Whisper To The Blood Part 31

Howie shook his head vigorously. "No, Jim. No, I told you, I didn't. For one thing, I didn't have a shotgun with me that day."

"How did you know he was killed with a shotgun?" Jim said. "Very few people know that, Howie."

Howie's voice dropped even lower. "Like I told you before. Because I saw him."

Jim looked down at him, considering. "I remember. You said you found Louis dead on the road to the Step."

"Yeah." Howie swallowed and looked a little sick. "Yeah. I was driving out the road and he was just lying there. I pulled over and I got out and he was just. . . lying there, with his chest all blown open. Gut shot." He shuddered.

"Uh-huh," Jim said again. "What were you doing on the road to the Step that day, Howie?"

"I was supposed to pick up Louis when you let him out of jail," Howie said. "He was already gone when I got here. I knew he'd be mad I wasn't here on time, and he told me he had to talk to Ranger Dan, so I figured I'd find him on the road." He swallowed again. "And I did."

Jim took down Howie's statement, for what it was worth, and, after an internal debate that lasted a good five minutes, went ahead and released Howie into Willard's tearful arms. Willard probably hadn't eaten a decent meal since Howie went inside.

"Hey, Howie," Jim said, as they were leaving. "Who was that poaching caribou with you up GrueningRiver way?"

Howie hesitated, and then shrugged. Loyalty was never one of Howie's strong suits. "Martin Shugak."

"You already told me that, Howie. There was someone else, though, wasn't there? I saw a third rig under the trees."

"f.u.c.k," Howie said, disgusted. "Al Sheldon."

Not one of the usual suspects, but the name nevertheless sounded familiar to Jim. He tried to track it down in his memory and came up empty.

There were two reasons he let Howie go. For one thing, he needed the cell. For another, if Howie hadn't fled the Park before this, chances were he wasn't going anywhere now. Still, Jim called Kenny Hazen and asked him to keep an eye out for Howie and Willard in Ahtna, just in case.

At some point he was going to have to talk to the aunties again. By rights, as a practicing policeman, he should bring them all in for questioning. He was already guilty of dereliction of duty by leaving it this long.

Although he had been busy, no denying that. Gallagher's prints had gone out before midnight, and before eight the next morning there was a match. d.i.c.k Gallagher was Doyle Greenbaugh, all right, and he was wanted for questioning for a double homicide at a truck stop outside of Boise, Idaho.

Johnny stopped by on the way to school and on Google Earth identified the truck stop as one of the stops Gallagher had made on their way north. "Here's the newspaper story about it," Jim said, handing him a printout.

BOISE, ID (AP): Two bodies were found in the parking lot of the Riders of the Purple Sage Truck Stop on Franklin Road, Caldwell , a suburb of Boise, early this morning. The first victim was a white male in his early forties, the second a white male in his teens; they have been identified as Dennis McMil-lian, a local businessman, and his fourteen-year-old son, Mark, both on a routine early morning walk with their dog, Rusty. Police say both appeared to have been shot by a large-caliber handgun, the elder victim in the chest and the younger in the back some distance away. Rusty was crouched next to the younger victim when the bodies were found.

"The incidence of violent crime has only been increasing on I-84 over the last ten years," said Representative Cole Blanchette (R-Boise) in an impromptu press conference near the scene yesterday morning. "It's what I've been trying to hammer home on the floor of the House every session, that we need an automatic death sentence for anyone convicted of committing a crime with a firearm."

An anonymous source in the police department said that traces of cocaine found near the bodies indicated that the two victims may have interrupted a drug deal. The same anonymous source reported that police have long suspected a network of drug dealers working truck stops across the nation. "It's natural," the source said. "Interstates go everywhere, and those big rigs go everywhere on them. It would make for a very efficient operation. They'd be mostly anonymous to the locals, so they'd never show up on the local cops' radar. They get here, they do their deal, they move on. And they've got a cover story that isn't even a cover story, it's a real job, they have a reason for pa.s.sing through."

Police are canva.s.sing the area for witnesses to the crime. A high-placed source in the police department who wishes to remain anonymous says that special attention is being paid to traffic in and out of the truck stop between the hours of midnight and six a.m.

"He bought me breakfast there," Johnny said, handing it back. He looked sick. "I was starving. I thought it was so nice of him. He left me at the counter, said he had to see a man about a horse."

"How long was he gone?"

"Twenty minutes, maybe? Half an hour?" Johnny shook his head. "I don't remember exactly. I thought-" "What?"

Johnny ducked his head and studied the floor intently. "I thought maybe a woman. I saw them, the ones who hang around the truck stops. They were everywhere we pulled in." He glanced up fleetingly. "I'm sorry, Jim. If I'd told you when he got here-"

"It's okay," Jim said.

"No, it isn't. Maybe Ms. Macleod would be alive if I had." "You didn't kill her, Johnny. And Gallagher hasn't confessed." "Yet. But you got him. Kate told me about the monofilament." "Yeah,' Jim said, not without a certain satisfaction. Besides the little bundle in the kitchen catch-all, there was enough mending twine in Auntie Vi's net loft to stock a marine supply store. Jim didn't know if the geeks at the crime lab could match batches of the stuff, but even if they couldn't it put the means of Macleod's murder very close to Gallagher's hand.

They'd recovered the bullets in the Boise homicides, too, and Gallagher's weapon was already on its way to the crime lab in Anchorage. "Yeah," he said, "we got him."

Kate came in as Johnny was leaving. "You okay?" she said.

"Jim says I didn't kill her."

"Jim Chopin, while a man and by definition foolish and fallible, is in this case absolutely and miraculously right."

Johnny watched his hands as they tried to tie his knit cap into a knot. "I shouldn't have told him where I was from, Kate. He wouldn't have shown up here." He looked up. "Maybe if I hadn't, Ms. Macleod would still be alive."

"Maybe. Maybe not. He'd already killed two people, don't forget. And you were with him. You could have seen something."

He paled a little. "You think he would have tried to kill me."

"I don't know. Fortunately, not an issue now."

Johnny's expression lightened. "I guess so. Yeah."

"Go on," she said, opening the door to the post. "You're going to be late for school. Just make d.a.m.n sure that's where you're going."

"Yes, Kate," he said, and bolted out the door.

I saw Howie and Willard, headed for home," she said in Jim's office. "You still think he might be making it up about the aunties hiring him to do Louis Deem?" saw Howie and Willard, headed for home," she said in Jim's office. "You still think he might be making it up about the aunties hiring him to do Louis Deem?"

"You asked them again?"

"Haven't had time."

He snorted. "Yeah, you're as petrified as I am that it's true. And then what?"

Kate had other issues with the aunties as well, but he couldn't help her with those. "You're sure he didn't kill Mac Devlin?"

He nodded. "Yeah. He was out there all right, with your cousin Martin and some guy named Sheldon, poaching caribou for resale. And Howie's rifle doesn't match the bullet the ME dug out of Mac's back." She was silent, frowning at the floor. "Kate?"

She looked up. "Want me to talk to Martin and Sheldon?"

"Sure. Probably even pay you for it. I'm going to take Greenbaugh into Anchorage personally as soon as it gets light."

"He okay to travel?"

"They got doctors in Anchorage can take care of him just fine. The sooner he's safely inside Cook Inlet Pre-Trial, the better I'll feel."

"Has Greenbaugh said he killed Talia yet?"

"He's not talking. After Mutt's emergency tracheotomy last night"-Mutt's ears perked up at mention of her name-"I'm not sure he can. But I called Global Harvest. The day Macleod died, he called them and told them he wanted her job."

"They give it to him?"

"Are you kidding? Guy hasn't even been in the state a year. Hasn't even made it through his first winter. No time served, no name recognition. Global Harvest didn't get to be the world's largest gold mining company because they were stupid."

It was almost word for word what she'd thought herself. Spooky. "So who's the new Talia, did they say?"

"They don't know yet. The guy said they'd made a job offer and were waiting to hear back. You get a call you didn't tell me about?"

Kate smiled, a little distracted.

"You okay, Kate?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'll go talk to Martin and Sheldon today."

She didn't bother looking for Martin. Instead, she went straight out to the Sheldons' place. It was about five miles downriver from Niniltna on the road to Bernie's, a couple miles after the turnoff to Bobby's place on SquawCandyCreek and a couple of miles before the turnoff to the Nabesna Mine. The Sheldons had been Mac Devlin's nearest neighbors.

The snow machine nosed down the narrow track, which went in about a mile before ending in a large clearing. There was a small, neat house, a cache on stilts, and a couple of outbuildings. Next to one of these was a D6 Caterpillar tractor, yellow body and ten-foot steel blade. Kate recognized it immediately, as some years back she'd had occasion to employ it as a means of resolving a chronic property dispute between the Jeppsens and the Kreugers. It would have wrung Mac's heart to see it sitting out in the weather. He'd always taken good care of his equipment. It was one of his few discernible virtues.

She pulled up to the house and killed the engine. Mutt hopped down and Kate dismounted as the door opened. A man stood in the doorway squinting out at the morning light, tall, balding, suspenders holding up his Carhartts, T-s.h.i.+rt stained with coffee and what looked like egg, worn leather mocs on his feet.

"Mr. Sheldon?" Kate said, without moving, because he was also holding a bolt-action .30-06. He wasn't aiming it anywhere in particular and she wasn't going to give him cause to do so. She hoped.

"Yeah?"

"I'm Kate Shugak, Mr. Sheldon. I'm a Park rat like yourself, live about thirty miles the other direction, off the road to Ahtna."

"I've heard of you." The rifle remained held loosely in front of him. "What do you want?"

"I need to talk to you. Okay if I come in?"

He seemed about to refuse, and then Mutt trotted up and looked at him with wide eyes and alert ears. "Nice-looking dog. Got some wolf in her."

"Some. May I please come in and talk to you, Mr. Sheldon?"

He shrugged and stepped back. "Sure, I guess. If you want."

She waited until he set the rifle in a corner before stepping into the kitchen, where unwashed dishes were piled high in the sink and more were spread on table and countertop, along with silverware, cutlery, and pots and pans. There was the sour smell of moldering food in the air, probably emanating from the gnawed-looking haunch of caribou sitting on the table, and dirt crunched underfoot.

"Sorry about the mess," Sheldon said. "My wife's away."

There was a propane cooker and a woodstove with a kettle on top. He moved the kettle to the cooker and turned the burner underneath on high, produced a jar of Sanka and another of creamer and a bowl of sugar crusted around the rim from countless wet spoons dipping into it. The kettle boiled almost immediately and Sheldon used his arm in a sweeping movement to shove everything on the table to one side and set out heavy white mugs and Fig Newtons in a tattered plastic sleeve. Kate doctored her coffee, sipped it, and took a bite of a cookie. She fed the rest to a bright-eyed Mutt sitting alertly at her side.

Hospitality satisfied, Sheldon said, "What's this about?" His face looked hollowed out, his eyes bruised. His thinning hair looked as if it hadn't been combed in a week or washed in a month. He hadn't shaved in a while, either, and his fingernails were grimed with dirt. He spoke in a monotone, without life or hope.

"I think you know, sir."

"Do I?"

Kate made her voice as gentle as possible. "I understand your son was killed this fall."

His head snapped up and he stared at her. His eyes reddened and filled with tears. "s.h.i.+t," he said, rubbing them with the back of his hand. "s.h.i.+t. You'd think after all this time . . ." He dropped his hand and glared at her. "What's that got to do with you?"

"I understand it was an accident," Kate said. "The Cat turned over on him."

"Accident my a.s.s," Sheldon said, firing up, "that f.u.c.ker Devlin sold me that Cat when he knew the track was about to fall apart. My boy took it out to work on the creek out back, been showing some color. He thought he might pick up a few nuggets, maybe pay for his tuition, price of gold what it is . . ." His voice trailed away as the energy drained out of him again. "Killed him, that piece of s.h.i.+t Cat did." He looked at Kate again but the glare was gone. "Devlin sold me a defective piece of equipment. Should have known when he let it go so cheap. Should have looked it over more careful." His head drooped. "Should never have let Roger drive it."

"Is that why you killed him, Mr. Sheldon? Is that why you shot Mac Devlin in the back?"

His head came up again and they stared at each other, the silence stretching out between them, pulling tighter and tighter, until he seemed to realize that he'd left his answer too long.

"You were hunting caribou up back of Suulutaq with Howie Katelnikof and Martin Shugak," Kate said. "Mac went out to the Global Harvest trailer, probably to steal what he could and trash the rest. You saw him on your way out. Followed him. Shot him in the back as he was going inside. That the way it happened?"

He was still staring at her. "Was Roger your only son, Mr. Sheldon?"

He blinked, and looked down at the table, his eye lighting on something. He stretched out a hand possessed of a fine trembling and pulled it out of the mess. "Yes," he said, looking at it. "He was our only child."

He handed it to her. It was a photograph of three people, a man barely recognizable as the one sitting in front of her now, not much younger but healthy and happy. The woman was attractively plump, and they were both looking adoringly at the third person in the photo, a gangly young man with a large Adam's apple and silverrimmed gla.s.ses perched on a hawk beak of a nose identical to the one on the face before her.

"I'm very sorry," she said, handing the photograph back.

"Me, too," he said.

"You didn't go out there meaning to kill Mac Devlin, did you, Mr. Sheldon?"

"I didn't even know he was going to be there." Sheldon spoke in a dreary tone. "Martin told me they could use an extra hand with the caribou, and I'm a good butcher. They were going to pay me in meat, so I said I would. He told me to come out a day after them, so they'd have some shot and gutted and ready for me to work on. So I did." He turned blind eyes toward the window, the only source of light in the room. "It was like you said. I saw that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Devlin at the trailer." He shrugged. "I had my rifle with me." He picked up the photograph again. "Seemed the right thing to do at the time."

She sat in silence with him for some minutes, before getting to her feet. "I'll have to take your rifle in, Mr. Sheldon," she said. "Give it to the trooper in Niniltna. I expect he'll be out here in the next day or so."

He nodded. "Good. Give me a chance to clean up the place." He looked around. "Although I don't know what for. n.o.body going to be living here now."

It about killed her to drive off and leave him there, alone with his ghosts.