Less Than a Treason (Kate Shugak Book 21) Page 10

  She waited to hear that Erland had written a six-zeroed check to the ACLU, but no. Instead, it appeared that Bannister, Inc. would be stepping in to take up some of the slack where the state, being broke due decreasing oil stocks and the current price per barrel of oil, had withdrawn support. For example, the legislature had stopped giving tax credits to the film industry. Erland Bannister thought that was a crying shame—they even played a clip of him saying so at an Anchorage Chamber of Commerce luncheon—that the state of Alaska had gotten out of the movie business. Fifty-Three North Productions was created on his say-so to match funds with Outside producers in an attempt to build a homegrown industry, as witness that zenith of quality television programming, Surviving Alaska, Alaska’s newest reality TV show. In the last six months Fifty-Three North and its investors had employed over a hundred Alaskans and spent almost $5 million in support services. There was even a rumor, the reporter said even more breathlessly, that major Hollywood film producers had invested in this enterprise, including some big-name film stars, although no specific names had been revealed as yet.

  Kate could think of one name right off the bat. Her hand felt warm and she looked down to see that she had crushed a bag of very fine french fries in a clenched fist. Appetite gone, she got out of the car and tossed the rest of her lunch in the trash can. The young couple’s tryst had ended and there was a flurry of clothing being reassembled. She walked a little way down the Coastal Trail, looking at the view of downtown Anchorage, tall shining buildings reflecting the peaks of the Chugach Mountains behind them. Most of them had been built by oil. Most, but not all.

  “And ‘There’s never a law of God or man runs north of Fifty-Three,’” she said out loud. She wondered if the reporter had asked Erland where he’d gotten the name for his film company. Rudyard Kipling was always good for a world-building epigram, especially if it was a white male world, and they didn’t come any whiter and maler than Erland Bannister. There was a law of Bannister and it did run north of the fifty-three.

  She got back into the Forester and googled the Suulutaq Mine on her phone. It showed up under Global Harvest’s website and she pressed the phone icon. When they answered she said in her crispest, most efficient voice, “Yes, could you put me through to a Mr. Fergus McDonald, please?”

  No pause at all. “Mr. McDonald doesn’t work in Anchorage, ma’am, but I can put you through to our geology department.”

  “Thank you.”

  Click, click and a second voice came on the line. “Geology, Magnus Campbell.”

  “Mr. Campbell, hello. I was looking for a Mr. Fergus McDonald.”

  A bit of a pause this time. “Mac’s at the mine this shift.”

  “No, he isn’t, Mr. Campbell.” She took a chance that the news of Sylvia McDonald’s death had yet to reach his office. “I’m a private investigator, and I’ve been retained by his wife to find him. I was wondering if we could talk.”

  “Sylvia hired a private investigator?”

  “I’d really like to talk to you about your co-worker. May I come to your office?”

  “Jesus! No! Don’t come here, stay the hell away from the office.”

  Kate, beginning to enjoy herself, said, “Well, I suppose I could ask my questions on the phone, but I’d really rather meet with you in person if you can find the time. I’m just a few blocks from Suulutaq—” a lie “—and it would be no bother.”

  “Fuck no! No,” he said, calming himself with an obvious effort. “Uh, I haven’t had lunch. Could you meet me?”

  Kate eyed the garbage can. “As it happens I haven’t had lunch, either. I’d be happy to meet you. Somewhere downtown, convenient to your offices? Perhaps Club Paris?”

  “No! Not downtown!”

  Kate grinned at the windshield. “Where would you suggest? I’m easy.” Just not cheap.

  “Southside Bistro. I’ll be there in half an hour. How will I know you?”

  “I’ll find you,” Kate said. “Thank you, Mr. Campbell, it’s very kind of you to take the time.”

  She hung up and googled Global Harvest. Like most major concerns nowadays, they had an employee page, listed alphabetically by department. Under Exploration and then Geology she found names, job titles and headshots. Campbell was thin and blond with watery blue eyes in a narrow face that depended down into a chin that nearly reached the top button of his shirt. Scandahoovian without a doubt, or Scots. Same difference.

  She called Brillo next, who said, “I heard you were dead.”

  “That is the word on the street,” she said. “Can you tell me anything about those bones I found?”

  “Jesus, Shugak, I just got ’em.”

  “Can you tell me how long they’ve been there?”

  “What am I now, a fucking seer? They’ve been picked clean and stripped of everything edible, and they’re pretty soft from long exposure.”

  “How long?”

  An impatient huff. “Five years minimum, be my guess, and only my guess.”

  Kate felt an easing of the tightness in her breast that had been there since Juna had limped into Canyon Hot Springs. “Male or female?”

  “Can’t tell, no whole arm or leg bones and no pelvic bones at all. It’ll take a while to assemble what vertebrae survived all those chewy little fuckers out on the tundra. Is it true you found ’em on your property?”

  “Not personally, no. A bunch of runners came through and one of them fell on them.” Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they were the bones of an old prospector chancing his luck in the Quilaks during the Stampede. “When do you think you’ll know more?”

  “I got no goddamn idea, Shugak, and since you gifted me with another fucking body this morning—jesus, you’re like the fucking grim reaper—and since the fucking gang bangers in Fairview have declared war on the fucking gang bangers in Mountain View the lab is pretty fucking full already, it’s going to be a while before I do so don’t hold your fucking breath.”

  He hung up on her. She was pretty sure he enjoyed doing it, too.

  But he’d lifted a weight from her shoulders. Despite their obvious age, she had been terrified that the bones had been the remains of Jennifer Mack or Ryan Christianson or both. It wouldn’t have been the first time the Quilaks had claimed blood tribute from those who dared to cross from Alaska into Canada. But Jennifer and Ryan had eloped over the mountains just four months before, so these bones could not possibly belong to them.

  Kate, who had been the principal architect of their elopement, had a vested interest in their continued survival. Their families, friends and the rest of the Park had been persuaded to believe that they were dead. If it was ever discovered otherwise, they might be shortly thereafter.

  Secrets. She kept too many. Sometimes the sheer weight of all of them made her feel like one of the black and midnight hags.

  · · ·

  She drove to Southside Bistro to meet her date. It was an upscale restaurant in a business mall, bustling with upscale diners in business attire sitting at tables with linen tablecloths. Fortunately this was still Alaska and no one looked twice at her jeans. Magnus Campbell was in jeans himself, topped with a white oxford shirt and a gray tweed sports jacket whose patch pockets were pulled sadly out of shape, as if they had been loaded and unloaded with rock samples over its life. “Mr. Campbell?”

  He cleared his throat. “Ms.—Shooter?” He got to his feet and knocked over his water glass. Their waiter appeared and whisked away the detritus, mopped up the water, reset Campbell’s place, and awarded them both with menus as if he were handing over a Nobel Peace Prize before taking himself off to grace the next table but one with his presence.

  “Guy’s got style,” Kate said. Campbell sat down again, very nearly upsetting his second glass of water. She extended a hand. “Kate Shugak. Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me.” When he put his hand in hers she held on and leaned forward a little, to where his hand was almost brushing the front of her T-shirt. She smiled at him. Helplessly, he smile
d back. When she saw his pupils start to dilate she released his hand with a show of reluctance and let her eyes fall to his lips for a moment. They were lips, nothing to write home about, but he didn’t have to know that. “I do appreciate your taking the time.”

  He looked like Mowgli being hypnotized by Kaa. The two impeccably tailored, stylishly coifed women sitting at the next table looked on with wondering eyes, but as any red-blooded man could have told them it wasn’t the T-shirt or the jeans, it was the woman in them, and Magnus Campbell was the very last thing from immune. The waiter, hastening to the aid of a fellow male clearly in need, reappeared to take their drink and food orders and vanished again. It didn’t do a thing to break the mood.

  Campbell cleared his throat, unconsciously leaning forward as Kate leaned back. “Ms.—”

  “Shugak,” Kate said. “But call me Kate. If I may call you Magnus.”

  He cleared his throat, evidently something of a nervous tic. “Of course.” He sounded a little hoarse. “Are you really a private investigator?”

  “I really am.” She smiled.

  He cleared his throat again. He could barely meet her eyes. “And Sylvia McDonald hired you to look for Mac?”

  “Yes. She flew into Suulutaq yesterday. He wasn’t at the mine and they told her he’d taken off for the weekend on Saturday. Then she checked in at the nearest village. He wasn’t there, either, and he hadn’t been seen.” She let her eyes wander over his face again. “Have you heard from him?”

  His “No” came out as a high squeak. He flushed and cleared his throat. “No, I haven’t.”

  But he dropped his eyes and looked about as guilty as someone could get without standing in front of a judge. Kate’s voice turned coaxing. “You must have spoken frequently. You’re both geologists, after all.” She smiled. “Such an interesting job, I’ve often thought, and so vital to the state.” She might have fluttered her eyelashes. “We can’t pull it out of the ground until you geologists find it for us.”

  “Oh, brother,” one of the women said as the other woman rolled her eyes, but it worked, if working meant Kate spent the entirety of a bowl of really excellent mussels and a hunk of fresh baked parmesan bread listening to Campbell wax rhapsodic about aggregate and core sampling and the fire assay process and the proportion of gold to copper which commonly occurred together but not with molybdenum, one of the things that made the Suulutaq discovery so very special. Fergus McDonald’s name cropped up now and then and from all this dough rose the tidbit of information that Magnus and Mac had last spoken the previous Saturday, or the last day before Mac left the Suulutaq mine to go on walkabout. It was the same day Fergus and Sylvia had last spoken, too.

  When asked, Magnus was ready and willing to tell her all about Fergus McDonald as an excellent geologist and a long-time friend. Over the past ten years they’d worked together at mines all across the United States and even one in Papua New Guinea. “Not my favorite job,” he said, making a face. “Too hot, and the natives didn’t seem to care much for us, to the point where they stationed government soldiers around the town and the mine for our protection. Not to mention the taipans.”

  “What’s a taipan?”

  “A poisonous snake. They’re common there.”

  Kate shuddered and it wasn’t a pretend shudder. “One of the benefits of living in Alaska. No snakes.”

  He brightened. “But we did very well there, indeed.”

  “Indeed?” Kate said invitingly, smiling deep into his eyes.

  It took a moment before he remembered what he’d just said. He blushed again, cleared his throat again, and was saved, again, when the waiter swooped in with the check.

  Only it wasn’t the check. The waiter lowered his voice to a deferential murmur. “The gentleman in the corner booth has paid for your meal.” He divided a smile between the two of them, bent a look of pity on the geologist, and whisked off.

  Kate looked beyond Magnus Campbell’s shoulder, who was looking for their mysterious benefactor in the exact opposite direction their server had indicated.

  Erland Bannister was looking back at her.

  She looked back at Magnus and smiled again. “How nice. An old friend. I’ll have to go over and say hello. I’ll be in town for a few more days, Magnus, maybe even a week. Should we, perhaps, exchange phone numbers?”

  Campbell dropped his phone twice and Kate said, “Why don’t you just tell me your phone number and I’ll text you.” He did and she input his phone number and sent him a smiley face emoticon. Predictably, he blushed again, and texted back.

  ^h8s iz mAgn7s

  Really, it was like taking candy from a baby, and she should feel ashamed of herself, and she would. Later. She sent him on his delirious way with a light kiss on his cheek that hit really close to his mouth, and turned back to look across the crowded room at Erland. He wasn’t alone, although the woman with him had her back to Kate so all she could see was a lot of fine white blond hair done up in an elegant twist. Something about that hair rang a distant bell in her mind and she frowned.

  Erland’s smile widened and he beckoned.

  This would not end well. Kate threaded her way through the tables, aware eyes were following her déclassé self over to the best table in the room with one of the most powerful men in Alaska seated at it. As Kate approached the table the blonde turned and didn’t smile. “Kate.”

  It took all of Kate’s considerable willpower to answer with any kind of civility. “Jane.”

  “Yes,” Erland said, manifesting a vast surprise, “you two know each other, don’t you?” He smiled. “Alaska is such a small state, really.”

  Like the fucker didn’t already know Jane Morgan was Jack Morgan’s ex-wife and Johnny Morgan’s egg donor. “We do,” Kate said, but she didn’t say how nice it was to see Jane, and Jane didn’t say how nice it was to see Kate, and in the meantime frost formed on the wine glasses.

  She didn’t ask what the two of them were doing there together—some of the items Kate had found in Jane’s drawers during a bit of harmless B&E a few years back could give her a good guess—but Erland told her anyway. “Jane’s working for the Bannister Foundation nowadays.”

  “How nice for you both,” Kate said. “I just came over to thank you for lunch.”

  “It was my very great pleasure,” Erland said, even bowing a little in place, although it felt more to Kate like the drawing of a sword. “I’m glad to see you in health. I had heard that you had been hurt in, um, the line of duty.” His eyes glittered. “If line of duty is the correct term for a private investigator.”

  Kate smiled. It wasn’t the same smile that had ensorceled Magnus Campbell by a mile, but then Magnus Campbell hadn’t made her job title sound like “two-bit whore,” either. “I hear you are doing great things these days, Erland. You’ve turned into a real philanthropist.”

  He gave an airy wave with a liver-spotted hand that was so thin it was almost translucent. “I do what I can, now that all the fuss over my little problem is past.”

  “Your ‘little problem.’” Kate’s brow wrinkled and then smoothed. “Oh, of course, you mean your conviction and imprisonment for assault, kidnapping, attempted murder. And other assorted felonies. I’m afraid I’ve lost count.”

  Erland’s eyes narrowed when Kate raised her voice enough to be heard at nearby tables. There was a brief silence all around, ears straining for more. “A decision that was vacated by the state Supreme Court, as you well know.”

  “Yes,” she said kindly, “unfortunately the courts are not quite as reliable as one could hope for. Such a shame. Well. I must be off. No, no, don’t get up.”

  He hadn’t been going to, of course, and Kate realized that the rest of him was as thin as his hand, and that that hand was shaking where it lay on the table. He followed her eyes and put his hand in his lap. “I expect we’ll meet again soon,” he said. “Jane and I will be visiting the Park quite often, now that I have interests there.”

  “Yes, I heard. A reality
television show, isn’t it? Trust you to aim for class every time, Erland.” She bestowed a valedictory smile on the both of them—Jane had not spoken one further word—and left the restaurant. She got into the Forester and drove to the other side of the business park, parking in front of the post office without turning off the engine. She rolled down her window and took a series of long, deep breaths. After a while her heart rate slowed and her blood pressure return to normal. Two women pushing strollers jogged past, the babies barely visible beneath the packing material piled over them. Ordinary citizens came and went, checking their mail, mailing packages.

  Whatever skills she had to offer, Erland had hired Jane Morgan to get to Kate, no doubt of that. So she wouldn’t be got to. It wasn’t like they were moving to the Park, however many ‘interests’ Erland had there. Erland living permanently in Niniltna, she’d like to see that. And he was eighty-two now, according to the radio, and looked it. They had met for the first time three years ago when his daughter had hired her to get her mom and Erland’s sister out of jail. Then he had been a handsome, vital man, exuding power and the often irresistible personal magnetism that comes with it. Now, he was so thin he looked almost emaciated, and that shaking hand. Parkinson’s, maybe? She wondered what the life expectancy was from diagnosis. She’d have to look it up. Might be cheering. The thought surprised a laugh out of her, and she half turned in her seat to say, “I am definitely not—” and then stopped herself, because no one was sitting there to hear her.