Nik Kane Alaska Mystery - 01 - Lost Angel by Mike Doogan

church, and stayed away even after returning to Anchorage and joining the police force. But he’d been coming to the church again since he’d gotten out. He didn’t know why, but the visits made him feel better somehow. He knelt in front of a rack of prayer candles, slipped a dollar bill into the slot beneath them, and lit a candle. His mind groped for a prayer to say for his parents and came up with the response from the rosary:
    “Holy Mary, mother of God,” he whispered, “pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
    He said the same for each of the people he had killed. They ran through his mind like pictures fanned by a finger: small brown men during the war, then a pair of hopped-up killers coming out of a convenience store, where they’d murdered the clerk and a pair of customers. The next picture, the one that had put him in prison, was blurred, a dark shape holding what looked like a gun. He skipped over it quickly. Then the man he’d killed in prison. A lot of bodies, when you added them all up, he thought.
    Kane wasn’t sure that the prayers would do any good for his soul, since he didn’t really feel sorry for most of the killings. But maybe praying would help the souls of the dead somehow.
    Kane got up from the bank of candles, walked back a few pews, and knelt. The church was dim and cool and quiet, soothing. He waited, as he had since he was a boy, for God to say something to him.
    He would settle for any word from above, but he really wanted God to answer a list of questions for him. The list had grown long over the years; it was so long that Kane had forgotten many of the questions. He remembered the first one: Why had God allowed Shamrock, his dog, to be run over by a truck? He remembered the most recent: Why was Laurie leaving him? Now he had a new one: Where is Faith Wright?
    He’d never heard so much as a whisper from God in answer. He didn’t really expect one. He wasn’t sure there was a God. Even if there was, he couldn’t believe that God, whoever or whatever he, she, or it was, was directly involved in individual human lives. But somehow the awed boy in him continued to kneel in hope.
    He tried to empty his mind but, as usual, failed. The blurry memories of the shooting kept creeping in. His pulse ran faster and faster and he clasped his hands harder and harder. But it was no use. He relaxed and let it all come back.
    He was driving home from an after-work party. They’d been at the Blue Fox, celebrating his promotion to lieutenant. He was feeling no pain, humming to himself, but he had his home car completely under control. He was thinking about how to avoid an argument with Laurie about coming home late and, as she would put it, “stinko,” when the “Officer needs assistance” call came over the radio. No cop could ignore that.
    He was right on top of it, just two blocks away, so he was first on the scene. The neighborhood wasn’t a good one. The scene was poorly lit by a single streetlight and lights from the surrounding houses. The unit was slewed in the road, the driver’s door open, a shape sprawled half in, half out. Two figures were standing above it. One of them, the one closest, seemed to be doing some sort of dance.
    His tires slipped when he braked, then grabbed as the studs dug in. He came out of the unit and drew his gun, keeping the door between himself and the two figures.
    “Police officer!” he shouted. “Step away from the vehicle and put your hands on top of your head.”
    The second figure tried to say something, but Kane ignored him.
    “I said step away, now!” he shouted.
    The closest figure turned toward him and started to raise its arm. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion now.
    “Oh, Jesus, don’t do that!” the second figure called.
    But the arm kept coming up, and Kane could see something in the hand, something that looked like a gun.
    “Drop that!” he called. “Drop it now or I’ll shoot!”
    The arm kept