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Mark knew how she felt. They had talked about all the important things, children (not now, but no more than two later), money (one joint and two separate checking accounts, only one credit card each, both paid off at the end of the month, take care of the upkeep on the house first and the retirement fund second), where to live in Anchorage (Turnagain or Spenard), where to retire (Alaska, not Outside). They’d made separate lists and discussed each item, each taking care to respect the other’s viewpoint, reaching accommodation without too much blood on the floor. It wasn’t just the sex, which was thrilling, it was also a shared commitment to a long life together and a shared determination to make that life the best it could be. They had been very pleased with themselves, and Rebecca for one had marched up that aisle in the full conviction that she knew exactly and precisely what she was doing and that she had never done anything more right in her life.
He had bought the gold mine without consulting her first, emptying out their joint checking account and explaining it away afterward as “I had to, honey, he had ten other buyers waiting in line. I would have lost the deal if I hadn’t jumped on it quick.”
“I thought we were going to start a family this year,” she had said. “I thought that was why we’d saved all that money.”
He had laughed, a quick, excited laugh, and kissed her soundly. “We’ve got all the time in the world to start a family. We’ve got time to start a gold mine.” His hands wandered. “Besides, we’re not done having fun yet.”
Like always, her knees had given way beneath the onslaught.
It isn’t all his fault, she thought, still staring at the log across the stream, still twisting the fireweed between her fingers. I should have been more forceful. I should have insisted we sit down and talk about it, then and there. But he distracted me. Like he always distracts me.
“You know what’s wrong with Mark?”
“What?”
“He’s too good in the sack.”
Remembering the conversation with Nina at City Market, Rebecca realized just how often Mark had resolved their differences in bed.
It was ironic that here, in this place she feared and despised, in this place to which Mark had seduced her into coming, here she had found the time and the solitude to think, to reflect, to learn to see a different side of their relationship. It shamed her to realize that all he had to do was lay hands on her and she would do anything he wanted.
“Hey!”
Mark’s shout jerked her to her feet. She turned. He wasn’t there.
“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Get out of there!”
The sound of a shot echoed off the walls of the canyon.
She grabbed for her waist, and only then remembered that she had been so angry at her husband that morning that she had forgotten to strap on the.357 before stepping outside.
For the first time that summer since the bear charged her, she was outside the cabin and unarmed.
Nuklunek Bluff, September 2
The air was very still that morning, probably why the sound of the shot traveled so far.
“Hey,” John said. “Did you hear that?”
“Yeah,” Teddy said, head cocked. “Warehouse Mountain?”
“Too far. Nenevok Lake, maybe.”
“Or maybe the creek.”
“The gold mine,” John said, and burped.
“Maybe she shot him.”
“Maybe he shot her.”
They both thought back to their first sight of Rebecca Hanover, and said simultaneously, “Nah.”
They stood, listening. There were no further shots.
“A bear, maybe,” John said.
Teddy made a face, and pointed in a vague, easterly direction with a half-empty bottle of beer. “You think we should go see?”
John drained his own bottle and set it down with exaggerated care inside the almost empty second case. “Sure,” he said, and picked his way carefully to where his rifle stood leaning against a tree trunk.
Teddy watched him go, bleary-eyed. “What about Wy?”
“Why?”
“Wy. Our pickup. Noonish. Round there, anyway. Maybe four. Five?”
John made a regally dismissive gesture with one hand. “Be back in plenty of time.”
Teddy, flush with beer, gave no thought to the various areas of dense brush and swampy muskeg between them and the shot they had heard, and agreed without a blink.
Kagati Lake, September 2
“I’ve got to get home,” Wy said. “I’m supposed to ferry a couple of fishermen back from Outuchiwenet Mountain, and I’ve got a couple of hunters to pick up this afternoon. I’ll need to refuel before I head out. See you back at the house?”
“Okay.” Liam squeezed her hand and let go. Prince pretended not to notice, and continued to pretend not to notice as Liam stood watching Wy climb into her plane, start the engine, taxi and take off to the north. The plane banked left and came back down the strip at two hundred feet and waggled its wings. Liam raised an arm in reply and turned back to Prince. “So nothing else, no similar incidents reported out this way?”
“No, sir.”
“No burglaries, robberies, no assaults?”
“And no murders.”
“I don’t like it,” Liam said.
“I don’t either, but we don’t have a lot to go on,” she said. “I sent the prints in with the body. Maybe we’ll get lucky.” She paused.
“What?”
“You sure about the family?”
“Yes. They were all at fish camp, anyway, all except Opal. She stayed behind to do her duty by the U.S. Postal Service. Come rain, shine, sleet or fish camp, the mail must go through.”
“Who checks their mail here, sir?”
“There are about thirty-two people in the immediate vicinity.” He caught her eye. “Well, okay, within a day’s hike. From the look of things, most of the people with mailboxes here don’t make the trip over that often, they let the mail pile up and come in once or twice a month to collect it. She ran a little sundries store, too: over-the-counter medicines, magazines, candy, like that. It would be known, so she’d get the occasional stranger.”
“Maybe somebody else saw him.”
“Maybe somebody else did,” he said.
They borrowed a couple of four-wheelers from Leonard and set off. It took them the rest of the morning and all of the afternoon, following the map Leonard had made for them. Everyone was shocked at Opal’s murder. No one had seen anyone strange. Very few had alibis, but then very few had motive, either.
Dusty Moore was a man in his fifties with a much younger Yupik wife and five children under the age of eight, all of whom swore that Dusty had been right there with them every day since coming back from a supply run to Newenham in May. He didn’t deny wanting the postmaster job, but in an eerie echo of Leonard’s own words said, “Jesus, who would want it this way?”
He escorted them firmly to the edge of his property and left them there.
“Hell,” Prince said.
“Hell,” Liam agreed. “Well, I guess they can’t all be easy.”
“If this yo-yo-”
“I know. And chances are we can’t do anything unless and until he hits again.”
Prince’s lips were tight. “I don’t like it.”
“What do you want to do, Prince? Set out across country? In what direction? We looked everywhere on the Nunapitchuks’ homestead for a trail and didn’t find squat, except for game trails. We can’t follow them all. Maybe we could bring in some dogs, pick up a trail that way. Chances of that are, oh, maybe a trillion to one, and it’s even odds they’ll track down the local grizzly first, which would be bad for the dogs and worse for us.”
He stopped, ashamed of having lost his temper. The Nunapitchuks seemed like nice people: hardworking, self-sufficient, capable, intelligent, everything he admired. He didn’t like the thought that he was about to let them down. He sighed. “We won’t close the file. The M.E. will be able to tell us about the weapon, and the prints will go into the system. We’ll put out a bulletin, circulate it among all the air taxi services in the Bay area in case he tries to fly out and gives himself away. Of course, he’ll have to give himself away because we don’t have a clue as to what he looks like. He could be a woman for all we know, or a Texas horned toad, or a little green man from Mars.” He felt himself getting angry all over again, and took a deep breath and blew it out explosively.