A grave denied by Dana Stabenow Page A
Authors: Dana Stabenow
Tags: Fiction, General, detective, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths, Detective and Mystery Stories, Mystery Fiction, Mystery & Detective - Women Sleuths, Women Private Investigators, Fiction - Mystery, Crime & mystery, alaska, Crime thriller, Shugak; Kate (Fictitious character), Shugak; Kate (Fictitious chara, Women private investigators - Alaska - Fiction., Alaska - Fiction., Shugak; Kate (Fictitious character) - Fiction., Women private investigators - Alaska
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cabin?”
“Okay, you’re done, thank god,” Dinah said, whipping off the sheet. “Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to let your hair grow out again, Kate?”
The note of quiet desperation in Dinah’s voice was not lost on Kate but it failed to illicit the response Dinah was hoping for. “I’m absolutely sure,” Kate said. She wriggled away the stray hair that had insinuated itself inside the neck of her T-shirt and poured herself a cup of coffee.
Bobby had thwarted another of Katya’s escape attempts, and Kate followed them both into the living room to sprawl on a couch, of which there were two, parallel to each other across the vast expanse of hardwood floor, both wide enough for Kate’s Auntie Balasha and long enough for Chopper Jim. A huge rectangular window overlooked the yard that sloped down to Squaw Candy Creek. The Quilaks jutted up behind, rough-edged peaks still covered in snow. “He had a cabin up the Step road,” she said. “Just past the Gettes‘.”
“Oh yeah?” A broad grin spread across Bobby’s face. “Been up there lately?”
“I told you, I was just there.”
“No, not Dreyer’s place, the Gettes‘. Been there lately?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. Why?”
“The heirs showed up.”
“I know, I met them.”
“And?”
“And what? They’re babes in the woods, but pretty harmless, I thought. The Hispanic one is upset that there isn’t a cash machine in Niniltna. The Anglo one seems a little more relaxed. How long had Len Dreyer been in the Park, anyway?”
“You don’t know?”
She sighed. “What Abel didn’t teach me to do for myself, he did for me, carpentry, plumbing, mechanics, you name it. I never needed to hire on someone else until after he died, so I don’t have a clue how long Dreyer was here. Auntie Vi might. How about you?”
“Beats me. He nailed one hell of a shingle, I’ll say that for him. I hired him to fix the roof last October. He was finished the last day before the first snowfall. It was tight as a drum all last winter, not to mention which, warm as toast.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder and grinned. “Not easy, after I punched that hole in it.”
She followed the direction of his thumb to the post running up the center of the large A-frame, almost invisible beneath the lines of black cable linking all the electronic equipment on the circular console with the antennas hanging off the 112-foot tower outside. Bobby was the NOAA observer for the Park, or at least making daily reports to the National Weather Service in Anchorage was his excuse to the IRS every time he bought a new receiver. He also ran a nice little pirate radio station, hosting Park Air every evening, or whenever he felt that Park rats were in need of some gospel according to the Temptations. Or someone bribed him with a package of moose T-bones to air a for-sale ad.
Bobby had appeared in the Park the year Kate had graduated from high school, carrying a worn duffle bag with his name stenciled on it in big black letters, and a deed from the state of Alaska to forty acres on Squaw Candy Creek. He’d built this A-frame, installed enough electronic hardware to run JPL, and had copped the NOAA job right out from under Old Sam Dementieff. To top it off, he was the first black man many of the Park rats had ever seen.
Three things worked in his favor. He’d hired locally to build his A-frame. From the first day of broadcast he had traded want ads on Park Air for moose meat and salmon. And he’d lost both his legs below the knee to a Vietcong land mine.
“I think the men folk thought I wouldn’t be able to run after their women,” he’d told Kate years before. They’d been in bed together at the time. He’d grinned and reached out an arm to pull her in tight. “They were wrong about that, but by then it was too late.”
They were indeed, and it was, far too late, and when Dinah
“Okay, you’re done, thank god,” Dinah said, whipping off the sheet. “Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to let your hair grow out again, Kate?”
The note of quiet desperation in Dinah’s voice was not lost on Kate but it failed to illicit the response Dinah was hoping for. “I’m absolutely sure,” Kate said. She wriggled away the stray hair that had insinuated itself inside the neck of her T-shirt and poured herself a cup of coffee.
Bobby had thwarted another of Katya’s escape attempts, and Kate followed them both into the living room to sprawl on a couch, of which there were two, parallel to each other across the vast expanse of hardwood floor, both wide enough for Kate’s Auntie Balasha and long enough for Chopper Jim. A huge rectangular window overlooked the yard that sloped down to Squaw Candy Creek. The Quilaks jutted up behind, rough-edged peaks still covered in snow. “He had a cabin up the Step road,” she said. “Just past the Gettes‘.”
“Oh yeah?” A broad grin spread across Bobby’s face. “Been up there lately?”
“I told you, I was just there.”
“No, not Dreyer’s place, the Gettes‘. Been there lately?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. Why?”
“The heirs showed up.”
“I know, I met them.”
“And?”
“And what? They’re babes in the woods, but pretty harmless, I thought. The Hispanic one is upset that there isn’t a cash machine in Niniltna. The Anglo one seems a little more relaxed. How long had Len Dreyer been in the Park, anyway?”
“You don’t know?”
She sighed. “What Abel didn’t teach me to do for myself, he did for me, carpentry, plumbing, mechanics, you name it. I never needed to hire on someone else until after he died, so I don’t have a clue how long Dreyer was here. Auntie Vi might. How about you?”
“Beats me. He nailed one hell of a shingle, I’ll say that for him. I hired him to fix the roof last October. He was finished the last day before the first snowfall. It was tight as a drum all last winter, not to mention which, warm as toast.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder and grinned. “Not easy, after I punched that hole in it.”
She followed the direction of his thumb to the post running up the center of the large A-frame, almost invisible beneath the lines of black cable linking all the electronic equipment on the circular console with the antennas hanging off the 112-foot tower outside. Bobby was the NOAA observer for the Park, or at least making daily reports to the National Weather Service in Anchorage was his excuse to the IRS every time he bought a new receiver. He also ran a nice little pirate radio station, hosting Park Air every evening, or whenever he felt that Park rats were in need of some gospel according to the Temptations. Or someone bribed him with a package of moose T-bones to air a for-sale ad.
Bobby had appeared in the Park the year Kate had graduated from high school, carrying a worn duffle bag with his name stenciled on it in big black letters, and a deed from the state of Alaska to forty acres on Squaw Candy Creek. He’d built this A-frame, installed enough electronic hardware to run JPL, and had copped the NOAA job right out from under Old Sam Dementieff. To top it off, he was the first black man many of the Park rats had ever seen.
Three things worked in his favor. He’d hired locally to build his A-frame. From the first day of broadcast he had traded want ads on Park Air for moose meat and salmon. And he’d lost both his legs below the knee to a Vietcong land mine.
“I think the men folk thought I wouldn’t be able to run after their women,” he’d told Kate years before. They’d been in bed together at the time. He’d grinned and reached out an arm to pull her in tight. “They were wrong about that, but by then it was too late.”
They were indeed, and it was, far too late, and when Dinah
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