Part 13 (1/2)

”Morning, Dinah.” The trooper doffed his hat, and raised an eyebrow as he took in the crowd. ”What's this? A sleepover and I wasn't invited?”

”Mr. and Mrs. Baker, this is Sergeant Jim Chopin, of the Alaska State Troopers. Mandy's parents,” she told Jim. ”And Mr. and Mrs. Baker, you met Mr. Stewart yesterday.”

Mr. and Mrs. Baker blinked up from the couch. Probably they had been expecting the maid with coffee, croissants and the Boston Globe. Mandy and Chick were rolling up their sleeping bags. Bobby was glowering at Jim from the kitchen table, but whatever pithy comment he had been about to make was forestalled by the sound of an approaching four-wheeler with the throttle all the way open.

”Jesus Christ,” Kate said beneath her breath. Grand Central Station had followed her to Bobby's. She yanked open the door, this time to see Dan O'Brian roar up. He must have flown into Niniltna even before Jim was in the air to get to Bobby's this early.

”Hey, K!ate!” he said, bounding up the steps. A morning person, obviously. So was Kate, but then usually she'd had more sleep.

”How'd you know I was here?”

”Why are you so sure I'm looking for you?” he said indignantly, and added, at the same time she did, ”Heard you on the radio last night.” He caught sight of Mark Stewart and his chin dropped. ”Mr. Stewart?”

128 ”Ranger O'Brian.” Stewart's expression didn't change, but Kate received the distinct impression that he did not welcome Dan's appearance on the scene. For reasons she s.h.i.+ed away from examining, she didn't want to be able to read Stewart that well, and deliberately stood where he would be out of her line of vision.

Jim was finis.h.i.+ng up the introductions with a placid air. ”And this is Bobby Clark, Mr. Stewart. This is his house.”

Bobby shot the trooper a malevolent look. Bobby was not a morning person. Dinah stepped into the apprehensive silence that followed his nongreeting with mugs of coffee all around. Mr. and Mrs. Baker accepted theirs in a manner strongly reminiscent of the Chosen seeing their first water after forty years of staggering around the desert. Mandy looked less ticked off than at lights-out the night before, but not much. Chick was still restraining a belly laugh.

Always at ease, Chopper Jim sat down across from Bobby and added milk and sugar, surveying them all with a glint of amus.e.m.e.nt in the back of his blue eyes, and something else Kate couldn't quite identify. ”Thank you,” Stewart said, and smiled at Dinah. Dinah returned the smile with equanimity, a certain curiosity and a purely female appreciation, which changed as Kate watched to a surprised understanding. She turned her head and looked at Kate. Kate nodded. Bobby sat up straight in his chair.

Dan O'Brian virtually s.n.a.t.c.hed his mug from Dinah's outstretched hand and stepped out of range of Mark Stewart's vision. In a series of facial twitches, winks and head jerks reminiscent of an epileptic with Tourette's syndrome he managed to convey that he wanted to speak to Kate privately. Unless they went into the bathroom together, which might occasion some comment, there was only the porch. Resigned, Kate followed him outside, cradling the warmth of her coffee mug in her hands against the chilly dawn. Breakup was not known for its subtropical range of temperatures.

There were no clouds in the sky, revealing the sun as a dull gold disk low on the eastern horizon, outlining the jagged peaks of the Quilaks in the thin light of an Arctic spring morning. There was a 129 steady drip of melting ice from the eaves, and the sound of a winter's worth of snow rus.h.i.+ng between the narrow banks of the creek at the edge of the front yard. A mile downstream, the creek would merge with the silted gray expanse of the Kanuyaq, and from there the two would travel together to Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska.

Before long, the first king salmon would be beating its way upriver.

Kate's mouth watered at the thought.

Dan was almost beside himself with impatience. ”All right, all right, what?” she said.

He looked over her shoulder at the closed door, decided it didn't provide enough privacy and lowered his voice to a whisper that could probably have been heard on the next homestead. Subtle was not exactly Dan's middle name. ”I called Anchorage last night and got a buddy to log on to Motznik for me. You know, the data base that accesses all state records?”

”Yes, Dan, I know what Motznik is.”

”Okay, guess what?”

Kate took a deep breath and let it out. All she wanted to do at this point was go home and start rea.s.sembling the pieces of her life. There were supplies to be laid in, dip nets to be mended, caches to be repaired, snow-machine tanks to be patched, was.h.i.+ng machines to be fixed.

Taxes to be filed.

On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt to drink Dinah's excellent coffee, enjoy the glorious dawn and listen to Dan carry on. He could be fun when he took up a cause, and his current mood had all the signs. ”I don't know,” she said. ”What?”

”MarkStewart has had a license for hunting everything on four legs in the state of Alaska for the last twenty years.” He paused impressively.

Kate, in the act of swallowing coffee, did not choke in surprise.

That was all right, because Dan had more than enough enthusiasm for the both of them. ”He applies for the moose lottery every year, Kate. He's got himself a tag six times and a moose five.”

130 Since he so clearly expected a reaction, Kate said obediently, ”So you're saying he is an experienced hunter.”

Dan, losing patience, thumped the railing. ”That's where I've seen him before, Kate! He was up last fall hunting sheep. He flew in with someone else and they stopped up on the Step for maps. I talked mostly to the pilot, guy name of, h.e.l.l, what was it, Hooligan or something like that.

That's why I couldn't remember Stewart at first, I didn't talk to him.”

There was a crunch of twig and Kate looked across Bobby's yard to see a moose cow with a yearling calf browsing contentedly through a stand of diamond willow.

Dan demanded, ”Don't you see? When I said I'd seen him before, he said he couldn't remember. He lied.”

Kate sighed and turned to look at him. ”Dan, it was five minutes six months ago. Maybe he's one of those people who just doesn't remember a face. And what does it matter anyway?”

”What does it matter!” At his shout the low murmur of voices from inside the house stilled momentarily. Dan whispered furiously, ”It matters because that whole story about his wife and the bear attack is as phony as a three-dollar bill, and you know it, and it's even phonier if he's an experienced hunter, and you know that, too. Now, what are you going to do about it?”

Her lips compressed. ”Et to, Dan?”

Dan, bewildered, said, ”What the h.e.l.l does that mean?”

”It means you and every other mother's son in this friggin' Park thinks I'm in charge. In the meantime, I've got half a 747 scattered across my front forty, my cupboards are bare, my truck's been flattened and my dog probably thinks I'm dead. I'm going home.” And she still had yet to talk to Harvey Meganack, a ch.o.r.e she was convinced was futile anyway, whatever Auntie Vi thought. ”The situation's a little odd, I grant you, but-”

”A little!”

”Dan.” She said his name with enough force to shut him up, at least for the moment. ”Okay, so Stewart ran off on his wife. He 131 panicked. It happens. So he outran a grizzly. Grizzlies aren't stupid, she probably stayed behind to feed on the wife.” Kate controlled a s.h.i.+ver. ”So Stewart doesn't look as frazzled as anyone else we've seen who survived a bear attack. Shock takes people different ways. None of it proves anything.”

”He lied to me,” Dan said stubbornly. ”I don't like him.”

”I don't, either,” she surprised both of them by saying. ”It still doesn't prove anything.” She drained her mug. ”If you want action, talk to the man. I've got my own problems.”

The man chose that moment to open up the door and step outside.

”Somebody call my name?”

”Ranger O'Brian, aka Sherlock Holmes, will be happy to fill you in.” She waved a hand at Dan. ”The game's afoot. Have at it.”

Too excited to take offense, Ranger O'Brian did, promptly and thoroughly. In a minute, Dan was going to find a way to work the Trilateral Commission into the scenario. Kate turned to go inside.

Jim caught her elbow. ”Kate.”

”What?” Kate snapped, yanking free.

”Wondered if you'd do me a favor?”

”Ef to, Jim?” she snarled.

He blinked. ”I beg your pardon?”

Kate took a deep breath and counted to ten. ”What favor?”

”Come up to the mine with Stewart and me.” He saw the answer in her face and said quickly, ”You were first on the scene, you've spent a lot of time in the area and you know bears. I want you to listen to his story and pick all the holes you can. Dan's right. It's phony as h.e.l.l.”

”I didn't find anything, Jim,” Kate said, with an awful patience she hoped neither he nor Dan would mistake. ”And I told you, we saw the bear right after the attack. She'd been feeding, all right.” She remembered the red-stained fur, the shreds of flesh between the claws, and again suffered through a flashback of the moments by the creek. She never wanted to look down the snout of a grizzly bear at that close a range again. What must Carol Stewart have 132 felt her last few seconds, knowing there was no escape? Had she been conscious enough to feel the rip of the claws, the bite of the teeth?