A grave denied by Dana Stabenow Page B

Cookman showed up in the Park three years earlier he’d taken one look and wedded and bedded her, not necessarily in that order. Dinah was white and twenty-five years younger than Bobby was, but so far as Kate could tell neither one of them had noticed. The result was the going-on-two tornado currently making her proud parents’ lives a living hell. “Don’t touch that!” Dinah said, leaping forward to catch the end table next to one of the couches from tilting forward and landing on her daughter’s head. Katya’s face puckered up and everyone held their breath. Precious little Katya had a yell that could frighten a bear into the next county.
     
    Katya’s eye fell on Mutt, who knew the signs as well as everyone else and who was poised to rocket through the door as soon as the siren went off. She didn’t move fast enough. “Mutt!” Katya said, pointing.
     
    “Mutt!” Dinah said gladly. “Come play with Katya! Come on, girl!”
     
    Mutt looked at Kate, mute misery on her face, and slunk toward Katya, her tail as close to being between her legs as it ever got. She flopped down and Katya launched, landing on Mutt’s side with a force that caused a “Woof!” of expelled air and a wheezing, pitiful groan.
     
    “Goddamn, woman, you’re letting the kid play with the wolves!” Bobby bellowed at Dinah.
     
    Dinah raised an eyebrow. “Handing over to you, Dad,” she said, and retired behind the central console to her computer, where she was editing a twenty-minute video for the community health representative on the practices of safe sex, to be shown that fall to health classes at Niniltna Public School. She was trying to keep the opportunities for snickering to a minimum but the local high schoolers were a precocious bunch and it was hard going. The Niniltna Native Association was footing the bill, however, so she waded in with a light heart.
     
    Bobby, deprived of a husband’s legitimate prey, shifted his sights. “And you,” he bellowed at Kate, “I keep telling you, no fucking wolves in the house!”
     
    Kate tried not to wince away from the volume. Katya was truly a chip off the old block. She heard a low moan and looked around to see Katya pulling mightily on one of Mutt’s ears.
     
    Hard-heartedly, she turned her back. “So Len Dreyer reshingled your roof?”
     
    “Yeah.”
     
    “Before the first snowfall, you said. When was that?”
     
    “Lemme look.” He wheeled over to the console and pulled down one of a row of daily diaries from a shelf. “Let’s see. October twenty-third. Late last year.” He closed the diary and replaced it. “His cabin’s really burned down?”
     
    “It really is.”
     
    “Anything left?”
     
    She shook head. “No. No papers, nothing. And he didn’t have much ID on him. Any, actually. The only reason we know his name is he worked for everyone.”
     
    Bobby nodded. “Not much need for ID in the Park.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Although, now we’re going to have our own resident trooper, might pay to keep a driver’s license handy.”
     
    She tried to look down her nose but it wasn’t long enough. “It might.” She jerked her head at the radio. “Call Anchorage for me?”
     
    He grinned. “The game’s afoot!” he said. He turned on one wheel and docked into the radio console like a ship nosing into port, flipped switches and turned knobs without looking, and said over his shoulder, “Who’m I calling?”
     
    “Brendan McCord. Got his number?”
     
    “Babe, I got everyone’s number.”
     
    A snort came from the other side of the console, followed by a long, lupine moan from the living room. Both were ignored.
     
    “Brendan? Kate Shugak here.”
     
    “Kate!” Brendan’s rich, full tenor rolled off the airwaves like an aria. “Long time no talk. What’re you up to, girl?”
     
    Kate, mindful of the thousand ears listening in from Tok to Tanana, said, “I’m working a case. I need some information.”
     
    “Oh. Ah. Well,”