Spoils of the dead Page 6

  “WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU, CAMPBELL!”

  Even at arm’s length Colonel John Dillinger Barton’s bellow did tend to fill up a room. Liam worked his jaw back and forth to loosen up his eardrums. “I’m right here in Blewestown where you sent me, John.”

  “ABOUT FUCKING TIME!”

  “Really didn’t have to be here until next week,” Liam said, with no hope of being heard.

  There was no hope of a soft answer turning away wrath, either, as the director of the Alaska State Troopers carried on at full volume. “WE’VE GOT DEATHS BY METH INCREASING BY A THIRD EVERY FUCKING YEAR AND MOST OF THE HOMEGROWN IS COMING OUT OF THAT CESSPOOL THEY CALL THE LOWER KP! THE GOVERNOR IS ALL UP IN MY GRILL TELLING ME THE TROOPERS ARE FALLING DOWN ON THE GODDAMN JOB! GET WITH THE FUCKING PROGRAM, CAMPBELL! I WANT TO SEE NUMBERS CRASHING THE WAY THEY DID WHEN YOU AND CHOPIN WERE IN THE VALLEY!”

  “Certainly, sir,” he said.

  Click. At least Barton wasn’t slamming his cell phones down on his desk anymore. Probably because the department’s bean counters got tired of paying for new ones.

  Liam looked up to see Wy watching him with sympathy. “Yeah,” he said. “Evidently I’m supposed to fix the meth problem in the entire state of Alaska all by myself.”

  “Well,” she said, and grinned. “If anyone can do it…”

  He flipped her off and she tossed her hair and gave him a smoldering look from beneath her eyelashes. “Anytime, anywhere, Campbell.”

  The local post was next to the local cop shop. He approved, as his post in Newenham had been isolated on a side road with nothing else around. Better for law enforcement to be smack in the middle of things. You had to be a neighbor before you could be a good neighbor. The Blewestown cop shop had brick walls and narrow windows and, unexpectedly, a colorful mural of sea otters frolicking in kelp on one side. His research had told him that it housed eight field officers, two administrative staff, and a chief with a no-bullshit reputation. Liam was looking forward to meeting him.

  The trooper post was brand new and looked it, built on a template the Department of Public Safety had repeated all over the state. A square building sided with T-111 and roofed with asphalt shingles, it had a porch that faced the Bay, which surely the state had not paid for, as Alaska State Troopers were not encouraged to sit around outside admiring their own views. He was interested to see that there were solar panels on the roof, as well as on the roof of the cop shop. Jeff’s comment about woke communities notwithstanding, if Blewestown was woke enough to support alternative energy he was all for it. Jeff and his wife had installed solar panels on their house and Jeff had shown Liam the electric bills. It was only one of the reasons they’d bought it, but it was definitely one of the reasons they could afford it.

  The yard was a mess, a stretch of broken ground infested with dandelions and devil’s club, with a few construction bricks, half a sack of pea gravel, and some rebar for garden art. He parked in front and walked up to the door. Somewhat to his surprise, it wasn’t locked, and he went in.

  He wasn’t expecting to find anyone there before him, either. His mistake. The front office of the post occupied half of the floor space of the building. On one side of the room was a coffee table and a couple of armchairs. A table holding a coffee setup sat in one corner.

  On the other side of the room was a desk placed at an angle so that it was the first thing one saw walking in. At this desk sat a young woman, early twenties, with narrow, tilted brown eyes and long brown hair. At first glance she reminded him of someone, although he couldn’t think who. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Liam Campbell.”

  Her spine visibly stiffened. She rose immediately to her feet and extended her hand in a gesture reminiscent of snapping a salute. “Sergeant Campbell. It is very nice to meet you, sir. I’m Sally Petroff, your administrative aide.”

  “I didn’t know I had an administrative aide, and it’s Liam,” he said, shaking her hand. Her grip was firm but didn’t linger. “Who hired you?”

  “I interviewed for the job with Colonel Barton, sir.”

  The “sir” indicated that addressing him as Liam would be a work in progress. Okay then, tit for tat. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Ms. Petroff. What’s your background?”

  “I was born in Kapilat across the bay. I have an AAS in Business Management from Charter College in Anchorage, and I spent a year working under Audrey Pratt in Colonel Barton’s office, also in Anchorage. I’m fluent in APSIN, ARMS, IRIS, ALDER, and OARS, and I can write dispatches upon request.”

  If she had survived training by Audrey Pratt, a martinet on the order of George S. Patton, she had smarts and stamina. He was mildly encouraged. “You’re a local,” he said. “Which means you know everybody. That will come in handy, since I’m not and I don’t know anyone.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Relax, Ms. Petroff. You already got the job.” She did not visibly relax, and he sighed inwardly. On top of everything else he had to break in a new employee, and he hated supervising. “Do I have an office?”

  “You do, sir. Please follow me.” A door in the back wall led to a small hallway with four doors off it, two on one side, two on the other, and a fifth with a screened window through which he could see a corner of the cop shop. “Those two are interview rooms, that’s the bathroom, and that is the evidence room.”

  “I noticed the bank vault-worthy lock. You have the code?”

  “I do. Here is your office.” She opened the door and stood back. The room was just big enough to include a desk and a chair and two upright chairs across from it. There was a window in back of the desk, and that concluded the tour.

  “Thank you,” Liam said. He perched one hip on a corner of the desk and folded his arms. The more he looked at her, the more she reminded him of someone but he couldn’t nail it down. “What is your job description, Ms. Petroff?”

  She swallowed and, he could tell, immediately regretted this betrayal of nerves. “All dispatches go through Soldotna, but I field any local calls. I keep your paperwork in order—Ms. Pratt was emphatic on the subject of tracking your overtime—and I liaise with Chief Armstrong’s admin to ensure that all areas of our detachment are covered. You will have noticed the post has no holding cell.”

  Sidney Armstrong was Blewestown’s police chief. “I have.”

  “Since this post was built simultaneously with Blewestown’s new police headquarters, it was thought that as a cost-saving measure that this post could utilize their cells for any detainees we might have.”

  Before Liam could ask what other cost-saving measures there had been because bitter experience had taught him that there were always more, invariably to the detriment of whatever his mission was wherever he had been posted, they both heard the outer door open.

  A woman was waiting for them in the front office. Medium height, medium though very curvy weight, blonde/green. “Shoot me now,” Liam said.

  “Sir?”

  “Hey, Liam,” the blonde said affably. “How you been?”

  “Ms. Petroff?”

  “Sir?”

  “Does part of your job description include liaising with the press?”

  “Sir, I interned four weeks with public relations, during which I wrote releases, fielded inquiries, and briefed three times.”

  “Excellent. Handle this, please?” Liam returned to his office and shut the door firmly behind him.

  It opened as he was sitting down at his desk. “Nice try, Liam,” the blonde said no less affably than before. “Don’t blame the kid, she tried her best.”

  From behind her Petroff peered with a worried expression. “Sir, I’m sorry, but she just wouldn’t—”

  He waved her off. “Don’t worry about it, Ms. Petroff. Carry on.”

  She did her best not to look too relieved.

  “Don’t worry, kid,” Jo said. “This guy’s a magnet for action. You’ll be seeing a lot of me.”

  The door shut softly and Jo sat down across from Liam. They contemplated
each other for a moment.

  Jo Dunaway was a reporter for the Anchorage News and, for Liam’s sins, his wife’s college roommate at the University of Alaska and lifelong best friend. She was a very good reporter and an even better friend, and she enjoyed giving him wedgies in both of those roles. Payback was a way of life for Jo, and he was pretty sure she wasn’t close to being done with paying him back for the heartache he had caused Wy in the early stage of their relationship. He didn’t whine about it because he felt he deserved all the grief she handed out, and he never, ever made the mistake of complaining about Jo to Wy as Liam liked his head right where it was, thanks. He had to put up with Jo personally, so he did. He had to put up with her professionally, too, but he was a lot less sanguine about that.

  “Little bit wired,” Jo said.

  “What?”

  She hooked a thumb over her shoulder in the general direction of the front office. “Your sidekick.”

  “Oh.” He couldn’t deny it, so he said, “You have to know Wy’s already here.”

  She nodded. “We texted.”

  “So. You’re checking out my new post instead of our new house, because…?”

  “Mostly I’m down here for a story.”

  “Swell. Can I call Wy for you?”

  “We’re meeting for lunch out on the Spit. What’s hopping at your new post, Sergeant?”

  “I’m not even officially here until next Monday.”

  “Barton cracking the whip?”

  He looked at her and she laughed. “Yeah. That would have been way too easy.” She stood up. “See you later.”

  “Why?”

  “Didn’t Wy tell you? I’m your first houseguest.” And she was gone.

  Great. Although he supposed he should be grateful Jo hadn’t shown up yesterday. Possibly indicative of some small smidgeon of tact on her part.

  He thought about it. Nah.

  There was a tap at the door and he looked up to see Ms. Petroff standing in the doorway. “Who was that, sir?”

  “That, Ms. Petroff, was an example of the species known as Homo americanus diurnaria.” She looked confused, as well she might, and he relented. “She’s a reporter for the Anchorage News. Jo Dunaway.”

  “Dunaway?” Her brow smoothed. “I’ve seen her byline. She wrote about Gheen.”

  “She did.”

  “There was another trooper—”

  “Prince.”

  “Is she still in Newenham, sir?”

  “No. So far as I know she’s in Florida.” Because she had eloped with Liam’s father, that incorrigible womanizer otherwise known as Colonel Charles Bradley Campbell. Might be Brigadier General or Major General or even Lieutenant General by now. Probably never General, though, for which Liam sent up his heartfelt thanks to the United States Air Force. As a voter he thought his tax dollars could be better spent.

  All of which Jo Dunaway knew full well, and with which information she used to needle him.

  Ms. Petroff came all the way into the room. “Can I get you anything, sir?”

  At least she wasn’t going to dig around for the details of the Gheen murders as so many did when they found out he’d been the investigating officer. He nodded at the screen of the desktop computer. “Can you set this up so it answers to my password?”

  “Of course, sir.” He traded places with her and she busied herself at his keyboard. “There you are. Enter your password, confirm it, and you’re good to go.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Petroff.” He sat down again. She picked up his phone and handed it to him. “Please enter your passcode, sir?”

  “Certainly.” He did and handed the phone back.

  She tapped away industriously and set it back down on the desk. “‘Post’ rings the landline on my desk. ‘SP’ is my cell number.”

  “Thank you,” he said again, and studied her for a moment. She was of medium height but her erect posture made her seem taller. She was dressed in a neat two-piece pantsuit in dark blue with a white button-down underneath. She wore small silver hoops in her ears, no watch, no rings. Her nails were cut straight across and unpolished. She was very nearly a case study in professional anonymity. “You studied in Anchorage, you say?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And then worked at HQ for a year.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “When did you move back down to the Bay?”

  “A month ago. When they finished the post.”

  “Have you found a place to live?”

  “Yes, sir. A mother-in-law apartment over a garage. It’s only a studio but very comfortable.”

  “Your landlord okay?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s my uncle’s wife’s sister and her husband. They fish commercially during the summer and grow coffee in Hawaii in the winter.”

  “Nice.” He looked up. “Is there anything in particular you’d like to draw my attention to, Ms. Petroff? Since you got here before me and have had time to settle in.”

  She hesitated, and he wondered if her advice had never before been solicited by a trooper. If her time on the job had been spent only at HQ, she would have seen more of politics than of policing, so perhaps not a surprise. “If you read through the last month’s dispatches for this detachment, sir, it will do much to bring you up to speed. I…”

  “Yes?” he said encouragingly.

  “I believe Chief Armstrong would welcome an introduction, sir.”

  He nodded. “Anything else?”

  “There’s a local paper, sir, a weekly. It has a section called Cops and Courts. It would also help bring you up to speed.”

  That’s right, they had an actual judge here in Blewestown; an actual judge in an actual courtroom in an actual courthouse. With jury trials. Which meant juries. God. “Should I introduce myself to the local judge as well?”

  She nodded. “Yes, sir. I doubt that either of you want to meet for the first time in court.”

  He’d rather never meet another judge again as long as he lived. He wanted Bill back. Magistrate Bill Billington had taken no prisoners. She’d been a damn fine bartender, too. “No, probably not.” He looked at the screen. “Why don’t you call Chief Armstrong and ask him if he’s free for lunch? Tell him to pick the restaurant.”

  “Very good, sir.” She turned to leave.

  “Ms. Petroff?” She looked over her shoulder. “Were either of your parents in the military?”

  “No, sir?”

  “Just a passing thought.” He waved her away and clicked on the dispatch icon she had so helpfully and efficiently set up on his desktop, and plunged into the minutiae of a state trooper’s life on the road system.

  The phone on his desk beeped. “Yes?”

  “Chief Armstrong says to meet him at noon at the Compass Rose Diner.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Petroff.”

  “And Judge DeWinter says she is free at three, if you’d care to meet her in her office then. She says please will you bring the coffee.”

  “I trust you know how she likes it, Ms. Petroff? And where to buy it?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Then please tell the judge I’ll see her then, and thank you again.”

  “You’re welcome, sir.”

  Liam grinned at the door. For once in his life and, Liam was certain, entirely without intending to do so, it looked like Barton had done Liam a honking big favor.

  Seven

  Tuesday, September 3

  HE RETURNED FROM LUNCH IN A thoughtful mood and sat in his truck outside the post for a few moments, reviewing the meeting just past. The Blewestown chief was in his mid to late fifties, bulky but not fat, head shaved, dark blue uniform all present and correct. He greeted the waitstaff by name; they in turn called him “Chief” or “Chief Armstrong” and were polite but not friendly.

  To Liam, the chief was polite but not genial. When asked, he revealed that he’d lived in Blewestown all his life bar four years in the Marines. He revealed that he was still in the reserves and had seen time in the Sand
box, not a full tour, no, but active service. His parents had been commercial fishermen and he had been a drifter himself and fished across the Bay when his off time coincided with an opener. He was divorced with two children, both out of college, one an LPN at the local hospital, the other a biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Anchorage.

  “You’re out of uniform,” he said before Liam’s butt had even hit the seat of his chair.

  “It’s being shipped,” Liam said, and tried not to feel annoyed.

  Armstrong answered Liam’s questions directly, usually in simple declarative sentences. He didn’t ask the same questions of Liam. Either he didn’t care or he already knew, probably the latter. Liam was just a tad notorious in Alaska law enforcement, but Armstrong made only one remark that acknowledged that. “I followed the Gheen case.”

  Liam waited.

  “I’m acquainted with Nina Stewart’s family.”

  It took Liam a moment to remember. Nina Stewart had been Rebecca Hanover’s staunch best friend. “I remember her on the news.”

  “Yeah, you don’t fuck with Nina.” Without changing expression or added emphasis, Armstrong said, “You should have killed the son of a bitch.”

  Liam swallowed the rage that rose every time someone said that to him. Many had. “I’m a state trooper, not an executioner.”

  The air cooled even further. Lunch arrived—okay burgers and soggy fries—and they ate without commentary. Afterward, Armstrong worked a toothpick around his teeth and said, “We haven’t had a trooper assigned here for decades. Usually your people are dispatched out of Soldotna. If we need them.”

  The implication being they didn’t. Liam had wondered if he was about to be handed his hat and shown the door, metaphorically at least, and waited warily. Usually local law enforcement in Alaska was ecstatic for any kind of help, but Blewestown was on the road system and one of the state’s larger communities, which bred a larger and more autonomous police department, mostly because it was easier to get help. It took something extra to live and work in the Bush; it took nothing extra to live and work on the road system. “I’m aware,” he said.