Tags:
Fiction,
General,
detective,
thriller,
Suspense,
adventure,
Mystery & Detective,
Women Sleuths,
Mystery,
Mystery Fiction,
Political,
Mystery & Detective - Women Sleuths,
Fiction - Mystery,
Mystery And Suspense Fiction,
alaska,
Crime thriller,
Shugak; Kate (Fictitious character),
Women private investigators - Alaska,
Suspense & Thriller,
19th century fiction,
Indians of North America - Alaska
state Department of Revenue—concluded a ten-week investigation which broke up a ring of grifters who had been filing applications for the state's annual permanent fund dividend in the names of forty-three children, all of whom had died five years or more earlier. The last five dividends totaled $6,264.20, which times forty-three brought the amount embezzled to well over a quarter of a million dollars, which qualified for grand theft, while if not quite on a scale of Raven stealing the sun, moon, and stars, certainly bumped up the charging documents to a felony.
Jim and Kenny were called in to make the arrests, warrants in hand that Judge Singh had been delighted to issue. "You have the right to remain silent," Kenny said, and was interrupted when Margaret Kvasnikof spat at Kate.
"Nice to see you again, too, Mags," she said as Kenny cuffed her third cousin once removed and led her out.
"Hey, a fan," Jim said. "You okay?"
"It's a living," Kate said, and suffered no qualms of conscience three weeks later when her fee arrived in the mail with three lovely zeroes on the end of it. She didn't enjoy being spit at, but Mags was no longer the girl who had played kick-the-can with the gang on the riverbanks when they were all kids together. Of course, she thought, it helped that Mags's branch of Kvasnikofs came from Ouzinkie instead of Nanwalek, and as such was an extremely distant relative. If she'd been yet another of Auntie Balasha's three hundred nieces, Kate would have cashed the check anyway but would have braced herself for an onslaught of reproachful glances and baked goods.
"Wow," Johnny said, reading the zeroes over her shoulder, "let's go to Disneyland."
"Hell with that," Jim said, "let's go to Vegas."
Instead, she sent 30 percent to the IRS, put 20 percent into Johnny's college fund, dropped $1,200 at Costco on essentials like bread flour, kept a thousand in a roll of fives, tens, and twenties for walking-around money, and banked the rest.
"My snowgo's falling apart," Johnny said.
"Snow's almost gone," Kate said.
"Yeah, but my four-wheeler is in even worse shape."
"Cannibalize mine for parts."
"Couldn't we at least get satellite television?"
"Over my dead body."
Johnny, who obviously still had a lot of work ahead of him before he could start violating all the known laws of physics, gave up and trudged mournfully to his bedroom. Not neglecting to take the copy of the latest Harry Dresden novel with him, even though Kate's bookmark was prominently clasped at the halfway mark.
During these months Louis Deem remained snugged down on his homestead, drinking beer and watching WWE SmackDown. He did have satellite television. Naturally.
In fact, Jim's usual winter workload was down considerably, which didn't hurt his feelings any but which left him a lot more time to brood over Kate Shugak. He haunted the Riverside Cafe, flirting desperately with Laurel Meganack, a very easy on the eyes twenty-something who had indicated her interest on more than one occasion but who had now totally backed off. He feared that she knew he and Kate were an item, which of course they weren't, but he couldn't seem to muster up the strength of character to out and out say so.
And more and more often at the end of the day his vehicle seemed to head up the road to Kate's house, where more and more often he seemed somehow to spend the night. True, six months into this, he still didn't know what to call it, this whatever it was he had going on with Kate, the frantic, almost ferocious sexual need that marked the beginning of all his best affairs had settled into a slumberous ardor. But that ardor had the damnedest way of flaring up and leaving nothing but scorched earth behind it, all the more enjoyable—and unsettling—because he wasn't expecting it. Usually by this point in Jim's relationships boredom had set in and he was looking for a way out with the least amount of
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