Which brought them to the last item on the agenda. Kate took a deep breath and did her best not to look overjoyed. “As you all know, two years ago I was named NNA chair, to serve out Billy Mike’s term. It’s up. I’m out.”

This time the laugh was louder and lasted longer. Behind her, Kate could hear the enthusiastic thump of Mutt’s tail on the wooden floor of the stage.

Try as she would to maintain the dignity of her office, Kate couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across her face. “Therefore, today we elect a new chair. I declare the floor open to nominations, and as my penultimate act I’m going to co-opt the first one. I nominate Annie Mike.”

“I second,” Auntie Vi said promptly.

Kate had spent the last two months speaking in person to each and every one of the 276 shareholders to ensure that there would be no other nominations and no discussion. In addition, she had put the aunties into the field, a five-pronged attack that had not failed of effect. Ulanie Anahonak looked angry, but she could take the temperature of a room as well as any other politician, and Annie Mike was elected to the board without a single dissenting vote. Indeed, the shout of acclamation was almost as loud as the shout that greeted Lars Ahkiok’s winning basket in last year’s annual grudge match between the Kanuyaq Kings and the Seldovia Sea Otters.

Annie, who had spent the last fifteen years sitting in a corner taking minutes of board meetings, was unnaccustomed to so much direct attention. She came to the podium to accept the gavel, a little flushed. She kept her acceptance speech short and sweet, thanking Kate for the nomination and the shareholders for their votes and promising to work hard to keep their confidence and to help lead the Niniltna Native Association into a profitable and sustainable future. Her first act as chair was to announce that Phyllis Lestinkof had been hired as the new Association secretary. This found favor with everyone except for Phyllis’s family, boon companions of Ulanie’s, who had cast Phyllis out when she became pregnant with an illegitimate child and whom they had fondly hoped to find in a ditch sometime during the past winter, dead of hypothermia and despair. Instead, their sinful daughter now had a daughter of her own, a home with a supply of wood sufficient to last through two winters, and a good job. Dark and direful mutterings came from their section of the chairs. Phyllis, sitting in the front row, baby Samantha on her lap attired in a hot pink onesie, displayed a newfound composure and ignored them. She was a woman of substance and a mother now.

As Annie spoke, Kate looked over the audience and found not a few faces turned her way. Most seemed to be waiting for the other shoe to drop. No one had quite believed her, however many times she had said it, that she was uninterested in being chair for another term, or for life.