Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 09 - Hunter's Moon Read online

  He raised her upright. "Sorry. A big man could do it easily. A smaller man could do it, too, but his timing would have to be just right." "Or a woman," Kate said.

  "Or a woman," Jack agreed.

  "Or it could have been an accident," Kate said. "He could have tripped and fell."

  Jack considered. "He could have. Most trippers and fallers I know fall forward, but it could have happened. He could have gone out for a midnight walk, he could have wanted to commune with the moon from the middle of the log, he could have tripped and fallen backward on that tree limb on his way back." They looked at each other. "Okay," Jack said, "I was willing, even eager, to call Fedor's death accidental.

  Hendrik's, now, makes me look at Fedor again. What's that great line Auric Goldfinger gave James Bond? Goes something like, "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action." You take a look at that stick while you were up there?"

  Kate nodded. "You think it was sharpened?"

  "Do you?"

  "We'll never be able to raise the body high enough to get it loose,"

  Kate said. "There's a saw on my knife, we'll use that to take the stake off first."

  "The all-purpose, super-duper, utility knife," Jack said. "It slices, it dices. Don't mess with the wound." "Did you want to do this, Jack?" she said sweetly.

  "No," he said, "no, indeedy, you may have that little task all to yourself. Just don't slip or you'll become one of Dracula's brides."

  It wasn't funny, none of it, but humor, however dark, was the only thing that stood between sanity and madness in the face of violent death. Law enforcement officers were especially adept at this honorable craft, and Jack was a master practitioner. He kept up a steady patter of nonsense as Kate kneeled gingerly between Hendrik's legs, placed a steadying hand on one of his hips and began to saw at the protruding tree limb. It had been dead a lot longer than Hendrik and was dry as a bone, and it did not yield easily to the tiny saw.

  Besides, Hendrik's body, suspended as it was from that one focal point, had a tendency to rotate, and Kate was sweating by the time the branch finally snapped in two. Jack was standing ready with a Ziploc bag on the gravel below, water running freely over his boots. He didn't mind wet feet.

  Carefully, Kate backed down the log to the bank and mopped her face with the arm of her sleeve. "That was fun." "Yeah," Jack said, "and this is going to be even more fun. But I promise, you don't have to get your feet wet."

  "For the first time in my life, I'm glad I'm short."

  Standing in water up to his knees, Jack boosted Kate to a section of the log beyond Hendrik's head. There were plenty of branches to grab onto and she scrambled up without difficulty. She took Hendrik's shoulders, Jack took the legs of his pants and they managed with a maximum of concerted effort to lift the dead weight straight up enough to free Hendrik's body of the spike.

  "Keep going," Kate said, panting.

  "I'm going, I'm going." Jack backed off the log, Kate following, and when they were both safely on the bank, Hendrik's body was laid down with possibly less ceremonious dignity than the occasion required.

  "Let's not do that again," Kate said, puffing.

  Jack waved a hand. "Deal." "Look," Kate said, pointing. "It wasn't a knot, it was a bend in the branch."

  Jack squinted up. "Used to be two branches. The other one either broke off or was cut away."

  Kate looked at him.

  "Oh hell," he said heavily. He took the knife she held out and slogged back up the bank. He edged out onto the tree trunk, grasped the branch where it had sprouted from the trunk and sawed laboriously.

  Kate went back down to the creek to splash some water on her face. It was past eleven and the sun glittered off the water drops on her eyelashes. Something else was glittering, too, winking up at her from beneath the rippling stream.

  "Jack?" she said.

  "What?"

  "Come here."

  "In a minute," he said testily. The log was only eight feet up but that was about seven feet too high for Jack, who didn't care for heights. It added enthusiasm to his efforts with the saw. It cut through the branch, the branch toppled and Jack caught it just before it fell into the creek, and himself just before he was about to follow it. Muttering curses, he backed off the log, snatching up a Ziploc bag and shoved the length of wood inside.

  When he got to her she was holding it up, a cartridge, its nickel-plated case gleaming wetly in the sun. They had both seen more exactly like it the day before, being loaded into a Gebruder Merkel rifle.

  "Well, well," Jack said. "I believe what we have here is a clue. A

  293-grain RWS clue, to be exact."

  Kate held the bullet up. "Awfully convenient, finding it right here.

  Real close in to shore, too, where you can't miss it." "Uh-huh," Jack said thoughtfully. "Especially when he made such a point of taking only five on the hunt." He scratched his chin. "Tell me, Kate. What do you need for a lawsuit?" "Evidence," Kate said.

  "And where do you get evidence?" Kate thought this over. "You think one of Dieter's employees was going to rat him out?" "Why not?" "That's why not," Kate said grimly, nodding at what was left of Hendrik.

  "Every time you turn around," Jack said, "somebody at the White House is swearing to something or other in front of a congressional committee or a special prosecutor. The easiest way to keep yourself out of jail is to put your boss there instead. They got Al Capone through his bookkeeper."

  Her expression changed. "What?" he said. "What, Kate?"

  She met his eyes. "Fedor and Hendrik were lovers."

  "That was obvious and is not news. So what?"

  "We can assume a fair amount of pillow talk."

  "Right again."

  "Fedor worked for Klemens."

  "Really? And what does Klemens do?"

  "He's the head of the finance department," Kate said.

  "Is he," Jack said slowly. "Is he indeed. Isn't that interesting."

  "Almost as interesting as Klemens's being the one to shoot Fedor."

  He nodded. "Which would make this--" a jerk of the chin indicated Hendrik "--more understandable. If Whoever is still thinking they can get away with this, Whoever has to know that you could only get away with one accidental' shooting on a hunting trip."

  Kate's lips quirked. "I think George has it in the contract."

  His grin was quick and brief. "I wouldn't doubt it."

  Kate slipped the bullet into her shirt pocket, where residual traces of water soaked through and chilled her breast.

  There was a rustle of brush and a warning growl. They looked up to see Senta standing on the edge of the bank, nose to nose with Mutt.

  Kate had to hand it to her; Mutt was on full alert, teeth bared, a steady growl issuing from her throat, and Senta didn't turn a hair.

  "I thought I told you to go back to the camp with Old Sam and Demetri,"

  Jack said shortly.

  "I did," she said. "I came back. Can you shut up this dog?"

  The first trace of nerves she had displayed, Kate thought. "Mutt.

  Off."

  The growl shut down and the fangs disappeared but Mutt stayed where she was, between Senta and Kate.

  "You are wrong," Senta said. "Dieter has bought his way out of much worse trouble than this. He would not risk his inheritance over a little legal matter. Lawyers are for sale. Dieter buys them.

  Beginning with Eberhard." Her eyes were like blue diamonds, and her voice had an edge of contempt sharp enough to cut glass. "Klemens shot Fedor. Maybe that wasn't an accident. Klemens was in the Wehrmacht.

  He knows his way around a rifle. Maybe Hendrik saw or heard something to prove it wasn't an accident, and maybe that's why he's dead now, too."

  She turned and walked back up the trail. They watched until she was out of sight.

  "What do you think?" Jack said.

  "She makes a certain amount of sense," Kate said slowly. "I suppose Fedor getting killed and Hendrik dying because he knew
why Fedor died is the most reasonable explanation. They were sharing a cabin. Fedor didn't have to tell Hendrik anything. Hendrik could have seen something."

  Jack stared after Senta. "Maybe."

  Kate nodded. "Maybe. And maybe she wants us to think it's Dieter."

  "How so?"

  Kate shrugged. "Notice how she slid in that business about Dieter always buying his way out of trouble. Makes you wonder what kind of trouble Dieter gets himself into, doesn't it?"

  "That's too Byzantine even for you, Shugak."

  They stood in silence for a few moments, contemplating Hendrik's body as they listened to water gurgle lazily down the creek.

  "Jack?"

  "What?"

  "When we get back, I think we need to seize all the weapons and lock them up." "Agreed," he said. "And then I think Demetri or I need to climb in the Cub and get enough altitude to send a message to George, telling him we've got another body and to come a running, with help.

  Lots of help."

  "Works for me." She looked down at Hendrik. Jack had closed his eyes, and his lashes lay like thick blond fans on his cheeks, cheeks that had faded from a healthy pink to a waxen white. "Poor little boy. Poor little lovesick boy."

  ELEVEN.

  Feeding someone peanut butter on pilot bread isn't just manslaughter, it's premeditated murder.

  OLD SAM GRINNED HIS EVIL GRIN. "I GET TO PLAY DETECtive again, do I, girl?"

  "Why?" Demetri said, stolid as ever.

  "For the hell of it!" Old Sam said. "For the fun of it, dammit!"

  Kate, interpreting for a baffled Jack, said, "Demetri doesn't understand why we don't just lay low and wait for the cavalry to arrive." "Oh,"

  Jack said. "Because," he told Demetri, "we've got two dead guys on our hands, and their deaths might be related. Plus, we don't know what the weather is like in Anchorage, or how many hoops the troopers are going to make George jump through before they get the lead out, so we don't know when he'll get back."

  "Accidents," Demetri said. At times he rivaled Berg for loquacity.

  "Maybe," Jack said. "I sure as hell hope so. But we're marooned here--"

  "On Ship-Trap Island," Kate murmured.

  "--we're marooned here with what may be at least one big-time loony on the loose, and I want us to take every precaution.

  That means trying to figure out for ourselves what's going on." Demetri thought it over. "Okay," he said finally.

  "Okay," Jack said, relieved. "We know DRG has big time legal problems and is being investigated for fraud. Any idiot investigator knows to follow the money, and we're talking seven or eight and maybe nine zeroes here, so the logical place to start is with an audit of the numbers coming out of DRG. Klemens is the head of finance for DRG.

  Fedor worked for Klemens and he slept with Hendrik. Klemens works for Dieter and Klemens used to be in the army, according to Senta."

  "Which means he knows how to use a rifle," Old Sam said, echoing Senta's words. "Eberhard and Klemens are the only two of this bunch who do."

  "Dieter?" Demetri said.

  "Dieter has read way too much Robert Ruark," Kate said. "He knows which bells to push and which whistles to blow, but if I had to bet, I'd say this is his first shot-you should pardon the expression--at hunting. He gut shot that moose yesterday."

  "That don't count, girl." Old Sam curled his lip. "Dieter isn't a hunter, he's a collector. He wasn't going to mess up his trophy. He wants to hang it on the wall of the boardroom for all his flunkies to admire. He probably hit right what he was aiming at."

  "You could be right, uncle," Kate said. "I think we can safely say we shouldn't turn our back on any of them. Now, can any of you remember if Klemens helped arrange things so that Jack's and Old Sam's groups would be hunting side by side? Specifically, to arrange it so he'd be hunting next to Fedor?" The three men looked at each other. "I don't remember anything definite," Jack said. "Klemens did disappear on me, like I told you."

  Demetri shook his head. Old Sam shrugged. "If he did, I didn't hear him."

  "Hell," Kate said. "Okay, how do we get them out of camp?"

  "I'm going to go out there," Jack said, "and suggest that we take the four-wheelers up the trail to the ridge. We've got, what, eight passengers, four each in the trailers."

  "Who's gonna drive '?" Old Sam demanded.

  "You and Demetri."

  "While you and Kate will be doing what, exactly?" Old Sam inquired suspiciously.

  For the first time Jack grinned. "I wish. Get your mind out of the gutter, old man. Kate and I will be rounding up the weapons and locking them down." "Oh," Old Sam said, his sarcasm elaborate, "we're going to tell them their weapons are not needed, headed up into bear country?"

  "We're going to tell them it's a sight-seeing trip, that the guides will be armed, and that they don't need to lug theirs along, too."

  "Eberhard won't go for it," Demetri said.

  Jack looked at Kate. She shook her head. "Okay, so he doesn't, that's still only one weapon in the bunch." He paused. "And you might want to keep watch. If he sets it down somewhere at the edge of a cliff, it'd be nifty if you could sort of accidentally knock it all the way over."

  Old Sam winced. "I hope George insures these trips."

  "Dieter will probably want to take his, too," Kate said. "I don't get a feeling from the rest of them that they'd much mind never picking up a gun again." "Then that's two against two," Jack said, "and what I said about Eberhard goes for Dieter, too, especially if he's the one who pushed Klemens's button. If you can separate either or both men from their weapons, do it. In the meantime, like Kate says, don't turn your backs any of these bastards, at least not unless you've got someone else with you."

  "I heard that," Old Sam said. "There are three people I trust enough to turn my back on in this camp, and two of ' won't be with me this afternoon." He grinned at Kate. "And sometimes I'm not so sure about you, girl."

  The plan developed a snag right away, of course, as such plans always do.

  Seven of the hunters acquiesced in the plan for their afternoon's entertainment, especially after Kate pointed out the band of gray cloud engulfing the eastern horizon and noted its progress toward them since morning. "Might be your only chance to look at the view this trip," she said. "Lots of critters to look at, too." Probably not the best argument to use, as some of them had already been as up close and personal with a variety of Alaskan critters as they cared to get.

  No one said so, though. It would have been unanimous except for Klemens, who declined the invitation to go sight-seeing politely but firmly. Kate frowned. This would mess everything up. "No, you should go, Klemens. The view is breathtaking, you can see all the way to Anchorage. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." Klemens smiled but spoke with finality.

  "I have seen enough of the Alaskan Bush, thank you, Katerina. And the others won't want me. I will go to the creek and fish."

  Before she could expostulate Jack pinched her on the ass. He had never before done anything like that, or at least not in company. He was saved from almost certain annihilation only when Old Sam and Demetri rolled out the four wheelers and the trailers. When she turned back, Klemens had picked up rod and reel and was walking to the creek.

  On first sight Kate had admired the way he carried himself, pride made manifest in the squareness of his shoulders, the straightness of his spine, the angle of his chin. Now there was a definite trace of a stoop, something awkward and uncertain about his movements. His face was devoid of feeling, the lines in it deeply carved, the eyes sunken and blank.

  Jack's voice murmured in her ear. "Probably just as well. Better he should stay here where we can keep an eye on him."

  She rounded on him. "If you ever pinch me like that again, I'll--"

  His eyes laughed down into hers, and the words died on her lips. "I guess I can pinch my roommate once in a while if I want to."

  She opened her mouth again to remove any such bizarre notion from his puny little mind, and hea
rd some stranger say, a smile in her voice,

  "Only once in a while."

  Good god, she thought afterward, watching him help load the trailers.

  Was this what cohabitation did to you, turn you into a simpering idiot, ready, willing and able to be pawed by the obnoxious male you permitted, under protest and only after long apprenticeship, to reside in your once supremely inviolate home? A home that had known no permanent testosterone since Kate's father died?