A Cold Day For Murder Part 2

Abel Int-Hout looked like a fierce old eagle, his thinning white hair skinned back over his head, his proud beak of a nose jutting from between two faded but still very sharp blue eyes. Kate thought, not for the first time, that Abel Int-Hout stood on the front doorstep of his homestead the same way Tennyson's eagle clasped the crag with crooked hands, proud, possessive and fiercely protective of him and his.

He led the way into his kitchen. "What are you up to?" he said, pouring coffee into thick mugs. He set out a can of Carnation evaporated milk, a bowl of sugar, one spoon and a carton of Ding Dongs.

Kate drew a chair up to the table and rested her elbows on the oilskin tablecloth. "I'm on my way in to see emaaqa," she said.

His head came up and he looked at her out of his sharp old eyes. "You're going in to Niniltna?"

"Yes."

"Been a while since you've been home."

She said carefully, forgetting for a moment who she was speaking to, "Niniltna isn't home, Abel. It's only where I was born."

He snorted. "If you hate it all that much, why'd you pick the middle of the winter to mush in?"

"I'm not mushing."

He snorted again. "I heard. I swear, girl, I don't know why you bother with them infernal machines. They're dirty, noisy as h.e.l.l, can't reproduce themselves, and they sure as s.h.i.t ain't much company."

"No, Abel," she agreed in a meek voice, and refrained from pointing out that his Super Cub made more noise than half a dozen snow machines in full cry, and it couldn't reproduce itself, either. But then, it wasn't as if she loved the old man for his consistency.

Except for a flock of a dozen tame geese, seven cats and innumerable dogs, Abel lived quite alone on the homestead. He was a retired seiner whose children, disdaining the life of the backwoods, had all migrated to Cordova and Anchorage and Outside. Abel stayed where he was. It was his home. It was his life.

Abel had married into Kate's mother's family, and he was Kate's first cousin once removed or just her second cousin, they'd never decided which. Her father drowned in Prince William Sound when Kate was eight.

Her mother had died two years before, and her grandmother had decreed that Kate would move to Niniltna and live with her. Eight-year-old Kate had stated flatly that she wouldn't go. Into this confrontation between irresistible force and immovable object stepped Abel. Abel took Kate into his home, letting her return to her father's homestead on weekends, making no other distinction between her and his own children unless it was that he liked her more than he did his own. They certainly had more in common.

Abel, lacking children with like interests, taught Kate everything her father was always going to but never quite had the time for. He taught her how to hunt the Sitka black-tailed deer by sitting still at the base of a tree, for hours if need be, to lull the deer into making the first move. How to mend gill nets so the sock eyes stayed put until they were picked, instead of ripping it to shreds so you had to go even deeper in debt to the cannery for new gear. How to gut a moose without slicing open the organs and making a green, smelly mess out of the process, and how to skin it, and how to cut it so that you got roasts and steaks instead of, as happened on her first two tries, a winter's supply of moose burger She watched him pour the coffee, caught between affection and amus.e.m.e.nt. He looked up, his eyes glinting. "No comment? Not up to fighting with me today, is that it, girl?" Kate grinned without answering. "So why are you going to see Ekaterina?"

She drank coffee. "I'm looking for somebody."

"Who?"

"Two somebodies, actually, a park ranger named Mark Miller and an investigator for the Anchorage D.A.'s office. You know him; you met him the last time you were over to the cabin. Kenneth Dahl?"

Abel was slow to answer. He looked at her, his eyes fixed on her face.

"Yeah, I remember, I guess," he said, picking his words with care. "The Kennedy clone from Boston. More teeth than brains." He watched Kate redden with open satisfaction. "Why you looking for him? He owe you some money?"

Kate took a deep breath and held it. It was bad enough that she had introduced Kenneth Dahl to the Park in the first place, and why; she remembered Jack's last words to her the day before and cringed away from that "why." It was bad enough that her encouragement had led Ken to believe he knew his way around it, and its residents. It was worse that she knew he had come in after the ranger to prove a point to her.

Ken had been missing more than two weeks, two weeks of record low temperatures and no snow. Letting Abel pick a fight over her love life would only delay Ken's being found that much longer. She exhaled slowly, and said in a mild voice, "You ever meet the ranger?"

"Might have," Abel said, looking disappointed. "They all look alike to me. What you want with him?"

"He's missing. Jack sent Ken in to look for him, and now Ken's missing, too. I'm going in for the Anchorage D.A." on loan to the FBI."

"The FBI?"

She grinned. "Don't look so nervous, Abel. So far as I know, the FBI still lets the Fish and Game handle out of-season hunting violations. Yeah, the missing ranger's father is a U.S. congressman, and he got the FBI on it. Jack Morgan came to see me yesterday with one of J. Edgar's finest in tow."

Abel gave her a long, keen look. "Morgan, is it? How'd they come in? n.o.body landed here yesterday."

She shook her head and warded off the offer of a Ding Dong with an inward shudder. Abel never ate anything that wasn't covered in sugar or deep-fried. "They drove to Ahtna and took a snow machine over the railroad tracks to Tana and then followed the old railroad grade to my place."

He raised one eyebrow. "Morgan better watch that s.h.i.t with the tracks. Essy Beerbohm got himself run over last month by the Fairbanks train."

She winced. "I hadn't heard. Hauling supplies?"

"Yup."

"How is Cindy taking it?"

Abel's mouth turned down. "She moved in with Sandy Mike last week."

Kate looked at him and said, "Don't be so judgmental, Abel. It's not easy getting into a cold bed night after night."

Abel's spine stiffened and he glared at her. "I know that better than her, and come to think of it, better than you, too, girl."

Kate, already regretting speaking up in favor of a woman she'd never liked that much anyway, said hastily, "How about this cold spell?"

Abel, as all true Alaskans are by talk of the weather, was immediately diverted. "It's a b.i.t.c.h, ain't it? If it don't snow again pretty soon, spring runoff's going to be lousy. At this rate the creeks'll be running so low we won't see so much as a scale next spring, let alone a whole fish." He paused, and said, "This ranger, what'd you say his name was?"

"Mark Miller. You remember him?"

Abel considered. "I believe he just might be the fella I found in the Lost Wife this summer."

Kate looked at him, surprised. "What was he doing in that old widow maker "I asked him that," Abel replied, "just before I chased his a.s.s down Shamrock Mountain with my twelve-gauge." Abel c.o.c.ked his head. "He kept yelling something about the Lame Dog Lode."

Kate groaned gently. "I suppose whoever suckered him with that old chestnut sold him a deed to the Brooklyn Bridge, too."

"It don't matter. Someone was bound to try it on him, the way they do all the cheechakos." Abel gave a sardonic grin. "Offhand I'd say he don't care whether it's true or not, anymore. How long's he been gone?"

"About six weeks. Ken's been gone for two plus."

Abel snorted. "That ranger probably got drunk and fell into a s...o...b..nk on the way home from the Roadhouse." His teeth shut with a snap, and after a moment he said gruffly, "Sorry, girl."

She shook her head. "It's all right, Abel. That was my first thought.

But now there's Ken gone, too." She gave him a tight smile and quoted one of his favorite sayings back at him. "Something smells and it ain't squaw candy."

He looked at her, his eyes narrowed. "Dahl the reason you're getting involved?"

She was silent for a moment. Then she sighed and drained her cup. "I took him into Niniltna last spring, let him sniff around, get familiar with the place," she said. Her voice rasped against her scarred throat. "And we did some hiking up around Copper City, some dip-netting in the Kanuyaq. He was learning the Park, and he would have said so back at work. Jack would figure he was the logical one to send. I feel.. . responsible."

Abel busied himself with the coffeepot. " "Responsible'?" He refilled her cup and then his. "You been shacked up with the guy off and on almost a year now, girl, and all you feel is 'responsible'?"

"I thought I'd start with my grandmother," Kate said through teeth she was trying hard not to clench. "She's sure to have met this ranger, and I introduced Ken to her so she's the first place he'd stop."

He nodded thoughtfully. "Good idea. She always knows everything that's going on in the Park. I swear the woman's like that Greek you used to read to me about, the one with the thousand eyes that was always watching you."

"Hundred eyes. Argus. Only the night has a thousand eyes, Abel."

"Argus," Abel said, unheeding. "Yeah, that's the guy. Well, you can't do better than talk to Ekaterina." He looked from her to Mutt, sitting next to him, watching the Ding Dong travel from plate to mouth and back again, yellow eyes unblinking. He grinned and tossed her a piece. Mutt caught it neatly and swallowed it in one gulp, and wagged her tail, hopeful for more. "Your teeth are going to rot in your head, dog," he told her, and said to Kate, "I suppose you figured on leaving the monster with me?"

"I might have," Kate said with a grin, "if I didn't know that five minutes after I left you'd have Balto knocking her up."

He heaved a mournful sigh, belied by the frosty twinkle in his eyes.

"Girl, I swear I don't know who's been telling these lies about me."

She laughed and said, "You have, Abel, all my life."

"Get out of here," he told her, affronted.

"I have to," she said, gulping down the rest of her coffee and rising to her feet in one movement. "I'm going to stop in to see Chick and Mandy on my way, and I'd better leave now if I want to make it into Niniltna this afternoon."

"Chick's in jail."

Kate paused in the act of zipping her jumpsuit. "What for this time?"

"I ain't saying nothing." Abel cleared his throat and shrugged. "But I heard tell it was more of the usual. Disturbing the peace. Drunk and disorderly. Resisting --"

"--arrest. a.s.saulting a police officer," Kate said, and sighed. "Where?"

"Anchorage."

"I thought Mandy had Chick restricted to the homestead this winter."

Abel opened his front door and looked lazily at the sky, eyes narrowed, basking in the weak sunlight. "Demetri Totemoff found her brand spanking new snow machine run into a ditch close to Tana."

"Hoo boy."

"Yup. So far, she's refused to make his bail."

Mandy Baker's homestead was large and sprawling and cluttered and looked unkempt even beneath the saving grace of winter snow. It was surrounded by birch trees, and to almost every narrow trunk was tethered a dog, and every dog was taking notice as Kate came down the trail. They whined, yelped, barked, yipped, growled, snarled and howled, hurling themselves against their harnesses, lips curled back from their teeth. Like Abel's pack they were all huskies or husky mix, and their tails curled over their rumps like so many vigorously waving ostrich plumes.

Kate pulled up and stopped the Super Jag five feet from one large, white, eager specimen, who promptly flung himself into a frenzy of slavering warning. Mutt jumped down from behind Kate, sniffed the air in his general direction, yawned, turned around three times, lay down and curled herself into a ball with her nose beneath her tail, and to all appearances fell asleep, inches from his snapping teeth. Affronted by this display of sangfroid, the huge canine hurled himself against the length of his chain and yapped hysterical threats of bloodletting and slaughter. Kate stepped around Mutt and cuffed him lightly on the jaw, whereupon he dropped to his belly as if felled by an axe handle and groveled ingratiatingly. "Calm down, Hardhead. Anybody'd think you hadn't seen a friend come down that path in years."

"He hasn't," a calm voice said behind her, and with a grin Kate turned.

"What's with him? You'd think I was a total stranger."

"Where do you think he got his name? He's not bright enough to recognize a friend," Mandy said dryly. "He's just barely bright enough to pull a sled."

"Not lead dog material," Kate suggested.

"Not hardly."

"You make up your mind to run in the Beargrease next month?"

Mandy shook her head. "I'm saving them up for the Iditarod in March."

Kate grinned. "Butcher's going to love to hear that."

Mandy grinned back. "Ah, she's not greedy, she's won four times.

She'll figure it's my turn. Swensen might be a little annoyed, though. You know how he feels about women mushers."

She was a tall, lean, rangy woman, dressed in flannel shirt, jeans and boots that laced up to her knees. She had thick, straight, brown hair cut squarely around a face with big, strong bones, a structure that reminded Kate of a well-built cabin--st.u.r.dy, weatherproof and able to stand up to the worst winter storm. Her gray eyes were deeply set and shrewd and enveloped in wrinkles. The wrinkles were deceptive; Mandy was two years Kate's junior, and the wrinkles came from years of staring into an arctic sun low on the horizon, from the back of a dogsled on a long, cold trail that led everywhere but home.

"Come on in, Kate," she said. "I'm cleaning lamp chimneys. You can help."

"Oh goody," Kate said, following her inside.

"I'm almost done," Mandy a.s.sured her. "This is one job I never get a jump on. In winter it's dark all day and I keep the lamps lit from the time I get up until the time I go to bed. In summer the sun shines around the clock and it gets so bright I have to pull the shades and light the lamps anyway. I can't win." Without changing her inflection Mandy added, "When we're done in here, you can help me move Chick's stuff back into the cabin."

"Oh, Mandy."

The younger woman shook her head firmly. "He knows the rules. Sober, he sleeps with me. Drunk, he's out in the cold."

"Doesn't matter where his stuff is here when he's in jail in Anchorage," Kate observed in a mild voice. "How long has he been in now?"

"Fifteen days."

"When are you going to make bail for the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d?"

"I've got to get his stuff moved first."

"Oh," Kate said, and added, "in that case I'll help you move it."

They worked in companionable silence for the twenty minutes it took to shift Chick's belongings, which consisted of a number of beer boxes filled with clothes that smelled strongly of dog, a battered transistor radio and a half-empty box of batteries, a grimy deck of playing cards, a set of carving tools, a walrus tusk with a cribbage board carved on one side, and every book ever written by Louis L'Amour. Afterward they relaxed over coffee and sandwiches in the lodge kitchen, a large, smoke-stained room in which it paid to be short, as pots and pans hung from the ceiling the way stalact.i.tes hung from the roof of a cave. "He wrecked my new snow machine, did you hear?" "Uh-huh."

"I mean really wrecked it, Kate. It looks like he bounced it off every tree between here and Tana. The d.a.m.n thing took most of my purse from last year's Yukon Quest." She chewed her last bite of sandwich and swallowed. "What really p.i.s.ses me off is that he insists he didn't do it."

"Didn't get drunk and go to Anchorage?" Kate asked.

"No, he admits to that."

"And a good thing, too."

"Mmm. No, he says he didn't take the Polaris."

"What does he say happened?"

"That he hitched a ride with a couple of hunters in a Snowcat to Ahtna and took the train in from there."

"Uh-huh."